Suffer the Children Read online

  “You have your choice this morning,” she said. “Mrs. Goodrich says waffles and pancakes are equally easy, so you can have either one.”

  “We’ll have waffles,” Elizabeth said. She kissed her mother good morning and seated herself. Sarah pulled her father’s recently vacated chair around and sat beside Elizabeth.

  “Sarah? Don’t you want to sit in your own chair?”

  There was no response from the little girl. She sat quietly with her hands in her lap until Elizabeth poured her some orange juice. She picked it up, dutifully drained the glass, and set it down again. Her hand went back to her lap. Rose watched in silence, feeling helpless.

  “Sarah,” she repeated. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit in your own chair?”

  Sarah’s head turned toward Rose, and she stared at her mother for a moment. Rose looked vainly into the tiny, dark face, trying to see if Sarah had understood her. It was like trying to fathom the feeling of a mask. After a few seconds, Sarah turned her face away again. A knot formed in Rose’s stomach.

  “Maybe she’d rather have pancakes,” she said pensively. “But how can I know?”

  Elizabeth smiled at her mother. “The waffles will do fine,” she said. “She likes them. How come Daddy left so early?”

  “I guess he had a lot to do at the office,” Rose answered distractedly, her eyes still on her younger daughter. She felt that there was something she ought to do, something she ought to say to Sarah, but she didn’t know what it was. She felt confused. Hurriedly, she put her napkin on the table and stood up.

  “I have a lot to do myself,” she said. “Can you manage by yourself, Elizabeth?”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth said. “If I have to leave before the van gets here, shall I leave Sarah with Mrs. Goodrich?”

  “If you think it would be—” “All right” was what she was about to say, but it struck her that she was the mother, not Elizabeth, and that even if she did feel all at sea where Sarah was concerned, it was still her duty to be a mother. She should not defer to a thirteen-year-old child, even one as mature as Elizabeth.

  “That will be fine, she corrected herself. I’ll be in my office. Come in before you leave.”

  She started to leave the room, then, on an impulse, leaned down to kiss Sarah. Sarah didn’t respond at all, and, the knot in her stomach tightening, Rose left the room. As she made her way into the little parlor at the front of the house that she had converted into an office for herself, she heard Elizabeth chattering brightly to Sarah, never pausing to give Sarah a chance to say anything, never sounding annoyed at Sarah’s—“Dumbness” was the word that came to mind, but Rose couldn’t bring herself to use it. She avoided the issue completely by turning her mind to her work.

  She pulled out the files she had been working on the previous afternoon and began checking her figures once more. She found two errors, and corrected them. She prided herself on her attention to detail, and had become even more careful as time went on. Since her first day in the real-estate business she had not turned in any paperwork that was less than perfect, and she knew that the men in her office resented it. It had become an unspoken game, good-natured on her part but played with a slight edge of envy by the others involved, to give Rose wrong figures and see how long it would take her to find them. She suspected there was a pot building that would eventually go to the person who succeeded in catching her in a mistake. She intended for that pot to keep on growing till they finally gave it up and either split it up among themselves or handed it all over to her. She finished the files just as Elizabeth came in.

  “That time already?” she said.

  “I told Kathy Burton I’d meet her before school. Sarah’s in the kitchen with Mrs. G.”

  “Will you be home right after school?”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  Rose smiled at her daughter appreciatively, and held out her arms. Elizabeth came to her mother and hugged her.

  “You’re a great help to me, you know,” Rose whispered to her.

  Elizabeth nodded her head briefly and freed herself. “See you tonight,” she said. Rose watched as she pulled the door closed behind her, and turned to gaze out the window. In a moment she heard the front door open and close, then saw Elizabeth, pulling a coat on, skip down the steps and start the walk to the Point Road.

