Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I tried to tell myself that this rising panic was foolish. There were others in the house, and I had only to cry out to bring them to me. But the sense of a presence that meant me harm was so acute that I could not speak or move.

  She was so close now that as I put up my hand in a quick gesture of defense, my fingers brushed her gown, and a voice whispered suddenly in my ear.

  “Be still!” it warned me in a whisper so hoarse that all identity was lost. Fingers, chill and somehow deadly, touched my face, my throat. I put my hands up wildly to thrust them away, and twisted from her grasp. She fell back for an instant, perhaps startled by my sudden movement, and I felt the tearing of cloth in my hands. The deadly whisper came again, from behind me now.

  “If you go away, you will be safe. If you stay in this house, you will suffer for it.”

  My eyes were growing used to the dark, and now I could make out a faint line of light along the doorsill. I had my direction at last. Kicking Jeremy’s packages aside, I ran to the door, thrust it open, then shut it behind me with a ringing slam that must have echoed through the house.

  Jeremy was mounting the stairs from the lower floor, coming toward me. I turned the key in the lock with a sense of triumph, feeling that I had trapped something evil and contained it in the room—something that must now betray itself in order to escape.

  I ran toward Jeremy and turned him about. “Not now!” I whispered urgently. “Go upstairs at once!”

  My manner brooked no argument, and he obeyed me. We did not speak until we reached my room again. Then he faced me anxiously.

  “What’s the matter, Miss Megan? You’re white and shaking. What has happened?”

  “Why didn’t you come, Jeremy?” I gasped. “Why did you shut me in there and run away?”

  He was clearly startled by my state of fright, but he explained quietly. “Uncle Brandon called me. He was coming out of the dining room and he heard me on the stairs. So I had to go down and tell him why I was not in bed.”

  The thumping of my heart began to quiet a little, and, when I sat in my rocker, the weakness in my knees ceased to betray me.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked.

  “Only that we were hiding Christmas presents and it was all a secret. So he let me off without a scolding. He was in a hurry to go out for the evening anyway. Are you afraid of that room after all, Miss Megan?”

  It was better to tell the truth than to let him think me fearful of the supernatural.

  “There was someone in there,” I said. “Someone breathing in the darkness. Someone who—who meant me harm. I came out as fast as I could and locked her in there alone.”

  “With all our presents?” Jeremy asked, his dismay having little to do with my predicament.

  “She won’t hurt the presents,” I said. “But sooner or later she will have to get out. And then we’ll know who it is. I wish your uncle hadn’t left the house.”

  Jeremy’s snort of scorn did not flatter my intelligence. He went to my door and opened it. “Come along,” he said, gathering up the remaining packages. “There’s nobody there now, and we must hide the presents and see if the others are all right. Let’s take the rest of them down.”

  When I still hesitated, he spoke to me with a forbearance that was strangely adult and might have made me laugh at another time.

  “There are other keys to the room, Miss Megan,” he pointed out. “And besides, the second door is locked with an inside bolt. If anyone wanted to get out, he could draw the bolt and go into my mother’s boudoir. Let’s go down right away. You can take a candle if you like,” he added kindly.

  In the face of Jeremy’s logic, I began to feel foolish. Perhaps the fright I’d had was due mainly to my own vivid imagination. After all, I had given whoever was in the room a thorough chance to frighten me. And she had done it well.

  I made no further objection, but accompanied Jeremy downstairs, this time carrying a candle.

  When we opened the door and left it wide to the hall light and my candle, I saw that Jeremy was right. There was no one hiding in the room. The bolt to the second door had been drawn to leave it unlocked. Jeremy knelt to count his packages and did not speak until he was sure they were safe.

  My attention wandered from him and came to rest on something across the room. There upon the polished surface of a highboy stood the tall Turkish candlestick I had seen so often in Leslie’s room.

  “Was your mother downstairs having dinner with your uncle just now?” I asked.

  He shook his head absently, his main interest for the packages he was storing in the depths of a bureau drawer.

  “I don’t know—she may have been.”

  Then she could have been here, I thought. She could have left her candlestick behind as she fled. However, I said nothing to Jeremy. With hands that were far from steady, I helped him pack away our Christmas gifts. No one disturbed us. No one challenged our presence, or, so far as I knew, went past the door while we finished our work. But the scent of violets persisted and with it a hovering fear. There was a growing certainty in me that far more than mere resentment of my presence existed in this house.

  Had Garth dressed once more in a garment of her mistress’ and worn her perfume? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. It could have been either.

  For my own safety, it would seem that I should overrule Brandon and leave this house while I could. But there was still Jeremy, and I knew I would never abandon him for so cowardly a reason. There were stronger causes which might eventually force me to leave him, but what had happened in this room was not one of them, however uneasy it might leave me.

  EIGHTEEN

  I had no answer the next day to the question of who had left the candlestick in Dwight Reid’s room, or who had warned me in that hoarse whisper. The sense of a threat hanging over my head persisted, yet I could do nothing but ignore it. I saw Brandon not at all, and in any event I did not want to tell him what had happened. The violent anger he had already shown toward Leslie had disturbed me. I did not want to rouse it again.

