The Velvet Room (6 page)

“Why didn’t he? Did something happen to him?”

“Yes, it did, but nothing bad. You see, the Montoyas had a beautiful young daughter. Her name was Guadalupe María Francesca Montoya, but her family sometimes called her Bonita. And Donovan and Guadalupe fell in love.”

“Did they get married?” Robin asked.

“Indeed they did, and that’s why Donovan never got to Los Angeles. After they had been married a few years, Guadalupe’s parents died and all of Las Palmeras belonged to her and to Donovan. But even though Donovan loved California and Las Palmeras, at times he was homesick for Ireland. So when he decided to build a fine new house, he sent all the way to Ireland for carpenters and stonemasons. He planned his new home to look like a grand house that he had admired when he was a boy in Ireland. But because Guadalupe wanted to keep her old adobe home, it was left standing. So Palmeras House became part Spanish and part Irish, just like the McCurdy family.”

“Did they have a big family?” Robin asked.

“No, only two boys, Terrence and Francisco. Francisco was the present Mr. McCurdy’s father. And Terrence…” Bridget stopped to sip her tea, but when she put the cup down she didn’t go on. She sat quietly, her eyes blank and inward-looking. Finally she smiled and said, “But this little cottage is all Irish. One of the Irish workmen stayed on at Las Palmeras to become the McCurdys’ gardener, and this was his home.”

“But why don’t the McCurdy’s live in Palmeras House any more?” Robin asked. “It’s such a beautiful house. I think it’s much nicer than their other one — the one they’re living in, I mean.”

“That’s another long story, I’m afraid. You see, Mr. McCurdy, the present one, married a young lady whose father happens to be an architect who designs very modern buildings. A few years ago, her father made the plans for a fine modern home, which they built. That was when Palmeras House was boarded up.”

“But why don’t they let someone else live in it if they don’t want to?” Robin asked. “Are they just going to leave it boarded up that way for ever and ever?”

“I believe there are plans to make it into a museum someday,” Bridget said. “When the right time comes. But I quite agree that it’s a shame to let it sit alone and empty for so long.”

“You lived there once, didn’t you?” Robin asked.

For a moment Bridget looked startled. Then she nodded slowly. “How did you know that?” she asked.

“Well, yesterday, on the way home from here, I met Gwen McCurdy and she told me that you used to be her nurse. So if the McCurdys moved out of Palmeras House just a few years ago, you must have lived there when you were Gwens nurse.”

“Oh, I see,” Bridget said. “Yes, I used to live there.”

Robin sighed. “That must have been wonderful. Didn’t you just love living there? I know I would. Didn’t it make you feel…” She stopped suddenly, feeling embarrassed. Bridget was looking at her with a strange expression.

“What is it about Palmeras House that you like so much?” Bridget asked.

Robin looked down at her hands. She didn’t want to talk about it any more. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s so beautiful, and it looks as if it had always been there and always would be…I don’t know…”

Bridget leaned over and patted her hand. “I quite understand.” she said. Her manner indicated that the subject was closed. “And so you met Miss Gwendolyn McCurdy. What did you two think of each other?”

“Oh, she’s very nice,” Robin said. “She took me home on her horse.”

“Really? She must have liked you, then. Let’s see. Gwendolyn is twelve now. You’re not quite that old are you?”

“I’m twelve too. I’m just little for my age,” Robin said. “Does Gwendolyn come here to visit you?”

“She used to come quite often when I first came here to live. But lately — well, she’s quite busy. But Don and Catherine visit me now and then, and Gwen usually comes with them.”

“Look!” Robin shouted. A large gray and white bird had flown through the open window and, just skimming the strawberries, had come to roost on the back of Bridget’s chair. At first Robin thought it was a wild bird that had blundered in by accident, but she quickly realized it was very much at home. The bird leaned forward and peered meaningfully at the cookie in Bridget’s hand. “Awk,” he announced in a demanding voice.

Bridget shook her head. “Daniel!” she scolded. “You’re such a beggar. Oh, pardon me, Robin. I’d forgotten you two hadn’t met. This is Daniel — another member of my family. Daniel is a mockingbird.”

“I know,” Robin said. “That is, I know it’s a mockingbird. But I’ve never been so close to — Oh! Look out!”

Daniel had accepted a large beakful of cookie, and with a flop of his wings glided to the floor —not two feet from where Damon was awakening with a humped-backed stretch. “Look out! Damon will catch him.”