  Rose went back to her work, thumbing through her listings and mentally pairing off houses with clients. She had discovered that she had a knack for picking the right house for the right person, and her reputation was spreading. She made it a practice to spend at least a couple of hours with each client, talking about everything but houses. Then, when she felt she knew something about her client, she would pull out her listings and give them a couple to look over. Finally she would pull out her own choice for them, and she was usually right. More and more, lately, people had begun to come to her, not so much to see what she had available as to ask her what she thought they ought to have. It was making her work much easier, and her volume much larger.

  One more year, she thought, and I’ll get my broker’s license. Then, watch out, Port Arbello. Another Conger is on the rise.

  She was only half aware that the little Ford van that served as a school bus had arrived to take Sarah to White Oaks School, and didn’t look up from her work until she heard the tapping at her door.

  “Come in,” she called.

  The door opened, and Mrs. Goodrich, looking resentful at having to intrude on Rose, stuck her head in.

  “Sorry to bother you,” she said, the deep Yankee voice rumbling from her immense bosom. “Mr. Diller wonders if he could have a word with you. I told him you were busy, but he wonders anyway.” Her tone suggested that it was her strongly held opinion that if Mr. Diller had any sense of propriety whatsoever, he would have faded directly into the ground upon being told that Mrs. Conger was busy.

  Rose suppressed a grin and did her best to impersonate the grande dame that Mrs. Goodrich obviously expected her to be. For a long time, when she had first come to live in the Conger house, Mrs. Goodrich had frightened her to death, and she had been painfully aware that she did not meet the standards that Mrs. Goodrich had set for the senior Mrs. Conger-in-residence. But she had eventually come to realize that, whatever she did, Mrs. Goodrich would see her as Mrs. Goodrich wanted to see her. In the last couple of years Rose had found a certain enjoyment in trying to play the role. So now, for the benefit of the old housekeeper, she stood up, drew herself as erect as she could, and tried to sound imperious.

  “It’s unusual that he should call without an appointment, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Goodrich nodded a vigorous agreement.

  “But I suppose it would be useless to try to send him away.”

  Again Mrs. Goodrich nodded vigorously.

  “So I suppose you may show him in.”

  The door closed, and in a moment it reopened to allow George Diller to enter. Rose promptly relaxed and smiled at him. He was a little younger than she, and sported a full beard. He was one of the teachers at the White Oaks School, but since he seemed to have a special way with the children he taught, he also drove the van that picked them up and delivered them home every day. The school had tried other drivers, but things always seemed to go better when George Diller drove, as if the children, trusting him, tried to behave better for him.

  “What was that all about?” he said, glancing back toward the door.

  “You heard?” Rose replied, chuckling.

  “You sounded just like my Aunt Agatha, down in Boston. She could order a servant to kill himself, and he wouldn’t dare disobey. Fortunately for everyone, she never did.”

  “Mrs. Goodrich would have loved your Aunt Agatha. She’s convinced that’s the way a proper lady should talk, so I do my best for her. It’s kind of fun, really.”

  “Well, it almost scared me off. But not quite.”

  “That’s good. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Not enough time. The kids won’t wait long.”r />
  Rose glanced out the window and saw Sarah climbing into the front seat of the van. In the back, six or seven children stared out at her, and she could see that one or two of them were already getting restless.

  “Then what can I do for you?” Rose asked.

  “Nothing for me. It’s about Sarah. It isn’t anything serious, but the staff at the school would like you and Mr. Conger to come in for a talk.”

  “Oh?” Rose looked concerned, and George hurried on.

  “Really, it’s nothing. I think they’re thinking of making some changes in Sarah’s program, and they want to talk to you first.”

  Rose nodded. “Of course. Is there any time that’s best for the school?” She moved to the desk and opened her calendar.

  “Not really.” George shrugged. “Afternoons are best, after the kids have gone home, but if you don’t have time, we can always work around you.”

