Terrible Tide (7 page)

He slipped in the question so casually that Holly almost said yes without thinking. Did this backwoods Romeo expect her to be panting on the doorstep?

“I’ll be here,” she told him, “but I can’t say whether I’ll be free. Professor Cawne’s going to be doing some photography in the house for a book he’s writing, and I’ve been asked to help him. I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Oh, Cawne’s a pretty fast worker, I’d say.”

Neill shrugged and went over to his station wagon. Holly stepped back inside, wondering why she felt so annoyed with herself for having said what was so obviously the right thing to say.

B
Y THAT TIME, HOLLY
was ready to call it a day. Annie wasn’t. Refreshed by her nap and the excitement of having someone to talk to, she appeared ready to make a night of it. She reminisced about her years at Cliff House until Holly could no longer hide her yawns.

“I’m sorry, Annie, but I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“I expect we should both go to bed,” Annie sighed. “I can’t say I relish the notion.”

“Why not?”

The old woman lifted a stove lid, poked at dull red embers with the cast-iron lifter, thrust in two more chunks of hardwood, fiddled with the dampers. “There, I guess that ought to hold overnight. We used to burn coal, but Earl Stoodley’s too cheap to buy us any these days. I do hate coming down to a cold stove in the morning when my tongue’s hanging out for a good, hot cup of tea. Don’t you?”

She took off her dirty apron and hung it with exaggerated care on a hook behind the pantry door while Holly waited, none too patiently. At last Annie wiped her palms down the front of her faded print dress and confessed, “The plain truth of the matter is, I’m scared.”

“Because of those noises you were talking about to Mr. Stoodley? You don’t honestly believe it’s ghosts, do you?”

“Dearie, I don’t know what to believe, and that’s the God’s honest truth. I don’t imagine those noises. I hear them as plain as I can hear that pretty voice of yours, and you needn’t start reminding me everybody hears funny sounds at night in old houses. I’ve lived in this house long enough to know every squeak and groan it’s ever made. These noises are different.”

“How different?”

The best I can describe it is like somebody padding around in shoepacs or moccasins. Sometimes I hear them downstairs, sometimes up attic, sometimes it seems to be right in the room next to where I’m lying. Sometimes it’s just the footsteps I hear, other times it’s bumping noises like furniture being moved around.”

Holly raised her eyebrows. “You don’t suppose it could be ordinary flesh-and-blood burglars?”

“Dearie, I may be an old fool but I’m not a damn fool, as Bert would say. Naturally that was the first thing I thought of. But when I get up the next morning and check around, everything’s the same as I left it the night before. I’ve got Earl Stoodley up here with that inventory list of his more than once, and nothing’s ever been missing far’s we can make out. The doors and windows are always locked. I’ve gone around to every crack and cranny, but there’s never any sign of breaking in, and why should anybody do that anyway if it wasn’t to steal? So, if it isn’t ghosts, what is it, eh?”

“I don’t know, Annie.” Holly yawned again. “But whatever it is, I’ll hear it too, and we can compare notes in the morning.”

“But it might not happen tonight. Sometimes weeks go by and I don’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Lately it’s been coming more often, though. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve gone down those stairs with a poker in my fist and my heart in my mouth.”

“You mean you’ve actually gone chasing after the sounds?”

“Of course, dearie. I’m not that much of a coward. What scares me most of all is when I can’t. Nowadays it seems every time I hear something and try to get out, the door to my bedroom sticks shut. It’s like those nightmares where somebody’s chasing after you and you can’t budge hand or foot. Yet the door isn’t locked because I keep the key. And the next morning I can open it easily enough. It’s as if there’s a spell on it.”

“Do you normally sleep with your door shut?”

“Always, ever since I came here. Aunt Maude made me. She was afraid Uncle Jonathan might be going to the bathroom in his nightshirt, see, and it wouldn’t be nice if I should happen to wake up and see him.”

“Who was Aunt Maude? I thought Mrs. Parlett’s name was Mathilde.”

“Uncle Jonathan married twice. Aunt Maude was the first. She wasn’t really my aunt, just my mother’s cousin, but it sounded more respectful to call her Aunt Maude. Anyway, as I say, I always shut my door but I never used to lock it. You can bet your bottom dollar I do now, though it doesn’t seem to matter one way or the other. I hang the key on a string around my neck because they say iron’s a charm against witches. Laugh if you want to.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Holly. Annie Blodgett might be a naive country woman, but she certainly had her wits about her. “And you say nothing is ever moved or taken away?”

