Houses of Stone

by Kathy

  She skipped nimbly out of the way as Dorothea beat a quick retreat. "Get in the car, quick," she called to Karen. Karen jumped in and slammed the door. She was just in time; the car next to hers was Dorothea's, as she ought to have anticipated, and it scraped jarringly along the side of her own vehicle as Dorothea backed out of the parking space. She took off with a screech of tires.

  Karen got out to inspect the damage. "God damn that bitch! I'm going to have her arrested! Where's that squad car?"

  Leaning against the rear fender, arms folded, Joan said, "There isn't one. I just made it up. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "It was a very good idea," Karen said. She raised a shaking hand to her face. "God. Thanks, Joan. I mean—thanks a lot. I mean—-"

  "You all right?" Joan moved to her side.

  "Yes, sure. This isn't the first time I've seen her act that way, she's famous for it. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if I hadn't been worried about the manuscript."

  "She's one of your rivals?"

  "Dorothea Angelo. She's a full professor at Berkeley."

  "And I thought sociologists were a crazy lot," Joan mused. "Well, I'm delighted to have been of assistance, ma'am. So long, and happy trails."

  "So long, Britomart."

  Though Karen felt sure even Dorothea wouldn't risk a second encounter, she did not relax until she had finished loading the car and had driven some distance without any sign of Dorothea's Chevy behind her. She had definitely made the right decision; Wilmington was getting a little too crowded for comfort. It would be nice to retreat to a small peaceful Southern town where no one knew her and no one wanted anything she possessed.

  Karen's prospective landlady turned out to be Mrs. Fowler, the woman she had seen in the restaurant wearing the preposterous violet-trimmed hat. She was not wearing it that afternoon, but her dress was covered with nosegays of purple blossoms and the parlor into which she led her guests looked like a petrified garden. There were violets everywhere— on the wallpaper, on crewel-embroidered pillows, on the teacups and saucers. The tea set was plain silver, possibly because Mrs. Fowler had inherited it from an ancestor who didn't share her mania.

  Cameron Hayes had tried to prepare Karen when she called him on Sunday to announce her imminent arrival. "She wants you to come to tea on Tuesday. Sorry about that, but the older folks around here insist on their little rituals. I think you'll find the place is ideal for you, if you don't mind letting her pretend she's doing you a big favor. She needs the money, but she'd never be vulgar enough to say so."

  In the hope of making a good impression Karen had packed a dress she had bought in a fit of inexplicable insanity the year before—pink voile, with a gathered skirt and elbow-length puffed sleeves. She had been shopping with Sharon and Joan at one of the outlet malls, and they had assured her she looked marvelous in the dress. And, of course, it had been on sale—a perfectly good reason for buying it. She had never worn it until today, and as she studied her reflection she was tempted to tie her hair back with a big pink bow to complete the picture of girlish innocence. That would be going too far, she decided. Even an elderly Southern lady might detect a touch of caricature.

  Mrs. Fowler's approving expression told her that her instincts had been correct. Cameron Hayes's expression had left her in some doubt as to his reaction.

  His face was just as unreadable as he stood by Mrs. Fowler, waiting to hand the teacup she was filling to Karen, but she knew he didn't want to be there. It was a necessary part of the ritual, the pretense that she was a friend of a friend, properly introduced, not a stranger engaged in a crass commercial transaction. He too had dressed for the occasion, in a coat and tie. He looked tired, Karen thought—or maybe just bored. On the surface the relationship between him and his hostess was friendly, but there were undercurrents—a sweetly barbed comment here, a meaningful glance there—that aroused Karen's curiosity.

  Apparently she passed the test. After she had finished a second cup of tea and accepted a macaroon from the doily-covered plate Cameron passed her, Mrs. Fowler edged delicately toward the rude subject of renting her apartment. "Normally I wouldn't dream of such a thing, but since you're a friend of Cameron's, and a literary lady . . . Perhaps you'd be willing to speak to our little literary society sometime. We read only the classics, of course. Modern literature is so vulgar, don't you think?"

