Bliss House: A Novel

by Laura Benedict

  Around the left-hand corner of the galley was the part of the kitchen where all the cooking was done. There was the pitiful stove, a new microwave, a plate-warmer, a substantial refrigerator, more open shelves for pantry goods, and a handsome five-foot-long marble counter for making dough or candy. Rainey’s mother had made hard candy for gifts every Christmas, and she had romantic visions of doing the same with Ariel. Around the other corner was the butler’s pantry, with its gas fireplace (all of the fireplaces in the house had once burned wood, but now they were fitted for gas), rows of elegant glass-fronted cabinets, and a broad antique Irish table she was told was original to the house, where she and Ariel would eat most of their meals.

  In the butler’s pantry Rainey was dismayed to find that there was no order in the way the moving people had unpacked the sets of dishes and glassware she’d recently bought.

  The moving company had sent a pair of workers—a muscular African American woman with close-coiffed gray hair and a sallow white man of about fifty who smelled of breath mints—who arrived just after the half-filled moving van had come and gone. They asked no questions and kept their heads down, diligent, the whole time. They spoke to each other in whispers, as though they were in a church. Rainey had tried to be friendly, offering them coffee, but their reticence had made it clear that they just wanted to get their work done and get out.

  The truth was that, uncommunicative as they were, Rainey had liked having them around. With every passing hour in the vast house, she worried that she’d made a huge mistake. She had imagined living an idyllic, healing sort of country life for a while, then maybe—when Ariel was ready—turning most of the first floor into a studio where she could meet clients. But the house would need even more work if she were to do that. And she would have to start socializing to get those clients.

  She sank onto the window seat at the end of the butler’s pantry with a heavy sigh. The sun was warm on her skin, and she rested her head gratefully against the glass. She felt chilled all the time now. Always petite and small-boned, she’d lost fifteen pounds that she could hardly afford to lose. When a client back in St. Louis had recently told her how great, how thin she was looking, Rainey had seen a glint of envy in the woman’s eyes that sickened her. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life being beholden to people who were so vain that they could envy a woman who couldn’t eat because she’d accidentally killed her husband?

  She looked up at a sound from another part of the kitchen, and saw Ariel heading for the refrigerator, wearing a nubby pink bathrobe Rainey had bought for her to wear at the rehab facility. Its sleeves were already too short, but the rest of the robe looked too big for her. Her hair was long enough that it was hard to tell where it no longer could grow behind her left ear, but Rainey knew the scarred flesh was there.

  Ariel took milk and an apple from the refrigerator and pulled a box of cereal from a shelf. When she turned, she noticed Rainey.

  “Hey, honey,” Rainey said, not wanting to startle her. She wanted to help her—God, how she wanted to get up to help her—but she made herself stay in the window seat.

  Unfazed, Ariel asked her where the bowls were.

  “Here,” Rainey said, finally jumping up. She had at least organized the Portmeirion china that she’d ordered for everyday use right away. She grabbed a bowl and dug out a spoon from the chaos in the silverware drawer.

  “Sit down,” she said, putting the bowl on the oak tabletop that separated them.

  Ariel glanced around, but didn’t say anything else. Rainey was glad to see some curiosity in her eyes.

  A shadow changed the light in the room for only a second, and Rainey saw her daughter’s face darken. Ariel was looking out the window.

  “What is it?” Rainey turned around. She hurried to the window, but it looked straight onto the herb garden, and not out to either side. “Did you see something?”

  Rainey turned back to Ariel, but she was gone. From the sounds she heard coming from the dark hallway leading to the back stairs, Ariel was already making her slow, labored way back to her room. Calling after her wasn’t going to get her back. Rainey sighed.

  Out in the mudroom, whose entrance was in the front galley of the kitchen, someone was knocking purposefully on the porch door. Ariel had seen whoever it was through the window and fled. As Rainey crossed the kitchen to answer the door, she was less curious about who was there than how her daughter had just been able to enter and leave the kitchen without using her cane.

