The Right Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 6

Three days later they were back in St. Albans. As their father pulled the car to a stop in front of the Gothic facade the church of St. Ignatius Loyola presented to the street, Kim and Jared looked at the school that stood across from it.

The school they would be attending, starting the next day.

"Maybe it'll be all right," Jared muttered, though neither he nor Kim had any real idea of what to expect. "I mean, how much different can it be?"

"It's going to be a lot different," he heard his father say, making Jared wish he'd kept silent. "For one thing, you'll get a decent education. They don't coddle the kids in parochial school the way they do where you two have been going. And they don't put up with any nonsense, either."

Jared knew it would be useless to remind his father that both he and Kim had always gotten straight A's, and that neither of them had ever been in any trouble. After all, his father hadn't listened to a word either of them had said for the last two days.

They were moving to St. Albans because some uncle who had died before he was even born had left them a house and enough money to fix it up and turn it into a hotel.

And he and Kim were going to parochial school because that same uncle had wanted it that way, including in the trust a clause directing that any children benefiting from it would attend St. Ignatius Loyola School.

"But we don't want to go to parochial school," he'd objected, speaking for Kim as well. "We haven't even gone to church since we were little kids. None of us have!"

Nothing they said had made a difference. For two days they listened to their father talk about what a great opportunity they were being given, and how much they should appreciate what they were being offered.

And they watched him drink.

Jared suspected that none of the great opportunities his father kept talking about would materialize. Even if his father stayed sober long enough to get the work done and actually open a hotel-and Jared was sure he wouldn't-why would anyone want to stay there? And if the customers stopped coming, his father would drink even more. The day before yesterday-after his father had passed out-he'd talked to his mother about it, and for the first time he heard exactly how bad the situation was.

"He's not going to be able to get another job," his mother explained. "We have a little less than one hundred dollars in the bank. When that's gone, I don't know what we'll do."

"I'll get a job-" Jared began, but his mother shook her head.

"For now, you'll go to school. If you keep your grades up, you'll be able to get a scholarship for college. But if you get a job, your grades will slip."

"But it won't work!" Jared protested. "Dad will just sit home and drink all day!" The pain he'd seen in his mother's eyes made Jared wince, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. Instead, she'd taken a deep breath and put both her hands on his shoulders.

"If that happens," she told him, looking steadily into his eyes, "I promise we won't stay. I don't know how we'll do it, or where we'll go, but I'll take you and Kim and Molly, and we'll leave. But we have to give him a chance. We have to let him try."

So yesterday they had loaded a U-Haul with everything they owned, and this morning they'd driven down from Shreveport, his father driving the truck while the ' rest of them-including his dog and Kim's cat-packed themselves into the Toyota. Fortunately, Scout was even more placid than most golden retrievers, and had long since decided that Muffin, not being another dog, wasn't worth bothering with. While Muffin curled up in Kim's lap, Scout had fallen asleep between them, waking up only when Molly, strapped into her own seat, managed to grasp his tail and give it a good yank.

They arrived at the church just ten minutes before the funeral mass for Cora Conway was scheduled to begin. It had been almost ten years since Ted Conway last attended a mass, and now, as he stood at the threshold of St. Ignatius Loyola, he hesitated.

His eyes instinctively went to the face of the figure on the cross above the altar, and though he tried to look away, the agonized gaze of the martyred Christ held him.

Reproaching him?

Accusing him?

Superstition, Ted told himself. None of it's anything more than superstition. But even as he silently reassured himself that it was nothing more than his own rejection of the religion he'd been raised in that had kept him away from church all those years, the throbbing in his head refused to let him forget the real reason he'd stayed in bed so many Sunday mornings. So what if I have a couple of drinks on Saturday night? Ted asked the silent figure that peered steadily at him from its place above the altar. A knot of resentment hardened in his belly, and he wished he had a drink. He started down the aisle toward the waiting pews, but the reflexes bred into him in the first ten years of his life overtook him, and his fingers dipped into the font of holy water that stood just inside the door.

His knees bent slightly in an automatic act of genuflection.

He crossed himself.

