The Dark Closet (11 page)

“The front parlor is awfully cold,” Lamerie
murmured. “Always was.”

“How c
an you tell? There hasn’t been heat in there for decades.”

“All of Wightefield is mine, not
Jake’s, but the front parlor belongs to someone else.”

“Too many stories,” Crossett said loudl
y as he folded the paper and slid it across the polished wooden floor. Its journey was ended by the obstruction of the door against which it landed with a light thump. He twisted around to look at Lamerie’s face framed by the white muslin pillow case. Her dark hair was breathtaking, her deep brown eyes like earthy pools stranded from a wooded stream, the lines of her jaw and cheeks as finely chiseled as that which the winds fashion on the rocky face of a cliff with the temperance of time. He drew her bare body to his beneath the heavy woolen blankets. It was too bad Lamerie did not have the money. But she did have the name, and that was important.

She was suitable as a mistress.

“You’ll be interested to see this,” Twynne smiled as he handed the newspaper to Crossett who was stepping back to let Anne enter first. The flickering twinkle in Twynne’s eyes did not escape Crossett as Twynne raised the folded newspaper to hail a friend walking up the icy path to his door.

“You’
re mighty brave to go through with this anyway, despite the weather,” laughed the newcomer.

Twynne
waved a hand. “No trouble a ‘tall,” he replied smiling broadly.

“But
how does Maragret feel about it? Someone further back in the line of new arrivals called.

“You know Maragret. She loves a party!”

The statement was not entirely true. While she loved a party as much as anyone, she was not partial to holding one in the dead of winter after the second worse snowstorm of the century. It posed all kinds of problems. Where the guests would park was a monumental one. Usually a section of the post-and-rail fence of the nearest fallow field was taken down to admit cars, and the rolling hills undulated with reflective chrome and questing antennas. In the snow there was no problem with removing a section of fence, but while the cars might get in, there was no guarantee that they could get out. So the cars were parked all up and down the half-mile driveway, their antennas tentatively examining the icy nodules frozen to the brittle needles of the elephantine pines lining the drive.

“Someone’s going to get stuck,
Twynne,” another jovially said as he stamped the snow from his heavy, black rubber boots before stepping over the wooden threshold onto the Oriental runner.

Maragret had fled to the kitchen to seek solace among the boiling
pots and smoking hors d’oeuvres of the caterer. His hustle and bustle was a comfort. The chattering and intermittent impatient orders of first this one and then that among the corps of caterers were more soothing to her nerves than the deep drone of conversation swelling up in the library, hall, and parlors. Twynne’s insistence on having the party—regardless of whether they had regained their current only two weeks before and whether all the party food purchased prior had spoiled—had kept her in a state of anxiety since he had decreed that the fete would be held as planned. One of the caterer’s trucks had gotten mired in the driveway on its way up, and they had spent the afternoon shoveling gravel beneath its enormous rear wheels in an attempt to free it. Finally, a tow from the tractor pulled it loose enough to send its rubber wheels whining along the slick, packed snow of the drive. After that, one of the caterers slipped on a gelid patch along the walk to the kitchen, along which the procession marched with large aluminum trays of prepared foods, their metal so whitely silver on so lactescent a cloudy day they could scarcely be distinguished from the snow when set down upon it. The injured caterer had to be carried inside and laid to rest on a sofa in one of the parlors before first aid could determine if a bona fide sprain had been perpetrated. Once the young woman acquiesced to stand on the injured limb, everyone sighed with relief when she announced she could put her full weight upon it.

Then there were not enough silver forks, though Maragret cou
ld not figure out why since she had laid out the twelve full sets herself and there should have been plenty and more. Luckily, the caterer had brought some of his own, but she did not see hers among them, although she looked very carefully. The next mishap involved the monteith punch bowl, which showed up with an ugly scratch along its softly polished side. No one confessed.

The
n the silver chocolate pot fairly evaporated on its own leaving behind only its gleaming stirring rod. It later rematerialized in an upstairs bathroom where a server had gone to rinse it out because she could not get near the kitchen sink.

