The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House Page 6

  “A what?” Nora echoed. “That’s nothin’ I ever heard of. Sure’n you must live a long ways from here. Now get into that bed there.” She pointed to a small iron bedstead against the wall, piled high with blankets and a fat quilt. “It’s nice to lie in the dark and watch them flames in that stove makin’ things come onto the walls.”

  Maureen slid into the bed and shivered. The sheets were so cold!

  “Here’s yer pig,” Nora said, laughing and watching her. Then she slid something between the sheets at the foot of the bed. It was a flat jug of hot water, stoppered tightly with cork and wrapped in a piece of flannel. Against Maureen’s feet, it felt so warm and cozy.

  “Look at yez.” Nora laughed again. “One would think ye’d never even seen a pig before. I wonder where you come from, sure?”

  Then she blew out the candle, set the candlestick on the top of a small chest, and went to the door.

  “Don’t go.” Maureen sat up in the bed. “Stay here.”

  The flames from the little stove were dancing shapes up and down the walls. It was a whispering kind of a room now. Maybe that was why Nora whispered as she stole back to the bed and gently pushed Maureen down onto the pillow. “Don’t mind them,” she whispered. “Stick close to the mother and father. They’re the good ones.” She smoothed her hair, kissed her forehead, and left the room.

  Maureen lay in the little bed and watched the firelight from the stove dancing on the walls. Through the window she could see white stars outside. Where was she? How could she have got lost—so far—and found herself in a house with gaslight, candles, stoves like this, horses in a stable, no television, no telephone? Telephone! They must have a telephone. Everybody had a telephone. Why hadn’t she said right away, “Call my dad. Our number is 345-1212.”

  She jumped out of bed. She’d call him now. He’d come for her in their car. He’d be cross at her for not phoning before. Then she remembered why she hadn’t told them to phone.

  She had meant to say it when she heard them say “tomorrow,” but the voice up the stairs whispering “Give me my bracelet” had frightened her so she’d forgotten.

  No, it was before that she first became uneasy—when the seven daughters told their names at the dinner table. The uneasiness came over her again now. How could they have the same names as the pictures in the upstairs hall of the Old Messerman Place?

  Then she smiled. It was a dream. She was dreaming it all. She would go back to bed and when she woke up she would hear the television downstairs or the radio blaring in the breakfast nook in the kitchen or Henry and Diane arguing. She smiled again and got back into bed.

  When her feet touched the warm “pig” she jumped out again. How could you dream about things you’d never seen or heard about? Not even on TV or in the movies or books? There must be a telephone.

  Looking out of the door, she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. She found a box of matches beside the candlestick, lit the candle, and held it firmly. In its light she could now see a narrow hall and steps going down into the kitchen.

  The phone at home was in the kitchen. She went slowly, quietly down the steps, came to a small hall with two doors, opened one, and found herself in a large, wide hallway with doors like a hotel hall. The carpet was thick under her bare feet. This wasn’t the way to the kitchen. She had opened the wrong door. This led to the wide front staircase with the banister and the landing with the lace curtains and the clock.

  Then she heard a murmur of voices. Somebody else was up. The voices were low and sweet. The mother and father talking together somewhere.

  Peeking around the corner of the wall at the stairs, she almost dropped the candlestick. At first it looked like a crowd of ghosts on the landing. There was a rush of cold air. The sisters, in long white gowns, were gathered by the open window looking out and talking to somebody outside. They were saying softly, “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”

  Who could they be talking to, leaning over, heads lowered?

  She couldn’t see. Then she heard wings flapping and saw something flutter down. Pigeons! The sisters were talking to a flock of pigeons on the sill of the window at the landing.

  A door opened down the hall. Voices rang out. Maureen stepped back, blew out her candle, and waited.

  Two candles flickered at the other end of the long wide hall. The father and mother were coming. She was in a long nightgown with sleeves and ruffles, a cap on her head. He was in a long nightshirt, with a cap on his head, which flipped over to one side. They looked like a picture she had once seen in a book of “The night before Christmas and all through the house—”

  The seven sisters clustered together on the landing raised their eyes to their parents, who were looking so surprised at the top of the stairs.

