Between those two, Sundays went quickly by, in anticipation, memory and enjoyment. I wrote to Aunt Constance about those days more than any others.
Mr. Thiel and I did have dinner with the McWilliams family, which I recall in colors of warm kerosene lamps and tones of ordinary voices, talking, laughing, quarreling. In that sprawling village house, the children dominated a room, although they obeyed their elders quickly enough. Mac had four younger sisters, each of whom claimed part of my attention. The adults sat quietly, talking in lazy tones of unimportant matters. In that house, I was one among many children, which I found restful. I ran about among the rooms, took part in silly games and enjoyed myself. Mac sometimes played with us, and sometimes sat beside his father, silently listening.
Those weeks were a happy time for me. As Aunt Constance had predicted, I was doing well. I could feel my mind and spirits expanding, not physically, but in experience. I realized that I had led a sheltered life until then, and—while I did not resent the narrowness of my Cambridge life—I was glad to learn more, to broaden my knowledge of the world. And to expand it in so many different ways at the same time.
During that time, too, I went through more and more of the boxes, with increased efficiency and curiosity. In the second week of August, I began on the final box. There had been no repetition of the nightmare. I suspect that was because I felt I was doing something about the problem. My mind was at ease because I was dealing with it. Thus, the terror of it was put into a place where I could manage it, and it did not need to creep out in dreams. I had determined to work steadily, confident of my ability to recognize whatever it was Mr. Thiel intended me to find, or not to find, when I saw it.
As if to reward my careful, patient work (and I felt I deserved a reward because I had been so impatient to get to the final box), I found a note from Irene to her father. There was no date on it, but it must have been written after Mrs. Bywall’s theft:
Dear Father [she wrote]
I am writing this late at night. I know you will read and think about it carefully, and you know that I will abide by your decision. I ask you, this last time, to reconsider the changes in your will. You must disapprove of Enoch’s determination to prosecute; I understand that. However, whatever you will think of him, he is your son and entitled to benefit from our wealth. Whatever he is, you and I are responsible for him, and responsible to him. I don’t think we can avoid the truth of that. For myself, you know how little I need. Enoch needs more, whether for good or ill I will not judge. My only concern is for our baby, you know that, and you know what steps I have taken for the child’s care and safety. I beg you to think once more what good will come from your proposed will? And think further, what evil?
I studied this note. Its firm handwriting sloped forward without curlicues and fanciness. Mr. Callender had said something about a will. Mr. Thiel had said that he, Mr. Callender, received an allowance. I wondered what the will had actually said, what provisions it made. I decided to ask Aunt Constance about it, not immediately, of course, but at a time when she might be disposed to answer. But there might be ways to find out what the will said. Somebody had to know that.
Poor Irene, poor Mrs. Thiel, so sure that she had taken good care for her child. I was glad she did not know what had happened. But I wondered why she had been worried about her child’s safety.
Chapter 11
It was after one of those pleasant Sundays, toward the middle of August, that I awoke in the dead still of night. For a moment, or even less time, I lay bewildered. A dream? A noise? What had wakened me?
I was seized by pain, as if a fire scorched my stomach. The sharp pain caused me to turn over in bed and gasp. Flaming waves of pain passed across my stomach, one following the other, and then, finally, they abated. For a time I lay back in my bed, exhausted, panting.
I thought at first, while I could still think clearly, that I would stay in bed and let whatever the illness was run its course. I did not want to waken Mr. Thiel. I was embarrassed. I thought that if it became necessary I would find Mrs. Bywall. A woman is always less of a stranger than a man. I wished I could have been in Cambridge, with Aunt Constance next door.
Two more attacks of this pain left me weak and almost weeping. Pain, I discovered, is terrible. It can change your ideas. Now I wanted only someone, anyone, just any relief. All of my attention was devoured by the pain. I no longer cared for being embarrassed, or for anything else. And the attacks seemed to be getting worse, not better.
I forced myself out of bed and into the hallway. There I called out, softly at first, then loudly. That is the last thing I remember clearly. After that there was only the pain itself and voices around me. Mr. Thiel’s face, Mrs. Bywall’s face and her arms holding me down in my bed while her voice said something about “just a little while” as she bathed my forehead with a damp cloth.
Dr. McWilliams’s round head appeared above my bed, but he was not smiling. He forced me to swallow something. I vomited. Then I fainted or slept or did both in that order—I cannot remember.
It was late morning when I awoke for the second time. Mrs. Bywall sat by my bed. The room was filled with sunlight. She was knitting something shapeless. Her face looked tired, but she actually smiled at me. “Awake, are you? How do you feel?”
“Tired . . . and weak, but better.”
“Let me call the doctor,” she said, putting down her knitting.
