Chapter Twelve
My name is Bill Malloy.
As the year 1795 draws near its close, three men in the village of Collinsport seek to reveal the mysterious enemy who threatens the Collins family. One of these three has been thrown backward in time. Another of them hides a dark secret of his own. That secret may destroy not only the Collinses of 1795, but all of those who dwell in the great house of Collinwood in the year 1967.
The man walking toward them, naturally, wasn't Death.
Not unless Death had haystack-like blond hair and was dressed in mud-spattered boots and well-worn work clothes instead of a sinister black robe. Feeling stupid, Bill reminded himself that carrying a scythe around wasn't a creepy thing to do in 1795, even if a person was carrying that scythe in a cemetery. It probably simply meant that this guy was the cemetery groundskeeper. It wasn't like he had a gas-powered lawnmower at his disposal with which to keep the place neat and tidy.
The man, a youngish, skinny fellow, was scowling as he walked up to them. Constable Hemphill hailed him, cheerfully as usual.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Holt. You needn't be concerned; we aren't any kind of trouble-makers. I'm Constable Hemphill, from Collinsport. This is Mr. Malloy. He works for Jeremiah Collins." Hemphill added to Bill, "Mr. Holt is a groundskeeper for Mr. Thaddeus Stockbridge."
Young Mr. Holt was still frowning. At least now he looked puzzled instead of ready to attack them with his scythe. He rested the scythe on its pole and stood in front of them like a medieval guardsman with a truly wacky-looking spear.
"Good afternoon, constable," Holt answered warily.
Nodding at the scythe, Hemphill said, "I wouldn't have thought there was much grass left to cut this late in the year."
"There isn't. There's plenty of brush needs cutting back. I want to make sure everything is trimmed back and all the markers are clear before the snow returns. Now what brings you up here, constable?"
Hemphill glanced at Bill. On his face was the obvious unspoken question of how much they ought to reveal. All Bill could do was shrug. He figured the constable was every bit as aware of the situation's delicacy as he was.
Sure enough, Hemphill came up with a pretty good-sounding story. "We're investigating a report which came in to my office. The report alleges that acts of vandalism have been perpetrated against graves in our area. But it's unclear if the report is even true. The person who brought it to me couldn't even say which burial yards had been vandalized."
Mr. Holt looked grimly appalled. "No one has done anything like that up here," he stated. "No one had better think they can try it here, either."
Hemphill pursued, "I imagine you'd be able to tell if any of the graves had been disturbed?"
"Of course," Holt answered. He sounded offended at the question. "Have a look for yourselves, if you like. You can see that nothing is amiss with any of them."
From where they stood, they glanced along the rows of graves. Naturally they couldn't be 100% certain without walking along all of them. But from here, at least, everything looked as it should be. The constable asked, "What is the most recent burial?"
"Old Mr. Zebediah Agthorne," said Holt, without any hesitation. "He was buried in September. You can see his grave; it's just over here."
They left their horses at the mausoleum's hitching post and followed the groundskeeper to a grave two rows over to their left. The freshly-carved gravestone was crowned with the design of a cheerfully grinning skull with wings. The rectangle of ground in front of the stone was largely bare. But even here, enough withered tufts of grass poked through to make it clear that the earth had not been disturbed again after the growing season ended.
Hemphill explained, "We were told that someone actually dug into a grave and removed some of the remains. We're looking for any sign of that level of disturbance."
"God help us," muttered Mr. Holt. "Take a look. You'll see we've had nothing like that."
Sure enough, trooping up and down the rows revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Groundskeeper Holt, with his scythe casually propped on his shoulder, walked along with them, presumably to ensure that they were not up to something nefarious.
When they reached the end of the last row, the constable asked Mr. Holt, "Have you the key to the mausoleum? We had better have a look in there, just so we can say that we have investigated all the possibilities."
Mr. Holt looked far from delighted at the concept. After a long, frowning pause, he said, "It may be that I should check with Mr. Stockbridge, before allowing it. But … I can see no likelihood that he would refuse his permission. Very well, then. Come with me."
The groundskeeper leaned his scythe against the wall of the building, beside the mausoleum's door. From an inner pocket of his coat he brought a key so large that it made Bill think of a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Bill had the feeling that he, Holt and Hemphill had all shrunk compared to that key, as though they had all fallen down the rabbit hole.
Unlike the Collins mausoleum with its wrought iron gate, this final resting place of the Stockbridge family was equipped with a big, heavy wooden door that looked strong enough to form part of the defenses of a castle. The prodigious key operated a proportionally out-sized lock.
Bill expected the door to creak spookily open. It disappointed him by remaining silent. He guessed it was probably among Mr. Holt's duties to keep the mausoleum's door hinges well oiled.
As Holt led them into the crypt, he ordered, "Tread quietly, both of you. The ones who lie buried here within are those who were the most in need of rest."
Bill and the constable cast eyebrows-raised looks at each other before they walked quietly inside.
The open door and a series of tiny windows near the roofline let a pale hint of light into the single room. In another difference from the Collins mausoleum, the Stockbridge version had no stone sarcophagi in the center of the room. All of the burials here were apparently in wall vaults, each marked by a gravestone-like plaque set into the wall. Young Holt said almost inaudibly, "If you'll inspect the slabs, constable, I think you'll find that none of them has been dislodged."
"Thank you," Hemphill said. He walked toward the wall that faced the intruders. Bill followed, anachronistically wishing for a flashlight.
Hemphill and Bill started running their hands along the edges of the plaques, searching for any chipped stone or loose mortar. As Bill's eyes got used to the dimness, he suddenly realized he could read the plaque he was investigating. The inscription read, "L. Murdoch Stockbridge 1735—1767."
With a shudder, Bill Malloy thought, Shit.
Now that was a damned weird thought! To stand here, and to know that in the spring of 1967, Dr. Guthrie, Joe Haskell and Frank Garner would stand in this very same spot and force open this vault. They would force open the vault, they would pull out the coffin, and they would find nothing inside it.
He wondered if the body of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge was already gone from inside there.
Bill had not taken part in Guthrie's expedition to the Stockbridge Cemetery. He had been at his house at the time, babysitting David. But Joe and Frank had both talked about it to him afterwards; both of them with hushed voices and haunted-looking eyes.
Bill told himself it didn't matter if the mysterious Laura's body was in there now or not. What mattered now was that the seal around the slab felt perfectly smooth and undamaged. He thought it was a pretty safe bet that it wasn't Laura's skull which was currently doing a tour of duty as a gag gift.
Constable Hemphill sighed and said, "I think you are right, Mr. Holt. All of the slabs seem entirely undisturbed. Thank you for allowing us to look."
"Of course," Holt answered.
As noiselessly as they could, they made their way back outside. The groundskeeper brought forth the enormous key and locked the door behind them, restoring the quiet to those who were most in need of rest.
Hemphill continued, "I believe that is all we need to see. Thank you for your time. And, Mr. Holt: I will be deeply obliged if you would do something for me. If by chance you hear any rumor – anything at all – regarding the violation of graves around Collinsport, I beg that you will let me know at once."
"I will," Holt told him firmly. "You have my word on that. Anyone who'd be vile enough to do something like that has got to be caught."
They collected their horses and walked them to the edge of the burying ground. Then it was back into the saddle, for another chapter in Bill's day of riding.
Bill asked the constable as they headed back to the main road, "How many more burying grounds are we visiting?"
"None, today," Hemphill answered. "We have visited all of the town yards. There remain the private family yards. But as we discussed this morning, I think there is no point at all in our attempting to visit those now. Heaven knows that I probably am aware of only a small proportion of them. And even if we did have knowledge of all of them, the Collinses and all of those with family yards would not thank us for starting a town-wide panic, making everyone fear that their burying yards are under threat. So, we will visit the doctors, and then we can head to our homes in the happy knowledge that we have done our duty."
Bill wasn't sure he would be heading back to Collins House in any kind of state of happy knowledge. He thought, More like unhappy lack of knowledge. But at least the day had been a change of pace from going 'round in circles questioning the members of the Collins household.
It felt weird to him to realize that apart from the three they'd just visited, none of the other Collinsport cemeteries existed yet. Of course, he guessed it made sense. From what he remembered of them, the gravestones at Seaside Cemetery and South Collinsport Cemetery were of very different styles than the ones they had seen today. Those cemeteries of the future would hold obelisks and weeping angels and sleeping lambs and limestone tree stumps. They wouldn't have the curved-topped stones of the old burying yards, with cartoonish cherub heads or winged skulls at the tops of them. And as for Stanhope Cemetery, Bill remembered when it had opened. It was sometime after the war. He thought that Stanhope had probably only been open since about 1950.
Bill shook his head. He made a half-hearted effort to shove everything to the back of his mind and simply enjoy the ride.
In his normal, everyday 20th-century life, Bill loved the views as one drove toward Collinsport along this stretch of the Coast Road. He loved watching the road curve back and forth, with the sea glimmering beyond. He loved the glimpses of Cow Island and of Findley's Cove; he loved it when his own house hove into view in the distance; he loved the moments when the curve of the road revealed Collinsport ahead, nestled at the feet of the hills. He loved the occasional views of Collinwood up there on its cliff top, keeping watch over them all.
