The House of Dies Drear (22 page)

“And what you said,” Thomas said to old Pluto. He was still weak and trembling, and he wouldn’t look at any of them. “You scared me, Mr. Pluto.”

Mr. Pluto laughed softly. “It was a thrill for me,” he said. “I had the best old time!”

Glancing at Thomas, Mayhew felt sorry for him. “Father did look pretty awful, what with that throw fixed the way it was. But being the way he is, I knew he would say something to terrify those Darrows. If I’m an actor at all, it’s because he was one before me.

“I didn’t do so well, did I?” Thomas said. “I guess I’m not too good as an actor.” He couldn’t find the words to apologize for his fear.

“You did just fine, son,” said Mr. Small. “Having to lie there for so many hours—you did real well.”

Thomas couldn’t stand being treated so politely by them. He was growing angry at himself for being such a coward, and angry at them for being so nice about it.

“I think I’ll go on home,” he said. “See if Mama is sleeping.”

“I’ll walk over with you,” Mayhew said. “Pesty, you ready to go over to Thomas’ house and sleep?”

“She’s asleep already,” said Mr. Small. “Look.”

It was true. Pesty had snuggled down against Mr. Pluto and was now fast asleep.

“Let her alone, Mayhew,” Pluto said. “Mr. Small can take her home when he goes along—you will stay awhile, won’t you, Mr. Small?” Mr. Small and old Pluto silently surveyed one another. Mr. Small nodded that he would stay.

“Why do you have to stay?” Thomas asked his father. “Why won’t you come on home now?”

“Never you mind,” said Mayhew. “Let’s get going, see if we can find any more Darrows in the trees.”

“There won’t be any more Darrows,” Thomas told him, “and I don’t need you to walk me home.”

“I’m not walking you home,” said Mayhew. “I’m just going to walk with you, that’s all. You don’t want to be friends with me?”

Without Thomas becoming aware of it, Mayhew was leading him up the ramp and out of the cavern.

“I don’t mind being friends,” Thomas said. Secretly he was pleased that Mayhew had thought to go with him. “But I don’t need anyone to take me home.”

“I’m not taking you home, for pity’s sake!” Mayhew said. “Man, you sure are a tough one to handle. How come you are so hard on people?”

“Well, I’ve always been independent,” Thomas said seriously. “I make wood sculpture. I’m an artist, some say, and you have to be pretty much by yourself to be able to carve well.” He felt full of pride when Mayhew looked at him with real interest.

“Wood sculpture? No kidding?”

“Sure,” said Thomas. “I have even sold pieces to strangers. But mostly I just keep the pieces for myself and my family. Papa says I have a real talent for wood sculpture.”

They went into Mr. Pluto’s cave. The wall of the cave slid across the opening, shutting off the cavern of Dies Drear.

In the cavern, Mr. Small stretched out on the floor to one side of Mr. Pluto’s desk. He folded his arms across his chest and sighed deeply. Closing his tired eyes for a second, he opened them again to stare at the immense, vaulted ceiling far above his head.

“I think now you can tell me what this is all about,” he said to Pluto. He was so tired, he would have no trouble falling asleep right where he was.

Mr. Pluto cleared his throat. “Mayhew said he would leave it to you,” Pluto said. “Mayhew he told me this morning, whatever you said to do with this cavern was all right by him. And so I leave it up to you. I will trust you to do the right thing.” Pluto tried to keep his voice casual, but deep within it was all his hope and his desire.

“I see,” said Mr. Small. He sat up and fixed his gaze on the intricate, carved detail of the desk. “I was wondering a moment ago if anyone … Dies Drear, I mean, ever made a list of all the things in this cavern.”

“No, not that I have found,” Mr. Pluto said. “I have been through all the ledgers and books. I’ve found no list, nor no record of where he got any of it.”

“Fascinating,” said Mr. Small. “He never ever meant any of it to be sold. And what a job to inventory all this. But I think I should, don’t you? Give each piece a number, a name and description, and try to fix a value for it. What do you think, Mr. Skinner?” Mr. Small deliberately kept from looking at Pluto or around at the cavern.

And it was some time before Pluto spoke. Mr. Small was afraid he had fallen asleep, so still was he holding Pesty. But then Pluto breathed deeply.

“That will take as long as the rest of an old man’s life,” he said softly.

