Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Of Egypt,” I told the bespectacled bookseller. “And I’d also like a book about recent expeditions and excavations in that country.”

  Fortunately he had both a large map and a recent book by a well-known authority on Egyptology. Pleased with my finds, I started home, my parcels under my arm. The first step had been made in purchasing the bait. Now it must be tactfully placed in the hope of attracting a nibble.

  As I walked toward the square I passed a billboard advertising a lighthearted comedy in which Cicely Mansfield had recently opened. I paused to read every word while a new idea came into my mind. I had always loved the theater and with my present fine salary I should be able to attend an occasional performance. But this notice appealed to me because it was the sort of play children might enjoy. I would consult Mr. Reid about taking them both to a matinee. What child could reject or resist the magic of the theater? It was the sort of thing Jeremy needed.

  While Selina had friends whom she visited, and who came to play with her, Jeremy seemed to have no one. There was no gaiety in his life, no playtime. Sometimes he read the novels of Dickens, of the French author Victor Hugo, the romances of Sir Walter Scott, or other such light reading. But often when he was not at lessons he would sit staring at nothing with a blind, vacant look that I felt was a mask for some frightening tumult that went on within. A matinee would be good for him, if Mr. Reid approved. It did not occur to me to ask his mother.

  I returned to the schoolroom during the recess that Andrew wisely ordained in mid-morning. The young should frequently stretch their legs, he said, and have their stomachs filled. So he would send them off to the nursery for milk or hot chocolate, and do some very wide stretching and yawning himself, oblivious of my presence.

  Miss Garth was with him when I stepped into the room, stiffly consulting over some problem of Selina’s unsatisfactory lessons. I paid no attention to either of them, but unrolled my map upon the table to admire the brightly colored area where fabled Cairo, the Pyramids, and the Nile had their being. I could not read these names without a tingle of excitement running through me. Surely they would bring a response from Jeremy.

  “What have we here?” Andrew asked and came to stand beside me.

  Miss Garth glanced at the map and sniffed in disdain.

  I was not discouraged. “It’s time for action,” I said. “Perhaps the map will interest the boy. And if it doesn’t, I have a book—” I patted my brown paper package. “Furthermore, I mean to ask Mr. Reid if he will permit me to take Selina and Jeremy to see Cicely Mansfield in her new play. A Saturday matinee, of course, so there’ll be no interfering with lessons, or staying up too late at night.”

  I was so pleased with myself that I did not at once note the silence that greeted this announcement. When I looked up from the map I saw incredulity in Miss Garth’s eyes. She was struggling for speech, while Andrew clearly stifled an impulse to laugh out loud.

  “What is it?” I asked in bewilderment. “What have I said?”

  Miss Garth answered me coldly. “Miss Mansfield is a person of low reputation. Mrs. Reid will certainly not approve of your taking the children to see her. The idea is outrageous.”

  As if she could scarcely contain her indignation, Miss Garth flicked a lavender-scented handkerchief to her nose and swept regally from the room. I could only turn to Andrew in bewilderment.

  “You’ve shocked the lady to her very toes,” he told me, chuckling. “You’re going too fast for her, I’m afraid. But I’m with you on this, Megan. Go ahead and beard Reid in his den. Tell him to get you those tickets. A little excitement will be good for this mausoleum of a house.”

  It was odd how easily Andrew and I had fallen into the use of first names. There was an informality about him that dispensed with anything stuffy. I did not feel that I knew him well—indeed, I kept glimpsing facets to his character that surprised and puzzled me—yet I felt quite comfortable in calling him Andrew. It was good to have him behind me on this, and I told him so. A little to my surprise his amusement vanished.

  “Don’t count on me,” he said. “Never count on anything when it comes to a man, Megan. Stay safe and doubt us all.”

  This sudden shift puzzled me. “Then you don’t think this matinee—”

  He slapped one square hand down on the map of Egypt. “Put this away for now. And listen to me, Megan. No one in this house has been fair to you—including myself. But Mr. Reid is to blame most of all. There is a conspiracy to keep the truth from you. However, no one has asked me to be silent and I think you must know.”

