The Gift Shop Page 14

  Jean looked up at a high-colored face, a pair of cold eyes, a thin mouth, and a total hostility.

  “Can’t you speak, young woman? What is your name, if you please?”

  “My name is Jean Cunliffe. Does Mr. Harry Fairchild happen to be here, now?”

  “Ah, the American.” Miss Beale looked more disapproving than before. “The young man who made such a disgraceful scene at the gates. You are the missing American girl? I see. We shall soon have you where you belong.”

  “Let her be,” said the Irish woman softly. “She’s had a fright.”

  Miss Beale said, “Not at all.”

  The man, who was watching, made a soft sound in his throat and Miss Beale said sharply, “Go about your business, Fogarty. For some reason these Americans are determined to intrude here. But this trick will not succeed. I shall speak to them at the gate. They know, I believe, what is to be done with her.”

  The man (he wouldn’t trouble himself to contend with the likes of Miss Beale, his look said) retreated toward some far corner where there seemed to be an exit. The Irish woman wore a self-contradicting look, a respectful sneer.

  Jean said, loudly, “Thank you. But I would like to speak to Mr. Butler before I go, if I may.”

  “You may not,” said Miss Beale.

  “Ah, Miss Beale,” said the Irish woman in wheedling tones, “would you look at her poor feet? Would you look at the great bruise on the side of her poor leg?”

  “I am quite sure that her friends will attend to her injuries,” said Miss Beale sternly, “if, indeed, she has any injuries. I shall attend to having them notified at once.”

  She turned and walked, putting her feet down heavily, as if to tread upon all opposition.

  “And how is it in the house?” said the Irish woman, slyly.

  “It is all nonsense,” said Miss Beale. “And mind you keep Miss Deirdre here. We don’t want ideas in her head.”

  She tossed her own head and went away.

  Fogarty had vanished. The Irish woman rolled her eyes and possibly implored some saints, but so rapidly as to seem, again, to be speaking a foreign tongue.

  Jean looked at the little girl, who stared back rather blankly. What ideas? Jean wondered. She told herself that it is not a child’s fault if she is born with pale watery eyes. “Do you remember me, Deirdre?” she asked softly.

  The child looked suddenly reassured; she wiggled from the chair and came nearer.

  “Did you like flying?” said Jean.

  “It was lovely,” said the child, her color changing.

  “Think of it!” said the woman, suspiciously.

  Jean bent her head suddenly and said, “Oh, would you look, please?” She parted her hair with her fingers. “Margaret? I don’t know any other name.”

  The woman accepted “Margaret,” looked, and cried woe, and rushed to produce from somewhere a cold compress for the great lump that was there.

  The child said, “Is it painful?” She spoke very well for one so young. She could not be older than seven, perhaps she was not yet that old.

  “Oh, it doesn’t hurt, anymore,” Jean lied cheerfully. In fact, Jean’s aches and pains were receding from the forefront of her consciousness. She knew now that Harry had not gotten in, did not have the pig. But here was Jean, inside, and something should be done. Miss Beale seemed to be the rock in their path. Jean sensed that although she surely wasn’t popular, she had power. Jean didn’t know what to make of the Irish woman. So she smiled at the child, with whom she had just contrived to be alone.

  “I was sorry you didn’t get the pink pig, Deirdre.”

  “It doesn’t matter, you know,” Deirdre said.

  “Are you very fond of your green pig?” Jean hurried on. “Or would you give it to me?”

  The child blushed and paled.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” said Jean. “There is a little girl you’ve never seen. I need a certain something that may be inside your pig, so that I can help her. Wouldn’t you help her? I’d send you a pink pig, for yourself. Would you mind very much?”

  She could see the swallowing in the child’s thin throat.

  “We’ll have to break it. You could have back everything that is your own.” The same old pitch, thought Jean. But doesn’t she understand me?

  The child said, “There’s not very much in it,” and Jean caught a shadow of sullenness. Come, this was an improvement.

  “Do you think you could go and fetch it and give it to me now,” said Jean, “because I’ll have to go away?”

  “I am not to leave here,” said Deirdre, in an explanatory way.