Mr. Small looked at him and smiled gently. “You know, sir, you have a way of saying things that I do admire,” he said. “Your son, Mayhew, has the same gift with words. But just as you say, to inventory all this will take that long, at least.”

“You will not turn this place over to the foundation right away?”

It was Mr. Small’s turn to remain silent. When he did speak, it was with relief that at last he knew he had made up his mind. “All this has remained hidden for a century. Keeping it hidden awhile longer won’t matter much.” Saying this, Mr. Small felt peaceful inside.

Ever so carefully, Pluto got to his feet. “You take Miss Bee on home now,” he said. His old eyes looked mistily at the child. “Just carry her like this, and she will sleep all the way.”

Mr. Small did as he was told. “I will begin in the morning,” he said. “I will inventory the books and ledgers first.”

“They’ll be ready,” said Pluto. “Come as early as you will.”

That was all then. Mr. Small left, carrying Pesty through the trees as carefully as old Pluto would have. Part way home, he passed close to someone he could but barely see. There was a laugh, a deep, sharp sound in the pine boughs. It was Mayhew coming back. He didn’t stop to speak, nor did Mr. Small.

A half hour before, Thomas and Mayhew had gone through the trees all the way home. Thomas wouldn’t have believed they could become friends so quickly.

“You can learn a lot about acting in the month I’ll be here,” Mayhew had said.

“You mean you will teach me?”

“I can teach you a good amount if you think you really want to learn,” Mayhew said.

“I don’t think I’d be much good at it,” said Thomas. “But there’s one thing I’ve seen you do that I’d like to learn.”

“What’s that?”

“How is it you can seem to flow out of doorways,” Thomas asked, “like you were liquid spilling into the night? How do you do that, Mayhew?”

Mayhew laughed. “I’ll have to think about that one. Maybe I can break it down and show you.” He laughed again, and they walked without speaking.

“You know,” Mayhew said suddenly, “I’m glad we did what we did tonight. Not so much scaring the Darrows. That was important, too, because now they know they can never fool with your father the way they did with mine. They’ll fear your father in a way they never feared mine. They’ll fear him not as a devil but as a man. He will have the right to say who can pass here and who cannot. Yes, they’ll be afraid of him and the law he won’t hesitate to use against them.

“But what I meant to say about being glad is that my father had such a good time with it. I felt closer to him tonight than I think I ever have.”

“You never liked him much?” Thomas asked. He felt he could ask that. He felt Mayhew wouldn’t mind talking about it.

“No, I never did,” Mayhew said. “It’s hard for a boy growing up without his father, not even able to wish for him since he didn’t like him to begin with. You like your father though, don’t you, Thomas?”

“Sometimes I get angry with him,” Thomas said. “He always has to figure out everything before I do. Like in the house when we were planning to scare the Darrows.”

Mayhew smiled. “Your father knew we were going to too much trouble to be scaring just plain people.”

“No,” said Thomas, “he had a report from the foundation about the whole history of the house, and from it he must have figured out that the third slave and you and your father and the Darrows were all mixed up together.

“But sure, I like him fine. He’s pretty smart, you know. Folks always did say he had a powerful brain.”

Mayhew laughed softly.

Then Thomas said, “Do you suppose I and that youngest Darrow, that Mac Darrow, do you think we could get to be friends?”

“Oh well,” Mayhew said, “the Darrows aren’t going to want him or Pesty fooling around here for a very long time. And you have to remember, Macky’s a Darrow after all—we did fool his brothers pretty bad. He has to live it down, too, you know. But give it time. Anger might die down by the change of a couple of seasons. Wait for the winter. You’ll most likely run into Macky here in these trees full of snow, when you both are out hunting rabbit.”

“It will take that long a time?” Thomas said.

“That’s not a long time. When you begin to think it is, just remember Father hunting thirty years for his legacy, which might have never existed. Yes, winter will be here before you have got to know this land properly. You will feel and breathe an air so cold that all things holding warmth will be your friend.”

“You love it here,” Thomas said. “How come you go away from it?”

“That’s my secret, my friend,” said Mayhew. “Not all questions can have answers to be said out loud.”

They had entered Thomas’ house. Mrs. Small was asleep on the couch in the parlor. On the floor beside the couch was Thomas’ baseball bat.

