The rest of the trunk held other toys. Lots and lots of horses, for one thing. Horses of all shapes and sizes, made of everything from plaster to tarnished silver.
And then there were dolls. Boy and girl and baby dolls, and a great deal of doll clothing of various sizes. In a separate box there were a number of little dolls that had obviously been the occupants of the beautiful dollhouse-an entire family including children and servants. Tiny dolls, with jointed arms and legs, elegantly dressed in old-fashioned clothing-the women in long dresses, the little boy in short pants, and the girl in a ruffled pinafore.
Beneath the layer of dolls there were sets of doll dishes, and at the bottom, under several large envelopes full of elaborate old-fashioned paper dolls, there was a half-finished sampler still stretched on a wooden embroidery frame.
The top half of the sampler consisted of a picture of a house, a tree, and a girl in a sunbonnet. Below the picture was an alphabet and around the outer edge there was a border of vines and flowers. The house and the tree were finished in tiny cross-st.i.tch in many bright colors and each of the letters of the alphabet was done in a different shade. There were reds, blues, greens, yellows, and men a half-finished lavender letter K. The embroidered work ended there.
Just below the K a needle was still pinned into the cloth-a needle still threaded with lavender embroidery cotton. The colors of the embroidery thread were still bright and clear but the inked pattern on the unfinished part of the sampler had faded almost away. The printed letters from L to Z were barely legible.
"Look." Grub was pointing to some very faint lettering at the bottom of the sampler. "It says something else after the alphabet. Something that starts with an M."
"Yes, it"s an M," Neely said. "And maybe an A next, but the rest of it is all faded. But on the other side it"s clearer. See, it looks like it was supposed to say Age 10."
Grub picked up me sampler and stared at it for a long time. "That was when she disappeared," he said, "when she was ten. While she was working on the K." He looked around the room. "And then they took all her things and put them in this trunk. Because the others were afraid to touch her things ever again."
"Or because there weren"t any other girls in the family," Neely said. "They probably just stored away all the girl toys because there weren"t any other girls in the family to play with them."
"Umm." Grub nodded, but then he pointed to the horses and said, "How about those? Boys could play with horses." He nodded some more before he said, "I think they were afraid."
But when Neely asked him what they were afraid of he only shook his head. "I don"t know," he said. "Don"t you know, Neely?"
She didn"t know, of course, and she really didn"t believe it. Right at that moment it made her a little nervous even to think about why people might have been afraid to touch the toys in the old chest.
For several minutes after Grub went away to play with the toy train she sat on the floor in front of the giant chest trying not to think about why all the girl-type toys were locked away. It wasn"t until she picked up the first piece of furniture-a beautiful lady"s dressing table-carried it to the dollhouse, and found just the right spot for it in one of the bedrooms, that she began to forget about being nervous.
Chapter 18.
IT WAS QUITE LATE WHEN NEELY AND GRUB GOT HOME that day. They were still washing their faces in the laundry tub on the back porch when the kitchen door opened and Mom came out. She was clutching a wooden spoon and smelled of marmalade.
"There you are," she said. "Where have you been? I was beginning to worry."
"But we told you we were going to the grove," Neely said. "We always stay a while when we go there."
"A while yes, but this was"-Mom looked at her watch-" more like four hours. And look at yourselves. You"re filthy. What on earth were you doing?"
Grub tried to brush off his T-shirt. "Not filthy," he said. "Just dusty."
"Dusty?" Mom asked. "What were you doing that was so dusty?"
Neely bit her lip, but she needn"t have worried. Grub only said, "We were just playing. It was a very dusty game."
"It must have been," Mom said. "Just look at your clothes. You weren"t digging in the grove, were you? You know that"s private land and you actually haven"t any right to be there at all. And you certainly haven"t the right to-" She stopped, sniffed, and said, "Oh, dear, my marmalade."
While Mom rushed back to the stove to rescue the marmalade, Neely and Grub managed to escape to their rooms. By the time they emerged, cleaned and changed, Mom was too busy sealing the jars of marmalade with hot paraffin to worry about a little dust.