  “Oh.” Jean had no trouble sounding disappointed.

  “If my father says that I may give it to you, I don’t mind,” said Deirdre.

  “Oh, good! Would you run and ask your father now?”

  “I am not to disturb him.” This was simple explanation, again.

  “I see,” said Jean. She heard the woman coming. “Don’t your things belong to you?” she asked the child, curiously.

  “One doesn’t give one’s things away without permission,” said Deirdre, staring with pale eyes.

  Margaret came with a cold cloth and applied it with soft cries. The child withdrew a little.

  Jean was feeling stymied. This child wasn’t in the least concerned to keep the pig, but she wasn’t a child who could do anything. Yet here was Jean, inside the castle and obliged to try. She had an intuition that Margaret would not help her make off with a family pig. How was she going to get to talk to the father or the mother?

  “What in the world are they doing,” she said suddenly, “in the house? If it’s all right to ask.”

  The child answered, quite vigorously, “Oh, Madame Grace is in the library asking the spirits to write on a slate.”

  “Oh, they’ll never be writing on a slate, not they,” muttered Margaret. “Is that better, my dear?”

  “Oh, much better,” said Jean holding the cloth to her head by herself now. “Are you on the spirits’ side?” she asked boldly. “You’re not afraid of them, I see.”

  “Not I.” Margaret’s eyes were bright.

  “Not I,” Deirdre echoed with a sigh. “Miss Beale is afraid, you know.” A sly glance went between the two of them.

  Jean thought, what’s this? Am I on to something?

  “I would so like to see them,” sighed Deirdre. “Mother says that they are not unkind.”

  “Why should they be unkind?” muttered Margaret. “Unless driven. Now, love, Miss Beale will have the hair off my head.” She was gently urging the child away.

  “Oh, my hair!” Jean cried. “Please, is there a comb?”

  “There is,” said Margaret approvingly. “Now, will I pour you a drop more of the tea?” She fussed awhile and was gone.

  So Jean said to the child, “Quick, before anybody comes. What can we do, Deirdre? I must have the pig and you don’t mind. But they won’t let either of us speak to your father. Is the pig in your room? Where is your room?”

  The child was looking much distressed. Or was she?

  Jean took her bare feet out of the water and bent to dry them, lacking a towel, ruthlessly on the long tablecloth. “You just tell me one thing,” she said, her exasperation showing. “Have I your permission?” When the child didn’t answer, Jean said, “Where I come from, the children own things. But I see you can’t help me, can you? All right. Who can? Would Margaret help me?”

  The child bent her head and looked owly and then, like a draft of cold air, Miss Beale was back.

  “Miss Deirdre, what are you about? Sit in your chair, if you please.” The child scrambled to obey.

  “A message has been telephoned to the hotel,” said Miss Beale to Jean. “Either you will be sent for, or I shall see that you are taken there. Drink your tea, Miss. You do not feel ill, do you? I thought not.”

  Jean straightened slowly. She took up the tea and drank all of it, thirstily. “What strange people you are?” she said. “You won’
t let me speak to Mr. Butler?”

  “It is not necessary,” said Miss Beale.

  “Is he a sensitive?” said Jean, looking around the room. “Are you, Miss Beale?”

  Miss Beale snorted.

  “I am,” said Jean casually.

  Miss Beale bridled at once. “You will not,” she said, “achieve whatever it is you wish to achieve, by talking nonsense. And not, if you please, before the child. We’ve enough nonsense in the house, as it is.” She turned and began to walk away in her heavy tread.

  “Oh, Deirdre’s not afraid of kindly spirits,” said Jean gaily. “Why”—she took up her cup and sailed it high into the kitchen air—“should she be?”

  The cup crashed. Miss Beale leapt and whirled.

  “Oh,” said Jean, after a second’s staring, both hands to her head. “I see.”

  Margaret was back, bearing a comb and a hand mirror. She froze and stared at the broken cup.

  “They are only playful,” said Jean. “Children, I believe, aren’t they?”

  Miss Beale’s thin mouth was opening and closing; her meaty skin was scarlet.

  “You have a poltergeist,” said Jean, with an air of bright patience. “Didn’t you know?”

