Time Windows (11 page)

"I'm sorry, Lucinda. We'll see if we can afford another cook. But you're going to need to help out, you know, by taking an interest yourself."

Lucinda hung on his arm. "I can help out much better than that, and you know it, Sigmund. I shall go out to work myself."

"Nonsense! No wife of mine works outside the home! And what could you do? Work in a shop, I suppose?" His voice was lightly scornful.

"Damnation! Sigmund, you
know
what I want to do. I've told you a hundred times I have no interest in housework or children—or shopkeeping! I want to be a lawyer, or else work in business."

He laughed. "And I've told you a hundred times that your interests are unnatural. Women aren't lawyers, Lucinda. The gentler sex simply isn't fit for the courtroom. Nor do they work well in offices."

"I don't know that
you're
so well fit for the courtroom yourself, Sigmund! If you'd only argued this last case the way I told you to, you wouldn't have lost!"

"My dear." Now his voice was cold. "That I lost a case has nothing whatever to do with the issue at hand."

"It does, Sigmund. It does!" Her beautiful face was suffused with scarlet. "I could have done a better job!"

He laughed. "You could do a better job here, my love, if you would attend to your duties. Dorothy is your job. And running the house. We simply can't afford to have a pack of servants doing work that is rightfully yours. The Galworthy women have lived here for generations without maids stationed in every room. And they were perfectly content with their lot!"

"They must have had brains of suet, but I certainly don't."

"Lucinda, you are being childish." He picked up the newspaper and rustled it. "Now, please. Let us have an end to this interview."

Lucinda whirled on him as swiftly as a cat. "If you loved me—no, not even that! If you were a decent man—you would see that I can't ever be happy like this. I told you before we married that I needed freedom. And you promised I'd have it! But I won't have any at all if we don't have servants."

"You have a lot more freedom than most women!" He peered over his paper. "You can buy jewels and clothes. You go out to the theater, traveling ... Most women in town envy you. And they manage quite well with one or two maids. Now, please. You tire me with your whining."

Lucinda clenched her hands in her skirts. "You're trying to keep me under your thumb! You think you own me! You try to stifle me, try to hold me down—but I won't let you. You can't keep me here! I am not your chattel!"

"Be silent, Lucinda! I've had quite enough of your hysterics."

She stormed to the door, almost colliding with a young woman dressed in gray. The girl stepped quickly aside, bobbing her head. Lucinda ignored her.

She turned back to stare at her husband. "You will have cause to remember this conversation, Sigmund." Then she swept past the girl, who sidled into the room and stood demurely until Sigmund Galworthy noticed her.

He sighed and lowered the newspaper. "What is it, Hannah?"

"It's Miss Dorothy, sir."

"What's wrong?"

"She won't eat her dinner, sir."

"My dear Hannah!" He came to stand beside her. "We have enough trouble just now without having to worry about whether Dorothy cleans her plate or not. Don't take it upon yourself." He turned away, dismissing her.

"Oh, but Mr. Galworthy!" Hannah boldly remained before him, and Sigmund turned back in surprise.

"Excuse me, but Mrs. Galworthy ordered me to make Miss Dorothy eat every last bit. Including the tomatoes, sir, and you know Miss Dorothy can't eat tomatoes. You know how sick she gets whenever she eats them ... and I've tried, sir. I've been trying to get her to eat for the last hour, but she just can't."

"Look here, Hannah. Your job is to take care of Dorothy and so save me from scenes over tomatoes. Now go up and calm the child, and throw the damn—excuse me—throw the tomatoes in the garbage. Forget it. I don't want to hear any more about it."

"Oh, thank you, sir," cried Hannah with great relief, bobbing up and down respectfully. "But what about Mrs. Galworthy? She said earlier that the child was to clean her whole plate."

"My wife knows perfectly well that Dorothy can't stomach tomatoes. I will speak to her, Hannah." He removed a pipe from his vest pocket and polished its smooth bowl against his gray-trousered hip. "Now, unless there's something else you would like to discuss with me..."

"No, sir, thank you very much." She bobbed herself out of the room.

Miranda watched for a few more minutes, hoping something else would happen. Sigmund returned to his armchair in front of the fire. A small shower of sparks flew up the chimney. He stoked his pipe. Miranda had just started to turn away, not liking the strong odor of his pipe, when Dorothy appeared in the doorway.