All of those views were deeply familiar to him, and they were deeply treasured. Whenever he could, he slowed down his driving on this road so he could truly savor it. So he guessed probably he ought to really enjoy it today, now he was following that same route on horseback.
But the fact was that today he barely even noticed it. Today all of the familiar and half-familiar vistas were wasted on him. The gleaming vision of the Atlantic silvered by the sunlight might just as well not have been there.
A succession of gravestones, inscriptions and mausoleums were playing in a slideshow through his mind. Gravestones and inscriptions that he had seen today – and those which might be carved in a few short weeks from now, if he and Jeremiah Collins failed.
He shuddered again. He thought back to the feeling of running his hands over the slab that marked the resting place of L. Murdoch Stockbridge. L. Murdoch Stockbridge, who died in 1767. L. Murdoch Stockbridge who just might be someone that Bill had a nodding acquaintance with in the 20th century. Who might, in point of fact, be some sort of serially-reincarnating supernatural being, and who apparently needed to burn her own offspring to death every hundred years or so.
Unless, of course, all of that was nonsense. Unless the coincidence of names and dates was only that – a coincidence. Lots of Collinsport families had been here forever – the Collinses, chief among them. And a lot of those families liked naming kids after their ancestors and relatives. The fact of there being three Laura Murdochs in town over the course of three centuries didn't prove a blame thing, except that the Murdoch family were fond of the name Laura.
Three people Bill liked, whose opinions he generally valued, believed that those three Lauras were one and the same. Joe Haskell, Frank Garner and Vicki Winters all believed it. It had been four people Bill liked who had believed it – since after resisting it tooth and nail, Burke Devlin had finally given in to believing it, too. Not to mention, of course, the lamented Dr. Peter Guthrie. He was the one who had developed the theory of Laura's supernatural nature. And, just maybe, Guthrie had died because of it.
Of course serially-reincarnating supernatural being or not, the fact couldn't be denied that Laura Murdoch Collins had tried to kill her own son. She had burned herself to death and she'd tried to murder David in the process. She was either an eternal child-killing monster, or she was lethally deranged. And either way, Bill thought, it was probably a miracle that David wasn't any more screwed-up than he was.
Sheesh, thought Bill. It's no wonder David murdered that poor kitten five years ago. Or that he tried to do Roger in. No darned wonder he's got darkness inside of him. With an irresponsible lush for a father, and a mother who's either a centuries-old child-murderer or a manic-depressive homicidal maniac – we're probably lucky if that kitten and dear Roger are the only entries on David's list of victims and attempted victims.
He ruefully scratched his cheek as he remembered young Mr. Holt's comment that the dead in the mausoleum were those "most in need of rest." If Dr. Guthrie's theory about Laura was right, apparently she didn't agree with Holt about needing her rest. Or maybe all she needed was a century's-worth of beauty sleep before she woke up raring to go, all ready to kill another kid.
One thing's for sure, he thought. Our potentially living-dead Laura isn't the only oddity connected with the Stockbridge Cemetery.
Holt's command that they should tread quietly because the dead needed their rest, irresistibly reminded Bill of the elderly gent who was the caretaker for Collinsport's three historic cemeteries in Bill's time. He hadn't thought of it until Holt made that comment, but young Holt actually resembled the old caretaker quite a bit. Holt could almost be the caretaker in person, minus the old gentleman's little glasses, grizzled moustache, and four or five decades of age.
In normal run-of-the-mill life, Bill might hazard a guess that the caretaker was young Holt's grandfather. But of course the way things were, Holt would have to be the several-times-over-great-grandfather of the old caretaker, instead.
Actually, Bill realized, that wasn't an unlikely possibility. Plenty of Collinsport families tended to work more-or-less the same job for generation after generation. It wouldn't be at all surprising if the men of the caretaker's family had been looking after Collinsport's burying grounds for centuries.
What is that old guy's name, anyway? Bill asked himself. He knew that he knew it. It wasn't Holt, but it was something similar: another one-syllable name that began with an "H."
Hatch, Bill thought. That's it. Kimball Hatch. He was a little irritated at the length of time it took him to remember that, considering that he saw the name on voter registration lists every single election. Kimball Hatch lived in the precinct which voted at the Municipal Auditorium, where Bill had served as a poll worker every Election Day for the past 20 years. And over all of that time, Bill couldn't think of a single election that Mr. Hatch had missed.
Kimball Hatch the cemetery caretaker was notorious around town as one of Collinsport's great eccentrics. And one could certainly be forgiven for harboring doubts about his connection to reality. But eccentric and living-in-his-own-world or no, Mr. Hatch was extremely serious about his rights and responsibilities as a voter. And Bill only remembered a few election days when Mr. Hatch mentioned that the dead had been advising him on how to vote.
Heck, thought Bill, maybe Mr. Hatch isn't actually descended from Mr. Holt. Maybe they're the same guy. Laura may not be the only supernatural immortal we've got hanging around town. If Holt and Hatch really are the same person, it'd be no wonder that he's gone a bit vague in the head by the 1960s. Anyone might get a little senile, if they're 200 or so years old.
Ay-yuh, his thoughts answered. And you, Bill, have been around too much supernatural weirdness. It's starting to infest your brain. Much more of this crap and you'll think everyone you meet is a ghostie, a ghoulie or a long-legged beastie, as Sam Evans loves to say.
And thinking of Sam Evans, Bill realized that they were nearly back to the Evans cottage already – or rather, to Thomas Thornton's apothecary's shop. It was jolt to Bill to find that not only had they passed the turnoff to Widow's Hill without him noticing it, this time he also hadn't even noticed when they rode past the spot that would one day hold his own house.
As they tethered their horses, Bill thought, At least this time I'm not here to buy any tooth powder. Considering his past interactions with the estimable Dr. Thornton, Bill wondered if maybe he should just wait outside with the horses. Nonetheless he followed Constable Hemphill down the boardwalk path and into Thornton's shop. The cheery tinkling of the over-the-door bell announced their arrival.
The bell announced their arrival, but no one answered the summons. After a slight wait, the constable called out, "Dr. Thornton? Hello? Hello within! Is anybody at home?"
Still nothing. Hemphill shrugged and said, "Perhaps they're outside. We'll go have a look around."
The constable's surmise proved a good one. Dr. Thornton was out back, with a young man and woman who looked enough like him that they pretty much had to be his kids. The family was hard at work, putting things to rights in the wake of what had clearly been a near disaster.
A 30-foot-or-so white pine had toppled. Its roots thrust up into the air like tentacles. From the angle the tree was lying at, Bill thought its crown must have missed the back of the house by no more than a foot. But by now the crown of the tree was gone. The family had sawn off all of the branches as well, and now they were making significant inroads on the trunk itself.
The big two-man saw that Thornton and his son were wielding looked the same as saws Bill remembered lumbermen around here using when he was a kid. Presumably each time they got a manageable chunk sawn off the trunk, the Thornton men took a break from sawing to chop the chunk into firewood. Meanwhile young Miss Thornton was lugging armload after armload of their new firewood to the shed at the back of the house.
When Hemphill and Bill walked around the corner, the young woman was on her way back from the shed to collect another load. She cast the constable a startled grin and said, "Afternoon, Mr. Hemphill! Have you come to help us clear our tree?"
Hemphill stopped in his tracks and gave a whistle of surprise. "I gladly will if it's needful, Annie," he said. "But it looks like you all have the matter well in hand."
The Thornton men stopped their sawing as they caught sight of the visitors. Both of them straightened up to look curiously at Hemphill and Bill and to mop sweat from their brows.
Walking up to Dr. Thornton, Hemphill said, "Quite some wind-fall you've had. And a narrow escape, too."
The irascible Scotsman answered with his familiar pursed-lipped frown. "You do not need to tell us that," he remarked. "Although we at least will have no shortage of firewood this winter." Thornton aimed a disapproving look at Bill. "I trust there are no further illnesses at Collins House," he said. "After the reception my advice was accorded the last time, I should have thought the Collinses would seek medical assistance elsewhere."
The constable waved aside Thornton's comments. Bill got the impression that Hemphill was amused by the doctor's crankiness. "It's nothing like that, Thomas," Hemphill said. "Mr. Malloy is assisting me today. I'm conducting an investigation, and there's one question I need to ask you."
Warily Thornton nodded. He said to his son, who had taken the opportunity to have a seat on the tree trunk, "You may as well go help your sister."
The youth puffed out his breath in an exaggerated sigh. Then he grinned wearily up at his father. "Yes, sir."
"I'll help," Bill offered. He joined the brother and sister in hauling armloads of firewood.
In the meantime, Hemphill and Dr. Thornton got to the actual meat of the conversation.
"What is this about, Stephen?" Thornton asked.
"I can't tell you much, I'm afraid. Most of it needs to be kept quiet for now. What I'm here to ask you – I need to learn if you keep a human skull around your office or your shop. And if you do, whether that skull is missing."
