Rice, Anne - The Witching Hour

by Greyspid

  A great lovely sense of well-being came over her. All mine.

  She stood still for a few seconds, listening, feeling. Trying to take full possession of the moment, trying to remember the anguish of yesterday and the day before, and to feel this in comparison, this wonderful lighthearted feeling. And once again the whole lurid tragic history comforted her, because she with all her own dark secrets had a place in it. And she would redeem it. That was the most important thing of all.

  She turned to walk to the front of the house, and for the first time noticed a tall vase of roses on the hall table. Had Gerald put them there? Perhaps he had forgotten to mention it.

  She stopped, studying the beautiful drowsy blooms, all of them blood red, and rather like the florist-perfect flowers for the dead, she thought, as if they’d been picked from those fancy sprays left in the cemetery.

  Then with a chill, she thought of Lasher. Flowers tossed at Deirdre’s feet. Flowers put on the grave. In fact, she was so violently startled that for a moment she could hear her heart again, beating in the stillness. But what an absurd idea. Probably Gerald had put the flowers here, or Pierce when he had seen to the mattresses. After all, this was a commonplace vase, half filled with fresh water, and these were simply florist roses.

  Nevertheless the thing looked ghastly to her. In fact, as her heartbeat grew steady again, she realized there was something distinctly odd about the bouquet. She was not an expert on roses, but weren’t they generally smaller than this? How large and floppy these flowers looked. And such a dark blood color. And look at the sterns, and the leaves; the leaves of roses were invariably almond-shaped, were they not, and these leaves had many points on them. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any leaf in this entire bouquet which had the same pattern or number of points as another. Strange. Like something grown wild, genetically wild, full of random and overwhelming mutation.

  They were moving, weren’t they? Swelling. No, just unfolding, as roses often do, opening little by little until they fall apart in a cascade of bruised petals. She shook her head. She felt a little dizzy.

  Probably left there by Pierce. And what did it matter? She’d call him from the hotel just to make sure, and tell him she appreciated it.

  She moved on to the front of the house, trying to capture the feeling of well-being again, breathing in the luxurious warmth around her. Very like a temple, this house. She looked back at the stairs. All the way up there, Arthur had seen Stuart Townsend.

  Well, there was no one there now.

  No one. No one in the long parlor. No one out there on the porch where the vines crawled on the screens.

  No one.

  ‘Are you afraid of me?’ she asked out loud. It gave her a curious tingling excitement to speak the words. ‘Or is it that you expected me to be afraid of you and you’re angry that I’m not? That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Only the stillness answered her. And the soft rustling sound of the rose petals falling on the marble table.

  With a faint smile, she went back to the roses, picked one from the vase, and gently holding it to her lips to feel its silky petals, she went out the front door.

  It really was just an enormous rose, and look how many petals, and how strangely confused they seemed. And the thing was already withering.

  In fact, the petals were already brown at the edges and curling. She savored the sweet perfume for another slow second, and then dropped the rose into the garden as she went out the gate.

  PART THREE

  Come into my Parlor

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE MADNESS of restoration began on Thursday morning, though the night before over dinner at Oak Haven with Aaron and Rowan, he had begun to outline what steps he would take. As far as the grave was concerned, and all his thoughts about it and the doorway and the number thirteen, they had gone into the notebook, and he did not wish to dwell on them anymore.

  The whole trip to the cemetery had been grim. The morning itself had been overcast yet beautiful, of course, and he had liked walking there with Aaron, and Aaron had shown him how to block some of the sensations that came through his hands. He’d been practicing, going without the gloves, and here and there touching gateposts, or picking sprigs of wild lantana, and turning off the images, pretty much the way one blocks a bad or obsessive thought, and to his surprise it more or less worked.

  But the cemetery. He had hated it, hated its crumbling romantic beauty, and hated the great heap of withering flowers from Deirdre’s funeral which still surrounded the crypt. And the gaping hole where Carlotta Mayfair was soon to be laid to rest, so to speak.

  Then as he was standing there, realizing in a sort of stunned miserable state that there were twelve crypts in the tomb and the doorway carved on the top made thirteen portals, up came his old friend Jerry Lonigan with some very pale-faced May-fairs, and a coffin on wheels which could only belong to Carlotta, which was slipped, with only the briefest ceremony by the officiating priest, into the vacant slot.

  Twelve crypts, the keyhole door, and then that coffin sliding in, blam! And his eyes moving up to that keyhole door again, which did look exactly like the doors in the house, but why? And then they were all going, with a quick exchange of pleasantries, for the Mayfairs assumed he and Aaron were there for the ceremony and expressed their appreciation before they went away.

  ‘Come have a beer with me some time,’ said Jerry.

  ‘Best to Rita.’

