Crying Child

by Barbara Michaels

  “The lady has arrived,” I said, and told Ran about the conversation with Anne. He didn’t seem to be much interested, he was too preoccupied with the change in Mary.

  “I’ve never seen her like this,” he said helplessly. “She keeps saying she’s tired, but she doesn’t look… You’d think, after a night like that one, that she’d be a wreck, physically and every other way. But no. I tell you, Jo, it’s like five different women in the same body. You don’t think—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “You’re on the wrong track. Maybe I’d better tell you what we discussed this morning. Mrs. Willard—you don’t mind… ?”

  “Such a fuss about nothing.” Mrs. Willard sounded grudging, but I noticed that she followed my recital with poorly concealed interest. When I had finished, Ran’s first reaction pleased and touched me. He reached for Mrs. Willard’s big work-worn hand and squeezed it.

  “Bertha, I’m sorry. I never knew.”

  “I keep telling you, you’re all making a big thing out of it,” she said gruffly. “The question is, what are you going to do now?”

  “It’s a good question,” Ran said wryly. “I’m not quarreling with your conclusions, Jo, but I’ll be damned if I can see what they lead to, in terms of action.”

  “Anne suggested we take Mary away from here,” I said. Ran’s face lit up. I hated to spoil his hope, but I had to. “I’m not sure she’ll go, Ran. Or that, if she does, it will solve the problem.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Ran said.

  “Maybe.” I stood up, leaving my barely touched plate. “In the meantime, I’m going to delve into your family secrets via some old papers. Do you mind?”

  “Trying to lay the ghost?” Ran smiled at me. “Just don’t get your hopes up. I don’t remember anything in the family history that could account for this.”

  “Anyhow, I can sit up there with my door open and keep an eye on the hall.”

  “That’s good,” Mrs. Willard said. “And I think I’ll give that linen closet a good cleaning. It’s been needing it for a long time.”

  “And you can watch the other end of the hall,” Ran said grimly. “Thanks. Both of you.”

  “Why don’t you go out and get some fresh air,” I suggested. “You look like a ghost yourself.”

  “Maybe I will. I might go to town and see if I can find the doctors. I’m curious as to what wild tale Will is telling the lady.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Ran drove off, and I went upstairs. As Jed had promised, the trunk had been brought to my room. It was a squat, dark, leather-bound box about three feet long by a foot and a half high. There was brass trim, now tarnished, around its top. I felt my sagging spirits lift at the very sight of it squatting there, and when I sat down on the floor beside it and lifted the lid I was conscious of a prickle of anticipation.

  I don’t know what I expected to find. Or rather, I do know, but I hate to admit it—one of those documents so popular in the sensational fiction of the last century. The “manuscript”—they were almost always “manuscripts”—appeared in chapter fifty and cleared up all the miscellaneous mysteries that had filled the first forty-nine chapters. They had titles like “The Strange Experience of Mr. W B,” or “The Confession of Lady Audley.”

  Consciously, of course, I wasn’t that naive. But I was disappointed as the time dragged on and I found nothing that seemed to have the slightest bearing on our problem.

  It was an interesting collection, in its way. Everything was thrown in helter-skelter; there were letters, baby books, albums, and even a recipe book, its yellowing pages filled with recipes that started out “Take twelve eggs and a pound of butter.” They were indeed the good old days.

  There were photographs of grim-faced men and sour-looking women, standing or sitting stiffly—all, I suspected, more or less unidentifiable by now. It was sad how quickly people’s memories faded; I remembered going through an old album of Mother’s with Mary, and hearing her puzzle over the snapshots of pudgy babies and laughing girls in flapper costume.

  Not a cheerful thought I put the photographs to one side; they were all too recent to come from the period I was interested in.

  I found one useful document: a family tree, which looked as if it might have been drawn up by one of the great-aunts. Ran’s was the last name on it. I thought, Mary will be interested in this; and then I realized how it might strike her, with Ran’s name at the bottom of the sheet, the last of the Frasers, and likely to remain so. It made me feel rather bad for a moment. And then I felt a stir of annoyance, not only at myself for thinking that way, but at the stupid sentimentality of the whole idea. The last of the Frasers—and so what if he was? It was the first time I had considered Mary’s desire for children as anything but pathetic. Now I found myself thinking that she had a lot of other things to be thankful for; and that if she was really that keen on kids there were a lot of nice babies who didn’t have parents and whose assorted genes had potentialities just as desirable as the sacred genes of the Frasers. All this mystique about old families and blue blood and William the Conqueror… What was so great about William the Conqueror anyhow? He was just a bloody-minded illiterate killer like all the other antique kings people are so anxious to add to their family trees. How many people do you know who brag about being descended from Chaucer or Erasmus?

