House of Many Shadows

by Barbara Michaels

  “So what if they did?”

  “What kind of snob do you take me for? I was just thinking how the old stock has deteriorated. Anyhow, the point is that Christian Huber must have been among those later immigrants. ”Devout, simple, honest people, most of them very poor…

  “He was an exception, then,” Meg said. “That old man was not a simple, devout farmer.”

  “You’re thinking about the crest, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, Andy, there are all sorts of indications that Huber’s background was more distinguished than that of his neighbors. The sword over the mantel in his room; all those books. And remember the clothes he and Anna Maria wear—wore? A farmer’s daughter would wear homespun. That pale-blue dress is completely impractical for a pioneer girl. Old Mr. Huber goes around in silver buttons and white shirts; we have yet to see any indication that he was farming his land. And the servant—how many settlers had servants?”

  Andy looked impressed.

  Meg went on, with growing vehemence, “The motto on the sampler is in English, not German. Would a German peasant’s granddaughter know English? He must have sent her away to school. There were ads in the Gazette for boarding schools, where they taught embroidery and languages in addition to the usual school subjects. Not everybody came to America for religious freedom. There must have been political refugees even then. If a Count or Baron von Friedland fled to America after the failure of a plot in which he was involved, he’d change his name, wouldn’t he?”

  “Boy, that is really farfetched!”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “But, Meg, we’d never be able to check that out. All those petty little duchies and kingdoms and their petty local politics… You’re a frustrated romantic, that’s your trouble. You want your pretty little ghost to be of noble blood.”

  “We’re looking for a motive for a murder,” Meg insisted. “Aren’t we more likely to find one for a complex, educated man than for a simple German farmer?”

  “You’re not only a romantic, you’re a snob. Common people murder each other just as often as aristocrats.”

  “I just might murder you!” Meg jabbed her needle viciously into the cloth, and stabbed her thumb. “You’re so stubborn!”

  Andy was silent for a moment. Meg stealthily staunched the flow of blood and went on stitching.

  “All right,” Andy said, in a mild voice. “We’ll think about it. Suppose we go to Harrisburg tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Meg didn’t look up. After a while Andy picked up a book and started to read.

  They sat in silence for almost an hour. Meg finished the motto. Getting bored with letters, she moved down to the lower section and began embroidering a tree.

  Finally Andy closed his book. “You’re really going great guns, aren’t you?” he said, looking at the sampler.

  “It’s a lot easier than I expected.” Meg smoothed the fabric and admired her symmetrical green tree. “I guess I’m improving with practice.”

  And then, since he had shown an interest in her work, she inquired amiably, “What are you reading?”

  “That pamphlet on hex signs. You know, some writers sill insist they had a purely decorative function. It’s funny, how people hate to admit their ancestors were superstitious.”

  “People are still superstitious.”

  “You know it and I know it; but people like to think of themselves as rational—especially when their irrational ideas lead to violence. Remember that hex murder we were talking about the other night? The writer who resurrected the case some years later had harsh criticism for the judge and the prosecutor of York County. They refused to allow any reference to witchcraft or hexerei as a motive. If the defense could have proved the murderers acted out of superstitious fear, they would have been sent to mental institutions. Instead they were convicted of murder in the first degree. Motive, robbery. The sum involved was only a couple of dollars.”

  “Murders have been committed for petty sums.”

  “Not this one. The chief killer, Blymire, was a pathetic man who had been raised in a community where everybody believed in powwowing and hexerei. He was a fourth-generation witch himself—”

  “I thought witches were all female.”

  “Warlock is the correct term for a male witch, but apparently it wasn’t used around here. Blymire called himself a witch. He was lousy at it, though. He was lousy at everything, poor devil. After half a lifetime of illness and failure he decided some other .witch had put a hex on him. He talked two other innocents into going with him and helping him break the spell. You can do that by getting a lock of the witch’s hair. The guy refused to cooperate, and in the ensuing struggle he was killed.” “What a fantastic story.”

  “No more fantastic than some of the things that have been done in the name of religion,” Andy said. “The interesting point about the case is why the legal authorities tried to suppress the hex angle. The big-town newspapers had a field day, jeering at the dumb peasants of Pennsylvania, and the judge refused to admit that such things could go on in his home town.”

  Meg laughed shortly. “Maybe we should nail up some hex signs. Do you think it would get rid of our ghosts? I don’t mind the ones that are already inside.”

