A Timely Concerto (5 page)

That surprised her. She had thought he must be from Neosho. “I’ve been to Chicago. My Aunt Lou lived there but I don’t know where Tompkins is.”

“You wouldn’t.” He played the last notes of the song and turned to face her, hands in his lap. “It’s a township, not even a town, just good farmland in northern Illinois, almost to Iowa.”

He pronounced Iowa the way that Joe’s mother, Gran, did, as if it rhymed with “way.”

“What was it like?” Lillian envisioned fields and white farmhouses like something out of an old movie.
Howard chuckled as he glanced around the room that was still, more than a century after his death, marked with a distinct Early Edwardian flavor of opulence and abundance. “It wasn’t anything like this. Ever read James Whitcomb Riley or maybe John Greenleaf Whittier?”

Images of a snub nosed, rag tag farmhand from the poetry volume of her Childcraft set sparked a grin. “
The Raggedy Man
, right?”

“That’s the one! The Raggedy man, he works for Pa,” Howard chanted. “Or Whittier’s
Maud Muller.
We worked the land long and hard. I ran barefoot through the fields all summer long, fished in the river, and went to a one-room school like Abe Lincoln. Your experience, no doubt, was much different.”

“Well, yeah.” Lillian wouldn’t know where to start with stories of yellow school buses trundling the highways and major roads of Kansas City or how to describe shopping centers like Bannister Mall. “My childhood was very different but then I grew up in Kansas City. It’s immense, much larger than it would have been when you were alive.”

“There.” His voice deepened with pleasure and he stood up. “You admit that I’m dead. That is a start, dear Lillian. At least you understand that simple reality. What we can make of the situation is something I don’t yet understand but this is simply amazing.”

Amazing was not the word Lillian would choose but encouraged by his candor, she asked the question that had niggled since they were in the bedroom. “I didn’t realize until you mentioned it upstairs that you died here, Howard. How did you die?”

With a heavy sigh, he sat down on the brocaded sofa across the room. “I died with pneumonia, a common enough way to die.”

Lillian had expected some accident, a runaway horse, a farm mishap, or something more than a simple virus. Shock popped open her mouth long enough for Howard to see and he laughed.

“You thought of something more romantic, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know about romantic but I thought maybe it was an accident or something. No one dies of pneumonia anymore, Howard. Penicillin and other antibiotics can treat pneumonia and infections.” As she grasped the full meaning of his death, a death that would be almost impossible now, she wanted to cry. “If you had the right medicine, Howard, you could have lived. That’s so sad.”

His forehead creased. “I agree that my untimely death was sad but if I had lived, then I would not be having this conversation with you and I am enjoying this very much. The advances in modern medicine do intrigue me, though. I always thought that doctors would discover new ways to treat the sick. Has cancer been conquered?”

“No, unfortunately not. And there’s no cure for the common cold either!”

He laughed but the mirth did not touch his eyes. He flicked at a lamp tassel, restless and then stood up to walk back and forth over the floor.

“Lillian, this is very entertaining but you wanted to know what happened, how I came to be here after death as a ghost.” He paused, shuddering as if he still found the idea either unbelievable or repulsive. “We’ll have time to talk about everything else but if you’re to help me to understand, if that is even possible, then let me tell you what happened.”

Lillian nodded, sobered by his words. Between the music and the jokes she had almost forgotten that there was more to the conversation than getting acquainted, that this man – or soul – had endured more than a hundred years as a haunt without any comprehension of how or why. .

“All right.”

As if he could not be still for this, he paced, his boots rapping against the floor with firm steps.

“Where do I begin? I have told you that I was a farmer. We had a fruit farm, a large farm with apple orchards, peach orchards, and strawberries. That was my dream and why we moved here, farther south to a milder climate. The farm was just west of Neosho.”

Howard waved one arm toward the west.

“Is it still there?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea but I wish I knew. I doubt it, though. At any rate, by the time we moved here, my parents were aging and so it was I who found the land, built up the farm, and helped start a strawberry growers association. No one had thought about growing large numbers of berries as a cash crop before but by Jingo, we did it.

