“My poor darling child!” Aunt Twice said. “What a cruel life you’ve come to! But you are being brave, and I am so proud of you. Still, you must continue to remember, much as I would wish it were not so, that this house and its owner”—Aunt Twice shuddered— “must come first. They must come before everything.”
“I will remember,” Emily promised. “But oh, Aunt Twice, who are all the old people? Why are they here?”
“They are people no one wants,” Aunt Twice replied gently. “Their families can no longer look after them, or sadly and cruelly, no longer want them. This is an old people’s home that you’ve come to, Emily.”
“Are all old people’s homes like this one? Must they all come to such a place?” Emily asked.
“No, Emily. There are pleasant, kind homes, but this is not one of them. This is an evil place—wicked and evil. It is only the uncaring who leave their old people behind here.”
“Oh, Aunt Twice!” Emily cried. “Can nothing be done about them?”
“Nothing!” said Aunt Twice with tight lips.
Emily shuddered. “It was such a mournful dinnertime. Why can’t they share some of the beautiful food in the big ice box?”
Aunt Twice stiffened. “You must not ask any questions about the food, Emily. I know how horrible the food is for them, and for you too, but you must never touch any of the other, even if you think no one is watching. Everything here is numbered. Everything is accounted for.”
The very thing Tilly had said! Emily thought. But her aunt had told her she was to ask no more questions about the food, so there was nothing more to say about it. At any rate, another pressing question had jumped into her mind. “Aunt Twice, you’re not an old person. Why are you here?”
“Because I am a prisoner,” replied Aunt Twice simply.
“A prisoner? But you came to meet me at the train station,” Emily said. “And you aren’t in chains.”
Aunt Twice smiled a grim smile. “There are other ways of being a prisoner, Emily. Someone’s very life depends on my serving the owner of Sugar Hill Hall!”
Someone’s very life! “Who?” Emily breathed.
Aunt Twice hesitated. “I—I cannot tell you. I cannot!”
“But Aunt Twice,” Emily blurted out, “can’t-can’t Uncle Twice come to help you? Where is he?”
Aunt Twice’s face turned ashen. “Hush, child, hush!” Her eyes darted around the small room as if pursued by some deadly horror. “The walls here have eyes and ears! You must never speak of him again. Never! You must think of him as—as dead! Will you promise that?”
Think of Uncle Twice as dead—did that mean he was really alive? Questions tumbled wildly in Emily’s head. But Aunt Twice had said that she must never speak of him again and had asked for her promise. Numbly, Emily nodded her head.
Aunt Twice looked as if she might be going to say something more. Her mouth opened suddenly, but then just as suddenly snapped shut. And Emily knew then that it was locked upon its secret terrors as tightly as the door of the Remembrance Room. If she was ever going to find any answers to her questions, it would have to be on her own.
After a moment, the frozen expression on Aunt Twice’s face softened into a sad, dim smile. She reached out to stroke Emily’s head gently. “Oh, those beautiful golden braids! Well, at least we can trim what is left so you won’t look like such a straggly little waif.” She dipped a hand into the pocket of her plain brown calico dress and pulled out a pair of scissors.
A short while later, after a snip here and a snip there, Emily looked at herself in the cracked mirror. Although far from beautiful, the haircut was certainly an improvement over the one provided earlier. Emily managed a smile at her reflection to please Aunt Twice.
“You poor, tired child, not even in your nightdress yet,” Aunt Twice said. “And you haven’t yet unpacked your travelling bag. I thought you might have done so when you came down with Tilly.”
“I—I wasn’t certain I should,” Emily stammered.
“But why not?” asked Aunt Twice.
“Because—” Emily hesitated. “Because there is something in it I’m not certain Tilly should see.” She pulled the gold chain from her dress and quickly un hooked the key, hoping that Aunt Twice would not notice the locket. If she did and saw the picture of herself and Uncle Twice, she would most certainly want the picture destroyed. But, with all interest on the key, she seemed not to notice the locket.
Emily unlocked her travelling bag and reached into a tiny secret compartment in the silk lining. From it she pulled out a small white paper packet. Then she opened the packet and poured its contents into Aunt Twice’s hand—twenty pure gold coins!