I found it beyond my strength to protest, although I could think quite clearly that this was too much trouble. Mrs. Bywall read my mind. “He’s just downstairs, talking with Mr. Thiel. He’s been waiting for you to wake up. He said you would soon. He thought you might be hungry. I’ll bring you a cup of tea and some dry toast.” She leaned over me and straightened the bedclothes. “You gave us a proper fright,” she said, “and your hair needs brushing.” While she did that, I noticed that I was wearing a fresh nightgown. My mouth felt stiff and swollen. My stomach, when I pressed gently on it, was sore, as if bruised. Mrs. Bywall brushed my hair briskly, braided it, then left the room.
Dr. McWilliams smiled quite cheerfully at me. “Better now? I thought so. Let me just look at you while Mrs. Bywall gets you something to eat.”
Once I had swallowed a little tea and toast, I felt better, stronger, and more able to talk. Dr. McWilliams sat and watched me eat, nodding in satisfaction.
“What did I have?” I finally asked.
“I’m not quite sure,” he said. “I need your help to find out. Tell me what happened.”
I told him about waking up and the fiery waves of pain. It is hard to remember pain and to describe it accurately, once you are feeling well again. Dr. McWilliams listened carefully and asked no questions.
“Something you ate seems to have disagreed with you,” he said.
The understatement made me smile.
“Our task is to find out what it was. Did you have anything yesterday you have never eaten before?”
I thought back. “No,” I said.
“Any berries you found? Nuts? Any wild fruit?”
“No,” I said.
“Well then, can you remember what you had for meals yesterday?” He took out a little notebook and apologized, “I’ never remember if I don’t write it down.”
“For breakfast, pancakes with butter and syrup, milk, and a bowl of applesauce,” I began.
“Did you put any sugar on your applesauce?” he interrupted.
“No. For lunch a boiled chicken, carrots, biscuits and gravy. A bread pudding. Water. For super fish, boiled potatoes, chard, tomatoes and some leftover cherry pie. Milk, I think. I had a cup of sweet tea afterwards.”
“Was there anything you ate that nobody else ate?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. Oh, the tea.”
“What does sweet tea mean? Sugar and milk?”
“Yes.”
“Did anybody else have sugar?”
“I don’t think so. It’s in the sugar bowl on the table. The kitchen table.”
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“Milk?”
“That’s in the pitcher in the springhouse. Mr. Thiel had some too, with his dinner. He always does.”
“Probably not bad milk then,” Dr. McWilliams said. “Mr. Thiel may have been a frightened man last night, but he wasn’t a sick one. Nobody who was sick could have covered as much ground as he did, as quickly as he did.”
He sat and studied his notes. I thought my own thoughts.
“The question is what you ate that nobody else would have tasted,” he said. “The tea is one. The syrup at breakfast?”
“No,” I said, “we all had some of that. Anything from a glass, though, is that what you mean?” He nodded. “The baked pudding was in individual cups. But I didn’t eat much of it. It was lumpy, terrible.”
“Was it baked in the cups? Or just served in them?”
“Baked in them, I think.”
“What makes you think that?”
“When we washed up, there was no pudding bowl to put away.”
“Anything else?”
“My tea.”
“Do you usually have a cup of tea in the evenings?”
“Often, not always. I make it myself.”
He closed his notebook and looked at me for a long time. I looked steadily back at him. “Whatever it was,” he said, “you’ve come through it all right. So that’s good. What I did was give you a huge dose of Ipecacuana—you know what that is?”
“A purge?”
“Yes. It emptied your stomach.”
“I remember,” I said.
“It’s an extreme step but in your case it was necessary.”
“It wasn’t a disease, was it,” I said.
“No. No, I’m afraid I don’t think it was. As to what happened, exactly, I can’t be sure. Something didn’t agree with you, something you ate, that much we can be sure of. The question is, just what was it? And how did it get into your stomach?”
I had an idea, but was afraid to mention it. Sometimes, it is as if things will not be real unless you speak of them.
“There are two possibilities,” Dr. McWilliams said. He came and sat beside me on the bed. He took my hands in his. “One possibility is that there was some natural poison in something you ate, some food turned bad, yet not bad enough to taste. So you wouldn’t notice it as you ate. The other possibility is—some unnatural poison.”
He had spoken my fear aloud.
“Who would want to do that to me?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to me. You’re only a child, and a stranger here. Is there anything about you I don’t know? Is there any reason you might be in danger?”
“No,” I said. I had only vague surmises. I couldn’t tell him of these.
“Then I think we can assume that you had a bit of unusually bad luck, don’t you?” I didn’t answer. “I want you to stay in bed today and eat lightly but as often as you want. Tomorrow you should keep quietly inside. Shall I send Mac up to you in the afternoon tomorrow? Will a lesson with him distract you?”
“I’d like that,” I said.
Dr. McWilliams stood up. “I pronounce you well,” he said solemnly, “but remember that you are convalescent for a couple of days. You will behave yourself, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I thought so. You seem a sensible child. Mac says you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.” I flushed with pleasure.
After he had left, Mrs. Bywall returned. She saw that I had not finished the breakfast tray and sat down with her knitting. She pulled out the needles and began to unravel and wind the yarn.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are you doing that?”
“Oh. I only knit when I’m worried. I can’t do it properly, you know, knitting. So I have a ball of wool I save for occasions.”
