by Anne Rice
What a surprise to step into the parlor and see only the sunlight and the solemn neglected furniture. The enormous mirrors, towering over the room like guardians. The old pictures lifeless and dim in their frames. For a long moment he looked at the soft portrait of Stella-a painted photograph. So sweet her smile, and her black shining marcelled hair. Out of the corners of her eyes, she looked at him, through the filth that clung to the dim glass.
“Did you want something, Mr. Mike?” the young cleaning woman asked him. He shook his head.
He turned back and looked at the empty rocker. Had it moved? This was foolish. He was inviting something to happen. He closed his notebook and went back to work.
Joseph, the decorator, was waiting for him in the dining room.
And Eugenia was here. Eugenia wanted to work. Surely there was something she could do. Nobody knew this house the way she did, she’d worked in this house for five years, she had. Eugenia had told her son this very morning that she was not too old to work, that she would work until she dropped dead.
Did Dr. Mayfair want silk for these draperies? asked the decorator. Was she sure about that? He had a score of damasks and velvets to show her that wouldn’t cost half as much.
When Michael met Rowan for lunch at Mayfair and Mayfair she was still signing. He was surprised at the ease and trust with which Ryan greeted him and began to explain things.
“It was always the custom before Antha and Deirdre to make bequests at a time such as this,” he said, “and Rowan wants to revive the custom. We’re making a list now of the Mayfairs who might accept a bequest, and Beatrice is already on the phone to anybody and everybody in the family. Please understand this isn’t as insane as it sounds. Most Mayfairs have money in the bank, and always have had. Nevertheless, there are cousins in college, and a couple in medical school, and others who are saving to buy a first home. You know-that sort of thing. I think it’s commendable of Rowan to want to revive the custom. And of course considering the size of the estate … ”
Nevertheless there was something cunning in Ryan, something calculating and watchful. And wasn’t that natural? He seemed to be testing Michael with these riffs of information. Michael only nodded, and shrugged. “Sounds great.”
By late afternoon, Michael and Rowan were back at the house conferring with the men around the pool. The stench of the muck that had been dredged from the bottom was unbearable. Shirtless and barefooted, the men carried it away in wheelbarrows. There were no real leaks in the old cement. You could tell because there was no sogginess in the ground anywhere. The foreman told Michael they could have the whole thing patched and replastered by the middle of next week.
“Sooner if you can,” said Rowan. “I don’t mind paying you overtime to work this weekend. Bring it back fast. I can’t stand the sight of it the way it is now.”
They were glad for the extra paychecks. In fact, just about every workman on the place was happy to work the weekend.
All new heating and filtering equipment was being installed for the pool. The gas connections were satisfactory. The new electric service was already going in.
And Michael got on the phone to another painting crew to take care of the cabana. Sure, they’d work Saturday, for time and a half. Wouldn’t take much to paint its wooden doors, and refit its shower, lavatory, and small changing rooms.
“So what color do you want the house to be?” Michael asked. “They’ll get to the outside painting faster than you think. And you want the cabana and the garçonnière painted the same color, don’t you?”
“Tell me what you want,” she said.
“I’d leave it the violet color it’s always been. The dark green shutters go with it just fine. I’d keep the whole scheme, actually-blue for the roofs of the porches, and gray for the porch floors, and black for the cast iron. By the way, I found a little man who can replace the pieces of the iron that are missing. He’s already making the molds. He has his own shop back by the river. Did anyone tell you about the iron fence that runs around this property?”
“Tell me.”
“It’s even older than the house. It was the early nineteenth century version of chain link. That is, it was prefab. And it goes all the way down First Street and turns on Camp because that’s how big the property once was. Now, we should paint it, just a nice coat of black paint is all it needs, just like the railings … ”
“Bring in all the crews you need,” she said. “The violet color is perfect. And if you have to make a decision without me, make it. Make it look like you think it should look. Spend what you think ought to be spent.”
“You’re a contractor’s dream, darling,” he said. “We’re off to a roaring start. Gotta go. See that man who just came out the back door? He’s coming to tell me he ran into a problem with the upstairs bathroom walls. I knew he would.”
“Don’t work too hard,” she said in his ear, her deep velvety voice bringing the chills up on him. A nice little throb of excitement caught him between the legs as she crushed her breasts against his arm. No time for it.
“Work too hard? I’m just warming up. And let me tell you something else, Rowan. There are a couple of damn near irresistible houses I’d like to tackle in this town when we’re through here. I see the future, Rowan. I see Great Expectations with offices on Magazine Street. I could bring those houses back slowly and carefully and ride out the bad market. This house is only the first.”
“How much do you need to pick them up?”
“Honey, I have the money to do that,” he said, kissing her quickly. “I’ve got plenty of money. Ask your cousin Ryan if you don’t believe me. If he hasn’t already run a complete credit check on me, I’d be very surprised.”