In
the height of comestible preparations, the gutter along one side of the house gave final way under the weight of the water frozen in its flume. The wrenching creak that ensued as it twisted to its descent sent every coal-black eye in the kitchen to the ceiling with a breathless hush and served to resurrect stories of attic and stairwell ghosts roaming about Forster’s Choice, slaking their eternal thirst in the gutters and pipes of the family estate. The caterers whispered among themselves for the rest of the afternoon, casting furtive glances at Maragret as she frantically telephoned Barrow, Walsall, and Taunton gutter services. As dusk fell and shadows elongated from the corners of rooms into their more central parts, the servers grew more reluctant to set up the bars and place the bowls of nuts and crackers until Maragret, sensing their unwillingness, went around flipping switches and pulling copper lamp chains.

“A perfect night for a
party, Twynne! Just what the doctor ordered,” bellowed Judge Winthrope as he escorted his wife to the wide, heavily-paneled front door. “We’ve all been cooped up like chickens for too long! I for one am ready for some Southern Maryland hospitality!”

“You will find
it here,” Twynne said confidently as he bowed slightly, his pipe parked between his teeth.

“What
is this?” Crossett asked as he finally made his entrance after holding the door for several people. He waved the paper slightly at Twynne.

“Get a drink,
Crossett and find a chair in the library,” he smiled.

“What
would you like?” Crossett asked as he tapped Anne, who was engaged in conversation.

“
Oh, a bourbon and soda, I think,” she replied.

“
And you, Laura? Can I get you something?”

“Why, thank you,
Crossett, but John has already gone to the bar. You’ll probably meet him there.”

Each of the bars boasted a
line as the guests continued to arrive. At the bar closest to the fireplace, the smell of bourbon clung to the warm air. The bartender stood at attention with each request, producing water and mixers and ice that clattered into glasses as liquids swirled around them. The din began to rise as the house filled up, the smoke settled into a kind of mist that enveloped the crowd, the odor of tobacco competing with that of the liquor. Women in black shirt waist dresses and white chiffon aprons pinned about the neck at their square tops and tied about the waist came through with silver monogrammed butlers to collect the ashes and expended cigarettes piling up in the china, silver, brass, and glass ash trays on nearly every surface. Bowls of nuts were within reach of every guest and trays of melted cheese on flavored squares of bread bobbed above the chattering crowd supported by brown hands slipped through black waistcoats.

Crossett finally sat down in one of the huge leather wi
ng-back chairs in the library, oblivious to the humming crowd as he sipped his Manhattan and prepared to open the folded paper now upon his lap. He pulled out his cigarette case and lighter and puffed until the end of the cigarette glowed ocher with his inhalations. He opened the paper.

He
did not bother to read the article. The headline was enough.

“Twynne!” he bellowed not noticing for a few
minutes the curious stares he had aroused already by sitting in the midst of a party reading a newspaper. Realizing he could not call for Twynne again, he abandoned both his drink and his cigarette to struggle through the crowd in search of the host.

“Twynne!
”he said peremptorily as he strode up to his friend’s back. Twynne turned expectantly.

“Got to talk to you.” He continued
pulling Twynne away. “What the hell is this?”

“There’s no reas
on to be secretive,” Twynne smiled affably, warmed by his cocktails. “Everyone in Barrow has seen it but you, apparently.” The ice in his glass tinkled as he turned it up to drain it.

“This is abominable. Are
you responsible for this?”

“Me?” Twynne answered incredulously, hi
s face suddenly animated with surprise.

“You’re the only one I told about that…that…whatever it was.” He rubbed his eyes roughly with the fingers of one hand. He felt a powerful headache coming on.

“I never proposed it was the Wighte ghost,” Twynne said defensively.

“You’re the one so full of ghosts and The Rambler. What did you do? Call him up?”

“Certainly not, Crossett. Besides, no one knows who he is.”

“Nobody but you.”

“You are mistaken, Crossett,” Twynne said, drawing himself up and assuming a haughty air. “You are accusing me of betrayal—“

“It wouldn’t be the first time—“

“—of a close friend—“

“—you decided to have a little fun—“

‘—in the most—“

“—with me by—“

“You’re yelling, Crossett. What
are
you talking about?”

“—locking me in closets!”

“
What? That’s ancient history
!”

“History, yes. But
not ancient!”

The two men
stood glowering at one another. A little space had grown around them where the crowd had come to recognize the perimeters of their association.