Bill paused in his firewood-hauling and looked to see Thornton's reaction. The expression on the doctor's face seemed a variation on his standard irritated disapproval, this time with some extra surprise thrown in.
Thornton inquired, "Keep a skull around? Tell me, pray, why I would want to do that."
Hemphill looked taken-aback. He said, "Many doctors do, I believe. As an object of study; or perhaps for explaining details of treatment to their patients."
"Well, I am not one of those doctors," Dr. Thornton answered. "I am perfectly capable of advising and treating my patients without keeping earthly remains lying about the place."
Constable Hemphill took off his hat and scratched his head. "I guess that answers that. So since you don't keep any skulls around, I presume you can't have lost one."
Thornton quirked an eyebrow upward. "I'm afraid not. If an extraneous skull has appeared in the village, I assure you it is not ours."
"Then we'll be going on to our next stop. But first let me stay and lend you a hand."
With Hemphill, Bill and the three Thorntons all working on it, they got the cut firewood shifted into the woodshed in no time flat. "Well, good day to you, then," the constable said. "Thomas; Ned; Annie; it was good to see all of you."
"Good luck with your skull-hunt," was Thornton's dry reply. "And please give Susanna my regards. Mr. Malloy, it was a pleasure to see you again."
"Likewise," Bill said. He wasn't the least bit surprised by the lack of enthusiasm in Thornton's comment.
They left the Thorntons to their woodcutting. When they were on horseback again and heading down the road, Hemphill remarked to Bill, "Thomas Thornton is the kind of man the word 'prickly' was created for. But I've no reason to believe he is anything but honest. I think we can safely presume that he's told us the truth."
"That sounds right," Bill agreed with him. "How many other doctors are there in town?"
"Only one. His name is Dr. Gaffney. He lives in Collinsport proper."
Dr. Gaffney, it turned out, lived one block up Main Street from the Hemphills in an impressive two-story brick place. Bill tried to think why he didn't recognize this house from his own Collinsport. After a moment's mental mapping of Main Street, he figured it out. This spot was the location of the old Bijou Cinema, until the Bijou burned down in 1930-whatever-it-was. And since the Bijou's demise, it had been the Bank of Collinsport's parking lot.
The man who answered the door at Dr. Gaffney's place gave the impression that he'd just been roused from a nap. Bill thought he probably had. He woke up pretty darn quick when he realized the town constable was standing on the doorstep.
"Can I help you, constable?" he asked.
"I certainly hope so. Is Dr. Gaffney at home?"
"No. No, sir, he isn't, sir, I'm sorry," the man answered nervously. "Dr. Gaffney is dining with Reverend Brook."
"Ah. Thank you. We'll look for him there."
This time they led their horses rather than riding them. As Hemphill told Bill, it was a very short walk. While they strolled, Hemphill remarked, "This actually works out well. I've been thinking of calling on Reverend Brook at any rate, to seek his assistance in this skull business. This way we'll be able to strike two birds with the one stone."
The minister's home was a little ways down Church Street, just past the meeting house. Clearly by now the day's church service had ended, since the street was nearly empty. The house was a large but simple two-story wooden saltbox, with tiny attic windows that peeked out from under the roofline. Looking at the house, Bill was once again superimposing what he saw with his own future memories of the area. It looked to him like the location of the minister's house was pretty much evenly divided between the 20th-century church office building and the edge of its parking lot.
Answering the door at Reverend Brook's house was a freckle-faced teenage girl. Before she or the constable managed to say a word, a mousy little man with a gray bowl haircut bustled out to them from the room to the left of the door. At the sight of guests, he rubbed his hands together in evident delight.
"Good afternoon, constable, good afternoon! Welcome to you! And to your companion. Come in at once and tell me what I can do for you."
"Thank you, reverend," Hemphill answered, as they stepped inside.
"Lucy will take your hats," the reverend told them. Obediently they handed their hats to freckled young Lucy, who hung them from hooks on a big, fancy piece of furniture with a mirror, a bench and pillars. Lucy then curtsied and made her exit down the house's central hallway.
Meanwhile Hemphill was saying, "We are sorry to have interrupted your dinner—"
"Not at all, not at all. We were nearly finished, in any case. Come in, come in, both of you."
The Reverend Brook's darkly-painted dining room was modest compared with the gilded glory at Collins House. But it still looked pretty darned opulent to Bill. And the food that he saw on the table might not rival the Collinses' conspicuous consumption, but it still looked to him more like a Thanksgiving feast than a regular Sunday dinner.
Remember, Bill, he ordered himself, you're not going to get maudlin again about missing Thanksgiving!
To Bill the whole place had more the look of a museum diorama than somebody's home. Except that the two people who stood up from the table to greet them when the reverend led them inside were living folks, not mannequins.
One of them was a sweet-faced little white-haired lady who looked she could play Mrs. Claus at Christmas time. She even had on a reddish dress and a white lace-trimmed cap. The other person at the table seemed to be about the same age as Reverend Brook, somewhere at the young end of elderly. But this man was taller and broader shouldered. Instead of a bowl cut he wore his gray hair in a bouffant do that made Bill think of Elvis Presley.
Hemphill said again, "Please forgive us for interrupting, all of you. Permit me to introduce Mr. William Malloy, who is secretary to Mr. Jeremiah Collins. Mr. Malloy, let me introduce to you the Reverend and Mrs. Alton Brook, and Dr. Fisher Gaffney."
Amid various "how do you do"s, Bill shook hands with the reverend and the doctor and bowed to Mrs. Brooks. Constable Hemphill continued, "Mr. Malloy is assisting me as I conduct an investigation. The fact is that we came here seeking Dr. Gaffney. But if you have a few moments to spare as well, Reverend, we would be grateful for the opportunity to speak with both of you."
"Certainly, certainly," said the jovial minister. "Let us step into the parlor. My dear, I hope you don't mind?"
"Of course not," answered his wife, in a voice as sweet as she looked. "Lucy and I will clear the table, and the coffee and dessert will be ready when you return. I hope these gentlemen will stay for coffee and dessert as well?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Brook," Hemphill said, "we won't intrude on your hospitality. I have my own dinner to get home to."
The four men crossed the hallway into the parlor, which proved to be a pink and gold assault on the eyes. The wainscoting woodwork was painted pale salmon pink, surmounted by gold-trimmed wallpaper with thousands of tiny pink rosebuds. Bill's general impression was that an eight-year-old girl had decorated the parlor, except that there weren't any fairies peeking around the roses.
Constable Hemphill declined with thanks the reverend's offer of a chair. He launched straight into the investigation. "You'll understand that much of this matter must remain confidential. Dr. Gaffney, the fact is that we're hoping you might be able to help us shed light on the origin of a human skull that has mysteriously appeared in Collinsport. It was sent anonymously to one of our citizens. Naturally, it could all be no more than an unpleasant prank. But in case there are more sinister implications to the gift, we're attempting to trace it to its source. And we thought, doctor, that since physicians sometimes keep skulls or suchlike items about their offices, you would be a logical person for us to consult."
Reverend Brook looked smilingly interested, like Hemphill was discoursing on some topic of ordinary conversation. Dr. Gaffney seemed more troubled. He rubbed his chin and muttered, "A skull? How very odd. In point of fact, I do keep a skull on the desk in my office. But that can't be the one you're speaking of. I presume you are thinking that someone might have … absconded with the skull in my office and sent it as this gift?"
"That is what we were thinking. You're absolutely certain the skull in your office is still in its usual place?"
"Absolutely, I'm afraid." The doctor smiled, looking a little embarrassed. "I saw it when I left the house this afternoon. I call it Yorick, you see. Whenever I leave home I have the habit of … patting Yorick and wishing him a good day. A silly custom of mine, but I've done it every time I've left the house for, oh, near on to 35 years. When I went out today he was there on the desk as usual. So you see it simply isn't possible for Yorick to be your skull."
Hemphill tried not to look too disappointed. "Oh, well," he said. "It was worth a try. Thank you, doctor. Reverend Brook, there's something you might be able to do for us. Mr. Malloy and I have visited the three town burying grounds. No graves in any of them appear to have been disturbed. Perhaps you could assist me in assembling a list of the family burying grounds in our area. I feel I should visit as many as I can, on the chance that a grave in one of them has been desecrated to supply this skull."
The minister looked smilingly intrigued. "Certainly I will do that, Mr. Hemphill. And there is another possibility you may not have considered. What of the Indian burials?"
"Indian burials?" Constable Hemphill echoed. "Damn! I mean, begging your pardon, reverend. I never even thought of them."