  Chapter 5

  “I’ve wanted to meet you in person for the longest time, dear Rainey. Notes and Christmas cards every few years just aren’t the same thing.” Roberta “Bertie” Bliss stood behind a chair at the table in the butler’s pantry. “May I sit?”

  Rainey colored, totally off her game. “Oh, I’m sorry, Roberta. Of course.” She gestured to Bertie, as well as the solid young man who had followed in her wake.

  “You must call me Bertie. Everyone does, except the Judge, of course.”

  Judge Randolph Bliss was a remote cousin of Rainey’s. It was his family Rainey and her mother had stayed with on her childhood visit to Old Gate. Her mother had driven her out to see Bliss House, where Randolph had grown up, but they hadn’t gone inside because the family that had bought it wasn’t home. The house had imprinted itself on her memory. Just being close to it gave her a strange sense of belonging.

  Bertie was a comfortably upholstered bottle-blonde, girlish down to her pink-and-white, floral capri pants and sleeveless white eyelet shirt, pedicured toes, and petite handbag festooned with pink fabric flowers. Though she was in her mid-forties, some seven or eight years older than Rainey, the only lines on her face were laugh lines at the edges of her teal green eyes and pink (again, pink!) lacquered lips. But there was something else about Bertie’s mouth: the corners looked red and flaky beneath her heavy foundation makeup, as though beneath all the pink and white of the outer Bertie, there was someone less smooth and moist and girlish, someone wiser and more serious trying to get out. The most significant thing about Bertie, though, was that she wore her feelings on her face. Bertie Bliss would be a very bad poker player. Rainey liked her instantly.

  The young man with her was her son, Jefferson. He wore a stiff denim jacket over his broad torso, even though the outdoor humidity was already punishing. Rainey was startled to see much of her own father in him: a strong, angular nose and deep-set eyes. His neck was long, his Adam’s apple prominent. There was an air of restrained confidence (or perhaps arrogance?) and intelligence about him. His pink scalp—not nearly so pink as anything adorning his mother—showed through the military buzz of his blond hair. Despite the threat of his bulk, Jefferson Bliss had a ready smile that held none of the frantic energy of his mother’s. Rainey had been charmed by the way he’d nodded politely and responded to her proffered hand with a warm handshake.

  “I think I know where the tea is,” Rainey said, almost to herself. “And the kettle.” She hadn’t made any coffee that morning, and in fact had no idea where the coffee maker might be. Somewhere on the shelves in the galley, she thought.

  “Moving is such a trial,” Bertie said. “Though it’s not like I’ve ever moved anywhere myself. Only from Mother’s house to the house Randolph and I bought when we got married. Practically everything of mine fit in my little car. Mother insisted we take some of the furniture she had stored in the attic.” She smiled at the memory, revealing a row of dainty, even teeth. “We had some men move all that for us.”

  Rainey started for the stove, hoping she really had seen the kettle on a nearby shelf.

  “Do you want some help?” Bertie said, barely pausing. “Jefferson, you get up and help Cousin Rainey.”

  Jefferson stood up quickly, scraping the chair hard against the tile floor.

  Rainey tried to wave him back but, seeing the enthusiasm on his face, she knew she had to give him something to do. He was much older than Ariel, but she couldn’t help but compare her daughter’s sullen
ness to Jefferson’s obvious desire to please.

  “There are mugs in that cabinet right behind you,” she said. “Would you get out three? Spoons are in that drawer.” She pointed. It occurred to her that Bertie would expect teacups with saucers. Something about the floral pants spoke to that. Mugs or teacups? When had she ever in her life worried about something so unimportant? Maybe the formality of the house was getting to her.

