Lovers and Other Monsters

by Marvin Kaye (ed)

  Bud said, “I guess it’ll be Kallen Hall from now on, right, honey?”

  Before Elena could respond to her husband’s impudent assumption, Nigel Sloane said frostily over his shoulder, “It has been called Mainwaring Hall since Jacobean times, Mr. Kallen. Sir Giles was descended in a direct line from one of the first baronets in the kingdom, Sir Edred Mainwaring, who received his baronetcy from King James the First.”

  “Of the King James Bible?” asked Elena.

  “The same. It was a new rank in those days, you see, created by the king to provide a new dignity higher than knight but lower than baron.”

  “Why?” Bud asked.

  “To raise money for the treasury.”

  Bud laughed. “You mean the king sold this new ‘dignity’ to old Edred? For filthy lucre?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Bud laughed again and slapped his knee. “I love it!” he said. “Love it!”

  Doing his best to ignore Bud, Nigel Sloane addressed Elena: “Speaking of filthy lucre, Mrs. Kallen, there will of course be a heavy toll in death duties—what I believe you call inheritance taxes—but even after the Inland Revenue has taken its ton of flesh there will be a substantial cash settlement. One might call it, without fear of hyperbole, a small fortune.”

  “Not a large fortune?” asked Bud.

  Nigel Sloane shrugged. “These things are relative. And then we must not forget Mainwaring Hall itself, which we could arrange to sell for you, should you decide not to live there.”

  “Why would we decide that?” asked Elena.

  “Well, for one thing, it’s so very large for two people; and for another... but there, see for yourself.” The car slowed down and came to a stop. To their left in the middle distance, looming in the center of spacious grounds, stood an enormous old house.

  It seemed to grow out of the earth from roots almost four centuries old, as if it had been not so much built as planted. It sucked its strength from the soil and the air, squatted on the landscape like an exotic bloated organism, surveying its dominion with the unblinking eyes of its many windows. If the Kallens had known anything about Jacobean architectural style, they would have recognized instantly that Mainwaring Hall was a typical example of it. The uneasy mixture of late Perpendicular Gothic motives and crudely misused classic details boldly announced its period as surely as a fanfare of trumpets. The Flemish influence, characteristically, was strong, and the Tudor pointed arch was much in evidence. Nearer them, glinting in the weeds at the roadside, an empty Coca-Cola can, flung there by some irreverent motorist, provided an ironic contrast that spanned the centuries at a glance.

  Noting this anomaly, Elena said, “It’s like time doesn’t exist.”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t,” said Sloane. “Perhaps it’s an illusion. When Pythagoras was asked to define time, he said it was the soul of this world. I’ve never quite understood what he meant by that, but I’ve always liked the sound of it.”

  “The old place must be expensive to keep up,” said Bud.

  “Precisely,” said Sloane, agreeing with Kallen for the first time all day.

  “But we have money now,” Elena reminded her husband. “A small fortune. You heard Mr. Sloane.”

  Bud spoke to the solicitor: “You said the house is awfully big for just the two of us, and you were going to say something else....”

  “Was I? I don’t remember. I suppose I was about to say that Jacobean isn’t to everyone’s fancy. Some people even consider it to be in rather bad taste.”

  “I don’t,” said Elena stoutly. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  Sloane was too much of a gentleman to voice his opinion of her opinion. He purred diplomatically, “Ah, there speaks the family pride of a true Mainwaring. Shall we drive in?”

  He started the Bentley again and drove it slowly through the open gates, up a curving path past trees and hedges, formal gardens, and weathered stone statuary of indeterminate age. “Warwickshire is Shakespeare country, you know,” Sloane said as he drove. “Stratford, if you care for that sort of thing, is a pleasant motoring journey from here.” At length, the car drew up to the main entrance of the massive house.

  “It’s in pretty good shape for its age,” Bud commented.

  “Restoration and renovation through the years,” Sloane explained, “not to mention added wings and whatnot. Very few of the mod cons, though, I fear.”

  “Beg pardon?” said Elena.

  “Modern conveniences. No central heating, air conditioning, television antennae...”

