Wildwing (4 page)

Love’s Telephone

A
s the days go by, I learn my way around, the rhythms of Mr. Greenwood’s comings and goings, how he likes his tea. It’s been almost two weeks now. I’m setting a fat slice of pound cake on a plate just as the clock strikes in the drawing room. Perfect.

I carry the laden tray down the hall, careful not to slosh the tea or the pitcher of milk. The thick carpet muffles my footsteps. As I near the drawing room door, I hear a strange sound, somewhere between a lilting melody and a rusty hinge crying out for the oil can. I stop and listen, trying to make out the words as they speed up and slow down:

“My sweetheart’s the man in the moon

I’m going to marry him soon

‘Twould fill me with bliss just to give him one kiss

But I know that a dozen I never would miss …”

I didn’t know there was a gramophone in the house! I tiptoe to the door and peer in. To my amazement, it isn’t a gramophone at all, but Mr. Greenwood singing. Yes, singing! His hands rest on the mantel, and he’s gazing up at the portrait with a tenderness that tells me she was his wife. I stand there, gaping, while he croaks a few more lines:

“Last night while the stars brightly shone

He told me through love’s telephone

That when we were wed—”

I’m so astonished, I forget to hold the tray straight, and the saucer slides into the teapot, chiming like a bell. Mr. Greenwood looks over with a start, his brows lowering, and he takes a step toward me like an old bull about to charge. My hands tense around the tray.

But then his eyes focus on my face. “Ah, Addy,” he says, giving his head a shake as if coming to himself again. He walks to the table and sinks into his chair. “She used to sing that song.”

I don’t know why, but I answer, “It’s beautiful.”

He nods. “A silly old song, but she loved it.” His voice is wistful.

It’s more words than I’ve heard from him since I started. Looking at me and speaking, both in the same day: is this actually Mr. Greenwood?

I spread the china out on the table. As I pour his tea, I’m not thinking and I lean forward too quickly. The book in my apron pocket bangs against the table’s edge.

“What is that?” demands Mr. Greenwood, staring at the offending rectangle outlined so clearly against the thin white cotton.

My heart starts pounding. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I leave the book in the kitchen drawer, as I always do, or put it back on the shelf? I’ve just been reading it over and over! And why, oh why, did he have to start noticing me today, of all days?

I know what’s coming.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Greenwood.” My voice is quivering as I set down the teapot and reach into my pocket. I draw out the slender blue volume. “Truly, I am!”

“My Shakespeare,” he says, ominously quiet.

“It won’t happen again, sir,” I plead.

What am I saying? Of course I won’t have another chance, not after something like this. He’ll say it’s theft. And there are no other places open in this town. Mum will send me off to be a live-in for sure. A scullery maid, bottom rung of the ladder.

He stares at me. “Go. Go and—” A cough stops him; when it subsides, he draws in a deep, gasping breath. I brace myself for the shouting, the raised hand to come. The blood is pounding in my ears so loudly that I miss his next words.

“Beg pardon?” I whisper.

“I said go and get a chair. Bring it here.”

I walk slowly to the dining room and pull out a straight-backed chair, wondering how it will figure in my punishment. My steps are even slower as I walk back.

“Here,” he rasps. “At the table.”

I put the chair where he shows me. Whatever is coming, I will not cry.

He motions me to sit down, and I do. Waiting.

“The Tempest.”
He turns the book over in his hands, opening it to a random page, shutting it again. Finally, he says, “Why this one?”

I look up from the book to his face, and the gleam of interest in his eyes surprises me so much I find myself saying, “It’s all storm and magic. And freedom at the end.”

“Ah, yes,” he says. And then, to my amazement, he recites from the play:

“Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes …”

He stops there, leaning back with a sigh. But it can’t be left like that, unfinished, the words unsaid! And so I whisper the next lines:

“Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”

“Exactly!” exclaims Mr. Greenwood, slapping the book on the table so hard, the china rattles. “That’s exactly it!”

And that’s how it started, this strange arrangement. Now I know he’s batty, because no sane gentleman would act this way. He had me leave the second chair in the drawing room. Every afternoon, when I bring the tea tray, it has two cups and saucers, and two plates for the cake. And heaven help me, I sit down with him and we talk. That’s right. A gentleman like him, sitting at the table and chatting away with a girl like me. It might as well be something out of the cinema, it’s that unlikely.

I could never tell Mum. She’d say I’m walking a dangerous line, that people who step above their stations get beaten back down, and hard. She’d say it isn’t my place. But it’s getting difficult to tell my place with Mr. Greenwood. It’s as if a switch turned inside him and he started to come alive again, like one of his inventions, after years of stillness. He sees me now when he passes me in the hall, nods, says hello. His voice still creaks like an old gramophone, but the more he uses it, the easier the words flow. He tells me about plays he saw on the London stage, and what that stage was like in Shakespeare’s own day, and what England was like even earlier, in the time of castles and knights in armor. It’s wonderful what he knows. And even more wonderful are the books he puts in my hand and tells me to read, and the discussions we have about them after: Shakespeare and Marlowe, Sir Walter Scott and Dickens.

