The Cottage in the Woods (17 page)

I became aware of Nurse’s gaze focused on me with burning
intensity, and it seemed to me that her mask had slipped. She wore an expression of naked fear, as if pleading with me to play along with her. Though I later understood this was as feigned as the rest of her act, it served its purpose. I made a split-second decision, and, trying to keep the irony out of my voice, I said, “I’m so sorry, Nurse, that you have been under such a strain. I didn’t realize.” Then, turning to Mr. Vaughn: “Sir, maybe I can be of some help to Nurse by taking over her morning duties and getting Teddy ready for his school day? It would be no trouble to me, and it would make it possible for her to get a little more sleep.”

Nurse looked as if she would object, but covered it quickly. What could she say when I had taken care of Teddy that very morning due to her being “sick”?

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” pronounced Mr. Vaughn. “I will personally be looking in on you from time to time, Miss Brown, a task which I perhaps should have undertaken to begin with.”

If I suffered a little dismay at this pronouncement, it was still minor in comparison with my relief at being liberated from Nurse, who allowed herself a malicious smirk in my direction.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss, then?”

Nurse and I both looked guilelessly at him and said, “No.”

“Very good.
Fiat tantum pax
. ‘Let there be peace.’ ” Mr. Vaughn saw us to the door. It had barely shut behind us when Nurse turned on me with teeth bared.

“Don’t you be thinkin’ you’ve got the best of me, chickie,” she spit. “I’ll get my chance. Sooner or later I’ll get my chance to do you dirt, and when I get it—I’ll take it!” She was gone before I could think how to respond, and I was left with the
chilling knowledge that she meant it. I could only marvel that she had the strength left in her to make threats after the exhausting melodrama she had enacted all afternoon. I myself felt drained and enervated.

Nevertheless, it was with a light step that I walked to the schoolroom to talk to Teddy about the conversation with his father. He didn’t question the story that Nurse was simply too old and tired to keep up with us all day, though I thought it must seem a patent falsehood to anyone who’d had to run to keep up with her as he had that afternoon, and he seemed to have no qualms about the proposed solution.

That afternoon, for the first time since Mr. Bentley’s injury, I did not make the trip to the vicarage to read to him. Indeed, I was so tired by teatime that I could barely make the journey to my own chamber. There I found that an envelope had been slipped under my door. It was a letter from Papa. I rang for Betsy to make a fire in the fireplace, and serve tea in my room, then settled down in my chair to savor the tidings from home. It was like being at our old place again, sitting companionably with him at the close of day while he smoked his pipe and talked of great things and small, and listened to all my childish joys and sorrows. How I wished I could be there by his side! I could only hope that Lucy, our housemaid, was taking good care of him. Intending to answer his letter, I added a log to the fire and sat down at my desk to write, but I did not get much past the salutation before the accumulated fatigue of the day and the soporific warmth of the fire combined to make my eyelids heavy and my thoughts blurred. I set my pen aside, and, after preparing myself for bed, I climbed into my big four-poster, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

I could not say what awoke me. My nighttime candle had burned out, and it was dark, except for the glowing embers in the fireplace. Afterward I could recall no sound, only an unfamiliar scent—and yet I sensed a presence: something in the darkness that did not belong. The Walker. A stinging bolt of fear shot through me as I tried to remember whether I had locked my door. I had. I knew I had. So how could there be anyone here? Yet once before, I had disbelieved my own senses only to find that there actually had been an intruder—an intruder who had stolen my locket. I would not be so quick to disbelieve again. Someone
was
here.

Light. I must have light! For a long time I debated whether I had the courage to take the burned-out candle at my bedside and light it from the embers in the fireplace. What would the Walker do if I moved? Would he attack me? Would he flee? After what seemed an age of helpless agonizing in the dark, I came to the conclusion that the light of a candle would be worth almost any risk.

With painstaking slowness, I sat up on the bed and reached out a trembling paw to grasp the candle. Had I heard something? A rustling? Some furtive movement? My ears nearly quivered, attuned to the slightest sound, but it was gone. I listened intently for a full minute more, then I slowly stood up. Was the Walker watching? Was it too dark for him to see me? I tried to guess how many steps to the fireplace. Ten? Twelve? I began what seemed like the longest journey of my life, putting one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker, aware that my next step could precipitate some disaster. There—that rustling
again, from somewhere in the corner. Casting away all caution, I ran to the fireplace and frantically blew on the glowing coals as I held my candle to them. Interminable seconds passed. I imagined that the Walker would see what I was up to—see that he was about to be exposed. Would desperation make him violent? I couldn’t think about that. I stirred the embers with the fire iron and blew some more, and saw my efforts rewarded with a little spurt of flame. Keeping the iron in one paw, I lit the candle with the other and slowly stood up, bracing myself for whatever I might encounter.

