Hallow House - Part One

by Jane Toombs

  "Yes."

  "Well, I'm the station agent and Mr. Gregory asked me to tell you he'd be right back." He winked at the other man and they both stared assessingly at Vera.

  Her thanks came out stiffly and she turned away from them, walking back to her bags. In the four years since she'd turned sixteen, she'd sometimes experienced unwelcome attention from men. She'd learned to ignore it, but these two men seemed to look at her in a different way.

  Like I'm a bacterium under a microscope, she thought resentfully.

  "You going up to Cabbage Valley?" The voice spoke at her shoulder. Vera glanced to one side and saw the station agent had followed her.

  "Cabbage Valley?"

  "Where the Gregory's live. You a relative?"

  It was certainly none of his business but Vera told herself a terse answer might put an end to the conversation. "I'm a nurse," she said, clipping her words. "I'll be working there."

  The thin man joined them. "I heard tell there was a baby mixed up in all them bloody goings-on," he said. "I'll bet they hired you to take care of the baby--right?"

  Vera was taken aback but managed a curt "Yes."

  "You seem like a nice young girl," the station agent said. "If I was you I'd stay right here in the depot till the northbound train comes through and go back where you came from."

  She blinked at him in confusion. Go back to San Francisco? She couldn't do that, she had nothing to return to.

  "The sheriff don't know what to make of it and that's a fact," the other man said. "The deputy who got there first said he never did see so much blood and only the one dead."

  Vera tightened her lips. Were these men deliberately trying to frighten her? Why? She edged away from them.

  The door of the waiting room swung open and a man stood framed against the fog. He was a handsome man with dark curly hair and hazel eyes, tall, not heavy, but quite well-proportioned. John Gregory? He seemed young to be the father of teen-aged children.

  "Mr. Gregory?" she asked hopefully.

  He bowed to her, losing his balance to stagger against the door frame. To her dismay, Vera realized he'd been drinking.

  "At your service," he said, the words slurring slightly. She glanced quickly at the other two men in the station and saw them exchange a grin. Looking back, she examined Mr. Gregory.

  Was he fit to drive? She remembered her doctor father saying, "Every drunk thinks he's the world's best driver, which means I have to spend wasted hours patching them up when time proves they're not."

  She didn't want to be killed on a mountain road, yet she definitely didn't want to remain here. What should she do? Vera swallowed and took a deep breath. Whatever she decided would be out of the hearing of the two men who'd been talking to her. She didn't mean to give them further grist for their gossip mill.

  "My luggage is here, Mr. Gregory," she said. "Where's the car?"

  He managed to pick up the two bags and she preceded him through the door and into the fog. The only car in sight was pulled up next to the station and she moved toward it. Even in the clinging fog she could tell the car was expensive; it looked to be a brand new 1935 model.

  Noticing the silver swan ornamenting the radiator she said, "A new Packard?"

  "What else?" the man behind her said, as though the Gregory family would always have the newest and the best.

  Vera turned to face him. "You've been drinking," she accused. "I have no desire to end my life with a drunken driver in a foolish accident."

  "I. Am. Not. Drunk." He spaced the words, enunciating clearly.

  "I happen to know how to drive," she went on, ignoring this. "My father taught me when I was twelve. I've never driven a Packard but it can't be so very much different from a LaSalle."

  "You wouldn't last five miles in this tule fog."

  They stood next to one another on the driver's side of the car and, close as he was, the fog blurred him. Vera quaked inwardly at the idea of trying to drive through the choking grayness but she spoke firmly.

  "San Francisco's noted for its fogs."

  "Mist from the ocean," he scoffed. His words seemed a bit less slurred.

  Opening the trunk, he placed her bags inside, then took her arm and led her around the car to the passenger side where he opened the door with a flourish. "Your chariot awaits, O Doubting Fair One."

  Vera hesitated.

  "You have the choice of remaining here, of course," he said.

  Against her better judgment, she got into the car. He closed her door, walked back to the driver's side and got in himself.

  "This is a tule fog," he repeated. "Can't you feel the difference?"