  Rose knew they could. White Oaks was a very expensive school, and had a policy of going out of their way both for their students and the families of their students. Consequently, they found that they very rarely had to go out of their way. Parents, realizing that the school would do what it could for them, tried to do what they could for the school. So Rose searched for a free afternoon, and picked up a pencil.

  “How’s Thursday? Of course, I’ll have to check with my husband, but I imagine he can get away.”

  “Fine,” George said. “About four?”

  “I’ll mark it right now—” Rose broke off as she heard a little cry from the front of the house. She glanced up, and for a moment she didn’t see anything amiss. Then she saw it: The van was moving.

  “George!” she yelled. “Quick! The van!”

  Without asking any questions, George headed for the door. It stuck, and he grappled with it for a moment. Rose was still staring out the window. The van was moving slowly, but it was picking up speed on the slight incline that led to the garage. She judged that if it hit the garage, it would stop with little damage. But if it missed the garage…

  Her eyes moved across the wide lawn, and the unobstructed path that led directly to the edge of the cliff.

  “The door,” George yelled. “It’s stuck!”

  “Push down,” Rose snapped. “It jams at the top.” She glanced out the window again, and the van seemed to be veering a little to the left. It would miss the garage.

  She heard George grunt, and spun to see him still struggling with the door. Behind her she could hear the terrified screams of the children as they realized what was happening.

  “Let me do it,” she cried, pushing him aside and grasping the knob. She lunged at the door and gave a quick yank. It flew open, and George was through it and running for the front door, a few feet away. In the middle of the doorway, Mrs. Goodrich stood frozen, her hand covering her mouth as if to stifle a scream. George shoved her aside, and she would have fallen if Rose hadn’t moved quickly to catch her.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Goodrich snapped. “Don’t worry about me. Help Mr. Diller.”

  But it was obvious that there was nothing she could do. She watched as George raced after the coasting van. From where she stood it appeared that even if he caught up with it, he wouldn’t have any way of stopping it before it shot off the edge of the cliff.

  The driver’s door was flapping wildly as George caught up with the van. He hurled himself into the driver’s seat, and his left hand groped for the emergency brake as his right hand pulled the wheel around. He felt the rear wheels lock, and the van pulled around to the left and began to skid. There was nothing more he could do. He held his breath and waited. Behind him, the children screamed wildly, except for Sarah, who sat placidly in the front passenger’s seat, staring out of the window.

  It stopped only inches from the edge. If the door hadn’t been open, George thought—but then he realized that there were too many ifs. He sat behind the wheel and waited for his nerves to calm down. By the time he was ready to begin guiding the children out of the van, Rose was there. One by one, they got the children out of the van, and Rose led them up to the house. Mrs. Goodrich, having seen that the van didn’t go over the edge, had already disappeared into the kitchen. By the time all the children were safely in the house, she had produced a pitcher of hot cocoa. Rose left the children in her charge and went back to the van. George had climbed into the driver’s seat again, and was preparing to jockey it away from the precipice.

  “Be careful,” Rose warned him.

  With Rose waving him directions, he eased the van inward from the edge and, when it was far enough back, turned it around. He called to Rose to join him, and eased the vehicle back up to the driveway. When he parked it, he carefully left it in gear and checked the hand brake twice.

  “What happened?” Rose asked him as they reentered the house.

  George shook his head. “I don’t know. I must have forgotten to set the brake. But I was sure I had. It’s almost a reflex with me.” He thought a moment, then shook his head. “I can almost see myself setting it, but I must not have.”

  An hour later, with the children calm once more, George Diller herded them all back into the van. If Rose noticed that George made sure that Sarah was in the back seat this time, she didn’t comment on it. She simply stood on the porch and watched the van make its way down the driveway. Then she returned to her office and tried to concentrate on her work. It wasn’t easy.

  George Diller drove even more carefully than usual on his way back to the school, and he kept one eye on the rear-view mirror. But it wasn’t the road behind him that he was watching. It was the children. Particularly, he watched Sarah Conger.

