Crying Child

by Barbara Michaels

  They gazed into each other’s eyes over their clasped hands. I stood up. I had to move to keep myself from saying something disagreeable.

  “I’m honest, too,” I said. “But I’m not open-minded. I’m a mass of prejudices, and what I want to do right now is talk to Jed. He’s the only one in this house who knows what he thinks, and why.”

  I had heard his footsteps in the hall, so his appearance wasn’t the conjuring trick it appeared to be. Standing in the doorway, he greeted us with a collective nod.

  “Mary’s asleep,” he said. “Bertha sent me down to report.”

  “Good,” Ran said. “Jed, we’ve been leveling with Dr. Wood. She thinks we’re all out of our minds, but she’s being very tactful about it.”

  “That’s fine.” Jed sat down. “You know how I feel—the fewer lies the better. We’re going to have to start making some progress on this thing. I don’t like the way it’s moving in on Jo.”

  “Neither does Jo,” I said. “It isn’t just getting closer, it’s getting clearer. I saw the face as distinctly as I see yours.”

  “That plain?”

  “Down to the mole on her cheek,” I said, and shivered involuntarily. “It was fantastic, Jed; like a life-sized photograph, that was how it was.”

  “Describe it, then,” Will said. “While it’s fresh in your mind.”

  Jed coughed.

  “Didn’t somebody tell me Jo was an artist?” he inquired of the room at large.

  “I’m not thinking,” Ran said ruefully. “Jo, can you do it? Can you sketch the woman?”

  “I’m not sure. Portraiture was never one of my strong points, I’m just a hack…”

  Jed got up and began to ransack the walnut escritoire by the window. He came back with a handful of Mary’s stationery and an assortment of writing materials. I found a pencil that wasn’t too hard, though I really needed something softer for those shadowy outlines; but after the first few tentative lines the picture took shape with a speed that scared me a little. It was almost as if some outside force were controlling my hand.

  They all watched, peering over my shoulder. Anne had forgotten her skepticism, and leaned over the couch breathing down the back of my neck as I sketched the pale face, wide at the cheekbones, narrowing to the small delicate chin; the fine shape of the nose, and the smooth black hair. I couldn’t do much with the eyes; I shaded the sockets and smudged them with the ball of my thumb, and then went on to fill in the body, increasingly absorbed as the pencil moved, producing details that seemed to come from some other source than my conscious memory. When the sketch was done I sat back and looked at it, and was amazed at what I saw. There was no doubt about the costume. It was a plain dark dress, high-necked, with long tight sleeves and a skirt gathered at the waist—a full, bell-shaped skirt, but without hoops. The white I had observed at the neck and wrists were collar and cuffs—plain, without lace or ornament. Even the hair style was distinctive, drawn back from a central parting in sloping wings across temples and ears into a heavy knot or chignon at the back.

  I glanced at the others to see how they were reacting; and found Will looking at me with respect.

  “You’re good,” he said.

  “I’m not really that good,” I admitted. “I’ll cast modesty to the winds and admit that this is the best portrait I’ve ever done. And there are things in it I don’t remember seeing. Do you suppose I’m inventing—filling in, restoring?”

  “I think you’re doing just that,” Jed said, without looking up from the drawing. He scratched his chin reflectively. “Restoring. That doesn’t mean you’re inventing anything, but your trained muscles dredge up details you think you’ve forgotten.”

  Ran was staring at the drawing.

  “You didn’t say she was beautiful.”

  Startled, I glanced at the drawing.

  “Beautiful is not exactly… Oh. Well, the bones are good, aren’t they? But the mouth, I don’t remember it as being quite so—so soft. Damn it, Ran, you’re right. She is beautiful in a strange, haggard sort of way—and the thing I saw wasn’t, believe me. So I haven’t got it right.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jed’s long fingers caught my hand as I reached for the pencil. “It is right, Jo. Don’t start messing it up.”

  “Jed, do you recognize it? Do you know who she is?”

  “No, I don’t know who she is. But I’ve seen that face somewhere. I know it. That’s how I know it’s right.”

  “What about you, Ran? Maybe she’s an ancestress.”

  “No…” Ran sounded uncertain, though; and Will said, “Jed, are you sure it isn’t the general appearance of the lady that’s familiar to you? I’ve seen dresses and hair styles like that—even the pose—in old daguerreotypes. I had that same feeling of half recognition myself, till I realized what it was.”

  “Yes,” Ran said. “That’s right, Will. That was why I hesitated.”

  Jed shook his head.

  “No, I’ve seen that face. If I could only remember where!”

  It was a nice day to spend in a graveyard—gray and cool with ground mist gathering among the trees. I don’t think I’d have had the nerve to go by myself. The wisps of pale vapor coiling among the dark tree trunks were too suggestive.

