Second Child (6 page)

Tag grinned impishly. “Come on, Grandma. You really think Mrs. H would show up in the vegetable garden? I bet she doesn’t even know where it is.”

Cora’s brows rose slightly. She thought she should say something about respect for their employer, but changed her mind. After all, Tag was right. Ever since she’d married Charles Holloway, Phyllis Martin had carefully avoided any reminder of her own humble origins; a farm somewhere in Pennsylvania, Cora believed. A farm, as far as Cora could tell, was nothing but an oversized vegetable garden, and certainly the high and mighty Mrs. Holloway wouldn’t go anywhere near it. “Well, all right, but if she catches you dressed like that, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I won’t,” Tag promised, then picked up his plate and
took it to the sink, where he began washing the dishes. Cora stacked her own breakfast dishes on the sink, gave Tag a quick hug, then headed toward the main house to start her day. But as she crossed the lawn, she once more noticed Melissa’s closed bedroom windows. Entering the house, she didn’t even stop at the kitchen, but went directly to the second floor and opened Melissa’s door without knocking.

As she’d feared, Melissa was not in her bed.

Cora climbed the stairs to the attic slowly, joints aching as she pulled herself up the steep flight and paused at the top to catch her breath. The attic gloom was only partially relieved by the sunlight filtering in through the dormers. She wove through the clutter, pausing at the door to the tiny room beneath one of the gables. At last, taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open.

Curled up on the dusty sofa, sound asleep, was Melissa. “Oh, baby,” Cora whispered almost silently. “Not again.”

She went to the sofa, lowered herself down, and gently began waking Melissa, taking care not to startle her. At last Melissa’s eyes fluttered slightly, then opened. For a moment she smiled up at Cora, but then the smile faded as she realized where she was.

Gasping, she sat up straight, her eyes darting around the tiny room. Finally she faced Cora, her face pale with fear. “Don’t tell Mother,” she begged. “Please?”

Cora took Melissa’s hand gently in her own. “Now, Missy, you know I have to tell your mother. If you’re going to be walking in your sleep again, she has to know. You could hurt yourself.”

“But I’ve only done it once this summer,” Melissa pleaded. “I won’t do it again—I promise! Please don’t tell Mama. Please?”

Cora rose to her feet, drawing Melissa along with her. “Well, now, let’s just get you back to your bed, and we’ll think about this later, all right?”

Melissa bit her lip but nodded, and let Cora lead her back through the jumble of castoffs that cluttered the attic floor. A few moments later she was back in her own room and Cora was tucking her in bed. “Now you sleep for a couple more hours,” the housekeeper told her. “You just get your rest and don’t worry about anything. What happened
wasn’t your fault, and your mother won’t blame you. She just wants to help you.”

Cora gently kissed Melissa’s forehead, then, before leaving, opened the windows to let the room fill with the fresh morning air.

When she was alone, Melissa lay in bed trying to remember what had happened last night. Slowly, it came back to her.

Her mother had come in and been angry with her. In fact, she’d been so angry that she’d torn up her pink organdy dress. And then she’d slapped her. After that Melissa didn’t remember anything at all.

For after that, D’Arcy had come to help her, as D’Arcy always came to help when her mother was angry at her.

She lay in bed for a few more moments, and her mind went back to the dress. She got up and went to the closet, hesitating only a second before pulling the door open.

The dress was hanging neatly on a hanger.

Melissa stared at it for a moment. Had she been wrong? Had her mother not come in at all? Had she imagined the whole thing?

At last, her hands trembling, she reached out and took the dress off the hanger. Turning the seams inside out, she examined them care fully.

Some of them looked perfectly normal. But others—the ones that held the sleeves on, and the one up the bodice—were different.

The stitches were tiny and perfect, but the thread was a few shades different from the dress itself.

She smiled, then glanced up at the ceiling. “Thank you, D’Arcy,” she whispered. “Thank you for mending it for me.”

“For heaven’s sake, Cora! What are you doing?” Phyllis Holloway’s sharp voice startled the housekeeper, and the paring knife in her hand clattered into the sink.

