The House of Dies Drear (16 page)

“Some of it is as old as time!” whispered Mr. Small. “See how misshapen some of it is. Probably the earliest hand-blown glass you’ll see anywhere.”

Pesty, who all this time had been sitting on the arm of Mr. Pluto’s great, carved chair, now rose and walked toward the ledges of glass. Suddenly there were hundreds of Pestys reflected in the glass. The sight of Pesty so perfectly reflected in so many different colors and shapes made Thomas dizzy.

There was a sliding ladder. Pesty hooked it into a groove on the wall above the glass. By climbing the ladder and pushing herself against a ledge, she could maneuver anywhere she wanted along the rows of glass. She demonstrated this for them now. She had taken up a cloth, and, ever so carefully, began to polish one thin-necked bottle.

Be careful! thought Mr. Small. Break that and you have smashed hundreds of dollars, you have let a part of history die.

No need for Mr. Small to worry. No curator anywhere could have handled the old and valuable glass with such delicate care. She looked over her shoulder at Thomas and smiled proudly at him.

“Mr. Thomas,” she said. “This is my job to do.” Then she placed the bottle back and came down the ladder. She took her position beside Mr. Pluto again. He had turned around to the desk to face Thomas and Mr. Small.

For the first time, Mr. Small was aware of the books in great glass-doored cases to one side of the desk. Some, oblong and yellowed, lay on the desk. Old Pluto had folded his hands lightly on top of them. Mr. Small stared at them, his eyes feverish with wonder, for he understood what they were. He stared at Pluto and then again at the ledgers; and he thanked the Lord that this old man, like Dies Drear before him and like himself, too, was a keeper of history.

Gently Mr. Pluto drew one of the ledgers close to him.

“An accounting,” he said softly, his voice no better than a cry. He looked worn out—too tired, Thomas thought, to have had strength enough to mess up his Mama’s kitchen.

“The day by day barter of black people,” said Pluto. Sadly he smiled. “They weren’t Mr. Drear’s accounts … don’t know where he got them. But they tell a tale or two. They show how mean folks had to be to buy and sell our people.”

He stared dumbly at Mr. Small for a moment. Then he said, “I’m awful sorry I didn’t stop to speak with your wife at church this day. But I felt so low there for awhile. I felt just like I was going to lay myself down and not get up. I’ve been sick you see. Yes … yes.”

Vaguely Pluto looked around him. His old mind seemed to shift to something else. “I see you’ve found us out. I knew, oh yes. I knew you would when first you come over to see that house. Knew I hadn’t long … all these many years, no one. And then Pesty. Old Little Miss Bee!” He laughed and folded the child in his shawl.

“Ain’t it funny though, of all people, you can trust with a child? Never knew I could until one day she followed me in here. I didn’t know she had until I saw her perched upon that ladder. I was so sure she would then tell Mr. River Lewis Darrow. I was sure of it, and that him and his boys would clear me out and clean this hall out. But no. I guess it is her plaything. I never know why she won’t tell. But she likes to come here and I let her keep the glass. It is written down in the books that Mr. Drear was most fond of his glassware. Oh, Little Miss Bee and I can spend hours not even talking. Sometimes, I tell her stories about long ago, and she will fall asleep right in my arms.”

Again Pluto’s mind shifted. His eyes became frightened. He clutched at the ledgers on the desk. Pesty rubbed her head against his shoulder and put her hands upon his hands until he had calmed.

“They think because you’re old, they can walk in and take over,” Pluto said. “Isn’t that right? They come around a-howlin’ and pretending they’re the ghosts. But they don’t know, do you see? Little Miss Bee knows, don’t you, my babe?” The child nodded. “Yes!” said Pluto. “Some nights them Darrows forgets about me, but there will still be signs of the old man and the slaves. I’ve seen him! I’ve seen them! Then my black horse, he will run with the wind, those spirits bother him so. I reckon they want to ride him, but he won’t have nothing to do with ’em.”

“Mr. Pluto,” Mr. Small said softly. “Mr. Skinner. It will be all right.”

Thomas felt awful inside. Looking at Pluto so old, so afraid, he thought suddenly of Great-grandmother Jeffers.

Why do they have to grow sick and weak? Why must it end like that for them?

He was filled with sadness. It was evil of him to have thought such a tired old man could be the devil. He could no longer see Pluto as king. And there
was
a war, but it was Pluto’s with himself.