  She looked at the thick gray sea outside the car, a sea that seemed to press against the metal as though weighing down the roof and seeking entrance from the sides. Mr. Gregory was right--she wouldn't dare to drive in this. And how did he expect to?

  "But I thought--aren't you John Gregory?"

  He laughed, a harsh sound that had nothing to do with amusement. "John's my brother. Poor little nursie, have I frightened you?"

  "My name is Vera Morgan," she said stiffly. "And, yes, I am afraid of driving in this car at the rate you're going on a road you can't even see."

  "Vera. Means truth. Do you tell the truth and shame the devil?"

  She didn't answer, convinced talking to him was useless and only encouraged his mockery. A long silence fell. After awhile he shifted gears and she decided the car was going uphill. Vincent drove around unseen curves with a confident twist of the steering wheel, still much too fast. Did he really know where he was headed?

  "We're climbing, aren't we?" she ventured.

  "Have to go up before you can come down." He glanced at her. "Mount Caution must be climbed before entering the Valley of the Shadow of Death."

  Vera frowned. "Mount Caution?"

  "Don't you remember your Bunyan? Pilgrim's Progress. The Delectable Mountains with their peaks of Caution and Error come before the valleys. And the trail leads from the Valley of Humiliation to the Valley of the Shadow of Death."

  Vera continued to frown at Vincent. "What does Pilgrim's Progress have to do with my taking care of your niece?" she asked.

  "I can read Greek and Latin, too," he told her, ignoring her question. "John and I are quite the classical scholars. Comes of having a tutor. I learned more from him than I ever did at Stanford." Vincent's laugh was short and bitter. "Not that it's ever been of much use."

  He shifted gear again and Vera felt them begin to descend.

  "Fog's high today," he commented. "We get a lot of it in the winter, though November's early. Usually we climb out of the fog on that last hill. Too bad, you're going to miss your first sight of the valley. You'll have to enter the Gregory ménage blinded by mist." He shook his head. "A shame. I think a person should see what the prisons like before the gates clang shut behind."

  "I don't understand what you're saying," she said in exasperation.

  "I'm speaking in parables."

  "Is this Cabbage Valley you're talking about?"

  He stared at her. "You must have heard that at the train station. It's the local corruption of El Valle de los Esqueletos sin Cabezas.. They can't get their tongues around Spanish down there in the towns. Cabeza sounds like cabbage to them so they say Cabbage Valley. It's Cabeza Valley, really."

  "I know very little Spanish," Vera admitted.

  "Translation: The Valley of the Skeletons without Heads. Cabeza means head in Spanish."

  He was trying to frighten her, she decided. All the same, she asked, "Skeletons without heads?"

  Vincent shrugged. "There's an old legend among the Indians that our valley was the home of the Headless Ones, whatever that may mean. The Spanish evidently agreed with them."

  She refused to be alarmed by myths. The past was harmless. "Who's taking care of baby Johanna?" she asked, firmly changing the subject.

  "Maybe Marie, maybe old Theola, maybe no one. How should I know?"

  "No one?" Vera's voice
rose.

  "That's why you've been imported. But don't worry-- Johanna will still be there when we arrive. The Gregory curse isn't fast-acting."

  What was all this about prisons and bodies without heads and curses? Vera pressed her lips together. Vincent didn't know her very well or he wouldn't try such ridiculous nonsense on her. A family curse, indeed!

  Without warning Vincent braked, throwing her forward. He shut off the motor. "We've arrived. Welcome to Hallow House."

  "At least it's not Doubting Castle," she said tartly, straightening her brown hat and giving the jacket of her new teal blue suit a tug. Vincent wasn't the only one who'd read Bunyan.

  "Don't be too sure. And you've no need to fuss with yourself; you're a perfect picture of the no-nonsense nurse."

  Vera knew she was travel-bedraggled. Strands of hair had worked loose from her braids and she felt disheveled. "Thank you." Her voice was cool.

  She strained to see through the fog for a glimpse of the house but could not.

  Vincent got out, came around to open her door and she stepped out into a silent, gray world. She heard a mournful moan and started before realizing the sound must only be the hoot of an owl.

