The Velvet Room

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  It wasn’t easy to talk about the Velvet Room. There just weren’t any words to explain what it had come to mean to her in the last few months. But somehow, as she tried, Bridget seemed to understand. “It makes everything different,” Robin finished. “As if I was someone else, instead of me. Somebody wonderful and beautiful, that nothing bad could ever happen to.”

  “Someone like Bonita McCurdy?” Bridget asked with a teasing little smile.

  “Yes,” Robin said almost angrily. She wouldn’t have told Bridget about pretending to be Bonita if she’d known that Bridget would laugh at her. “Yes,” she repeated, this time intending the defiant tone, “someone like that, I guess.”

  The teasing smile was gone, and Bridget said gently, “But perhaps Bonita wasn’t like that, Robin. Why would you want to be like Bonita when everyone believes something terrible happened to her? You know that some people even thought she was murdered.”

  “Well, I don’t think so,” Robin said. “I think she just went away—to get married or to be an actress or something. I don’t think it was anything bad.”

  Bridget only shook her head slowly with a soft, sad smile. She sat looking into the fire, her quiet face showing no sign of what she was thinking. At last she said, “Last summer when I gave you the key to Palmeras House, I wondered if I’d done the right thing. But the house seemed to fascinate you so, and it was plain how much you were in need of something—beauty, perhaps. I thought it would help you ...

  “Oh, it did,” Robin interrupted eagerly. “It’s helped me more than anything in my whole life.”

  “Yes,” Bridget agreed, “I think it has helped. But you mustn’t let it be too important. You mustn’t let it take the place of more important things. You can’t stop counting on people, Robin.”

  Robin turned her face away as something welled up inside her—a dark wave of fear and resentment. “You have to,” she said. “You have to stop counting on them. They can’t help you, and you can’t help them. There’s no way to help at all.” She jumped up and ran out of the cottage, down the path, and out the gate.

  She took a few steps into the orchard before she came to an abrupt halt. For just a minute she stood there, frozen in her tracks like someone playing “statues,” and then she began to run again. But her direction had changed. Now she ran not toward the Village, but back toward Palmeras House and the Velvet Room.

  She ran fast because it was late and she’d have to be home soon, but that wasn’t the only reason. She was running to get away from something, too. Something she’d caught a glimpse of in Bridget’s cottage.

  The tunnel was the same as always, blacker than any midnight, but there was a difference once she was inside the house. She’d never been there quite so late in the evening before. The huge old rooms were almost as dark as the tunnel itself. She would have to use the candle all the way to the Velvet Room.

  She couldn’t hurry because the air currents made the flames waver dangerously, and every room seemed endless as the walls faded back and back before the candle’s tiny, unsteady light. But at last she was there. She stepped into the old familiar comfort and, just as she hoped it would, the door closing behind her shut out entirely whatever it had been that had made her run away.

  She moved peacefully around the room, touching each familiar object, straightening a book on a shelf, and rearranging a lamp on a table. Her fingers drifted along the back of the red couch, and she bent to peer at the row of miniatures in the glass case. The jewels in the tiny frames twinkled charmingly in the candlelight. In the alcove she curled up on the velvet cushions and looked out at the darkness.

  It would be lighter soon. The air was very clear and still, and a round moon was just coming up over the edge of the hills. In the magic of the moonlight it was easy to turn the dead weeds of the lawn to rich smooth green and to spread the curving drive with fresh white gravel. There might even be lanterns or torches lining the drive and slanting rectangles of light spilling out of all the tall windows. A carriage might pull up, drawn by high-stepping horses. It would stop right there, before the arched entry, and someone would get out. A young girl, perhaps, with dark hair piled high on her head and a long dress that shimmered in the torchlight.

  Robin’s imagining was interrupted suddenly by the realization that she was very, very cold. The moon was clear of the hills now and rising fast in the still, cold sky. She would have to hurry or they would be wondering where she was.

  It was a cold walk home, and where the big trees shut out the moon it was very dark. But Robin didn’t mind the cold, and the dark didn’t seem frightening. It was as though nothing could touch her, now that she knew—really knew—what she was going to do.