  Margaret was imploring saints. Miss Beale shrilled, “Don’t be absurd! You did that. With your own hand.”

  “I broke your china?” said Jean. “When you have been so good? You’re not afraid? I’m sure you’re not. A poltergeist is only a little spirit that would like to have some fun.”

  “It’s not Irish, that,” said Margaret, darkly.

  But Deirdre said complacently, “It was only a kitchen cup.”

  “Deirdre, come hold my hand,” said Jean. “I know … I sense … There is a child’s spirit, here. It wants to show me something.”

  “You are … You are pitifully transparent.” Miss Beale became hoarse in her rage. “You are a complete fraud! Margaret, take up those pieces and we’ll hear no more of this.”

  But Jean with her bare toes had taken hold of the tablecloth on the far side of the table. Bland in the face, she yanked with her foot. The sewing basket tumbled with great dignity to the floor.

  Miss Beale lost color. A spool of thread rolled slowly toward her and she backed away with her large feet shuffling.

  Jean, having quickly restored the cloth to balance, said chattily, “I do love children, you know. They seem to like me, too. This has happened to me before.”

  Margaret, fearless though she might be, was consulting saints in the corner, but Deirdre had wiggled to her feet and was drawing near.

  “It’s only a child,” said Jean, smiling and gay. “Isn’t it, Deirdre?”

  “Hadn’t we best tell Father?” said Deirdre, blushing and paling. “He wouldn’t like not having been told.”

  Good for you, thought Jean. She wanted to wink but dared not, under Miss Beale’s hostile glare. She took the little girl’s hand, however, and dared to squeeze it.

  Miss Beale said abruptly, “Not at all.” Then she said, “Very well. Leave it. We shall see.” With her head very high on a stiff neck, she began to walk. She turned and said, “An arrant fraud will be very refreshing and salutary, I’m sure.” She lumbered away.

  Jean beckoned the comb from Margaret, who rolled her eyes and slipped quickly away again. Jean kept smiling at the child as she combed her hair, going gingerly around the lump at the back. Well, she thought, I’ve lied myself at least a pale and watery blue in the face, but now, by gosh, I’ll get to talk to Mr. Butler, before they throw me out of here.

  Deirdre said, “Is it a girl spirit, please?”

  “A little girl, of course,” said Jean gently. “She only wants to have some fun, sometimes. Don’t you think so?”

  The pale eyes were intent. Jean looked into them as deep as she could look and said, “Maybe we can help her?”

  But Margaret came and took the child by her shoulders and put her back into her far chair. Jean realized that Margaret didn’t know what to make of this American woman.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harry, with Dorinda beside him, drove up to the iron gates and leaned on his horn. The gateman sprang to open. “She’s found,” shouted Harry. “Is she all right?”

  “She is. If you’ll take a turn to your left, sir, around to the kitchen?”

  Harry saluted and roared along the castle’s drive, which ran straight the two or three hundred feet to the front of the building.

  “Not us,” he said. The main entrance for us, although commoners. We don’t know any better, do we?” He screeched to a halt and got out, and Dorinda got out quickly and hurried beside him. He was in high spirits and so seemed she.

  Harry assaulted the door with sound, using whatever implements came to hand, including his pounding fist, and a manservant opened it with a look of consternation.

  But Harry brushed him aside. “Where is Jean Cunliffe?” he shouted and, taking Dorinda by the hand (for, in a cock-eyed way, he was feeling grateful to her), Harry burst through into a large room where a dapper smallish man with a reddish beard lifted a hushing hand and hissed, “Silence, please.”

  They had come upon a tableau.

  The room was of noble proportions and had a staircase at one side. It was furnished with every evidence of moneyed elegance; the taste was ornate and there was (although on a large scale) clutter.

  In the very center of the space stood Jean Cunliffe on her bare feet. She was holding little Deirdre by her hand. She did not turn to greet them, but kept her head tilted as if she were listening to something no one else could hear. Her face was lopsided; one cheek seemed very pink and somewhat swollen. But she seemed intact, and she was holding the center of the stage.