Sometimes there’s a shift in him, like the sky beginning to lighten after a thunderstorm, and I think I catch the glimmer of a smile. But sooner or later, he glances up at his wife’s portrait, and another bank of gray clouds moves in. He goes back where the world can’t reach him, and I clear the tea things.

And he never—no, never—mentions his son.

Nobody

A
s I pull open the door, the bell jingles and Mr. Wentworth glances up, gives me a nod.

“Afternoon, Addy,” he says. “What can I get you today?” I look down at my list. “Potatoes and carrots. Beef, enough for a stew. And a pound of sugar. And butter.” I’ll get the stew and pound cake going for Mr. Greenwood’s dinner before I start the ironing this afternoon. “And Mr. Greenwood asked special for some of those chocolate biscuits he likes.”

“I know the ones,” says Mr. Wentworth. “Won’t be a moment.” He slips through a door into the back, and I hear his feet tromping downstairs. I reach over to the bread and pick up a loaf for a sniff: is it as good as mine? I’m about to put it back when the doorbell jingles behind me and I hear two pairs of shoes prancing in.

“Look. Somebody’s here.” It’s Mary’s voice, as snide as ever.

I freeze in place. I will not turn to look at them. I feel my face burning above my starched collar. I’m acutely aware of my apron, the white maid’s cap perched on top of my head. The one Mum makes me wear. The one I forgot to take off to come marketing.

“That’s not a
somebody,”
says Caroline. “It’s a
nobody
. Nobody at all!”

They both laugh like it’s the funniest thing they ever heard. I still don’t turn around. Where
is
Mr. Wentworth? How many storage rooms can he have down in that cellar?

“You were wonderful at rehearsal yesterday.” Mary says it to Caroline, but I know each word is directed at me. “Lucky thing it’s
you
playing the queen.
Some
people aren’t meant for more than scullery work.”

“Maybe she could clean up for us after the performance,” says Caroline, each word dripping scorn. Then, louder, “Where’s your bucket, Addy?”

My hands clench the loaf so hard, they squish right through.

“Addy,” says Caroline. “Where’s your—”

The back door swings open again.

“Oh, there you are, Mr. Wentworth,” says Caroline, suddenly bright and cheery.

“Out of school early, aren’t you girls?” he says. “It’s a half day,” says Caroline. “We wondered if you’d post this flyer in your window. It’s about our school play. We want everyone to come.” I feel her eyes on my back. “And I’ll take a pack of those sweets. No, the lemon ones.”

Coins clink down on the counter, and the door jingles open and shut.

There’s a long silence.

“Addy?” says Mr. Wentworth. “Addy?”

The Locked Door

I
bang the lid on the stewpot, toss the big spoon into the sink with a clatter. Finish the washing up, the water boiling, so I can pretend it’s the heat and not shame making my skin burn. Oh! I’ll never live it down! Putting that mangled loaf on the counter to pay for, and Mr. Wentworth’s eyes lifting from the tortured bread to my face, and that look of
pity
…

I grab the broom and start in hard enough to sweep the tiles away. Caroline, the queen? I heard her reading for that part; she’ll destroy the play. I throw the broom back in the closet. The stew is bubbling, so I turn to give it a stir, a taste, add a pinch of salt, then the lid back on and the heat as low as it will go. I plug in the iron and pull over the big basket of linens, but they just sit there as Caroline’s words sneak back into my thoughts.

It’s a nobody. Nobody at all.

I stare out the window, across the fence to the trees in the distance. If I could, I’d shed the girl I am like a snake slides out of a ragged, outgrown skin. I’d change my hair, my clothes, my name. And if anyone asked me about Addy Morrow, I’d deny she ever existed. One day …

Oh, Lord, the iron! I grab it, but no harm done; it’s just getting hot enough now. I take a napkin from the basket, sprinkle it with water, and run the iron across so steam rises, leaving the napkin smooth. That
one day
isn’t here, is it? I try to remind myself of all the things I should be glad of. An afternoon off every single week, and evenings off, and Sundays, too. How many working girls have that? And Mr. Greenwood telling me to take home slices of the cakes I bake him, giving me books to read, asking me what I think of them. Isn’t that worth something?

I fold the napkin and set it down. Reach for another.

And the money is good. I remember Mum’s face when I put the coins in her hand the first time, and her saying there’d be enough in a bit for nice fabric to make me a new dress, and
not
a maid’s navy blue. Isn’t that worth something?

I pull a heavy red tablecloth out of the basket and start across the edge with long, even strokes, trying to match mybreath to the rhythm. The fabric softens under the iron. At first glance it looks plain, even boring; but then the light catches it at a certain angle, and suddenly I see roses, nothing but roses, that were hiding there all along.

One last stroke and the tablecloth is perfect. I fold it several times and start to place it in the basket, but then I stop. This one should go right into the linen press so there’s no chance of a crease.