  The cemetery had dropped into a buzzing, dizzying silence. Not a single thing he had seen since the beginning of this odyssey, not even the images from the jars, had filled him with as much dread as the sight of this tomb. ‘There’s the thirteen,’ he had said to Aaron.

  ‘But they have buried so many in those crypts,’ Aaron had explained. ‘You know how it’s done.’

  ‘It’s a pattern,’ he’d murmured halfheartedly, feeling the blood drain from his face. ‘Look at it, twelve crypts and a doorway. It’s a pattern. I tell you. I knew the number and the door were connected. I just don’t know what they mean.’

  Later that afternoon waiting for Rowan, while Aaron typed away on his computer in the front room, presumably on the Mayfair history, Michael had drawn the doorway in his notebook. He hated it. He hated the empty middle of it, for that’s what it had been in the bas-relief, not a door, but a doorway.

  ‘And I’ve seen that doorway somewhere else, in some other representation,’ he wrote. ‘But I don’t know where.’

  He had hated even thinking about it. Even the thing trying to be human had not filled him with such apprehension.

  But over supper, on the patio at Oak Haven, with the ashen twilight surrounding them and the candles flickering in their glass shades, they had resolved again to spend no more time poring over interpretations. They would move forward as they said. He and Rowan had spent the night in the front bedroom of the plantation, a lovely change from the hotel, and in the morning when he woke up at six, with the sun beating on his face, Rowan was already on the gallery, enjoying her second pot of coffee, and raring to go.

  As soon as he arrived back in New Orleans, at nine o’clock, the work began.

  He had never had so much fun.

  He rented a car and roamed the city, taking down the names of the construction crews who were working on the finest of the uptown houses and the classy restorations going on in the Quarter downtown. He got out and talked to the bosses and the men; sometimes he went inside with the more talkative people who were willing to show him their work in progress, discussing the local wage scales and expectations, and asking for the names of carpenters and painters who needed work.

  He called the local architectural firms who were famous for handling the grand homes, and requested various recommendations. The sheer friendliness of people astonished him. And the mere mention of the Mayfair house kindled excitement. People were only too eager to give advice.

  For all the work that was going on, the city was full of unemployed craftsmen. The oil boom of the 1970
5 and early 19805 had generated tremendous interest and activity in restoration. And now the city lay under the cloud of the oil depression, with an economy bruised by numerous foreclosures. Money was tight. There were mansions on the market for half of what they were worth.

  By one o’clock he had hired three crews of excellent painters, and a team of the finest plasterers in the city - quadroons descended from the colored families who had been free long before the Civil War, and who had been plastering the ceilings and walls of New Orleans houses for over seven and eight generations.

  He had also signed up two teams of plumbers, one excellent roofing company, and a well-known uptown landscaping expert to begin the clearing and the restoration of the garden. At two p.m. the man walked the property with Michael for half an hour, pointing out the giant camellias and azaleas, the bridal wreath and the antique roses, all of which could be saved.

  Two cleaning women had also been hired - upon recommendation of Beatrice Mayfair - who began the detailed dusting of furniture, the polishing of the silver, and the washing of the china which had lain under its layer of dust for many a year.

  A special crew was scheduled to come in Friday morning to commence draining the pool, and seeing what had to be done to restore it and revamp its antiquated equipment. A kitchen specialist was also scheduled for Friday. Engineers were scheduled to examine the foundation and the porches. And an excellent carpenter and jack-of-all-trades named Dart Henley was eager to become Michael’s second in command.

  At five o’clock, while there was still plenty of light, Michael went under the house with a flashlight and a dust mask and confirmed, after forty-five minutes of serious crawling, that indeed the interior walls were chain walls, descending directly to the ground, that the underneath was dry and clean, and that there was ample space for a central air and heat duct system.

  Meantime, Ryan Mayfair came through the house to take the official and legal inventory for the estates of Deirdre and Carlotta Mayfair. A team of young lawyers, including Pierce, Franklin, Isaac, and Wheatfield Mayfair — all descendants of the original brothers of the firm — accompanied a group of appraisers and antique dealers who identified, appraised, and tagged every chandelier, picture, mirror, and fauteuil.

  Priceless French antiques were brought down from the attic, including some fine chairs which needed only reupholstering and tables which required no repair at all. Stella’s art deco treasures, equally delicate and equally preserved, were also brought into the light.

  Old oil paintings by the dozens were discovered, as well as rugs rolled in camphor balls, old tapestries, and all the chandeliers from Riverbend, each crated and marked.

  It was after dark when Ryan finished.

  ‘Well, my dear, I’m happy to report: no more bodies.’

  Indeed, a call from him later in the evening confirmed that the enormous inventory was almost the same as the one taken at the death of Antha. Things had not even been moved. ‘All we did most of the time was check them off the list,’ he said. Even the count of the gold and jewels was the same. He’d have the inventory for her right away.