Each year, more strawberries matured and the farm was like a living dream. 1904, the summer before I died, was a
record-breaking year. I made enough from the berries alone the year before to finish this house and it was, then, one of the finest in town. It was completed in early April and we moved in. That is another story, though. I was already wealthy but the 1904 season made me all the more so. What I want to tell you – what I must tell you – is how I came to die here and what happened after my death.”

His jaw clenched and he shook his head, Sympathetic to what must be a difficult story to tell, Lillian shifted in the chair.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “I know this must be hard for you.”

“Yes, well. As you can guess, I spent a great deal of money on the house and the furnishings. 1905 looked to be another good year for the crops and in late January, I made a trip down to Rogers, Arkansas to look at some equipment. It was quite warm for January when I left but the weather turned very cold. There was no heat in the hotel room and I caught a chill. At the time, it seemed quite annoying. I was seldom sick, never more than a slight illness or cold. By the time I went home, however, I felt rather ill.”

Lillian tried to visualize Howard seated upright in an old-fashioned train seat, looking wan and feeling sick.

“I arrived home on Wednesday. Always perfidious, the weather warmed again and I walked through the orchards in my shirtsleeves, wiping my nose and coughing. I felt certain I could shake it off and that I would be well again but it did not turn out that way. By Sunday, the weather changed again and it was cold, around freezing. That was well enough for the berries, mulched against winter and it was not so cold that it could harm the trees. I went to church with Mother that morning and when we came home, Shugie had made chicken and dumplings, one of my favorite dishes. As cold as it was at dinnertime, the wind shifted until it blew from the north and temperatures kept dropping. By nightfall, it was well below zero. I was worried about the farm.”

She didn’t understand. “But nothing was blooming or bearing fruit, was it? Wouldn’t it all be dormant for winter?”

Howard paused in mid-stride and chuckled. “You’re not a country girl, are you? Forgive me. I had forgotten. Strawberries are perennial and come back each year. Most of the time they can withstand the cold and that is why fruit farmers cover them with straw or hay for the winter. Extreme cold, however, can blast the plants and kill them. I feared that might happen which would be a disaster. All the strawberries would die. I would have to replant and I stood to lose a great deal of money. As for the orchards, well, apple trees can take the cold better than the peaches but at the very least, I was afraid that the coming year’s crop would be ruined.”

Now she got it. It was simple economics. Because his living depended on the farm, the bitter cold possessed the power to destroy the coming season and with it wreak havoc on his finances. Since he had just built a mansion and filled it with fine furnishings, his cash reserves would have been low.

“And you went to do what you could to prevent that.”

He shut his eyes. “Yes. We made smudge pots for the orchards and burned them, day and night. Black smoke choked us as we worked and billowed upward but the heat, I hope, was sufficient to save the trees. That wouldn’t help the berries, however, and we could do little more than cover them with more layers of straw.”

As if he could stand up no longer, Howard sank into a chair and slumped, the first time she noted less than perfect posture.

“And did it work?”

He shook his head. “No. At least I don’t believe that it did but I was not around to know. The apple trees should have come through all right but the peaches may have been finished, the strawberries were. If the cold snap had been short, it would have been all right. When it warmed up on Monday and Tuesday that week, I was hopeful but then Tuesday night, temperatures fell again, down to 14 below zero. It was not as cold as Sunday night but still it was too much. I worked at the farm for hours in the freezing cold. Mother sent Shugie’s son out to the farm with hot soup and coffee for me more than once.”

“You must have been cold.” Lillian felt chilled to imagine it, the icy winds sweeping over the fruit trees and the cold that seeped deep into Howard’s bones.

A bitter smile flickered across his face for a moment. “I was. I could not stay warm no matter how heavy clothing I wore and even when I went home, I felt chilled. The cold was like poison, seeping through my body. Even the coffee and soup didn’t make me feel warm.”

“Who was Shugie?”

Howard gave her a real smile this time. “Shugie was our cook and maid, a colored woman who lived over in north town. When I first took sick, Shugie tried to doctor me but nothing seemed to help.”

