Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) (4 page)

He startled her; he was standing beside her, outside the car. “Just thinking out loud. See anything?”

“Nothing,” he said, “sealed tight. I
can
see all sorts of pos
sibilities though. Malaria. Encephalitis. We’re wasting our time,
babe.”

“Maybe it’s not the cottage,” Marian said. “Could be the house, couldn’t it?”

“In that case, we’re really wasting our time.” He raised his hands to his mouth. “Let’s go, Dave!” he called.

David came running through the weeds. Ben crouched, ready to cut him off; he grabbed him as he leaped out into the drive, swinging the boy over his shoulder and carrying him squealing with pleasure back to the car.

Marian tensed; that kind of rough stuff made her nervous. “When you two are through horsing around . . .” she said.

They climbed in and Ben started the car, saying, “Here goes nothing.”

David leaned forward between them. “I saw a bike in the weeds,” he said. “A three-wheeler.”

“Must be kids around,” Ben said over his shoulder.

“I don’t think so. It was all busted up.” He waited and then added, “There was blood all over it.”

“No kidding?” Ben said.

He used his scariest voice. “Dried up blood.”

Ben shuddered. “Wowee!” he cried. “Think it was some kind of gorilla blood?”

“Gorillas don’t ride three-wheelers,” David said.

“Then what’s that coming up behind us?” Ben asked.

David turned and looked out the rear window. “A twowheeler,” he said, “with training wheels.”

Marian, staring intently at the upper windows, said to herself,
Let it be the house, please let it be the house
.

For some distance the drive skirted the field which must have once been a vast and manicured lawn, terraced as it rose toward the house; there were traces of thin, low retaining walls. To the right, before the woods began, was a narrower piece of open land; formally planted at one time, there was a vague pattern of shrubs and hedges, gone to ruin, surrounding the remains of a delicate summer pavilion. What a shame, Marian thought. And the house, as they drew closer – that was more than a shame: a crime, a genuine old fashioned mortal sin.

It was still overwhelming, more so as it loomed larger and its details became more distinct – carved modillions and mul-lioned windows and the shape of the columns in the upper porch. But the roof-tiles rippled, and the shingles, once white, were dirty gray and broken, with ancient rust stains; some of the windows had been patched with cardboard; and the balusters running up the central steps were tilting, many of them, or missing (one lay buried in the scrawny shrubbery beside the steps). And for every tree that billowed so impressively from a distance, there were two that were bony and long dead.

“God, what a waste!” Marian said as Ben drove past a five-car garage with an upper storey. There was a huge old Packard parked in front of one of the garages whose doors hung open very loosely. The car seemed packed tight with boxes and lampshades and bits of furniture; a wooden headboard was tied to the top, and the trunk was open.

“What time were they expecting us?” Ben asked.

“Eleven.”

“We’ve got half an hour.”

“They won’t mind.”

He stopped the car in front of the house; the drive was paved very thinly with gravel. When they got out the house stretched and towered above them, and on the other side the wide field rolled back to the woods which were a solid wall of green.

The steps squeaked, all of them; sixteen, according to David who bounced on one until Marian grabbed him and whispered, “David!” She stopped Ben near the top. “I’m nervous,” she said.

“I don’t see why,” he replied. He climbed ahead, up to the portico. The columns were high and round and peeling; the porch broad and shaded.

Almost as soon as Ben knocked, the door was pulled open by a short old man, pink, round and panting. He was wearing a peaked cap, sweat stained, ballooning trousers and a tank-top undershirt; a small nipple peered out beside the worn strap.

“We’re the Rolfes,” Ben said; “we’ve come about the summer place.” Marian crossed the porch; she was smiling tightly and still holding on to David.

“I know, I know,” the man said; he was having trouble catching his breath. “Been expectin’ you. I’m Walker. The handyman.” He chuckled as though it were some private joke. “Come on in.”

He opened the door wider; Ben motioned Marian and David in first.

“You folks can wait in the parlor while I go find their nibses,” Walker said. When he turned there was a large and dirty dustcloth trailing from his back pocket.

David pulled loose as Marian stood motionless in the entrance hall. The chandelier caught her eye first: a great cluster of crystal – Waterford, no doubt – hung high above the bare wooden floor. The droplets were cloudy and the floor dull and scraped; there was a large oriental rug rolled up against one wall. Still, the hall was impressive – almost as large as their whole apartment. A magnificent staircase, carved mahogany,
curved up to the second floor; near the base and following the
curve up and out of sight was a metal band, like a track.

