Widow's Tears (16 page)

Then they both heard it. The musical sound of harp strings jangling,
as if they'd been swept by light fingers. The hair rose on the back of Ruby's neck.

Claire grinned at Ruby. “I'm braver, now that you're here.” With a flourish, she opened a double door. “This is the music room. Suppose we'll see our ghost?”

But to Ruby's huge relief, they saw no one. The room was carpeted and furnished with a sofa and several comfortable chairs, including a child's little red rocking chair. The space was large enough not to appear crowded by the Steinway grand piano at one end. A gold-colored silk shawl was thrown carelessly across the piano bench, the lid was open over the keys, and a piece of sheet music was spread on the rack. A silver flute lay across the piano top. The harp stood beside the piano.

Ruby stepped forward quickly and placed the palm of her hand over the strings. She jerked her hand back quickly, as though her fingers had been burned. “Still vibrating!” she exclaimed in a wondering tone. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't in Claire's imagination, or in hers, either. It was in the house.

“When I was a girl,” Claire said quietly, “this room always looked pretty much the way it does now. The sheet music for Scott Joplin's ‘Maple Leaf Rag' was on the piano and the shawl was on the bench and the flute was lying on the top of the piano—at least, that's how I remember it. I found the things—the music, the shawl, the flute—in a cupboard and put them back where they belonged.” She frowned. “I haven't found the pipe yet, though.”

“The pipe?” Ruby asked. “As in whistle?”

“As in smoke.” Claire pointed to a large green glass ashtray on the table beside the sofa. “There was always a pipe in that ashtray. It struck me as odd when I was a girl, since there were no men living here.”

Ruby picked up the ashtray, feeling the smooth, solid heft of it. It was engraved with an image of a columned building and the words
Galveston National Bank, a Leader for Business.
She put the ashtray back on the table.

“You said you put the things back where they belong—you said it about the china, as well. Did you start doing that before or after you heard the harp strings jangling?”

“Gosh, I don't know.” Claire sounded puzzled. “Does it matter?”

“It might,” Ruby replied thoughtfully. They were back in the hallway now. “I'm just wondering if you were somehow…well, prompted to put things back. The flute, the shawl, the china—put them back the way they once were, I mean.” Like props on a stage set, she was thinking.

“Prompted—by whom?” Claire's voice was sharp and she looked frightened.

“That's the question, isn't it?” Ruby countered. They were standing at the foot of the grand staircase now, and she hazarded a look upwards into the dimness, half-expecting to see the woman in the gray skirt with the Gibson Girl hair, as she had seen her all those years ago. But the stairs, as far as she could see, were empty.

“If that's the question, I don't think I want to answer it,” Claire said grimly, and threw open another pair of doors on the opposite side of the hall. She took a deep breath. “And here we have the drawing room. Aunt Hazel kept it shut up. She told me once that it was much too grand for her. She said she always felt like a servant when she went into it.” She hesitated and added, with a half-defiant lift of her eyebrow, “In case you're wondering, I moved a few things around, back to the way I remembered when I was a kid. So far as I know, I wasn't prompted, but I suppose it's possible.”

It was a very large, very grand room, Ruby saw, with a massive fireplace and marble mantel topped by a gilded mirror and an ornate ormolu clock that showed it was not quite three. The stained-glass windows—brilliantly
colored floral patterns in shades of green and blue—were framed in green velvet swags. The light that shone through them was subtly shaded, so that a dim, mysterious glow filled the room, almost as if it were underwater. There was an elaborately upholstered and buttoned green velvet love seat with matching chairs. A half dozen other ornate chairs and footstools and marble-topped tables were arranged in various groupings, as if to entertain a large number of afternoon callers. The doilies and knickknacks and vases of silk flowers on the tables gave the look of carefully planned Victorian clutter. There was a faint scent of violet perfume in the air that made Ruby want to sneeze.

“You don't suppose,” she said, “that those are genuine
Tiffany
windows?”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Claire replied, surprised. “Surely Mr. Hoover would have mentioned it if they were. They'd be worth a tremendous fortune.”