“Papa’s lawyer, Mr. Dowling, gave them to me before I left,” Emily explained. “I suspect he thought I might need the money before my allowance could start coming to you from Papa’s will.”
“Oh, dear child!” Aunt Twice cried. “Don’t you know? Your papa died a pauper! He lost everything in the sudden failure of his company. Mr. Dowling wrote me that there is no money coming.”
“N-n-no money coming?” said Emily, confused. “Then—then where did Mr. Dowling get the gold coins?”
“I would guess from his own pocket,” murmured Aunt Twice softly. “But with all expectations now ended, there is even greater reason for these gold coins to be protected. You were right not to show them to Tilly. But where can you keep them? My room is not safe.”
Her eyes searched the room swiftly. Then at last she gave a small cry of triumph. Lifting up a corner of the thin mattress on the cot, she made a tiny slit at the seam of ticking with her scissors. One by one, she slipped the coins through. Then, with a needle and thread found in her pocket, she stitched up the opening with trembling fingers.
She had no sooner finished this task, however, when a sound hardly more than that of a whisper of air outside the door made her jerk up her head and stiffen. For a moment she stood with staring eyes, motionless as a mouse accustomed to the soft, secret approach of a cat’s paws, or a snake’s belly. Then, with a finger to her lips as a signal for Emily to be silent, she crept slowly to the door and flung it open.
“Tilly! What are you doing?” For all its sternness, Aunt Twice’s voice was quivering.
“I just wondered what you was doing,” whined Tilly. “You never comes to talk to me at night.”
Aunt Twice sighed. “I didn’t know you wanted me to, Tilly, and we are ordinarily both too weary at night. But I have not seen my niece in years, and so I wished to talk to her about her dear departed mother and father.”
“You never talks to me ’bout my dear departed ma and pa,” said Tilly, pouting. “Leastways, my departed pa. My ma just upped and died.”
“Tilly,” said Aunt Twice patiently, “your mother died when you were born, and your father left you soon after. But that was years and years ago. Emily has only just lost her mother and father in a terrible accident.”
“I doesn’t care,” said Tilly stubbornly. “I wants to talk ’bout ’em. Us orphings is supposed to be equals. I heard Mrs. Meeching say so. If you talks ’bout her ma and pa, you has to talk ’bout mine, toot”
Aunt Twice stiffened at the mention of Mrs. Meeching’s name. “When did you want to talk about them, Tilly?”
“Right now!”
“It’s very late,” Aunt Twice said. “Wouldn’t tomorrow night do just as well?”
Tilly thought this over. “Well, long as you doesn’t forget. Hey! Ain’t that Emily’s bag open? She promised as how she’d ’low me to see her pretty things.”
“I’m only taking out my nightdress now, Tilly,” Emily said. She remembered that her tam-o’-shanter was still in Tilly’s apron pocket, where, for all she knew, it had taken up permanent residence. “We can look at them tomorrow. I promise we will.”
There was more thought from Tilly. “Well, long as you promises, I guess ’tis late.”
“Yes, of course it is,” said Aunt Twice quickly. “That’s a sensible girl, Tilly
. Now come along, and we’ll go together to our rooms. Good night, Emily!” She closed the door without so much as a backward look.
They never had talked about Mama and Papa, but Emily already had come to accept the way Aunt Twice must behave now, so she was not startled at being left so suddenly. Still, this did not make it any easier to be left alone once again in her cold, stony, silent underground cell. Silent, that is, except for strange scratching sounds overhead. Rats? she wondered. Quickly she threw off her clothes and slipped into her nightdress.
Before she turned down the gaslight, however, she opened her locket to study the photographs inside it. Shadows danced eerily over the tiny figures—Mama, Papa, Aunt Twice, Uncle Twice. Tall, slender Uncle Twice with the golden mustaches and the twinkling blue eyes! As with Mama and Papa, was a photograph all Emily would ever have to remember him by? Shivering, she finally turned down the light, jumped into her cot, and pulled the skimpy coverlet tight up around her face. She hoped she would fall asleep at once, yet no sooner would she close her eyes than terrifying shapes danced across her eyelids, making them fly open.
