Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite)

by Douglas Clegg

  He spent the better part of an hour wandering the house, looking at the many paintings along the walls - from images of Joan of Arc to what might’ve been Anne Boleyn (had she been fair and bearing a remarkable resemblance to St. Joan) to great portraits of his grandfather as a middle-aged man and his grandmother as a young woman. The house had everything he remembered and had loved in childhood. This included his favorite rocking-horse, which seemed to be in working condition even though he would have destroyed it had he sat in its back and rocked away the idle hours between naps and snacks and games; and then he saw in the upstairs parlor, the portrait he had always considered the “child in the wall.”

  4

  It was a painting of a toddler in some kind of medieval costume. Ethan’s father had told him it was his grandfather’s insanity, this obsession with Old World fakery. But as a little boy, he had seen the picture as a mirror into another world. He had imagined his own adventures behind the wall with the child depicted within that frame. And then, he remembered the turret room and the window that was now bricked over.

  He walked to the West Wing, crossing the long corridor that his mother had dubbed the Pont d’Avignon, and ascended the curved stairs. Ethan felt the autumn chill here - this part of the house was the coldest. He set his hand lightly along the wall as he went and felt a moist frost on the stone. When he arrived at the arched door to the turret, it was locked. He reached into his trouser pocket, withdrawing the master key - which was supposed to unlock every door in Harrow - but it did not fit in the small keyhole.

  Not being one to take “no” from an inanimate object, he began pushing his shoulder into the door; finally ramming it until he was sure he’d dislocated a bone or two. Then, he tried fiddling with the knob to try and dislodge the lock.

  The door and lock held.

  5

  “A key?” Wentworth repeated his question without a blink. “To the tower?”

  “It’s locked,” Ethan said. Twice.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” she said, her voice becoming innocent and nearly girlish. “But that Maggie, she’s sticky with keys. She’d know, I’m sure.”

  “You mean, you don’t have all the keys to the kingdom, Mrs. Wentworth?”

  Ethan had caught her in the garden, where she had been busy shooing off the feral cats with a stiff broom. “They’re the vermin of the world,” she said. “And I don’t care a fig if they eat mice. I can’t stand them.”

  He persuaded Wentworth to sit with him on one of the stone benches and talk for a minute or two. She had seemed happy to relieve the burden of her feet, and he asked her first about the keys, and then about Maggie.

  “I met her out here, last night,” he said, sensing that Wentworth would bristle at this bit of information.

  “By moonlight, no doubt. That one is like these cats, sir,” she began, her voice full of authority.

  He could tell that she had a flood of stories about Maggie Barrow and her wildness and her scandalous behavior, but he managed to quiet her fairly quickly by saying, “I liked her. She seemed a decent sort, even if she was raiding the shallots.”

  “Well,” Wentworth finally said after a minute or two of agitated silence. Her voice seemed to shrink into a whisper. “I suppose she’s the sort that men like.”

  “And what exactly do you mean -“ Ethan began to say: by that bit of slander, but let it fade.

  He apparently had not lately thrown a virgin to the volcano goddess, because in short order his grandfather’s housekeeper erupted in a lava flow of red, fiery vitriol.

  “Fallen woman,” “Bad sort,” “Devil’s harlot,” “Irish wanton,” “dangerous and unstable,” and many other phrases came from that woman’s lips. Toads of foulness seemed to leap forth from Wentworth’s tongue.

  Ethan sat there, not knowing whether to laugh or spit. He wanted to tell her that, yes, in fact, she was making Maggie Barrow seem like the most interesting woman in the universe to him at that moment, but part of his being burned with anger at this small-minded biddy and her overly-imaginative mind.

  When she quieted again - the lava had cooled, the volcano that was Wentworth had gone empty - she said, “And you shouldn’t wander here at night.”

  He nodded. “It’s my home now.”