“I’ll be going,” Mayhew whispered again. “I won’t see you tomorrow. I have to take care of business in Dayton. I’ll see you the next day though, and we will maybe start your stage lessons.”

Thomas said good night to him. He didn’t wake Mrs. Small, but went up to his own room. He didn’t even bother about the captain’s chair, which still sat with its back to the room. There were his carvings, so familiar, grouped on the mantelpiece. Falling across his bed, he was instantly asleep.

Thomas awoke about ten o’clock the next morning. His clothing was hardly wrinkled, but he was stiff in every muscle. He washed his face, brushed his teeth and combed his hair. Not bothering to change his shirt, he went quickly down the hall and down the stairs. He found his mother busy with the twins in the kitchen. She looked tired, but she smiled at Thomas pleasantly and fixed him a heaping plate of ham and eggs with potatoes. Thomas ate all of it in a few minutes. He had two glasses of milk and two slices of toast besides.

“You were hungry, for sure,” Mrs. Small said.

“Did Papa tell you about last night?” Thomas asked. “Did he tell you how we did it?”

“He told me,” she said. “I’m glad I wasn’t there. I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it. Every time I think of you lying out there for so long, and little Pesty on that big horse, I can’t believe it.”

“It was really something,” Thomas said. “We scared those Darrows half to death.” He had forgotten about his own fear.

“Where is Papa anyway?” he asked. He didn’t think to inquire after Pesty.

“Over at the cavern,” Mrs. Small said.

Thomas kissed his brothers. “Boys, you like this big, old house of Smalls? You going to get lost in it and cause me worry? Maybe I’ll take you hunting when winter snow falls, would you like that?”

The boys grinned happily at Thomas.

“I’m going to see Papa,” said Thomas to Mrs. Small.

“Tell him I expect him back here about eleven,” she said. “He went out after having only a half cup of coffee. And he will have to take you to register for school sometime. He’s got an appointment at one to see someone at the college. And later on I would like to see that cavern myself. You tell him now, Thomas.”

Thomas went. The morning was fine and clear and the trees on the hill as he went through them were fresh with dew. In no time he was over the hill and in Mr. Pluto’s cave. Inside the cave there was a ringing, pounding noise going on. It was a noise of metal beating against metal. Thomas walked the short tunnel to the main cave. A great fire roared in Mr. Pluto’s forge. Every once in awhile Mr. Pluto turned to work his bellows. Then Pluto would hammer on white-hot metal, held over the fire. He paused a moment as Thomas came close.

“What are you doing?” Thomas asked him. Mr. Pluto was dripping wet but otherwise looked strong and healthy.

“I’m making me the biggest lock you ever did see,” he said. “And good morning to you.”

“Good morning,” said Thomas. “What for?”

Pluto beat and turned the white-hot metal. “For to lock good those plank doors you just came through.”

“You never locked them before,” said Thomas.

“I know it,” Pluto answered him.

“Well, you surely don’t need to lock them now,” Thomas said.

“I know that, too,” old Pluto said, “but I think I will just the same. I haven’t had something to do in so long!” He beat and turned the metal that now took shape. Thomas stared at him with his mouth open. A grin spread across his face. Then he asked if it were all right to go into the cavern. Mr. Pluto said for him to go right ahead.

Thomas walked to the wall where the rope was. He pulled down on that rope and watched the wall slide back.

Within the cavern the wall slid closed behind Thomas. He took his time going through the stalagmites. He walked around them to touch them, feeling the damp coolness of them. Far below sat his father at Mr. Pluto’s desk. Mr. Small worked furiously on long sheets of yellow paper. He had books and ledgers from the cases piled on the floor around him. Thomas went down the ramp, taking his time. Finally he stood before his father.

Mr. Small sneezed and coughed. His nose was running. He glanced up at Thomas and nodded a hurried greeting. “Listing everything …” he said. He shook his head. “There is so much! This is only the beginning. And it makes fine reading … I have to read it, don’t I? It will take me years!”

“Is that what you’re going to do? List every bit and piece of it?” Thomas asked.

Mr. Small stopped long enough to blow his nose. “Well, we have to know how much there is,” he said. “Since we don’t know where Drear got it all, we can at least make a record of what it is. If the foundation is to have any order, if it should wish to start a museum …” He folded his handkerchief and began to read to himself from some volume that looked to Thomas as though it would fall into dust at any moment.