Black Alice Read online

  Chapter 1

  Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by herself on the trunk, and of having nothing to do. This was the first day of vacation—she should be having fun, for heaven's sake! She looked up the asphalt road for the familiar grey dot that would become Miss Godwin's Saab, and sighed. She turned around and watched a fat, furry caterpillar crawl about furtively beneath a canopy of ivy leaves. The caterpillar was banded yellow and black; the ivy was a vivid, early-summer green; the bricks of the wall that girded St. Arnobia's were a dull red, brick-red. Alice didn't approve of so much colour. It was in poor taste. So, very carefully, she pried the caterpillar from the brick wall and let him crawl about on the pleats of her new dress.

  But that was soon boring too, since the caterpillar showed no interest in conversation. Miss Godwin was forty-five minutes late! If only Alice had thought to leave out one book when she'd packed her trunk so that she would have had something to read now. If only the sky would clear, so she could start getting tanned. If only, if only, if only Miss Godwin would come.

  She began to fidget.

  You're fidgeting, she told herself. How many times must 1 tell you not to fidget?

  Miss Godwin was so late that most of the other St. Arno-bians were already gone. Alice had had to sit and watch their departures and pretend not to be dying of impatience. The younger girls had screamed and jumped about like absolute wild Indians, and prattled on about every little thing that had happened since the Easter holiday, not even stopping their mad chatter to wave good-bye to Alice. By contrast the seventh and eighth graders were as composed as stone statues. They kissed their parents demurely or offered a white-gloved hand to be shaken. They sat up straight in the seats of their cars, conversing with the indolent grace of goddesses. Next year, Alice realised, with a sensation almost of swooning, those goddesses would be her classmates. They didn't know it yet, but Alice was going to. skip seventh grade. After Miss Godwin's summer tutoring, she would go straight from sixth grade to eighth grade. From the academic point of view, of course, she had nothing to worry about. She was better in arithmetic and reading and even in art than most of this year's eighth graders. But the idea that she would be an eighth grader herself—a creature of such flawless elegance, of such maturity—that was a really overwhelming idea. It was like finding yourself suddenly twelve years old instead of eleven.

  While she waited, Alice had studied the older girls carefully, noting especially the way they climbed into a car. Instead of scrambling in headlong, they would first sit on the edge of the seat, then swivel around ninety degrees, drawing their legs into the car in one smooth motion. Elegant wasn't the word for it! No doubt they'd learned to do it in Miss Boyd's etiquette class, since they all did it so perfectly. Eighth graders had etiquette every day, but sixth graders only had one hour a week (unless you counted dancing classes) and that had been barely time to learn introductions. Still, practised or not, there was no reason why Alice couldn't get into Miss Godwin's Saab in a ladylike way. Miss Godwin had a sharp eye for such things.

  A red, needle-thin dragonfly darted about in the grass by Alice's feet, and she lifted them up to the top of the trunk nervously. A fine mist of perspiration prickled her cheekbones and brow. The asphalt road was empty as far as one could see.

  She sighed and checked her watch. Her father had given it to her on her eleventh birthday in March, a brand-new Lady Bulova with two small diamonds. Miss Godwin was one hour and five minutes late. The ominous thunder-heads that had been building up all afternoon covered the sky now from horizon to horizon. She did hope Miss Godwin would come soon, before the rain ruined her dress, which was linen in a retiring shade of beige. Bix box pleats came down from the yoke, and a matching belt fastened below the waist with a button. Alice adored the dress, but she worried, after seeing the other girls in their holiday dresses, whether it might not be too old for her, and wanted Miss Godwin's opinion. Miss Godwin, unlike some other governesses Alice could mention, had exquisite taste.

  Governesses as a breed were awful creatures. Either they wore space shoes like fat old Mrs. Buckler or ugly straw hats with silly ribbons like Miss Stuck-Up from England (who had only lasted two weeks, because it turned out that she drank). But Miss Godwin was really wonderful. Really really. Good-looking, young, easy-tempered—and talk about cultured!

  Why, she'd taken her Bachelor's degree at the Sorbonne in Paris! She spoke much better French than even Mr. Limberley at St. Arnobia's, and she'd read all of Victor Hugo! Alice sometimes could wish that her parents were as cultured as her governess. Maybe if they had lived for a while in Europe, they'd have been more like Miss Godwin—more full of life, more happy, more real. Miss Godwin certainly was real.

