An Old Friend of the Family

NINE

More often than not, Judy slept with the drapes of her bedroom window drawn open, and so it was tonight. Starlight and moonlight from the high sky above the lake were welcome, and dawn too, on the rare occasions that it roused her. There was no reasonable way that any human being could look in, on the second story. So when she awoke, near midnight, she wondered for a moment if it could be some trick of starlight from the new-cleared sky that made it appear that the old man, yesterday’s brief visitor, was sitting in her dressing-table chair.

“Have I frightened you, Judy?” The voice of the apparition was quite matter-of-fact.

“No, I don’t scare easily.” Actually she was beginning to wonder if she was dreaming. Judy turned to face her visitor more directly as she sat up in her bed. Automatically her hands pulled sheet and blanket up close beneath her chin, and she felt her fingers touch her nightgown’s throat, to make sure that it was buttoned. “But how did you get in?”

“I was invited, yesterday, into this house. And in my case one invitation is enough, you see. It has a permanent effect.”

“I don’t think I do see.” But truly she was not afraid of him. She wondered a little, now, and later was to wonder more, about this lack of fear.

“Of course I have not been invited into your room. Shall I apologize for being here?”

“No, I don’t mind. That is, I suppose you must have some good reason.”

The old man made a little hissing sound not quite a sigh, and shifted in his chair. “I need a little help. I thought of waking Clarissa—but when I remembered your delightful lack of fear yesterday afternoon I came to you instead.”

“A good thing you did. Gran’s had angina. But what was there yesterday afternoon to be afraid of?”

This time the little hiss was almost a chuckle. “People can be very timid. Sometimes they are even afraid of me. Believe it or not.”

“Why?”

“And one might think that these monstrous attacks upon your family would frighten you. Your mother and grandmother are both terrified, and your unhappy father is at the end of his wits, as the saying goes.”

“Oh, it’s not really that I’m so brave. It’s . . .” Judy had to pause. She had never really tried before to put into words the way she dealt with fear. “It’s just that when you’re really scared, the only thing to do is try to go beyond the fear somehow. Accept it, maybe that’s what I mean. And then go on your own way regardless.” Now that she had found words, they did seem right, or almost right, to her. She would not have expected someone else to understand them, though.

But the old man was leaning forward in his chair, nodding. “ `Go on your own way, regardless.’ I think it wonderful that you, at your age, already understand that. It does not, of course, imply a freedom from moral responsibility.”

His voice had a marveling intensity that made Judy feel uncomfortable. She asked: “What is it you need help with?”

“Help? Ah, yes.” The old man leaned back in his chair, and gave his little sigh. “I want some of Kate’s clothing. A complete outfit will be best.”

“What for?”

“Questions will not help me in what I am trying to do. The clothing may.”

Judy considered for a moment, then swung legs swathed in a long, chaste winter nightgown out of bed. She groped with her toes for slippers. “A complete outfit. Underwear too?”

“Everything, please. As if you were helping her get dressed.”

“All right. Wait here.” Belting a robe around her, Judy went out of her room and down the familiar upstairs hall to Kate’s. There she rummaged mechanically in the drawers and closet. What am I doing here? she thought. I’m definitely awake now. Was I dreaming, after all, a minute ago? Will he still be there when I get back?

Trusting her instincts, she finished gathering the clothes before she hurried back to her own room. The old man waited for her, solid as the chair he sat on, dressed as he had been yesterday in a black topcoat over a dark suit. His soft, dark hat was in his lap.

“Here,” said Judy. “I even got a bra, though more often than not Kate doesn’t wear one.”

“Ah,” said the old man. The word was not exactly embarrassed, but perhaps he didn’t know just what to say. He got up from his chair and held open a small, dark bag that Judy had not noticed before. Into it she dropped the clothing bundle. “Now,” he said, tucking the bag under one arm, “since we are co-operating so well, do you suppose it might be possible to obtain the key to the family mausoleum in Lockwood Cemetery?”

“What for?” Again she asked the question automatically. But this time thinking it over only confirmed her right to ask. Hands jammed in the pockets of her robe, she stood waiting for an answer.

The old man seemed to think his answer over carefully before he gave it. “Your father mentioned to me that some of the larger and, ah, less costly pieces of his pottery collection have been relegated to that mausoleum. Should he ever question you about the key, you might mention that you gave it to me so I could look at those items without intruding any more upon his grief. Of course, if he never notices that the key is gone, we need not bother him about the matter at all. Would you concur?”

“You have a neat way of not answering questions.”

“Would you concur?”

“I guess so. Dr. Corday?”

“Yes?”

The question Judy really wanted to ask would not quite come out, even when she tried to tell herself again that she might be dreaming. Instead she said: “I think I know where Father keeps all the keys we don’t use much. On a big key ring in his desk in the study. They’re all tagged, or most of them are. But I’m pretty sure the desk is locked.”

Her visitor smiled at her. He had a nice smile. “In that case we need not worry about it tonight. I shall ask him for the key another time.”

“Dr. Corday?”

“Yes.”

“Is Kate alive?” Now it was out.

For once it seemed he could not find an answer he was happy with. “Would you believe me, child, if I said she was?”

“Don’t call me a child, please. Do you think I am one?”

“No.” He bowed, fairly deeply. “I am sorry. No, I do not think that at all. I would not have wasted half an hour from my duties, sitting here, to watch a child sleep.”

What he had just said was something that Judy did not want to have heard; and anyway she did not want to be distracted. “Give me an answer. Is she?”

He studied her in silence.

Judy pressed on. “I’ve dreamed about her. Last night, and again tonight, before you came. In the dream I see her alive, but locked up somewhere. She keeps calling for Joe, but he can’t hear her. And now you ask me for the mausoleum key, and for her clothes. Why do I trust you? But I do.”

“Yes, that is very good, you must trust me, Judy. And you must make up your mind that you are never going to see your sister alive again.”

“How can I believe that when you won’t swear to me that she’s dead?”

“To others I can lie. I am very good at telling lies. But to you . . . I am prevented.”

“Then she is—”

“Consider her dead, I tell you!” There was a sudden ferocity in the old man’s voice. “And say nothing, nothing, of these feelings and these dreams of yours to anyone but me. It would be very bad for family morale.”

“I—know that.” Suddenly Judy was on the brink of tears.

He stood over her, a strong tower offering safety, of which now she felt very much in need. “Judy, you must go back to sleep. And you must dream again. Since you have the power of dreams that are so—so vivid, it may be that we can use them. Hear me. Dream not of Kate. Leave Kate to me now. Dream of your brother. Dream of John. Dream . . .”

It seemed to Judy that even as the old man’s eyes vanished and his voice ceased, that she was waking up. She was alone in her room, in bed, well tucked beneath her covers, still wearing her robe over her nightgown. Outside the undraped window, the lake-sky showed a dull, gray dawn. Her brother’s cries, silent but terrible, were ringing in her mind.