  The Fraser family tree was useful, though. Without it I’d never have been able to understand some of the other material. There was a sheaf of letters from a girl named Angela, to a Prudence Fraser, and I found Prudence on the chart. She was Hezekiah’s granddaughter, the child of his eldest son Jeremiah. They were entertaining letters, full of gossip about beaux and pretty clothes and parties, and a social historian might have found them fascinating. But they were of no use to me.

  Most of the other letters were dull. I found several dated to the years between 1860 and 1864. They were addressed to a woman named Mercy, from her daughter-in-law in Providence. I felt a stir of interest when I realized that Mercy was Hezekiah’s wife. What really struck me about those letters, though, was the fact that there were so few references to the war. To most of us those dates immediately conjure up a single overwhelming historical event; and though Mercy and Abigail mentioned bandage rolling and hospital duty, they discussed these things in the same tone in which a modern woman might describe her bridge afternoons. I decided that they must have been very dull women. Then I remembered the letters I had written to Mary during the past year. How often had I discussed current events?

  I did wonder about the dates. If Mercy was still alive and kicking in 1864, I thought she must have been a pretty old lady. But when I consulted the genealogy I found that she wasn’t all that old. Her husband had been born in 1800 and had died in 1846…

  That date made me wonder again. It was the same as the date on Miss Smith’s tombstone. Did the coincidence mean anything? Maybe, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what it might mean. It was interesting, though, to realize that “old” Hezekiah had only been forty-six when he died. I had been thinking of him as doddering, with long white whiskers down to his knees. But he had been vigorous and, no doubt, virile, up to the moment of his death. I wondered how he had died. Clearly not of old age. Maybe his wife had poisoned him. If he had been the reprobate his descendants seemed to think he was, she might have had good reason.

  Mercy, nee Barnes, had been born in 1811. I stopped to figure it out, and realized that she was only seventeen when she married Hezekiah in 1828. He had been twenty-eight. It seemed rather late in life for a man of that era to marry. I recalled someone’s telling me that the Captain had been a self-made man, and I began to see him more clearly. Proud, arrogant, even; determined to make his fortune and establish his name before he took a wife; able, at that stage in life, to woo and win a bride from a respectable old family. He hadn’t wasted any time once he got going; his son Jeremiah had been born in the year following his marriage. Mercy had been eighteen.

  I thought of the gently bred g
irl from Boston, only seventeen years old, coming to this remote place to live as the wife of a man like Hezekiah. Twenty-eight doesn’t sound old; but by that time he had been at sea for at least ten years, probably longer, and the reputation that lived on as a family legend could not have described a gentle person. I found myself feeling rather sorry for Mercy. Her first baby at eighteen, and then—I glanced at the genealogy—more babies at two-year intervals thereafter. If the Captain hadn’t been gone so much, it probably would have been every year. Nine children, all with good solid biblical names like those of their parents. Five of them had survived infancy. Not a bad average for those days; but it wouldn’t help, as you watched a baby die of diphtheria or measles, to know that you were still ahead of the average. No wonder the women of the letters had sounded stilted and cold. They had to be, to survive.

  I was romancing a little, by that time. But it’s amazing how much you can get out of a few bare names and dates.

  I was well through the loose top layer in the trunk by then, and I hadn’t found a thing. Then, on the bottom, I saw a pile of books. There were over a dozen of them, and they half filled the trunk. I reached eagerly for the topmost book. It looked like a diary.

  It wasn’t a diary, it was a ledger, tall and narrow, bound in red cloth which had faded badly. My spirits sank as I opened it and scanned the entries. “One yard of cotton cloth for a bonnet for Hepzibah, ten cents.” “Two pounds of tallow candles for the servants, seven cents.” It went on in the same vein, page after page of it, and not even the date—1837—at the top of the first page could arouse my interest. These were Mercy’s account books. Young she may have been, but she was not the fragile little piece of fluff I had pictured; she had sailed right into the house-keeping and had done it with vigor. Every penny was tabulated, and the entries showed that she was a woman of a saving disposition. Tallow candles for the servants—wax for the gentry.

  I restored the ledger to the trunk and got to my feet. I was stiff after squatting on the floor for so long. It was later than I had realized. I went to the door. Mary’s door was open now, and I heard her moving around.

  I went down the hall and looked in. My face must have mirrored the uncertainty I felt; she turned, and seeing me, laughed aloud.

  “You look like a chipmunk peering nervously out of its hole to see whether the cat is around. Come on in. I don’t bite, I just bark a little. You ought to be used to that, Jo.”

  She was dressed in a long hostess gown that had a bright full skirt of flowered print and a low-cut peasant-style blouse. Sitting at the dressing table, she was working on her face.

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re giving them the full treatment, aren’t you? I love that dress.”

  She turned, lipstick brush in hand, and looked me over.

  “I wish you’d let me get you that pants dress we saw.”

  “What for? There’s nobody I want to impress.”

  “And here I thought I was providing you with a nice eligible bachelor.”

  “You mean Will Graham? Can you see me snowed in half the winter in that cabin of his, up to my elbows in cats?”

