An Old, Cold Grave

by Iona Whishaw

  Eleanor lifted the nursing watch she always wore pinned to her sweater. “We’d best be off. Remember, dear? We, uh, we . . .” She was remembering that they’d said Lane could come over as she usually did, for lunch or tea, and it felt churlish, somehow, to want to be at home in front of her own warm stove with her lovely neighbour, rather than here in the rain, looking at the ghastly trench, with this unhappy group.

  “Right,” said Kenny, picking up the hint. “Well, you let us know when we can get cracking on the cellar, Gladys. I may not be a spring chicken, but I can still lay the odd egg!” He chuckled at this nonsensical witticism, and they started off down the path, leaving the Hughes to this open grave and their own inexpressible and unhappy thoughts.

  LANE WAS BEGINNING to consider the problem of how to get, and organize, the information that Darling would need, when the phone rang. She waited. Two longs and a short. Hers. In the hallway, she picked up the earpiece on her ancient phone and said, “KC 431,” into the trumpet receiver. A sudden picture of Darling’s face came into her mind, but it was Eleanor Armstrong.

  “Lane. Eleanor. Pop over? We’ve been standing about in the rain up at the Hughes house looking at the cellar. We’re feeling in need of a pick-me-up. It’s nearly lunchtime.”

  “You know, if I keep on eating your delicious sandwiches and cookies, I’ll get as fat as one of Gladys’s pigs.”

  “It never did us any harm. Anyway, I think you’d better come over.”

  Something in Eleanor’s voice told her she better had, and in a few minutes she was wiping her feet on the Armstrong mat and folding up her umbrella. She brought a notebook with her from among the small collection she kept to write down her ideas for poetry. She was well supplied with empty ones. When she was settled into her favourite rattan chair, she looked expectantly at Kenny, who was warming his hands on the teapot, and Eleanor, who was guarding a plate of sandwiches as if they would go only to those who earned one.

  “So?” Lane asked.

  “We’ve just been up at the Hughes place, looking at the root cellar,” Kenny said.

  “I know,” said Lane. “Eleanor said. It must have been quite sad seeing it on a day like today.”

  “That big hole does somehow make it all seem more real. The police are never going to find out who that child is. How can they? I think we’d better get to work, don’t you?”

  Lane had been wondering how she might proceed with trying to learn everything about the history of the place with the disinterest that she had so bravely told Darling was required. In truth, she realized, sitting in the kitchen of her dearest neighbours, she never imagined the job beginning anywhere else. Even admitting the monstrous possibility that the Armstrongs might somehow be involved, she knew this was the only place to start. “We better had,” she agreed, and Eleanor relinquished the sandwiches with an approving nod. Sandwiches consumed and pencil in hand, Lane said, “I think it would be helpful to start with seeing if we can name everyone who lived in the area at the time.”

  MEANWHILE, UP THE hill, Gladys decided some positive, life-affirming activity was called for, and she began by pulling open the flour bin and announcing, “I’m going to make some bread. Perhaps some cinnamon rolls. Something, for God’s sake.”

  Mabel and Gwen watched her for a few moments and then Mabel turned and walked down the hall, dark on this overcast day. At the end of the hall, the tiny sun porch windows admitted a sombre grey light. A corner of the distant lake was visible through the thick growth of ivy that had spread like a mat along this back corner of the house. She felt a sadness that took her over and she could not shake. She could hear her mother and sister talking quietly in the kitchen. The sudden picture of herself as a young woman, conjured up by the talk of a work party like the one they had hosted to build the root cellar, came to her and, try as she might, she could not recapture what it felt like to be that girl. Her young life felt like that of someone else. A girl in a book who had been full of hope and, as each page turned, had lost ground and faded completely away, the book now shelved and forgotten.

  “For God’s sake, Mabs, what’s got into you?” Gwen’s whispered hiss startled Mabel, who turned, frowning.

  “Nothing’s ‘got into’ me, as you put it. And you shouldn’t sneak up like that.”