“If they were,” Ruby replied significantly, “they would be a tremendous tourist attraction. Art lovers would come just to gawk at your windows. They'd never get around to noticing your ghost.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I wish you would cut that out, Ruby. She's your ghost as much as she's mine. In fact, you saw her first.”

“But she lives in your house,” Ruby pointed out with a teasing smile. “Don't you think that qualifies as—”

She was interrupted by a sudden loud tinkle. Claire clutched her arm. “It's the bell I've heard tinkling,” she said, sounding frightened. “It's
here
, in this room!”

Ruby turned around. There was no one else there but the two of them. The room was empty. And then, with a merry little jingle, the bell sounded again. “It's coming from over there!” Ruby said, pointing, and went toward a green velvet wing chair in the corner, a table beside it.

The chair had white crocheted antimacassars on the back and arms and a small footstool in front of it. It was a lady's chair, Ruby thought, and could almost picture old Mrs. Blackwood sitting there in the darkening twilight. The table beside it held a lamp, several books, a basket with a small piece of delicate, half-finished embroidery, and a small brass bell with an ornate handle. The kind of bell Mrs. Blackwood might ring to summon a servant.

Ruby picked up the bell and rang it, then silenced it and put it down quickly. It was the bell they had just heard. “It's the same bell you were hearing earlier?” she asked. “The one you mentioned to me?”

“Yes.” Claire's eyes were large and round. “Of course, I had no idea where the sound was coming from.” She swallowed. “And the violet scent. Did you smell it?”

“When I first came into the room,” Ruby replied. She sniffed. “Yes, very faint, but I can still smell it.” That was what had made her want to sneeze.

Claire backed toward the door. “Let's get out of here.” She shut the door behind them. And then, as they stood there, they heard the bell inside the room. It rang with an imperious tone, fell silent for a moment, then rang again, more impatiently.

“Maybe she wants us to bring tea,” Claire said tentatively.

“I vote that we ignore it.” Ruby lifted her chin. “I don't bring tea. Or do floors.”

Claire folded her arms. “And I don't do windows.” She raised her voice. “No tea, no floors, no windows—hear?” Their shared nervous laughter seemed to make them both a little braver.

The bell rang violently and kept on ringing, then stopped abruptly, as if someone had silenced the clapper.

Claire shook her head. “Do you see what I'm up against?”

Ruby took a deep breath, opened the drawing room door, and looked inside. The brass bell stood on the table where they had left it, and the chair was empty. But the violet scent was noticeably heavier and, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a light, quick movement and heard the soft swish of a long skirt. She closed the door firmly.

“See anything?” Claire's voice was thin.

“Definitely haunted,” Ruby replied with a shudder. She ticked off the rooms on her fingers. “The kitchen, the dining room, the music room, the drawing room. Four haunted rooms.” She forced a smile. “Gosh, Claire—you could line people up at the door and sell tickets. A dollar a room, two dollars for sound effects. What's next?”

“The library.” Claire laughed a little and some of the color came back into her face.

“Don't tell me it's haunted, too,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes dramatically. The word itself didn't change the physical facts—the wind outside the window, the sound of the harp strings, the imperative brass bell. But now that they were able to laugh, the situation seemed a little less frightening.

“Actually, yes,” Claire said hesitantly. “I've smelled pipe smoke there. Cherry flavored tobacco. I recognized it, because I had an uncle once who smoked that kind.”

She opened the door and flicked a switch. They were looking into a room lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves filled with leather-bound books. A large globe, some four feet in diameter, sat in one corner with a brown leather chair beside it, and there was a leather sofa and other chairs and tables around the room. Under a window, a library table held a stack of what looked like scrapbooks. A collection of framed black-and-white photographs hung on the wall beside the window.

Claire pointed to another door. “That leads to a small study—handsome desk, leather chair, wooden filing cabinet, more bookshelves. A rather masculine room.”