No one was there. Only dim shapes and looming shadows surrounded me in the flickering light. No sound gave away the Walker’s presence, but I smelled the acrid odor of fear—whether my own fear or the intruder’s, I could not tell. I raised the candle and began to search, my nerves stretched as taut as a violin string, my fur bristling. I forced myself to go about the room, checking under the bed, behind each curtain, illuminating each shadow, until I had checked everywhere but the corner beyond the wardrobe. All that was necessary now was for me to step to the side of the wardrobe and throw light into the shadow, but I could not do it. I stood like a statue a little distance away. I stood until my muscles ached while an argument raged in my head whether to go forward or not.

And then I heard a small sneeze.

At once I stepped to the side of the wardrobe and raised the candle. There I saw what looked like a little bear, until, in the flickering light, a pair of human eyes looked up at me. For a moment I could not make sense of what I was seeing. The small figure had the furry body and ears of a bear, but the delicate face and hands of a human child—a child in a bear costume. Seeing the fear in its eyes, I stepped back and put down the fire iron. Here was an uninvited guest that I could manage. My mind raced, wondering where the child had come from, and a dozen other questions. Choosing the one most obvious, I said, in soothing tones, “What brings you to my room so late at night, little one?”

There was no response, almost as if it hadn’t heard me, but the eyes seemed a fraction less frightened, the posture a bit less stiff. I took a slow step forward and bent down to the child’s level, in order to be less intimidating. “Where do you come from, dear? Are you lost? ”

The child took several steps backward—soft, shuffling steps made by two furry slippers. I had heard those shuffling steps before: in the hallway, in my room, in my darkest imaginings. And yet, this was just a frightened child.

“Are you lost?” I repeated.

Still no answer.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You’re quite safe here. I am Miss Brown, the governess.” Slowly I reached out a paw to stroke its head—or rather stroke the furry hood with the bear ears sewn on. The child flinched. Close-up, its features seemed feminine, almost fragile. Impulsively, I pushed back the hood and beheld a cluster of long golden curls. While I marveled, she darted under my arm and ran for the door, leaving me alone with all my questions and an empty feeling in my middle.

This, then, was the Walker, the menacing creature who roamed the halls between dusk and dawn, the thief who had taken my locket? But had she? Having looked into those limpid, innocent eyes, I found it hard to believe. Surely this frightened child was not the danger Mrs. Vaughn had warned me to lock my door against at night! How on earth did she get through that locked door? And what about the Vaughns? They must know of this youngster. Whose child was she? What was she doing traipsing about their hallways in the dark?

Distractedly, I climbed back into bed, not bothering to close my door again. In the morning I would go to Mrs. Vaughn and ask for an explanation.

Daybreak came with a spate of doubts. A child in a bear suit roaming the halls of the manor at night? It seemed too improbable
to be true. I could almost believe that I had dreamed it, except for my open door, and the fire iron lying where I had left it on the floor.

I went early to Mrs. Vaughn’s morning room hoping for an interview, and found it empty. Not to be deterred, I sat in a chair just outside her door and waited. The distant chiming of a clock told me an hour had passed. At last, I heard light footsteps approaching, and turned to find her looking at me quizzically.

“Miss Brown? Was there something you wanted?”

“Yes, madam, I wished very much to speak with you. It’s rather important.”

“Well, then, my dear, you must come into my room and make yourself comfortable. I am free all morning, so take as much time as you please.”

Accepting her invitation, I chose an overstuffed pink chair and sank into it as she settled into another.

“What can I do for you, dear?”

She waited calmly for me to begin, but I did not know quite how to do it. Finally, I blurted out, “Mrs. Vaughn, there was a child in my room last night! A little human girl in a bear costume! I’m convinced it’s not the first time either. Who is she? Why does she wander the hallways at night?”

Mrs. Vaughn gulped, as if she were swallowing a lot of air all at once. “Oh dear,” she said, looking anywhere but at me. “Well … I guess you’ve found our little secret. We were going to tell you soon anyway, my dear. Really we were. We were just waiting for the right time, you see.”

“Please, madam, I want to know all about her. Tell me how she got in my room last night with the door locked.”

“Oh dear, did she? She
will
pick the locks. I just cannot find one she’s unable to open. The most they do is slow her down.
I imagine she mistook your room for the nursery. I found her there once, at night, watching Teddy sleep.”

“But where does she come from? What is her history?”

“Well, as you’ve seen her, I suppose I should tell you the whole story, at least the part that I know. It would be a relief, actually, to get it off my chest. I daresay you will tire of it before I’m through.”

“No, really, madam. I’m fascinated. I’ll gladly listen.”

“All right, then,” she said. Picking up a bundle of knitting, she started to work with the regular rhythmic motions of an experienced knitter. She relaxed and cleared her throat.