The Inheritance

by Savage, Tom

  He laughed. “And all this time I was hoping you wanted me for my body.”

  “Well,” she replied, “that, too, of course. But please come back as soon as you can.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Kevin said. He leaned forward and kissed her lips again. Then, with a final grin, he went off through the crowd toward the front door.

  Holly was standing there, smiling as she watched him go, when she felt a tug on her arm.

  “What was that all about?” Missy MacGraw, looking splendid in emerald green, was standing at her elbow, grinning away. Holly turned around and embraced her.

  “Oh, Missy, am I glad to see you! That was all about falling in love with a future psychiatrist. And I have a present for you under the tree—”

  “Whoa!” Missy cried. “We’ll get to all that later. And I want to hear everything about Kevin, simply everything! Future psychiatrist—I never imagined him in that line. But first, you have to do the guest-of-honor thing.” She pointed toward the dancers. “You can start with my brother, whose work goes on display in the living room at midnight.”

  “Oh, gosh, the painting!” Holly said. “It’s finished? It’s here?”

  “Yes and yes,” her friend said. “But you can’t see it until the unveiling. Now, dance!”

  With a light laugh, Holly went to find Matthew MacGraw. She danced with him, then with Uncle John again, and then the cutting-in began. Holly danced with practically every man at the party: old, young, fat, thin, drunk, sober. They arrived before her in an endless line, and she barely caught half their names. But she smiled and thanked them all.

  For the hour or so that it took her to dance with everyone, she had little chance to worry about “Aunt Cathy,” who was actually doing an admirable job as hostess. Holly admitted this grudgingly to herself as she saw the woman at various times in various places: dancing, overseeing the wait staff, making sure everybody was included in conversations and had whatever they wanted. Yes, Holly supposed, the party is a success, and “Aunt Cathy” is responsible.

  Her lawyer, Gilbert Henderson, never showed up. She thought about him as she danced. He had been her father’s best friend. Perhaps he was the one to ask for advice.…

  No, she would not ask anyone for advice. This was a family matter, a private matter. And it was now her family, for better or worse. It was her responsibility, hers alone, and she would meet the challenge. Looking around the enormous, glittering Great Hall, at the staircase and the marble tiles and the chandeliers, and at the gentle, beautifully attired men and women who even now were swirling around her in a bright profusion of color, she knew that it was worth it. She was Holly Randall now, and she would see to everything.

  She wondered, briefly, where Kevin was. But before she could go looking for him, another complete stranger presented himself before her and asked her to dance. With a determined smile, she accepted.

  Kevin came out of the gatehouse at a dead run.

  He’d arrived home a few minutes ago after first dropping off the wrapped packages for Toby and Tonto at the stable. He’d found his father asleep in the living room, and he’d been careful not to wake him as he placed Holly’s gifts under the little tree in the corner. Then he’d gone looking for Dora.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen, or her bedroom, or anywhere else. She wasn’t in the house. She’d wandered off again.

  No, he thought. Not tonight, of all nights!

  And he’d burst from the house, propelled by terrible visions of Dora in her black cape meeting up with guests who might be wandering around outside, and frightening them. Not that she would mean to, but …

  Two of the local boys parking the cars were at the front gates near the house, huddled together, smoking something that didn’t smell like cigarettes. Kevin rushed over to them and asked if they’d seen his sister, but they groggily shook their heads. He turned away from them in frustration: Patton and all his troops could storm through the gates and attack Randall House, he thought, and those two wouldn’t even notice.

  He moved swiftly up the drive, peering off across the dark lawns and among the trees. No sign of her. He ran toward the summer house. All the lights were on, and several partygoers with drinks had braved the cold to come out there and chat. No, they hadn’t seen anyone matching Dora’s description. He thanked them and continued down the sloping lawn to the cliff. She wasn’t there, either.

  In the next half hour, he made a complete tour of the grounds. She wasn’t among the small crowd near the pool. She wasn’t in the pool house, though he did find a young couple there doing something naughty. The chapel and the cemetery were dark, deserted. Even the apple orchard was empty, and the little forest beyond the east lawn.

  He stopped beside the pond in the forest, trying to control his panic. He wondered, fleetingly, whether she might have wandered away from the estate, into town, but he immediately dismissed that notion. She had never left the grounds of Randall House alone, not ever.

  Which left only one place.

  Slowly, with a growing sense of dread, he made his way through the falling snow, back to the fence at the top of the cliff. He followed the fence to the stone stairway that went down the side of the cliff to the beach. He paused at the top of the stairs and peered down over the railing. He could hear the waves crashing against the rocks far below him, but it was too dark to see anything.

  Kevin took a slow, deep breath, closed his eyes, and prayed. Then he opened his eyes. Clutching the rough wood rail in his trembling hand, he began the long descent into the darkness.

  The portrait was unveiled at midnight, just at the start of Christmas Day.

  It was a big painting, life-sized, and it wasn’t at all what Holly was expecting. In the three days she’d posed for Matthew MacGraw, he hadn’t let her see what he was doing. But there she was, smiling rather mysteriously out from the canvas, wearing the very dress she now had on. Her pale hair was up, and her hands were folded rather demurely in her lap. She looked serene, and very elegant. Her eyes seemed almost to glow.

