Someone in the House (9 page)

But before I went to the pool I walked out onto the balcony. Standing behind those breast-high battlements I could imagine myself a lady of high degree, watching from her tower window for the return of her lover from the Crusades or some equally romantic and useless enterprise. The sun was warm on my face. A perfumed breeze blew locks of hair across my cheek. I could almost feel the weight of one of those high, horned headdresses pressing my hair down.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the doors leading to Kevin’s room were ajar. I wandered casually along the balcony, head held high, wondering how the hell women had kept those medieval monstrosities from falling off. Did they have hatpins?

Playing medieval lady was a silly little game that distracted my mind from my real intention—to invade Kevin’s room in the hope of finding some clue as to what was ailing him. It came as something of a shock when the first thing I saw was a painting of a medieval lady in long trailing robes and a horned headdress.

The picture, framed in hideous gold Victorian curlicues, hung on the wall to my left. It was not very large, only about two feet square, and even at first glance I realized that it was an appallingly bad painting. Certainly it was no priceless ancestral portrait from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The young woman’s rounded face and the soft folds of her robe did not in the least resemble the stiff, hieratic style of the Middle Ages. I was reminded instead of William Morris and Burne-Jones, and the late-Victorian interest in pseudo-medieval subjects made popular by Sir Walter Scott. This painting was not even a good imitation of a second-rate painter; it was clearly the work of an unskilled amateur, perhaps one of the gentlemanly dilettantes of a more leisured age.

I was standing just inside the French doors, and shame kept me from advancing any farther. As I had expected, my survey of the room showed nothing unusual. Perhaps if I searched the drawers and closets. The idea made my cheeks burn. Like the rat I was, I scuttled out.

Yet as I stripped and changed into my swimsuit, something nagged at me like a burr under my pants. That portrait—it had not been in Kevin’s room the first time I visited it, on my initial tour of the house. I would have remembered it because of the frame, which was almost the only completely tacky object in the house. In fact, I had seen it somewhere before—in one of the other rooms, never mind which one; the point was that Kevin had seen fit to move it. He was the only one who could have done so. Bea wouldn’t rearrange his room, and the members of the cleaning team surely did not indulge in interior decoration. Why had he chosen to hang an ugly thing like that on his wall—and on the wall opposite his bed?

IV

Later that afternoon I told Kevin I had changed rooms with Bea. He received this news with a shrug and announced that he planned to join us for tea. Father Stephen had said something the other evening about Donne that he wanted to pursue. Besides—quoting Henri IV—if Paris was worth a Mass, Bea’s cookies were worth a sermon.

The tea was sensational. Father Stephen wasn’t bad either. This was the first chance I had had to talk with him at length, and I could understand why his parishioners thought so highly of him. Without wishing to denigrate the man’s undoubted charisma, his appearance didn’t do him any harm. He resembled that magnificent Holbein portrait of Sir Thomas More—the visual embodiment of intelligence and integrity—except that he was even better looking. He had a way of turning to the person who was speaking with a look of intense concentration, as if nothing else on earth mattered to him at that particular moment. I had an impression, however, that it would not be comfortable to offend him or his principles—that the gentle mouth could harden and the mild gray eyes flash fire.

There were no demonstrations of fire and brimstone that afternoon; he obviously enjoyed the company, the food, and most of the conversation. He and Kevin talked about Donne. All very interesting, of course, but the metaphysical poets are not my bag—all that about white rings of eternity and mistress’s breasts that really aren’t breasts but something to do with the Church.

Bea and I couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise even if we had wanted to contribute. After a while Father Stephen decided it was time to change the subject and give us a chance.

“What a pleasure it is to see this beautiful old home being restored to the state it deserves,” he said, with an appreciative glance around the room. “I am looking forward to having your parents as neighbors, Kevin. I called on them, you know, shortly after they moved in.”

“Dad isn’t exactly what I would call religious,” Kevin said a little awkwardly.

“So he informed me.” Father Stephen chuckled. “In the nicest possible way, of course! I’m not the proselytizing type, Kevin. I hope I can say that my friends include people of all faiths, and of none. After all, I consider Roger O’Neill a friend, and,” he added, his voice thickening into a caricatured brogue, “and the bhoy is the blackest of heathens, and proud of it, bedad!”

Bea was the only one who didn’t smile at this joking indictment. In the same tone I said lightly, “Yes, I can hear him bragging about it. He told us when we first met him that his chief interest was in seeing this house.”

Father Stephen laughed and shook his head. “That’s Roger. His idea of candor is to paint himself much worse than he is. But of course he would be interested in the house; he’s a widely traveled, intelligent man, with a broad background in history and art. I suppose part of the charm of this place is also its previous inaccessibility. The former owner was a recluse. For the last ten or fifteen years I was the only one she invited here.”

“The former owner was a woman?” Kevin leaned forward interestedly. “I thought Dad told me he had bought the house from Mr. Karnovsky’s estate.”

“Mr. Karnovsky passed on forty years ago.” Father Stephen’s voice was brusque. “The house was inherited by his only surviving daughter, Miss Marion. She lived here alone until her death two years ago.”

“Alone, in this big house?” Bea exclaimed. “She must have had servants, friends—”

“No.” The answer was so emphatic that we were all silent. After a moment Father Stephen sighed and went on in a quieter voice, “I beg your pardon, Bea. The truth is, Miss Marion was someone whom I failed, badly. Blaming myself, I snap at my friends.”

Bea’s transparent face reflected his distress. She would have accepted his rejection of the subject, but Kevin, displaying an uncharacteristic insensitivity, remarked, “So that’s why the place was so run down. Dad had a regular army of workmen here before he and Mom left. I suppose the old lady was a miser who didn’t want to spend money on the house.”

