Window on the Square

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Whether you like it or not, you will sit down,” he commanded. “I’m quite sure that you enjoy making me uncomfortable, but I don’t enjoy it myself and I don’t propose to endure it. You will sit here by the fire and relax a little.”

  Without an unladylike struggle I could not move except in the direction he wished. Into the seat before the fire he plumped me in a far from gentle manner. Then he took the opposite chair and gave me his brilliant, startling smile.

  “What else have you to scold me about, Miss Megan?” he said.

  How very cunning he was! How clever. His smile, even his use of the children’s name for me was intended to dispell my anger, to dispose me more gently toward him. And I did not mean to be so disposed. I sat upright in the cushioned chair and stared at him even more angrily than before.

  “I do have something else to say. I would like to tell you that while I have heard gossip, I have not indulged in gossip. I have no knowledge as to whether any of the things I’ve heard are true or untrue, and it’s not for me to judge you. However, your behavior in the theater box yesterday was indecorous and without consideration for the children or for me.”

  There—I had said all that I had come to say. The words were out, and I sat stiffly on the edge of my chair, waiting for the skies to fall.

  Mr. Reid was no longer smiling. He did not look at me now, but away from my face into the fire.

  “I asked you here to offer you an apology,” he told me, after what seemed a struggle for composure. “As you say, I behaved badly yesterday. And even before—when I used your suggestion to take the children to this play as an instrument for humiliating others. Since it’s quite true that Miss Mansfield’s name and mine have been coupled in the newspapers, I had no business encouraging you to attend that particular play, or to take the children to it. I didn’t know I would feel so deeply ashamed of my actions, Miss Megan. This has been a chastening revelation.”

  I did not altogether trust him, and I could not tell whether he was wholly serious. Prepared as I was to meet anything but this, I could not immediately retreat from high indignation and respond with grace.

  “I accept your apology,” I said stiffly. “But the damage has been done, and it cannot be easily remedied.”

  There seemed no trace of mockery in him now, but an acceptance of my words in almost sorrowful regret. How strange a man he was. How filled with contradictions and driven by who could know what inner demons. Often he seemed misplaced in his present role. With him I had always an awareness of a man who had lived in far places, whose eyes had beheld incredible sights, whose thoughts were concerned with worlds far removed from my own.

  “I’ve wanted to tell you how much I appreciate the effect you are having on Jeremy,” he said when the silence grew too long between us. “His improvement has been visible even to me, though I see him so seldom. Let’s hope this setback won’t be permanent.”

  This was a subject I could warm to. “He’s making you something for Christmas,” I told him. “I don’t know what it is, but I know he wants to please you and gain your approval. Whatever the gift may be, I hope you’ll accept it warmly when the time comes.”

  The somber look touched his eyes again. “I’ll accept it with a proper expression of appreciation, I hope. But warmly—no. That’s too much to ask of me.”

  “But it’s not!” I cried. “So much has already been withheld from the boy. It must be made up for. You are an adult. You have the strength he lacks.”

  I could sense that I had touched him on the raw. He gazed up at the portrait of his father over the mantel, and I was once more aware of the affection in his look. Had it pained him as a young man, I wondered, to disappoint his father, to be less in his father’s eyes than his brother Dwight had been?

  “Jeremy destroyed a great deal,” he said quietly. “There is a point past which you cannot push me.”

  I did not speak, and he changed the subject.

  “Mrs. Reid has been pressing me to take her up the Hudson to visit her mother. She feels such a trip will improve her health. While I’m not convinced this will be the case, I intend to do as she wishes. Selina will come with us, but I want to leave Jeremy in your charge while we are gone.”

  “What of Miss Garth?” I asked.

  “Miss Garth may be free to visit her father, or attend lectures, or do whatever she pleases. I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone, but I have every confidence in you, Miss Megan. I know you won’t let the boy run away again and I’ll feel better if he is in your … in your gentle hands.” He smiled, and I saw there could be humor in the curve of his lips after all.