Her eyes automatically flicked to the large clock on the wall: it was only nine-thirty, at least half an hour before Mrs. Holloway made her usual appearance in the kitchen. She picked up the knife, set it on the drain board, then turned to face her employer. “I thought I’d make an apple pie,” she offered. “You know how Melissa loves my pies.”

Phyllis’s lips tightened. “After her behavior yesterday, I hardly think she deserves a treat, does she?” Cora, knowing the question was purely rhetorical, said nothing. “And you have better things to do than make pies today, don’t you?” Phyllis went on.

Cora’s brows rose and she quickly reviewed what she’d already done that morning. Melissa’s breakfast had already been finished and the dishes washed, and Mrs. Holloway’s pot of coffee had been waiting in her room as usual. Downstairs, the last of the mess from the party had been cleared away, and every room thoroughly dusted. Then
she thought she understood. “I was holding off on the vacuuming,” she explained. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“And that was very considerate of you,” Phyllis replied, relenting slightly. “But it was Teri I was thinking of. It seems to me we ought to start getting her room ready.”

Cora felt a wave of relief flow over her as she realized she was going to be spared one of her employer’s tirades over some minor detail she had overlooked. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I thought maybe the corner room in the east wing …” Her voice trailed off as she saw the dark look that immediately came into Phyllis’s eyes.

“The east wing?” Phyllis repeated. “But that’s the guest wing, with all the best views. No, I was thinking about the room next to Melissa’s.”

Cora’s brows knit in puzzlement. Melissa’s room was in the corner of the south wing, and there was nothing next to it except the small nurse’s room, connected to it by a bath. “Well, I don’t know,” Cora began. “It’s awfully small—”

But Phyllis didn’t let her finish. “We’ll go up and take a look at it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cora murmured. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, then followed Phyllis through the butler’s pantry and dining room into the large foyer. Upstairs, they turned to the right, and a moment later stepped into the small chamber that adjoined Melissa’s large and airy room. Cora looked around doubtfully. The room was sparsely furnished with only a small daybed, a worn bureau against one wall, a table in front of its single window, and an old wooden rocking chair. Covering the hardwood floor was a threadbare oriental rug that Cora knew had originally been in one of the guest rooms, but which had been consigned to this room when it had been deemed too frayed for further use.

Except in the servants’ quarters.

“It—Well, it’s kinda small, isn’t it?” Cora asked, then regretted the question as Phyllis’s impatient eyes fastened on her.

“This was my room once, Cora,” she reminded the housekeeper. “I don’t recall complaining about its size at all.”

And you didn’t stay in it long, either, Cora thought darkly to herself. When she spoke, she was careful to keep her voice neutral. “I was just thinking that for a teenager, with all her clothes and things, maybe we ought to look for something bigger.”

Once again Phyllis’s temper flashed. “Don’t be silly, Cora,” she said sharply. “I talked to Mr. Holloway this morning, and Teri has nothing—she barely got out of the house alive. Now, doesn’t it seem silly to put her in some enormous room with empty closets and dressers? And,” she added, “I think we have to remember her background. We want to make her feel comfortable here, and how is she going to feel rattling around a room that’s the size of the entire house she grew up in?

“There’s a lot we can do to make this room more cheerful,” she continued. “In fact, I think in a way you’re right. I always hated the furniture in here. I can’t believe there aren’t some things up in the attic we can bring down. Call Tag, and we’ll go up and take a look.”

Twenty minutes later, with both Melissa and Tag following along, Phyllis led Cora up the stairs to the attic. She opened the door, stepped inside, then stopped short.

Illuminated by a brilliant beam of sunlight, there were clear footprints in the thick layer of dust that covered the attic floor. Phyllis stared at them, then turned back to face her daughter. “Melissa, is there something you want to tell me?”

Melissa’s eyes widened in sudden fear as she saw the incriminating footprints in the dust. Instantly, she turned to Cora in a silent plea for help.

“Were you walking in your sleep again last night?” Phyllis asked.

Melissa bit her lip but said nothing, and it was finally Cora who answered. “She was just upset from the party yesterday,” she suggested. “It’s the first time it’s happened this summer—”

Phyllis’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Is it? Or is it simply that no one’s told me about it before?” She gazed steadily at her daughter, and when she spoke, her voice betrayed nothing of what she might be feeling. “Tell me, Melissa.
Is
this the first time this summer?”