“No wonder you got sick,” Lillian said, imagining how weary and cold Howard must have been. “When did you first begin to feel ill?”

Howard rubbed his hands together as if to warm them, as if the memory of such extreme temperatures brought back the cold. “I don’t know. The days and nights were endless and I felt so hopeless. My strawberry plants turned black and wilted beneath the straw but we struggled with the trees until the weather improved. By then, I was so tired and I hurt in every part of my body. I could not get warm and I developed a cough. That’s when Shugie tried to dose me with some kind of whiskey toddy but it didn’t help.”

His voice hoarsened as he spoke and his complexion – always pale since she had first glimpsed him – faded. He stared straight ahead, his eyes focused on something beyond the room and the lines of his face deepened, giving him all of his thirty-seven years and more.

When he was silent for several minutes, Lillian crossed the room and put her hand on top of his hand that rested on one knee. For a brief moment she touched his skin, felt th
e flesh beneath it and then the illusion faded away. Her fingers rested on nothing but chill emptiness. When she looked up with horror, Howard was gone

One moment he was there, solid enough to touch and then he vanished like the apparition that he was. Lillian raised her cold fingers to her cheek and felt the chill, but Howard remained absent. Every detail of his story lingered and the vivid images his words conjured refused to fade. A wide gauntlet of emotions evoked by his poignant tale made her both tense and so sad she wanted to cry. His unexpected disappearance upset her as well but it was not until the clock in the front parlor chimed the hour of six that she realized how much time had passed.

Her stomach ached, empty and she remembered she had not eaten since leaving the McDonald’s at Grandview. No crumb of that single sausage biscuit remained in her system and hunger demanded sustenance but there wasn’t anything in the house. Divided between her desire to eat and a need to summon Howard back, Lillian called his name. No answer came and she consoled herself that he had vanished before.

“He’ll be back.” Her voice spoken aloud sounded faint and fragile but she thought he would. With an effort, she projected her voice louder, “Howard, I’ll be back in a few minutes with something to eat.”

Lillian wanted more than another burger, something more substantial than a cold sandwich so she drove to the local supermarket and bought fried chicken and potato salad. With the empty cupboards in mind, she tossed a few staples into the cart-sugar, coffee, a quart of milk, a box of cereal, and some cheese. Back at Seven Oaks, she unloaded her groceries, rooted until she found the old electric percolator she remembered from an earlier search, and started coffee perking. She spooned potato salad onto a plate and picked out a large piece of chicken. Just as she crunched into the first bite with a satisfying burst of flavor, Howard strolled into the kitchen.

The bite stuck halfway down her throat and she spluttered, choked on crisp skin. His unexpected appearances and vanishing acts would take some adjustment to accept, she thought, as she swallowed hard and asked the obvious question,

“What happened earlier? You disappeared.”

He sat down, this time wearing a nice button down shirt with cuff links and gabardine trousers. “I wish I could explain it and I apologize. It must have been disconcerting.”

“That would be one of the words I would use,” Lillian said. “Where did you go when I couldn’t see you?”

“I didn’t go anywhere; I was still there but I was exhausted.”

That made some sense after her recent research. “Spirits need energy to manifest. Talking with me probably drained a lot of your energy “

“That might be.” Howard folded his arms across the table in a relaxed position. “It was difficult to talk about the events that led up to my death, horrible really. I have not thought about all that in a long time. If I vanish again, do not be offended – “

“I wasn’t.”

He snorted a small sound that might have been a smothered laugh. “Don’t be offended because I will return sooner or later. Am I interrupting your supper?”

She paused, a fork of potato salad halfway to her lips. “No. I’d share but I guess you’re long past eating.”

He reached out and grabbed a chicken leg, then bit into it. Still chewing, he said, “Actually, I’ve learned that while I do not have to eat, I can eat or drink. I am not actually eating the food but it appears that I am and I do get the momentary taste. I haven’t eaten in a number of years but I sometimes snitched a biscuit or bit of ham when my parents were still here. This is good, this fried chicken.”

Her eyes must be huge but she tried not to stare as he polished off the drumstick and reached for another piece of chicken. Ghosts who ate and drank were a new concept; nothing of the sort had been part of anything she had researched. “It’s not bad. Would you like a plate or some potato salad?”