  For the space of a moment I regretted the fact that he did not find me altogether gentle. But what he thought did not matter, so long as he left Jeremy in my care. This was the step I wanted, and I felt elated at the new trust placed in me.

  In spite of myself, during the course of this interview certain of my views about Brandon Reid were being softened and revised. Because I wanted to show that my rancor was gone, I spoke to him pleasantly, assuring him that I would do my best for Jeremy. Then, thinking little of it, I mentioned the church I had visited that morning—though I did not mention seeing Leslie there.

  “The minister said wonderful things about your brother,” I told him. “He spoke glowingly of the Dwight Reid Memorial Home and its opening in January.”

  My employer stiffened, and I recalled too late what Mrs. Reid had said about her husband’s opposition to the Home, and her claim that Brandon had been envious of his brother. Now I saw his eyes return to his father’s portrait with an almost passionate pride. Pride in what? Did he really oppose the opening of the memorial? And why?

  He turned back to me without comment, his manner indicating clearly that our interview had come to an end. I was not expected to sit here chatting in a sociable manner. I rose at once and took my departure with far less indignation than had ridden me when I came in.

  Not until I was out of his company did I realize how thoroughly the wind had been taken from my sails. I had not retreated from any stand I had made, yet I had the feeling that I no longer blamed or condemned him as I had when I entered the room. How this change had been brought about, I was not altogether sure. Nor was I entirely sure that it pleased me. I did not want to be won over against my better judgment. On the other hand, what was my better judgment? It was so difficult to know.

  ELEVEN

  The following day, on the very heels of the snowstorm, New York was enveloped in an unusually early freeze. Before the snow had time to melt, the temperature plummeted and a sharper foretaste of winter was upon us. A jingling of sleigh bells could be heard along the Avenue, and the panes of every window were etched in patterns of frost.

  The sub-freezing weather held for several days, and on the afternoon before Brandon Reid was to take his wife upriver to visit her mother he paid an unexpected call upon us in the nursery.

  I had scarcely seen him since our interview in the library, but evidence of his plan to put Jeremy into my hands had been made clear. Miss Garth was sulking and casting dark looks in my direction. She was crosser than ever with Jeremy, yet, until the signal was given to put me in full charge, I did not want to stir her to further opposition by the objections I longed to express.

  While I bided my time, I planned the history lessons we would do together, Jeremy and I. Andrew, I’d found, was good enough when it came to American history, but he had little interest or knowledge in the ancient world. So I intended to open to Jeremy’s bright mind more of the subject of Egyptian civilization and what it entailed for the world of that day. So far his state of apathy had not lessened and he would sit for hours huddled over the pages of a book he did not read—just as he had done when I first came to the house.

  That afternoon when his uncle strode into the nursery, the boy was lost in his own troubled thoughts and did not look up. The rest of us—Garth, Selina, and I—stared in surprise, for I had never seen him set foot in the nursery before. />
  He left the door open so that drafts from the hall cut through the warm stuffiness and Miss Garth shivered pointedly, edging a shade closer to a fire that must nearly scorch her as it was.

  “Good Lord, how can you breathe in a place like this?” he demanded. I half expected him to stride to a window and fling it open and I would have welcomed a cold blast of fresh air.

  Jeremy glanced at him briefly and then stared at his book again, his face expressionless.

  “This is a day to be outdoors,” Mr. Reid said, his eyes on the boy. “How would you like to go skating in Central Park, Jeremy?”

  Selina squealed at the suggestion and demanded to go too, but Jeremy did not look up or answer. I sat in silence, waiting uncertainly for whatever was to come.

  “What of the ice?” Miss Garth asked, ready as always to oppose any plan that was not her own. “There has scarcely been time for it to freeze, Mr. Reid.”

