Bill nodded slowly. It was. But, he thought, if you had to paint it or mow the lawn, it would be unearthly.
The word house did not do justice to the splendor of this building. Most people would call it a mansion. It looked like the photo on a postcard that would have “Hello from Virginia” emblazoned at the top, or perhaps like a movie set for an antebellum southern drama. Bill could picture Jane Seymour in sausage curls and hoop skirts sashaying gracefully down the wide front steps. It was a Georgian-style house of mellow rose-colored brick with a curved portico supported by four ornate and massive white columns. He received the impression of the place in one overwhelming burst, so that if he had been asked later to draw a picture of it, he would have simply drawn a large dollar sign between two lollipop-shaped trees. They couldn’t possibly afford it, he thought sadly, but there was no denying that it was a beauty.
“I suppose it’s exactly what she wants.” He sighed.
Holly gave him a pitying smile. “Well, I guess it is exactly what she wants!” she declared. “It’s exactly what all of us want. It’s every little girl’s dollhouse, life-size. A woman might not kill to get this house, but I’ll bet you serious money that she’d commit matrimony to get it.”
Bill did not find this declaration as reassuring as it was intended to be. Besides, he couldn’t picture A. P. Hill as the kind of little girl who had ever played with dollhouses. She once claimed to have swapped her collection of Barbies for a Daisy Air Rifle. Still, she was the descendant and namesake of a Confederate general, so perhaps the desire to own a white-columned mansion was hardwired into her DNA. Bill tried to think of an appropriate question to ask the Realtor. Since they hadn’t even seen the inside of the place, “How much?” seemed a bit too precipitate. Finally he said, “Is it as old as it looks?”
Holly Milton laughed. “No, but that can be your little secret. Actually it was built around 1948 by a local gentleman who had suddenly become wealthy in … er … manufacturing.”
Bill nodded. Danville was famous for tobacco and textile mills. “Cigarettes or fabric?” he asked.
“Um … something like that. I think he got into some trouble at one time in his career.”
“Oh.” Bill digested this information. “Trouble?” He laughed nervously. “You’re not trying to tell me there are bodies in the basement, are you?”
“No, no. I think it was some sort of financial trouble. Taxes, perhaps. Anyhow, the old fellow was a shrewd investor, and despite his problems, he prospered. Apparently he put his profits from the business into the stock market, real estate, and blue chip stocks. I think he wanted to build an empire to leave to his children. Unfortunately, they didn’t inherit his business sense, which is why the house has to be sold.”
“They went broke?”
“Not entirely, but they put up the house as collateral in another business venture, and when it went sour, the other party forced the sale to recoup the money. I don’t suppose the children minded. They didn’t live here.”
“What a shame,” said Bill, still staring at the magnificent house. “It’s probably just as well that the old man didn’t live to see what happened to his house.”
“Actually, he did,” said Holly Milton. “But we’ll talk about that later.”
Chapter 3
Elizabeth MacPherson wondered what there was to do for a whole month in a psychiatric facility. The obvious answer—brood about her bereavement—was certainly not the activity that Dr. Freya had been aiming for. Elizabeth felt sure of that. She wished she had thought to bring some books along, but in her present state of sleepwalking through life, that much forethought had been impossible. She felt that given her present condition the fact that she remembered to bring clean underwear and a toothbrush should count as a triumph of will. I wonder if this is what the nursing home will be like someday, she thought. Maybe this month will be a preview of old age. I’ll get out again, and I’ll still be young, but I’ll know what’s in store for me at the end of the road. This thought depressed her so much that she sank down on the bed, feeling the tears well up again. She had also forgotten to bring tissues, she thought, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She wondered if she could call anyone and ask them to bring her things she’d forgotten. Were visitors allowed? Were there guards to search incoming packages, or did that sort of thing happen only in prisons?
