My Brother's Keeper

by Marcia Davenport

  “Does anybody know why all the newspapers?” I asked. I had been wondering how that had started.

  “Sure,” said Blyfeld. “Old Randall wasn’t such a mystery around the neighborhood here. Some of those folks out there used to know him. They say he’d sit out on the stoop dressed in a funny kind of brown velvet lounging-jacket, all worn out, and a pair of striped pants and a cap he always wore turned around backwards. And he’d talk to people if he felt like it. He used to talk about his brother.”

  “Do you suppose he made sense?”

  “Depends on what you call sense, I guess,” said Deering. “Look inside here and you know the poor devil was nuts. Listen to what they say he said, and you feel real sorry for him. Funny the way we talk as if he was dead for sure—but I bet he is.”

  “About the papers,” said Blyfeld, “that makes you feel kind of sorry for him, but it sure shows he was cracked. He took care of old Seymour like a baby and Seymour seems to be the reason for a lot of all this. He was blind, I guess you heard that. And Randall had this one damned notion, stubborn as a mule. He said he was sure he was going to cure Seymour’s blindness, and after he got his sight back he’d want to read all the papers so he’d know everything he’d missed in thirty-five years. Can you tie that?”

  Deering looked at his watch. “We might as well call it a day,” he said to Blyfeld; and to me, “Mr. Cullom says you’ll be around while we’re doing this on account of the things the bank is looking for. If you mean to get very far inside that place—” he gestured at the foul-smelling cavern behind us, “you’d better wear an outfit like ours. This beats anything I’ve ever had to do, and I’ve done plenty. Me for a bath, boys—a couple of baths. So long.”

  Next day I really joined the search. Before it ended I had been twelve whole days in that house with Deering and Blyfeld and their helpers from the Police and the Sanitation Departments. They looked for Randall Holt and I looked for anything which would induce Renata Tosi to meet the conditions of Seymour Holt’s will. That, at least, was my first objective. I might have had more peace of mind since, and much more time for my own work, if I had been able to confine my interest in the Holt story to the matter of Seymour’s will. That became quickly impossible, not only because of the drama and the pathos and the horror, but because much of what I looked for concerned Seymour and most of what I found concerned Randall. Then there were the objects of decayed rubbish which, as we found them, emerged to more and more vivid identifications. If I list them here, they move back into the bewildering hodgepodge which is all they actually were. But follow if you can what was happening in my reasoning as we dug out a series of pianos—two, three, seven, fourteen finally; or trunks full of mouldering but still spectacular women’s clothes; the chassis of an automobile; masses of printed and manuscript music with hair-fine scribblings on the disintegrating margins in the hand which I soon learned to know was Randall’s; or a cookery notebook kept by the mother of the Holts, where there were irrelevant entries in a different hand, the meaning of which was a startling clue to some of what I learned. What should I think of a thing they told me was a Kiddie Kar of the earliest vintage; or a nursery icebox and a baby’s bathtub and I forget how many prams of various kinds? I knew the reason for the boxes and crates full of newspaper clippings about the Opera early in the century, but why the dozens of unopened bundles of unsold tickets to a church picnic on Staten Island? Why the moth-eaten rocking-horse, with the receipted bill for its purchase from Schwarz glued to its saddle? Why did the house contain so many market baskets, all alike, all of a certain odd, rounded shape and one of them, found inside the belly of a rusted kerosene stove, with a shred of once-pink ribbon tied to its handle? Some of my questions were questions no longer, after the day near the end of the search when we had dug our way into what had once been the sole bathroom of the house, but which the Holts apparently never used; they used no plumbing or sewerage; no gas, no electricity. The deep tin bathtub of the early ‘Seventies was rusted through in ugly holes, and lying face down in the bottom of it there was a child’s desk, to which had been affixed a heavy brass tumbler lock. The thing was covered by masses of refuse layered between old plush portières, burst bedpillows, and rags. A rat leaped from the mess as the men poked at it, and vanished into the rotten wall. That little desk when we broke it open held too many of Randall’s secrets for their discoverer to shrug them off and go his way.

  Nobody could help brooding about all this, and wondering, and putting together the immense mass of tangible evidence which proved what the lives of the Holts had been. But brooding leaves me just where I have been for a long time, preoccupied, haunted, compelled beyond my will to follow those twisted lives from their youth to their desolate age. It is not the facts, fantastic as they are, which drive and prod at my imagination; but how these human characters were the causes and the victims of the facts and of their own fates. This gives me no peace. If I were a writer, I would get it out of my mind by making a book of it.

  But I am not a writer, and up to now the strange story with its crazy embellishments has gone on revolving and evolving and developing in my mind, leaving me stranded for lack of the skill to transcribe it. I am sure I know what happened to those people and how and why they became in the end what they did. I have the instinct to follow the workings of cause and effect, and also the instinct to make order. This is the habit of my training in my own work; we must be precise, we must keep order of everything entrusted to us, we must cleanly finish off the details of each thing that we undertake. In this case I am baffled and so I believe forced to ponder about the lives of the Holt brothers instead of winding up their affairs and dismissing them as I would ordinarily do. The result of all this is that I see and feel the story that I would write if I could, but it never gets outside the limits of my imagination. Inside these limits it is clear and very real and it leads me on and on. This is the way it seems to me, this is what I think, what I sense, what my imagination weaves out of what I have seen… .

