The House of Dies Drear (17 page)

“Then it wasn’t Mr. Pluto who considered we might be an enemy,” said Mr. Small.

“It was I,” Mayhew said. He smiled grimly to himself.

“Calling my father the devil,” he said. “As if being lame was a crime. Folks around here have been cruel to him for years—not only the Darrows. At least River Lewis believed he had a reason for
his
crime. Full of greed, he thought my father stood in the way of his legacy, which he believed was a treasure in gold.” He looked around at the cavern. “I guess it is treasure of a kind.” Sadly he smiled. “But not to my father, not to Drear.

“But let’s get back to the nice Sunday-moaning church folks who never once cared whether my father lived or died. No, you can have them. They’re the reason I left town. Even when I was small, I always hated them for their stupid ways. I guess I hated you folks before I saw you because I figured you would be no better than the rest.”

Mr. Small glanced at Thomas, who stared at Mayhew Skinner with something close to awe. Thomas had never heard anyone talk the way Mayhew talked, at least not in front of his father.

“You shouldn’t hate,” Mr. Small said. “It will destroy you.”

“That’s a well-meaning lie,” said Mayhew. “Folks have hated other folks for centuries, and the same business is still with us.”

“Son,” said Mr. Pluto, “please do tell him how it had to be.”

“Don’t worry, Father, I’m telling him,” said Mayhew.

“You see, it was Carr who contacted me when my father fell ill,” Mayhew was saying. “I live away from here. I’m an actor. I’ve lived away and worked since a long time ago, when my mother and I left this town for good. We had lived on that Drear property until my mother could no longer stand seeing the house
or
the town folk who thought we were strange. She loved that cave we lived in though. Odd isn’t it, Mr. Small, that a son and daughter of slaves would find peace in the very sort of cave running slaves hid in?”

Mayhew didn’t wait for Mr. Small to answer; he went on, his eyes seeming to go back to that long-ago time.

“You see,” Mayhew said, “we lived on this land not conscious of the reason for our peace with it. We lived with a legacy we weren’t aware we had. And yet we had a nameless knowledge of it, as my father has tried to tell you.

“We left it finally,” Mayhew said, “but my father wouldn’t leave. I blame him for that. I still blame him for forcing us to leave. He had grown obsessed with the tunnels, with the haunting figure of Dies Drear. He became fanatical about protecting the house and its history, and even its legend. I would say he is like you, Mr. Small, in his taste for what he calls our heritage.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Small softly. “We always tend to belittle that heritage in our zeal to be free.”

“I’ll take freedom any day over all the romantic nonsense about slavery,” said Mayhew.

“I mean not to glorify it,” said Mr. Small. “I simply want people to know about it. It’s a part of our history, and yet no one tells the truth about it.”

Uneasily Thomas watched his father and this strange Mayhew. He couldn’t take his eyes off him.

Uncomfortably Mr. Small and Mayhew Skinner glanced at Thomas. For his sake, they would let their argument go, for another day perhaps. Pesty sat down next to Thomas, as though to say that whatever sides there might be, she would take the one closest to Thomas.

“But to get on,” said Mayhew, “Carr, the father, called me on the telephone. He said I’d better get back here, that new folks were moving into the big house. He said it looked serious—that you had obtained a job at the college.”

“Serious in what way?” asked Mr. Small. “He didn’t know about the cavern.”

“No, of course not,” said Mayhew. “And yet, he knew something … how can I tell you! He knew and respected my father. He knew the Darrows were after something to steal and he knew my father was hiding something from them. When Father became ill, and you folks were to arrive, he was worried. He understood that if my father was keeping something from the Darrows, it had to stay kept from them and possibly you, too.”

“I see,” said Mr. Small. “So we were suspect even before we arrived.”

“Carr was afraid Father would have worse trouble if you folks turned out to be like the Darrows. I arrived here about three weeks ago. Then your furniture arrived. Father had made up his mind to trust you folks and decided to unload the furniture and place it in the rooms. I tried to tell him it was none of his affair, that he wasn’t strong enough for it. He wouldn’t listen. He never does. So me and the Carr boys fixed things up a bit.”

“So then,” said Mr. Small.

“You have to understand,” said Mayhew, “we had more than one consideration. There was the foundation to think about also. They knew people searched for treasure on this property, but they had no idea why, or that the searchers were all one family. They knew the legend, that the house was supposed to be haunted. But they are sane people. How could they possibly understand the meaning of the legend to my father? To him, Dies Drear
lives!
”

“Did you know about this cavern?” asked Mr. Small.