I unplug the iron, drape the cloth over my arm, reach in my pocket for the jangle of keys, and start down the hall. Past the dining room (I’ll dust in there tomorrow, maybe bring in some flowers) and the drawing room (must wind that clock, and light a fire before I leave so it will be cozy when he comes home) and …

And then I stop in front of the next door as if I’m seeing it for the first time. The door that’s always locked.

I’ve seen how Mr. Greenwood looks the other way when he walks past, as if he can’t even bring himself to admit it exists. It’s his son’s room. It has to be. I can picture it so clearly, I might as well be looking through the door: a small bed, blanketed with fifteen years of dust; toys scattered across the floor as if the boy just ran out for a moment (a train, perhaps, its wheels mired in gray snowdrifts); and cobwebs draping everything like shrouds.

All of a sudden, I want to see the mysterious room for myself.

Whatever you do, don’t go in that room. That’s what Mrs. Beale said.

But I’m sick of rules and restrictions. Sick of everyone telling me where I don’t belong.

I hold the keys up in the dim light, searching for one I’ve never used before. There’s the key to the front door, the back door, the linen press. A heavy bronze clunker is too big. What if he’s gone and thrown the key away? But no sooner do I think that than the next one feels different in my fingers. The top is all old-fashioned curlicues; the teeth, long and jagged. I wiggle it into the lock, and it turns with a loud complaint.

The door creaks open into darkness. The air is so musty and stale, it’s hard to breathe. Light, that’s what I need, and the window will be against the far wall. I walk over carefully, because the room is full of large, looming shapes, and I don’t want to knock anything over or trip on the toys. My outstretched hand finally touches velvet, and I pull.

Sun bursts into the room, lighting great flocks of dust as they swoop from the curtains like frightened birds. I inhale a lungful of the stuff, and next thing I’m coughing and sneezing, my eyes watering so I can barely see. I rub my face onmy sleeve, and rub, and rub—blast! The tablecloth! Streaks of gray run across the red field like a muddy river. I’ll have to wash and iron it all over again.

With a sigh, I lift my eyes to look at the room.

In the light I see there’s no train, no toys, not even a bed. There’s no sign a little boy was ever here at all. The room is some kind of library. Books line the walls from floor to ceiling, their titles hidden by a whitewash of dust. More dust rimes a desk where papers are scattered like flotsam after a storm. The lions carved on the feet of the desk try to glare at me, but cataracts of dust dim their eyes. Spiderwebs dangle from the ceiling in tangled sheets; I had that right at least. But they’re drifting down to a huge crate plunked right in the middle of the room.

It’s like that Roman town I read about in school, the one buried by volcanic ash. In one instant people froze into eternal stillness, until they were no more than statues.

If this wasn’t his son’s room, why did he lock it away?

I walk over to the desk. A journal still lies open as if he’d just put it down. I blow the dust away and read,
Archaeological Investigations into Medieval Village Structure
. I pick up a bit of yellowed newsprint; it crackles in my hand.
BOY STILL MISSING
, blares the headline. “Two days of exhaustive searching have failed to provide …” Fifteen years this room has been locked in silence.

But my impatience won’t let me read for long. Ribbons of dust are sparkling in the light, eddying into the cobwebs that drape the oversized crate. What could it be? The tablecloth has to be washed again as it is, so I snap it at the crate like a bullfighter’s cape. Dust goes swirling in great arcs, tracing the path of my cloth. Again and again I snap, until I see it’s no wooden crate I’m uncovering, but the metal, filigreed sides of … a
lift?

Yes, a lift. Not attached to anything, just the box itself, the part that carries you up and down. I should know. I’ve been in a lift once, when Mum and I took the train to the city to buy my school things.

I wad the fabric up like a big red dustcloth, and I scrub, revealing open metalwork on the upper half and solid metal on the lower. Under my hand, the door folds partway in, as if inviting me inside. What is it doing here? Was Mr. Greenwood using it for one of his inventions? I think of the tiny brass box in the drawing room, the one Mrs. Beale grabbed from me when I first came, and I realize it was a miniature model of this lift. What could he want with the real thing?

I open the door the rest of the way, remembering that glorious day in the city, and the boy who operated the lift, how his eyes looked me over even as he bobbed his head and called me “Miss.” How he slid the door closed behind me,like this; how it clicked shut, like this; how he reached over to a row of buttons—another swipe of my cloth reveals a complicated panel with knobs and numbers and dials—and pushed the button for our floor, like this—

The lift rattles and creaks. The floor starts vibrating under my feet. I’ve gone and started something! How do I make it stop? I grab for the handle, but a sudden lurch throws me backward, and then the air is filled with a gigantic whirring, and the dials on the panel are spinning, floor numbers rushing by faster and faster—too many floors!—until they disappear in a blur. The lift is shaking like an earthquake and a tornado rolled into one, and my hands are searching for something to clutch, and I’m thrown back on the seat, my eyes squeezed shut against the force of it, and there’s a tremendous crash—

And then stillness.