Emily's Ghost (18 page)

"We've had it for two
years," Maria said in her strangely faraway voice. "We bought it
from a man who'd spent the previous five years working on the main
floor restoring the entry hail and living rooms. He ran out of
money and, perhaps, out of heart. Later he bought a
condo."

She stopped and gestured
rather vaguely around her, while Emily took in the sheer
magnificence of the place. From the central core where they were
standing she looked up at soaring open arches trimmed in serpentine
carving that supported the third story. The effect was of a Gothic
cathedral. Emily slid her fingers over the sensuous, gleaming wood
paneling.

"All the wood was stripped
of paint, sanded, oiled, and hand-rubbed by the owner," Maria said
with a sigh, as if she were reciting a very difficult
lesson.

Somehow she made Emily
feel reluctant to ask questions. The phone rang, Maria went over to
a small reception desk to answer it, and Emily was left alone to
apply what bits and pieces of history she'd been able to gather on
her own.

She knew that John Talbot,
the mill owner who'd built the new manor, had had two children: his
daughter Hessiah and a son, Stewart, who was four years older than
his sister. The house apparently was built to please Talbot's wife
Celeste, a Frenchwoman who was homesick for the grand cathedrals of
her country. Celeste scarcely had time to enjoy the house; she died
in a riding accident. John Talbot never remarried. Emily had no
idea who'd brought up the two children; from the accounts of the
trial she deduced that a series of wet nurses, governesses, and
housekeepers had come and gone. She wondered why the turnover was
so high. Did the problem lie with the master, his children, or the
help?

While Emily was peeking
into the open door of the drawing room, Maria returned and said in
her trancelike voice, "All the antiques were left by the previous
owner, who furnished each of the downstairs rooms as soon as he
finished
it.
The
brocade love seats and the inlaid gaming table actually belonged to
John Talbot. Most of the other pieces were bought
locally."

Emily said, "And you have
eight guest rooms?"

"Yes. When my husband is
finished, we'll have twelve, not counting the tower."

"Would it be possible to
see any of them? I'm very interested in the history of Talbot
Manor, as Mrs. Gibbs mentioned on the phone. I'm, ah, doing a piece
on historic houses in Newarth."

"How nice," Maria said
vaguely. "But there isn't much history except for someone being
killed once in a burglary. In the early 1970's
it
passed on to someone who
rented
it
out to
some sort of religious commune, and then one winter all the pipes
froze and there was a lot of damage, and after that the man we
bought
it
from
began but never finished his restoration. But
if
you're curious..." she said,
inviting Emily to precede her up the beautiful curved
staircase.

It seemed intensely ironic
to Emily that Maria Salva was so uninterested in the house's
original inhabitants.
She
saw Talbots, old and young, everywhere: sliding
down the curved ebony banister; playing a good rubber of long whist
on Thursday nights; curled up with a Pekingese on the velvet-tufted
window seat that looked out on the morning sunrise; brooding over a
meerschaum pipe in the library; decorating the staircase with
garlands for the annual Christmas ball; flirting in a discreet
corner of the drawing room.

But then they reached the
second floor, and it was as if the Talbots and their Victorian
lifestyle had been suddenly drywalled from view. Frank Salva had
converted the entire floor into a warren of dull square rooms, each
neatly papered with the same beige print, each fitted out with an
identical reproduction bed, bureau, horse print, and brass-plated
lamp. Each floor was covered, like the hall, in industrial-strength
beige carpet, and each window hidden under beige miniblinds and
brown drapes. Every room -- it was true -- had been provided with
its own bath. No one had to share. It was all very clean, very
neat, very...

"Is the third floor the
same?" asked Emily, depressed. It would be impossible to learn
anything about Hessiah Talbot here.

"Half of
it
is. The other half is
gutted. My husband works nights and weekends on
it,
but
it'
s slow going, as you can
imagine."

"And the
tower?"

The dreamy look on Maria
Salva's face turned wary. "The tower is just as we found it. My
husband says
it
will be very expensive to plumb because of the asbestos
everywhere that has to be removed first. It's too far from the flow
of traffic, and
it'
s very cold in winter. What we do with the tower depends on
how successful we are at renting rooms in the rest of the house. At
the moment the first two floors of the tower are empty. The third
is pretty much as we found it, a storage place for discarded
furniture." She looked exhausted, as though she wished the
conversation to be at an end.

"May I see
it?"
Emily asked in a
cheerfully oblivious voice.

Maria smiled faintly.
"There isn't much to see."

"I'd
love
to mention
it
in the article."

"Very well," Maria said
with one of her breathless sighs. She took Emily up to the third
floor. "The tower had its own stairs from the lower rooms, but
they're in disrepair and unusable. For now this is the only route,"
she explained, leading Emily through a newly installed door that
opened directly into the top floor of the tower.

The inside of the tower
was much larger than
it
appeared from the shaded glimpse Emily had caught
from the street. A worn and faded Persian rug that curled up
against the walls and a four-poster bed, still draped in torn
velvet, dominated the room. The walls were papered in a Venetian
water scene that was peeling off in long, shredded strips. Evidence
of water damage was everywhere. A jumble of broken furniture --
three-legged chairs, small warped tables, drawerless bed stands and
a set of carved Oriental screens -- made walking around difficult.
From where they stood, the view once must have been wonderful. But
today they looked out at a sea of black rooftops and utility poles
and, beyond them, eight lanes of east-west highway
traffic.

