Usher's Passing (57 page)

A quiet tapping at the library's door startled him. He closed the book, paused for a few seconds, and then got up, went to the door, and cracked it open.

Edwin, immaculate in his Usher uniform and cap, stood outside. "I thought you might be in there," he said.

Rix opened the door wider to let Edwin in, and closed it again after he had entered. "I was doing some reading. How's Dad?"

"Sleeping. Mrs. Reynolds is back on duty now." Edwin appeared pale and haggard from his time spent with Walen in the Quiet Room. The skin seemed to have shrunken over Edwin's facial bones, and Rix could smell Walen on his clothes. "You didn't have breakfast this morning," Edwin said. "Cass is worried about you."

Rix glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was almost nine o'clock. "I'm all right. I just didn't feel very much like eating this morning."

"You need to keep your strength up." He looked at the black book that Rix held. "Did you find something of interest?"

"I think so. Look at this." He went over to the desk and opened the book under the candlelight, turning to the mathematical formulas. "Do you have any idea what this technical stuff might be?" he asked. "It looks to me like a physics problem."

"Physics?" Edwin frowned. "I wouldn't know. My best subject in school was English." He examined the figures for a moment before he shook his head. "Sorry. I can't tell where it begins or ends."

He showed Edwin the bars of music and the drawings. Edwin said one of the sketches reminded him of horseshoes, but he couldn't fathom the rest of them.

Rix closed the book. "Do you know anything about Dad's new project?" he asked. "Katt's told me it's called Pendulum, but that's all she knows."

"Your father's never trusted anyone with his business projects. Least of all, me. I've seen the military men coming in and out, of course, but that's none of my concern."

"Haven't you ever wondered what goes on at Usher Armaments?"

"Yes, I've wondered. Often." Edwin crossed the room and regarded the portrait of Hudson Usher. "Strong features," he said in a reverent tone. "That was a man of great willpower and determination. You have his eyes, Rix."

"I think you're avoiding my question."

"Perhaps . . . I've made certain I
have
avoided it, all these years." He turned to face Rix. In the soft golden light he was a figure of great poise and dignity, from the crown of his cap to the toes of his spit-shined shoes. The candlelight glinted off the silver buttons of his blazer. "I told you before. I abhor war, but someone will always wage it, Rix. That is a fact of our miserable existence. You have to believe that your family's weapons help deter war. That outlook has taken me through many a cold night. It would be better for you if you could share it."

"How do you mean?"

"Your peace of mind." Edwin took off his cap and ran a hand through his thin white hair. "I know the pressure you've been under these last few years. With Sandra's death, and your career difficulties—and now your father's condition. You were always it sensitive boy. I know living in the world out there has been very hard on you. Hasn't it?"

"Yes," Rix said.

Edwin nodded. "When you called me that day from New York, I could hear the desperation in your voice. I heard it again when you were telling me about that family history you want to write. The world can be a treacherous place, Rix. It can destroy sensitive people."

"I have been under pressure," Rix admitted. "A lot of it. I think . . . it must've started when Sandra died. I loved her so much, Edwin. After she died . . . it was as if part of me had died, too—like a light being turned off. Now I just feel dark inside." He paused, but sensed that Edwin was waiting for him to continue. "And . . . I've been having nightmares. Actually, flashes of things that I can't really get a grip on. Boone hung a plastic skeleton in the door of the De Peyser's Quiet Room, so it would swing right in my face. I keep seeing that damned thing in my mind, Edwin—only it gets bloodier every time I see it. And—this sounds crazy, I know—I keep seeing something that scares the hell out of me: it looks like a doorknob, with the face of a roaring lion on it. It's made of silver, and it just floats there, in the dark. Can you think of a door like that, somewhere in the Lodge?"

"There might be," Edwin answered. "But there are
thousands
of doors in the Lodge, Rix. I can't say I've paid much attention to their knobs. Why? What does the Lodge have to do with it?"

"I'm not sure, I just think . . . I must've seen a door like that, when I was wandering in the Lodge. And that trick skeleton was plastic, but now . . . it seems so
real."

Edwin said softly, "That was a terrible experience for you. Alone in the darkness for hours. I thank God I found you when I did. But that was a long time ago, Rix. You have to let your fears of the Lodge go. I'll admit, though, the Lodge turned me around often enough. Several times I was so lost I had to call for help. Which brings me to why I was looking for you. Have you seen Logan this morning?"

"Logan? No. Why?"

"I think he's run away. We had a disagreement the other day. Logan seems to think his work hours are too demanding. He was gone from his room this morning, when I went in to wake him up."

"Good riddance," Rix said curtly. "Logan could never take your place. You should realize that by now."

"I honestly thought Logan had the potential to do something with his life. Cass told me I was being foolish; maybe she was right." He scowled, an expression Rix was unused to seeing on Edwin's placid features. "Logan has no discipline. I should've known that, after Robert told me about all the scrapes he's been in. Well . . . I wanted to give him a chance, because he's a Bodane. Was that so wrong?"

"Not wrong. Maybe just too trusting."

"That's exactly what Cass says. I'm not going to call Robert yet; I'll give Logan the rest of the day. But if Logan can't do it, who's going to take my place?" He massaged the knuckles of one hand. "The boy needs a good whipping to straighten him out."

"He's long past that," Rix said.

Edwin grunted. "I haven't gone over to the Lodge yet. If Logan went in there alone after I told him not to, he's as stupid as he is disobedient. Well, I won't bother you with Logan. Unfortunately, he's
my
problem." He started across the library to the door.

