House of Many Shadows

by Barbara Michaels

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  Meg walked him down the driveway, his hands in his jacket pockets, kicking viciously at loose pebbles as he went. She felt frustrated too. She had been in a ghost-hunting mood that morning; it was maddening to be prevented from checking out some of the information they had gathered. But perhaps there was something she could do. The records at the Historical Association might give them what they needed, but that source might fail; and in the meantime, they had left several loose ends dangling. The buttons, with their obscure crest, were one such loose end. Andy had shown her his notes, and Meg had to agree that the rubbed design on the button he had cleaned might be any one of the crests he had copied in Philadelphia. But there were several other buttons. One of them might be less worn.

  The liquid metal-cleaning solution she found in the back of one of the cupboards did an excellent job, far better than the paste Andy had used. The buttons emerged bright and shiny, and, as she had hoped, two of them were in much better condition than Andy’s. The details were as sharp as if they had been cut the week before. Tense with excitement, Meg ran into the library and got Andy’s notes out of the desk drawer. She spread the designs out on the table and compared them. They were similar in general design, but after a few seconds Meg was certain that she had found the original of the crest on the buttons. The diagonal bar, the rounded objects that turned out to be a fat five-pointed stars, and the bird—a hawk or eagle… It was the crest of the von Friedland family, of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

  Wherever mat is, Meg thought. The discovery really didn’t tell her anything; in fact, it contradicted the assumption she had been making all along, that the house had belonged to a family named Huber. Had Anna Maria married a von Friedland? On the face of it, it did not seem likely. The latter family bore arms and possessed the significant “von” prefix which commonly, if not always, indicated noble blood. Yet the alliance wasn’t impossible; in the freedom of a new land, noble and commoner met on equal ground, and perhaps marriages had taken place in the colonies that would have been socially unacceptable in the German principalities.

  That seemed the obvious solution, and yet Meg wasn’t satisfied with it. She couldn’t forget the image of an old man in a blue coat with silver buttons. The image was a long way from being evidence, of course; and even if it was legitimate, Anna Maria’s father wasn’t the only man in Pennsylvania to boast of silver buttons on his coat. And yet… Without realizing it, Meg had already put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. The buttons from the old man’s coat and the military decoration—both suited the straight, soldierly bearing of the figure whose pose she had seen, although she had not been able to distinguish his features. The locket, perhaps, held a lock of his hair and a lock from the head of Anna Maria’s mother, who had passed on her coloring to her fair-haired daughter. The necklace had to be the heirloom of a once-wealthy family; no peasant would own such a thing. All had belonged to Anna Maria and, with her sampler, had been cherished by her as the last mementos of a family whose name had died out with the sole surviving daughter.

  It was so real in her mind, so strangely structured, that when Meg began to think of confirmatory evidence she couldn’t believe she had based her reconstruction on such insubstantial proof. Of nothing, in fact. Why was she so sure Anna Maria’s mother had died when she was small? The fact that they had not yet seen a woman who might fill that position didn’t mean anything; they hadn’t seen the servant until the day before. The old house might have held a swarm of people who were yet to become visible. And why, against the single solid fact they knew, did she continue to feel that the family was of higher social standing than the simple name Huber would suggest? The silver and the crest, the medal—these things fit the von Friedlands. But the von Friedlands and the Hubers didn’t go together.

  With an exclamation of disgust Meg jumbled the papers together. She could sit here all day speculating. There was something else she could do; she couldn’t imagine why she had not thought of it before. The cubbyhole in the attic that had yielded the sampler and the box might hold other objects. She hadn’t even looked inside, she had simply pulled out the first thing her groping fingers had touched.

  Equipped with a flashlight and dressed in her oldest pants, Meg went upstairs. It did not take her long to realize that she was about to encounter her second frustration of the day. Squirming and wriggling, she retraced her former route, over tables and under chair legs, but when she had inserted herself into the narrow space in front of the door, she found that the slate-topped chest had moved as far as it was going to move. It was blocked by a dining-room table, and even if her muscles had been up to shifting that massive object, it was jammed up against an even heavier sideboard. She would have to start at the far end of the room and move practically every object in it.

  Well, then, Meg decided, she would move them. They would have to be inventoried eventually; she would ask Andy to help with the heavier pieces. But she would not be able to get into her cubbyhole that day, or for several days to come. In the meantime, she might at least have a look. Thank goodness she had had sense enough to bring a flashlight.

  She squatted down, adding another bruise to the one on her hip as she did so, and opened the door as far as it would go. A cloud of dust billowed up. Meg sneezed. She waited for the dust to settle and men shone the flashlight into the opening and applied her right eye to the crack.

  Dust and cobwebs. Bare, rough board planks. Beyond, the roof sloped abruptly down; she saw where it met the wall at an acute angle. Under the muffling blanket of dust there were several shapes, shrouded as if in gray velvet.

