5
When I came into the kitchen, still trailing mist from the creek, Constance was arranging Uncle Julian’s breakfast tray. Uncle Julian was clearly feeling well this morning, since Constance was giving him tea instead of hot milk; he must have awakened early and asked for tea. I went to her and put my arms around her and she turned
and hugged me.
“Good morning, my Merricat,” she said.
“Good morning, my Constance. Is Uncle Julian better today?”
“Much, much better. And the sun is going to shine after yesterday’s rain. And I am going to make a chocolate mousse for
your dinner, my Merricat.”
“I love you, Constance.”
“And I love you. Now what will you have for breakfast?”
“Pancakes. Little tiny hot ones. And two fried eggs. Today my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon and
on the moon we will eat rose petals.”
“Some rose petals are poisonous.”
“Not on the moon. Is it true that you can plant a leaf?”
“Some leaves. Furred leaves. You can put them in water and they grow roots and then you plant them and they grow into a plant. The kind of a plant they were when they started, of course, not just any plant.”
“I’m sorry about that. Good morning, Jonas. You are a furred leaf, I
think.”
“Silly Merricat.”
“I like a leaf that grows into a different plant. All furry.”
Constance was laughing. “Uncle Julian will never get his breakfast if I listen to you,” she said. She took up the tray and went into Uncle Julian’s room. “Hot tea coming,” she said.
“Constance, my dear. A glorious morning, I think. A splendid day
to work.”
“And to sit in the sun.”
Jonas sat in the sunlit doorway, washing his face. I was hungry; perhaps it would be kind to Uncle Julian today if I put a feather on the lawn at the spot where Uncle Julian’s chair would go; I was not allowed to bury things in the lawn. On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.
“Perhaps today is a good day to begin a new chapter.
Constance?”
“Yes, Uncle Julian?”
“Do you think I should begin chapter forty-four today?”
“Of course.”
“Some of the early pages need a little brushing up. A work like this
is never done.”
“Shall I brush your hair?”
“I think I will brush it myself this morning, thank you. A man’s head should be his own responsibility, after all. I have no jam.”
“Shall I get you some?”
“No, because I see that I have somehow eaten all my toast. I fancy a broiled liver for my lunch, Constance.”
“You shall have it. Shall I take your tray?”
“Yes, thank you. And I will brush my hair.”
Constance came back into the kitchen and set down the tray. “And
now for you, my Merricat,” she said.
“And Jonas.”
“Jonas had his breakfast long ago.”
“Will you plant a leaf for me?”
“One of these days.” She turned her head and listened. “He is still asleep,” she said.
“Who is still asleep? Will I watch it grow?”
“Cousin Charles is still asleep,” she said, and the day fell apart around me. I saw Jonas in the doorway and Constance by the stove but they had no color. I could not breathe, I was tied around tight,
everything was cold.
“He was a ghost,” I said.
Constance laughed, and it was a sound very far away. “Then a ghost is sleeping in Father’s bed,” she said. “And ate a very hearty dinner last night. While you were gone,” she said.
“I dreamed that he came. I fell asleep on the ground and dreamed that he came, but then I dreamed him away.” I was held tight; when Constance believed me I could breathe again.
“We talked for a long time last night.”
“Go and look,” I said, not breathing, “go and look; he isn’t there.”
“Silly Merricat,” she said.
I could not run; I had to help Constance. I took my glass and smashed it on the floor. “Now he’ll go away,” I said.
Constance came to the table and sat down across from me, looking very serious. I wanted to go around the table and hug her, but she still had no color. “My Merricat,” she said slowly, “Cousin Charles is here. He is our cousin. As long as his father was alive— that was Arthur Blackwood, Father’s brother—Cousin Charles could not come to us, or try to help us, because his father would not allow him. His father,” she said, and smiled a little, “thought very badly of us. He refused to take care of you during the trial, did you know that?
And he never let our names be mentioned in his house.”
“Then why do you mention his name in our house?”