  His words alarmed me. “What must I know?”

  Once more an odd, rare gentleness of tone wiped away the mockery. “It was no accident in which Dwight Reid was killed. His son shot him to death deliberately, monstrously. The boy planned exactly what he meant to do and he carried out the plan. All this was kept from the papers. Brandon Reid would do almost anything to keep the family name unsullied—mainly for his father’s sake, I think. There was scandal, of course, but not as bad as it might have been. Between them, he and Leslie convinced the police that it was an accident. Those who knew better were silent. I can sympathize with the purpose behind this action. The truth would have been far worse for everyone, and particularly for the unfortunate boy.”

  I heard him through in growing dismay, but I was not yet ready to accept his words as fact.

  “How do you know these things?” I asked. “If you came here afterwards …?”

  He answered me almost curtly. “Jeremy was taken into court. I was there for my paper to do sketches of those concerned. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the boy, and the drawing I did of him was kinder than others that appeared in the papers. Because of that drawing, I came to Brandon Reid’s attention and he learned that I did odd tutoring work when I had the chance. He called me in for an interview, since Mrs. Reid was leaning heavily on him for assistance at that time. I seemed to suit them, and they gave me the task of coming here mornings to instruct the children.”

  “They told you the truth when you were employed?” I asked.

  Andrew shook his head. “Not immediately. They couldn’t be sure of my discretion at first. When they were convinced that I wouldn’t run to my paper with the story, Mrs. Reid told me exactly what had happened. She felt that I must know that Jeremy was capable of dangerous, deliberate violence. Just as I feel you must know now, Megan. They’ve let it go too long.”

  My sense of horror and shock were not because of any fear for myself, but because I could now realize the weight that lay on Jeremy’s shoulders. How could a young, unformed mind deal with so dark a crime? The problem seemed larger now, more appalling, but this new knowledge did not deter me.

  “You are not afraid of the boy,” I said to Andrew. “Why should I be?”

  “I am a man. And I don’t live in this house. Did you know that Miss Garth sleeps with her door locked at night? She has said so.”

  “I would expect that of her in any case,” I said. I felt disturbed and angry without recognizing as yet the true direction of my anger.

  We could hear the children leaving the nursery down the hall, and Andrew spoke to me hurriedly. “You are a generous person, Megan. Don’t let your generosity be given in so wasteful an effort.”

  I did not answer. There was no time, for the children were in the room. Besides, I already knew that Andrew considered Jeremy beyond recall. He considered my hiring a foolish last effort on the part of Brandon Reid to save his brother’s son. But I have always been of an independent frame of mind. Too much so at times, as my father used to tell me. At any rate, I was far from ready to give up without trying. My campaign with the boy had only just begun.

  I found myself looking at him compassionately, wondering what torturing, confused thoughts went on behind that handsome young brow. He sensed my regard and for once he looked at me uneasily as if he could not altogether dismiss me as he dismissed Miss Garth. That was fine, I thought. Let him come out of his apathy and puzzle abou
t me a little.

  Selina had begun to babble about the return of her Uncle Brandon from his latest trip. He had brought her a new doll, and she could not wait to go and play with it. How dull to do sums on such a morning!

  “He brought Jeremy a game,” she added. “But Jeremy will only break it up or throw it away. I don’t know why Uncle Brandon bothers.”

  “The games he brings me are childish,” Jeremy said.

  But you are a child, I thought to myself. You are not an elderly, world-weary criminal, poor little boy.

  The news that Mr. Reid was home gave a sudden focus to my rising indignation. Now I had an object for my anger. Andrew was perfectly right. I should have been told the truth when I was brought into this house. How did they think I could be useful when my whole conception of what had happened was incorrect?

