“A boy of nine often has some special fancy that absorbs him,” I pointed out.
The woman in the bed gave me her sudden, full attention, and there was a note of distress in her voice as she spoke. “He has become such a difficult child—not at all like other boys. He seems to enjoy destructive things. Miss Garth and I, and even his tutor, Mr. Beach, are at our wits’ end to deal with him. My husband feels that you may have something new to offer the boy. We will be more than grateful if you can turn him from his present course of moody wildness, but as I’ve told you, I have little hope of this, Miss Kincaid.”
“Perhaps that’s the one thing we must never let him sense,” I said. “That we have lost hope would be too discouraging. Perhaps he needs a belief in his ability to grow. Has he no special pastimes? No hobbies?”
Leslie Reid’s long lashes fluttered for an instant upon pale cheeks, and a shiver seemed to run through her.
“My son is fond of guns,” she said. “Dwight—his father—had a collection of fine pistols with which Jeremy was obsessed. I warned my husband long ago that such an interest was not wise for a child. But no one would heed me.”
This, I sensed, was dangerous ground, and it would not help me in my search for Jeremy’s interests. I spoke again of the dress I would make for Selina, asking whether Mrs. Reid wished to instruct me as to the style. Again she seemed listless and ready to leave the matter in my hands, eager only to have our interview come to an end. I asked if there were any particular hours she liked to spend with the children, any time that should be saved for her visits with them.
She pushed the tray from her with a small gesture of distaste and tugged at a bell rope beside her bed.
“Selina comes to see me here whenever she likes. Often I take her with me when I go for a drive. But when it comes to Jeremy, I can find no pleasure in his company. This is not an easy matter for me, Miss Kincaid.”
She reached toward the table beside her bed and picked up a double miniature in twin silver frames. Wordlessly she handed it to me, and I saw that it contained the portraits of two men. From one side Brandon Reid’s dark countenance looked out at me, his mouth unsmiling, his eyes upon faraway things. The other man was totally different in appearance, though I knew this must be Dwight Reid. The younger brother had a bright, sunny look about him. Except for his fair coloring he resembled his son amazingly. He was younger and far handsomer in a boyish way than was Brandon Reid. I returned the miniature, wondering why she had shown it to me.
“You may have heard of my first husband,” she said. “There were many who blessed his name. Since his death, New York citizens have been building a memorial to honor him—the Dwight Reid Memorial Home, which will be opened before long and will care for homeless children. Dwight had a great future ahead of him. It’s possible that he might have been governor, or gone on to the national legislature.”
I waited, troubled by the sudden flash of feeling I saw in her face. The amber eyes were no longer cold, but misted with tears when she turned them upon me.
“It was all destroyed—everything! Do you understand? Do you see why it may be painful for me to have Jeremy in my company?”
For the first time my sympathy went out to her, and yet I could not accept her attitude. Jeremy was a child, whatever he might have done.
“I can understand,” I told her. “Yet even something so dreadful must be forgiven when the boy’s life and sanity hang in the balance. Perhaps your son blames himself more than anyone else can possibly blame him. Perhaps he is in desperate need of love and help.”
Diamonds flashed on Leslie Reid’s hand as she brushed it across her face. Listlessness had fallen upon her again.
“Do as you wish,” she said. “I am not an unnatural mother, but he is an unnatural son.”
Kate tapped on the door and came in to remove the lap table and tray. The interview was over, and I followed the maid soberly from the room. At least I knew now that there was little I could hope for from Jeremy’s mother. Undoubtedly her wounds had been as deep and as shocking as the boy’s. In spite of her marriage to Dwight’s brother, it was clear that she had not entirely recovered from the experience. It was not for me to judge her, but my sympathy still lay with her son.
In the hall I spoke to Kate as we passed the door in front of which I had found Jeremy the night before.
“What room is this?” I asked.
Kate gave the door a quick, fearful look and paused at the head of the back-stairs flight. “It’s no one’s room now, miss. But it used to belong to him that—that died. Cook says it was right in there it happened. They keep it locked now. And a good thing it is I’m no believer in haunting.”
She hurried downstairs, and I returned thoughtfully to the third floor. How strange that Jeremy should have a key to his father’s locked room.
When I reached the schoolroom, I found that someone was there ahead of me. A man stood before the table where I had left the folds of China silk, and he seemed to be surveying the room with an air of wry dismay. This, of course, was the tutor, and I could not blame him for regarding my intrusion with something less than enthusiasm.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m Megan Kincaid. They’ve put me here to work on a frock for Selina. I hope I won’t be too much in your way.”
He turned his attention from the table to me, and I faced Andrew Beach for the first time. I could not know then the role he was to play in my life and I saw before me only a young man of rather nondescript appearance. He was of medium height, stocky, and rugged of feature. Like Mr. Reid he was clean-shaven in this day when mustaches were the fashion. His brown hair fell over a high forehead and his eyes, regarding me from beneath sandy lashes, were a bright blue and sharply perceptive. There was a twist to his smile as he returned my greeting and introduced himself. I suspected that he might be as ready to laugh at Andrew Beach as at the rest of the world.
