Household

by Stevenson, Florence

  Livia secretly agreed with her, however the children were excited. Richard had been signed to play Cagliostro and Kathie would play the magician’s wife in a monumental epic called The Queen’s Necklace. Septimus had been hired as advisor for the magic part of the production. Only she and Mark III had no connection with the movie, and for her part she was absolutely delighted.

  “Livia, love.”

  She glanced up quickly at the shout that echoed across the station. Septimus, accompanied by Kathie, Richard and Mark III, was hurrying toward her. As they approached, she was conscious of a slight pang. Mark looked so very much like his father, who had died two years ago. For once Vivienne hadn’t lied. Livia remembered how the older Mark had prayed that his son would not inherit his tendencies and had wept when he found the baby had the telltale hair on his palms. Septimus, too, had been close to weeping but for another reason. Full moon days would be doubly difficult. However, he had set about constructing a small steel trunk with the requisite shackles and airholes. Fortunately, for the first six years of the child’s life, they had not needed to use it except when traveling. On moon days, he resembled an adorable little wolf cub. He had been very good with the children, and they had been able to sneak him in and out of the hotels with a minimum of trouble. It was only in his seventh year that he began to exhibit tendencies that required more stringent measures. All the rest of the month he had been of inestimable help in transporting luggage and caring for the two younger children. He still was. For his sake, as much as for their own, she was glad they had been able to schedule their trip so that Mark would not have to join Juliet and Colin in the baggage car.

  Her family joined her, and the men, annoying several willing redcaps by possessing themselves of the luggage, started toward the train. Walking with Livia, Septimus gave her a fond smile as he said for perhaps the five thousandth time, “Well, my dearest love, the Great Grenfalls are on their way.” He added with an impudence she could not quite appreciate, “When we get to the club car, we must all drink a toast to Erlina Bell.”

  ❖

  Seated in the sunken living room of his immense Spanish mansion perched on a cliff overlooking Hollywood Boulevard, Morris Goldbaum, head of Goldbaum-Magnum International Films, Inc., pressed his lips against his ivory and gold telephone saying loudly and indignantly to his secretary Ruth Fiske, “You do not mean to tell me they are complaining about the best accomodations this side of the Los Angeles river? Of all the unmitigated gall! If I ever saw a boarding house breed, they are it. What happens, I ask you, to performers once they get off the train in this city? The hot air gets to their head. It is hot air you are giving me, also. What, I would like to know, is the matter with the Egyptian Palace hotel? No expense has been spared. They have the Nefertiti suite. Have they seen the Babylonian Pleasure Gardens? And the Javanese Pavilion?”

  Repressing a small shudder as she mentally envisioned the sights in question, Miss Fiske wondered if the producer had concluded his diatribe. Receiving an angry demand for an answer, she said, “They have told me they must have a house.”

  “Ah, a house is what they want, eh? That is all? Gold-plated, perhaps, mit a swimming pool, ja?”

  “Actually not, Mr. Goldbaum,” she said soothingly. “You surprise me. Maybe they are wanting me to build them something?”

  “Actually, they specified an old house.”

  “An old house?” he howled. “In California is nothing old. Did you tell them that?”

  The secretary ran a nervous hand through her dark auburn hair, wondering if she dared mention a very sore subject to her employer. Usually, Mr. Goldbaum, kindest of men despite his choleric outbursts, was agreeable to her suggestions. However, he hated being reminded of the mansion he had purchased in Boyle Heights, near the Hollywood Bowl and not far from Rudolph Valentino’s famed Falcon’s Lair. Similarly huge but of an earlier vintage, having been built at the turn of the century, it rose on a high hill with such Victorian excesses as gables, hanging balconies, turrets and Venetian arched dormer windows.