“And I haven’t even thanked you properly,” I said.
“That’s not necessary. I’m used to sickbeds. They’re no trouble,” she answered. “For a bit there you had us really worried. When he heard you, we both came running. Dr. McWilliams said it’s lucky you came out for help.” She studied my face for a long time. “You’ll be hungry, I expect, in a little while. How does some good broth sound?”
It sounded delicious and I told her so. “What happened last night?” I asked. “I can’t remember much.”
“Well—Mr. Thiel woke up and I woke up. He was lifting you when I got there, to take you to your room. I stayed with you. He rode off for the doctor and they rode back like the devil was after them. Dr. McWilliams thought appendicitis at first, but it didn’t take him long to change his mind. He gave you some medicine—”
“I remember that,” I said. I didn’t see any need to cover that again.
“Well, then you got easier, it seemed. You quieted. Finally you slept. The men went down to the library and I sat here with you. You slept well.”
“Thank you,” I said. When you are truly, deeply grateful, those words cannot say enough. Perhaps deep gratitude, like deep joy, is impossible to express.
“Mr. Thiel asked if he could visit for a minute. He’s right outside.”
“Of course,” I said.
Mr. Thiel, like Mrs. Bywall, looked tired. I guessed that Dr. McWilliams was more accustomed to staying up all night. I thanked him, too, for his care. He dismissed it with a rough gesture of his hands.
“I’ve some books here you might want to read. You’re not to go downstairs today,” he said.
“So Dr. McWilliams told me.”
“I’ll be out for a bit this afternoon, but Mrs. Bywall will sit with you. Do you know how to play cribbage? Then we might have a game later. I’ve no idea how to entertain an invalid.” He seemed cross about that.
“I’m not an invalid,” I protested.
“No, I guess that’s so, and a good thing. Well then—” and he left, having come no further into the room than the door.
I spent a lot of time that day lying in bed with an unread book open before me, thinking carefully. My first idea was to return to Aunt Constance, to go home. But by daylight the room was familiar and safe. It was illogical to think that somebody would try to kill me. There was no reason for it. However, that Dr. McWilliams had even considered the idea was enough to terrify me. It was like living within the dream world of a nightmare—only you couldn’t wake up.
Think carefully, I reminded myself. As Dr. McWilliams had said, I was a stranger here. There must have been something turned bad in something I ate. Perhaps all of the Callenders had also been ill during the night. Was that possible? Unreasonably, I thought it was not; somehow I was convinced of the singularity of my illness. Mr. Thiel had not been ill. Mrs. Bywall had not. It was only me.
Why? What made me different from everybody else? I assumed that someone had tried to poison me and tried to think of any possible motive for it. The only thing I did that was different from everybody else was my work. Those papers again. Was there something in the papers? Could somebody know how far I had gotten? Mac knew. Anybody who looked in the library would know, because the boxes I had completed were neatly rearranged and labeled. That is, anybody who had access to the library, anybody in this house. Then, was there something in the final box somebody wanted to conceal? Of course that argument was built on the assumption that I had been deliberately poisoned, which was not a reasonable assumption.
I wanted to find the will, Mr. Callender’s will. When Mrs. Bywall brought me a tray of tea and white rolls during the afternoon (“I thought perhaps jam would be too heavy for your stomach,” she said, settling down in her chair again) I asked her:
“Do you know what was in Mr. Callender’s will?”
“Josiah Callender? No, I don’t know.” She hesitated before adding, “I don’t know that anybody does, except Mr. Enoch and I guess Mr. Thiel. I wasn’t here then, remember. It was years later when I returned, and everything was as it is now. What are you thinking of?” Her eyes studied me.
“Nothing,”
I said.
“No, I remember. When I first got back I was surprised that Mr. Callender was still here. I knew his father and sister had died, and I thought he would have moved away, with nothing to hold him here. He never liked Marlborough. And poor Mrs. Callender would do anything he wanted. I thought he’d be long gone. Could that have anything to do with a will?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Mr. Thiel would know,” she said, “but I wouldn’t dare ask him. He’d not like it.”
“I know,” I said.
It was while I played cribbage with Mr. Thiel that I thought of something I had forgotten. The reason cribbage is a relaxing game, suitable for the bedridden, is that it depends largely on luck. Therefore, it doesn’t take much attention. While we played, my mind was busy working. It was as I was counting out one hand, saying “fifteen two, four, six and the pair makes ten” that I remembered the locked drawer in the desk. I realized, at the same time, that I knew nothing about breaking into locked drawers but that Mac might, and he would be visiting tomorrow afternoon.
Mr. Thiel, sitting on a chair by the bed, didn’t notice my distraction. Perhaps he too was distracted. At the end of the hand, he didn’t shuffle the cards. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Dr. McWilliams spoke to you? About the possibility of poison?”
“Yes.” I was startled to hear him mention it. Having it stated in that way made the fears return. “It seems impossible,” I said, not as confidently as I could have wished. I tried not to let him see my fear.