by V. J. Banis
“For instance?” she prompted him.
Certainly he seemed to have no interest in ending their discussion. “For instance, all that supernatural business. Is it literal, or only subjective? I have heard arguments both ways.”
“Both literal and subjective, I should think. In Macbeth, for instance, Banquo’s ghost is certainly subjective. It’s only Macbeth’s imagination at work. But in some other plays he surely means the ghosts and spirits to be taken literally.”
“What about the witches in Macbeth? They are surely not meant literally, are they?”
She shook her head, so immediately absorbed in their conversation that she forgot all other considerations. “I think not. Macbeth saw them because he wanted to see them. He wanted to remove Duncan from the throne and so he saw three witches who prophesied his doing just that. It was only his ambition talking.”
“But don’t you think that makes the entire play monstrous, because certainly the good in him is defeated and in your interpretation, evil triumphs?”
Jennifer was thrilled to see that his grasp of Shakespeare was far more than superficial. She so rarely met anyone with whom she could truly discuss such things that she was fairly trembling with excitement.
They had been so absorbed, however, in their literary argument that both had failed to hear anyone approach until Helen suddenly appeared behind Walter in the doorway. She looked from one to the other of them, clearly a bit surprised to find them alone together like this.
“I was just coming to see if you thought the library would be all right for the lessons,” Helen said.
“Yes,” Jennifer said, blushing. “I think it will do very nicely.”
* * * * * * *
Why is she blushing, Walter thought. So she feels it too, then? It isn’t only me. But, my God, it can’t be. And yet...and yet....
He too seemed finally to realize his position, for he said, with what might have been embarrassment, “I was on my way down to look in on Alicia.”
He turned to go but paused long enough to incline his head toward Jennifer and say, with a barely suppressed smile, “It has been most enlightening, Miss Hale, and I hope we will have an opportunity to continue.”
“I have no doubt we will continue our discussion,” she said, and with a barely perceptible flick of her eyes in Helen’s direction, she added, “Perhaps we can form a little discussion group and get several opinions.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, looking vastly amused at that suggestion. Then he was gone. Jennifer heard his footsteps echoing along the hall. A distant door closed. It seemed to her that the light had grown dim in the room.
* * * * * * *
Helen said, “Would you like me to bring the children in now? You’ll want a chance to get acquainted with them before you actually start lessons.”
“Yes. I will need to know just what they have been taught before, and then there is the question of their textbooks. What have you here?”
“There are some textbooks there,” Helen said, indicating one of the lower shelves. “Whatever else you think necessary can be ordered. I will bring the children.”
She was back in a few minute, shepherding the three youngsters. Jennifer saw that Peter and Mary looked a bit apprehensive but nonetheless excited at the prospect of a new routine. The oldest of the three, the girl Liza, looked sullen and resentful. Jennifer guessed that, as she was obviously quite a bit older than the other two, perhaps she resented being treated as a child the same as them.
Whatever the reasons, her instincts told her that whatever problems she might have would center around Liza and not the other two.
Helen left them alone in the library. Jennifer faced the three youngsters and said, “Now then, so we make no mistakes, let us get reacquainted. I am Miss Hale, and will you each please tell me your name again and how old you are?”
“I’m Peter and I am seven,” the boy said.
“Six,” the little girl said.
Peter’s bright smile turned to a frown. “I am almost seven,” he said with an angry look at his sister.
“Very well,” Jennifer interceded, “Six and a half will do nicely. And you?”
“I am Mary, and I am eight and a half.”
The oldest of the three sat gazing from the window at the green field outside. She pointedly ignored the others in the room.
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” Jennifer asked her.
“You have already been told my name.”
“Perhaps I would like to hear it again,” Jennifer said firmly. “And I would like you to look at me when you are speaking to me, please.”
The girl turned then and looked directly at her. Jennifer was startled by her expression. It was not one of girlish temper, as she might have expected, but a look of mature malevolence. For a moment it disconcerted her.
“I am Liza,” the girl said, almost spitting the words at her.
“And how old are you, Liza?” Jennifer asked, recovering her composure. It would not do, she knew from experience, to let this child start off on the wrong foot. It would undo any future attempts at discipline.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Jennifer asked, astonished. The girl only continued to stare at her, now with a blank expression that told nothing of what she was thinking or feeling. “What of your parents?”
“I have no parents.”
Unexpectedly, Peter cried, “Her mother is the swamp witch.”
“That isn’t true,” Liza cried, leaping to her feet. Afterward, Jennifer was certain that Liza would have struck Peter had not she also risen to her feet and spoken sharply.
“Liza,” she said. The girl froze where she was and looked at her angrily.
“That wasn’t true,” Liza said.
“Whether it was or was not, we shall have discipline while we are at lessons,” Jennifer said sternly.
“I am not afraid of you.”
Jennifer was momentarily taken aback by this display of impertinence. She hesitated briefly, not knowing just how far she was permitted to go in disciplining the children.
“You will do as I say or I shall have to speak to Mr. Dere.”
