Dorothy Eden (41 page)

She gave an uncertain laugh.

“Flynn, I wish you’d lose your temper. This isn’t like you, being so unnaturally calm and gentle.”

“You don’t really know me, Harriet.”

Again he seemed to be looking at her. She had a momentary illusion that his eyes were keen and aware.

“You haven’t wanted to know me,” he went on. “And, to be truthful, I haven’t wanted to know you. All right, I suppose it was Joe’s shadow.”

“And now it’s my children’s—Joe’s children’s—” Harriet pressed her hands to her face, feeling the hot tears trickling through her fingers. “Only trouble brings us together.”

“Listen!” Flynn cried suddenly.

Her head shot up, she went tense.

There was no sound at all. Yes, there was, a very faint whimpering…

“It’s that damned puppy. I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?”

“I expect it’s—lonely,” Harriet got out.

“Yes, that’s what it is. My poor darling—”

She went rigid as his arms came out protectingly. Somehow she knew that to have him touch her now would destroy the last shreds of her desperate control.

“Bring the puppy up here. After all, you did say it was half Jamie’s. I’ll make some tea while you’re gone. Can you manage?”

“Of course I can manage.” The sudden curtness of his voice brought her to her senses. She would not have said that ordinarily. She would not have lost her tact. But his characteristic anger had brought her off that dangerous plane of emotion when even his hand on her arm would have been too much to bear.

Now she could go into the kitchen and make tea. When they had had that she would resolutely continue with the letters that had already helped to pass one more hour…

Time was not interminable. This day, this night, this week would pass, just as the happy ones had also passed, bearing with them their varied emotions.

Joe had never seen Arabella’s red-gold curls. And he had wanted a daughter with hair like Harriet’s. Like sun through a fog, he had described it. The red sun of London through thinning fog.

Fog… Did he know how it would overtake her and baffle and terrify her…

Flynn came back, carrying the puppy in its basket.

“All the neighbors will be talking,” he said cheerfully.

“Who’s to see or hear you at this hour?”

“That’s it. Visiting an attractive girl at eleven o’clock.”

“Eleven!” cried Harriet in a stricken voice.

“Harriet, my love, the children will be sound asleep by now.”

“Y-yes. Yes, I expect so. But I left the money where he could see it. I thought he would be waiting behind a tree.”

“As I’ve no doubt he was, the swine. Now, we have one hour left. Did you say tea? And then a little more of great-grandfather?”

“Oh, Flynn!” she cried despairingly.

“You’re astonishingly wonderful, Harriet dear! Don’t weaken.”

And then the telephone rang…

E
ARLIER THAT EVENING, IN
the house by the river, Eve could not sit still. She did not care to remember the day that had gone before. It had been the longest in her life. She was not used to looking after small children. Even if she had been, she could not have managed those two. The baby had whimpered all day, screaming if one approached, going rigid with terror or temper if one picked her up. She had eaten almost nothing and been sick twice. But at least she was only a baby, acting from instinct. The boy was another thing. His naughtiness was deliberate. He asked for food, then tipped it on the floor. She told him to be quiet, and he promptly shouted and stamped like a wild Indian. He went into the bathroom and ran water into the basin until it overflowed, drenching the floor, and seeping through into the basement. When, in desperation, she threatened him with the river again, showing him its chilly, shining darkness through the little window, he refused to show fear. He looked at her with his clear, derisive eyes and jeered. “You wouldn’t throw me in there. You’d be too scared!”

And every other minute he reiterated angrily, “You promised to take us home today! Why don’t you take us home!”

“I told you some time this evening,” she kept repeating. “But if you’re such a bad boy no one might ever take you home.”

She had to lock the front door and hide the key, and also bolt the windows that looked onto the street. All the time she was afraid nosey Parker Mrs. Briggs would come back inquiring about the dear little children, and Jamie, hearing her, would start screaming for help. She should have gone out for more bread, and for milk to compensate for what Jamie had deliberately spilled or Arabella knocked over with her flailing fist. But she didn’t dare to leave them, even for five minutes. One couldn’t guess what the boy would get up to. He had the most cunning brain she had ever encountered.

