The Root Cellar (2 page)

Nan Henry was Rose’s father’s only sister. She lived with her husband and four sons in Canada, on an island off the north shore of Lake Ontario. When Aunt Stella phoned her, Nan said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, “Of course Rose can come and live with us. Tell her to bring a bucket of paint and a paint brush. We’ve just moved in.” When Aunt Stella reported these words, Aunt Millicent raised her eyes toward the ceiling but offered no argument.

“Now, dear,” she gushed, “before you go to your new home, I think we’d better do something about you, hadn’t we?” Rose felt like a specimen in a museum case as Aunt Millicent gave her braids a small tug, patted the lace collar of her good navy blue challis dress, and appraised her with sharp eyes, but she was much too bewildered and too well behaved to say anything. She went obediently to the hairdresser where, with two quick chops, her braids were left lying on the floor and her hair was in inch-long curls all over her head. “So
chic,
”
twittered Aunt Millicent and took Rose from there to a shop where she bought her a pair of tight black velvet pants, tall slim boots with two-inch heels, and a sealskin jacket, clothes suited to an eighteen-year-old fashion model. On Rose they looked foolish and she was thoroughly miserable in them. And she felt naked without her braids.

Aunt Stella, who worked in television, said she had a trip to Toronto coming up and wouldn’t mind making a bit of a detour to drop Rose off at the Henrys’. So one night in October Uncle Arnold packed all Rose’s belongings into the back of Aunt Stella’s blue sports car and before dawn the next morning Rose and Aunt Stella left New York.

Rose sat most of the day with her fists clenched in her lap, alternately chafing at the discomfort of her new clothes and shorn hair and thinking of the dreadful things that were sure to happen in the Henry household.

“Who is Aunt Nan, anyway?” she wondered peevishly, and the answer came, “A woman with no sense.” Her grandmother had said that once when Rose had asked. What did that mean? And then there were the boys—four of them. She shuddered. The day wore on. The New York State Thruway was endless, but at the same time it wasn’t long enough. Rose would have been glad as they came nearer and
nearer to the Canadian border if they could have driven forever. By the time they reached Lake Ontario she had worked herself into a frenzy of worry. When Aunt Stella drove onto the little ferry that would take them to the island and said, “We should be there in not more than half an hour,” Rose was almost ready to leap out of the car.

It had been raining on the island, but even with everything gray and wet and most of the leaves gone from the trees, the low, rolling countryside was pretty. There were big old houses and barns, huge silos, and field after field of bright orange pumpkins, making a kind of space Rose wasn’t used to. And there were not many people in sight. In cities there were always people.

They passed through several small, neat villages, with big houses of brick or clapboard where late flowers bloomed along porches and walks. Eight miles past the last village, near the south shore of the island, Aunt Stella turned down a dirt road. It curved around a deep bay.
Hawthorn Bay
, a sign read. Aunt Stella had her hand-drawn map on her lap and she told Rose to start looking at mailboxes. They had driven around a sharp corner and over a creek when they came to an old red brick house, sadly neglected and all but surrounded by bushes. An enormous horse-chestnut tree in the front yard
loomed over it, and a pair of gnarled maples leaned toward each other out by the road. The name
HENRY
was printed in uneven letters on the rusty mailbox.

Aunt Stella pulled into the driveway and stopped. “I can see why Nan said to bring a bucket of paint,” she said wryly. She got out of the car. “You wait here. I’ll tell them we’ve arrived.”

Rose watched as she picked her way through the tall grass and weeds in her high-heeled shoes and knocked on the front door. No answer. She went across to the smaller door at the west end of the house and knocked. No answer. She pushed open the door and went inside. In less than two minutes she was back.

