Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  So brave was I in the first moments of our interview.

  “Close the door, please, Thora,” Mrs. Reid said. She opened her eyes then and looked at me. What I had expected, I don’t know, but it was not this gaze, brimming with tears, that she turned upon me. She motioned me to a chair beside her, and I sat down without speaking.

  “You could have been my friend,” she said softly. “You were doing a fine thing with Jeremy. I know that now. I must try to be grateful for your past effort.” There was a break in her voice as though it weakened, and she was silent, her eyelids closed again.

  Miss Garth slid the candlestick nearer her mistress with a faint scraping sound across the table. I looked up at her and saw her eyes, bright again with triumph.

  At the sound of metal upon wood, Leslie opened her eyes and went on. “You are not wholly to blame, Miss Kincaid. My husband has been given to this sort of thing before. I can only feel sorry for the woman when it happens. I doubted the wisdom of bringing you here in the first place, but I could not prevent him from doing as he wished.”

  It was clear that Garth had done her worst. I answered, speaking earnestly, steadily.

  “You are dreadfully mistaken in your conclusions, Mrs. Reid. My one purpose in this house is to help Jeremy. He is beginning to make some progress. It must continue. Nothing must happen to set him back.”

  “You should have thought of that before this,” Garth put in. But Leslie was still mistress, and she raised a finger in warning, halting the governess’ words.

  “Can you remain in this house and live with your own conscience, Miss Kincaid?” Leslie demanded, and now her eyes held mine with more strength in them than before.

  “My conscience is clear,” I said, but I knew I was flushing.

  Mrs. Reid sighed and lifted her hand in a gesture of dismissal.

  “If you will not leave of your own accord, Miss Kincaid, there is no choice left for me but to ask you to go. Please be out of the house as soon as possible. I shall see that you have a month’s additional salary and the necessary notes to help you obtain another position.”

  I stood my ground for a moment longer. “And if Mr. Reid does not choose to let me go?”

  Miss Garth made a faint, choked sound, but again Leslie’s raised hand stopped her. The amber eyes—so unlike the eyes of Andrew’s painting—met mine without wavering. Her cheeks were pale and unflushed, her voice steadier than my own.

  “I am afraid, Miss Kincaid, that life would become intolerable for you in this house if you remained. My husband will be leaving for Egypt soon after the first of the year. To whom would you turn for support when he had gone? Would it not be wiser for us all to accept the good you have done Jeremy and see that it is carried on in other hands? Hands, Miss Kincaid, of my own choosing this time.”

  Bitterly the truth of all she was saying came home to me. How could I fight for Jeremy against such odds and without Brandon standing firmly behind me? Was my conscience so clear after all? Had not this sad, quiet woman put her finger on the very truth I had told myself I was seeking? In that moment I knew defeat and knew I must accept the verdict of her judgment.

  “I will be gone from the house as soon as I can pack,” I told her and went out of the room without glancing again at Thora Garth.

  As I passed the library on my way toward the stairs, I saw a light burning there and Brandon seated at his desk. There was nothing I could say to him now, but at that moment he looked up and glimpsed my face. He rose at once and came toward me.

  “What has upset you, Megan?”

  He might as well know now as later, even though I could make no plea for myself, and I stepped into the room to face him.

  “I am leaving as soon as I can,” I said. “Mrs. Reid has just dismissed me. My usefulness with Jeremy has come to an end, and there’s nothing else for me to do.”

  I saw color rise darkly in his face. “Wait for me here,” he ordered and strode past me out the door.

  There was no time to stop him, to tell him that his wife was right and had I been in Leslie’s place I would have made the same decision. The angry violence that drove him alarmed me. Beyond Leslie’s door I could hear the sound of raised voices, the whiplash of Brandon’s tone. Sickened, I went deep into the library so that I could not hear. I must wait until he returned. Then I must make my own position clear to him, and the fact that, under the circumstances, I would be blocked at every turn in my efforts with Jeremy.