  “We could try garlic or holy water,” Andy said. “Or maybe we should look for a hostile witch. Do you think Culver would let us cut off a lock of his hair?”

  “I wouldn’t touch his hair with rubber gloves. How about Georgia? She’d make a cute witch.”

  “Speaking of witches,” Andy began—and broke off in mid-breath. His eyes took on a glazed stare.

  “What is it?” Meg asked curiously.

  “Nothing… Something just ran through my mind, but it ran right on out the other side. Are you about ready to quit? We should leave early.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “I want to try something.”

  Meg looked up. Andy had extended both hands across the table.

  “Oh,” Meg said. “Now?”

  “I want to try something,” Andy said again.

  Slowly Meg extended her hands till they touched Andy’s.

  The last thing she saw before the image formed was Andy’s face, intent, frowning, his eyes narrowed.

  Earlier she had complained that the incidents they had witnessed were inconsequential. It was not true of this scene; something had happened, but she was at a loss to understand the violent emotions mat marked the faces of the players.

  The old woman, in her black dress and white cap and apron, sat huddled on one of the benches by the kitchen fire. Meg could see the purple veins in the backs of her old hands, but she could not see the object they held. It was partially hidden under her apron.

  The wrinkled, toothless old face looked malignant, but the pose was one of guilty shock. She was looking up over her shoulder at a man who stood in the doorway behind her. Drawn up to his full height, Huber was a rigid statue expressing indignation and anger. He was, as always, dressed with an elegance that did not suggest a working farmer. The silver buttons on his blue coat sparkled; the crisp white linen at his throat looked freshly starched.

  As the image faded, Meg thought it had resembled one of those story paintings of which the Victorians were so fond. It might have been entitled—

  “Caught in the Act,” she said aloud, and saw Andy’s face before her in the lamplight. Andy nodded.

  “But what was she doing?” Meg asked. “He was angry and she was trying to hide whatever it was she held…” “It was a doll. With pins sticking in it.” “A doll… Oh! Damn it, Andy, you did that on purpose. We were talking about witchcraft, and you—”

  “I wanted to see if I could control it,” Andy admitted, looking worried.

  “Control—or wishful thinking?”

  “Aye, there’s the rub.” Andy made a vaguely Hamletian gesture. “The problem all psychic investigators run into. - But I didn’t really want to see that. I was hoping I wouldn’t.”

  “Let’s try again.”
Meg held out her hands.

  “I’m tempted to agree, if only to find out what’s in your mind. What is it you want to see, Meg?”

  “Never mind.” Meg began to fold her work. “We’ll have to get an early start. I’m going to bed.”

  But as she climbed the stairs Andy’s question came back to her. What was it she wanted to see? She knew the answer, but did not like to admit it, even to herself.

  II

  They arrived in Harrisburg just as the stores were opening. Andy looked as if he were on his way to the dentist.

  “I hate this dusty, squinting research,” he grumbled. “The least you could do is come along and help.” “We’d just get in each other’s way.” “What are you going to do this morning?” “Oh, I don’t know,” Meg said, trying to conceal the big bag that contained her embroidery. “Maybe I’ll go to the library and look up eighteenth-century German plots, conspiracies, and failed revolutions.”

  She was surprised when this feeble attempt at distraction succeeded. Andy looked thoughtful.

  “See what they have, anyway. Intellectual history, biography, whatever. And while you’re at it…”

  With dismay Meg saw her empty morning being filled with work.

  “You had better meet me there,” she interrupted. “If you have things you want to look up too.”

  They arranged to meet at noon. Squaring his shoulders, Andy marched into the archives building, and Meg started walking. And thinking.

  The “candid” discussion she had had with Andy had not really been wholly candid. Andy was reticent about his past, and Meg had not told him of the sensations she had experienced in the past few days. The feeling of waiting, of expectation, was intensifying. It was not a feeling of fear. It was more like—Meg fumbled for a comparison— like the week before Christmas, when she was a child. Like the long, dragging morning, back in junior high, before the math class in which she would see him. What was that boy’s name? She had been desperately in love with him when she was thirteen…

  A boy on a bicycle zipped by, brushing her arm; a lady with a shopping bag muttered something as she circled Meg’s motionless form. She had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking traffic.

  Desperately in love… Was that why she had insisted on Anna Maria’s being in love—because the feeling in the house was that of a girl watching for her lover? Farfetched, Andy would say. But Meg’s reasoning wasn’t that bad; every girl of seventeen is in love, or thinks she is—which is the same thing. Who was Anna Maria’s lover? An awkward young farmer—an Emig or Stauffer from a neighboring family? And why, if he was a frequent visitor, hadn’t they seen him?