"They do seem a very likely source for your skull," suggested Reverend Brook, still smiling. "After all, our countryside hereabouts is full of them. Being out in the wilds, a skull from one of them might be removed for evil purposes with no one any the wiser. I myself have investigated three burials nearby; and now that I think of it—"
He paused and finally frowned. "Now that I think of it, perhaps we had better examine my collection. I think it extremely unlikely to have been tampered with. But I suppose it will be wisest to make certain of that. Would you care to see my collection, gentlemen? It is in my study," he went on, smiling again as he gestured to a door at the rear of the parlor. "I would have liked to set up a display case with the more remarkable pieces in here. But my dear Mehitable will not permit me to keep, as she calls them, those nasty pagan things in any other room but my study. It is the only thing she has refused me in forty-one years of marriage."
Reverend, thought Bill Malloy, I don't want to hear about your marriage and I don't want to see your collection. But he kept quiet about his objections while he, Hemphill and the doctor trooped after Reverend Brook into his study.
At least the room was a relief from the parlor's pink. Here the wainscoting and wallpaper were a manly combination of maroon and dark blue. The study was furnished with a desk, several chairs and three glass-fronted bookcases – one of which did not hold books.
"There," said the reverend, in a tone of happy relief, "there, you see, they are quite all right." He opened the doors to the bookcase in order to point out its contents.
On the top shelf sat most of a human skull, minus the lower jaw. There were some long bones with it and other items Bill didn't recognize in the dimness of the room. The second shelf had two skulls in its display, among a jumble of other things. One was an intact-looking adult's skull. The other skull must have come from a little child.
Bill gritted his teeth. He fixed his gaze on the wall just above the bookcase. Hopefully he would look like he was paying attention, without actually needing to look at the Reverend Alton Brook's collection.
Brook told them, "The items on this shelf came from a pit in the woods near Indian Cove. Which I suppose is an appropriate name for the place, isn't it? This one must have been a man's burial. Here are arrowheads I found in the pit, and see here: the remains of two knives, one of stone and one of iron. This coin was in the pit as well. You can just make out the inscription: it is French, from 1633. And look at these bones; they were in the same burial. I believe they are those of several dogs. The man's dogs must have been buried with him.
"Then here, on this shelf," Brook went on, with fondness in his tone, "I call this one the princess. See the quantity of beads that were with her? She must have been a woman of rare distinction among her people. The child was buried with her. And look at this. I found the woman's bones and the child's wrapped in separate bundles. In the bundle with the child's bones were all of these arrowheads. The child must have been a boy, and his bow and arrows were buried with him.
"Those are the best finds. Here on this lower shelf are the items I found in a third pit, but there were only fragments of bone in it; none of the better-preserved remains. I did find two arrowheads, however, and a number of beads."
Reverend Brook closed the doors to the bookcase and stood up. "It really is striking, you know," he remarked, "how closely the burial rituals of this land's savage peoples resemble those of the ancient Vikings and Britons. Our own ancient forebears, just like these people here, believed that the things we hold dear in this lifetime can travel with us into the life beyond. Indeed," he added philosophically, "it is a notion we poor fallible mortals can scarce let go of even today, much though we are warned of the fruitlessness of laying up our treasures on this earth."
Lucky me, Bill thought. I didn't make it to meeting today, but I still get to hear the sermon.
"But how I go on!" continued the minister, with a self-conscious laugh. "None of you gentlemen came here to hear a lecture on the burial practices of the ancient peoples of Maine."
"Well, you're right about that, reverend," Constable Hemphill said good-naturedly. "But it's been very useful. I might never have thought of the Indian burials if you hadn't mentioned them."
"And we have ascertained one useful point," Brook added. "The skull you are investigating was not stolen from my collection. These three skulls are the only ones I have, and you can see that the three of them are still safe and sound. Now, Dr. Gaffney and I really must get back to the table. I mustn't keep my dear Mehitable waiting whilst I toy with these 'nasty pagan things.' You're sure you won't stay for coffee and desserts?"
"Thank you. I'm sure," said Hemphill. "We have to be going. If you do have the time to assemble a list of the family burying grounds in the area, reverend, I would be much obliged for your assistance. I'd like to call on you again to discuss it, tomorrow afternoon if that's convenient."
"Perfectly convenient. I will have the list ready. Although I fear it may prove something of a wild goose chase. I cannot help thinking that a pit in the woods, holding the burial of some savage from ages past, would be a far safer recourse for some miscreant seeking a skull than would any Christian burial."
"Yes," Hemphill sighed. "I'm afraid you're right. Good afternoon to you, doctor," he added to the bouffant-haired medical man. "Thank you for your time."
"You are most welcome," Dr. Gaffney said. "I regret I could be of no assistance, but it has been fascinating. Good luck to you. And it was good to meet you, sir," he added to Bill.
"Good to meet you, too."
They made it back to the hallway, reclaimed their hats, and got outside after brief farewells with Mrs. Brook. Bill thought he had seldom been so glad to get out of any place in his life.
As they walked to the hitching posts, Constable Hemphill said, "I'm sorry if I was too swift to speak for you. Would you have liked to stay for coffee and dessert?"
"No," Bill said emphatically. "No, I would not."
"Well, then, first things first. It has just gone three o' clock. My wife and the children will still be waiting dinner for me, at least for a little while longer. Will you join us? You will be very welcome. We can always find room for another to squeeze in at our table. Unless the Collinses are expecting you to dine with them?"
"No. They aren't expecting me." Bill managed a rueful smile. "Thanks. I'd like to join you. I appreciate it."
Maybe, he thought, dinner with the Hemphills will help me stop thinking about Reverend Brook's collection.
"We'll be happy to have you," Hemphill told him.
They rode back to the jail so Hemphill could return his horse to the stable and leave the mysterious skull in his office. As they rode, the constable was thinking aloud.
"Damn it! I still can't believe I never thought of the Indian graves. I'll wager Jeremiah Collins didn't think of them, either. You ask me, it makes this mission of ours more a joke than it already was. Reverend Brook was right. Suppose you wanted a skull, so you could send it as a threat to the Collins family. Well, now: do you go to a burying ground where people will know at once if a grave has been tampered with, and where you risk being caught? Or do you find some old Indian grave in the woods? A grave nobody knows is there any more and nobody cares about? One where you can grab all the skulls you please and not a living soul will be any the wiser!"
"Ay-yuh," said Bill Malloy.
Bill's thoughts as they rode along were as gloomy as Hemphill's musings. He wished like hell that he could scrub his mind clean of all memory of Reverend Brook's collection.
What's bugging you, Bill? he asked himself. What makes you think of the reverend as a grave robber instead of an archaeologist?
Half the museums in the world would be empty if nobody ever dug things up out of graves.
But the minister's collection still rubbed him wrong. Maybe it was the contrast that bothered him. The damned ironic contrast between, on the one hand, a place like the Stockbridge burying ground, zealously guarded by young Holt – and on the other hand, the Indian graves in the woods, where the dead had no one to remember them and no one to protect their rest.
Did that man, that woman and that child feel their rest was disturbed because their skulls were sitting in Reverend Brook's bookcase?
In contrast to their trip to the minister's place, Bill's visit to the Hemphills' house was just what the doctor ordered. Nobody could stay gloomy for long when that many kids were running around underfoot.
Mrs. Hemphill and the children met them at the front door. In point of fact, Mrs. Hemphill met them at the door and the kids came stampeding out of it. Bill thought the sight of Constable Hemphill being swarmed by his welcoming children would make a good subject for a Norman Rockwell painting.
Over the happy shouts of their offspring, the constable told his wife that Bill would be dining with them. "This is my wife Susanna," he said to Bill, in almost a shout himself. "And I'm Stephen. Might as well use first names, I guess, after the day we've spent together."
"I'm Bill," he introduced himself loudly through the squeals of the kids. The harried-looking Susanna managed a smile and called back to him, "You are welcome to join us, Bill, if you can stand the noise."
While the three older kids set the table, several of the younger ones gave Bill a tutorial on all eight kids' names and ages. It took him a few rounds of reciting their names – with the little ones laughing uproariously when he made a mistake – before he had them all committed to memory.
There was eleven-year-old Samuel, the eldest, the boy who played the piano. There was Charlotte, the violin player, who was ten. Susan was the eight-year-old he had seen earlier helping their mother in the kitchen. Six-year-old Lydia and three-year-old Dorcas were the two who had braided all those ribbons into the fur of Gargantua, the sheepdog. Benjamin and Enoch, the twins, were five years old. Luckily, Benjamin was taller and blonder than his twin, so there wasn't too much challenge in telling the two of them apart. Finally, Stephen Jr. was the one-year-old, busily occupied in trundling his walker through every part of the house that he could manage – and through quite a bit of it that he shouldn't be able to manage. Bill thought it was anybody's guess how the toddler could maneuver that walker down a couple of stairs without ending up on his noggin.
The combined dining room and kitchen was the warmest room in the house, thanks to its massive fireplace and the adjoining built-in brick oven. Susanna Hemphill sat at the end of the table near the hearth, with Stephen Jr. in his highchair beside her. Her husband sat at the far end, and Bill and the seven other kids crowded onto the benches at either side.
The Hemphills kept a reasonably orderly table. At least, Bill thought, it's quieter and calmer than you'd expect with so many kids. But you still can't really call it quiet. He had to grin to himself as he remembered how all four of his grandparents used to tell him that in their day, children had been seen but not heard.
Maybe in your day, he thought, but not in 1795. Or anyway, not in the house of Stephen and Susanna Hemphill.
The two eldest kids, Samuel and Charlotte, walked around the table serving everyone else before sitting down to join in. There was a modest chunk of roast beef that Bill felt awkward about eating any of, since he didn't want to take it away from the family. But his hosts insisted, so he took a bit about the size of a quarter. There was a good, hearty soup that was heavy on the carrots and turnips, and molasses corn bread that was so danged fine he could have kept eating it all night. And when they finally got to the apple betty, Bill thought he ought to get the recipe and bring it home to Mrs. Johnson as her souvenir of the 18th century.
Bill was sitting between Lydia and Dorcas. Through the first portion of the meal the two monopolized his attention with talk of their beloved Gargantua. The sheepdog had recently suffered bereavement through the loss of his feline friend Pantagruel. They had been puppy and kitten together, and since their youth, Pantagruel had spent every night sleeping on top of Gargantua.
Sadly, Pantagruel died several weeks ago. Now the heart-sick Gargantua shared Lydia and Dorcas' bed. Apparently that explained all of the ribbons; the girls had put them in his fur in the attempt to cheer him up.
From the sorrows of the unfortunate Gargantua, the conversation turned to the children's schooling. Benjamin and Enoch had just started school, so now all of the kids except Dorcas and baby Stephen were attending the village school. "But," Charlotte told Bill proudly, "we learn a great deal more at home. Mama lets Samuel and me read books from Mama and Papa's library, and then she leads us in debates on them and writing essays. The one we're reading now is Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Have you read it?"
"I'm afraid not," Bill said. He wondered, That isn't by the author of Frankenstein, is it? Maybe before she got married? But he thought they were probably two different authors. Weren't there still at least another couple of decades before Frankenstein would be published?
"Charlotte," Susannah Hemphill said hurriedly, looking embarrassed, "Mr. Malloy may not wish to hear about it …"
"No, I'd like to," Bill intervened. "I'd like to very much."
With that permission, young Samuel said eagerly, "I think Mary Wollstonecraft has good arguments. They seem very reasonable. Only she argues a lot against Rousseau's arguments, and you see, we haven't read Rousseau yet. We're going to read him next, so we'll know better what Mary Wollstonecraft is arguing against. Have you read Rousseau?"
"No," Bill had to admit, "I haven't read him, either." He asked them, "So, tell me. What would you say is Mary Wollstonecraft's main argument?"
Charlotte answered confidently, "That men and women should both get the same education, because that's the only way we'll know for certain whether women are the intellectual equals of men. She says it's only to be expected that women will seem frivolous and weak and incapable of taking care of themselves, if they aren't given the knowledge and training they need to take care of themselves as well as men do."
"That makes sense to me," said Bill. He thought, Maybe I ought to borrow that book and give it to certain Collinses to read. Starting with Millicent.
Mrs. Hemphill asked, with a smile, "Then you do not feel that such an argument imperils the institution of the family, and that educating women in the same skills as men will lure them away from their proper role of caring for their households and their children?"
Okay, now, Bill wondered, how revolutionary can I sound without making it obvious that I'm from the future? But after all, Mary Wollstonecraft already wrote this book and had succeeded in getting it published by 1795. With that in mind, Bill figured his outlook on these questions probably wouldn't sound too far out-of-the-ballpark for someone from the 18th century. Not unless Mary Wollstonecraft was a time traveler from the future, too.
So he said, "I'm not actually sure men and women have proper roles. Usual roles, sure. But not 'proper' ones. Don't we all know some men who are better at taking care of kids than some women are? And some women who have better heads for business than some men? My wife, now: when her father died, he left the family business to her. She's run the business for decades. I don't think there's any man in the world could do a better job of it than she does. If she's as good at it as any man, what would be the point of saying she shouldn't do it because it isn't a woman's role?"
He noticed Stephen and Susanna Hemphill casting each other surprised-looking smiles. Stephen remarked, "If you will forgive a personal comment, Bill: I believe your wife is lucky to have you."
Bill heard himself give the gruff answer, "I'm lucky to have her." He quickly changed the subject. "Can I have a little more of that cornbread?"
After dinner Bill was introduced to all of the younger kids' dolls and wooden animals. Then he built a large castle out of blocks with Benjamin, Enoch and Dorcas. During the castle-building, there was also an impromptu family concert. Stephen played the piano while Susanna and most of the elder kids sang and Charlotte played her violin. Fortunately for Bill's sense of pitch, Charlotte seemed far more familiar with the pieces they performed that evening than with the one Bill had heard when he and Jeremiah first arrived at the house.
At last he couldn't put off his departure any longer. It was past six o'clock, and had been dark for a couple of hours, by the time Bill started on his ride back up to Collins House. Fortunately the moon was up already, and it was getting pretty near full. It ought to be bright enough to get them up the hill without either Bill or his trusty steed Gracie breaking their necks.
For the first several minutes of that ride, Bill Malloy felt just plain happy. He felt the warmth and contentment that go along with good food and good company.
It occurred to him that every time he had gone to the Hemphill's house, he'd been too caught up in life at that moment to stop and think about whether he remembered the house from his own time. He thought about it now. He had to conclude that the Hemphills' place must have been gone by the time he was old enough to remember.
Calling up his mental map of Collinsport again, Bill plotted things out. That was it, he realized. The Hemphill house and land were the future locations of the Veterans' Memorial Building and Memorial Park.
Bill grimaced in regret. But, come on, Bill, he told himself. You know nothing lasts forever. That house will have lived a good full life by the time it finally bites the dust. Anyway, the house has more happiness inside it right at this second than some houses have in them in centuries of existence.
Some houses like – just for example – Collins House and Collinwood.
Dang it! he thought. I wish I were staying with the Hemphills instead of at Collins House.
Of course, he reminded himself, he wasn't here for a vacation. He hadn't come to 1795 to enjoy himself. He had come here – or so he thought, and so he hoped – to accomplish something. He'd come here to change something, maybe. Hopefully he had come here to help people. To help people here, and hopefully to help the people he loved in his own time.
Riding up the hill, he felt an inner coldness that was harsher than the air around him at the thought of going back inside Collins House.
Back into all the sorrows of that place. Back to the ice-cold bitterness of the master of the house. Back to the obvious unspoken misery of Naomi Collins. Back to Abigail Collins' disapproval of everyone and everything. And back to Jeremiah and Barnabas and Sarah's efforts to find some happiness for themselves, in a place where unhappiness was clearly the order of the day.
And add to all of that, of course, whatever was going on now with threats against the family and with that blessed skull-in-a-box.
He couldn't help thinking of how sharp the contrast was between that one time he had dined with the Collinses of 1795, and the dinner he'd shared with the Hemphill family tonight. He couldn't help thinking of the Collinses' gilded dining room and all the insults, innuendos, resentment and hurt that filled up the room like a poisonous cloud. He thought of it and he compared it with the laughter and noise and the danged obvious love that the Hemphills had for each other.
They're a real family, he thought. That's the way a family ought to live. Not like half of these Collinses today, who treat each other like they just happen to share a last name and live under the same roof.
Neither member of the father-and-son stable hand team was around when Bill arrived at the Collins House stables. He figured the moonlight was probably bright enough for him to succeed in stabling Gracie himself – and maybe by the light of the moon he could find a lantern inside there; that would help. But then he saw what looked like a bell-pull, on the wall beside the stable door.
Bill gave it an experimental tug. Sure enough, a minute or so later he saw a will-o-the-wisp light come bobbing toward him from the direction of the building next to the stable. The light turned out to be lantern in the hand of young Jake Tierney.
"Evening, Mr. Malloy," the boy greeted him. "You're the last one in. That's the whole household home for the night, now. Mr. Jeremiah said to tell you to come see him when you get in."
"Good," said Bill. "Thanks."
He wondered if Jeremiah had anything to tell him. Certainly he had something to tell Jeremiah: the uninspiring results of today's burying yard investigations, for a start. But more important, he still hadn't had the chance to tell Jeremiah what he had learned yesterday: all of that mystery novel stuff about Angelique, Miss Wick and the hatbox of Josette Du Prés.
Instead of going upstairs by the servants' staircase, this time Bill took the hallway toward the front of the house. He thought there was a good chance Jeremiah might be in the parlor at this time of the evening. It turned out he was right. In the parlor he found Countess Du Prés seated at the card table. Jeremiah Collins standing beside her with a book in his hand, looking troubled, and Barnabas Collins was pacing.
The countess was saying to them, "You are both very foolish not to play with me. Once you start thinking about the cards, you can think of nothing else."
Jeremiah noticed Bill. "Ah, Mr. Malloy," he called, giving one of his unconvincing-looking smiles. "Come in and join us."
Bill obeyed. He bowed to the countess and wished her a good evening, and she smiled and inclined her head. Bill asked Barnabas, "How was your day, Mr. Collins? Did the furniture-selecting go well?"