But Bridget did nothing at all. “Watch,” she said. Damon finished a white-fanged yawn and leaped lightly to the floor. Robin gasped. It took a moment to realize that Damon was only interested in Daniel’s cookie. Daniel cocked his head at the cat, picked up his cookie, and hopped away. But a piece had broken off, and Damon pounced. The mockingbird quickly gulped the rescued portion and looked back to where Damon crouched, cat fashion, over his captured morsel. Then, as Robin gasped again, Daniel hopped back, and with righteous indignation pecked Damon firmly on his ear.

“Why doesn’t Damon eat him?” Robin demanded. “I thought all cats ate birds.”

“Not if they’re trained very young,” Bridget said. “I waited to get a kitten until I had a young bird to raise with him. Daniel was an excellent cat trainer. He has always had a very strong character.”

After the tea was over and Robin had helped clear away, she spent a fascinating half hour playing with Damon and Daniel on the cottage floor. Even nocturnal Pythias managed to wake up enough to accept a bite of cookie, which he promptly washed to crumbs in his drinking bowl. It was as good as a circus, but Robin suddenly realized that if she didn’t leave soon there would be no time to visit the big house on the way home.

“I think I’d better go now,” she said, shooing Daniel off her shoulder. Bridget picked up her cane and slowly lifted herself from her rocking chair.

“You’re going home by way of Palmeras House, I imagine?” she said. Robin nodded. “Wait a moment.” Bridget put out her hand as if to stop Robin, but then for a second she stood still, as if she were trying to decide something. Finally she said, “I want to give you something.”

She crossed the room with her tiny slow steps and stopped before a carved wooden chest at the foot of the bed. She called Robin and showed her how to lift the lid and run her hand down the side, past layers of clothing and blankets, until she felt a little box. Robin lifted it out, a small white box that seemed to be made of ivory. She couldn’t see any opening at all, but Bridget did something with her fingers, and a lid flew open. She reached inside and brought something out. It was a large rusty key. When Robin had replaced the box in the trunk, Bridget took her hand, put the key in it, and squeezed her fingers tightly over it.

“I may be doing the wrong thing,” she said, “but I think you should have this.”

“What is it?” Robin asked. “What shall I do with it?”

Bridget shook her head. “That I won’t tell you. Except that you must promise to keep it a secret. If you can’t find what it is for, perhaps it will mean I’ve made a mistake and you weren’t meant to have it.”

W
HEN ROBIN REACHED PALMERAS HOUSE
, the key was squeezed tightly in her hand, and she was so excited that her heart seemed to be bouncing against her ribs. Bridget hadn’t said so, but she was certain — well, almost certain — that the old key would let her into Palmeras House. What else could it possibly be for?

In the patio at the back of the house Robin took a moment to inspect the key more carefully. It was larger than most keys she had seen, and the metal was rough and discolored. The handle end was round and decorated with a pattern of leaves and flowers, now partially worn away. It reminded Robin of the ironwork above the gates that led to the palm-lined drive. Spanish!

That was it! It looked Spanish, so it must belong to the adobe part of the house instead of the Irish part.

So Robin started at the adobe wing and carefully inspected all the doors and windows. But she couldn’t even find a keyhole to try the key in. Boards had been nailed over every door, so that the keyholes were not visible. She was sure that Bridget hadn’t expected her to tear off any board. And even if she were able to, it would surely be against the law, so there just had to be a door somewhere that wasn’t boarded up. She finally gave up on the adobe wing and tried the rest of the house, but with no better luck. Everything was boarded up except for the big front doors of the main entrance, and they were secured with an extra latch and padlock besides their regular built-in lock.

She knew she had to be getting home. She’d already been gone much too long, and if she didn’t return soon she might lose permission to go to Bridget’s at all. So, reluctantly, she gave up and started for home. That is, she gave up for the time being.

When Robin got home, she found some heavy string, tied it to the key, and hung it around her neck, inside her dress. All afternoon, while she helped with the laundry and carried wood from the woodpile, she could feel its rough weight against her skin. The feel of it made her shiver, like a promise of excitement.

On a trip to the woodpile she met Theresa. “Allo, Robin,” she said. “You wanna play when you tru work?”

“O.K.,” Robin said. “What shall we do?”

“You got any paper dolls?”

“No, I used to have some, but they’re lost now.”

