A Cry In the Night (10 page)

“Sshh,” Jenny said. Erich couldn't be that upset over that little smudge on the paper, could he? she wondered. Stay out of it, some instinct warned. There's nothing you can do.

As she heard Elsa's sullen, unhappy voice say, “I apologize, Mr. Krueger,” she pulled the children outside and closed the door.

W
hy is Daddy mad?” Tina asked.

“I'm really not sure, love. But we'll pretend that we didn't hear him. All right?”

“But we did hear him,” Beth said seriously.

“I know,” Jenny agreed, “but it doesn't have anything to do with us. Now, come on. Let's go in again.”

This time she called, “Erich, hi,” before they were even in the house. Not pausing to allow an answer she called again, “Is there a husband in this place?”

“Sweetheart!” Erich hurried into the kitchen, his smile welcoming, his entire manner relaxed. “I've just been asking Elsa where you were. I'm disappointed you went out. I wanted to show you around myself.”

His arms were around her. His cheek, still cold from the outdoors, rubbed against hers. Jenny blessed the instinct that had kept her from visiting the farm buildings.

“I knew you'd want to give us the tour,” she said, “so we just walked across the east fields and got some
fresh air. You can't imagine how wonderful it is not to stop for a traffic light every few feet.”

“I'll have to teach you to be sure to avoid the fields where the bulls are kept,” Erich smiled. “Believe me, you'd prefer the traffic lights.” He became aware of the plate she was holding. “What's that?”

“Mrs. Toom gave that to Mommy,” Beth told him.

“Mrs. Toomis,” Jenny corrected.

“Mrs. Toomis,” Erich said. His arms dropped to his sides. “Jenny, I hope you're not going to tell me you were in Rooney's house?”

“She waved to us,” Jenny explained. “It would have been so rude . . .”

“She waves to anyone who passes,” Erich interrupted. “This is why you really ought to have waited for me to take you around, darling. Rooney is a very disturbed woman and if you give her an inch she'll take a stranglehold on you. I finally had to lay it to Clyde that he must keep her away from this house. Even after I retired her, I'd come home and find her puttering in here. God help her, I'm sorry for her, Jenny, but it got pretty rough waking up in the middle of the night and hearing her walking around the hall or even standing in my room.” He turned to Beth. “Come on, Mouse. Let's get that snowsuit off.” He lifted Beth in the air and to her delight sat her on top of the refrigerator.

“Me too, me too,” Tina cried.

“You too, you too,” he mimicked. “Now isn't this a good way to get your boots off?” he asked them. “Just the right height isn't it, Mommy?”

Apprehensively Jenny moved nearer to the refrigerator to make sure that one of the girls didn't lean forward too far and topple off it but she realized there was no need to worry. Erich quickly yanked the small overshoes off and lifted the girls down. Before he put
them on the ground he said, “Okay, you two, what's my name?”

Tina looked at Jenny. “Daddy?” she said, her voice a question.

“Mommy said you're the only daddy,” Beth informed him.

“Mommy said that?” Erich put the girls down and smiled at Jenny. “Thank you, Mommy.”

Elsa came into the kitchen. Her face was flushed and set in angry, defensive lines. “Mr. Krueger, I finish upstairs. You want me to do something special now?”

“Upstairs?” Jenny asked quickly. “I meant to tell you. I hope you didn't bother to separate the beds in the children's room. They're on their way up for a nap.”

“I told Elsa to straighten the room,” Erich said.

“But, Erich, they can't sleep on those high beds the way they are,” Jenny protested. “I'm afraid we'll really have to get them youth beds.” A thought occurred to her. It was a gamble but it would be a natural request. “Erich, couldn't the girls nap in your old room? That bed is quite low.”

She studied his face, waiting for his reaction. Even so she did not miss the sly look Elsa threw at him. She's enjoying this, Jenny thought. She knows he wants to refuse.

Erich's expression became closed. “As a matter of fact, Jenny,” he said, his tone suddenly formal, “I intended to speak to you about allowing the children to use that room. I thought I made myself plain about the fact that that room is not to be occupied. Elsa tells me she found the bed unmade this morning.”

Jenny gasped. Of course it had never occurred to her that Tina and Beth might have gotten into that bed when they were wandering around before she woke up.

“I'm sorry.”

His face softened. “It's all right, darling. Let the girls nap in the beds they used last night. We'll order youth beds for them immediately.”

Jenny prepared soup for the children, then took them upstairs. As she pulled down the shades, she said, “Now, look, you two, when you wake up, I don't want you getting into any other beds. Understand?”

“But we always get into your bed at home,” Beth said, her tone injured.

“That's different. I mean any other beds in this house.” She kissed them gently. “Promise. I don't want Daddy to get upset.”

“Daddy yelled loud,” Tina murmured, her eyes closing. “Where's my present?”

The cakes of soap were on the night table. Tina slipped hers under her pillow. “Thank you for giving that to me, Mommy. We didn't get into your bed, Mommy.”

•   •   •

Erich had begun slicing turkey for sandwiches. Deliberately Jenny closed the door that shut the kitchen off from the rest of the house.

“Hi,” she said. Putting her arms around him, she whispered, “Look, we had our wedding dinner with the children. At least let me fix our first by-ourselves meal on Krueger Farm and you pour us some of that champagne we never got around to finishing last night.”

His lips were on her hair. “Last night was beautiful for me, Jenny. Was it for you?”

“It was beautiful.”

“I didn't get much done this morning. All I could think of is how you look when you're asleep.”

