Theophilus North (9 page)

The Wyckoff Place

Among the first replies to my advertisement was a note in a delicate old-world penmanship from a Miss Norine Wyckoff, such and such a number on Bellevue Avenue, asking me to call between three and four on any day at my convenience. She wished to discuss arrangements for my reading aloud to her. I might find the work tedious, and in addition she would be obliged to submit to me certain conditions which I might feel free to accept or reject.

The next evening I met Henry Simmons for a game of pool. Toward the end of the game I asked him offhandedly, “Henry, do you know anything about the Wyckoff family?” He stopped in mid-aim, stood up, and looked at me hard.

“Funny, your asking me that.”

Then he bent over and completed his shot. We finished the set. At a wink from him we hung up our cues, ordered something to drink, and strolled over to the remotest table in the bar. When Tom had placed our steins before us and departed, Henry looked about him, lowered his voice, and said, “The 'ouse is 'aunted. Skeletons going up and down the chimneys like bloody butterflies.”

I had learned never to hurry Henry.

“To my knowledge, cully, there have been four haunted houses among the big places in Newport. Very bad situation. Maids won't take service there; refuse to spend the night. They see things in corridors. They hear things in cupboards. There's nothing contagious like hysterics. Twelve guests to dinner. Maids drop trays. Fainting all over the place. Cook puts on her hat and coat and leaves the house. Gives the house a bad name—see what I mean? Can't even get a night watchman who'll swear to do the rounds of the
whole house
at night. . . . The Hepworth place—sold it to the Coast Guard. The Chivers cottage—it was said that the master strangled the French maid—nothing proved. They got in a procession of priests, candles and incense, the whole works . . . drove the spirits out and sold it to a convent school. The Colby cottage—deserted for years, burned down one night in December. You can go out and see the place yourself—only thistles grow there. Used to be famous for wild roses.

“Now your Wyckoff place, beautiful house—nobody knows what happened. No body, no trial, nobody disappeared, nothing, just rumors, just talk—but it got a bad name. Old family, most respected family. Rich!—Like Edweena says, could buy and sell the State of Texas without noticing it. In the old days before the War—great dinner parties, concerts, Paderewski; very musical they were—then the rumors started. Miss Wyckoff's father and mother used to charter ships and go off on scientific expeditions—collector, he was—shells and heathen idols. Be gone for half a year at a time. Then in about 1911 he came back and closed the whole place up. Went to live in their New York house. During the War both Mr. Wyckoff and his wife died decently in New York hospitals leaving Miss Norine alone—the last of the line. What can she do? She's got a lot of spirit. She comes back to Newport to open her family house—her girlhood home; but she can't get any help
after dark
. For eight years she's taken an apartment at the La Forge Cottages, but she goes every day to the Wyckoff place, gives lunches, asks people in to tea—but when the sun starts to set her maids and butler and housemen say, ‘We've got to go now, Miss Wyckoff,' and they go. And she and her personal maid drive off in their carriage to the La Forge Cottages, leaving lights on all over the house.”

Silence.

“Henry, you swear you don't know of anything that might have started the rumors? Mrs. Cranston knows everything. Do you suppose she has a theory?”

“Never heard her say so; and Edweena, who's the sharpest girl on Aquidneck Island—
she
don't know anything.”

I arrived at the Wyckoff place the next day at three-thirty. I had long admired the house. I used to dismount from my bicycle just to rest my eyes on it, the most beautiful cottage in Newport. I had never been in or near Venice, but I recognized it as being “Palladian,” as resembling those famous villas on the Brenta. Later I came to know the ground floor well. The central hall was large without being ponderous. The ceiling was supported by columns and arches decorated in fresco. The wide doorways, framed in marble, opened in all directions—noble, but airy and hospitable. An elderly maid opened the great bronze front door to me and led me to the library where Miss Wyckoff was sitting at a tea-table before an open fire. The table was set for a considerable company but the urn was still unlit. Miss Wyckoff, whom I judged to be about sixty, was dressed in black lace; it fell from a cap about her ears and continued in flounces and panels to the floor. Her face was still that of an unusually pretty woman and her expression was candid and gracious and—as Henry said—“spirited.”

