Hush Now, Don’t You Cry (24 page)

So I kept on going and came at last to a small window, hidden from the outside world by the ivy. It was closed but I tugged at it and it swung open. It was arched like a castle window with tinted leaded panes. I peered inside and saw a narrow stairway going up and down. It was no easy challenge to squeeze myself and my skirts through but after a heart-stopping moment when a tendril of ivy did come away from the wall, I made it. I found myself standing on the staircase. In one direction it descended into darkness. On the other it went up, hugging the castle wall. There were no doors that I could see. The narrow stair was enclosed and cut off from the rest of the building.

So up I went, my heart beating faster in anticipation of what I might find. It must lead up into the tower. It was dimly lit with that one window of tinted yellow glass and then no other form of light for quite a while. At the top I came to a doorway. It was shut. I turned the handle, rattled it, but it must have been locked from the inside. Frustration welled up in me. I was so close and I wasn’t about to give up now. I knelt down, trying to put my eye to the keyhole, but the key must have been in it as I could see nothing. I realized in annoyance that I hadn’t yet put my hair up. A good hairpin might have been able to dislodge that key. I didn’t relish climbing all the way down again and then back up with the right tools to gain entry, but I was prepared to do it if that was what it took to find out the truth.

Let me tell you that going down was harder than climbing up. I slithered, got my skirts caught, scraped my toes, and was generally thoroughly vexed by the time I reached the ground. I found my shoes and went back to the cottage, carrying them in my hand. Once back at the cottage I removed my wet stockings and underskirt, giving me one less layer to encumber me. I wished I had dared to pack my bicycling bloomers. How much easier it would be if ladies were allowed to wear them on a regular basis. Then I found a small knife in the kitchen drawer and took a sheet of writing paper from the desk. Thus armed I recrossed the lawn. The sun was now coming up over the ocean, painting the water with lovely streaks of gold. I felt a renewed sense of urgency. Gardeners would be arriving. People in the house would be up and around. Young Sam might want to go fishing, if the shed was unlocked.

I reached the ivy unseen and slipped inside. The second climb seemed to take forever and I wondered at one point whether I had taken another route upward and missed the window. But there it was at last and I climbed through more easily with one less layer of clothing to hinder me. Up the stairs I went, slid the sheet of paper under the door and then used the knife to push out the key. I heard it drop with a loud clunk and hoped that I had positioned the paper correctly. I held my breath as I pulled it out carefully and was delighted to see the key lying on it. In a few seconds I turned the key in the lock and the door swung open. Before me was a good-sized, rather large Spartan room with bare floors, dotted here and there with braided rugs. It was lit by another arched window, this one paned with clear glass so that I could look out at the grounds and the gate. On the far wall was a fireplace but no fire was lit and over it was a painting of Jesus with the little children. In one corner of the room was a bed, unmade, with coverlets half falling to the floor and over it a large crucifix. The other furniture consisted of a small table with two chairs, an overstuffed chair—rather the worse for wear—a small wardrobe, and a cupboard with a doll and teddy bear sitting on top of it. In the middle of the floor there was a dollhouse and a big rocking horse in the corner. A child’s room. I felt a wave of fear run through me. A child’s room kept as a memorial to a dead girl? But the bed had been slept in and the dollhouse was open with a baby doll in a cradle sitting on the rug.

I looked around for an occupant but the room was empty. There was a door on the far side. I found myself tiptoeing over to it. The bare boards creaked as I crossed the room and I held my breath. But the door only opened onto a sort of anteroom with a sink, a tin bath, a small stove, and various foodstuffs on a shelf. That was all. So where was the person who lived here? Had she gone down the stairs to other rooms where she spent the day?

I came out of the anteroom and was about to walk back to the door when I heard a low voice.

“Otay wee awa n baba, Coween.”

“Wee awa.”

