Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  SO IT HAPPENED that the “little nun,” hidden behind her dark tulle veil, and dressed in discreet mourning attire, succumbed to Fate: one of those haphazard ecstasies, or fancies, which we of superior age and experience must not too readily dismiss. For was not this child’s very namesake St. Theresa herself, transformed by a similar passion,—the virginal bride, one might say, of a parallel ecstasy?

  Nay, it is wrong for us to too swiftly brush aside adolescent passions; particularly as, in this case, they are to have such significant consequences.

  From that day onward, Thérèse uttered many a prayer that God might absolve her of her unwholesome “love” for Xavier Kilgarvan. Yet, perversely, she prized the tender image of her cousin’s angelic, yet decidedly masculine, beauty; she dreamt of his dark curly tresses, and his olive-pale skin, and the artless grace of his being. And though he never gazed upon her, she imagined, with a shudder that ran through her slender frame, how powerful it would be, how exquisite a shock, if he ever did.

  BY DEGREES, POOR THÉRÈSE LAPSED into imagining, in her most distraught hours, that Xavier, though scarcely more than a boy, might prove an actual source of aid to Perdita and herself,—that he might be a savior of sorts,—albeit the notion was confused and blasphemous. (Yet certainly it was not Thérèse’s fancy that she now saw Xavier so often, in Parthian Square, or along the shady streets near school, strolling with customary schoolboy swagger and never glancing in her direction?)

  So it was with both amazement and chagrin that, one mild June morning, she chanced to look out the window of her bed-chamber, to see Xavier himself approaching the house, in plain view: meeting with her sister Perdita as if by prearrangement: and climbing, with boyish insouciance, into the very house—!

  “What business have they together? How have they managed to communicate with each other? Ah, dear God, if Georgina learns of this—!” So Thérèse muttered aloud, near-overcome with jealousy; and for a long time she could not move from her casement window, as if all her limbs had grown leaden.

  “Can it be,” she wondered aloud, “that they are sweethearts?—that Georgina’s suspicions are true?”

  Thérèse stood at attention behind her closed door, and listened intently; but heard nothing. Where was Perdita taking Xavier? And how had it come about that Xavier dared to approach Glen Mawr? Alas, it was a wicked sort of game, Thérèse thought,—and Xavier had best be aware that he was not really welcome in this house.

  Many a time Georgina had stormed that Perdita, for all her prettiness, was “of the Devil’s party,—stamped with His look about the eyes”: and, in truth, Thérèse sometimes halfway fancied there was truth in the charge. For only a wicked, wicked girl would aid a young man in entering a house by stealth, where he was not wanted, and where in fact he was forbidden. . . .

  The agitated girl went to her bed, to kneel beside it, and pray to Jesus Christ that all might be well: that no evil be perpetrated beneath her father’s roof. So fervently did she pray, so extreme was her distress, that she grew suddenly exhausted; and lapsed into a light fitful sleep; from which she roused herself some time later, confused and shaken.

  “Heavenly Father, let it be but a dream, and he in no danger—!” she murmured aloud.

  But some disquietude of the air, some subtle, yet unmistakable, alteration of the household, warned her that all was not well. Thus she left her room, trembling, to seek out Perdita,—in vain; and to hurry along the many corridors of the house, looking for,—why, she knew not what: Xavier himself, or a phantasmagoric figure out of her own dream-fancy?

  Her womanly instinct led her at last downstairs, to the gloomy depths of the Manor: where, at once, she heard piteous sounds,—appeals for help muffled through a wall’s thickness,—and, ah!—the enfeebled pounding of fists! In that instant she knew what naughty game Perdita had played: for, some years previous, when they were both mere children, Perdita had enticed Thérèse into the cellar, under the pretense of an innocent prank, and had locked her, for one terrifying hour, in the fruit cellar, or “dungeon,” as it was sometimes called, beneath the stairs,—a mere child’s game, doubtless, yet most frightening to Thérèse.

  “Why, did you think I would never let you out?—did you think I would throw away the key, and let you starve to death?” Perdita had asked, her eyes grave with insult. “Why, then,—you are very wicked!”

  So it was, caring not at all for her appearance, or for the condition of her smock, or collar, or morning-cap, or stockings,—whether her cheeks be rosy, or stricken with pallor—Thérèse hurried down the cellar stairs, and made her groping way to the chamber in which Xavier was confined: and, with but a minute’s fumbling effort, managed to force open the rusted sliding bolt,—and free the stricken youth from his prison.

