Hellfire

5

“Hannah?”

The old housekeeper looked up from the bowl of peas she was shelling, then started to pull her weight up from the battered easy chair she’d long ago moved from her room into the enormous kitchen.

“Don’t get up,” Carolyn told her. “I was just wondering if you’d seen Beth.”

“She was right here till after breakfast,” Hannah replied, sinking gratefully back into the depths of the chair. “Helped me with the dishes.” She glanced up at Carolyn over the rims of her half-glasses. “She’s a mighty nice girl, that daughter of yours.”

Carolyn nodded absently, and Hannah’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Something wrong, Miss Carolyn? Have I done something to displease you?”

“Of course not,” Carolyn replied immediately. “You’re wonderful, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She hesitated, knowing she should probably leave Hannah alone in her domain, then lowered herself onto one of the straight-backed wooden chairs that sat at the kitchen table. Her fingers began nervously twisting at a button on her blouse. “I … I’m not really sure,” she went on. “It’s just that …” She let her voice trail off, afraid that whatever she might say would sound somehow disloyal to her husband.

But Hannah, her face imperturbable, nodded wisely, and finished the sentence for her. “… it’s just that things up here aren’t like you thought they’d be, and it’s not as easy as it looked?”

How did she know? Carolyn wondered. Is it all that obvious? Instinctively, without thinking about it at all, she reached out for a handful of the peas, and began shelling them.

“You don’t have to do that, Miss Carolyn,” Hannah said quietly, but there was something in her tone that made Carolyn look at the housekeeper. As she’d suspected, Hannah’s eyes were fixed on her, as if challenging her to speak her mind clearly.

But she won’t ever ask me anything, Carolyn suddenly realized. If I need to talk, I can, but she’ll never initiate a conversation.

“Yes, I do,” Carolyn replied, making up her mind. “I have to do something. I’m just not used to sitting around all day with no work to do. And I’m afraid I’m not good at lunches, either,” she added, remembering the few times she’d accepted invitations from the wives of men her husband had grown up with, only to spend a few miserable hours listening to them chat about people she didn’t know and places she’d never been.

“I’m good at fixing lunches,” Hannah said mildly. “But I’m afraid I’d have to agree with you about them fancy luncheon parties. Some of us just can’t abide that sort of twaddle.”

“Beth couldn’t abide facing breakfast with the family this morning, could she?” Carolyn asked pointedly.

Hannah’s lips pursed, and Carolyn was afraid she’d asked the old servant to step beyond some invisible limit.

“She’ll get used to things here,” Hannah said at last. “She likes it out here because it’s familiar.” She glanced up again, and there was a slight twinkle in her eyes. “She tells me when she lived on Cherry Street, the family practically lived in the kitchen.”

“What family doesn’t?” Carolyn replied, then rolled her eyes as she realized the ridiculousness of the question. “Never mind. That was a stupid thing to say.”

“Not so stupid. Mr. Phillip used to spend a lot of time here when he was a boy. In fact,” she added, “sometimes I feel like I raised him myself. Anyway, he certainly turned out the way I’d want a son to turn out, if I’d had one. And I have to say, it’s nice to have a child in my kitchen again. Particularly one who already knows how to wash dishes and take out the trash.”

She fell silent, and Carolyn found herself wondering exactly what the old woman was trying to tell her.

“What about Tracy?” she asked. “Doesn’t she ever come out here?”

“Only when she wants something,” Hannah replied, and though there was nothing condemnatory in her voice, Carolyn noticed that the old woman’s eyes stayed on the bowl of peas as she spoke. “Tracy’s a different kind of child. Takes after her grandmother, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I do,” Carolyn replied. “She — well, she seems determined to make Beth feel as if she doesn’t belong here.”

Hannah opened her mouth, then seemed to change her mind. But an opaqueness came into her eyes, and Carolyn knew that now she had gone too far.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Hannah finally said. “But as for that little girl of yours, I have an idea of where she might be.” Her eyes drifted toward the window.