“Never once. I’ll admit my eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I’ve got Earl and his inventory to back me up. He’d squawk fast enough if he found anything missing. No dearie, the only explanation that makes sense to me is a ghost. I don’t know if it’s Uncle Jonathan or Aunt Maude or Cousin Edith or who, but I say it’s a Parlett.”

“What does Bert say?”

“Nothing much I’d care to repeat,” Annie answered primly, “but he’s as stumped as I am.”

“And Claudine?”

“Tells me to say my prayers and keep my door locked, as if I needed to be told.”

“Then they both—” Holly hesitated, not sure how to go on without hurting Annie’s feelings.

“They don’t think I’m dreaming, the way Earl Stoodley does, if that’s what you’re driving at. They know me, you see.”

Holly nodded. She understood now why both Bert and Claudine had shown such a peculiar mixture of eagerness and hesitation about finding a companion for Annie. She ought to resent being put on the spot like this, but she didn’t. For once, she was finding herself needed as a responsive human being instead of merely a prop to dress a stage or focus a lens on. She gave Annie a little hug.

“If it’s one of the Parletts, you shouldn’t have to worry about coming to any harm. You’ve done plenty for them over the years, haven’t you?”

“I’ve done the best I could, dearie, and I’ll keep on as long as the Lord spares me and the family needs me.”

They got to bed at last. Annie must have passed a peaceful night, for Holly never got waked up. She slept until almost eight o’clock, but the extra sleep left her surprisingly unrefreshed. Annie, on the other hand, was chipper as a sparrow.

“That’s the first decent night’s rest I’ve had since I can remember when. Set yourself down, dearie, and let me fix you a nice bowl of porridge. I’ve already fed Mrs. Parlett.”

Holly shuddered at the lumpy, gluey gray mass Annie was offering. “Thanks, but I’d rather have toast and a boiled egg, if we have any.”

“Land, yes, eggs enough to start our own henyard. They’re in that brown crockery bowl in the pantry.”

She started to go for the eggs but Holly stopped her. “I’ll do it, Annie. You shouldn’t be waiting on me. I meant to be down in time to cook breakfast for you.”

“Ah, it takes an old fox to beat a young chicken,” Annie bubbled. “You sure you won’t have any porridge? You young things, always fussing about your figures! When I was a girl, boys liked a girl with a waist they could really get hold of. Land alive! Aunt Maude must be rolling over in her grave, me saying a thing like that. Anyway, dearie, you’d better eat hearty. We’ve a big day ahead of us.”

“Why? What’s happening?”

“Professor Cawne telephoned just a little while before you came down. He’s coming out here with Earl Stoodley to take pictures, and he says you’re going to be in on it.”

Holly dropped her egg into the pan too quickly and cracked the shell. “Blast! Yes, I did promise to help but I thought he’d give me a day or so to get squared away first. I don’t know what shots he’s planning to take, what he wants for props or backgrounds—”

Since Annie didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about and since she couldn’t do anything now anyway except muddle through, Holly quit sputtering and concentrated on making toast the way Annie showed her. You speared a slice of bread with a long fork, lifted a stove lid, and held the bread close to the shimmering red embers just long enough, but not too long or you’d wind up with charcoal. It was remarkably good toast, when you managed it right. Holly was working on her third slice when Earl Stoodley’s Ford and Geoffrey Cawne’s gray Jaguar swished up to the front portico.

Both men jumped out and started lugging in a great deal of equipment. Stoodley tripped over the leg of a tripod and almost went flying on his fat face. That brightened Holly’s morning a little. Puttering around with things she knew and understood was fun, too, even with Earl making inane comments and the floodlights giving her the creeps every time she got too close to one.

Geoffrey Cawne hadn’t just been modest about calling himself an amateur with a camera, she found. He didn’t know the first thing about rigging reflectors to eliminate shadows or other technicalities.