  Poor Xavier, to be glimpsed at such a moment!—covered in dust and cobwebs and grime,—badly soaked in perspiration, so that every particle of his clothing was damp, and his person gave off a rank barnyard odor,—his “gentleman’s” fingers torn and bleeding,—his voice hoarse from shouting, and from great wracking sobs that scarce befitted a man: how could he display the proper manly gratitude to the young girl who had rescued him?—how could he even restrain himself, to gaze into her face, and murmur words of civil thanks?

  Well, it must be ingloriously recorded here that Xavier simply fled: giving but the most distracted of nods to his benefactress,—indeed, did he not push roughly past her?—and, with never a backward glance, sobbing still and panting, he ran from the house, and along the pink-pebbled drive, to the stony portals at the road, and beyond,—ah, as far as his panicked legs would take him: not a remnant,—nay, not a shred—of his former confidence remaining. Poor boy! Not a coward, perhaps, yet surely not the hero he had wished to be!

  Thérèse had whispered after him, “Farewell, dear Cousin, and for your soul’s sake, never return again!”—but of course he did not hear.

  “The Accursèd Kilgarvans”

  It were best to skim lightly over the next several months in this history, both in the interests of editorial brevity and that we might allow poor Xavier to recover, as it were, some diminished sense of his Kilgarvan pride, and some small hope of his “professional” future: there being, in any case, no events of especial significance until the fatalities of the autumn,—save perhaps a curious incident reported to have occurred at Phineas Cutter’s home, very early one July morning. (This negligible happenstance—much embellished, I am sure, by repeated narrations, and by the eagerness of common folk to participate in the tragedies of their betters, was: when Jabez Dovekie, the burly red-haired iceman employed by Hazelwit’s Ice, arrived to make his delivery at the Cutters’, he found Mrs. Cutter and her daughter Ariela in a state of dizzied alarm: for, when they had come into the kitchen that morning, it was to discover a “winged creature thumping and fluttering against the window,”—at first glance a small bird, or bat—but very desirous of entry, and very malevolent of aspect. The somewhat too impetuous Ariela had gone to the window, to tap at it, and frighten the creature away, but had recoiled in screaming consternation: for the thing was neither bird nor bat, it seemed, but possessed a tiny wizened human face,—that of an infant greatly aged, and most hideous to gaze upon! When the iceman arrived, Ariela had but partly recovered, and her mother was close to swooning as well: but so bold was Dovekie, and so little disposed to believe women’s nonsense, that, with but a moment’s hesitation, he strode outside to investigate: finding no demonic creature, nor any evidence of one, save a gigantic moth of unusual iridescent beauty, beating its powdery wings in a cobwebbed corner below the rain-gutter,—which he seized in his great ham of a fist, and destroyed in an instant. Despite the moth’s uncommon size, it offered no resistance to its human assailant, but very nearly dissolved to dust in his hand, which did not wash off, or wear off, for over a week: giving Dovekie a most peculiar aura, one hand bronzed and darkened by the sun, and the other covered in a faint margaric powdery sheen, said to glimmer in the dark. As to whether the
winged creature possessed a human face, wizened or no,—Dovekie said laughingly that he had not noticed, having no time for such women’s giddiness; but knowing only what must be done.)

  This apparition of sorts was hurriedly attributed by many to an influence of Glen Mawr Manor, not many miles distant; as were two untimely deaths,—that of old Pride, the Kilgarvans’ Negro servant; and Miss Imogene Westergaard, one of Winterthurn’s most renowned heiresses—which occurred in mid-September, each in the vicinity of the Kilgarvan estate.