  “No phone?”

  “Oh, yes, Mainwaring Hall is on the telephone. And electricity has been laid on. It also has one other contemporary feature that should interest a Californian couple like you: a swimming pool.”

  “Really?”

  Sloane nodded. “Sir Giles had it installed some twenty years ago, when the doctors prescribed swimming as healthful exercise for his heart. He tried it once, said he loathed the chlorinated water, and never got into it again. Lived to the age of eighty-six and died of emphysema, not a heart attack.”

  “Well, I’ll give the pool plenty of use,” said Elena. “I love to swim.”

  “Yeah,” said Bud, “I’m more of a scuba diving nut myself, but show her a pool and she’s happy as a pig in slop.”

  “What a colorful expression,” said Sloane. “Not much opportunity for scuba diving around here, however. Shall we look at the interior?” They climbed out of the car and walked up to the formidable oaken portal. As he lifted the heavy brass knocker and struck it sharply several times against the thick door, the solicitor said, “There’s been only a skeleton staff here since Sir Giles died.”

  “And here’s one of the skeletons now,” murmured Bud as the door was opened by a cadaverous and very old butler.

  “Ah, there you are, Coles,” said Sloane, as the aged manservant blinked first at the solicitor, then at his clients, and, with a long, lung-emptying sigh, toppled forward as if bludgeoned, into the arms of a startled Nigel Sloane.

  ❖

  “Help me get him inside,” Sloane said to Bud, and the two men clumsily carried the inert butler into the house to the first available chair, an ornate relic of wood at the foot of the no less ornate staircase. Into this chair they deposited their load as gently as possible, while Elena hovered behind them, uttering helpless moans of sympathy.

  “Oh, the poor old man,” she said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s an extremely antiquated chap,” said Sloane, “and the death of Sir Giles has put a great strain on him.”

  “He’s not dead, is he?” she asked.

  “No,” said Bud, “he’s coming around.”

  The butler’s eyelids fluttered several times. He lifted his head from his chest.

  “Now then, Coles,” said the solicitor, “do you know me?”

  “Mr.... Sloane...”

  “Well done. These two young people are your new master and mistress...”

  He seemed reluctant to meet his new employers, so Elena said, “I think introductions can wait. He should go and lie down until he’s feeling better.”

  Sloane endorsed that idea, and in moments the housekeeper, Mrs. Thayer, who was temporarily doubling as cook, was summoned to convoy the butler to his quarters. While she was thus occupied, Sloane conducted the Kallens on a quick, informal tour of the first floor.

  Every room was done in either true Jacobean or later pscudo-Jacobean style: main hall, galleries, staircases, dining room, library, drawing room, billiard room. Richly carved walnut paneling covered every inch of every wall: representations of spaniels, squirrels, woodcocks, partridges, pheasants all stood out in vivid relief. The library was spacious enough to accommodate, in addition to endless shelves of books, no less than six commodious sofas for browsing and lounging. Sloane, as he led them through the rooms, kept up a running commentary: “As you see, the doorways, fireplaces, and the like are all framed with classic forms, and both inside and outside ther
e is a wide use of gains, pilasters, and S scrolls... The paintings in this gallery have very little intrinsic value, for the most part, but serve as a family album. Most of the Mainwarings are here except for a few black sheep like Sir Percival, who wrote bad checks and died of venereal disease. The last Lady Mainwaring kept his picture in her sitting room, as a joke. Here is that lady, and her husband, Sir Giles, both painted some forty years ago. The gentleman at the far end is the first baronet of the line, Sir Edred, painted, the family claim, by Daniel Mytens, who also painted James the First, but some experts dispute that claim. Wart and all, eh?” Sir Edred indeed had a large hairy mole to the left of his prominent nose, Elena saw as she drew closer to the painting. He also had a gray beard and moustaches, and glaring pale eyes. A close-fitting cloth headpiece or hood covered his possibly bald head, even his ears. A large ring of fur encollared his throat. “The north gallery,” Sloane continued, “has some Constables and Gainsboroughs, even a Holbein, all of great artistic and financial interest...”

