Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  He looked at me in such amazement that I had to laugh in his face.

  “I really mean it, Jeremy. Come along and let’s see what can be managed.”

  We went into the dining room together, and I rang for Henry and braced myself against the butler’s opposition. We would, I informed him, not daring to look straight into that haughty face, omit our early supper tonight. Instead we would dine at eight, with candlelight and the best linen and silver. And Jeremy should have the privilege of choosing the menu.

  Henry surprised me. He did not so much as blink an eye. His haughty mien did not soften, but he made me a suitable bow of acquiescence.

  “Yes, miss,” he said. “I will see that everything is properly prepared. May I suggest that Master Jeremy consult with Cook concerning the menu?”

  I agreed that this would be wise, and we stood on no ceremony with Cook. We ran down to the basement kitchen to find out what would be possible. Jeremy wanted fried chicken with giblet gravy and mashed potatoes. And an apple pie with thick slices of yellow cheese. There was no problem with Cook, in spite of this late warning, and Kate entered with relish into the make-believe, putting herself out to help both Cook and Henry.

  Perhaps the servants, more than I realized, were sympathetic toward Jeremy. They were not, of course, fond of Miss Garth, and since the governess did not approve of me, I may have had a place in their estimation I’d not otherwise have held.

  I warned Jeremy that he was to wear his best suit that evening, with the round, starched collar and soft tie, and I spent as much time with my own dressing as though I had been going to a real dinner party. This was one evening when I could indulge in such pretense without fear of disapproving eyes upon me, of Brandon Reid to criticize my appearance.

  In my room I took out my second good dress, a gown I had seldom worn. It was not altogether in style, but Jeremy was hardly likely to notice. The faille was a soft wisteria color, with black velvet banding for a trim. The fitted bodice was cut with a square neck, and the sleeves came just above my elbows. The tight draping over the hips was edged with accordion pleating, repeated again at the hem and in the fullness that fell away in a small train.

  Selina could not have outdone me in primping that evening. Or even Miss Garth, dipping and preening before her mistress’ mirror. The latter image was not one I wanted to recall. I too was indulging in make-believe tonight, with only a little boy to admire me.

  Since I had no fine necklace, I adapted a black velvet band to wear about my throat and pinned to it a gold brooch studded with tiny diamonds. Dangling jet earrings of my mother’s matched the velvet band, and I pulled back the dark curls over my ears to reveal the fall of jet. I was both pleased with my image in the mirror and wistful at the same time. It seemed rather a waste that there would be only Jeremy to see how I looked in my finest of feathers.

  I forgot such foolish thoughts, however, when I went to call him to come downstairs with me.

  “This isn’t our grand entrance,” I said. “This time we’ll just run down and check to see that everything is right. Then a little before eight you can knock at my door and escort me downstairs.”

  Jeremy scarcely listened, for staring at me. “You look different,” he said. “You look beautiful. But I like you the other way too.”

  This was as fine a compliment as I had ever been paid, and I thanked him sincerely. We ran downstairs hand in hand to the dining room, to discover that Henry had put himself to the greatest of pains.

  The silver gleamed, and the best crystal was in evidence, even to an array of wine glasses we were not likely to fill. Tall white candles were ready in every holder, still unlighted. Henry’s one apology was for lack of a centerpiece of flowers at such short notice. Jeremy frowned over this as though we had been faced by a major crisis. Then he glanced at me shyly.

  “Your brother’s carrousel would make a lovely table decoration, Miss Megan. That is, if—”

  “A wonderful idea!” I cried. “Run upstairs and get it, Jeremy. You may touch it tonight, since this is a special occasion.”

  When he had gone I tried to show Henry my gratitude for helping in our make-believe, but he was as stiffly remote as ever.

  “Thank you, miss,” he said and left me alone in the room.

  I would light the candles myself, I thought. Tonight candlelight would not mean Leslie Reid and the scent of violets. I lit a taper in the fireplace and had reached toward the first candle when I heard a key turn in the lock of the front door. Had Leslie and Brandon returned? Or Miss Garth, perhaps? Whoever it was, we were caught in our innocent pretense, Jeremy and I.