  'What can be keeping her?' Alice said aloud. Then, remembering that that was her worst habit, almost bit her tongue off as a punishment. Some years ago (two), in the dark days of Mrs. Buckler, Alice used to talk to herself all the time, but now she was supposed to be over it. Actually she'd never talked to herself; she'd talked to Dinah, who was sometimes her imaginary sister and sometimes a cat.

  A moving speck appeared on the farthest hill crest, then vanished as the road dipped. In the hot, hazy air the distant stretch of asphalt seemed to ripple like a pool of water. A mirage. Alice knew all about mirages. Someday she would go to the Sahara and see one of the big desert mirages—a whole city created out of the warm air. Someday, when she was grown, she would go everywhere. The prospect of being grownup hung tantalisingly before her, just out of reach, beckoning. A mirage.

  The approaching car was not a Saab. It was just another old Cadillac. It pulled sedately in through the wrought-iron arch of the gate, and a stiff-looking couple emerged from the back seat. Becky Horner's parents, Alice guessed. Becky was in the Infirmary with poison ivy from the seventh grade's General Science field trip two weeks ago. Alice was sure that Becky was just putting on about how sick she was so that the other girls wouldn't be able to see her with calomine and bandages all over her legs. (Becky had sat in the poison ivy.)

  The Horners passed within a dozen feet of Alice without even nodding to her. When they couldn't see her, Alice stuck her tongue out at them. Miss Godwin said it was childish to be a snob, but that didn't seem to stop an awful lot of adults from being snobby. Alice probably had more money in her trust fund that Mr. Horner would earn in his whole life, but from the way Becky turned up her nose at Alice you would have thought she was the janitor's daughter. Just because Alice's parents didn't belong to the same clubs that the Horners belonged to! When grown-ups could be so stupid, sometimes it seemed the course of wisdom to remain a child.

  It was quite dark now for mid-afternoon. Thunder rumbled distantly. If it rains, Alice told herself, I shall cry.

  It started to rain, but Alice had no chance to cry just then, for another car. appeared, a clunky, copper-coloured Buick. It slowed and stopped right in front of Alice, who was sitting on her trunk, chin in hand and elbows propped on her knees, looking into raindrop-speckled dirt at the shoulder of the road. Miserably she felt each rain drop that soaked into the crisp linen of her dress.

  'Alice Raleigh?'

  She looked up at the man leaning across the seat of the Buick. He was an older man, who wore a cheap black bow tie and an unconvincing smile. Not exactly what one would call a gentleman.

  'Yes,' she said, 'I'm Alice Raleigh.'

  'I'm Reverend Roland Scott. You just call me Father, Alice.'

  He got out of the car by the right-hand door. He was tall and his black suit was too loose in the shoulders, too snug at the waist, and inches too short. Even so the cuffs were frayed. She couldn't help staring at him: he was such an improbable priest. Priests never had as much hair as that—and such greasy ha
ir —and his sideburns were so long that reminded her of one of those men that drove around in town on Saturdays on motorcycles making so much noise. But the worst thing, the thing that was really uncomfortable, was his eyes. They were the same summery green as the ivy, and despite the fixed smile on his pale lips, they did not smile at all.

  He extended his hand, and after a moment's hesitation (for hadn't Miss Boyd made it very, clear in Etiquette that a gentleman does not offer his hand to a lady?) she took it. Immediately after she'd shaken hands she wondered if perhaps she had not been supposed to kiss his hand instead. Miss Boyd had said nothing about meeting Catholic priests.

  'I'm a friend of your Uncle Jason,' the priest said, 'and I've come" to take you home as a favour for him. Miss Godwin had trouble with her car, and your uncle, knowing that I live near here, phoned to ask me to escort you home.' He said all this in a stiff, deliberate manner that reminded Alice of one of the younger St. Arnobians reciting a Bible 'passage. It would be letter-perfect, but somehow one suspected that he didn't know the meaning of half the words.

  Once more he extended his hand, as though to help her in the door of the car. He wore a ring on his middle finger—a black stone with a design traced on it in gold: a pair of compasses spread open above clasped hands.