Barnabas stopped pacing. He sighed and wrung his hands together in front of him in a gesture that reminded Bill of Liz.
"It did not go well," said Barnabas, "because Josette was not present to take part in it. The countess kindly aided me in selecting furniture. But I have barely even seen Josette today since all three of us saw her in the hallway this morning. She says she is indisposed. She did not come down to lunch or to dinner. I know you will think me an over-anxious lover, but the fact is that I am nearly going frantic with worry."
"People are indisposed sometimes," Bill told him. "It does happen."
"Yes, of course it does. I know that I am being foolish."
"What you need, mon cher," the countess declared, "is a drink. All of you gentlemen. I hope you will all join me?"
"Nothing for me, thank you," Barnabas said as he once more started to pace.
"No, thanks," said Bill.
"In that case, Jeremiah, you must join me, at least," said the countess. "You cannot be so ungallant as to permit me to drink alone."
Jeremiah managed a small laugh. "Since you put it that way, perhaps I will have just one drink."
The Frenchwoman continued, "And if I may be extremely modern, I think I'd like something stronger than sherry. Brandy, perhaps – if I don't shock all of you?"
"Of course not," murmured Barnabas.
"Brandy it shall be, by all means," Jeremiah answered.
As if on cue, Ben Stokes walked in from the dining room. He was carrying a tray with a tall crystal decanter, a teapot and a tankard. "Your toddy, Mr. Jeremiah," he said as he took the tray over to the little side table with the sherry decanter and glasses.
"Splendid," exclaimed Jeremiah. "You have perfect timing, Ben. The countess would like a brandy."
"Yes, sir."
Jeremiah followed Ben to the side table. He took the glass of brandy that the servant poured and carried it to the countess, presenting it to her.
She thanked him with a gracious smile. "Really, Barnabas," she said, "you should have something. And you, too, Monsieur Malloy. How you Mainers can endure this weather of yours without drinking until you become hopeless inebriates, I shall never know."
"Ah, you see, countess," Barnabas said, "you have answered your own question. For the sake of not becoming hopeless inebriates, we know better than to start."
"And on that topic," Jeremiah added, "better not make my toddy too strong tonight, Ben."
"No, sir," Stokes agreed.
"Ah!" the countess said suddenly. "Barnabas, I have just remembered something that should cheer you. Josette said today that she wouldn't be in this mood if you and she were marrying tonight. Is that better?"
"Better" was apparently an understatement. Surprise and happiness washed over Barnabas' face. All he could answer was, "Yes."
Jeremiah suggested, "Perhaps you should marry before the new house is finished."
The younger Collins looked wistful at the thought. He protested half-heartedly, "But father has the wedding planned."
"Plans are made to change," proclaimed the Countess Du Prés.
"Of course they are," Jeremiah eagerly agreed.
Now, why is Jeremiah so eager about this? Bill wondered. Am I reading too much into it?
It makes sense that he wants his nephew to be happy. Am I wrong in thinking he seems a little too desperate about it?
Ben Stokes brought Jeremiah his tankard of toddy and retreated into the background to stand beside the sherry table.
Countess Du Prés raised her glass. "To an immediate wedding."
Jeremiah raised his tankard. "To your happiness, Barnabas."
"Thank you," said Barnabas, with a pallid smile. Jeremiah and the countess drank.
"I wonder if it would be possible," Barnabas mused. "Oh, but there are so many guests coming …"
"One is not married for the guests' sake," the countess observed.
.
"Of course not," Jeremiah said in vigorous agreement. He took another large swig of his toddy. "You should think of yourself for a change, Barnabas. And Josette."
That swig had apparently finished the toddy off. Jeremiah took his empty tankard over to the side table.
"Would you like another one, sir?" Stokes asked.
"No, this will be fine, Ben, thank you."
Ben Stokes cast Jeremiah a nervous-looking smile, gave a little bowing nod and headed out into the hallway. Meanwhile the countess stood up and strolled over to the side table. She smiled at Barnabas, Bill, and Jeremiah in turn as she delivered another of her philosophical speeches about the men of Maine.
"Ah," she said, "you are all so controlled it's fascinating. You all decide what you're going to do, what you're going to drink, and that is that." She chuckled a little and went on, as if talking to herself. "In the tropics, decisions melt like ice. Here, the ice is always firm." The countess gazed into her almost-empty glass and then took a final drink that emptied it.
Jeremiah glanced over at Bill before answering. "We are always aware of tomorrow, countess," he said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go outside for a breath of air."
Bill figured that was his cue. He said, "I'll go with you."
"No," Jeremiah told him hurriedly. "If you don't mind, Mr. Malloy, I would prefer a few minutes to myself, to clear my thoughts. I will come to find you when I return to the house. We do have much to discuss."
Yes, we do, thought Bill. So why the hell don't we discuss it now?
He was going to insist and go along with Jeremiah anyway. But Jeremiah headed him off at the pass with the suggestion, "Perhaps you will play a game of cards with the countess until I return. I'm afraid she has found Barnabas and me to be very poor company this evening. Perhaps you can do something to repair our omissions in courtesy. Good night to you, countess."
"Good night, cher Jeremiah. Take care that you do not catch your death of cold."
Jeremiah collected his coat from the coat tree and headed out the front door. As he closed the door quietly behind him, the Countess Du Prés cast an amused smile at Barnabas and Bill.
She said to them, "Now, then, messieurs. I am going play a game of cards alone, and I will send you both about your business."
Barnabas started to protest. The countess walked over to him, her smile gently teasing. "You must not be gallant and sit up with me," she insisted. "I don't like being with men when they wish they were elsewhere." She waved her hands around in a way that reminded Bill that she was French. "Go, go," she said, in exaggeratedly dramatic tones. "It's too obvious!"
Her performance had the desired effect of cheering Barnabas up. He smiled at her in obvious affection and declared, "If I loved Josette for no other reason, it would be because you are her aunt. Good night, countess. Good night, Mr. Malloy."
"Good night," said Bill, as Barnabas started up the stairs.
That left the countess aiming her mischievous smile at Bill. "Now, monsieur," she said. "What am I to do with you? How shall I manage to send you away and prevent you from spoiling your evening for my entertainment?"
It occurred to Bill that since Jeremiah had run away from him, a talk with the Countess Du Prés might be his second-best bet. Maybe he could learn something useful from her. Assuming he could work out how to question her without spilling the beans about the skull in the hatbox, since Barnabas didn't want the ladies of the household finding out about that.
So he said, "You don't need to send me away. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."
She eyed him sharply. "Hmm," she said. "That I do not believe for a moment. However, if you are determined to martyr yourself by keeping me company, I shall not prevent you. I know you puritans have a passion for self-sacrifice."
The countess strolled back to her chair beside the card table. Bill followed and sat down across from her in a big gold-and-white armchair.
He finally said something he'd wanted to mention every time he heard her use the word puritan. "You keep calling us puritans. The puritans were a century ago. We aren't puritans in Maine anymore." He shrugged at her and added, "We just aren't French, either."
Countess Du Prés laughed. "And that, my friend, is both your good fortune and your loss. All peoples have their own particular blessings and their own particular crosses to bear. Well, then: since in your noble non-puritanical way you have volunteered to sit up with me, perhaps we should play an ordinary game of cards. Whist, perhaps, or vingt-et-un. I think that will be more to your taste than the tarot. And," she continued, with a quiet sigh, "tonight it may be more to my taste, too."
Something about the way she said it made Bill think he shouldn't let that comment pass without investigating it. "Why's that?" he asked her.
She hesitated. Then she waved her hands to dismiss the subject. "You do not believe in the tarot," she said. "I have no wish to annoy you with what you would deem mere foolishness."
Bill said, "I believe something's bothering you, and it'd do you good to talk about it."
The countess gave another sigh. "Bah," she said, "It may be nothing. It may, indeed, be foolishness."
Bill kept looking at her, waiting for her to say more. She heaved one more sigh. Then she said in impatient tones, "The cards persist on giving me a reading that I do not understand. Over and over, whether I read them by myself or for others, one consistent element appears. The cards tell us that there is a wicked woman in this house."
"A wicked woman," Bill repeated.
"Yes!" The countess flung her hands up in the air. "Naturally they cannot tell us who this woman is. But again and again, I see that this wicked woman is here. And I see … that there is some threat against the people of this household. Some … force of evil beginning to move against us." She cast Bill a self-conscious smile and said, "You see how ludicrous it sounds. I believe in the tarot, and even I can scarcely take it seriously. But yet I know it could be deadly serious. The cards do not lie, Monsieur Malloy. They are giving us a warning."
A threat against the people of this household, Bill thought. Ay-yuh. There is that, right enough.
And a force of evil? Maybe there's that, too.
Of course he was 90% or so convinced that the tarot was utter nonsense. Right now, though, that didn't matter. Right now it was the other 10% of his mind he was listening to.
"All right," he said. "How do we find out who the wicked woman is?"
The countess cast him a wary, resentful expression. "You do not believe in this. There is no need for you to humor me."
