Crying Child (8 page)

“Maybe you’ve got a point there.”

“Not about your chin, that was a distinctly
weak argument. Hadn’t we better be getting back? If I’m late for lunch, Mrs. Willard will glare at me and I’m scared of her.”

“We’ve got plenty of time. There’s something I want to show you on the way back. With your tastes, you’ll find it absolutely fascinating.”

Instead of going back by the path we had taken to reach the house, Will led me down the track—I refused to call it a road. We went toward the cliff, shaking off cats as we proceeded. When we reached the edge of the cliff, only the two Siamese were still with us. Even the splendor of the view could not keep me from glancing uneasily at the animals as they strolled and rolled near the cliff edge. The drop was not sheer, but it was steep and rocky; down below, the green waves dissolved into rainbow-shot lather amid glistening dark flanks of rocks.

The cats continued to follow us as we walked down the road. Farther down, where the track joined an unpaved but well-graveled road, Will turned aside into the pines. The gloom cast a corresponding shadow over my spirits. The cats didn’t share my feelings; their black tails were cheerfully erect as they prowled. Suddenly one gave a hoarse chirrup and leaped a fallen log, to disappear in the underbrush. Its mate was right behind it, ears lifted and hopeful.

“Won’t they get lost?” I asked.

“They know these woods better than I do.”

An unearthly howl came echoing back through the enclosing branches, and Will shook his head sympathetically.

“She missed that one.”

“They have the weirdest voices!”

“You should hear Mitzi when she’s in heat. Sounds like a lost child, or a sick baby.”

I gave my companion a startled look, but Will’s tanned face was as relaxed as his slouched body. So, I thought, he really doesn’t know. Why doesn’t Ran tell him?

Maybe, after our conversation, I should have been prepared for what Will was leading me into. But I don’t see how I could have anticipated the reality; the location of the place was certainly unusual. I came to an abrupt stop on the edge of the clearing, and stared.

The pines around the open space were so tall and dark that they gave the effect of a surrounding wall. Only when the sun was directly overhead would any but a twilight, diffused light enter here. At this hour the beams fell directly down upon the grass; the contrast was so extreme that the place looked like a stage set, illuminated by spot-and footlights.

The trees were not the only barrier. A tall iron fence, painted black, enclosed the plot. It was well tended; the stones stood stiffly erect, despite their
obvious age; the scant grass was neatly clipped and the flowers, rosebushes and other perennials showed the work of a gardener’s hands.

“What is a cemetery doing out here in the middle of the woods?” I asked.

“It’s the Fraser family plot. They aren’t buried here any more, of course; but it’s consecrated ground, all the same.”

“So many of them.”

“The Frasers have been on the island for a long time. They had big families in the old days—sisters and cousins and maiden aunts. The servants, too. That’s why there are so many graves.”

“I’ll bet Hezekiah was responsible for that atrocity,” I said, indicating the biggest monument in the place. It was more than a monument; massively built of gray stone, it was a miniature Gothic house—a mausoleum.

“Right. How did you know?”

“The general ostentation, and the style. Mrs. Willard said he built his house like the Wedding Cake House—full-blown Gothic revival, in other words. Good heavens, it would be bad enough on a full-sized house; crammed onto that little building it looks frightful.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Will said thoughtfully. “You have to admit the frightfulness is appropriate to the function.”

“I’m not sure that idea appeals to me…. The
place is in excellent condition. Who maintains it?”

“Jed. Who else?”

“And I thought he was lazy!”

“You can’t have taken a good look at the grounds around the house, or you wouldn’t say that. Jed does more, with less visible effort, than any man I’ve ever met. But he does like to give the effect of languid disinterest. He’s got a funny sense of humor.”

“Can we go in?”

“Sure.” Will unlatched the gate. “We have to cross the clearing anyhow, to get back to the house.”

The cemetery was a microcosm of early American funerary monuments. The epitaphs ranged from curt announcements of the name and the relevant dates to florid homemade verses that related the virtues of the deceased or the circumstances of his demise. One or two of the latter were classics of unconscious humor, as worthy of preservation as the well-known examples of the genre which have been so often published. The designs on the tombstones were just as curious. I appreciated the earthy symbolism of the winged skull, which was popular around the turn of the century—the eighteenth century, that is. There was a rising-sun design which struck an oddly pagan note.

After a while Will glanced at his watch.

“Now you will have to hurry if you don’t want
to be late for lunch. You can come back anytime, you know.”

“I’m sorry. This really is a fascinating—oh!”

My unexpected movement caught him off balance, and he swayed backward under my weight as I threw myself against him. His arms went around me in a completely reflexive movement.

“What in God’s name is the matter?”

I made a sound which I would hate to have to reproduce in writing, and then got control of my voice.

“Someone…over there.”

“Where?”

Still holding me, Will turned in a complete circle.

“I don’t see anybody,” he said. “And if there were somebody…so what? From your reaction I thought you’d stepped on a rattlesnake.”

“Over there, by the dead tree, the one that leans at an angle….”

There was certainly nothing by the tree now. I detached myself from Will. I will admit that I was not anxious to do so, but I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. It was such a corny trick, the scream and the timid maidenly terror. As my panic subsided, I felt my cheeks get hot. Of course he would think…What else could he think? My reaction had been so grossly out of proportion to any conceivable stimulus.

“What was it?” Will asked. “Man, woman…monster?”

