Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  This time his retraction had no effect. Jeremy held the toy behind his back. “You did mean it to happen! You were angry about it this morning and now you’re glad you’ve broken it!”

  White and stricken, he clasped the toy tightly to him and rushed out of the room. I stepped to the door and called after him, but he ran unheeding up the stairs.

  His shrill voice had brought his mother to the door of her bedroom and Miss Garth part way down the stairs. He moved as though he saw neither of them, and Garth stepped back against the wall to let the small furious figure rush by.

  “Let him go,” Brandon told me, impatient again. “I’m sorry this happened, but I’ve had more of that tune than I can stand. When he recovers, we’ll see what can be done to mend the toy. Right now I want to talk to you.”

  I was very nearly as upset as Jeremy. The incident had shaken me, and I could not remain to be argued down by Brandon Reid. Without replying, I went into the hall to follow Jeremy upstairs.

  Leslie had thrown a loose yellow gown about her shoulders and she looked pale and worn from the festivities of last night and today. I could not face her either just now and I ran up the stairs, brushing past the looming figure of Thora Garth.

  Jeremy had closed his door and he did not answer when I tapped on the panel. I stood for a moment listening to the pounding of my own heart, trying to quiet my trepidation. Then I turned the knob and went in.

  The boy sat on the edge of his bed with the broken toy in his hands, staring at it intently. I took it from him and tried to minimize the damage.

  “I think it’s not too serious,” I said. “If your uncle can’t mend it for you, perhaps we can find someone who can. Or I’ll go back to the shop where this came from and try to get another for you.”

  “He smashed it.” Jeremy spoke evenly, without emotion, without expression. “He smashed it because he hates me.”

  I put my hand on his forehead and found it burning hot. He did not resist when I helped him to undress and get into bed. At suppertime he would eat nothing, and I sat beside his bed until he fell asleep. Only then did I tiptoe away to my own room.

  I lay down fully clothed, meaning to get up from time to time and make sure all was well. But I was bone-weary. The emotional turmoil I had been through, the hard decision I had come to, all had taken as great a toll as physical action. I fell so deeply asleep that only some deafening sound could have awakened me.

  The sound came during the night hours, shattering the quiet of the house. I sat bolt upright in bed, attending with all my senses the echoing crash.

  I knew what had wakened me, though I had never before heard such a sound inside a house. The air still trembled with vibration, though otherwise all was silent. I went to my door and opened it a crack upon the dark hallway, waiting for the outcry that must surely follow. But now there was no sound, no sound at all—and that increased my alarm. The silence seemed too intense until I heard a creaking on the stairs. Was someone coming up, or going down? I could see nothing in the blackness. A terror I had not known I could feel washed over me, and I closed my door and stood trembling with my back against it.

  Nothing happened, and reason slowly returned to steady me. I must not cower here because I thought I had heard a pistol shot in the house. In his room next door Jeremy would be awake and in need of reassurance. I must look in on him, make sure of his safety. Then, if no one else stirred, I would go downstairs and investigate for myself. Perhaps the sound had come from outside after all. Perhaps a forgotten dream had magnified it.

  Lighting a candle, I opened my door softly. At once I saw Jeremy. He stood halfway down the hallway in his nightshirt, and I could hear the chattering of his teeth.

  “Go back to bed, dear,” I said firmly. “Get in where it’s warm and I’ll go downstairs and see if anything is wrong. I promise to come back and tell you as soon as I can.”

  He did not seem to hear my words. He raised his hands and held them away from him, staring as if they did not belong to him, as if he had never seen them before.

  “I’ve done something terrible,” he said.

  His tone chilled me far more than the icy air of the hallway. I pushed him toward his room.

  “Quick now,” I said. “In bed with you; you’re dreadfully cold.”

  I left my candle on his bureau, lighted another, and started downstairs. Dread of what I might find slowed my steps, yet I must go down. Where was everyone else? Why hadn’t the servants come upstairs? But then—would they? Once before there had been tragedy in this house following a shot at night. Might not the servants take the course of wisdom and remain below stairs unless they were summoned?