“It’s just a
newspaper article, Crossett—‘

“It makes a
mockery of Winterhurst!”

“Call the
paper tomorrow. Prosecute. Do what you have to but don’t ruin my party. I haven’t given one in months. Have another drink, Crossett, a cigarette, some fresh air …” Twynne led Crossett out the main hall toward a side door. The cold air paralyzed the smoke from his cigarette as he sighed over and over.

“This is ridiculous publicity. This is the kind of publicity
that invites burglars and thieves. I do not believe in putting Winterhurst on the map, not on tours and not through newspaper articles. All the times that paper wanted to do articles on Winterhurst and its history and all the times I refused and this,” he said waving the paper emphatically in the air,” is what finally goes in there. It’s a disgrace!”

He flung the paper down at Twynne’s feet where it lapped open in the frosty breeze: “Wighte Ghost Moves to Winterhurst” blared the headline of The Rambler’s
latest article.

Crossett groped for the ringing telephone, vaguely aware that he had experienced a period of oblivion akin to sleep. It was more by instinct than anything else that he raised his arm heavily from
beneath the wool blankets to knock around the bedside table until his hand found the receiver.

“Mr. Mainwaring?” a male voice inquired. It sounded to Crossett as if the man were
speaking from the other end of a tunnel.

“Ye----e-e-s,” Crossett drawled as he slunk beneath the covers with the receiver, eyes still closed.

“Mr. Mainwaring, I’m calling from the
Baltimore Herald
. How are you, sir?”

“A little slee—“

“That’s good. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, Mr. Mainwaring. We’ve been keeping an eye on your local papers there and it seems there’s something of a, uh, well, a mystery there in Barrow. I understand there are many prominent  families in Barrow and I know many of them serve in the state legislature and even Congress—“

“Excuse me—“

“—in fact, the Mainwaring name is a very prominent one.”

“Thank you, but—“

“So naturally when it began cropping up in your local papers, we took note of it. I believe a Mainwaring was instrumentally involved in the defense of Baltimore in the War of 1812?”

“
Yes, but–“

“We’d like to d
o a feature article on your family and the estate there.”

“No, I don’t—“

“The estate was part of the original 1632 charter to Lord Baltimore from Charles I, was it not? And many others in Barrow among them, including Wightefield? There has been some connection between the Mainwarings and the Wightefields, I believe. Wasn’t Christopher John Mainwaring IV reputed to be in love with Mrs. Robert Wighte and after her tragic demise at the hands of Union soldiers purchased a trusted slave of hers named Azzie?”

“Well, I believ—“

“This slave, Azzie—did he indeed buy her to find out where the Wighte family silver and emerald necklace had been hidden? I understand a trusted slave was often given the job of burying family silver. By the way, do the Mainwarings have any silver from Wightefield? You have a mantel from the front parlor, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, there are a lot of items from the older houses in the area at Winterhurst, aren’t there?”

“Who is this?”

“As I said, I work for the
Baltimore Her
a
ld
. So tell me, Mr. Mainwaring, is it true that your ancestor Christopher John Mainwaring IV found this Wighte necklace we’re hearing so much about and had it broken down into smaller pieces of jewelry? Mr. Mainwaring? Are you there, sir?”

“Who the hell are you? Where did you get this nonsense?”

“Mr. Mainwaring, I understand that you keep some of these smaller pieces from the original emerald necklace in a lock box at the Willard Bank.”

Crossett had
his covers completely thrown off now and was sitting up on the edge of the bed, hovering over the telephone like the black cloud of a summer storm.

“I
want your name—“

“I told
you. I work for the
Balti
—”

“I don’t
care who the hell you work for! If I see any of this garbage in print in any newspaper in the Washington/Baltimore area, I’ll sue you and your paper for every penny you’ve got! And I don’t need your name to do it—“ He heard the receiver on the other end rattle into its cradle, a brief silence followed, and then the hum of the disconnection began.