  Not that Will was the most cheerful companion in the world. I assumed he was sorry he was with me instead of being back at the house admiring Anne’s professional brilliance and her blue stretch pants. But I really didn’t care. I was tired and depressed, and the weather made me feel mournful, and I didn’t believe in happy endings.

  Mary’s condition was as ambiguous as it had been after the other midnight adventure. She was still pretending not to remember. Will was ready to admit that she might be suffering from a form of amnesia. He said that when people found it impossible to accept something, they just cut it out of their memory. Mary’s fixation could affect her that way, because her rational mind must know the illogic of what she wanted. I suggested tentatively that maybe this was a good sign—that part of her mind, at least, was still able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Will said he was damned if he knew what it was.

  “You may not like this,” he said gloomily, pushing a dead branch out of the way as we went along the narrow path, “but I have the feeling that Mary is putting on a big fat act. I get glimpses of something sly and furtive in her expression. I never felt that way in the beginning.”

  “I feel it too. Some hostile mind looking out at me through Mary’s eyes.”

  “For God’s sake, Jo, you aren’t suggesting—”

  “Possession? No. That’s the worst of it. There’s nothing alien about that look, it’s Mary; but it’s as if something had concentrated all the nasty side of Mary, all the meanness and hatred we all have in us somewhere. She’s baiting Ran; I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d socked her one this morning.”

  “You mean those cracks at breakfast about the way he’s been drinking?”

  “Yes, and all expressed in the sweetest, most solicitous terms. He’s not an alcoholic, Will; he used to be almost abstemious. But to hear her, you’d think she had to pour him into bed every night.”

  “It’s partly defensive, I think,” Will said. “She wants to make the rest of us look bad so we can’t criticize her. She’s not openly hostile toward you, but she’s not precisely forthcoming, either. That’s a disappointment. I was hoping she’d talk candidly to you.”

  I kicked at a stone in the path.

  “I goofed,” I said, without looking at him. “I had a chance and I muffed it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The very first day she was trying to reach me. When she appealed to me not to let you and Ran take her away, she was sounding me out. I was so dumb; I thought she meant—oh, well, I might as well get all my evil thoughts out in the open. I thought you two were planning to have her committed, shut up in a mental institution.”

  “You thought Ran would do a thing like that?”

  “But it might have been nec
essary. I did have some doubts about Ran; you aren’t the only one who considered ordinary human wickedness as the only alternative to the supernatural.”

  “Touche,” Will said drily. “So long as we’re indulging in an orgy of self-recrimination, I’ll admit the possibility did pass through my mind.”

  “I thought it did. That Ran and I were conspiring to get rid of Mary.”

  Will stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him. He turned.

  “You and Ran? I thought of Ran, but…”

  I stared up into his face, warmed by an absurd wave of pleasure; and then Will proceeded to spoil it by adding coolly, “You were in San Francisco when the trouble began. Oh, hell, Jo, it was just a passing thought; I know Ran too well to take it seriously. I was surprised—is that a good word?—when I came on you two the other night, but I didn’t need Ran’s explanation to understand what had happened, once I had time to think it over. That’s true, Jo.”

  “Will, you don’t think Mary could have seen us, do you?”

  “I didn’t see any sign of her. Oh, I suppose she could have; or maybe she suspected something from your behavior… Why? Do you think that’s why she stopped trusting you?”

  “I don’t know. Something happened; or maybe it was just my response, or lack of response, to her statement about hearing the crying. If I had only tried… Well, it’s futile to think about that now. I’ve lost her. The only one she seems to want around is Anne. And I don’t like that.”

  I regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. I sounded as if I were jealous of Anne’s influence with Mary. And maybe I was.

  “You ought to be pleased,” Will said reproachfully. “If Anne weren’t baby-sitting Mary, the rest of us couldn’t be out pursuing our no-doubt futile research.”

  “Do you really think it’s futile?”

  “Oh, today is one of those days when I think everything is futile. Don’t mind me. We have to do this, so let’s not argue about whether it’s worth doing.”

  “You did show Mrs. Willard the drawing?”

  “Yeah. Same reaction Jed had; it’s familiar but she can’t remember where she saw it.”

  “Too bad the old ladies donated so many records and pictures to the museum.”

  “It’s less convenient having them there, but Ran won’t have any trouble getting at them, even today. The old guy who runs the museum fawns on Frasers.”

  The path broadened out as it reached the graveyard, and Will waited for me to catch up with him. He had preceded me because of the obstructed condition of the path. Instead of entering the clearing he leaned against the fence and reached for his cigarettes. In silence he offered me the pack and in silence I took a cigarette and waited for him to light it. I was no more anxious to enter the cemetery than he was. In fact, I wasn’t sure why I had wanted to come.

  “I don’t know what we’re doing here,” Will said, breaking the silence. The thought was so akin to my own that I started a little.

