Charlotte’s Story (9 page)

The naked light was harsh, the closet as big as one of the bedrooms in the servants’ area at the back of the house. All three walls were lined with crowded but neatly ordered shelves. Close by was a row of china-faced dolls in old-fashioned dresses, and a toy monkey with movable limbs and wide, mischievous eyes. Curious, I touched its fur, but drew my hand back quickly. The fur was real. I shuddered. The dolls were less alarming; but, wary now, I did not touch their hair. Other shelves contained dishes and baskets, and stacks of framed embroidered samplers with traditional aphorisms and bible quotes. The stitching was careful but not practiced. I wondered if Olivia had done them herself as a girl. I knew no needle arts. Rachel’s mother had taught her to smock, and she was always at work on some project.

I had to stand on tiptoe to get a better look at what was on the top shelf, and then wished I hadn’t.

Even with the glare from the bulb, I could see what the dusty, glass-domed display cases arranged there held: lifelike arrangements of taxidermy birds—a juvenile owl, finches, bluebirds, a woodpecker, butterflies and moths, and the delicate skeleton of what had probably been a tiny monkey (it appeared to be eating a crab).

I was both fascinated and disgusted. But there was nothing here that needed to be immediately gotten rid of. Had the taxidermy animals belonged to Olivia? Perhaps they had been here even before she arrived.

Below the dolls on a lower shelf was a row of wooden boxes labeled with ranges of letters: A–F, G–L, M–R, S–V, W–Z. Sliding out the S–V from its place, I found that it contained rows of heavy
glass slides. I had used slide projectors in college, but these slides were much larger and thicker. Holding one to the light, I saw an 18th-century sailing ship that tilted in the water as though it were sinking. There were several more of ships—some in color, some in black and white. But after the ships, I pulled out several more of snakes—a cobra in a pen, a black snake like an ebony “S” separating a plot of vibrant, painted green grass. I might have stayed there all day, holding the curious slides up to the light, examining one after the other. They were obviously quite old and were like tiny windows into the past. I had no projector on which to show them right now, but they were here, waiting for me, any time I wanted to look. When Michael was a little older, I was sure he would like them too. I returned the box to the shelf.

Satisfied that I hadn’t missed anything critical, I had almost turned to leave when I noticed a large covered object on the floor at the opposite end of the closet. Given the taxidermy creatures and the dolls, I might have been afraid to approach it, but the heavy drape was tailored and the thing beneath seemed to have geometric proportions rather than organic.

I touched it, and a feeling of warmth swept over me as though the drape hid some sort of heater. Before I could pull off the cover, I heard a shout from outside the room. Leaving the light on and the closet door behind me open, I ran from the morning room and into the bedroom and out. Below me, Nonie was hurrying up the stairs, calling Michael’s name. Across the gallery, Michael had worked his arm and shoulder into the narrow space between two of the gallery uprights and had nearly worked his head through. Covering my mouth to keep from screaming at him and scaring him, I ran past the staircase and past Nonie, who was running up the stairs, puffing heavily.

Michael seemed not to notice either of us, and gave a start when I grabbed him. Perhaps I hurt him when I jerked him from between the uprights, because he began to scream and pound at me, pushing
me away as I tried to hold on to him. His body was damp with sweat and exertion. He’d been trying very hard to get through the uprights, having no understanding that success would have meant certain death for him. I looked down into the hall where Marlene and Terrance stared up at us. When Nonie reached me, she stood, breathless, holding on to the railing for support. I didn’t want to look at her face, knowing I would see blame there. Justified blame.

After Michael was calm, I took him downstairs and gave him a late breakfast. Within fifteen minutes, he was happily smearing oatmeal on his high-chair tray, laughing. I kept him close to me the rest of the morning.

Chapter 8

Confidences

Rachel and I sat in big wicker chairs on the screened porch of the 18th-century farmhouse she shared with Jack. It was one of the oldest houses in the county, built not long after Old Gate was officially established as a town. Ignoring pleas from her mother, as well as the Old Gate Historical Society, Rachel had insisted on building onto its original 1,200 square feet, adding a spacious sunny kitchen and sitting room, two more bedrooms, and a long porch along the back. But it had been well done. Jack had gone along with the build as he did with everything that Rachel wanted. He was too busy in his medical practice to object too much.