Mouth full, he shook his head. “No, thank you, but I must have a cup of coffee.”

“Me, too.”

Coffee was not strong enough now. Lillian longed for a splash of whisky to add to her cup. This had been a long day. She had driven from Kansas City, had a long and emotionally wrought conversation with a ghost, and now watched that same spirit eat. None of her research prepared her for this but there wasn’t any whiskey so she poured two cups of coffee.

“There’s milk and sugar if you like.” She set his cup before him and slid into a chair.

He drank it black and with great pleasure, judging from his expression. The jolt of caffeine cut into her tension and she relaxed. Most of the weirdness from watching him imbibe like a living human faded and for the moment, she savored the everyday appeal of drinking coffee with a friend. Howard was that, no matter what his physical or metaphysical status.

“So Shugie – was that her name – dosed you with a hot toddy?” Lillian asked, weaving back into the fabric of their earlier conversation.

“Yes.” Howard drained his cup and held it out as a request for more. “I came home early from the farm, coughing so much that I just couldn’t work any longer. I often came through the kitchen so I could slip up the back stairs to clean up. When I walked in here, Shugie was rolling out pie crust but she stopped when she heard me cough.”

Now he mimicked the brown sugar sound of her voice, “Miss-tah Howard, that cough sounds bad. Are you poorly?”

“I was and I admitted it,” Howard said. “I was never sick very often and so she knew that I could not be at all well. She mixed up some concoction with whisky, peppermint, honey, and tea. I drank it down and it helped, a bit. I made it through dinner and retired early. I thought the rest would be enough.”

“Was it?” Lillian filled his cup and her own.

“No. I felt just as terrible, worse when I woke but all I could think about was the farm. I stumbled downstairs, drank some coffee, and grabbed two biscuits to eat while I rode over there. I fought being sick for two days, in the hopes that I would get better but I just became worse. Finally, there came a day when I felt so terrible that I decided to stay home. I felt like my skin was on fire and I could feel the fever heat. Even so, I shook with chills and felt too sick to eat much of anything. By then when I coughed, I brought up nasty mucous streaked with blood and green chunks. My chest ached as if someone had piled rocks on it so I decided to stay home.”

Howard drank the rest of his coffee and spun the empty cup on one edge. Talking about your own death would be trying, Lillian thought, and reached out to touch his fingers. It might have been the coffee but this time, she could touch them and they didn’t go cold or evaporate.

“Howard, if this is too much to talk about, we can finish tomorrow.”

“No.” He wound his fingers around hers, a simple gesture that was much more intimate in his time than now. “I would rather finish the story. I don’t want to do this more than once. I took to my bed and Mother came in, looking fussed and worried. She touched my forehead and cried out that I was burning up. Father did not care much for doctors so he suggested that Mother and Shugie nurse me. Moreover, they sent for Miss Julia, a neighbor we had known since we first moved here from Illinois. She was a maiden lady, a spinster who nursed the sick around town. Everything gets confused after that. I remember lying in bed coughing, so miserable, and sick that I could not think straight. Fever dreams tormented me and I suppose I was delirious.”

She wanted to say something, a word of comfort but Lillian could not thing of anything to say so she nodded.

“They bathed my face with cold water and put mustard plasters on my chest. Someone sat with me at all times, I think, and tried to get me to drink water or other concoctions. Breathing became more and more difficult so Dr. Lamson and his son operated on me, there in the bedroom.”

“Operated? They did surgery in the house?” Lillian’s shock was real. “Oh, Howard. What did they do?”

“It was an effort to drain the pus and fluid from my lungs. Because I was already so very weak, they could not use an anesthetic of any type.”

“Wasn’t that painful?” She could not imagine enduring surgery while so seriously ill.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I hurt so much already, you see, that it wasn’t so bad. I improved a little, enough that I remember looking down at my hands, so weak and white, and being ashamed. My illness was the first time I had not worked since I was a little boy. After some time, I truly
do not know how long, my condition worsened and the doctors performed a second surgery. I recall hearing Miss Julia say that it was the fifty-third day that I had been ill and that something had to change because I was so weak. I recall the preparations but I don’t remember the surgery at all. “Later, sometime later, I woke weak and soaked with sweat. My fever had broken.”