“Because I am trying to explain. As soon as his father died Cousin Charles hurried here to help us.”
“How can he help us? We’re very happy, aren’t we, Constance?”
“Very happy, Merricat. But please be pleasant to Cousin Charles.”
I could breathe a little; it was going to be all right. Cousin Charles was a ghost, but a ghost that could be driven away. “He’ll go away,” I said.
“I don’t suppose he plans to stay forever,” Constance said. “He only came for a visit, after all.”
I would have to find something, a device, to use against him. “Has Uncle Julian seen him?”
“Uncle Julian knows he is here, but Uncle Julian was too unwell last night to leave his room. He had his dinner on a tray, only a little soup. I was glad he asked for tea this morning.”
“Today we neaten the house.”
“Later, after Cousin Charles is awake. And I’d better sweep up that broken glass before he comes down.”
I watched her while she swept up the glass; today would be a glittering day, full of tiny sparkling things. There was no point in
hurrying with my breakfast, because today I could not go out until we had neatened the house, so I lingered, drinking milk slowly and watching Jonas. Before I was finished Uncle Julian called Constance to come and help him into his chair, and she brought him into the kitchen and put him by his table and his papers.
“I really think I shall commence chapter forty-four,” he said, patting his hands together. “I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie. Constance,
my dear?”
“Yes, Uncle Julian?”
“I am going to say that my wife was beautiful.”
Then we were all silent for a minute, puzzled by the sound of a foot stepping upstairs where there had always been silence before. It was unpleasant, this walking overhead. Constance always stepped lightly, and Uncle Julian never walked; this footstep was heavy and even and bad.
“That is Cousin Charles,” Constance said, looking up.
“Indeed,” said Uncle Julian. He carefully arranged a paper before him and took up a pencil. “I am anticipating considerable pleasure from the society of my brother’s son,” he said. “Perhaps he can fill in some details on the behavior of his family during the trial. Although, I confess, I have somewhere set down notes on a possible conversation they might have had . . .” He turned to one of his notebooks. “This will delay chapter forty-four, I suspect.”
I took Jonas and went to my corner, and Constance went into the hall to meet Charles when he came down the stairs. “Good morning, Cousin Charles,” she said.
“Good morning, Connie.” It was the same voice as he had used last night. I got further into my corner as she brought him into the kitchen, and Uncle Julian touched his papers and turned to face the doorway.
“Uncle Julian. I am pleased to meet you at last.”
“Charles. You are Arthur’s son, but you resemble my brother John, who is dead.”
“Arthur’s dead, too. That’s why I’m here.”
“He died wealthy, I trust? I was the only brother with no knack for money.”
“As a matter of fact, Uncle Julian, my father left nothing.”
“A pity. His father left a considerable sum. It came to a considerable sum, even divided among the three of us. I always knew my share would melt away, but I had not suspected it of my brother Arthur. Perhaps your mother was an extravagant woman? I do not remember her very clearly. I recall that when my niece Constance wrote to her uncle during the trial, it was his wife who answered, requesting that the family connection be severed.”
“I wanted to come before, Uncle Julian.”
“I daresay. Youth is always curious. And a woman of such notoriety as your cousin Constance would present a romantic figure
to a young man. Constance?”
“Yes, Uncle Julian?”
“Have I had my breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“I will have another cup of tea, then. This young man and I have a great deal to discuss.”
I still could not see him clearly, perhaps because he was a ghost, perhaps because he was so very big. His great round face, looking so much like our father’s, turned from Constance to Uncle Julian and back, smiling and opening its mouth to talk. I moved as far into my corner as I could, but finally the big face turned at me.
“Why, there’s Mary,” it said. “Good morning, Mary.”
I put my face down to Jonas.
“Shy?” he asked Constance. “Never mind. Kids always take to me.”
Constance laughed. “We don’t see many strangers,” she said. She was not at all awkward or uncomfortable; it was as though she had been expecting all her life that Cousin Charles would come, as though she had planned exactly what to do and say, almost as though in the house of her life there had always been a room kept for Cousin Charles.