  Ruth knew it bore a definite resemblance to some of the elderly mansions that a poverty-stricken young tailor named Goldbaum had admired in his native Weisbaden, Germany. He had purchased it on the proceeds of Scented Kisses, his first major success. His second, Passion’s Pawn, provided a paint job and repairs, while Heart’s Aflame enabled him to purchase the furnishings. He had been planning to move into his prize, unoriginally christened “The Castle,” when Letitia Lawrence, sophisticated femme fatale of the London and New York stage, agreed to star in Pearl of the Prairie, a saga of the cow country. Since the actress was known to be flightly and temperamental, Mr. Goldbaum slipped on his kid gloves. Included in the preferential treatment accorded his star was an agreement to honor her request for the sort of privacy enjoyed by that “Swede barber’s assistant” by which she meant Greta Garbo. Accordingly the producer moved her into The Castle for the: duration of her stay.

  Unfortunately, Miss Lawrence developed a passionate crush on Hank Wilmot, her leading man, whose embraces under the stars painted on the canvas backdrop of a tumbleweed-and-sand-strewn set had been extremely realistic. Upon learning that his private life was complicated by a wife he loved devotedly, Miss Lawrence pettishly hanged herself on the $5000 blown-glass Venetian chandelier in the main hallway of The Castle. Her anguished suicide note addressed “To Hank” was found on her pillow. She had also sent carbon copies of this missive to the editors of the Hollywood Citizen-News, the Los Angeles Times, the Herald-Express and Movie-Star Parade Magazine in the fond hope of ruining Mr. Wilmot’s career.

  Unfortunately the fact that so famous a beauty had died for love of him increased Mr. Wilmot’s box-office appeal to the point that from playing rugged cowboy heroes, he was currently being cast as sensuous matinee idols. At present Henry (no longer Hank) Wilmot was finishing a picture entitled Burning Love, in which he was portraying just the sort of dashing seducer Miss Lawrence hoped he was. Ironically enough, he was in the throes of a divorce that would leave him free to wed Paula Sinclaire, his leading lady.

  Possibly out of frustration and anger or because she had had enough time to regret her impulsive action, the defunct star remained in residence at The Castle, producing a series of uncomfortable psychic manifestations. These had routed its owner and several other tenants. The mansion had remained unoccupied for the past two years while Mr. Goldbaum deliberated as to whether or not he would put it on the market. As he had remarked sadly to Miss Fiske, “It’s like selling my heart’s desire.”

  Consequently, the secretary’s suggestion was tentative. Holding the receiver a protective three inches from her ear, she asked, “What about The Castle?”

  The anticipated explosion failed to take place. “Ach, why not?” Mr. Goldbaum demanded in a definitely mollified tone of voice. “They stay a short time only and with coffins they travel. They should feel at home, ja?” He added cravenly. “You show them through the house, Miss Fiske. I send my limousine? Have you met them yet?”

  “No, sir, we’ve only spoken by telephone.”

  “Put yourself at their service, please. And you will bring them to Culver City tomorrow, ja? And Miss Fiske, how are they liking it here?”

  It was a loaded question and required a tactful answer. “I haven’t had an opportunity to inquire,” was the one she chose.

  “Inquire, please,” he ordered. “You know always I am interested in what strangers to our beautiful city will say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Fiske. When through with them, you may take the rest of the afternoon off.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Miss Fiske thoughtfully replaced the receiver and gazed on the grey file cabinets across the room. She hoped that the producer would not pursue the matter of the Grenfalls’ reaction to the “beautiful city.”

  As an emigrant from Germany via the Lower Eastside of New York City, he was at once extremely proud and billigerently defensive of the region known as Southern Califo
rnia. In common with many recent settlers, he eagerly solicited what he firmly expected must be similar opinions, collaring incoming actors, directors and scenic designers, inviting them to tell him how they liked the area.

  He beamed when they praised its climate, its floral and arboreal beauties, its wonderful ocean and long white beaches, its towering snow-topped mountains and its vast stretches of desert. He glowered if they also decried its indifferent transportation and large assortment of peculiar inhabitants. A slur against Los Angeles or Hollywood was akin to mud being tracked on a temple floor. Miss Fiske, who was very fond of her employer, frowned. Being a native Californian, she was used to the epithets hurled by disgruntled Easterners. Less defensive than Mr. Goldbaum, she took them in her stride, attributing them to jealousy. However, she had felt her hackles rise when Mr. Grenfall, after various amused jibes at the so-called pleasures of the Egyptian Palace Hotel, had asked mildly if the prevailing architectural influences all ran to spotted dogs, derby hats and Dutch windmills.