  The billiard room was pronounced by Bud to be his favorite. He immediately took down a cue from the wall rack and broke the balls with a resounding clatter.

  “Can we see the pool?” Elena asked.

  “To be sure. And then we can stroll out to the stables.”

  “There are horses here?” she marveled.

  “Not for some time,” Sloane said. “Just motor cars. A Mercedes, a Jaguar, a bright red Ferrari that will probably suit you, Mr. Kallen, and a very, very old Rolls-Royce.”

  “Who drove the Ferrari?” Bud asked.

  “Why, Sir Giles. He was quite the dashing old gentleman.”

  He led them out a back entrance of the house to the pool—which was empty and dry, its floor carpeted with dead leaves. Elena groaned with disappointment, but Sloane said, “Not to worry. I’ll arrange to have it cleaned and filled for you. Leave everything to me.”

  “It’s so nice and private out here,” she said, “I have a feeling I could sunbathe in my birthday suit...”

  “Birthday suit?” the bewildered solicitor inquired.

  Bud sniggered. “With nobody but the hired help cheering you on from the servants’ quarters!”

  “Actually,” said Sloane, “the servants’ quarters do not overlook the pool; they are in a remote section of the house—but our English sun is no match for the sun of Southern California or the French Riviera, I’m afraid. One doesn’t tan under its rays, one pinks. We’re a bit too north, you see. Shall we have a look at your stable of thoroughbred motor cars?...”

  Mrs. Thayer appeared from the house at that moment. She was a stout woman of forty-odd years, with an air of imperturbable dignity. “Excuse me, sir,” she said to the solicitor, “but Mr. Coles would like to speak to you. Can you come upstairs?”

  “Now?”

  “Please.”

  “Oh, very well.” He told the Kallens how to find their way to the stables, and followed Mrs. Thayer into the house.

  The stables were larger than they had expected, and their walls were covered by the biggest magnolias Elena had ever seen. All the cars were there, conforming to Nigel Sloane’s spoken catalogue, and in gleaming condition. Sure enough, Bud was drawn to the red Ferrari as if to a smiling girl, and he looked at it with undisguised lust. As they were leaving the stables, Elena said, “Hey, look at this.”

  She pointed to a group of four words cut into the wood of a dark and cobwebbed corner of the stables. The letters were crude, but worn smooth at the edges, their depths engrained with dirt, bespeaking the passage of unnumbered years since they had been carved there. The words were:

  Beware the Blacke-wench

  “Probably a horse,” said Bud. “An ornery black mare that threw her riders.”

  In the house again, Nigel Sloane told them that the ancient butler, Coles, had announced his intention to retire from service and spend his declining years with a niece near Ipswich.

  “Kind of sudden, isn’t it?” said Bud.

  “Perhaps,” Sloane conceded, “but it’s difficult for the old boy to adjust to new young masters. He served Sir Giles for almost fifty years! And, to speak frankly, I think you will be better off with a younger man in the post. Poor old Coles is past his prime. I’ll put you in touch with one or two good employment agencies. You’ll be wanting a cook, as well, and gardeners, of course... other servants, too... leave all that to me and to Mrs. Thayer. We’ll arrange the interviews for you.”

  A taxicab from the nearby village called for Coles that very afternoon. The old man climbed in with his cases and boxes, and was off to the railroad station without another word. “He sure was in a big hurry,” said Bud.

  Mrs. Thayer subsequently showed the Kallens the rest of the house—the upstairs bedrooms, sitting rooms, nurseries, and servants’ quarters; belowstairs, the kitchen, pantry, and wine cellar—while Sloane telephoned employment agencies, arranged for the reactivating of the pool, and generally made himself indispensable.

  After a simple tea prepared and served by Mrs. Thayer, Sloane said, “I should be getting back now. If you have any questions, if there is anything I can do, anything at all, please have no hesitation in telephoning. You have my number.” He addressed these remarks to Elena. “And if you should reconsider, and wish to dispose of this valuable property at an attractive price...”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she declared. “I love the place, I belong here, I’m a Mainwaring. Why should I get rid of it? Is it haunted or something?”

