Widow's Tears (15 page)

Rachel clung to a gallery post, breathing in short, hard gasps. How amazingly lucky it was that the Baxters were not in the house! Mr. Baxter had gone to San Antonio on business earlier in the week. Mrs. Baxter had become so nervous that, two hours ago, when the water on Q Avenue had risen knee-deep, she had gone with her sister to seek refuge in the Tremont Hotel, pausing to knock at the Blackwoods' front door and ask Rachel if she wouldn't go with them.

Rachel had been torn. She had already found herself wishing that she and the children had gone to the Ursulines with Mrs. O'Reilly. But to leave seemed to her a betrayal of her husband's confidence in the storm-worthy house he had built for them. She would stay where they were, she told Mrs. Baxter. Mr. Blackwood would be home shortly. And the storm would surely blow itself out soon.

But that had been two hours ago, and things were much worse. She peered through the sheeting rain and saw with a leap of her heart a man coming down the street, bent over against the wind and struggling to wade through the rushing water. A breathless moment later, she saw that it wasn't her husband but their neighbor, Isaac Cline, on his way home from his work at the Weather Bureau.

She tried to swallow her disappointment. “Mr. Cline!” she called, and
waved to attract his attention. “Mr. Cline, is there any news about the storm? Will it let up before dark?”

But the wind was so loud that she had to repeat her question when Mr. Cline had waded through the yard and stood at the foot of the steps up to the front gallery. His face drawn with worry and strain, he spoke gravely. “I wish I could tell you that it will be over before nightfall, my dear Mrs. Blackwood, but I can't. The wind is swinging around to the east. This will raise the level of the tide, so there is likely to be more flooding.”

More flooding? More than…what?
Rachel pushed down a rush of hysteria and asked, “And the wind?”

“Oh, a bit stronger, I should think.” He paused. “You're not alone? Your husband is with you?”

“He went to Ritter's for lunch,” she said. “I haven't heard from him since—although of course the telephone lines are down,” she added, not wanting to sound like an accusing wife. “I'm sure he'll be along any minute. My housekeeper and her family went to the Ursulines, and Mrs. Baxter and her sister went to the Tremont. I was just wondering whether I should perhaps have gone, too.”

“Ritter's?” Mr. Cline's tone was jarring and there was something in his eyes that made her suddenly afraid.

“Has there been—” She stopped. No, surely not. Ritter's was in the heart of Galveston's energetic commercial quarter and was patronized by the most prominent businessmen. There could be very little flooding there, and the buildings, all of them well built and three and four stories high, would break the wind.

Mr. Cline seemed to consider her unfinished question for a moment. Then he replied, in a soothingly careless tone, “Oh well, not to worry. I'm sure he's just been detained. In places, the flooding has made it a bit of a challenge to get around. As far as your safety is concerned, I believe that
you and the children will be as secure here as you would anywhere in the city. But while you're waiting for Mr. Blackwood, you might move your most valued possessions to the second floor—and perhaps the papers from Mr. Blackwood's desk, as well. That way, they will be safe from any flooding that might occur.”

“Move our possessions—” She stared at him, then looked down at the level of the water. In the little while she had been standing on the gallery, the water had risen from the fourth to the fifth step—the fifth of seven. Two more feet and it would come in through the front door.

She picked up her skirt. “Why, yes, of course,” she said with a forced cheerfulness. “What an excellent suggestion, Mr. Cline. It's something that the children can help with—while they're waiting for their father.”

Mr. Cline smiled cordially. “Very good, Mrs. Blackwood,” he said. “I shall wish you a pleasant afternoon, then.” He bowed slightly and lifted his hat exactly as if the two of them had been chatting on the beachfront promenade. Then he waded away, stepping aside to avoid a bobbing barrel labeled
Pickled Herring
.

“Mama! Mama!” Behind her, Matthew was shouting excitedly. “Mrs. O'Reilly's come back for the party! And she's all wet!”

Rachel turned. There, in the front doorway, stood strong, capable Colleen O'Reilly, her carroty hair in a tumble of wet curls around her shoulders, her skirt—soaked literally to the waist—clinging wetly to her legs, her Irish freckles standing out like brick crumbs across her nose and cheeks.

“I'll have t' trouble you for somethin' dry to wear, ma'am,” she said apologetically. “It's a mite deep out there, and the rain's pourin' down to beat the band.”

“But I thought you were going to the Ursulines!” Rachel exclaimed, astonished. “Where you'd be safe.”

Little Ida came running with a towel, and Mrs. O'Reilly wrapped it
turban-style around her wet hair. “I did that, ma'am. I took Mother and me little Annie and left 'em in the sisters' good hands. And then I thought…Well, I thought of you by yourself and that you might be needin' me, so here I am.”

Rachel, nearly overcome with relief, thought she had never been so glad to see anyone in all her life. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you!”

“No need for thanks,” Mrs. O'Reilly said sturdily. “I'm glad to do it.”

Matthew was hanging on her arm. “We've only had sandwiches,” he said. “We were hoping you'd come back in time to see me blow out my candles.”