Was this a prison? The room seemed more bare and cell-like than before, and she wondered if she’d be ready to claw her way out of it before the end of the month. If so, perhaps that would be a good sign. In her present state of depression, Elizabeth didn’t feel that she could summon the energy to dodge a runaway truck, much less object to restricted activity and minimalist room decor.
As she brooded about her present circumstances, Elizabeth sat on the bed facing the window so that she did not see the door open slowly behind her. “Nobody important,” said a voice from the hall.
Elizabeth spun around, forgetting her grief in the clutch of panic. A heavyset young woman with bangs and black-frame glasses stood in the doorway, inspecting her as if she were a new exhibit of sculpture. The woman was obviously a patient. No member of the nursing staff would come to work in a stained green shift and pistachio-colored flip-flop sandals.
“I beg your pardon?” said Elizabeth, wondering if she were being summoned for mealtime or some other group activity.
“I was talking to Lisa Lynn. She’s lurking out there in the hall. She’s shy.” The woman turned back toward the door and called out, “The new patient is nobody important, L. L. Go back to your room now.”
“What do you mean I’m nobody important?” Elizabeth demanded. “Is that any way to talk to a patient?”
The woman shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But let me tell you, kiddo, from one patient to another: it’s the best part of being sick. You get to tell the truth.” She shambled into the room and sat down on the other twin bed. “You’re a new fish, so you haven’t figured out the social order yet. It’s a brave new world in here.”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Kudan. Emma Owens Kudan, which is a mouthful. In here they call me Emma O. That’s what I answer to, anyhow. We were hoping you’d turn out to be a movie star or a country singer having a nervous breakdown, but I see you’re not. Too bad. We could use a little novelty.” She examined Elizabeth with the air of one doing a patient evaluation. “I see you’re not anorectic.”
“No. But if it’s contagious, I’d like to catch it.”
Emma O. shook her head. “Anorexia isn’t a disease. It’s a career move. At least, that’s what I tell Sarah. So … what are you in for?”
Elizabeth decided that sharing her emotional problems with this creature in green slippers was the most unappealing offer she’d had in ages. She smiled sweetly. “My voices tell me to go and save France.”
Her visitor shrugged. “I doubt that. The presence of delusional impersonators in mental institutions is highly overrated. I don’t think we have anybody famous at all—certainly not Napoléon, despite all the loony-bin jokes to the contrary. Oh, wait, we did have Jesus in here a while back. He had a few people convinced, autographed a few Bibles, but beyond that He didn’t cause much of a stir. If He can’t turn that sludge in the dayroom into decent coffee, what good is He? Still, if you want to be Joan of Arc, kiddo, there are a couple of arson compulsives in the other wing who would dearly love to light your fire.”
“I’m not delusional,” snapped Elizabeth. “I just don’t feel like discussing my case with another patient.”
Emma O. gave her a condescending smile. “So group therapy will be news to you, huh?”
“I don’t intend to go to group therapy. I am here for depression.”
“Getting it or giving it?”
“My husband died!”
The young woman looked mildly interested. “Did he? I had a hamster once that died. It crawled under the cushion of the sofa and my brother sat on it.”
“That’s hardly the
same thing.”
“What, death? I imagine it is, if you’re the one experiencing it. Still, I see what you mean. I don’t suppose your husband was smothered by a sofa cushion. Pretty careless of him if he was.”
Elizabeth was so stunned at this lack of sympathy for her widowed state that she was momentarily speechless. My husband died. Those three magic words had served her well for many weeks, gaining her privacy when she wanted it, special attention when she didn’t. People had been tiptoeing around her life, making no demands at all on her patience or her fortitude. It was unsettling to meet someone who was not cowed by the enormity of her loss. This madwoman seemed to think the statement was simply an interesting bit of trivia. Elizabeth didn’t know whether to be outraged or intrigued. She was still trying to decide how to take it when the madwoman said, “Can they give you pills for grief?”
“Not indefinitely. Sooner or later you have to learn to manage on your own.”