“Michael, if he says one wrong word to you … ”
“Rowan, I’m in paradise. Relax!”
Saturday and Sunday rolled by at the same grand pace. The gardeners worked until after dark mowing down the weeds and digging the old cast-iron furniture out of the brush.
Rowan and Michael and Aaron set up the old table and chairs in the center of the lawn, and there they had their lunch each day.
Aaron was making some progress with Julien’s books, but they were mostly lists of names, with brief enigmatic statements. No real autobiography at all. “So far, my most unkind guess is that these are lists of successful vendettas.” He read a sampling.
“ ‘April 4, 1889 Hendrickson paid out as he deserved.’
“ ‘May 9, 1889, Carlos paid in kind.’
“ ‘June 7, 1889, furious with Wendell for his display of temper last night. Showed him a thing or two. No more worries there.’
“It goes on like that,” said Aaron, “page after page, book after book. Occasionally there are little maps and drawings, and financial notes. But for the most part that’s all it is. I’d say there are approximately twenty-two entries per year. I’ve yet to come upon a coherent full paragraph. No, if the autobiography exists, it’s not here.”
“What about the attic, are you game to go up there?” asked Rowan.
“Not now. I had a fall last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On the staircase at the hotel. I was impatient with the elevator. I fell to the first landing. It might have been worse.”
“Aaron, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, this is soon enough. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it, except that I don’t recall losing my footing. But I’ve a sore ankle, and I’d like to put off going up into the attic.”
Rowan was crestfallen, angry. She gazed up at the façade of the house. There were workmen everywhere. On the parapets, on the porches, in the open bedroom windows.
“Don’t become unduly alarmed,” said Aaron. “I want you to know, but I don’t want you to fret.”
It was clear to Michael that Rowan was speechless. He could feel her fury. He could see the disfigurement of the anger in her face.
“We’ve seen nothing here,” said Michael to Aaron
. “Absolutely nothing. And no one else has seen anything, at least not anything worth mentioning to either of us.”
“You were pushed, weren’t you?” asked Rowan in a low voice.
“Perhaps,” said Aaron.
“He’s deviling you.”
“I think so,” said Aaron with a little nod. “He likes to knock Julien’s books about too, when he has the opportunity, which seems to be whenever I leave the room. Again, I thought it important you know about it, but I don’t want you to fret.”
“Why’s he doing it?”
“Maybe he wants your attention,” said Aaron. “But I hesitate to say. Whatever the case, trust that I can protect myself. The work here does seem to be coming along splendidly.”
“No problems,” said Michael, but he was pitched into gloom.
After lunch, he walked Aaron to the gate.
“I’m having too much fun, aren’t I?” he asked.
“Of course you aren’t,” said Aaron. “What a strange thing to say.”
“I wish it would come to a boil,” said Michael. “I think I’ll win when it does. But the waiting is driving me nuts. After all, what is he waiting for?”
“What about your hands? I do wish you’d try to go without the gloves.”
“I have. I take off the gloves for a couple of hours each day. I can’t get used to the heat, the zinging feeling, even when I can blot everything else out. Look, do you want me to walk with you back to the hotel?”
“Of course not. I’ll see you there tonight if you have time for a drink.”
“Yeah, it’s like a dream coming true, isn’t it?” he asked wistfully. “I mean for me.”
“No, for both of us,” said Aaron.
“You trust me?”
“Why on earth would you ask?”
“Do you think I’m going to win? Do you think I’m going to do what they want of me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think she loves me and that it’s going to be wonderful what happens.”
“So do I.”
He felt good, and each successive hour brought some new realization of it; and in his time at the house, there had been no other fragmentary memories of the visions. No sense of the ghosts.
It was comfortable each night being with Rowan, comfortable being in the spacious old suite, and making love, and then getting up again, to go back to work on the books and on the notes. It was comfortable being tired from a day of physical exertion, and feeling his body springing back from those two months of torpor and too much beer.
He was drinking little or no beer now; and in the absence of the dulling alcohol, his senses were exquisitely sharpened; he could not get enough of Rowan’s sleek, girlish body and her inexhaustible energy. Her total lack of narcissism or self-consciousness awakened in him a roughness that she seemed to love. There were times when their lovemaking was like horseplay, and even more violent than that. But it always ended in tenderness and a feverish embrace, so that he wondered how he had ever slept all these years, without her arms around him.
Thirty-four
HER PRIVATE TIME was still the early morning. No matter how late she read, she opened her eyes at four o’clock. And no matter how early he went to bed, Michael slept like the dead till nine unless someone shook him or screamed at him.
It was all right. It gave her the margin of quiet that her soul demanded. Never had she known a man who accepted her so completely as she was; nevertheless there were moments when she had to get away from everyone.
Loving him these last few days, she had understood for the first time why she had always taken her men in small doses. This was slavery, this persistent passion-the inability to even look at his smooth naked back or the little gold chain around his powerful neck without wanting him, without gritting her teeth silently at the thought of reaching under the covers and stroking the dark hair around his balls and making his cock grow hard in her hand.
