The Velvet Room (12 page)

The diary ended there. The rest of the pages in the little book were blank. Robin sat staring at the crumpled blurry page for a long time. Then she climbed the ladder, replaced the diary on the top shelf, and ran from the room.

Even though she ran all the way, she was a little bit late getting back to the Village. She had promised to be back by eleven, because the family was going on a shopping trip to Santa Luisa. The Model T was finally repaired, and Dad had gotten the afternoon off. It would be the family’s first trip into town since they had come to Las Palmeras. Until now, Dad had been borrowing rides when he had to go in for groceries.

When Robin reached home, Theda was already waiting in the car. Theda loved to go shopping, even when there wasn’t much money to spend. She could window-shop happily by the hour, or use up half a day deciding how to spend a quarter. When Theda saw Robin, she said, “Well, so you finally made it after all. I don’t see why you like to spend so much time at that old lady’s house. What do you do over there anyway?”

The rest of the family was straggling out of the cabin. Robin ignored Theda’s question. “I’ve got to get my shoes.” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She didn’t want to get into a conversation. There was too much to think about.

All the way into town, while Cary read the billboards at the top of his lungs and Shirley cried because she’d left her doll at home, Robin’s mind was full of the faded flowery phrases of the diary. What happened then? she kept wondering. What happened to Bonita after her grandfather died?

E
VEN BEFORE ROBIN FOUND THE DIARY
, she was intrigued by the story Gwen told her about the girl who had disappeared so mysteriously. But afterward it was more than that. It was almost as if Bonita were someone she knew very well and was very close to.

Almost every day when she got to the Velvet Room, Robin took down the diary and read parts of it over again. She spent many minutes peering into the glass case at the tiny portrait. She was sure now that it must be Bonita. In her imagination, she lived the events in the diary as Bonita must have lived them and pictured how all the people looked: María, Aunt Lily, Uncle Francisco, the adventuresome Mary, and the baby Donie, who must have grown up to be Gwen’s father, Donovan McCurdy the Second.

At first Robin wondered about Bonita’s disappearance, but after a while she didn’t any more. It just didn’t seem possible that anything had happened to her at all. Without thinking about it very much, Robin developed a rather vague theory that Bonita must have left for reasons of her own — probably an elopement with a nobleman from another country; or perhaps she ran away to become an actress and, under a fictitious name, had become rich and famous.

On Thursday of the last week before pitting season Robin went to Bridget’s as usual and staked Betty out before going on to Palmeras House. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and warm, but with a cool fresh breeze. In the Velvet Room she did the usual things. She dusted the furniture, looked through a few books, and then just strolled around, thinking and imagining. She drifted into the alcove, knelt on the cushions, and looked out.

The shiny leaves of the orange trees moved and glittered in the sun. It took a strong breeze to move the stiff compact trees that much, but not a rattle or a creak or even a sigh of wind could be heard inside the stone walls of the tower. It occurred to Robin that it would be nice to be there during a real storm, when there was wind and rain and thunder and lightning; how nice to watch the crazy violence of a storm calmly, as if from another world — a safe strong world beyond the reach of wind and rain and everything.

A little later, Robin started home. She went downstairs the usual way and was just closing the double doors that led into the adobe wing when suddenly she heard something. It came from no particular direction, and yet from everywhere — a faint, faraway wailing, like a distant voice singing a sad song. At times it died away, only to return a moment later.

It must have been close to a minute that Robin stood there as if paralyzed. Her tongue felt dry and heavy, and the skin on the back of her neck prickled. But time went by and nothing happened. The wailing voice rose and fell, but it seemed to get no closer and no farther away. Her fingers were stiff when she finally loosened them from the doorknob and forced herself to tiptoe on across the room.

When Robin climbed out of the well a few minutes later, her heartbeat was still echoing in her stomach like the thudding of a bass drum. Her hands were shaking so much she could scarcely fasten the padlock. She needed help.

