The Gift Shop Page 15

  “Dorinda Bowie,” said Dorinda, smiling at him. “May we follow too, please?”

  Jean had taken the opportunity to sail halfway up the first flight of the staircase.

  “Of course. Of course. Of course,” said the professor gladly, offering his arm.

  Mr. Butler had his wife on his arm, and the two of them were a few steps behind Jean and the child. The professor now led Dorinda to the stairs.

  The gray-clad woman stood abandoned. “Don’t be such b——fools!” shrieked Madame Grace, casting aside all tact, in her defeat.

  Mr. Butler looked down and said, “Will you be good enough to wait in the library, Madame?”

  He had spoken. She flounced around and set her shoulders.

  Meantime Harry (who was feeling tickled to pieces) had kept his eyes busy. He slipped toward Miss Beale, who had been drawn by a fearful fascination to stare at the shards on the rug. “Come on,” he said. “Mustn’t miss the fun, dear lady.” He had a long and limber leg, and as he turned her and her startled face away from the wall, Harry tried a quick kick behind her back.

  Another vase, pedestal and all, came crashing down.

  Mr. Butler said with enormous satisfaction, “Ah …”

  Jean squeezed, with a startled hand, the child’s hand and looked behind. She could see them below, foreshortened, Miss Beale staggering on Harry’s arm and Harry looking upward with such a look of pure but troubled innocence that she had to cough. She bent and put a light and joyous kiss on Deirdre’s brow. “It’s all right,” she said.

  Her confidence had surged to a sudden peak. She turned and looked into the eyes of Deirdre’s mother. Jean could only vaguely remember this woman’s face, and had had no sign that the woman remembered hers. Now she said, boldly, “But I’m sorry for the mischief. Shall I continue, Mrs. Butler? Or would you rather not have things broken?”

  “I haven’t cared for that piece, either,” said Mrs. Butler, in her languid way. “Who was it gave us that, Henry, do you recall?”

  And the Master said, “No matter. No matter, at all. Go on. Go on.” He had a glassy look. He called behind him, “Coming along, Professor? Are you watching closely?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said the professor, blinking.

  “But this is so fascinating!” breathed Dorinda, firmly refascinating him.

  And Jean was hit suddenly. Is that Dorinda?

  But she went on. In the upper spaces, she halted. “There is something—” she intoned, feeling Mr. Butler’s hot breath on her very neck. “In a child’s room?” she inquired of the air.

  She felt the faint tugging of the little hand she held. “Ah, this way, then?” said Jean. She seemed to lead where she was being led, but her bare feet were beginning to feel rather cold.

  Surely, all this would soon be too ridiculous!

  But the ridiculous procession followed her. Deirdre’s parents, in solemn silence. Dorinda and the professor, murmuring next. And finally Harry Fairchild, bearing a good deal of Miss Beale’s weight, but hurrying to catch up and be helpful, when he could.

  “Not the child’s room,” moaned Miss Beale.

  “Why not?” he whispered. “Walk faster.”

  “But my room is the very next room to the child’s room.” Miss Beale’s voice moaned dismally around on the vowel.

  “Afraid of children?” said Harry carelessly. “A big girl like you?”

  “Not at all,” said Miss Beale. She braced up and her eye flashed cold.

  “Well, never mind,” said Harry dragging her. “We don’t want to miss this.”

  When the little hand signaled “stop,” Jean heard the mother sigh, “It is Deirdre’s room, then.”

  So Jean reached and opened the door herself. It was a handsome room, very large, with many many objects in it. It was also very bright. Jean’s head began to spin. How to spot a small green pig among so many small and many-colored things! Harry would help her spot the pig. What was Dorinda doing here? No time for that. Where was the little green pig, in all this array? She couldn’t see it anywhere. And what would she do, when she did?

  Jean found herself in the center of the room, where she had stopped. Now she released the child to put both her own hands to her face and hide, behind slitted fingers, the swift run of her eyes over every nook and niche and shelf. Deirdre seemed to drift away. A tableau arranged itself.

