The Velvet Room (19 page)

“But what happened to Bonita — I mean, what happened to you? Where did you go when you disappeared and everyone thought you were dead?”

“Well, since you read the diary, I’ll begin where it ended. After my grandfather died, the only family I had left were Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco and their baby boy. And when my grandfather’s will was read, I lost them too. At least that’s how it seemed to me. You see, when the will was read, it turned out that Grandfather had left all of Las Palmeras to me. Everyone was surprised — certainly I was. I’d known that Grandpa had thought of Francisco as a city boy with no interest in the land, but it had never occurred to me that he intended to leave the ranch to me. Of course he did leave a large sum of money to Francisco, but not an acre of Las Palmeras.

“I thought at first that it wouldn’t make any difference, that we could all go on living at Las Palmeras as one family. But I soon found out different. Aunt Lily particularly was very unhappy. I suppose when she gave up her lovely home in the city, she pictured herself as the mistress of Las Palmeras, and naturally she was disappointed. And then the feud between Aunt Lily and María, my old nurse, became worse and worse. It made me very unhappy. Aunt Lily said that María was spying on her, and demanded that she be sent away. And María kept hinting to me that Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco were plotting against me — even that they meant to harm me.

“And then one night I had been reading in the library—” Bridget stopped and smiled, “the Velvet Room, that is — by the way, it was always one of my favorite places too — and I fell asleep in the alcove with the curtains drawn. When I awoke, Aunt Lily and Uncle Francisco were in the library having a violent argument. I was afraid to come out for fear they might think I had been listening intentionally. I don’t remember all of what they said, but it concerned the mistake they had made in selling Uncle Francisco’s practice and their home in the city, and in coming to Las Palmeras. Each was accusing the other of being responsible. But then Aunt Lily started talking about me. It seemed she believed, or at least she did for the sake of that particular argument, that I had schemed and plotted to get Grandfather to leave everything to me. Finally Aunt Lily ran from the room, and Uncle Francisco followed her.

“That same night I ran away. If I’d waited one day, I’m sure I would have found a better way to solve the problem. But I was not quite sixteen, and was emotional and impulsive. I worried and cried half the night, until I was in such a state that I wasn’t thinking very clearly at all. Part of the time I was grieving because it seemed to be my fault that Uncle Frank and Aunt Lily were so unhappy, and the rest of the time I was almost ready to believe that María was right when she said they were plotting to do away with me. It sounds pretty silly now, doesn’t it? But in the middle of that lonely night I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I ran away, I didn’t take anything with me except a little money and a few keepsakes, because I was in such a hurry. One thing I did take, though, was the key to the tunnel passage. I guess I thought I might change my mind and want to come back, and would need a way to get into the house.” “Oh,” Robin said. “I wondered about that.”

“Yes, I remember you asked about it. You see, I was not being untruthful when I said that Mr. McCurdy gave it to me. But it was my grandfather, the first Mr. McCurdy.”

There was a sizzling noise from the stove and the smell of burned milk. “Heavens!” Bridget cried. “The milk’s boiling over. I forgot all about it.”

Robin ran to the stove, put the steaming pan in the sink, and hurried back. “Let’s never mind the cocoa right now,” she said. “Why did people think you’d been murdered?”

“Oh, not many did. In fact, the police finally assumed that I had drowned. We’d had a very wet winter that vear, and the river was in flood at the time. It was María who started the rumors. After I ran away, she went around hinting darkly that I’d been murdered. The authorities must have known that she had no reason to think so, but there were people who believed her. I guess it was years and years before some of the people of Santa Luisa were really friendly to my aunt and uncle. And of course you can still hear the ghost story.”

“But Gwen said they looked everywhere for Bon- —I mean, for you. She said the police looked and looked. Why didn’t they ever find you?”

“They probably would have if I hadn’t had help. Do you remember reading in the diary about my friend, Mary Ortega?”

“Yes, the one who was planning an elopement for the foreman’s daughter.”