As she stared into the darkness, questions began again to whirl through her head. She thought of the mountains of delicious food in the locked icebox. Surely, two ladies, even with the most enormous appetites, could not consume so much food. Everything numbered—everything accounted for, so surely nothing would be lightly tossed away either. Who did eat it then?
But the one burning question that returned over and over had to do with Uncle Twice. She was to think of him as dead— why? Could he be the one whose life depended on Aunt Twice serving the dread Mrs. Meeching? Or was the life Aunt Twice so desperately protected one Emily as yet knew nothing about, so she was to think of her uncle as dead because—because he had become as evil as this mansion. Because he was the depraved mind behind all this horror, and not Mrs. Meeching. Well, after all, he had bought Sugar Hill Hall, hadn’t he? Wasn’t he the owner? Emily tried to sweep these ugly thoughts from her mind, but they stuck firm and would not be swept away.
Of one thing, however, she was becoming certain. There were terrible secrets locked up in Sugar Hill Hall, and somehow she had the feeling that the key to all of them lay with Uncle Twice. But where was he? Would she ever find out? Whom could she ask? Not Aunt Twice, she now knew. Her aunt was much too frightened to reveal anything, holding a life in her hands. Tilly then? She probably knew little, and what she did know she would not likely tell Emily. So whatever Emily discovered, she would have to manage on her own.
How she could possibly discover anything, she had no idea. It would take all her strength and wits just to keep from becoming another shadow like the old people. But she would not become one! she told herself fiercely. Nor would she ever let Mrs. Meeching see tears in her eyes. Never!
But all this bravery would have to start tomorrow. Tonight she was a cold, lonely, frightened girl, away from the only home she had ever known. She had lost her mama and papa, and there was nothing to look forward to but grey soup and moldy bread, and odd Tilly for her only friend. The sounds of her tears and sobbing, when they came, were deeply buried in her small, hard pillow, because she had not forgotten, even in all her misery, that the walls had eyes and ears.
FIVE
Kipper
Emily’s favorite ornament on the Christmas tree had always been a pink, blue, and silver cardboard gondola pulled by two white glass swans with silvery spun-glass tails. As a tiny girl, she would often sit and stare at it for minutes on end, forgetting all her new Christmas gifts. That night she dreamed about her swans, but rather than floating amidst a hundred sparkling ornaments and twinkling candles, they drifted alone around a tall, dark, lifeless tree.
All at once, as Emily watched them, they began to plummet to the ground. She reached out for them, but all her fingers closed around was ice-cold air. Sobbing, she crawled toward the tree, trying to gather the tiny bits of glass that had once been the swans, but all she could pick up in her hands was the two spun-glass tails. Then, as she held them, they began to squirm from her fingers, gliding into the dark tree like two small snakes with red ribbons around their tails. Emily began to scream. Then someone was shaking her, and she opened her eyes to find Tilly bending over her.
“What’s all this ’bout, yelling y’r head off! Should o’ et y’r bread last night what I told you to do. Anyways, you gets a second chance at it this morning. But you hurries up! Us has to get the coal for the stove ’fore the morning is half over.” Yawning hugely, Tilly stumped out of the room.
Morning half over? How could it be morning at all when it was still black outside the sliver of a window? Was morning going to be the middle of the night from now on? Emily shivered as her toes touched the cold, damp, stone floor. She envied the ugly grey wool robe Tilly was wearing.
All Emily had in her travelling bag was a second silk dress, no more suitable for carrying coal or scrubbing dishes than the first. As it was also no warmer, she decided to wear the same dress again and save the other, though for what she could not imagine. But at least she now had her shawl out, and in time her trunks would come.
Trunks! Suddenly Emily remembered something Mrs. Leslie had packed in them—all Mama’s jewels! What would happen if Tilly should see the diamond rings, the gold brooches, and Mama’s beloved necklace of true pearls? Shouldn’t they be hidden as well as the gold coins? But Emily had no time to think about that now. Fingers still aching from a hurried visit to the icy washroom, she quickly pulled on her clothes.