During the next few days Neely thought a lot about the nursery and the girl whose name had apparently started with an M. Thought-and dreamed. Sitting on the front steps, or in the window seat, or curled up on her bed, Neely became "M." Instead of Beth March or Joan of Arc or the little mermaid, or any of her other recent favorites, she became the pretty girl in the portrait at Halcyon House. A rich girl who lived in fabulous yachts and palaces all over the world, visited all kinds of exciting places like the pyramids and the Tower of London, and then came back every summer to stay at Halcyon. Came back to sleep in the room with the sleigh-shaped bed-and play in the nursery with the beautiful dollhouse and the other fantastic old toys.
And probably, since it certainly seemed that she had loved horses, to keep her own horse in the Halcyon House stable. A snow-white Arabian mare, Neely decided. And to ride alone up into the mountains or down to the coast where she would race the waves along the beach. That was the scene Neely came back to most often-galloping through the ocean foam with her long blond hair mingling with the flowing white mane of her own Arabian mare.
Usually she ended the story there, but sometimes it went on to the tragic ending. On to the unfinished sampler and to what happened after the lavender K. To why the work on the sampler had ended and it was stored away, along with all her other toys, in the trunk with the domed lid.
In Neely"s imaginings the tragic ending of the story was never quite the same. Sometimes, as she had told Grub, it was a sudden disappearance, but other times it was a terrible disease. A mysterious disease like the ones people died from in old books, like consumption, or wasting, or simply from a broken heart. Before and after and in between the daydreams Neely also spent quite a lot of time trying to remember exactly what it was she had heard Greta say about the Hutchinson girl who died young-but it had been a long time ago and the memory was blurry.
The more she thought about it the less sure she became just how much she"d really overheard. She wasn"t sure, for instance, how much of what she"d told Grub, there on the bench in the rose garden, had been what Greta actually said, and how much had just been one of the "new parts" that Grub liked to have added to stories.
But Grub seemed to believe it was true. At least he seemed to be quite certain that something very strange and mysterious had happened to the little girl who died at Halcyon. And that explained why he thought there was some weird reason that those particular toys were locked away in the dome-topped trunk.
Neely wished she knew exactly what Grub believed, but of course she wouldn"t ask him. To ask Grub if he really believed something would be to break the rule. The rule that, in the past for instance, had kept Grub from asking her if she"d really seen a unicorn in Halcyon Grove, and had kept her from asking him if he"d really seen a pirate ship anch.o.r.ed off Point Lobos. To start asking that kind of question would be to ruin everything.
Chapter 19.
OF COURSE, THERE WAS ONE WAY NEELY COULD FIND OUT some of what she needed to know. She could ask Greta Peale herself. However, that wouldn"t be particularly easy. For one thing, it couldn"t be done on the telephone because Greta was too deaf. That left going to see her, which presented a different problem: Neely needed to talk to Greta without Grub being there, and Grub loved visiting old Miss Peale. But then Mom mentioned that Grub had a dentist appointment on Wednesday afternoon and Neely"s plan began to take shape.
As soon as Mom and Grub left for the dentist"s, Neely started in on Dad about how Miss Peale was overdue for a Bradford family visit and some vegetables from Mom"s garden. The Peales, like the Bradfords, had been old pioneer families, and the Peale property was only about two miles down the coast. Miss Peale, who was almost ninety years old, had lived there all her life and had known Dad since he was born. According to Dad Greta Peale had once been one of the pioneer women of the Big Sur coast-one of the wild, strong, beautiful women that the poets and storytellers had written about. But now she was old and frail and walked with a cane. When Dad said he was too busy with the motel"s payroll book to go visiting, Neely reminded him of something he"d told her himself.
"Remember how Greta used to bring you and Mom vegetables and fruit when you first moved back here from Berkeley and you had Aaron and Julie and Lucie and not much money and Mom was pregnant with me?"
Dad smiled. "I certainly do," he said, "but I doubt if you do."
"Of course I don"t actually remember it," Neely said. "But I"ve heard about it lots of times. And now she"s old and lonely and too crippled to grow her own garden anymore."