  “We’re on our way to feed your cats, I think,” I said.

  “And pick up the car.”

  “Why did you leave it at home yesterday?”

  “It had a flat tire, and I was late.”

  “So you’ll have to fix the tire now.”

  “Yep. Cheerful thought.”

  Off in the woods there was a rustle and squawk, as some bird expressed annoyance. The sound was distorted, mournful. I shivered.

  “Horrible day. Isn’t the sun going to shine?”

  “We may be in for one of our fogs,” Will said. “This is the area where the expression pea-souper originated. Maine has more fogbound days per year than any other state in the union.”

  “You’re probably just bragging. Though why that should be anything to brag about…”

  He didn’t respond, and I let the words trail off, too dispirited to talk. There was a melancholy peace about the scene; but that hideous Gothic mausoleum with the fog around it was like something out of a stage set for Dracula.

  “Well,” my companion said, after a time. “I guess she isn’t going to show up.”

  “Don’t,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the mist-shrouded spot where the grave lay.

  “Wasn’t that why you wanted to come this way?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Really? I was hoping she would materialize. I’d like to get a good look at her.”

  “That’s what you think now.”

  “That bad, hmmm?”

  I shivered. Will said thoughtfully, “That’s odd. The face you sketched didn’t convey that feeling.”

  “It wasn’t the look of it,” I said, groping for words. “It was the atmosphere. The cold, the whole feeling—”

  “I know. Like a nightmare in which the events themselves are quite prosaic. It’s hard to describe something like that. Why did you want to come to the graveyard then, if the idea of seeing her bugs you so?”

  “I had some vague idea of looking at the stone again, to make sure there was nothing else on it.”

  “There wasn’t. I saw it too, remember?”

  “Well, if you say so. I don’t particularly want to go near the place.”

  “Okay.” As we stood side by side, his shoulder touched mine, and I let myself lean, just a little. It felt so solid and supportive. He went on, “I thought maybe you were going to ask me to dig up the grave.”

  “Will!” I stared at him in horror. “Of all the awful ideas… Why would I want to do that?”

  “It’s not such a crazy idea—after you’ve accepted our original crazy premise, I mean.”

  He went on smoking placidly, leaning on the wet black iron bars; and I thought about the idea. It was still horrible, but it had a grisly attraction.

  “Why?” I asked. “Could you tell anything, after all this time? From just—”

  “Just bones? Not much. Signs of foul play? Poison wouldn’t leave a trace, neither would a knife or a bullet unless it nicked a bone. Even supposing we found overt signs of violence, that could be caused by a number of things. A fractured skull might be the result of a fall.”

  “No one has even suggested the idea of—of murder,” I said. “But that’s one of the conventional reasons for a ghost walking, you know. For vengeance, or to right a wrong, or… Will, would you mind very much if we continued this discussion in your living room, with all the lights on?”

  He didn’t answer or turn his head. He was staring out across the clearing. Finally he said, in a muted voice, “Look at the way the fog gathers, there beyond the stones. You can see how ghost stories begin, when you watch fog; that patch over there is the right size and shape, and the way it moves with the breeze almost suggests—”

  “Stop that!”

  “Sorry.” He turned his head and looked at me. His eyes shone with amusement. “That wasn’t bad, was it? I really scared you.”

  “You aren’t at all superstitious, are you?”

  “Not at all.” He rested his elbow on the fence and studied me quizzically. “But I think I know what your trouble is.”

  “What?”

  “You’re hopelessly sentimental. A sucker for every corny cliche and every hackneyed emotion in the book.”

  “Why fight it?” I said listlessly. “You’re absolutely right. You name it, I’ll cry over it. ”Danny Boy,“ with lots of violins; all the songs ever written about hopeless love and angel children; ”The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and staunch he stands,“; the statue of Nathan Hale; the Blue and the Gray, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin—”

  “How about ”Up the hill to the poorhouse I’m trudgin‘ my weary way?“ ”

  I laughed unwillingly.

  “Oh, well, I guess there’s a limit. But it’s far out, and I don’t mean that as slang. Some of my friends have taken up old movies and books, as camp and chic. When Shirley Temple pleads for the life of her soldier daddy, guess who’s the only one crying?”

  “Anne would say you’re too suggestible to be a reliable observer,” W
ill said.

  “But that’s just it. I know I’m susceptible, and that’s why I’m especially skeptical of my own feelings. Look, I can read Gone with the Wind and feel my heart bleed for the beautiful gallant South, but even while the tears are running down my face, I know that the gallant South is a fiction and that its position was morally indefensible.”

  “All right, all right,” Will said. “I believe you. And in deference to your sensitivities, we’ll postpone further discussion till we get home.”

  On the cliff edge the fog wasn’t bad; the sea breeze whipped most of it away. But Will predicted worse to come.