A Family Affair: A Novel of Horror (4 page)

They started toward the house on a course that took them safely past the group of women. Glancing again in their direction, Jennifer saw that the dancing had been resumed; they twirled and swayed, moving in a circle upon the grass. The white of their robes twirled after them, like tendrils of mist.

“Would you mind awfully,” Jennifer asked in a weak voice, “asking them to put some clothes on?”

“Oh of course,” Aunt Christine said with a little laugh. “We wouldn't go around the house like that.”

I wouldn't go anywhere like that, Jennifer thought to herself. Aloud, she murmured a faint, “Of course.”

Kelsey House and its inhabitants were certainly a far cry from anything she might have imagined. She was beginning to suspect that there might have been very good reasons why her mother had severed the family ties and left them severed all those years. Aunt Christine had implied as much, asking if Jennifer's mother had told her about them; what was there to tell, exactly?

Like it or not, though, she was here, and she had no intention of leaving before morning. She was exhausted; it was an effort to walk alongside Aunt Christine toward the house, and her eyelids felt as if they were made of lead. If nothing else, she was entitled to a night's rest. For that matter, she had no alternative. Without a car, in the dark, she could scarcely consider leaving, even if she had any place to go.

“We didn't wait dinner,” Aunt Christine went on, “because I was afraid you might be late, but I've kept some warm for you. And I know you're tired. There's plenty of time to meet the others in the morning, if you'd rather.”

“Yes, I think I would rather, thank you,” Jennifer replied. Somehow she did not quite feel up to any more surprises for one day. She had had a long and tiring drive, climaxed with stalling her car in a stream. She had been frightened and then irritated by the man on the road—who, she observed now, seemed to have disappeared altogether. Then had come that strange journey through the woods, seeming to belong to no part of time or the world. And finally she had arrived at Kelsey House to finds its inhabitants engaged in some strange rite the significance of which she could not begin to guess.

She wanted no more surprises. What she did want, and all that she wanted, was a soft bed to stretch out on, and hour after hour of deep, restful sleep. Even food, although she had not eaten for several hours, was less important to her than the prospect of a night's sleep.

I hope, she thought a bit uneasily, their sleeping habits are a little less peculiar than some of their other habits.

CHAPTER FOUR

Kelsey House was like nothing that Jennifer had seen before. Its design defied classifi
cation, borrowing freely and without apparent purpose from every conceivable source. The entrance, which they approached now, was reminiscent of the plantation houses of the old South that Jennifer remembered from picture books; yet in this illusion the designer had failed. The porch was too small for that, all but devoured by the massive columns and the wide, sweeping stairs. Nor did the Victorian door with its ornate and multi-colored glass panels seem to belong to this setting.

From the porch the house flared out in either direction, not straight at all as one might expect, but at peculiar angles. It was as though the house were folding its wings about the front lawn. Here a turret, there an arch, elsewhere a gable—gestures that in the hands of a true artist might have been grand but succeeded here in being only grotesque.

“It's a strange house,” Jennifer said. “I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.”

Aunt Christine chuckled, a light, silvery sound. “Robert Kelsey designed it himself, and built a great deal of it with his own hands. He was a talented man, although not too artistic, I'm afraid, but he wanted it to express himself and his life. He traveled a great deal, in the old country, and in our own South, before the war. I think the house reflects those travels of his—rambling, seemingly without direction, and yet tied together with a certain power; determination, if you will.”

“He must have been a fascinating man,” Jennifer said.

“He was. You would have liked him.”

Jennifer was not so sure of that. She knew all about strong willed people, and she knew that they could be fascinating without being at all likable.

They had come into the house. “I'll just dress,” Aunt Christine said. “Why don't you have a seat in the parlor and I'll join you in a moment.”

With a fluttering movement of her hand in the direction of what was presumably the parlor, Aunt Christine moved off down the hall. For a fleeting instant Jennifer felt the fleeting urge to go after her. She suddenly did not want to be alone, and especially not here, in this long, gloomy tunnel of a hall.

“Don't be a goose,” she said under her breath. She turned to the room Aunt Christine had indicated, and entered through the partially open door.

She meant to sit down and was half into a small divan when, with an astonished gasp, she jerked herself upright again. The divan was filthy, covered with a thick layer of dust that did not appear to have been disturbed for years. With a shudder of disgust she quickly stood up, telling herself she would remain standing rather than suffer that kind of dirt.