  “Girls,” asked their father, “what are you doing up out of your beds at night?”

  Ingrid answered, “We got up to get ourselves a drink of water, Papa.”

  “We are so sorry we disturbed your rest,” added Lucrece. “Aren’t we, sisters?”

  The sisters all said in a chorus, “So sorry, dear Papa and dear Mama.”

  “You’ll catch cold,” the mother said, worried. “Go back to your beds.”

  “Nora should have put pitchers of water in their rooms,” the father grumbled. “They must not wander around the house at night.”

  The seven sisters filed up the stairs. Each one raised on tiptoe, kissed her father’s cheek, then her mother’s. “Good night, dear Mama. Good night, dear Papa.”

  As each went into her bedroom, she turned, blew a kiss, and closed the door.

  “Charming.” The big man put an arm around his wife. “Charming girls even if they did wake us up.”

  The mother frowned. “Charming, yes—but sometimes—”

  “Sometimes—what?” His voice was gruff, as though he were a little cross with her.

  “Sometimes they can be heartless. They were with the little lost girl when she played chopsticks.”

  “Nonsense.” The father did not like this. “They’re young and thoughtless, maybe—but heartless, never. Come back to bed.”

  Maureen watched the two candles moving down the hallway. She heard a door close. She was in darkness now except for the light from the landing window, pale and cold as it flowed down the broad staircase like a waterfall, swallowed up by the darkness of the hall downstairs. She felt cold and lonely as she crept toward the stairs.

  The sound of voices from behind a bedroom door stopped her and she ran back down the hallway. They were coming out again, she knew, to talk to the pigeons. Feeling her way along the wall, she came to a door, opened it, and found herself in the little hall of the back stairs. She crept up to the room with the little stove. As she turned the knob, a voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  A fat woman in a nightgown and cap was sitting up in the little bed, her hand over her mouth. “Oh, it’s you,” she scolded. “Your room’s the one next door. Go back to bed.”

  It was the cook, Lizzie. Maureen had met her in the kitchen before dinner, and she was so mad. It made Maureen feel much better. Even though she wasn’t home, when people scolded her she felt at home. She got into the bed and her feet felt for the pig. It was not warm now. As she laid her head down on the pillow and pulled the covers up tightly over her head, she told herself she didn’t know where she was or how she got there but she was sure now—it wasn’t a dream and she would find a telephone somewhere tomorrow.

  HOW TO GET HOME AGAIN

  The next morning, when Maureen woke up and looked around, the fire had gone out in the potbellied stove in the corner. She shivered. The stove looked dreary and forgotten. Last night it had seemed so cheerful and happy, blazing away with the flames behind the window Nora had called isinglass. Now she noticed that it sat on a square piece of painted tin, and that cold ashes had spilled out of a small iron door near the bottom of the stove itself onto the tin square. She remembered, in a flash, everything from the night before. Those crazy girls talking t
o pigeons when she went to look for a telephone. Telephone! She’d better find one quickly. Her mother and father would be so mad!

  Why didn’t you call? Where were you? We waited dinner. We went all over the neighborhood calling you.

  She could hear herself telling them, It was a big house with lots of people. They have horses, but no car. They never heard of Beach Street. They made me stay.

  She knew she wouldn’t say this. She would shout, I don’t know. Leave me alone. You blame me for everything.

  The door opened and Nora stood there grinning. “What’s all the shoutin’. Ye’ll wake the dead.”

  “Where’s the telephone?” Maureen jumped out of bed. The floor beneath her feet was icy cold.

  “Where’s the what?” Nora looked puzzled.

  “You know—the telephone,” Maureen repeated patiently. “Telephone! You know, where you think of somebody and then dial a number and pretty soon the person you dialed says ‘hello’ right in your ear.”

  Nora was staring at her, shaking her head slowly back and forth. “I never seen nothin’ like that.”

  “That’s silly, everybody’s got a telephone,” Maureen insisted, “and a television, too.”