She wore a long white flannel nightgown and her hair was tied back tightly in two long braids. She crept quietly over to Sigmund's chair and paused behind it. He sat once again gazing dreamily into the fire, puffing his pipe. Her small hands darted around and covered his eyes. "Guess who?" she said in a gruff voice.

"Oh my," said Sigmund mildly. "Is it Mr. Beecham from the office?"

Dorothy giggled, then quickly resumed the gruff tone. "No! Guess again."

"Is it Mrs. Hooton?"

"She doesn't have a voice like this!"

"
Mr.
Hooton, then?"

"No!"

"I shall never guess," moaned her father, and he reached his big hands over his head and down to close around her little body. He held her around the waist and hoisted her off the floor, tumbling her head-over-heels through the air above his head and down into his lap. Her laughter filled the room.

"Aha! Now I see it is only my little mouse."

Dorothy nestled against his chest. "I've come to say good night."

"I'm glad." He stroked the top of her head and fingered one of the long braids. "Do you know what the train conductor says when he blows the whistle?"

"What?"

"He says, 'Whooo-whooo!'" whistled Sigmund Galworthy, tugging on the braid as if pulling the chain on a train whistle.

They were still laughing together when Lucinda stalked into the room. "Dorothy! Hannah is looking for you! Get back upstairs and finish those tomatoes. And if you can't finish them before bedtime, you will see them in the morning for your breakfast."

Sigmund Galworthy set Dorothy back on her feet. "Dorothy will have an egg for breakfast," he said. "You know she can't eat tomatoes, Lucinda."

"The child must learn to eat what is set before her."

"That's enough. The subject is closed. Dorothy will have the same food for breakfast as you and I do."

Lucinda pulled herself up majestically. "Mister Galworthy," she began bitingly, "you have already deprived me of my staff. If I'm in charge of the house, then I shall run it
my
way. If you don't like the way things are run here"—her voice rose dramatically—"then you might think about living elsewhere!"

Sigmund faced her, calmly. "That is enough shouting." His voice was soft, but as icy as her own. Dorothy edged behind her father. "I shall take Dorothy up to bed myself, Lucinda, and I will thank you to retire immediately. You will kindly remember that in this house you do not raise your voice to me. Is that clear?"

Lucinda glared at him. "Perhaps you would like
me
to live elsewhere?"

"Don't be absurd. You are my wife. Now go up to bed. I'm sick and tired of your theatrics."

She leveled a bitter stare at him and swung on her heel, leaving the room. Dorothy began to whimper, holding onto her father's leg. Sigmund picked her up and held her tightly against him for a moment. Then he set her down.

"There, there, little mouse. Mama and Daddy are just a little angry now, but everything will be better tomorrow. Come on, now. I'll take you up to Hannah." He reached for her hand.

Dorothy hung back. Her eyes were dark and clouded. Sigmund smiled down at her and touched the tip of her pert nose with a long finger. He reached for a braid and tugged it. "Someday I'm going to cut off one of these and use it for a paintbrush, old girl. What do you say to that?"

Miranda smiled at this weak attempt to cheer up the little girl, but Dorothy wrapped her arms around him fiercely. "Daddy," she murmured, "is Mama going away?"

"Your Mama is just upset tonight, sweetheart. She's not leaving."

She hugged him more tightly. "But Daddy, don't
you
ever go away!"

"No one is going away, darling."

She pushed her face into his lap. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled. "Daddy, promise? Daddy—will you be here when I wake up?"

Sigmund rested his hand on her soft hair and gazed at the flames for a long moment without seeming to see them. Then, "Yes," he said. "Yes, Mouse. I'll be here. Always."

 

Miranda closed her eyes. This had already happened. But when? Where?

When she opened her eyes again, the Galworthys' living room was empty. Dorothy's sad little question hung in the air. "Will you be here when I wake up?"

Where had Miranda heard that before?

It hit her suddenly. Of course! Timmy Kramer had asked his parents that question, the night Iris tried to hit him with a lamp. In fact, hadn't she herself asked her parents that same thing only a week or two ago? She remembered feeling silly after asking it, because of course her parents would be there in the morning. Why had she asked the question at all?

