The Callender Papers (3 page)

I was bewildered. I waited to see if she would stumble into speech again. I didn't know what I was supposed to say.

“What will you have for breakfast, Miss Wainwright?”

“Must you call me that?” I asked.

“Miss Jean then. What will you have, Miss Jean? Egg, sausage, porridge, cocoa, rolls, milk, wheatcakes? I don't know what they serve in the city for breakfast. Mr. Thiel never tells me such things.” The lips closed again.

“Ordinarily I have an egg and toast, with a glass of milk. Would that be all right?”

“Of course it will be all right.” She turned abruptly from me and went into a pantry at the back of the kitchen. I had a minute to look around at the large low-ceilinged room. It was a room with a warm feeling to it, with bright yellow wooden cupboards and scoured wooden countertops. Sunlight poured into it, and the door to the back was opened onto a small porch, showing also the barn and the garden.

When Mrs. Bywall returned, carrying eggs and a loaf of bread as well as a pitcher, I stood where I had.

“You just go sit down and wait then. It won't take but a minute,” Mrs. Bywall told me, without a smile, turning to the old-fashioned wood stove.

She served the meal on plain stoneware. There was much more food than I was accustomed to. Mrs.
Bywall had scrambled several eggs and brought me a basket of sliced bread, three kinds of jam, and a bowl of butter. Milk was poured from the pitcher, and the pitcher left on the table. Mrs. Bywall sat down opposite me, heavily. She watched me eat. I tried to pay no attention.

“It's too much,” I apologized when I had eaten as much as I could.

“I'll learn your appetite,” she said. “I'm not sure what girls eat, so I tried to remember what my brothers ate at your age. They were always hungry. But then, I don't imagine you've ever gone short of food, so perhaps it's different.”

“It is all delicious,” I said. It was, fresh and light, the eggs hot, the milk cool.

Mrs. Bywall looked at me sharply and began to speak, apparently a painful task. “I've been in jail,” she announced abruptly. Her eyes were on her hands, clasped together on the tabletop. “I spent ten years in there. There are people would say I'm not fit company for a child. Not Mr. Thiel, not him, but you might think that yourself—” I wanted to answer her then but her voice went on, as if the words had been memorized. “You should know that, Mr. Thiel says. I was sixteen at the time, and my brother was sick, a lung
infection, my brother Horace. He needed medicines and a long stay at a spa in Virginia. My parents were tenant farmers. The farm was small and there had been two bad years. My husband—newly wed I was, to Charlie Bywall, also a farming man—he had nothing to help us with. I went to work at the other house,” she pointed with her chin, down the hill. “And I stole six silver spoons. Sterling silver, they were, from London. I knew it was wrong. But Horace coughed all night. We had to have the money. It was old Dr. Carter, who would give farmers no credit, nor charity.

“Mr. Callender prosecuted—Mr. Enoch that is. And I went to jail.” She looked at me then, without really seeing me. “They are terrible places, cruel, unclean. I don't think of that. It was a long time, ten years. . . . My husband, my Charlie, he left. I never heard from him again. Horace died. My father came to see me, once or twice, but it was too cruel so I asked him to stay away. When I came out—people stayed away from me. I thought of leaving the village. My family. But where would I go? Until Mr. Thiel hired me here. He had had his troubles too, I learned, although I wasn't here during those years. He knows what it is like. He knows what it is to have people
stare at you and talk about you and pretend you aren't there. There was his wife, first, and then the child—and I never believed what people said about either of them.” At this point she stopped, and looked at me, just a brief glance. She waited before beginning again. “Mr. Thiel asked me to come and keep house here, so I did. Of course I did. Where else could I have gotten work? So now you know what I am.”

“I knew you had been in jail,” I said. “My Aunt Constance told me before. She didn't think it was important, that you had been—” I couldn't say the word again.

“Then she must be an unusual woman. Sending you here, too, to him.”