  PART II

  CHAPTER 1

  Seymour thought Grandmama must have forgotten that he was there in his favorite play-place under the round table with the twisting legs and the thick fringed plush cover which hung down to the carpet. Inside it was dark and warm and secret. Seymour could pretend this place to be whatever he chose—a robbers’ cave, a railway tunnel, the coal-hole of a ship. This afternoon it had been a mine, like the inside of the mountain where Curdie worked with his father. Of course Seymour did not believe all that magic, all the things that goblins and witches did, which made Randall’s eyes grow so big and round, and gave him nightmares after Nana put the light out. Seymour was not afraid of all that since he was four years older than Randall. But he knew that a mine really was full of gold and silver and wonderful colored jewels, and there in the dark, scrambling on his hands and knees between the heavy legs of the table, he could scratch and pick at the patterns and colors in the carpet, pretending he had found rubies or a lump of gold or a handful of diamonds. He was busy picking out diamonds, the white threads in the pattern of the fancy carpet, when he heard Papa’s heavy step crossing the room. It stopped beside Grandmama’s chair near the window.

  “Why, John,” she said, “you are home early today.”

  “Yes.” Seymour heard a soft creak as his father sat down in the tufted armchair opposite Grandmama. “Yes, I suppose. I rather thought I would be in time for tea with Lily.”

  “She is in the drawing-room,” said Grandmama’s tight, cross voice. “She did not have tea with me today.”

  “Yes, I heard her playing. I came straight upstairs.”

  “Lily is too old to take piano lessons,” said Grandmama. “I think you are foolish to permit it.”

  “She loves music,” said Papa.

  “She can hear music at the Opera like everybody else. There is no need for her to take these ridiculous lessons. It is unsuitable for a married woman, and who is this Mr. Malvern, this person who comes here?” Grandmama�
�s voice was low but very sharp.

  “Oh, Mother, I don’t think it matters. Just a music teacher.” Sometimes when Papa spoke in that dragging way Seymour watched for his eyes to close as if he were going to fall asleep.

  “I thoroughly disapprove,” said Grandmama. “This is not the first time I have spoken about this, John. I think you should put a stop to her nonsense.”

  Seymour had forgotten about his mining now. He simply sat crosslegged and listened.

  “Mother,” he heard Papa say in his ‘patient’ voice. Seymour was clever about voices, he had learned how much they can say almost without words. “Mother, don’t you think you are a little hard on Lily? She is so young—”

  “Too young,” snapped Grandmama. “And it’s high time she grew up. She’ll make a fool of you, John. You’ll have brought it on yourself, to be sure—what can have made you do it!”

  “I love her.” Papa spoke slowly.

  “That’s perfect nonsense. One doesn’t marry for such a reason. You were quite old enough to know better—you had me to warn you. Now that you’ve got a flighty, silly creature on your hands, you will have to put some sense into her.”

  “Lily is artistic,” said Papa. “She loves music.”

  “Music! It’s that foreign blood, that’s what it is. You never should have married her.”

  “Mother, please. You do exaggerate so. You had nothing against Lily before, you’ve said so yourself. The Randalls were always our friends, and one French grandmother—must we go over all that again?”

  “You were well enough off as you were.” Seymour had to inch forward and put his head down to the fringe of the plush table-cover to hear that. He felt choked and hot, but he would not try to go away now; he would not dare to.

  “Please don’t say that again, Mother. It’s a pity we can’t all be quite happy together. You love the boys.”

  “Very much,” said Grandmama in a tone so hard that eight-year-old Seymour flinched. “That is why I think Lily might well stop being so ‘artistic’ and devote herself more to her responsibilities.”

  Seymour waited a long time before he heard Papa say, “I wonder if you know how little chance you give her.”

  “John!”

  “It’s true, Mother. I’ve tried to say it before. Lily hasn’t got a house to run, or anything to be responsible for, not even the boys, between you and Nana.”

  “Nana. Did you think I would let a twenty-year-old girl choose a nurse when Seymour was born?”

  “No. I didn’t think so. But if you don’t let Lily run the house or manage her own children, what is she to do?”

  “She can do as I say. She can learn from me.”

  “She has tried.” Seymour knew from the tight feeling in his own throat that Papa must be trying not to say something. Seymour could hear the loud, slow breathing that Grandmama always made when she was cross. He began to feel worried about Papa. He wished too that he dared crawl out and go away but also he wanted to hear what was coming next. And something dreadful would happen if he should let them discover that he had been there under the table all this time. He held his breath and crouched there hugging his knees. He heard Papa cough and say quickly, “Sooner or later we’ll have to change all this, Mother. I—we—Lily and the boys and I—ought to have a house of our own.”

  Seymour listened even more closely. This was a surprising idea. He heard his grandmother say, “And what about your promise? You haven’t forgotten it, of course, so I take it your fool of a wife has been at you again. I’ll not hear of it, John. Not another word.”