  Evidently Mr. Grcnfall had seen very little and assumed a great deal. It had been partially with the intention of finding his family their requested house and partially by way of figuratively rapping him on the knuckles that Miss Fiske had suggested The Castle. While the mansion would definitely provide the quiet, seclusion and space he had mentioned, its design, or rather the lack of it, must put the proverbial mote in his artistic eye. Hopefully its ghostly phenomena would also afflict him.

  Her green eyes agleam with gentle malice, Miss Fiske separated her receiver from its hook, and dialing the number or the Egyptian Palace, she asked for the Grenfall suite.

  ❖

  By the time Mr. Goldbaum’s long black Mercedes limousine had negotiated the high hill crowned by The Castle, Ruth Fiske, seated beside Bob, her employer’s chauffeur, was having second and third thoughts. Taking her eyes from the tree-shadowed edifice looming over the steep, winding driveway, she cast a furtive glance at the rear-view mirror and looked down quickly. Her conscience assailed her anew as she saw the bright anticipatory smiles on the faces of the five people occupying the rear of the car.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. If, rather than talking to Mr. Richard Grenfall on the telephone, she had met him in person, she would have never mentioned the house. She could only hope that once he and his family came inside and felt the dank chill that no amount of central heating could counteract, their enthusiasm would be similarly chilled. There was also the outside chance that the late Miss Lawrence would help matters by causing the chandelier to Swing slowly back and forth. That action, without benefit of breeze, had driven at least four prospective tenants away. For her own piece of mind, Miss Fiske forebore to dwell on what had happened to the nervous systems of those who had briefly taken up residence in the place. And, of course, the building was overpoweringly ugly.

  On this particular afternoon, its overdecorated porch, its circular weather vane topped tower, its third floor balcony set under a gable and fronted by a free-form wooden cutout, its second floor balcony half-hidden by the misplaced pediment that ornamented the arched opening on the porch, and all of its other Victorian excesses, not excluding stained-glass windows, caused it to look as intimidating outside as it was to be inside. The interior view was something she had not yet seen, having entered Mr. Goldbaum’s employ only eight months previously. However, she was reasonably sure that no one with any pretensions to good taste would want to live there—certainly, no young man as elegantly turned out, as handsome of feature and person as Mr. Richard Grenfall, who had just this minute leaped out of the car to open the door for her.

  Reading admiration in his dark eyes, Miss Fiske said in a small deprecating voice, “I’d forgotten that this house was so far off the beaten track. With the appalling lack of proper public transportation in the city, I fear the location would be too inconvenient for you—all of you. Culver City is way on the other side of town.”

  “Oh, you need not worry about that, my dear,” Mrs. Grenfall said, strolling over to them. She had much the look of Richard around the eyes and in the shape of the face, Miss Fiske decided.

  The secretary’s glance fell on Kathie Grenfall, dark like her brother and her parents, but with her mother’s golden eyes. She was so beautiful that Miss Fiske had been delighted to discover that her relationship to Richard was one of sister rather than cousin. Mark Driscoll was a cousin. He, too, was very attractive with his red-gold hair and his slanted eyes which were similar in color to those of Kathie and her mother, but he was more hirsute than Richard. His chin was faintly green, and she guessed he must have to shave twice a day. Hair grew thickly on his wrists and the backs of his hands. There were even hairs on his palms; she had felt them when they shook hands. Thinking about them now, some faint disquieting memory stirred in her mind and was forgotten as the elderly Mr. Grenfall joined them. He was certainly a handsome man. With his dark hair only slightly sprinkled with silver, his narrow moustache and his short dark beard, he looked every inch the stage magician. His eyes were practically mesmerizing, and his body was slender, graceful and almost sinuous. He had a rather foreign air, but his accent was definitely Eastern seaboard as he said briskly, “Well, let’s go inside. Do you have the keys, Miss Fiske?”