“Marian?” Ben was waiting outside the double doors Walker had just opened.

“Yes, coming.” She tried to absorb the details: double doors on either side of the hall which narrowed to a passageway beside the staircase; rooms beyond – dining room, kitchen, library, the greenhouse? She had never been in a house anything like this; the layout she visualized was strictly Hollywood “grand.” But gone, or going, to seed. And again, what a pity!

What Walker referred to as “the parlor” was even more impressive – an enormous, sun-filled room, rounded at one end and cut with the French doors she had seen as they approached the house. An Aubusson was in the middle of the room, off-white, with pale rose and blue flowers; the walls were all antique
boiseries,
white and gold; and over the scrolled mantel of the fireplace was a Chippendale mirror that made her gasp. And, God! why was the rug so worn, and the walls peeling, and the drapes so heavy with dust? If someone had had the taste to collect so much exquisite crystal and silver, then why weren’t they responsible enough to keep it polished and gleaming?

“Make yourselves at home,” Walker was saying. “Just watch where you sit; lot of old stuff in here.” He pulled the dust-cloth out of his back pocket and passed it perfunctorily over a gilt console. He was moving toward one of the windows. “Musty,” he said, sniffing.

Marian stood next to Ben, her eyes travelling over the room; she took his hand and squeezed it, as if to say, “Help me, please!”

“Cozy,” Ben said, and then stage-whispered, “Money. Very
old
money.”

David was at the other end of the room, watching Walker struggle with the window. “Hey!” he called out suddenly, “they got a boat.” The window opened with a wrench and a breeze flew into the room, knocking a fluted shade off a lamp.

“Look at the view if you want,” Walker said. He lifted the shade, pulled the plug, and stuck the lamp under his arm.

David became more excited. “Dad, they got a boat!” he cried.

“Busted,” Walker said.

Ben had come to the window. “Where’s the pool the ad mentioned?”

“Can’t see it from the house,” Walker said. He waved vaguely. “It’s down there.”

Ben looked out beyond the terrace to the lawn sloping down to the bay where he could see a twisted pier and a small cabin cruiser jutting up, waterlogged. There had been formal gardens at one time, with a large stone fountain in the center. What a waste is right, he thought.

Marian had found a coral lacquer secretary, beautifully embellished with black and gold figures, against the inside wall. She touched it, hesitantly at first, absorbed in the detail; her hand followed the cool, polished curve, very lightly, reaching the small finial. One piece, tucked away in a corner, and it was worth more than everything they had or ever would have, as far as she could see. To be able to live with something so beautiful – not own, merely live with, for a month, two months.
God
.

David’s voice broke in. “How come your plants are all dead?” he was asking. She looked away from the secretary and was startled to see Walker, David next to him, watching her and smiling. She moved away self-consciously. “I couldn’t help admiring it,” she apologized. “It’s lovely.” Walker kept smiling at her, and David said, “Your front steps’re busted too.”

“David!” She smiled feebly in Walker’s direction. Why was he watching her like that?

“Everything’s busted around here,” Walker said, and finally looked away from her, adjusting the lamp under his arm.

Ben had stepped out onto the terrace. “Go with Daddy,” Marian said, calling, “Easy, easy,” as he ran across the room. “It’s all right, isn’t it?” she asked Walker.

“Sure. Look over the place if you want.” He was beginning to leave the room.

“How old is the house?” Marian asked.

Walker stopped and shrugged. “Who knows?” He noticed something across the room. “Heck,” he said. He came back to Marian and placed the lamp and shade next to her on the floor. “Watch this stuff a minute, will you?” There was a large landscape, elaborately framed, hanging above the sofa. He walked toward it – small, quick steps, as though he were used to sudden obstructions – knelt on the sofa and reached up to straighten the picture, making it even more crooked. “Better,” he said, inspecting the picture, and as he came back to her, it crashed to the floor behind the sofa. Before she knew it, Marian cried out, “
Walker!
” Her tone was inexplicably sharp and proprietary, and immediately one hand went up to her mouth.

Walker looked stunned for just a second, and then there were the traces of a smile. “Yes, ma’am?” he said, quietly and evenly.

Her fingers remained over her lips. Why had she said that, why had it burst out so instinctively? Whatever there was of a smile faded and he was standing in front of her now, still and submissive.