  He took her arm and guided her along a stone path she couldn't see. Shapes loomed about and above them. Trees? Now steps. Seven of them, then a porch where Vera was dimly aware of columns. Vincent led her up to a massive oak door with fan-shaped stained glass above. As he opened the door and Vera lifted her foot to step over the threshold, she stumbled. A line from Shakespeare slipped into her mind:

  "...men that stumble at the threshold,

  Are well foretold that danger lurks within..."

  Vincent's arm righted her and, as she stepped inside, a voice seemed to speak directly into her ear. "There's no escape."

  Vera whirled to look but saw only Vincent and the fog. She was sure the voice had not been his. No one was in the foyer.

  "Who spoke to me?" she demanded.

  "I heard nothing. Nobody's around. The fog can be freakish, though--sometimes it carries sound a long way or funnels it in unusual directions."

  Vera stared about her. A chandelier hung high above her head, prisms of crystal gleaming in a cascade of glass. Blue patterned tile lay beneath her feet. Odd high-backed chairs with small seats stood against the foyer walls like sentries. A huge carved mahogany pier glass filled the niche at the side of the stairway that curved up to the next floor. Despite its emptiness, the foyer seemed coldly watchful. Involuntarily, she shivered.

  "I see you already feel at home." Vincent said with a cynical smile.

  Chapter 9

  Standing in the foyer of Hallow House, Vera glared at Vincent Gregory, aware he was mocking her. "I shivered because it's drafty here," she snapped.

  He smiled his disbelief, saying, "I'll show you to your room. Aunt Adele felt you should be next to Johanna."

  They climbed the curving staircase and walked down a long corridor past rooms with closed doors. The dim lighting gave Vera a momentary feeling that the rooms were cells, that she'd be shut in, imprisoned. She shook her head, impatient with such notions. She was twenty years old, not a silly young girl. She was a nurse hired to take care of a sickly infant. That's what she intended to do. Foolish fancies would find no room in her mind.

  Vincent stopped and flung open a door. "Your room. It connects to the nursery." he pointed to a half-open door. "Through there."

  Vera dropped her pocketbook and gloves on a walnut dresser, hurriedly removed her hat and laid it on top of them before entering the baby's room. As if on cue she heard a whimper that changed to a fretful wailing.

  "I'll have your suitcases brought up," Vincent said from somewhere behind her, but she was too intent on the baby to turn and thank him.

  Johanna was in a crib much too large for such a tiny child. Six months old, Sister had said, but the baby appeared younger. Vera reached for Johanna, found her wet. There were clean diapers in the small chest of drawers near the crib. When she changed Johanna, Vera was distressed to find the baby's bottom red and chafed.

  "Poor little sweetheart," she crooned, "Vera will take good care of you." She lifted Johanna into her arms. The baby stiffened and cried louder as though sensing an alien touch, but Vera rocked her back and forth, speaking soothingly. "You'll be my pretty little girl, such a pretty little girl."

  In reality Johanna was anything but pretty. She was thin and spindly with hardly any hair. In fact, her big gray eyes were her only attractive feature. She stopped crying to stare at Vera with disconcerting directness, then cuddled down with a sign and closed her eyes.

  She knows I'm her friend, Vera thought. Only six months old, but she knows. That diaper rash means no one's been changing her regularly. Why have they neglected her? She gazed down at the quiet, too-thin baby. Surely someone feeds her. No one would let a baby go hungry.

  A sound made Vera look up to see a girl of about fifteen or sixteen standing in doorway. Black curly hair hung past her shoulders.

  "I--I thought I heard Johanna cry," she said, her dark eyes glancing quickly at Vera, then away. In contrast to the baby, she was very attractive.

  "Yes, she was wet," Vera said, "so I changed her." She introduced herself, saying she'd been hired as the baby's nurse.

  "Oh, yes. Daddy told us you'd be coming. I'm Samara." She ducked her head so her hair fanned across her face. "I--I'm glad you're here." Before Vera could say anything more, Samara slipped through the door and was gone.

