Hellfire

by John Saul

  “Are we safe for another night?” Phillip asked as she came into the bedroom. He was propped up against the headboard of the king-size bed, clad in pajamas, paging through a magazine. “No thieves or rapists prowling the corridors?”

  Carolyn stuck her tongue out at him, then went to perch on the edge of the bed, presenting her back to him. “The only rapist around here is you, and I happen to like it. Unzip me?”

  She felt the warmth of Phillip’s fingers on her skin, and shivered with pleasure, but as he started to slip his arms around her, she wriggled away and stood up. Stepping out of the black dress, she started toward her dressing room.

  “People should die around here more often,” she heard Phillip say. Startled, she turned around to find him grinning at her. “I like you in black.”

  “I look terrible in black,” Carolyn protested. “And anyway, that’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “I like to say horrible things. And you don’t look terrible in black. Anyway not in black undies.”

  “Well, it’s still a horrible thing to say on the day we buried your father.”

  “Who was beginning to show signs of never dying at all,” Phillip remarked dryly.

  “Phillip!”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? And don’t go all pious on me. As for dear old Dad,” he went on, “I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry to see him go. At least not to you.”

  “Your father was—” Carolyn began, but her husband cut her off.

  “My father was a half-senile old man who had outlived his time. My God, Carolyn, you should be the first to admit that. He never faced up to the fact that the nineteenth century ended, even though he never lived in it.”

  “All right, he was difficult,” Carolyn admitted. “But he was still your father, and you owe him some respect.”

  The mischievous glint in Phillip’s eyes died, and his expression turned serious. “I don’t have to respect him at all,” he said. “We both know how he was, and we both know how he treated you. He acted as though you were one of the servants.”

  “And I survived it, didn’t I?” Carolyn asked. “After all, we could have moved out, if we’d really wanted to.”

  “Agreed,” Phillip sighed. “And we didn’t, which probably doesn’t speak very well for either one of us. Anyway, it’s over now.”

  “Is it?” Carolyn asked. “What about your mother? And Tracy? They haven’t been a bed of roses either.” Then, at the look of pain that came into Phillip’s eyes, she wished she could take back the words. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, should I?”

  “You shouldn’t have had to say it,” Phillip replied quietly. Then his eyes met hers. “Carolyn, do you want to move? We can take the girls, and go anywhere we want. Away from Westover. Without Mother’s influence, Tracy will come around.”

  It was something Carolyn had thought about often, and always, in the end, rejected. Leaving Westover, she knew, was not the solution. “We can’t, Phillip. You know we can’t. We can’t leave Abigail alone here—it would kill her. It’s going to be hard enough for her without your father. Without you and Tracy, she’d have nothing left. Besides,” she added, “this is your home.”

  “And your home, too.”

  Carolyn shook her head ruefully. “Not yet. Maybe someday, but not yet. This is your home—and your mother’s. And I’m afraid I still feel … like a guest here,” she offered hesitantly. She had almost said, “an unwelcome guest.”

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I know,” Carolyn replied. “Lord knows you’ve told me to spend what I want redoing the place, but I can’t. I’d be afraid of bankrupting us, and besides, I wouldn’t know where to start. And I’m not about to open another front for Abigail.”

  “She’s just set in her ways. If you just began—”

  “She’s not just set in her ways, and you know it. She’s Abigail Sturgess, and she’s frozen in time.” Suddenly her voice broke. “And she thinks I’m a toy you found on the wrong side of the tracks, and brought home to play with for a while!”

  Immediately, Phillip was on his feet, and his arms were around her. “Darling, don’t think that. Don’t think that for even a minute.”

  Carolyn fought back the tears that were burning her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t. You know I don’t. I’m just having a weak moment. Let me finish undressing, and then let’s talk about something else, all right?”

  Reluctantly Phillip released her, and went back to the bed. Carolyn moved through the dressing room into the bathroom, and quickly ran cold water in the sink, then washed her face, and began running a brush through her hair.

  Maybe it had been a mistake to marry Phillip—maybe, no matter how badly she wanted it to work, it was an impossible situation.

  But she had to make it work.

  After Alan—

  She tried to force the thought out of her mind, but couldn’t. The problem, she knew, was that Phillip and Alan were too much alike.

  Good, kind, decent men.

  And she’d lost Alan, simply because she hadn’t been able to accept him as he was. She’d always wanted more.

  She wouldn’t make the same mistake with Phillip. Westover was his home; this house was his home. He belonged here. And no matter what happened, she wouldn’t ask him to leave. She would figure out a way to deal with his mother, and she would win his daughter over. And she would never ask him to leave.

  She’d married him for what he was. A large part of that identity was defined by the fact that Phillip was a Sturgess. And Sturgesses lived at Hilltop.

  Suddenly fragments of the old stories flitted through her mind—stories she’d grown up with, stories about the Sturgesses. But as quickly as they came, she rejected them. They were only the unkind whisperings of people who had less than the Sturgesses and therefore envied them. Legends. And they had nothing to do with Phillip.