Beyond the porch, a simple garden with a winding path sloped downward to meet the rest of the property. It was too shaded for roses, but there were now-spent rhododendrons and hydrangeas, holly bushes—almost trees, really—and some lemon balm. Beds of harebells, wild bleeding hearts, and hostas of all sizes hugged the path. Rachel’s mother, Holly, had crowded beds of giant hostas in
her yard and was always dividing and giving them away. Beyond the garden, the path led to a sizable pond half-surrounded by cattails and weedy yellow brush gone to seed. The pond was stocked with bass, though Jack had little time to fish, and had a small flock of white geese that lived there year-round. The path then wandered out to the barn, which had been roughly renovated to accommodate the theater group and the occasional large party.

With her basket of smocking notions beside her chair, and a square of bright green fabric on her lap, Rachel looked relaxed and content in her sleeveless purple maternity blouse over a smart black cotton sateen skirt. As always, she was in full makeup, but her hair was pulled into a ponytail as though she were still a teenager. She looked oddly innocent, for Rachel.

In college she’d been a troublemaker, sneaking out for dates, smoking in our dorm room. She hadn’t cared. As long as she was having fun, anything was okay with her. After she and Jack married, she calmed considerably. She still loved to throw parties, though she complained that—outside of the theater group—Old Gate was full of boring people who did boring things. I hoped the baby she was carrying would satisfy her need for activity.

I’d come, as Press had suggested, to see how she was doing. As selfish as Rachel was (I loved her but had no illusions about her ideas of her own importance), even she could not have expected me to visit any sooner after Eva’s death. I sympathized with her, though. She was probably lonesome, just waiting for the baby to come.

It had been hard to leave Michael after the incident with the railing. But God knew he was safer alone with Nonie than he was with me. Early in the afternoon, as he was about to go down for his nap, I’d wanted to lie down on Eva’s trundle bed until he fell asleep, but Nonie had taken my arm and led me quietly out of the nursery.

“You don’t want to suffocate him, Lottie. Go and visit Rachel the way you planned. Stay as long as you like. I’ll watch him.”

What went unspoken was that
I
was the one who hadn’t been watching that morning.

A light rain was falling, dropping through the nearby trees like quiet music. Somewhere beneath the fallen leaves, a lone, late-in-the-season cricket chirruped for a mate. There was nothing odd or frightening about the farmhouse. No local legends of ghosts. No unexplained deaths. Even though I was used to Bliss House, I was comfortable here, which was probably why I felt relaxed enough to tell Rachel about seeing Olivia the day of Eva’s funeral. I had to tell someone, and I couldn’t tell Nonie. She would’ve made me lie down until the notion passed.

“You poor baby. How frightening.” Rachel touched my hand after I’d told her everything. If she noticed that it was trembling slightly, she didn’t say. Behind us in the kitchen, I could hear her new housekeeper, Sarah, readying the tea tray.

“You told Press, didn’t you? What did he say?”

“Of course I didn’t tell him. He’d think I was insane. Rachel, you know I wouldn’t make something like that up, don’t you? You can’t tell him I told you, either.”

Rachel shook her head.

“I’ve said a hundred times that house is haunted, silly. And how like Olivia to keep hanging around. The old. . . .” She caught herself and gave me a wicked little smirk. “What are you going to do?” Then her face changed and she put her hand to her belly. “The beast is kicking again. Such a little stinker already. Jack’s sure it’s a girl, but I told him I heard that intelligent men father girls. So, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a boy, right?” She laughed, amused by her own joke. “Want to feel?”

That was Rachel. Impulsive. Playfully cruel. Maybe she was being genuine, but I was still sensitive because of Eva. I didn’t know what I would do if she gave birth to a baby girl just weeks after Eva’s death. The thought sickened me.

“No. I—”

Before I could finish, she grabbed my hand and laid it on the swell of her stomach. She watched my face expectantly as though waiting for me to comment on a fabulous new hat or pair of shoes she’d just purchased.

