A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  Bertha Mae appeared as Peyton had always pictured her—an ideal representation of a loving mother, a gracious hostess, an esteemed senator’s wife. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, with soft, brown, spiral curls that tumbled in the back like a fountain. Two smudges of pink color dotted her cheeks, as if she’d grabbed both of them at the same angle and in a firm pinch. A single strand of pearls glistened at the neck of her frilled black collar, like they had been polished for the occasion.

  “May I see you for a brief moment, Mrs. Alcott?” Peyton asked.

  Bertha Mae quickly affixed her smile. “Horace, take care of making this tintype, please. I’ve already made one of the room, so I only need the display. This is the most precious one you’ll ever make.”

  “I’ll take care of it, ma’am.” Horace took the camera under his arm, hope and fear dancing together in his eyes.

  Peyton followed Bertha Mae to the far end of the room then stood directly across from Bertha Mae and watched Horace carry the camera to the other side of the room.

  Bertha Mae exhaled heavily, her floral perfume only thinly masking her sour breath. She talked about the service, the guests and the house. Peyton encouraged the conversation. The more time she wasted, the more time Beau and Horace had to use the camera.

  “Now, what is it you need, dear?”

  Peyton commented on Bertha Mae’s composure, the elegant appearance of the manor, how sorry she was about Rachel’s passing. Bertha Mae patted Peyton on the arm and turned to walk away. It was clear that she wasn’t going to talk any further. Peyton screwed up her courage and said, “I saw Rachel’s body in the basement.”

  Bertha Mae stilled herself mid-step. There was a subtle shift in her eyes, turning the soft brown to something mean and hard.

  “That’s a cruel thing to say to a mother who just lost her child,” Bertha Mae said. “I think you should leave.”

  “I would love nothing more than to leave. But I think you need to tell the truth first about what you did. Just to me,” she whispered. “No one else.”

  Peyton recognized the flicker of temptation in Bertha Mae’s eyes. Every client she’d known so far showed the same sign at this moment of opportunity. The chance to release the secret, their one shot of hope.

  Peyton leaned forward just slightly and whispered, “It will set you free. It could set all of us free.”

  Bertha Mae’s mouth opened, her bottom lip quivered. The rest of her body was still.

  It was coming. Peyton could feel it in the hush between them. That moment before the secrets spilled, before the pouring of one’s conscience. A delicate, tranquil moment. An almost holy connection, that moment of confession.

  Peyton breathed it in, tilted her head up. It would happen now, Bertha Mae would tell what she had done and how. She would cleanse her soul, the manor would release its tortured past, and she and Horace and Beau would return home.

  Bit by bit the moment faded. The confession didn’t come.

  Peyton felt her world slipping away and she wasn’t about to let that happen. “Mrs. Alcott. Tell me what really happened to Rachel. You and I both know she didn’t drown.”

  Bertha Mae didn’t move. Her mouth became thin and small and mean, like she sealed the secrets inside of herself.

  “From the first moment I met Rachel there was a noticeable scent of garlic on her breath and skin, like an aura. A scent of garlic that strong, that often, it’s a sign of arsenic poisoning.” Peyton was leaning so close to Bertha Mae she nearly tipped forward. If she didn’t confess soon Peyton was prepared to circle her ancestor’s neck with her hands and choke it out of her.

  She tried not to look at Beau and Horace. She didn’t want to draw Bertha Mae’s attention to them. She prayed they made progress with the tintypes.

  Bertha Mae’s eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing me of—”

  “You put arsenic in that oil you gave her, didn’t you? You poured poison onto a spoon and shoved it in her mouth.” Peyton’s whisper was laced with venom.

  “Rachel has always had that scent on her breath. It was the medicine. Not me.” Hatred bled through Bertha Mae’s words, she turned toward the window and crossed her arms.

  Peyton’s eyes shifted to the corner where Horace made another tintype of Beau. Horace stood beneath the cover of the portable dark room, developed the tintype quickly, carelessly. Chemicals splashed onto the floor.