  She put the hairbrush away, and returned to the bedroom, then slid into the bed next to her husband. Switching off the lamp on her bed table, she snuggled close, feeling the tension drain out of her body. And then a thought occurred to her.

  “Phillip …”

  “Hm?”

  “Phillip, that plan you’ve been working on—the one to refurbish the mill?”

  “Mm-hmm. What about it?”

  “You’re not … you’re not thinking of going ahead with it, are you?”

  Phillip drew away slightly, and looked down at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve been talking to Mother?”

  “Abigail? What made you think that?”

  “Because we were talking about the mill today. On the way up here, after the church service. She asked me if the plan was ready.”

  Carolyn felt her heart beat faster. “What did you tell her?”

  “That it was all set. Everything’s on paper.”

  “And what did Abigail say?” Carolyn realized that she was holding her breath.

  Phillip chuckled. “For once, Mother agreed with me. She said that now that Father’s gone, it’s time I went ahead with that project.”

  Carolyn lay silent for a long time, then spoke again. “Phillip, maybe you shouldn’t go ahead. Maybe … maybe your father was right.”

  Now Phillip sat full upright, and turned on the light. When she looked at him, she saw his eyes flashing angrily.

  “Right? All Father would ever say about the mill was that it was evil, and should never be touched. Not restored, not converted to some other use, not even torn down. Just left to rot, for God’s sake! How can that be right?”

  Carolyn shook her head unhappily. “I don’t know. But there have been so many stories. And you don’t know how everyone in town feels about the mill.”

  “They feel the same way I feel about it,” Phillip declared. “That it’s a hideous old eyesore, and that something ought to be done with it.”

  “But that’s not it,” Carolyn replied. “It’s something else. It’s a reminder of how things used to be here—” She s
topped herself, not wanting to hurt her husband, but it was already too late: she could see the pain in Phillip’s eyes.

  “You mean a reminder of the bad old days, when my family used to work children to death in the shoe factory?”

  Mutely, Carolyn nodded.

  Phillip stared at her for a moment, then flopped back down on his pillow, averting his eyes.

  “I think that’s another reason to renovate it,” he said tiredly. “Perhaps the best reason. Maybe all those old stories will finally be forgotten if I do something with the mill and some people in Westover make some honest money from it.”

  “But maybe … maybe the stories shouldn’t be forgotten, Phillip. Maybe we always need to remember what happened there.”

  “My God,” Phillip groaned. “You sound just like Father. Except that he’d never say exactly what he was talking about. It was always vague references, and dark hints. But nothing I could ever put my finger on.” He propped himself up on one elbow, and his tone lightened. “And you know why I could never put my finger on any of it?” he asked.

  Carolyn shook her head.

  “Because maybe there was nothing to put my finger on! Just a bunch of stories and legends about terrible abuses in the shoe mill. But that sort of thing went on all over New England. Christ, child labor was our answer to slavery. But it’s all over now, Carolyn. Why should we keep torturing ourselves with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Carolyn admitted. “But I just can’t help feeling that somehow your father was right about the mill.”

  Phillip reached over and turned off his light again, then drew her close. “Well, he wasn’t,” he said. “He was as wrong about the mill as he was about everything else. He was my father, darling, but I have to confess I didn’t like him very much.”

  Carolyn made no reply, and lay still in her husband’s arms. Here, in bed with Phillip, she felt secure and safe, and she would do nothing to threaten that security. But as Phillip drifted into sleep, and she lay awake, she couldn’t help feeling that Phillip was wrong about the mill, and that old Conrad Sturgess, whom they had buried that day, was right.

  The mill should be left alone; left to crumble away until there was nothing left of it but dust.

  3

  Tracy Sturgess lay in her bed listening to the faint echoes of the old grandfather clock that had stood in the entry hall for as long as she could remember. She counted the chimes, then checked her tally against the little clock on her night table.

  Eleven.

  She threw the covers back, put on her robe, then went into the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom. Switching on the light, she inspected herself in the mirror.

  She didn’t look quite right.

  Carefully she mussed her hair until she was satisfied that it looked as though she’d been tossing in her bed for the last hour. Then she turned the bathroom light off and moved quickly through the darkness to her bedroom door. Opening it a crack, she peered out into the dimness of the corridor, lit only by a small night-light that sat on the marble-topped commode midway between the stairs and her grandmother’s rooms.

  The hall was empty, and silence hung over the house. But at the far end of the hall, as she had known it would, light glowed from beneath her grandmother’s door.

  Smiling, she hurried down the hall.

  She paused outside her grandmother’s door, and listened. From within, she could hear the faint sounds of her grandmother moving restlessly around her sitting room, then a silence. Tracy smiled. Composing her face into a mask of worried unhappiness, she rapped softly at the door. For a moment there was no response from within, then she heard her grandmother’s voice.

  “Come in.”

  Tracy twisted the brass knob, and gently pushed the door open just far enough to slip through. “G-Grand-mother?” she asked, letting her voice tremble just the slightest bit. “I couldn’t sleep. I miss Grandfather so much …” She reached up and brushed at her eyes.

  Her grandmother’s response, as always, was immediate.