There were some questions she just had to ask before she went back to Palmeras House. Almost without thinking, she hurried toward Bridget’s cottage, trying to compose herself enough to think of a diplomatic way to bring the subject up. But she didn’t need to say anything. Her face said all that was necessary. As Bridget opened the cottage door, she gasped. “My goodness, child! What happened? You’re as white as a sheet.”

Robin opened her mouth, but to her surprise nothing came out but a little squeak. “Ghost,” it said. “Ghost in Palmeras House.”

Taking Robin’s arm, Bridget led her to a chair. “Sit down,” she said. “Lean forward and put your head down. You look as if you’re going to faint. Now just sit still, and I’ll get you something.”

Robin did as she was told. She had never fainted in her life, and it seemed as if it might be an interesting thing to do; but as soon as she put her head down, she began to feel quite normal. In a moment Bridget was back with a cup of very sweet tea.

“Now sip that slowly,” she said, “and when you have your breath back, tell me all about it.”

After several swallows, Robin was ready to begin. “I heard the ghost,” she said. “
La Fantasma de Las Palmeras.
I was just leaving the house and I heard it. It was like moaning or crying all around me. It scared me about to death.”

Bridget looked distressed. “I should have thought to warn you about that,” she said. “But it doesn’t happen very often, and it didn’t occur to me that you might be there when it did. It’s really nothing dangerous at all. Some years ago the tile roof of the adobe section of the house had to be replaced, and since that time, whenever there is a strong wind from the ocean, it whistles across the openings in the tiles — like blowing across the neck of a bottle. But it has to be a strong wind and from just the right direction, so it happens very seldom, especially in the summer. But if you’ve known about
La Fantasma
all along, you were very brave to go in there all by yourself every day.”

“Well, I’d heard about it,” Robin said. “Gwen told me about the ghost once, and the kids in the Village talk about it a lot. I just never believed in it. I guess I just couldn’t believe anything bad about Palmeras House.”

“
I wonder why Gwen didn’t tell you about the real cause of the sounds,” Bridget said. “I know she knows, because we used to talk about it. What
did
she tell you exactly?”

“
I guess she just left that out to make it a more exciting story,” Robin said. “I mean, a ghost
is
more interesting than some noisy tiles. She just told me that people thought the house was haunted, and all about Bonita, the girl who disappeared a long time ago when Mr. McCurdy was a baby. Do you know about that?”

“Oh yes,” Bridget said. “Anyone who’s been around Las Palmeras very long hears about that.”

A new thought had just occurred to Robin. “I wonder why they thought the wind noise was the ghost of Bonita?” Robin asked. “I mean, other people died at Las Palmeras. Why couldn’t it have been someone else’s ghost?”

“Well, as I understand it,” Bridget said, “it was due to a number of circumstances. After Bonita disappeared, there were all sorts of strange rumors. Even though the police were sure she had drowned, there were people who believed that Bonita’s own aunt and uncle might have had something to do with her disappearance. You see, Bonita’s grandfather had just died, and to everyone’s surprise he had left most of Las Palmeras to Bonita. So there seemed to be a motive.”

“Oh-h-h,” Robin said, “do you think they really might have done something to her —her own aunt and uncle?”

“Oh no. But it made things look rather bad. And then when the roof started wailing, the ghost story spread like wildfire. It didn’t take the McCurdys long to discover what it really was, but in a case like that there are people who aren’t much interested in the truth. I guess the family tried hard to stop the rumors for a while, but no one worries much about them any more. In fact, the present Mr. McCurdy told me that he doesn’t try to tell people that there isn’t a ghost. Since Palmeras House is standing empty, he thinks it’s just as well if some people are afraid of it. Otherwise there might be prowlers.”

“Gwen said an old Mexican woman helped to spread the rumors,” Robin said. “I bet I know who it was. I bet it was María. She didn’t like Aunt Lily and Uncle Frank.”

