by Jane Langton
They were trying to digest the significance of Mary’s interview with Doctor Faraday.
“So she can’t be the niece,” said Homer, “right? She’s too old to be Edward’s niece.”
They said it together. “She’s his wife.” And then Homer pounced on another obvious fact. “Patricks mother.”
“Of course!” Mary banged down her coffee cup. “She called herself Edward’s niece because she had become too young and glamorous to have an old husband. It was her vanity again. But she was his wife, all right, so she’s the one who writes the letters.”
They stared at each other in stunned silence, and then Homer said, “Well, okay, then, who was the babysitter?”
“Well,” said Mary, “it’s obvious that I was wrong about the way those snapshots fitted together. The scrap with the older woman belongs with the little girl. The woman was pre-facelift, she hadn’t yet been youthified. So the little girl must be her niece, Patrick’s cousin. Frieda was Patrick’s cousin.”
Again they said it together, “The babysitter.”
Mary groaned. “Oh, how awful. That means Frieda was the babysitter who walked off that night and left little Patrick all alone. So it was her fault he died. He must have toddled out of the house into the road, and then—”
Homer winced.
“Leonard won’t be happy about this,” said Mary.
Homer was sanctimonious. “Well, he had no business getting moony over some woman he’d only just met.”
“Love at first sight,” said Mary regretfully. “It’s too bad it has to work out like this.”
“It’s his own fault.” Homer shrugged. “So why do we care? We were trying to help him find his lost girlfriend, but now there’s no point. She’s not worth finding.”
“Oh, Homer, how can you be sure? She was only a little girl then. She’s grown up now.”
“Tigers don’t change their spots,” said Homer primly.
Mary laughed. “You mean leopards. Tigers don’t have spots.”
Homer glared into space. “Tigers don’t change their spots, leopards don’t change their stripes, whales don’t change their—uh—feathers.”
“Oh, okay,” said Mary, humoring him. “And fish don’t change their—what?”
“Elbows. Fish don’t change their elbows.”
“Of course not, but listen, Homer, I’ll bet Leonard won’t lose interest in Frieda.”
“Oh, well, Leonard.” Homer dismissed Leonard with a wave of his hand. “Leonard sees everything through a distorting lens, those crazy prints of Escher’s.”
“Well, maybe his Escher lens is the truthful one, while all the rest of us are squinting at the world askew.” Mary looked defiantly at Homer. “I’ll bet when we find Frieda, we’ll discover she’s become an entirely different person.”
“When you find her, you mean. You’re the one with the free time. I thought I was through with all my academic responsibilities, but I forgot about the weepers.”
“Weepers?”
“Six of ’em. You know, the kids who get down on their knees to beg for a higher mark. And this afternoon I have to see a couple of parents, and you know what that’ll be like. Their darling child won’t be on the dean’s list unless I change his grade to an A, and guess what? He’s always been on the dean’s list, he’s got an affidavit in a book of gold.” Homer threw up his arms and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “And lo, his name led all the rest.”
Mary gave in. “Well, all right, I’ll carry on, but listen, Homer, you know what I think? It isn’t just Frieda we’re looking for. We’ve got to find Edward’s wife. She’s real, I saw her twice in the nursing home, and she’s still writing those nutty letters to her dead baby. I’m convinced she killed her senile old husband, and you’ll agree there’s something really threatening about the video she made of the baby’s grave, the one Leonard found in Frieda’s coat. She’s evil, Homer, that woman is truly evil.”
Homer looked at his wife affectionately, thinking about something Emerson had written in his journal—I passed him in the night.
The same thing was happening here. Mary had passed him by. When they had first met, a long time ago, he had been the visiting scholar, the sparkling genius, while she was a humble librarian. Over the years her merit had drawn level with his, and now she was edging past him and surging ahead.
Not intentionally. It wasn’t some kind of marital competition. Mary was younger, she was at the pinnacle of her career, while he was getting closer to retirement age and would soon be a has-been.