When she looked about she saw that the entire room was in the same condition. Nothing was out of place, there was no sign of litter, but everything was covered with an accumulation of dirt and dust. Parlor or not, the room was clearly one that the family had not used for years, from the look of it It looked like a room that though fully furnished, had been abandoned long before, and since then disturbed by no human presence.

Aunt Christine coughed politely behind her. Turning, Jennifer caught her breath sharply in surprise. She had expected by this time to see her hostess clad in some more conventional style of clothing. Apparently, however, “dressing” meant nothing more to Aunt Christine than adding a filmy flowing gown of the same white gauze over the outfit she had been wearing.

“Would you like to eat in your room?” Aunt Christine asked, taking no apparent notice of Jennifer's surprise. “I'm sure you'll want to refresh yourself and I thought perhaps you'd rather be by yourself for a while.”

“I certainly would,” Jennifer thought. Aloud she said, “Yes, I'd like that.”

“Come along then, I'll just show you to your room, and leave you there.”

Dutifully Jennifer followed her aunt back to the hall they had entered a few moments before. It was a grim and curious entrance to the house, a long scantily lighted passageway that stretched gloomily before them. Above them the high, elaborately paneled ceiling was trimmed with ornate moldings down almost to the floor. The walls were lined with a seemingly endless stream of doors, all of them closed just now. The far end of the hall, toward which they now walked, was completely dominated by a wide, towering staircase.

And everywhere that Jennifer looked she saw the same dust that had so astonished her in the parlor. It was a puzzling and unpleasant sight, giving the impression that the entire house had been closed up and unused for years. Kelsey House, she told herself, was certainly in need of a good cleaning.

“How long have you been here?” she asked impulsively. It was entirely possible, after all, that the house actually had been closed up; the family might have just returned from traveling. That would even explain their peculiar absence from the funeral.

“Oh dear,” Aunt Christine replied, “I lost count ever so long ago. It must be a hundred years now, I suppose, or even two hundred.”

Jennifer frowned as she considered the reply. She had not intended the question to mean how long the family had been in residence, which apparently was how Aunt Christine had taken it, but rather how long Aunt Christine herself had been here.

She nearly explained this to her aunt, but restrained herself. For one thing, she was a guest in the house, and however peculiar she thought these people, it would hardly be appropriate for her to risk offending her hostess so soon after her arrival. Moreover, these peculiar people were after all her family, the only family she had.

And lastly, she was simply not accustomed to expressing her opinions, or to arguing a point. She would have to be patient, that was all; and patience was a virtue that she was well practiced in.

She did think, though, that she ought to try to make conversation, and besides, it was hard not to think of dozens of questions that one would like to ask about this strange place.

“What about the lights,” she asked, noticing them. “They couldn't be as old as all that.”

“Oh no, your mother's sisters added the lights and the plumbing, and did quite a bit of remodeling. Such a shame too.”

“A shame?”

“Yes, they had only finished the work when the house burned to the ground.”

That was certainly another confusing answer. Jennifer thought for a long moment, wondering if further questions along these lines would be rude. And if not, which piece of information should she question first. Every answer that she got from her aunt, far from satisfying her questions, only seemed to provoke further questions.

“Aren't you my mother's sister?” she asked finally, deciding to take things in the order they had been presented to her.

Aunt Christine's laugh sounded over her shoulder as they started up the wide staircase. “Heavens, I was your—let me see now—your great-great-grandmother's sister. I suppose I should have been more explicit in my letter, but the years have diminished my vanity very little. I think Aunt Christine makes me sound quite old enough, without adding the rest.”

It was pointless, Jennifer thought to ask about the house burning to the ground. Aunt Christine might be teasing her, or perhaps her aunt was just not quite right mentally, not a very pleasant thought. In any event the answers she was getting were not making much sense.

“This is your room,” Aunt Christine said. They had reached the second floor and turned to their left. The door that Aunt Christine indicated was the first in another long line of doors, again all closed.

Half frightened at what she might find, half hopeful, Jennifer turned the knob and pushed the door inward. Her hopes sank and faded. The room was every bit as dirty and uncared for as the rest of the house. Worse, even had it been clean, it would still have been a dismal-looking chamber.

The walls were covered with what she was certain, was the worst paper she had ever seen. At one time no doubt the red of the cabbage roses had been quite vivid. With the passing of time they had taken on a faded musty hue that was almost overpowering in its sense of agedness. The same paper stretched over the ceiling as well, giving one the impression of being smothered in an avalanche of paper flowers.