  She would have given much to explain that she had forgotten them, but given Mr. Goldbaum’s all-abiding faith in her efficiency, she dared not confess to so fearful a lapse. She reached into her small purse and reluctantly brought them out. “Come with me,” she said resignedly and walked up the path leading to the front steps, praying that when they entered the hall, they would be met by that all-pervading chill and the swinging chandelier. As she fitted the key into the ornate lock beneath the heavy brass doorknob, she mentally challenged the phantom actress. “Do your worst, Miss Lawrence!”

  The key turned with regrettable ease, and Miss Fiske, who had never encountered Miss Lawrence or the other psychic phenomena, hoped devoutly that she could maintain her equilibrium. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside, pausing just beyond the threshold. A small cry escaped her as she encountered a blast of air so icy that it seemed to have risen from the very bowels of a glacier.

  There was a creaking rusty sound in her ears, and raising her eyes, Miss Fiske saw the chandelier moving back and forth quite as if someone were standing back of it, pushing it as they might a schoolyard swing!

  A scream formed in her throat and was resolutely forced back and down. Half-fearfully, half-triumphantly, Miss Fiske turned to her five companions. With only the slightest tremor in her low, rather husky voice, she said, “You see, it’s quite unacceptable, isn’t it? There’s such a draft, and I don’t know what’s making that chandelier swing back and forth. The chains are rusty. It could fall at any moment. We’ll have to find something else for you. You must agree.”

  She received no response. They weren’t looking at her. Their eyes were fixed on a point far above her, and gazing in that same direction, Miss Fiske could not stifle the scream that tore from her throat. From a noose at the end of a rope that encircled the base of the chandelier just above an ornamental glass drop dangled a shadowy figure, repulsively blue and bloated with its tongue lolling from the side of its distorted mouth.

  Confronted with Miss Lawrence’s enthusiastic response to her prayers, the secretary felt herself growing dizzy and faint. “P-Please,” she begged. “D-Do let’s go. I... I... I’m sorry to have brought you here.”

  “Please don’t be sorry, Miss Fiske,” Richard Grenfall said with a charming smile. “You couldn’t have done better. This is quite perfect.”

  “Darling,” his mother warned, “don’t make any snap judgments.” As the trembling, shuddering secretary gazed gratefully at this infinitely sensible woman, the lady continued. “We can’t be sure of anything until we’ve seen the cellar.”

  At that moment, there was a terrible gurgling scream from overhead. The doorknob flew out of Miss Fiske’s hand and the door slammed loudly, evidently driven in that direct
ion by a numbing blast of wind that seemed to be coming from the inside of the house. As the secretary, well over the edge of terror, fell fainting to the floor, she heard or thought she heard Mrs. Grenfall say concernedly, “Grandfather, dearest, what on earth is the matter?”

  As Richard lifted Miss Fiske to a nearby hall settee, Kathie, who communicated with her ancestor better than the rest of the Household, heard his views on the cheap, theatrical upstart who was currently endeavoring to establish territorial rights in a house that didn’t even belong to her!

  “In my day, she’d have been a bloody orange seller. They’d never have allowed her to set foot on the stage!”

  “Grandfather!” Kathie reproved.

  “Please don’t stop to palaver with him,” Livia said tartly. “We have to see to this poor girl.” Turning to Richard who was kneeling beside the fallen secretary, she added, “How is she?”

  “She’s still unconscious,” he said worriedly. “I’d best take her out to the car.”

  “Can’t someone stop her doing that with the chandelier?” Septimus demanded.

  Looking upwards again, they saw that the chandelier was swinging back and forth and around and around, imitating the action of a pendulum. The chain was creaking fearfully. Evidently, the actress wanted to intimidate the intruders headed by the Old Lord and was choosing this way to make her displeasure felt.

  “Look out!” Mark exclaimed. “I think it’s about to fall!” Thanks to his warning, they were all able to jump back as the chains of the heavy fixture, already overstrained by her suicide and further weakened by her habit of activating it so often, crashed to the floor, leaving only the smaller end of the chain dangling from the high ceiling.

  “Oh, dear, what a mess,” Livia commented. “We’ll clean it up later on, but that will certainly cut her claws. Now, may we please go down and see the cellar?”