  “It’s not like you to moon about like this. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Mabel rubbed her eyes as if to clear away this sudden oppressive weariness. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re thinking, and as to my mooning about, in case it has escaped your notice, they’ve dug up a dead girl in our backyard. I’m hardly going to be dancing about singing ‘here we go gathering nuts in May’!”

  “I’m still thinking about the Anscombs. I said it was nonsense, but all those children, and so odd, that mother always sick and moping about. Did we even know how many children they actually had? And let’s face it, Bob’s leaving like that, and Isabel disappearing after everything.”

  “After what?” Mabel felt her face go hot with anger. “Well? After what?”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen faltered. “I had this idea you liked him, that’s all.”

  “How dare you?” Mabel’s voice rose, and then she looked up the hall nervously and whispered, “You have no right.” To her dismay, she felt herself tearing up.

  Gwen was instantly sorry. “Mabs, I’m sorry.” She reached out and rubbed her sister’s arm. “You know how kids are. I must have gotten the wrong end of the stick . . . I mean, the way he . . .”

  “Well, I didn’t, so let’s leave it at that, shall we? I’m going out to check on the coops. There’s been a lot of disruption with all those blasted men in their boots digging the place up.” She walked past her sister and back up the hall, pulling a sweater from a hook, and then a weather-beaten green and black wool jacket. Outside, she strode purposefully past the forlorn root cellar, and when she was around the corner and down the slope where the fenced-in chicken coops were, she stopped. She realized it was shame she felt. It had been years, but it came rushing back, plunging her into this maelstrom of sadness and confusion. She had never told anyone, and the thought of it now flooded her with the same sense of horror as it had all those years before. Shame that she had ever thought that anyone could love her. Shame at what she’d seen.

  She grabbed the flat-edged shovel that was leaning against the wall of the chicken coop, pulled the door open, stooping to get inside, and began to shovel the chicken excrement off the wooden boards that made up the floor of the coop. The chickens in the rows of box nests rose and padded nervously on the hay, flapping their wings in anxious protest at this noisy invasion. She angrily filled the bucket and went back outside to dump it on the manure pile that was composting at the bottom of the enclosure. Finally spent, she stood outside the gate and looked back up the slope to the back of the garage. She felt a little better, she realized, and told herself it had not been her fault. She wanted to build on this sense of strength and free herself forever more.

  July, 1910

  Mabel lay awake, facing the soft, charcoal darkness of the night out the open window. The scent of the wax and smoke of the candle she had just put out drifted toward the outside, as if it were seeking an outlet. He was out there, over the fields, through the woods, up the road. She willed her mind to make the trip, to hover outside his window, to have him hear her and rise from his bed and come outside to her. He would have his shirt on loosely, as he had that day. He would take her hand and they would sit on the porch in the soft darkness. She tried to see his face, and then couldn’t, and then could again. She relived the moment he took her hand and said, “Come on. You’ll miss lunch.” She held her breath to better remember the exact sound of his voice.

  He had sat her at the first open chair at lunch, by Andrew, and he had gone to the other end of the table, beside Isabel, who had kept a seat for him. She had stolen glances, but he had never looked up, nor did he talk. It was as though he had suddenly caught his sister’s reticence.
And Andrew had craved her attention, chattering about the cherries on their trees and how he had gone fishing off the wharf. “Did you catch anything?” she’d asked him.

  “No. Where I came from there was a river but it was all black. I didn’t know about fishing.”

  Mabel hadn’t paid attention. She had been looking toward Bob, who at that moment turned his head toward her to say something to John. She willed him to look her way, but he did not. She thought about that moment now and tried to remember what Andrew had been saying, but it was something about fish. Why had Bob never looked up?

  She turned and pulled the blankets up to her neck and closed her eyes. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head: “Best not to let your head get full of nonsense.” She took a deep breath and thought, Mother can never know.