All my thoughts of ghosts came back to me. Then I realized that the sound was coming from under the bed. I crept toward it and lifted the comforter that was about to fall to the floor. Looking back at me was the face I had seen in the window, the face I had seen on the portrait in town. Her big eyes were staring at me in pure terror and I noticed that they were not bright blue, as in the portrait, but were greenish brown. I also realized, of course, that she was not four years old, but a girl of eleven or twelve with long light-brown hair. The hair was still plastered to her forehead the way it would be if she had been out in a rainstorm and had not dried or brushed since. She was still wearing a white nightgown but I couldn’t tell whether that had dried on her or was a fresh one. After her initial frozen shock the girl was now looking around like a trapped animal for a way of escape.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” I said gently. “I’m a friend.”

She stared at me, silent, unblinking.

“I saw you dancing in the rain,” I said, smiling at her. “That must have been fun. And you put a flower in my hair when I was asleep, didn’t you?”

She was staring at me, unblinking, not giving any sign as to whether she heard and understood what I was saying or not.

“Are you Colleen?” I asked.

Still she didn’t reply or move.

“Colleen?” I asked again.

A tentative smile crossed her face. She picked up a big rag doll with yellow hair that had been lying on the floor beside her. “Coween,” she said.

I was confused. “The doll’s name is Colleen?” I asked. “Or your name?”

It was her turn to look confused now, her eyes darting, ready for flight. “Coween,” she said again, holding the doll close to her now.

“And what’s your name then?”

She was starting to inch away from me. I could tell she wanted to get out from under the bed so that she had room to escape. Suddenly I saw her eyes shift from me and open wide in terror.

Mrs. McCreedy stood behind me and in her hand was a knife.

Twenty-six

“I knew I couldn’t trust you from the very beginning,” she said in a threatening voice. “You with your poking and prying where you’ve no right to be. Well, I hope you’re satisfied now because you’ve just condemned her to death.”

I scrambled to my feet, standing in front of the child to protect her. All kinds of thoughts were whirling through my brain. Colleen had never died at all. This crazy woman had kept her hidden away and captive all this time. The child on the floor whimpered and attempted to crawl away.

“It’s all right, Kathleen, love,” she said gently. “You’ll be safe, don’t worry.”

“Kathleen?” I frowned. “Not Colleen?”

“Coween.” The child scrambled under the bed to pick up the doll and then backed into a corner.

“I’m not going to harm her,” I said. “I saw her outside running around in the storm last night and I had to find out who she was.”

“Outside? Don’t tell me she’s managed to get out again, has she? I wonder how on earth she did it this time.”

“She opened the window halfway down the stair and she climbed down the ivy. I followed her route. That was how I got in.”

“But I leave the door locked.”

“Somehow she managed to open it,” I said.

Mrs. McCreedy shook her head. “She used to be such a docile little thing. She’d play happily with her toys and eat her food and that was that. But recently she’s grown restless. I found she’d got out once before but I thought we’d taken care of that.”

“I think she’s been outside several times while I’ve been here,” I said. “The two boys reported seeing a ghost, and I was asleep in a lawn chair when I heard singing in a strange language and awoke to find a flower in my hair.”

“I told the master it wasn’t going to work much longer and we’d have to decide what to do with her,” she said. “Is that why he brought you here? He wanted to show her to you and see what you’d recommend?”

“Mrs. McCreedy, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “And please put away that knife. I’m not a threat to anybody. I don’t know why Mr. Hannan invited Daniel and myself here and I don’t know who this child is or anything about her.”

She looked down at the girl who was now sitting on the floor, hugging the doll to her, humming to herself as she rocked back and forth.

“Go back to your playing, Kathleen. Everything is all right. You can tell Colleen everything is all right.”

Then she took my arm none too gently, her fingers digging into my flesh, and led me across the room and into the little scullery area, closing the door behind us.

“I could kill you now,” she said. She was standing between me and the door, the knife still in her hand. “Nobody knows about this place but me now that the master is dead. Plenty of cubbyholes to hide a body.”

“My husband knows where I was going,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “And I don’t know why you’d want to kill me. I told you I meant no harm.”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant, the harm has been done. They’ll find out about her and then it will be all over for the poor little thing.”

“Why should it be?”

“Because they’ll send her back.” She sounded close to tears. “After all I’ve done for her all these years to keep her from harm.”

