Sins Out of School (19 page)

T
HAT
startled me considerably. “Mrs. Rookwood! But she's the church secretary!”

“How do you know that?”

“I went there yesterday. I wanted to know all I could about the place. I soon learned more than enough. Never mind. Go ahead.”

“You know, then, that Mrs. Rookwood is the wife of Elder Rookwood. She has a finger in all the pies. She is the secretary of the church, and of the school, and runs the Sunday school and the Mothers' League and any number of other groups. She's a terrifying woman.”

“I know.” I grimaced at the memory of Mrs. Rookwood and took a sip of my tepid tea.

“You can understand, then, why I was more afraid of her than of any of the others. But she didn't seem to know who I was. I told her I was new in town and had heard about the school, and that I was looking for both a place to worship and a school for my son. I didn't want to give her any idea that I had a daughter, you see.”

“Very wise.”

“I didn't actually lie, of course, but I let her think that I had rather a lot of money. The coat had been a good one, and it still looked nearly new. I hated to burn it afterward.”

“Burn it—oh, yes, of course. You would have had to do that. And the wig.”

“Yes, only it wouldn't burn. It melted into a horrid mess. However. Mrs. Rookwood thought I was wealthy enough to pay the school fees. They charge rather a lot, you see. So she said that it would be necessary for me to join the chapel, that they accepted only children of members, and I said that would be all right, but could I see the school first? And she took me 'round.”

She fell silent. I looked at her, and she shook her head. I waited.

There were no tears, no sobs. She bit her lip and took several deep breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice was perfectly steady, but very quiet.

“It was appalling. I have never before seen children treated that way, and I hope I never do again. It—I try not to remember, not to think that I let Miriam live in that horror for years. If I don't think about it, perhaps someday I can forgive myself.” She took a deep breath, steeled herself to go on. “The children—there was no noise, Mrs. Martin. None at all except for the teachers' voices. The children didn't stir. They sat in their chairs with their hands folded on their desks and listened. In one room they were copying lines from the blackboard. One child dropped a pencil, and the fear I saw in his eyes, in the whole room—”

Her own face was white, as were her knuckles.

“Don't say any more. I understand.”

She ignored me. “I saw Miriam. She was just like the others. A—a frozen child. A little ice statue.” Tears were rolling down her face now. “And she saw me. She tried not to let it show on her face, but she turned pale, even paler than she usually is. I thought she was going to be sick. And there was nothing I could do to help her, nothing I could say …”

I handed her some tissues. She blotted her cheeks, blew her nose.

“I'm sorry.” She made an ambiguous gesture that might have been an apology for her display of emotion, or her failure as a parent, or her existence, or all of those things.

“Nonsense. Would you like some more tea? I can make some, if you—”

“No, thank you. I'm sure Gillian and Miriam will be home soon.” She looked around nervously. “What time is it?”

She wore no watch, and there was no clock in the room. I consulted my watch. “Goodness. After four.”

“I thought so. It's beginning to look late. Gillian said they'd certainly be home in time for tea, and there's more I need to tell you before they get back.”

“Yes. Did anything happen at the school? Did anyone recognize you, I mean?”

“No, no one except Miriam, and she was so—controlled. I'm sure no one noticed.”

“So then—?”

“I told Mrs. Rookwood that I was very interested in the school and would bring my son in later in the week to enroll him. She wanted a deposit on the fees, so I told her I didn't have a check with me and would be back. Then I went to Braithwaite's and bought a few things for Miriam, since I had some money left and she needed them, and then I went home and made a fire in the back garden, to burn the coat and the other things, and while they burned I made up my mind.”

“To do what?”

“To defy my husband.”

She said it in a rush, as though the thought still terrified her. I processed what she'd said. The light dawned. “You decided to enroll Miriam in St. Stephen's.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Yes, I did. I thought about it for a long time, wondering if it was wise, if she could keep it to herself.”

“You didn't intend to tell your husband?”

“Certainly not!” She looked at me as if she thought me moronic. Well, it had been a stupid remark, hadn't it?

“I knew I would have to tell him eventually, of course. But not until Miriam was actually out of the old school. That wouldn't be until after Christmas, and I wasn't sure Miriam could stay quiet about it that long. But she'd been so self-possessed when she'd seen me at school, I decided she would be able to keep the secret. And I thought perhaps, if she knew she wouldn't have to bear the school very much longer, it would make things a little easier for her. So I told her as soon as I picked her up that day.”

“What did she say?”

“That was strange, and rather frightening. She said so little. I tried to lead up to it gradually, because I knew it would be rather a shock. So I told her I knew she had seen me at school, and that I had visited because I was worried about her. Then I asked her if she liked school, if she had good friends, if she liked her teachers. They were foolish questions. I could see quite plainly that she hated it all, but I wanted her to tell me that. She didn't want to answer, but I pressed her and she said it was all right. Just that: ‘It's all right.' So I asked her if she would like to go to my school instead.”

Amanda pushed her heavy hair back with a weary gesture. “She looked at me, and just for a moment I saw something like hope in her eyes. Then she said, ‘Daddy won't let me,' and wouldn't say another word all the way home.”

“I've heard,” I said slowly, “that if an animal is caged all its life, sometimes when it is rescued and the door opens and it can go free, it cowers inside, afraid and unsure. It doesn't know what to do with freedom.”