  Meg put the flashlight down and reached in through the crack. She strained till her shoulder ached, but was unable to touch anything except dust. It was a futile exercise; even if she had been able to reach any of the mysterious objects she could not have gotten them out. It was maddening to be so near her goal and so far from attaining it. Panting, she scrambled back across the table and began to move furniture.

  She had not made any discernible progress when she heard a faint hail from below. She went to the attic door.

  “Andy?”

  He was no more anxious to come up than she was ready to go down. Both of them had to bellow at the top of their lungs in order to be heard, and the ensuing conversation was carried on at top pitch.

  “How about lunch?”

  “Get your own,” Meg screamed. “I’m busy.”

  Andy replied with a single word. It came through loud and clear, being a one-syllable noun.

  Meg grinned. “Did you get the battery?”

  “What?”

  “Did you get the battery?”

  “Yes. I left my right arm and a pint of blood.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  So that was the cause of his ill humor. Meg sympathized; she was a member of the underpaid classes herself.

  “Come help me,” she yelled.

  “I’m busy too.”

  After a few hours Meg went down in search of sustenance. She had moved an etagere, a cast-iron settee and two matching armchairs, a brass bed, and a transitional writing desk; the only consolation she could offer her aching muscles was six feet of empty space and the undeniably consoling fact that she had been able to identify all the furniture she had moved. Her reading was beginning to pay off.

  Andy was nowhere to be seen, but he had left his dirty dishes, in a gesture whose childish spite amused Meg. She went to the kitchen door. A distant, hollow clanging indicated that Andy was working on the car. It sounded as if he were rhythmically kicking the fender, but Meg’s knowledge of auto repairs was slight. Perhaps the installation of a battery demanded such a technique.

  Cheered by the sounds of struggle and alarm, she ate her lunch and forced herself back to the attic. Only grim determination kept her working; she had never put in such continuously strenuous effort, and when she stopped she could have fallen flat on the dusty floor and gone to sleep. She had to stop. The next object to be mo
ved was a square piano with legs as thick as a baby elephant’s. She had shoved on this with her full weight and hadn’t even heard it squeak. Andy would have to help with this little number. He was in no mood to be helpful today. By tomorrow he might have cooled off.

  A shower restored her, and she started for the kitchen with the virtuous determination to cook a nice dinner and demonstrate her maturity by overlooking Andy’s bad humor. But she had not gone far before a spicy smell reached her nostrils—something with tomatoes and basil and garlic. It smelled wonderful; she was ravenously hungry.

  Andy was stirring something on the stove when she came into the kitchen. He turned to greet her with an angelic smile. Meg’s answering smile was as warm as appetite could make it. Men were such volatile creatures; cheerful one minute, sulking the next. Andy’s good moods were nice while they lasted, though; and he certainly made excellent spaghetti sauce. Meg scraped her plate under Andy’s benevolent gaze.

  “Your hands don’t fool me into thinking you are eighteen,” he commented. “What have you been doing up there, sawing up the furniture to get firewood?”

  “Moving things. I’m just about beat. One thing I’ll say for the Victorians—they built ugly, but they built solid.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  Meg looked at him. After a minute Andy burst out laughing.

  “You’re right. I’d have bitten you. I seem to be always apologizing for my rotten moods.”

  “You get over them in a hurry, anyhow. I would like some help, maybe tomorrow. I’m clearing out that room, Andy—the one where I found the box with the sampler. I can’t get into mat cubbyhole under the eaves without moving all the damned furniture. There’s something else in that space.”

  “Where you found the box? Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I have to clear out some of the furniture anyhow, if I’m going to inventory it. I found a darling cast-iron couch and chairs. I’m going to paint them white and put them on the lawn, under that big oak.”

  “White’s kind of dull, isn’t it? Why not pink or puce? You’re getting all fired up about this job.”

  “I guess the more you learn about something, the more interesting it is. You know the tower room? The minute I saw it I thought of Sir Walter Scott—”

  “Abbotsford,” Andy said, nodding. “I fell for that study of him myself.”

  “You’ve seen it? I’ve just seen pictures. When were you abroad?”

  “A couple of years ago.”

  “Are you lucky. I’ve never been able to afford it. But I’d love to furnish that tower room like Scott’s study. According to the books I’ve been reading, it’s Elizabethan—not genuine Elizabethan, you know, the style that was revived in Scott’s time—but it’s an English style and I don’t suppose you could find much of it in this country. So then I thought Victorian Gothic—”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “It’s sort of hard to describe—especially for me. I’m still an amateur. But I’m learning. Andy, Georgia was right. There is a Duncan Phyfe dining set up there!”

