The Clarrington Heritage Page 9

  “Then you’d better quit and go to work for one of the biggies,” Turner said pleasantly. “Or one day I’ll find a note in the mail asking me to replace you with someone who will hew to company policy. What you can’t see past the dollar signs in your eyes is the fact that we have a constant, unvarying supply of saw timber and will have for the foreseeable future. When its price is high, we harvest hardwood. When that sinks we harvest pine.

  “We do not own one single acre of bare land that will require fifteen or twenty years to produce a crop of inferior pine timber. No other outfit in this country, large or small, shows the profit margin that we do. Thank that over and keep still.”

  Turner saw a flicker of movement. Corrigan was frowning, now. Evan nodded in his direction.

  The securities man said, “That may be true. Nobody denies the company is solid as a rock, but there are things we could do—like short-term, high-interest investments—that could become extremely profitable, if we were allowed to take advantage of them. Any other enterprise this large would be forced to take such measures by the stockholders.”

  Evan smiled, knowing the farseeing, good judgment of his predecessor. “There are no stockholders, as you know very well. The entire corporation is privately owned, and Marise Clarrington owns all the stock, except for the small parcel Ben left me in his will.

  “Each one of us is paid directly by Marise Clarrington, and every one of our jobs is at her disposal. Never forget that, and don’t think I don’t know why Gertrude is fidgeting to get Marise’s hand off the controls.

  “There is a lot of money and lot of power tied up in Clarrington Enterprises. Declaring the sole stockholder insane would open up the possibility of making the firm go public. That would give every one of us an inside opportunity to buy hefty blocks of shares in a highly profitable company.

  “If you think I don’t see how your minds work, you are mistaken. I do. You are typical of those running business these days, and I understand you. Never think you can swing something among yourselves that I won’t catch onto.

  “Any attempt to hale Marise Clarrington up on an insanity charge will find me squarely behind her, not you. I learned my trade the old-fashioned way, from honest and honorable people. I know you’re not deliberately dishonest, any of you, but you are a generation removed from an inherent understanding of the concept of honor. Mind your manners, Trustees. I am watching you.”

  There was no discussion when he sat down. The chastened group sat shuffling their reports back into their folders and filed from the room. Evan stood for a long time afterward, staring down at the polished wood, smearing one finger on its surface.

  He was thinking of Ben and Marise, of Hannibal and Emanuel. They were solid, dependable people. Not perfect, of course, but honest even in their errors. Their given words bound them inextricably, and he could do no differently.

  None of them had deserved the fates marked out for them. Marise, in particular, had not helped to sharpen the blade that cut her down along with her family.

  Each time he visited that gray granite house he felt once again the pity that had gripped him a decade before. No, Marise would not be thrown to a bunch of young and ambitious sharks if he could help it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Aunt Lina’s Room

  The thing that had taken place in Aunt Lina’s room had been so incredibly horrible the very ghastliness of it had helped Marise blank out the memory. It was something the mind could not retain without self destructing. She found herself able to approach this room as a place where she had often found comfort, instead of terror.

  The square space still held a faint breath of sandalwood, for she had never disturbed Lina’s old-fashioned furniture and her personal items, which were still arranged neatly on the dresser and the bedside table. Even her clothing still hung in the closet, for Marise had not been able to bring herself to go through Aunt Lina’s things.

  Always a haven of peace and sanity, this room, almost alone of those in the house, had resisted the residue of the mad thing that had happened here. The understanding and comfort Lina dispensed to Marise and to her nephews seemed to override the later occurrence.

  For Angelina Clarrington had been the pivot around which the family moved. Unobtrusive, rather shy and plain, Lina was always there when she was needed, and she supplied whatever was required without fuss and with great kindness.

  Benjie, too, had found a special relationship with his great-aunt, and he had gone there often for a quiet talk with her.

  Marise was glad of it, of course, for Lina had seemed at loose ends until Emanuel’s illness made her feel useful again. She had taken willing turns at his bedside.

  Standing there, remembering, Marise was glad she had insisted that the room be returned to its normal condition after it was cleaned up. Now it held an air of waiting. If only Lina could return, just for a brief time, to counsel with her!

  Marise understood that anyone outside her peculiar situation might find this need of hers less than sane, but she clung to the feel of Lina that remained in her chamber. Marise clung to her faint presence sometimes, lacking anything more concrete to comfort her.

  The day after her encounter with Penelope, she had come here. Ben had needed all the comfort she could give, and she managed at last to convince him she had not suffered and he should feel no guilt. But her husband suffered from restless dreams that night, and she had not rested. When Ben left for the woods, she came down the half stair and tapped on Lina’s door.

  Aunt Lina had been crying, which was in itself so unusual as to be almost frightening. She had met Marise at the door, where she opened her arms and gathered the girl in like a lost lamb. For a moment she wept down the back of Marise’s neck. Then she loosed her and beckoned her into the room.