  She was sure now. There, in the tower, without thinking or planning or worrying at all, she had suddenly known that she could not leave.

  Bridget’s Story

  WHEN ROBIN GOT HOME from Palmeras House that night, no one asked her where she had been. Perhaps they just supposed that she had been with Gwen all that time, talking and planning.

  Cary and Shirley were already asleep, but the rest of the family was sitting around the wood stove when she came in. They all looked up quickly, and for a moment there was an uncomfortable silence. Dad took his feet down off an apple crate. “Come here and sit down, Robin,” he said. “You look a little blue around the gills. Judging by your complexion, I’d say that Rudy and I will probably be out lighting smudge pots again before morning.”

  Rudy nodded and grinned. He tipped his chair back until he could reach his cot, where Cary was already curled up asleep, and pulled off a blanket. Then he leaned over and tucked the blanket around Robin’s shoulders.

  “Well?” Theda said suddenly, and there was an angry sound to the word. “Are you going to stay with them?”

  Robin could feel their eyes on her but she didn’t look up. “Yes, I guess so,” she said. “I guess I’ll stay.”

  No one said anything at first, but Robin heard Mama catch her breath in a sharp little gasp. After a moment Dad stood up and put his hand on Robin’s bowed head. “Well, there’s no use denying we’ll miss you, Robin,” he said. “But it’s the sensible thing to do. It will be a fine thing for you, and for Gwen, too. Come on now, everyone. Let’s get to bed. If that thermometer keeps on dropping, Rudy and I won’t get much sleep tonight.”

  Theda didn’t say a word to Robin as they got ready for bed, and she didn’t even give Robin her choice of curling up or stretching out, as she usually did. She just lay down with her back to Robin and her face to the wall. When Robin couldn’t help touching her as she got into bed, she jerked away angrily. Robin lay there, miserable, clinging to her side of the cot to keep from rolling against Theda. She was cold and uncomfortable, and it took her a long time to get to sleep.

  Sometime in the night she was awakened by a truck’s horn, and a moment later someone banged on the door of the cabin. She heard Rudy groping around for the light cord in the center of the room, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden glare of the naked bulb. When Dad came out of the other room, Rudy was sitting sleepily on the edge of his cot, putting on his shoes. The fire had gone out in the wood stove, and it was so cold in the cabin that Dad’s breath made a fog as he bent over to whisper to Rudy. Robin knew they wouldn’t be back until after sunup, tired, and sleepy and so black with oil smoke that they would look like actors in blackface makeup.

  After Dad and Rudy had gone out and Mr. Criley’s truck had rumbled away into the cold night, Theda poked Robin with her toe. “Hey,” she said, “are you awake?”

  “Yes,” Robin whispered.

  “I just wanted to tell you I’m not mad anymore. I’ve been thinking about it, and I guess I understand. I guess I’d have done the same thing if it had been me.”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure. If I had a chance to live in a house like that with a room of my own and everything I’d have said yes, too. Just think, the McCurdys will probably get you some new clothes, too. Thing
s like Gwen wears. Or at least you’ll get some of her old ones. It’s a good thing she’s taller than you are. Gee, I’ll bet you get that terrific blue skirt she wears. You know, the plaid one with all the pleats. It’s almost too short for her now. And maybe you’ll even get that real woolly coat.”

  Theda went on chattering cheerfully about clothes and parties and what good times Robin was going to have, and Robin turned over and went back to sleep. Theda thought she understood, but she didn’t really. She didn’t understand at all.

  The next day after school Robin went home with Gwen and stayed for dinner. It was the first time she had eaten dinner at the big house. Sitting at the huge table with just Gwen and her parents, with Carmela waiting on the table, was very different from the way things were at home. But everyone was very nice; and when Mr. McCurdy started talking about roundups at El Pasto, it was so interesting that Robin forgot to feel strange.