  In the next week the boys came again three more times to build up the sides of the cellar, pack the sod between the braces of the roof, and pile dirt on top until it was over three feet deep. On two of the days only John and Robin came, and on the last day Bob Anscomb and his father accompanied them. Mabel watched them from the kitchen, from the chicken run, from where she threw slops into the trough for the pigs. When they were done, she saw him go behind the house to the tap. She looked and saw that the rest of the men were at the front, having already washed, and she ran lightly, her heart beating, into the house for a towel, and then went out the veranda door so that no one would see her go ‘round to the tap.

  He was splashing water on his face, and then he seemed to sense she was there. “Got a towel for me?” he asked, holding out his hand. She moved toward him and held the towel out to him. He grabbed at the towel, and with it, her wrist. “Dry my face for me,” he said, holding his dripping head toward her.

  She took the towel and carefully dabbed at his face until he laughed and said, “Not like that. Here, use your muscles.”

  He took her hands and the towel and rubbed his hair, pressing her hands onto his head. She could hear Isabel calling him and she was surprised. She had not known Isabel had come. She tried to pull away, but he had both her hands in his, the towel damp between them. “A kiss, Mabel. Come on!”

  “Your sister . . .” she began, but he had leaned in and she could feel his lips pressing hers, smell his skin, feel his hand on her waist. Mabel pulled away and saw Isabel turning, her hand on her mouth. Bob looked after her and then turned back to Mabel and shrugged his shoulders with a rueful grin.

  “BOB’S OFFERED TO come build the shelves tomorrow,” Gladys said at dinner that night. “I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather see a grown-up do it. There’s something I don’t trust about those Anscombs. Rough people. Practically drifters. Thank God you girls are too sensible to get involved with that Bob. I’ll talk to Kenny in the morning.”

  “Bob’s eighteen, Mother, that’s hardly a child. Kenny’s only twenty-two for that matter,” Gwen commented.

  “I don’t suppose anyone could do it like Daddy,” Mabel said. She struggled not to tear up, and got up from the table and went to the sink to fill the bucket for the water boiler.

  Gladys swallowed the last of her tea and pushed the cup toward Gwen. “Well, Daddy’s not here, and we have to get on with things. Speaking of getting on with things, does anyone know why that wilting piece of goods, Isabel, was in a state? She came up here, said good afternoon to me, and then next thing I knew she was running back up the orchard in tears.”

  “Nothing would surprise me about that girl,” Gwen said. But she looked at Mabel’s back.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” Gwen said to Mabel that night. Mabel had put her candle out and was turned away from her sister, pretending to sleep. Gwen was sitting up in bed, holding a book that she had no intention of reading. “Mabs, I know you aren’t asleep. What’s going on with that dish mop, Isabel? I saw her go around the back of the house, and I know you were there, don’t deny it. What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing, go to sleep.”

  “Only I was surprised, because you always say I’m the one that’s unkind about her.”

  Mabel turned and glared at her sister. “I did not say anything to her. I don’t know why she was crying. If you find out, you can let me know.”

  “Aren’t you a madam! Fine then,” said Gwen, dousing her candle.

  Mabel lay in the darkness, her breast in turmoil. Why had Isabel reacted in that way? She went over and over that moment when Bob had kissed her. That was what a kiss was. She both recoiled from the memory and was drawn to it with a kind of aching.

  “Wait. Bob was there, at the tap, wasn’t he? Maybe he said something cruel to her. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s very rough.” Gwen’s voice came suddenly out of the darkness and Mabel’s eyes flew open. She felt somehow discovered. She gave no answer. “In fact,” Gwen continued, “the whole family is brutish. Mummy’s right. Mr. Anscomb never talks and looks angry all the time, and when was the last time we saw Mrs. Anscomb? She hides out in that house all the time with her baby and that other child, what’s his name? I bet that man beats them all. And if you want my opinion, Bob thinks very highly of himself.” She sniffed disapprovingly. “I will say this: Isabel and little Andrew don’t even seem like they come from that brood. She’s all wet, I grant you, but she’s got better manners than her own parents.”

  “Nobody wants your opinion, Gwenny. Now shut up and go to sleep.” She thought that if Gwen were allowed to go on chattering, she’d stumble her way to the truth, somehow, find her way to the kiss.