“You called her Kathleen,” I said slowly. “She’s not Colleen?”

“Colleen is dead,” she said flatly. “You knew that. You’ve seen her grave.”

“Then who is she?”

“Kathleen’s her name. She was Colleen’s twin.”

“Colleen had a twin sister? Then why is she kept up here rather than with her family?”

She leaned closer to me. “Because she killed Colleen. She pushed her sister over the cliff.”

“But she was four years old. She couldn’t have known what she was doing.”

“I’m afraid she knew, all right. She was observed, you see. Creeping up behind her sister and then giving her that awful push. She was always the strange one, poor little thing. Colleen was the most adorable little girl you could ever imagine—blonde curls, blue eyes, dimples, and a disposition to match. Everybody adored her. And Kathleen, well she had the same features but without the prettiness, if you know what I mean, and her hair was mousy while her sister’s was golden, and she was sullen and stubborn and withdrawn. She hung back when Colleen ran into your arms. How do I put it—she simply wasn’t as lovable.”

“So you think she got rid of her more lovable twin?” I asked.

“I know she did.”

“What did she say about it? Was she sorry? Did she think it was an accident?”

“We don’t know. At that moment she stopped speaking. I don’t believe she remembers a thing about it, and she’s even forgotten she had a twin. It’s as if she blotted the whole thing from her mind. As you can see she calls that doll Colleen and she speaks to it in gibberish, but that’s the only time she speaks. Not a word to me although she may nod now and then.”

“So whose decision was it to have her locked away up here?” I asked.

“After it happened her mother was fearful for her little boy and for the one she was expecting. She didn’t want Kathleen in the same house anymore. So it was agreed she’d be put in an institution for the mentally impaired. They found one in the Connecticut countryside and off she was shipped. It was agreed that she’d never be mentioned again.”

“That’s terrible—a four-year-old child condemned because she was jealous of her popular twin and did something stupid on impulse.”

She shrugged. “You have to understand how they all adored Colleen. Miss Irene and Mr. Archie doted on her. And so did the master. She was the light of his life. But he was a fair man, a just man. Miss Irene couldn’t bring herself to visit her daughter, in fact a doctor told her that it would be more disturbing for the child to see her family. But Alderman Hannan, he went up to see her, and he was horrified. This place was supposed to be a humane institution and they were paying well for the privilege of keeping her there, but he said the patients were treated like animals. They were like animals—unkempt, crawling around on the floor, stealing each other’s food. He saw Kathleen retreating further and further into herself, giving up on life. He knew if he left her there any longer she’d die. So he had these rooms built secretly within the tower. He made them soundproof and a stair going up within the walls. I’m the only one who has the key and knows the way in.”

She paused, breathing heavily, and she toyed with the knife in her hand. For a moment I wondered if she was still considering using it on me and I glanced around for something to defend myself with.

“Didn’t her parents ever want to check on her?” I asked after a silence.

“They believed that the alderman visited her regularly—which he did, of course—and reported back to them. But if you ask me, I think they preferred not to be reminded of her.”

“How do you manage to keep her a secret?” I asked.

“Most of the year it’s no problem,” she said. “It’s only me and Kathleen and she’s been an easy child until recently.”

“What happens when the family is here?”

“Then I change her routine,” she said. “I give her medicine to make her sleep all day and then she’s up at night.”

“No wonder you wanted to get back when you came to Daniel the other night,” I said.

“I don’t like to leave her too long when people are here.” She glanced at the door. “I’ve had to put the fear of God into the child. I’ve told her that the bad people will take her away back to that dreadful place if they find her here, so she has to be as quiet as a little mouse. I hate doing it, but it’s for her own good. Poor little mite looks down from her window and doesn’t even know it’s her own brothers running around down there.”

“They saw her the other night,” I said.

She sighed. “I feared it would happen eventually. Usually it’s no problem because they bring their own staff with them all summer and I can watch over Kathleen, but this visit—well, it’s completely thrown me. Even before the master’s death I felt that something bad was about to happen to us.”