“Me neither. Hokay. We play marbles. Julio got lots of marbles.”

Theresa’s brothers were already using the marble holes in her yard, so the girls dug some new ones in the Williamses’ yard. Robin had never played marbles much, but Theresa knew all the rules.

“How come you not know how to play marbles?” Theresa asked. “Don’ your brothers teach you?”

“Rudy’s too big for marbles,” Robin said. “Besides, he never did play much, except building things and making things run. And Cary never plays any games that anyone else made up. He thinks up his own games.”

Theresa was hunched down making spansies in the dust with her brown fingers when suddenly she stopped and looked up at Robin. “Hey!” she said. “I see you comin’ home again — from over there!” She pointed toward Palmer as House and the word “there” was heavy with significance. “What you want to go over there for? Deen’t I told you eet’s a bad place?” She looked around as if to see that no one was listening. Then she whispered, “Deed you see the
bruja?”

“
The
bruja?”
Robin repeated. “What does that mean? What on earth’s a
bruja?”

“
A
bruja!
A
bruja!”
Theresa said, as if by saying it over she could make Robin understand. She stopped and thought a moment. Then her face lighted. “A weetch?” she said questioningly. “Yes, that’s eet. A weetch leeves over there.”

“Oh, a witch,” Robin said, suddenly remembering what Gwendolyn had said about Bridget and the Village children. “You mean the lady who lives in the little stone house?” Theresa nodded emphatically. “That’s silly. She’s not a witch at all. She’s…” Robin was about to tell about Bridget —her kindness, her wonderful pets, the cookies — but suddenly she decided not to. Instead she just asked, “What makes you think she’s a witch?”

Theresa shrugged. “Everybody know eet. And Francisco, my brother, he
see
she’s a weetch. Weeth hees own eyes. Francisco ees very brave, and he go and hide and watch and he see! He see thees beeg cat…”

Robin nodded. “Damon,” she said.

“
Si!”
Theresa cried with surprise, as if Robin had suddenly agreed with her. “That’s what Francisco say too. Francisco say that he see thees beeg cat eating from a deesh and some birds eat weeth heem, in the same deesh — and he deedn’t even try to eat the birds. Francisco say that thees ees not a real cat. He ees
uno demonio,
a demon. Francisco say so too.”

Robin couldn’t help giggling. “That’s not what I meant. He’s not a demon at all.”

Theresa looked indignant. “Eet’s true. And besides, that beeg house ees a bad place too. My grandmother even say so. My grandmother told me a leetle girl got keeled in that house.”

Theresa took Robin’s shocked expression to mean that she was beginning to listen to reason. “Now maybe you stay away from that Palmeras House,” she said. She looked around and lowered her voice. “My grandmother say that a something bad leeves in there. She say eet ees
La Fantasma de Las Palmeras!”

Robin tried to get Theresa to tell her more, but she only shook her head. “Eet’s bad luck to talk about eet,” she said.

But in spite of
La Fantasma de Las Palmeras,
Robin was back at Palmeras House that very evening. With a little talking, she was able to get Dad’s permission to bring Betty in, and that gave her the excuse she needed to get away. She’d also found out from Dad what
La Fantasma de Las Palmeras
meant — The Ghost of The Palms. It certainly had a scary sound to it, but Robin didn’t believe in ghosts; and besides, if Theresa’s ghost wasn’t any more dangerous than her witch, there wasn’t much to worry about.

The sun was almost down when Betty had been returned to her shed and Robin finally reached the brick-paved patio of Palmeras House. There wasn’t going to be much time before it got dark. She would have to hurry, but she really didn’t know where to start. Where could she look besides the places she had already inspected?

There ought to be a way to figure it out. There just had to be a keyhole, and there must be a way to find it. She decided to sit down and try to think it all through carefully.

The boarded-up well was handy, so Robin climbed up on it and sat down. She pulled her knees up to her chin and started thinking. If you started with the key, which was certainly a good solid fact — a cold hard fact on a scratchy string — you had to expect that there was something somewhere that it was meant to open. And if you…Robin’s train of thought went off the track, and she just sat, staring. There in front of her, not two inches from her bare toes, was a large rusty latch. It went over the edge of the well covering, and there was something looping through the hole in it that looked like…Robin leaned forward and looked over the edge — it was! A padlock! She jumped down from the well and inspected the padlock carefully. It was very large, and the pattern of leaves and flowers with which it was engraved was crusted with rust.