  Karen said, "Mmmmm," and smiled. Not for any reward on earth, up to and including a free suite at the Ritz, would she have consented to address a little literary society. She could imagine what this one was like—a group of superannuated ladies and gents, like the ones she had seen breakfasting with Mrs. Fowler. They'd consider any writer postdating Charles Dickens vulgar and modern.

  Mrs. Fowler led the way, tottering on her high heels and leaning heavily on Hayes's arm. The place was ideal—an apartment over the garage, far enough from the house to give Karen the privacy she wanted, hidden from it by a high hedge. It offered garage space for her car and living quarters above—kitchen, bath, one bedroom and a tiny living room. The furnishings were shabby and there were definitely too many violets in evidence, but it was clean, and the price they agreed upon, with Cameron's tight-lipped assistance, was reasonable.

  Mrs. Fowler said she could move in next day. "I'll get Belle in here to clean first," she remarked, with a disparaging glance at the spotless, dust-free room. "Around noon, my dear; is that all right with you?"

  Karen would have preferred to move in immediately. The place had obviously been cleaned within the past twenty-four hours; Mrs. Fowler was still trying to maintain the impression that she hadn't had the slightest intention of renting the apartment. But it wasn't worth arguing about. She prevailed upon her landlady to accept a check for the first week's rent and Mrs. Fowler handed over a set of keys. "Don't you worry about me bothering you," she called, as they started down the path toward the front gate. "Cameron explained you were busy with some thrilling project. You'll be absolutely private if that's what you want."

  Hayes waited until they were out of earshot before he spoke. "I hope you don't mind my mentioning your 'thrilling project.' I wasn't more specific."

  Karen reached for the gate. His hand was there before hers; she let him open it for her. "That's all right," she said. "Anything that will fend off invitations to tea, literary meetings, and so on."

  The lines in his face smoothed out into a faint smile. "I'm afraid you made too good an impression. If you give her an opening, she'll overwhelm you with unwanted hospitality."

  "I understand." She let him open the car door too. When in Rome . . .

  He dropped her at the motel, where she had left her car. "I'll meet you at Miz Fowler's tomorrow, at noon," he said. "Will you be all right this evening?"

  "Of course. You don't have to help me move in tomorrow, I'm perfectly capable of carrying a few boxes."

  "I'm sure you are. We ought to have a business discussion, though. A late lunch, perhaps."

  "Yes, right." She wondered why he hadn't suggested dinner that evening, and then reminded herself the man might have a few other things to do than tend to her. "Thanks for taking the time to introduce me. I know you must be busy."

  "Not at all." He was obviously impatient to be off, though. His hands were tight on the wheel. They looked even worse than they had the week before, scraped and cut and raw. Not the hands of a gentleman, as Mrs. Fowler's pained glance and raised eyebrows had made clear.

  After he drove off Karen went to her car and opened the trunk. It was jammed full, as was the back seat. Her packing couldn't be called well organized. There had been so much to do and she had been so impatient to get away that she had thrown things at random into boxes and suitcases. But she hadn't forgotten the important things. Taking the briefcase from the trunk, she carried it to her room.

  Once again Ismene's feet carried her to the rocky promontory from which Edmund had first displayed to her awestruck gaze the fearful solitude of the wilderness. That vision—the furio
us rush of the swollen stream, foam-flecked and dark, the savage woodlands stretching to the limit of vision—was imprinted in her memory as indelibly as if a celestial hand had pressed its stamp upon it, though sunlight and the soft airs of spring now supervened to wash the dark woods with green, and sparkle on the flowing water.

  The tender duty she owed her sister (not bodily weakness, for the day following their arrival had seen her fully recovered) would have kept her at Clara's bedside had not Clara herself urged her to seek daily exercise. "I know your restless spirit cannot endure quiet long,'' she had said. “There is no need for you to sit dully beside me. No queen could ask for kinder attentions than I have received and am receiving.

