Houses of Stone (43 page)

"You're still grumpy. Have another cup of coffee," Peggy said, grinning. "I did suspect, believe it or not. I told you I've read dozens of the modern descendants of these books. It's only logical, if you think about it. The old lady had to know The Secret, and The Secret had to have something to do with the quarrel between the two brothers, which happened in the distant past, while Ismene was still a small child. How could the old lady know if she didn't marry Edmund's father until later? He didn't even confide in his own son. He wouldn't gossip with a mere woman. The
only way she could know was if she was herself involved, and one way she might be involved was if she was actually the first wife, and therefore Edmund's mother."

"And Ismene's. Don't tell me you anticipated that!"

"No, that was a shocker. It's a confusing story; let me see if I got it straight. Ismene and Clara are in fact older than Edmund. They were infants when their father discovered that he was being cuckolded by none other than his own brother. The guilty wife—already pregnant, one presumes—and the dastardly deceiver fled Papa's righteous wrath. He moved to another part of the country where the shameful story was not known and told everyone, including the girls, that their mother was dead.

"In the meantime dastardly deceiver and his paramour settle in Virginia, where they are accepted as man and wife, and proceed to have two children of their own—the half-brother and sister of Ismene and Clara. The old lady gradually goes bonkers, shame and guilt preying on her soul, and is locked up in the attic. But she has enough wits left to know who the two girls are, and to realize that Edmund is about to commit the deadly sin of incest by proposing marriage to his own sister."

"But is Edmund aware of that?"

"The doctor says he is."

"He's prejudiced," Karen insisted. "And so are you. You never liked Edmund. The way the doctor discovers the truth leaves Edmund in the clear." She selected a few pages from the pile on the table and read aloud.

"It was some time before Ismene recovered from the swoon of horror that had bereft her of her senses to find a hand supporting her head and another holding a cup to her lips. A sip of the cordial restored her; dashing the cup away, she rose up in a frenzy of indignation and disbelief.

" 'It cannot be true! Reason, affection, simple decency recoil from such horror.'

" 'Good,' said Dr. Fitzgerald's quiet voice. 'You have recovered. I had not underestimated your courage and strength. You will not, should not judge until you have heard the facts. Listen now, while I tell you how I came to this discovery.

" 'I was struck when I first saw them together by the resemblance between Clara and Isabella—and to a lesser extent between them and
Edmund. The trained eye of a physician observes characteristics of bone structure and of such seemingly trivial structures as the configuration of the ear, that others would pass over. Still, I thought little of it until I spoke with that miserable sinner who has paid a terrible price for her crime. Her ravings might have been only senile wanderings; yet when she spoke of her "daughters" and of the sins of the parents' generation being repeated by the next, a dreadful suspicion dawned. It might be no more than that; but the horror of that possibility demanded investigation. I proceeded to carry this out, corresponding first with your father's legal representative in C——, where you had dwelt. He was able to inform me of the name of the northern city from which the gentleman and his infant daughters had removed; further correspondence with individuals in that place resulted in the information that there was no record of your mother's death and burial, and that certain elderly citizens of the city remembered the old scandal. You may say, and I would not blame you, that this does not constitute proof. To me it is proof enough to cast serious doubts upon the course you may be contemplating, and to require confirmation or refutation before you decide.' "

Karen looked up from the page. "See? Edmund wasn't even born when this happened—if it did happen. How could he know?"

"What do you mean, if it happened? Are you suggesting the doctor invented the story?"

"He's got a damned good motive for turning Ismene against Edmund. She's a wealthy heiress, and he loves her."

"Hmmm. That's true." Peggy lit a cigarette. "Quite a dilemma for the poor girl, isn't it? One of her suitors is a liar and a whole-hearted villain, the other is lily-pure, and she has no idea which is which."

"And no way of finding out for herself," Karen said. "As a woman in that day and age she had no legal rights. If Edmund is a villain, she is completely in his power; she can't order his carriage or command his servants to drive it; she can't even mail a letter without his seeing it; and she has already prejudiced the neighbors against her. If she runs away with the doctor and he turns out to be a rat, she's equally powerless."

"I don't think the doctor is a rat."

"It's his word against Edmund's. I did read on a little more," Karen admitted. "I was too tired to write it out, but I wanted to see what she'd do."

"She confronts Edmund?" Peggy asked interestedly. "That's in character for her, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so, though it's rather foolish of her. Actually he catches her off guard. In great horror and agitation she rushes off to her only refuge, her house of stone. Edmund finds her there and demands to know what has distressed her. Still shaken, she blurts out the story."

"And he says—"

"Denies it, of course. First he rages up and down, cursing the doctor and threatening to horsewhip him, set the dogs on him, and so on, if he ever dares show his face at Ferncliffe again. After he's calmed down he promises Ismene he will take all the necessary steps to prove the story is a fabrication."

"Such as?"

"He mentions locating the record of his parents' marriage, for one thing. He's a little vague about other steps. But," Karen insisted, "a marriage certificate would be enough. That's where I am at the moment; poor Ismene is in a distracted state, not knowing which man to believe, not wanting to believe either is capable of such villainy."

"Could you finish today if you stuck with it?"

"Possibly. I'm going with you, though. We may not have much time."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Peggy complained. "It sounds so—so—"

"Gothic? I only meant that if the property has been sold, the new owner may not be as accommodating as Cameron has been. He'll have the bulldozers in as soon as the sale is completed." She hesitated for a moment, her frowning gaze fixed on the window. "Anyway . . . I've had it up to here with this damned town. I'm sick of Mrs. Fowler and Bobby and Lisa and their nasty gossip and their narrow little minds. I'm ready to leave."

"When?" Peggy rose and began getting her things together.