  “I’m not suggesting that you marry him,” my sister said mildly.

  She turned back to the mirror and I stood in the doorway watching her. It was the craziest feeling, carrying on this light chatter that had no bearing on what either of us was really thinking. But I knew, instinctively, that I had to play it this way. I couldn’t even mention the things Mary didn’t want to talk about. I don’t know whether she felt schizophrenic; I know I did. And I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up.

  Since Ran hadn’t returned, I assumed he had located Will and Anne. He had, and obviously they had all found plenty to talk about, because it was late before they got back to the house. Mary and I were in the parlor. She wasn’t as cool as she pretended to be; I saw her color when the front door opened.

  She put on a good show, however, as she greeted Anne and offered to show her to her room. They went up the stairs together. Ran followed, carrying Anne’s bags.

  As soon as they were out of sight I turned to Will. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Yell a little louder, why don’t you?” Will said disagreeably. “Then Mary will be sure to hear you.”

  He stalked into the parlor and I trailed him like an obedient puppy. When I tried again to interrogate him he shrugged irritably.

  “Jo, let’s not have any whispering in corners, shall we? If anything will increase a patient’s delusions of persecution, that’s it.

  He was right, I guess, though I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Ran and Mary both came down shortly and it wasn’t long before Anne joined us. I had seen her glance at Mary’s long skirts, so I wasn’t surprised when she appeared in an equally glamorous outfit. It was pants again; the pants suit fad suited her tall slimness and I imagined she wore them often. This costume, consisting of tunic and trousers, was cocktail wear; it had glitter around the hem of the tunic and across the breast. The high Chinese collar was plain. The color, a luscious pale blue with the faintest touch of green, was very becoming to her blond elegance.

  It was a strange evening. There were so many crosscurrents in that room that I could almost see them woven like ribbons from wall to wall, crossing and intersecting and tangling as conflicting motives met. It seemed to me that we were all concealing things from one another. The rest of us were trying to deceive Mary, and she certainly was not being candid with us. Will was thinking God knows what about me and Ran; as for Anne, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed hearing her private thoughts about any of us.

  One thing surprised me, and that was Mary’s reaction to Anne. Several times in the past few days I had wondered if Mary hadn’t somehow found out the truth about Will’s “sister.” Now, watching the way the two women talked together, I realized that it didn’t matter. Mary had responded instantly to the other woman’s charm; they were getting along like old pals. Of course, I told myself, that was a psychiatrist’s business, winning a patient’s confidence. And yet it made me a little uneasy to watch them.

  I thought at first that was why I felt uneasy. But gradually, as the windows darkened with twilight, I realized that my growing discomfort was unrelated to anything that was going on inside the room. It’s hard to describe that sensation; the nearest analogy I can come up with is the onset of seasickness or flu, the first stages, when you feel funny but you don’t know why. But this wasn’t physical discomfort, it was purely mental. It grew to a point where I couldn’t sit still any longer. I got up and went to the window.

  It was the loveliest time of day, the soft gray time when the world looks relaxed and at peace but there is still enough light to see clearly. To the east the sky was deep indigo, with a single bright star shining like a beacon; in the west the sunset colors lingered. The light dulled the natural colors of objects but left their outlines clear. So I saw her plain, without any possibility of error.

  She was standing on the edge of the paved terrace, not five yards away—closer than she had ever been. I still couldn’t make out her features. The hood of the cloak cast a pool of shadow where her face should have been. One thing I knew, if there had been the slightest lingering doubt—the figure was not that of Annie Marks.

  The glass I was holding fell from my hand. I was numb with terror, and with a freezing cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. My lips were so stiff I could hardly move them.

  “Look,” I croaked. “Oh, look. Will!”

  It’s a sign of how far gone I was that I should call his name. He came; and he put his hand on my bare arm.

  His hand was warm, warm and living and human, and the touch spread through my chilled bones as brandy spreads.

  “Look,” I chattered. “Look at her standing there. Will, make her go away, find out what she wants. It gets worse every time, every time she’s a little closer…”

  Will’s finge
r tightened on my arm with such intensity that the bones felt as if they were grating together. I let out a yell of honest agony. Ran came rushing up, thoroughly confused by the whole thing, seeing only that Will was hurting me. He got us untangled and put his arm around me. My eyes were filled with tears of pain, but I twisted my head around so that I could look out the window.

  Shadows on the lawn; but only normal shadows. She was gone.

  “That hurt,” I said, weeping.

  “I’m sorry,” Will began.

  “It doesn’t matter. You saw it. I know you did.”

  His face was a flat brown mask.

  “I didn’t see anything,” he said.

  Anne had come to join us at the window; standing to one side, as if dissociating herself from the fuss, she was lighting a cigarette. Her eyes met mine, and I knew she was wondering which of the sisters was sick in the head. Both, maybe.

  “What was it, Jo?” Ran asked. “What are you talking about?”