  So preoccupied was I that I did not know that Jeremy had come to the library door until he spoke to me.

  “May I come in, Miss Megan?” he asked.

  “Come in quickly and close the door after you,” I said.

  He obeyed me with obvious reluctance, closing it slowly upon the sound of angry voices.

  “Uncle Brandon is furious,” he said with relish. “I wonder if he’ll break something this time. The last time he lost his temper with my mother, he smashed a vase to smithereens. Why is he angry now, Miss Megan?”

  I had no answer for the boy, and when he saw that I would not discuss what was happening, he moved about the room, pausing to look behind a row of books on the shelf, to open the lid of a carved humidor, and put his hand into it. I remembered the time he had seemed to be searching for something in his father’s room. The pattern was repeating itself.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  He replaced the elephant’s tusk on the mantel and answered me readily enough. “I’m looking for the pistol, Miss Megan. I don’t know where they’ve hidden it. But if I keep searching, some day I’ll find it.”

  One part of my mind recognized that the voices across the hall had quieted. The other part was caught by the boy’s ominous words. Perhaps I could do one last thing for him.

  “Forget about the past, Jeremy,” I pleaded. “The gun would only bring everything back and make you suffer all the more.”

  “But I don’t want to forget,” he said. “I want to remember it all. Always.”

  Before I could press the matter further, his uncle pushed open the door with a bang and strode into the room, the air of fury still upon him. He saw Jeremy and flicked a finger toward the door. The boy gave me a quick, frightened look and went away at once.

  Brandon dropped into the chair behind his desk and put his hands over his face while I stood waiting in silence, not knowing what was to come. After a moment his shoulders relaxed a little and he looked up at me darkly.

  “Jeremy will remain in your care, Miss Kincaid,” he said. “I will not hear of your leaving this house.”

  I answered him as firmly as I could. “I have no choice but to leave. Under the circumstances there’s nothing more I can do here. Your wife has chosen the only wise course. Isn’t it better to accept it?”

  He threw up his head and stared at me. “Do you think I will listen to such nonsense? I’m still master here, and you are in my employ, Miss Kincaid. The matter is settled; there will be no further trouble.”

  This I did not believe, but while I sought for words with which to persuade him, he spoke to me more gently.

  “Is it your real wish to leave Jeremy, Megan?”

  I could only shake my head helplessly.

  “Then you shall stay,” he told me.

  Once more he leaned his head upon his hands, and there was such despair in the gesture that for an instant I longed with all my heart to go to him, to comfort him with my love. But this I must not do. He spoke to me again without looking up.

  “Sometimes I am afraid,” he said. “Sometimes I am mortally afraid.”

  “Of—what?” I faltered.

  “Of myself,” he said quietly. “Of myself more than of any other.”

  SEVENTEEN

  It is fortunate, perhaps, that we cannot live at a continued high pitch of emotion. The matters of everyday living intervene. The nerves, the very muscles that are braced for disaster inevitably relax their tension when the battle is not joined. The mind turns to lesser problems.
r />   In spite of telling myself that this was only a respite I had been given and that sooner or later Mrs. Reid, with Garth behind her, would have her way—when nothing at all happened, I began to behave as though I would stay here forever, as though nothing had changed.

  Christmas approached us swiftly, and, in spite of the dismal mood which lay upon master and mistress, a flurry of activity gripped the Reid household. The servants, at least, knew the proper course events should take at Christmastime and much was left in their hands. There were the children to be considered and plans to make for their delight.

  If angry words had been shouted concerning my presence in the house, and an edict had been set down, then countermanded, everyone pretended an unawareness of the fact. Garth might look vindictively in my direction, but for the moment she said nothing more. Leslie behaved as though her dismissal of me had never been spoken, and to a great extent we avoided each other. Eventually I knew she must have her way, Brandon or no, but for the moment there was something like a Christmas truce.