  “It’s still his home,” Wentworth said, sighing. She had spewed her venom, and now she was satisfied. “He can’t leave it.” Ethan let this go. He looked at her, her round form, her world that was all roundness and curves and beveled views, and realized that despite that, she was all sharp edges. A knife masquerading as a spoon.

  Finally, he said, as tenderly as he could, “If you dare speak of Maggie Barrow in that tone again in my presence, Wentworth, you will not only never set foot again in this house, but I will hound you to the end of your days so that no household ever allows you in again.”

  He looked over at the statue of the beautiful angel, and for a moment he was distracted - her face seemed as one he had once seen. He wasn’t sure where or when, but he was convinced he had met that woman depicted in the stone figure. Ethan was about to say something to Wentworth about it, but had the distinct feeling that she was staring at him as if he had just thrust her hands in boiling oil.

  He glanced at her and saw that his sense of this was fairly close to the truth.

  She trembled with some unspoken rage. He reached over and touched the back of her left hand. He said, “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Wentworth. I can manage from here.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, her volcanic spirit returning. She stood, stiff as a pitchfork, the scent of her kitchen-sweat wafting around her like honey from a greasy beehive. “Mind if I offer one word, sir?”

  He shrugged. He had been too harsh with her, and regretted it. She was getting on in years. She had recently lost the man Ethan had no doubt she had loved and cared for - his grandfather.

  She might even be out of a job soon - he was sure she feared this the most. He was something of a milquetoast when it came to women, particularly motherly-types. In fact, when Madeleine had begun reading the funny papers, which he had loved, she began calling him Caspar Milquetoast for the cartoon character whenever he gave in to her - and she was right.

  So, while he was angry with Wentworth for her tirade against a most-likely-innocent Maggie Barrow, Ethan felt awful for causing this elderly woman a moment’s difficulty. Perhaps this all came from his early training as a nurse to his mother (Freud’s theories were beginning to take hold in those years), who was ill so much; perhaps, as his father had once suggested, he wasn’t enough of a man to stand up to what his father often called “the fairer sex who can’t be depended upon for anything.”

  But then, Ethan’s father was a bit of a bastard. Not in the literal sense, but he was the kind of man that men who belonged to clubs admired and to whom women were attracted for all the unhealthy reasons. And still, Ethan loved the memory of his father and mother, and if any can tell why it is we love those who often are the worst sorts for us, you will become the most famous human being in history. But Mrs. Wentworth - before she stomped off to go to her place in the village - her voice not without a tremble, but still very much full of disgust, let loose again:

  “Your grandfather was a difficult man, and a demanding one. While you may not like my words for the Barrow girl, you will soon see just what she is made of. Men may like women like that, but I can tell you, she is an affront to those of us who live by decent and respectable standards. And she’s not a God-fearing woman, neither. Several of the village believe she’s…”

  “She’s a what?” he asked.

  “She’s a witch,” Wentworth said.

  6

  For an early supper before dark, Ethan walked the quarter mile to the village and settled in for a meal at a local café called The Dog& Rabbit. On his way, he felt the stares and heard the whispers of that peculiar breed of Watch Pointian who were beginning to look less peculiar to him by the minute.

  Shopkeepers in d
oorways actually nodded and said good afternoon to him as if he were an old friend. A girl of sixteen asked him why he drove such an old jalopy if he was so rich like his crazy grandfather (so, obviously, in the past twenty-four hours, Ethan Gravesend had drawn some small notice on arrival - perhaps Wentworth or Maggie had already begun gossiping).

  The pub - or café as it was discreetly called, although it very much looked like a small tavern with tables and a long bar that the inhabitants of the place called “the counter”—was full of local rowdies and old men, all of them pretending that there was no beer to be had on the premises.

  Taking a stool at the counter, Ethan watched the interchange that soon took on the unreality of a play in a theater, a drama being performed for some invisible audience.

  A man in his mid-forties, wearing a woolen cap meant for a much younger man, lit two cigarettes. One was for himself, one for the owner of the place (a stout and red-cheeked fellow, bald of head and big of smile), who took it and smoked a minute.