“Them white kid shoes and white stockings again!” said Tilly with disgust when she saw Emily. “Ain’t you got nothing better to wear for work?”
“Not yet,” Emily replied.
“Kid shoes and white stockings for carrying coal! Hmmmph!” grunted Tilly. “What a waste!”
They picked up empty tin buckets at the foot of the stairwell and clanked their way down the passageway to the coal room. This turned out to be directly next to the room Emily had tried not to think about all night.
“Is someone still in there, do you suppose?” she whispered to Tilly as they shovelled coal into their buckets.
“I don’t got to suppose nothing,” shouted Tilly in reply. “I knows it’s in there. If it ain’t out by night, then it gets to wait until after breakfast. If y’r in the kitchen, you might even get to see it brung out by Mrs. Meeching.”
Emily wasn’t at all excited about witnessing still another sideshow featuring one of the pitiful residents of Sugar Hill Hall. She was curious, however, about what kind of old person it might be who had dared to steal (accepting that Tilly was right about it) a peppermint. No, not a, but two peppermints! It would have to be someone much bigger and bolder than any of the others, she was certain.
“Quits y’r daydreaming!” Tilly’s angry voice broke into her thoughts. “You ain’t got more’n twenty coal lumps in y’r bucket. Oh well, that’s probably more’n you can carry.” Tilly sniffed. “Us might as well leave.”
Aunt Twice was already in the kitchen starting up the stove when Emily stumbled in with her coal bucket behind Tilly. Preparations for the morning meal were underway. Although Emily had tried to strengthen her mind for the menu, she still suffered the same sinking feeling in her stomach when she saw on the stove the large graniteware pot filled now with a thin, colorless gruel, and on the table the familiar basket with the all-too-familiar lumps of last night’s (if not last month’s) bread.
She tried to keep her attention firmly away from the eggs, tub of yellow butter, pitcher of rich cream, and bowl heaped with oranges, bananas, and grapes, and crowned with the crisp green spikes of a fresh pineapple, all laid out on the second table. But when the fragrances of bubbling coffee, sizzling bacon and sausages, and cinnamon buns baking in the oven wafted through the kitchen, there was no way that she could strengthen her mind to any of it. It was the first time in her life that she remembered being really hungry, and yet the moment she looked at the gruel and the bread lumps, her appetite
vanished.
As for the old people’s morning meal, enhanced by Mrs. Meeching’s icy presence and a fog as gloomy as the one of the day before drifting past the windows, Emily felt it to be equally as dismal as their evening meal. Her own courage, which she had tried so hard to build up the night before, crumbled when Mrs. Meeching appeared.
Their dining room duties over, Emily again was only able to pick at her meal, although Tilly poured down three bowls of gruel and at least as many lumps of bread, which appeared to have grown even moldier overnight. And when Emily stood before the sink facing the piles of pots and pans, she felt as if she had never left them the night before.
“Do we get to rest now?” she asked hopefully when she finally climbed down from the lettuce crate.
Tilly turned disbelieving, dishwater-pale blue eyes in her direction. “What you gets to rest now is y’r knees on the kitchen floor whilst you rests y’r hands on a scrub brush. Then after that, you gets to help me with cleaning upstairs whilst y’r aunt does up for Mrs. M. and Mrs. P. This afternoon, by way of entertainment, you might say, you gets to do the laundry. After that, you la-de-das about waiting on table and scrubbing up, and then you falls into y’r cot. Whether you rests there or not’s up to you!” A cast iron frying pan went heaving into a cupboard with a crash at this final pronouncement.
It wasn’t long after that Tilly and Aunt Twice left the kitchen armed with brooms, mops, dust pans and sponges, and Emily was indeed down on her white-stockinged knees beside a bucket filled with grey, soapy water that looked astonishingly like the soup of the night before. Wearily, she began to scrub the floor. Before long, her knees felt as if the floor were trying to push its way right past them, and her hands as if the harsh soap had eaten its way to her bones. Along with only a brush and a bucket for company, and a dismal fog hunched up against the windows, Emily suddenly felt her resolve not to cry slipping away. She began to sing to try to cheer herself up.
“London Bridge is falling down.
Peppermints in the Parlor Page 4