“Well, I did, didn't I?” Mrs. O'Reilly twinkled at the children. “An' now that I'm here, we can do it up proper.” Then she did a very strange thing. She held out her hand to Rachel as if they were friends or even sisters.

And they all went back into the house together.

Ruby kept a wary eye on the pot rack while they finished their pie, but the pans hung motionless and quiet, not a peep out of them.

“I guess that was just the house's way of saying hello and welcome,” Claire said with a crooked smile. “We're lucky. It might have been a broken window. Or a puddle in the hall.”

“That I would like to have seen,” Ruby said. Then she thought better of what she'd said and added, loudly, “On second thought, maybe not so much.”

Claire pushed back her chair and stood up. “Come on. I want to show you around the main floor. Leave your stuff here—we'll take it upstairs later.”

Ruby followed her out of the kitchen and into a wide, oak-paneled hallway that stretched the length of the house. Oddly, the incongruous
wrongness
of the outside didn't seem to persist inside, and things seemed in decent repair. It wouldn't take much work to make the wood floors gleam. The brass fittings of the old-fashioned wall sconces could use a polishing, although they were clean and unbroken. When the dark Victorian wallpaper above the paneling was replaced with something lighter and a few pictures and potted plants were added, the hallway would be gorgeous.

“Mrs. Blackwood and Aunt Hazel seem to have neglected the exterior,” Claire said, “maybe because they didn't like the idea of strange workmen coming around. But indoors, they took care of things. Of course, there's still a lot to be done. Old draperies and rugs that need replacement and furniture that should be reupholstered or gotten rid of—that sort of thing.” She opened a French door. “This is the dining room.”

Ruby followed her into a large room, the walls richly wainscoted in oak with wine-and-gold wallpaper and a ceiling that featured a crystal chandelier
hung above a long table of polished mahogany. On the opposite wall were four French doors that opened out onto what might have once been a rose garden. At one end stood a tall, glass-fronted cabinet filled with fine china; at the other, nearest the kitchen, was a large sideboard. The oriental carpet still glowed with vivid reds and blues.

“Amazing,” Ruby muttered, counting. “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen chairs! Mrs. Blackwood must have intended to throw some big dinner parties. I wonder where she thought she'd find the guests, way out here. Invite them from Houston, maybe?”

Claire chuckled wryly. “Aunt Hazel said there never were any parties. At least, not in her day. She came here to live in 1925 when she was sixteen years old. And she died here at the age of ninety-six.”

Ruby did a quick calculation. “Eighty years,” she marveled. “Imagine living in one house for that long and never seeing anyone. I'd go crazy.”

“I can't begin to imagine it,” Claire replied. “But Aunt Hazel always seemed content, at least when I knew her.” She grinned crookedly. “And no, I don't think she was crazy. She was in her early sixties when old Mrs. Blackwood died, and my mother invited her to come and live with us in Smithville. But she wouldn't. She said she liked it here. This was her home.”

“Did she ever mention the…ghost?” Ruby asked warily.

“Not to me,” Claire said. “And my mother died a few years ago, so we can't ask her.” Then, as if she wanted to get on with the tour, she pointed to the china cabinet. “Mr. Hoover had the good china—it's Haviland and very old—put into storage when he was thinking of renting the place. He sent it back a few days ago, and I unpacked it and put it in the cabinet. There's a box of silver to put away, too. I think I'll put it in that sideboard…”

Her voice trailed off. The sideboard was a large, mahogany affair. Over it hung a large, gilt-framed oil painting of what looked like a tropical garden paradise: oleanders, palms, roses, and, in the distance, a white sand
beach and a great blue-green ocean. As Ruby and Claire looked at it, the painting tilted slightly.

Ruby cleared her throat. “Did you see
that
?” she said into Claire's ear.

“I guess I forgot to mention that one,” Claire said apologetically. “For some reason, that painting simply doesn't want to hang straight. I mean, I could go over there and straighten it, and two minutes later it would be tilted again.”

Ruby bit her lip. “You think the ghost…?”

“I don't know what I think,” Claire countered. “What do
you
think?”

Back in the hall, Ruby tried to collect her thoughts. “You said you've done some research on the house. When was it built?”

“Around 1910, I understand,” Claire said. “Mrs. Blackwood drew up the plans herself, according to Aunt Hazel. That's why it looks so strange on the outside, so sort of…mismatched. Crooked. Like parts of it don't fit.”

“So you noticed it, too,” Ruby said.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

“How can you miss?” Claire asked with a shrug. “But there's a reason for that. Aunt Hazel told my mother that Mrs. Blackwood had a house just like this once—a house that was destroyed. She tried to reconstruct it from memory, but she didn't get parts of it quite right. The builder attempted to fix some of the worst things as he went along, but Mrs. Blackwood knew what she wanted.” She paused. “There are some old scrapbooks and papers in the library. Maybe we could sit down with them one evening. They might help us learn more about—”

“What was
that
?” Ruby whispered, startled.

Claire shook her head. “Sorry. I didn't—”