What with waiting for the telephone to ring, and listening for real or imaginary footsteps, she was limp with exhaustion and nervous strain. At six o’clock, to persuade Jamie to behave, she let him put on his shoes and the jacket he had been wearing the previous day. She also dressed Arabella in her woolly coat and beret. They were ready, then. It gave semblance to her story that this evening they could go home. Even Jamie seemed convinced and became quieter, treating her to one of his rare illuminating smiles.

“Will we go soon now?”

“In about an hour, perhaps.”

“Tell us a story while we wait. Please!”

Eve was nonplussed. She had never told a story to a child. She didn’t even know any, except for vague memories of the three bears and something about a little girl and a wolf. Oh, and there was Cinderella, the girl who had to wait alone in the shabby house until some wonderful thing happened…

Well, there would be no harm done in making up a story with a happy ending. A combination of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, she thought.

“Once there was a girl who lived all by herself, and she was always waiting for the doorbell or the telephone to ring, but when it did ring she was afraid to see who was there, because sometimes it was a nice person she loved, and sometimes it was a wolf…”

They were in the room at the back of the house where no light was visible to the street. With the heat from the fire and the closed windows and doors, the atmosphere was close and muggy. It had the effect, shortly, of sending Arabella, in her little woolly coat and beret, fast asleep, and Jamie’s eyelids, also, began to droop.

He opened them wide, and gazed at Eve earnestly. Not only was he interested in the story—although she was not nearly such a good storyteller as Mrs. Helps, with her witches and giants, but Jamie passionately loved stories, and all was treasure to him—but he did not intend to fall asleep in case that would mean he was cheated out of going home.

He must have fallen asleep, however, for suddenly he was awakened by the telephone ringing. As he struggled up he saw the thin dark woman run eagerly into the hall to answer the telephone.

The fire was almost out in the tiny room. Jamie began to shiver and he badly wanted to cry. He felt as he did when he woke from a nightmare, scared and forlorn and wanting his mother.

But his mother, he knew, was not here. He was in the strange house with the unkind dark woman who did not even know how to tell fairy tales properly, and at this moment was talking on the telephone in the hall.

He could hear her voice raised in protest.

“Not tonight! But you said—I’ve had the kids ready for hours. Honestly, I can’t! Not another night!” There was a short pause. “But I’m scared. I don’t like it.” Then another longer pause, and then the helpless almost whispered voice, “I guess I’ll have to, if you put it like that.”

She came back into the room very slowly, as if she were too tired to walk.

“Come along, kids. Bedtime.” Before Jamie could speak her eyes gleamed fiercely and she said, “One word out of you, my boy, and that’ll be the end of you. Splash! Into the river.”

Jamie stiffened, his chin thrust out defiantly.

“But you said we were going home. You promised!”

She turned on him, her face white and narrow with anger.

“My God, kid, do you think I haven’t had enough of you, too! Do you think I want to keep you? Does anyone keep dynamite for fun? Now off to the cellar, and don’t argue.”

Jamie, by now very frightened indeed, whispered, “What about Arabella?”

“She stays here.”

“W-what are you going to do with her?”

“Nothing, of course. She’s asleep, and if I move her there’ll be more yelling. I’ve had enough for one day.”

The tears quivered on Jamie’s lashes. He tried hard to blink them away.

“I’m h-hungry.”

“Of course you are. You’ve despised everything I’ve given you to eat. Oh, all right, I’ll bring you some milk.”

Jamie made a last forlorn protest.

“It made me sick last night.”

“It won’t tonight because I won’t put brandy in it. I’m not wasting any more good brandy that way.”

“B-but-”

Her tone was so fierce that Jamie was at last without words.

“Stop arguing! Go downstairs!”

Having awoke so abruptly he could not sleep again. The bed made up on the floor was cold and hard; the cellar, lit by one dim bulb, was full of shadows.

He was frightened.

He had been frightened all the time, but so far, by making a lot of noise and being as naughty as possible, he had managed to bluff both the horrid thin woman and the strange person who had hidden behind the couch last night.