“No, never,” said Mayhew. “Not until a week ago, when my father decided he was mortal, like all of us, and thought it was time to tell me.”

“Do you blame me, son?” asked Pluto. Sadly he looked up at Mayhew and Mayhew turned away.

“All these years,” Mayhew whispered, “all this time, when there was this wealth …”

“It wasn’t mine to touch, it wasn’t mine!” cried Pluto.

“You say it is our heritage!” Mayhew’s voice burst around them. “When all these years you’ve struggled and I’ve struggled. Yes, I blame you!”

“It was ours to hold, to take care of just the way the old man had,” said Pluto. “But not to plunder, no, not to touch!”

Mayhew laughed without smiling. “How foolish, that history could be more important than men! No, of course not to touch,” he said. “Father, do you have any idea how close you and Drear have become? He collected all this perhaps as a whim and he put it here, again perhaps, to save for slaves a portion of life which had been denied them. And you, Father, still save it, for, like a slave, you are bound to it simply because a troublemaker called Dies Drear says you are!”

“The man was more than just a troublemaker,” said Mr. Small.

“To you maybe,” Mayhew said. “To me he was a troublemaker who thought himself a prophet.”

Mr. Small started to say more, but then seemed to change his mind.

After a time Thomas spoke up. “What will you do now?” he asked of Mayhew. “Will you tell the foundation about the treasure? Will you let them take it?”

Mr. Small waited. Mayhew looked at him, his eyes as cold and clear as glass. Then he looked down at his father.

“We could talk about it,” said Mr. Small quietly, “if you’ll allow me to become involved in that decision.”

Mayhew nodded. “It’s late,” he said. “I’d better get Pesty back to the house, or they just might send Macky out looking for her. Pesty, are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Then say good night to Father,” Mayhew said.

Pesty went to old Pluto and threw her arms around his neck.

“Child!” Pluto whispered happily. “You’ll come tomorrow, and maybe I’ll feel like riding in the buggy. You want to still ride with a poor old soul?”

“I do!” she said.

“And remember,” Pluto said, “not a word!” He put his fingers to his lips.

“No, never a word,” she said. Sleepily she turned to Mayhew and held out her tiny arms to him.

Mayhew swung her onto his shoulders. “I’ll take you as far as the yard,” he told her. “I don’t dare come closer. If they spy me, they’ll think I’m Father.”

Mr. Small looked at his watch. “Lord, it’s late,” he said, “and my wife is there, locked in the twins’ room! I forgot all about her! Oh, I hope she didn’t turn brave and venture out to clean up that mess they made in the kitchen.”

“Something happened?” Mayhew asked. “What brought you all here so unexpectedly in the first place?”

“We came here, I guess, to accuse your father of trying to run us out of the house,” Mr. Small said. “I was so mad, I didn’t think much about it. I just got over here as fast as I could.” Then he explained what had been done to the kitchen.

“What a bad thing, a sinful thing!” said Pluto. “They’ll stop at nothing. Nothing!” Trembling he tried to stand and nearly fell. Mr. Small caught him in time and braced him in his arms.

“Father, you’re ill,” Mayhew said.

“Let’s get him out of the heat of this place,” Mr. Small said. He helped Pluto up the ramp and out of the cavern.

In the cave, Mr. Pluto lay down heavily upon his bed.

“Ahh,” he said, “I am tired tonight.”

“You stay right here until I get back from taking Pesty home,” Mayhew said to him. Pesty still rode on Mayhew’s shoulders.

“Oh, son, I’ll be all right,” said Pluto. “I feel so much better just having Mr. Small know about the cavern. You see, he is a historical man, an educated man. He will know what to do with it all, Mayhew.”

“Don’t worry anymore about it,” said Mr. Small. “Your son and I will take care of things.”

Outside they slipped through the trees on the hill.

“It was them that did it to the kitchen,” said Pesty to Mayhew.

“Which ones?” he asked her. “River Lewis, too?”

“No, not him,” said Pesty. “After he seen Mr. Small at church, he told them to leave off. But they wouldn’t listen. They was afraid that because he was a historical man, he would find the treasure before them. They think to scare Mrs. Small so she’d want to move into town. But not Macky.”