  As I descended toward the second floor, my feeble candle flame pushed back the darkness a bit at a time. When I reached the lower steps I saw that the sound had, after all, aroused others in the house—others as frightened as I.

  TWENTY-THREE

  In the door of Leslie’s bedroom stood Miss Garth, an arm about the woman who had been her charge as a child. Leslie’s face was washed of all color, her eyes enormous. Both women stared at me as I came down the stairs. Neither looked as though she would be of any help, and I had to bolster my own courage.

  “Do you think that was a shot?” I asked.

  Leslie clung weakly to the governess, and it was Miss Garth who answered me.

  “Of course it was a shot and it came from the library. I rushed downstairs at once to make sure Miss Leslie was unharmed. Where is Jeremy?”

  “In bed,” I said, my lips barely forming the words. My fingers tightened around the candleholder lest I drop it. Where was Brandon? Why hadn’t he come out of his bedroom?

  I could not endure this new terror. The door of the library stood open, a blank oblong of darkness that gave way dimly before the pale thrust of candlelight. Shadows swayed across the room as I held my candle high. At first glance nothing seemed amiss. I moved toward Brandon’s desk and stumbled over something that lay on the floor beside his chair.

  It was all I could do to hold the candle nearer and look down at what lay at my feet. For a moment no sound came from my lips. Then I called to the two women in the hall.

  “Come here and see what has happened!”

  Leslie was still afraid and would not come, but Thora Garth stepped into the room and stood beside me. Together we stared at the debris before us. Someone had shattered the Osiris head. Broken pieces of it lay strewn across the carpet, and I knew it must have been smashed by a shot from a pistol.

  “Where is Mr. Reid?” I asked. “Why isn’t he here?”

  “He went out before dinner,” Miss Garth said stiffly. “As far as I know he hasn’t returned. And a good thing for him it is!”

  A sick understanding of her meaning swept through me. She meant that Jeremy had come into this room with a pistol in his hands, perhaps seeking his uncle as he had once sought his father. Not finding him, he had vented his anger upon the stone head his uncle treasured. This was his retaliation, his revenge for the breaking of the carrousel.

  Miss Garth turned back to her charge. “It’s all right, Miss Leslie dear. It’s only that heathenish head that’s been broken. You can breathe again, lovey.”

  Leslie came hesitantly into the library, and it was then we heard the turning of a key in the front door downstairs. Brandon Reid had come home. We waited for him, as still and posed as the inanimate objects in the room. He climbed the stairs, saw the light in the library, and came through the door.

  “What has happened?” he asked.

  I held out my candle to him and gestured toward the floor. He took the holder from me, staring in disbelief at the shattered bits of stone.

  “Light the gas, Megan,” he said over his shoulder.

  I hurried to do his bidding, and he searched the room swiftly, purposefully. Almost at once he found what he was looking for and picked it up from beneath the desk. When he held it out to us, Leslie gave a cry. It was the pistol from which the shot must have been fired. An ornate we
apon with elaborate fittings.

  “Wait here,” he said to us. “I want to have a look downstairs.”

  When he had left the room, Miss Garth spoke, her tone deadly cold. “This has gone too far. Something must be done about the boy.”

  “Yes,” Leslie said helplessly, “something must be done.”

  I thought of Jeremy, trembling upstairs, waiting for punishment to befall him—perhaps asking for it again? I had promised to return quickly, but now I must wait.

  Brandon rejoined us in a few moments, carrying a towel filled with slivers of glass. “It’s as I thought. Someone wrapped this towel about a fist so as to make no noise and smashed the glass front of the cabinet that holds the pistol collection.”

  Leslie began to weep softly. Perhaps the memory of that other, more dreadful, shooting had returned to devastate her. But Miss Garth made no move to comfort her now.

  “The boy would have killed you if you’d been here,” she told Brandon fiercely. “Now perhaps you’ll listen to reason.”

  “Get her to bed.” Brandon’s words were curt.