He stood up and came closer to me. “That’s a handsome cat,” he said. “Does it have a name?”
Jonas and I looked at him and then I thought that Jonas’s name might be the safest thing to speak to him first. “Jonas,” I said.
“Jonas? Is he your special pet?”
“Yes,” I said. We looked at him, Jonas and I, not daring to blink or turn away. The big white face was close, still looking like our father, and the big mouth was smiling.
“We’re going to be good friends, you and Jonas and I,” he said.
“What will you have for breakfast?” Constance asked him, and she smiled at me because I had told him Jonas’s name.
“Whatever you’re serving,” he said, turning away from me at last.
“Merricat had pancakes.”
“Pancakes would be great. A good breakfast in charming company on a beautiful day; what more could I ask?”
“Pancakes,” observed Uncle Julian, “are an honored dish in this family, although I rarely take them myself; my health permits only the lightest and daintiest foods. Pancakes were served for breakfast on that last—”
“Uncle Julian,” Constance said, “your papers are spilling on the floor.”
“Let me get them, sir.” Cousin Charles kneeled to gather the papers and Constance said, “After breakfast you’ll see my garden.”
“A chivalrous young man,” Uncle Julian said, accepting his papers from Charles. “I thank you; I am not able myself to leap across a room and kneel on the floor and I am gratified to find someone who can. I believe that you are a year or so older than my niece?”
“I’m thirty-two,” Charles said.
“And Constance is approximately twenty-eight. We long ago gave up the practice of birthdays, but twenty-eight should be about right.
Constance, I should not be talking so on an empty stomach. Where is my breakfast?”
“You finished it an hour ago, Uncle Julian. I am making you a cup of tea, and pancakes for Cousin Charles.”
“Charles is intrepid. Your cooking, although it is of a very high standard indeed, has certain disadvantages.”
“I’m not afraid to eat anything Constance cooks,” Charles said.
“Really?” said Uncle Julian. “I congratulate you. I was referring to the effect a weighty meal like pancakes is apt to have on a delicate stomach. I suppose your reference was to arsenic.”
“Come and have your breakfast,” Constance said.
I was laughing, although Jonas hid my face. It took Charles a good half-minute to pick up his fork, and he kept smiling at Constance.
Finally, knowing that Constance and Uncle Julian and Jonas and I were watching him, he cut off a small piece of pancake and brought it to his mouth, but could not bring himself to put it inside. Finally he set the fork with the piece of pancake down on his plate and turned to Uncle Julian. “You know, I was thinking,” he said. “Maybe while I’m here there are things I could do for you—dig in the garden, maybe, or run errands. I’m pretty good at hard work.”
“You had dinner here last night and woke up alive this morning,”
Constance said; I was laughing but she suddenly looked almost cross.
“What?” Charles said. “Oh.” He looked down at his fork as though he had forgotten it and at last he picked it up and put the piece of pancake into his mouth very quickly, and chewed it and swallowed it and looked up at Constance. “Delicious,” he said, and Constance
smiled.
“Constance?”
“Yes, Uncle Julian?”
“I think I shall not, after all, begin chapter forty-four this morning. I think I shall go back to chapter seventeen, where I recall that I made some slight mention of your cousin and his family, and their attitude during the trial. Charles, you are a clever young man. I am eager to
hear your story.”
“It was all so long ago,” Charles said.
“You should have kept notes,” Uncle Julian said.
“I mean,” Charles said, “can’t it all be forgotten? There’s no point in keeping those memories alive.”
“Forgotten?” Uncle Julian said. “Forgotten?”
“It was a sad and horrible time and it’s not going to do Connie here any good at all to keep talking about it.”
“Young man, you are speaking slightingly, I believe, of my work. A man does not take his work lightly. A man has his work to do, and he does it. Remember that, Charles.”