  “I’ve checked, of course,” Brandon Reid said impatiently. “The flags are showing on streetcars running uptown—white flags with a red ball. Which means the red ball is up on the Arsenal and the ice is firm. Get the children into their warm wraps, Miss Garth. We’ll leave as soon as they’re ready.”

  I believe the governess would have liked to refuse, but the master of the house was in no mood to brook opposition. He had made this sudden plan and he would do as he chose. When I glanced again at Jeremy, I was ready to bless his uncle. A faint stirring of interest had come into the boy’s eyes, and he had pushed the unread book away. When Brandon pointed a finger at him and said, “Hurry up, boy!” Jeremy followed Selina and Miss Garth willingly from the room.

  Once they had gone, Brandon Reid stared at me with a light of challenge in his eyes.

  “I shall need you to help me with the children, Miss Megan. Garth is too old for skating, if she ever learned. You are able to skate, I presume?”

  I felt a sudden eagerness in me, though I tried to answer sedately. “I learned to skate when I was very young, sir.”

  “Then into your things at once,” he ordered. “You’ve been looking pale lately. We’ll get you out in the cold and whip some color into your cheeks.”

  “This will be good for Jeremy,” I said. But though I ignored the reference to my own appearance, as I left my chair I felt suddenly as young as Selina and as eager for exciting action. If any warning voice whispered in my mind, I shut it away and hurried to get ready.

  I still had the skates I had used as a girl and I had sturdy high shoes to fasten them to. I put on my warmest dress and wrap, tied my bonnet ribbons firmly, and wrapped a green muffler about my neck. Then I went downstairs to find the others waiting.

  They were prepared for the cold, with Brandon Reid wearing a turtle-necked jersey under his tweed hunting jacket and a red stocking cap on his head. Jeremy’s cap was blue and white stripes, with a long tassel down the back. Selina looked like a miniature of her mother, with her hands clasped in a small sealskin muff.

  Miss Garth waited downstairs with the children, and I saw that her mouth was set in tight disapproval. When Mr. Reid went out the front door to see if the carriage was ready, the children hurried in his wake, Selina calling to me to come along. Before I could obey, there was a moment in which Miss Garth and I were alone. The governess raised the heavy lids of her eyes and looked at me without evasion.

  I will never forget the sense of shock I experienced as she turned her dark gaze upon me. Her look was one of pure malevolence. I had seen her angry and disapproving and resentful before. But I had seen nothing like this. Thora Garth did not merely dislike me. She hated me and I knew in that moment that if the opportunity ever came she would do me harm. Yet no word was spoken between us. She simply stared at me with that ill-intentioned gaze. Then she turned and went upstairs.

  I ran down the steps to join the others in the carriage, shaken more than I wanted to admit. Quite suddenly I did not like the prospect of being left alone in that house with only the children and Thora Garth for company.

  This time as we drove away, I did not glance up to see if Leslie watched us from her window. If she did, I did not want to know. I was disturbed enough and I desired only to shed the spell of threatening evil Miss Garth had seemed to promise me.

  Overhead that day the sky was the color of wet ashes, but the air was clear and cold. The first horsecar we passed on Fifth Avenue displayed the skating flag, and our anticipation quickened. Gradually, with the house behind us and Brandon Reid’s electric mood growing contagious, I began to throw off my somber misgivings and regain the earlier sense of excitement that had filled me over this outing.

  Even Jeremy began to enjoy himself. His uncle was making up for the disaster of the matinee, and I knew I would have a happier boy to work with when the Reids left on their journey tomorrow.

  Certainly we could not have asked for a more thoughtful escort that afternoon, nor one more amiable. On the drive uptown Jeremy’s uncle entertained the children with stories of winters when he was a boy, and he drew out of me an account of one New Jersey holiday I liked to remember.

  In Central Park he chose his favorite pond, and we found that a long wooden building had been erected to offer accommodation for skaters. There was a restaurant inside, counters where skates could be rented, and a room with benches all around where we could sit while putting on our skates. Two potbellied stoves offered rosy warmth to the cold-nipped fingers and toes of skaters.

