The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt Page B

informationto the case. But I had before me seven boxes of papers, where the truth might be hidden. If so, it would most likely be in that last, half-filled box. Carefully, if I were to continue through the papers with this object in mind, I might notice something, something I would overlook in the ordinary course of things. I had organized my approach to the work, and what I was doing now was primarily tedious, just reading closely and sorting. I knew by now what to expect, so that I could work more quickly, less carefully. I could hurry through those intervening years.
    I returned to the papers on the table, satisfied that I was doing all I could. Unbidden, I remembered those two tombstones and noticed something curious about Irene’s. “Beloved wife of Daniel Thiel,” it said, then “beloved mother.”
    I wondered who had ordered those tombstones, who had caused that odd and incomplete inscription. That information, too, might be among these papers.
    At luncheon that day, Mr. Thiel asked me if I would like to accompany him to the village. I said I would not. I wanted to get back to the library, now that I knew what I was looking for. I felt hurried, as if there was some urgency to find out in time. Then, I also wanted to go back to the falls that afternoon, tosee the place again as I had first seen it, to lay the ghosts of my dream.
    â€œHave you no letter to mail?” he asked sternly. I remembered the short note I had written before going to bed the evening before. He said he would mail it for me. “Your aunt,” he said, “will be concerned.”
    â€œI’ll address the envelope immediately after lunch,” I said. “You are kind to mail it for me.”
    â€œMrs. Bywall and I take our responsibility for you quite seriously,” he answered.
    â€œI hadn’t thought of it like that,” I said, answering as tonelessly as he. “Aunt Constance believes in accepting responsibility. She makes her students be responsible to her, as well as making herself responsible for them.”
    â€œPerhaps that is one reason why her school is so successful,” Mr. Thiel remarked.
    â€œIs it successful?” I asked. I had never heard an outsider’s view of Wainwright Academy. I had heard the usual complaints and gratitude, from the girls and their parents. I had noticed that everyone respected Aunt Constance.
    â€œDon’t you know? I would think you’d know that. It has the reputation, which it deserves, of giving the best education to young ladies in the Boston area. It has also the reputation of producing suffragettes,because it doesn’t confine its curriculum to fine arts and domestic arts. For families who want their daughters to be educated as their sons are, it is the one place to send a female child.”
    â€œReally?” If he had meant to please me, he had succeeded.
    â€œReally. Your aunt is a remarkable woman.”
    â€œI knew that, ” I said. “I just didn’t know this. It makes me more proud of her.”
    He seemed willing to continue the conversation. “When I first met her the school was quite young,” he said. “She has worked hard and well.”
    â€œThat was before I came to her,” I said carefully. When exactly had he met Aunt Constance, I wondered; how well did she know him?
    â€œOh yes, I remember,” he said. As he did so, his eyes became glad, as if he had been a different kind of man in the past. “Your aunt had long been a friend of my wife’s.” I just nodded my head. “She was an imposing woman, your aunt. I was quite frightened when I first met her.”
    In my surprise I forgot that I was searching for information, and I entered into the conversation without thinking. “ You were frightened?”
    â€œIrene admired her. So I badly wanted her toapprove of me. I was younger then.” He smiled at my obvious disbelief. “And then, too, your aunt is such