Miranda sat back on her heels. An idea was beginning to form in her head. What if—what if she and Timmy had only asked the question because Dorothy asked it years earlier? Could that be?

Miranda shivered in the warm attic. Watching through the dollhouse windows was natural to her now. But the past was past. It had to be. The thought that the lives of prior occupants of the house could touch her own, however briefly, struck chords of fear in Miranda.

The Kramers certainly seemed ordinary enough. But the Galworthys, Sigmund and Lucinda, were weird. Miranda didn't quite understand what the trouble was. It sounded as if Lucinda wanted a career and Sigmund said she couldn't have one—what a chauvinist! But it also sounded as if Lucinda was a pretty bad mother. Imagine trying to force a little girl to eat leftover tomatoes, which made her sick, for breakfast if she left them on her plate at dinner! That was plain cruelty. Not that Miranda herself had anything against tomatoes, but if, for instance, the food had been liver—

Wait a minute.
Tomatoes?
Hadn't Helen said something odd about tomatoes recently? Yes—while making cheese sandwiches: "I've burned yours, Mandy."

"Mine? Do I get a special one?"

"Yours doesn't have any tomatoes, of course. You've always hated tomatoes..."

But it wasn't Miranda who hated tomatoes.

Miranda shook her head as if to clear it. From downstairs in her parents' bedroom the voices of Helen and Philip, raised in yet another quarrel, reached her ears.

Back in her bedroom, Miranda sat on the window seat and stared down at the tangled front lawn. Dusk settled slowly, whispering through the pines that surrounded the house. She could see the dark branches of the magnolia tree twisting in the light wind, and she felt as unsettled as they were. She was on edge and needed to calm down. Music would help. Music always helped. It had been a while since she played her flute just for the joy of playing. Lessons were one thing, but the notes that flew into the air when she played out of a private need were clearer and more lilting; a lullaby to herself.

She opened her closet and pulled out the flute case. She carried the case over to the window seat and began fitting the instrument together automatically. Not bothering to set up her music stand, she stood at the window and held the flute to her lips.

But as Miranda stared out at the trees, no music came. She couldn't think what to play. She paused, licked her lips, and tried again. She blew softly, pressing her fingers on the silver keys. A thread of a tune moved through her bedroom. She sang the words in her head:

 

Golden slumbers fill your eyes
While overhead the stars arise.
Sleep pretty baby, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby...

 

She saw in her mind Dorothy's golden hair. Who had ever sung lullabies to Dorothy? Sigmund? Maybe Hannah? Miranda sighed and stopped playing. The music wasn't helping her tonight.

Thoughts clamored in Miranda's head—each needing to be pondered separately, each important as part of a whole that was not yet clear to her. Fragments of words she had heard and things she had seen in the dollhouse nudged her memory insistently, urging her to sort them out.

She laid her flute abruptly on the seat cushion and crossed to her bookshelf, where she unearthed
Garnet Township in the Nineteenth Century
from beneath a pile of music sheets. She sat cross-legged on the floor, turning the pages of Mrs. Wainwright's slim green book. At the open window, the curtains stirred in a sudden, welcome gust of wind.

Miranda studied each page carefully, not knowing what she was looking for, but certain of recognizing it when she saw it. The book was an account of the social and political life of Garnet over the last century. Miranda flipped past descriptions of pre-Civil War balls hosted by the wealthy who summered in Garnet to escape the heat of Boston and New York. She was interested in more recent history. As she skimmed the chapter covering the abolitionist movement in Garnet, a familiar name leaped off the page at her from the section about the Underground Railroad: Hooton.

With growing interest, she read how the Hooton family in the mid-nineteenth century hid runaway slaves in a secret cupboard behind the cellar stairs until the Southern slave-catchers gave up searching for them and returned to the South.

She skipped the next few pages, uninterested in farm reports and the political scandal of 1880, when the elderly mayor of Garnet married a local girl who was only sixteen. Near the end of the book she found a section on the population growth in Garnet, including a list of the inhabitants in 1800 and another of the inhabitants in 1900. The Hooton and Galworthy families were listed in both, but it was in the list for 1900 that Miranda finally found what she was looking for: