Ammie, Come Home (16 page)

“Not much, most of them were business letters about land and tobacco. But in 1805 Alexander Page's eldest daughter got married and moved to Annapolis. Mrs. Page wrote the girl several letters telling her the hometown gossip. The Campbell fire was a good juicy tidbit.”

“Fire?” Sara repeated.

“The house burned down…and Douglass Campbell with it.”

In the silence the squawk of a blue jay sounded like a scream. Ruth was remembering the impression she had felt that morning—that there should be marks of scorching where the apparition had been. As she looked at Sara she knew her niece was thinking along the same lines; her face was pale with horror.

“That black, coiling smoke,” she said in a whisper. “Bruce, could it be—
him?
”

“Cut that out!” Bruce exclaimed.

Simultaneously Pat said sharply, “Don't be morbid, Sara. The suggestion of smoke is purely subjective. Bruce, what happened, that the old boy was caught in the house? He must have been old, if he had already built his house by 1780.”

“The fire was thirty years later,” Bruce said. “He could have been as young as fifty-five or as old as eighty. It's possible that the smoke knocked him out before anyone realized that the house was on fire. It was stone; the letter mentioned that. The walls weren't burned, of course, but the whole inside was gutted and the roof collapsed. When the heir, who was Campbell's sister's son, moved to Georgetown from Frederick, he leveled the walls and built a new house.”

Ruth was silent. The sunshine and birdsongs seemed far away, and the orange beads of the bittersweet against the fence had faded. The ancient tragedy had affected her spirits unaccountably.

“I don't see any connection between this story and our apparitions,” Pat said. “The smoky impression is meaningless. If the old man's name had been Samuel, now….”

“It wasn't. But there was something funny….”

“In the letter?”

“Yeah. The trouble with letters is that the writers have all sorts of background knowledge they don't bother to explain. Why should they? Their readers know it. But it leaves a modern researcher groping. Old Lady Page described the fire and clucked over the sad tragedy. Then she said—wait a minute. I wrote it down.” Bruce pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “Here we go: ‘Some have been heard to say that it is a judgment for his having withdrawn, not only from the offices of his neighbors but from the loving kindness of God following his affliction, he not having been seen at the services these thirty years. But I am sensible of his former zeal as a true Samson among the Philistines, not only in support of the Sunday laws, but in despising the heretics who are now so favored by the wretches across Rock Creek.”

Bruce closed the notebook.

“Then she starts to complain about how dear muslin has become. She's a rip-roaring old Tory. Her handwriting was vile, too.”

“Who were the wretches across Rock Creek?”

“The distinguished officials of the United States Government,” Bruce said with a grin. “Many Georgetowners resented having the seat of government so close, and some were lukewarm about the whole idea of independence.”

“How about the heretics?” Ruth asked. “The old lady had a fine vocabulary, didn't she?”

“She was a mean old bitch,” Bruce replied briefly. “The heretics, I'm pretty sure, were the Catholics. They weren't allowed to build churches around here until after the Revolution, you know.”

“The letter is funny, all right, but not, I expect, in the sense you meant,” Pat said. “What struck you as odd?”

A mockingbird swung from a branch of bittersweet and addressed them mellifluously. Bruce contemplated the bird before answering.

“Let me restate what she says. Douglass Campbell, back in the 1770's, was a good devout Protestant and a man of some substance—you got that reference to supporting the Sunday laws? Then something happened to him—some affliction—and he shut himself up in his house. He didn't even go to church. There is no mention of anyone else's dying in the fire, which suggests that he was a widower or a bachelor.”

“If the heir was his nephew, maybe he was a bachelor,” Sara said.

“Bachelors were rarer in those days,” Pat pointed out. “He could just as well have been a widower whose children had died young. Infant mortality was high.”

“Maybe that was the affliction,” Sara said. “The death of a child, an only child.”

“Hmm.” Pat leaned back against the tree, staring up through the leafless branches at the cloudless blue sky. “Possibly. You know, Bruce, we may be interpreting the clue of the book too literally. Our invisible informant may have wanted to indicate a date, not a connection with a specific event.”

“I thought of that. You realize that the Page letter gives us that cross-check we hoped for? The affliction occurred thirty years before the fire, which was in 1810. That takes us back to the crucial year, 1780. But I can't get around the fact that the Loyalist Plot involved Georgetown and Georgetowners. Can that be a coincidence?”

“Was Campbell a Tory?” Ruth asked.

“He wasn't involved in the Plot, that's for sure; the book mentions not only the names of the men who were hanged, but also the ones who were accused and acquitted.”

“Maybe,” Pat suggested, “he was one of the loyal—damn it, terms are confusing—loyal Patriots who helped foil the Plot. Then, thirty years later—”

“That's rather long to wait for revenge,” Bruce said.

“So he died a natural death. But he could have suffered his affliction during the Plot. Some personal tragedy. Maybe he was blinded, or crippled.”

“Or he could have lost his child or his wife or his money.” Bruce banged his knee with his fist. “Damn it, we're just guessing. It's all so vague!”

“If you could find out whether he was married and all like that, it might help?” Sara asked anxiously, with the air of a mother looking through her purse for a lollipop. “Ruth, what about the genealogy?”

“Good gracious, I am a dolt,” Ruth exclaimed. “Of course—the Bible.”

“What Bible?”

“It's old; I don't know how old, but the pages are so fragile they crumble when you touch them. Cousin Hattie kept it wrapped in dozens of layers of plastic. It's one of those enormous ancient Bibles with a family tree in the front, and it was kept up for generations. Sara, there's a copy of the genealogy somewhere—in the desk, I think. See if you can find it. I hate to disturb the book, I've been meaning to take it to some museum to see about preserving it, but….”

Sara was off, her hair flying. She came back with a sizable scroll, which Ruth passed on to Bruce without unrolling it.

“This must have been Hattie's copy. She was rotten with family pride.”

Bruce unrolled the parchment on the grass; his black head and Sara's bent over it.

“Here's Douglass,” Bruce said, his finger tracing the family tree, with its brilliantly colored coats of arms and crabbed writing. “Halfway down the tree. Wow—Cousin Hattie wasn't modest, was she? Here's Robert the Bruce back here, and Alfred, King of England…. This later part looks a little more authentic. She must have picked it up from family papers and tacked the royalty on to make it look more impressive.”

“Her writing was nothing to brag about either,” Sara said, crouched over the scroll.

“Get your hair out of the way.” Bruce brushed at it; his hand lingered, but not for long. “Douglass Campbell, 1720–1810. Married Elizabeth Sanger, 1740–1756….”

Sara caught her breath.

“Sixteen years old! That must be wrong.”

“Not necessarily,” Ruth said. “They did marry young. If he married her when she was fifteen, and she died, perhaps in childbirth….”

“Yes, look here. There was a child, born the same year, 1756…. That's funny,” Bruce said. “No name. Just a question mark.”

Sara sat up, tossing her hair back over her shoulders.

“What a terrible thing. Sixteen years old, dying when she had her baby…. That's four years younger than I am.”

“If I were a parent,” Ruth remarked, “I couldn't let that one pass.”

“You'd be right too, much as I hate to admit it.” Sara smiled at her. “So we don't have it so bad these days. And he was…let's see….” She crouched over the chart again. “He was thirty-five when he married her, twenty years older….”

“A real aged creep,” Pat said morosely. “Thirty-five, my God.”

“Oh, Pat! To a girl of fifteen—”

“Maybe he was romantic as hell.”

“And maybe not.”

“Bruce, what's the matter?” Ruth asked, interrupting the dialogue.

“I'm trying to figure out why Douglass's only child has no name.”

“Maybe it died before it was baptized,” Sara suggested.

“I don't think they would even mention a stillborn child, and any other would have been baptized. The dates are odd, too—1756, and then a blank. Do you suppose Cousin Hattie got this from the family Bible?”

“I don't think the Bible could be that old,” Ruth said.

“Do you mind if I look?”

“Well, I do, rather. It's very fragile.”

“I'll be careful.”

Ruth looked at his protruding, lower lip and grimaced. She was coming to know that expression well.

“All right,” she said coolly. “Sara, it's in the lower drawer of the bookcase….” She shivered. The sun had gone behind a cloud and the garden suddenly looked bleak and depressing. “Let's all go in,” she said. “It's getting cold.”

The book was enormous. It was wrapped in two layers of plastic and one of faded silk. As Ruth carefully unswathed it, on the piecrust table in the living room, Pat gave an exclamation.

“What criminal neglect! This should have been under glass years ago. The old lady's cheap plastic bags are no substitute.”

“I meant to have it looked at, but you know how it is….”

“You find the place, Ruth,” Bruce ordered. “I'm afraid to touch it. Sorry; I didn't realize how delicate it was.”

Ruth found the place, at the cost of some destruction. The yellowing pages were almost impossible to touch without crumbling the edges.

“Goodness,” she said, forgetting her irritation with Bruce in her interest. “Here's Douglass—the first name. Looks as if he must be the original ancestor.”

“He was probably the first one to emigrate,” Bruce said. “Starting a new line in a new land, that sort of thing.”

“I keep telling you, I don't know a thing about the family history. But he was a Scot; a lot of them left in something of a hurry after the '45.”

“This must have been his Bible,” Sara exclaimed. “How amazing. Two hundred years old!”

“And a bit,” Pat said. “He wrote a fine, bold black hand, didn't he?”

They contemplated the page in awed silence. It is said that Americans are unduly impressed by sheer age, being so relatively young in the world scheme themselves. But there was something breathtaking about the angles and curves of the thick black ink, unfaded by time—the visible remnant of a man whose other remains were long since dust.

“Campbell and wife,” Pat muttered. “Here she is—Elizabeth…. Yes, Hattie must have cribbed that part of the genealogy out of the Bible. The names and dates are the same.”

“And here,” said Bruce, in an odd voice, “is why there was a question mark for Douglass's child.”

The entry was there: one name among the many blank spaces provided for possible progeny. It had been covered completely by a wide, dark blot.

“Somebody goofed,” Sara said.

“Hardly.” Bruce bent over the page till his delicately chiseled nose almost touched it. “This was deliberate; it's too neat to be accidental. Looks as if Douglass scratched the kid's name out. Corny, weren't they?”

“The ink used for the scratching out is paler than the original,” Ruth said. “I can see marks underneath.”

“You're right.” Before Ruth realized what he was about, Bruce had begun picking at the page with his fingernail. A flake of blue ink chipped off.

“Bruce,” she warned.

“It's okay, I'm not doing anything,” Bruce said with palpable untruth, amid a shower of fine flakes. “This is cheap ink—locally made, maybe. It's coming…. That's an A, surely A-M—”

“Amaryllis,” Sara suggested.

“Well, it obviously isn't Samuel,” Pat said. “Damn. Another good theory gone west.”

“…A-N…”

“Amanias.” Sara giggled.

“Shut up…. D…A.”

“Amanda.”

“A daughter,” Ruth said.

“A bad daughter,” Pat contributed.

Transfixed, Bruce remained in the same position, like Brer Rabbit stuck to the Tar Baby. When he straightened, his eyes had a wild glitter.

“Don't any of you see it? I guess maybe you wouldn't. I happened to run across it, as a nickname, in that book on Georgetown ghosts, and I never thought….”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Not Sammie. Pat was right about that. But it is a name. It's not Samuel the voice is calling. It's Amanda. Ammie.”

THE FIRST RECOGNIZABLE SOUND TO COME OUT OF THE
babble was Pat's unmelodious baritone crooning, “I think he's got it,” to the well-known tune from “My Fair Lady.”

“You're awfully frivolous for an anthropologist,” Ruth told him.

“Anthropologists have a reputation for frivolity. It's the wild lives we lead. ‘Exotic sex customs among the Andaman Islanders….' Sorry—I'm babbling. But, by God, now I really am convinced. It's too neat to be wrong.”

“Almost too neat.” Bruce tried to sound calm, but he was grinning from ear to ear. “But it's got to be right, it was so damned unexpected. I felt the same way you did, Pat; I was sure the name would be Samuel, and my heart went down into my boots when it wasn't.”

“Then…. It is Douglass Campbell who calls,” Ruth said, and her tone sobered them all. “He's calling his daughter. Ammie. Who died. But she says she isn't dead….”

Pat turned to look at her from the middle of the rug, where he had chasséd, a la Henry Higgins, to the tune of his song. The late afternoon sunlight slanted through the window, setting fire to his coppery hair and exposing the lines that had appeared around his mouth.

“Wait a minute, let's not jump to any more conclusions than we have to. It was not death that caused a beloved only daughter to be erased from the pages of the family Bible.”

“Beloved?” Bruce repeated in a peculiar voice.

“Oh, all right, scratch the adjective. It just seemed to me….”

“Yes, well…the point remains.” Bruce scowled; his hand went up to his beard. “If she had died he'd have recorded the year in the usual way. Let's see. There's no record of any marriage for Amanda. In 1780 she was twenty-four—a hopeless old maid, in those days. She must have been the dutiful daughter who kept house for dear old dad. What could she have done to make him want to obliterate her name?”

Sara curled up on the couch, kicking her shoes off and tucking her feet under her.

“They used to disinherit boys for disobedience,” she offered. “Like taking up a profession the father didn't approve of.”

“There were only two disgraceful professions open to women in those days.” Pat grinned. “The other one was the stage.”

“But Campbell was one of the gentry,” Bruce objected. “His well-bred daughter wouldn't cut loose at the sedate age of twenty-four and join a bawdy house.”

“Oh, men are so obtuse,” Ruth said impatiently. “She ran off, of course. With some worthless rapscallion her father didn't approve of. Or she got pregnant by same.”

“Is that the famous woman's intuition I keep hearing about?” Pat was amused.

“Well, what else could the girl do?” Ruth demanded. “This wasn't London, with its organized sin and gaudy night life; it was a provincial village. And if she reached the age of twenty-four without marrying, she'd be ripe for seduction by any glib male who passed through town.”

“And they say men are cynical!” Pat shook his head.

“Oh, you're being silly. Let's have some sherry. We need to talk about this.”

Ruth switched on the lights as she went out. When she came back with a tray, the other three were still arguing.

“It doesn't matter,” Bruce said, nailing down the essential point. “We'll probably never know what she did. The thing that matters is that she left, under a cloud.”

“Okay, I'll buy that,” Pat said, taking the tray from Ruth. “What does this do to our varied alphabetical apparitions?”

“The Voice is Douglass,” Ruth repeated. “And if C and D—the entity that moved the book—are the same, then—then Douglass is trying to help us.”

“Poor guy,” Pat muttered.

“Why poor?” Bruce took a sip of his sherry, grimaced, and set the glass down. “Seems to me he was a mean old bastard. There's malevolence in that big ink blot.”

“Oh, no, Bruce,” Ruth exclaimed. “The voice is terribly pathetic; I've felt that all along. Of course he'd be angry at first, especially if she had left him to go to certain misery or disgrace. But afterward…. He still misses her and wants her back, can't you feel that?”

“I guess so.” Bruce scowled at his glass.

“Is there something wrong with the sherry?” Ruth asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth—” He grinned sheepishly at her. “I can't stand sherry.”

“Then for goodness sake don't drink it! You poor suffering martyr, when I think of all the times…. Make yourself a drink, the stuff is in the dining room.”

“No, never mind. Thanks. Listen, it's getting late. Maybe—”

“Let's talk about our other apparitions,” Pat interrupted. “I want to get this straight while I can. We hypothesized two ghosts, one hostile and one neutral or helpful. I think what we learned today bears this out. Douglass may or may not be the Voice, but he certainly is not the entity who speaks through Sara.”