  It was, in fact, against the rear wall of the Manor garden, part-hidden in a clump of wild rambler rose, that Pride was found, by one of the few servants remaining in the Kilgarvan employ: the luckless old man having been hanged by his neck, and somewhat mutilated, and even “branded” about the chest and back, with the letter B—these countless B’s being of about three inches in height, and made to overlap, with the impression of a manic exuberance in the seared flesh:

  This unsightly death was attributed by some to a supernatural agency emanating from the Manor,—the abode, as certain observers began to openly say, of “the accursèd Kilgarvans”—and, by others, to obscure rites of voodoo vengeance, peculiar to the more primitive races: but no satisfactory explanation was ever arrived at: and, in the light of matters deemed more pressing, as they involved white citizens of a certain elevated rank, the “mystery” of Pride’s demise was soon forgotten; or spoken of only in whispers, by local Negroes. (It seemed, however, that the old man was as stubborn in death as he had been in life, and oft returned to disturb persons in divers settings in Winterthurn: the fresh produce markets on Water Street, the dry goods stores, the feed supply mills, etc., which, in life, he had patronized with a lordly air, in the name of the Manor; and the near-deserted servants’ wing at the house, where, it was said, he liked to tramp heavily about, groaning and cursing “all the long wretched line of the Kilgarvans, back to Adam, and beyond.” Upon several occasions he was sighted on Berwick Avenue, driving a clattering ghost-carriage, drawn by a matched team of ghost-horses; and once, in the most extraordinary visitation, he was seen by the Von Goelers’ cook, grinding a pungent mixture of mocha and java coffee beans, in an iron coffee mill nailed to the kitchen wall—! No explanation could be offered for any of these appearances, the last-named being, of course, the most suspect,—for was not the Von Goeler cook a black herself, and notoriously given to spooks and suchlike fancies? Thus it was, young Xavier Kilgarvan was quite surprised to hear his own father defend the likelihood of ghosts: for where rank injustice has been perpetrated, and the Law is of no avail, shall not a man’s spirit seek some manner of balance, or restitution?—or the meager solace of revenge, in committing mischief? Given to moods of marked sobriety since the death of his elder brother, Mr. Kilgarvan chided Xavier for his shallow,—nay, adolescent—skepticism: and quoted Dr. Johnson on the subject of the supernatural: “A total disbelief of ghosts is adverse to the opinion of the existence of the soul between death and the Last Day.” To this, the dismayed youth replied that a belief in “ghosts” might countenance a belief in virtually anything else: for what might not be explained by the supernatural, or the Unknown? He thought it plausible that all human events had human causes, or causes to be rationally examined: in the instance of the lynched Pride, surely a human agent, close to home, was—

  “But since you not only lack proof of your charge,” Mr. Kilgarvan testily interrupted, “but lack the means to acquire that proof, you might be better served by believing in the Unknown, or what you will; or, at the very most, holding your tongue.” Which so disconcerted the lad, he offered no further commentary on the subject.)

  AS FOR THE DEATH of Miss Imogene Westergaard, which so badly shook Winterthurn, and usurped attention from all else,—until the fatality involving Simon Esdras later in the autumn: when it happened that the headstrong young heiress failed to return from her morning walk with her dogs, nearing seven-thirty, her brother Valentine, breakfasting somewhat earlier than usual, rubbed his eyes of a sudden, and murmured in a queer stricken voice that “something had gone amiss,”—he knew not what: and, with no hesitation, rose from the table to run out in search of his sister, who had long provoked disapproval and worry amongst her family by insisting upon making her way unescorted; and continuing to exercise her Irish terriers by walking along the river within a scant quarter-mile of Glen Mawr Manor. Indeed, in recent months, when even able-bodied workingmen and tradesmen could be prevailed upon to approach the Manor only with difficulty, it seemed that Miss Westergaard was more adamant than before in her refusal to be cowed, as she phrased it, by “superstitious idiocies.” So impetuous had the young lady been, and so certain of the beneficent force of her personality, she had several times attempted to visit with the reclusive Georgina, to no avail: and, refusing to be discouraged by the “Blue Nun’s” signal of lack of interest, never neglected to include her, and her young sisters, on invitations to tea at Ravensworth Park—this being the historic name of the large sandstone-and-granite house in which Colonel Westergaard and his family lived. As to her motives for so persistently forcing herself where clearly she was not wanted, Miss Westergaard was said to have laughed in delight, and made the claim that it was in that the challenge lay: “For where we are wanted, why, then, our victories are sorry trifles indeed! It is only where we are not wanted that imagination waxes rich.” In spurning several eligible suitors, since the night of her débutante ball some eight years previous, Imogene Westergaard had, of necessity, angered and even alarmed certain persons, who had made no secret of the fact that her bluestocking-spinster stance was most nettlesome: the more so in that, unlike, for instance, poor Georgina Kilgarvan, Imogene was uncommonly attractive; and in the full flush of womanly health.