“I’m just saying that I don’t want to talk about Connie and that bad time.”
“I shall be forced to invent, to fictionalize, to imagine.”
“I refuse to discuss it any further.”
“Constance?”
“Yes, Uncle Julian?” Constance looked very serious.
“It did happen? I remember that it happened,” said Uncle Julian, fingers at his mouth.
Constance hesitated, and then she said, “Of course it did, Uncle Julian.”
“My notes . . .” Uncle Julian’s voice trailed off, and he gestured at
his papers.
“Yes, Uncle Julian. It was real.”
I was angry because Charles ought to be kind to Uncle Julian. I remembered that today was to be a day of sparkles and light, and I thought that I would find something bright and pretty to put near
Uncle Julian’s chair.
“Constance?”
“Yes?”
“May I go outside? Am I warm enough?”
“I think so, Uncle Julian.” Constance was sorry, too. Uncle Julian was shaking his head back and forth sadly and he had put down his pencil. Constance went into Uncle Julian’s room and brought out his shawl, which she put around his shoulders very gently. Charles was eating his pancakes bravely now, and did not look up; I wondered if he cared that he had not been kind to Uncle Julian.
“Now you will go outside,” Constance said quietly to Uncle Julian, “and the sun will be warm and the garden will be bright and you will have broiled liver for your lunch.”
“Perhaps not,” Uncle Julian said. “Perhaps I had better have just an egg.”
Constance wheeled him gently to the door and eased his chair carefully down the step. Charles looked up from his pancakes but when he started to rise to help her she shook her head. “I’ll put you in your special corner,” she said to Uncle Julian, “where I can see you every minute and five times an hour I’ll wave hello to you.”
We could hear her talking all the time she was wheeling Uncle Julian to his corner. Jonas left me and went to sit in the doorway and watch them. “Jonas?” Charles said, and Jonas turned toward him.
“Cousin Mary doesn’t like me,” Charles said to Jonas. I disliked the
way he was talking to Jonas and I disliked the way Jonas appeared to be listening to him. “How can I make Cousin Mary like me?”
Charles said, and Jonas looked quickly at me and then back to Charles. “Here I’ve come to visit my two dear cousins,” Charles said, “my two dear cousins and my old uncle whom I haven’t seen for years, and my Cousin Mary won’t even be polite to me. What do you think, Jonas?”
There were sparkles at the sink where a drop of water was swelling to fall. Perhaps if I held my breath until the drop fell Charles would go away, but I knew that was not true; holding my breath was too easy.
“Oh, well,” Charles said to Jonas, “Constance likes me, and I guess that’s all that matters.”
Constance came to the doorway, waited for Jonas to move, and when he did not, stepped over him. “More pancakes?” she said to Charles.
“No, thanks. I’m trying to get acquainted with my little cousin.”
“It won’t be long before she’s fond of you.” Constance was looking at me. Jonas had fallen to washing himself, and I thought at last of
what to say.
“Today we neaten the house,” I said.
Uncle Julian slept all morning in the garden. Constance went often to the back bedroom windows to look down on him while we worked and stood sometimes, with the dustcloth in her hands, as though she were forgetting to come back and dust our mother’s jewel box that held our mother’s pearls, and her sapphire ring, and her brooch with diamonds. I looked out the window only once, to see Uncle Julian with his eyes closed and Charles standing nearby. It was ugly to think of Charles walking among the vegetables and under the apple trees and across the lawn where Uncle Julian slept.
“We’ll let Father’s room go this morning,” Constance said, “because Charles is living there.” Some time later she said, as though she had been thinking about it, “I wonder if it would be right for me to wear Mother’s pearls. I have never worn pearls.”
“They’ve always been in the box,” I said. “You’d have to take them out.”
“It’s not likely that anyone would care,” Constance said.
“I would care, if you looked more beautiful.”
Constance laughed, and said, “I’m silly now. Why should I want to wear pearls?”
“They’re better off in the box where they belong.”