  Miss Garth made a despairing gesture and then took Leslie by the arm. “Come, lovey. You must get your rest.”

  When they had gone, Brandon turned to me. “I’ll talk to the boy,” he said and went out of the room.

  As I followed him up the stairs, I tried to plead for Jeremy, but there was so little I could say. If Brandon had been home, would it have been the Osiris that Jeremy smashed? Garth’s terrible accusation silenced me.

  At the head of the stairs Brandon spoke to me. “I’m partly to blame for this. Because of the carrousel. But that doesn’t excuse the boy. Such outbursts are too dangerous, too violent. What if I had been working in the library tonight?”

  Whatever I might say would only make matters worse, and I was silent.

  For all his chill, Jeremy had not returned to bed. He sat on the floor cross-legged, as if he were trying to make himself so small that no one would find him there. Bleak misery looked from his eyes, and I was reminded of the time when he had fled to the Memorial Home and hidden himself there.

  Brandon spoke to him, not ungently. “Tell me exactly what happened, Jeremy.”

  The boy stood up to face his uncle. He wavered for a moment, then flung himself across the bed in the same wild fury of grief I had seen before.

  “I didn’t mean to!” he cried. “I never meant to do it! Never, never! I only meant to frighten him. Never to kill him. I was just going to wave the gun at him; I never meant to pull the trigger.”

  Brandon and I looked at each other. It was not of the Osiris head Jeremy spoke. His mind had fled back in time to the killing of his father.

  I sat beside him on the bed and tried to soothe him, but he would not let me touch him. He hurled himself wildly from me, staring in terror at his uncle.

  “Listen to me, Jeremy.” Brandon spoke quietly. “It’s not what happened long ago that we’re talking about. Someone broke into the pistol collection tonight. Someone went into the library with a loaded gun and shot a bullet through the Osiris head.”

  The terror in Jeremy’s eyes did not subside, but he stopped crying and sat up, stricken to silence, unable to speak at all.

  “Don’t question him now,” I said to Brandon. “You can see he’s in no state to answer you sensibly. You can talk to him tomorrow.”

  For once he heeded me. He told Jeremy a grave good night and started toward the door. Jeremy found his voice and spoke up in a high, strained tone.

  “You’ll punish me now, won’t you, Uncle Brandon? But you won’t keep me from going to the memorial service for my father? You will let me go to that?”

  We were both startled by this sudden turn Jeremy’s thoughts had taken. I believe Brandon hesitated on the point of immediate refusal. Then he said, “We’ll see,” and went out of the room.

  I followed him into the hall. “Be gentle with him tomorrow. He’s going through a dreadful time.”

  Brandon shook his head. “There’s no use in keeping on with this, Megan. Especially since you’re going away. I’ve given the boy every chance, but this is beyond our handling. He must be placed where he can do no further harm.”

  This was more than I could bear. “Then put him in my charge! Let me take him away and care for him. If he could be given a new life in different surroundings—where no one knew anything about him, where such terrible things hadn’t happened, he would improve. He has been better lately. I know he has!”

  For a moment Brandon stared at me coldly. When he spoke there was no kindness in his voice. “You are thinking only of the boy. Do you believe it fair to turn this violence loose on others who cannot even expect it, or defend themselves?”

  For a moment I was held by a doubting that his words awakened in me. Was he right? Was there too much danger to others involved in keeping the boy in normal society? After what he had done tonight, it would seem that Brandon was justified. Yet I knew I could not abandon Jeremy to be put out of the way in some dreadful institution.

  I returned to his room, where he still lay across the bed, and persuaded him to get under the covers. Then I sat beside him and talked to him for a little while. He was quiet enough now, with the emotion drained from him by the outburst of weeping.

  “I think you are old enough to understand that what happened to the carrousel was an accident and not deliberate,” I said. “An accident to be forgiven. It was wrong of you to try to pay him back by hurting what he treasured.”

  He nodded his agreement, wide-eyed.

  “Would you like to tell me about it?” I asked gently.