  The owner then said, in an overly-loud voice, “Well, Jimmy, looks like I need to go to the basement for some more tomatoes,” and “Jimmy” replied, “Aw, Bill, you don’t need no more tomatoes, not again?” to which “Bill” said, “We can’t make a good sauce without the tomatoes, now, can we Jimmy?” and after a few more shows of tomato necessity, Bill and Jimmy nodded to each other.

  Jimmy left the café. He returned a few minutes later with a crate covered with a blanket. He set this on a table. Then, Bill swaggered over and sat down. Other customers gathered around Bill, as well. Soon, everyone had coffee mugs of what could only be tomato sauce.

  But a woman remarked, “This is the best batch of sassyfrass yet!”

  “It is superb tea,” a man added.

  Ethan, curiosity getting the better of him, in addition to his thirst, went over and was allowed - for an exchange of coins—a mug filled to the brim with some very fine brew. It was an ale that was dark amber and reminded him - with the first sip - of fresh river water with a bite.

  The play that had been enacted would have been laughed at in New York City, where speakeasies were everywhere, and even little old ladies knew where a good bottle of hooch could be had.

  But here, in Watch Point, he was to learn that this was a curious little drama that Bill and Jimmy re-enacted more than twice a day. It was for the benefit of the local constable, a wizened little man named Pocket. He had no other name but Pocket, and it was said with a bit of a sarcastic twist to it whenever villagers mentioned the name.

  Pocket, it appeared, would arrive unannounced at various establishments to make sure that Temperance and Prohibition was being followed to the letter of the law - and, either he was too dumb to notice the strong odor of ale in the Dog & Rabbit, or he preferred to simply be part of the drama, as well, and play the part of the Fool.

  Between a cigarette or two, Ethan downed a few mugs of what he soon learned to call sassyfrass tea (a code phrase, naturally, and pronounced precisely that way, with the y of irony planted within). He followed the quaffs with a dish they called the Henry Hudson Special. This consisted of a fat sizzling sausage with mashed potatoes reeking of butter and rosemary, and corn. Soon, sausage and ale within his belly, Ethan became as friendly as the next man at the bar, talking with strangers about tomatoes and sassyfrass tea and why Jimmy hadn’t yet returned from another trip to the basement. Ethan had thought the people of the village odd all his life to that point, no doubt encouraged by his parents’ prejudices about the village itself. But he began to feel a little more comfortable - the sassyfrass tea helped - and he warmed to the residents, even as the temperature began dropping, and the sky clouded over. He had enjoyed the show that Bill and Jimmy had performed.

  When Pocket had come in - looking older than even the hills - a policeman without a badge and only a whistle and a bludgeon to prove his profession - Ethan felt happily guilty, sipping the frothy tea and grinning along with the other patrons.

  They were just like anyone, and what Ethan had mistaken for sealskin clothes (no doubt first imagined as a child), were merely raincoats and mackintoshes and fisherman’s garb - for he soon discovered that it rained a lot in Watch Point. It rained a lot there on summer afternoons when he had visited as a young boy; it was, perhaps, the rainiest place on all the Hudson River. Part of him even wondered if the clouds themselves didn’t just hang over the village, or if, in fact, Poughkeepsie and Cold Spring also got regular downpours.

  Ethan was drenched, in fact, on the walk home.

  7

  Walking up the unpaved road to the stone wall was made ten times more difficult in a heavy downpour.

  Ethan kept to the ferny edges of the drive so as not to sink into the quagmire of mud and muck. For the barest moment, he was sure he caught sight of a small fawn among some trees. He chose to follow it rather than trudge through the thickening brown slush at his feet. The woods - which began to the south of Harrow and circled in a half-moon around the property - were bursting with the sunlit amber and deep red of autumn, whose last canopies of about-to-fall leaves protected the somewhat dry ground.