  Then Seymour had to wait a long, long time. He knew exactly how Grandmama and Papa were sitting there, stiff and angry, looking so much alike with their narrow foreheads frowning, and their mouths shut tight. They would be sitting up straight in the slippery red chairs which gave Seymour gooseflesh if he touched them, staring out the bay window at the long back yard where the snow was too old and slushy to be fun any more. That was why Seymour had been kept indoors this afternoon. He waited and waited and at last he heard Papa stand up and say, “Well, I’m going upstairs to see the boys.”

  “Yes,” said Grandmama. Seymour knew exactly how she would look down her nose at her left shoulder, where a gold watch hung from a fleur-de-lis pin. She was always looking at the watch and she had taught Seymour to tell time by it and also how to say fleur-de-lis. “Yes,” she said, “it’s almost time for their supper. I must go and see whether this new cook has made their broth properly.”

  Seymour heard the loud rustling of her skirts as she rose from her chair. He was quite frightened. They were both going up to the day nursery and when they found he was not there, someone would go at once to look for him. He mustn’t be found here. And while he was wondering what to do, he thought quickly of Mama. Somehow she seemed in more danger than he. He had a feeling that he wanted to run and warn her. He held his breath while he listened to Grandmama and Papa leaving the room and starting up the stairs. When they were nearly at the top, Seymour scuttled from under the table, ran across the room and down the thickly carpeted stairs to the drawing-room, as fast as he could. He was very quiet. He heard the piano as he slithered down the stairs. He did not know just what he was going to say to Mama, but he knew he wanted to rush to her and throw his arms round her and whisper, “Be careful, watch out. Be careful of Grandmama.”

  He opened the door and slipped into the drawing-room, shutting the door behind him. He ran towards Mama at the piano. He was in a hurry to tell her. But he stopped. She was sitting there with Mr. Malvern on a chair beside her, and Seymour was startled to see that she had Randall on her lap. She was guiding Randall’s right hand and nodding and smiling as his tiny fingers struck the keys. “You see?” cried Mama, turning to Mr. Malvern. “It is true, don’t you see? See how he takes to it.”

  Seymour wanted to cry out, “Mama!” But he could not. He stood there and watched her and that man with the bushy whiskers nodding and beaming over Randall, and it didn’t seem to matter any more that he had something to tell Mama. He could scarcely remember what it was. He stood and stared at them, at Mama’s left hand with the thick gold ring, holding Randall on her lap, and her right hand supporting Randall’s wrist. She was humming softly as Randall’s fingers picked out the notes. Sometimes she turned her curly brown head towards Mr. Malvern and smiled.

  Seymour gathered his feet tight together and bent his knees and jumped as high as he could in the air, coming down with a crash on his copper-toed boots. At the same time he shouted “BOO!”

  Mama shrieked. Mr. Malvern jumped to his feet. Randall began to cry.

  “Seymour!” cried Mama. “How you frightened me.” She left her piano stool, setting Randall on his feet, and went across to Seymour.

  “Boo!” he roared again. “Boo! BOO!”

  Mama knelt beside him and put her arms round him. “Hush,” she said. “Stop that, Seymour, it’s naughty.” Randall was wailing in the corner. “You’ve frightened Brother. And you’re very rude.” Her face was sad and Seymour remembered that he was sorry for her, but he shouted, “I don’t care.”

  Mama shook her head. “Now tell Brother you’re sorry.” She held out her right arm to Randall, who hung back, crying, with his finger in his mouth. “Come here, Baby,” she said. “That’s a good boy.” She stared reproachfully at Seymour and said, “I ought to punish you.”

  “But you won’t!” cried Seymour. “You wouldn’t—” he stopped, with his mouth open. The door was flung wide and Grandmama stood there tall and scowling, looking at Lily kneeling with her arms round the boys.

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked Mrs. Holt. Her long face was red and angry. “Lily, why did you bring the children downstairs? It’s past their suppertime. What have you done to Randall?”

  Seymour watched anxiously. Mama bit her pale lips and said, “I’m sorry, Mother Holt.”

  “Why did you bring them down here?”

  Lily did not answer. She was wiping Randall’s nose with
her pocket handkerchief and smoothing back Seymour’s hair.

  “Please answer me at once!” said Mrs. Holt.

  Seymour shouted, “Because she wanted to!” His grandmother strode forward, wrenched him from his mother’s arm, and pushed him towards the door. “Go upstairs and stay in the night nursery alone until I come for you.” Seymour stood still, his mouth shut tight. “Go at once!” said Grandmama.

  “Go, darling,” whispered Mama. Seymour marched off, with a glare at his grandmother as he passed her. She was seizing Randall by the hand, preparing to take him away upstairs. Seymour climbed the first flight slowly, peering down between the banisters into the drawing-room. Grandmama was dragging Randall away, but she stopped at the door and said, “Lily, I think there has been enough of this nonsense about music lessons. This bringing the boys into your—your—” Grandmama made her pinched-up nose at Mr. Malvern. “This is too much.” She started to follow Seymour up the stairs, dragging Randall who was still wailing. Seymour hurried. Grandmama had to go slowly because Randall’s legs were so short.