Charles had closed the door of our father’s room so I could not look inside, but I wondered if he had moved our father’s things, or put a hat or a handkerchief or a glove on the dresser beside our father’s silver brushes. I wondered if he had looked into the closet or into the drawers. Our father’s room was in the front of the house, and I wondered if Charles had looked down from the windows and out over the lawn and the long driveway to the road, and wanted to be on that road and away home.
“How long did it take Charles to get here?” I asked Constance.
“Four or five hours, I think,” she said. “He came by bus to the village, and had to walk from there.”
“Then it will take him four or five hours to get home again?”
“I suppose so. When he goes.”
“But first he will have to walk back to the village?”
“Unless you take him on your winged horse.”
“I don’t have any winged horse,” I said.
“Oh, Merricat,” Constance said. “Charles is not a bad man.”
There were sparkles in the mirrors and inside our mother’s jewel box the diamonds and the pearls were shining in the darkness.
Constance made shadows up and down the hall when she went to the window to look down on Uncle Julian and outside the new leaves moved quickly in the sunlight. Charles had only gotten in because the magic was broken; if I could reseal the protection around Constance and shut Charles out he would have to leave the house.
Every touch he made on the house must be erased.
“Charles is a ghost,” I said, and Constance sighed.
I polished the doorknob to our father’s room with my dust cloth, and at least one of Charles’ touches was gone.
When we had neatened the upstairs rooms we came downstairs together, carrying our dust cloths and the broom and dustpan and mop like a pair of witches walking home. In the drawing room we dusted the golden-legged chairs and the harp, and everything
sparkled at us, even the blue dress in the portrait of our mother. I dusted the wedding-cake trim with a cloth on the end of a broom, staggering, and looking up and pretending that the ceiling was the floor and I was sweeping, hovering busily in space looking down at my broom, weightless and flying until the room swung dizzily and I was again on the floor looking up.
“Charles has not yet seen this room,” Constance said. “Mother was so proud of it; I ought to have showed it to him right away.”
“May I have sandwiches for my lunch? I want to go down to the creek.”
“Sooner or later you’re going to have to sit at the table with him,
Merricat.”
“Tonight at dinner. I promise.”
We dusted the dining room and the silver tea service and the high wooden backs of the chairs. Constance went every few minutes into the kitchen to look out the back door and check on Uncle Julian, and once I heard her laugh and call, “Watch out for the mud down there,” and I knew she was talking to Charles.
“Where did you let Charles sit last night at dinner?” I asked her once.
“In Father’s chair,” she said, and then, “He has a perfect right to sit there. He’s a guest, and he even looks like Father.”
“Will he sit there tonight?”
“Yes, Merricat.”
I dusted our father’s chair thoroughly, although it was small use if Charles was to sit there again tonight. I would have to clean all the silverware.
When we had finished neatening the house we came back to the kitchen. Charles was sitting at the kitchen table smoking his pipe and looking at Jonas, who was looking back at him. The pipe smoke was disagreeable in our kitchen, and I disliked having Jonas look at Charles. Constance went on out the back door to get Uncle Julian, and we could hear him say, “Dorothy? I was not asleep, Dorothy.”
“Cousin Mary doesn’t like me,” Charles said again to Jonas. “I wonder if Cousin Mary knows how I get even with people who don’t like me? Can I help you with that chair, Constance? Have a nice nap, Uncle?”
Constance made sandwiches for Jonas and me, and we ate them in a tree; I sat in a low fork and Jonas sat on a small branch near me, watching for birds.
“Jonas,” I told him, “you are not to listen any more to Cousin Charles,” and Jonas regarded me in wide-eyed astonishment, that I should attempt to make decisions for him. “Jonas,” I said, “he is a ghost,” and Jonas closed his eyes and turned away.
It was important to choose the exact device to drive Charles away.
