The Seeing

Chapter Nineteen

Maud was not a good traveller. She liked restaurants and cocktail lounges, snacks from room service and television. London, with its parks and churches and the boldly delicate tracery of the architect Wren had no appeal for her, and the museums with their solemn, dusty silences turned her almost faint with boredom.

She usually napped after lunch, the coverlet of her bed sprinkled with gossip and fashion magazines, and it was at this time that Jessica explored London on her own, using the underground subway, which Andrew had taught her to do, window-shopping in Knightsbridge, visiting the Tate and National galleries, and feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

One day Jessica became restless during lunch in the dining room of the Dorchester. The sensation was perplexing — not significant enough to make her apprehensive, just the vaguest of premonitions, the most fragile of tremors across her warning systems.

Maud was having an iced Calvados with her coffee and exchanging smiles and pleasantries with the gentleman at the adjoining table, an Arab from Morocco who wore a red fez with his dark gray suit. Jessica asked to be excused and Maud dismissed her with a quick smile.

In their suite facing the park, Jessica sat at the curved-legged escritoire and began a letter to Dr. Julian, hoping this would dissipate her strange, rootless anxiety.

But after she had written his name and started the letter with “We are in London for a week or so, Aunt Maud and I—”, she stopped there, mildly irritated and self-conscious at the banality of the sentence.

When she began again on a fresh sheet of paper, Jessica wrote down several unrelated words and then the pen began to move almost by itself, swiftly and reflexively, and she was writing a poem to Julian instead of the simple letter she had planned, putting down her truest and most candid feelings without guilt or reservation. Jessica was plumbing depths of sensitivity she had barely been conscious of, tapping well-springs of emotion at the very core of her being. In a way, she didn’t quite understand, Jessica realized that these new feelings were connected with the topsy-turvy change of events in her life — the death of her beloved Andrew, the loneliness for Julian, and the newness of Uncle Eric and Aunt Maud, who were so surprisingly and so constantly at home in what had once been her dearest sanctuary, the lands and mansion of Easter Hill.

With a faint smile, she wrote down the words “sudden” and “sharp” and “silver,” savoring their provocative sibilance. And then she looked out the windows at the greenness of the park and thought sadly and somewhat wistfully of the inevitable words that must complete her thoughts: “gemstone” and “childhood.”

At noon the following week, cool sunlight lay across the ponds and streams of Easter Hill, gently gilding the feathers of ducks and trumpeter swans. In the stables, Kevin O’Dell pitched hay into Windkin’s stall and brought the hunter a leather bucket of water.

From the garden, Capability Brown collected an armload of iris and daffodils and took them to the kitchen where the cook was preparing lunch for Mr. Griffith and an American tourist he had met at the Hannibal Arms.

With a glance at the stove, Mr. Brown said drily, “Would you think, Mrs. Kiernan, that will satisfy the gentlemen till tea time?”

“I grant you, Mr. Griffith fancies a good table.”

The trout were ready for the broiler, bright with butter and lemon slices; a heavy brown turtle soup with sherry simmered on a gas ring; and the baron of beef circled with roast potatoes and parsnips was ready in the warming oven. In still another oven, the cakes that Mr. Griffith preferred for high tea were baking — a pineapple upside-down cake and a chocolate to be layered with raspberry preserves.

Rose sat at a wooden service counter using a curved spoon to scoop butter-balls from a delft crock. “It’s not like her to be gone a week without even a postcard.”

“If the truth were told,” Lily said, taking the pineapple cake from the oven, “Miss Jessie didn’t fancy going off to London.”

“That’s nothing for you girls to be gossiping about,” Mrs. Kiernan said. “There, Mr. Brown. This will do nicely.”

“Himself was asking me again about the silver darning egg and the Chinese snuff box,” Rose said.

“If by ‘himself’ you mean Mr. Griffith, please say so, girl.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kiernan, but he stands so grand with his thumbs hooked in his vest pockets, looking at me like I’d pinched them.”

