Free Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman Page B

questioningly.
    “This is Miss Jones,” said Nurse Jordan. “She’s a friend of your cousin, come to see you. Your cousin in New York.”
    Miss Harrington’s face brightened. She said eagerly, “Robin? You’ve seen Robin?”
    Robin. I was so startled I almost jumped. Robin—and her name was Leonora. Of course—Robin and Nora! It was like panning for gold and suddenly bringing up a fortune-sized nugget; I found it hard to suppress my excitement but I said calmly, “Yes, and he’s just auditioned for a part in an important play in New York. He sent his best to you, and he said it was all right to ask you about this.”
    I placed the two pictures of the hurdy-gurdy on her bed table. She turned on the bedside light and leaned over to peer at them.
    “Oh my God,” she said softly, tears coming to her eyes. “Oh my God, Aunt Hannah’s hurdy-gurdy. How we loved it as children!”
    “Your aunt Hannah,” I repeated carefully, really excited now but not wanting to frighten her. Matching the softness of her voice I added, “Was her name Harrington, too?”
    But she was staring at the snapshots, bemused, the tears sliding down her haggard cheeks and splotching the pictures.
    “Your cousin Robin said that it was your hurdy-gurdy later, that
you
owned it for a while,” I pointed out. “Is that true? I’m trying to trace it, you see. It
was
yours at one time?”
    She nodded. “I kept it … I chose it … as a souvenir, you know—after everything went. Everything. Oh, I hated selling it but I needed the money,” she said with sudden anger.
    I said quickly, aware of my limited time with her, “Where did you and Robin play with the hurdy-gurdy, Miss Harrington? I mean, where did your aunt live?”
    “In Carleton.”
    “Carleton, Maine?”
    She nodded absently; her eyes were looking far beyond the pictures into a past she’d lost.
    “And your aunt Hannah’s last name, was it Harrington, too? Or perhaps Lamandale?”
    She wrenched her gaze from the pictures and stared at me in astonishment. “Of course not—Hannah Meerloo. Why didn’t you know that?” she asked suspiciously. “She ought to have known that,” she told the nurse pettishly. “I don’t like her, I don’t like her asking me questions and making me cry. Take her away or I’ll call Dr. Ffolks.”
    Nurse Jordan touched my arm, and as I followed her out of the room, Leonora Harrington called after us spitefully, “Tell Robin to come himself next time, damn him, I’m not insane, you know.”
    “She’ll cry now and fall asleep,” Nurse Jordan said as we walked into the elevator and she pressed the L button. “No harm done. She’s not always this way. Tomorrow she’ll be sitting out on the rear lawn knitting in the sun with all the other patients.”
    I said, “But if she’s so poor, how on earth can she afford to stay here at Greenacres?”
    “Oh, a friend of the family pays her bills,” explained the nurse. “He’s the only one who comes to see her, which is why you surprised me. He comes once a month, regular as clockwork.”
    The doors slid open and there was Mrs. Dawes waiting for us like a vulture. “Very good,” she said, nodding to Nurse Jordan. “Five minutes to the second.” Her eyes rested on me dismissingly. “Good day, Miss Jones.”
    I walked alone up the hall to the lobby, and being alone now I suddenly saw what I should have noticed before, except that it would have been meaningless ten minutes earlier. There was a bronze plaque set into the wall in the lobby. It read:
    GREENACRES PRIVATE HOSPITAL
    Given in memory
    OF
    JASON M. MEERLO
    BY
    HANNAH G. MEERLOO
    I walked thoughtfully back to the van, and to Joe, who looked at me questioningly and put aside his book. “That didn’t take long. Amelia, you look funny.”
    I said slowly, “I seem to have found Hannah. Of course not really, but Leonora Harrington is Nora—she has to be—because she called Robert Lamandale
Robin
, and the hurdy-gurdy belonged to