  I blew out the taper and remained where I was, looking across the glittering table toward the open door to the hall. Steps came in the direction of the dining room, and a moment later Brandon Reid appeared in the doorway. His eyes noted the elegant table, the silver candelabra, my own dressed-up person.

  “I see you are expecting guests,” my employer said gravely. Then, before I could offer the slightest explanation, he turned and went away.

  I stood beside the table, fingering the taper in my hands, wondering whether Leslie had come home with him, wondering what course I must now take. After all, this was a small enough pleasure I had planned for Jeremy and there was no reason to cheat him of it just because the master of the house had returned.

  As I pondered a course of action, Jeremy came into the room, the carrousel held carefully in both hands, and apprehension on his face.

  “Uncle Brandon is home,” he whispered. “He just went into the library. Does that mean we can’t have our party?”

  I made up my mind. “Of course it doesn’t,” I said. “You stay here and arrange the centerpiece, and I’ll go upstairs and speak to him.”

  I caught up the wisteria silk of my skirt and flew up the stairs. As yet no fire had been lighted in the library and the door stood open. Across the room Brandon Reid leaned upon a window sill, staring out over Washington Square. I tapped upon the open door, and he called to me to enter.

  The room was gray with the winter light of early evening, illumined only by a dim radiance from the hall and reflection from the lighted square. Nearing him, I saw that his gaze was fixed upon the scene outside as if he saw something that held him enthralled. There was a strangeness in his face, the look of faraway vision in his eyes.

  I coughed gently to make him aware of my presence so that he started and looked at me.

  “Oh, it’s you, Megan,” he said.

  “I hope your trip went well,” I began.

  He seemed not to hear my words. “Do you know what I was imagining out there? Not snow in Washington Square, but sun on desert sands. That blinding, burning, golden light that’s like nothing else on earth.” He turned his back on the window. “How I hate bleak city streets in the wintertime. At night the desert can be bitterly cold and sand can be harsher than any blizzard. But there’s always the return of the sun to look for. Here winter’s just started and there are endless gray days, endless dreary cold to be endured before spring comes.”

  Ordinarily I enjoyed cold weather, but his words made me shiver in my light dress. “How marvelous to have seen those sun-drenched places,” I said softly. “I’ve read of Egypt so often, and I’ve tried to imagine—but always my vision falls short.”

  He smiled at me and so quickly was the chill gone from my blood that I was reminded unguardedly of the very sun of which he spoke. It was as if I uncurled a little like some dry plant touched by life-giving warmth.

  He seemed to catch the echo of my earlier question about the trip. “My wife has not weathered her travel well,” he said, and I noted a hint of impatience in his voice. “Indeed, my presence seemed to make her worse, so I decided to return alone. How have things gone while I was away?”

  “Everything has gone well,” I assured him. “Though Miss Garth disapproved of my handling of Jeremy and left the house. She hasn’t returned as yet.”

  “Good!” he said. “I shall relish her abs
ence. But don’t let me keep you from your dinner, Megan. I saw what you intended. Pretend you haven’t seen me; go on with your plans.”

  “It was only make-believe,” I confessed. “Jeremy and I are playing host and hostess. It’s just a change in the routine for this one evening. Though of course if we’d known you were returning—”

  “You’d have given up your party? What an unkind opinion you have of me. I’d be happier if you were willing to invite me as a guest.”

  He was smiling again, yet almost hesitant in his manner. My nagging anxiety fell away, and delight surged into its place. Now our dinner would no longer be make-believe. The festive occasion was genuine, and I knew Jeremy would be as pleased as I.

  “Will you really come?” I said. “And not be too angry with the liberties I’ve taken?”

  He crossed the room to give me his arm, and the gesture was my answer. We went down the stairs together and I was aware of the fabric of his coat beneath my fingers, of the clean odor of unperfumed soap and the male scent of tobacco. Downstairs the beautiful table awaited us. Tonight I would sit there as though I belonged, and the thought went through me as dizzily as champagne.