“The lass feels as I feel,” Mr. Brown said, placing the daffodils in a vase. “There’s a cloud over this house since Andrew Dalworth—” Mr. Brown made the sign of the cross on his forehead “—joined his Maker. Uncle or not, I can’t stomach that Griffith. He’s seen fit to hire an extra hand in the stables, and a rogue at that, if I’m any judge. And what sort of a name has he got? I leave it to you, Mrs. Kiernan — is Benny Stiff any kind of a proper name for a man?”

Old Flynn, in a striped serving jacket, came up from the wine cellar with six bottles in a canvas sling. “He’s got an eye for the labels, I’ll give him that. Whether there’s a palate to match, I’m not so sure.”

“Ach, Flynn, you’re as much a critic as Mr. Brown here,” Mrs. Kiernan said.

“It’s the truth, ma’am,” Flynn said. “He went like a shot to the bins with the big clarets, the same that Mr. Dalworth, God rest him, sent back from Bordeaux two summers ago. Same with the burgundies — Richebourgs and the like. But at three and four bottles a meal, he and his friend, Mr. Saxe, should be down with gout presently.”

“Now, now, what sort of example are you setting for the girls?”

“Pay us no mind,” Flynn said, with a smile at the young maids. But something occurred to the old man as he uncorked the wine and he frowned. “Tell me something, ma’am. Have you noticed that Fluter seems off his food lately? No life or bounce to him at all?”

“He’s heartsick because Jessie’s away,” Lily said.

“That’s God’s truth,” Rose said. “I read about it once in a novel with a girl on the cover in a big hat with ribbons.”

Mrs. Kiernan stirred the turtle soup with a firm, almost angry flick of her wrist.

“As for Fluter’s rations, Mr. Flynn, I wouldn’t be knowing. Mr. Griffith is feeding him these few days, say he wants the dog to get to like him better...”

Later that same morning, Eric discovered Lily dusting in the library. Without preamble he said, “Now this won’t do at all, Miss. I don’t want you girls messing about in these rooms when Mrs. Griffith and I are expecting luncheon guests.”

“But, sir—”

“No excuses, I want this work done earlier, before breakfast, if necessary.”

“But sir, Mr. Flynn posts the schedules and—”

“Damn Flynn,” Eric said with a show of anger, “I’m telling you what you’ll do and what you won’t do. And in the future, here is something else you will not do. You will not work in these rooms alone. You and the other girl — whatever her name is — will work as a pair, is that clear?”

Lily said blankly, “I don’t understand what you’re getting at, sir.”

Eric clasped his hands behind his back and looked her up and down. Then he said, “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m getting at, Miss. There are valuables in this house and I wouldn’t want anyone getting careless. It’s for your own protection, girl...”

After this incident, Lily reported the whole conversation to Mr. Flynn, saying almost in tears, “I won’t be called a thief, Mr. Flynn. I won’t.”

Tony Saxe arrived in the leased convertible shortly after noon and was shown into the library where Eric sat slumped in a deep chair, a glass of sherry in one hand, staring thoughtfully at the view of the orchards and meadows.

On the table beside him was a leather folder, bulky with typewritten correspondence.

“I think the last piece just fell into place, Eric,” Tony Saxe said. A tension and calculation was evident in his expression as he perched on the arm of a sofa. “We must be living right, pal, because this is the pot at the end of the rainbow.

“Last night I got talking to a regular down at Hannibal’s, a rummy with a thirst that won’t quit. After I hosted him to about a barrel of Guinness, I began pumping him about the kid in the stable and the guy who works in the garden. I was looking for some kind of leverage, because it won’t look right if we throw everybody here out on their ass. Somebody’s got to stay, you said that yourself. Otherwise, it’s too damn obvious.

“So the rummy tells me that the gardener, Brown, was the wheel man in a noisy IRA caper a few years back, where they knocked over a lorry hauling some terrorists up to the jail at Longkiln... With this, we can put pressure on Brown, threaten to turn him and his pals in. That way, it’s all smooth as silk. He’s got to play along.”

Eric continued to stare through the windows, sipping sherry, his free hand drumming restlessly on the leather folder.