With her story told, Mrs. Bywall became almost at ease. I could understand how hard it must have been for her to tell that to an unknown girl. She told me what time luncheon would be served and advised me to go about outside, instructing me what I would and would not want to see. “You won't want to walk down to the village your first day. They'll know you're here, of course, they always know everything. I can't think they'll be so cruel to a child—although come to think of it, you're not so much younger than I was when my troubles came. But you won't want to go there yet.”
Between each piece of advice she hesitated, as if to be sure not to give anything away. “And you mustn't go near Mr. Thiel's studio. He'd fair frighten you back to Boston if you did that. That's the small building, beyond the barn, with the great glass windows. A glazier from Albany put those in, but that was when Mr. Thiel's wife was alive and her father. They spent money, those Callenders. Mr. Callender—” she stopped. I waited. “Mr. Thiel said I wasn't to talk your ear off,” she said uneasily. “He said you were a silent little creature—and that you certainly are. Can you do this work?”

I smiled. “I don't know. My aunt thinks I can, and so apparently does Mr. Thiel.”

Mrs. Bywall did not answer my smile.

“Imagine being so educated and still so young. I did learn how to read in jail, there was that. A spinster woman came to teach us, all Bible and sin, some minister's daughter I don't doubt. But I did learn that.”

There were questions I wanted to ask Mrs. Bywall, which I did not dare to voice. What she said, the words she spoke, were not unfriendly; but her face never showed any expression, as if—she were afraid of what she might say, or of somebody who was listening to everything she said, somebody who had told her
what to say and what not to say. So I merely thanked her and excused myself from the table.

I spent the rest of the morning exploring. First I looked briefly at the downstairs rooms. The house seemed old, plain but comfortable. A large library, opposite to the dining room, took up most of the ground floor. Books lined the walls, and the floor had two faded oriental rugs on it. Besides the usual fireplace and chairs for reading, there was a huge desk, a long table and a grand piano.

Next to the dining room I found a small parlor, never used by the looks of it. Its chairs and table, lamps and windows, were shrouded with sheets. The air smelled musty. By then I wanted only to go outside. The house was too dark, too silent. I felt as though I were an intruder, out of place. I feared to go somewhere I shouldn't. So I ignored the last closed door and went back down the hall to the open front door.

Outside, the sky shone blue and the sun shone warm. Trees and mountains surrounded the house, protectively it seemed. I turned back from the driveway to look at the place where I was to live for the next months, if all went well. The main house, with the long kitchen wing, like a capital
P
laid on its back,
was entirely built of gray stone. The roof was made of slate shingles. Two tall stone chimneys marked the ends of the main house, while a smaller chimney emerged from the kitchen wing. It was simple, plain and rather handsome.

I wandered down the driveway, a dirt road leading away from the house. Soon trees closed over my head, their full foliage providing cool shade. Beyond the bird and insect noises, I heard water running. I turned off the road to the right and found a small river. Near the banks the water was shallow and clear, merry indeed, as it passed quickly over stones, running down the steep hill. I took off my shoes and stockings to wade in it. The mud bottom oozed between my toes, the water ran around my ankles, and it was altogether delightful. I kept carefully back from the deep center as I followed the bank down, listening to the brief songs of birds overhead, and a faint rustle of leaves at the tops of the overgrowing trees. I held my skirts high so that the water that played around my ankles would not dampen them. The cool water felt delicious. It is not surprising that I followed the river too far. I almost walked into view of the green lawn of another house, built of gray stone like Mr. Thiel's.

I was stopped from actually walking into view by
the sound of voices. I stepped back into the protecting trees on the bank. For a short time (just until my conscience got the better of me) I spied on a group of people who were out on that green lawn.

A woman sat under a tree in one of three lawn chairs with a tall glass on the table beside her and a parasol held open to protect her face from the sun. Two boys, one almost a man, it seemed, played at croquet with a young lady. All of these people were finely dressed, the boys in crisp white suits and the ladies in white gowns. The only conversation that drifted down to my ears had to do with quarrels about the rules of the game. Then a man wearing a white suit emerged from the house. All conversation stopped.