  BOB KICKED OFF his boots and pushed the door into the kitchen. “Young Joseph? I brought you a sandwich,” he called. He filled a saucepan with water and put it on the stove, only to find it was unlit. Shaking his head, he went out to the woodshed and collected the remains of the wood. He went back into the house and opened the stove, shoving in the kindling. “Mrs. A., where’d you put the matches?” he called. No answer. He left the cover off and went in search of matches. “Mrs. A.?” The sitting room was cool in the deep shadow of the roof that covered the porch. He pushed into the bedroom. Joseph was sitting on the bed next to his mother, who lay asleep.

  “There you are, young fellow. Feeling better?” Bob wanted to pick him up as he used to do when he was younger, but Joe was ten, and even though he was still small, Bob felt no ten-year-old would want to be carted around like a baby. Instead he came up and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ll let her sleep and you come have what I brought you.”

  Joe got up slowly and took Bob’s hand. They went out and sat on the bench outside the woodshed taking in the last of the evening light. “Where’s Pa?” Joe asked, eating slowly.

  “He stayed back to finish up some things. I wanted to come bring you this. Is it good?”

  The child nodded and took another bite. “It’s eggs,” he said.

  “That it is,” agreed Bob. He watched Joseph eat and wondered what it was that kept him from getting any bigger or healthier. By the time Andrew was ten, he was taller than his sister. Of course, she was short too. Maybe, he thought, it has to do with whether you have people. Joseph stopped having people the minute they drove away and left him. Maybe that kept him from growing. Well, all the Anscombs were his people now, for good or ill. But maybe it was too late. Joseph never would grow much.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ERIN LANDY SAT ON THE bed in her aunt’s guest room clutching the one pillow she’d been given, looking through the small window at the alley. She was in a dilemma. Two days before she had told her mother angrily that she did not want to be told what to do, or for that matter, not do. She was not a child. To which her mother had replied, “Exactly.”

  It was in that moment she realized it. She was a child. She felt like a child. She felt too young, like it was too early to end the world of her childhood. Now, being banished to her aunt’s gave her a certain satisfaction, because she was being treated like a child. She was allowed out only to go to school, and she was being told she could not read or listen to the radio until she had
completed her homework. As if she needed the incentive!

  Pushing a bobby pin into her red hair to prop it out of her eyes, she put the pillow behind her and slid off the bed. A wooden side-table and chair had been provided for her to work at, and her chemistry book lay open, a pencil lying in the crease. She bent over her work, absorbed until she heard a cursory knock at the door, which opened before she had a chance to say, “Come in.” Erin turned, noticing that the room had sunk into evening shadow.

  “Done?” asked Ida.

  “I guess so. I was just looking ahead in the book to a problem about nitrogen.”

  “I don’t care. And I don’t know why you should have to. This whole thing is counter-productive.”

  “Not you too, Aunty. You used to think I was ‘cute ’n’ clever.’”

  “Supper’s ready. Wash up. And no more books tonight. You’ll hurt your eyes.” Aunt Ida started down the stairs and turned back. “You were cute. And smart. But in my experience the first one has a purpose in life and the second only leads to disappointment. You won’t need it, anyway.”

  Erin looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her wavy hair reached to her shoulders, and she defiantly pulled a strand across her face to make a moustache. She dried her hands and sighed. Well, she wasn’t a boy, so no good thinking about it. She wanted time to think about her aunt’s unusual pronouncement: that “in her experience” being smart only led to disappointment. Erin had no one else’s experience to draw on. Her parents were exactly the perfect parents. Her father went to work each day at an office at the station and her mother stayed home, and she always seemed to be wearing a perfectly clean, perfectly ironed apron. Her teachers in science had all been men, and in English had all been women. The world was sliced like an apple, girls on one side, boys on the other.

  She sat down at the table and pulled her napkin, nicely ironed—obsessive housecleaning obviously ran in the family—across her lap. “Hello, Uncle G. How was your day?”