  “This would happen on a day when I was away,” she sniffed. “My dearest girl, I don’t know what to say to you. We had no right at all to allow you to get into such a fix without any warning. We should have sent you and Ben away at once, before you settled in here. That first night when you came down to meet us, Emanuel should have told you the plain truth.” She wiped her eyes on a cambric handkerchief and regained control of herself.

  “I should have told you myself, if he did not. Or Hanni or Elizabeth should. My conscience has tortured me since Emanuel had to tell you our secret, and it’s been worse since Hanni died. How could we expect you, unwarned, unprotected, to deal with such a tragedy as ours?”

  Marise drew Lina toward her small rosewood desk. “Do sit down, Aunt Lina. And don’t think it has all been terrible, for it hasn’t. I’ve had a family, which I didn’t have, once my last brother died. I’ve been happy here, despite what has come later. This cannot dim it for me. Not ever.” She blinked back tears of her own.

  “It’s just that I was frightened yesterday. I never remember being that frightened before in all my life. Penelope’s so big and strong; for a little while I was totally intimidated. Then I remembered my training and got my wits back. I didn’t tell Ben; he was too torn up to handle that. But I’m still shaken. Just a bit.”

  Lina patted her shoulder. “I should think so! You’re such a little thing, I still don’t know how you managed to knock her out. But thank God you did. The girl tried to kill me once, years ago.

  “She was hardly more than a child, and it was shortly after we had realized there was something wrong. It was after the...the happening with the neighbor child, and we thought that if we could watch her closely enough we might still let her have just a bit of freedom.

  “Emanuel hired a man to repair the iron fence around the gardens, for there were loose rods in places. Some of the mortar in the brick base was crumbling too. They put it into tiptop shape, so she could wander around the grounds without risking her escaping.

  “She was playing around the rockery that day, and I was keeping an eye on her. She had her big doll out there, wit
h her tea set, and I thought she looked completely normal, pouring tea into the little cups and pretending the sort of tea table conversation children seem to think adults indulge in.

  “It was late spring and warm, I remember. The roses smelled heavenly, and bees were buzzing around the jasmine. I was tired and I dozed off.” Aunt Lina closed her eyes for a moment, as if reliving that long ago instant of drowsiness.

  Then her jade green eyes opened again, fixed upon the past.

  “I don’t know what waked me. She must have made some sort of sound when she picked up the discarded iron rod from the fence. You know those spears that form the tops of them? She ran at me full-tilt, the spear leveled toward my chest. She wasn’t more than thirty feet away, but something lent me more wit and speed than I ever needed before.

  “I’d been reading the big Shakespeare, that leather-bound one from the library. I raised it just in time, and the point of the spear went an inch and a half into the book before the resistance showed her to a stop.”

  Marise pictured the scene and shuddered. Blinking away the vision, she whispered, “What on earth did you do?”

  “I got up very carefully and pulled the spear out of the book. I smoothed out the puncture mark as well as I could, making regretful noises about damaging a book. Pen was staring at me as if she were disappointed, but I paid no heed to her. Once I got the book back into something like a readable condition, I said, ‘Let’s go ask Hildy for milk and cookies.’

  “She took my hand and smiled as if nothing had happened, and we went away to the kitchen. I never told Emanuel. I never told anyone until now, though I watched my eyes out of their sockets after that. But now Emanuel is gone, and you need the warning. Never trust her, no matter what she says or how gentle she seems.”

  Marise swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. “Shouldn’t we consider...no, didn’t they ever consider putting her someplace where she would be supervised by trained people? An institution?”

  Lina looked at her hands. “Yes, we did. We looked at all sorts of places, public and private, and Emanuel even talked about trying to establish one of his own, when he found out the conditions in even the best of the existing establishments. But that would have been very expensive, and it would have had to be staffed with the same kind of people who ran the others.

  “There was no guarantee that Pen would be treated any better, when one of the family wasn’t directly involved in running the place. Not one of us was willing to devote his life to running a madhouse. And Ben came apart at the thought of it.

  “He refused to agree to anything of the sort. He was still very young, of course, but there was never any shaking him once he made up his mind. He held it against all of us for years, the fact that we’d considered putting her away. She was his twin, no matter what.”

  Lina looked up at Marise, her jade eyes opaque. “I remember Ben shouting at his father, one night, ‘We take care of our own!’ when the subject of Penelope came up. ‘Clarringtons caused this thing and Clarringtons must take care of it.’” She laughed. “I feel sure you learned a long time ago that Ben is nothing if not hard-headed.

  “But after that he couldn’t bear to stay here and see his sister become more and more troubled and unstable. For even after we found that if we supplied canvas and paint she was more settled, remaining quiet and contented for weeks at a time, she still broke out unexpectedly. It was clear her mind had not stopped deteriorating.” Lina rose stiffly from her desk and looked about the room absently.

  “So Ben ran away and got sick and almost died and found you. Perhaps it would have been better for you, in the long run, if he hadn’t...lived.”