Maria flipped on the
light. A single bulb flickered and went out. It
didn'
t
matter;
the room was bright with sunshine. Emily made ooh-and-ah chitchat
about the furniture, edging her way deliberately toward an
enormous, battered slant-top desk buried under piles of
papers.
Talbot papers?
She lined herself up behind the Oriental screens and said,
"What a striking view," while she scanned one or two of the piles.
Nothing. Just utility bills made out to people she didn't know and
old typewritten theses on subjects she didn't care about. It was
all too recent to be of use. But the desk had three large,
half-open drawers bursting with papers, and she wasn't leaving
without a peek.

She was in the process of
sliding out the top drawer when Maria Salva suddenly said, "I think
we ought to go now." Her voice was anxious, almost
angry.

"I'm sorry. I'm holding
you up," Emily said, and promptly crawled out from behind the
piled-high furniture. "Was this
John
Talbot's room?" she asked
casually.

"I doubt it. His must have
been on the first floor. Perhaps this was the nursery." Maria
surveyed the room and added, "When we first bought the place, we
found some small ... bones ... in this room, and strange,
ritualistic objects. It seemed ... ungodly."

"Maybe the religious group
that rented the place was really a witches' coven," Emily said,
peering out the casement window at the grounds below. "Well, Maria,
thank you for the tour. For goodness' sake, there's Mrs. Gibbs
turning away from the front door!" Emily swung open the window and
greeted the librarian. "We're coming right down!"

Mrs. Gibbs looked up and
waved, and in a moment they were all together in the drawing room
and Mrs. Gibbs was saying, "I phoned, but no one answered, so it
seemed just as easy to pop over. Won't you both come to dinner
tonight? Emily got me started thinking about an idea for Talbot
Manor, Maria. Frank -- even Frank -- will like this
one."

Maria smiled her vague
smile and said, "Frank is away tonight, Mrs. Gibbs. I have to be
here at the desk."

"Oh, dear. And I have such
a wonderful stew in the Crockpot -- all right, here's what to do.
I'll bring it over here!" the librarian said. "What do you think of
that?"

Probably
not much,
Emily
thought.

But Maria smiled limply
and agreed to let herself be drafted as hostess. She was so very
passive. Emily had a sudden flash of Fergus being forced to work
with Maria Salva instead of with her. It'd serve the chauvinist
right.

The thought made her
smile, until she remembered Fergus's faintheartedness at the front
door. Of all the ones to get weak-kneed at the scene of a crime,
she wouldn't have expected it of him. If she looked at it another
way, she could make the case for Fergus's looking pretty darn
guilty as he fled. It was a troubling thought.

****

Dinner was a success.
Maria set a lovely table in the ornately paneled dining room,, with
lace and candlelight. One or two of the guests peeked brazenly
around the corner, but for the most part Maria Emily and Mrs. Gibbs
were left in peace to enjoy the librarian's Crockpot of Secret
Stew. They finished one bottle of burgundy, then opened
another.

The talk during dinner had
focused mostly on the hard times Newarth was having. Mrs. Gibbs had
very precise opinions on how to turn around the Massachusetts
economy. "As for Talbot Manor, there's an obvious way to double
your business," she was insisting to Maria. "Cut your price in
half!"

Maria went off into gales
of tipsy laughter, and Mrs. Gibbs said, "No, my dear, it's not as
wild as it sounds. Lots of B and B customers are repeat customers,
so
it'
s money
well spent
if
you
introduce them to Talbot Manor with two-for-one weeknights. You
won't have any more laundry than for one night, and an extra
doughnut and coffee are no big thing. You must do whatever it takes
to get them in here," she said, rapping her knuckles emphatically
on the dining table.

Maria rested her cheek on
her hand and twisted the stem of her glass dreamily. "Oh,
I
know what it takes to
get them in here," she murmured, staring into the rich red liquid.
"You think I don't, but I do. I could get them here tomorrow. With
just one... little ... word."

Emily felt the hair on the
back of her neck stand up. She leaned on her forearms
confidentially and stared into the bottomless depths of Maria's
dark eyes "What little word is that, Maria?"

Maria shook her head so
vehemently that her long black hair whipped around the front of her
face "So that you can print it?" she demanded, throwing her head
back and laughing. "Oh, no.
My
secret. Mine alone. Not even Frank, dear ... old
... Frank..."

Mrs. Gibbs topped off
Maria's glass. "Maria, if you have a brilliant idea, share it with
us. It may need tweaking."

But Maria shook her head
again and laughed. She stood up abruptly. "Time to tear the clable
-- clear the table," she corrected with a puzzled frown. And then
she laughed again, nervously this time, as if she no longer knew or
trusted herself She reached for her wineglass but knocked it down
instead, sending burgundy flying across the lace tablecloth and
into Emily's lap. "Oh, no!" Maria cried, horrified. "Your silk
blouse!"

"Not silk at all," Emily
said reassuringly. "Plain old wash-and-wear."

"Let me wash it for you,
then," Maria begged.

Emily demurred, but Maria
was so distressed that finally she gave in. Maria went off to find
her something to wear, and Mrs. Gibbs murmured, "Poor child. I
don
't
think she's
used to spirits."

"I wonder," Emily said
dryly.

Her own mind had become a
little dulled by wine, but
not
enough to stop an idea from bubbling up in the
last few minutes. She must stay the night. It was the only way to
look at the three drawers in the slant top desk. Frank Salva was
away, and Maria obviously would sleep soundly after the wine. There
were very few guests, the third-floor rooms were empty. The coast
was as clear as
it
was going to get.

It would, of course, be
simpler to come right out and ask Maria for permission to rummage
through the desk. But whenever Emily brought up either the Talbots
or the tower that afternoon, Maria had turned her resolutely aside.
The subjects were off limits. Emily wanted to know why.