Beneath the fabric of her blouse, I felt the rolling pressure of a shoulder or knee of the baby as it squirmed in her womb. She was due within weeks, and the baby was stunningly active, given how large it was inside her. At the same point in both of my pregnancies, my children had been still for such long periods that I’d lain awake at night, alert for any kind of movement and fearful that they had died. Press had humored me, putting his face against my naked belly, listening. Telling me he felt and heard things that I suspected he really hadn’t.

I nodded and tried a smile. Rachel was satisfied.

“Do you want me to come over and scare Olivia away? Or we could do an exorcism. You’ve got Father Aaron. Don’t priests do that sort of thing?”

“Please don’t be mean. I shouldn’t have told you. You must think I’m an idiot.”

“You know how Olivia was about me. She thought all Jews stole babies and ate them or something.”

I objected, even though I knew she wasn’t far from wrong. I hadn’t known Olivia before World War II, but the inhuman treatment of the German and Polish Jews in the war obviously hadn’t made any kind of impression on her. Sensible about so many things, she was shamelessly anti-Semitic.

“She was old-fashioned. But I never heard her say one unpleasant thing about you.”

Rachel made a scoffing sound. Then she turned in her chair to call into the house.

“Sarah. Where’s that tea? And bring out some of those ladyfingers you baked this morning.”

Sarah was new because Rachel didn’t keep housekeepers long. I assumed she wore them out with her demands. It never occurred
to me then that some of them might not want to work for her because of her Jewish background. Jack wasn’t Jewish, or any other faith that I knew of. I wondered how they would raise the baby, but I didn’t ask.

“Maybe I don’t want Olivia to go away. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something.”

Rachel leaned forward as best she could. “That does sound a little crazy, honey. Are you sure you’re all right?” Her dark eyes were serious. “Press told me he didn’t think you were doing very well.”

I looked down at my hands in my lap, noticing how bitten and ragged several of the nails on my left hand were. I didn’t remember biting them. It was an old, old habit, one that Nonie had broken me of when I was seven or eight.

“I don’t think about her every minute, the way I have been.”

“No one would blame you if you did, Charlotte. No one blames you for anything.” She paused. “You don’t have to pretend with me. She was your precious angel.”

There was no stopping the tears then. I didn’t really want comfort from anyone, because I knew there was no real comfort anywhere. Eva was
my
child. Press couldn’t understand. Not really. Not Nonie, not even my best friend could comprehend the depth of the empty space inside me. It was a nameless, endless chasm that could never be filled—not with air or water or tears, and certainly not words of any kind. Rachel let me cry and just held my hand, occasionally squeezing it. Outside the screens, the rain fell harder, drowning out the sound of my sobs.

I don’t know how long we sat like that. Five minutes, or an hour. When I think back, I realize that, for many reasons, it must have been a Herculean effort for Rachel. My handkerchief was limp and wet, and the area behind my eyes felt washed out and scratchy. Finally, the sound of the rain was the only sound left.

Weeks earlier, I couldn’t have imagined myself crying as I had in front of her. And certainly not in front of the more distant
friends and acquaintances who had been at the cemetery. Death had changed me; but, despite her initial hysteria over the Heasters at the house, it had not changed Rachel. She was her cool, unemotional self. The silence between us turned quickly awkward.

“Do you want me to call Press to take you home?”

“God, no. There’s no reason.” I ran the handkerchief carefully below each eye, remembering that I’d put on a small amount of mascara, though I doubted there was any left.

“What can I do? Do you want me to drive you? I can still fit behind the wheel.” She patted her stomach. There seemed to be more baby than there was of Rachel.

Once again I tried to smile but couldn’t quite make it happen.

“Nonie will wonder where I am,” I lied. “I should go.”

I got up to leave just as Sarah was cautiously putting down a tray with iced tea and a plate full of ladyfingers drizzled with raspberry syrup on the low table in front of us. No doubt she’d been waiting in the kitchen for me to stop crying. Had she been listening, as well? My sobbing was just more fodder for the Old Gate gossip mill.

“Sarah, wrap up the ladyfingers for Mrs. Bliss to take with her. Her husband will love them. Here, help me up, will you?”

Sarah was lean and hollow-eyed, younger than most of Rachel’s housekeepers. The arm she held out to Rachel looked strong, like she was used to heavy work.