"I'm not humoring you. Maybe I believe in it, maybe I don't. I don't think it makes sense to ignore a warning. If it's all nonsense, there's no harm done. If it isn't nonsense, maybe we can do some good by taking it seriously."
She raised her eyebrows as she studied him. "You surprise me, monsieur," she murmured. "You really, truly surprise me."
Bill leaned forward, planting his elbows on the card table. "The wicked woman," he persisted. "Who do you think she could be?"
The countess, for her part, leaned back in her chair and gave a little laugh. "One thing is certain: it is not Josette. And I suppose, for the sake of argument, we can exclude me from consideration. It seems unlikely that the cards would give me a warning about myself."
"I'll buy that," Bill said. "What do you think about the other possibilities?"
She considered the question for some moments, frowning in thought. "It is not Mrs. Collins," she mused. "There is a great deal of sadness about her, but no evil. And as for Miss Collins …"
The countess grinned at Bill. "As for Miss Collins, I cannot imagine that she would be daring enough to commit any act of evil. The mere thought, I am certain, would send her scurrying for her chamber to read a few hundred pages in her bible."
What do you know, thought Bill. The countess and I think the same about Abigail Collins. "So that leaves the household staff," he prompted.
"Yes," she nodded, frowning again. Now she also leaned forward. She asked Bill searchingly, "What do you know about Sarah's governess?"
"Miss Wick? She only joined the household a few days ago. I can't see that she'd have any reason to want to harm the Collinses. She strikes me as honest. Sincere. I think she cares about Sarah and wants the best for her. She doesn't sound to me like the wicked woman."
"No," the countess murmured, still frowning. "Perhaps not." Out of the blue, she gave another chuckle. "I might indulge my Gallic sense of humor and say that the wicked woman must clearly be the Collinses' cook. But I suppose the mere fact that I do not appreciate her culinary skills should not induce me to think of her as a force of evil."
Bill mentally bristled. He told himself there wasn't any point in arguing with the countess over Mrs. Riggs' cooking. "What about your household?" he asked. "How about Miss Bouchard?"
Countess Du Prés looked at him in surprise. "Angelique? She seems as unlikely as all the rest. I suppose it would be rather a romantic idea to believe her capable of evil. It would render her a great deal more interesting. But I am afraid that would be giving her too much credit. She is what she appears to be: an honest, well-meaning and profoundly uninteresting girl."
Bill looked at her with raised eyebrows, wondering if they were talking about the same person.
"You do not agree with me?" she asked.
Bill shrugged. "One thing's for certain, countess," he said. "That proves you're not a man."
The countess leaned back and laughed. "So, mon ami," she said, "you are telling me that from a man's perspective, Angelique is more interesting? Well, I suppose that is probably true. She has a certain naïve charm that is perhaps more openly displayed than is typical for the women of your ice-bound country. You see, Monsieur Malloy," she continued, wagging a finger at him, "I was right about you. You are a puritan, after all."
Lady, Bill thought, you and your talk of puritans are really getting me down. He said stolidly, "A man doesn't have to be a puritan to believe it's possible for someone to be beautiful and evil at the same time."
"No, that is true," she teased him. "But you are more likely to hold that belief if you view beauty as a threat."
The countess' comments were getting way too damn close to the way Bill had felt yesterday about the prospect of being alone in a room with Angelique. "Why don't you humor me, countess," he said. "For the sake of argument. Let's say that Angelique is a plausible suspect. What can you tell me about her? How long has she worked for you?"
The countess looked at him in mild surprise, as though she couldn't believe he actually meant to keep on questioning her about Angelique. Finally she shrugged and answered him. "For about ten years, I believe. She was a child of twelve or thereabouts when she joined my household. I hired her because I felt sorry for her. Her mother was not, shall we put it kindly, respectable."
She paused with an impatient look. Then she shook her head. "Why should I be mealy-mouthed about the matter? Angelique's mother was a prostitute. I do not mean to imply by this that they lived in squalor. Angelique's mother plied her trade from her own house, not on the docks. And her clients, I believe, tended to be men from the middling to upper echelons of society. Nonetheless, there is no denying the nature of her profession. Our parish priest asked me to take Angelique into my service. He feared that as the girl grew to womanhood she would inevitably follow in her mother's footsteps. As doubtless she would have done, had she not been offered other employment. She was thankful to be given a different path to follow, and she worked diligently to show herself worthy of the trust I placed in her."
Well, thought Bill. That's a lot of information to be handed all in one chunk. He wished he had a notebook to jot things down in, like a real private investigator. He asked, "And she's never given you cause to complain about her?"
Countess Du Prés raised her eyebrows. "Never is a long time, my friend. And servants are as human as the rest of us. In ten years' time I am sure I have corrected her for a fault or two, here and there. But there has been nothing of any note. I found her to be intelligent and willing to learn, and eager to distance herself from her mother's station in life. Although she did remain in touch with her mother for several years. And for the first year or two, I believe, she gave her mother a portion of her wages."
All very interesting, Bill thought, but it doesn't tell me whether or not she would put a skull in a hatbox. He edged closer to that topic with, "What's her relationship with your niece? Are they on friendly terms?"
"My, my, Monsieur Malloy," the countess commented archly. "You are interested in my little serving girl. And it seems you are eager to find proof that she is our wicked woman."
"I'm not trying to prove anything," Bill growled. "I'm trying to figure out if your cards have something useful to tell us." She was still smiling at him mockingly. He snapped at her, "Will Her Ladyship the Countess do me the honor of answering my question?"
"So the icy men of Maine are capable of fire after all. Now, do not be angry, mon cher. You stern and straight-laced types are so veryeasy to annoy. Very well, yes: Josette and Angelique are friendly enough, although perhaps not particularly close. Josette's dearest friend in childhood was her maidservant Amelie. Unfortunately Amelie died early this year. I imagine now Josette hesitates to become especially close with Angelique, in the feeling that it would constitute some betrayal of Amelie's memory. But certainly Josette and Angelique are fond of each other. And they have known each other since childhood. Now, monsieur, will you tell me in what way my niece's friendship with Angelique can shed light on the identity of our wicked woman?"
Bill shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't. I hoped we'd learn if Angelique has any reason to wish harm to anybody in this household."
"I think it extremely unlikely," the countess said, smiling at him. "Just as you seem to think it unlikely that Miss Wick would wish ill to any of us. You tell me that Miss Wick is honest and sincere; I tell you that Angelique is well-meaning and good-hearted. If both of us are correct, we are no closer to finding the woman of the tarot cards' warning."
"Maybe not," said Bill. Meanwhile, he was thinking, This is so stupid! What's the use of Barnabas' protective 18th-century gentleman routine?
There's no reason in the world we shouldn't tell Countess Du Prés about that gol-danged skull. If she knows there really is a threat against her niece, maybe she'll stop playing "bug the man from Maine" and she'll actually think about whether Angelique might hold a grudge against Josette or Barnabas.
He guessed he would be out-of-line to make that decision himself, without clearing it first with Barnabas and Jeremiah. But he figured it was still early enough in the night for him to touch bases with both of them, and hopefully convince them to take the countess into their confidence. All concerns about female delicacy aside, he thought anyone should be able to see that Countess Du Prés could handle the knowledge of the skull in the box without going into some kind of fainting meltdown.
While Bill was pondering this, the countess was saying, "To be fair, we should not leave any woman in the household out of consideration. Let us see, there is Millicent Collins. No, I am certain she cannot be our wicked woman. Doubtless she feels that wickedness is to be avoided because it might give her a case of the sniffles. And, let's see, I suppose Millicent has a maidservant, but if so, I have not encountered her."
She cast a questioning look at Bill, who shook his head. He said, "I haven't met any of the New York Collinses' servants."
"I see. Well, Millicent's unknown maidservant may be a wicked woman, but it would be unfair of us to decide that without having the slightest knowledge of her. There is Mrs. Collins' maidservant Hannah … she certainly gives no impression of being evil. Little Sarah has a nursemaid – Catherine, I believe the girl is called. I have barely encountered her. Have you …?"
"No."
"So, neither of us has any knowledge of her, either. Then I suppose there are some kitchen maids …?"
"Yes," Bill said. "One of them is named Bessie. I don't know the other one's name."
"And I presume you have seen no sign of evil about them?"
"Nope," he said, wondering how soon he could get out of this conversation.
"Well, there we are. No wiser than when we began. Ah, well," she said with a smile, "perhaps I should simply conclude that the wicked woman of the tarot is myself. Clearly I must have some wickedness in my nature, or I would not insist on baiting such a worthy gentleman as Monsieur Bill Malloy."
Bill summoned up a smile in answer to her peace offering. "I don't think so, countess. I think it's Abigail Collins. She's fallen from the path of righteousness by forgetting to love her neighbor as herself."
The countess grinned. Bill got to his feet and said, "I hope you'll forgive me if I don't play cards with you after all. I think I'll go find Jeremiah."
"By all means, my friend. And thank you for your willingness to keep a troublesome Frenchwoman company."