  “Why is her body lying in the basement when you’ve told everyone that she was lost in the ocean?”

  “I’m a senator’s wife.” Bertha Mae spun around, all but spat the words at Peyton.

  That’s when Peyton knew. There was no justice to be had here. She couldn’t change Bertha Mae. Or what happened to Rachel, or whatever had happened to herself when she had been captive in the manor when she was ten.

  She couldn’t change a memory. She couldn’t change another person. She could only embrace the truth.

  Horace stood in front of Bertha Mae’s camera now. Beau removed the cap, then, after a few seconds, replaced it. Horace went beneath the cover, she knew, to apply the chemicals to develop the image. She squeezed her hands into fists, this had to work.

  Bertha Mae leaned toward Peyton, pointed her thin finger close to her face. “If you won’t leave, I’ll have you thrown out of my house.”

  Peyton looked up and toward the end of the room that was curling, rolling toward them, eating everything in its path. “I don’t think it’s your house anymore,” she said.

  Bertha Mae cocked her head, confused. She eyed Peyton from top to bottom in a way that made Peyton’s blood turn to ice. She opened her mouth to speak but looked toward Horace and Beau instead.

  “What are you doing with my camera?!” Bertha Mae shouted to Horace.

  Peyton tried to draw in a breath but found it stuck in her chest.

  “Making a few tintypes of the room, ma’am.” Horace’s voice broke.

  “I told you I only wanted the display.” Bertha Mae stormed in his direction.

  Peyton chased after her, tried to get in her path, but Bertha Mae pushed her aside with surprising strength.

  Bertha Mae snatched a tintype away from him. “What are these? You? Oh! This is a waste of material!” She tucked the camera into her arms like a baby. Walked it into the kitchen.

  Horace groaned and grabbed his stomach.

  Peyton remembered there hadn’t been much time between the tintype she had been caught in and the first time she went back. She also remembered the stomach pain.

  Beau grabbed his stomach, fell to his knees. He reached out to her and she kneeled beside him. “We needed fewer tintypes than we thought. Get the camera from her!” He reached after Bertha Mae.

  Horace disappeared in a slow fade.

  Beau’s solid strength dissolved beneath her touch.

  She sat alone on what was left of the living room floor, inched her way back to the doorway that led to the kitchen. The room crumpled in on itself, the manor’s collected memories from that day were being crushed into a ball. They were about six feet away from her and getting closer.

  23

  Clouds of cement dust billowed inside the plastic tent. Jayne Ella turned off the circular saw. The last chunk of cement landed in the hole with a dull thud.

  The entire process had taken too long, mostly because her first few attempts at breaking through had shown her that she had the wrong location. She was on her fourth attempt and had carved a hole that was far bigger than what she originally planned. She waved at the tiny particles that flooded the air.

  She should have been excited to see the gold again, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, she felt uncomfortable. Dread, even. Sick. Chills coated her arms. Fear swirled around her like a scream, the same fright she usually felt in this area of the manor. Bertha Mae.

  She stifled the rising sensation. She knew the joy of recovering the gold, of having control of the manor again, would numb her to Bertha Mae’s angry spirit.

  She took off the dirt-cover
ed protective glasses to get a clearer view. Her heart dropped when she looked in the hole. It took only a few seconds for her to put all the pieces together, and she knew what he had done.

  “Oh, Austin. No.”

  The powdery dust irritated her eyes and she rubbed them, forgetting that dust and grit covered her fingers. Her eyes squeezed shut when the dirt hit her contacts, she stepped away from the hole, lost her footing, fell back. Her tailbone cracked against something hard and she screamed.

  Salty tears and dust clouded her contact lenses, made her blind. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” She tried to open her eyes and couldn’t, grit effectively sealing the lids. She tasted the ground layers of Alcott Manor in her mouth. Her ears rang to the tune of the buzz saw, and she was in so much pain, she thought she had broken her tailbone.

  She didn’t know precisely what time it was, but she had seen bits of early morning light through the heavy red curtains. The cameras would be back on soon. Mrs. Miller and the volunteers would be in before long. She needed to call them and tell them not to come in.