  Meg wanted to see him. That was the image she would have tried to produce, if Andy had cooperated. Anna Maria’s lover.

  I’ll try tonight, she thought. I’ll make Andy try. She started walking again, heading for the center of town— where the shops were.

  The shop sold fabric and patterns as well as needlework, but there was a whole back room devoted to the latter pursuit, and a class was in session. The group broke up when Meg produced her work, and she swelled with pride at the admiring cries of the women. They were all novices, learning basic stitches, but the instructor was an expert, and she examined Meg’s pattern interestedly. “It is genuine, isn’t it?” Meg asked anxiously. The instructor, a pleasant-faced woman in her mid fifties, laughed.

  “I’d have to see the needlework on the original to be certain, but don’t worry; so far the forgers haven’t contaminated this field. Some of the motifs are very unusual, though. Tulips, the Tree of Life, animals—common enough. Crosses are not, although many of the mottoes are religious. This is a cross, isn’t it—with something in the center?”

  “It’s supposed to be a flower,” Meg said humbly. “I guess my copy isn’t—”

  “And what is this? Gracious, it looks like a snake.” “No snakes?”

  “One might find the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Some samplers depict Adam and Eve. But if I were you, I would look at the original again.”

  When Meg finally glanced at her watch she was horrified at the time. She asked for directions to the library and made it to the rendezvous only moments before Andy arrived. He looked at her suspiciously.

  “You’re very pink-cheeked and healthy looking for a girl who has been pouring over books all morning. Did you find anything?”

  “I—uh—”

  Andy looked pointedly at the paper bag, and Meg began to laugh.

  “Caught in the act. Okay, so I wasted the morning. Want to make something of it?”

  “I’d beat you, only I’m too tired. Let’s go eat.”

  “I know a place.”

  One of the women in the embroidery class had recommended it. A shabby exterior made Andy look dubious, but the food was superb, the genuine Pennsylvania Dutch variety which is scarcely ever found except in country farmhouses. They finished with an apple pie whose only resemblance to the “Dutch apple” types found in stores and restaurants was in its name. The apples, thickly sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, were embedded in a rich creamy custard. Andy pushed back his empty plate and sighed.

  “I am replete,” he announced. “And conciliated. If you pick up tips like this from your lady friends, it’s worth it. Take advantage of my good mood. Tell me about your useless activities.”

  “I found the colors I needed,” Meg said seriously. “The rose is a little too pink, but it has the subtle undershade of rust brown that I—”

  “That’s enough.”

  “I had a nice time,” Meg said. “The ladies admired my sampler. The teacher—I told you there was a class, didn’t I?”

  “You did.”

  “The teacher said it was very unusual. Some of the motifs are unique. A cross with a flower in the middle—”

  “Oh, come on, Meg, I don’t really want to know—What did you say?”

  “I said a lot of things,” Meg answered.

  “A cross with a what in the middle?”

  “A flower. At least I think it is. The teacher was skeptical about some of the other motifs too. A snake—”

  “Shut up a minute,” Andy said.

  His tone was inoffensive, so Meg shut up. Andy thought. His face could not be called enigmatic; it showed every passing emotion, and Meg was learning to read them. Doubt, excitement, and severe cogitation followed one another in rapid succession.

  “Check,” Andy said suddenly.

  “Check what?”

  “The check. The bill. Toss you for it.”

  “You paid last time,” Meg said. “I’ll get it.”

  Andy’s pensive look was replaced by one of amusement.

  “Liberated, eh?”

  “Hadn’t you noticed?”

  “At least you’re consistent. I can’t stand the women who want to be freed of the oppression of male domination but howl if you suggest splitting the check.”

  “None of us really liberated types do that,” Meg said severely. “It’s the crypto-pussycats who cheat. What are you in such a hurry about?”

  “I just had an idea. Let’s go back to the library.”

  The restaurant was on a back street. There were few pedestrians, so they walked side by side, taking their time.

  “You’ve been so busy lecturing me you didn’t tell me how you got along this morning,” Meg said. “Any luck?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Typical masculine vagueness. If men would learn to think logically, the way women do—”

  “I mean it literally. I found out some facts, but I don’t know how to interpret them. The taxes on that farm were paid by one John Emig from 1740 to 1765. After which the payee was Jacob Emig—son and heir, I presume. And what do you make of that?”