Bruce shook his head. “I don’t mind.” He looked past him to Uncle Harold, shaking the ashes out of his pipe. “You haven’t said anything. I can’t tell if you believe us or not.”
Uncle Harold was silent a moment. “Does it matter what I think?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can only say that I haven’t enough evidence to form a conclusion one way or the other. You’ll have to be satisfied with that, Bruce.”
“You don’t believe us.”
“I didn’t say—”
“We aren’t lying.”
“I know.”
Bruce moved impatiently under the bedclothes, his brows drawn. “Well, you must think something. I just don’t want you to think we’re lying or we’re crazy, and if you don’t believe us, what else can you think?”
Uncle Harold sighed. “I don’t think the matter is so important that I must form a conclusion from it on either your sanity or your principles.” He reached behind Alexander to drop the ashes in the wastebasket. “People inevitably see things differently. The important thing is that we don’t have to quarrel about who is right or—”
He stopped. He stood quietly, the pipe motionless in his hand, looking down at the picture beneath Bruce’s hands. His eyes moved from it, incredulous, to Bruce’s face. Bruce swallowed. He shifted, trying to sit straight. Uncle Harold dropped the pipe in his pocket, clearing his throat.
“That’s nice. Quite nice. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how little you can know about a person even after fourteen years.” He turned to go. Bruce leaned forward, his breath catching with the effort, and gripped his arm.
“Dad—” Uncle Harold looked down at him wordlessly. Bruce was silent a moment, his mouth tight, his hand tight on Uncle Harold’s wrist. He said steadily, “We were having a sort of an argument. Carol says it doesn’t look like her, because it’s too beautiful, and Alexander says it does. I think Carol is just too used to thinking she’s skinny and ugly to see herself properly even when she looks in a mirror, perhaps because she’s been teased too much. But I was trying to draw what I saw. What do you think?”
“I think—” He stopped, and cleared his throat. “I think you have an incredible eye for fact.”
“I knew I was right,” Alexander said complacently. Bruce let go of Uncle Harold. He held out the tablet.
“You can look through it if you want. Most of my good ones are in there, except for some flowers that Alexander has. That’s how I got that black eye.”
Uncle Harold looked up a little dazedly from the tablet. “Drawing flowers?”
“And cows. That one is the cow.” He watched the smile break slowly across Uncle Harold’s face. He lay back again, watching him. Father Malory looked over his shoulder as he turned pages. He said after a moment, “I saw you do that one, during mass. I’m sure that was one of my more garbled sermons.”
Bruce glanced at him surprisedly. “I didn’t think you saw me. I wanted to do your face in front of the rose window, with the light coming in.”
“What’s this one?” Uncle Harold said. “It looks like a seventeenth century—” His voice faded. He stared at Bruce, startled.
“Oh, that’s the ghost,” Alexander said cheerfully. “He nearly walked through me, but I moved. Now I wish I hadn’t. How many chances do you get in life to let a ghost walk through you? I might have enjoyed it.”
Uncle Harold closed his eyes. He held them closed a moment with his fingers. “Ghosts,” he said. “Priest tunnels. Bruce McQueen da Vinci Lawrence, my son. It’s too much for one man to bear in the short space of two days. I need a long vacation.” He dropped his hand. “Or have you completely finished startling me?”
“I can’t think of anything else,” Bruce said. “Did you see the one of Emily Raison? I climbed up her apple tree to get that. She was washing graves.”
Father Malory chuckled. “Yes. I like that one.”
“She told us about the priest tunnel,” Carol said. “She believed in it when no one else did.”
“Did she? Perhaps I should go through it, in case we have another Civil War.”
“It’s too dangerous now,” Uncle Harold said. “Look at this one—sheep blocking the road to Chelveston.”
“Mrs. Brewster might seal it up while you’re still in there,” Alexander said. Father Malory raised his eyes.
“Are you joking?”
“Only a little. I’m sure she wouldn’t do it on purpose.”