  FIFTEEN

  Jeremy’s face glowed with pleasure at sight of his uncle, and he dispatched Henry at once to set a third place. The carrousel lent a touch of gay color in its place of honor in the center of the table and, as Brandon seated me and took his own place, it caught his eye.

  “What have we here?” he asked, leaning forward to examine it.

  Jeremy explained. “It’s a music box that belonged to Miss Megan’s brother. When it’s wound it plays a tune and the little horses and sleigh go round and round.”

  “Wind it for us, Jeremy,” I directed.

  He picked up the toy as though it were made of glass and turned the key carefully. The gay little carrousel whirled, and the tune tinkled lightly through the room. Brandon laughed aloud and nodded his approval of so remarkable a centerpiece.

  So it was that our soup was served to the tune of “Frère Jacques” and it seemed as fine a melody to my ears as though violins had played for us.

  Our guest was on his best behavior, the cold mood that had been upon him when he entered the house had faded, and he was ready to join us in our pretense for the evening. He entertained us with stories of his travels, to Jeremy’s delight and my own enjoyment. He told us of the Nile and the great temples of Egypt. He called up before us the Sphinx of Giza, that most mysterious of all Egyptian monuments, and described for us the awesome sight of that stone face, bathed in the brilliance of a desert sky. The Watcher in the Sands, they called it, he said, and made us know the terrible intensity of its gaze as small human figures approached across the vast desert.

  “I always feel that the eyes are commanding me,” he told us. “I go back again and again to find the meaning of that look, yet I never have an answer. Even today we don’t know whether the Sphinx represents a god or an ancient king, or both. And I suppose we will never know what it is it asks of us.”

  “Like Osiris?” Jeremy said, and smiled a secret smile that made me know he was thinking of the surprise he had fashioned for his uncle’s Christmas gift.

  Brandon studied him for a moment. “No, not like Osiris. The Sphinx doesn’t judge. It merely poses an unfathomable riddle. Perhaps the very riddle of life itself.”

  How strange an experience was that dinner—perhaps for all of us. At first I was merely happy and pleased and innocent, a little like Jeremy in my enjoyment of a party occasion. I was glad that I had dressed with care and that candlelight lay gently upon me, that the look in Brandon’s eyes was flattering. I felt at ease with him, and no longer angry or resentful. No longer abashed, as I sometimes found myself in his company.

  Yet how subtly my mood began to change, how inevitably my thoughts began to turn in a direction I did not want to contemplate. Perhaps it was Brandon’s comment about my dress that brought everything into focus, so that what lay beneath the surface of my mind thrust itself suddenly forward.

  “That gown you’re wearing, Megan—What do you call the color?” he asked me.

  Jeremy was eating like any hungry boy and he paid no attention to this talk of clothes.

  “Wisteria,” I said, and to my ears the word sounded unexpectedly like a sigh.

  Brandon nodded. “Yes, there’s blue in the lavender, quite pale and soft. The shade makes your hair seem as black as your earrings, yet it brightens the blue of your eyes as well. It becomes you, Megan.”

  I dropped my gaze, less sure of myself than I had been, sensing once more beneath my feet the faint cracking of ice. The fire hummed its own song of warmth and contentment beside us, the candlelight shimmered as softly on linen and silver, yet my moments of easy confidence were gone. There was a look in Brandon’s eyes that told me more than the compliment he paid me, more than I dared read. There was an eagerness in me to respond, to meet his look openly and frankly with my own. But now, all too sharply, I was aware that I sat in another woman’s place, that my hands moved among the silver pieces that were hers to touch, that the stemmed glass I drank from was her choice and her right to handle—not mine. But most of all I was painfully conscious of the fact that the man who faced me down the table’s length was Leslie Reid’s husband.

  “You’re a pretty thing, Megan,” Brandon said. “But then—there are younger men than I to tell you that.”

  As if he were old at his age! I might not meet openly the admiration in his eyes, but I did not want him to think I would listen to younger men.