Only then did the tortured eyes of the figure on the cross finally release him and let him start down the aisle of the nearly empty church.

Janet followed, holding Molly.

Kim and Jared glanced uneasily at each other, then quickly dipped their fingers in the holy water in imitation of their parents and walked down the aisle, taking seats next to each other in the front pew. They stared at the coffin that stood in front of the altar, its lid closed.

Three sparse floral remembrances-along with the emptiness of the church-gave testimony to the loneliness of the years Cora Conway had spent at the Willows. As an unseen organist began playing softly in the background, Janet sighed and wished that she'd come to visit the old woman more often. Why had she assumed that her husband's aunt had friends who were visiting her? Obviously she hadn't. As the priest came in from a side door, signaled them to rise, and began the opening prayers of the mass, she quickly scanned the church and saw that it was still all but empty.

In fact, besides the five of them and the priest who was conducting the mass, there were only two other people present.

A middle-aged woman clad in a navy blue suit-her face veiled-stood in the very last pew, nervously twisting a pair of gloves in her hands.

And in one of the alcoves-barely visible from the church-Janet caught a glimpse of another priest. Had he come to the mass for Cora, or was he merely tending to his own private devotions, silently offering prayers to one of the saints, oblivious to the memorial service taking place only a few feet away?

The officiating priest finished his opening prayer, gestured to them to sit, then turned his back to them so he faced the coffin and the altar beyond. Raising his arms in supplication, he began to speak. To Janet's surprise-and for the first time since she was a little girl and had attended the funeral mass of her own grandmother-she heard the rhythmical cadences of the Latin mass.

"Jesus," she heard Ted whisper beside her. "If we'd known this was the deal, we wouldn't have bothered to come!"

Janet shot him a warning look. "She must have wanted it," she whispered back. "And it won't hurt us."

Ted's eyes rolled scornfully, and a few minutes later his head dropped forward onto his chest as he fell asleep.

An hour later, as the last phrases of the prayer of benediction rolled from the priest's tongue, Ted came awake and, responding to childhood memories similar to those stirring in Janet, straightened in the pew and dropped automatically to his knees. He crossed himself once more, then made his way past his wife and children to perform the single act his aunt had required of him.

Joining five men from the undertaker's who entered the church from one of the side doors, he took his position at the head of his aunt's casket to bear her out of the church to her final resting place. Janet, holding a sleeping Molly, stood with Jared and Kim as the casket passed, followed by the priest. As she started up the aisle, Janet glanced into the side chapel where she'd seen the elderly priest just as the service was beginning.

He lay prostrate on the stone floor, his arms spread wide. He seemed oblivious to the tiny procession passing behind him.

Janet blinked as she stepped out of the cool gloom of the church into the sultry heat of the Indian summer afternoon. As she followed the coffin toward the open grave that waited in the far corner of the small cemetery adjoining the church, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched. She tried to ignore it at first, telling herself that of course anyone who happened to be passing by the graveyard would glance in; perhaps even linger long enough to watch the burial. Surreptitiously, she glanced around, but before she could spot whoever might be watching, her eyes were caught by the inscription on a weathered bronze plate affixed to the door of a small mausoleum that stood by itself, set off from the rest of the cemetery by a rusting wrought-iron fence.

GEORGE CONWAY

BORN JULY 29, 1916

DIED JUNE 4, 1959

But how was that possible? Janet wondered. George Conway had committed suicide, hadn't he? Then how could he be buried here in sanctified ground? But when she saw the utter neglect the area around the mausoleum had suffered, she understood.

The ground upon which George Conway's mausoleum stood had been deconsecrated; the rusting fence had been erected not to protect the structure, but to shut it away from the rest of the cemetery, and all those who had died in a state of grace.

There was another crypt in the mausoleum, next to the one in which George Conway's body lay, and Janet assumed it had been George Conway's intention to have his wife buried there.

But the little procession passed it by. When the pallbearers stopped several yards farther on and set the coffin on boards that had been laid across an open grave, Janet saw that there were no other Conways buried nearby.

