Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I found an embroidered table scarf and brought out my mother’s blue Lowestoft tea set. I could never touch the pieces of that set without remembering her hands moving graciously from teapot to cups, without remembering how much she had enjoyed a pause in her afternoon’s work for tea with Richard and me. The pang of loneliness was there again, and I fought it down.

  There was no reason to feel sorry for myself. In a week I would have made this room my own, and I had an absorbing challenge ahead of me in the person of Jeremy Reid. How to approach him was my first concern, how to win his trust and then his liking. These were the things I must think about. I took out Richard’s little music-box carrousel that had cost me more than I should have spent one Christmas. Though I was glad now, for it had given him much pleasure. I wound the key and set it upon the mantel, where it made a gay touch of bright color. Small red and green and yellow figures on horses, a little sleigh with miniature children, turned merrily about and the old nursery favorite, “Frère Jacques,” tinkled through the room.

  A somewhat demanding knock summoned me to the door. I blinked away a stray tear and went to open it. On my threshold stood Selina Reid, her eyes dancing and soft folds of green China silk spilling through her hands.

  “I have it!” she cried in triumph, holding up the material. “So when will you make my dress?”

  Here, I thought, was my first approach to Jeremy, to learning all I could know about him. I stepped aside and invited her into my room. The carrousel still turned and the music played.

  She walked directly to the mantel. “I like this,” she said. “May I have it to play with?”

  I shook my head gently. “It belonged to my brother, who is dead. Sometimes when you visit me, I will wind it for you, but I don’t let anyone else touch it.”

  She looked at me in no little surprise, and I gathered that few requests of Miss Selina’s were refused in this house. All the more reason it was wise to have an understanding between us at once. She seemed to think better of sulking as I took the silk from her hands and examined it in admiration. What thin, soft stuff it was—like gossamer, yet strong and finely woven. The color was pale—the new green of leaves in the springtime. It would suit her coloring beautifully.

  “We’ll start your dress tomorrow,” I assured her. “This is lovely silk. It will make up beautifully, though it’s more suited to spring and summer than to chilly fall. I have some fashion books to help us. Perhaps we can design it together.”

  That pleased her, and she gave me a charming, sunny smile. “What am I to call you?” she asked. “I don’t remember the name Garthy said when you came here before.”

  “Would you like to call me Miss Megan?” I suggested. “It seems more friendly than to use Kincaid.”

  She tried the name over softly to herself and then spoke it out loud as though she had decided to favor it. The music-box tune came to an end, and Selina suddenly remembered that she had been sent here with a message.

  “Oh dear, I forgot! I’m to ask you to come downstairs at once for high tea. That’s what we have at five-thirty in the dining room. It’s an early supper really, but Miss Garth has been to England and she likes English ways. You are to eat your meals with us, Miss Megan.”

  Though it was early for supper, I could accommodate my habits, and I was happy to have this opportunity to join the others. This would enable me to see more of Jeremy.

  We folded the China silk carefully and put it in a drawer of my bureau. Then, while Selina waited for me, I washed my hands in the blue-flowered basin. The Reids’ house was extremely up-to-date in having a bathroom, but it was downstairs on the second floor. When I had poured the water into the slop jar hidden below and dried my hands, we went downstairs together.

  For this dark and somber house, the dining room on the first floor was surprisingly bright. The dark paneling of the wall reached only halfway up, and above it a light wallpaper sprigged in delicate green gave the room a bright and airy appearance. The furnishings were elegant, as they were throughout the house, and a handsome chandelier hung from the center of a plaster medallion in the high ceiling. Through the glass doors of an enormous cabinet I could see an array of fine china and crystal.

  At the front of the house French doors opened upon a small iron balcony overlooking the square. Though they were closed, the light of late afternoon poured in from the street.