Bridget looked startled. “Who told you…? Where did you hear…?”

“The diary,” Robin interrupted. “Don’t you know about the diary? It’s right there on a shelf in the Vel— the library, with all the other books.”

“Of course,” Bridget said, “of course it is. I just wasn’t thinking that you might have read it.”

“I read it all the time,” Robin said. “Oh — and Bridget — I’ve been wanting to ask someone. Do you know if the little oval-shaped picture in the glass cupboard is Bonita?”

Bridget’s answer came slowly. “Why yes, I believe it is,” she said.

Robin clapped her hands delightedly. “I knew it!” she said. “It just had to be.”

Bridget only said “Oh,” but her eyebrows made it into a question.

It was hard to explain just why she’d been so sure it was Bonita. “It’s just that I think about Bonita a lot. When I’m there, I sort of imagine about her. Sometimes I even pretend I’m Bonita. It’s like a game, I guess. And that’s the way she looks. Just exactly. I don’t think I could imagine her any other way.”

That night Robin sat on the steps of the cabin in the long June twilight, thinking. The rest of the family was in the house, except for Cary, who kept galloping through the yard carrying a broken lath and the lid of a garbage can. Once he stopped in mid-charge and yelled, “Hey, Robin! You’re the damsel in distress; I’m rescuing you.”

“Go away,” Robin said distantly. “I don’t want to be rescued.”

“O.K. for you. Then you’re an ugly old witch, and you’re rotting in my dungeon.” He loosened imaginary reins and pranced away. The next time through the yard he stopped and added, “And you’ve got red eyes and a green nose!”

Robin went back to her thoughts until the screen door banged open and Shirley came out trailing a battered page of a funny paper. She sat down and arranged herself just like Robin, with her bare heels tucked up against the stair riser and her skirt wrapped around her legs. Then she carefully smoothed out her piece of funny paper on the step next to Robin. “Read to me, Robin?” she asked.

Robin sighed and turned her head away. “Not now,” she said. “I’m thinking.” There was a sound behind her, and Robin looked back to see Dad standing in the doorway.

Robin felt uncomfortable. Finally Dad said, “Have you been feeling bad lately, Robin?”

“I feel all right,” Robin said.

He shook his head. “Well, you’ve been acting like a sleepwalker. You know, I’ve never taken this wandering-off problem of yours very seriously, but maybe I should. Looks to me as if you’ve wandered off from this family permanently. Even when you’re right here at home.”

After Dad went back inside, Cary crawled out from under the house. He must have been listening, because he crossed his eyes and staggered around with a vacant expression on his face and his hands out in front like a sleepwalker. “This is you, Robin,” he said. “This is you.”

T
HE NEXT MONDAY MORNING
everyone in the Williams family except Shirley became wage earners. Of course Cary wasn’t legally old enough, but he would stand at Mama’s table and “help.”

Robin awoke at five thirty that morning, when Rudy got up to build the fire in the wood stove. She didn’t go back to sleep, because she knew she’d have to get up soon if she was going to get Betty staked out and still be on time for work. She’d have to eat breakfast early with Mama and Dad and Rudy.

She could tell already that it was going to be a hot day, but right now the air was still fresh and cool, and the blankets of the cot were pleasant. Robin put her feet against Theda’s warm back and snuggled down for a last five minutes. She could hear Mama and Dad getting up in the other room.

In a few minutes Dad came out, carrying his shaving things. He grinned at Robin and said, “Morning, Big Enough.” That meant Dad was feeling pretty good.

While Mama and Dad were over at the wash-house, Robin got up and put water in the coffee pot and put it on the stove. Then she took her clothes into the bedroom to dress. It was different having breakfast with the first shift. Usually Robin ate later with the little kids, but it was a lot more peaceful this way. Rudy and Dad never talked much, and even Mama was pretty quiet this early in the morning.