“So all we got to do...” Tony Saxe looked closely at Eric. “Look, pal. I get the feeling I don’t have your attention. I latched onto the last thing we need and you sit there like a damned buddha drinking booze and watching the scenery. Come on, Eric, get with it!” Saxe snapped his fingers irritably. “Ethelroyd called me last night at the Hannibal. His lorries will be here at eleven-thirty tonight, ready to load.”

“Cool it, Tony,” Eric stood and picked up the leather file from the table. “We’re exactly on schedule and the Constable from Ballytone is on his way here right now. But—” Eric hefted the file in his hands, aware of the tension and excitement building in him. “But I’ve stumbled on something, Tony, that may make this caper with Ethelroyd look like a penny ante poker game.”

“I don’t like surprises, Eric. I don’t like changing the rules in the middle of the game—”

“I’m holding a goldmine in my hands, Tony. Reports and correspondence between Dalworth and one Dr. Julian Homewood. I want you to read it, Tony, every single word of it.”

Eric had found the file when he was going through a Chippendale chest in the late Andrew Dalworth’s bedroom. He had been cataloguing the possessions and effects of the entire manor house, ostensibly to satisfy his interest in artifacts and period furniture, as well as to make his own gratuitous contribution to the estate of Andrew Dalworth. He used the activity to cover his occasional presence in the servants’ quarters.

The correspondence covered a period of eight years, beginning when Jessica was six and continuing until the present. The reports and tests and interviews documented Jessica Mallory’s steadily developing psychic abilities.

Eric had read through all of this material last evening, propped up in his bed with a whiskey beside him. Only curious at first, he became deeply interested and ultimately fascinated by the opportunities suggested in the doctor’s conclusions.

There had been several poems in the folder, written by Jessica and commented on by both Dalworth and Dr. Homewood. In one instance, Dalworth had written, “Julian, doesn’t this strike you as a bit morbid?”

The poem read:

The lines had repelled and frightened Eric, a chilling reminder of Maud’s preoccupation with dissolution, her fear of an unhealthy attraction to mosses and wetness and the mold forming on damp stones. And yet the smug young doctor in Dublin had dismissed Jessica’s poem as the normal, self-drama of a growing girl, a healthy awareness of mortality.

Another of her poems had made Eric uneasy on an even more profound level.

The words had sent a chill through him. It was how he had felt himself on so many occasions, not knowing any answers and worse, not even the questions...

A third poem was accompanied by a sketch of a beach done in blue and green crayon.

As Eric handed the file of letters to Saxe, Flynn the butler appeared in the arched doorway connecting the great hall and library.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Griffith, but Constable Riley is here to see you, sir.”

Eric savored the look of the old servant in his short striped morning vest, white gloves in a pocket (to be worn while serving lunch), but most of all he enjoyed the expression of confusion and concern on Flynn’s composed but worn features.

Eric smiled blandly and said, “Be good enough to show the Constable in. And please ask the rest of the staff, including yourself, to assemble in the kitchen.”

“May I inquire, sir, the purpose of this?”

“You’ll know soon enough, my good man.”

After lunch, Maud Griffith had luxuriated in the ministrations of a hotel masseuse, a large and angular Danish lady whose fingers of steel produced in dizzying succession sensations of nearly insupportable punishment and pleasure. Miss Helgar was a sworn foe of cellulite. Detecting a layer of it under Maud’s slightly rounded abdomen, she had attacked it with a missionary zeal which reduced her client to a state of breathless, flushed exhilaration.

The masseuse promised Maud that if she would undergo a deep massage each day of her stay in London, the chronic back pain she suffered would be banished — Miss Helgar pronounced the word in three distinct syllables — ban-ish-ed — forever. Maud had not talked to anyone so sympathetic in years, so down-to-earth and sensible about the things that Eric had no patience for — her fears and anxieties and dreams. As a consequence, Maud booked four more appointments with Miss Helgar and then, after her shower and a lovely little nap, Maud dressed and returned to her suite in as fresh and cheerful a mood as she could remember for many months.

To her surprise, when she let herself in, she saw that Jessica had packed her suitcase and was dressed for the street, wearing a bottle-green topcoat with a matching beret.

“What’s all this, dear?”

“I’m needed at home. I’m taking the night flight to Shannon.”