"I give up," Dad said. "Go pick some tomatoes and lots of zucchinis. Greta loves zucchinis."
When Dad and Neely drove up in front of the old Peale farmhouse in Dad"s pickup truck Greta was sitting on her front porch. She was wearing a bright colored shawl over a flowing black dress and her heavy white hair was wrapped around her head in a thick braid. Her weathered face was wrinkled into deep cracks and crevices and burned by the sun to almost the same color as the craggy cliffs of her beloved coast, but her eyes were still as wild and blue as the Pacific Ocean.
"Beautiful zucchinis," she said as she led the way into the house. "Picked at just the right time. Most people let them grow too big."
"I picked them," Neely said. "I remembered you like little ones."
"Did you?" Greta stopped, and putting one hand under Neely"s chin, she turned her toward the light. She studied Neely"s face for a long time before she said, "Strength. A good strong face. Not a Bradford face"-she looked at Dad and smiled teasingly- "with all that unprotected pain and joy, but a lovely face full of confidence and grace."
Then she let go of Neely"s chin and gestured toward the living room. "Now you two just go right on in and sit down. I"ll be with you as soon as I put these gorgeous things away."
Neely and Dad grinned at each other and Dad said, "Right. Come on, Miss Confidence and Grace. And Determination too. The third name is Determination." Then he patted Neely"s shoulder and led the way into the cluttered living room where he sat down on the saggy old couch while Neely wandered around looking at ancient keepsakes and dim photographs of old pioneer families. When Greta came in with wine and cider and cookies, the talk began.
As usual at Greta"s, most of the talk was about the old times before the highway went in when the Big Sur coast was wild and free. Dad didn"t really remember those days but he"d grown up hearing about them, and since his parents had been real coast pioneers Greta considered him one too. They talked about old Doc Roberts, and the Pfeiffers, the Sharpes and Douds, and the Posts, and of course about the famous poet, Robinson Jeffers. Neely sat and listened for a long time before she brought up the subject of the Hutchinsons.
Greta shrugged. "Summer people," she said. "Rich summer people." Her tone of voice said they weren"t really worth mentioning, but fortunately she did go on talking. "I remember hearing my father say that old Harold the first, the one who built Halcyon, got his money in some pretty shady ways. And there were rumors of worse than that. Blackmail, and maybe even murder. One of his compet.i.tors died under pretty suspicious circ.u.mstances. But then in his old age he supposedly saw the error of his ways and tried to repent. My father used to say old Harold came here and built Halcyon hoping that the peace and beauty of the Carmel coast would help him escape his evil past."
Greta stopped to pour herself another gla.s.s of wine. When she"d finished pouring Neely prompted, "Did he find any peace and beauty at Halcyon?"
Greta chuckled grimly. "The beauty is here for anyone with eyes to see it," she said, "but from all accounts any sort of peace and tranquility pretty much escaped poor old Harold. Got what he deserved, I"m afraid. Over the years there were all kinds of accidents and sickness, along with things like alcoholism and insanity. Not to mention a lot of pretty bitter family feuds."
"They were star-crossed," Neely said. "I heard you telling Mom that the Hutchinsons were star-crossed." And then, hurriedly, while Greta was still in a reminiscing mood, "And wasn"t there a little girl who died when she was only ten? I heard you telling Mom about that once. Did you know her, that little girl who died?"
"Not really," Greta said. "The Hutchinsons didn"t mix much with real coast people. But I was asked to a party once. A birthday party for Monica when she was eight years old and I was just a year or so older. There never were many girls in the Hutchinson family and I suppose they thought she needed at least one little girl guest for that particular event and I happened to be the handiest one." She paused, staring with blank, unfocused eyes, as if into a faraway distance. "Only time I ever saw Monica," she said, "or that fantastic house. Never will forget that fantastic house."
"Monica." Remembering the M on the sampler, Neely tried to keep from sounding too excited. "Was that her name?"
"Umm." Greta nodded thoughtfully. "Pretty little thing she was. Pity about her dying so young."
