“Oh.”
Meg hemmed another side. When she looked up Andy was still watching her.
“What is it now?” she demanded. “I’m waiting till you’re through playing. We have a little research project, remember?”
“I can talk and do this at the same time.” Silence fell. Placidly stitching, Meg waited. The outburst finally came.
“I like people to look at me when I’m talking!” “Sure you do. Most egomaniacs feel that way.” “God, you have a nasty tongue. No wonder you’re still a spinster.”
“I’m only twenty-three,” Meg said humbly. “Maybe there’s still a chance for me.”
“Sure. Plenty of men are masochists.”
“Cool it,” Meg said. “If we have a fight, you’ll have to walk out into the cold, dark night. Remember what happened last time?”
That ended the discussion. Andy returned to his book and Meg sewed. She was ready for bed by the time she had finished hemming the linen, but she couldn’t resist making a few stitches of the pattern. Following another suggestion from her friends in the embroidery shop, she marked off the center of the square of linen and began working out from the center of the pattern.
It was addictive as heroin. Meg couldn’t stop. Her needle flashed in and out with a precision that surprised and delighted her. Blue and pale pink, buff and black and green, the motto began to take shape:
“My Life’s a Flower, the Time is Morn…”
She sensed that Andy was watching her. At first she was amused; after a while his steady regard began to fret at her nerves. She reached a section that had to be done in the rose-pink that had yet to be matched accurately, and jabbed her needle into the fabric.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced.
Andy did not reply. He continued to watch her as she put away her materials and left the room.
III
For the first time since she had arrived, Meg was awakened in the middle of the night by uncanny noises. In helpless half-sleep she couldn’t decide whether they were the product of nightmare or ghostly intruders. Then she came fully awake. She did not know whether to be relieved or not when she realized the sounds were coming from Andy’s room.
Without waiting to put on robe or slippers she got out of bed and ran down the hall. Both doors were open. There was a light in the corridor, but Andy’s light was off. Meg didn’t stop to locate the switch. The closer she came to them, the more the sounds distressed her. She crossed the room amid a crackle of paper scraps and sat down on the edge of Andy’s bed.
There was enough light from the open door to let her see him. His eyes were screwed shut and his face was distorted in a tight frown of pain; he was moving and moaning, tossing from side to side. He had thrown off the covers. He wore pajama bottoms—a concession, Meg suspected, to her presence in the house—but no top. His bare chest was sticky with perspiration, as was his face.
Meg put her hands on his shoulders. He stopped moving, but his eyes remained stubbornly shut. She shook him. When this produced no effect, she reached out and turned on the lamp on the bedside table.
Andy groaned. His eyes opened, but Meg knew he didn’t see her.
“Not for months,” he mumbled. “I wouldn’t have moved in here if I’d thought… The damned sewing, that’s what did it. Needle flashing, long trails of thread going in and out, red and gold and—red, like blood…”
“Andy,” Meg said sharply. She couldn’t listen to this; it was worse than eavesdropping. “Andy, wake up.”
Andy’s body gave a violent start. His foggy eyes focused.
“What the hell—”
“You had a nightmare,” Meg said.
“Did I wake you up?”
“That’s all right. What were you dreaming about?”
Andy’s lashes flickered. Meg knew he had no recollection of what he had said earlier.
“I don’t remember. Monsters, I guess.” “Well…” Meg was acutely conscious of the hard pull of his muscles under her flattened palms. She stood up. “If you’re okay now, I guess I’ll go back to bed.” “Sorry I disturbed you.” “That’s okay. Good night.”
Meg went back to bed, but she didn’t sleep, not at first. She had suspected for some time that Andy’s illness had not been physical. “Nervous breakdown” was a good loose term that could cover any number of mental ailments. And it had something to do with a girl—a girl who had embroidered, as she had done that evening. She ought to have known from Andy’s reaction when she began. The poor devil had actually thought she was doing it to taunt him or to remind him of an incident that he wanted desperately to forget.
Meg rolled over and wrapped both arms around the pillow, hugging it to her like a comfort blanket. No wonder Andy had been so anxious to find an alternative explanation for her hallucinations. He had seen them too. He must have wondered whether he was cracking up.
To her surprise Meg began to get drowsy. With all the things I have on my mind, she thought sleepily, you’d think I couldn’t sleep a wink. Here I am in a haunted house with a man fresh out of a mental hospital…
As she drifted off to sleep, Meg was not thinking about the house or its shadowy occupants. She was wondering what sort of woman could have such a devastating effect on a man that he still suffered from nightmares months after losing her.
Chapter 9
When Meg came down the next morning, Andy was making coffee. She had no intention of referring to his nightmare, but as she watched him fidget, she realized he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. His first remark betrayed his real concern.
“Sorry I woke you up last night. Was I screaming obscenities, or what?”
“Just groaning and thrashing around.”