“What happened? Did Eric call?”

“No. No one phoned.” Jessica pulled on short black gloves. “But I know I’m needed there.”

Maud said anxiously, “Are you coming down with something? Let me see...”

But as she raised her hand to the girl’s forehead, Jessica twisted away from her and said, “I’m perfectly all right. I’ve called for our bill and a cab.”

“Just hold on, young lady. If you think you’re waltzing out of here because you’ve got some whimsical idea—”

“You can stay here if you like, Maud, but I’m leaving.”

“If this is your idea of a game, please stop it. How could you possibly know what’s going on at Easter Hill?” Maud squared her shoulders. “Calm yourself, Jessica. I’m not going to let you go.”

Jessica stared at her aunt, and the older woman took an involuntary step backward, suddenly frightened by the burning expression in the girl’s eyes and face. “Don’t you dare try to stop me,” Jessica said in a voice that Maud had not heard before, hard and low and resonant, and the timber of it sent a chill streaking through her nerves.

“Why are you trying to scare me?” Maud said anxiously.

“A darkness is coming. There are shadows on Easter Hill. Is that why it is happening? Is that why Fluter is dying?”

Jessica cried out these words though Maud realized with another spasm of fear that the child was no longer talking to her, but staring beyond to the treetops of the open park. Jessica had seemed to change before her eyes, no longer so delicate and polite but charged with a visible determination and power, currents evident in the movements of her body as she turned to stare again through the windows. And the voice was changed, too.

“You may do as you like, Aunt Maud.” Jessica stared at her with hard, glazed eyes. “I’m leaving now.”

“No, wait for me. Hold the cab. Eric would want — I’ve got to go with you.”

And when Jessica had gone to the lobby, Maud — feeling threatened and vulnerable — picked up the phone and asked the hotel operator to place a call to Easter Hill in Ballytone. She was alarmed to notice how badly her hands were trembling.

At dusk, with the soft tones of evening spreading across the meadows, Eric Griffith walked down to Capability Brown’s quarters, one of several small cottages adjacent to the stables. The door stood open and Brown was packing his clothing and personal effects in a worn duffel bag.

The other servants had already left — the girls and Mrs. Kiernan in tears, old Flynn with eyes flashing anger, and Kevin O’Dell giving notice in sympathy with the others — departing with their possessions in the single old taxi from Ballytone.

Eric rapped lightly on the door jamb. When Mr. Brown turned to him, his craggy features set in bitter lines, Eric regarded him with raised eyebrows.

“What’s this, Brown? You’re not thinking of leaving, I hope.”

“Just as soon as I pack my things, Mr. Griffith.”

“I think you should reconsider, Brown.”

“No way I will, I’ve had my fill of this place. I won’t stay on where good, honest people are called liars and thieves.” Turning his back to Eric, Mr. Brown removed several framed photographs from the wall and placed them on a cot beside his duffel bag. “Mrs. Kiernan, the girls, and Jack Flynn — they never touched a farthing that didn’t belong to them. So I’ll be off with young Kevin.”

Eric studied the reflection of fading sunlight on his buffed nails.

“Brown, I’m a reasonable man. If you’ll stay on, I’m prepared to overlook your impertinence.”

“Don’t put yourself to any trouble on my account.”

“Impertinence is one thing, stupidity is quite another,” Eric said. “In your own interests, Brown, I’d urge you not to indulge the one at the expense of the other.”

“Can you speak plainly, as one man to another, or is that beyond you, sir?”

“I’m warning you, Brown, don’t test my anger.”

“Begging your pardon, I think I’ll chance that.”

“Let’s see if you can, then,” Eric said, his voice cold and derisive. “I’ve got information that you participated in an IRA raid several years ago. I have the date and the names of the men who were with you that night, including your own son, Timothy, now with the Provos in Belfast. Would you like—?”

Brown stared at him with burning eyes. “You’d crush a man for his loyalties to his blood, would you? I say you’re no man, you’re a devil, Mr. Griffith.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, Brown. When I submit those names, if your stubborness forces me, the Ulster Constabulary and the British will call me a friend of the Crown and a gentleman of conscience. Once again, Brown, I strongly urge you to stay on.”