“I’ll admit,” he said, “that I was prepared to object strongly to having my schoolroom invaded by your pins-and-needles brigade. But now that I’ve met the dressmaker, I withdraw my opposition.” He made me a mocking bow, his look impertinently flattering.
Somehow I could not take offense or resent his words. Even when the day came that he became critical of me and outspoken in his disapproval, I could never be angry for long with Andrew Beach. There was a quality in him that disarmed one at the very moment when his words cut deepest.
“I know my presence will make it difficult for you with the children,” I told him, “but I’ll do my best to distract them as little as possible. My work at the sewing machine can be postponed till afternoon and—”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “If I can’t make my lessons interesting enough to hold my pupils in spite of your competition, then I’m not much of a teacher, am I?”
Relieved, I began to clear everything to the far end of the school table. And as Mr. Beach set out his books and papers, I studied him covertly. Here, I suspected, was my road to the understanding of Jeremy’s interests and problems that Mrs. Reid had not given me. But I did not want to launch outright into questions. For all this young man knew, I was merely the hired seamstress with nothing more on my mind than the making of frocks for Selina.
It was he who disabused me of this notion and opened a door between us before the children came in for their lessons.
“You might as well know,” he said over his shoulder as he wrote something on a small blackboard, “that I’ve been told why you are here. And I might as well add that I don’t envy you the task you’ve taken on.”
“You mean—Jeremy?” I said. “But isn’t he your task too?”
“Not in the same way, I’m relieved to say.”
I asked my questions hurriedly then, no longer dissembling. “Perhaps you can help me more than anyone else. There are surely subjects which interest Jeremy. If I am to make friends with him, I must find an approach. His mother would tell me nothing.”
For all his wry mockery, there could be a g
entleness in Andrew Beach, as I saw for the first time.
“How could she?” he asked. “Mrs. Reid has her own suffering to live through. I can only tell you that the boy has withdrawn inside himself. Those of us who are with him constantly know this. His uncle won’t face it. Perhaps Mr. Reid’s conscience troubles him. Who knows?”
I did not understand what Brandon Reid’s conscience had to do with the matter, but I had another question to put to this young man while I had the opportunity.
“How long have you been tutoring the Reid children?” I inquired.
He put down the chalk and dusted his fingers. “Nearly two years. A very long time, it seems to me, when I consider it.”
Two years? It had been two years ago that Dwight Reid had died. Had Andrew Beach been here during that time? I wondered.
He seemed to guess my thoughts. “I was not here when the tragedy occurred,” he told me. “Though I had occasion to come to the house very soon after. Later it was decided that Jeremy needed a man to take him in hand, and I was offered the task. To little good effect, I’m afraid. But if you don’t mind, Miss Kincaid, there are some things I don’t particularly want to talk about.”
I flushed at his implication. “I’ve no intention of prying and I am not a gossip,” I said with spirit.
His good nature returned, and he grinned at me in impudent mockery as if he did not believe my words.
I returned to my main quest, caring little what he thought. “If you’ve held this position for so long, Mr. Beach, then you must know something of Jeremy. You must have learned what interested him before the accident. I don’t mean his father’s pistol collection. Mrs. Reid has already mentioned that.”
Andrew Beach seemed to muse over my question. “I believe the seeds of trouble have always been evident in the boy. His nature is high-strung, even violent at times. It’s likely that he would have been in serious difficulty sooner or later. And it’s likely that he will be again. Do you understand that, Miss Kincaid?”
I nodded impatiently. Jeremy was a child and in grave need of help. “I want to know everything about him I can learn,” I persisted.
“There’s little I can tell you,” he said. “I believe he was devoted to his uncle in the past and fascinated by Mr. Brandon Reid’s travels to distant places. Miss Garth has mentioned that he used to enjoy stories about Egypt and the work his uncle has conducted in expeditions there.”
Egypt? Expeditions? I recalled a certain strangeness about Brandon Reid. Perhaps there was a quality in those who had beheld far horizons that set them apart from the rest of us, who merely dreamed. My interest quickened.
“I didn’t know that Mr. Reid had worked in such expeditions,” I said.
“It was the Reid money that worked,” Andrew Beach assured me sardonically. “Brandon’s mother died when he was young, and she left him wealthy in his own right. For all that his father wished him to join the firm of attorneys headed by his name, Master Brandon chose another course. It’s probable that he lacked his younger brother’s flare and brilliance. His taste was for adventure, and he had an interest in Egyptology. He had the money as well to call in experts to take charge of the actual work. So he has been off in Egypt and India and other distant places much of the time for a good many years. That is, until his brother died and he settled down in this house to become a tamely married man.”
There was a scornful undercurrent here telling me clearly that Andrew Beach did not like his employer. None of which mattered to me.
“If the boy was interested in Egypt once, then perhaps he can be interested again,” I said. “My father was a history teacher, and I’ve always been fascinated by the subject.”
The tutor regarded me in quiet appraisal. “You are very young, Miss Kincaid. You have a good deal to learn. But don’t say I haven’t warned you.”
I did not care to be weighed and dismissed as if I were a child. “Warned me of what? Will you tell me clearly what you mean?”