  Miss Garth and Jeremy were already seated at the long table, with a coal fire murmuring cheerfully beside them. Miss Garth’s chair was, as always, closest to the blaze, but this was a large room and not easily made stuffy. Somewhat curtly she indicated my place at the table and remarked that promptness at mealtime was a virtue.

  I found myself opposite Jeremy, who did not look at me at all. Through most of the meal he remained silent and remote, indifferent to those about him. He ate listlessly and without appetite, and more than once Miss Garth chided him, criticized his table manners, or urged him to finish what was on his plate.

  Selina went her own charmingly impertinent way, often addressing her remarks to her brother, whether he paid any attention or not. She told him delightedly about the carrousel music box in my room and warned him not to touch it. She boasted about the new clothes she was to have, speaking as though “Miss Megan” were her private acquisition.

  I remarked casually that when I had time I would perhaps make a new suit for Jeremy. Still he did not look at me, but he spoke in a rough, ill-mannered way.

  “I don’t want any new clothes. And I won’t be measured or fitted.”

  “As you like,” I told him. “I’ll be quite busy as it is.”

  “You will have new clothes if your uncle wishes it,” Miss Garth insisted.

  For once the boy raised his eyes and threw her a quick, resentful look. “Why should my Uncle Brandon wish it? You know he hates me. You know he wishes I were dead.”

  I thought this a terrible and shocking thing for a little boy to say with such conviction and I wondered if Mr. Reid knew of this notion. But for the moment there was no way in which I could contradict it. I was still feeling my way toward an understanding of the relationships in this house. Until I knew the meaning behind the emotional undercurrents I sensed, I could not tread with safety on what might well be unstable ground.

  When the long, wearing meal was over, I returned to my room and sat down in the single straight chair to think about the problems which rose like a series of mountain ranges ahead of me. It was clear that Jeremy wore a prickly armor all about him—armor without a visible chink. Yet he was a child and he had needs of which he could not be wholly aware. Needs perhaps that he had suppressed after the tragic accident in which his father had died. Somewhere there would be a way through his defenses, and I must find it. I must have the patience to wait and the wisdom to recognize the way when it presented itself. This seemed a very large order, and I did not dare allow myself to be frightened by it.

  The evening, after so early a supper, stretched endlessly ahead, and I found myself restless. I knew that ladies did not walk alone after dark in New York streets. The assaults of footpads and thugs, the accosting of lone women, and even unarmed men, were commonplace in these dreadful times. But to sit here for hours when I did not feel like reading or sewing seemed a greater danger to my spirits than was possible outward danger to my person.

  I put on the gray dolman mantle with its capelike top that my mother had made me in a new and fashionable style, and tied gray bonnet ribbons under my chin. When I left my room I found the upper floor quiet and I heard and saw no one on my way downstairs. But as I descended the lower flight, I came upon a scene so magical, so warmly felicitous, that I paused with my hand on the rail and stared without conscience.

  The double doors to the dining room had been left open, and I could look down upon the long table where the children and I had so recently sat through that unhappy meal with Miss Garth. Now the table was bright with fine linen and silver. Lavish chrysanthemums made a centerpiece, and candles bur
ned in branched candelabra. At each end of the table sat the master and mistress of this strange household.

  Again Leslie Reid’s beauty caught at my breath. What is it a woman feels when she beholds such perfection in another woman? There is envy perhaps—but I think curiosity as well. We look and marvel and try to see this vision as a man must see her, and thus gain some knowledge of what it is we ourselves should emulate.

  Mrs. Reid had dressed for dinner in a yellow brocade gown that set off her red hair—more beautiful than ever now that she wore no hat. Diamonds shone at her ear lobes and on her fingers. Candlelight enhanced and softened the amber of her eyes.

  When I had studied his wife, seeking an answer to a tantalizing enigma, I looked at Mr. Reid to observe his response. Henry, the haughty butler, was serving, and as Henry helped him from a silver dish, Brandon Reid bent the same ardent attention upon his wife that I had noted earlier in the day. He was asking her about her afternoon, as a husband might, and she was answering him, seemingly less remote and cool now, telling him of someone she had seen at Sherry’s. There was a vivacity in her manner that had been lacking before.