Holly tried to persuade him that the little galleried table would be a good subject to start on, both because of its historical interest and because it was small enough to give few problems photographically. Like a typical amateur, though, Geoffrey set his heart on an immense armoire that stood in a next-to-impossible location, was too heavy to move, and had stacks of assorted junk piled in front of it. They spent half the morning just clearing away debris, sweeping the floor, dusting and polishing the armoire, and draping a white bedsheet behind it to provide a less distracting background than the dismal, stained wallpaper.

Earl Stoodley toiled gamely, keeping up a brave pretense of knowing what the activity was all about. Annie Blodgett hovered wherever she’d be most in the way chirping, “When are you going to take the picture?” over and over like an elderly parakeet until Holly shooed her away to make them all a nice cup of tea. She for one desperately needed it.

Then they had to drink the tea. Then they had to focus the camera. Then they had to figure out why Geoffrey’s expensive strobe flash wouldn’t go off when it was supposed to. Then at last they took the picture.

Once he’d got rolling, Geoffrey took a great many exposures: with the cabinet doors closed, with them open, with one open and the other shut, then the closed door open and the open one shut. He shot from the front, the right, the left, from a high angle, from a low angle. Annie wondered how many pictures of that old wardrobe he was going to put in his book, for the land’s sake.

“One,” Cawne replied cheerfully.

“Then why in tarnation didn’t you take just one?”

“That’s not how it’s done,” Earl Stoodley told her.

“Cat’s foot, Earl! You know no more about it than I do.”

Annie was really perking this morning, no more the cringing little crone who’d peered so timorously at them through the curtains only a day ago.

“Earl’s right, Mrs. Blodgett,” said Cawne. “The idea is to take a great many different pictures, then pick out the one that shows the subject to best advantage. That’s how professional photographers work. Right, Holly?”

“Absolutely. Sometimes they may take as many as thirty or forty shots just to get one that’s right in every way. We’re not doing too badly on shooting time compared to some sessions I’ve been involved with. Of course a lot of the time the model’s just sitting around trying not to chew her fingernails no matter how frustrated she gets.”

She held out grubby hands with two nails already broken off. “Good thing I’ve retired from modeling, or you’d have to find yourself another prop girl.”

“I’d hate that.” Geoffrey’s smile was worth the loss of a few fingernails.

By now it was well past noon. Holly expected Annie to offer the men a bite to eat but she didn’t, not even when Earl started croaking about how his stomach told him it was dinnertime.

“So it is,” said Cawne in apparent surprise. “I must get along or my housekeeper will be annoyed. Is there any chance of coming back and taking another shot or two this afternoon, do you think?”

“You come right ahead, Professor,” Stoodley took it upon himself to answer. “And Holly, you help him like you been doing. This is more important than running that old Hoover. We’ll have to bring in a professional cleaning crew anyway.”

When Mrs. Parlett died, he meant. At least he had sense enough not to say so. The men went away, leaving their equipment strewn around, and the women turned toward the kitchen.

“Annie, why didn’t you offer to fix them a sandwich or something?” Holly asked her.

“And have Earl Stoodley throw it up to me forever after about feeding outsiders at the estate’s expense, even if it was himself that ate the grub? You don’t know Earl the way I do, dearie. I don’t know’s I’d go so far as to call him dishonest, but I sure wouldn’t trust him to sell me a horse, as Uncle Jonathan used to say. Not that I’m in the market for one, or ever will be. What do you want for dinner?”

“What’s on the menu? By the way, how do we manage about groceries?”

“Claudine phones once or twice a week and asks what I need. Then she gets it and either Earl or Bert brings up the bundles. That’s one reason I have to watch my step. Earl knows to a penny what we spend on food here, and don’t think he’s above prying around in the pantry to make sure I haven’t snuck in an extra can of beans.”

“How do you account for what Bert Walker eats?”

“Why should I have to? Bert’s hired help, same as you or me. Jonathan Parlett never begrudged a decent meal to anybody that worked for him and neither will I, long as I’m running this kitchen. I told Earl Stoodley so to his face, and I guess Claudine must have stuck up for me because I never heard any more about that. We might as well open a can of chicken soup. I can always get that down Mrs. Parlett with no trouble. Chicken’s her favorite, Claudine says. I get sick and tired of it, myself.”

“Then why don’t you ask Claudine to buy something else for a change? How does Claudine know what Mrs. Parlett likes anyway, if they’ve been on the outs all this time?”