Ever since Twynne’s party, Crossett’s
patience had worn so bare it covered his agitation like the thinnest of skins. Nearly everyone he knew was commenting on his ill humor these days, asking Anne if he had a medical complaint, speculating if their marriage was going awry. The gossip about him and Anne had fanned out with The Rambler’s newspaper article to include the estate at large and anyone that had once abided there. Nasty and long-forgotten tales of Mainwaring ancestry were surfacing at dinner parties and bridge parties and cocktail parties, in bank lines and in lawyers offices and in church pews, at weddings and at funerals. The gossip was fueling the conversation from beneath the hairdryers at Marie’s Country Coiffure and in the aisles of the local Safeway and Five-and-Dime. All facets of Barrow life had been successfully permeated as if by the tenacious vapor from a glowing cigarette.

The f
avorite topic was the sleeping habits of Christopher John Mainwaring IV, whose lordly impertinent gaze met Crossett every morning on his way to breakfast as if to challenge the scandal mongering. Christopher John’s handwritten list of slaves hovered like a specter over the deteriorating cellar highboy, the designated and official repository of all Mainwaring papers and, therefore, history. The sheet was in great demand: Two local papers had asked to photograph it for articles. The fireworks from Crossett the requests engendered had been so breathtaking and this reminder of the eminence of the Mainwaring name so blistering that no article appeared in either paper. Even Twynne had expressed a desire to see the indicting document, a request that sent Crossett into such exquisite paroxysms of rage, even he withdrew the petition.

And th
at ridiculous death bed proclamation concerning his excesses—Crossett winced to think of it, so outlandish was it, so unbecoming of one from as noble and prominent a family as Mainwaring. He had stood before the oiled portrait that morning, staring into the liquid brown eyes he knew he had inherited, the full lips that matched his own, remembering vaguely Anne’s exclamation when first she came to visit at Winterhurst—

“My
goodness! You look exactly like him, Crossett! Isn’t it amazing how traits can be passed down like that from generations before…”

He had
felt only exasperation at being compared to so tarnished an ancestor.

Now ever
yone wanted to know if Christopher John had made good on his promise to hover in the middle ground between life and death long enough to reclaim what he had considered his property. Christopher John’s propensity for his female slaves was so well known that at times everyone had assumed he was speaking of a runaway named Azzie, who had once belonged to the Wightes, had co-habited with Christopher John in a gray and questionable position and appeared on the coveted list of slaves. Azzie herself swore Christopher John meant her former mistress, Lamerie Tailler Wighte, but all of Barrow then and now was inclined to believe Christopher John was referring to the escaped slave.

Oh,
the fireworks, the pacing rages up and down the halls of Winterhurst! It threw into question his own integrity. It was as if he had to answer for Christopher John’s indiscretions and transgressions, as if he were Christopher John himself who was tolerated in life but indicted in death, as if as his descendant he was to take the stand in his stead. Crossett knew nothing of his ancestor’s amors except the rumors all of Barrow knew. There was certainly no information on them in the family archives, just the blotted thinning piece of paper bearing Azzie’s name in Christopher John’s handwriting. As if that were enough to prosecute them all!

The contents
of Winterhurst were becoming a source of intense interest in Walsall and Barrow. Someone had even tried to get a list of the separately insured items at Winterhurst from Crossett’s insurance company and the number of his safe deposit box from the bank. The countryside fairly hummed with speculation on any unmonogrammed silver at Winterhurst that belonged at Wightefield.

It w
as both shameless and shameful. He could only hope at this point that the novelty of it would eventually wear off, thus removing the spotlight from Winterhurst, at least by the time Maude and Sophie were of marriageable age. A groan escaped his clamped mouth. This was just the kind of thing that could lead to social ostracism spanning the generations. How well he knew! Would not Lamerie have been his wife except for the misfortune of her past, which made her unsuitable as the mistress of Winterhurst?

“Take the whole damn thing off!” he
bellowed at Jake Hawkins several hours later as the two of them stood at the top of Winterhurst’s handsome front staircase. “Never mind the damn stairs now! Remove the mantel, the whole blasted thing!”