  That my usefulness to Jeremy was drawing to a close was becoming increasingly clear. Before long I must face Brandon and make him understand the reality of the situation. Not because of what had happened in that room, but because once he had gone away, my position would be untenable. Perhaps I would wait until after Christmas and then tell him whatever plans I had decided upon by that time.

  On Christmas morning the master and mistress would preside at the opening of the packages—as was the usual custom—but on Christmas Eve they were to attend a ball at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Thus we would have the tree-decorating to ourselves.

  It was a relief to know that Leslie would be absent, yet in spite of my stern control over my feelings, I could not help but wish for Brandon’s presence. Perhaps the innocence of tree-trimming might have relaxed him a little, lessened his tension. And, at least, I could have been in the same room with him openly, with no sense of guilt. There would have been pain for me in his presence, yet I could have lived for that little time in his company. Away from him, as I was coming to recognize with despair, I merely existed. I was going to have such a long while to exist away from him entirely, once I left the house.

  In spite of this heaviness of heart, I tried to give myself to the decorating of the tree. As I told myself again and again, it was Jeremy alone I must think of now.

  For days we had been popping corn energetically over the nursery fire and threading white kernels into long strands. We had strung cranberries until our fingers were stained and pricked. Now, on Christmas Eve, we were hanging these decorations on the ceiling-high tree. And not even Miss Garth was present to set a damper on the children’s pleasure.

  While we were so engaged, Leslie and Brandon looked into the drawing room on the way to their party. Leslie was brightly beautiful, as always, and Brandon made her a somberly elegant escort in top hat and Inverness cape. They stood in the doorway for a moment, looking in upon the long firelit drawi
ng room. With strained gaiety, Leslie blew the children a kiss, and Brandon wished us a courteous “Good evening.” Then they were gone to their carriage, leaving a silence behind them in the room. A hollow silence that stilled our noisy merriment.

  I turned quickly back to the tree and asked Jeremy to bring me the stepladder so that I could place the decoration at the very top. Jeremy had cut a star from cardboard and covered it with silver paper saved from chocolate-cream wrappers. But now he did not hear my request, for he was studying the small heap of gifts he had piled upon a chair. Together we had brought them downstairs from Dwight’s room, and without incident. Not heeding me, he picked up a green tissue-wrapped package and turned it about in his hands. I knew it was the Egyptian collar. For the hundredth time I wondered if Brandon would remember my plea to him concerning Jeremy’s gift. Or would his present tension result in ungracious or indifferent behavior? I could not forgive him readily, I told myself, if he failed Jeremy on Christmas morning.

  In the end I brought the stepladder from the hall myself and climbed on it while Selina gave me the star. Jeremy came out of his preoccupation in time to instruct me on its proper position. Then the two of them handed up colored wax candles in small tin holders and I clamped them to the upper branches.

  As I worked in what should have been contentment, I could not suppress the picture that kept returning to my mind. A picture of Leslie in Brandon’s arms as they danced together at the Christmas ball. Was his anger with her based on his own bewitchment with his wife and her rejection of him? She was so lovely, so obviously capable of exerting great appeal.

  To my regret, Miss Garth eventually joined us to supervise the tree-trimming. I told myself that she must have felt lonely upstairs and I bowed to her suggestions and let her direct the children. Her dislike for me was in the open now, and she did not hide it. I gave her a quiet courtsey and ignored her rudeness, for this was Christmas Eve.

  Some strangeness was in Selina that evening, so that she seemed as keyed-up and as nervous as her mother. She danced about the tree, dropped ornaments she was hanging, and frequently made secret little grimaces to herself. I supposed she was reacting in mimicry to the example set by Leslie. But when the tree was nearly done, she suddenly reverted to her maddening little singsong. She turned from hanging up a paper angel and went skipping around us.

  “I know something you don’t know!” she chanted. “I’ve got a secret and I won’t tell!”

  Even Miss Garth was less tolerant of her darling than usual. “What has you so excited, Selina?” she demanded. “It’s not good for you to be this way.”

  Again the child made her odd little grimace. “I won’t tell. I’ll never tell. It’s more fun to have a secret.”

  Jeremy threw her a scornful look. “You’re being a stupid, Selina. Give me that string of cranberries if you’re not going to hang it.”

  Selina would give up nothing and went back to her decorating, but for the moment we heard no more about her secret.

  We had just finished the tree when Andrew Beach rang the bell and was admitted to our midst, his arms full of small packages.

  “No one invited me till tomorrow morning when the servitors appear,” he said wryly. “So I’ve invited myself tonight. Do you mind if I put my parcels under your tree?”

  The children were happy to see him, and if Miss Garth was not, she at least made her disapproval less obvious than usual. With the decorations done, we all placed our gifts on the white sheet spread around the foot of the tree. The Christmas effect was perfect now, and there remained only the lighting of the candles. This was a careful task for adults, and by way of extra precaution I had brought in a huge sponge in a bucket of water as the same safety measure we’d always used at home in case a branch caught fire.

  One by one we lighted the candles with tapers until the whole tree glowed with warm, living fire. In the big drafty room air currents sent the pointed flames dipping and tilting so that all the branches shimmered.

