Moon Garden. V. J. Banis

ever being told, that his resistance to the idea had helped her decide to have her niece come. If she once thought you were trying to make her do something, she was determined at any cost to do the opposite. And the girl was put in the role of an underdog. The old woman loved a loser.

      It occured to him to wonder if that was why she had taken to him, but he did not like that thought.

      She was watching him. He was expected to go now. In her mind the matter was settled.

      “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll go to my own room.”

      “Dawson,” she said as he was going out the door, “I don’t think Ellen will interfere.”

      When she said it, she could not see what Dawson saw, Ellen approaching down the hall, close enough to hear that remark.

      “Interfere with what?” she asked, from the door.

      Dawson looked perturbed, but Minna, without batting a lash, said, “Why, with Dawson’s book, darling.”

      Dawson fled.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Ellen woke with a start. For just a moment, she did not know where she was. She thought she was still at Lawndale, in that cold, institutional room with its wire-mesh-covered windows. She lay with her eyes closed, trying to recall the dream that had wakened her, listening without any real attention to the murmur of voices in the hall outside. One of the patients must be causing trouble, she thought

      Then she remembered, this was not Lawndale, but Aunt Minna’s home in Savannah. And the voices, she realized, opening her eyes, were not coming from the hall, but from outside.

      She slipped out of bed and went to the window, but the voices had stopped. She listened, and heard a whispering sound, but she could not say for certain whether it was really people whispering, or only the wind in the trees. Perhaps she had not heard voices of all. Perhaps it had only been a remnant of her dream.

      Something flickered through the trees, gleamed briefly, and was gone. It might have been someone walking with a flashlight. Or it might have been a boat on the river.

      Or I might have imagined it, she told herself. She felt restless. She turned and crossed the dark room, to the door.

      She was not imagining that the door was locked, certainly. She tried it timidly, and then with some force. It was plainly locked.

      She stepped back from it, staring at the faint gleam of the brass knob. Even in Lawndale she had not been locked into her room. She had not been considered violent, only....

      But what did Aunt Minna know of these distinctions? Aunt Minna had obviously considered her dangerous, dangerous enough that she must be locked up like a caged animal at night.

      She had gone to bed earlier with a sense of happiness and the feeling of confidence. When she returned to her bed now it was to huddle like a frightened chick, pulling the covers close up under her chin and staring for long time at the molding about the ceiling.

      * * * *

      “You must have been mistaken, dear. You can see for yourself, the door isn’t locked. Aunt Minna moved the door pointedly to and fro.

      “But it was locked,” Ellen insisted, but she added, less firmly, “I thought it was.” More than that, she had been sure that it was. It had not been locked in the morning, however, and Aunt Minna knew nothing about it, and Ellen was sure those dark eyes were not concealing a lie.

      So unless she accepted the idea that one of the servants, or Dawson Elliott, had stolen along the hall in the night to lock her in, and again later to unlock the door, the only conclusion was that she must somehow have been mistaken. And considering what the past year had been like for her, that was not a very pleasant idea to contemplate.

      “What has happened,” Minna said, apparently dismissing the matter as of no consequence, “is that you had a bad dream and you’re having a little difficulty this morning remembering that it was a dream. I assure you, my child, locking people in their rooms is not my style. And even if it were, what possible reason do you think I could have?”

      She looked at her niece and because Helen looked so miserable, she suddenly understood.

      “I assure you,” Minna said with a tenderness quite uncommon to her, “I had put that matter completely out of my thoughts. And now I think it’s time you did the same. Come, dry those tears, and let’s put things in order here, shall we?”

      It was Saturday, and Aunt Minna had decided Ellen’s room must be rearranged, and she must personally supervise the work. Ellen, relieved to know that she hadn’t been locked in like a dangerous animal (although it was a bit frightening to think she was having trouble separating reality from dreams) stood by and watched in awe.

      Minna seemed set on dispelling any gloom by the practice of much busy-ness. Every few minutes she would think of something more that was needed to make the room comfortable.

      She had Mrs. Bondage, and Bertha, and a frail looking elderly gentleman who turned out to be Pomfret, flying up and down the stairs in a whirlwind of activity.

      In the process, Ellen learned that these three made up the servants staff, and that the two women came days, while Pomfret lived in a room in the basement. She learned a good deal too of Minna’s attitudes regarding servants.

      “You must see that they take care of things,” Aunt Minna warned her. “See that they do what you ask them. Servants get some strange ideas these days. Pomfret talked to me once about days off. Can you imagine? Days off! And you must see that they have things to do for you, even if it’s unnecessary. Otherwise they don’t respect you, and then they become impossible.”

      She would interrupt these monologues at frequent intervals to flay the servants with her tongue. These scoldings seemed to disturb Ellen more than the staff, and after a time she began to realize that the servants were quite accustomed to these harangues and attached little if any importance to them.

      Ellen must have a tea caddy and a silver service, in case she wanted tea in her room. The dressing table was placed wrong for the light, and it must be moved. The new position was equally bad, but satisfied the older woman. There must be a writing table, and paper, and an ink stand.

      It was clear that Aunt Minna was enjoying herself. For Ellen it was such a welcome change, all this purposeful bustle, and no one giving a hoot if her feelings were hurt over something, or watching what they said to be sure they did not offend. Aunt Minna had no hesitation in calling someone crazy. She apparently considered all but a handful of Savannah’s residents to be in that condition.

      She was also, Ellen decided, the most tireless stander ever known. When Ellen suggested she supervise the work from a chair, Minna waved the suggestion away.

      So they both stood, because Ellen did not want to admit to greater weakness, and if her aunt thought of her niece’s comfort in this respect, she did not once mention it. As Minna’s dresses came almost to the ground, Ellen speculated whether the woman might be solid from the waist down and thereby less vulnerable to fatigue than ordinary persons. She nearly asked to see her ankles, and had a giggling fit at the thought of the reaction this might provoke, so earning herself a look from Aunt Minna, who apparently had no high opinion of unexplained giggling either.

      At last Minna seemed to think the room satisfactory, and retired to her own sitting room. Not, Ellen felt sure, to lie down. It seemed impossible for her to imagine her aunt voluntarily assuming a horizontal position.

      She herself was exhausted by such tireless energy. She sat at the writing table, remembering that she must write a note to her mother to tell her she had arrived and was safely installed in the house. She found at once that the ink in the massive chased silver and glass ink stand had long since dried to dust. She got a ballpoint pen from her purse and wrote her note with that instead.

      She made it succinct. She could not, without alarming her mother, say, “You were right, Aunt Minna is as crazy as a loon, and I love her.”

      No