“Yes,” Bridget smiled. “Mary was always involved in some romantic adventure or other. And if none was handy, she was always able to manufacture one. I’m sure the week she hid me in her house was one of the happiest times of her life. That first night, when I ran away, I rode my little mare straight to the Ortegas’ house. Mary and I had a secret entrance to her room that we had used when we were little girls — up a tree and over the veranda roof to her window. So I was able to get to Mary without anyone’s seeing me. I told her everything, and of course she was sure that María was right and my life was in danger. Mary could make a trip to the dressmaker into a hairbreadth adventure, so you can imagine what she could do with my predicament.

“Anyway, she hid me in a little unused attic bedroom, and we just turned Conchita loose, knowing that she would find her way home. There was a shortcut between the Ortegas’ ranch and ours that I never took in the rainy season because it involved fording a creek. But Conchita was never timid about water, and she must have gone home by way of the ford, because when thev found her outside the corral the next morning her saddle and blanket were still wet. It had been an especially wet winter, and the Santa Luisa River was in flood. A bridge had been partly washed away just a mile below here, a day or two before. So the police developed the theory that I had gone for an early-morning ride, as I often did, and had forgotten about the bridge.

“It was a good theory, only Tomas and María and some of the others knew that Conchita would never have carried me onto a faulty bridge. And even if she had, and we had fallen, they knew I was too experienced a horsewoman to drown while my horse swam to safety. But I suppose that the police never asked Tomas and María for their opinions, so after a little while the authorities announced that Bonita McCurdy had died by drowning and that her body had been carried out to sea.”

“But how did you get out of that attic?” Robin asked.

“Well, for a while it looked as if I just wasn’t going to. I had to stay in that little attic room for almost a week, mostly because Mary was having such a good time sneaking food up to me and taking all sorts of unnecessary, elaborate precautions. I’m sure I would have reconsidered and gone home if it hadn’t been for Mary’s enthusiasm for the whole escapade. But Mary’s aunt had written from San Francisco asking her to come for a visit, and Mary had decided that I should go to San Francisco too and look for a job as a governess.”

“Is that where you went?” Robin asked. She had completely forgotten her own problems and was listening breathlessly. She had never heard such an exciting story in her whole life.

“Yes, indeed. And I’m sure our trip there was the masterpiece of Mary’s lifetime. Someday I’ll try to tell you about it. It’s all a bit jumbled in my mind now, but as I recall it was an absolute maze of disguises, intrigues, and secret meeting places. But be that as it may, I did reach San Francisco, and Mary found me a perfect job with the family of a German professor in Berkeley. The Bauers were just over from Germany and they knew little English and less about American customs, so it didn’t occur to them to investigate my background very carefully.”

“And didn’t Mary ever tell anyone where you were?”

“No, she never told. After a year or two she did write, urging me to come home, but by then I was reluctant. And poor Mary didn’t live to be very old. While I was still at Berkeley she died of typhoid fever. And as far as I know she had never told anyone what she knew about my disappearance.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I lived with Professor Bauer’s family for four years. They were wonderful people. I was supposed to be teaching the children English, but after a while I was really a member of the family. The professor was very like my grandfather in some ways; and the oldest girl, Helga, was almost my age, and we became close friends. I was very happy there. Then when I was nineteen a young artist came to visit the Bauers. His name was Eric Gunther, and he was from Switzerland.”

Bridget was silent for a moment, and her dark eyes were soft and cloudy. She seemed to be drifting away into old happy memories. “Gunther?” Robin prompted eagerly.

“That’s right,” Bridget said smilingly. “Eric and I fell in love and were married, and I went back to Switzerland with him.”

“Didn’t you ever tell him about Bonita McCurdy and Las Palmeras and everything?”

“Not for a long time. You see, Eric was a very independent person, and he never had a great deal of money of his own. Somehow it never was just the right time to tell him that I could claim a large inheritance if I wanted to. We were happy, and it seemed foohsh to risk changing things. I always intended to tell him someday, but I kept putting it off — until just before he died. When he was very sick and we knew he hadn’t long to live, I told him, because he was worried about leaving me with so little money. He made me promise to come back to Las Palmeras. That was about fourteen years ago. So, after he was gone, I came back to Santa Luisa. I had heard that my aunt and uncle had died some time before. I went to see a lawyer, and he told me how to go about proving who I was. But then I heard that Don McCurdy and his new wife were looking for a housekeeper, and I decided to apply, just to look the situation over and to see Donie again. I’d always remembered what a sweet baby he had been.”