Following Hannah’s lead, Carolyn gazed out the window. Barely visible through the treetops, she could make out the marble ring that surmounted the mausoleum.

“The mausoleum? Why would she have gone up there?”

Hannah shrugged. “She might not have. But there was a bit of a ruckus down at the stable a while ago, and I’ve noticed that when people want to be alone around here, they often go up to the mausoleum.” Her eyes met Carolyn’s once more. “If she wants to tell you what happened, she will. But don’t push her, Miss Carolyn. She’s doing her best to fit in. Just let her do it her way.”

Then, as Carolyn hurried out the kitchen door, Hannah went back to shelling her peas. But as she worked, she wondered if either Beth or Carolyn would ever be allowed to fit into this house. If it were up to Tracy, she knew, they wouldn’t.

Tracy would die first.

Beth sat alone in the coolness that pervaded the mausoleum despite the growing heat of the morning. Her tears had long since dried, and she’d spent a few minutes reading the inscriptions on the backs of each of the chairs that surrounded the marble table. Now she was perched on the edge of Samuel Pruett Sturgess’s marble chair, staring out at the village she’d grown up in.

From here, Westover almost looked like a miniature village — like one of the tiny model-train layouts her father had taken her to see at a show in Boston last year. She could see the tracks coming around the hillside, crossing the river, then disappearing behind the mill and reemerging to curve in a wide arc around the village until they disappeared into the distant hills.

But it was the mill that interested her most. From where she sat, the old brick building was framed exactly between two of the marble pillars. The town itself was mostly to the left of the mill, but from this vantage point the mill was precisely centered below her.

In fact, if the seventh pillar — the pillar that had once stood opposite Samuel Pruett Sturgess’s chair — hadn’t been broken, the mill would be completely invisible.

For a while, she’d sat trying to decide whether the mausoleum had been built the way it was on purpose, or if, after the whole thing was finished, someone had noticed that if one of the pillars was broken out, then old Mr. Sturgess would be able to look down at his factory from his chair.

For that’s the way it had struck Beth.

It was almost as if the table was for all the dead Sturgesses to meet around, as though they were still alive, and had business to discuss, and the oldest of them — Samuel Pruett Sturgess — was sitting where he could watch over the whole town, and especially his mill.

Then, while she had been pretending to be Mr. Sturgess, she had seen it.

It was a flash, like some kind of explosion. Suddenly, it had seemed as if the mill was on fire.

At first she’d thought it was the sun, reflecting off the windows of the building.

But then she remembered that all the windows were boarded up, and there wasn’t any glass in them.

Now she was staring at the old building, waiting to see if it would happen again. So far, it hadn’t.

“Beth?”

She jumped, startled, and turned to see her mother coming up the steps from the path to the house. Quickly, she slid off the marble chair.

“Honey? Are you okay?”

Beth felt a sudden stab of embarrassment. Did her mother know what had happened down at the stable? Had Tracy told on her? But she hadn’t really done anything — not really. Just let Patches out into the paddock.

“I … I’m fine,” she said.

Carolyn surveyed the little girl carefully. She could see from the puffiness around her eyes that Beth had been crying, but she seemed to be over it now. Panting slightly, Carolyn eased herself into the chair next to the one Beth had been occupying, then sighed as the cool of a faint breeze touched her forehead.

“Go on,” she said. “Sit down again.” Then she lowered her voice slightly, and glanced around as if she was looking to see if they were being watched. “Actually, I’ve been dying to sit in these chairs ever since Phillip told me no one’s allowed to sit in them.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “They aren’t? I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to—”

“Of course you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And you didn’t, either, so don’t worry about it. I, on the other hand, know perfectly well that I shouldn’t be sitting in this chair, and I’m rather enjoying breaking the rules. Whose chair is it, anyway?”

Beth hesitated, then giggled slightly. “His wife’s,” she pronounced solemnly.

Carolyn frowned. “Whose?”