He made a fire in the cast-iron stove and they sipped the champagne and ate the sandwiches, curled up together on the couch in front of it. “You know”
Jenny said, “walking around today made me realize the sense of continuity this farm has. I don't know my roots. I don't know if my people lived in the city or country. I don't know if my birth mother liked to sew or paint or if she could carry a tune. It's so wonderful that you know everything about your people. Just looking at the burial plot made me appreciate that.”

“You went to the burial plot?” Erich asked quietly.

“Yes, do you mind?”

“Then you saw Caroline's grave?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you probably wondered why she and my father aren't together the way the others are?”

“I was surprised.”

“It isn't any mystery. Caroline had those Norwegian pines planted. At that time she told my father she wanted to be buried at the south end of the graveyard where the pines would shelter her. He never really approved, but he respected her wishes. Before he died he told me he'd always expected to be placed in the grave next to his parents. Somehow I felt that was the right thing to do for both of them. Caroline always wanted more freedom than my father would give her anyway. I think that afterward he regretted the way he ridiculed her art until she threw out her sketch pad. What difference would it have made if she'd painted instead of making quilts? He was wrong.
Wrong!”

He paused, staring into the fire. Jenny felt that Erich seemed to be unaware of her presence. “But so was she,” he whispered.

With a tremor of anxiety Jenny realized that for the first time Erich was hinting that the relationship between his mother and father had been troubled.

•   •   •

Jenny settled into a daily routine that she found immensely satisfying. Each day she realized how much she had missed by being away from the children
so much. She learned that Beth, the practical, quiet child, had a definite musical talent and could pick out simple tunes on the spinet in the small parlor after hearing them played only a few times. Tina's whiny streak vanished as she blossomed in the new atmosphere. She who had always cried so easily became positively sunny-dispositioned and showed signs of a natural sense of humor.

Erich usually left for the studio by dawn and never returned until noon. Jenny and the girls had breakfast around eight and at ten o'clock, when the sun was becoming stronger, bundled up in snowsuits and went for a walk.

The walks soon assumed a pattern. First the chicken house, where Joe taught the girls to collect the fresh-laid eggs. Joe had decided that Jenny's presence had saved his job after Baron's accident. “I bet if Mr. Krueger wasn't so happy about your being here, he'd have fired me. My maw says he's not a forgiving man, Mrs. Krueger.”

“I really didn't have a thing to do with it,” Jenny protested.

“Dr. Garrett says I'm taking real good care of Baron's leg. When the weather gets warmer and he can exercise a little it will be fine. And, Mrs. Krueger, I tell you, now I check that stable door ten times every day.”

Jenny knew what he meant. Unconsciously she had begun to check so many little things a second time, things she never would have dreamed of noticing before. Erich was more than tidy, he was a perfectionist. She quickly learned to tell by a certain tenseness in his face and body if something had upset him—a closet door left open, a glass standing in the sink.

The mornings Erich didn't go to the cabin, he worked in the farm office next to the stable with Clyde Toomis, the farm manager. Clyde, a stocky man of
about sixty with a leathery, wrinkled face, and thick, yellow-white hair, had a matter-of-fact manner that approached brusqueness.

When he introduced Jenny to him, Erich said, “Clyde really runs the farm. Sometimes I think I'm just window dressing around here.”

“Well, you're certainly not window dressing in front of an easel,” she laughed, but was surprised that Clyde did not make even a perfunctory effort to contradict Erich.

“Think you'll like it here?” Clyde asked her.

“I do like it here,” she smiled.

“It's quite a change for a city person,” Clyde said abruptly. “Hope it isn't too much for you.”

“It isn't.”

“Funny business,” Clyde said. “The country girls hanker after the city. The city girls claim they love the country.” She thought she heard a note of bitterness in his voice and wondered if he was thinking about his own daughter. She decided he was when he added, “My wife's all excited about having you and the children here. If she starts dropping in on you, just let me know. Rooney don't mean to bother people but sometimes she kind of forgets herself.”

It seemed to Jenny there was a defensive tone in his voice when he spoke of Rooney. “I enjoyed visiting with her,” she said sincerely.

The brusque manner softened. “That's good to hear. And she's looking up patterns to make jumpers or some such things for your girls. Is that all right?”

“It's fine.”

When they left the office Erich said, “Jenny, Jenny, don't encourage Rooney.”

“I promise I won't let it get out of hand. Erich, she's just lonely.”

Every afternoon after lunch while the children napped, she and Erich put on cross-country skis and
explored the farm. Elsa was willing to mind the children as they slept. In fact it was she who suggested the arrangement. It occurred to Jenny that Elsa was trying to make up for accusing Erich of damaging the dining-room wall.

And yet she wondered if it weren't possible that he
had
caused the stain. Often when he came in for lunch his hands would still have paint or charcoal smudges. If he noticed anything out of order, a curtain not centered on the rod, bric-a-brac not exactly in place, he would automatically adjust it. Several times Jenny stopped him before he touched something with paint-spattered fingers.

The paper in the dining room was replaced. When the paperhanger and his assistant came in, they were incredulous. “You mean to say that he bought eight double rolls at these prices and he's replacing exactly what he has?”

“My husband knows what he wants.”

When they were finished, the room looked exactly the same except that the smudge was gone.

During the evenings she and Erich liked to settle in the library reading, listening to music, talking. He asked her about the faint scar at her hairline. “An automobile accident when I was sixteen. Someone jumped the divider and plowed into us.”

“You must have been frightened, darling.”

“I don't remember a thing about it,” Jenny laughed. “I'd just leaned my head back and fallen asleep. The next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital three days later. I had a pretty bad concussion—enough to give me amnesia for those days. Nana was frantic. She was sure I'd be brain-damaged or something. I did have headaches for a while and even did some sleepwalking around final exam time. Stress brought it on according to the doctor. But gradually it stopped.”