“It’s not – there’s no damage, is there?” she said lamely, but at least the words broke his stare and the uncomfortable silence. He muttered something apologetic, turned and climbed back onto the couch, bringing the picture up with a series of grunts.

“Busted,” he said, red-faced with the effort. “A lot of things fall apart around here,” he said, dragging the picture behind him. He gestured for the lamp: “Ma’am?” she handed it to him and it went under his arm. He mentioned something again about “their nibses” – still very hangdog – and left the room, closing the double doors behind him.

Marian stared after him, thinking, please, don’t let him come with the house. Not a clod like that. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and followed the carved pattern, its detail grimy and vague, down the length of the room. If he does, if Walker is a condition, then this room at least is out of bounds.

There was an alcove at the opposite end of the room which she headed for, cataloguing the furniture and the bric-a-brac (someone collected yellow and blue Meissen) as she passed
them. Ben was calling her from the terrace – something about t
he view. “In a minute,” she called back. She looked into the alcove and saw a glass door, clouded and dirty. The greenhouse. She could just about make out the long shelves and tables behind the glass. Should she? Why not?

The heat and the rotting smell hit her as soon as she managed to pull the door open. The glass walls and the roof were grey, crusted with dirt. Warped shelves and sagging tables, extending the length of the greenhouse, were filled with dull orange pots – empty, most of them, or trailing stiff brown vines. There were pots on the dirt floor, shattered, and rusted tools. Despite the smell and the heat, she moved deeper into the room, dipping her fingers into a pot, picking off a petrified flower. It was appalling, and, goddamit, she’d think of some way to tell them that. What’s another word for appalling?

The second time Ben called “Marian?” she heard him. The smell kept him just outside the greenhouse door. “For Chrissake, what’re you doing?”

“Look at it,” she said, poking inside a clay pot. “Every plant dead. Soil’s like powder.”

“Look, you wouldn’t like strangers nosing around your rubber plant. Come out of there.”

She looked over the room once more, gave a long sigh, and came toward him. “It kills me, such waste. Kills me!” She gave a low scream and hammered his chest with both fists.

“Stop taking it so personally.”

“I can’t help it.” She tried to block it out. “I thought you were watching David.”

“He went down to look at the beach.”

She was standing in the doorway, giving the littered shelves one final, frustrated look. “They might not like that.”

“They sure as hell won’t like this.
Out
.” He pushed the door shut.

She looked out over the terrace and saw David running toward the beach. He stopped, picked up a stone, and scaled it toward the water. “I don’t know whether that’s a very good idea,” she said to Ben, and then noticed that he was not behind her. “Will David be all right?” she asked, louder, and heard him call, “Yeah” from the alcove.

The terrace was paved with flagstone; weeds grew between
and through the stones, and wound around the balusters
barely supporting the cracked ledge that bordered the terrace.
The garden furniture was, of course, unusable. But that view! And the space!

“Hey, you see these?” Ben called from the alcove.

She hadn’t. Opposite the greenhouse door was a wall filled with pictures – photographs, twenty or thirty of them. He was crouching in front of them.

“Weird,” he said, “they’re all the same.”

Marian came beside him and looked at the pictures. They were arranged in neat rows, almost covering the wall. Each of the photographs was the same size, with the same thin silver frame – and, as Ben had indicated, exactly the same view of the house: looking toward the front from halfway across the wide field. Some seemed older, sepia-toned, with black and white shots in the middle of the wall, and color prints hanging to the right.

“Notice anything?” he asked her.

The house, especially in the color prints, gleamed – pure white against the lawn and the bay beyond; the rails and balustrades were whole, the windows unbroken; nothing seemed patched or faded or crumbling. The trees shading the house were full and there were beautifully sculpted hedges. It was exactly the way it should have been, and obviously was – at some time. Overwhelming.

Ben stood up. “Crazy, no?” he said.

Marian was studying the pictures. “Yes,” she said. “Pity they’ve let it fall apart.”

Somewhere in the house a door slammed shut, and there were raised voices. “Here they come.” He grabbed Marian’s arm and lifted her to her feet. “Now remember,” he said, “I’ll do the talking. Just look pretty and keep your mouth shut.”

She took a minute to think about it. Ben was holding her with both hands now. “Marian . . .” he warned. It was his negative voice. “The cottage is out, okay? – Queens or no Queens.”

She smiled. “I’m with you, Benjie,” she said. “The cottage won’t do.”