“You mean you haven’t read it?” Beth said, laughing out loud now. “Go on, read it. You’re going to hate it.” As Carolyn rose, and moved around behind the chair, Beth stopped her. “You have to read his first, though.”

Thoroughly puzzled, Carolyn studied the back of the chair that contained the ashes of Samuel Pruett Sturgess. Aside from his dates of birth and death, also etched in the stone were the facts of his life, at least those he had apparently considered important. The marble proclaimed that he had been a member of Sigma Alpha Gamma, a thirty-second-degree Mason, an Episcopalian, a Republican, and the father of four children.

After she had read through all the information, Carolyn’s eyes shifted to the chair in which she had been sitting.

The inscription on the back was simple:

HIS WIFE

“Do you believe it?” Beth giggled. “Not even her name!”

Though she tried to contain herself, Carolyn couldn’t help laughing. “So much for women’s lib, hunh? I wonder what the poor woman’s life must have been like?”

“I bet he made her walk three steps behind him,” Beth replied. “Can you imagine Daddy putting something like that on your tombstone?” Then, suddenly remembering the divorce, she reddened.

“It’s all right,” Carolyn assured her. “And you’re right. Your father wouldn’t dare put something like that on my tombstone. And neither would Phillip, for that matter.”

The mischievous light that had been in Beth’s eyes a moment before faded, and Carolyn wished for an instant that she hadn’t mentioned Phillip’s name. But now it was too late.

“Phillip loves you very much, you know,” she said.

Beth nodded. “I know. It’s just—” She fell suddenly silent, then shook her head. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Can we just talk about something else?”

But Carolyn could see that whatever had happened, it did matter. Beth’s eyes were damp, and she could see that the little girl was struggling once more against her unhappiness. But then Hannah’s words of a few minutes before came back to Carolyn. Reluctantly, she nodded. “All right. What shall we talk about?”

Beth thought for a minute, then grinned crookedly. “Let’s not talk about anything. Let’s go for a hike!”

“A hike?” Carolyn echoed. “Where?”

“Down the hill. Look. There’s a little trail over there. See?” Beth pointed past the broken seventh pillar.

Carolyn’s eyes followed her daughter’s gesture, and she saw what had apparently once been a path leading down the hill, though what now remained of the trail was overgrown with weeds and brush.

“Good Lord,” she groaned. “Can we even get through? Where does it go?”

“I bet it goes down to the river! Can we go down, Mom? Please? It’ll be just like it used to be!”

Carolyn eyed the trail carefully. To her it looked both steep and difficult. Then she turned back to Beth, and the eager light in the little girl’s eyes made her mind up for her.

“Hit it, Tarzan. I’m right behind you.”

As Beth, dressed in jeans and a white shirt that Carolyn recognized as having once belonged to Alan, plunged into the brush, Carolyn had a sudden fleeting memory. There had been days like this before — days when the three of them, she and Alan and Beth, had hiked around the countryside, just following the paths and trails. Even then the strain between herself and Alan had been all too evident, festering just below the surface. Now here she was, hiking again, and once again there was something festering just below the surface.

But this time, the infection had invaded Beth.

From now on, she determined, she would spend more time with her daughter. Her daughter, right now, needed her very badly.

Abigail rapped once on Tracy’s closed bedroom door, then let herself in. Tracy sat propped on her bed, her arms folded against her chest. The sophistication that sometimes lent her the look of an older girl was nowhere to be seen. Right now she looked exactly like the angry almost-thirteen-year-old she was.

“I hate her,” she said. Then, again: “I hate her, hate her, hate her. I hate Beth, and I hate Carolyn, too!”

Abigail seated herself on the edge of the bed, and took one of Tracy’s hands in her own. “Hate is a very unattractive emotion that we should do our best to keep out of our hearts.”

“I don’t care.” Tracy sulked. “They hate me, too!”

“No, I don’t think they do,” Abigail went on, her voice soothing. “At least not Carolyn. She simply doesn’t understand you, that’s all. You have to remember where she came from, Tracy. She never had any of our advantages, and we should pity her, not hate her. But of course,” she added, “pitying her doesn’t mean we should give in to her, either.”