  His gaze did not move from mine. “I can’t remember,” he said, and I heard despair in his voice. “I don’t remember anything about it. Miss Megan, I can remember when I shot my father. But I can’t remember taking Garth’s scissors and thimble, and I can’t remember this. It frightens me that I do things I can’t remember afterwards.” He sat up and flung his arms about me. “Help me not to do them, Miss Megan! Help me not to!”

  I remembered the comfort he had taken that time when I’d told him I would not let him hurt either himself or me, and I wished I could give him some similar assurance for the future. But how could he be guarded every moment when one never knew what he might do next?

  “I know you love your uncle,” I persisted. “Yet you tried to hurt him. You worked so hard to make the collar for the Osiris. How could you destroy the head?”

  His eyes were dark with anguish. “How could I?” he echoed blankly. “How could I do such an awful thing?” And he looked at me fiercely. “I don’t even remember leaving this room.”

  I held him close, comforting him as best I could, while a flicker of astonishing suspicion ran through me. Was there something here I had missed entirely? Something we were meant to believe that might not be true? What if Jeremy was not guilty of all the mischief attributed to him? He admitted quickly enough the deeds he remembered. If he could not recall the others—had they been his doing?

  Such suspicion opened frightening possibilities, and I dared not so much as hint my thoughts to the boy.

  “You’ll be able to sleep now,” I assured him. “I’ll sit by your bed. You’re perfectly safe. Nothing can harm you.”

  He closed his eyes with such trust in my words that I was shaken. There was so little real assurance of safety I could give him.

  The candle on the bureau dipped and guttered, burning low. I went to my room for a shawl and came back to continue my vigil beside Jeremy’s bed. I knew I could not sleep if I tried.

  What if some of Jeremy’s supposed mischief had really been managed by a malignant adult? Someone who wanted the boy put away, who hated his presence here in this house. If the boy could be made to seem increasingly unstable and dangerous, then a purpose might be accomplished. If he went, I would go too—that could be a part of this purpose.

  Such a suspicion was shocking to contemplate. Whoever in this household was willing to let a child be blamed for s
omething he had not done, indeed to place evidence at the child’s door, was a person driven by a malevolence that knew no bounds.

  Jeremy stirred and opened his eyes. “Miss Megan, I do want to go to the ceremony when the Memorial Home is opened. It’s to be soon—only about ten days now. Will you speak to Uncle Brandon so he won’t choose that for punishment?”

  “Why does this mean so much to you?” I asked.

  For a moment he seemed at a loss to answer. Then he struggled to explain.

  “Since the ceremony will be to honor my father, perhaps he will be close by that day. Perhaps I’ll be able to feel him there, and then I can tell him I didn’t mean what happened. I’ve tried to reach him in that room downstairs, but I think he is truly gone from there.”

  I wanted to put my arms about him and hold him tenderly, lovingly. But I sensed that it was wiser to be matter-of-fact.

  “I’ll speak to your uncle,” I promised, though I had little confidence that Brandon would listen now to anything I said.

  My soothing and Jeremy’s own weariness took effect at last. I sat beside him as he slept, a new force of determination growing within me. All my plans must now be changed. I would not look for a room tomorrow. I could not possibly leave this house until Jeremy was safe. I would stay, and, if someone was using the boy for a hidden, iniquitous purpose, I would expose whoever it was once and for all.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  After spending the remaining hours of the night in the chair beside Jeremy’s bed, I felt thoroughly bedraggled and weary by morning. Nevertheless, I caught Brandon in the library immediately after breakfast and confronted him with my new resolve. I dared not tell him of my vague suspicions, but I said that I would stay on at my post if only he would not send Jeremy away.

  Brandon was a sober, troubled man that morning. He too looked as if he had slept little. The maid had not yet come in to clean the room, and the broken pieces of the stone head still lay upon the floor. The tall white crown had cracked through and broken away from the serene brow of Osiris. The head of the snake—that mark of royalty—clung to a broken fragment, still alert and eerily raised, as if it had life of its own.