Her words began to pour out in complete abandonment. “There was nothing to live for when Dwight died! Yet I had to go on living. Can you understand what such a loss might be like, Miss Kincaid?”
I thought I might very well understand and I nodded.
“In order to live, I snatched at anything that seemed to offer me sustenance. Brandon had been in love with me before I married Dwight. He was Dwight’s brother. They had been devoted to each other. So why shouldn’t I find in him something of what I had lost? Instead—” the life went out of her voice, leaving a heaviness of despair, “instead there is only this!” She flung a gesture of rejection at the jewels Brandon had given her. “This and a prison from which there is no escape.”
Nevertheless, I thought, I would fight back if I were in her place. She was allowing herself to be submerged. Yet I did not know how to offer her strength in this moment of appalling weakness.
Perhaps my silence seemed to spell condemnation, for she began to speak again, a little wildly now.
“You know why I married Brandon, Miss Kincaid,” she said. “But haven’t you ever wondered why he married me?”
“That is none of my affair,” I said evenly.
“While that is quite true, I shall tell you. And it will be something for you to think about in the night hours, something for you to ponder when his face comes to your mind. He married me to buy my silence. Because if he did not, I would have told the truth he is so terribly afraid of. And now that I am bound to him in this empty marriage, I cannot speak out as I might like to do.”
I made no response to her words as I moved quickly to gather up packages that lay in bright mockery across her quilts. I said nothing at all as I carried them into the boudoir and left them on the chaise longue, where she might later do as she liked with them. Then I returned to her bedroom and drew the draperies to shut out gray daylight and leave her once more to darkness. All the while she lay very still, her eyes closed, the lashes dark upon her pale cheeks. She did not speak as I went silently from the room and closed the door behind me.
Where the truth lay in any of what she had said, I did not know. It would be best not to think of her words at all, or try to sift truth from self-delusion. She was ill, not only in body, but in mind as well.
As I moved toward the stairs, Jeremy came from his uncle’s library, pouncing upon me eagerly the moment he saw me.
“Come see how the collar looks, Miss Megan,” he invited.
I had no heart for his request and no desire to see Brandon at that moment, but Jeremy was insistent. In the library Brandon stood at the window, his back toward me, and I went no more than a step or two into the room.
The fanciful collar looked a little strange against the stone from which the head had been sculptured. The tall white crown with its stylized plumes at each side made the patterned beads seem too bright by contrast yet in the expression of carved lips and eyes I fancied an understanding of all that had gone into the making of the collar. Osiris wore the gift with dignity.
“It’s very beautiful,” I told Jeremy, and turned toward the stairs before Brandon could speak to me.
When I reached my room I removed the pin that bore Queen Hatshepsut’s name and put it among other trinkets, not daring to look at it again. Now that I was alone, the words I had thrust away as being the ranting of a sick woman, returned to plague me. What silence could Brandon have bought? What truth could Leslie speak out against her husband?
These things had no meaning for me, and I must not think about them. I must profit by Andrew’s warnings. I must seek recovery of my own pride.
It was not for me to weigh the truth or falsity of the matters she had touched upon. They were no concern of mine. Brandon was out of my reach and always would be. I must tell him that I was leaving. I would wait only until the New Year had begun. That seemed a logical time for decisive action.
Leslie, having flung herself into the depths, roused sufficiently to undertake a further social round that must have left her exhausted almost every night. Perhaps that was what she wanted—the oblivion of exhaustion. She seemed to alternate between coolness toward Brandon and a trembling appeal for his attention, if not his affection. I was relieved to see little of either of them. And ashamed of that relief.
Miss Garth and Selina were away with Leslie much of the time, and I had Jeremy to myself. His mood of exultant happiness over his uncle’s acceptance of his gift relaxed into something resembling contentment, and I was glad to see him come down from the heights. For the time being, at least, his uncle’s manner toward the boy had changed encouragingly and I wished I had not the sensation of waiting for the unforeseen to happen when it came to the master of the house.
During that week when all was outwardly peaceful, only one small incident ruffled our daily calm. It was no more than a child’s quarrel and of little consequence, had it not pointed to trouble ahead. The incident came about because of the carrousel I had given Jeremy.
It was the custom of the house for the family to leave all gifts beneath the tree during the week between Christmas and New Year. If they were taken away to be worn or played with, they were put back when the owner was through. Thus it was that Jeremy somewhat reluctantly left the little music box among his other presents under the tree. He warned his sister not to touch it, and this of course increased its fascination for Selina.
One afternoon when I heard wails of anguish from the drawing room, I ran downstairs to find that Jeremy had slapped Selina for playing with the carrousel. Though Jeremy had the toy safely back in his own keeping, Selina was screeching as only she could screech, while Jeremy watched her in anger and disgust. Miss Garth too heard the uproar, and we both reached the drawing room from different doors at the same time.
There were an unpleasant few moments in which I had to stand up to Miss Garth for Jeremy’s cause as being just, while still condemning him for slapping his sister.
“The toy is fragile,” I said. “Jeremy had a right to say who may touch it and when. He is very careful with it, and it would be a shame if Selina or anyone else broke it. Selina isn’t always careful with her things, as we all know.”