  “A what?”

  “A television. Look…” Maureen felt so grown-up now and older than Nora, who was a woman. She made the shape of a box with her two hands as she explained, “It’s a box about so big. You turn on a switch and you see people in it about so big. They’re talking to you and singing and dancing. You can see them, but they can’t see you.”

  She heard a crash and saw the pitcher Nora had in her hands go crashing down to the floor, water spilling all over, and Nora running out of the room. How Maureen laughed.

  The door opened again and there stood Lizzie, the cook, in a white apron and cap. Nora was behind her.

  “Tell her.” Nora indicated Lizzie with her hand. “She won’t believe me.”

  “Tell her what?” asked Maureen.

  “What you told me—where you get ‘hello’ in the ear and see little people in a box talking and singing and dancing.”

  Maureen told it again. Lizzie backed away from her and made the sign of the cross over herself. They both backed out of the room, watching her all the while.

  Even though their voices were pitched low in the hall outside, Maureen, close to the door now, could hear every word they said.

  “She’s a devil.” That was Lizzie’s voice in a thick whisper. “And she’s come here to us because of them and they’re devils, too, always with the birds and plottin’ mischief among themselves.”

  “She’s lyin’, maybe,” said Nora. “Making up things, like Miss Ingrid said last night at dinner.”

  “That one would know another liar all right,” Lizzie’s voice answered. “She’s a liar herself, and no mistake.”

  “What do we do?” asked Nora.

  “If she’s a devil,” Lizzie’s voice came slowly, “I’m not spendin’ another night in this house. If she’s a liar, I’ll give her a swat on the rump with the rough side of my hand.”

  Maureen got away from the door and was standing beside the bed as Lizzie marched in again, Nora behind her.

  “You was lyin’,” demanded Lizzie, “wasn’t you?”

  Maureen was never quite sure what made her nod her head. Was it because she knew it would make them both happier or was it because she had been called a liar so often? Or was it because this morning, with the broken pitcher on the cold floor, the cold ashes on the tin platform below the cold little stove, and the two women in starched caps and aprons glaring at her, something inside her told her not to insist on the telephone or television? She nodded.

  They both smiled, even though the smiles were grim, with no happiness in them.

  “I knew it.” Lizzie came toward her. “I could tell by the look in yer eyes.” Then she gave her a hard slap across the lower back. Tears welled up into Maureen’s eyes, and for the first time in her life she dropped her head and sobbed. She didn’t stamp her feet or clench her fist or shout.

  “Stop that,” Lizzie scolded, “stop that cryin’ and get washed for breakfast, and no more lies.”

  While Nora swept the pieces of the broken pitcher into a dustpan, Maureen got into the long woolen dress again, because Nora said so. She almost cried once more as she saw her own cotton dress, socks, and sweater lying on the little chair by the bed. She was starting to pull on her own socks and shoes when Nora handed her a pair of ugly long black stockings and a pair of high shoes with buttons.

  “Wear these,” she ordered, and handed her a metal rod with a hook at the end. “And here’s a buttonhook.”

  Maureen was looking at it wonderingly as Nora knelt down on the floor before her. “Hold out yer foot.”

  Then she deftly pushed the little hook through the buttonholes on one side of the shoe, twisted it around the buttons, and in and out to the top until both shoes were buttoned high around her legs. They felt tight and strange.

  “Downstairs, now!” She got up. “The family’s waitin’ breakfast.” Her voice was not unkind anymore.

  —

  Some of the family had finished breakfast. As she came down the front hall, she could see the sisters being handed into the carriage, which waited at the porch steps. The man with the whip was sitting high on the seat again. The other man was helping the sisters to get inside. They were wearing, this morning, long brown woolen coats with brown velvet buttons and brown velvet-brimmed hats.

  “The young ladies are off to the young ladies seminary,” Nora said from the step above her. “Ye slept late. Have breakfast in the kitchen.”

  Maureen was so glad she would not have to see those sisters.

  As she sat on a stool in the kitchen, eating pancakes with thick syrup, she heard Nora and Lizzie whispering together in a room with glass-doored cupboards next to the kitchen. They called this “the butler’s pantry.”