  She wished the hardware store clerk had suggested earplugs, she wished she had been more careful. She wished she’d never let Austin talk her into moving the gold to the manor in the first place.

  Crawling on all fours, she navigated her way around the hole, trying not to imagine herself falling in and landing on the saw that was somewhere down below. Her face ran into one side of the plastic and she lifted it over her and stood once she was on the outside of the tent. “Ow!” She pressed her hand against her backside.

  Tears poured down her face. Eyes shut and arms extended, she shuffled and fumbled her way to the kitchen. She pulled the eye drops from her purse on the center table and squirted the liquid into each eye. No use. The pain was unbearable. She pulled the lenses from her eyes and flicked them. More eyedrops to flush out the dirt.

  Her glasses were four prescriptions too old, their thickness kept her from wearing them in public. She was a vain woman, she made no apologies for that. But she carried them in her purse just in case, she couldn’t see past the end of her nose without corrective lenses. She wiped the mascara and eyeliner from her eyes and cheeks with a damp paper towel

  A rapping on the glass panes of the back door fired her heart to her throat.

  “It’s me.” Ira waved from the back porch.

  She pressed her hand to her chest, tried to steady her heart rate.

  “It’s just me.” His dark hair was a windblown mess, and his eyes were bleary as if he hadn’t yet slept in days.

  Jayne Ella smoothed her hair, feeling dry dust and tiny chips of wood and cement. She unlocked and opened the back door. “Well, Ira? What are you doing here at this hour?” She kept her tone nonchalant.

  “I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk. Saw the lights on and I thought Peyton might have come back. Everything okay?” He waved a finger at the area beneath her eyes. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

  “Oh. Eye drops smudged my makeup is all.” She wiped at her cheeks with the paper towel.

  “Is she here?” He walked toward the great hall.

  Jayne Ella quickly limped in front of him, placed her hands on his chest and stopped him just past the doorway. “I’ve got some construction going on in there, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. And Peyton’s not here, sweetheart. I think she went home to get some rest. Her childhood home. My home. She probably didn’t want to wake you. She’ll be up in a few hours, you can see her then.” Jayne Ella encouraged him to move out of the house quickly, but he walked slowly, mesmerized by the towering display of plastic sheeting.

  “You’ve seen her? You’ve talked with her? Was she here?” he looked around the room, pushed ahead, removing Jayne Ella’s hands from his chest in the process.

  “I think she’s in and out, honey. Why don’t you get some rest and we’ll meet for lunch. Okay? You look tired.” She headed him off again, tried to turn him toward the kitchen, but he was stronger than he appeared.

  Ira gestured to the ladders and the giant sheets of plastic. “You know, if she changes her mind, the wedding could still be tomorrow, and the reception guests are expecting to have full access to the manor. Can this be fixed in time?”

  Jayne Ella stopped. Chills crawled across her back and down her arms. A slight breeze blew, as if someone passed by.

  Ira didn’t look at Jayne Ella. Instead, his eyes searched the rest of the area until his head jerked back. He crossed his arms, uncomfortable. He must have sensed it, too.

  There was the feeling that they weren’t alone in the room, that someone was circling them, saying things, yelling, maybe, in a way that was felt and not heard.

  Jayne Ella wanted to tell it to leave, but there was no way to do that and sound sane. “Honey, I don’t even know what’s going through Peyton’s head right now—”

  The screen door squeaked and slammed.

  “Peyton?” Ira called.

  “Jayne Ella?” a voice called from the kitchen.

  She turned to find Austin coming toward her like the lead bull in a stampede. His rumpled navy blue golf shirt and wrinkled khakis told her he’d dashed out of the house quickly. He must have grabbed yesterday’s outfit off of the chair in his custom-made cherry closet, shoved his bare feet into boat shoes and sped to the manor directly. He knew her too well.

  He stopped short, his eyes narrowed at the ladders, the plastic sheets, and the white dust scattered on the hardwoods. He turned to her. Fury and paranoia glimmering in his eye, his face a mottled red and tan. All of her leaned away from him, even her vital organs seemed to cower.