Gloom overcame him. He strove to hide it, trying to focus his attention on the matter in hand. “You don’t suppose,” he said, beginning in a slow drawl, then talking faster and ending in a sharp question—“you don’t suppose the girl has disappeared because Patrick’s mother killed her? What if her vengeance has already happened?”
47
There was something unusual about Mrs. Eloise Winthrop. It was true that she was a foolish old woman, a little scatterbrained in her old age, and it was also a fact that she had never been quick-witted. But there was about her an unconscious serenity, an appealing air of truthfulness and simplicity.
In these late June days of mixed weather—cold, hot, cloudy, fair—Eloise took up her post almost every day and looked down from her hilltop perch on Willow Avenue at the ongoing drama taking place below her on Narcissus Path.
In spirit she fluttered between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Thus she was a participant as well as a witness in the progression of macabre events in this green corner of the cemetery.
Around her spun the actors, the acts, the scenery and the mounting melodrama. As the gentle center of the spinning pageant, Eloise was indeed a little scatterbrained, but the needle of her compass never wavered.
This morning she wandered among Zach’s neighbors on Narcissus Path, moving sympathetically from stone to stone, reading the inscriptions, pleased with the obelisk to Mary Almira Prescott Smith and the other Prescotts, fascinated by the great blocky monument devoted to the Ponds, delighted with the little Gothic temple dedicated to the memory of Nathan Appleton, enchanted by the poem inscribed on the massive central stone of the Hill family—
There is no death!
What seems so is transition
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,
Whose portal we call death.
Oh, yes, it was so true! One crossed the bridge and entered that solemn portal, coming out on the other side into the life Elysian, which was a “suburb”—50 quaint—of heaven.
But when she saw someone approaching the plot where little Patrick was buried, she paused to watch. It was probably little Patrick’s mother. This time Eloise would speak to her and offer sympathy.
But it was not the mother, it was someone else entirely.
Frieda laid her supermarket roses on Uncle Edward’s grave and stood back. For a moment she gazed down at the mounded earth, ashamed of feeling so little. Then, steeling herself, she turned to look at the small stone with the dread inscription—
PATRICK
1990–1991
Plenty of feeling now! A sob rose in Frieda’s throat. With a wrench, she made herself turn away, then started in surprise.
She was looking straight into the eyes of a little old woman.
“Oh,” she said, “you frightened me.”
48
Leonard met Mrs. Winthrop on her way out of the house next morning.
“Oh, good morning, Mr. Sheldrake,” she said, beaming. “Such a surprise!” Then, flustered, she blushed and said, “I mean, you don’t usually go out so early.” She touched his arm. “Oh, forgive me. I’m such a silly old woman.”
“Please call me Leonard. And I don’t go out early because I work at home.” Impulsively he added, “But you go for a walk every single morning, don’t you, Mrs. Winthrop? That’s really so admirable.” I mean, for a woman of your age.
“Oh, yes, Leonard
. You see, I go to visit Zach.”
“Zach?”
Mrs. Winthrop lifted her hands to her face in consternation. “Oh, Leonard, you’ll think—” She tittered, struggling for the right expression. Then, remembering a word from her youth, she said, “You’ll think I’m a gaga old lady. Zach was my husband, Zachariah Winthrop. He was a distinguished professor with ten honorary degrees. I visit him every day.” Her expression changed. “That is, almost every day. Sometimes I’m too lazy.” She giggled. “I just lie on the sofa.”
“Oh, Mrs. Winthrop, everybody knows about your husband. Zachanah Winthrop was a famous anthropologist. You showed me his picture, the one with the Zulu tribesmen. I see, you mean, you visit his grave.” Leonard shook his head in wonder.
“Of course. It’s very near, right there on Willow Path.”