"As soon as my car is ready. I'd better call the garage. And don't tell me I can't drive without a license, I can and will. I've done it before."

"I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do," Peggy exclaimed, opening her eyes very wide. "Or not to do."

"That'll be the day. I'll be with you as soon as I make that call."

The garage assured her the car would be ready that evening. "Or first thing in the morning. Ten, at the latest."

"That probably means mid-afternoon, at the earliest," Karen grumbled.

"We'll see. We may not be able to work tomorrow anyhow," Peggy said, with a glance at the gray skies. "Looks like rain."

They had gone some distance before Karen spoke again. "Did anything strike you after you'd read that last section?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Peggy said cautiously.

"I've insisted all along that the novel was semi-autobiographical. What we just read proves what we suspected—that the plot is pure fiction. The Horrible Secret, the long-lost mother, the metaphors of the cave, even the suspicion of incest occur in other Gothics. So do the women—the virtuous heroine and her rival, Eve and Lilith, the good girl and the female monster. Isabella and Clara are two aspects of the same character. But I still think we may be looking for sisters who were rivals. The fact that Ismene, the real Ismene, was an intellectual doesn't mean she wasn't interested in men—one man in particular. This book might have been a fairly inventive and rather vicious way of getting back at her sister."

"Who had married the man they both wanted?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it? You were the one who pointed out that marriage was a woman's only viable option in those days. And if it's true ..." She waited to see if Peggy would finish the sentence.

". . . then instead of two Cartright sisters we're looking for a Cartright wife and her sister of another name."

"Damn it!" Karen exclaimed. "You
had
thought of it. I thought I was being so clever."

"You are, you are. The thought had passed through my mind, yes, but your interpretation hadn't occurred to me. It's not only clever, it's damned good. I was afraid you were so besotted with Ismene you couldn't see any flaws in her character."

"I'd like to find flaws, they make her more human. As a fictional character she was too damned noble. And what she did—if our theory is correct—is a relatively harmless way of exorcising resentment."

"That's why mystery writers are, on the whole, such mild-mannered individuals," Peggy said, smiling. "They don't have to take an ax to the people they hate, they kill them with a pen. Or a word processor."

"So can you find the necessary information?"

"I can but try. It won't be easy. Genealogies are traced through the
male ancestor; they don't pay much attention to women outside the direct line of descent."

Her face set in a frown, Karen did not respond. Glancing at her, Peggy said encouragingly, "Cheer up. There's a good chance this new line of inquiry will pay off. The genealogy mentions the maiden names of the Cartright wives, and only two or three of them fall within the likely time period. If I can trace their family trees—"

"There are too many questions we may never be able to answer," Karen interrupted. "Why did she choose Ismene as a pseudonym? What happened to the rest of the manuscript? How was it damaged? I didn't pay much attention to its physical condition, except to assure myself it was stable enough to be read; but I'm wondering now if some of the marks weren't made by fire. Where was it, and what happened to it, before someone hid it in the trunk in the attic?"

Peggy's forehead furrowed. "Good questions. You think it was in Ismene's stone house?"

"I don't know." Karen's hands clenched. "But there's something there. I feel it. Something . . . waiting."

Peggy looked at her uneasily, but did not speak.

Sunlight was breaking through the clouds when they reached the house. The gates had been open and their crew was waiting, but Cameron's battered pickup was not there, and neither was Bill Meyer's car.

"We don't need him, ma'am," said one of the boys, with a condescending smirk. "Likely he won't turn up; he was pretty bushed last night."

However, they had not been at it long before Bill did turn up, apologizing for his tardiness. "Damned desk forgot my wake-up call. How's everybody this morning?"

"In the pink, as you can see," Peggy replied briskly. "Here, Bill, have a shovel."

"Just what I wanted. They're predicting rain tonight," he added, glancing at the sky.

"I know." Peggy hoisted her own shovel. "That's why I want to get this place cleared out today."

She set to work with more enthusiasm than skill, pitching shovelfuls
of dirt over the wall. The boys exchanged grins and glances and moved out of her way.

Bill leaned on his shovel and smiled at Karen. "I'm not going into that place until Peggy gets out of it. She's going to brain somebody if she isn't careful."

"Let her work off steam. She'll tire soon and then maybe I can persuade her to let someone take over." Karen spoke abstractedly, her eyes fixed on the narrow opening which Bucky (or Jimmy Joe) was digging out.

"How much longer are you planning to stay here?" Bill asked.

"If it rains tonight—"

"I didn't mean here in this wilderness. I meant here in town. Surely you've accomplished what you hoped to do by now."

The urgency in his voice drew her attention away from the excavation. Turning to look at him, she saw he was watching her with an intensity that made her oddly uncomfortable. "Why do you ask, Bill?"

"I can't stay much longer, Karen. I'm going to England next week, and there are a number of odd jobs I ought to finish before I leave."

"Lucky you," Karen said lightly.

"Right. It would ease my mind considerably if I knew you were safe in Wilmington."

Once, only a few weeks earlier, she would have snapped back at him, denying both danger and the need of assistance—especially his. Now it was surprisingly easy to overcome her initial automatic resentment.

"Set your mind at ease, then. I'll probably leave tomorrow."

"So soon?" He laughed then, and shook his head. "Inconsistency is not, as my sex claims, limited to women. I'm glad, Karen. But I had hoped . . . Look, I'll only be gone three weeks. Can I call you when I get back?"

"Why not?"

"Great. I don't suppose you'll feel like going out for dinner tonight?"

"Let's see how we feel at the end of the day." She picked up her shovel. "Peggy is as red as a beet and she's about to decapitate one or all of the boys with that spade; come and help me persuade her to let us take over."