  “Don’t ever say that!” Marise cried, flinching. “Whatever happens, Ben has been worth everything. And Benjie and you and the rest of the family. I had nobody. I wasn’t unhappy, but never on my best day did I claim to be happy. You’ve given me years of happiness, and nothing can take that away. I lived in a vacuum, and Ben came and filled my life.”

  Marise, standing in the chilly room, remembered the warm flood of conviction that had filled her as she spoke. She’d meant those words, totally and to the depths of her being. Indeed, she continued to mean them, up to the very end.

  The room was quiet around her, the scent of sandalwood faint but pervasive. Marise touched the rosewood desk with one finger, wondering. If she had known then, would she have remained in this house? Would she have had the courage to stay here, anticipating the unseen but looming future?

  No. For her son’s sake, she would have taken him and fled, if some vagrant intuition had told her what was beyond the horizon. She would have taken the family with her, if she could, but she knew without any doubt that they would never have left this place.

  Ben wouldn’t. Mother Clarrington couldn’t. Aunt Lina would have felt bound here by years of dedication to her duty. Only Marise and Benjie could have managed to leave the cut granite house and close the iron spear gate behind them. Only they would have been safe.

  In a way, she thought that might have been worse for her, but for Benjie she would have assumed even worse guilt than leaving the family to its fate. For Benjie she would have done terrible things, she knew.

  But there had been no kind intuition, and now there were no more tears. Not for ten years had she possessed tears to spend. They had all been wept out long ago.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Watcher

  The man had long since learned her routine. He pretended, every morning, to leave for work, but he had found a spot in the vacant lot beside the Clarrington house from which he could see both the front and the rear gates. An untidy privet hedge that had run wild on the empty grounds formed a holt into which he could dive, remaining unseen but watchful as the days passed.

  Although there was seldom any sign of life except a faint gleam from a crevice in the shutters of the tower rooms or a crack between draperies that shot a spear of light into the darkness of the gardens, he realized at last that life did go on there. An orderly, leisurely progression of events took place.

  He’d ventured up in the light from the street lamp and seen the revolving mailbox that allowed her to take in her mail without opening her door. The mailman, he soon learned, had a key to that front gate, for he opened it every morning to deposit the mail in its mouth-like slot.

  The watcher marked that fact into his memory.

  A middle-aged man arrived every month, not on exactly the same day of the week or date but roughly at the same time of the month. Another man, this one very young, brought boxes monthly as well. The boy accompanying him carried those around to the rear, while the man went up the steps, rang, and was admitted into the house.

  This one visited at less regular intervals, sometimes once in the month, sometimes in only a couple of weeks. She must telephone him when she needed something.

  Nobody else approached the house, and only those three seemed to have keys to the forbidding front gate, as far as he could tell. He mulled over the fact for a very long time.

  “There has to be some warning,” he muttered in his privet covert. “It mustn’t happen too quickly. She has to dread something terrible for a while. It isn’t worth doing, unless it’s done right.”

  In time, he decided to write a note. Then he took a bus thirty miles to Duncanville, where he dropped it into a mailbox. That faithful mailman would deliver it, he knew, within a couple of days.

  Then he would act. The thought made warm blood rush to his face and fill his chest with triumph.

  He’d waited for a very long time now. He’d hated her for such a long while. But now she was about to pay. Soon. Soon.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Basement Apartment

  Marise had avoided the basement, for cleaning there seemed unnecessary and masochistic. But when a leaky faucet demanded a new washer, which in turn required a visit below to turn off the water, she knew she
must go down into Hildy and Andy’s empty domain. She hadn’t visited it since that last dreadful day and had intended never to go there again.

  To get to the main turnoff, she had to go through Hildy’s sitting room. She approached the door with sick apprehension, though there could be nothing there now. Not after ten years. The door opened to a shower of loosened cobwebs, which was disgraceful.

  Marise felt a twinge of conscience. She’d kept the upper floors well, if not immaculately. She had been a coward when it came to this part of the house, and neat Hildy would have been distressed at the condition of her own quarters.

  A small brown spider dropped onto her arm, and she brushed it off with distaste. She really must come down here with a broom, at least, to remove those webs. Perhaps a can of the spray that Alistair had brought her to combat ants and roaches might help. There was a scuttering sound in the corner, and toenails rasped against the cement floor. She added rat poison to her mental list.

  The braided orange and brown rug was all but invisible beneath a thick layer of dust. Little puffs followed her steps across the floor as she moved into the room.

  Hildy’s crochet work huddled in a bright heap on the round table beside her cushioned chair. Andy’s pipe lay where he had dropped it beside his own chair. Only the most necessary cleaning had been done after their deaths, and Marise hadn’t seen the room then or since. Evan Turner had suggested that she avoid it, and she had felt his advice to be wise.

  The last time she had stood here was quite a long while before the end of her world. She had taken down a prescription for Hildy, and when she tapped on the door Andy had grunted an invitation to come in.

  The two of them had been sitting in their identical chintz-covered chairs, one on each side of the little table. An electric teapot Ben had brought Hildy from Canada was steaming on a trivet at the old cook’s elbow.