Brown sat down heavily on the edge of his narrow cot and, without meeting Eric’s eyes, said, “I’ll be staying on.”

“Speak up, man. I can’t hear you!”

With an effort, Brown said again, “I’ll be staying on, sir.”

“That’s a good man,” Eric said and walked back through the gardens to the manor house, whistling a light accompaniment to the chatter of starlings nesting in the ivy-hung walls.

As Eric entered the library, Tony Saxe was crossing from the bay window to the fireplace.

“What the hell’s wrong with the kid’s dog, Eric? He was out on the side lawn throwing up.”

Eric shrugged. “He might have caught himself a raunchy groundhog. Was there a call from London?”

“No. You expecting one?”

“Yes, but there’s still time.” Without explaining this cryptic remark, Eric poured himself a whiskey and looked steadily at Tony Saxe. “Well? Have you thought it over?”

“It’s no good, Eric. It’s too dicey.”

“Then all I can say is, you’re a fool.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But just for the record, here’s what I bought into. I bankrolled the three of us and Benny Stiff, backed your play against the people who worked here, touted you onto Ethelroyd—” Saxe flicked a glance at his wristwatch, “—who’ll be knocking at the door of my room at the Hannibal in about three hours. Ethelroyd gives us the cash, you give him the keys to this place. He takes what we’ve agreed on, makes the substitutions, and splits. That’s what I bought, that’s what I want.”

“You’re settling for a cheese omelette when you could sit down to an eight-course banquet...”

Tony Saxe looked skeptically at the leather folder of correspondence on the coffee table. “You want to bet your share of this caper on crystal balls, be my guest. I don’t buy any of that crap — tarot cards, astrology, palm readings, they’re just rackets to fleece old ladies and hippies.”

“Tony, the conclusions in this folder were reached after eight years of investigations, by a doctor who gave my niece every test known to science.”

“Hell, that stuff can be faked, Eric. Scientists can go shut-eye just like carny freaks, proving whatever the hell they want.”

Eric said, “If you’re too lazy or blind to see the gold pieces we could pick up, I’m not going to argue with you. But I’ve seen the entries for the Grand National. Sterling Choice, Gitano, Bowbells, all going at better than seventy-five to one. Eleven other horses are better than thirty- to forty-to-one. If the winner is in that pack of long shots and my niece—”

Saxe interrupted him with an emphatic head-shake. “I’m telling you again, Eric. No way! My horse is that fat crook Ethelroyd.”

He began pacing, rubbing his hands together nervously. His rings and wristwatch glittered with reflections from the burning logs in the fireplace. After a moment, he stopped and stared at Eric. “Look, if this kid is a psychic, if she can really see into the future, then how come she didn’t see what you and Maudie are up to? You been lying to that kid every hour on the hour, planning to rob her blind. So where was her crystal ball during all that?”

“Dammit, didn’t you understand what you’ve just read? It’s not like she runs up a curtain and looks out the window at tomorrow. Her psychic skills depend on her mental condition, her emotional state.”

“Well,” Tony said with finality, “I’m not risking any money on that kid’s moods or daydreams. So she called the shot on her dog and it washed up right on schedule. Maybe that was a coincidence.”

“But you’re forgetting, she also called the shot on her mother and father.”

“So when she blows one, it could be when we got a bundle on a horse in the National... and everything I’ve invested so far is down the drain. I’m wondering, Eric, maybe you didn’t read this stuff too good yourself.” Picking up the leather file, Saxe flipped through it to a letter from Dr. Homewood. “Here’s one from the shrink to Dalworth. It goes: ‘What we call your daughter’s psychic skills hardly matters, Andrew. It doesn’t add to our understanding to classify them as clairvoyance, precognition or second sight, because, in point of fact, we don’t have the vocabulary to describe what is actually the man-is-fest — manifestation of an advancing evolutionary process.’ ”

Tony dropped the folder and nodded at Eric, a glint of triumph in his eyes. “Slice that any way you want and it’s a lot of two-bit words adding up to the fact that the doctor himself don’t know what’s going on.”