  'Are you...' she began, before she realised what an indiscreet question it was, for she knew from her father, who was a Mason himself, that Catholics weren't allowed to join the order. And a priest... ?

  'Yes, my child? What is it?'

  'Are you ... going to take my trunk?'

  'Certainly, child. But you don't have to wait out here in the rain, do you?'

  His grip on her hand tightened, and he began tugging her

  ward to the door of the Buick. At just that moment a terrible flash of lightning split the sky and almost immediately afterwards the thunder sounded, seemingly on all sides. Alice, startled, pulled away from the priest, but the wet dirt on the boulder of the road was slippery, and the soles of her brand-new patent leather pumps were smooth as glass. Before she knew she was falling, she was on her back in the mud. The priest said something terribly unpriest-like.

  Somebody else said: 'Dear Lord, will you look at that!"

  The three Horners, each of them with a big black umbrella, stood at the door of their Cadillac regarding Alice gravely, as one might look at a stray—and slightly dangerous—animal broken from its leash. But as soon as Alice had turned to look If them, they turned their eyes away, pretending not to have seen her. Mr. Horner helped Mrs. Horner into the back seat With such a deal of pomp and circumstance that he might have been helping her on to a throne, Alice was furious: with the rain, with the mud on her dress, and now, overridingly, with the smug Homers. For once she knew what to do about it. She scrambled up from the mud and ran towards the Horners.

  'Becky!' she shouted. ''Dear Becky! You can't go away without saying good-bye.'

  'Hey!' Reverend Scott shouted after her above the downpour. 'Hey kid! Where you going?'

  Alice, spattered as she was, embraced her dear Becky and planted a wet kiss on Becky's fat cheek. Becky squealed with outrage, dropping her oversize umbrella, which began to blow away.

  'Dear Becky,' said Alice with satisfaction. 'I just wanted to say good-bye and to say how sorry, how really upset I was to hear about your poison ivy and about the arithmetic test you failed. But I hope you have a good holiday now that it's all over. Maybe we'll see each other this summer?'

  'I doubt it,' said Becky, as her father pulled her into the back seat, while the chauffeur went off after the umbrella. 'We're going to be in Majorca, you know, and I don't suppose you'll be there. But I'll see you next term, I'm sure.'

  'Say good-bye to your little friend, dear. We must be leaving.'

  'Good-bye,' said Becky, swinging the door shut. Just before the latch caught, she added, sotto voce, 'Brain!'

  Between the tears in Alice's eyes and the rain everywhere else, the Horners' Cadillac seemed positive to swim away. Alice was heartsick—not just at hearing the detested nickname tossed in her face once more, but also because she knew she had merited Becky's rudeness by her own. What had she hoped to gain by being rude to Becky, who would, after all, be a fellow eighth grader next year?

  Wouldn't old Mrs. Horner be just green if she knew that? But even that reflection didn't seem greatly to cheer Alice up.

  Hearing, the sound of a car's engine turning over, Alice ran back to the road in time to see Reverend Scott drive away in his clunky Buick. It was strange enough, for the moment, to make her forget her misery. For a moment she suspected that he had stolen her trunk, but no, it was still there beside the brick wall where it had been all the time.

  She sat down on the trunk and made herself stop crying so that she could talk things over with Dinah like two sensible people.

  'Now, for one thing,' Alice began, 'I'm quite sure he's not a priest. He doesn't look like a priest, you know. And he's wearing a Masonic ring.'

  'If he's not a priest, then what do you suppose he is?' Dinah asked. It was Dinah's way always to be asking questions.

  'A child molester,' Alice declared gravely.

  Neither Alice nor Dinah had any very clear idea of child molesting, but it would be a very terrible thing, to judge only from Alice's mother's guarded remarks on the subject, to fall into the hands of such a person.

  'And yet,' Dinah observed, 'he says that Uncle Jason asked him to come. Uncle Jason would not be likely to send a child molester. And another thing—how would he know that Miss Godwin would be late?'

  'Do you think Miss Godwin sent him, then?' Alice asked in turn, a little shocked with such a bold proposal.

  'No. I don't know what to believe, Alice. I honestly don't.'

  'I suppose we shall have to tell Mummy and Daddy.'