  If Andrew knew what had occurred after he left the house that day, he did not mention the fact, and though I was aware that he watched me openly, I held him at arm’s length and encouraged no friendship between us. If I told myself I felt only scorn for the way he had sold his talent to Mrs. Reid, I did not speak my mind. Now and then I thought almost wistfully of the evening I had spent with Andrew when we’d dined at Mama Santini’s. That memory too was something I must put from me. I must depend on no one but myself.

  It was shortly after her return from the visit to her grandmother’s that Selina began to annoy us all with a foolish little song.

  “Selina’s-got-a-secret! Selina’s-got-a-secret!” she would chant in a singsong that soon began to get on my nerves.

  “Of course you have a secret,” I told her. “Christmas is coming and we all have secrets. But we don’t have to brag about them.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me saucily. “It’s not that kind of secret. I know something you don’t know. And Jeremy doesn’t know it either. But I won’t tell you what it is because if I did someone would spank me.”

  I found it best to ignore her chanting and I did not encourage her with questions.

  From below stairs these days the odors of baking drifted up to us, pervading all the house. The fragrance of mince and pumpkin pies mingled with the tart smell of pickles in the making. The familiar warm scent of freshly baked bread was laced with the odors of cinnamon and molasses cookies.

  A huge Christmas tree had been brought home by Fuller and set up in the drawing room to be decorated later. The arrival of the tree was an occasion for excitement in itself, bringing to us as it did green life out of a dead brown winter world, adding the scent of pine needles to the Christmasy smells of the house.

  Yet in spite of such normal preparations and a certain bustle of excitement both above and below stairs, I could not help but contrast the atmosphere of the Reid house with that of Christmases I remembered from my childhood. How warmly loving had been our approach to the Christmas season. It was a special and wondrous Birthday we celebrated and we never forgot the fact, even in our joyous anticipation of gifts to be given and received.

  The mistress, it was true, roused herself and began a round of unusual social engagements and plans. I know Garth disapproved and felt these efforts taxed her strength, but Leslie seemed nervously keyed to activity, though without any true core of happiness in her busy coming and going. Brandon remained indifferent to all that went on about him, doing what was required of him, but holding himself remote and uninvolved.

  I saw little of him and, however much it cost me, I held to my single purpose of teaching Jeremy, playing and working with him, giving him my friendship. This was enough, I told myself, to occupy my mind and time, and a good portion of my heart.

  Between Jeremy and Selina and me there was a great play of secrecy during the days before Christmas. Perhaps I encouraged and abetted these exaggerated precautions because I felt the true emptiness of Christmas in the Reid house. We indulged in much scurrying from one room to another so that each might avoid the recipient of the gift he was wrapping. And it helped a little. In spite of pale gaslight and the brooding darkness of the halls, the house seemed to liven and reflect something of holiday excitement as it existed in the excitement of two children.

  Two days before Christmas, Jeremy came to my room with a plea. Selina, he said, was snooping. He had caught her at it twice. She had no honor whatsoever when it came to other people’s secrets, and something must be done.

  “She snoops in your room too,” he warned me. “I saw her coming out of it yesterday when you were downstairs. So let’s fool her, Miss Megan. Let’s hide our presents where she won’t go.”

  I was more amused than disturbed and not in the least on guard.

  “Where do you suggest?” I asked.

  Jeremy held out his hand and dropped something into my palm. I felt the cold touch of metal and knew what he intended. My first impulse was to reject the idea of hiding our gifts in his father’s room. Yet I had a reason for not refusing at once.

  If I’d had my way, I would long since have opened that room, swept everything out, furnished it anew, given it a character and being that would have nothing to do with the past. As it was, locked and secret, with all mention of it avoided and forbidden, it seemed to hold an unhealthy fascination for Jeremy. Silence and averted eyes only contributed to a lingering sense of horror that I felt was injurious to Jeremy. While the boy had not returned to the room alone, as far as I knew, its locked silence still drew his attention and this was something I wanted to lessen. I made a quick decision.

