The Clarrington Heritage Read online

  “Clara’s room has not been unlocked since the men carried away her body and Mother’s. Not cleaned, not straightened.”

  But not until much later did Marise know that of all the strange things he had told her, only that had been a lie.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Conservatory

  Marise still used the conservatory, although a number of the exotic plants had died in the past ten years. Of old age, she was sure, for she had tended them faithfully as long as they lasted.

  Now she planted spinach and tomatoes and cucumbers in the planters, and harvested her own salad greens and many other vegetables. She felt this might be the only normal and healthy thing she did now. The fresh scents soothed her wounded spirit, and the feel of the soil between her fingers was comforting.

  The wide French doors of the dining room opened onto the glassed enclosure, and she always drew a deep breath when she stepped through. A number of ornamental vines and a few long-lived shrubs in huge pots still lived to fill the air with their fragrance. This had been one of Mother Clarrington’s favorite haunts, and Edenson used to bring her there to sit, when she felt able to be up for a while.

  Then there had been banks of tropical plants in long clay planters, and orchids hanging from the two palms that still rattled stiff fronds at either end of the room. The damp fragrance seemed to enliven the invalid, and she had seemed more nearly normal there than anyplace.

  She had called Marise to her side one day, shortly before the baby was due. “Come and sit beside me and let me hold your hand,” she’d said. “I know you must be nervous. I was terrified before Hannibal was born. But perhaps your generation has lost the fears mine was heir to. The old wives’ tales I was told would have frightened an Amazon, and I was certainly not a bold woman.”

  Marise perched on a stool beside the chair. “Remember that I’m a nurse,” she said. “I’ve helped to deliver many babies, and I have even delivered them on my own, at a pinch. Nobody can tell me anything I haven’t seen with my own eyes.

  “I am exercising, to make the birth easier. Ben and I are going to Lamaze classes when he’s available, and Lina goes with me when he isn’t. I hope to do this naturally, without anesthesia. It’s better for the baby, you know. But that will depend on how things go. Dr. Pell seems concerned with the width of my pelvis. I’m not going to be hardheaded about it, for I trust his judgment.”

  “Good. That is always best, and we have trusted Dr. Pell for many years. But I don’t know whether to hope for a boy or a girl. I love little boys, but a girl would be lovely. My little girl....”—she caught her lip between her teeth and looked alarmed.

  “But you had only the two boys, I thought,” Marise said.

  Mrs. Clarrington looked down at her hands. “Yes. That’s true. My little girl...died. I never really had her at all. I was so ill at the time that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of her, and I never got any better. Not really.”

  She caught her breath sharply, as if in pain. “You cannot know, my dear, how many prayers I say for you and Ben. For your health and happiness and the child’s. We’ve been such a sad family for so long, I’m afraid the habit of fearing the worst is ingrained in us. You are good for us. I just hope we’re not bad for you.”

  Marise tapped her arm playfully. “That’s morbid! Think happy thoughts, Mother Clarrington. That’s what I am doing, and Ben is helping, when he’s at home. He seems so excited about the baby, but he’s a bit apprehensive too. After what Father Clarrington told me about the family heredity, I suppose that’s natural.”

  The woman’s face turned ashy pale. She gripped Marise’s fingers and gasped, “Call Edenson. I must go up to bed. Happy thoughts...they did me no good at all. Dear, do call Edenson!”

  The nurse had wheeled her away, her head leaning back against the tall back of the chair, her hands too limp to work the controls. All the strength seemed to have run out of her like water through a sieve. One pale hand moved feebly in farewell, as they passed through the French doors.

  Something about that conversation left Marise unsettled and uneasy. There never had been any mention of another child in Ben’s generation. Surely her husband would have told her, if there had been.

  She knew Mrs. Clarrington had been terribly ill after Ben’s birth and never could have another child, so this unnamed daughter would have to have come between Hannibal and Ben. But she said she had been ill since that birth, which meant she should not have had Ben at all. It was strange.

  The baby had chosen that time to kick strenuously. She rose from the stool to give it more room for its efforts, and standing there, surrounded by the sweet humid air, she had been thinking of nothing in particular. A feeling of dim foreboding had been the worst of her sensations, when a sound came to her ears.

  It was a soft, high voice, singing. A childish song quavered in the air, perhaps a nursery rhyme. And it came from nearby, someplace overhead, though she knew that was impossible. Only the sky rose over the conservatory. And, of course, the rearmost rooms of the third floor.

  Marise sank onto her heels and thrust her trowel into the dirt. Patting soil around the roots of a newly transplanted aloe vera, she thought of that childish voice. She could almost hear its echo, all these years afterward.

  She shuddered, stood, and left the room, closing the French doors firmly behind her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Library

  If Marise avoided the study as much as possible, the library was the room she dreaded with all her being. Though she loved to read and went often to browse along the packed shelves, she always entered it with a cold shudder along her spine.

  It was here she had found Hannibal. That memory would never leave her.

  Little Ben was about five, she remembered, and he had been with her. They were searching out easy reading books left from his father’s and uncle’s childhoods. Already, the child was reading well for one so young and so busy with projects of his own.