  Selina, still overly excited, began to crawl among the gifts, examining this one, then that, sometimes holding a package up so that she could shake it and try to guess the contents. It was thus that she unearthed the package I had wrapped for Jeremy.

  “Who’s this for?” she asked. “It says, ‘For the Prince.’ We don’t have a prince in this house.”

  Jeremy glanced at me quickly, and I smiled. “That’s a secret between Jeremy and me,” I told her, and saw pleasure come to life in his eyes. Bit by bit, just as had happened to the prince in the fairy tale, the ugly disguise was being stripped away and Jeremy was changing. I prayed that all would go well with the gift for his uncle so his happiness might be complete.

  When the last candle had been lighted, we stood back to admire the effect. The tree had been placed in a corner of the drawing room, and from the wall opposite, a huge mirror reflected the strands of white popcorn and red cranberries, the bright ornaments and myriad flames.

  Andrew held out one hand to me and the other to Selina. Softly he began to sing, and I was surprised at the deep timbre of his voice. Jeremy and even Miss Garth came to hold hands with us as we stood before the tree, our voices raised in “O Tannenbaum.” We sang the English words, and they rang out strongly in the quiet room.

  “O Evergreen, O Evergreen!

  How faithful are your branches …”

  It was a strangely lovely and healing moment. I ceased to think of Leslie and Brandon dancing together at their party. I let the sadness, the loneliness, the fear of the last few days flow out through my very fingertips as Andrew clasped my hand and we sang together. I had the curious feeling that through the very clasp of his fingers Andrew was offering his own quiet strength to sustain me. Tonight he seemed less cynical and critical. I took something of comfort from the hand of a man clasping mine, even though it was the wrong hand.

  When at length our voices died away, Miss Garth broke the circle first and went back to her chair. For an instant I caught the shine of tears in her eyes and the thought came to me that we were all rather a forlorn and lonely lot.

  Suddenly I wanted to hold to the Christmas spell that had fallen so gently upon us.

  “I know the main gifts are to be opened tomorrow when your mother and your uncle are here,” I said to the children. “But perhaps we could make an exception with one or two of our own presents for each other. Then we could have a little more of Christmas tonight.”

  Miss Garth did not approve. It was not the custom, she said. She did not know what Mrs. Reid would think. I suspected that Leslie would not care one way or the other, though I did not say so. It was Selina who settled matters. She flew to the tree and brought out a package from among those scattered below it. Surprisingly, it was not a present for herself, but the one she had made for me.

  I opened it while the others watched and found that she had given me a pomander ball. It was an apple, painstakingly, though unevenly, stuck with cloves and tied with a blue satin ribbon for hanging among my clothes. I exclaimed over it in pleasure, and the gift opening was on.

  The present for the “prince” came next, and Jeremy gravely opened the package I had wrapped for him. I watched with a lump in my throat as he slipped off the ribbon and pressed back the paper from about the carrousel. While Selina cried out in wonder and envy, he simply stared at it for a moment. Then he looked at me with such delight, such gratitude in his eyes that I could hardly bear it. Yet still he could not believe that this gift was truly for him.

  “It belonged to your brother—” he began.

  I nodded. “You are my brother now, Jeremy.”

  He wound the toy and set the tune tinkling, the carrousel turning, while we all watched enchanted; Even Miss Garth offered no criticism and did not warn him not to break it. When I glanced at Andrew I saw his eyes upon me, his look unfathomable as it so often was these days. There was a sadness in the smile he bent upon me. I did not know why, but I smiled back, offering without words my thanks for the quiet support he had g
iven me tonight.

  It did not take us long to open the rest of the gifts we had for each other. There were the usual penwipers, pincushions, and darning eggs. Selina had made a charming strand of sealing-wax beads in red and gold for Miss Garth. And Jeremy had carved a small Egyptian head for me from a piece of wood. It appeared to be a replica of the Sphinx and I thanked him for it warmly. Andrew gave me a sketch of Washington Square in a snowstorm, and I sensed that it was something of a peace-offering to make up for the drawing of me he had destroyed.

  That Christmas Eve was almost a happy time. Happier perhaps for the absence of Brandon Reid, though this I hated to admit. Before Andrew left we sang “Silent Night,” and the words were still singing through my mind, All is calm, all is bright, as we extinguished the candles. The odor of evergreen and snuffed candles was a perfume Andrew said he would carry into his dreams that night. I believe it brought to each of the three adults in that room a nostalgic memory of days long past, happier days than those through which we now lived.

  With Andrew gone and no more packages to open for the time being, Selina returned to her annoying chant about a secret. I suspected that she would never sleep after all this excitement unless she confided whatever it was she had on her mind.

  “You might as well tell us,” I said. “Your secret is likely to keep you awake all night unless you do.”

  “It isn’t a secret to tell!” Selina cried. “If you want to come with me now, I’ll show you what it is.”

  Miss Garth broke in abruptly. “All this is nonsense. It’s your bedtime, Selina. Come along, and on the way upstairs you can tell me about your secret. You needn’t make a performance of it. Say good night, dear.”