“But she does want to? Why?”
“We annoyed her,” Bruce said.
“Why?”
He flushed slightly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind,” Father Malory murmured. “Harold, can’t you talk to her?”
“He’s my son. I’m responsible for his disreputable character.”
“You are not,” Bruce said. “I’m old enough to do some things by myself.”
Uncle Harold smiled. He closed the tablet. “There’s no arguing that. Do you mind—do you mind if I take this with me and look through it more carefully? I’m sure your mother would like to see it. Or has she?”
Bruce shook his head. “No one has but you and Carol.” He stifled a yawn. His eyelids curved like half-moons. Uncle Harold reached across him to pick up the tray.
“You’re tired. We’ll go and let you rest.”
“Father Malory wanted to hear about the ghosts.”
“I’ll tell him,” Carol said, getting up. “You didn’t cat your lunch. Aunt Catherine said I was supposed to make you eat all of it. But I don’t feel like nagging. You’re old enough to know better.”
Bruce laughed. “Come back and nag me about supper. Dad—”
Uncle Harold turned at the doorway. “What?”
“You keep a good secret, too.”
“I do?”
Alexander dropped his face in his hands. “He guessed my fatal secret.”
“Oh.” Uncle Harold laughed. “I was wondering how long I might have to keep that.”
Father Malory looked at Alexander as he moved, big-boned and placid, toward the door. “Do you draw, too?”
“No. I write poetry.”
Father Malory blinked. He smiled contentedly. “How marvelous.”
He listened quietly, sitting in the living room, while Carol told him what happened when they went through the tunnel. When she finished he said, “You didn’t actually see Edward killed?”
“No. They were too far ahead of us.”
“Perhaps he was only captured,” Uncle Harold said absently, looking through Bruce’s tablet. Father Malory smiled.
“Perhaps…What was he wearing?”
“I couldn’t see anything besides his long cloak and his hat. He was dressed in black, maybe because he was hiding.”
“It wouldn’t be that much protection at four o’clock in the afternoon,” Uncle Harold murmured. “Black was a popular color in those days.”
Father Malory glanced down at his black suit. “Perhaps he was a priest, then, rather than a Royalist leader.” He was silent a moment, his eyes on the quiet afternoon. “There was a great deal of religious intolerance, then, on all sides. The strong Anglican church persecuted the Catholics, the Puritans, the Quakers, and the smaller groups of people who had their own particular beliefs. And the Puritans, as they gained power, persecuted the Anglican church, since that was the state religion, and they tore apart churches and sent priests into flight. It’s much more peaceful these days. People have their own faiths; they argue just as much, but they rarely fight about them.”
Uncle Harold looked up. “Speaking of arguments, how did the boys play this morning?”
“Oh, they did nicely. Roger Simmons broke down in the middle of his cello solo from shyness, but other than that…” He sighed. “None of the older people liked it, except the boys’ parents.”
“Why not?” Carol said.
“People aren’t used to modern music in medieval churches. Old Mrs. Crane said she w
as going to complain to the Bishop, but the Bishop is used to me. The boys were so disappointed. Roger Simmons cried.”
“Does that mean they can’t play anymore?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided what to do yet. The young people like it, but I don’t want to divide the parish on an issue like that.”
“Argument is inevitable.”
“I know, but I wish I could find a way of pleasing everybody. So much time is wasted arguing about things instead of enjoying them.”
Carol nodded. “Like Mrs. Brewster and the priest tunnel. She’d enjoy it if she saw it, but she won’t come.”
“She called me about it this morning,” Uncle Harold said. “I tried to persuade her to come, and she said she had no interest in seeing anything my son had done. She doesn’t want all the boys in the neighborhood running through it, bothering priests and breaking her antiques and getting flattened by falling rocks. I have a feeling I could find her at any moment on the doorstep with a bag of cement and a trowel.”
“What are you going to do, then?” Father Malory asked.