  By the time the tea was served and drunk, and Jefferson and Bertie had eaten most of the gourmet oatmeal raisin cookies she’d bought to tempt Ariel, Rainey had heard all about Randolph’s mother’s slow death from lung cancer, Bertie’s opinion of people who didn’t train their dogs, the sad state of affairs of afternoon television, and Jefferson’s first year at UVA. This last bit was shared with a great deal of pride mixed with a small amount of chagrin, because Jefferson—self-conscious about the fact that the university was founded by Thomas Jefferson—had decided to refer to himself as “Jeff” at school.

  “Such foolishness,” Bertie said. “Jeff. If I’d wanted him to be called Jeff, I’d have put that on his application for Tiny Woodlands preschool years ago, and that would’ve been that.”

  Jefferson gave Rainey an abashed grin and looked away, out the window.

  Rainey listened for a sound from upstairs, knowing it was unlikely that Ariel would even leave her room while there were strangers in the house.

  “Jefferson, honey,” Bertie said. “Be a dear and get the bag we brought—you know the one I mean—from the car.”

  “Sure, Mom.” He pushed his chair back under the table and nodded to Rainey before leaving the room.

  As soon as they heard the door shut, Bertie grabbed Rainey’s hand. Startled, Rainey instinctively resisted, but Bertie held fast.

  “Cousin Rainey,” she said, leaning close, so that Rainey could smell oatmeal cookie on her breath. “You can tell me the truth. Aren’t you and that little girl of yours scared to death to be living here? I couldn’t believe it when I heard it was you who signed a contract on the house.”

  “I never believed those stories,” Rainey said. It was almost the truth.

  “Everyone says it’s the wickedest house in the county. You know that thing that happened to poor Mrs. Brodsky.”

  “You mean her murder?”

  Bertie nodded enthusiastically. “And Mother Bliss. She didn’t talk about it much until after they moved out, of course, after Michael disappeared. But after Randolph and I got married, she made me promise not to let Randolph buy the house again after she died. She made me swear. Shouldn’t that be a warning? Randolph won’t hardly even talk about it.”

  Rainey stood to clear the tea things away. “People are always making up things about old houses. I’ve been in enough of them to know.” What she was doing here with Ariel wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. Still, she bit back her words. She wasn’t sure what kind of influence Bertie had in the town, and while she wasn’t ready to become part of the social fabric, she didn’t want to become a total pariah, either.

  “But the evidence! It wasn’t just murder, you know. Peter Brodsky chased his poor wife through the woods and killed her with an axe. Why do you think no one has lived here in almost five years?” Bertie shook her head. “And long before that . . .” Bertie’s voice trailed off and she fiddled with one of her bracelets.

  Rainey stared down at her. “Go on.”

  For Bertie to go on would mean that she had to admit that she truly believed in . . . what? Ghosts? Evil spirits? Even Bertie couldn’t bring herself to buy into the lore one hundred per cent.

  “You know,” Bertie said. This time, the pout of her bottom lip had disappeared. Hardened. Yet she wouldn’t say it. “What Mother Bliss said.”

  Bertie’s face—with its too-fair foundation, plump cheeks, and carnation lips—was made for gossip and ladies’ luncheon chatter, not fear and frustration.

  Rainey smiled and relaxed some, wondering if anyone ever took Bertie seriously. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have lived in or stayed at Bliss House. Have you seen how all the bedrooms have little brass plaques on their doors? They’ve got names like Dolly Madison and Pocahontas. I can’t imagine anything bad ever happening in the Pocahontas Suite, can you?” she said. “In fact, that’s where I’m sleeping myself. Ariel picked the E. A. Poe suite. I haven’t the slightest idea why.”

  “Oh, the Brodsky people did that,” Bertie said thoughtfully. “Now, Ariel. Where is she?”

  She’d obviously decided not to push Rainey on the subject of the house, which Rainey thought was wise. But how long would it be before she tried again? She guessed that Bertie didn’t let her politeness get in her way for any longer than she really wanted it to.

  “She’s only fourteen. Shy,” Rainey said, playing along. “You know teenagers. I never know when or if she’s going to make an appearance.”