  Her audience consisted of two men and three women. The red-bearded man was nearest Harry; nearest Jean there was a short man with a high-domed forehead and a small but perfect Roman nose. He turned now, cast a sharp look, and gestured imperiously for quiet. Beside him, a slender woman with a faded face, and fair hair limp on her head, was drooping in a limp blue dress. Apart, there was a large woman with a moustache, arrayed in a gown of whispy gray stuff, rather floaty, and trimmed here and there with steel beads. Last, stood none other than Miss Beale, in a flowered frock, looking as stern and outraged as before.

  It was Dorinda who called out, “Oh, Jean! Darling, are you all right?” And the man with the red beard looked at her with popping eyes. “Don’t speak to her, please,” he said, but in tones of awe, because Dorinda had just bowled him over.

  The dome-headed man came toward them now, in a brisk, exasperated trot. He said in his choppy manner, “Fairchild? She is quite all right. Bear with this, won’t you, please? Very interesting.”

  “He ought,” Miss Beale bleated, “to have gone round to the kitchen.”

  The dome-headed one said, “We must have silence.”

  Jean said, in a droning way, “Not here. But somewhere …”

  “Let yourself be led,” said Mr. Butler encouragingly. “Simply follow.” He was a man with an obsession. He zeroed his attention in on Jean, who now tilted her head the other way and walked slowly toward the wall, missing the staircase, and tending toward a row of pedestals that bore assorted ornaments. The child went beside her, seeming content.

  The woman in gray said, “An Ameddican. After all—” in a throaty, indignant way.

  “Hush, Madame,” said the red-bearded man, whose accent was neither here nor there, but a kind of global English. “Tell me.” He sidled closer to Dorinda, whispering. “You are her friends? This young woman is a medium, is she?”

  Harry felt a kind of boom of understanding that seemed to take place in his breast. “I … uh …”—He put on his worried-cherub look—“don’t think she has wanted it known.” He was whispering, too.

  Miss Beale drew nearer and put her head with theirs. “So unfortunate for Miss Deirdre, Professor. Very unwise. I should not have thought …”

  Jean, whose ears felt two feet high, and whose ba
re toes were tense on the rug, said, “Deirdre mustn’t leave me. I hear through her.”

  “Hear! Hear!” cried the gray woman, who just might have been released from some spell by the new arrivals. “Mr. Butler, this must be a joke or a hoax of some kind. I cannot—”

  “You needn’t follow, Madame Grace,” said Butler frostily. “Please remain quiet.”

  But Madame Grace, fluttering her smoky panels, continued to protest. “There has never been any manifestation sensed by anyone in this place that has ever been suspected to be a child. Or a poltergeist, for that matter. And if you have observed—”

  A large vase fell off a pedestal with a mighty crash.

  “The little child’s spirit”—Jean spoke dreamily in the ensuing silence, while holding tight to Deirdre’s startled little hand—“says that you have never really liked it.”

  “I have never really liked it, very much,” said the slender woman in blue, in a sweet and languid voice. “Fancy a little spirit knowing so, Henry?”

  “Splendid,” said Henry Butler.

  Jean, feeling the little hand curl closer into hers, thought, Oh boy! But now what?

  She had not dared to turn and look at Harry Fair-child. In her concentration, Dorinda’s voice had not even surprised her. No time to think, except about what in the world to do next. How to keep on pig-hunting, with this particular mad deviosity.

  Her first sight of Henry Butler had made her certain that he was in no mood to discuss giving or selling a child’s piggy bank to some crazy Americans. So she had continued to dwell on the subject that did interest him. As long as she interested him, she could continue. But Jean didn’t think the professor (professor of what, from where, she knew not) was being fooled very much, and there was the outraged hostility of Miss Beale, and Madame Grace, the medium, had by no means taken kindly to the eruption of a rival.

  “Now, she did that,” cried Madame, in the moment. “She is playing tricks. You must have noticed that nothing at all happens, unless she is very near. Professor, surely you saw how that was done? She wasn’t even subtle.” Madame seemed outraged as much by professional ineptitude, as by anything else.

  “Very interesting,” said the red-bearded professor, who had been staring at Dorinda and hadn’t seen another thing. “Don’t you agree, Miss … er …?”