  Samara was obviously one of John Gregory's teen-aged twins, Vera thought as she wrapped the baby in a blanket and brought her into her own bedroom, a large room with wainscoting of lusterless dark walnut. The window shades were drawn against the fog and the coming night, resulting not in coziness but a feeling of being closed in.

  She shook herself mentally. That's what came of listening to those men in the depot and to Vincent's nonsense. Her room was lovely, really. Though the walnut furniture was as dark as the walls, a flowered carpet brightened the polished oak floor and the curtains and bedspread were a cheerful yellow-gold.

  Knowing her next task was finding food for Johanna, Vera stepped into the hall carrying the baby. Once down the stairs into the entry hall, she was faced by a choice of doors. Which one led to the kitchen? She chose a door at random and found herself looking into a room with books lining every wall except the one where a fire burned brightly in a stone fireplace. A man with graying hair sat by a console radio listening to an orchestra playing Mozart. He reached to turn down the volume before rising and turning to face her.

  "I'm sorry, I was looking for the kitchen." She waited, wondering if he was John Gregory, though he looked nothing like Vincent. He was older, shorter, his brown hair flecked with gray, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. He didn't speak.

  "I'm Vera Morgan," she added.

  He nodded. "Stanley Aarons. John mentioned he was hiring a nurse. I believe you'll find the kitchen in the opposite wing." He pointed, then resumed his seat and turned up the volume of the music, dismissing her.

  Shrugging, she closed the door and crossed the foyer to try another door. Who was Mr. Aarons? How many people were there in Hallow House? Sister Mathilde had mentioned only the twins, a great-aunt of John Gregory's and a cousin of his dead wife. But obviously others lived in the house.

  Entering a short corridor, Vera found she'd chosen right. In the kitchen three women and a man sat around a pine table. They stared at her.

  She told them who she was, feeling she'd said her name a hundred times today.

  "My goodness!" one of the women exclaimed, rising. "You're here already. That Mr. Vincent could have let me know." She was a heavy-set woman, middle-aged, with gray hair held back in a bun. "I'm Irma Hattes. This is Blanche." She indicated the dark-haired sharp-featured woman. "And that's Geneva." She nodded toward a faded blond.

  The man stood and bowed slightly. "Hello, senorita."

  He pointed to himself. "Jose."

  Blanche murmu
red something about getting busy and the group about the table dispersed until only Irma Hattes was left.

  "I'd like something for the baby to eat," Vera told her. "Does she have a formula?"

  "There's milk in the fridge and some baby bottles drying on the sink board."

  "I'd like to use evaporated milk instead of regular cow's milk. She's so thin."

  "She's unhealthy," Irma agreed. "And no wonder. There might be some cans in the pantry." She opened a door, vanished inside and reappeared a few minutes later with two cans of evaporated milk.

  "Oh, good. Now if you'll just hold Johanna for a bit, I'll--"

  "I'd rather not." Irma crossed her arms over her plump breasts while Vera stared at her in surprise. Irma's face flushed, but she stared back obstinately before finally looking away. "I don't mind fixing the milk," she muttered.

  "But I want to do that myself," Vera said.

  The kitchen door swung open and a tall dark-haired man entered. Vera saw at a glance he was no servant.

  "Mr. John Gregory?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Sorry I wasn't available to welcome you to Hallow House. My brother just notified me you'd arrived." He was taller, with a more massive build than Vincent. His black hair was straight, not curly, and his eyes darker. Though attractive, he was more rugged-looking. In some way, he made Vincent seem an inferior copy.

  Johanna stirred in Vera's arms and began to whimper, making her realize she'd stared too long at the master of the house. Though he was undeniably attractive, she certainly didn't care to make a fool of herself goggling. Still, there was something about him that made it hard for her to look away.

  Turning her attention of Johanna, she said, "The baby's hungry," and held her out to John Gregory. "If you'll take her for a few minutes, I'll make her formula."

  He took a step back, half-raising his hands as if to ward off the child, but after his initial hesitation, he allowed Vera to place the baby in his arms. He held her gingerly and Johanna began to scream.

  "Cuddle her up against you," Vera ordered, her only thought for the child. "She's afraid, she thinks she's going to be dropped."