  Gathering up my rolled map and the book on Egypt, I took them to my room and summoned Kate. When she came upstairs I requested her to ask Mr. Reid if he would grant me some time at his earliest convenience. She was back in a few moments to say that if I would wait for him in the library Mr. Reid would see me in ten minutes.

  I wasted not a second but flew downstairs to await his coming. A fire had been newly started, but the day was dark and the common gloom of the house penetrated to the library this morning. A jet globe burned high on one wall, and an oil lamp had been lighted on the great mahogany desk. I did not sit down, but stood looking about me. It was the first time I had really studied the room. When I had been here before, my employer’s presence had held my full attention and I had scarcely noted my surroundings.

  Now I observed the portrait of a distinguished, bewhiskered gentleman over the mantel. He had Mr. Reid’s strong nose and firm jaw line, and he was extremely sober of expression. Mr. Reid’s father, undoubtedly—Rufus Reid, whose reputation had once been without peer in the courts of law.

  I noted too the indications of wide travel on every hand. An elephant tusk rose in an ivory column at one end of the mantel, and dwarfed beside it was a little jade Buddha. In a nearby glass case were amulets, seals, and tiny figurines that I learned later were made of diorite, quartzite, and the fragile blue faience that dated back to the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt.

  Then as I turned, I saw the object that dominated the entire room. Once the eyes rested upon it, it was difficult to look away. The life-sized head and shoulders of a man had been sculptured in some whitish stone and polished to a cool sheen. The head stood on a pedestal before a tier of bookshelves and it was recognizable at once as Egyptian. The tall headdress, almost like a bishop’s miter, but decorated with the rippling body of a snake, its head raised above the human forehead, was clearly Egyptian. The stylized beard, the elongated eyes, were those I had seen in drawings of Egyptian art.

  So strongly did the stone face hold my attention that it made me forget for a moment why I had come to this room. It seemed a narrower face than that of most Egyptian statues and ageless in its expression, with maturity of wisdom in the brow and in the all-seeing eyes. The nose was proudly aristocratic, while the mouth betrayed a trace of tolerant humor in its curves. This man had been a king, I was sure, and no mere princeling or nobleman. Yet, for all the stylization, a living man had surely been its model. One sensed in the eyes, the brow, the mouth, those same tribulations and emotions which burden men who walk the earth today, and who in turn must belong to antiquity.

  I didn’t hear Brandon Reid’s step on the soft carpet, did not know he stood behind me till he spoke.

  “I see you’ve made the acquaintance of Osiris. You know who he is, I presume?”

  I knew of the cult of Osiris. “Lord of the dead and judge of all souls in the hereafter,” I said softly. “Yet I think he must have been a man first. A man who learned wisdom through suffering.”

  My employer’s eyes, so cool and gray, regarded me with a certain surprise, as though he had not expected my comment on the statue.

  “This came from a tomb in Egypt,” he said. “I couldn’t resist keeping it for the time being, though eventually it must go to a museum.”

  “You found it yourself?” I asked.

  His smile was disparaging. “I was permitted to brush the earth away from the surface when the discovery was made. I am not regarded as a trained archaeologist. But I’m sure, Miss Kincaid, that you didn’t come here to talk about Egypt.”

  “Oh, but I did!” I told him and almost smiled at his increasing surprise.

  He waved me toward a chair beside the fire, but today he did not retreat behind the great expanse of the desk. Instead, he seated himself on a corner of it, with one leg swinging, and regarded me intently.

  “You have a report for me about Jeremy?” he prompted, since I did not at once follow up my remark about Egypt.

  I was marshaling both my thoughts and my indignation and I straightened in my chair. “I have no report as yet. I’ve been giving the boy time to grow accustomed to my presence. Now I’m ready to make certain moves in his direction. But I’ve just been told the truth about his father’s death, Mr. Reid, and I find myself astonished that this information was not given me when you first interviewed me for this position.”

  Absently, he fingered the carving of the ivory paperweight on his desk. His gaze, however, did not waver from my face. Behind him lamplight etched the outline of his fine, vigorous head, touched to a gleam the thick dark hair. I turned my eyes upon the fire.