“Didn’t they recognize you?” Robin broke in.

“No, thirty-three years is a long time. And of course Mr. McCurdy was just a baby when I left Las Palmeras. No, no one knew who I was. So then I just took the job as housekeeper and told the lawyer that I’d decided not to let anyone know after all. And in a little while Gwen was born and I became her nurse.”

“What made you decide not to tell that you were Bonita?” Robin asked.

Bridget didn’t answer right away. For a time she only sat staring into the fire. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t know, really. In a way you might say that I ran away again. Do you understand what I mean by that?”

It was Robin’s turn to ponder. After a while she said, “I guess I don’t understand, not really. Because you didn’t really run away again, did you?” Bridget shook her head. “Then I guess I don’t understand, unless you mean you just did what was easiest for you at the time. Is that it?”

“That’s it exactly. It was wonderful to be living at Las Palmeras again, but somehow after all those years it was easier not to have so much responsibility. And besides, I liked Don and Catherine, and I didn’t want to risk turning them into another Frank and Lily.”

“Oh,” Robin said suddenly, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about — the tunnel. Why is there a tunnel?”

“Oh yes, the tunnel. I should have explained that to you before. It has quite a history. At the time the adobe portion of the house was. built, way back before my grandfather came to Las Palmeras, there had been unsettled times in Southern California. There had been a bit of fighting among the Spanish Californians over who was to be governor of the state. And while the leaders of the state were busy chasing each other around, there was no one to interfere with the activities of gangs of bandits and renegade Indians. So when the house was built, my great grandfather, Francisco Montoya, had the tunnel made as a way to escape in case the house was ever attacked.”

“Was it ever attacked?”

“No, it never was. In fact, I remember my grandfather saying that when he first came to Las Palmeras the tunnel was being used as a wine cellar. Anyway, as I told you, the key was one of the few things I took away with me when I ran away. Then, after I came back and Don and Catherine built the new house, I used the tunnel to visit the old place now and then when I felt homesick. But in recent years I’ve not been able to manage the ladder.”

They sat silently for a while in front of the fire. Robin was thinking that it was no wonder she had felt so close to Bonita. She really had known her all the time. As she looked at Bridget’s face, with its wide dark eyes and small pointed chin, she could see why the miniature portrait had looked slightly familiar.

It was a wonderful story, more fascinating than any fairy tale. It was the best secret she had ever known, and the most exciting. But then, like sticking a balloon with a pin, Bridget thrust a question into Robin’s excitement, exploding it and leaving in its place only fear and a stubborn deafness.

“Do you understand, Robin, why I thought I must tell you all this?”

Robin’s eyes were on her fingers, which were carefully folded and unfolding a pleat in her skirt. If she said yes, perhaps Bridget wouldn’t say any more. “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

But Bridget didn’t stop. “Do you see what my story has to do with you, and with what you’ve decided to do?” Robin nodded hastily, keeping her eyes down and her mind closed; but she couldn’t help hearing. “When I was Bonita McCurdy I had the Velvet Room, in fact all of Las Palmeras, but it didn’t help me. I had to leave it all behind to find what was really important. Belonging to a place isn’t nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love and need you. I’ve lived a long time, Robin, but I have never been happier than I was the years Eric and I spent wandering all over Europe like gypsies — and we didn’t even have a Model T to call home.”

Robin’s face burned with resentment. Bridget had no right to mention the Model T. It was like mentioning someone’s crossed eyes or crippled legs. But she only shook her head and muttered, “That’s not the same.”

After a moment Bridget said, “You’re quite right, my dear. Of course, it’s not the same. A gypsy life is all very well for adults who choose it, but children want security and permanence, the way Damon, over there, wants his chair to be in the same spot by the fire every night. It was a foolish thing for me to say.” She leaned forward and put her hand on Robin’s. “But people
do
have to count on other people, Robin, no matter how frightening and dangerous that seems at times. If you give up on people, you re giving up on life.”