“Of course,” Ruth said slowly. “We forgot to make that point because it was so obvious. Apparition B is female. Not just the voice—the gestures, the manner….”

“Oh, yes,” Bruce agreed. He had forgotten his preoccupation with the time in contemplating this new idea. “No doubt about it, I'd say. Apparition B is Ammie, all right.”

“Yes,” Sara said. “I wonder what she wants.”

“Ugh,” Ruth said, with an involuntary shudder. “Nothing good.”

“How do you know?” Bruce asked.

“Why, I—she—maybe I'm prejudiced, but there's something wicked about walking into another person's mind.”

“Not very ladylike,” Bruce said. “Maybe she was desperate.”

“For what?” Ruth repeated. “And why Sara?”

“That's not hard.” Bruce began pacing, hands behind his back. “Sara makes a perfect vehicle for Amanda—blood kin, same sex, approximately the same age.”

“But what does she
want?
” Ruth slammed her fist down on the table, and the others stared at her. “I'm sorry,” she muttered. “But this is…. Bruce, I think we've done amazingly well, far better than we ever hoped, and most of the credit goes to you. But don't you see—practically speaking, we haven't made any progress. What, precisely, are we going to do?”

“Ruth, we are doing something.” Bruce stopped his pacing and sat down beside her. “If we can find out what the girl does want—”

“And suppose she wants Sara's body?”

It was out at last, the fear that had haunted at least three of the four. Ruth knew by Sara's face that this was not a new idea for her; surely it would be the ultimate in horror to feel one's own body slipping out of control—as annihilating as death, but malignant, personalized. And Bruce's silence showed that he had no immediate answer.

“That's only one possibility,” Pat said; but his voice lacked conviction. “Maybe she wants to reach her father. To be forgiven.”

“I don't really care what she wants,” Ruth said clearly. “I want to get rid of her.”

“There is a way,” Pat said. “Bruce mentioned it, that first night.”

“Exorcism. Well—why not?”

“You know what it signifies,” Bruce said. “The ritual casts It—the intruder—out into oblivion.”

“Why not?” Ruth repeated stubbornly.

“It does seem awfully final,” Sara said, with a feeble smile.

“Worse than that. It probably won't work.”

“It's worth a try,” Ruth insisted.

Bruce glanced helplessly at Pat, and seemed to find some support in his answering shrug.

“Ruth, how the hell do you propose to go about it? I can see myself telling this yarn to some priest.”

“What's the alternative?”

“Continuing to search for the rest of the story. We may find—”

“And we may not. Bruce, don't you see how dangerous it is to wait?”

“I see something else,” Bruce said, in a voice that turned her cold. “Look at the window.”

The balmy weather had betrayed them. It was not spring; it was late fall, almost winter, and however brilliant the sun it had to obey the laws of nature. In winter the sun sets earlier than in summer. The days are shorter. This day was over.

Ruth got to her feet. There was no sign as yet of the ominous thickening of the air near the window, but in this she preferred to take no chances.

“Come on, Sara,” she said.

Then she saw her niece's face.

“No,” said the light girl's voice. “No, not… help!”

“Good God,” Pat whispered. “Do you think she heard what we said—Ammie?”

“I don't know.” Ruth took a step forward, toward the stiff body of her niece. “Amanda. You are Amanda?”

“Ammie,” the voice agreed, and faded into a sigh. “Help…Ammie.”

The light outside the window was gone; Ruth was cold with apprehension, not only for what had happened, but for what might yet occur.

“Help you?” she said sharply. Her tone was the one she might have used to a stenographer at work, but she was unaware of the incongruity. “How can we help you? Why don't you go away and leave Sara alone? Go to—to your father.”

Bruce moved, his eyes wide and startled; he held up one hand as if in warning. It was too late. The stiff figure on the couch doubled up and then soared erect, hands lifted.

“Father…no,” It cried. “No, hate, hate, hate….”