  I believe I am not more envious than others. Yet in that moment I ached with loneliness and—let us call it longing, rather than envy, since that is a kinder word. How fortunate Leslie Reid was—there at her own attractive table, with a husband so attentive, so loving and admiring.

  Mrs. Reid remarked on a draft just then, and the butler came toward the doors to close them. I blinked the vision from my eyes and fled down the stairs and out through the heavy front door to Washington Square. I would walk until I was weary and drink in great draughts of fresh air and forget those who dined graciously by candlelight.

  Only a few years before, the old Washington Parade Grounds had undergone a transformation, turning the square into one of the most beautiful parks in the city. Flower beds had been set out and shade trees planted. The sidewalks were of concrete, the roadways of new wood paving—all centering about a huge fountain basin and converging into Fifth Avenue.

  I had read in the papers that some political chicanery had resulted in the building of more lamp posts than was necessary in the square. At least it was the best lighted park in the city. The lamplighter had already gone his rounds and in such a brilliance of gaslight there seemed little danger that any of the city’s criminal element would be abroad. I walked along the paths and around the broad basin of the fountain, my feet scattering crisp leaves at every step.

  The scene at the dining table still haunted me. I hoped that Mrs. Reid was kind to so obviously loving a husband, and that he was gentle and loving with her. From my observation he had not seemed a particularly gentle person, but perhaps he reserved this quality for his beautiful wife.

  Her coolness earlier had perhaps been due to some small marital spat. My mind skipped and speculated. What had Dwight Reid been like? Had the younger brother been as fascinating as the older? Fascinating? Now where had I come upon such a word for a man who repelled me no little?

  I could recall only a smattering of information about Dwight Reid. He had been something of a Galahad in city politics, fighting crime, helping those in need, and doing a great deal of good during his time in office. The papers had seemed to attack him less than they did other men in our venal public life, and his death had been a blow to the honest element of the entire city. Since Leslie had married him first, he must have been the better man. How dreadfully the whole household must have suffered over his death. Yet in a year’s time she had married the older brother. Now how had that come about?

  So my thoughts ran in the manner of a mind which lacks sufficient life of its own to feed upon.

  I walked briskly around the square, glad to see others out on this pleasant autumn evening. I put my speculations aside and by the time I returned to the house, I had cleared my head of cobwebby doubts and foolish envy. Tomorrow I must be up early, ready to approach my new duties.

  As I reached the steps I glanced up and saw that the dining room was still radiantly lighted and that Mr. Reid had come to stand in one long window, open now upon the square. I lowered my eyes and hurried across the sidewalk, thinking he would not observe me, or would ignore me if he did.

  But he called out to me suddenly. “Catch!” he cried, and I looked up in surprise to see him toss out something that resembled a yellow ball. I moved instinctively, without thinking. Often I had played ball with young neighbors, and even a bit with Richard, who could not throw or catch very well. I reached up with both hands and caught the sphere of yellow as it fell toward me. The man in the window above laughed out loud as he closed the shutters. I stood there foolishly, holding in my hands the orange I had caught in so unexpected a manner.

  I couldn’t help smiling as I let myself into the house with the latchkey Kate had given me. Mr. Reid was nowhere in sight as I went upstairs, but now I knew something I had not known before. It seemed that the dark and somber Brandon Reid could also be a man of light impulse. He knew perfectly well who I was, and though this was an odd way of showing it, I felt somehow reassured.

  My steps were soft on the carpeted stairs. The second floor was as usual dimly lighted by its single globe-encased gas jet. The small figure bending before a closed door next to Mrs. Reid’s boudoir did not hear me until I was directly behind him. Then he whipped around to face me with one hand hidden behind his back. But not quickly enough, for I had glimpsed the key in Jeremy’s fingers. We stared at each other, equally surprised, and it was the boy who spoke first.