“Thank you so much for coming to see me, Mr. North,” she said extending her hand; then turning to the maid, “Perhaps Mr. North will have a cup of tea before he must go. If anyone calls on the telephone, take the name and number; I shall call them back later.” When the maid had gone she whispered to me, “May I ask you to close the door? Thank you . . . I know you are busy so let us talk at once about my reason for asking you to call. My old friend Dr. Bosworth has spoken to me warmly in your favor.”

A sign had been exchanged. The wealthy are like members of the Masonic Order; they pass commendations and disapprobations to one another by passwords and secret codes.

“Moreover, I knew that I could trust you when I read that you were a Yale man. My dear father was a Yale man as was his father before him. My brother, had he lived, would have been a Yale man. I have always found that Yale men are honorable; they are truly Christian gentlemen!” She was moved; I was moved; Elihu Yale revolved in his grave. “Do you see those two ugly old trunks there? I have had them brought down from the attic. They are filled with family letters, some of them dating back sixty and seventy years. I am the last in my line, Mr. North. The greater number of these letters have lost their interest by now. I have long wished to make a rapid inspection of most of them . . . and destroy them. My eyesight is no longer able to read handwritten material, particularly in cases where the ink has begun to fade. Is your eyesight in good condition, Mr. North?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Often it will be merely necessary to glance at the beginning and the ending. My father's serious correspondence—he was an eminent scientist, a conchologist—it has gone, with his collections, to Yale University where both are safe. Would you be willing to undertake this task with me?”

“Yes, Miss Wyckoff.”

“In reading old letters there is always the possibility that intimate matters might be revealed. May I ask your promise as a Yale man and a Christian that these matters will remain confidential between us?”

“Yes, Miss Wyckoff.”

“There is, however, another matter about which I must ask your confidence. Mr. North, my situation in Newport is very strange. Has anyone spoken to you about it—about me?”

“No, ma'am.”

“A malediction rests upon this house.”

“A
malediction?
”

“Yes, this house is believed by many people to be haunted.”

“I do not believe there are haunted houses, Miss Wyckoff.”

“Nor do I!”

From that moment we were friends. More than that, we were conspirators and fighters. She described the difficulty of engaging domestic servants who would stay in the house after dark. “It is humiliating to be unable to ask my friends to dinner although they continue to invite me to their homes. It is humiliating to be an object of pity . . . and to feel perhaps that they hold my dear parents in some sort of suspicion. Many a woman, I think, would give up and abandon the place altogether. But it is my childhood home, Mr. North! I was happy here! Besides, many people agree with me that it's the most beautiful house in Newport. I shall never give it up. I shall fight for it as long as I live.”

I was looking at her gravely. “How do you mean—fight for it?”

“Clear its name! Lift its shadow!”

“We are reading these letters, Miss Wyckoff, to find some clue to that unjust suspicion?”

“Exactly!—Do you think you could help me?”

Between one breath and another I became Chief Inspector North of Scotland Yard. “In what year did you first notice that domestic servants were refusing to work here after dark?”

“My father and mother went away on long expeditions. I couldn't go with them because the motion of the ship made me dreadfully ill. I stayed with cousins in New York and studied music. My father returned here in 1911. We meant to live here, but suddenly he changed his mind. He closed the house, dismissed the servants, and we all lived in New York. We went to Saratoga Springs for the summer. I begged him to return to Newport, but he didn't wish to. He never explained why. During the War both my parents died. In 1919 I was alone in the world. I decided to return to Newport and live in this house the whole year round. It was then that I discovered that no servants would consent to live here.”

Did Miss Wyckoff have any ideas that would throw light on the matter? None. Did her father have any enemies? Oh, none at all! Did the matter come to the attention of the police? What was there to bring except the reluctance of servants and the vague rumor about a house being haunted?

“When your father was away on these expeditions who was left in charge of the house?”