  After dinner she went home to the cabin. As she came up the stairs, she heard someone talking to Mama, and there was Bridget sitting in a chair by the stove with a basket in her lap. Robin was surprised, because Bridget seldom went far from the cottage by herself. She was also a little embarrassed because of the way she had run away last night.

  But Bridget’s smile was the same as always, full of warmth and welcome. “Hello, Robin,” she said. “I just had to come over to tell your mother good-by.”

  Shirley came over and leaned against Robin and wrapped her thin little arms around Robin’s waist. “Mrs. Bridget brought us some jam,” she said. “Strawberry jam.”

  Bridget picked up her cane and her basket. “I must be going now,” she said. “Robin, do you suppose you could walk home with me? I’m a bit tired, and it’s a great help to have someone’s arm to hold over the rough ground in the orchard.”

  It was almost dark as Robin and Bridget picked their way over the furrows and around the smudge pots toward the stone cottage. Robin had a feeling that Bridget wanted to say something about last night, but she didn’t seem to want to bring it up right away. Instead she kept talking about the weather and things like that. “Well, it doesn’t look as if there’ll be any smudging tonight,” she said. “Not with this overcast coming in. And my, isn’t it turning warm? It almost feels like spring is here.”

  It wasn’t until they had reached the cottage and Robin had helped start the fire in the fireplace that she found out what Bridget really had in mind. “There’s something I want to tell you, Robin,” she said. “Sit down by the fire while I put some milk on to heat. I won’t be a minute.”

  When Bridget came back to her rocking chair, she shut her eyes a moment. “Let me see,” she said. “Where to begin? It’s such a long story.” Robin stared at her in bewilderment. Then Bridget smiled and leaned forward. “The diary. Perhaps you noticed when you were reading Bonita’s diary, that at times she signed herself B.B.?”

  “Yes. I thought it was her nickname or something.”

  “It was,” Bridget said. “It was a nickname her grandfather gave her because of her initials.” She paused and then went on slowly and significantly. “You see, Bonita’s full name was Bonita Bridget McCurdy.”

  Robin gasped.

  Bridget nodded. “For many, many years my name has been Bridget Gunther, but when I was your age it was Bonita. Bonita Bridget McCurdy.”

  Robin could only stare in amazement. Bridget! Her own sweet ordinary Bridget was Bonita, the mysterious missing heiress of Las Palmeras.

  “But it’s a secret,” Bridget went on. “It’s a secret I’ve kept for many years, and I want you to promise that you’ll not give it away.”

  “You mean nobody knows?” Robin finally managed to ask. “Not even Gwen or Mr. McCurdy?”

  “No, the McCurdys don’t know, and I don’t want them to. You and I are the only ones who know.”

  “But what happened to Bonita—I mean, what happened to you? Where did you go when you disappeared and everyone thought you were dead?”

  “Well, since you read the diary, I’ll begin where it ended. After my grandfather died, the only family I had left were Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco and their baby boy. And when my grandfather’s will was read, I lost them, too. At least that’s how it seemed to me. You see, when the will was read, it turned out that Grandfather had left all of Las Palmeras to me. Everyone was surprised—certainly I was. I’d known that Grandpa had thought of Francisco as a city boy with no interest in the land, but it had never occurred to me that he intended to leave the ranch to me. Of course he did leave a large sum of money to Francisco, but not an acre of Las Palmeras.

  “I thought at first that it wouldn’t make any difference, that we could all go on living at Las Palmeras as one family. But I soon found out different. Aunt Lily, particularly, was very unhappy. I suppose when she gave up her lovely home in the city, she pictured herself as the mistress of Las Palmeras, and naturally she was disappointed. And then the feud between Aunt Lily and María, my old nurse, became worse and worse. It made me very unhappy. Aunt Lily said that María was spying on her and demanded that she be sent away. And María kept hinting to me that Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco were plotting against me—even that they meant to harm me.

