Beholden

by Lesley Crewe

  When we pulled off the highway about a half a mile from Aunt Jean’s, we passed an old cottage first.

  “Why is that place boarded up?” Bridie asked.

  “No one lives there now. The mother fell down the stairs and died years ago. The way the story goes, the daughter then drowned herself, but they never found her body. Her sweater washed up on the shore. A few weeks after that, the husband was found hanging from the rafters. No one wants to buy the place, and now the kids say it’s haunted.”

  Bridie gave me a shocked look.

  “Thanks a lot, Betty,” I hissed. “You couldn’t have kept that to yourself?”

  “She asked me! It’s the truth. Sometimes tragic things happen, Bridie, but that doesn’t mean anything is going to happen to you. It was all a very long time ago.”

  I’d never seen Bridie quite so shaken. She slipped into the back seat and stared out the window. Betty had the sense of a goose. Honestly.

  We pulled in behind a large house. It almost looked like a gingerbread house, the way it was perched up on the hill. There was something magical about it. There was a long clothesline of beautiful, colourful fabric hanging out to dry.

  A black cat crossed in front of the car and sat on the back porch looking at us.

  “She is a witch,” Bridie whispered.

  “Nonsense!” Betty laughed. “Do you want to come in?”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Just as well. She’s a bit cranky. You have to know how to handle her. Creative types are such a pain.”

  We watched Betty knock at the back door and barge right in. She was gone for a good fifteen minutes. I kept looking at my watch, hoping that George wasn’t waiting back at Mom’s.

  “How long do you think it takes for a person to die when they hang themselves?”

  I was so mad, I whipped around in my seat. “Betty had no right to tell you that. It’s not something you should worry about. It’s a sad, sad thing, that’s all. And I don’t want it ruining your trip. Do you hear me? Now stop thinking about it.”

  “How do you stop thinking about something?”

  I wanted to hit Betty.

  She finally came out with a dress wrapped in plastic draped over her arm. The spinster stood on the porch and watched her walk to the car. Betty opened the back door and asked Bridie to hold the dress in her lap. Then she got in and started the motor. The woman on the porch gave us a quick wave goodbye. Bridie was hiding, her head hardly above the car window, but she put her fingers against the glass in farewell.

  When we passed the cottage, she covered her face with her hands.

  9

  It was around four-thirty when George and Bridie returned from their afternoon of fishing. I could tell something was wrong the minute they got out of the car. Bridie walked straight into the kitchen and glared at me.

  “You better give him a talking to, because he’s as grouchy as a bear. I didn’t do a thing wrong. And I caught more fish than he did. He looks just like Patty when he sulks too!”

  She stormed passed me and met her grandmother in the hallway.

  “Did you have a nice afternoon, dear?”

  “No, Nana, I didn’t. I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood to discuss it. If you’ll excuse me.” And up the stairs she went, slamming the bedroom door for good measure.

  Mom and I looked at each other. Then I went out on the back porch and stood there until George noticed me.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Come inside.”

  “No. Out in the barn.” He stormed off.

  Mom whispered behind me, “What’s going on?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  I crossed the yard and entered the dark, earthy gloom of the cow barn. Normally, I loved this quiet place, with its shafts of light peeking between the dried wood, but now I was on edge. I’d been on edge all afternoon, hoping that horrible story Betty blabbed wouldn’t give Bridie nightmares.

  “I knew this was a mistake!” he said. “Coming back here to this sad little town, with its miserable gossips and its backwater attitudes!”

  “What are you on about?”

  “That ridiculous sister of yours, telling Bridie all kinds of horrible tales about falling down stairs and drownings and hangings. Calling people witches and spinsters on the hill. That poor woman! What right does anyone have to say such things about an innocent soul. And who is she to fill that child’s head with such monstrous stories? I’m sure her own dumb lugs don’t care about stuff like that, but Bridie is a sensitive child, and filling her head with ridiculous notions will cause her imagination to run wild!”

  “I was just as annoyed when she blurted it out, but that’s not what Bridie seems to be upset about. It’s you she’s furious with. She says you’ve been as grouchy as a bear all afternoon and she didn’t do a thing to deserve it. Why are you taking it out on her?”

  “I think you and Bridie should come back with me tomorrow. I don’t want her here.”

  I took a step towards him. “What are you talking about? She loves it here and I promised her. I want to spend time with my mother. We have two more weeks before her cast comes off. I’m staying put. I’m her mother and that’s that.”

  “And I’m her father and I say she’s coming home with me!”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I reached over and poked his shoulder with my index finger. “Are you, George? Are you really? Because if you are, you have a lot of explaining to do. How old was her mother? Fourteen? A few months older than Bridie? Are you quite sure you want to admit to fathering that child?”

  He looked horrified. “Is that what you think of me?”

  I threw my hands in the air. “What else am I supposed to think? You love Bridie more than your own child, and don’t say you don’t, because you do, and we all know it. Patty knows it. Mavis knows it. Bridie knows it. What is it about her that makes you love her so much, George? She’s not just any child to you. What is it you’re not telling us?”