  It was in a charming grove of beech and dogwood, not many yards from the Kilgarvan property, and about thirty feet from the river, that Imogene’s body was discovered, not long past eight o’clock, by her distraught brother Valentine: who, so overcome at first by the sight of the poor, bloody, abused body, could not comprehend that his sister was no longer living; but knelt by her side, and tried to revive her, with many a protestation of chiding grief. His upset was such, he had not noticed the bludgeoned bodies of the twin Irish terriers, lying but a short distance away, where it seemed they had been negligently tossed, into a tangled patch of briars.

  Poor Imogene Westergaard was discovered to have died of multiple wounds, inflicted by an unknown weapon, most likely a knife: Hans Deck estimated these wounds,—which were of a crude, gaping, barbaric nature, wildly distributed about the neck, bosom, forearms, and legs—to be “beyond one hundred; indeed, countless.” In all likelihood the young lady had been overtaken on the river path, and attacked from behind; and thrown to the ground; and murdered; and, as the piteous flattened and bloody grasses would indicate, dragged on her back to the little grove of trees. Yet her attacker had not seriously hoped to hide her body, as the grove was very near the path; nor had he attempted to disguise it, by covering it with branches, leaves, dirt, etc.

  The mystery was the more compounded, and attributed, not least by the more credulous, to the supernatural influences of the area, in that no footprints were to be found in the softened earth surrounding the body, save of course Valentine Westergaard’s: and no marks, no evidence, no clues, were ever to be located,—though Mr. Shearwater and his deputies claimed to have busied themselves for days, in examining the scene of the crime; and questioning certain lowlife persons, residing in South Winterthurn, who were known to have a distinct motive for seeking revenge against the Westergaards. (But a scant six years previous, Colonel Westergaard had aroused much interest, and not a little wrath in some quarters, by, of a sudden, firing unionized workers in his several factories along the river, and importing some one hundred Chinese laborers from the Pacific Coast, who, far from wishing unionization, were willing to work for contracts offering a modest $25 per month: and very diligently and uncomplainingly, it was said. A certain smoldering re
sentment yet continued in the area, however, so far as the discharged workers and their families were concerned; and it was generally known that threatening remarks, of a drunken nature, had been directed against the Colonel from time to time.)

  Despite the efforts of the law enforcement officers, however, and one or two initially promising leads, the person or persons who so brutally killed Miss Imogene Westergaard were not apprehended: which naturally stirred superstitious imaginings all the more. “Yet it cannot possibly serve the community, or Justice,” the beleaguered Mr. Shearwater said, with some exasperation, “to arrest anyone at all, and urge him to confess: though it begins to seem that such a move would be greeted with approval on all sides—!”

  SO DISHEARTENED WAS XAVIER Kilgarvan by his humiliating, and altogether terrifying, experience at Glen Mawr,—of which, it should be here recorded, the abashed youth tried hard not to think—that he yielded for some days to his father’s stern admonition that he keep his distance from the scene of the “new” crime; and not go poking about, or even making discreet inquiries. It was notoriously easy to offend the old Colonel: and Valentine himself, though a most charming young gentleman, and a bosom friend of Wolf’s, was known to possess a mercurial temper.

  After a week’s stoic resistance, however, Xavier felt that he could keep away no longer: and stealthily proceeded to the scene of the crime: only to find every square inch of the area tramped over, by hundreds of footprints; and many of the lower branches of trees torn off, and small rocks dislodged, making any investigation useless. It had been a brainstorm of his to search the river for the murder weapon, which, thus far, the sheriff’s office had not done: but this muddy and exhausting enterprise, taking the better part of a steamy September afternoon, yielded no fruit apart from tangled fishing lines and hooks, agèd rusted strips of wire, shards of glass, waterlogged dolls, parts of baby buggies, and parts of rowboats. Having cut his foot somewhat severely on a sharp piece of metal, the luckless Xavier limped to shore, to sit disconsolate on the bank, and watch the blood emerge, drop by pitiless drop, from his flesh, and fall into the slow-churning water. “At such ‘uneventful’ times in a detective’s experience,” he sullenly bethought himself, “it is more or less the rule that something urgent will happen: yet I have no fear that, today, anything at all will occur,”—the which humble prophecy turned out to be true.