  Mrs. Butler sighed, and sat down in a chair near the door. She was a woman without energy. To climb, and come as far as this, seemed to have exhausted her, but she hadn’t the force to complain.

  Mr. Butler was full of energy, which he compressed into a tense and waiting stance.

  The professor led Dorinda just within the door and shifted them to the left. Miss Beale did not wish to enter here, at all, but Harry dragged her in, and they shifted to the other side. All now became silent spectators.

  Dead-center-stage stood Jean Cunliffe, and there she was stuck. In the middle of an upper room in a castle in Eire. Hunting a pig!

  Nothing happened. How could it?

  Finally, Mr. Butler cleared his throat, and Mrs. Butler sighed and her chair creaked slightly.

  Harry, who was hunting the pig as thoroughly as he could, by eye alone, began to think the fun was over. And wondered, what now?

  The professor said, “Oh, I say, have you lost touch? But are you quite sure this is the right room? Now, you were never in a true trance, were you Miss—er—Cunliffe?” He seemed to have suddenly realized that he had a fee to earn.

  Jean said, “Wait.” She took down her hands and stared before her, hoping to seem entranced, at least a little. She couldn’t think what they were to wait for. “There is something …” But the word “pig” was, she realized, what you might call unsuitable. She couldn’t say “pig.” “Something—we must do—to help her,” she droned.

  There was silence.

  Until the professor cleared his throat in a way that suggested that the jig was up, and Miss Beale, who could no longer endure, cried out in her high-pitched voice, “I am very sorry, but I do not think that Miss Deirdre ought to be a part of this sort of thing, very much longer. As long as I am responsible, I do feel …” She was working herself up. “Surely, Mr. Butler, you must realize that the child is being terribly frightened. We shall, at the very least, have to move her to another wing?” This last was hopeful.

  “Please ask that woman to be quiet,” said Jean loudly. “She is terrified, herself, and it disturbs us.”

  Mr. Butler said at once, “Be quiet, Miss Beale, if you please. And if you cannot be quiet, leave the room.”

  Miss Beale turned scarlet.

  “Deirdre is not in the least afraid, and never has been,” said Deirdre’s father. “That is nonsense.”

  Jean was astonished by the heartiness and even the pride, in the father’s voice. She looked for the child. Deirdre was over there, near a window, with the light behind her. Her face was in shadow.

  Jean thought, well, she helped as much as she could. So the time had come to give up the act? It had gone about as far as it could go? She debated casting herself on somebody’s mercy, but Mr. Butler’s personality exuded no promises of mercy. Whose mercy, then? The mother’s?

  Mrs. Butler was looking at Jean with watery pale blue eyes. “The little spirit is unhappy?” she said much as one would say, but the mail has come, hasn’t it?

  Was this a communication? Had the woman seen through the whole charade, long ago? Jean took in a breath. Well, she thought, here goes!

  Harry thought, oh, oh, and began to wonder how a man who had been fooled was now going to be charmed.

  But the red-bearded one spoke up, in a tone that was very dry indeed. “It is difficult, isn’t it? Perhaps there is an explanation?”

  “You see,” Jean began. But her heart was sinking. They wouldn’t see. Or else they would, which might be worse.

  “I beg your pardon.” Suddenly Madame Grace was a large and agitated gray flutter in the open doorway. “Mr. Butler,” she sai
d in a glad cry, “I can’t help thinking that you ought to be informed. Two strange men have just entered the house, through the dining-room window, and are doubtless ransacking the silver cabinets, at this very moment.”

  “What? What?” said Butler.

  Harry saw Dorinda swing around and caught the flash of fury across her face. The professor’s brows were very high and his beard jutted.

  “What has been done about it?” the Master barked.

  “I have rung,” said Madame, with dignity.

  There was a shout below.

  Now Miss Beale was rallying completely. She burst into triumphant speech. “An explanation, indeed! A simple plot! American gangsters! There must be several of them. This young woman was merely keeping our attention while her confederates … You know very well”—she was worked up, and her shrill voice pierced the ear—“that this man”—she pointed at Harry—“has already attempted to enter the castle with wild inventions. Ah, but he is inside and his other … his other”—Miss Beale was about to pop—“his other moll, as well—” She exploded. “And as for that one”—She pointed a shaking finger at Jean, and a little green pig sailed past her ear and crashed to the floor.