No two of the graves surrounding Cora Conway's bore the same last name.

Here, in the corner of the cemetery farthest from the church, was the final resting place of those who had apparently died as they'd lived-alone. Janet felt a great wave of sadness for her husband's aunt. As she struggled against the lump rising in her throat and the tears blurring her eyes, she felt a gentle hand touch her arm.

She heard a voice then, so soft that for a moment she thought she might be imagining it. "She wasn't crazy. She wasn't crazy at all."

The hand dropped away; the voice went silent. With Molly still asleep in her arms, Janet turned, but did not see who had spoken. Forcing herself to concentrate on the priest's words, she stared down at the open grave.

And once again she felt herself being watched.

The final litany done, the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. Following Ted, Janet stepped forward, stooped to pick up a clod of the soft soil, then straightened up. Whispering a final goodbye to the woman she'd barely known, whose death three days ago had so totally changed her life, she let the lump of earth go. And then, as she looked up, she saw him.

She couldn't be certain how old he was-he might have been anywhere between forty and sixty. A thin black man in worn, nearly threadbare clothing, his face covered with a grizzled stubble. He stood on the cobbled sidewalk outside the fence, in the shade of one of the huge magnolias that spread over the cemetery. He was watching the little group gathered around the grave, and although deep shadows concealed the expression on the man's dark-skinned face, Janet could feel the emotion radiating from him like heat waves.

Hatred.

Hatred, and anger.

For a moment she froze, caught in the strength of the man's silent fury, but then he turned and moved away, shambling slowly down the street.

"Jake Cumberland," the same soft voice that had spoken to her only a few minutes earlier now said.

Startled, Janet turned to find a woman of about seventy watching the retreating figure of Jake Cumberland.

"Do you know him?" Janet asked.

The woman nodded. She was small and neat, wearing a pale lavender dress with a matching sweater thrown over her shoulders, despite the warmth of the afternoon. "Oh, yes. Everyone knows who Jake is. He lives in a cabin out by the lake. Just him and his dogs, and he hardly ever comes to town." She smiled brightly and offered Janet a tiny gloved hand. "I'm Alma Morgan. I worked at the Willows until they told me I was too old." She glanced down at her dress. "I hope you don't mind me wearing this," she went on. "It was Cora's favorite, and I thought she'd like it much better than black. Besides, black is much too hot for this weather, don't you think?" Without waiting for an answer, she plunged on. "You're Janet, aren't you?"

Janet nodded. "Actually, she was my husband's aunt-" she began, but Alma Morgan was already speaking again, this time leaning forward and clasping Janet's arm tightly.

"She wasn't crazy, you know. Don't pay any attention to what anyone says." Then, before Janet had a chance to respond, Alma Morgan was gone. Janet was still "trying to decide what the woman's words meant when someone else spoke.

This time it was the middle-aged woman who had been sitting at the back of the church. Now that the service was over, she'd pulled her veil back, revealing warm blue eyes that watched with amusement as Alma Morgan scurried out of the cemetery. "Now, the question-as I see it, anyway-is this: What is the exact state of Alma Morgan's sanity?" She smiled. "I'm Corinne Beckwith. My husband is the sheriff here."

Moving close to Janet, Ted extended his hand toward Mrs. Beckwith. "I'm Ted Conway. This is my wife, Janet. And this," he added, releasing Corinne Beckwith's hand to lift Molly out of Janet's arms, "is Molly, the true ruler of our house. Can you say hello to the nice lady?" he asked Molly.

Molly, just waking up, happily mumbled something, then demanded to be let down. A moment later she was darting off among the headstones, already lost in some game she'd made up in her own mind. And Ted, freed of his youngest daughter, set about charming Corinne Beckwith.

How can he do it? Janet marveled as she listened to Ted chat with the woman as if they'd been friends for years. How can he be so nice when he's sober, and so-

She cut the thought short, refusing to tarnish the moment by anticipating what the rest of the day might hold if Ted started drinking. Instead, she tuned into what Corinne Beckwith was saying.