“That's just what she looked like. A caged animal. I talked to her some more at home, before I went to the station for John. I said that it was our secret, that we wouldn't tell Daddy, and that it would be all right. Really, I don't think I believed it myself. But Miriam—oh, I wasn't sure I'd done the right thing in telling her. For the next two days, she seemed more miserable and frightened than ever, and I couldn't get her to talk to me. I had no idea what was going on in her mind, and that frightened me more than anything.”

I was beginning to comprehend the depths of the hell Amanda had been living in, and even though the room had warmed, I shivered. “And then when you found him that morning, you must have thought …”

“I couldn't think at all. I was almost out of my mind. I couldn't seem to catch my breath, and the room kept spinning. I cleaned up, I think now, just to pretend things were normal. Or no, that's not it, exactly—I don't know.”

“I expect you were in shock. Literally, I mean, physically and emotionally both. I've never had to go through anything as awful as that, but I've had a few unpleasant experiences in my life. The worst of them was my first husband's heart attack, and I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room, while he was in the emergency room, tidying up my purse as if it were the most important thing in the world to get it neat. It's an escape. The mind focuses desperately on something else to keep from thinking about the unthinkable.”

Amanda nodded. Her fingers were slowly shredding a paper napkin, and when she spoke it was in a thin whisper. “I couldn't let myself think that maybe Miriam … oh, I knew she couldn't have stabbed her own father, no matter what, I
knew
that, but …”

It was time to get back to reality, to abandon the nightmare world of might-have-been. I risked a hard question. “Amanda, I hope you don't mind my asking, but did you really hear nothing that night, or did you just tell the police that because you heard something that you thought implicated Miriam?”

“I really didn't hear anything.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It was the night of prayer meeting, but John let me stay home because I'd worried myself into a frightful headache, and even he could see I was ill. He said there was another meeting after that, and he'd be late. So I went to bed, and I—I took a sleeping pill.” She said it as though she had just confessed a long-standing addiction to one of the more disreputable street drugs. “I'd never done such a thing before, but I hadn't been sleeping, and I'd got to the point I was forgetting things and could hardly teach. I'd bought them that afternoon, though of course I'd had to hide them from him. I thought just one wouldn't hurt, and maybe I'd get a good night's sleep.”

“Uh-oh. If you're not used to those things, even the over-the-counter ones can pack a real wallop. I expect you were still groggy in the morning.”

“I could hardly wake up. I don't know how long the alarm rang before I shut it off, and then, oh, how I wanted to stay in bed. I felt slow and stupid, and then I was so afraid John would notice and make me tell him about the pill, I went downstairs to make tea before waking Miriam.”

“And you were in that state when you saw him! No wonder you behaved a trifle—er—irrationally.”

“I behaved like a fool. I see that now. But what can I—oh, here's Miriam back!”

There were noises from the back of the house and then Miriam walked into the room, followed by Gillian. The love and warmth that suffused Amanda's pale, pinched face twisted my heart. What lay ahead for those two? What would happen to them if they were separated, if Amanda were imprisoned? Surely such a thing couldn't happen. Not in England, where the police were so efficient, so thorough.

“Look, Mummy! Auntie Gillian bought me a new coat and hat! And she took me to have my hair cut, and we had ice cream, and went to feed the ducks, and I petted the sweetest little dog in the park, it licked my hand and wagged its tail. May we have a puppy, Mummy? Auntie Gillian says they're nice, and not really dirty at all if you bathe them often enough, and I promise I'd take care of it and feed it and brush it all the time and take it for walks. Do you think we might, Mummy?”

For the first time in our acquaintance, Miriam was looking and acting like a child. Her hair, which she had worn scraped back into a tight ponytail, had been cut in short layers. Freed from its confinement, it curled attractively next to her cheeks, which were pink with excitement. She wore a bright red coat and matching hat, a couple of years out of style—Oxfam, I thought—but warm and attractive and infinitely preferable to anything I had seen on her before. She kept chattering, and I smiled at her. Perhaps she was too excited, too shrill, but there seemed some hope that she was beginning to heal. It would, I thought sadly, take a long time before the scars were obliterated, if indeed they ever were.

While Miriam chattered on, Gillian reached in her coat pocket, pulled something out, and held it up in her gloved hand. It was a brown plastic prescription bottle. “What on earth was this doing in your rubbish bin, Mandy?” she said, interrupting Miriam. “It blew out just as we drove up in back. I thought nobody ever took medicine in this house.”

She was close enough that I could read the label. “Lanoxin,” it read, with John Doyle's name and dosage instructions, and a late-November date.

It was empty.

M
Y
throat went dry, but for perhaps the first time in this whole crisis, I managed to keep my head. As Amanda reached for the vial, I stepped forward and got in first, though I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “May I see it, Gillian?”

I had snatched up a paper napkin from the tea tray. “Goodness, it's a bit grubby, isn't it?” I said in what I hoped was the right casual tone as Gillian dropped the vial from her gloved hand into the napkin. Had I told anyone about the way John Doyle really died? Would any of them smell a rat? Gillian was no fool, and unlike Amanda, she had probably read detective stories. Would she see the real significance of the paper napkin? Would she wonder what my interest was?

“What on earth do you want with it?”

The question came quick and sharp—exactly the question I'd been afraid of. I thought fast. “I have a young friend whose passion is her dollhouse. You remember Jemima, Miriam. You met her at my house. She likes to use these little bottles to make things for the house, or to store those tiny hinges and doorknobs and things like that.”