  For the first six months after the accident, people whom Rainey didn’t even know exhausted her with sympathy and questions about Ariel. But, finally, even Ariel’s friends stopped calling the condo they’d eventually moved into, and only texted Ariel infrequently. Rainey didn’t blame Ariel for being self-conscious, and she couldn’t do anything to speed her grieving process. She could barely even handle her own grief, and kept telling herself that Ariel would heal in her own time.

  “She’ll want to meet other young people,” Bertie said, regaining her bearings. “At least before school starts next month. She’ll need to get in with the right children. And what about school? You know the choices are sadly limited here, unless you’re willing to drive to Charlottesville every day.”

  Rainey heard a quick, polite knock on the mudroom door, which then squeaked open. Whatever other qualities Jefferson had, he had timing in spades.

  “Come on in, Jeff,” Rainey said, leaning out into the galley.

  Jefferson smiled broadly at the sound of his nickname. He carried a large yellow gift bag with green and white ribbons fluttering from its handles.

  The gifts turned out to be a giant tin of Virginia peanuts and a locally crafted pottery bowl for her, and a gray and ivory buffalo check newsboy cap for Ariel.

  When Rainey saw the cap, it was her turn to bristle. What did they know about Ariel? How did they know about the hats? It bothered her.

  “Jefferson picked out the little hat,” Bertie said, as though reading her mind. “I wasn’t sure, but he said many of the girls on campus wear them.”

  Jefferson nodded. “I hope she likes it.”

  Rainey thought he might blush, but he simply looked friendly. Confident. If he wasn’t genuinely a nice kid, it was a hell of an act. She hoped he’d be a good influence on Ariel. “She’ll love it,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, but we need to go.” Bertie’s bounce had returned. “I have garden club this afternoon.” She stood and smoothed the eyelet top over the well-secured flesh of her belly. Rainey noticed that her sandals sported pom-pom flowers similar to the ones on her handbag.

  “You didn’t have to come around back, you know,” Rainey said. “Let me show you out the front door.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you on a tour. Did you want to see the house? We’ve got furniture being delivered left and right, but things are still a little bare.”

  “Oh, you know, I would,” Bertie said, her eyes wide. “But I’d really like to be surprised, later, when we have more time. I read all about your business on the Internet. You’re a famous decorator out there in St. Louis!”

  What else had Bertie read? How much did she know about Ariel’s injuries? Rainey had gotten a card from her just after Will’s funeral. She’d responded with a thank-you note, but they’d never even so much as chatted on the phone before.

  “It’ll be a few weeks before the house is presentable. But I’ll certainly have you back,” Rainey said. “And Randolph, and you too, Jeff.”

  Jefferson preceded Bertie out the door, but Bertie hesitated. For an awkward few seconds, Rainey thought Bertie might be an
ticipating a hug and didn’t quite know what to do.

  “Not to pressure you or anything, dear,” Bertie said. Her carnation mouth still wore its dainty pout. “You’ll have lots of invitations. Everyone wants to meet you, though they all want to give you the space you need, of course.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Housewarmings are a big tradition here in Old Gate,” she continued. “They’re nice because no one worries if the house isn’t just so, if you know what I mean.”

  Rainey’s laugh was slightly nervous.

  “I’d think about two weeks would be about how long a person would want to wait,” Bertie said. “I mean, you wouldn’t believe the number of people in town who’ve never set foot in Bliss House. Of course, their parents might have, years ago. There were people who came here for parties and things.”

  Two weeks?

  As she shut the door behind Bertie and the very quiet Jefferson, she realized she had agreed to give a party for a number of strangers in a house in which she’d only spent a few nights. It wasn’t at all what she’d imagined herself planning when she’d gotten out of bed that morning. Worse, she had no idea how Ariel would react.

  Chapter 6

  Gerard Powell drove his pickup carefully over the grass, well out of the way of the paving company trucks and equipment laying asphalt on the drive leading to Bliss House. He parked beside Rainey Adams’s Lexus crossover near the entrance to the formal gardens on the eastern side of the house.