How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (14 page)

Annette returned with the present. It was easy to see that it had taken all her meager powers of restraint to keep from opening it as soon as she laid hands on it.

The wrapped box, tall and rectangular, and covered with crinkly pink metallic paper, was almost as tall as she. But, whatever it contained, it must be light, for she only struggled with the awkwardness of its height and not its weight.

“May I open it now, please, Papa?” she asked, eyes all aglitter.

I could tell that Ambassador Rawlings saw her anxiousness and he at last smiled, genuinely, and showed some pity.

“Ohhhh—” he drew out the word, as though still considering “—I suppose.”

The wrapping was being torn asunder before the final syllable had even left his mouth.

But then there was the tape on the end of the box to be dealt with.

Ambassador Rawlings watched her struggle with it for an amused few minutes, then finally showed mercy a second time.

“Here,” he said, withdrawing a rather lethal-looking knife that opened on a switch from his pocket. “You will harm your pretty little fingers if you keep tearing at it like that.”

With an expert series of flicks of the wrist, he sliced the tape from across the ends of the box and with a wide swath cut it straight down the middle.

Annette buried her head in the opening, not too different from a puppy rooting around for a toy. Then, when she could not get whatever was inside out using that method, she tilted the box so it fell at her feet, the noxious Styrofoam popcorn thingies spilling out onto the floor.

She thrust her head inside among the popcorn, at last extracted what she obviously assumed would be her heart's desire.

It was a dancing doll.

I had read about them in books and seen them on TV as a child, but I had never met one like this before.

It was life-size, or as big as Annette's life, at any rate. It was made out of some kind of soft padding, covered in colorful fabric and thread: ragged yellow hair, rouged cheeks and ruby lips, big blue eyes with spider lashes. It wore a ballet costume in pink with matching, slightly heeled dancing shoes on its oversize feet. Across the tops of the doll's feet were large elastic straps; presumably, Annette was supposed to insinuate her own feet beneath those straps and be led around the dance hall of her mind by this creature that was at once exotic and common.

Her father had found for her the perfect dance partner: a partner that would always be there and would never complain if one stepped on the partner's toes.

“Do you like it?” Ambassador Rawlings asked, a trifle anxious for her pleasure.

Anyone could see that she adored it, the sparkle in her eyes said as much, but it was a nice thing in him, I thought, that he should care if she was sufficiently pleased by his present or not.

“It is the greatest present you have brought me yet!” she cried. “It is even better than the nail-polish kit!”

“I'm glad then,” he said, and I thought he blushed a bit as he submitted to her overly enthusiastic kiss. “Now,” he said, all seriousness again, “why don't you take your new toy out for a spin here and see how well it works.”

Annette didn't have to be asked twice. As if she'd done it a thousand times before, and perhaps she had danced before with princely partners in her juvenile dreams, she propped the doll up in her arms, one arm around its waist, the other holding its hand out to the side, fit her feet into the appropriate spots and commenced to waltz.

For a six-year-old, she was damn good.

We watched her for a moment in silence. Then:

“What do you think they are dancing to?” Ambassador Rawlings asked me, leaning in as though to impart a confidence. “Do you think perhaps they are dancing to…‘Chopsticks'?”

I actually did find it funny, but I refused to let him see me smile, certainly not when the joke had been at my expense.

“Oh,” I said, “I am quite sure that the musical score that forms the sound track to the life of a six-year-old must by definition be far more sophisticated than any sound track accompanying mine.”

“What sound track does score your life, Miss Bell?”

I continued to watch Annette prance around the room as though I could hear her music now. Tapping my hand to the imaginary beat on the arm of the sofa, I did not answer him. I was beginning to think it rude of him to ask me so many personal questions. After all, I had been merely hired to be his daughter's governess. I should not be required to make myself sport, as well.

“Annette loves presents,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. Then I felt his face close to mine again, studying me from the side. “Do
you
like presents, Miss Bell?”

As soon as I heard his words, asking something I had never given much thought to before, it became an acutely painful question for me. It was all I could do not to wince. Just those few words were all it took to send me spiraling back down to my old lowly self.

“I have had little experience of them,” I said.

“Little experience?”
His surprise was a mixture of things I couldn't quite make out. Shock, perhaps? Contempt?

I thought of my life so far. Buster Keating, the only man I had ever been with, had never thought to give me anything material. As for the nonmaterial thing he had given me, himself, well, it had turned out that that was just a shadow version and not the real man at all. And, before Buster, I never had what anyone else would term a real boyfriend, never went to any prom or was invited to any dances. Even the girlfriends I'd had were not of the gift-giving variety, no exchanges of trendy clothes or makeup or jewelry. The only presents I had ever known then had been the mean little things that Aunt Bea had given me at holiday time and on my birthday…if she even remembered it.

“I suppose,” I finally said, “that I am not the kind of woman that people give presents to.”

“Not the kind—”

I put my hand to my ear and cupped it, hoping to lighten the moment.

“What?” I said, forcing a smile. “Is it Little Ambassador Echo who has joined us now?”

But he would not be lightened.

“What kind of life have you lived, Miss Bell, that you should know nothing firsthand of presents?”

If I were to answer truthfully, I would have had to have said, “A lonely one.”