  “I know very few men, Mr. Reid,” I told him.

  “Pretty women should have men to squire them about and admire them, tell them they are pretty. What do you say, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy considered the matter soberly. “Miss Megan is beautiful,” he said. “She’s always beautiful.”

  “Wisdom from the young!” Brandon laughed. But to my relief and faint regret, he said no more about my appearance.

  We came to the pie Jeremy had requested for dessert, and afterwards Brandon and I sipped our coffee. But now, though we talked together of small matters, the awareness in me had blighted my enjoyment of the evening and I no longer wanted it to go on and on. I had sensed danger again and I knew the pleasure and innocence would not return. I believe Brandon was aware of the change of mood as well, for though we kept up a pretense for Jeremy’s sake, it was as though a faint and ghostly presence had entered to sit between us at the table, as though a scent of violets drifted through the room.

  We were silent when we rose from the table, leaving Jeremy to pick up the carrousel and carry it upstairs. Brandon gave me his arm, and, as we climbed to the second floor, the bleak gray mood weighed heavily upon me.

  But Jeremy did not know that something had happened to spoil our gay time. He wound the music box again, and the little tune tinkled out cheerily as he climbed the stairs behind us. Suddenly Brandon laughed and threw off the blight with a snap of his fingers.

  “Quick!” he cried as we reached the second-floor hall. “Music like this must be danced to!”

  I had not time to hesitate or draw back, even if I had wished to. He drew me into his light clasp, and we went down the hall in the quick steps of a polka. Jeremy held the whirling carrousel and watched with shining eyes while we danced breathlessly down the hall and back. When the tune ran to an end, Brandon did not release me but held me close to him with the fierce quick possessiveness of his arm about me. For an instant my body responded of its own volition, my head touched his shoulder and longed to rest there heedlessly. There was the sweet wildness of danger singing around us to the lilt of a nursery tune. Then, almost as quickly as it had happened, he let me go.

  Jeremy had noted nothing, and I stopped him as he was about to wind the music box again. “No more for now,” I called to him. “I’m quite out of breath.”

  I could not look at Brandon again, for now I was frightened. Frightened more of myself than of him. I gave him a somewhat
uncertain good night, picked up my wisteria train, and started toward the third floor. As I mounted the stairs, I raised my eyes and saw in dismay the figure on the steps above me. The figure in brown merino of a woman with outrage in her eyes. Thora Garth had returned. She must have slipped into the house under the cover of our gay dinner party and we had not known she was there, watching from the stairway.

  Telling myself that I had done no wrong, I forced my look to meet hers, but her eyes chilled me as I went past. I did not know whether Brandon had seen her, and she did not speak to me. All her malice focused upon Jeremy.

  “It’s well past your bedtime,” she snapped, marching to the upper floor behind him. “Does Miss Kincaid know no better than to keep you up later than the hour you should be getting your rest? Now you will be ill tomorrow. Get yourself to bed at once, young man.”

  With an unexpected pride of manner, Jeremy handed me the carrousel and faced her sturdily.

  “I have special permission to stay up tonight. And I will not be ill tomorrow. I am only ill when something has upset me.”

  In her anger she seemed to have forgotten the threat he’d made that had driven her from the house a few days before. I suspect that her glimpse of Brandon Reid whirling me down the hall had wiped everything else from her mind.

  “You are a rude, naughty boy!” she said tensely. “Get to your room at once. I will deal with you there.”

  I could see Jeremy’s new courage being to crumble before her attack. But before I could come to his defense, steps sounded on the stairway and Brandon came running up to join us. He disposed of Miss Garth with swift, cruel words, and I listened, both in relief and distress.

  “Miss Megan is to have full charge of the boy from now on,” he told her coldly. “She has done very well in caring for him during this trial period. He is to take all his directions from her, and you are to give him no orders whatsoever. If my wife chooses to keep you on to care for Selina because of old regard, that is her affair. The boy is my affair now, and I prefer to leave him entirely in Miss Megan’s hands.”