"Edwin?" Rix said, and the other man stopped. Rix motioned toward the cardboard boxes. "I've been going through those to find out how Ludlow Usher got the ebony cane back into the family. I know it was stolen away by the man who killed Aram Usher in a duel, and it was gone for at least thirteen years. Obviously the cane is very important. Do you have any idea how Ludlow might've retrieved it? Any stories you might've heard from your father or mother?"

"No," Edwin replied—but he'd said it too quickly, and at once Rix's interest perked up. "I'd better see if I can track down—"

Rix planted himself between Edwin and the door. "If you know anything at all, I want you to tell me. Who's it going to hurt? Not Mom, and certainly not Dad. Not you or Cass, either." He saw the indecision on Edwin's face. "Come on. Please, I need to hear what you know."

"Rix, I don't—"

"It's important to me. I have to know."

Outside the library, thunder echoed like a bass kettledrum. Edwin said in a resigned voice, "All right. I do know how Ludlow found the cane. When I was about Logan's age, I was just like him; I hated to work. I found a good hiding place—the library in the Lodge's basement." He smiled vaguely. "I used to steal cigars from the drawing room and smoke them down there. It's a wonder I didn't set fire to the house, with all those books and journals around. Naturally, I read a great deal, too."

"And you found something about Ludlow and the cane?" Rix prompted.

"Among other things. It was in a volume of old newspaper clippings. Of course, that was a long time ago. I'm not sure my memory is very reliable anymore."

"Tell me what you remember. Anything."

Edwin still looked uncertain. He started to protest again, but then he sighed and slowly eased himself into a chair. "All right," he said finally, watching a candelabra burn on a table near him. "I know that Luther Bodane, my grandfather, went with Ludlow to New Orleans in the summer of 1882. Ludlow wanted to see his half sister, Shann. She was in a convent outside the city, and had been there for more than eight years."

"Shann was a nun?" Rix asked. "I thought she was a concert pianist. Didn't she study music in Paris?"

"She did. Obviously she was a musical prodigy, because she was composing when she was ten years old. As I understand it, Shann was in Paris when her father was killed. His death must have been a terrible shock to her; she was a shy, gentle girl who idolized Aram Usher. But she finished her education. Her final examination at the academy was an original concerto, which she played for the headmistress." Edwin's eyes seemed to darken as he saw beyond Rix and into the past. "The concerto was written in honor of her father. Shann graduated with high marks. When she returned to America, she immediately started a concert tour."

"So how did she become a nun?"

"The academy's headmistress hanged herself after Shann left," Edwin continued, as if he hadn't heard Rix's question. "On her tour, Shann played what came to be known as the Usher Concerto. There are dozens of clippings in the Lodge's library praising her performances. The tour continued for more than four months, and everywhere Shann played she was a phenomenal success. Then the suicides began."

"Suicides? I don't understand."

"Neither did anyone else, at first. A dozen people in New York City, ten in Boston, eight in Philadelphia, another dozen in Charleston. And all of them had heard the Usher Concerto."

Rix recoiled inwardly. He remembered the faded photograph of the little girl sitting happily at her white grand piano. "You mean . . . the
music
had something to do with their suicides?"

"Evidently so." Edwin's voice had taken on a grim tone. "The music was so . . . beautifully strange that it worked on the imagination long after it was heard. The press began to put everything together. When Shann stepped off the train in New Orleans with her entourage, the newspapermen were waiting for her like a pack of hounds. There was a mob outside the station; they called her a murderess, shouted that she was a witch who'd discovered some sort of satanic symphony. The stress was too much for Shann, and she collapsed in the terminal. For the next several years, she lived in a New Orleans sanitarium. She joined the convent after she was released."

"And she never came back to Usherland? Isn't she buried in the cemetery."

"No. The monument was erected to her memory, but Shann was buried in New Orleans. It's unclear exactly why Ludlow went to see her; possibly he was trying to bring her back home. In any case, she wouldn't leave the convent." Edwin hesitated, arranging his thoughts. His shadow was scrawled on the wall behind him. "There'd been heavy thunderstorms and flooding in New Orleans, and the trains had been canceled," he continued quietly. "Ludlow and Luther booked passage on one of the last of the old Cordweiler steamboats, the
Bayou Moon.
According to the newspaper accounts, the boat was in decrepit condition. Anyway, somehow Ludlow let himself be lured into a backroom poker game—and that's the beginning of how he retrieved the family scepter . . ."

As Edwin spoke, the muffled boom of approaching thunder rang out over Usherland. In his imagination, Rix saw the once proud
Bayou Moon,
now an unsightly patchwork of cheap timbers, plowing northward along the swollen Mississippi. A high-stakes card game was in progress in a lamplit room, and twenty-four-year-old Ludlow Usher sat down at the round table for what was to become much more than a game.

Mr. Tyson—the top-hatted older gentleman who had struck up a conversation with Ludlow at the bar—introduced him to the other three players. Ludlow had given his name as "Tom Wyatt," aware that the older gentleman was probably looking for a sheep to fleece. The Usher name might be known to him, and this was a precaution Ludlow often took with strangers.

Ludlow nodded toward each of them in turn: a heavyset, bald-headed man who wore flashy diamond rings and gave his name as "Nicholls, with two
l's
"; a coffee-colored man named Chance, who wore a gray goatee and had a brown velvet eyepatch over his right eye that matched the color and cloth of his suit; and a lean Negro who called himself Brethren and wore a ruby stickpin through one flared nostril. A glass of whiskey was poured for Ludlow, a fine Havana cigar was offered to him, and the game of five-card draw was under way.