  She’d known that Matthew did this for a living, but she hadn’t seen any examples of his work until now. He was better, infinitely better than she’d guessed. This painting was a true work of art, and it prompted a tremendous round of applause from everyone. Her uncle John immediately announced that it would be hung here in the living room, alongside the portraits of Ellen and Alicia.

  Holly stared at the picture for several minutes, trying to define the odd feeling it prompted in her. Immortality: that was it. She had been rendered immortal. When she could no longer decently stare at herself, she embraced the artist and led the way back out into the Great Hall.

  She would later remember exactly where she was standing a few moments later, when it happened. She was at the bottom of the stairs, in front of the Christmas tree, and Missy had just brought over a group of friends who were preparing to leave. “Aunt Cathy”—her mother, Constance Randall—was standing nearby, saying good night to another group. People were dancing in the Hall behind her. The maid, Grace, arrived beside her with little cups of eggnog on a silver tray.

  Eggnog, Holly thought. Why not?

  In that moment, just before it, Holly was actually feeling happy. She was here, at Randall House, among friends. There was a beautiful portrait of her in the living room. She was very attracted to a handsome man who obviously liked her. As for her uncle and her mother—well, she would do something about them soon. She was Holly Randall now, and she’d had a lovely birthday party, and it was Christmas.

  She and Missy were reaching out for the cups when Grace looked past her, toward the front door. The maid uttered a little cry, and the tray slid from her hands and crashed on the floor, sending shards of glass and milky liquid flying. The orchestra stopped in mid-note. All conversation came to an abrupt halt, all movement froze. Holly was still looking blankly down at the mess on the floor when she heard Missy gasp.

  Then she turned around.

  She stood there with a hundred other peop
le, staring. She heard another gasp behind her, followed by a flurry of muffled noises from somewhere near the dining room, and she knew that Mildred Jessel had seen, and fainted.

  Kevin Jessel stood at the entrance to the Great Hall, holding his sister in his arms. He was soaking wet, and the limp figure he held was covered with a light dusting of snowflakes. The hood of her dripping cape had fallen back to reveal the pale white face and jet black hair. Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled at a horrible angle against her brother’s shoulder.

  There was a long moment of absolute silence. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The room, the house, the whole world seemed to have come to a complete stop.

  Then Kevin threw his head back and screamed. It began as a guttural moan deep in his throat, increasing in volume as it rose up to engulf Randall House. His anguished cry went on and on, resounding through the farthest rooms.

  As Holly watched, a thin, watery trickle of blood descended Dora’s pallid cheek and splashed down onto the white marble tile at her brother’s feet.

  PART THREE

  HOLLY RANDALL

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Funeral

  Memory is a funny thing. So many images are swept away with time, while others remain forever. It seems at first almost a random process, what we forget and what we remember. And yet it is not random, not at all. The mind makes choices: there is an elaborate, sophisticated process of selection. I’m not certain that I understand the process, but I’m certain that this is what happens.

  The events at Randall House several years ago are a good example of the principle at work. I witnessed some of them firsthand, while others have been related to me after the fact. Sometimes I blur the line between them, even in my own mind. I vividly recall images I could not possibly have seen, and words I never heard spoken. Yet I know that everything I’m telling you is true.

  It is true, for instance, that the early morning hours of Christmas Day were full of activity. Pete Helmer and one of his deputies arrived, as well as the county police, and an ambulance to take away the body. The scene in front of the house was one of constant comings and goings.

  The guests at the party still remaining when Kevin Jessel made his extraordinary appearance in the Great Hall probably wished they’d gone home earlier. Their names and addresses were taken down, in case it later became necessary to contact them. It was after two-thirty in the morning when the last of them were finally allowed to go.

  And go they did, never to return. They had gone out on a social limb, to their way of thinking, by coming at all. The Randalls were already tainted, and the arrival of a dead body in the middle of the Christmas party did nothing to restore their reputation. Nor did the fact that most of the guests had never so much as met a police officer before that night, to say nothing of having their names and addresses taken down in a public record. They’d all had quite enough of Randall House.

  John Randall and his wife were questioned in the library, and Mildred Jessel and her husband met with the police in the gatehouse. Kevin had gone in the ambulance with his sister’s body, to fill out all the necessary forms and provide information at the hospital morgue.

  Only Holly, the birthday girl, was spared, because she was an outsider. She didn’t know Dora Jessel, and she had not left the house all evening, so she could not possibly have seen anything. But she did not go to her room. She remained in the library with her relatives, holding their hands and serving coffee, until the last official visitors were gone. Then she went upstairs with them, embracing both of them at their bedroom doors before going through her own door, and locking it.

  Dora Jessel’s death was ruled a suicide. Her extensive history of emotional instability and several previous attempts at suicide were soon made known, as were the expert opinions of the psychiatrists who had most recently treated her. Because she had never been declared legally insane, and because the doctors did not believe her to be so, there was no hope of a ruling of accidental death. This proved to be very unfortunate.

