Now he was over the fence and down the ramp. As he put the key in the lock he looked at his watch; twenty minutes till Mr. O’Malley’s rounds. Just time to face the lady down! Simon sped along the corridor and pulled up breathless before Dorothea’s portrait. Scared to think she might actually reappear, but knowing he’d be furious if she didn’t, he said aloud, “Dorothea! You owe me!”
The canvas quivered and dissolved, and she stepped out with her jewels flashing. Simon gulped, but hung onto his cool. Dorothea said, “What a vulgar expression. I owe you nothing.”
“Oh, no?” He imitated her voice. “ ‘I once had a stableboy who was a Negro and he was also a thief.’ Well, he was also my uncle and he was no thief. He was just a poor little kid taking some garbage home to his family and you believed a creepy waiter who accused him of stealing. And don’t tell me you don’t remember it!”
“I remember it vividly.” Her face had changed slightly. “The boy’s name was Willie.”
“Well, Willie’s an old man now and he’s never gotten over the rotten injustice of it.” Simon knew his voice was shaking. “It screwed up his family too, and that’s what I mean when I say you owe me and him.”
He paused for breath and heard, to his dismay, a step on the stairs and saw the beam of an approaching flashlight. Simon dived behind the window draperies. He stuck his head out and whispered to Dorothea’s shimmering form, “Scram, will you? That’s the least you can do for me!”
But she remained there, motionless and bright. This is the end of me, Simon thought. No, he had one chance. He pulled his T-shirt up to his shoulders; if he covered his face with it and made a run for the hall... He peered through a tiny gap in the curtains. Mr. O’Malley stood in the door.
Dorothea said, “Be careful not to drag on those draperies. They’re very old.”
Mr. O’Malley beamed his light around the room and went off down the hall. Simon emerged, pulling his shirt down and staring at Dorothea.
“I’m the only one who can see you or hear you?”
“Certainly. You are the miscreant.”
“What’s a miscreant?”
“Someone who has done something wrong.”
Simon said slowly, “Suppose someone has made a little kid’s life miserable. Would that someone be a miscreant?”
Dorothea’s light flared, then dimmed, flared, then dimmed, as if controlled by disturbed vibes. She said icily, “Will you have the common courtesy to listen to my side of the story?”
“Okay, okay. Don’t blow a fuse.” He walked to one of the big carved chairs that stood against the wall, sat down, and leaned back. “Sure. Let’s hear your version, Dorothea.”
“I suppose you realize,” she floated to a chair against the opposite wall, “that it’s very impudent of you to continue to call me Dorothea.”
“Impudent?” Simon grinned. “Now, there’s a word I do know. Uncle Willie used to say to me, ‘You too impudent. You just quit being so fresh and impudent.’ ”
“A pity you didn’t take his advice.”
From across the room she looked like a blurry rainbow, the dark wood of the chair showing through her. Simon decided this was either happening or not happening, but in either case, he had to keep that cool. Dorothea said, “Willie must be your great uncle.”
“My mom’s uncle.”
“Are your parents living?”
“I wouldn’t know about my dad, he split a long time ago. I live with Mom. She teaches school in Sarasota.”
“Where does Willie live?”
“With us till a year ago, then he got real sick and now he’s in a nursing home in — hey!” Simon sat up straight. “What’s with all the questions? I thought you were supposed to tell me—”
“Be quiet.”
Dorothea drifted up from the chair and began to move about the room. Something told Simon not to say anything. He watched as she clasped and unclasped her hands and twisted her glittering rings. Then she stationed herself before the Van Zeller Nativity, her back to him.
“It was a beautiful, warm night just before Christmas in the year 1925. My husband and I had given a dinner party, then attended a concert. We returned home about eleven o’clock. The servants were still cleaning up. It had been a large party with tables in the garden and there were several hired waiters in addition to our own staff.”
Dorothea turned and drifted back to the chair, hovering there. “We got out of the car and my husband stayed to speak to the chauffeur. I started up the steps to the front door. At that time the entrance to the château was on the east side—”
“—where steps of Italian marble led to the graceful doorway with a fan light.”
Simon hardly realized he was speaking; he’d uttered the words so often that he went on automatically. “But when the château became a museum in 1925 the entrance was changed to the west side of the building to accommodate a parking lot.”
Dorothea said, after a pause, “I always regretted that change. Those steps had such a lovely view of the gulf. I remember standing there that night listening to the waves.”
Was he crazy? Simon had the feeling of standing there beside her. He shook himself mentally and said, “Go on.”
“I was just about to enter the house when I heard voices coming from the kitchen garden that bordered the stable. One voice was loud and angry, the other young and frightened. I thought I recognized Willie’s as the frightened one.”
Simon couldn’t help saying, “How come you recognized the stableboy’s voice? You couldn’t have talked to him that much.”
“On the contrary, I talked to him quite often. Willie was a favorite of mine.”
That shuts me up, thought Simon. But he wasn’t making any judgments about Dorothea till he’d heard her story.
“Willie,” her eyes traveled across the paintings over his head, “was very bright. Only a week before the night I’m speaking of, he had his tenth birthday. He told me that his whole family, and I gather it was a large one, had scraped together two dollars and bought him a set of drawing pencils. He loved to draw, but of course, you know that.”
Simon blinked his eyes to keep back sudden tears. He said as calmly as he could, “So you heard voices in the garden. What did you do?”
“I went back down the steps and along the walk. There was a full moon and I could see Willie and one of the hired waiters. They were scuffling and Willie was crying. As I came near them the man said something quickly to Willie, I don’t know what.”
“I do.” Simon sat forward. “He said, ‘I’ll cut your tongue out if you tell.’ ”
Dorothea looked at him in silence, then she said, “Naturally, I had no way of knowing that.” She moved, rather uncertainly, he thought, and went on, “I said, ‘Willie, what’s the matter? Don’t be afraid to tell me,’ but he just kept crying. The waiter said, ‘He stole that valuable napkin ring of yours, ma’am, the one with the blue stones, and I’m trying to get it back for you.’ I put my hand on the child’s shoulder — I remember how it trembled — and said, ‘Willie, if you’ve taken something that does not belong to you, all you have to do is give it back and we’ll forget it, otherwise you’ll have to be dismissed.’ He suddenly tore himself loose and ran toward the gate. The waiter took off after him, but Willie was like a frightened rabbit and disappeared in the darkness. I felt very bad.”
Simon waited. There had to be more. Then he said, “So?”
“So?” Her voice was at its haughtiest.
“So what did you do next?” He was getting impatient.
“There was nothing to do. The napkin ring was not recovered and Willie never came back.”
“Of course he didn’t.” Simon was on his feet. “He was scared to death! Why didn’t you send for him and give him a chance to—”