“She didn’t have it to spend,” Father Stephen said sharply. “Her father was one of the victims of the crash in 1929. He struggled for years to recoup, without success. The house was the only thing he managed to hang on to, the only unencumbered asset he left his daughter. Certainly she loved it and did what she could; I remember once finding her on her hands and knees mending a worn spot in the drawing room curtains. She was almost eighty then.”

He stopped abruptly; and Bea began talking about the weather. What a lovely summer it had been so far! She had heard that the farmers were worried about rain, though. How fortunate that the house had its own water system. Had the wells ever run dry?

In thoughtful silence Kevin polished off the rest of the food.

V

We had our usual quiet evening in the library. Superficially it was the same as many other evenings, with long periods of peaceful silence broken occasionally by casual comments, and each of us busy with our own hobby. But something was different that evening, and I knew what it was. Tonight was my night for spying on Kevin. I was sorry now that I had moved into Bea’s room. What the hell business was it of mine what Kevin did?

At eleven o’clock, her usual hour, Bea folded her carpet and rose. She yawned. I yawned. She made a laughing remark about the early hours she had been keeping. I countered with a laughing remark about my unusual fatigue, and followed Bea out.

On the upper landing we stopped and looked at one another. “Did you tell him?” Bea whispered.

I didn’t need to ask what she meant. “Yes. He wasn’t particularly interested.”

“Maybe it was my imagination.”

“We’ll see.”

“Call me if…”

“If what? We’re making mountains out of molehills, to coin a phrase. You can tell I’m an English teacher, can’t you?”

My attempt at humor didn’t even fool me. Bea’s face remained serious. “Anne, I’m not sure this was a good idea. Why don’t you move back into the new wing? There’s a nice room next to mine.”

If this was meant to be reassuring, it had the reverse effect. I had suspected before, and now I was sure: the sounds she had heard from Kevin’s room had not only embarrassed Bea, they had frightened her. And I had removed the only rational explanation for them.

“Don’t be silly. Nothing is going to happen. Sleep well.”

She didn’t return the sentiment. I knew she was standing there watching me anxiously as I turned into the corridor leading to the old wing.

After switching on the lights in my room I stood in the doorway looking the place over. Bea’s behavior had set my nerves tingling. If I had seen the slightest abnormality, the least little thing that didn’t look right…

But of course I didn’t. The rooms in this part of the house lacked the charm of my former bedroom, with its high ceiling, big windows, and delicate plasterwork, but they had another kind of appeal, which was partly that of sheer age. The furniture in this room was heavy and the decor subdued—mostly browns and tans, with touches of dark blue. The French windows and the balcony were obviously later additions, an attempt to admit light and air without destroying the medieval appearance. The most impressive piece of furniture was the bed, whose russet velvet curtains hung from a high canopy. It was a winter room, which would be at its best when flames leaped on the hearth and woke the rich red tints in the massive mahogany furniture. On a snowy night the velvet bed hangings would enclose a sleeper in warmth, and muffle the wails of the winter wind—a box within a box, safe and secure.

All at once Bea’s ominous hints seemed absurd, the inventions of a woman no longer young, who had just seen thirty years of her life crumble around her. The scars weren’t visible, she hid them well; too well, perhaps? Pain must be exposed, anger openly expressed, if they are to heal.

I was so smug it makes me squirm to think about it. I even told myself that starting next day I would encourage Bea to talk about her troubles. It would be so good for her.

Among the newer books in the library were several shelves of detective stories, including a complete collection of Agatha Christie, which I was devouring. I had never realized what soothing late-night reading they provided. The formalized mayhem and the routine procession of suspects, interrogated in the most suave manner by the amateur detective, were so far removed from the brutalities of real crime that they had no deleterious effect on the nerves.

I finishedAnd Then There Were None , and picked upThe Hollow . It had been years since I read a mystery story or a popular novel; nothing lighter than Thomas Hardy had met my critical eye since I turned to the solemnities of Literature with a capitalL . I felt a little embarrassed at wallowing in crime now, that was why I had smuggled a stack of Christies to my room. Literature they emphatically were not. Slick superficial style, cardboard characters, improbable plot devices. So why, O critic, are you enjoying them so much?

By the time I was halfway throughThe Hollow I knew I couldn’t go to sleep till I found out who done it. I didn’t hear Kevin come upstairs, the walls were too thick, but I was aware of his presence in his room because sounds were audible through the open window. The high balustrade of the balcony must have acted as an acoustical funnel, magnifying and projecting the smallest noise.

I finished my book and turned out the light. Kevin had apparently gone to bed. There was no sound from his room. I would have preferred to follow his example, but something—a combination of curiosity and duty—got me out of bed. I went on little cat feet to the window and drew the curtains back.

The moon was down, but the night was not dark. For reasons of security a number of outside lights were left burning, so that the heavy mass of the house seemed to squat in a shimmering pool of brightness. A spectral blue glow to my left betokened the presence of the swimming pool. Somehow the lights made the house seem more vulnerable instead of less so. I could see why Kevin’s parents had not wanted to leave it unoccupied.

I thought of Kevin smuggling some woman across the lighted lawns and in through one of the spotlighted windows. He would have to turn off the burglar alarm, and remember to turn it on again after she left. Since Bea had arrived, we had been meticulous about this; conscious of her responsibilities, she had insisted that Kevin pull the master switch when he locked up for the night. She was usually the one to turn it off, since she was the first one down in the morning, so she would notice any omission in the routine. The idea was obviously absurd—insanely complicated, and also unnecessary. If Kevin wanted to dally with a local nymph, there were easier ways. I pictured Dr. Garst’s niece, who had a behind like a bushel basket, crawling along the bushes and climbing the vines to Kevin’s balcony, Romeo and Juliet in reverse. I was contemplating this captivating image when I heard the noise.