If I had not been there, I think Miss Garth would have returned Jeremy’s slap and upheld Selina. But she saw that I would not retreat from my stand, so she carried the weeping Selina away to distract and quiet her. The immediate result of the incident—which the children quickly forgot—was an increased tension between Thora Garth and myself. I had a feeling that the woman was merely biding her time, waiting for an opportunity to catch me in some ill-advised moment when I would be at a disadvantage. Then she would raise heaven and earth to get me dismissed. That I did not intend to have happen. When I left, I wanted it to be by my own will, not because I had been put out in disgrace.
As New Year’s Day approached, the house itself lent weight to my forebodings of calamity ahead. The holidays had not dispelled its atmosphere of gloom and hidden tragedy. Except for Selina, who wore her feelings lightly on the surface, every member of the household seemed possessed by some dark blight of emotion, hidden or disguised, but ready to burst into the open at a touch.
Had it been like this, I wondered, in the days before Jeremy’s father had died? I did not like to entertain such a thought, but it returned more than once to haunt me. New Year’s Eve seemed especially hard to endure. Since this was a time of facing both past and future, my thoughts were far from cheerful.
Leslie had long been planning a party for New Year’s Eve and she hurled herself into feverish preparation which I could only view with new alarm. She could not go on like this, yet Brandon made no effort to stop her. He seemed to regard her behavior with a cold amusement that had no kindness in it.
On New Year’s Eve I sat in my room and tried not to hear the sounds of gaiety two stories below. I read until eleven o’clock, then braided my hair and went deliberately to bed, pulling the covers well over my ears. I did not want to know when the New Year began. I did not want to
hear the bells and I determined fiercely to be well asleep by the time they sounded.
I did not sleep, and I heard the bells quite clearly.
Not only the bells and the tooting and whistling from a distance, but racket from the immediate neighborhood and from within the house as well. Downstairs fringed paper crackers were being pulled with a bang and paper hats undoubtedly donned. One rapping noise came very close, and I realized with a start that someone was knocking on my door.
It must be Jeremy, disturbed by the noise. I flung a wrapper about me and opened the door. Brandon, elegant in evening dress, his shirt front stiff above a white waistcoat, his tie faultless, stood there smiling at me. Beneath dark brows his eyes were alight with a reckless gleam and in each hand he held a glass of champagne. He seemed more vibrantly alive than I’d ever seen him, and I sensed danger in him as never before. In quick remembrance I recalled the first time I had seen Brandon Reid. Even then he had drawn and compelled me, and now I found myself stirred by an excitement I was helpless to resist.
“Happy New Year, Megan,” he said. “I wanted to toast the New Year with no one but you. Will you do me the honor?”
All caution was lost to me. I took the glass and held it up by its slender stem, raising it to his.
“To a way out for us,” he said and touched the rim of his glass to mine.
My eyes did not drop from his as I drank the sparkling wine. I could not think or weight or question. I could only feel.
I took no second sip, however, for he removed the glass from my hand and set both aside on the table near my door. I knew what was to come and I had only one will, one desire. As simply as though no other course of action were possible, I went into his arms. Their clasp hurt me, his mouth bruised mine, yet I reveled in pain.
When he released me without warning, I was startled, for there was sudden anger in him and it alarmed me.
“I’ll force her hand. I’ll make a way!” he told me, and the roughening in his tone spoke again of violence scarcely restrained.
I drew away, shaken and no longer yielding. He saw that he had frightened me and spoke more gently.
“Give me time, Megan. A little more time to find a way out of this trap I’m caught in. But don’t run away. That’s one thing I will not have. Do you understand me, Megan?”
I could only nod in agreement. I was held by a compulsion I could not resist. He accepted the answer my eyes gave him, picked up the glasses, and strode toward the stairs. But when he had gone the sound of his voice continued to ring through my mind and I heard the echo of fury driving him.
Shivering, I turned back to my room. Yet my body was warm with fever heat. I went to my window and flung it open upon the cold dawning of the New Year. Though the outward chill did not touch me as I leaned my arms upon the sill, a trembling I understood very well went on and on within me, and part of it was fear.
Outdoors the bells had pealed their way to silence. The last horn blast died raucously. Down in the mews one of the servants banged a final derisive clatter upon a dishpan, as if mocking this arrival of a year in which hope could be so little justified.
The chill I felt lay deep within me. Fear had its roots in a sense of unknown danger. Danger and betrayal. “Don’t run away,” he had said. Yet even then I knew I had no other choice. Not only for my own sake and for Jeremy’s, but for Brandon’s as well. If I remained where he could see me, find me, the violence would erupt into some desperate act. I knew this as surely as though he had told me so. The ingredients for tragedy were building, and I must be well away before an explosion could result.
Chilled at last through all my body, I closed the window upon the New Year and went back to bed. Brandon’s kiss had burned itself out on my lips, the memory of his arms no longer warmed me to life. For me this coming week must be one of decision and action. Unhappy decision, action that would cause me endless pain. Yet I knew now what must be done.