He was a handsome figure, with golden hair and a bold, free stride as he crossed the lawn. Tall, graceful, a golden man—he was unlike any man I had seen before. The men I had seen wore somber clothing and moved as if they were always thinking of their dignity. This man broke into a run as he hurried to join the young people at croquet. He picked up a mallet and whirled it around over his head, turning in circles but never the least off balance. The young people gathered up their balls to start a new game. One by one, he let them start before him, the youngest first. He
bowed and gestured with an arm to each in turn. When his own turn came he went easily to place the ball then planted his feet as carefully and precisely as a circus acrobat before making his play.

When I finally turned away from the picture of the green lawn and made my way back up through the cool waters, I thought that this house, so like Mr. Thiel's, must be the home of the Callenders, so that the man must be Enoch Callender, the woman his wife, and the three young people his children. I did not, beyond that, think any more of them because I just then realized I was in danger of being late for luncheon.

I was not late but I had no time to tidy myself before sitting down to table other than to slip into the kitchen to wash my hands. Aunt Constance would have sent me upstairs, but Mr. Thiel did not seem to notice my disarranged hair and heated face.

I was seated where I had eaten breakfast, and Mr. Thiel sat where Mrs. Bywall had, across from me, but only the width across. This became our habitual way of eating together. The food was simple and good. I was, I discovered, quite hungry. For a while we ate silently, then he started a conversation.

“Mrs. Bywall spoke with you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you wish to leave?”

“No,” I said.

He returned to his food. When he had cleaned his
plate, he sat looking at me, waiting for me to finish. I found his stare most uncomfortable. Mr. Thiel was a straight man, he carried himself straight, his short, graying hair was straight, his glance was cold and straight. He had a hard face, filled with character, I supposed, but not attractive and not welcoming. There are, I think, two sorts of faces that people have. The first is welcoming and responds visibly to what it sees. The other is secretive, or private. It is closed off and seems to protect itself from whatever it is facing. Mr. Thiel had this second kind of face. The difference is, I think, in the eyes themselves. Eyes hold the essential expression of a face. A man can smile with his mouth, but his eyes will give away his real thoughts. Aunt Constance had a stern expression, but her eyes were always welcoming. Mr. Thiel had a way of looking through his eyes as if through a microscope at some strange, and possibly distasteful, creature.

When I had finished my meal—which I obstinately ate at my own pace—I put down my own knife and fork carefully, as I had been taught, at twenty past two. “Aunt Constance had already spoken to me of Mrs. Bywall,” I informed him.

“I thought she might.”

Even though I could see that he was not interested in my reaction, I told him what I felt.

“It is a sad story.”

He shrugged.

“Mrs. Bywall seems very loyal to you.”

“She has reason to be, although it's no credit to me. People are such fools,” he said.

“Not all,” I protested.

“Those who aren't are so few they make no difference.”

I couldn't agree with him but couldn't argue. So I sat silent as Mrs. Bywall brought in a hot cherry pie.

“Are you ready to begin your work now?” Mr. Thiel asked me, as if it had been days, not merely a morning, since I had arrived, as if I had been shirking.

“Of course,” I said. “But just what is it you want me to do?” The question seemed to annoy him.

“My late father-in-law, Josiah Callender, left several boxes of papers. Letters, essays, I don't know what, stored up in the attic. You are to sort through them, separate the wheat from the chaff, and determine what should be done with the papers.”

I looked up in surprise. “How can I decide that?”

“That's up to you. I suppose you can, or you wouldn't be here. I don't expect to be bothered with the task, in any way.” He ate his pie methodically.

“But how can I know what is important?” I insisted.

He sighed, and answered me. “Given a choice between a formal and meaningless note from President Lincoln, say, and a letter to Josiah Callender from his father, instructing him in the duties of married life, which would you keep?”

I thought carefully about this. “I would keep both,” I decided. “The one might be of monetary value, or value to the family for the pride of it, if it were signed by Mr. Lincoln himself. The other would certainly be of historical value.”