  While Jeremy and Selina put on their skates, Brandon Reid knelt to fasten mine to my shoes. His touch was surprisingly gentle, and I sensed in him an eagerness to please me that I would never have expected him to show. It seemed likely that speaking my mind the other day had accomplished more than I had hoped for. We were dealing today with a man almost boyishly intent on giving us pleasure.

  The ice had been newly opened for skating, and its gleaming surface spread smooth and cloud-white from shore to shore. The four of us teetered down a plank walk that led to the pond, and in the beginning we set off with Mr. Reid skating hand-in-hand with Selina, and Jeremy with me. But Selina’s efforts required a slow patience that Brandon lacked and before long we had changed partners. Jeremy, who had been taught to skate by his father and had considerable skill, seemed willing to take Selina in hand and set his speed to her capability. Before I knew it Brandon Reid had drawn me away from the shelter where the crowd was thick and we were striking out for the far curve of the pond, our hands crossed, our glides well matched so that we moved smoothly as one.

  For this little while I was content. I looked neither backward nor forward, but gave myself into his sure hands and let him guide me as he would. For this one afternoon I would exist in a world of snow and ice, suspended away from all the problems of my life. Or so I foolishly thought.

  There was a change in Brandon Reid that I did not attempt to weigh too closely. I knew only that he was not the mocking, impatient man who had taken us to the matinee as a joke. It was as if he too had shed the smothering atmosphere of candlelight and violets that pervaded the house and had become at once a more natural and a kinder person.

  When we reached the far curve of the pond, I could have wished for an endless horizon that would never require us to turn back. Though that wasn’t possible, I held to my dreaming state, my hands secure in his as we rounded the curve and started toward the place where we had left Jeremy and Selina. Before we had skated far, he slowed our glides and drew me toward the bank. I sensed that he too was reluctant to return and that to Brandon Reid, as well as to me, these moments were ones of blessed escape.

  “Here’s a place where we can stop and catch our breath,” he said.

  Up the nearby bank a few skaters had gathered about a chestnut vendor. His cart—a converted baby carriage—had a basket of burning charcoal for a stove set into one end. There was warmth and good cheer around the cart and the delicious odor of roasting chestnuts. We climbed the bank, and Brandon Reid bought a sack of chestnuts that warmed our hands as we shelled and a
te them. The group around the vendor changed constantly and paid little attention to us. Standing somewhat apart from the others, our skates balancing us in deep snow, we felt as if we were quite alone.

  As I watched the skaters on the pond below, gliding past in the thickening gray light, I became aware that my companion was not watching the crowd or the chestnut vendor. His attention was upon me, and there was no unkindness, no criticism in his look. I had the feeling that in some strange way we had become friends this afternoon, as we had not been before. A curious thought for a woman in my position, yet it was there and it was true.

  “Don’t think I’m unaware of all you’re doing for us, Megan,” he said quietly. “You’ve brought something into that house that is making itself felt. We’ve had little of kindness for one another, and I’m sure Jeremy has suffered for it. Perhaps this day of skating will get you off to a better start with him. Has he forgiven me, do you think?”

  “Oh, yes,” I told him quickly. “He would forgive you almost anything. It was good of you to think of an outing. Good for both children.”

  “And for you, Megan? Good for you—as it has been for me?”

  He held my eyes with his own, and yet I could not read his full meaning. Or perhaps I did not want to. I looked away, suddenly perturbed. He thrust the sack of chestnuts into his pocket and took my mittened hands in his. In spite of the sharp, cold wind that blew upon us, I felt the warmth of his hands through wool and longed to let my own hands clasp his as warmly. Some strange chemistry stirred between us, and in the very instant of awareness I knew that we must not be drawn toward ice that cracked treacherously at our very feet. To linger meant danger.

  I stepped back quickly and nearly lost my balance. My companion laughed and steadied me. The moment was past, and I did not know whether I felt relief or regret.