  “Tracy, darling, come in. Please.” From her chair, Abigail held her arms wide, and Tracy, after hesitating only a second, ran across the room, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in the old woman’s lap. Abigail, her own eyes flooding, gently stroked Tracy’s hair.

  “What is it, child? What’s wrong?”

  Tracy sniffled slightly, then looked up. “I … I just don’t know what’s going to happen to us, now that Grandfather’s …” She let her voice trail off, and held still as Abigail brushed the beginnings of a tear away from her eye.

  “It’s going to be all right, my darling,” Abigail assured her. “We have to learn to accept these things. We all die sooner or later, and it was time for your grandfather to go.”

  “But I didn’t want him to die!” Tracy wailed. “I loved him so much!”

  “Of course you did. We all did. But we have to understand that he’s gone now, and that our lives go on.”

  “But without him, everything’s going to be different!”

  “Different?” Abigail asked. “How are things going to be different?”

  Tracy hesitated for a long time, waiting for her grandmother to urge her to speak.

  “Go on, Tracy. Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.”

  Tracy took a deep breath. “It … it’s Carolyn. What’s going to happen to me, now that Grandfather isn’t here to help me? She hates me.”

  Abigail slipped her arms around her granddaughter, and drew her close. “How could she hate you? You’re a lovely child.”

  Tracy allowed herself a small pout. “But she does hate me. She always tells Daddy that I’m spoiled, and that you’ve raised me wrong.” She felt her grandmother’s body stiffen.

  “I’ve raised you precisely as your mother would have raised you,” Abigail replied. “And your father knows that.”

  “But he married her! And now she’s going to try to change everything!”

  “Everything? How?”

  Tracy’s eyes clouded, and she drew a little away from her grandmother. “I … I guess I shouldn’t talk about it tonight,” she said. She stood up as if to leave, but Abigail stopped her.

  “Nonsense. Whatever is upsetting you, we should deal with it. Now, what is it?”

  Tracy turned to face her grandmother again. “M-my birthday party,” she stammered. “Are we still going to have it next week, like we planned?”

  Abigail blinked, then remembered. Tracy’s party, planned for weeks, had slipped her mind when Conrad died. “Why—I don’t know.” Then, seeing the disappointment in Tracy’s eyes, she immediately made up her mind. “But I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it. In fact, I’m certain your grandfather would have wanted it that way.”

  Suddenly Tracy brightened. “And I can invite anybody I want?”

  “Absolutely,” Abigail assured her. “After all, it’s your party, isn’t it?”

  “But what about—” Tracy fell silent, as if once again she was hesitant to tell her grandmother what was on her mind.

  “What about what?” Abigail pressed.

  “Beth,” Tracy whispered. She hesitated as her grandmother’s jaw tightened slightly, and wondered if she’d made a mistake. But when Abigail spoke a moment later, Tracy knew it was going to be all right.

  “I don’t think the little Rogers girl would enjoy your party.”

  “But what are we going to do?” Tracy asked. “Carolyn will make me invite her.”

  “Perhaps,” the old woman said softly, but her eyes were glinting now. “Perhaps she will. But perhaps she won’t, either. At any rate, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. All right?”

  Tracy came back, and leaned down to give her grandmother a hug. “I love you, Grandmother,” she whispered.

  “And I love you, too,” Abigail replied. “And you mustn’t worry about anything. Just because your grandfather’s gone doesn’t mean you’re all alone. You’ve still got me.”

  A few minutes later, Tracy left her grandmother’s roo
m, and started back down the long corridor. But the smell of the room—a mixture of mustiness and too-sweet cologne as well as something else—was still with her. She took several deep breaths, trying to rid herself of that cloying scent she had always hated: it was the smell of old people.

  She wondered how her grandmother could stand it. And the room, too. Though she was always careful to tell her grandmother how much she liked the old-fashioned sitting room, with its Victorian furniture and worn Oriental rugs, the truth was that she hated the look of her grandmother’s suite as much as its smell. When her grandmother finally died, and Tracy talked her father into letting her move into the big suite, she’d change it all.

  Everything.

  But until then, she had to go on pretending to her grandmother. Grandparents, after all, had been known to cut people out of their wills. Tracy, even though she wasn’t quite thirteen yet, wasn’t about to let something like that happen.

  Suddenly she stopped, listening. From behind a closed door she could barely make out the sounds of one of her favorite rock bands. She frowned, and listened harder.

  The music was coming from Beth’s room.

  She listened for a moment, her body unconsciously swaying to the familiar rhythms. Then, her eyes narrowing, she strode to Beth’s door, and pushed it open without knocking.

  Startled at Tracy’s sudden entry, Beth sat up in bed and stared at the other girl.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she heard Tracy hiss.

  “Tracy? What … what’s wrong?”

  “That music, stupid! Don’t you know we’re mourning my grandfather?”

  Beth stared at Tracy for a second, trying to understand what she’d done. “But—I was playing it soft.”

  “You shouldn’t be playing it at all,” Tracy said. “How can anybody sleep, with you blaring your radio?”

  “But you can hardly hear it—” Beth protested.

  “I could hear it,” Tracy insisted. “And my grandmother could, too! Shut it off!”