An imperfect magic, or one incorrectly used, might only bring more disaster upon our house. I thought of my mother’s jewels, since this was a day of sparkling things, but they might not be strong on a dull day, and Constance would be angry if I took them out of the box where they belonged, when she herself had decided against it. I thought of books, which are always strongly protective, but my father’s book had fallen from the tree and let Charles in; books, then, were perhaps powerless against Charles. I lay back against the tree trunk and thought of magic; if Charles had not gone away before three days I would smash the mirror in the hall.
He sat across from me at dinner, in our father’s chair, with his big white face blotting out the silver on the sideboard behind him. He watched while Constance cut up Uncle Julian’s chicken and put it correctly on the plate, and he watched when Uncle Julian took the first bite and turned it over and over in his mouth.
“Here is a biscuit, Uncle Julian,” Constance said. “Eat the soft inside.”
Constance had forgotten and put dressing on my salad, but I would not have eaten anyway with that big white face watching.
Jonas, who was not allowed chicken, sat on the floor beside my chair.
“Does he always eat with you?” Charles asked once, nodding his head at Uncle Julian.
“When he’s well enough,” Constance said.
“I wonder how you stand it,” Charles said.
“I tell you, John,” Uncle Julian said suddenly to Charles, “investments are not what they were when Father made his money.
He was a shrewd man, but he never understood that times change.”
“Who’s he talking to?” Charles asked Constance.
“He thinks you are his brother John.”
Charles looked at Uncle Julian for a long minute, and then shook his head and returned to his chicken.
“That was my dead wife’s chair on your left, young man,” Uncle Julian said. “I well recall the last time she sat there; we—”
“None of that,” Charles said, and shook his finger at Uncle Julian; he had been holding his chicken in his hands to eat it, and his finger sparkled with grease. “We’re not going to talk about it any more, Uncle.”
Constance was pleased with me because I had come to the table and when I looked at her she smiled at me. She knew that I disliked eating when anyone was watching me, and she would save my plate and bring it to me later in the kitchen; she did not remember, I saw, that she had put dressing on my salad.
“Noticed this morning,” Charles said, taking up the platter of chicken and looking into it carefully, “that there was a broken step out back. How about I fix it for you one of these days? I might as well earn my keep.”
“It would be very kind of you,” Constance said. “That step has been a nuisance for a long time.”
“And I want to run into the village to get some pipe tobacco, so I can pick up anything you need there.”
“But I go to the village on Tuesday,” I said, startled.
“You do?” He looked at me across the table, big white face turned directly at me. I was quiet; I remembered that walking to the village was the first step on Charles’ way home.
“Merricat, dear, I think if Charles doesn’t mind it might be a good idea. I never feel quite comfortable when you’re away in the village.”
Constance laughed. “I’ll give you a list, Charles, and the money, and
you shall be the grocery boy.”
“You keep the money in the house?”
“Of course.”
“Doesn’t sound very wise.”
“It’s in Father’s safe.”
“Even so.”
“I assure you, sir,” Uncle Julian said, “I made a point of examining the books thoroughly before committing myself. I cannot have been deceived.”
“So I’m taking little Cousin Mary’s job away from her,” Charles said, looking at me again. “You’ll have to find something else for her to do, Connie.”
I had made sure of what to say to him before I came to the table.
“The Amanita phalloides,” I said to him, “holds three different poisons. There is amanitin, which works slowly and is most potent.
There is phalloidin, which acts at once, and there is phallin, which dissolves red corpuscles, although it is the least potent. The first symptoms do not appear until seven to twelve hours after eating, in some cases not before twenty-four or even forty hours. The symptoms begin with violent stomach pains, cold sweat, vomiting—”
“Listen,” Charles said. He put down his chicken. “You stop that,” he said.
Constance was laughing. “Oh, Merricat,” she said, laughing through the words, “you are silly. I taught her,” she told Charles, “there are mushrooms by the creek and in the fields and I made her learn the deadly ones. Oh, Merricat.”
“Death occurs between five and ten days after eating,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s very funny,” Charles said.
“Silly Merricat,” Constance said.