  He pointed a finger in her direction. “I knew you were going to pull some trick like this. I knew it. Told myself you weren’t that stupid to do this behind my back—Who the hell are you?” Austin pointed at Ira.

  Ira’s chest swelled and he stepped toward Austin like he welcomed the fight. “I’m Dr. Ira Byrne. Who the hell are you?”

  “This is Peyton’s fiancé and he doesn’t know anything about the—” Jayne Ella nodded toward the area where they had buried the gold. “Repairs I worked on last night.” She placed a hand on Austin’s chest and backed him a step away from where Ira stood.

  Austin resisted.

  “He’s not involved,” she whispered.

  “Is he bothering you?” Ira asked Jayne Ella.

  “No, honey. You go on. I’ll call you in a few hours. Alright?”

  Ira reluctantly stepped away, eyeing Austin like the unwelcome guest he was.

  Austin studied her with a side-eye stare, his eyebrows low and mean.

  Another noise, like chairs crashing to the floor in the dining room. Low voices this time. Male voices.

  She gave Ira a little push and a pat and shut the door behind him.

  She didn’t stop to wonder if the noises in the house were burglars or volunteers that had snuck into the house. She didn’t care who they were. She just didn’t want anyone near the hole in the floor. But when she rounded the grand staircase she found Austin with a gun drawn and heading for the dining room. Another mistake.

  “Austin! What the hell are you doing?” she shout-whispered, hobbled toward him.

  “Who do you have back there?” He pointed to the dining room. “You brought in help to do this, didn’t you? They know, right?”

  “No! Put that thing away before you hurt somebody!” she said.

  Austin took aim with his gun, walked toward the dining room.

  Two people emerged, two men that she thought were long gone and dead.

  Austin cocked his gun.

  “Austin—no!” she screamed.

  Beau Spencer and Horace Miller extended their hands in front as if they could stop bullets.

  Austin gasped. “Beau?” He stared at him for a long moment, unbelieving. Then dropped the gun, it clattered on the hardwood floor. “Son! Oh my—” The two held one another. Father and son. Austin wailed like a baby.

  Jayne Ella pressed both hands to her chest. Was th
at really Beau?

  When he finally held him at arm’s length, he asked, “Where have you been?”

  “I’m—okay. I’m home now.”

  “What are you wearing?” Austin gestured to Beau’s suit.

  “I don’t even know how to explain.”

  Jayne Ella guided Horace away from the hole in the floor. No one else should know. Definitely not Horace because then Mrs. Miller would know.

  “Where’s Peyton?” Beau asked.

  Austin’s face fell. “Peyton?”

  “Horace?” Jayne Ella asked gently. “Where did you come from, honey? Where have you been?” She patted him on the back.

  His head shook, maybe not intentionally. He looked around the great hall as if someone had just dropped him in the middle of the manor, and he wasn’t sure how he got there.

  Glass shattered in a loud crash that made everyone gasp. Horace grabbed his chest.

  “Horace!” Mrs. Miller stood in the doorway with a collection of broken tintypes around her feet. Her two bony hands barely covering her open mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. “My Horace!”

  They staggered toward one another with outstretched arms. When they embraced, all Jayne Ella could think was that this was bad. So very bad. Too many of the wrong people in this area.

  She waved her arms to Austin, gesturing for him to help move everyone out of the area.

  He gave her a wide-eyed stare, the sudden return of his son was too much to comprehend. She waved her hands wildly, pointed to the hole she’d made in the floor. He snapped into action.

  “Everyone, let’s step into the kitchen. Get something to eat and talk. I want to know everything.” Austin had his professional voice on. The one he used when he needed to coax someone into doing something.

  “Beau—” Peyton stood at the entry to the dining room, her face flushed, her hair falling around her shoulders. She appeared fresh from a dream.

  “Peyton!” He left his father’s side and gathered her in his arms. He twirled her, held her close, kissed and kissed and kissed her until even Jayne Ella found tears on her cheeks.