That threat at least had some magic effect. The taut anger seemed suddenly to leave Liza’s body and without further argument she returned sullenly to her seat.
Jennifer studied the three faces before her. She saw that Peter and Mary had been impressed with her show of firmness and she guessed she would have no real difficulty with them.
She felt a burning curiosity, however, to know more about Liza. What a strange young girl she was. How could she not know her own age? Jennifer had reckoned it to be about fourteen, certainly no more than a year younger or older, but oughtn’t she to know that herself? And what an odd thing for her to say, that she had no parents. And who was the swamp witch, who Peter had said was her mother? Why did Peter say that, if it were not true?
She did not ask any of these questions aloud, though, because she felt they were sure to provoke another outburst. For some reason or another, the question of Liza’s parentage was a sensitive subject. Nor was there anyone else she could ask. Her hints in that direction with Helen had produced a coldness that implied she was prying, and she could hardly presume to question Mr. Dere regarding his household. Nor was Mrs. Dere likely to satisfy her curiosity.
A sudden thought crossed her mind as she thought of Mr. Dere. Peter and Mary were his and Alicia’s children, and Liza plainly was not. But could she be Mr. Dere’s by some other...she hesitated even on the thought...by some other relationship? That would explain why she was here, why he gave her the same place as his own children. It would explain too the family silence on the subject, and why the children were kept out of Alicia’s way.
But these are not my questions to answer, she thought. She returned her attention to the children, who had been waiting silently.
“I think,” she said, “I will hear each of you read something, so that I can begin to as
certain the extent of your previous education.”
CHAPTER FIVE
From the very beginning, Jennifer was puzzled about one thing in particular: why would Alicia Dere, who certainly gave the impression of being a suspicious and a possessive woman and whose first attitude toward her had been decidedly unfriendly, suddenly take her part in persuading Walter to give Jennifer the job and let her stay on at Darkwater?
It did not take her long to find the answer.
After a few days, a routine had been established in Jennifer’s day and she found that even with the two jobs she had been given she was not overworked. Indeed, she had considerable leisure.
In the mornings she worked with the children on their lessons. They were all three bright and although Liza remained sullen and uncommunicative, she had no difficulty mastering the work Jennifer assigned her.
At first Jennifer wondered why Liza even bothered, since she so obviously resented both Jennifer and the lessons, but Jennifer soon came to understand. Liza worked to master her lessons for the same reason that she did almost everything else—for Walter’s approval.
“You’ll tell Walter how well I did, won’t you?” Liza would say when she had done something particularly well. And whenever Liza’s work was not up to her best, Jennifer had only to say, “Think what Walter would say if he knew you could not learn that,” to provoke a veritable orgy of study until that particular lesson had been utterly mastered.
It was clear that the child idolized the man, although Jennifer remained as ignorant as before of the nature of their relationship. Liza was treated as if she were another of his children, or almost so. She ate with the other children, studied with them, had a bedroom next door to theirs upstairs and had even more privileges than they did, because of her greater age.
Yet there was a subtle different in Liza’s place in the house that Jennifer could not quite put her finger on. She guessed that the others, Helen and certainly Alicia, resented Liza’s presence, and perhaps because of that Walter was inclined to dote on her, often at the expense of his own children. Liza seemed to be an outsider, looking in. And Walter seemed...but she couldn’t find the words for Walter’s attitude toward the girl. He seemed blinded to any shortcomings or failings, and to take her adulation for granted.
“But at least,” Jennifer told herself, “her devotion to Walter gives me the means to keep her in line.”
After each day’s schoolwork was finished, Jennifer had what she had always called luncheon but which the Deres pronounced simply, lunch. Usually she ate in the dining room with Helen. Sometimes Susan came in from the cottage, and the children either ate with them or in the kitchen, depending more than anything else on Helen’s frame of mind that day. Less often, the men joined them.
“In the old days they would have been here,” Helen said with a look of regret, “but now they must do so much of the work themselves. During planting and at harvest we hardly see them at all.”
After lunch, Jennifer spent some time with Alicia, who ordinarily had her lunch on a tray. Although when Jennifer had first come to Darkwater, it had been because Alicia was supposed to need a nurse, Jennifer quickly saw that Alicia needed little more than a companion, and especially a listening post for her complaints. It was Jennifer’s opinion that there was nothing physically wrong with Alicia, and that opinion was strengthened daily.
She soon found that whenever Walter was around, Alicia was at her most helpless, needing assistance even to sit up in bed, but when Walter was definitely away, and Alicia knew that he could not hear or be told of her difficulties, she managed very well for herself.
Of course she was weak and drawn, Jennifer was willing to admit that, but so would be anyone who spent all her time in bed and got no sun or fresh air. It took only a short time of acting as if one were sick to produce actual sickness.
“What you pretend to be,” Jennifer’s mother used to say, “you soon enough become.”
It was plain to all that Alicia favored her new companion, and while everyone of the household, including Jennifer, puzzled over this, they could not help but be grateful for the peace that resulted from it. For a time Alicia had no more of her “spells” and tranquility, so long absent from the house, reigned.