  By that time, Michael was back at the hotel, had feasted on delicious room service from the Caribbean Room downstairs, and was perusing all the architecture books he’d gleaned from the local stores, pointing out to Rowan the pictures of the various houses that surrounded hers, and the other mansions scattered throughout the Garden District.

  He had bought a ’house’ notebook in the K&B drugstore on Louisiana Avenue, and was making lists of what he meant to do. He would have to call tile men early in the morning, and take a more careful look at the old bathrooms, because the fixtures were absolutely marvelous, and he did not want to change what did not need to be changed.

  Rowan was reading over some of the papers she would sign. She had opened a joint account at the Whitney Bank that afternoon just for the renovations, depositing three hundred thousand dollars in it, and she had the signature cards for Michael and a book of checks.

  ‘You can’t spend too much money on this house,’ she said. ‘It deserves the best.’

  Michael gave a little delighted laugh. This had always been a dream — to do it without a budget, as if it were a great work of art, every decision being made with the purest aims.

  At eight o’clock, Rowan went down to meet Beatrice and Sandra Mayfair for drinks in the bar. She was back within the hour. Tomorrow she would have breakfast with another couple of cousins. It was all rather pleasant and easy. They did the talking. And she liked the sound of their voices. She’d always liked to listen to people, especially when they talked so much that she didn’t have to say anything much herself.

  ‘But I’ll tell you,’ she said to Michael, ‘they do know things and they aren’t telling me what they know. And they know the older ones know things. They’re the ones I have to talk to. I have to win their trust.’

  On Friday, as the plumbers and the roofers swarmed over the property, and the plasterers went in with their buckets and ladders and drop cloths, and a loud chugging machine began to pump the swimming pool dry, Rowan went downtown to sign papers.

  Michael went to work with the tile men in the front bathroom. It had been decided to fix up the front bath and bedroom first so that he and Rowan could move in as soon as possible. And Rowan wanted a shower without disturbing the old tub. That meant ripping out some tile, and building in more, and fitting the tub with a glass enclosure.

  ‘Three days we’ll have it for you,’ the workman promised.

  The plasterers were already removing the wallpaper from the bedroom ceiling. The electrician would have to be called in, as the wires to the old brass chandelier had never been properly insulated. And Rowan and Michael would want a ceiling fan in place of the old fixture. More notes.

  Some time around eleven, Michael wandered out on the screened porch off the parlor. Two cleaning women were working noisily and cheerfully in the big room behind him. The decorator recommended by Bea was measuring the windows for new draperies.

  Forgot about these old screens, Michael thought. He made a note in his book. He looked at the old rocker. It had been scrubbed clean, and the porch itself had been swept. The bees hummed in the vines. Through the thick stand of banana trees to the left, he could just see the bright occasional flashes of the workmen surrounding the pool. They were shoveling two feet of earth from off the flagstone patio. Indeed, the area of paving was far larger than anyone had supposed.

  He took a deep breath, staring out at the crepe myrtle across the lawn.

  ‘No ladders thrown down yet, am I right, Lasher?’ His whisper seemed to die on the empty air.

  Nothing but the hum of the bees, and the mingled sounds of the workmen - the low grind of a lawn mower just starting up, and the sound of the diesel leaf blowers navigating the paths. He glanced at his watch. The air-conditioning men were due any minute. He had sketched out a system of eight different heat pumps which would provide both cooling and heating, and the worst problem would be the placement of the equipment, what with the attics filled with boxes and furniture and other items. Maybe they could go directly to the roof.

  Then there were the floors. Yes, he had to get an estimate on the floors right away. The floor of the parlor was still very beautifully finished, apparently from the time Stella had used it as a dance floor. But the other floors were deeply soiled and dull. Of course nobody would do any interior painting or floor finishing until the plasterers were out. They made too much dust. And the painters, he had to go see how they were coming along on the outside. They had to wait until the roofers had sealed the parapet walls at the top. But the painters had plenty of work to do sanding and preparing the window frames and the shutters. And what else? Oh, the phone system, yes, Rowan wanted something state of the art. I mean the house was so big. And then there was the cabana, and that old servants’ quarters building way at the back. He was thinking of turning a small contractor loose on that little building now, for an entire renovation.

/>   Ah, this was fun. But why was he getting away with it? That was the question. Who was biding whose time?

  He didn’t want to confess to Rowan that he couldn’t shake an underlying apprehensiveness, an underlying certainty that they were being watched. That the house itself was something alive. Maybe it was only the lingering impression of the images in the attic — of all the skirts gathered around him, of all of them earthbound and here. He didn’t really believe in ghosts in that sense. But the place had absorbed the personalities of all the Mayfairs, hadn’t it, as old houses are supposed to do. And it seemed every time he turned that he was about to see someone or something that really wasn’t there.

  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.