“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “If I don’t close it, she’ll send someone to have it done, and if I do close it I will never be able to look at my niece, or my son, or my face in the mirror again. It is dangerous; she’s quite right about that, but I think it can be fixed, if only they would stop that drilling over it.”
“You haven’t gone through it, then.”
“No. I have been sorely tempted, but Catherine won’t let me. She says if I got hit by a falling rock I would deserve it for going through when I expect Carol and Alexander to stay out of it. I suppose she’s right. Some of those stones are huge, and I heard one drop in the night when I went down to look in…I wonder if perhaps it was built earlier than the Civil War, perhaps during the religious persecutions of the Tudor monarchs when the church across the road was forced to turn Protestant, and Catholics worshipped secretly…This house would have been different, then; I’m not sure it would have had a cellar. But perhaps the people living in it were dedicated enough to build a tunnel, shelter priests…” He reached forward to touch the grey, uneven stones of the fireplace, his eyes vague with thought. “The house would have been a single story, built on these great flagstones, with the hearth running the length of it, and that strong beam supporting the ceiling…In spring they would have put fresh flowers on the stone floor and rushes against the chill…and perhaps one spring, when the earth had thawed after the winter snow, and people were arguing and fighting and dying over the changes that had come, they began to build a tunnel for priests and people who would not change…” His hand dropped. “Well. There’s no way of knowing for sure.”
The church bells rang a quarter-hour across the stillness. “I wonder where it ends,” Father Malory said dreamily. He looked down at his watch and rose. “I must go. No—don’t bother to see me out.” He opened the door before Uncle Harold could rise. “I should go and see Mrs. Murphy about her arthritis; she gets very lonely, especially on a quiet Sunday.” He closed the door. They heard the front door open and close. Uncle Harold turned a final page in Bruce’s tablet.
“My son,” he murmured. “Fighting for the sake of Art.” He stood up. “I’d better show this to his mother.”
The drilling began again the next morning. Carol heard it as she went upstairs with a breakfast tray. She thumped it crossly on Bruce’s knees and orange juice spilled into his egg.
“Hey!” he said sleepily. She righted the glass, flushing.
“I’m sorry. I was listening to the drilling. I’ll get you another egg; I drowned this one.”
“I don’t want another egg. That’s all right. I’ll eat the toast and jam and the chocolate and the bacon.”
“Mrs. Brewster called again.” She sat down on the window-seat, drawing her knees up, and frowned at the workmen digging in the street. Bruce stirred; his tray rattled again.
“I wish she would stop annoying Dad. I’m going to get up today, and I’m going through that tunnel at four o’clock, and I don’t care what anybody says afterward.”
Carol eyed him coldly. “How are you going to get your crutch through the hole?”
“I’ll manage. You can come and help.”
“I will not. I already saw the tunnel fall on you once, and that’s enough.”
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
“Go ahead. Jumping in the blackberries was stupid enough, but at least you didn’t go back and do it again.”
“Then what are we going to do?” he demanded. “Sit quietly and let Mrs. Brewster close it? How are we ever going to know what happened to Edward if we don’t follow the girl all the way through? That’s what we opened the tunnel for, isn’t it? This might be the last day we’ve got before she closes it—we’ve got to try, at least—”
“All right! I’ll get Alexander to go with me.”
“I’m coming, too.”
“Bruce, you couldn’t keep up with us. You would just be in the way of all the ghosts—they’d walk right through you. And if the tunnel fell in on you again, I wouldn’t want to be around to watch Uncle Harold unbury you.”
Bruce pushed the tray aside and threw back the covers. “I can keep up with you,” he said grimly. “Watch.” He groped on the floor for his crutches. The drilling, quiet a moment, blasted the morning with a wail that ended as abruptly as it had begun. There was an odd thump, as of earth hitting earth, then a soft hiss of slow shifting gravel that tapered into silence. Carol looked out the window. Her mouth opened, closed soundlessly.