  “The Mister is gonna look for her family today in the next town, Cedar Hill.”

  Maureen wanted to cry out, “Cedar Hill. I don’t live in Cedar Hill.” She knew where that was. She had been there often. The Swansons often drove to Cedar Hill on a Sunday in the car. But she said nothing.

  She watched them, lifting a round lid off the stove, putting wood into the hole and then coal, as they heated water and washed the dishes in a big tin pan, drying them carefully on soft white cloths. At the sound of a tinkling bell from the dining room, Lizzie would say, “That’s him,” or “That’s her,” and hand a silver tray to Nora which held a glistening cut-glass bottle of syrup. Nora would smooth her apron, fix her cap, put a smile on her face, take the tray, and walk through the swinging door into the dining room.

  As Maureen was studying the pattern of the linoleum on the kitchen floor, she seemed to see it grow dusty and dirty and faded. She seemed to see it crack open, become a big hole through which she could see old trunks with leather handles, striped with tin. Then she saw a black cat leap up through the hole and spring onto the drainboard of the sink. She cried out.

  “What’s that for?” Lizzie demanded, coming close to her. Then the floor was clean, with no hole, and there was no cat on the drainboard. The fire was crackling in the stove and Nora was back with the silver tray.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked Lizzie.

  “She let out a yelp, all of a sudden,” Lizzie explained. “Now why did you do that?”

  “I saw…,” Maureen began.

  “Saw what?” Lizzie was looking so cross.

  “Nothing,” she answered.

  “Eat your breakfast and no more yelping. After breakfast you can walk about the place. The sun’s out today.”

  “Where—where is she?” Maureen asked suddenly.

  “ ‘She’—‘she’ is the cat’s grandmother,” Lizzie told her, and Maureen looked at the drainboard quickly.

  “Don’t never say ‘she.’ ” Nora was shaking her forefinger at her. “Say the name you mean. That’s more ladylike.”
/>
  “I mean—their mother,” Maureen answered after a wait.

  “Mrs. Messerman? She’s busy. Why?”

  “She’s nice!” Maureen’s voice was soft.

  Their faces softened now.

  “Ye’ll never find no one nowhere that’s nicer,” Nora said, and turned her face away. “And it’s the devil’s own shame she has such…”

  “Shh,” warned Lizzie. “Little pitchers have big ears.”

  —

  Maureen went out the back door wearing a long woolen coat which clung to her ankles as she walked in the high-buttoned shoes. It was the kind of a coat you had to walk in. You couldn’t run. The sun had come out. All the snow was gone from the grounds except the little patches lying in the shade of the house itself, where the sun couldn’t find them. Maureen walked around to the stables, now empty. What an awful smell! She didn’t go inside, but turned now and wandered through the big garden and across the closely cropped lawns.

  She looked everywhere, into little corners and along little paths bordered with flower beds. Coming out of one clump of trees, she couldn’t believe her eyes. There stood the iron boy, holding the fish over the pond. But now paint wasn’t peeling off his arms. He was painted a bright fresh green on his iron jacket, his cap was red, his short pants bright blue. His face was painted pink, his lips red, and his eyes blue. He looked beautiful. She ran to him and felt his arm. His iron eyes looked vacantly into hers when she leaned over and held her face close to his. She almost fell into the water of the pond, now clear except for a patch of ice coating here and there, when she heard a tap-tapping sound. She didn’t fall because she held on to the arm of the iron boy. Turning slowly, she saw a summerhouse, painted white and green, a white bench nearby on the wet grass. Tap-tap-tap!

  He was there. And he was sitting on a pile of clean new canvas. The birdbath wasn’t there, and the coiled hose in the corner wasn’t peeling. It was shiny and black. The leprechaun looked just the same. He was wearing the brown knitted cap, the dusty shirt, and the canvas pants. One cheek was puffed out, and he spat out a nail with a “pish” sound as he lifted the hammer and went tap-tap-tap on the sole of the shoe.