  She sat in the back seat, and as they drove along the Conger’s Point Road she seemed to be looking for something. Then George remembered. Every morning the van passed Elizabeth Conger as she walked into town to school. And every morning Elizabeth waved to Sarah as the van passed.

  But this morning they were too late. There was no one to wave to Sarah.

  At the end of the day Mrs. Montgomery would note in her records that Sarah Conger had been much more difficult than usual. It was one more thing she would have to talk to Sarah’s parents about.

  5

  Rose glanced at her watch as she left the house; she had just enough time to stop at Jack’s office and still not be late for her appointment. As she walked to the garage, she glanced at the scars on the lawn, and shuddered once more at the memory of the van careening toward the cliff. She wondered if she should have kept Sarah home for the day, and felt a slight twinge of guilt at the relief she had felt when George Diller had insisted that it would be better for Sarah to continue the day as if nothing unusual had happened. She made a mental note to devote a little extra time to Sarah that evening.

  A quarter of a mile toward town, Rose smiled to herself as she passed the old Barnes place. She had a feeling that today, as she drove home, she would be able to take down the FOR SALE sign that had been hanging on the fence for months. And it’s a good thing, she thought. It’s been on the market too long. Another couple of months and it would take on that awful deserted look and be impossible to sell at any price. But she had a feeling that she finally had the right customers for the house. Unconsciously, she pressed the accelerator, and as the car leaped forward some of the feeling of depression that had been hanging over her all morning dissipated.

  She slipped the car into her space behind Port Arbello Realty Company, and dropped her purse on her desk as she walked through to the front door.

  “You have an appointment in fifteen minutes,” the receptionist reminded her. Rose smiled at the girl.

  “Plenty of time. I’m just going to run across the square for a minute and say hello to Jack.” She knew she could as easily have telephoned, but she liked to keep up the charade of devoted wife. In Port Arbello, solid marriages counted for a lot in the business community.

  On her way across the square she glanced quickly at the old armory, standing forbiddingly on the corner
just south of the courthouse. Another year, she thought, and I’ll find a way to buy it. Then it would be a simple matter of a zoning variance, and she could go ahead with her plan to turn it into a shopping center—not one that would compete with the businesses already surrounding the square, nothing with a major department store. Rather, she envisioned a group of small shops—boutiques, really, though she hated the word—with a good restaurant and a bar. That way, she could increase the value of the property without taking any business from the rest of tie merchants. In her mind’s eye she saw the armory as she would remodel it: sandblasted, its century-old brick cleaned of the years of grime, with white trim, and a few changes in the façade to give it an inviting look instead of the grim air with which it had always looked down on the town around it.

  She jaywalked across the street to the Courier office and went in.

  “Hi, Sylvia.” She smiled. “Is my husband in?”

  Jack’s secretary returned her smile. “He’s in, but he’s a bear today. What did you do to him this morning?”

  “Just the usual,” Rose said. “Tied him up and thrashed him. He squalls, but he loves it.” Without knocking, Rose let herself into her husband’s office, closing the door behind her, and crossed to his desk, leaned over, and kissed him warmly.

  “Hello, darling,” she said, her eye not missing the fact that the intercom was open. “I hear you’re having a bad day.” As Jack looked at her in puzzlement, she pointed to the intercom unit on his desk. He nodded and switched it off.

  “You seem cheerful enough,” he said sourly.

  “I am, now. But we almost had a disaster this morning.” She recounted what had happened with the van.

  “George is sure he set the brake?” Jack said when she had finished.

  Rose nodded. “But he must not have. If he did, then there’s only one explanation for what happened. Sarah.” Jack seemed to lose a little of his color.

  “So the school wants to talk to us about her on Thursday afternoon?” He made a note on his calendar.

  “Not about what happened this morning,” Rose said quickly. “Although I should imagine that will come up too. My God, Jack, they all would have been killed. Not one of them would have had a chance.”