  “And if I had told you, would you have taken this assignment?” he asked.

  I was not sure. Truthfully, I did not know. I could see his reason for silence, and yet it was a silence that should have been broken before this.

  “Now that you have been—informed—are you afraid?” he persisted.

  I shook my head vehemently. “No matter what he has done, Jeremy is a child. He needs help, not condemnation.”

  “And you think you have found some way to help him?”

  I waved my hand at the head of Osiris. “Perhaps that is the way. I’ve been told he once had a great interest in Egypt and in your travels. I’ve bought a map of Egypt and a recent book about discoveries there. If I could touch off a spark of attention, perhaps I can fan it to life.”

  I hesitated, wondering if I dared go farther. Then I steadied my resolve and looked directly into those remote, chill eyes.

  “I would like your help in this,” I told him.

  There was an almost visible withdrawing about him. “Whatever you please, Miss Kincaid. Help yourself to my books as you choose. Or if you have specific questions, I will try to answer them.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” I said. “The boy has almost no contact in this house with his mother or with you. Surely this isn’t wise?”

  For once his gaze shifted and did not meet mine. He stared across the room at the proud, calm face of Osiris as if he would gain wisdom from it. Then he shrugged and turned back to me.

  “I’ll make you no promises. It may be that you will ask more of me than I can give. The boy must have his chance. After that—there are human limits to patience and forbearing.”

  He flicked the air with strong fingers, and I sensed that if he made a final decision against Jeremy it would be immutable. I would have to move as cautiously with the uncle as I did with the child.

  “Have you anything else to tell me?” he inquired.

  I was not ready to conclude. This man was busy and difficult to see. I would say what I had come to say while the opportunity offered.

  “The boy shows an unusual interest in the room that used to be his father’s,” I said, and related my experience the night I had come upon Jeremy outside the door of the locked room. I did not, however, betray the fact that Jeremy possessed a key to that room.

  Brandon Reid’s dark, winged brows drew down in a scowl. “I’ve been told about this obsession of his. So morbid a preoccupation with the room in which his father died must be stopped. We can’t allow it to continue.”

  “And how,” I asked, “do you propose t
o stop it?”

  He threw me a quick, impatient look. “You have some plan?”

  My heart was thumping at my own audacity. I did not like to admit that I found my employer a little overwhelming in his force and somber vitality. I did not know what would happen if I openly opposed him in his wishes. Yet I had to follow my aim no matter how angry I might make him.

  Deliberately I kept my voice low and even. “I would like to take Jeremy openly into his father’s room and let him tell me about what happened there—if he wants to talk about it.”

  The anger I feared exploded about my hapless head. Mr. Reid took a quick turn around the room as if he sought to control himself, and then came back to face me.

  “The idea is ridiculous and probably dangerous,” he said. “I forbid you to do this. The boy is not to go near that room again. He is not to be encouraged in this morbidity. I would have expected greater wisdom from you, Miss Kincaid.”

  I was not accustomed to being spoken to in so arrogant a manner and I could feel the blood flame into my cheeks. I reminded myself that I must not be so foolish as to lose my temper with this man. Yet I was not entirely in control of myself as I rose from my chair to confront him.

  “You won’t help your nephew yourself, but bring a stranger into the house to do what you are unable to do. Yet now you want to tie my hands, revoke my plans, tell me what I may or may not do. If that is the way I am to work I might as well leave now, Mr. Reid.”

  If he had told me to pack my bag and go at once, I would not have been surprised. I had said more than I intended and now I could only stand there with my eyes snapping and my cheeks flaming, waiting for my dismissal.

  Strangely, it did not come. Mr. Reid returned from another wheeling about the room and stood staring at me as if I were some doubtful object he had just unearthed on one of his expeditions. Something he might properly throw back. We eyed each other, bristling with antagonism. Then he threw up his hands.

  “Have the matter your own way!” he flung at me. “But don’t come weeping to me if you make the boy worse.”