She didn’t understand. “But, how could that be?”

Howard released her fingers and held up a hand. “It wasn’t. That is just what I thought at the time. I do not know what time I died but what I remember is that I woke up. Sunshine was pouring through the windows and I felt fine, not sick any longer. I thought I was recovering. I got up, feeling light and well.”

One tear slipped from the corner of his eye but there was no other outward sign of his emotions. “I came downstairs, so happy that I was well again. The first indication that something was not quite as it should be was when I passed the mirror at the foot of the stairs. I could not see my reflection. That was odd but I did not think too much about it. I followed voices into the parlor and there was a crowd of people. Mother, Father, and Miss Julia were on the large divan. Mother and Miss Julia were crying; they had handkerchiefs clutched in their hands. Albert and his wife were there, so was young Lucille. Lucy, as we called here, was staring at something and I wondered what she saw. My cousin, Maggie had come from Illinois along with other relatives and I wondered what on earth they were all doing in the parlor.”

“Some of the hands from the farm were there, business people from town, friends, and people from church had gathered. I did not know why until I walked through the room and saw what Lucille saw. It was a coffin and I was in it, dressed in my best suit, eyes closed, hair brushed. I screamed but no one heard me.”

His hands trembled and he put them over his face for a moment, as if he could erase the horror he felt when he realized he had died. Recovered after a moment, he continued,

“I tried to talk to my parents but they turned away. I believe that Mother heard my voice because she turned pale but she would not meet my eyes. When I tried to touch people, they ignored me or brushed at their sleeves. I could not reach any of them so I stood in the corner and watched my funeral. When it came time to carry the casket outside, I followed but when we reached the side portico doors, I could not go further. I still fail to understand that but it was as if I hit a wall or barrier. So, I stared from the door as the hearse moved away, the horses wearing black feathers, and saw the line of carriages follow my body away to the cemetery. I fear I don’t even know for certain where I am buried but I believe it must be at IOOF cemetery, the one outside town.”

Howard sighed. “The day of my funeral this haunting began, this cursed half-existence. I attempted for years to reach my mother and my father. Cousin Maggie came to live with them after my death and was my mother’s companion for years. Shugie, I know, could both hear and see me but when she told Mother that she could, Mother dismissed her on the spot. She accused poor Shugie of witchcraft or worse. From then until you came to Seven Oaks, dear Lillian, no one thought of me as more than a ghost, something to be afraid of or to ignore. You make me feel like a man again, a person and not just a vapor. I thank you for that.”

Lillian choked out the words through tears. “You’re welcome, Howard. I don’t know what to say except “I’m sorry” and that doesn’t seem like enough. I can’t begin to imagine how you felt or must feel.”

He pushed back the chair and stood. “You care, Lillian, and that means a great deal. I feel that I am fading – at long last, I recognize the signs and so I will go before I vanish before your eyes again. Sometime, maybe tomorrow, we can talk about the things you have learned about spirits and hauntings but I will leave you now. It is evening and almost nightfall so good night, Lillian. Adieu.”

The last thing she wanted was Howard leaving. Lillian wanted to talk, to continue the conversation into the wee hours of the next day but he was already walking through the kitchen door, his shoulders dimmer than the rest of his body so she could do nothing but call after him,

“See you later, Howard.”

The door swung shut, moved by a breath of air at his passing and she was alone. She squelched a desire to put down her head on the table and weep. Her practical nature won so she gathered up the dirty dishes, put away the uneaten food that remained, and washed the things they used. Wired with caffeine, she was not tired and so she read another novel from the shelf, a book with Howard’s name written in the flyleaf. She felt closer to him that way. Although she had not yet asked if the bed where she slept was the same one where he died, Lillian had no qualms about crawling beneath the sheet to read there. She was still awake when her phone rang just before midnight.

“Hello.”

“Hey, big sister,” Lavinia’s voice boomed into her ear. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”