“No? Macky wouldn’t do it?” asked Mayhew.

“No,” she said. “Macky, he told them he was tired and then he said to them that he was going to make a friend out of Mr. Thomas. He got slapped down for it, too.”

Thomas was pleased to hear that Mac Darrow liked him. He was almost sorry the boy had got slapped for wanting to be friends.

But maybe it serves him right, Thomas thought. He did let me fall in the hole under the front steps.

He thought to himself that maybe Mac Darrow had a bicycle. If he did, they could ride around and have dogs bark at their wheels. He sure hoped Mac Darrow had a bicycle.

“So it was just the three of them,” said Mayhew. “Wilbur and Russell and River Ross. They should be ashamed of themselves, acting like vandals on Halloween.”

“You have any ideas on how to handle them?” asked Mr. Small.

“Call the police,” said Thomas. “Just call the law and have them put away!”

Mayhew laughed to himself. “That would give me great pleasure,” he said, “but taking care of them is easier than that. If their level is that of overgrown boys making mischief, then that is the way we’ll have to treat them.”

“How so?” asked Mr. Small.

“Let me get Pesty home,” Mayhew said.

“I want to hear!” cried Pesty. “I want to know what’s to happen!”

“You’ll be in on it, good girl,” Mayhew said. “Right now, it’s time to run you home.” He began to trot through the trees. Then he stopped and called back to Mr. Small, “You folks going to be up awhile?”

“I expect we’ll clean up the kitchen,” Mr. Small called back. “I’m much too wound up to sleep.”

“Then I’ll come by for awhile,” Mayhew said. “I’ll help you with the kitchen if you want.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Mr. Small. “But hadn’t you better get back to your father?”

“I won’t stay long with you,” said Mayhew. His voice was farther off. He was moving again. “I want to give you an idea of what I have in mind for the Darrow boys.”

“Will you need our help?” called Thomas.

“Yes,” Mayhew called back. “We’re about to become a company of actors!”

Chapter 16

“THOMAS, YOU AND
your mother are staring at me again,” said Mayhew Skinner. He did not look up at them. “Mr. Small, why do you suppose they keep on staring at me?”

“They’ve never seen anyone like you,” Mr. Small said. “Anyway, neither one of them ever looks twice at anything they don’t like.”

“Well, my goodness!” said Mayhew. “I wonder what kind of a ‘thing’ I am.”

Mrs. Small had to smile. So did Thomas. They looked shyly at Mayhew. Here Mrs. Small had known him for only a couple of hours, and he seemed like a close friend.

Thomas couldn’t keep his eyes off him. He wanted to know what kind of person became an actor. And how it was an actor used makeup and played different parts.

They were all in the kitchen, Mr. and Mrs. Small, Thomas and Mayhew. It was one-thirty in the morning, and none of them felt actually tired. Mrs. Small and Thomas sat at the kitchen table. Only Mr. Small and Mayhew worked with the fury with which they’d started. Thomas was scraping the hardened paste off a chair, and Mrs. Small was wringing a hot, wet dish towel onto the tabletop.

Mayhew had organized them into two teams. They were to use hot water to loosen the caked flour and juice. Once it was loosened, it wasn’t difficult to scrape and wipe it off the kitchen. Mayhew had the floor done already. Mr. Small had cleaned the whole sink, the refrigerator and the stove. Mrs. Small and Thomas had done less because they had to watch Mayhew and they had to listen to what he was saying. He hadn’t stopped talking since he’d come back from taking Pesty home. He still had a good part of the false beard hanging from his face. He had put the wig back on his head.

Looking at him covered with perspiration and dirt from all the mess, Mrs. Small couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

“Mayhew, why won’t you take off your jacket—it’ll be filthy! That wig must be terribly hot. Take a break, both of you, before you get sick.”

“Listen to Mother,” said Mayhew to Mr. Small. “There she goes, trying to change me already. Why do they always try to change us?”

“Because we’re so perfect, naturally,” said Mr. Small.

“That’s right,” said Mayhew. “No, they can’t stand perfection, can they?”

“Both of you are just devilish,” said Mrs. Small. Then she became serious suddenly. “Mayhew, how soon do you intend to leave here? Won’t you stay awhile before going back to the city?”

Mayhew looked at her fondly and then turned away from her before he began to joke with her again. “There she goes,” he said, “If I stay here one day too long, she’ll have me enrolled in that college before I know what hit me.”