The Velvet Room (23 page)

“Well, that’s good news.” Mr. McCurdy stepped into the cabin and looked around. “Aren’t your folks at home?”

“Dad’s out back. I’ll call him.” Robin pulled a chair away from the table and took a half-packed cardboard box off it. “Won’t you sit down?”

In back of the cabin, Dad and Rudy were only partly visible. Dad’s head was out of sight under the Model T’s hood, and only Rudy’s legs protruded from under the front bumper. Dad pulled his head out at Robin’s call and came up the back stairs, wiping his hands on an oily rag.

“Dad,” Robin said. “Mr. McCurdy is here to see you.”

Mr. McCurdy stood up and held out his hand as Dad came
in. “
Hello, Paul,” he said. “I see I caught you in the midst of something.”

Dad grinned. “Nothing that won’t wait. We’re just trying to stick the old car together so it’ll stay in one piece as far as Fresno. Sit down, Mr. McCurdy. Robin, how about a couple of cups of coffee?”

As Robin poured coffee into the two best mugs, she felt a strange uncertain excitement begin to teeter up her spine. She had a feeling — But just then Mr. McCurdy said, “You run on into the other room, Robin. What I have to say to your dad had better be confidential for the time being.”

So, for an endless time, Robin sat on the bed and wondered, while voices too soft to hear rose and fell in the other room. But at last Dad’s voice called, “Robin!” and she catapulted out the door. One look at Dad’s face told her that whatever Mr. McCurdy had said had been something good — very good.

“Well, Robin,” Dad said, as she groped her way into a chair, “it looks like the Williams family won’t be leaving Las Palmeras tomorrow after all.”

“I’ll be glad to hear what Robin thinks about this arrangement,” Mr. McCurdy said. “After all, if it hadn’t been for her, there’d be quite a different situation for all of us.” He turned to Robin. “You remember hearing about the historical society that has been planning to make Palmeras House into a museum of county history? Well, the members have put off doing anything about it for almost five years now. Of course there has been good reason. All the members are busy people, and money isn’t too plentiful these days. But it occurred to me that this might be a good time to prod them a bit — with the paper full of the close call the old place had last Friday. So I called an emergency board meeting for this morning.” He smiled and pointed to the suit he was wearing. “In fact, I’m on my way home from the meeting right now. And just as I’d hoped, the board decided to get our plans for Palmeras House moving immediately, in a small way at first…”

“Then you’re going to fix it all up again?” Robin asked. “I mean, take the boards off the windows and make the lawn grow and everything?”

“Why yes,” Mr. McCurdy said.

“Oh,” Robin breathed, “that’s wonderful.”

Mr. McCurdy looked at her curiously. “Well, yes,” he said. “But I haven’t even gotten to the part I thought you’d like. On my recommendation,” he went on, “the board offered your father the job of custodian and watchman for the new museum, and he has just accepted.”

Robin jumped to her feet and started to throw her arms around her father’s neck, but she stopped almost in mid-air. “Will it be good for you?” she asked. “I mean, will it be not too much exertion, like the doctor said? Will it be as good as keeping the store for Uncle Joe?”

Dad only nodded, but Mr. McCurdy said, “I think it will be just right for your father. I plan to have some of the orchard men take care of the grounds, so there’ll be very little physical labor. Mostly just dusting and sweeping and keeping an eye on things. And with your father’s background, I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually became a curator and guide.” He grinned at Robin. “There’s a part of the job that I think might be turned over to you, at least on weekends. There’ll be a desk in the entry hall with a registration book for guests, postcards, information — that sort of thing. Think you could help out there?”

“Oh yes,” Robin said. “Oh yes, I’d like that. And I could help with other things too. I could help take care of everything, couldn’t I?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mr. McCurdy said, laughing. “I’d say you had a pretty good start in that department. Well, I’ve got to be on my way, or Catherine will think something has happened to me. I’m glad things worked out this way. Very glad. And wait till I tell Gwen. You’d better come over soon, Robin, and help her celebrate.”

As Robin stood on the front steps waving good-bye to Mr. McCurdy, it was all she could do to keep from bouncing up and down the way Shirley always did when she was happy. When the Buick disappeared through the eucalyptus hedge, she ran back and hugged Dad until she almost choked him. Then she grabbed the box she’d been packing and dumped it out on the bed. “I’m going to start unpacking,” she said. “Won’t Mama be surprised?”

“
Wait just a minute,” Dad said. “Hold on there. We
are
going to be moving — just not very far.”

“Moving? Why? Where?”

“We can’t stay here, because the new man for the mule barns will need this house.”

“But where are we going?” Robin asked.

Dad looked a little worried. “Mr. McCurdy said that in a few years they may be able to convert the old garage out behind Palmeras House into a nice little home. But in the meantime we’re to have the back rooms in the east wing of the old house. You know, they’re set off by themselves on the other side of the dining hall. We’ll have the kitchen, the breakfast room, and four little rooms that used to be servants’ quarters. Mr. McCurdy wants me right there where I can keep my eye on things at night as well as in the daytime.” Dad put his hand on Robin’s shoulder. “I know how much you’ve wanted us to have a home of our own. This won’t be quite the same. But Mama will love that huge kitchen with all those cupboards, and we’ll have lots more space than we do here.”

Robin laughed right out loud. For once Dad didn’t seem to know how she felt about something. “Oh, Dad,” she said. “It’s wonderful. I don’t care if it’s not a house just like everybody else’s. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not really ours, either. What matters is…” She stopped for a moment, trying to decide just what it was that did matter so much. “I guess it’s mostly having the same place long enough to feel that . we belong somewhere. And…well, it ought to be beautiful and look as if it was really meant for people.”

Dad laughed. “And how do you decide if a house was really meant for people?”

“Well, for one thing it ought to look as if it I would last for ages. It takes such a long time for I people to grow up and get old. It seems to me I that houses ought to look strong and solid.”

There was the sound of voices, and Mama, Theda, and Shirley came in the front door. Dad called Rudy out from under the car, and even Cary appeared from somewhere. For a long time cabin three of Palmeras Village was a confusion of questions and answers. And nobody seemed happier than Mama. No one had heard her mention it before, but it was suddenly clear that Mama had hated the thought of living at Uncle Joe’s worse than — well, maybe even worse than Robin.

In the midst of all the excitement Robin slipped out of the door and down the steps. She was almost to the orchard when there was a sound of footsteps right behind her.

“Hi,” Cary said. “Are you wandering off again?”

“No,” Robin said quickly, and then to her surprise she realized it was true. It wasn’t wandering off at all. There was none of the old feeling of things not being real — none of the confusion and need to get away. She just wanted to walk over to Palmeras House to look at it and think about how wonderful it was going to be to live there and help take care of it.

“No,” she said again, “not really. I’m just going over to look around.” She looked down at Cary’s freckled face and bright blue eyes. “Want to come along?”

“Sure,” Cary said.

In a few minutes they had climbed over the stone wall and were walking across the dead lawn. “See right up there?” Robin said. “That’s the tower where I hid when the robbers came. It’s part of a big library room that runs all along where those arched windows are. I’ll show it to you once we get moved in.”

She smiled at Cary, who was gazing upward with round-eyed awe. “I
used to call it the Velvet Room,” she said.