  Indeed, Ismene's fears for her sister's health had been relieved that first night when, penetrating the elegant chamber where Clara lay, she had found the younger girl sitting up in bed and partaking of a dish of soup. Edmund had even insisted on sending for a physician, though by the time Dr. Fitzgerald arrived upon the scene he himself proclaimed his services unnecessary. The following days had seen steady improvement and no diminution of the attentions bestowed upon the invalid. Had it not seemed ungrateful, Ismene might have wished for such a diminution; Clara's only fault was a tendency toward laziness and a childish enjoyment of luxury.

  It was on her first such walk that she had encountered Edmund; seeing her caped and hooded and ready for the out-of-doors, he had insisted upon accompanying her, claiming a brisk stroll was just what he wanted after a morning with his tedious ledgers and accounts. "In any case," he had added, "though it does not rain the skies are dark and the wind blows strong. The grounds are extensive and wilder than I would like; you might lose your way."

  He had sheltered her with his cloak and supported her steps as they made their way through dripping shrubbery and along muddy paths; and yet he had led her to the unsheltered, windswept promontory, with its terrifying vista of untrammeled wilderness and its rocky precipice. Fearful yet strangely drawn, Ismene had stood balanced on the brink, leaning against the wind, until he drew her back into the circle of his arm.

  "I knew," he had murmured, "that you would venture to the edge. Take care, Ismene, lest your courageous spirit lead you beyond daring into danger."

  Had it been a test? And if so, a test of what? Ismene pondered the question as she stood marveling at the transformation a few weeks' passage had wrought. Wildflowers blossomed shyly in the grass at her feet; the gently swelling curves of the distant mountains were modestly swathed in green; even the cruel rocks of the cliff below were softened by sprays of feathery green—a fernery created not by the hand of a gardener but by nature herself, rooted in adamantine stone and sheltered by it.

  A nagging discomfort penetrated Karen's absorption. Her foot had gone to sleep. Looking up, she realized that the windows were dark, and that another source of discomfort came from her empty stomach. She had been working for hours.

  She rose and stretched aching shoulders. A trifle repetitive, that last part, she thought critically. The flashback was handled fairly well, but there was no need for it; Ismene had filled several pages with a description of her cousin's "angelic" form and features, and her description of their walk to the windy promontory had been detailed and—as she clearly intended—vaguely ominous.

  Still . . . The style was characteristic of nineteenth-century novels, and less effusive than many. When your readership demanded two-and three-volume novels, a certain amount of padding became necessary. And this was clearly a first draft. Changes and emendations were frequent, making the close-written lines even harder to read.

  Enough for tonight; her eyes were tired, and she had made an exciting discovery. The ferns and the cliff . . . Ferncliffe? It wasn't proof, there were ferns and cliffs all over the place; but in this case it had to be more than a coincidence.

  She decided to celebrate by calling room service instead of going to the trouble of changing out of her comfortable robe. After the waiter had delivered her sandwich and a pot of coffee, she stretched out on the bed and was soon deep in the exaggerated horrors of The Castle of Otranto.

  The sight of this questionable masterpiece and the other books she had packed brought a surprised comment from Cameron Hayes. He had been waiting for her when she arrived at Mrs. Fowler's and had not only carried the boxes of books upstairs for her but helped unpack them. As he waited for her to arrange the stack he had handed her, he opened Horace Walpole's novel and read aloud. " 'I value not my life,' said the stranger, 'and it will be some comfort in losing it to free you from his tyranny.' Is this your favorite bedtime reading?"

  Karen laughed and reached for the book. "Who could resist dialogue like that? As I recall, the heroine replies, 'Generous youth!' "

  "The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Heir of Mondolpho, Melmoth the Wanderer . . . Finally, here's one I know. I was beginning to feel like an illiterate. Frankenstein. Don't you have nightmares?"

  Karen's smile stiffened. He couldn't know about the dreams; had that question been a sarcastic reference to the moment when she had flung herself into his arms like one of the timorous heroines of Gothic fiction? "Generous youth!" indeed!

  He didn't mean anything by it, she told herself. He's being helpful and friendly, and he seems more at ease with me. Don't slap him down.