Emma O. considered this. “Okay,” she said. “Who brought you on the hall today? Thibodeaux?”
“I think so. Tall, blond guy in a white uniform.”
“Yeah, that’s Tibby.”
“He didn’t seem very friendly.”
“He’s all right.” Emma O. smiled again. “I told you that this was a different world. In here you have no currency of any value to him, that’s all.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Was I supposed to tip him?”
“No. I mean social currency. For instance, you may be smart—are you?”
“I have a Ph.D. in forensic anthropology,” said Elizabeth with a touch of pride.
“Okay. We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Say you’re smart, but: you’re a psychiatric patient, which nullifies your claim to mental superiority. There’s obviously something wrong with your mind or you wouldn’t be here. Besides, anybody could say they had a Ph.D. in forensic anthropology.”
“I could tell a lot from looking at the suture closures in your bare skull,” said Elizabeth, in tones suggesting that she would enjoy it.
“Remarks like that will get you sedated to four rungs down the food chain,” said Emma O. “Any hint of violence makes the powers-that-be uneasy. They like things to stay peaceful. Where was I? Oh, yes. Currency. Money isn’t a factor in here, either, beyond having enough change for the snack machines, so nobody cares if you’re rich or not on the outside. You can’t spend it in here. And fame or family prestige don’t count for much, either, because there’s always a chance that you’re lying about who you are. Remember that guy in here who claimed to be Jesus. Nobody was impressed. Not even the people who believed him. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—turn the Salisbury steak into anything else, so we lost interest.”
Elizabeth considered all this. “There must be some sort of hierarchy,” she said at last. “It’s human nature to form a social order. We like to know who we’re better than.”
“When you get right down to it, there is only one universal currency.”
“And that is?”
“Beauty. Beauty is the one status symbol that cannot be taken away. If you’re beautiful, you can be set down anywhere in the world, without your I.D. or your credit cards, and people will treat you well. Cleverness won’t help you if you wind up in a place where they don’t speak your language, or if your wisdom is not recognized, but beauty is the universal wealth.”
“There are different standards of beauty …” Elizabeth began, thinking of foot binding and neck rings.
“Not so much any more. Hollywood tells the world what pretty is these days. And I think people just know instinctively who the pretty people are regardless of differences in culture. It’s like radar. Maybe they emit rays or something. Anyhow, pretty people matter. The rest of us don’t.”
Elizabeth stared at the heavyset young woman, owl-eyed and scowling behind her glasses. “What are you in here for?” she asked.
Emma O. shrugged. “Well, I have Asperger’s syndrome, but that’s not treatable. It’s just the way I am. They don’t put you away for that.”
Elizabeth had never heard of Asperger’s syndrome, but she thought it might be impolite to ask about someone’s illness. She made a mental note to broach the subject with some knowledgeable third party, perhaps Dr. Freya herself, at their next session of therapy. Given the present drift of conversation, Elizabeth thought that this patient could be more useful to therapists outside the institution, drumming up business by making homely women even more depressed.
“I suppose,” Emma O. was saying, “I’m in here for the same reason as practically every other female in residence. I’m in here for not being beautiful.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Depression.”
“Well, depression comes later, I think. First society teaches you a good hard lesson about not being pretty, and then you get depressed about it, which means that you understood the lesson. But depression has its good points, you know. It sharpens perception. Did you know that?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Absolutely true. Psychologists have done studies of people with depression versus so-called normal people, and you know what? Depressed people have a much more accurate view of the world.”
“What do you mean … accurate?”
“The researchers asked both groups to rate themselves on how smart they thought they were, how good-looking, how well liked, and so on. The normal people overestimated themselves in every category. They always gave themselves higher scores for looks and brains and popularity than other people gave them. That’s the old rosy view of the world for you—sheer self-delusion.”
“The depressed people underrated themselves?” asked Elizabeth.