“There’s nobody home. Isn’t that like Nan! I’ll bet she’s got the wrong day. Well, there’s a note on the kitchen table saying, ‘Dear furnace man, we’ll be back soon. Come in and go right down to the cellar.’ How she expects him to find the note unless he’s already in I can’t imagine, and anyway who leaves notes to the furnace man saying, ‘dear furnace man’? Listen Rose, I really can’t wait. I’m sorry to just dump you like this, but I expected Nan to be here and I promised to be in Toronto for dinner. I’m sure you’ll be okay, because the note says they’ll be right back. Why don’t you make yourself at home? Now, if you’ll give me a hand with this stuff—”

“I’m not going to stay here,” declared Rose. It was the first time she could remember ever having voiced an objection to anything she had been told to do, but the prospect of living in a derelict house remote from anything or anyone she’d ever known filled her with sudden panic. She didn’t plead. She stated flatly, “I’ll come with you to Toronto. You won’t find me any trouble. Then I’ll go back to New York. I’ll go to school there.”

“Don’t be silly, Rose.” Aunt Stella stopped hauling suitcases out of the trunk and brushed a wet leaf from her suit. “This is just the thing for you, though you may not think so right now. I expect you’re missing your grandmother, but Nan’s a good sort and the boys are just what you need. You’ll love it here. Now come along and give me a hand.”

Rose gave up. That one small declaration of independence was all she could manage. Mechanically, she grabbed a suitcase. Together she and Aunt Stella tugged and lugged and got the three big suitcases and two boxes of books out of the car and into the dark house. They didn’t stay long, just long enough for Rose to get an impression of a low-ceilinged, old-fashioned kitchen full of books and papers and dirty dishes. Back to the car to make sure there was nothing of Rose’s left there, and then Aunt Stella was off.

“Good-bye, Rose. I’m sure you’re going to love it here! Be a good girl, have fun. Tell Nan I’m sorry I missed her.” With a quick wave, she was off down the road leaving Rose standing in the driveway clutching her overnight bag.

She stood there uncertainly. She didn’t want to go back inside and she couldn’t stand in the driveway all afternoon. She stared numbly at the house.

It was a big, square house with a low wing at either end. There had clearly been a porch all along the front. Where it had been attached there was a smudged line spotted with bricks of the wrong size and color, mortared in to repair holes. The chimney at the east end had crumbled, and the roof of the shed that still clung to the kitchen was badly caved in.

Nobody cares about this house
, thought Rose.
Nobody
. Suddenly, and without the sun actually coming out, the sky brightened to a luminous silver and the old house stood etched on the surrounding air as though it had appeared from some other time or place. It looked like a painting, with its bright red bricks, its white trim, its pink and blue and purple flowerbeds. From somewhere near came the sound of water gurgling, and a bird cried out a single note that echoed and reechoed in the silence.

Rose gasped and took an eager step forward. The brightness faded. The sky grew gray
again. The moment was past. The house was as it had been, its bricks darkened with age and rain, its trim all but peeled off—and there were no flowerbeds.

“I don’t understand that.” Rose shivered inside her fur jacket. Still holding tightly to her overnight bag, she marched resolutely up to the front door. Close up it was shabbier and more pathetic than at a distance. In front of the door there was an old pump she had not noticed before, and the ground around it was bare mud.

Grabbing hold of the pump handle for support, Rose leaned forward and peered into the nearest downstairs front window. From inside two bright black eyes peered back at her.

For a full second Rose stood frozen, her heart beating frantically. She did not notice that her overnight bag had slipped from her hand. She leaned against the pump handle, and as the shock wore off she could see that the eyes were not floating in space. They belonged in a small, sun-browned face as wrinkled as an apple doll’s. The mouth was turned up at the edges and the nose was so small it almost disappeared into the wrinkles. The eyes were like dark moons, blinking and staring at Rose in obvious disbelief. As Rose stared through the window, the whole face crinkled up in a smile so bright it seemed as if the sun had come out. Then it disappeared.

In an instant, an old woman appeared from around the corner of the house. She was small, not much taller than Rose. On top of her apple-doll face, her white hair, the color of old ivory, was neatly wound around her head in two thin braids. She was dressed in a cotton print dress that reached almost to her ankles, with a flowered apron over it and a large knitted gray shawl around her shoulders. She was the oddest-looking person Rose had ever seen.