"What did she die of?" Neely asked.
Greta frowned and scratched her chin. After a while she said, "Pneumonia, I think. I think that"s what the paper said it was."
Neely felt disappointed. She hadn"t really believed the mysterious disappearance thing, but somehow she"d been expecting something at least a little strange and eerie. Or frightening. Something that might have frightened people-like Grub had said.
But then Greta went on. "There were rumors though."
"What kind of rumors?" Neely asked quickly.
"Oh, don"t know if I can say for sure. It was so long ago. Something about how they didn"t call Doc Roberts or anybody from around Monterey. Just called in some relative, and some folks said he wasn"t even a proper doctor."
Greta Peale stopped to think, settling her gla.s.ses more firmly on her nose and pushing back a wisp of white hair. Then she nodded again and said, "Something strange about the whole thing. Caused a bit of gossip as I recall."
"Gossip?" Neely prompted eagerly.
Too eagerly maybe, because Greta looked at her with a questioning smile. "What an inquisitive child you are," she said, and then turning to Dad, "It"s her coast blood, no doubt. We always were a nosy bunch out here, weren"t we? Guess it"s because there wouldn"t have been much else to talk about way out here at the edge of the earth, if we hadn"t gossiped about each other."
Dad laughed, but then he got up and said he had to get back to his books. "Come along, Neely," he said, "before you wear Greta out with your questions."
Neely followed reluctantly. Reluctant, but thrilled too. She couldn"t wait to get home and tell Grub that the unfinished sampler, and everything in the old trunk, had belonged to a little girl named Monica.
Chapter 20.
OF COURSE THEY WENT BACK TO HALCYON HOUSE AFTER they"d discovered the nursery, the temptation was just too great. Even imagining being caught by Reuben and being dragged off to the police station wasn"t enough to make Neely renew her promise never to do it again-not promise and actually mean it anyway. And as Grub said, "After all that work we can"t just let it get dusty again. Can we, Neely?"
"I guess we can"t," Neely told him. "It just wouldn"t be right."
So they kept on going to Halcyon House. For the next two weeks they managed to visit the nursery on Monday mornings and Sat.u.r.day afternoons, but only for a couple of hours so Mom wouldn"t get suspicious. But in July everything changed. The change was because Sam and Betty Martin went to Ma.s.sachusetts to be with Betty"s mother who was very sick, so Mom and Dad had to take over as full-time managers at the motel.
For a while it looked like it was going to be every day at the motel for Grub and Neely too. And it might have been except that Neely did some fancy talking and persuaded Mom that she and Grub were old enough to stay home alone, at least now and then. "Not every day," she argued. "Just now and then. So Grub won"t get so bored sitting around in that old motel office."
"Well, Grub doesn"t have to sit in the office all day," Mom said. "Most boys his age would love to have a chance to spend some time in town. He could get out and see people like you do."
Sure he could, Neely thought, but he won"t. Just because Mom thought that Grub ought to act more like other kids his age didn"t mean that he would-or could. And his mom ought to know it. But Neely didn"t say that. Instead she just kept on arguing that every day was too much time to spend in town, for her as well as for Grub. So Mom finally agreed to the two of them staying home alone "now and then." And of course the "now and then" turned out to be on Mondays and Sat.u.r.days.
So July was theirs. On the other days of the week they went into Carmel with Mom and Dad, but every Monday and Sat.u.r.day they went to the grove early, taking along bag lunches. They hid in the fern patch until they saw Reuben go by and then ran all the way to the house, with Lion running joyfully beside them-to then sit and watch mournfully as they climbed to the veranda roof and disappeared from view. Once inside the house they hurried to the library for the key and then went directly to the nursery, to spend most of the day.
Monica spent most of her time with the dollhouse. Neely, of course, actually, but an early development in her game was that she became Monica as soon as she reached the nursery. She didn"t know why exactly, except that she"d always pretended to be other people, usually people from her favorite books or movies. But there was more to being Monica than that. A part of it was that she simply felt more at ease that way. At ease, maybe, because while it seemed perfectly all right for ten-year-old Monica to play with a dollhouse, a sixth-grade middle school student was, perhaps, a little too old.