At least, in most ways, things were tranquil. Jennifer was aware, as some of the others were not, of an undercurrent of tension in the air. She had a feeling of something about to happen, of waiting for a curtain to go up.
Walter too seemed to be waiting. Again and again Jennifer discovered him watching her. She would look up from her work to realize that he was standing nearby, staring directly at her. For a moment he would continue to study her; then, without a word of explanation, he would turn and go. Or, while they were at dinner, she would glance across the table to find that, even while he was spoon feeding his wife, Walter eyes were on her.
She could not read the look in his eyes. She was not so naïve that she did not know the look of lust in a man’s glance, and this did not seem to be that. Nor was it unfriendly or antagonistic. If anything, she would have said he looked as if he were wondering, and perhaps even a little afraid.
Jennifer soon came to understand Alicia’s interest in her, however. When she went to Alicia’s room after lunch, Alicia made a habit of asking about the children and their progress with their lessons. She asked about Peter and Mary and even went so far as to suggest that some of the children of their neighbors might profit from Jennifer’s attentions as well.
“Perhaps,” Alicia said one day, “we should think about starting up a regular school for the children hereabouts. There’s a school in town, of course, for the poorer children. I meant to say, a school for the plantation youngsters.”
Jennifer soon realized, however, that there was only one child in whose progress Alicia was really interested—Liza. Whenever she asked about Liza, Alicia’s eyes glistened wickedly and she sometimes actually licked her lips.
“Isn’t she just like what you described that first night you were here?” Alicia demanded eagerly. “Those sneaking girls who are more of a problem than boys and who need more discipline?”
Jennifer was taken aback by this distortion of her own remarks, which she had made quite casually. She suddenly realized that it was for this reason Alicia had taken so quickly to her.
“I don’t know that Liza is so sneaky,” Jennifer said. “She’s stubborn and in her own way mischievous. She likes to play tricks on the other children, but the tricks are mostly good-natured and the children really seem to get along very well together when there are no adults around.”
She longed to add, “considering their relationship,” but she dared not. In fact, she still knew nothing of that relationship beyond what she might conjecture. She had no one to ask, and no one volunteered any information, beyond Peter’s comment about a “swamp witch.”
She was soon quite aware, though, that Alicia hated Liza with a jealous passion that was inexplicable. If Lisa had been a grown woman and beautiful, as she did indeed give promise of becoming, it might have been understandable, but not even Alicia, who was capable of senseless hysteria, could believe that Walter and Liza were in any way romantically involved.
Now, thinking that she might elicit some further information from Alicia, who on this occasion was in a particularly chatty mood, Jennifer said, “I do think that she resents her lessons. A time or two I have thought of discussing her with Mr. Dere.”
“No,” Alicia said, so sharply that Jennifer was alarmed by her suddenly heightened color. “If you have any problems with Liza, you are to come to me with them. That is an order. Do you understand?”
Jennifer had no choice but to nod in agreement. “As you wish,” she murmured reluctantly, regretting her pursuit of this line of conversation.
“That child needs discipline, that’s all that’s wrong with her,” Alicia added, her eyes taking on a strange glazed look. “And you are to see that she gets it. Go to that cupboard there.”
Jennifer went as
bidden to the tall cupboard against the far wall.
“Open it,” Alicia said. “There, on the shelf, that’s right. A riding crop.”
Jennifer brought out the riding crop, an elegant piece of equipage that she guessed must have belonged to Alicia’s healthier days.
“Use that on her,” Alicia said. “That will keep her in line. And I forbid you to mention this to anyone else.”
Jennifer was shocked and sickened by the cruel suggestion, but she knew that to argue with Alicia would provoke more hysterics. Wordlessly she took the riding crop with her and left the room. She had no intention of beating Liza but she was not above letting Alicia believe that she would, if it meant maintaining the uneasy peace in the house.
* * * * * * *
The others discussed the peace, too, and puzzled over it at the same time they were grateful for it.
“It’s a blessing having that girl in the house,” Helen said to her daughter.
“Just now, maybe,” Susan agreed without enthusiasm. “But that girl, as you call her, is a woman, and a very pretty one, too. Sooner or later Alicia’s going to change her mind about wanting her here, and when she does, there will be trouble.”
“But she’s been so good for Alicia. She hasn’t had one of her spells in two weeks now, since Jennifer came.”
Susan gave a derisive snort. “Spells my foot. Those spells of Alicia’s are nothing but jealous fits, and you know it as well as I do. And one of these days she’s going to get jealous of Miss Jennifer. Walter’s a normal, healthy man, and in some ways he hasn’t had a wife for a long time now. How long do you think it will be before he notices how pretty Miss Jennifer is—if he hasn’t already?”
“And because he notices someone is pretty, do you think Walter is immoral enough to...to do anything about it?” Helen asked indignantly, because Susan’s remarks had only added emphasis to her own worries, fears she had been trying not to face.
“That’s not the point,” Susan said. “He won’t have to do anything to set Alicia off. All it will take is for her to see him looking at Jennifer—the way a man looks at a woman when he wants her—and there’ll be trouble to pay.”
