Theophilus North (10 page)

I told her about the project at Wyckoff House, but made no mention of the significant letter I had discovered.

“A sad story! A sad story!” she said with ill-disguised relish, striking a handbell on the table before us. In the late evening she often partook of a tall glass of what I took to be white wine. When Jerry had served her and retired she repeated, “A sad story. One of the oldest and most respected families. Did Miss Wyckoff tell you anything?”

“Oh, not everything, Mrs. Cranston. She did not tell me what had happened to give the house a bad reputation. She assured me solemnly that she didn't know what it could be.”

“She doesn't know, Mr. North. You're reading all those family letters up to the years just before the War?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Have you come upon anything . . . sensational yet?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You may.”

The word “sensational” is a very sensitive word in Newport. The Sixth City lived under the white light—I should say the “yellow” light—of an immense publicity. It was bad enough to be thought frivolous, even scandalous, but it also dreaded being regarded as ridiculous.

Mrs. Cranston deliberated a moment, then picked up the telephone before her and called a number—that of the Chief of Police.

“Good evening, Mr. Diefendorf. This is Amelia Cranston . . . good evening. How's Bertha? . . . How are the children? . . . I'm very well, thank you. Thursday's my hard night, as you know. . . . Mr. Diefendorf, there is a young man here who has been engaged by a certain very respected lady in the city to make inquiries into some unhappy events in her family history. . . . No, oh, no! He has no connection with anything like that. He's merely been asked to read aloud to her from old family letters that have been stored in the attic. I think it's something that you'd like to know about. It's something that has officially never come to your attention, that needs very confidential handling. There's always the possibility that he might run across something that might get into the papers. I have full confidence in this young man, but of course he hasn't got your experience and your judgment. . . . Is there some evening when you could drop in here and see him or should I ask him to call on you in your office? . . . Oh! That would be very kind of you. Yes, he's here now. His name is North. . . . Yes, the same.” (Probably the “same” who was involved in the Diana Bell elopement matter. )

It is evidence of the congeniality of our relationship that Mrs. Cranston (who seldom permitted herself to make a caustic remark about anyone) glanced at me and said dryly: “I have noticed that the Chief never refuses an excuse to leave the bosom of his family.”

We did not have long to wait. I received permission to order another beer. The Chief was tall and wide. He gave the impression of being at once genial and uncomfortable. This, I was to learn, was the result of a long experience of being browbeaten by the wealthy who tend to assume that the less fortunate are unbelievably dim-witted. His defense was to assume an air of doubting the truth of any word spoken to him. He shook hands cordially with Mrs. Cranston and guardedly with me. She told him the whole story and again expressed her confidence in me.

“Mr. Diefendorf, I think that while reading those old letters the story may come to light and that maybe it
should
come to light. After all, there's nothing really damaging about it all; it doesn't reflect on the character of anybody in the family. You told me all you knew about it and I've kept my promise: I haven't breathed a word about it to a soul. If Mr. North finds something definite about it in a letter, I know he can be trusted to tell
you
about it first. Then you can decide whether Miss Wyckoff should be told.”

The Chief's eyes rested on me deliberatingly: “What brought you to Newport, Mr. North?”

“Chief, I was stationed at Fort Adams during the last year of the War and I got to like it here.”

“Who was the Commanding Officer then?”

“General Kalb or DeKalb.”

“Did you ever go to church in town here?”

“Yes, to Emmanuel Church. Dr. Walter Lowrie was the rector.”

“Did Mr. Augustus Bell pay you a large sum for handling that matter of his daughter's elopement?”

“I told him beforehand I only wanted reimbursement for the time I'd lost from my usual jobs. I've sent him a bill twice and he hasn't paid it yet.”

“What were you and your bicycle doing out at Brenton's Point very early a few mornings ago?”

“Chief, I'm crazy about sunrises. I saw one of the finest I've ever seen in my life.”

This caused him a little difficulty. He examined the tabletop for a few moments. He probably put my behavior down to one of the idiosyncrasies consequent on a college education.

“How much do you know about the Wyckoff House story?”

“Only that it's supposed to be haunted.”

He outlined the situation as I already knew it—“Somehow the rumor had gotten round that there were ghosts in the house. . . . Now, Mr. North, just after the War our waterfront life used to be much more active than it is now. Many more yachts and pleasure boats, the Fall River Line, fishing business, a certain amount of merchant shipping. Sea-going men drink. We used to collect them every night—stark, staring mad, delirium tremens. Those taverns on Thames Street used to be out-of-bounds to the men at the Naval Training Station—too many fights. One night in 1918 we had to lock up a man named Bill Owens, a merchant seaman about twenty-one years old, born and raised in Newport. He'd get very drunk, night after night, and start telling stories about the awful things he'd seen at the Wyckoff place. We couldn't have that. And we'd try to piece together what he was roaring and raving about in his cell.”

Here the Chief made us wait while he lit a cigar. (There was no smoking in Mrs. Cranston's front rooms.)

“Mr. Wyckoff used to be away six and eight months at a time. He was a collector. What was it, Mrs. Cranston—sharks' teeth?”

“Shells and Chinese things, Chief. He left them to that big museum in New York.” (No information was ever accurate in Newport, a matter of intellectual climate.)

“All that time he kept a kind of super-butler in charge, named Harland. Harland picked his own staff.”

“Girls he found in New York, Chief. I never had anything to do with them.”

“The front of the house was brightly lighted until midnight. Everything seemed to be in perfect order. Owens was a boy of about twelve, hired to empty the slops and carry the coals up to the fireplaces—odd jobs. I think Mrs. Cranston will agree with me that servants are like schoolchildren; they need a strict hand over them. When the teacher's out of the classroom they begin to raise the Old Nick.”

“I'm sorry to say there's some truth in it, Chief,” said Mrs. Cranston, shaking her head. “I've seen it over and over again.”

“Mr. Wyckoff was a bad judge of men. His butler Harland was as crazy as they come. . . . Bill Owens said he was sent home every night at six o'clock when he'd finished his chores. But a few times he crept back to the house. The front rooms were brightly lighted, but the doors and windows of the dining room were hung with felt curtains—thick felt curtains. They couldn't have their unholy goings-on down in the kitchen—oh, no! They were masters and had to use the master's dining room. Owens said he used to hide in the cupboards and peek through the felt curtain. And he saw awful things. He'd been telling the crowds down on Thames Street that he'd seen banquets and people taking their clothes off and what he called ‘cannibals.' ”

“Chief! You never used that word before!”

“Well, he said it. I'm sure he didn't see it, but he thought he did.”

“Oh, Lord in Heaven!” said Mrs. Cranston crossing herself.

“When you see half-cooked meat eaten
with their own hands
, that's what a boy of twelve would think he saw.”

“God save us all!” said Mrs. Cranston.

“I've no idea what Mr. Wyckoff saw, but he saw the felt curtains and the raw meat stains all over the floor and beastliness in the faces of the servants, very likely. . . . Now pardon my language, but rumor is like a stink. It took about three years for Bill Owens's stories to pass from Thames Street to Mrs. Turberville's Employment Agency. And rumor always gets blacker and blacker. What do you think of it, Mr. North?”

“Well, Chief, I think that there was no murder, and not even mayhem; there was just brutishness and somehow it got mixed up in the popular imagination with spooks.”

“And now there's nothing we can do about it. Remember, it never reached the police desk. The ravings of a man in delirium tremens are not a deposition. Owens shipped out of town and has not been heard from since. I'm glad to have met you, Mr. North.”

I had got what I wanted. We parted with my usual dishonest assurances that I would share with him any further information that came to light. As far as I was concerned that problem was solved, but my imagination had been occupied for some time with a far more difficult problem: What way could be found to dispel the “malediction” that rested on the Wyckoff House? Explanations and appeals to reason have no power to efface deeply ingrained and even cherished dreads.

I had glimpsed an idea.