  Bud said, “Sure it is. All these old English houses have ghosts, don’t they?”

  Nigel Sloane chuckled. “Your husband is right. All old English houses are reputed to harbor ghosts, and Mainwaring Hall is no exception.”

  “Really?” squeaked Elena. “Ghosts?”

  “Just one. So the old wives’ tales would have it, at any rate. It’s the reason Mainwaring Hall has always had difficulty keeping servants, and why most of them left after Sir Giles died. Country folk are terribly superstitious. But I’ve never seen the ghost, and I don’t believe that Sir Giles ever saw it. That’s the one common denominator about ghosts: nobody ever actually sees them: but everybody has a friend of a friend who knows somebody whose great-aunt says that her mother had a servant who saw one. Humans are very gullible animals.”

  “But what’s it supposed to be like?”

  “The ghost of Mainwaring Hall?”

  “Yes! Tell us! I’m dying to know!”

  The solicitor sighed. “Oh, dear. Well, then. It’s purported to take the form of a naked woman, a black woman, which is why it’s known as The Black Wench....” Elena and Bud exchanged quick glances. “Some versions say that its presence is felt, rather than seen, felt as a cold wet hand or an expanse of clammy bare flesh... but I’m upsetting you, Mrs. Kallen.”

  “No, no! Please go on.”

  “The Mainwarings of old, some say, were heavily invested in the African slave traffic as early as 1620 and made the bulk of their wealth by financing the capture, transport and sale of the poor wretches to the American colonies. This conveniently accounts for the apparition’s color, you see... a female slave who died in some cruel manner, perhaps, flogged or what-you-will, and who blamed the Mainwarings for her harsh fate.”

  “How long has she been haunting Mainwaring Hall?” Elena asked. “The first recorded sighting was by Sir Edred Mainwaring. He wrote that he saw her in the room that is now the library, but which in his time was much smaller and served as his study, what he called his ‘closet.’ She allegedly came to him there late one night in 1624 while he was reading his Bible, this naked black woman, glistening as if covered with perspiration from head to foot, and, in Sir Edred’s words, ‘reeking with the stench of Hell.’ He was a religious man, and he believed that she was ’asweat from the fires of Perdition,’ whither she’d been sent as a demon or succubus to tempt him to damnation with her naked body.”

  “Wow,” said Bud, “if a guy has got to see a ghost, that’s the kind of ghost to see,
huh?”

  Sloane said, “I take your meaning. Sir Giles, after Lady Mainwaring had passed away, once told me that he wouldn’t have minded an occasional visit from a naked wench. But I don’t think he was ever favored by the black lady’s attentions. As far as Sir Edred is concerned, a modern psychiatrist would no doubt say that he was having a sexual fantasy about a voluptuous African woman, but that his religious convictions wouldn’t allow him to enjoy the fantasy without those pious distortions. I do hope I haven’t offended you, Mrs. Kallen, or frightened you.”

  “No, of course not. Goodness, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Very sensible,” said the solicitor as he rose to leave.

  “Do you?”

  Nigel Sloane smiled. “I’ve always admired what Sir Osbert Sitwell said when he was asked that same question,” he told her. “‘Only at night.’”

  ❖

  That evening after dinner, Bud killed some time at the billiard table, but soon grew bored without an opponent. He roamed restlessly through the library and several other rooms, finally joining Elena in the drawing room, where she was writing postcards to friends in the States.

  “It isn’t exactly L.A., is it?” he said. “Or London. I liked London, what we saw of it on the way in. Theatres, movies, restaurants, gambling casinos. It’s alive. Not so dead quiet, like this place. We’ll have to get a TV.”

  “If you want to.”

  He rested on the arm of her chair and, with an excruciating attempt at an English accent, whispered in her ear, “I say, my deah, what about initiating the mahster bedroom?”

  She giggled. “It’s early.”

  “Almost ten. And this country air”—he yawned theatrically—“makes me sleepy.”

  “We have had a busy day.” She, too, was overcome by a yawn. “Give me ten minutes to get ready, then come up.”

  He bowed deeply from the waist. “As you wish, milady.” She left the room.