  Cameron tossed the empty box aside and brought another. "They are research materials," she said. "I've read them all, of course, but not recently."

  "Even this? 'Many were the wretches whom my personal exertions had extricated from want and disease . . . There was no face which lowered at my approach and no lips which uttered imprecations in my hearing.' "

  Karen took the book from him. "Charles Brockden Brown's work is marred by touches of Godwinian didacticism, as one critic put it—in other words, he's a pompous son of a gun—but Wieland is a classic. It can scare the hell out of you once you get involved in the story."

  "Hmmm," Hayes said skeptically.

  "Did you ever read Dracula? Or The Turn of the Screw.7"

  "No. Should I?"

  "They may not affect you the way they do me," Karen admitted. "Like Wieland, they were written by men. About women, as victims."

  "I thought in The Turn of the Screw the kids were the victims." He added soberly, "I saw the film."

  "Victims or villains? That's one of the great debates about the book. The governess was unquestionably a victim, whether from diabolic forces or growing insanity. In Wieland, Clara, the innocent sister, is the one terrorized, first by a villain whose only motive is love of emotional sadism for its own sake, and then by her own brother. The sexual threat in the vampire tales ..." She broke off with an apologetic shrug. "Don't get me started."

  "It's very interesting," Cameron said politely.

  "Only to me and a few other pedants. Well, that's it. I may have to buy another bookcase," she added, looking at the filled shelves, from which she had removed the former contents—one shelf of Reader's Digest Condensed Books and a collection of ceramic animals. "Will Mrs. Fowler mind?"

  "I don't see why she should. Aren't you going to need a desk?"

  "That table will be adequate. I'll be transcribing by hand—that method seems to work best for me—and then making a typewritten copy."

  There was no sign of life from the house, but Karen felt sure Mrs. Fowler was watching from behind the discreetly curtained front windows as they drove past. Hayes had suggested they take her car; feeling sure she knew why, Karen decided to settle that matter once and for all. "I've not only ridden in trucks that looked worse than this, I've driven them," she said firmly. "Let's skip the Southern gallantry, shall we? This is a business deal, not a date."

  Hayes watched as she opened the door and climbed nimbly into the seat. "I'll give it my best shot," he said, and went around to the driver's side, leaving her to close the door.

  He took her to an unpretentious restaurant outside town. "The food is terrible," he said coolly. "But we're not likely to encounter any of my innumerable acquaint
ances or kinfolk. Is the manuscript in that briefcase you're clutching with all ten fingers?"

  The abrupt question caught her by surprise. It was a logical deduction, though.

  "A copy. The original is in a safe-deposit box."

  His eyebrows lifted. "It's that valuable?"

  "It is to me."

  Indicating a booth, he slid into the seat facing her. "I have no right to ask this, but you've aroused my curiosity. What's it about?"

  "The plot, you mean?"

  Obviously that was what he meant. But asking the question and awaiting his response gave her time to consider his request. There was no reason why she shouldn't tell him, she supposed.

  Cameron nodded. "Since you dragged all those boring books with you, I assume this is the same sort of thing. Gothic novels, isn't that what they're called?"

  There was no reason why she shouldn't tell him.

  Her summary of the plot didn't impress him. "So what's the point of it all? This woman—Ismene?—doesn't seem to have done much except wander around wringing her hands and finding sinister meanings in perfectly innocent activities. She's got a home and servants and friends and a kindly guardian—"

  "1 haven't gotten very far yet," Karen interrupted. "But the sinister overtones aren't just in her mind. You'll have to take my word for it."

  "I guess I will. You're the authority. What would you like?"

  Karen realized that the question was about food. The waitress was hovering. Without looking at the menu she ordered a tuna-salad platter; every restaurant of this type offered a tuna-salad platter.

  "I don't want to sound any more ignorant than I can help," Cameron said, "but I'm trying to get this straight. You think the house in the book is based on Amberley, and that the author once lived there? That she is, in fact, an ancestress of mine?"