Jake
stood in bewilderment at he top of the stairs, a state of mind foreign to him. He had been hired by Mrs. Mainwaring to look at the stairs, but no sooner had he arrived at the top of them than Mr. Mainwaring had ordered him to yank the mantel off the fireplace in the library, not necessarily a peculiar request for the ever-remodeling denizens of Barrow, but Jake was not accustomed to being ordered about in quite that manner. Jake Hawkins was more or less a fixture in Barrow. If anyone wanted any work done on the home at their family estate, they called Walsall Home Improvement and requested Jake. Thirty years ago they called for his father, George Hawkins. Now they called for him. George had known every inch of some of the finest houses in Barrow and had passed that knowledge on to his son, wherein lay a large percentage of Walsall Home Improvment’s profits: It had learned to cater to the whims of Barrow’s offspring in exchange for their patronage. Assorted jobs in Barrow kept Jake busy full-time, year-round.

He was not, however, fond
of doing work for Crossett Mainwaring, so he was always relieved when it was Mrs. Mainwaring who called. She was polite and patient, but Crossett had an edge to him that only rankled Jake and so he walked on thin ice with Crossett because the Mainwaring  name was the most honored of all. Simply put, he did not want to lose Crossett’s business and he certainly didn’t want to tarnish his own name as being ill-humored. Crossett was too peremptory in his requests and so they bordered on orders. He cut checks rather than wrote them. He was sparing in his verbal praises, and so sometimes Jake did wonder with a leap of his stomach what Crossett might report about him to his neighbors on whose business he relied.

Cro
ssett had little love for Jake as well. He had seen on Lamerie the marks of struggle and defense. He had seen the miserable little apartment in which she and he lived, so small she was forced always to be in his company. And Jake watched her like a hawk.

But he held a
trump card: his own wife born and bred Barrowonian with the papers to prove it, who elevated his own position considerably. Actually, the idea had come to him rather suddenly. It was not something he had mulled over for some time, not something engendered from thought and study. It had bowled him over one spring afternoon right there at Winterhurst as he was papering a bedroom with wallpaper Mr. Mainwaring had brought from another old house in the area. Why not? He had thought. Why not, indeed? He knew of her, had passed by the ruins of Wightefield like everyone else as he traveled the narrow, paved roads of the perimeters of Barrow, snaking in his truck through the sprawling tobacco fields of Barrow’s many estates. Wightefield. An emblem of ruin. A symbol of the dissipation of an old family. But still useful. It was also, ironically, a totem of wealth and position even in its consumption. Not only that, it was accessible through the daughter to whom the house would inevitably go in due time as the last living relative. It was perfect, it was easy, and before even he knew it, it was done. Lamerie proved as vulnerable as the final and singular genealogical link that passed the house at Wightefield along to her.

“I want to
see what’s behind it,” Crossett was saying as he bounded down the stairs, leaving Jake standing uncertainly at the top.

It was just as Crossett’
s foot settled on the centermost step of the staircase that he felt it. Instinctively, he turned to look up at Jake as he stepped on the second step and had time only to hold his hand up like a policeman at a stop light. And indeed it was as if they were at a stop light, as if it were not the appropriate moment to ascend the stairs from that particular step upon which Jake’s foot rested. It was not, it occurred to Crossett, the first step about which they should have worried, but the second, guarded by the impressive painting of Christopher Mainwaring and somehow compromised. It was, in effect, Christopher’s step to do with as he pleased. He was accustomed to that, doing as he pleased, and the bargain was that, even though he had passed into ancestorship, he had dominion over this one step in all of Winterhurst.

Crossett’s flailing
was, however, enough to catch Jake, despite Christopher who for once had been robbed of his dominion over the second step.

“I
shall have to look into this,” Christopher said repositioning himself slightly on the red settee.

Jake’s
arms began to flail objectless in front of him and his sense of balance to dissipate. Crossett moved faster than he would ever have thought he could, but he had the notion that something was too soon and that his placement at the center of the staircase was contrived at some expense so that he would be within reachable distance of Jake. Even if he could not reach him, he realized he could certainly break what had all the potential of a fatal fall.

The tw
o men locked arms, embracing each other like brothers after a long separation, finally grunting from the impact of each of their bodies against the other. Backward they stepped down almost dance-like in the flowering of a second before Crossett regained a sense of balance and held Jake in place for a long enough time to grab the corner of Christopher John Mainwaring IV’s gilded fame. The heavy portrait swung aside as if disgruntled at being pressed into the role of savior a second time but held its wire singing along the nail that kept Christopher John pinned to the staircase with his long-deceased relatives.