“Bruce.”
“What?”
“Parchment Street just fell in the priest tunnel.”
X
Bruce balanced himself on his crutches and joined her. He moaned softly. There was a black hole, wide as the street, with workmen standing silent, bewildered at its ragged edges. They looked up vaguely for something in the clear sky that had tom a hole in the earth. Bruce limped to the door and flung it open.
“Dad! Dad!”
Uncle Harold opened the study door, a pen in his hand. He looked up, startled. “What’s the matter? What are you doing out of bed?”
“The street fell in—they’ve ruined the tunnel—they’ve ruined it—” He set the crutch on the stair beneath him and swung himself down. He sat down abruptly, holding himself. A crutch slid down the stairs, clattering to a rest at Uncle Harold’s feet.
“All right,” Uncle Harold said hastily. “All right. I’ll go and have a look.”
He stuck the pen behind his ear and went out the front door. Aunt Catherine came out of the living room.
“What on earth is all the shouting about?”
“The drain fell in the priest tunnel,” Carol said. “There’s a big hole in Parchment Street.”
Aunt Catherine picked up Bruce’s crutch. She looked at it a moment, her brows raised thoughtfully. She put it down again suddenly and turned. “I’m going to call Mrs. Brewster.”
“What good is that going to do?”
“It may give her someone else to be annoyed with.” She went to the kitchen. Bruce sat still, his head in his hands. He raised it abruptly. “I’m going to get dressed. I can’t argue with Mrs. Brewster about a priest tunnel in my pajamas.”
“Do you think you can get dressed?” Carol said doubtfully. He pulled himself up by the banister.
“I can do anything when I’m desperate enough.”
She watched him hop awkwardly up the last steps, clinging to the wall. Then she went outside to look at the hole.
The workmen were arguing with Uncle Harold. They stood around him helplessly, their drills and shovels idle on the pavement.
“What’s a tunnel doing under the street? There must be a law against people digging tunnels under public streets where other people might fall into them. I nearly fell into it—I thought it was an earthquake.”
“I doubt if the street was there when it was built,” Uncle Harold said. “It’s quite old.”
> “You might have given us a word of warning. Now we’ll have all that digging to do over again, not to mention filling the tunnel and paving the road—”
Carol’s hands clenched. “You can’t fill the tunnel! We worked to open it up, and nobody was paying us, and we didn’t even get to go through it because you ruined it.”
They stared at her, their faces vague, preoccupied.
“What are we going to do, then? We can’t leave it there. You can’t expect the Middleton Soccer Team to leap over the hole every time they want to practice. We’re being paid to put drains in the street. Nobody’s paying us to fix a tunnel that nobody needs.”
“They did need it once.”
“That was in the old days. Priests don’t have to go about in hiding nowadays, so why should they have a tunnel for it? Now they need a road and drains, and that’s what we’re here for.”
Carol stared at them, baffled. She looked at Uncle Harold, who was lighting his pipe. He shook the match out and said reasonably, “After all, it does belong to somebody. It belongs to Mrs. Brewster. She owns the house and everything in it, and this tunnel begins in her cellar.”
The workmen looked at each other. “Old Mrs. Brewster?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Well, it will have to go, anyway. This tunnel is obstructing a public street.”
“This street,” said Mrs. Brewster, “is obstructing my private tunnel!”
They turned. Uncle Harold, startled, let his pipe die in his hand. She stood neat and proper in the summer morning, a hat with a jeweled buckle on her head, her white hair gathered without a wisp escaping into a hairnet. Her voice was sound and deep as a church bell. The workmen stood silent with surprise; she continued, her eyes moving sharply across their faces.
“You have thrown your rubble into my priest tunnel. You are obstructing my rights of passage. You have ruined an historical monument in some ridiculous project that is of no use whatsoever except to give me headaches because of the noise, and you have the gall to complain to me about your public streets.”
The House on Parchment Street Page 12