  “And then one night I had been reading in the library—” Bridget stopped and smiled, “the Velvet Room, that is—by the way, it was always one of my favorite places, too—and I fell asleep in the alcove with the curtains drawn. When I awoke, Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco were in the library having a violent argument. I was afraid to come out for fear they might think I had been listening intentionally. I don’t remember all of what they said, but it concerned the mistake they had made in selling Uncle Francisco’s practice and their home in the city and in coming to Las Palmeras. Each was accusing the other of being responsible. But then Aunt Lily started talking about me. It seemed she believed, or at least she did for the sake of that particular argument, that I had schemed and plotted to get Grandfather to leave everything to me. Finally Aunt Lily ran from the room, and Uncle Francisco followed her.

  “That same night I ran away. If I’d waited one day, I’m sure I would have found a better way to solve the problem. But I was not quite sixteen and was emotional and impulsive. I worried and cried half the night, until I was in such a state that I wasn’t thinking very clearly at all. Part of the time I was grieving because it seemed to be my fault that Uncle Frank and Aunt Lily were so unhappy; and the rest of the time I was almost ready to believe that María was right when she said they were plotting to do away with me. It sounds pretty silly now, doesn’t it? But in the middle of that lonely night, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I ran away. I didn’t take anything with me except a little money and a few keepsakes because I was in such a hurry. One thing I did take, though, was the key to the tunnel passage. I guess I thought I might change my mind and want to come back and would need a way to get into the house.”

  “Oh,” Robin said. “I wondered about that.”

  “Yes, I remember you asked about it. You see, I was not being untruthful when I said that Mr. McCurdy gave it to me. But it was my grandfather, the first Mr. McCurdy.”

  There was a sizzling noise from the stove and the smell of burned milk. “Heavens!” Bridget cried. “The milk’s boiling over. I forgot all about it.”

  Robin ran to the stove, put the steaming pan in the sink, and hurried back. “Let’s never mind the cocoa right now,” she said. “Why did people think you’d been murdered?”

  “Oh, not many did. In fact, the police finally assumed that I had drowned. We’d had a very wet winter that year, and the river was in flood at the time. It was María who started the rumors. After I ran away, she went around hinting darkly that I’d been murdered. The authorities must have known that she had no reason to think so, but there were people who believed her. I guess it was years and years before some of the people of Santa Luisa were really friendly to my aunt and uncle. And of course you can still hear the ghost story.”

  “But Gwen said they looked ever
ywhere for Bon—I mean, for you. She said the police looked and looked. Why didn’t they find you?”

  “They probably would have if I hadn’t had help. Do you remember reading in the diary about my friend, Mary Ortega?”

  “Yes, the one who was planning an elopement for the foreman’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” Bridget smiled. “Mary was always involved in some romantic adventure or other. And if none was handy, she was always able to manufacture one. I’m sure the week she hid me in her house was one of the happiest times of her life. That first night, when I ran away, I rode my little mare straight to the Ortegas’ house. Mary and I had a secret entrance to her room that we had used when we were little girls—up a tree and over the veranda roof to her window. So I was able to get to Mary without anyone’s seeing me. I told her everything, and of course she was sure that María was right and my life was in danger. Mary could make a trip to the dressmaker into a hairbreadth adventure, so you can imagine what she could do with my predicament.

  “Anyway, she hid me in a little, unused attic bedroom and we just turned Conchita loose, knowing that she would find her way home. There was a shortcut between the Ortegas’ ranch and ours that I never took in the rainy season, because it involved fording a creek. But Conchita was never timid about water, and she must have gone home by way of the ford, because when they found her outside the corral the next morning, her saddle and blanket were still wet. It had been an especially wet winter, and the Santa Luisa River was in flood. A bridge had been partly washed away just a mile below here, a day or two before. So the police developed the theory that I had gone for an early morning ride, as I often did, and had forgotten about the bridge.

  “It was a good theory, only Tomás and María and some of the others knew that Conchita would never have carried me onto a faulty bridge. And even if she had, and we had fallen, they knew I was too experienced a horsewoman to drown while my horse swam to safety. But I suppose that the police never asked Tomás and María for their opinions, so after a little while the authorities announced that Bonita McCurdy had died by drowning and that her body had been carried out to sea.”