“We are sorry,” said Pluto. “I mean I … we … hadn’t ought to have fooled with you like that. Carrying on. Tricking you with stage magic …”

“Mr. Skinner, I wish you’d try very hard to make yourself clear,” said Mr. Small. “Tricked us? You couldn’t have had anything to do with what was done to the kitchen.”

“No,” Pesty said. “He means the other. He means about …”

But Pluto stopped her. “It was that I was afraid, that’s why we tricked you, don’t you see?” he said.

“I thought sure them Darrows would just walk in and clean this place out if they knew how sick I was. They would find that sliding wall the way I found it, oh, years, years ago … What would it mean to them that slaves walked here, lived here peaceful, content no one was sure to find them? Here they were taught, the slaves were … yes, taught all the tricks and ruses old Mr. Drear could think up for them. And the good Jesus in heaven, he sure could think them up … the books tell it all! And they were taught the cross reading. They were taught …” he gazed around the cavern, “what wonder there is when men are free to see.

“It was all right when I was strong,” Pluto went on. “They were always halfways scared of me. Their grandaddy, he was a boy with me. He was River Swift Darrow. He always said
his
grandaddy was a Mohegan by the name of River Thames. River Thames was supposed to have come down with Dies Drear from up East. And River Swift always said whatever was hidden when we hunted that house was his by legacy. I never said nothing when he said that, because I knew whatever it was was mine. I
knew
it. How did I know?”

Mr. Pluto laughed silently.

“Because what I hunted I couldn’t put a name to. I couldn’t have told you what it was I hunted, except it was inside of me. And I knew that house would bring it out of me and show it to me.

“River Swift, he hunted treasure. Sure that’s all he knew to be legacy. But he was afraid of it, of that house,” said Pluto. “So was his son and his son’s son. He was scared to death, because the spirits knew he was evil and knew his sons was evil. But I wasn’t afraid.

“No, not I,” Pluto continued. “I grew to love that house. I got so I could walk it blind. All the tunnels. All the caves. But they was afraid, those Darrows. So the years passed, and they were afraid of me.

“I meant not to trick you, sir,” Pluto said. His voice rasped, making a dried-up sound all about the room.

“It was just that if they were to ever know I be sick, they’d walk in out of the open. They wouldn’t be halfways afraid of me being the devil at night.

“I see you are a historical man, an educated man,” Pluto went on. He looked around him as though it was difficult for him to remember where he was. “I had no chance for education, but I do know hard thought in another. I am so sorry we had to fool you.”

Mr. Small heaved a deep sigh. He could make little sense out of what Pluto was talking about. He had so many questions, there was so much he needed to know. Gently he started to probe.

“Mr. Skinner, sir,” he said. “I know you’re tired, but just a little longer. Try to think about what I’m going to say. Can you tell me … is this the last unknown cavern? Is this the last uncharted hiding place?”

For a moment Pluto stared at Mr. Small and, then, looked beyond him. He bowed his head on his arms on the table. “We shouldn’t have fooled you like that,” he whispered. “It wasn’t a proper thing to do. No. No. We had no right. No business!”

Pesty stood up straight, alert, also looking beyond Mr. Small and Thomas.

“Then again, as a historical man, perhaps you are not so all-fired proper,” said a fierce, withering voice.

Mr. Small stood stock-still. Thomas couldn’t have moved if he’d tried. It was River Lewis Darrow, it had to be. He must have followed them, waiting all this time.

Ambush, Thomas thought. How many sons with him? How many to handle at the same time?

“You just might be another branch of that Mohegan bunch, come here to steal from the storehouse and drive an old man half out of his mind!”

Mr. Small spun around. Thomas turned around ever so slowly. But what he saw was too much for him. The strength seemed to drain from his arms. No longer could his legs hold his weight. Not uttering a sound, he fell to his knees, unable to comprehend the phantasm before them.

For it was Pluto standing there. It was Pluto, who still sat slumped at his desk mumbling sorrowfully to the air, who, at the same time, stood in front of Mr. Small and Thomas.

“You!” hissed Mr. Small. “I knew there had to be another one of you!”

The Pluto who stood, nodded in recognition to Mr. Small. His beard and wild hair were golden in the torchlight. His eyes were wet and emerald green, flecked with gold sparks. He threw back his head and laughed and laughed.