Tracy looked up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “But Daddy said—”

“I know exactly what your father said. I may be eighty-three years old, but I’m neither deaf nor blind. I heard your father, and I see every day how that woman treats him.”

“I just wish she’d go away.”

“One day she will,” Abigail promised. “Mark my words, one day your father will realize the mistake he’s made, and understand that he needs a woman of his own background. But until then, all we can do is try to ignore her, and the child, too.”

“She was chasing Patches,” Tracy stormed. “She chased her out of the stall, and Patches was terrified.”

Abigail, who had watched the incident at the stable from her sitting-room window, said nothing.

“And what about my party?” Tracy went on. “Having Beth there will wreck it! My friends will think I actually like her.”

“Not if she isn’t here,” said Abigail. “Now it seems to me that all you have to do is change the day of your party. Beth always spends Saturdays with her father, so we’ll simply move your party from Sunday to Saturday. You tell Hannah,” she finished, “and I’ll tell Carolyn.” Her patrician lips curled into a smile. “I’m an old lady, and I suppose there’s a chance I might just forget to speak to her, of course.”

Tracy reached out to hug her grandmother. “Will you do that?” she asked. “Will you really do that for me?”

“Of course I will. What are grandmothers for?” Disentangling herself from Tracy’s embrace, she stood up. “Now, I want you to go down and talk to Hannah. And don’t look too pleased with yourself. While I don’t question Hannah’s loyalty, I sometimes think she has a tendency to talk too much to your father’s wife.”

Giggling, Tracy rolled off her bed and left the room. Abigail followed her slowly, then watched her as the girl hurried down the hall toward the stairs. From the back, even at her age, she looked so much like her mother that tears came to Abigail’s eyes. Lorraine Kilpatrick Sturgess had been exactly the right girl for Phillip and Abigail had never quite adjusted to the fact of her death. And yet, Tracy seemed sometimes almost to be a reincarnation of the woman who had died giving birth to her. Except for the eyes. Tracy’s eyes had come from her father, who had inherited that clear blue from Abigail herself. But the rest of Tracy was pure Lorraine.

And dear Lorraine would never have had anything to do with a woman like Carolyn, nor allowed Tracy to associate with a child like Beth. Abigail would see to it that Tracy never felt any differently.

When Tracy had disappeared down the stairs, Abigail retreated to her suite. Here, in the rooms that hadn’t changed since she’d come here as a bride, life seemed to her to be as it should have been. Here, nothing ever changed. Whatever happened in the outside world had no meaning for her here, for in these rooms were all the portraits of her family, and of Conrad, and the mementos of times past, when the Sturgesses had run Westover.

When the mill was reopened, the Sturgesses would once again resume their rightful place. Perhaps the people wouldn’t be working directly for her family, but at least they would be paying rent.

Abigail, almost against her will, glanced up at the portrait of her husband, and heard once again the words he had uttered so often in the years before he had died.

“It is an evil place, but it must never be torn down. It must stand as it is, a constant reminder to us all. It is evil, Abigail, but it is our conscience. We must never lose it, and never change it.”

Abigail had listened to him, and pitied him, but in the end had realized that her husband had simply lost his mind.

And she knew exactly when it had started.

It had started on the day that Conrad Junior had died, and his father had refused to accept it as the accident it had been.

Instead, he had blamed the mill, insisting that the mill itself had somehow claimed their son’s life.

Then, in the last few years of his life, when his mind had begun to fail as rapidly as his body, he had become fixated on a box of old records from the last days of the mill’s operations.

He had kept them in a metal box in the closet, and as he drew closer and closer to death, he had spent more and more time poring over them, and mumbling about the evil in the mill.

She took the metal box off the closet shelf now, and went to sit in her favorite chair by the window. Opening the box, she carefully removed the old journals with which it was filled. The pages were yellowed with age and threatened to crumble in her fingers. Slowly, she began reading.