Ruth had never heard a word that expressed its own meaning so vividly. Sara's body stumbled clumsily to its feet, still clawing the air. No wonder it's awkward, Ruth thought, no wonder it speaks with such difficulty. It's like trying to drive an unfamiliar type of car, when you haven't driven for—for two hundred years….

She cried out and fell back as the familiar, unrecognizable figure stumbled toward her, mouthing hate. Bruce was the first of the two men to move and he did so with obvious reluctance. Ruth saw the last vestige of color drain from his face when his hand touched the girl's arm, and she remembered, only too well, the reaction of her own body to contact with that abnormally occupied flesh. Bruce's mouth twisted as if in pain, but he kept his hold. Swinging the shambling figure around he brought his fist up in a careful arc. Sara folded like a doll, into his arms; and without a glance for anyone or anything else in the room, Bruce left—down the length of the living room, through the arch, and straight out the front door. If it had not been for Pat, Ruth would never have made it; his hand propelled her through the door. Huddled in his car they sat and watched the windows, where the folds of the satin curtains had begun to move.

 

II

They stood on the doorstep of the neat new house in its well-tended lawn. Pat's hand was on the knocker, but he was still arguing.

“Ruth, I wish you wouldn't do this.”

“I told you you didn't have to come.” She reached past him and pushed the bell.

“You'll need my help,” he said significantly. “But I keep telling you; this man is not the right man. Let me try downtown—”

“I know this man personally and he knows me. That's important, considering how crazy—” She broke off, smiling formally at the elderly woman who had opened the door. “Is Father Bishko in, please? Mrs. Bennett to see him.”

Father Bishko greeted them with the suave charm Ruth had encountered at several Georgetown dinner parties. He was a strikingly handsome man, with dark hair and gentle brown eyes. He blinked once or twice during Ruth's story, but did not interrupt. When she had finished he said mildly, “I—er—must confess, Mrs. Bennett, that you leave me—er—speechless. If anyone but you had told me this story—”

“I hope you consider my corroboration worth something,” Pat interrupted.

“Naturally. If it had not been you two—”

“Then may we ask your help, Father?”

“But, my dear Mrs. Bennett!” Father Bishko waved his hands in the air. “This is not a project to be undertaken lightly.”

“You can do it, can't you?”

“There is such a procedure,” Father Bishko admitted.

“Then—”

“It is necessary to consult other authorities. For permission to act.”

“Oh, dear.” Ruth felt her smile sagging. “How long will it take?”

“Why, that is difficult to say. Several days, I expect. Assuming that the response is favorable.”

“We can't wait….” Ruth broke off, hearing her voice quiver.

“Is it that serious?” The priest's voice had more warmth; her distress had moved him more than her reasoned description.

“Yes, it is,” Pat said. “Father, I know I haven't so much as made my confession for a good many years, but—”

“Are you by any chance trying to bribe me, Pat?” the priest asked. He sounded less vague, much younger, and wholly human; there was a faint grin on his face.

“With my immortal soul?” Pat returned the grin, and shook his head. “You know me too well, Dennie. But this lady is in serious trouble and she thinks you might be able to help her.”

“You don't think so, do you?”

“Well, I—”

“Never mind. Well.” Father Bishko rubbed his chin with a long ivory finger. “I'm not sure I can help either, but I'll certainly be happy to try. Suppose I drop by one day, just to look the situation over.”

“Would you really?” Ruth was limp with gratitude and relief. “I don't know how to thank you.”

“Don't get your hopes up,” the priest warned. “If you weren't a pair of unbelievers I'd admit I have certain reservations about parts of the ritual. And, Pat—I don't believe in ghosts.”

“Come on around this afternoon,” Pat said, rising. “And we'll see what we can do to convince you.”

When they were once more outside, Ruth turned impulsively to her companion.

“I'm sorry, Pat. Why didn't you tell me you and Father Bishko were friends?”

“Or that I, like Bruce, am a renegade?” Pat smiled down at her, not at all discomposed. “It seemed irrelevant.”