“I…don’t know. Something tall and dark…Will, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I flipped. Just the suddenness of it, I guess.”

“By the dead tree?” Will started across the cemetery.

I was grateful to him for pretending to take my foolishness seriously, but I was oddly reluctant to have him search that area.

“Will, don’t bother. There isn’t anything; it must have been a spot in front of my eyes. Please don’t…Let’s go.”

“I’d better have a look.” Will didn’t stop walking. “This is private property, after all. Ran doesn’t mind hikers or nature lovers, but there are some queer specimens wandering around these days. A graveyard might attract some of the real nuts.”

It was a rational argument, and it almost convinced me. If a man had been standing there in the shadows, his surreptitious movements could be explained by a theory such as that. All the same, as I went after Will, I was very reluctant to approach the spot. And it wasn’t because I was afraid of some harmless, and hypothetical, nut.

The fallen tree was a distinctive landmark. Part of the bark had been stripped away, so that the trunk made a long white diagonal streak that cut across the perpendicular darkness of the
other trees. Caught and supported by the lower branches of a big spruce, it seemed to be firmly held, though I wouldn’t have wanted to stand under it.

Will was standing by the fence when I reached him, staring at the patch of ground just outside the fence. There was no sign of life or of unusual movement among the trees. There were no weeds or brambles in that spot. The ground was thickly covered with dry brown pine needles.

“That stuff won’t take footprints,” I said. “If that’s what you’re looking for.”

“I know. There’s something funny out there, though. Look—about three feet beyond the fence. It’s a squared-off corner of something—stone, by the look of it. Too regular to be a natural boulder.”

“It is a stone,” I said, in a voice that sounded funny. Like an echo. “A gravestone.”

“A grave, outside the fence. That’s absurd.”

“Maybe. But that’s what it is.”

“I’ll have a look.”

“No, Will! Don’t—”

He vaulted the fence. It was a darned impressive performance; the thing was breast-high, even for him. But he went over it, long legs and all, in a single neat movement. Hands still on the fence, he looked at me.

“Come on.”

“How?”

I didn’t want—I most definitely did not want—to cross the barrier and stand in that small, curiously open space.

Will examined the terrain.

“Stand on that stone. I’ll lift you over.”

“On a tombstone?”

“You aren’t superstitious, are you?”

“I didn’t used to think so….”

But I did as directed. From the stone I could step onto the top of the fence, and then Will lifted me down. His big hands were as strong as they looked. I was ashamed of my vapors by then, and went without protest to help him dig out the stone.

It wasn’t as hard as I had expected. The accumulation of needles was inches thick, but it was soft; we could scoop the stuff out with our hands. The object was, as I had known (how?) a tombstone. The upper side was blank. We had to turn it over before we could read the inscription. I rubbed at the encrusted dirt with my hand and then with a stick Will handed me. The inscription had not been deeply cut.

“Miss Smith,” I read aloud, not believing it myself. “1846.”

Will gave a short, startled bark of laughter.

“It’s a joke. Some kid…Probably burying his math teacher by proxy.”

“Then why the date?” I frowned, trying to recapture an elusive memory. “I read somewhere about a case, a governess or housekeeper…When she died the family realized that nobody knew her first name or anything about her. She was just a piece of furniture, barely human, as servants were in those days. So they buried her under the only name they knew, Miss—whatever it was. Not Smith. I don’t recall.”

“It’s possible, I guess.” Will let go of the stone. It fell to the ground with a dead, muffled sound. “Come on,” he said, standing up. “We are going to be late now, good and late.”

We made our way along the fence to the place where the path continued, on the opposite side of the clearing from where we had entered the cemetery. Brambles and underbrush pushing right up against the iron posts made progress difficult. It was only that one spot that was so peculiarly clear of weeds.

As we trudged along the path, I said,

“What does it mean, Will? A grave outside the fence?”

“Could mean a lot of things. Oh, I get it—you are a morbid little thing, aren’t you? Sure, suicides were buried outside consecrated ground. So were other doubtful cases. Heathens and unbelievers—and in puritan New England that included practically anybody who wasn’t a Presbyterian. You
don’t even know that there is a grave there, Jo, it could be a discarded stone. Or if there is—good God, the possibilities are endless and they don’t have to be dramatic. It could be somebody’s favorite dog.”

“Why, yes. I suppose it could. You could call a dog Miss Smith. Or a cat.”

“Sure.”

And with that, for Will, the subject seemed to be settled. He began to whistle as he preceded me along the path; though it was more often used than the first section, it was too narrow to allow us to walk side by side. I didn’t mind his silence; I had plenty to think about.

One thing about the graveyard had struck me, but it was not a subject I wanted to mention to Will—the predominance of a certain name among those on the stones. Perhaps predominance was not the right word; there had been roughly half a dozen occurrences. Yet that was a significant number considering the unusualness of the name. William or James or Robert would have been normal; and also the jaw-breaking names of Old Testament prophets, which seemed to have been popular in this part of the country a century ago. But…Kevin?

As the sunlit lawn and white walls of the house appeared through the trees, I found my thoughts reverting to the enigmatic gravestone, and to the
transitory and elusive glimpse that had preceded its discovery. The shape I fancied I saw had not resembled those optical illusions which sometimes flicker on the very edge of vision. It had possessed dimension and form. And the form had been human. Somehow I felt sure that it had been a woman’s figure.