"Just because what happened in that horrible old house took place forty years ago doesn't mean everyone's forgotten about it, you know." Corinne had fixed her attention on Ted as if she suspected he might be trying to hide something from her. "This is a small town, and people talk about things forever. And now with your aunt gone, we'll probably never know what really did happen that day."

"What 'really did happen'?" Janet repeated, frowning. "She had a nervous breakdown when she found her husband, didn't she?"

Corinne Beckwith's brows rose a fraction of an inch. "There was the question of the baby, too."

"The baby?" Janet echoed. "What baby?"

"The one Cora Conway gave birth to right after she found her husband hanging from the magnolia tree."

Janet's eyes shifted to Ted, and she could see that he was as mystified by Corinne's words as she. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm afraid neither one of us knows what you're talking about."

The other woman's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean no one ever told you your aunt was pregnant?" she asked.

Ted held up his hands as if to fend the question off. "Hey, I was hardly even born when all that happened."

Corinne Beckwith had the grace to be embarrassed. "Oh, Lord, what am I doing?" she said, disconcerted. "Why would you have known about it? It's probably nothing more than small-town gossip anyway," she went on in a rush. "And of all the places to bring it up-" She was still floundering when the priest stepped easily into the breach.

"And since we don't know what the truth was, maybe we shouldn't speculate about it." He gave Corinne a reproachful look, then extended one hand to Ted, the other to Janet. "I'm Father MacNeill. I'm so sorry about your aunt."

"It was a lovely mass," Janet began, automatically mouthing the words she knew were expected of her. But even as she made conversation with the priest, her mind was whirling. A baby? Aunt Cora had a baby? But surely Ted would have heard of it, wouldn't he?

"I understand you'll be moving to St. Albans," she heard Father MacNeill say. "We're looking forward to having the children in our little school, and all of you, of course, in our congregation."

How did he know the children were going to parochial school? Janet wondered. They hadn't told anyone. But then she understood-St. Albans wasn't Shreveport. Here, obviously, everyone knew everyone else's business. Which meant, she realized with a sinking heart, that everyone in town would know about Ted's drinking problem the first time he got drunk.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure all of that will be happening," Janet heard her husband say, and she instinctively braced herself for what might be coming next. Please, Ted, not here, she silently begged. Don't make a scene here. But it was already too late.

"I'm afraid I'm what you call a 'lapsed' Catholic," Ted went on. "In fact, I haven't been to mass more than half a dozen times since I was a kid."

Father MacNeill's smile faltered. "Perhaps I can change that-" he began.

"Don't count on it," Ted said flatly. "I just don't hold with religion. Never have. I don't mind my kids going to your school, but don't count on any of us showing up for church on Sundays."

The last trace of Father MacNeill's smile faded away. "Have you found a place to live yet?" he asked, and Janet relaxed as the priest seemed to shift the conversation away from Ted's lack of religious convictions. But as she listened to Ted explain that they would be moving into his uncle's house and converting it into a small hotel, Janet saw the priest's expression darken. "A hotel?" he repeated when Ted had finished. "Well, I hope you're prepared for a fight on that one!"

"A fight?" Ted asked. "Why would there be a fight?"

A veil dropped behind the priest's eyes. "Perhaps I'm wrong," he said quickly. Too quickly, it seemed to Janet, thinking that Ted had made a mistake in airing his religious views so freely. They'd barely arrived in St. Albans, and already he'd made an enemy. "It's just that in a small town, there are always objections to change, aren't there?" Father MacNeill said smoothly. He glanced at his watch, a gesture Janet interpreted as an excuse to cut the conversation short. "Good Heavens, look at the time," he said, betraying himself by putting a little too much surprise into his voice. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I'm running late."

An uncomfortable silence spread over the little group as the priest hurried back into the church. Then Ted said, "Well, I guess I put my foot in it with him, didn't I?"

I guess you did, Janet thought, but bit back the words before she spoke them.

Corinne Beckwith, though, nodded. "Father MacNeill doesn't like having his toes stepped on. Not about religion, or anything else. But it isn't just what you said. I think it's your house, too."

"Our house?" Janet repeated. "What could be wrong with fixing up our house? I'd think everyone would be thrilled."