Melissa felt a knot of fear forming in her stomach, and
wished her father were here to help her. What should she say? Why was it that with her mother there never seemed to be a right answer? But as her mother’s eyes remained fixed on her, she knew she had to say something. “I—I don’t know, Mama,” she murmured. “I don’t remember doing it at all.”

Phyllis took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, finally turning back to Cora. “Very well,” she said. “If she doesn’t remember, perhaps you can tell me what happened, Cora.”

As briefly as she could, Cora told Phyllis what had happened. “But she was perfectly all right,” she finished. “She just went into the little room at the back, the one right above her bedroom. She was sound asleep when I found her.”

Phyllis’s eyes bored into Melissa once again. “I want you to look around up here,” she said, her gaze never leaving her daughter, though her words were directed to Cora. “See if you can find anything Teri might like. I’m afraid I have to talk to Melissa now.”

Grasping Melissa’s arm, she marched her down the stairs and along the wide corridor toward her room. A moment later, as they heard Melissa’s door close, Tag looked uneasily at his grandmother.

“What’s going to happen, Grandma? What’s she going to do to Melissa?”

Cora was silent for a few seconds, then shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

In Melissa’s room, Phyllis closed the door, her eyes fixing on her daughter, who stood near the fireplace, her back against the wall, her hands held defensively behind her back. Phyllis said nothing, but simply stared at Melissa until, cheeks scarlet with shame, Melissa turned away. At last Phyllis moved across to the closet and pulled open the door. The pink organdy dress hung on its hanger where Melissa had left it.

Phyllis lifted the hanger off the rod and took the dress to the window, where she began carefully inspecting its seams. At last her gaze shifted back to Melissa.

“This is very good,” she said. Melissa relaxed ever so
slightly, but her wary eyes remained on her mother. “Did you do this?”

Melissa hesitated, then finally shook her head.

“If you didn’t do it,” Phyllis asked, her voice deceptively low, “then who did?”

The question seemed to hang in the air while Melissa groped in her mind for an answer that would satisfy her mother. But in the end she decided simply to tell the truth. “D-D’Arcy,” she breathed, her voice barely audible.

Phyllis’s eyes narrowed. “Who?” she demanded.

Melissa cowered back. “D’Arcy,” she said, a little louder. “I’m not very good at sewing, so D’Arcy came and helped me.”

Phyllis’s hands tightened on the gauzy pink material, and for an agonizing moment Melissa thought she was going to tear it up again. But then her mother flung the dress onto the bed. “But D’Arcy doesn’t exist, does she?” Phyllis demanded, her voice rising.

Melissa shrank back against the wall, but managed to shake her head.

Phyllis moved across the room once more. Her hands clamped onto Melissa’s shoulders, her fingers digging into the girl’s flesh until Melissa thought she would cry out from the pain. When she spoke again, Phyllis’s voice had dropped to a furious hiss. “Melissa, we’ve been over this again and again. D’Arcy doesn’t exist. You made her up in your head. Do you understand?”

Too terrified to speak, Melissa managed to nod.

“You’re thirteen years old now, Melissa,” Phyllis went on, her grip never loosening. “You’re far too old to be making up people who don’t exist. And you’re old enough to start taking responsibility for the things you’ve done. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Once more Melissa forced a small nod.

“Now, why did you walk in your sleep last night?”

Once again Melissa’s head swam. She wanted to tell her mother the truth, that D’Arcy had come to help her last night, that D’Arcy must have taken her up in the attic to work on the dress and that she’d simply fallen asleep there. But she didn’t really remember it at all. All she remembered was D’Arcy coming to help her. After that, everything was a blank until Cora had awakened her this morning.
But now, at least, she knew what her mother wanted her to say. “I—I was upset about what happened at the party yesterday. And when I get upset, I walk in my sleep.”

Her mother’s hands relaxed, and the sharp pain in Melissa’s shoulders eased off to a gnawing ache.

“And why were you upset about the party?” Phyllis pressed.

Melissa closed her eyes tight and summoned up the proper answer. “Because I was rude to everyone. It was a very nice party, and I ruined it for everyone. It was my fault, Mama.”