  “Why not?” I said. “Bring your packages here and put them with mine. When no one is about we’ll find a chance to hide them where Selina will never look.”

  Jeremy seemed pleased, but not overly excited and I congratulated myself on making the right decision. From time to time during the day he smuggled his small, but now numerous, gifts into my room and Selina did not discover what he was up to. We waited until evening, when she was safely in bed, before we carried out our plan. I will confess to feeling somewhat uneasy by that time. Our conspiracy had begun to seem less sensible than in my early rationalization.

  Jeremy did not go to bed at his usual time, but slipped into my room to help me carry the gifts downstairs. It was then I suggested a change in plans.

  “Why not leave your packages with mine for now, Jeremy? Selina won’t come here again. Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve, and we can put them under the tree.”

  The boy shook his head reproachfully. “You promised, Miss Megan. Selina is sure to snoop a lot tomorrow.”

  I was tempted to ask the real reason behind his insistence, but I did not dare. If I went back on my agreement now, he might shut me out and not confide in me again. Surely there was nothing that could happen if I went with him to his father’s room. We would leave our gifts hidden there and come out at once. The plan seemed simple enough and harmless, and I wished I could dismiss my inner misgivings.

  “Now is the time,” Jeremy persisted. “Do come along, Miss Megan. Mama and Uncle Brandon will be having dinner, and all the servants are downstairs. Miss Garth has a headache and she has gone to bed. Selina’s asleep.”

  I emptied a sewing basket and let Jeremy pile his gifts into it. Then, with a few of my own larger packages in my hands, I started downstairs with Jeremy beside me. We moved softly, giving each other sidelong conspiratorial looks. It would take more than one trip, and Jeremy seemed pleased that it should. We must not be caught, he whispered, and threw a look of exaggerated apprehension behind him and over the stair rail.

  In one sense his behavior reassured me. How little of normal young excitement, how little of make-believe he had in his life. He was starved for the sort of play most children indulge in endlessly without question. Tonight, as I began to realize, we were not merely hiding gifts from a curious little girl. We were playing the role of pirates an
d brigands. We were desperadoes and highwaymen. We would hide our smuggled treasure in the teeth of the law and likely be hung to yardarm or the nearest gallows tree if we were caught in our derring-do.

  The horror of what had happened in Dwight’s room had nothing to do with our present escapade, and I found myself less fearful for Jeremy than I had been.

  When we reached the room, he opened the door with his key and pushed me hastily inside. Unexpectedly, I found myself abandoned there in the dark with my arms full and the contents of Jeremy’s basket dumped upon the carpet at my feet. Before I could object, he had shut the door upon me and darted off, leaving me there in the gloom of that cold and haunted room, while he ran off to get the rest of our parcels.

  My eyes could see nothing in the gloom, and I stumbled over one of Jeremy’s packages as I tried to fumble my way toward the bureau and a candle I knew was there.

  As I moved hesitantly, my hands outstretched, my direction became suddenly uncertain. Which way was I facing? Which way had I turned on entering the room? There is something unsettling about finding oneself in utter gloom with the realization that surroundings have shifted, that nothing stands in its known place.

  I moved gropingly and, as my breathing quickened, I caught a scent that was not the usual chill mustiness of the room. The odor choked me into sudden awareness. I held my breath, not daring to stir as the perfume of violets closed in around me. In sharpened realization, I knew I was not alone. Indeed, now that I listened with utter attention, I could hear the sound of someone who breathed as lightly, as softly, and quickly as I. But someone who had the advantage of being here first, with eyes accustomed to the gloom.

  Some sixth sense warned me not to speak, not to challenge, not to remain for a moment shut into this dreadful darkness with the woman whose faintest movement wafted a scent of violets through the air. But where was the door in this pitchy gloom? And where was Jeremy? The moment he returned and opened the door, I would be safe, the hider in the room exposed. But he did not come and I heard the faint rustle of silk as the woman moved nearby—perhaps interposing herself between me and the door.