  She still felt his square little paw, warm in her hand, as she opened the wide door and snapped on the lights. Outside it was a dismal October day, just right for reading together.

  The sturdy little figure ran ahead into the room and turned toward the low shelf in the corner where his own particular books were kept. She wandered along the shelves, taking down volumes at random and flipping through their pages before replacing them.

  She had been in the mood for a good, bloody mystery. Nothing as ladylike as Agatha Christie. Nor yet the aggressive macho of Mike Hammer. She wanted something refined and yet shivery. Ngaio Marsh? Yes, that was the ticket.

  She moved over to the long library table and bent to pull out one of the red velvet chairs that sat solemnly about it. When she glanced over the table, her eyes looked directly down into Hannibal’s. He lay on his back between the table and the wall of shelves behind it.

  She knew death, no one better. A spasm of nausea shook her as she stared into those unseeing eyes. Hannibal, big and tough and endearing, was lying dead on the library carpet, his face drawn into a rictus of pain. His hands were clamped tightly over his heart.

  Marise needed to scream, to curse, to cry, but she did none of those things. With iron control, she placed her book on the table, carefully squaring its edge with that of the wood. She pushed the chair back into place, concealing Hannibal’s feet, which had pushed beneath the table.

  “Have you found a book yet?” she called to Benjie. “Two,” he said with pride. “I think I can read these two.” He rose from his crouch before the shelves, clutching the books to his chest. He looked entirely too much like Hannibal! She choked down tears and smiled at her son. His black eyes sparkled back at her.

  She kept her control, though later she had wondered how she managed. “Then let’s go. You can take your books upstairs to the schoolroom by yourself, can’t you? I need to speak to Grandpa a mi
nute.”

  He looked surprised and hurt, for they had planned to read together. “Go by the kitchen and tell Hildy I said it’s all right to give you two cookies. Just two, then upstairs. All right?”

  “All right,” he answered, with his usual good cheer. “Two cookies? Choc chip?”

  “Chocolate chip,” she agreed, controlling her need to hurry him away from that dreadful room.

  When he trotted away down the hall to Hildy, she drew a deep breath and stilled the shaking of her hands. She tapped at the study door, feeling a cold lump of despair in her stomach. What dreadful news she must tell her father-in-law!

  Emanuel had been sitting at his desk, and the ledgers were spread out in orderly disarray all about him. He looked up with an absent expression. “Oh, Daughter, come in. Did you need something?”

  He leaned forward, looking at her more closely. He rose and came around the desk. “Marise, what on earth is wrong?”

  She leaned against the door. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she choked. “Hannibal...,” but a small voice said from the doorway, “I go up now, Mama?”

  She turned and managed another strained smile. “You go up now, sweetheart. I may be a while coming. You read to yourself until I make it, all right?”

  When his small feet thumped away up the stair, she felt the blood drain away behind her eyes. Without speaking, she flopped into a chair and put her head between her knees.

  When the dizziness faded, she looked up to find Father Clarrington kneeling beside her. “Marise, what is it?”

  “Hannibal’s dead,” she said without preamble. “In the library, behind the long table. He...looks as if he had a heart attack. His hands are tight against his chest. Call Ben, Father. Or whoever. I think I’m going to be sick, and that’s disgraceful for someone who has seen as much death as I have.”

  But she didn’t get sick. Never in her life had she collapsed in an emergency, and that relief was denied her now. She waited in the study, watching her father-in-law call the forest management office.

  “Clarrington here,” he said. “Put out a call for Ben, will you, Mark? He should be out somewhere in the pine plantation. Send someone out after him, if you need to. There’s...been a death in the family.”

  A quick question squawked from the phone. “No, not his mother, thank God. No, they’re all right too. Don’t let it get out yet, but Hannibal just died. Yes, a terrible shock.”

  He listened for a moment and said, “Thank you, Mark. Yes. We will. God bless you too.” He set the phone in its cradle and wiped tears from his eyes.

  Again he dialed. “Angus? Well, is he there at all? Where? Can you give me that number? Thank you, Evie.”

  His fingers trembled on the dial. The buzz of the phone ringing was audible, even to Marise. She heard the click as the receiver was lifted.

  “Mrs. Anderson? This is Emanuel Clarrington. Is Sheriff Lederer there? Yes, I’ll hold. I understand. I’ll wait.”

  He covered the mouthpiece with one hand and said, “Angus is out at Anderson’s, looking into something about a stolen tractor. She’s getting him.”

  Marise waited, numb and sorrowful. Information was going out, but she seemed unable to grasp anything except the fact that her beloved brother-in-law lay dead in the library.

  She found herself wanting Ben desperately. If she could feel his solid presence beside her, his arm about her shoulders, she might be able to take hold with something like her old authority. She needed to take his hand, hear his voice, for she couldn’t even find tears.

  Dry and empty, she seemed drained of will and strength. Emanuel was speaking again, but she had stopped hearing. Leaning her head back against the leather chair back, she closed her eyes.

  After what seemed a long time, she felt a touch at her elbow. She opened her eyes to find her son’s round face level with her own. He looked sober but not frightened.

  “Uncle Hanni’s sick,” he said. “I went to the liberry to put back a book, and he’s on the floor and he won’t talk to me.”

  “Oh, God!” she sighed. “Why didn’t I lock the door behind me? What was I thinking about, not to make sure Benjie couldn’t get back in there?”

  Father Clarrington came into the room, though she hadn’t known when he left it. He looked at her, at Benjie. Then he bent and took the child’s hand. “Come with Grandpa, my boy. Yes, I know about Uncle Hannibal. We’ve called the doctor and your daddy. Now you must go up to your room, for your Mama isn’t feeling very well, right now.” He bent to kiss the ruddy cheek.

  “I’ll come up and tell you all about it, while we go. Do you want to help Grandpa pull himself up all those steps? Fine. We’ll get Hildy to fix you milk toast and hot chocolate, and you can have your supper on the little dishes in the schoolroom.” He had a genius for managing children, and without protest the little boy went with him.

  Thankfully, Marise watched them leave the room. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and forced her mind to work again. Her family needed her. Letting herself go into shock wasn’t going to help anyone or anything, herself least of all.

  She didn’t quite understand why Hannibal’s death had shaken her so badly, even unexpected as it was. But she had been very fond of the big man, dependent on his steady good sense and undeviating calm.

  She pulled herself out of the chair and made sure she was steady on her feet. A nurse must not be guilty of letting go as she had just done. It was weak and self-indulgent. She turned to the door, went through into the corridor, and stepped into the library again before she could change her mind.

  There was a faint odor in the room, familiar, for she had attended many deaths. That was usually present. She forced herself to cross the Persian rug to the table and round its end to kneel beside Hannibal’s body. She should have checked it before now, even though she knew without a doubt that he was dead.

  It should be done as a matter of form. She touched the wrist, which was not yet entirely cold, though it had lost the warmth of living flesh. The eyeballs were fixed, the irises without reaction. There could be no doubt.

  His expression puzzled her. Pain made strange things happen, sometimes, at the end of a life, but why should he have looked so stunned with surprise? This was not the surprise that the sudden agony of a heart attack should cause, even though there had been no warning of any heart trouble before.

  He looked just as if he had glanced up from what he was doing and seen something so unexpected and alarming that it sent him into shock. But in this solid house, filled with loving people, that was an impossibility.

  Kneeling there, she looked beneath the table, seeing the long wooden foot rest that ran its length, between columnar legs with lion-paw feet. Something glinted against the garnet, purple, and blue of the carpet. She rose and went around the table.

  When she looked down, she found it was only a hair clasp. But it was not hers. All of hers were pale to match her hair. This was black, and caught in it was a long strand of black hair, like Ben’s hair and Hanni’s. There was no black-haired woman in the house, and no one had visited them in weeks.

  Without asking herself why, she put the clasp in her pocket. Then she heard the voice, that thin, childish voice, singing a tuneless melody. From where?

  She stared about her, but it was impossible to place it. She shivered and ran out of the room, locking the door behind her.

  She still shuddered when she thought of that day. It had marked the first break in the happy current of their lives, the first irreparable loss. Long ago she had moved the library table to cover the spot where Hannibal had lain, but it didn’t really help.

  She could still see those shocked black eyes, flat with death, but still holding the shape of the terrible surprise that had triggered the last wild spasm of his heart. Was it that which had shaken his mind from its moorings?

  Marise took a stack of books from the small ta
ble near the door and returned them neatly to their places. Then she began choosing others. If she lived to be eighty, she would never be able to devour that entire collection of books, which was a comfort.

  Stacking her new choices, she went to kneel beside the shelf that still held Ben’s childish books. With a gentle finger, she touched their backs. The Jungle Books. The Wind in the Willows.

  She felt tears rising behind her eyes, and she rose abruptly and turned away.

  Of all her losses, those of Ben and Benjie were still too painful to bear. She took up her books and, once more, locked the library door behind her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Watcher

  The man felt that his surveillance was becoming too obvious. He had been watching for a week now, without any attempt at concealment. He had hoped to attract the notice of the woman who had to live in that house, but there wasn’t the slightest hint she knew he was there.

  Others were not so blind.

  More than one elderly person living in the neighborhood had stopped to inquire if he were looking for some specific address. For a wonder, this old, isolated neighborhood had escaped the blight more accessible ones had suffered, and they had no fear that he might be a drug pusher or a burglar scouting out his next job.

  He managed to disarm suspicion by claiming to be an insurance investigator, checking the place out before his company wrote a new policy. Or a former tenant’s child, looking at his old home. He had no trouble with telling any number of inventive and persuasive lies, but he knew he had become too noticeable.

  He approached the rooming house down the street that once had been a twenty-room mansion. Like most of those along Myrtle Street, it had left behind the days of large families and readily available servants and now was cut up into many small apartments, two or three rooms set into what had been a single large one. Though the exterior walls were solid stone, thick and impervious, he found, once he was installed, that the new partitions were thin enough to hear through.