Strange records of odd things happening at the mill.

Horrible things that seemed, on a bright sunny morning like today, far too terrible to believe.

And Abigail didn’t believe, despite her husband’s fanatic ravings. She turned the pages one by one, shaking her head sadly as she thought of the manner in which Conrad had wasted his life because of a few lines in an ancient journal.

Even on the day he died, he had demanded that she bring him the box, then, propped up in his bed, he had pored over the journals for the last time, his hands trembling as he fingered the pages, muttering to himself as he deciphered the words once more. Abigail had watched him, knowing that his mind was no longer in the present, that he had taken himself to another era. Finally, late in the afternoon, his breathing had suddenly changed, and the hollow rattles of death had gripped him as his worn-out heart began its last spasmodic flutterings.

Abigail had pried his fingers loose from the journals, but even as she put them back in the box and carried the box itself back to the closet, Conrad had reached out for them, as if by grasping the past one last time he could stave off death and prolong the final moment.

When she had returned to his bed, he had struggled to speak, his words barely audible as they bubbled through the fluids gathering in his lungs.

“She’s there,” he’d gasped at last. “She’s still there, and she hates us all.… Keep her there, Abigail. Keep her there for me.…”

And then, clutching at her hand, he’d died.

Abigail had pondered his last words since then, but only now, as she sat fingering the crumbling documents, did she decide that whatever he had been trying to say, the words had been nothing more than the fragmented ramblings of a dying man.

Now Abigail put the journals back in the box, closed and locked it, and returned it to its place on her husband’s closet shelf. Then she went to the window, and gazed out across Westover, as she had so many times before. At the other side of the town, silent and forbidding, lay the ancient hulk of the long-abandoned mill.

When she and Phillip had finished with it, though, it would once again be the proudest building in Westover.

Nothing and no one would stop them.

Neither Conrad’s insane superstitions, nor Carolyn’s inane prattling, would ever convince her that the mill was anything but an ordinary building.

And it was there — had always been there — to make money for the Sturgesses.

Certainly there was nothing either shameful or evil in that.

Hannah eyed Tracy suspiciously.

“Isn’t it a little late to be switching a party?”

Tracy sighed dramatically, and did her best to look as upset by the whole thing as Hannah seemed to be.

“Well, of course it is,” she said. “But I can’t have my party without Alison Babcock, and she won’t be able to come on Sunday! So we’ll just have to have it on Saturday, instead.”

“What about the other kids? What if they can’t come on Saturday?”

“They can,” Tracy lied smoothly. “I’ve already talked to them, and they can all come on Saturday. I don’t see why you want to make such a big deal about it.”

Hannah’s brows arched skeptically. “And just when did you talk to Miss Alison? The phone hasn’t rung here all morning.”

Tracy’s eyes narrowed, and glinted dangerously. Who did Hannah think she was, anyway? Didn’t she know she was just a servant? “I called her. We were talking about something else, and she remembered. So I’ve been calling all the other kids ever since. Okay?”

Hannah’s eyes went to the telephone extension on the counter, with its two buttons, one of which glowed when either of the telephone lines was in use. Then she saw Tracy silently daring her to challenge her words.

“I’ll speak to Miss Carolyn about it,” she said, deciding there was no point in calling the lie. The girl already knew she’d been caught, and didn’t care.

“That won’t be necessary,” Tracy said, her voice petulant, though her eyes glowed with her apparent victory. “Grandmother’s going to talk to Carolyn. And if Grandmother says it’s all right to change the party to Saturday, then it is. So just do it.”

“Now see here,” Hannah began, but her words were suddenly cut off by a scream coming from outside.

Turning away from Tracy, Hannah squinted out the window into the brightness of the morning.

Beth was charging across the lawn, her face pale, and her hair streaming out behind her.

“Hannah!” the little girl shouted. “Hannah! Mr. Smithers! Come quick! It’s Mom! Something’s happened to Mom!”