"Not around here," Corinne Beckwith replied. "That area's zoned residential, and I have a feeling there will be a lot of opposition to giving you a variance."

"But why?" Janet pressed. "If we're bringing money into the town-"

Corinne shook her head. "Money has nothing to do with it." She hesitated, then went on. "It's your family. There are a lot of people here who simply don't have much fondness for anyone named Conway." Her lips twisted into an apologetic semblance of a smile. "Welcome to St. Albans."

Father Devlin slowly emerged from his trance of prayer.

The church was silent; Cora Conway's funeral over.

Slowly, every joint and muscle protesting, he pulled himself to his feet and haltingly made his way back to the tiny cell he occupied on the top floor of the rectory. The cell was his penance, a penance he had assigned himself forty years ago, on the day he knew he'd failed. He'd resigned his ministry that day, turning over his church and his authority to young Father MacNeill, and retreated to his cell to spend whatever remained of his life contemplating his own sins.

And offering comfort to the only penitent he would hear.

Cora Conway.

The years had slowly ground by, each seeming longer than the one before, and he slowly came to understand that even death was to be withheld from him.

He even understood why: his failure to find a way to absolve Cora Conway, to release her from the torture that gripped her mind. Even three days ago, when he'd administered the last rites of their faith, he'd still been unable to cast out the demons that haunted her.

"Take this," she'd breathed, her clawlike fingers stroking the worn leather of her Bible. "It's in here. Everything is in here." Then, just as he was about to leave, she'd spoken one more time.

"And this," she'd whispered, her shaking fingers grasping the music box that sat on the table by her bed. He'd brought her the music box himself, on the day she'd been brought to the Willows, but he'd never heard it play. "Take it," Cora had whispered. "Listen to its voices."

He'd slipped the music box into the pocket of his cassock, pronounced a final benediction upon Cora's troubled soul, and then departed, the weight of her Bible-and her troubles-almost more than he could bear.

Until today he hadn't opened Cora's Bible, but now he carefully lowered himself onto the straight-backed chair and reached for the Bible on the table nearby. Chair, table, and narrow cot comprised the only furnishings of his cell. He pulled the Bible close and, holding it by its cracked spine, allowed it to fall open to whatever page upon which God might place His finger.

The Bible opened to the division between the two testaments, where lay the history of the generations through which the ancient Bible had passed. The page that lay open in front of Father Devlin was filled with careful, cursive script of a time gone by, but despite the clarity of the letters, Father Devlin still had to strain to read the faded words.

A date had been inscribed: April 16, 1899.

Beneath the date there was a smear of ink, but then the entry began:

I shall not survive this evil day,the first line said. The beat of his ancient heart quickening, Father Devlin read on…

LORETTA VILLIERS CONWAY SAT AT HER DESK, HER BACK AS RAMROD STRAIGHT AS HER MOTHER HAD TAUGHT HER WHEN SHE WAS A GIRL, BUT DESPITE THE PERFECTION OF HER POSTURE, FOR WHICH SHE WAS FAMOUS THROUGHOUT ST. ALBANS AND THE PARISH, HER HAND QUIVERED AS SHE DIPPED HER PEN INTO THE POT OF INK AND SET IT TO THE BLANK PAGE OF THE BIBLE SHE KEPT WELL-HIDDEN FROM HER HUSBAND. A DROP OF THE BLACK FLUID FELL FROM THE PEN'S POINT AND SPLASHED TO THE PAGE, BUT SO DISTRAUGHT WAS LORETTA THAT SHE HARDLY NOTICED IT. SHE CONTINUED WRITING.

I had thought it was the crowing of the cock that woke me. But it was not the cock, as I found out when I stepped out onto the mezzanine of the house that Monsignor Melchior built for us. The cry was louder there, and I recognized it at once as coming from the servant girl, and knew her time had come. Even now I remember thinking that perhaps today Bessie would confess the name of the man who invaded her. But when the babies were born, I needed no confession from Bessie, for the image of the father was clear on the faces of each of the tiny babes. Bessie, who is very strong, took the second one to her breast immediately, and called her Francesca. But Francis-who was my son until I saw the faces of his Negro children-took the second child away.