“The man of the house,” Ruby muttered. She went to the wall and looked at the framed photographs—imposing houses surrounded by palm trees, beautiful gardens, beach scenes, churches, even a hospital. Each one was labeled in a spidery script.
St. Patrick's Church
,
Marwitz House
,
John Sealy Hospital
,
Pagoda Bath House
. All were labeled
Galveston.
All were built in an ornate, late-Victorian architectural style.

“Except that there was no man,” Claire said, and flicked off the switch. “Just the two old ladies. Which doesn't explain the nursery or the playroom,” she said as they went, closing the library door out into the hall.

“Nursery?” Ruby asked. “Playroom?”

“The second and third floors,” Claire said with a sigh. “That's a whole other story, so to speak. I'm not up to it right now.”

“The tobacco you smelled,” Ruby said. “How about Mr. Hoover? He was here, wasn't he? Maybe he smoked a pipe.”

“How'd you know that?” Claire asked, but didn't wait for an answer. “Actually, he and his wife stayed here for several days summer before last, back when he was considering renting the place. I don't think he smokes—at least, there's a big No Smoking sign in his law office. Still—” She paused. “I wonder if the Hoovers saw anything.”

“According to local lore, they did,” Ruby said ruefully, and told Claire what she had learned from Monica.

“More haunted house stuff,” Claire said grimly, shaking her head.

Ruby chuckled. “Look at it this way: at least, you won't have to advertise. Word will get around, and all the ghost-busters in Texas will beat a path to your door.” She paused. “And you might talk to Mr. Hoover and
find out what really happened when they were here. Another witness, so to speak, and maybe an objective one.”

“Good idea. I will.” Claire paused, her hand on a doorknob. “And here, at last, the morning room—Aunt Hazel's favorite. And mine.” She opened the door. “Do you remember it?”

“Oh, I do,” Ruby said, smiling. The room, painted a pale yellow, was on the eastern side of the house where it would catch the first light of the morning. A table and two straight chairs sat in front of the window, the white curtains pulled back to either side. There was a small fireplace with a brick surround and hearth, flanked by a pair of comfortable upholstered chairs. “This is where I met your great-aunt Hazel. She was sitting in that yellow chair over there by the fireplace. She seemed very old to me, with her stooped shoulders and her nearly white hair. But she made me feel at home. She was nice.”

“She gave us cookies and lemonade, as I remember,” Claire said in a soft, reminiscent tone. “And sent us out to play. And then you—” She looked at Ruby.

And then the two little girls had gone out of this room and into the main hallway, where Ruby had felt the first shimmering of Gram's gift and looked up the stairs to see the woman in the dark skirt and the gray shirtwaist with the black ribbon. At the time, she had been so startled—yes, and frightened, too—that she hadn't caught any details. Now, in memory, she saw the image clearly, as if it were happening in front of her: the woman half-turned and fixed in place, one hand raised as if to fend off danger. Her eyes were wide, her face white, her expression terrified, as if she were looking at something so unimaginably awful that it had turned her to stone. What did she see that frightened her so? Was someone—or something—pursuing her up those stairs?

And seeing her now, in memory, Ruby could
feel
the woman's fright, which was all the more terrible because it was impossible to know why she was afraid. And all the more important because it was the sight of her on the stairs that had changed a young girl's life. After that moment, Ruby had had to learn to live with a sixth sense in a world where most people got along very well with just five. After that moment, nothing had ever been the same.

And suddenly, with a chilling certainty, Ruby knew that there was some sort of inexplicable bond, some deep and enduring connection between herself and the woman, and that it somehow transcended that single moment on the stairs. What was it?
When
was it?
Where?
What could it
mean
? But of course, to know all those things, she would have to know who the woman was and when she had lived and why she was so frightened. How had she died? Did her fear have anything to do with her death? Or with the headstones in the graveyard? Or—

Claire reached out to her. “What's the matter, Ruby?” she asked, concerned. “You look funny.”

The room was spinning. Ruby groped her way to the nearest chair and sat down with a thump. She closed her eyes, then opened them again and took a few steadying breaths. Finally, she said, “Sorry. I'm okay. It's just that…for a minute there, I thought I must know that woman—must have had some sort connection with her, I mean.”