But there was another, much more important reason, and that was because she felt less guilty that way. Less guilty because Monica had a right to the magnificent dollhouse while Neely had none at all.
So it was as Monica that Neely arranged the beautiful pieces of furniture in the many rooms, and put away all the miniature dishes and pots and pans in their proper places. And as Monica she moved the doll family from room to room-sometimes scattering them through the house to sleep, play, or work in the various rooms. The nursemaid and the children in the nursery; the cook in the kitchen; the elegantly dressed adults in the luxurious living room, seated in front of the fireplace with its realistic-looking plaster fire.
While Neely thought up sophisticated conversations for the parent dolls, and invented interestingly tragic life histories for the sad-looking little nursemaid and the plump, red-cheeked cook, Grub played his own games. Once in a while he would come over to ask what was happening in the dollhouse, but most of the time he played by himself-with the farmyard animals, or the miniature circus, or the toy soldiers. And once in a while Neely checked to see what he was doing.
Usually when she peeked over the roof or through the windows of the dollhouse Grub would be sitting in the midst of a careful arrangement of animals or soldiers, moving them from place to place-and talking. Always talking softly, making the animals or soldiers talk to one another, or at least that was what Neely thought at first-until she noticed something strange.
The strange thing was that when Grub talked he usually wasn"t looking down at the toy he was holding in his hand. Instead he seemed to be talking to someone or something that was sitting directly in front of him. Holding up a cow as if to show it to someone, or a cannon to demonstrate how it could be aimed up or down. It wasn"t until she"d watched him do it several times that she decided to ask him about it.
Getting up from behind the dollhouse, she went over to where Grub was sitting cross-legged in front of the three wooden rings full of circus animals-a lion and tiger arrangement in one ring, a horse act with monkey riders in another, and a couple of clowns in the third.
"Hi," Grub said, looking up at Neely with one of his quick, shiny smiles. "We"re playing circus."
Neely felt her heart give an extra beat. "So I see," she said, and then after taking a quick breath, "We? What do you mean by we? You and who else?"
Grub looked surprised and then a little embarra.s.sed. His eyes slid in the opposite direction and then came back. Then he looked down at the tiger in his hand. Turning it from side to side he almost whispered, "Monica. I was playing with Monica."
Neely found herself looking again-more carefully this time-at the place on the other side of the circus rings, directly across from where Grub was sitting, but of course there was nothing there. When she looked back at Grub he was still wide-eyed and smiling.
Neely swallowed hard. Gulping down the question that wanted to come out, she asked only, "Monica?"
"Umm." Grub nodded and started making the tiger jump back and forth through a hoop.
Neely went back to the dollhouse then, but she found it hard to get back into what she"d been doing. Instead she kept watching Grub-and particularly watching the empty s.p.a.ce on the other side of the circus game. But no matter how hard she stared, or how quickly she turned to look at it again, the s.p.a.ce went on being empty. And Grub went on nodding and smiling and talking to something-or someone-she couldn"t see.
Once when Grub seemed to be having a particularly lively conversation she got to her feet and crossed the room to the far corner and the Monica trunk. Quietly lifting the lid and the tray she pawed through the doll clothes and dishes until she found it-the unfinished sampler. Then with the sampler between her hands she closed her eyes and thought first about the faded words at the bottom of the sampler picture-Monica, Age 10.-and then about the girl in the portrait over the library mantel. Then, as vividly as she could, she pictured the same little girl sitting on the floor next to Grub"s circus game.
She waited until she could see Monica as plain as day. A pretty little girl, sitting there cross-legged, her curly blond head bent forward to see what Grub was doing. And then Neely opened her eyes. She opened them quickly and-for just a flicker of a second, while her eyes were still half opened-Monica was there. She was there-and then she was gone.
Neely put the sampler back in the trunk and hurried over to where Grub was sitting. "Come on, Grub," she said. "Let"s go home. We have to go home right now."
Grub didn"t argue.