When I came down from Bessie's room-having tended her as best I could-I heard noises coming from the cellar below the house. It did not matter, though, for already I knew what I must do. The curse that has befallen this family will not be lifted, and I know now that there is but one escape. I know not weather Heaven or Hell awaits me at the end of the noose I shall place around my neck when this paragraph is done. It matters not. It will be enough that I have finally escaped this house.

AFTER NEATLY WIPING ITS POINT, LORETTA VILLIERS CONWAY SET THE PEN ASIDE. WHEN SHE WAS CERTAIN THE INK HAD COMPLETELY DRIED, SHE TOOK THE BIBLE TO BESSIE DELACOURT, WHO STILL LAY IN HER BED, HER REMAINING DAUGHTER CRADLED AGAINST HER BREAST. SHE SLIPPED THE VOLUME INTO THE TOP DRAWER OF BESSIE'S SCARRED DRESSER, THEN TURNED TO THE SERVANT.

SHE BORE BESSIE NO MALICE, FOR IT WAS HER SON WHO HAD BETRAYED HER, NOT THE IGNORANT GIRL.

"I HAVE PUT A BIBLE IN YOUR DRAWER," SHE SAID. "WHEN MY SON MARRIES, YOU MUST GIVE IT TO HIS BRIDE."

SHE STARTED TOWARD THE DOOR, THEN TURNED BACK AND LOOKED ONCE MORE INTO THE FACE OF HER GRANDDAUGHTER. SHE REACHED OUT, ALMOST AS IF TO TOUCH THE TINY CHILD, BUT THEN DREW HER HAND AWAY. HER BACK AS STRAIGHT AS EVER, SHE LEFT THE SERVANT GIRL ALONE WITH HER BASTARD CHILD.

IN HER OWN ROOM, LORETTA VILLIERS CONWAY PUT ON THE DRESS SHE HAD WORN THE DAY SHE MARRIED MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR CONWAY.

SHE TOOK THE VELVET BELT FROM HER FAVORITE DRESSING GOWN.

STANDING ON HER WRITING CHAIR, SHE TIED ONE END OF THE BELT AROUND THE CHANDELIER THAT HUNG FROM THE CENTER OF THE CEILING.

SHE TIED THE OTHER END AROUND HER OWN NECK.

SHE CHECKED BOTH KNOTS CAREFULLY.

SATISFIED THAT THEY WOULD HOLD, LORETTA VILLIERS CONWAY STEPPED OFF THE SEAT OF HER WRITING CHAIR.

NO SOUND, NO CRY OF FEAR OR PAIN DISTURBED THE SILENCE THAT FILLED THE ROOM AS LORETTA VILLIERS CONWAY DIED.

Father Devlin's eyes remained fixed on the last words Loretta Villiers Conway had written a century earlier. So George Conway was not the first of his family to commit the mortal-irredeemable-sin of suicide. There had been rumors, of course. In his younger days, when he'd first arrived in St. Albans, Father Devlin had heard the stories, but he'd refused to credit them, preaching instead against wagging tongues. But now, as the words on the page imprinted themselves on his mind, the old priest finally understood that the stories had been more than mere gossip; that the horror that had befallen George and Cora Conway had somehow happened before. "'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,'" he muttered softly to himself, quoting the fifth verse of the twentieth chapter of Exodus, "'visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.'" But how had it begun?

He reached for the Bible once more, then stopped, his fingers trembling in midair. Did he really want to know? Loretta Conway had died a century ago-there was nothing he could do now except pray for her soul. But even that would do no good, for by her very act, Loretta-like George Conway-had condemned herself to eternal damnation.

The exhaustion of the day, along with his nearly ninety years, caught up with Father Devlin, and his hand dropped back to his lap.

Some other day.

Perhaps some other day he would pursue the matter further. But for now his energy was gone, and his cot beckoned to him. Putting Cora Conway's Bible away, he surrendered himself to the oblivion of sleep.