“I didn’t… say anything?”
“Nothing that made any sense.”
“Oh.” Andy wiped a single drop of spilled coffee from the table. “I used to talk in my sleep when I was a kid.”
“Did you? What did you talk about?”
Andy laughed hollowly. His drawn face and sunken eyes contrasted painfully with his attempt to appear casually amused.
“Oh, I made up all kinds of stories. Even at that age I had literary talents.”
Meg decided to put an end to the conversation. Not for worlds would she have indicated to Andy that she had inadvertently intruded on his private agonies. It did not occur to her then to wonder why she was so tender of his feelings; under the circumstances she might have been excused for trying to discover what his problem was and how it might affect her.
“I meant to ask how the novel was getting along,” she said brightly. “You haven’t had much time to work on it, have you?”
“I thought I might put in a few hours today. I could work in the library, if that wouldn’t bother you.”
“Oh, don’t be so bloody polite. It doesn’t suit your character.” Andy grinned. “I’ll go get my stuff.” Meg sat at the kitchen table for a while, trying to decide what she ought to do next. What she really wanted to do was embroider. The sampler drew her like a magnet. But she resisted; the embroidery was for relaxation, she ought to get some work done first. Until Andy helped her move the old piano, there was nothing more she could do in the room where she had found the sampler, but there were acres of objects in the attic to be rearranged. Sylvia must be persuaded to sell some of them, just to clear enough space in which to work on the others. As it was, they would have to shift mountains of furniture back and forth every time they wanted to examine a particular piece.
First on the list, however, was some housecleaning. She had neglected the everyday chores of vacuuming and dusting in recent days.
Accustomed to working in a one-room apartment, she was appalled at how long it took to get even a few rooms into reasonably good order. Betty Friedan is right, she thought, as she began to dry-mop the bare drawing-room floor; housework does expand to fill all the available time. It wasn’t hard to understand why women fell into the trap, though. Barraged by TV commercials that imply that di
rty collars are more disgraceful than infanticide, infected by the ancestral Calvinist doctrine that puts cleanliness next to godliness—no wonder women slaved over dishes and T-shirts that would be dirty again next day. They were brainwashed by a deadly combination of advertising and outdated morality.
Inspired by these critical thoughts, Meg wielded her mop with more speed than accuracy; she had no intention of spending any more time on the job than was absolutely necessary. The floor did need dusting, though; they had tracked in an amazing amount of litter in the past week, and the house hadn’t been properly cleaned for months— since before the Culvers had moved in.
After finishing the drawing room she went into the dining room, which connected with the drawing room by means of wide double doors. Meg had only been in the room once before, when she had explored the house that first day. She hoped it wouldn’t need much cleaning; but dust was bound to accumulate even in an unused room.
Like the drawing room, the dining room was sparsely furnished and had no carpets on the floors. The room hadn’t been used much. It hadn’t been swept, either; a weird mixture of lost objects rolled out into daylight as Meg probed under the heavy sideboard. Hairpins, crumbs innumerable, fifty-four cents in change, a comb with most of the teeth missing—and a square black box that went sliding across the floor and struck a chair leg.
Meg knew what it was before she stopped to pick it up. With an uncomfortable sinking sensation in her stomach she pressed one of the white plastic buttons. The familiar chords of a Mozart minuet filled the room.
It was a cheap tape recorder. The quality was poor and scratchy, but at a distance a susceptible listener might not notice that.
Meg left her mop where she had dropped it and went storming into the library. Andy was typing. He was so absorbed he didn’t hear her come in. When she threw the tape recorder down on the desk, he jumped half out of his chair.
“What the hell—”
“Cute,” Meg said, panting with anger. “That’s really cute. Setting this thing to go off so I’d think of supernatural harpsichordists. How did you manage the optical illusions?”
The strains of Mozart interrupted her. Andy had pressed the switch. He pressed the off-switch almost at once. “Where did you find this?”
“In the dining room, under the sideboard. Where you left it—”
“Just calm down, will you? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
He was either the world’s greatest actor, or he was honestly bewildered. Meg’s anger cooled a little. She was still too angry to speak coherently, however, and her silence gave Andy time to think.
“Wait a minute,” he muttered. “I remember hearing that… but you played it on the piano. Mozart, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I played it—after I heard that tape. I didn’t know it was a tape, of course; but I knew the music wasn’t performed on a piano. It’s a harpsichord.”
“I see. Ghostly music, and all that crap.” Andy leaned back in his chair, turning the tape recorder over in his hands. “I suppose you would suspect me. I can clear myself, though, if you’ll give me a chance.”
“Go ahead.”