  He broke down and covered his face, the same way Bridie had only hours earlier. He fell to his knees in the hay and sobbed. I was dumbfounded and unsure what to do, so I just stood there, watching him.

  Gradually, the shuddering stopped and he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He reached out and I took his hand to help him off the dried, muddy floor. We held each other for a long time.

  “I’m sorry, Eileen. I’m sorry for involving you in this.”

  “Thank God you did, George. You know Bridie’s my world, but there’s a piece missing. Are you sure you want to keep it a secret?”

  “I swear on Bridie’s life that I am not her biological father. You see, there’s someone else I’m protecting.”

  “I thought as much.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a hanky, wiping his eyes and nose once more.

  “You’re reluctant to have Bridie come to this place, because the person you’re protecting lives here?”

  He nodded.

  “And you don’t want this person to see Bridie?”

  He nodded again.

  “Okay. Will you let us stay here, if I don’t take Bridie off the property? She’ll be quite happy running with the chickens and dogs. There’s no need for her to go to town. Your mother can come here and visit with her. And I certainly won’t let Betty take her anywhere again.”

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Promise me?”

  “Pinkie swear.”

  We eventually went back to the house, after George’s face finally looked like he hadn’t just cried his heart out. He went upstairs and knocked quietly on Bridie’s door and I heard her say, “Enter at your own risk.”

  They were upstairs for over an hour. Mom kept fretting that the meatloaf she’d made would be dried out if they didn’t appear soon.

  “Throw some gravy over i
t. They’ll never know.”

  Eventually the pair appeared, George saying he better go because his mother had planned a nice roast dinner for his last night home.

  “You better get going, or that will be dried out too,” Mom said.

  He kissed us all goodbye, saying he’d be back in two weeks. Bridie went outside and ran beside the car with the dogs as far as the gate, then came charging back in the kitchen.

  “I’m starved.”

  We sat together and said grace. Mom handed Bridie a napkin, and she tucked it into her T-shirt.

  “So, is everything okay between you and Pops?” I asked her as I ladled a spoonful of fresh peas on her plate.

  “Yes, we settled our differences. He promised to stop treating me like a baby, and I promised to not believe everything I hear.”

  “Interesting.”

  She took a big gulp of her milk. “And for some reason, he said I wasn’t to go in Aunt Betty’s car again. I thought that was odd. What did that car ever do to me?”

  “Adults are weird,” said my mother. “The sooner you learn that, the better.”

  By the time I locked up for the night, I was beat. I heard my mom snoring in her room, and when I went by Bridie’s room I could see her reading under the covers with a flashlight. When I finally crawled into bed I let out a big sigh.

  So, George was upset about the drowning and hanging story, as was I, but then he went on about the miserable gossips in town and specifically mentioned the spinster on the hill. Why would he care about all that, unless she was important to him? This spinster was a missing piece in the puzzle. I was almost sure of it.

  We had a grand time those last two weeks of August. We picked wild blueberries and walked along the shore gathering shells and driftwood. I’d take a lawn chair and sit near the rocks, reading, while Bridie and the dogs swam and dove in the icy water. We had picnics and small bonfires, where we cooked hot dogs and marshmallows and sang campfire songs. Mom would sit on the swing and tell Bridie stories of when she was a young girl.

  One day I panicked because I couldn’t find Bridie, but it turned out she was asleep in the hayloft, with three of Mom’s recipe books beside her. She had developed a real love of cooking with my mother by her side and it made me stupidly happy to watch them together.

  All the wasted summers I didn’t spend here. What was I thinking? For years I’d done George’s bidding and hadn’t considered what I wanted. Well, that was going to change. Perhaps I could buy a second-hand car and learn to drive so I could take Bridie places, instead of waiting for her father to come home.

  With all the extra hours I had, I found myself brooding about the spinster on the hill. Just what was her connection to Bridie? George and the spinster had known each other in school, but they never dated as far as I knew. Not that I had listened to any gossip concerning George. I knew best and he was forever mine. To think otherwise usually ruined my day. So what if they were lovers before he met Mavis? Had he been having an affair with this woman all this time?

  She obviously wasn’t Bridie’s mother. I’d seen Bridie’s mother lying lifeless on a metal cart. Had Bridie’s mother been the spinster’s daughter? If so, why was George raising Bridie? If he loved this woman, why would he deny her the chance to raise a beloved granddaughter after losing her own child?

  Was the young girl on the slab George’s daughter, and Bridie really his granddaughter? Was that why he was so distraught?

  But again, why would he keep Bridie a secret from the spinster? He’d made his life a thousand times more complicated by keeping the baby. And I’d helped him do it. I was as much an accomplice as he was, only he didn’t tell me about it. I just trusted him implicitly and was at his beck and call.

  That didn’t sit well with me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Now that I knew what it was like to have a daughter, how could I deny that love to another woman? The rightful woman. And who was George to decide her fate? And mine!