No, thought Thomas. It wasn’t fair to be a devil, to be able to divide one’s self and have power over human beings. Now he understood everything. Pluto had spun all the tapestries, those carpets, himself. Pluto had blown all the hundreds of bottles, just by multiplying himself until he had enough Plutos to do the job. No wonder he was so worn out.

“No!” screamed Thomas. So terrified was he that in another minute there might be a thousand Plutos, he began to sob.

“You devil! You hairy, green-eyed devil!”

He leaped on this second Pluto. He leaped high, before his father could stop him, catching the man about the neck. He wrapped his legs around the man’s body and twined his fingers in that long, white beard. But Pluto was strong. He shook Thomas off like a lion shaking off ticks.

Suddenly Thomas flew through the air and hit the floor. By the time he pulled himself up to a sitting position, he was staring at his hands. His hands were gold and orange. His hands were covered with hunks of Pluto’s beard.

“Get away!” he yelled. “Papa, it’s stuck, it won’t get away … Papa!”

Mr. Small tried to get hold of Thomas. “Son! Son!” he kept repeating. But Thomas was scooting all over the floor, trying to get away from his hands covered with the white beard. Some of it now seemed to be sprouting on his arms.

“He’s turning me into a devil. Oh, Papa!” cried Thomas.

“Thomas Small!” The voice of the second Pluto boomed through the cavern like a hundred rushing voices.

Abruptly Thomas sat still. He looked up at the strong, powerful Pluto towering above him.

Ever so slowly, the Pluto raised his hands to his face. He wore the now familiar hide gloves, though only Mr. Small noticed them. The Pluto began to speak, his hands still poised there, near his cheekbones.

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades

our eyes …

With torn and bleeding hearts we

smile …

We wear the mask!”

With the most delicate motion, he peeled away the corners of his face just below the ear and let it hang in shreds around his mouth.

Chapter 15

“THOMAS, DON’T BE AFRAID,”
said Mr. Small. “It’s only a false face. Look. Look at it.”

“It’s stage makeup. You see, Thomas?” said the man. “There’s a half-mask with the beard attached, which fits around my ears. There’s the white wig and a dyed plastic substance that looks like skin. I had to add more beard with paste to make the mask fuller. That’s why it came off in your hand.”

“You could have got away with just the beard and the hair, you look so much like Pluto anyway,” said Mr. Small. “Why did you bother with such difficult makeup? With the same green eyes, anyone would have been fooled.”

“Yes, lucky for me my eyes are the same color as his,” the man said. “I really didn’t think you would be easy to convince. If I had to face you in the daytime, I wanted to resemble him as closely as possible. But you were on to me from the first, weren’t you?”

“You said a few things out of place,” Mr. Small said modestly. “Something about India in a way I’m certain Mr. Pluto wouldn’t have said. And you wore those new, expensive gloves—they were a mistake, you see.”

The man had to smile. “Yes, the gloves were wrong,” he said. “I know that now. And when I saw you all there in the kitchen that night for the first time, I couldn’t resist a bit of overacting. You were all so stunned, you see. But it was never my plan to terrify your son, then or now. Thomas, are you all right?”

Thomas had sat unbelieving through the conversation between his father and the man. Slowly he came to his senses. Not looking at the man, he rubbed the wetness of tears from his face.

“I knew no man as old as Mr. Pluto could catch me from behind.”

“As it was, I had a hard time catching you myself,” said the man.

Thomas was pleased by this. “Who are you anyway?” he said.

“I’m Mayhew Skinner. I’m my father’s only son.”

Thomas slowly shook his head, forcing himself to understand that old Pluto had a son who looked just like him. “But why … why did you have to pretend like that?” he asked.

Mayhew had been kneeling in front of Thomas. He got up and walked over to the desk where Mr. Pluto now sat holding on to the ledgers. When Mayhew put his strong hands on his father’s shoulders, Pluto looked up at him with all the hope he had left in him in his eyes.

“How were we to know what type of strangers you folks would be?” asked Mayhew. “My father became quite ill in January. He’s had this running battle with the Darrows for as long as I can remember. But he was always strong, he could take it. I do believe he enjoyed the fight with them, since he alone knew about this cavern. He was certain they would never set foot into his cave, where he lived, as long as he could frighten them by being devilish. And he was right, they never did dare come too close. But when he grew ill, that all changed. He was desperate with the fear they might see how weak and sick he was. And when the foundation told him you folks would be moving in, he was terrified of what the Darrows might do to you.”