From the papered ceiling, although strangely not from the center of the room, hung a grotesque light fixture. It held three uncovered bulbs that glared harshly. Each light was held by the figure of a woman in flowing robes, not unlike those worn by the women on the lawn, or worn by those old Greek statues she had seen in pictures.

These were no innocent maidens, however, no happy women. Each of the three was frozen in a grotesque position, each face a study in horror and pain, a pain that would last through centuries, until the metal of which they were cast would return again to dust

Jennifer pulled her eyes away from the light fixture, shuddering a little involuntarily. The furnishings in the room were sparse and uninviting: a sprawling fourposter, a flowered comforter stretched across its surface, dominated the room. There was as well an old fashioned dresser, heavily carved, with its mirror set lopsidedly atop the dusty surface; a massive armoire that occupied one wall; and between the armoire and the bed a small stool. The single window was all but covered from sight by velvet drapes, and the floor was wood, stained to a somber blackness that fitted the overall dreariness of the room.

“I think you'll be comfortable here,” Aunt Christine was saying from behind her. If she had noticed Jennifer's dismay, she gave no sign of it, and Jennifer kept her thoughts to herself.

“And I see Aunt Abbie has brought your dinner up,” Aunt Christine said.

Jennifer followed her glance to the dresser, wondering how she had failed to notice the tray before. In sharp contrast to the rest of the room, or the rest of the house for that matter, the tray and its silver cover gleamed brightly, clean and sparkling.

“I'll leave you to yourself now,” Aunt Christine went on. “If you need anything, just let me know.” With that she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.

“I'm alone,” Jennifer told herself, staring unhappily about. “Alone in this nightmare of a room, in this peculiar house, miles from anywhere.”

She shut her eyes and tried to remember just exactly where she was. She had left home at eight that morning and she had taken the highway north. The names of one or two towns stayed in her memory but they did little to make the picture any clearer. She was not accustomed to traveling, and furthermore she had virtually no sense of direction. Of course there was Aunt Christine's letter in her purse. At least with that she could always find her way back simply by reversing the directions.

If she went back. That was the rub. Put in the baldest
terms, she had nothing to go back to; an empty house that held little appeal for her, and an emptier life. Kelsey House and its occupants seemed strange to her, that was true enough; but then, she herself had always been regarded as strange. It was possible that there were reasonable explanations for everything she had observed here. This was a large house, and it was possible that the family just did not try to keep it all clean.

That dancing on the lawn—well, it looked peculiar to her, but it might be quite harmless. Suppose someone who knew nothing of the game happened upon a group of people playing charades; that would look peculiar too.

She must be patient. As for the house and its dirt, she could begin by taking the initiative and beginning a good cleaning-up job. Perhaps they would follow her example. With a lot of work, and soap and water, and maybe some paint, the house could be made—she paused in her thoughts and glanced around again—well, not charming, but at least more comfortable.

She would be very patient with Aunt Christine and the others. “They will come to like me,” she said, “and to respect me.” That thought raised her flagging spirits a little.

Her shoulder had begun to ache, and she was reminded that she was quite tired. She crossed to the bed, examining it with a feeling of revulsion. With two fingers she grasped one corner of the spread gingerly and pulled it to the foot of the bed. The sheets, protected by the spread, were relatively clean.

“That's something to be grateful for,” she thought. At least she could have her sorely needed sleep; in the morning she would set herself to cleaning the room thoroughly.

The window was next. She tried without success to draw the drapes aside. Giving up on that attempt, she stuck her head behind the heavy velvet and tugged at the window, hoping to get at least a faint breath of fresh air into the musty room. The window refused stubbornly to budge. Still more disconcerting was the discovery that her hands were covered with the black dust that was thick on the windows.

“Oh dear,” she said. She gave up on the window and stepped back into the room. It probably hadn't been opened since the fire, whenever that had been.

Her eyes fell on the silver tray still waiting atop the dresser. For a moment she played with the idea of going straight to bed without eating. She was more tired than hungry. Indeed, her very surroundings discouraged an appetite.

She was a creature of routine, however, and common sense told her finally that, hungry or not, she should try to eat a little something. She picked up the tray and turned around once or twice looking for a logical place to eat. There was none. Only the little stool and the bed offered any seating. Resignedly she carried the tray to the bed, setting it down in the middle of the uneven surface, and seated herself beside it. She removed the cover.