Silent Days, Holy Night

by Phyllis Clark Nichols

  Piper spoke up. “You played the piano for him? I thought you just said he was deaf.”

  “He is deaf, but he can feel the music.”

  Gary laughed. “You played the piano for a ghost who can’t hear? He probably wished he was deaf.”

  He and Angus started to walk away. But Angus turned around and said, “You’re crazy, Julia, and you’d better stay away from there—lights a-flickerin’, dead men’s bones, and ghosts.”

  I was just about to tell them Mr. Lafferty was a very rich man who helped a lot of people in Sycamore Hill, but then I remembered what Dad had said. I wasn’t supposed to be talking about Mr. Lafferty’s business. I could trust Piper, but Gary and Angus were just trouble looking for a place to misbehave.

  Jesus, forgive me, but I need to clean up this mess I made. “Ha, ha! I fooled you, Angus. You were just about to believe what I was telling you about going to that mansion, weren’t you? Tricked you. I was just trying out the ghost story I’m writing for my Halloween project. Thanks, you gave me some ideas.”

  Angus turned around again with a frown on his face. He waved his arm like he was brushing me off. I hoped he was.

  Piper tugged on my sleeve again. “Julia. Now I don’t know what to believe. Was any of what you said true?”

  “Every last word I said is true except that last thing I said about tricking Angus and Gary. I’ve been to the green mansion. I met Mr. Lafferty, and he’s real. He’s deaf, and he uses a wheelchair, and I’m not supposed to be talking about him.”

  “Why aren’t you supposed to talk about him?”

  “Because Dad is his attorney, and I probably heard things I’m not supposed to know. Sort of like if you heard your dad talking to one of his patients on the phone. We’re not supposed to talk about that stuff.”

  “But you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I’ve already told you everything except one thing, and I can’t tell you that. I don’t want Mr. Lafferty to fire Dad. And besides, Mr. Lafferty invited me to come back and play the piano for him again, and Dad said I could. Maybe I could ask if you could go with me next time.”

  The bell rang. Piper stood up from the bench. “Let’s go, and I mean back to class. I’m not sure I want to go out to that green mansion with you.”

  “Believe me, you do.”

  I didn’t sleep much Tuesday night. I kept thinking about what Angus and Gary had said and wondered why I’d never heard any of those tales. I knew they weren’t true, but I couldn’t figure why anybody would make up tales like that about Mr. Lafferty and then why anyone would believe them.

  I’d heard too many conversations between Dad and G-Pa when they were talking about a case and how they needed to sift through lots of stories to get down to that one kernel of truth—the one kernel that cracked the case.

  I was sifting through what I knew, and there were a couple of kernels of truth in what Angus and Gary had said. The Laffertys had always been rich, and there could be caves on that property. Our whole area of West Virginia had caves. But finding human bones in one? I guessed even that could be true. People did get lost in caves in these parts, and they were never found.

  My biggest worry wasn’t caves or ghosts or even hidden money. It was whether Angus and Gary believed what I’d said, or if they believed my made-up story about what I said. I hoped they hadn’t told anyone else about it. Gossips around this town swarmed like mosquitoes in July. But at least I hadn’t said anything about Mr. Lafferty helping the town folks who needed help. Forgive me, Jesus, and I hope I don’t get in trouble and Dad doesn’t lose his job.

  I was grumpier than usual at breakfast, and Mom said I looked sleepy. I told her the neighbor’s dog had kept me awake. Now, that was not a total fib. Rusty had barked a few times late into the night. I just didn’t tell Mom I was already awake.

  When I got to school, Piper thought I was extra grumpy too. And when she asked me at lunch to tell her more about my visit to the green mansion, my lips were zipped tight. All I had to do was mention her latest dance costume. Subject changed, and all I heard about was red sequins and white tights. No more talk of the mansion or ghosts or my visit.

  I suffered through the day until the final bell rang. I just knew if I could get to Grancie’s, I’d learn everything I wanted to know about Emerald Crest and Mr. Henry Lafferty the Second. And something told me that was a lot of learning.

  Grancie was at the curb waiting for me, honking her horn like I wouldn’t know she was there. I climbed into the front seat.

  “Hi, sweetie. Hope you had a good day. Did you teach those teachers of yours something today?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I showed them my experiment. We’ve been studying fossils, but now, since it’s autumn, we’re studying about why leaves change color. They really liked my project.”

  Grancie giggled and drove toward her house. “Tell me, did you blow anything up?”

  “Not this time. I just showed them how there’s red and yellow in a leaf even in the springtime when the leaf is green.”

  “Sounds impressive. Are you telling me there’s red and yellow in a green sycamore leaf in June?”

  “It’s true, Grancie. You just need a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some hot water, and a coffee filter to prove it. Oh, and you must have leaves. I put a few chopped-up, green sycamore leaves in a jar and covered them with alcohol. Then I covered the jar with aluminum foil and put it in a pan of very hot water. I kept changing out the water to keep it hot. That’s important. After about thirty minutes, I took off the foil and put one end of a strip of coffee filter down in the alcohol, sort of like a wick in an oil lamp.”

  I knew Grancie wasn’t that interested in my project. But I hoped it would wear her down and she’d be so tired of my gabbing that she’d talk my ears off about the Laffertys to keep me from talking about science anymore.

  “Then after about an hour and a half, as the alcohol evaporates, it brings the bands of color up the paper—red, orange, and yellow. See, it’s all about the chlorophyll. That’s what makes the leaves so green, and it hides the other colors until autumn. But the chlorophyll starts breaking down in the fall because the weather is cooler and there’s less sunlight. And when the chlorophyll breaks down, the leaves turn different colors. I just separated the colors using heat and alcohol. That’s basically the process of chromatography.” By that time we were in the driveway. “I can tell you lots more about chromatography. Would you like to know more about that?”

  Grancie got out of the car and headed toward the back porch. “You know, child, I do hope I’m still around when you’re grown up. I have a feeling you’re going to turn the world upside down, and I’d certainly like to see it. What do you say we go inside? I have some tasty iced pumpkin cookies for your snack.”

  I had her. She wanted to hear no more about any science project, and I knew she was dying to talk.

  Inside, Grancie set a plate of iced pumpkin cookies on the breakfast table and started toward the refrigerator for the milk.

  “Could I have a cup of tea instead of milk, please? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a cup of tea together?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. Your mom said you didn’t sleep well last night, and she said I was not to give you anything with caffeine in it this afternoon, especially if your snack had sugar in it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Maybe we can have tea and cookies another day.” I put my book bag on the empty chair and sat down. “But it’s okay if you’d like tea with your cookies.”

  “I think I just might have a cup of Darjeeling.” She put the teakettle under the faucet. Perfect. In ten minutes she’d be a talking machine. Caffeine loosened Grancie’s tongue. “Hope you like the cookies. I had to hide these from your grandfather. He says they’re his new favorite.”

  I asked how she made them, and she told me every detail. I pretended to listen, but I was about as interested in how long to mix the cookies as Grancie was in chromatography.

  “Could we work on the afghan today? We co
uld crochet and have a conversation.”

  “Well, yes, we could do just that. We have about thirty more granny squares to crochet before we can put it all together. Your mom will be so surprised come Christmas.”

  We finished the cookies, and it wasn’t long before we were sitting in our favorite spot in her sunroom. Grancie had grown up in Mississippi, and she liked white wicker and any kind of plant with a flower on it. The ceiling was painted blue like the sky, and the walls were white. It looked like a greenhouse with all her violets and orchids and begonias sitting on every flat surface in that room. It was Grancie’s happy place, and I liked it too.

  “Your basket is over behind the magazine rack, Julia.” She adjusted her chair cushion, got comfortable, and propped her feet up.

  Here was my chance—just what I’d been waiting for. “Did you know Dad took me with him to see Mr. Lafferty Monday afternoon?” I picked up my basket and sat down on the sofa, rustling through everything trying to find the granny square I’d worked on last time. I was making my mom an afghan for Christmas.

  “He did, did he? Well, what did you think about Mr. Lafferty and that beautiful house?” Grancie paused to count chain stitches.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I’ve only seen pictures of houses that big, but I’ve never seen pictures of anything like Emerald Crest. Do you know about the house? Didn’t you go there with G-Pa for parties?” I wound the yarn around my finger and started to crochet.

  “Yes, I did.” Then Grancie cleared her throat and started her story. When she started, it was like she was reading from some English novel written in the 1800s. “Well, let me tell you about it. Emerald Crest sits atop the highest point on the east side of Sycamore Hill. That old mansion rises in prominence against the horizon as though it grew up there amid the tall pines and cedar trees cradling it, just standing there like a self-proclaimed fortress guarding the town below for the last seventy-five years.” She lifted her arm and moved it high above her like she was an actress on a stage delivering her lines.

  “Seventy-five years? The house is that old?”

  Grancie picked up her yarn and needle and sat back in her wicker rocking chair. “Oh, yes. My mother, your great-grandmother, told me all about the building of that stone manor. Now, Henry Lafferty the First was an Irish immigrant, and it didn’t take him long to become a railroad tycoon. And I do believe he made some of his money in the coal industry too. Anyway, before he left Ireland for the United States, he met Colleen. And the moment he looked into her green eyes, his life was changed forever. Moments can do that, you know. He fell in love, married her, and brought her to America. My mother told me after he made his money, Mr. Lafferty decided to build a house that would be a monument for the woman he loved more than life. It had to be a house like no other house ever built.”

  “You mean like the Taj Mahal?”

  “Perhaps it was.”

  “That’s one of the Seven Wonders of the World, you know. A man built it because he loved a woman. I think she was his favorite wife. Probably his other wives didn’t like her one bit. But it was no house. It was a tomb and a whole lot of white marble. But it had gardens like Emerald Crest. I’ve seen pictures.” Hush my mouth. If I start talking, I won’t find out anything. “Mr. Lafferty must have liked green.”

  “Oh, he did, from the moment he looked into Colleen’s green eyes. Not much here would do to build that house, so he went back to Ireland. He found a rare green marble and shipped as much as he could find back to the States. That marble is what you see on the floor of the manor. But then he heard about some green granite up north of here, and he went there and handpicked green granite to match the color of his Irish bride’s eyes and had it shipped from the Saco Valley in New Hampshire. He built the exterior walls out of that green stone and then covered the inside walls with the darkest mahogany he could find.”

  “It was dark, like a forest. But there was a garden room, kind of like this one. I think Mrs. Lafferty must have liked flowers like you do, Grancie. Did she?”

  “Oh, yes. Mrs. Lafferty had an eye for anything beautiful. I first met her when Julian T. Russell, Esq., your grandfather, became Mr. Lafferty’s attorney. Colleen was a bit older than I was, but she was a green-eyed beauty until the day she died. She was always kind and gracious, and did she ever know how to throw a party. Especially a Christmas party! Why, they were the most lavish Christmas festivities around, and we felt fortunate to be invited. There seemed to be no end to the twinkling lights inside and outside. There were themed Christmas trees in every room—one with angels, one with ornaments from Ireland, another with handblown glass balls, one dressed in silver and another in gold—all different but beautiful. But under each tree were boxes wrapped in red foil and tied with the same red, gold, and green plaid ribbon. I remember that ribbon to this day and wondered where she found it.”

  “Maybe it came from Ireland too. They like plaid a lot.”

  “Yes, they do. And Colleen served a feast, not just a delicious meal. And then came the never-ending cups of mulled cider, joyous singing, and fiddle playing. And she would play the piano and sing, and we would join her for some of the carols. And then little Mackenzie would play and sing. She looked like a princess, always in white velvet.”

  “Who was Mackenzie?”

  “She was the Laffertys’ only child, and she was a beauty just like her mom—auburn hair and green eyes.” Grancie paused again to count the stitches.

  “But what about Mr. Lafferty the Second? I thought he was their child.”

  Grancie shifted in her seat and looked over her glasses at me. “As I was saying, the Christmas parties were truly like something you’d see in the movies. The parties just got bigger and more lavish every year—that is, until the year they stopped.”

  “You mean she just quit having parties?”

  “Yes. I’m not certain that was Colleen’s choice, but nevertheless, they stopped. Now, I think you’re old enough to hear the rest of this story, but you’re not to repeat it. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. Just like Dad told me not to say anything to anyone about Mr. Lafferty’s business.”

  “True. This is more like attorney-client privilege. And besides, it’s their story, not our story to tell.”

  “I’ll never, ever tell. What about Mackenzie?”

  Grancie sat back in her chair again, like she was reliving the story. “Well, it seems that one Christmas—oh, I think Mackenzie was about twenty-one. Anyway, she came home for Christmas from her fancy European school, and she brought home more than Christmas presents. Her big surprise was a French husband and a tiny bundle of a baby boy named Henry.”

  “You mean that baby was Mr. Henry Lafferty the Second?”

  “That’s what I mean. He is Colleen’s grandson. And Mackenzie’s arrival with him brought an end to the Christmas parties at Emerald Crest. That was a different time back in those days, Julia. Mr. Lafferty was embarrassed, and he was so disappointed in his daughter. He’d had such high hopes and dreams for his only child.” Then Grancie looked straight at me. “All parents are that way, sweetie. And don’t you forget it. Don’t you break your parents’ hearts like Mackenzie did.”

  “I won’t ever. I promise. So what happened?”

  “Well, Mr. Lafferty and the Frenchman never got along. I’m not certain any man would have ever lived up to his expectations for a son-in-law. Mr. Lafferty was a hardworking, self-made man, and he looked at this Frenchman as a freeloader. And then it didn’t help that little Henry was a sickly baby. The Frenchman didn’t hang around long, though, especially when he learned little Henry was deaf—and then Mr. Lafferty offered him a certain sum of money and a one-way ticket on an ocean liner bound for London.”

  “You mean Mr. Lafferty paid him to leave?”

  “Something like that. And you remember your grandfather was a young attorney just starting out in those days, and Mr. Lafferty hired him to get the marriage annulled. That means it was l
ike the marriage never happened. Mr. Lafferty never considered that union honorable in the eyes of the church or the law anyway. Then your grandfather arranged for Mackenzie and the child to take her maiden name, and that’s when little Henry became Henry Lafferty the Second.”

  “So that’s why he’s not a Junior? Dad didn’t tell me that.”

  “Dads are like that, always trying to protect their daughters from realities that aren’t very pleasant. After your grandfather handled all those private details regarding Mackenzie and the baby, Mr. Lafferty trusted him and made him his attorney for life. And even after Mr. Lafferty the First died, your grandfather still took care of everything for young Henry until his retirement and your dad took over.”

  “So what happened to Mackenzie?”

  “Well, that’s another long and sad story. It broke Mackenzie’s heart when her Frenchman left, but then she had a young child to mother, and she poured every ounce of her love into that little boy. You see, there wasn’t much available to help a deaf child in the hills of West Virginia when Henry was small, but there was no lack of love and no shortage of funds to transport him from city to city to see the best doctors. Nothing could be done to restore his hearing, though. Colleen told me once that she and Mackenzie grieved that little Henry would never hear music or the birds in the pines or laughter, but mostly I imagine Mackenzie grieved that he’d never hear the sound of her voice.”

  “I think she must have played the piano, and I think he must have remembered that when I played for him.” I put down my crochet needle. “So where is Mackenzie now, and why does Mr. Lafferty live alone?”

  “Well, sweetie, you’re just pulling all the sad stories out of me this afternoon. Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. It’s better than the book I’m reading about Beethoven.”

  “You remember Mackenzie had traveled the world, and then she found herself back in Sycamore Hill with a father who had been shamed and not many friends she could count on. After four years of living with her parents, Mackenzie decided it was time for her and Henry to leave the halls of the green manor. They moved to Richmond, and Henry went to a special school for children who were deaf. They learned sign language together. Colleen told me that Mackenzie feared her son might never hear the sound of her voice, but nothing would stop her from learning how to communicate with him in a way that he would know how much he was loved.”