The Callender Papers Read Online Free Page A

I wasn’t here during those years. He knows what it is like. He knows what it is to have peoplestare at you and talk about you and pretend you aren’t there. There was his wife, first, and then the child—and I never believed what people said about either of them.” At this point she stopped, and looked at me, just a brief glance. She waited before beginning again. “Mr. Thiel asked me to come and keep house here, so I did. Of course I did. Where else could I have gotten work? So now you know what I am.”
    â€œI knew you had been in jail,” I said. “My Aunt Constance told me before. She didn’t think it was important, that you had been—” I couldn’t say the word again.
    â€œThen she must be an unusual woman. Sending you here, too, to him.”
    With her story told, Mrs. Bywall became almost at ease. I could understand how hard it must have been for her to tell that to an unknown girl. She told me what time luncheon would be served and advised me to go about outside, instructing me what I would and would not want to see. “You won’t want to walk down to the village your first day. They’ll know you’re here, of course, they always know everything. I can’t think they’ll be so cruel to a child—although come to think of it, you’re not so much younger than I was when my troubles came. But you won’t want to go there yet.”Between each piece of advice she hesitated, as if to be sure not to give anything away. “And you mustn’t go near Mr. Thiel’s studio. He’d fair frighten you back to Boston if you did that. That’s the small building, beyond the barn, with the great glass windows. A glazier from Albany put those in, but that was when Mr. Thiel’s wife was alive and her father. They spent money, those Callenders. Mr. Callender—” she stopped. I waited. “Mr. Thiel said I wasn’t to talk your ear off,” she said uneasily. “He said you were a silent little creature—and that you certainly are. Can you do this work?”
    I smiled. “I don’t know. My aunt thinks I can, and so apparently does Mr. Thiel.”
    Mrs. Bywall did not answer my smile.
    â€œImagine being so educated and still so young. I did learn how to read in jail, there was that. A spinster woman came to teach us, all Bible and sin, some minister’s daughter I don’t doubt. But I did learn that.”
    There were questions I wanted to ask Mrs. Bywall, which I did not dare to voice. What she said, the words she spoke, were not unfriendly; but her face never showed any expression, as if—she were afraid of what she might say, or of somebody who was listening to everything she said, somebody who had told herwhat to say and what not to say. So I merely thanked her and excused myself from the table.
    I spent the rest of the morning exploring. First I looked briefly at the downstairs rooms. The house seemed old, plain but comfortable. A large library, opposite to the dining room, took up most of the ground floor. Books lined the walls, and the floor had two faded oriental rugs on it. Besides the usual fireplace and chairs for reading, there was a huge desk, a long table and a grand piano.
    Next to the dining room I found a small parlor, never used by the looks of it. Its chairs and table, lamps and windows, were shrouded with sheets. The air smelled musty. By then I wanted only to go outside. The house was too dark, too silent. I felt as though I were an intruder, out of place. I feared to go somewhere I shouldn’t. So I ignored the last closed door and went back down the hall to the open front door.
    Outside, the sky shone blue and the sun shone warm. Trees and mountains surrounded the house, protectively it seemed. I turned back from the driveway to look at the place where I was to live for the next months, if all went well. The main house, with the long kitchen wing, like a capital P laid on