“No. The depressed patients were right on the money. Their self-scores tallied with the researchers’ objective assessment of them every time. So—depressed people may be sadder than normal, but they are the only ones who can look reality dead in the eye. If you want Truth with a capital T and no Pollyanna bullshit—get depressed. It’s funny, isn’t it? Normal people try to cheer you up by telling you things aren’t as bad as you think, and it turns out that you’re right and they’re wrong.”
Elizabeth sighed. She had been on the receiving end of a lot of well-meaning optimism in recent weeks. “I think I’d rather have the rose-colored glasses, thank you.”
“Suit yourself. I prefer to take reality straight up, without the sugar coating.”
“So why are you here then?”
Emma O. held out her arms so that Elizabeth could see the crisscrossing of thick, white scars encircling both wrists. “I guess you could say I overdosed on the truth.”
Bill MacPherson was standing awkwardly in the mansion’s two-story marbled entrance hall, peering intently up at the blazing brilliance of the five-tier chandelier, dutifully contemplating the sprawling carved oak staircase that led to a landing with a stained-glass window—and he knew that some sort of reaction was expected of him, but he just didn’t get it.
“Oh, you men are hopeless when it comes to houses!” said Holly Milton in some exasperation. She could see that her new client the young lawyer was trying his best to be polite about the magnificent house, but he was hopeless. He felt none of the visceral lust for possession, the rush of instant status that would have hit any woman fifty yards from the front door.
“Bill,” sighed the Realtor. “Just pretend it’s a sports car, okay?”
He nodded slowly. “So … What you mean is that this is an ego thing. Extension of one’s self. I own the house, therefore I am the house. Hmmm. Am I not supposed to think about practical things like heating costs and the condition of the roof?”
“Eventually, yes, we can talk about those things. You can even get a second opinion from an independent real estate appraiser before you make an offer. First, though, you must feel the magic of this place. You are the house. That’s exactly what I want you to imagine. Think what this house says about the people who live here!”
Bill thought it over. “It says that they have s
pent a lot of money on a really big house, and now they will spend even more money to keep it from falling slowly to bits. It says that they probably want to brag about owning the house to a lot of people they don’t like very much, so that those people will envy them and feel bad that their own houses are not so grand. This house could generate a lot of bad feelings. Sort of haunted, only it’s doing the haunting.”
Holly sighed, wishing for the hundredth time that the other partner in MacPherson & Hill had come instead. A woman wouldn’t have to think about the house at all. She’d fall under its spell in a nanosecond. Men were so hopeless. They acted as if houses were just places to sleep and keep the rain off your clothes.
Summoning a perkiness bordering on cheerleader, the Realtor said, “Come on, then. I’ll show you around.” Her voice echoed in the cavernous hall. “The rooms are empty—well, most of them. Each one has a fireplace, and all the mantels are different. The one in the front room here is marble. If you look closely at the leaf carvings you can make out little faces—nymphs and satyrs. I think this mantel was imported from Italy just after World War Two. A lot of old castles were in ruins because of the war, and since many of them could not be restored, wonderful things could be bought from the salvagers.” She tapped the wall. “This paneling is oak, also imported from an estate in Europe.”
Bill, whose interest in architectural details was minimal, had wandered over to the windows and was staring out at the side lawn.
“We’ll do the garden later,” said Holly. “It has a pleached walk. I’ll tell you what that is later, too. Would you like to take notes? No? Well, I think it’s all written down in a brochure, anyhow. Now, come back and look at this floor. Solid oak, can you believe it? And this gilt-bronze dolphin light fixture came from a chateau in France. It would cost a fortune to build this house with new materials today.”
Bill nodded. “It probably would have cost a fortune in 1948, too, but apparently the builder didn’t use new materials. Didn’t you tell me that he just used bits from damaged houses in Europe after the war? Hopefully with the knowledge and permission of the former owners.” He scanned the walls. “I don’t suppose there are any Van Goghs on display here?”
The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Page 3