  Miss Beale screamed, hoarse as a crow, and staggered against Harry, who was forced to hold her up. Deirdre shifted like smoke to the other window. Dorinda moved gracefully and crouched to touch the pig’s fragments and the few coins that lay on the carpet. But Jean looked across at Harry Fairchild and shook her head very slightly and sadly.

  All this then had been for nothing?

  Furthermore, how were they going to get out of here?

  So Jean began to rub her eyes and said, in as phony a voice as she had ever heard from her own throat, “Oh! Where am I?”

  Mr. Butler cast one glance around and torn between passion and duty, he angrily chose duty, and dived through the doorway, parting people with his hands as if they had been draperies. The professor said, “I say,” and went darting after. But he was torn, too—and he put his red beard back around the doorjamb for a last look at Dorinda’s handsome contours, where she crouched, before he vanished.

  Male shouts, female screams, and assorted bangs were arising from below.

  Harry propped Miss Beale against the wall and came to Jean and held her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Feet were running in the house afar. A dog bayed outside. Deirdre was looking out the window.

  Madame Grace said, “Stand where you are,” in a voice of menace, and then she vanished.

  Now were left in this room only the three Americans, Miss Beale (in a paralyzed state), the child, and the pallid woman in the chair.

  “Mrs. Butler,” said Jean, “please believe me. Whatever is going on down there has nothing to do with us.”

  The woman looked at Jean, and Harry, too, with her lacklustre eyes and said, “I don’t suppose that you are thieves, really. But I do think we have had enough, for one afternoon.”

  “I agree,” said Jean. “We’ll just go. Thank you for being so kind. We really ought to pay.”

  But Harry was pinching her hard, and she stopped speaking.

  Mrs. Butler said, “Not at all. It was interesting, I suppose. Henry was pleased.” She sighed. “Miss Beale, perhaps you will be good enough to see that our guests are served whatever they will have? That is, of course, once the burglars have been routed.” Mrs. Butler put a boneless hand to her brow.

  Deirdre was standing beside her mother now. “They’re gone, Mother,” she said, as if one said, the mail has come.

  “Oh, Deirdre, thank you very—” Jean began.

  But the mother cut this short. “If you will excuse us? I’m sure Miss Beale will look after you.” Her swan neck bent in a dismissing bow.

  Miss Beale broke away from the wall convulsively, and went staggering. Dorinda now arose from where she was crouching, and quietly put all the coins from the piggy bank into her own handbag. “Goodbye,” she said sweetly, and walked out of the room.

  Harry said, “Come on, honey.”

  But Jean lingered. “Deirdre,” she said impulsively, “someday you must come to California to visit. I wish …” Something stopped her.

  “I should like to very much, thank you,” said Deirdre primly. “One day, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps” said her mother. “Goodbye.” Two pairs of pale eyes were saying, and that will do. Two pairs of watery blue eyes were saying, but what strange people you are, really.

  Harry took Jean out of the room.

  At the top of the staircase, Miss Beale hung, frozen. They went silently by.

  At the landing, Madame Grace stood sternly. They went silently by, on Dorinda’s heels now.

  At the bottom of the stairs was the professor. “Decamped,” he announced. “Nothing taken. Er … Miss Bowie, this has been interesting. I wonder whether I might call …”

  Dorinda said, coolly, “I think not.”

  “I mean to say …” Rebuffed, he veered. “Miss … er … Cunliffe?”

  “She doesn’t believe in ghosts,” said Harry, solemnly. “But they believe in her, you see? So it is difficult, isn’t it? Goodbye.” And they went on.

  There was no one to let them out, so they went out by themselves, but now Mr. Butler appeared on the paving stones and began to talk very fast.

  The intruders had been routed, he told them, and he was, of course, quite sure the incident had no connection with them. Would they accept his apologies for the outburst of a member of his staff who had so unfortunately—er—burst out? Would they not stay for tea? No? But would Miss Cunliffe consent to come again, since he would like very much to pursue the matter? Perhaps on another and better occasion?