“The boy is not interested in Egypt or anything else. He has gone outside our reach. Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you think I’ve not seen the road he was taking and attempted to bring him back? His uncle is too much occupied elsewhere to see what has happened. Or he’s afraid to see it. I’m not certain which. You’ve been given a thankless task, Miss Kincaid. An older, wiser woman would have refused it. I can only hope that you’ve given up nothing else of consequence to come here.”
This young man was probably not yet thirty, and I found his patronizing attitude toward my youth ridiculous and infuriating.
“I have given up nothing of consequence,” I said stiffly. “If experience means the facing of difficult problems, then I’m not so young as you think.”
With that I turned to my sewing materials, ignoring the faintly pitying amusement with which he regarded me. I had no intention of accepting his word as final, no matter how well he thought he knew Jeremy. If I gave up, the boy’s future might be dark indeed. So far I had yet to take my first steps in his direction and I did not discourage easily. If no one in this house would help me, then I must manage to help myself.
FOUR
In the days that followed, the children grew accustomed to my presence in the schoolroom, in the house. Selina, at least, accepted me in a friendly, though slightly superior, manner. Since Jeremy seemed to move in some remote world of his own with little recognition of those about him, I could not tell, much of the time, whether he knew I was there.
As I sat sewing during lessons, I had considerable opportunity to observe him. He did not seem to dislike Andrew Beach as he did Miss Garth, but so neutral an attitude could hardly be called liking. He did what he was told, and I found his obvious skill in mathematics and in answering questions on paper an encouraging sign. Mr. Beach let me look at his written work, and while it now and again indicated a mind that followed tortuous routes, there was obvious intelligence revealed. Yet he would not recite aloud at all. While Selina chattered away, giving wrong answers blithely, Jeremy froze into sullen resistance whenever he was asked to recite. Only by an occasional scornful glance was it possible to see that he thought his sister foolish and could easily have corrected her answers.
Nevertheless, for all her teasing and her spoiled ways, he did not seem to dislike his sister. She could approach him as no one else dared, and I noted more than once that both Miss Garth and Mr. Beach reached him through her when they could get his attention in no other way.
Mealtime was always an unhappy period, though more bearable at midday because it was the custom for Andrew Beach to be with us then. He stood in no awe of Miss Garth and often teased her mercilessly, paying her exaggerated compliments, pretending to flirt with her. That she had no love for him was evident, and there were times when she would plead a headache and retire, merely to avoid him.
During this period I came to know a little more about the children’s tutor. I discovered that he had a talent for sketching and a flare for caricature. Occasionally his lampoons on city officials appeared in James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald, and in his spare time he often visited courtrooms and drew sketches of those on trial. Tutoring had given him this steady position in the Reid household and provided him with a living. From some of his drawings I had cause to think that he might do well if he applied himself seriously to his talent.
Of the Reids I saw little in those early days. Now and then I passed Mrs. Reid in the halls and she nodded absently, offering me no opportunity to speak to her. As Miss Garth had intimated that first day, she seldom left the house, seldom entertained, and seemed content to nurse her precarious health in the candlelit twilight of her green and gold rooms. For all her imperious ways, she seemed a strangely shadowy figure in the house.
Mr. Reid was often away at one museum or another during this time, delving into matters concerning the excavation of historic ruins, in which he was still interested. Sometimes, I learned, he visited his invalid father, who lived with a sister in a New Jersey seacoast town. Thes
e visits seemed to give him both pleasure and concern, and he often came home from them in a saddened mood.
Kate was my cheerful informant on all these affairs, volunteering information without being questioned. I was eager to know all I could, for only through knowledge could I help Jeremy, and I made no effort to still her chatter.
I soon came to note how quiet the house seemed without my employer’s vigorous and somewhat disquieting presence. He too, now that he had installed me here, showed no further interest in what I might or might not be accomplishing. I told myself that I did not care. The only thing that mattered was how I moved ahead in my relationship with Jeremy.
As far as the boy was concerned, I still bided my time, allowing him to accustom himself to my presence, learning perhaps that he could trust me a little. After all, he must realize that I had not betrayed my knowledge of the key in his possession.
During this time I became increasingly aware of the favoritism shown to Selina. Miss Garth clearly doted on her, and the child even wound Andrew Beach around her small fingers. When things went wrong with Selina’s studies—a common enough matter—the tutor was summoned at once to confer with Mrs. Reid. But no one bothered to consult about Jeremy and I found myself growing jealous for the boy, indifferent though he was to my presence.
All too quickly October’s mild days slipped away and it was mid-November. The green silk dress was finished to my lady Selina’s pleasure, though not to that of Miss Garth, who remarked that she could have done better herself. While I did not admit it, I felt she was probably right, and the next frock I began to work on was of a less ambitious pattern.
One morning I put my work aside and slipped out of the schoolroom for a walk through the neighborhood. It was time, I felt, for a definite move in Jeremy’s direction. On my wanderings through Greenwich Village I had noted a basement bookshop and it was to this I went that morning. I had seen maps in the window, and it was a map I wanted.
Window on the Square Page 4
