Ariel

by Lawrence Block

  The newspaper coverage was guarded. The first death was unremarkable—infant mortality was high in those days. Jeff missed the initial story, a two-line squib on a back page. But when the boy and girl died in the same night, and only a week after the first death, the coincidence drew journalistic attention.

  The fourth death was the clincher. Reading between the lines, Jeff could easily determine that public opinion suspected the Molineaux woman of smothering her children while they slept. Without suggesting as much, the anonymous author of one news story hastened to point to extenuating circumstances, showing that Grace was under a strain. She was a young woman who had married a man twenty years older than herself. Jacob Molineaux, a heavily-decorated hero of the Confederacy, had given her four children in as many years, only to be lost at sea weeks before the birth of his youngest son. Grace’s own father had died a matter of months earlier, and a favorite cousin had killed himself at about the same time in remorse over heavy gambling losses. All of these tragedies, cited ostensibly to show that the loss of her children was by no means the first blow Grace had suffered, served to imply that, if indeed she had murdered her children, she had done so out of stress-induced emotional instability.

  Perhaps for lack of evidence, perhaps in deference to her family background and her husband’s war record, no charges were brought against Grace Molineaux. Her name disappeared abruptly from the newspapers, only to reappear just as abruptly on November 4th, when the newspaper reported her sudden death as a result of gas inhalation.

  She had been found, it was reported, in the kitchen of her Legare Street home. While suicide was not mentioned, in keeping with the newspaper’s evident view of decorous journalism, the inference was inescapable.

  She killed her kids, Jeff thought. Maybe the first one did die of crib death or some nineteenth-century infant malady. That was certainly possible, but somewhere along the line Grace had snapped, and she’d certainly murdered the other three children, and when she found she couldn’t live with herself she put her head in the oven and turned on the gas.

  Could it be the same stove? The one Roberta cooked on, the one with the eccentric pilot lights? Was her restless ghost haunting the stove, leaving it only to appear in the upstairs bedroom with a baby in her arms? Lord, was this Jeff Channing, man of laws, thinking this way … ?

  His head was reeling by the time he left the newspaper offices. His nostrils were full of the musty smell of ancient newsprint. He’d been unable to find a photograph of Grace Molineaux, but he had no doubt that she was the woman whose portrait hung in Ariel’s room. He had no grounds for this belief. There was no evidence that Grace had ever had her portrait painted, or that her appearance had been anything like that of the woman in question. But he only had to remember the expression on that face, the look in those eyes, to be sure the likeness was that of Grace Molineaux, madwoman, murderess, and suicide. Good Lord …

  He did not return to his office, did not even consider returning to his office, but walked instead to where he’d left his car, got into it and drove around. He passed the house on Legare Street three or four times, returning to it compulsively, staring at its brick-clad bulk as if it might reveal itself to him. Roberta’s car was parked at the curb, but he had no desire to stop for a word with her. He couldn’t tell her what he had learned. She was under a strain as it was, having a tough time emotionally and—

  Just like Grace Molineaux, he thought.

  And pushed the thought aside, and drove aimlessly around, trying to think if there was any further direction his investigations might take. Could he possibly establish whether the painting was of Grace? It occurred to him that there might be a way. Even if the painting was unsigned, a comparison of the style with that of various local portraitists of the time might establish who had painted it. Painters frequently kept records, and historical societies tended to preserve records of that sort. A little creative research might clear things up.

  For that matter, a little further research in the newspaper files might be time well spent. He already knew as much as he wanted to know about Grace Molineaux, but it occurred to him to wonder what effect her house might have had on persons who had occupied it after her death. He already knew the house had changed hands at an unseemly rate. Had there been a disproportionate number of deaths? Was unexplained infant mortality a legacy of Grace’s?

  Or had other people sensed something and moved away, before their lives were affected by whatever permeated the damp old walls? Maybe the house had been waiting all these years, waiting for the Jardells … A house waiting? The defense better rest …

  He drove around until he tired of aimless driving, then found a main avenue and headed north. It was getting on toward dinner time. Time to leave both the nineteenth century and the cloying streets of Old Charleston. Time to get back to his own time, his own house, his own wife and children.

  Until, on his own block just two doors from his own house, he saw them.

  Erskine and Ariel.

  The bus heading back into the city was two-thirds empty. Ariel and Erskine sat all the way in the back. Erskine had his legs draped over the back of the seat in front of them.

  “I almost ran,” he said.

  “Why run?”

  “No reason. Just blind panic. When he drove up and saw us I thought we were going to be in trouble.”

  “We didn’t do anything.”

  “I know. I’m not saying it makes any sense. I just figured he’d be pissed off. We looked at his house and talked to his kids.”

  “Just one of his kids.”

  “Just Debbie. Greta had to practice the piano. She’s only nine. Isn’t that young for piano lessons?”

  “Some kids start taking when they’re seven. I wonder if she’s any good.”

  “You could play duets, Jardell. Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, the piano artistry of Miss Greta Channing and the flute wizardry of Miss Ariel Jardell. For their first selection, your ears will be treated to … to what?”