But I wasn't about to do that.

“Not even on your birthday?” he prompted when I failed to answer.

“I've always hated my birthday,” I said honestly, evenly.

“That's awful,” he said. “I've never heard anybody say that before. Who hates their own birthday?”

I remained silent, eyes on Annette.

“I think you have been greatly hurt by life, Miss Bell,” he spoke softly, “something far worse than falling off a pony. What is it that has happened to you?”

If I wasn't fighting back tears in my eyes, I might have had the objective presence of mind to turn the inquisitorial tables on him. A moment ago, I had thought us equals. But now we were equals no longer. The game was all to him.

If I had any presence of mind left at all, I might have said, “What about you? What in life has damaged you so to cause you to be such a sarcastic and invasive individual?”

But no such self-protection was left to me.

All I could find it in myself to do was to say:

“It has been a very long day, Ambassador Rawlings. I had been told by Mrs. Fairly that I wasn't expected to work today and yet it feels as though I have worked the whole day through. And tomorrow will undoubtedly be a full day with Annette. If it is all the same to you, I should like to retire now.”

I did not wait for his answer, nor did I turn back to see his expression as I rose and left.

If he does not like my attitude,
I thought,
then let him fire me.

 

In the middle of the night, I woke to the smell of something burning. Throwing the covers off me, my mind was barely conscious as my feet struck the hardwood floor and I raced out the door, down the hall and toward the smoke.

It was coming from Ambassador Rawlings's room.

I turned the handle on his closed door and was thankful to find it unlocked. If it had been locked, I'm not sure what I would have done. I had no hatchet at my disposal and the house was sturdy, its doors too strong to yield to any assault I might make on the structure.

Entering the room at a rush, I saw it was already filled with smoke, the edges of the blankets just beginning to spark.

“Wake up!” I screamed at the figure, still slumbering beneath the sheets.

When my screams went unanswered, I cast about to find something to stop the sparks from turning into a conflagration. Near a narrow closed door, probably a closet, was a second door, half-open with a night-light on.

It was a small bathroom.

I turned on the overhead light above the sink, looking for something that could transport water.

All I could find was a toothbrush glass.

It would have to do.

I suppose if I could have existed as a being outside my own body, observing my actions, I would have laughed at the picture I made: rushing back and forth from sink to bed with what amounted to not much more than a thimbleful of water, like a contestant playing
Beat the Clock
or some retro game show, tossing my thimblefuls on the smoldering sheets as I repeatedly cried, “Wake up, Ambassador! Wake up!” As I grew more desperate, that cry turned into something along the lines of, “Wake up,
you idiot!
Wake up!”

The drops of water seemed to have at last put out all the sparks, but still the sheets smoked.

Turning to the closed door now, I opened it, hoping to find something I could use to beat out the remainder of the smoke. Isn't that what firefighters did? Or Boy Scouts?

A spare blanket would have worked perfectly, but I didn't see any of those. So I grabbed the first thing my hand touched, yanking whatever it was off the hanger.

I beat at the bottom of the bed until I was satisfied that whatever had been living there would cause no more danger. Then, for good measure, I beat at the bed around Ambassador Rawlings's head, somewhat alarmed that he hadn't wakened yet.

Had the smoke asphyxiated him?

Desperate once more, I rushed back to the bathroom for one last toothbrush glass of water. Returning to the bedroom proper, I hurled my thimbleful at that sleeping head.

That did the trick.

“What the…?”

He reared up, shaking his head like Captain might, coming out of a bath.

“Miss
Bell?
”

I took an involuntary step backward.

“Yes, sir?” I said.

“What in God's name are you
doing?
”

“You were in danger, sir. I was only trying to save you.”

“What are you
talking
about?” he demanded.

I suddenly felt myself growing angry. How dare he put me on the defensive, how dare he use that italicized snottiness on me, when all I'd been trying to do was save his stupid life.

I should have let him burn.

“Your sheets were on fire,
you idiot,
” I said, stepping forward.

Now it was his turn to take a step back at my attack, or as much of a step as one can when one is lying down; having been in similar circumstances myself just that afternoon, on the ground after my fall from the horse, I knew what that was like. He pulled his head back a bit, raising his eyebrows at me like I was some kind of new creature, different than the one I'd been before.

It occurred to me that while we were bickering, there could yet be some danger to him. I remembered then that crying laugh I had heard on the previous night, that unexplained locked door next to his.

“Do you think it was the madwoman who did this to you?” I demanded.

His eyebrows rose farther.

“The
madwoman?
” he asked.

“Yes, yes, the madwoman! That person I hear laughing sometimes, that eerie sound in the house.”

He looked stunned. And maybe I could see why. Still…

“Okay,” I said hurriedly, “I'm having Jane Eyre thoughts, so sue me later, just get out of that bed before it ignites again.”

He started to laugh, a little bit at first, but then it got away from him, until it became an uncontrolled and roaring thing.

“The madwoman?” he gasped one last time, visibly struggling to contain his mirth. “There is no
madwoman
here! Here, Charlotte,” he addressed me by my given name for the first time as he reached toward the end of the bed, yanking back the damp and sooty sheets. “Here is your madwoman.”