That his age gave him some leverage against her-the ability to say after the second time, tenderly but firmly, No, I can’t do it again-made him all the more tantalizing, worse perhaps than a teasing young boy, though she didn’t really know, because she’d never been teased by a young boy. But when she considered the kindness, the mellowness, the total lack of young-man self-centeredness and hatefulness in him, the trade-off of age against boundless energy was a perfect bargain indeed.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” she had whispered this morning, running her finger down the coarsened black stubble which covered not only his chin but his throat, knowing that he wouldn’t stir. “Yes, my conscience and my body need you. Everything I’ll ever be needs you.”
She had even kissed him without a chance of waking him.
But now was her time alone, with him safely out of sight and out of mind.
And it was such an extraordinary time to walk through the deserted streets just as the sun was rising, to see the squirrels racing through the oaks, and to hear the violent birds crying mournfully and even desperately.
A mist sometimes crawled along the brick pavements. And the iron fences shimmered with the dew. The sky was shot through and through with red, bloody as a sunset, fading slowly into blue daylight.
The house was cool at this hour.
And this morning, she was glad of it because the heat in general had begun to wear on her. And she had an errand to perform which gave her no pleasure.
She should have attended to it before now, but it was one of those little things she wanted to ignore, to weed out from all the rest that was being offered her.
But as she went up the stairs now, she found herself almost eager. A little twinge of excitement caught her by surprise. She went into the old master bedroom, which had belonged to her mother, and moved to the far side of the bed, where the velvet purse of gold coins still lay, ignored, on the marble top bedside table. The jewel box was there, too. In all the hubbub no one had dared touch them.
On the contrary, at least six different workmen had come to report that these items were there, and somebody ought to do something about them.
Yes, something about them.
She stared down at the gold coins, which spilled out of the old velvet bag in a grimy heap. God only knew where they had actually come from.
Then she gathered up the sack, put the loose coins inside, picked up the jewel box, and took them down to her favorite room, which was the dining room.
The soft morning light was just breaking through the soiled windows. A plasterer’s drop cloth covered half the floor, and a tall spidery ladder reached to the unfinished patchwork on the ceiling.
She pushed back the canvas that covered the table, and removed the draping from the chair, and then she sat down with her load of treasures and put them in front of her.
“You’re here,” she whispered. “I know you are. You’re watching me.” She felt cold as she said it. She laid out a handful of coins, and pushed them apart the better to see them in the gathering light. Roman coins. It didn’t take an expert to see it. And here, this was a Spanish coin, with amazingly clear numerals and letters. She reached into the sack and pulled out another little trove. Greek coins? About these she wasn’t certain. A stickiness clung to them, part damp and part dust. She longed to polish them.
It struck her suddenly that that would be a good task for Eugenia, polishing all these coins.
And no sooner had the thought made her smile, than she thought she heard a sound in the house. A vague rustling. Just the singing of the boards, Michael would say if he were here. She paid no attention.
She gathered up all the coins and shoved them back in the purse, pushed it aside, and took up the jewel box. It was very old, rectangular, with tarnished hinges. The velvet had worn through in some places to show the wood beneath, and it was deep inside, with six large compartments.
The various jewels were in no order, however. Earrings, necklaces, rings, pins, they were all tangled together. And in the bottom of the box, li
ke so many pebbles, were what appeared to be raw stones, gleaming dully. Were these real rubies? Emeralds? She could not imagine it. She did not know a real pearl from a fake. Nor gold from an imitation. But these necklaces were fine artifacts, skillfully fashioned, and a sense of reverence and sadness came over her as she touched them.
She thought of Antha hurrying through the streets of New York with a handful of coins to sell. And a stab of pain went through her. She thought of her mother, lying in the rocker on the porch, the drool slipping down her chin, and all this wealth so near at hand, and the Mayfair emerald around her neck, like some sort of child’s bauble.
The Mayfair emerald. She hadn’t even thought of it since the first night when she’d tucked it away in the china pantry. She rose and went to the pantry now-unlocked all this time like everything else-and there was the small velvet case on the wooden shelf behind the glass door, among the Wedgwood cups and saucers, just where she’d left it.
She took it to the table, set it down, and carefully opened it. The jewel of jewels-large, rectangular, glinting exquisitely in its dark gold setting. And now that she knew the history, how she had changed towards it.
On the first night it had seemed unreal, and faintly repulsive. Now it seemed a living thing, with a tale to tell of its own, and she found herself hesitant to remove it from the soiled velvet. Of course it did not belong to her! It belonged to those who had believed in it, and who had worn it with pride, those who had wanted him to come to them.
Just for a moment, she felt a longing to be one of them. She tried to deny it, but she felt it-a longing to accept with a whole heart the entire inheritance.