  'Oh dear,' said Dinah, 'they'll probably forbid us to go out to the beach on our own if we do that. We'll have to spend all our time indoors, and we'll never get a tan.'

  Dinah and Alice considered this for a while in silence. They imagined coming back to St. Arnobia's next term as pale as two ghosts, and there would be Miss Stuck-Up Pig-Face Horner as brown as a walnut after a summer in Majorca.

  'It would be the grown-up thing ...' Dinah began tentatively.

  '... not to tell anyone about it,' Alice concluded firmly.

  'Not even Miss Godwin?'

  'Not even her. After all, Dinah, we're almost twelve years old.'

  Just as they had come to this agreement between them, the tardy Saab came into sight down the asphalt road. When it stopped before the gate, Alice scrambled in to hug Miss Godwin without the least thought of being ladylike. 'I thought you'd never come,' she wailed, pressing her wet face into the soft fabric of Miss Godwin's suit. 'I waited and waked. Oh, it was awful!' Now that she knew the worst was over, she began trying in earnest.

  'Poor darling! I'm so sorry, Alice honey, but the car just wouldn't start. I took it in to the garage, and they kept poking iround in the motor and telling me to wait a minute more when they meant an hour. I am so sorry, darling. I tried to call the school, but the operator said the line was out of order. I suppose the storm did it. But, honey, why didn't you go inside to wait when the rain started? You didn't have to stay out here and spoil that pretty new dress. In fact, we'd better get you changed out of that, or you'll catch a cold.'

  The rich timbre of Miss Godwin's voice was filled with an undoubtably sincere concern. Alice's sobbing grew subdued, rhythmic, and comfortable. It was warm in the car (Miss Godwin had turned on the heater) and dry and so nice to be called honey and darling. Usually Miss Godwin was too proper to address Alice as anything but Mademoiselle.

  One of Miss Godwin's hands stroked Alice's long blonde curls, while the other dug into her purse for a lace-edged handkerchief and dabbed at Alice's eyes with it. The handkerchief was a pale daffodil yellow; the hand was the colour of a Hershey chocolate bar, and the almond-shaped nails were silvery-white.

  After the trunk had been l
oaded into the Saab and Alice had been rubbed dry all over and put into another dress, they set off norm for Baltimore. Alice had left off crying and sat squeezed into the right-hand corner of the seat, staring at the steamed-over window. Abstractedly she drew a face on the glass, adding the eyes last. The fresh green of the summer fields shone through where she had made dots for the eyes, and for a moment she saw him again: the bow tie, the greasy hair, the vivid green of the eyes.

  Where would I be now, she wondered, if I'd got in his car?

  Kidnapped—that was where! When she'd read Robert Louis Stevenson's book on that subject, she had thought it would not be an altogether undesirable thing to be kidnapped. Now she was less sure.

  'Miss Godwin, if I told you a secret, would you promise not to tell Mommy and Daddy?'

  Tell me your secret, and I'll tell you if it's the kind I can keep.'

  Alice laughed. 'Then, you'll have to guess. Whose face do you think this is that I drew on the window?'

  Miss Godwin glanced at the scrawled face. 'Whoever it is has two eyes, a mouth, a nose—perhaps, and hair on top of his head. Doesn't sound like anybody I'd like to know.'

  Alice arched one eyebrow enigmatically and erased the face with the palm of her hand. 'Now you'll never know. It will be a mystery!'

  She settled back into the seat to listen to the whine of the tyres on wet concrete (they were on the main highway now) and the quiet ticking of the windshield wipers. The rain was heavy now, the sky so overcast, that many of the cars on the highway had turned on their headlights. Suddenly Alice realised that she was very hungry. She hadn't had a bite since the cookies at the going-home party that morning.

  'I don't know about you,' said Miss Godwin, reading her mind, 'but I'm famished. Perhaps Mademoiselle would favour a light repast?'

  'Peut-etre,' Alice replied majestically, and then giggled.

  Miss Godwin pulled up the gravel drive to Buddy's Bayshore Drive-in. The hambourg avec moutarde is recommended,' she noted, examining the menu that was fixed to a metal pole outside, after putting on her reading glasses. 'And to drink—the wine of the country, of course. Two malted milks chocolade? Miss Godwin handed Alice the intercom speaker,