“Willow Path? You mean in Mount Auburn Cemetery? But, Mrs. Winthrop, that’s amazing. I was there just the other day. There’s a triangular monument on Willow Path. You see, I’m interested in the fundamental shapes of solid geometry, crystal formations and so on. I like to find—”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Winthrop, “you mean the triangular monument to the Mountforts. Of course. Do you know, I have a joke about the Mountforts? I told it to another gentleman just the other day. He was so amused.” She broke off and smiled at Leonard, and there was in her smile such loving kindness that he banished all thoughts of battiness and senility. “And I’ve seen you there, Leonard, down there on Narcissus Path, just below Zach’s neighborhood. I’ve seen you visiting little Patrick’s grave.”
He was stunned. “Patrick’s grave? You mean the baby? Patrick Fell?”
“Yes, of course. And his mother, Mrs. Fell, she comes too, so often. Sometimes she takes a nap there, stretched out on the mossy grass. Such grief! After twelve long years she still visits her baby boy.”
“Mrs. Winthrop.” Eagerly Leonard took her hands. “Before your walk, won’t you come upstairs for a cup of coffee? And I think I have a few crackers or something. Well, no, perhaps I don’t.”
Mrs. Winthrop didn’t care. She was charmed. The barrier between tenant and landlady had broken down at last.
49
Leonard had forgotten the bucket. Outdoors the weather was sunny and warm, but it had rained in the night. The downpour had stopped, but there was still an occasional drip into the bucket from the cracked place in the ceiling, plink-plonk.
Mrs. Winthrop saw the bucket at once and said, “Gracious me!” She turned to Leonard in distress. “The roof, oh, Leonard, you told me about the roof. I’ll call someone at once.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” said Leonard. “It hasn’t been any trouble.” Glancing around, he wished he had made his bed. Hastily he yanked the spread over his disordered sheets.
He need not have bothered. Mrs. Winthrop liked the manly messiness of his apartment. Leonard was a young male, after all, and messiness was the masculine way. She had always enjoyed the strong virile habits of healthy young men.
She remembered with a tender sigh the pungent aroma that had so often hung around Zach when he needed a bath. And in bed he had been a mastering tiger.
People sometimes pretended that men and women were not really very different, but of course they were. Men were powerful and strong, women soft and sweet. She, Eloise, had always depended on the wise authority of her husband—
Auto mechanic: “Mrs. Winthrop, what’s wrong with your car?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just don’t understand a single thing about automobiles. You’ll have to ask my husband.”
Plumber: “Your husband called me, Mrs. Winthrop? What’s the problem?”
“Oh, dear, I think it’s something to do with the furnace, but you’ll have to speak to Professor Winthrop.”
Certified public accountant: “Mrs. Winthrop, I have a Jew questions about your tax return.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Pratt, I just don’t understand financial matters at all. You’ll have to speak to Zachariah.”
Zachariah: “Eloise, I’ve got such a heavy load of work. Don’t you think you could pay the bills this month, just this once?”
“Oh, Zach, dear, you know what a silly woman I am. I just don’t know anything about checks and bills and those other things—what are they called? Stubs? Well, never mind, dear. I’ll bring you a cup of cocoa and sit right here beside you.”
Since her husband’s death Mrs. Winthrop was even more unable to cope. Four or five times a year she brought a bag of puzzling communications to the office of her accountant in Harvard Square. All the envelopes were unopened, including a number of boring-looking ones from someone called Schwab.
Leonard urged her to sit down in his only comfortable chair. He plugged in his electric kettle and heated water for the teabag. At last he sat down on the end of his bed and said, “Mrs. Winthrop, I should explain. I’m interested in that baby’s grave. There’s someone I’m trying to find. I think she’s a member of that family.”
Leonard did not pass on to Mrs. Winthrop the ugly information about Frieda that Mary had told him on the phone. She had explained it gently, knowing he would be upset to learn that Frieda had been the babysitter on that sad day twelve years ago. Leonard wasn’t sure he believed it anyway.
Now he hitched his chair forward. “Would you tell me, Mrs. Winthrop, what you see down there on Narcissus Path? You say you’ve seen the baby’s mother?”