Now he could no longer keep up the pretense. Sobs kept catching in his throat. He wanted to open his mouth and bawl loudly, but somehow he couldn’t. He just crouched on the makeshift bed, trembling and sobbing quietly.

Presently the sound of the doorbell ringing, two short secret rings, made him hold his breath to listen. Had someone come for him and Arabella at last? Had, by any chance, his mother or Millie come?

He heard quick footsteps, and then a murmur of voices. Was it again that person who had hidden behind the couch?

His lively curiosity overcame his fear. He would go up and see. The woman might hit him on the ear, as she had done several times that day, and send him downstairs, but at least he would see first who had come.

Stealthily he climbed the stairs and crept along the narrow passage. If he was very quiet he could look in without anyone seeing him.

He could hear the woman talking in a rapid voice. Suddenly he heard her gasp.

“No! Oh,
no!”

Someone gave a low laugh. There was a strange sharp noise, and Arabella whimpered.

Jamie summoned up all his courage and looked quickly around the half open door.

The only person visible was the now familiar figure of the thin dark woman. She was holding up something in her hand, and looking at it transfixed.

Jamie saw it, and also stared transfixed. He forgot to be careful. He suddenly heard, from behind the half-open door, a thick angry whisper, “There’s that damned boy again!”

The woman dropped what she had been holding and flew to him. Without speaking at all she bundled him down to the basement, pushed him into the dimly-lit room, and pulling the door shut, locked it.

But she did not put the light out. At least she had not left him in the dark. Crawling forlornly into the tumbled bedclothes Jamie had a strange adult feeling that the woman was as frightened as he was.

A
T FIRST, WHEN HARRIET
answered the telephone, there was no sound at all. But one knew someone was there because there had been a slight click indicating that the call had come from a public phone booth.

“Who is there?” Harriet demanded again, desperately controlling her impatience and fear.

Then the answer came in a low throaty voice that could have been a man’s or a woman’s. A man’s, she thought, disguised in this throaty whisper.

“Is that Mrs. Lacey speaking?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Have you called the police?”

Instinctively she answered, “No.”

“That’s a good girl. Now I can tell you your kids are well.”

“Where are they?” Harriet demanded tensely.

“That would be telling, wouldn’t it. Especially since I got to keep them another day. Too bad, isn’t it?”

“You can’t! You promised. I did exactly as you said—”

“Except for one important thing. You had me watched.”

She was gripping the receiver hard. She knew Flynn was at her elbow, with his acute hearing probably able to distinguish the words coming through the receiver, but she could pay no attention to him. With all her strength she willed this nightmare to cease.

“No, you’re wrong!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t have you watched.”

“I beg your pardon, dear.” The voice was heavily ironic. “Oh, I know the blind man couldn’t see, but his chauffeur could. Or did he have his eyes shut, too?”

There was a grotesque chuckle that sent a shiver down Harriet’s spine.

She cried angrily, “If you don’t bring my children back by midnight I intend to call the police.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you. I really wouldn’t. Wait until you see what comes in the mail in the morning. It will be a parcel. Nice getting parcels, isn’t it? And don’t worry about your kids, I won’t hurt a hair of their heads—” for some reason this statement brought forth another breathy chuckle, “so long as you don’t go to the police. And there’s a little matter of some more money. I’m sorry about that, but you brought it on yourself by employing watchdogs. You’ll get your instructions in the morning, with the parcel. Now are you going to the police?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Course you won’t, dear. Not if you’re wise. See what’s in that parcel first. It’s just a beginning of what will happen if you have cops nosing about. Understand?”

“No!” Harriet cried vehemently. “No! If you don’t bring my children back tonight—”

But she was talking into a dead telephone, for the speaker had hung up.

Flynn caught her as she swayed against him.

“Harriet! This is all my fault”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. He might be just making an excuse to ask for
more
money—as you said he would—”

Millie was at the door then, interrupting them. Newly awakened, she stood there in her nightgown, her cheeks flushed, her eyes staring.