  One day, near the end of our stay, Aunt Jean was over and Betty dropped in for lunch. Bridie was in her element; she had a captive audience for her antics. It was obvious my mom and Aunt Jean were in love with her. She made them laugh like I hadn’t heard in years.

  “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? It’s a free country.”

  We groaned.

  “I made that up.”

  “I could tell,” I laughed.

  “Two students walked to school. One of them was carrying a ladder.”

  “Why?” said my mother.

  “He wanted to go to high school.”

  We groaned again.

  “Pops told me that one. Blame him.”

  At the end of lunch, Betty said she had some errands to do. I walked out to her car with her. “Where do you have to go?”

  “The drugstore, the bank. Wanna come? You must be bored by now. Oh yes, and I also have to go to Nell’s to drop off a couple of pairs of pants I need taken out.”

  Now was my chance. “Okay, I wouldn’t mind coming. I’ll tell Mom and grab my purse.”

  I told the others I was going with Betty and I’d bring Bridie back a treat. She was just as happy doing a puzzle with her two doting grandmothers.

  Betty and I chatted as she drove. Even though she’d barely ever spent time with me, she was happy to spill the beans about her marriage.

  “Men are devious. My friend Mabel told me what to watch out for, and dang, didn’t Fraser check off everything on the list.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like coming home late every night.”

  “Doesn’t Fraser have three jobs?”

  “You can’t tell me that fishing, logging, and farming take up that much time.”

  I looked out the window. “I guess not.”

  “He always forgets my birthday and our anniversary.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I know, right? And he had lipstick on his collar one night, and he blamed it on his mother. Granted, it was her shade, but that means nothing. Lots of women wear Avon Persimmon.”

  “Still, I think you should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Betty honked at the car in front of her as she pulled into the drugstore. “Spoken like a true old maid.”

  We separated as we entered the store. I headed right for the indigestion tablets and the Archie comic books and grabbed a bottle of Pepsi, a bag of chips, and a chocolate bar for my girl. I picked up a couple of bars for myself too, to eat in my room while I was alone. I’d been feeling the need for a bit of comfort.

  While Betty went to the bank I waited in the car, watching people go in and out, trying to figure out if I knew them or not. Too much time had passed. Eventually, Betty emerged and I was glad of it; I was getting more and more nervous as the minutes ticked by. What was I doing, spying on a woman I didn’t know? Maybe I had the wrong end of the stick. Maybe it was another woman he was talking about.

  Before I knew it, we were once again driving past the boarded-up cottage and pulling in behind the house on the hill. Betty gathered her pants from the back seat. “Wanna come in? She’s a character.”

  “Might as well,” I said.

  We slammed our doors at the same time, which alerted a big dog who came charging from behind the house, barking. He looked friendly enough, but you never know.

  Nell came out from the kitchen door. “Dog! Get over here.”

  Dog trotted up to her obediently and went in the house.

  “Sorry about that. He’s usually inside when I know people are coming.”

  “No worries,” said Betty. “Nell, this is my sister, Eileen. She’s home for a few weeks visiting.”

  “I saw you in the car last time.”

  I nodded at her. “Yes, that’s right. We went to school together, once u
pon a time.”

  “I remember. Come in.”

  When we walked into her kitchen, the first thing I thought was that Bridie would love it. It was completely unorthodox and brilliantly messy. Nell probably knew where everything was, but it was a system known only to herself. That must come from living alone. You put things where you want them and don’t worry about other people. She had herbs and garlic hanging from rafters and flowerpots crowded on windowsills. Her dishes were stacked on open cupboards and none of them matched. Neither did the chairs around her pine kitchen table. Hooked rugs were thrown everywhere and she had a huge iron pot on the wood stove.

  She saw me staring at it. “That’s where I dye my fabric.”

  I smiled and nodded.

  Nell walked out of the kitchen, so we followed her. What would have been her living room was a dressmaker’s studio. I didn’t know where to look first. I’d never seen anything like it. Didn’t everyone live with a kitchen, dining room, and living room? The entire house was suited to what Nell liked and how Nell worked. It was amazing.

  She immediately got down to business, asking Betty what she wanted. While Betty showed her the three pairs of slacks, I had a chance to observe Nell up close. She hadn’t changed much from what I remembered as a kid. She was slight but seemed strong, as if she could hike the hill out back and not be out of breath. That I admired. Her faded, coppery hair was held up in a loose bun, and she wore no colour on her lips or cheeks, and yet she was what I would call very attractive. The simple skirt and blouse she wore suggested style, but they were obviously her work clothes. She draped a tape measure around her neck like a doctor does a stethoscope and used it as she talked to Betty.

  There was something about her that I liked very much, despite the fact that this could very well be someone George loved. They looked like they belonged together. In a parallel world, they would walk hand in hand and no one would question it. It made sense to me, but why had he married Mavis when this creature was in his life? Hell, I’d marry her.