  “Imagine that!” Andy’s eyes narrowed with laughter. “You could tell me it was a Herman Pifflesnoot and I’d be equally impressed.”

  “I thought you knew about old furniture. That house you helped fix up—”

  “The old furniture I refinished came out of junk shops, sis. None of my friends have enough bread to play around with antiques.”

  “Me neither. The stuff in my apartment is strictly board and brick. But I wish I could afford some good antiques. This job is spoiling me.”

  They went on talking antiques as they cleared away the dishes. The days were taking on a routine. When the chores were done they headed automatically for the library. It was beginning to feel like their room, with their books scattered over the long library table, and the chairs they always sat in.

  Tonight, though, the massive tomes on American furniture did not attract Meg. The very sight of them made her shoulders ache reminiscently. Andy, settling down in the big leather chair by the fire, glanced up at her as she wandered around the room.

  “Bored by antiques? Have a nice soothing murder.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “It’s not exactly soothing. Historic American murder cases. I don’t know why it is, but American murders lack the charm of the English equivalents. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi, a recondite mustiness…”

  “What about Lizzie Borden?”

  “That’s an exception. The most mystifying damned thing! If she did it, how did she do it without getting blood on her clothes? It was a particularly gory ax murder— double murder, in fact. But if she didn’t do it, who did? And how do you account for Lizzie’s peculiar activities in the boiling-hot barn loft? Yes, it’s a lovely murder. But the English have got Burke and Hare, Constance Kent, and dozens more.”

  “You can keep them. I’ll see if I can find a nice book like Little Women. Unless you feel in the mood for—”

  Andy chuckled. “What a weird life we’re leading. If you had said that under any circumstances but these… However, knowing what you mean—the answer is no, I do not feel in the mood for summoning spooks. Let’s have a quiet evening, okay? We’ll hit the Historical Association tomorrow and get back on the track.”

  “All right.”

  Meg finally found a copy of The Sheikh, which she had heard about but had never read, and was soon absorbed in the struggles of Diana Mayo. It was too good to keep to herself.

  “‘She fought against the fascination with which his passionate eyes dominated her, resisting him dumbly with tight-locked lips still he held her palpitating in his arms…’”

  “What?” Andy exclaimed, looking up from his book.

  “ ‘She writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him,”“

  Meg went on. “ ‘Numbly she felt him gather her high up into his arms, his lips still clinging closely, and carry her across the tent through curtains into an adjoining room. He laid her down on soft cushions…’”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve criticizing my literary tastes.”

  “Mea don’t act like that anymore,” Meg said sadly.

  “If I tried anything like that on a woman she’d either laugh in my face or break my jaw.”

  He returned to his murders, and Meg read on. She had put in a hard day, and the sexy sensation of the twenties began to read rather tamely after a while; she was beginning to yawn when a sudden movement from Andy distracted her.

  She looked up. Andy was staring at her. His expression was one of pure horror. The white of his eyes showed all around the dilated pupils; if she had not known it to be impossible, she would have sworn his hair was standing up on end. With a muffled exclamation he leaped to his feet and ran out of the room.

  Meg felt her spine crawling. Fearfully she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder. But there was no monster in the shadows; there was not even the shimmering glow of a fading vision. Utterly bewildered, she closed her book and stared at the dying fire. Perhaps she should go after Andy. He might be ill. She almost hoped he was; that explanation would be less disturbing than any other that occurred to her.

  Deliberately Meg moved around the room, turning off lights, making sure the windows were locked, checking the screen in front of the fire. Then she went upstairs.

  She listened, unashamed, at Andy’s closed door, but heard nothing. She knocked. There was a long pause before Andy finally answered.

  “Who is it?”

  “Of all the dumb questions!” Relief at hearing his voice made Meg snappish. “Who would it be?”

  “Oh. Go away, Meg. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “You’ll see me now. What’s the matter? You can’t run out like mat; you scared hell out of me.”

  Another long pause followed. Finally Meg heard the bedsprings creak and the crackle of paper as Andy stamped through the scrapes on the floor. He had finished stripping the paper but had not yet removed the debris.
/>   When he opened the door he stared pallidly at Meg.

  “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, I’m getting sick and tired of apologizing all the time. It was a shock, that’s all.”

  “What was a shock?” Meg almost screamed the words; if Andy had been deliberately trying to frighten her he could not have chosen a better method than the vague hints.

  “Finding out what happened to the Hubers. There we were, speculating and planning complicated research problems; and the answer was right there all along, on the library shelves.”

  Meg began to understand. Cold spread from the back of her neck through her body.

  “The book you were reading. The historic American murders?”

  Somberly Andy nodded. “All three of them. The old man, the girl, and the servant. Beaten to death, on a night in October 1740. Two hundred-odd years ago tonight.”

  Chapter 8