“I see you come back.” The old woman smiled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Shyly she reached out and touched Rose on the arm. Rose jumped back nervously.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You come back.”

“I beg your pardon. I think you must have made a mistake. I’ve never been here before.”

“Oh, Rose!” For a moment the old woman looked at her sadly. Then a light of understanding came to her eyes. “I see,” she said slowly, “I see. You only just come now. Then you don’t … of course you don’t. Oh, Rose! Now
I
done it.” She stopped and looked around her apprehensively.

I suppose she must be senile
, Rose decided,
like old Aunt Prue. In a minute she’ll start shouting and throwing things
. As she had been taught to do with her grandmother’s aged aunt, she explained slowly and loudly that she was Rose Larkin from New York City.

“I’ve come to live with Aunt Nan and Uncle Bob. Are you a relative of theirs?”

The old woman sighed. She shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably. “Oh, well, I’m Mrs. Morrissay, that’s who I am and—oh, my sweet Hannah! What’s happened to my house?” As she’d been talking, Mrs. Morrissay had turned toward the house. She walked up to the front door and poked her fingers through the broken panes of glass on either side. She stamped on the loose doorstep, then walked slowly along the front of the house, patting the weathered window frames, thumping the ill-fitting bricks. She faced Rose. “It looks old and queer. It’s all but a ruin. Rose, you got to do something!”

“Me?” Rose was so astonished she forgot her manners.

“Well, you … Lord’s mercy! What’s that?”

Rose whirled around. A large green station wagon was pulling into the driveway. Panic threatened again. “It’s them,” she whispered. “It’s the Henrys, isn’t it?” She turned back toward Mrs. Morrissay, instinctively seeking support, but the old woman was not there. As swiftly and as strangely as she had come, she had gone—without even a stirring in the bushes.

The House at Hawthorn Bay

T
hey tumbled out of the station wagon and across the yard, four boys and a round untidy-looking woman carrying two large shopping bags, a potted geranium, and, under one arm, a load of books.

Halfway across the yard Aunt Nan saw Rose. She stopped. The books slipped from under her arm. “Oh dear, never mind. Are you looking for someone? Are—oh, my Lord, you must be Rose!” she cried. “Oh, good heavens, it’s today! Isn’t it tomorrow? Oh, dear!”

“Mother! I told you the letter said Monday.” A tall, thin, long-legged boy was half bouncing, half dancing on first one foot, then the other, in front of his mother. “I told you. Now, if you’d listen to what I—”

“Shut up, George. Mother, you’re losing the groceries.” The second boy, not quite as tall and not nearly as wild looking, grabbed the bags of
groceries and the geranium before they could follow the books to the ground. He turned to stare at Rose. Two small boys grabbed him by his arms and whispered loudly and urgently, “Is it Rose, Sam? Is it?”

“I don’t know. Are you Rose?”

“Yes, I’m Rose,” said Rose stiffly, feeling all their eyes on her, conscious of how ridiculous she must look in her city boots and pants and fur jacket, standing by the old pump, desperate for a place to hide. Wildly she thought of running, but her feet would not budge. “Aunt Stella couldn’t stay,” she blurted out.

“Oh, Rose!” Aunt Nan had got over her surprise. She rushed over and threw her arms around Rose and gave her a warm kiss.

Rose flinched as though she had been struck. No one had ever before shown her more affection than Grandmother’s occasional pats on the head and Aunt Millicent’s showy little kisses in the air. Aunt Nan did not seem to notice. She went on talking. She was astounding, the way she looked and the way she talked. She was short and as plump as an overstuffed cushion. She had a full mouth, warm brown eyes, and a lot of soft brown hair coming undone from a knot at the back of her head. She had on a loose plaid dress with a big, bright green sweater over it, no stockings, and on her feet a pair of running
shoes with holes in them. And she never stopped talking.