“To begin with, I wouldn’t own a piece of junk like this. It’s only good for listening to the news or to very loud, very crummy pop music where the quality doesn’t matter. If I had bought this to perpetrate a trick, it would be new. This is battered and banged up. Maybe that’s not convincing. Try this, then. If I planted this on you, I’m responsible for the next of the funny tricks, right? The whole complicated fictitious plot involving a family that lived here back in 1740. Do you really think I’m dumb enough to include a piece of music written by a composer who wasn’t born till 1756?”
Meg’s mouth fell open. “How do you know when Mozart was born?”
“I don’t suppose you remember I used to play French horn—”
“Don’t I, though. You used to sneak up on me and let off a blast in my ear.”
“Nevertheless,” said Andy, with dignity, “I took lessons for ten years, and my teacher was a fanatic about music history. I had to memorize a lot of that stuff. Don’t know why it should stick in my mind, but it did. Do you know when Beethoven was born? In 1770. He died in 1827. Vivaldi—”
“Okay, okay. I’m convinced.”
“Mozart was an infant prodigy, admittedly,” Andy said. “But he didn’t compose prenatally. If I were going to produce ghostly music for you, my girl, it would have been Bach. I don’t make sloppy mistakes like that.” “Then who—”
“Who else? It’s the sort of imaginative, careless scheme Culver would think up. This looks like his kind of tape recorder, too—cheap, crummy, kicked around. As a matter of fact—” Andy hesitated. “Well?”
“I don’t want to scare you,” Andy said slowly. “But this gadget doesn’t have a remote-control mechanism or an automatic cutoff. It’s still working, so the batteries didn’t run down…”
“Oh. You mean, he was in the house.” “Must have been. I wonder why he left this here?” “I suppose he planned to use it again,” Meg said uncomfortably. “Lord, that’s a nasty thought.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. That was before I moved into the house. But we might be a little more careful about locking up. Meg—you believe me, don’t you?”
“I guess so. You don’t think Culver could be responsible for the other phenomena, do you?”
“I’ll be damned if I can see how. I suppose you could rig up machines that would produce effects like the ones we saw, but the equipment would be hard to hide; we’d be tripping on cables and wires all over the house. No, I think the music was an additional goody, nothing to do with the main problem.”
He went back to his typing and Meg, feeling the need for distraction, got out her embroidery. She looked at her work with pleasure. It did look nice. Her smugness received a slight check when she noticed a mistake, in the third row from the center. Sighing, she began to pick it out. No sloppy work allowed; this was going to be a masterpiece even if she had to redo every stitch.
She worked for almost an hour, undisturbed by the rattle of the typewriter. The embroidery had its usual calming effect. She decided she had been unfair to Andy. His explanation made sense. As for Culver, Andy was right about him too. He wouldn’t break in while there was a man in the house.
II
Once wooed, the muse continued to inspire Andy. For the next few days he typed from morning till night, pausing only for the meals Meg thrust at him periodically. Except for feeding him she left him alone. Writing seemed to be as therapeutic for him as embroidery was for her, and in her year at the publishing house she had learned that writers were strange animals who had to be handled with care. They might scratch and snarl if they were interrupted while genius was burning; it didn’t burn very often, and the rare interludes had to be used while they lasted. Eventually Andy’s inspiration would run out.
In the meantime Meg had plenty to do. On Sunday, she cleaned house again. Georgia was due on Monday, and she wanted to impress Georgia with her industry, in case that amiable busybody decided to report to Sylvia. Andy was beginning to run down; the periods of silence between the frenzied bursts of typing came more and more frequently. In the afternoon Meg went up to the attic. She had discovered several boxes filled with Victorian ornaments which she wanted to unpack so Georgia could look them over. She dusted a tall corner whatnot of carved walnut and began removing the objects from the excelsior in which they had been packed. Wax flowers under a curved glass dome, a pair of hideous china pug-dogs, pop-eyed and drooling; and a collection of nineteenth-century needlework that amused Meg as much as it offended her aesthetic sensibilities. Some of the doilies in the box might have been pretty if they had been crocheted in plain white thread. The most subdued had five different shades of scarlet, from brownish red to cherry, plus lilac, green, and gold.
Some embroidered cushions in equally garish shades made Meg yearn for her sampler. She hadn’t done much work on it in the last
few days because she still lacked some of the colors. Without a printed pattern it was difficult to skip sections of the design. Meg missed it—and its former owner. Andy had been working so industriously she hadn’t wanted to harass him, but it seemed like a long time since she had seen the slim blue-clad figure that was beginning to seem like a normal inhabitant of the house…
With an exclamation Meg got to her feet. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Actually, she had thought of it, and had meant to pursue the subject; but something had happened, she couldn’t remember exactly what, and she had gotten sidetracked. Yet it was an important point, one that might lead to new discoveries.
She ran downstairs. As she approached the library she was encouraged to hear that the typewriter had stopped. If Andy had reached an impasse in his work he wouldn’t mind an interruption. She was too full of her new idea to wait, and she wanted him to be in a receptive mood.
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