  An examination of the cliff and the beach by Helmer and his men on Christmas Day proved futile. There was no evidence of a struggle, or even of anyone else having been there with her. Because of the weather that night, there was no evidence at all, really. No one at the party had seen anything of Dora during the evening, and there was no reason to assume that anyone in Randall wished her harm.

  The village’s resident district court judge had his own holiday celebration interrupted long enough for him to sign the appropriate papers, and Dora’s body was released for burial. But there turned out to be a problem with that.

  The Jessels were Catholic, but old Father O’Brien, their priest of many years, refused to preside at the funeral. She had committed the ultimate sin, he informed the devastated family. According to him, Dora could not receive the sacraments of burial, or even be buried in sanctified ground. He was very gruff with Brian Jessel, and when Mildred got on the phone to plead with him, the priest simply repeated to her that his hands were tied.

  It was at this point that Holly truly became the mistress of Randall House. She did three things in rapid succession on December 26 that no one in Randall would ever forget. In doing so, she earned the eternal censure of the town—and the eternal gratitude of the Jessel family.

  First, she announced that Dora would be buried in the Randall House cemetery beside her grandparents on December 28, at her expense. She ordered a beautiful ebony coffin to be delivered immediately, and she commissioned the construction of a small marble headstone.

  Second, she called the archdiocese in New Haven and argued with several people there until a priest was located who would perform the service. This man was a local legend, according to a sympathetic secretary in the monsignor’s office, a notorious rebel who worked with homeless people and teenage runaways out of his storefront parish. But he was an ordained Catholic priest, and he was eventually brought to Randall House in a limousine provided by Holly. Exactly how much she paid him for his services is unknown to me.

  The third thing Holly did that day is the one that eventually caused all the talk. As soon as she had made all the arrangements for the funeral, she called Father O’Brien at his office in Randall.

  Mr. Wheatley—a Catholic—was in the room when she placed the call, and he later told the story with great relish. Holly informed the priest that while she was in charge of Randall House, he was never to set foot in its chapel again. She then called Reverend Ellsworth at the Methodist church across the street and pledged a donation of ten thousand dollars, which the bewildered man gratefully accepted. The fact that Ellsworth would never have consented to preside at the funeral, either, made no difference to her: it was the gesture that counted. She smiled then, according to Mr. Wheatley, as she contemplated what this would probably do to the long-standing rivalry between Randall’s two religious leaders.

  John Randall announced at dinner that night that he and his wife would be going into New York City immediately after the funeral. They would be staying at the apartment there for a couple of days, but would be back to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Holly. She received this news with a profound sense of relief.

  Memory is indeed a funny thing: it comes and goes. I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, if I had lunch yesterday. But I remember everything about Dora Jessel’s funeral.

  Holly stood at the graveside with some thirty other people, looking around. The priest from New Haven (“Call me Father Bob”) was performing the usual ritual to the satisfaction of everyone, especially Mildred. This was the important thing, as far as Holly was concerned. Mildred Jessel and her family stood together in a tight group closest to the coffin and the gaping hole that had been dug in the frozen ground to receive it. If they were pleased, then she was pleased.

  She was uncomfortable in her new black dress, and the wide-brimmed hat was worse. But she decided it was definitely better to have this ponytailed, earringed young man here than Father O’Brien. She grimaced, cursing the dre
adful Father O’Brien for what must have been the hundredth time in three days. All of this must be endured, she reminded herself as the maverick priest recited the familiar litany. Ashes and dust, Holly thought as she listened, and all that business about commending Dora Jessel’s soul to Heaven. Indeed.

  She had met the woman only once, if it could appropriately be called a meeting. She remembered the bizarre scene in this very graveyard, with the swirling fog and those intense eyes burnishing their gaze into her. Most of all, she remembered her own panic, her fear at being alone and vulnerable in this awful place with that distraught creature. She wondered what Dora Jessel had been doing with the doll, and what had prompted her to leap from the cliff on Christmas Eve.

  But it was not her place to wonder about such things. It was now her duty to be the hostess of these grim proceedings, and she would perform her duty as best she could. She would take these people back to the house afterward, for the tea and the wine and the baked meats, and all the rest of it.

  She gazed around, surveying the assembly. Father Bob, the ostensible star of the group, was garbed in the classic black suit and collar, reminding Holly of an avant-garde actor who had suddenly found himself cast in an extremely conventional production of a Shakespeare play. The Jessels were huddled close together, arms around each other, staring down at the gleaming coffin before them. Brian’s sister and her husband had arrived from Chicago to be with them. Uncle John and his wife, her mother, were beside Holly, looking decorously mournful. The staff, led by Mr. Wheatley and Mrs. Ramirez, stood at silent attention. The police chief, Pete Helmer, hat in hand, was near the servants. A dozen other people—friends of the Jessels, apparently—rounded out the group. Well, not quite, Holly realized. Toby Carter and his dog were standing off among the trees, away from the others, watching, and she noticed that Uncle Ichabod was there too, among the trees behind the boy and the dog. He was apparently being careful not to get too close to the crowd, or to let any of them see him. She looked over at Ichabod and nodded. He nodded back.