  “Go Tell Aunt Rhody, I suppose. We used to live in a house like that one. Erskine, what if we’re moving back?”

  “To the same house?”

  “To one like it. To any other house. I really don’t want to move.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Right.”

  They were silent for a moment. Erskine burped and Ariel clucked her tongue reprovingly. He took his feet down from the seat in front of him and yawned elaborately.

  Then he said, “You were very cool. Just staring back at him when he stopped the car.”

  “Well, it never occurred to me to run. I was surprised to see him, but after all it’s his house. I guess he has a right to go there.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “No.”

  “Not even when he stopped the car alongside us?”

  “No.”

  He glanced at her. “I get the feeling you sort of like him,” he said. “He can be your new boyfriend.”

  “Well, he’s not bad-looking.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s not. I think he’s handsome.”

  “Oh, come on, Jardell. He’s like you said in the beginning, he looks like a television emcee. Remember the Funeral Game?”

  “That doesn’t keep him from being good-looking. It bugs you, doesn”t it?”

  “What bugs me?”

  “That I think he’’s handsome. It really bugs you.”

  “You can think Dracula’s handsome if you want. I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Really bugs you.”

  “Just cut it out, Jardell. That lah-di-dah singsong teasing shit.”

  “Hey, calm down.”

  “You want to think he’s handsome, that’s fine with me. The big dumb shit’s old enough to be your father.”

  “Two children,” Jeff explained. “A boy and a girl. About, oh, twelve or thirteen years old. The girl’s the taller of the two. A very long, pale face. The boy’s very small with thick ey
eglasses.”

  “What about them, darling?”

  “I saw them out front,” he said. “Just as I was driving up. I hadn’t seen them before.”

  “You know this neighborhood. The only constant is change. People move in and out all the time, and the number of children—”

  “I thought they might have come here. To the house, I mean.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “I don’t know. The way they were walking. There was something sort of furtive about them, as if they’d just broken a window of ours or something like that.”

  “You got this impression just watching them pass by?”

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought. “If you didn’t notice them, there’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “Maybe Debbie or Greta saw them.”

  “Jeff …”

  “What?”

  “Are you feeling all right, darling?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “You seem under a strain. I wonder if you haven’t been working too hard.”

  He nodded, seeming to weigh the thought, while inside him he fought to keep from laughing. Crying. Working too hard? He wasn’t working at all. If he was under a strain, it certainly had nothing to do with work.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I guess I’ve been pushing lately. I’ll have to try taking things a little easier.”

  She nodded, moved closer to him, slid an arm around his waist and laid her head against his chest. Reflexively he put a protective arm around her. His wife, he thought, hearing the words in his mind. His wife, the mother of his children. “Elaine the fair, Elaine the beautiful, Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat …”

  He hugged his wife close, closed his eyes, and saw Bobbie’s face grinning mockingly at him, one eye squinched shut in a lewd wink, the inevitable cigarette drooping from the corner of her mouth—the face flashed and was gone, and then it was Ariel’s face, burning with an unholy knowledge … then melting into the face in the portrait, the face of Grace Molineaux …

  He opened his eyes, and he was standing in his own house with his arm around his wife, inhaling the fragrance of her hair.

  Easy, boy, he told himself sardonically. You’ve been working too hard. You must be under a strain.

  That night Ariel went to her room directly after dinner. She tried to play the flute but the music didn’t want to come and she gave up on it. She did her homework, then sprawled on her bed with a book and tried to get lost in it. But her mind kept wandering away from the words on the page and after a while she closed the book and set it aside.

  She looked up at the portrait.

  “Old enough to be your father.”

  She hadn’t reacted openly to Erskine’s words, even though the impact was like getting hit between the eyes with a fist.

  Jeffrey Channing was old enough to be her father. And he’d come over to the house to talk to Roberta, and had turned up at Caleb’s funeral, and had then taken to lurking in his car, spying on her and … Suppose he was her father? Suppose thirteen years ago Jeffrey Channing had an affair with someone, maybe with a girl much younger than he was, for example. She got pregnant, but he was married and couldn’t marry her. The girl had the baby, and she put it up for adoption, or maybe she died in childbirth, but anyway, the baby wound up getting adopted by David and Roberta Jardell … And then years later Jeffrey Channing found out about it, he was a lawyer and he would know how to investigate that sort of thing … In between he’d had two children of his own, Greta and Debbie. And they didn’t know about Ariel, and neither did Mrs. Channing. What was her name, again? Erskine had found it out and she ought to be able to remember it, but it wouldn’t come to mind. Well, it didn’t matter. Anyway, they didn’t know about Ariel. (Elaine, that was Mrs. Channing’s name.) They didn’t know, and her fa—Jeffrey Channing wanted to take an interest in his … in her and learn a little about her without anybody finding out his secret. Maybe Roberta herself didn’t know who he really was. If he was a lawyer, he probably had some clever way or other to explain what he was doing.

  Father.