  “You’d better not tell Garth,” he whispered, and there was a threatening note in the words.

  I answered him calmly. “I really don’t know anything to tell.”

  He gave me a long look, guarded and enigmatic, before he dashed ahead of me up the stairs. By the time I reached the floor above, all doors were closed and I went to my own room, feeling more pity for the child than anything else. What secretive life went on behind that darkly handsome young face? To what room had he a hidden key, and why?

  Before I went to bed I peeled and ate the orange Mr. Reid had tossed me. Its tangy aroma scented the air and clung to my fingers. Somehow, in spite of the strange happenings of the day I felt more determined than ever to help Jeremy Reid. And I did not feel nearly so discouraged.

  THREE

  The next morning I was up early. As Kate had explained to me, all of us on the third floor—myself, Miss Garth, and the two children—were expected to breakfast in the nursery and stay out of the dining room mornings. In the crowded nursery I found a pot of hot coffee on the table and a covered dish of scrambled eggs, cold toast, butter, and marmalade. It was pleasant to eat alone and then get to work in the schoolroom, setting my things out at one end of the long table. Perhaps I could make a start before the tutor came for lessons.

  I was deep in fashion books, searching for a style that would become the flyaway sprite that was Selina, when Miss Garth came to summon me to Mrs. Reid’s room. Jeremy’s mother would see me now instead of later. She had slept badly and was having an early breakfast in bed. I was to come downstairs at once. Again the summons seemed imperious, though perhaps that was due to Miss Garth’s delivery.

  This time I was taken directly into the front bedroom adjoining the green and gold boudoir. It was a room of satin and lace, of furbelows and mirrors. But in spite of the fact that bright morning pressed at the windows, the gold brocade draperies were drawn and the light that lay upon the room was cast wholly by flickering candles. Set upon the highboy was a branched candelabrum of silver, its six candles burning tall. Small candleholders of painted china lighted each side of the dressing-table mirror, and beside the hearth stood a giant brass candlestick awash with golden light. There was no denying that this soft illumination flattered and enhanced the beauty of the woman in the bed.

  She sat up with lacy pillows behind her, a small lap table across her knees. Her red hair, tied youthfully with a green ribbon at the top of her head, fell about her shoulders
, and its warmth held my eyes. Once more I caught the whisper of a light violet scent pervading the room.

  Miss Garth left me there, and I was glad to see her go. I might accomplish more with Mrs. Reid without the presence of the governess.

  This morning I was prepared with specific questions and a few suggestions, but Mrs. Reid, sipping coffee, and playing delicately with a bowl of fruit, took the interview from my hands. She invited me to draw a chair beside the bed and began to speak of my duties and hours with the somewhat haughty air of mistress to servant.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “it will be possible for you to help with the children on Sundays when Garthy goes to visit her father. Perhaps you can also free her on an occasional evening when I need her, or when she-wishes an hour or so away from the house. She is more than a governess, you know. Much of the management of this house rests in her hands, since I am not strong enough to cope with it. I am not always well, and, as a result, Miss Garth has been overworked.”

  I would be happy to comply, I agreed, but I did not mean to have this interview entirely one-sided and when she had paused and turned to her tray as if she were done with me, I began my questions.

  “I’ve been wondering about the children’s activities,” I said. “What sort of things do they like to do? What are Jeremy’s main interests? When I understand these matters I will be in a better position to make friends. Not that this will be difficult with Selina. We already have a bond between us because of the dress I’m making for her.”

  Leslie Reid looked slightly bored. “Oh, yes—the China silk. I had planned to use it myself, but my husband believes this is more important.”

  She yawned, tapping her fingers to her mouth, and seemed to forget me and my questions.

  “You were going to tell me about the children’s interests, Mrs. Reid,” I prodded gently.

  “Was I? But what is there to tell? I suppose they like the usual things. Dolls, toys, games—what else?”