  Harry told him, with quiet relish, that perhaps there would be another occasion, perhaps when Miss Cunliffe again visited this part of the world—perhaps in a year or two? But they must beg to be excused, having certain concerns of their own. Mr. Butler would—perhaps—understand?

  Inside the castle, Miss Beale said to the females of the staff, assembled, that she was very much afraid that she would be leaving this post. She could not, she said, quite understand so superstitious a people.

  The staff said nothing—except to certain saints who understood them perfectly.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Butler said to herself, aloud, “The American girl was very nearly impertinent. No bringing up, I imagine.” She sighed and said to Deirdre, “One ought to pity poor Beale. But your father will soon find someone else to look after you.”

  “Lovely,” said Deirdre, her color changing.

  Elsewhere, Vance and Varney raced out of the woods, tumbled each into a car, and tore off in different directions. The dogs bayed mournfully. But the males of the staff joined joyously and argued together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Harry put Jean into the rented car and Dorinda slipped at the outside, crushing all three of them together in the tiny vehicle. They drove off, in yet another direction.

  And Harry said fiercely, “Jean, did they hurt you?”

  Jean said, “Yes. He did.”

  “Who did?”

  “Varney.”

  Dorinda said, “Oh, the criminal! Oh, poor child! But you’re all right, now?”

  Am I? thought Jean. She was feeling all her aches and pains back again, and there had been no message in the green pig either, and what was Dorinda doing here anyway, and how come she and Harry were together? When Jean had been (all by herself) very ingenious, in spite of many handicaps, and her feet were freezing.

  Harry said, “Better get her to a doctor. Hey, Dorinda, you were great. You kept the professor’s mind off, all right. Good going.”

  Then Dorinda had to be the one to say, “Oh, but Jean was so clever! Wasn’t she marvelous?”

  “She sure was,” said Harry.

  “Now we’ll all go after the other pig, won’t we?” said Dorinda gaily.

  “Oh, we sure will,” said Harry. “All us good guys.”

  “How can we whe
n we don’t even know yet—” Jean clapped her hands to her head (as best she could in the cramped middle). It hurt, and perhaps it was out of order. She held it and muttered, “Wait a minute.”

  “Oh, Jean, honey,” said Dorinda, purring on, “you will be able to remember. I’m sure you will.”

  “Remember what?” groaned Jean. “I hope you realize that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Silence.

  “But how odd,” said Dorinda, “that she doesn’t remember what to remember! Isn’t that odd, Harry, darling?” Her voice was a blade, with edges.

  Harry said nothing.

  “I wish—” burst Jean.

  But now Harry cut her off. “Hey, honey, how did you manage to get away from Varney?”

  “He just suddenly let me go. And don’t call me—”

  “He did, eh? Odd,” drawled Harry. “Wasn’t that odd, Dorinda, darling?”

  Dorinda said nothing.

  “Little-old-honey here,” said Jean angrily, in a moment, “can’t understand you darling, darling people.”

  After that, nobody said anything.

  Harry simply whizzed them, at a perilous pace, back to the hotel, and as he pulled up, Johnny Roach leaped joyously upon them. Dorinda got out, with her usual grace, and walked immediately toward the hotel entrance.

  Jean, who was mad as a hornet by now, suddenly bent double.

  “What’s wrong?” said Harry in alarm.

  “Oh, not a thing! I was bashed in the head, hit in the face, kicked and tortured. Handcuffed and tied up like a—like a chicken. But why do you ask?”

  “What hurts you now?” He was bent over her.

  “Oh, not a thing!” she said. “Why should it? For pity’s sakes, you idiot. I’m only fishing for my purse, which is under this darling seat, someplace.” She couldn’t see, she was so mad.

  He said in her ear, “Is your passport in your purse?”

  “Of course, stupid.” She bit his head off.

  Harry sat up and said loudly, “Johnny Roach? Get in, will you? Show me the way to a doctor, for this poor unfortunate girl.”