  She tested the word, let it echo in her mind. Part of her wanted to believe that this handsome well-dressed man was indeed her father. Another part couldn’t regard the notion as anything more than a seductive fantasy. At least it made for a harmless mind-game … Ariel Channing …

  Twice now they had exchanged long glances, their eyes sort of locked in a wordless stare. Both times he had been behind the wheel of his Buick while she had been walking with Erskine. Both times something had passed between them, something special … was the look they exchanged a father’s and daughter’s?

  It was exciting and upsetting and a little crazy. After a while she ran a tub, took a bath, making the water hotter than usual and adding some of Roberta’s bath salts. She lay back with her eyes closed, soaking for a long time in the hot tub. Then, drained, she dried off and went to bed.

  She lay in bed exhausted but unable to sleep. She began touching herself, as if to reassure herself that she was there, as if to read her features as a blind person might. She touched her face, her shoulders, her breasts. She touched between her legs, then put her hand to her face and breathed in her own scent.

  Images bombarded her. At one point she saw Channing standing alongside the woman in the portrait. They were dressed like the man and woman in American Gothic. Instead of a rose, the woman was holding a baby. For a moment the baby was herself, and then it was Caleb, and then it was a rose again, a rose that wilted until a drop of blood fell from its petals.

  Ariel slept.

  Jeff couldn’t sleep. After an hour’s tossing and turning he gave up and got out of bed. In the living room he tried to concentrate on a magazine but couldn’t make sense of what he was reading. He tossed it aside and tried to make sense out of the afternoon.

  Had he really seen them?

  It was hard to believe he had seen two children who looked like them. Their appearance was too distinctive and he had had too good a look at them to have been confused in that fashion. Of course it was possible that he had fancied a resemblance where none existed. He’d been tired, emotionally exhausted, and he could have seen two children who really looked nothing like Ariel and her friend and his imagination could have connected the dots.

  Or there might have been no one there at all. No boy and girl walking past his house. People under a strain sometimes saw things that weren’t there. It was not comforting to admit that possibility where one’s own self was concerned, but it was not a possibility which could be categorically denied.

  Finally, it was possible that he had seen precisely what he had thought he had seen. But what on God’s earth had sent them wandering through his neighborhood? It was miles from where they lived. Assuming they had a reason to be in Charleston Heights, was it sheer coincidence that put them in front of his house on his return?

  Or had they come looking for him?

  He put his head in his hands, pressing against his temples, trying to make his thoughts run along logical lines. There ought to be some way to make sense of all this and he couldn’t seem to latch onto it. Was all of this linked to pressure resulting from his affair with Bobbie? Or did it somehow tie in with what he had learned about the portrait?

  He closed his eyes, and his mind filled with Grace Molineaux’s image. It flickered and was gone, replaced, for God’s sake, by a vision of Ariel. He wanted to open his eyes, but half afraid that should he do so he’d discover her standing there in front of him.

  He opened his eyes. He was alone in the room, and he reacted to this discovery with a mixture of relief and disappointment.

  NINETEEN

  It was impossible to say what woke her. Roberta was sleeping soundly, deep in Valium-induced dreamlessness, when some force propelled her up out of sleep. She was suddenly sitting up in bed with her eyes open.

  In the other bed, deep in his usual brandy stupor, David grunted and rolled over onto his side. Across the room, beside
the window, stood the woman in the shawl.

  She was as formless, as imperfectly defined, as on the first night Roberta had seen her three nights before Caleb’s death. Her pale face loomed in the dimness, and all the rest of her was shadowy and indistinct, shifting as if tossed by air currents in the room.

  Was it a dream? She had dreamed this woman’s appearance once. Was she dreaming now?

  “What do you want?”

  Had she spoken the words out loud or merely voiced them in her mind? The apparition did not react, nor did David stir. He slept on, unaware.

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” She listened as the words seemed to reverberate off the walls, shaking loose windowpanes like strong wind.

  The woman turned her face a little more directly toward Roberta. There was something in her eyes, something Roberta thought she ought to be able to read.

  Then, like smoke, the woman melted away and was gone.

  Roberta put her fingertips to her breast over her heart and felt its insistent beat. She forced herself to take slow deep breaths.

  She got up.

  Caleb’s door was closed. She hesitated before opening it, afraid of what she might find. Perhaps this was a dream, she thought, and she decided to be on the lookout for any inconsistencies in Caleb’s room which might indicate that she was indeed asleep and dreaming.

  She opened the door. The room was undisturbed, with everything in its proper place. The only thing missing, she thought, was Caleb—and the thought, catching her at a vulnerable moment, brought a rush of grief that very nearly knocked her off her feet. She clutched the doorframe for support and managed to keep her balance.

  There was no question now that she was awake. But for how long? … She left Caleb’s room, closed his door, and went back to the bedroom for her robe. There was only one cigarette left in the pack on the night table, and when she got it out she saw that it was broken in the middle. She went downstairs for cigarettes, and even before she reached the bottom of the staircase she could smell gas escaping.