Bill headed out the front door into the crisp, cold night. He half expected to see Jeremiah Collins standing out there on the porch. But there wasn't a sight of him. Bill grimaced as he looked around, wondering where Jeremiah had gotten to.
He said he wanted a breath of air, not that he was going for a moonlit hike.
Walking down the grand front stairs he kept thinking he would see Jeremiah any moment. He kept not seeing him. From the base of the staircase he could see across the moon-silvered lawn all the way to the trees flanking the road. No moody Collins was anywhere in view.
Come to think of it, there was one spot at the front of the house that he couldn't fully see from this vantage point. Down by the edge of the trees was a sort of miniature Greek temple, with archways, pillars, and a couple of benches where one could sit and contemplate the beauties of nature. Or whatever beauty one was there to contemplate. Jeremiah Collins might be down there pondering, and a pillar could be blocking him from Bill's sight.
Bill cut across the lawn over to the little temple. He walked around the whole place and called out, "Hello?" But it was so much wasted effort. No one was there except for a Classical-looking statue standing in the central archway; the goddess Diana or somebody like that.
Damn it, Bill thought. Nobody in the Collins household should be allowed outside at night. They all go out "for a breath of air" and then disappear off the face of the earth.
It wasn't any better in his own time period. Carolyn had been going out for a suspicious number of night-time strolls lately. And Bill thought grumblingly that he would be building up a nice little retirement fund for himself by now if he had a dollar for every time someone at Collinwood said they were going out for a breath of air, and there were search parties out looking for them by the end of the night.
Bill sighed and jammed his hands into his coat pockets. There was one further place where Jeremiah was likely to be, if he was indeed acting like the Collinses of Bill's time. He could have gone to clear his thoughts and get that breath of fresh air on the cliff top of Widows' Hill.
Here we go again, Bill thought. He started trekking along the edge of the woods. He followed the border of the forest until the ground started sloping upwards. Then he hiked up the hill, between trees that grew increasingly stunted and twisting the closer they got to the cliff.
He didn't often walk to the Widow's Hill cliff from this direction. He was a lot more used to the route from Collinwood that led through the woods along the hilltop. There was only one other time that he had taken this precise route to the cliffs: on a soft-aired summer night back in 1946.
Damn it, he thought again. It was the type of memory that either could warm the heart or could make the present feel even bleaker.
He remembered warm, flower-scented air. He remembered the feel of Liz's hand in his.
That night they had walked through the woods from Collinwood, with the stated goal of viewing the spooky Old House by moonlight. They had stopped for a while at that little temple-like place, rendered even more like an ancient ruin by 150 years or so of neglect. The statue he had seen there tonight, Bill realized, wasn't there in his own time. He knew that because he remembered sitting with Liz in that same archway where the statue was standing now.
And damn, how he remembered it! Sitting there, they had indulged in the kind of activity that dating couples typically indulge in, alone amid the glories of nature with no one to keep an eye on them except for the Man in the Moon.
From there they had walked along the edge of the forest, to the Widow's Hill cliff. They were supposedly going there to look at the moonlight on the waves. Of course Bill didn't remember much about moonlight on the waves from that night. Instead he remembered a lot of close-up views of Liz's face. And he didn't remember if the famous Widows had been wailing that night or not. He remembered some whispered sweet nothings and a heck of a lot of kisses.
Well, that's dandy, he thought. What a brilliant thing for me to remember on a frigid cold night when I'm not out walking with my girl, I'm out looking for a depressed and disappearing Collins 172 years in the past.
The Widows certainly weren't wailing on this particular night. From that, he knew that the tide was probably out. The wailing only happened at high tide, when the water and wind together howled through the caves beneath the cliff.
When he got to the top of the cliff and saw no sign of Jeremiah standing there, he was disappointed and annoyed. But that wasn't all he felt. He also felt a sudden twinge of foreboding. He hoped it was just his imagination running wild.
He suddenly remembered how many people had supposedly jumped to their deaths off this cliff.
That wasn't strictly true. He didn't remember that, because he didn't actually know how many had supposedly jumped. But he knew there'd been several widows, anyway. And chief among them, according to legend and the Collins family history book, had been Josette Du Prés Collins.
Josette Collins. The young and radiant Josette, who the history book told them would jump from this cliff in a few weeks' time. Josette who was going to kill herself here in grief over the death of her husband, Jeremiah.
Oh, my God, Bill thought.
Had Jeremiah found a way to stop the "husband" part of that prophecy from coming true? Had he decided to stop it by jumping from the cliff himself?
Bill hurried to the edge. He told himself he was being an idiot. He was working himself into a panic over nothing at all.
But he thought of Jeremiah's bizarre mood, last night and today. He thought of how despairing the man had seemed. He thought that maybe his fears weren't crazy, after all.
It was a struggle to make himself look over the cliff; to look down at the waves and the rocks far below.
Waves and rocks, he thought. That's all there is down there.
Thank God. Thank God. It's only waves and rocks.
The waves and the rocks were gleaming in the moonlight – the moonlight that he hadn't bothered to look at, when he stood here with Liz in his arms on that summer night in 1946. Now he was only too happy to see the moon shining on the water, on the rocks – and on nothing else.
No suspicious dark shape lay down there on the rocks. Nothing lay down there that looked in the least as if it could be the corpse of a person who had jumped to their death from Widows' Hill.
Thank God for that.
Bill told himself he still needed to find Jeremiah. But that task seemed far less aggravating now than it had felt before.
Probably Jeremiah was back at the house by now. He was probably in his room. Or maybe he was in the parlor playing whist with the countess, now that Bill had walked out on her.
Wherever he was and however long it took to find Jeremiah, Bill thought he didn't mind it a bit. It sounded like a hoot and a holler, compared with the imagined prospect of scrambling down the treacherous path to the shore in the effort to retrieve the man's corpse.
So Bill went back. He went back down from Widows' Hill, back along the edge of the woods. But as he walked around the corner of the house and was about to make his way along the porch, he saw something.
Someone was out there on the lawn. Whoever it was, was hurrying toward that little Grecian temple beside the trees. Bill thought that probably the distant figure was a woman, but he couldn't tell for sure. The person seemed to be wrapped in a long, dark cloak. He couldn't see if there was a dress under that cloak or not.
The distant person was not Jeremiah. He was sure of that. Far away though the figure was, he thought it was clearly someone smaller than Jeremiah Collins.
So who the hell is it?
Normally Bill wouldn't feel it was his job to spy on a person he saw sneaking around at night. But right now, he told himself, that's exactly my job.
Whether the sneaking around had anything to do with the skull-in-a-box, with Jeremiah's mysterious problem, or with the danger that had sent him into the past – or for that matter, with all three problems at once – he needed to find out who was sneaking around and why.
Bill was about to cut back to the edge of the woods so he could follow the figure. Then he caught a glimpse of movement over to his left, on the porch of Collins House. He flattened himself against a porch pillar and watched.
Someone else was hurrying out the front door of the house. It was a second figure in a long hooded cloak. But as the figure stepped into the moonlight at the top of the grand staircase, Bill felt sure that this second person was a woman. He could see the lighter-colored fabric of a skirt below the bottom of the cloak.
The second cloaked person ran down the stairs and out of Bill's sight. He figured both of the mysterious figures had their attention focused ahead of them. They weren't likely to glance back and see him. So he ran back to the border of the trees.
He could see both figures now. The first one was just now disappearing into the Grecian temple. The second one was heading across the lawn toward the temple, almost at a run.
Bill followed. He stayed close to the trees so he could duck into their shadows if the person he was following looked back. But that person never did.
A little ways shy of the temple, the second cloaked figure ducked into the shelter of the trees. If he'd had any doubt about it before, he didn't now. The second person was spying on the first one, just like Bill was spying on both of them.
Bill ran along the forest's edge until he was close to the temple himself. Then he also headed in amid the trees. He hoped there weren't any loudly-cracking twigs lying around for him to step on.
The second cloaked figure was standing just ahead of him, at a point where the little temple backed right up against the trees. Bill didn't know if a sound he made gave away his presence, or if the person simply turned toward him on instinct. But the person did turn. And she was revealed to be the Countess Natalie Du Prés.
The countess gasped, bringing the back of her hand up to her mouth. She stared at Bill, wide-eyed. Bill put his finger to his lips. The countess, still staring, nodded to him. Then she made a gesture for him to step closer to her.
He did. He stood beside her at a spot where they were pretty well hidden by a web of tree branches. A spot where they could easily see into the temple, and see the people who were standing there.
Standing in the glow of the silver moonlight were Josette Du Prés and Jeremiah Collins. They were clutching each other's hands. And they were clearly gazing deeply into each other's eyes.
"What is happening to us?" Josette asked. There was a plaintive note in her voice.
Jeremiah sounded lost and desperate. He cried out, "I don't know!"
But an instant later he moved closer to Josette. As if his exclamation the moment before had never happened, he said to her, "I love you."
There was joy and relief in her tones as she answered him, "That's all I wanted to hear."
And Josette and Jeremiah moved closer still, into each other's arms.