“You’re the one going shut-eye, Tony. You don’t have the guts to see what’s staring you in the face.” Snatching up the folder, Eric opened it and said, “Just listen to this. Yes, here it is. ‘The most precise comparison I can suggest, Andrew, is adrenalin. One function of Jessica’s psychic powers is very similar to that bodily secretion. It creates, and reacts to, an awareness of danger, provides for faster reactions, greatly increased strength and stamina.’ ”

Eric glanced across the folder at Saxe. “Now listen to the rest of it. Homewood goes on to say: ‘In a peaceful, tranquil situation, Jessica’s precognitive skills are likely to lapse into a dormant state. But in a situation or predicament that caused her deep anxiety, sharp emotional pain, or fear, it’s probable that her clairvoyant perceptions would be proportionately more acute and accurate.’ You hear that, Tony? Proportionately more acute and accurate!”

“Sure, but you’re forgetting the biggest thing of all, Eric. What if she finds out we’ve looted her house? And she’ll know when she walks in the door that you kicked all those servants out on their ears. Why should she want to help us?”

“You weren’t listening, Tony. Let me read it again. ‘But in a situation or predicament—’,” Eric spoke in soft but emphatic accents, “ ‘—that caused her deep anxiety, sharp emotional pain, or fear—’ ”

As Eric looked with a thoughtful smile at the growing understanding in Saxe’s expression, the phone in Dalworth’s study began ringing. Eric hurried to answer it. A measure of his tension was in the tremor of his hand when he scooped up the receiver and heard the British-accented voice announcing a long distant call from London.

It was Maud from the Heathrow Airport. “I tried to phone you from the hotel but the circuits were busy.” Her voice was petulant and exasperated. “And the damned kid wouldn’t wait. We’re taking the next flight out to Shannon. Can you send Flynn to meet us?”

“No, I suggest you take a limo.” Eric tightened his grip on the phone, hardly daring to ask the next question. Drawing a deep breath, he said, “What made you cut your trip short?”

“You won’t believe this, Eric, but your niece insisted on it. She’s got a crazy fixation that things are happening to her pets, claims that her dog is...”

From where he stood in the library, Saxe could see Eric at Dalworth’s desk, the phone in his hand and the windows of the antique weapons cabinet coated like mirrors with the last rays of sunshine.

After a few more exchanges, which Saxe couldn’t hear, Eric replaced the receiver and returned to the library, his eyes bright with excitement and secrets.

“That was Maud. They’ll be at Shannon in just a few hours.”

“What the hell is going on, Eric?”

“Just listen. I want you to get down to the Hannibal and intercept Ethelroyd. Tell him we’ve got to put everything back at least twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t budge till you answer some questions. How come they’re on their way home? Maud was supposed to keep Jessica in London until she got the okay from us.”

Eric made himself a second drink, judiciously adding a touch of soda to a generous splash of whiskey. Watching the amber mixture glinting in the crystal tumbler, he smiled at the play of shifting lights and shadows.

“Tony, you accused me of wanting to take reckless chances, to risk our investment on tea leaves and tarot cards. You should have known I wouldn’t move a step in that direction until I could offer you proof — precise, observable proof — that my niece, Jessica, has precognitive powers.” He pointed to the leather folder of letters and records. “Even the doctors don’t have all the answers. But now I’ve proved she can do what I’ve told you she can.”

Eric put his glass down and gripped Tony Saxe by both shoulders and stared steadily into his eyes. “Jessica knows, Tony, knows certain things are happening here at Easter Hill, even though she’s miles and miles away in London.”

“You’re talking about proof, Eric. I’d like to hear it.”

Eric sighed and said, “Well, the fact is, for the last three days I’ve been poisoning her dog. Frankly, it gave me no pleasure but I needed to make certain.”

“You’ve been what?”

“Yes, I’ve been adding a touch of Mr. Brown’s snail meal to Fluter’s ground beef. And somehow, in some fashion, Jessica knows the animal is ill.”

Tony Saxe shook his head in disbelief and said, “You’re something else, Eric. Really something else.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Eric said and sipped the tangy Irish whiskey. “Now you’d better be off to the Hannibal Arms and take care of your end of things.”