“Well, of course, I don’t know for sure that she’s his mother. But who else would care so much? And she was there when they buried someone else.”
“Edward? You mean Edward Fell? You saw him being buried?”
“Oh, yes. It was rather sad. There were so few flowers, so few people in attendance. But another relative brought flowers just yesterday. A few roses for her uncle, rather ordinary, but of course it’s the thought that counts.”
“Who brought flowers? Who was it, Mrs. Winthrop? Did you see the person?”
“Oh, yes. It was a young woman in dungarees. Her light hair was cut very short.”
“Frieda,” whispered Leonard. “It was Frieda.”
“Who?” said Mrs. Winthrop. But she was thinking of something else. “Oh, Leonard dear, have you seen the peacock?”
“The peacock? What peacock?”
“There’s a peacock. I’ve seen it several times. How I wish it would spread its tail!”
“The woman in blue jeans, Mrs. Winthrop. Did she stay long?”
Mrs. Winthrop gazed vaguely at the mysterious electronic equipment on Leonard’s desk. “She was trying not to cry. So right away I knew what to do. I took her hand and led her up to Willow Avenue, to our own special neighborhood. Oh, Leonard, you should see how nice it is there. I’ve made quite a little camp, a home away from home. Of course one has to be careful, because the Mount Auburn people don’t like you to leave things beside the graves. You know, dear—teddy bears, china angels, little statues of St. Francis.”
“People leave things?”
“Oh, my, yes. So I’ve found a place in the bushes, and I tuck my things out of sight.”
“What sort of things, Mrs. Winthrop?
She smiled, wishing he would call her by her first name. After all, he had asked her to call him Leonard. But she knew it would make him uncomfortable to call her Eloise.
“Well, let me see. A tin of cookies, for one thing. I like to offer refreshments to people passing by. And I have a small blanket in a plastic bag. And—oh! There’s something new, cracked corn! Can you guess what it’s for?”
Leonard was willing to be patient forever. “For the peacock?”
“Oh, yes, the peacock. I wish he’d come back. I’ve seen him twice.” Mrs. Winthrop sipped her coffee, then returned to the subject of the young woman at Patrick’s grave. “We settled down side by side next to Zach and I brought out my tin of cookies. But first she jumped up, all excited, because she could see the tower.”
“The tower?”
“The tower on the top of the hill. And then
she said something so funny. She said it was like a piece in a game. A chess game, I think.” Mrs. Winthrop frowned. “Unless it was checkers? Anyway, pretty soon I asked her to come home with me because she began to cry.”
“You brought her home? You mean she was here, she was right here?”
“Oh, yes. She was really pleased, I could tell. She liked all of Zach’s things in the hall. You know, the totem pole and the hookah. She really liked the hookah.”
Leonard waited, his mind in a tumult.
“And then she told me why she had been crying. She said her mother and father had been killed in a plane crash a long time ago. You remember, Leonard? That terrible plane crash in Ireland? Or was it Canada?” Mrs. Winthrop looked confused. “Well, it doesn’t matter. She went on to tell me that the sudden loss of her parents wasn’t the only terrible thing. There had been something else, just the day before. Something so terrible, she couldn’t talk about it. She just sobbed and sobbed. I put my arms around her, and after awhile she stopped crying and we had tea.”
“She didn’t say what the terrible thing was?”
“No.” Mrs. Winthrop rose shakily to her feet. “Thank you, Leonard dear. You must be so busy. I’ll go now.”
He was disappointed. “Did she tell you where she lives? Do you know her last name?”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Winthrop walked to the door, moving a little stiffly. “But she did say one more thing. I didn’t understand it at all.”
“What did she say, Mrs. Winthrop?” Leonard jumped up and opened the door to the stairs.
She beamed at him and started down the long flight. But at the first landing she stopped. Her rosy smiling face looked up at him and her voice floated up the stairs.