TWENTY-TWO
The cold light of morning brought a strengthening of resolution. Brandon had no right to order me not to run away. Nor could I obey him. Last night I’d learned enough about myself and about him, about the inexorable force that drew us together, to warn me thoroughly. The very fact that deep within me was an ache of longing to speak my love, to acknowledge it and let it rule me, no matter what the consequences, made the need for action all the more urgent.
Fortunately, I had saved most of the salary I’d received in the Reid household and I would have enough to keep me until I could find another position. My first thought was to tell Mrs. Reid that I would heed her wishes, then slip away without seeing Brandon again, and give him no chance to stop me. But the more I considered such a course, the more cowardly it seemed. If my own courage were as strong as it must be, then nothing he might say could alter my decision. Today was the time.
The master of the house arose in a mood so stormy that it made itself heard up the stairs. I began to suspect that he had regretted his actions of the night before and was thus angry with himself and perhaps with me as well. All of which played into the hands of my intention. Tenderness, pleading would be harder to face than anger.
Jeremy, playing the endless tune of “Frère Jacques” on his music box, incurred his uncle’s wrath early that morning, and I heard Brandon shouting at the boy to turn it off. I ran to the stairs, meaning to call Jeremy up to the quiet and safety of the third floor, but Brandon saw me there and stared as though I were another child to be reproved.
“Where is the pin I gave you for Christmas?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you wearing it?”
So unreasonable a question was exactly what I needed to brace me against any faltering, even though this was not the time to ask for an interview.
“I will return the pin to you,” I told him coolly. “Come, Jeremy. Bring the carrousel upstairs.”
Brandon scowled at me, but at least it was to his credit that he noted Jeremy’s face and apologized to the boy, if not to me.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy. I’ve a beastly headache. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Just play your box upstairs for now, will you, my boy?”
Jeremy accepted his words with good grace and came cheerfully upstairs with me.
By custom New Year’s Day was a time when ladies remained at home to receive, and the gentlemen of New York, young and old, went from house to house, often imbibing so freely and so often that it was wiser for women to remain indoors and avoid the public streets. Brandon, however, had shut himself early into the library and showed no sign of leaving for a series of calls.
With Selina beside her, Leslie had gone to the drawing room to receive, and, as the doorbell began its constant pealing, servants hurried back and forth, and the day went into its full social swing. Miss Garth busied herself supervising the activity, and, as a result, Jeremy and I had the long day to ourselves.
We passed some of the time watching visitors from the front windows and speculating about them. I tried not to remember that soon this little boy would no longer be a part of my everyday life. It was all I could do to hide my feelings when the thought of coming loneliness engulfed me. Whatever we did, I could not forget that it might be for the last time.
Not until late afternoon, when the calls had wound to an end, when Mrs. Reid had retired, and Garth and Selina were once more upstairs, did I leave Jeremy and seek the opportunity to speak to Brandon Reid.
At the library door the tormenting reminder returned. This, too, was for the last time. He invited me in pleasantly enough and offered me a chair. His manner seemed faintly apologetic, as though he regretted his early-morning temper. But I wanted no relenting from him. It would be better for us both if only I could detest him.
I had brought the pin with me and I laid it upon the desk before him. “I have come to a difficult decision,” I said. “But a necessary one. The only course of action remaining to me is to leave your employ as soon as possible. As you know, there are reasons why I cannot remain in this house any longer. Tomorrow
I will look for a room and move out as soon as I can.”
It took only a moment for the apologetic manner to vanish and anger to take its place. He picked up the scarab brooch and held it out to me.
“You need not insult me into the bargain. This belongs to you.”
I took it from him in silence, waiting.
“I might have known you would run away,” he continued. “The woman doesn’t live who has the courage to stand by when she’s needed.”
Since I was exerting all the courage in me at that moment, his words did not help my own temper. “I know where I am needed,” I told him with some vehemence. “Jeremy needs me. But there are other matters to be considered first, and my decision will stand.”
It was at this unfortunate moment that Jeremy came unwittingly into the room with the carrousel in his hands. Bent on his own concern, he did not sense the atmosphere of the room. With the growing trust he had in Brandon, he held the toy out to him.
“Something is wrong with it, Uncle Brandon,” he said. “See—it will play only when I shake it.”
He proved this by shaking the toy so that it began the tinkling, monotonous little air I had once found so merry. Brandon flung out a hand in a gesture of impatience. His fingers struck the carrousel, and it flew from Jeremy’s grasp and fell with a clatter on the bare hearthstone. The tune whined on for a moment and then clicked to an abrupt stop. I stared in dismay at the crumpled sleigh, the dented canopy.
Jeremy cried out in anguish and rushed to pick up the toy. All his hard-won confidence in his uncle had vanished. The carrousel was the finest treasure he had ever owned, and it was he who was angry now. He turned furiously upon Brandon, pummeling him with his fists until I came to put quieting hands on the boy’s shoulders.
Shocked by his own impatient, but unintentional act, Brandon apologized for the second time that day. “I didn’t mean that to happen. Give it here and let’s see what damage is done.”
Window on the Square Page 21