One afternoon when I had presented myself at the door for the accustomed reading, I found a barouche, a coachman, and a pair of what used to be called “spanking” horses waiting in the driveway. Miss Wyckoff met me in the hall, dressed to go out. She begged my pardon, saying that she had been called to visit an invalid friend; she would be back within half an hour. Her maid was standing beside her.

“Miss Wyckoff, may I have permission to visit the rooms on the first floor? I greatly admire what I have seen of the house and would like to see some of the other rooms.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. North. Make yourself completely at home. Mrs. Delafield will be glad to answer any questions, I'm sure.”

It was a beautiful spring afternoon. All the doors were open. I viewed the great hall from all sides; I saw the dining room and the library for the first time. Everywhere I was arrested by some felicity of detail, but above all I was held by the harmony of the entire structure. “This is Palladio,” I thought. “He himself was the heir of great masters and this is one of his descendants, just as Versailles is; but this is nearer the Italian source.” When I was returning through the great hall to my work table Mrs. Delafield said, “Years ago before the master started going on expeditions, they used to give musical parties here. Have you heard of Padderooski, Mr. North? . . . He played here, and Ole Bull, the Norwegian violinist. And Madame Nellie Melba—have you heard of her? Very fine, she was. Those were lovely days. Just think of it now! It's a shame, isn't it?”

“You haven't seen or heard anything that made you uncomfortable, have you, Mrs. Delafield?”

“Oh, no, sir—not a thing!”

“Would you be willing to spend the night here?”

“Well, sir, I'd rather not. I know that maybe it's all foolishness, but we're not always in control of our feelings, if you know what I mean.”

“What do people think took place here?”

“I don't like to talk about it or
think
about it, sir. Some people say one thing and some people say another. I think it's best to leave things as they are.”

The readings continued. Miss Wyckoff seemed relieved that no intimation of a sinister nature came to our attention. We read on for the pleasure of reading, for the Wyckoffs were admirable letter writers. But all the time the idea of what was possible was growing in my head.

I have told of the various aspirations that had successively absorbed me when I was a very young man. A journalist's life was not among them. My father was a newspaper editor both before and after he was sent on consular missions to China. He brought a dedication to it that I was never able to share. To me it smacked too much of the manipulation of public opinion, however sincerely prompted. The idea that was developing in my head for the rehabilitation of Wyckoff House involved precisely that, but I didn't know how to go about it.

Chance opened the way to me.

The account of my relation to Wyckoff House falls into two parts. The second part led me into the Eighth City—that of camp-followers and parasites to whom I had so close an affinity. It led me to Flora Deland.

By the fifth week in Newport my schedule had begun to be exacting. The professional coach returned to the Casino and I was relieved of the second hour of instructing children, but all day I was busy with French or Latin or arithmetic in one house or another. I searched for somewhere to have lunch in as quiet a place as the town afforded. I found the Misses Laughlins' Scottish Tea Room—where Diana Bell and Hilary Jones had done their courting—in the heart of the Ninth City. It was frequented by girls from offices, some schoolteachers of both sexes, some housewives “downtown shopping”—a subdued company. The food was simple, well-cooked, and cheap. I had noticed a strange apparition there and hoped to see it again—a tall woman sitting alone, dressed in what I took to be the height of fashion. One day she reappeared. She wore a hat resembling a nest on which an exotic bird was resting, and an elaborate dress of what I think used to be called “changeable satin,” blues and greens of a peacock's feathers intermingling. Before eating it was necessary that she remove her gloves and raise her veil with gestures of apparently uncalculated grace. Zounds! What was this? As before, when she entered or rose to take her departure the room was filled with the rustle of a hundred petticoats. Not only
what
was she, but
why
should she visit our humble board?

Her face was not strictly beautiful. Norms of feminine beauty change from century to century and sometimes oftener. Her face was long, thin, pale, and bony. You will later hear Henry Simmons describe it as “horsy.” It can be seen in Flemish and French paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The kindest thing that could be said of it in 1926 was that it was “aristocratic,” a designation more apologetic than kind. What was sensational about her was what we lustful soldiers at Fort Adams used to call her “build,” her “altogether,” her “figger.”