“Oh, it was left fully staffed. My father liked the idea that he could return to it at a moment's notice. It was in charge of a butler or majordomo whom we'd had in the family for years.”

“Miss Wyckoff, we shall begin reading the letters surrounding the years 1909 to 1912. When shall I come?”

“Oh, come every day at three. My friends don't drop in for tea before five.”

“I can come alternate days at three. I shall be here tomorrow.”

“Thank you, thank you. I shall sort out the letters covering those years.”

The great man had the last word: “There are no haunted houses, Miss Wyckoff!—there are only excitable imaginations, perhaps malicious ones. We shall try to find out how this matter all started.”

When I arrived the next afternoon the letters that might concern us were laid out in packets bound in red cord: her letters to her parents 1909 to 1912; her parents' letters to her; six letters of her father to her mother (they were seldom apart for a day); her father's letters to his brother (returned to him) and his brother's replies; letters from the majordomo at Newport (Mr. Harland) to her father; letters to and from her father's lawyers in New York and Newport; letters from friends and relatives to Mrs. Wyckoff. The reading of the domestic letters was a painful experience for Miss Wyckoff, but she stout-heartedly set many aside for destruction. Weather, storms off Borneo, blizzards in New York; health (excellent); marriages and death of Wyckoffs and relatives; plans for the following year and alterations to plans; “love and kisses to our darling girl.” Miss Wyckoff and I had begun to divide the task. She found that her eyesight was able to sustain reading letters written to her by her parents and she preferred to read those to herself. So we were soon working on separate lots. I read those from Mr. Harland: leak in the roof repaired; requests from strangers to “view the house” rejected; damage to conservatory by Halloween merrymakers repaired, and so on. I began reading the letters from Mr. Wyckoff to his brother: discovery of rare shells, sent to the Smithsonian for identification, narrow escape in the Sunda Strait, financial transactions agreed upon, “delighted with news of our Norine's progress in music.” .. . Finally I came upon a clue to the whole unhappy matter. The letter was written from Newport on March 11, 1911:

I trust that you have destroyed the letter written to you yesterday. I wish the whole thing to be forgotten and never mentioned again. It was fortunate that I left Milly and Norine in New York. I wish them to retain only happy memories of this house. I have dismissed the entire staff, paid their wages and given each a generous bonus. I did not even bring the matter to the attention of Mr. Mullins [his lawyer in Newport]. I have engaged a new caretaker and some helpers who come in by the day. We shall perhaps return and reopen the house after a number of years when I shall have begun to forget the whole wretched business.

I slipped this letter into an envelope that I had prepared “For later rereading.”

I had an idea of what probably took place.

While I was an undergraduate at college I had written and printed in the
Yale Literary Magazine
a callow play called
The Trumpet Shall Sound
. It was based upon a theme borrowed from Ben Jonson's
The Alchemist:
Master departs on a journey of indefinite length, leaving his house in charge of faithful servants; servants gradually assume the mentality of masters; liberty leads to license; Master returns unannounced and puts an end to their riotous existence. Lively writer, Ben Jonson.

Mr. Wyckoff had returned to discover filth and disorder, perhaps had broken in on some kind of orgy.

But how could that have given rise to a reputation of being “haunted”—a word associated with murder? I decided that I must break my oath to Miss Wyckoff and make inquiries in another quarter. Besides, I did not want our readings to come to an end too soon; I needed the money. At the end of each week her maid, showing me out of the house, placed in my hand an envelope containing a check for twelve dollars.

I called on Mrs. Cranston soon after ten-thirty when the ladies gathered about her were beginning to withdraw for the night. I bowed to her, murmuring that there was a matter which I wished to discuss with her. Until the field was clear I sat in a corner of the bar over a glass of near-beer. In due time I received a signal to approach and I drew up a chair beside her. We temporized for a few minutes, discussing our state of health, the weather, my plan to rent a small apartment, the increasing number of my engagements, and so on. Then I said, “Mrs. Cranston, I want your advice and guidance on a very confidential matter that has come up.”