  Ethan navigated through the thin trees, watching for the fawn. As he drew closer to what had seemed a young deer, he saw it was some sort of - elf? He knew how foolish this was - this could not be an elf, but he was sure he was looking at a sprite of some sort, clad in a tawny coat and a cap of…

  It was a child, of course. A little boy. His hat made of folded newspapers brought together in a triangle on his head. Ethan entertained the notion that this was himself as a child, running among the trees and flying across puddles and into mud. He had—as a child—imaginary friends in these woods and thickets and the wonderful secret hideaways of his grandfather’s magical house. It felt good to remember it.

  The child had boots much too large for his feet. The word that came to Ethan’s mind was: scruffy. The boy was scruffy and filthy with mud and he looked as if he’d stolen his clothes from a much older boy. The boy didn’t seem to notice Ethan, but something else disturbed him and the boy began running as if his life depended on it. He fled through the dripping woods, across a puddle that had grown during the downpour into a pond. As he ran on, his paper hat flew off his head; Ethan went to grab it up for him.

  It was beautifully constructed from the Watch Point Register, and the child had written the name “Alf” across it. Ethan followed him across the muddy lawn between stands of trees. The boy reached the edge of an ivy-smothered wall, its stones torn down at various points, and leapt nimbly over it. Ethan called after him, “Your hat! You dropped it,” but the child kept running.

  The boy ran straight through an opening in a hedge, to the caretaker’s house.

  8

  Oliver Palliser had occupied the caretaker's cottage. Neither Oliver nor Palliser were part of his real name - a local Episcopalian priest had apparently baptized him before his age of reason, and had passed on the name of the family who had taken Palliser in as a baby. The groundskeeper had run from them at the age of fifteen, and had worked for Justin Gravesend since that day.

  Oliver Palliser was part Mahanowack Indian. When Ethan had been a boy, Palliser had stayed as far away from him as he could without ever being completely out of sight. Justin Gravesend had told Ethan on many occasions that Palliser was the most trustworthy man in the world, and that his real name sounded something like “Candlemasseve” which made the young Ethan laugh because it brought to his childish mind images of candles in churches with Adam and Eve. The name meant “Hawk-with-Two-Souls,” a Mahanowack-Algonquian name, and had been his first - and real—name. Since Ethan, also, had two names, he didn’t think that this was extraordinary - he was, after all, both Esteban and Ethan, himself.

  Ethan, in all those years, had never thought of the groundskeeper as Oliver, but that is how most knew him. The man had lived on the grounds of Harrow for many years. He no longer lived there. Ethan had been informed of this in a letter from the lawyer who had handled the inheritance.
“Mr. Palliser has, of his own volition, moved on and vacated the property in question,” the attorney had written. “He left no indication of where he had gone, but there is a small token from your grandfather, left to Mr. Palliser, with some papers. Should he return or make himself known to you, contact my office at once so that we might send him the materials in question.”

  Oliver Palliser’s name was still engraved at the threshold of the caretaker’s house. In nearly every respect, he had owned it, and my grandfather had had it built specifically for him.

  9

  It was not quite five o’clock, and sometime in the past ten minutes the dark had begun sinking into the pouring sky like black ink across a gray-washed watercolor. The swampy smell of too much rain, and the river smell of fish and rotting tree came up. Ethan could not wait to get inside the cottage to get out from under the endless water that seemed to bear down upon him.

  Inside the cottage, it was silent, except for the sound of rain on the rooftop. “Hallo,” he asked the echoing corridor. The cottage was dusty; it looked like it hadn’t been lived in - ever. He stood in the open doorway, and craved a cigarette, but as he drew a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, found that it was soaked.

  “Hallo,” Ethan called out again. Again, the silence within, the crack of thunder and rain, without. The house was dark. He began to sense something within it. A bad feeling. What he had learned to call a “badsmell,” though it was no smell at all. It was more a sense. Dropping the paper hat in the doorway, Ethan stepped back into the rain, out of the cottage.

  He ran back up the drive to Harrow, to brood and reflect, and to wonder where his life would go from here.

  10