Ashes to Ashes

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  With a distinct sense of deja vu— this hadn’t been funny the first time— Rebecca bared her teeth in an innocent smile and said, “I’m sorry. I was just on my way downstairs. I’m Rebecca Reid.”

  The woman peered up at her through blue horn-rimmed glasses. A red slash of lipstick emphasized the downturned corners of her mouth. Judging from the creases in her cheeks, that disapproving frown was her usual expression. She released her blouse and with an elaborate sigh said, “Dorothy Garst. You’re the schoolteacher from Missouri?”

  Rebecca stepped back as woman and machine arrived on the landing with a clash of metal against stone. “From Dover College.”

  “Aren’t you the lucky one, getting to work with Dr. Campbell. Isn’t he a case? I’d always heard Englishmen weren’t very friendly. And that haircut!”

  “I wouldn’t let him hear you call him English,” Rebecca replied, slightly dizzied. “Has he been here long?”

  “A week. I keep hoping he’ll start talking to where I can understand him, but he hasn’t yet.”

  Michael would probably have to be tortured to make him give up one rolled “r”. “He’s quite a change from Mr. Forbes, isn’t he?”

  Dorothy leaned forward, nodding curtly. Her gray perm, set like cement on her head, didn’t budge. “Not much of a change, no. Neither one of them wants me to touch anything. How can I clean the place properly if I can’t move things? But no, it was ‘Leave that whatsit alone, Dottie’, when old James was alive, and now it’s “Leave that whatsit alone, Mrs. Garst’.”

  “Some things that don’t look valuable are,” said Rebecca placatingly.

  “Old books that attract mice and pictures of people in funny clothes?” Dorothy’s washed-out brown eyes narrowed into slits. “I bet you’re here to look for the Forbes treasure.”

  “Treasure?”

  “Mr. James kept going on about how his father had brought a treasure back from England… ”

  “Scotland,” Rebecca murmured.

  “And hid it somewhere in the house. But if you ask me… ”

  Rebecca didn’t. She explained, “The obviously valuable pieces, like jewelry, are in the bank. There aren’t any pieces of eight, I’m afraid.”

  “If you ask me,” continued Dorothy without taking breath, “he was just touched in the head. Senile, you know. He didn’t act like he was rich. He paid me, and Phil Pruitt, the caretaker, and Phil’s son Steve, who does some gardening, but he never went out and got himself anything nice from the new Wal-Mart. Kept living here with all this junk. If he’d had him a room over at Golden Age Village, he wouldn’t have fallen down these ridiculous stairs. Right here’s where Phil found him, end of August.” She seemed disappointed when Rebecca wasn’t startled.

  “He was here alone at night?”

  “Ah… . “Dorothy straightened and stepped back, her eyes sliding away. “He— er— he didn’t want anyone here with him.”

  “He must’ve been in good health, then, and could do for himself.”

  “Not really. He’d gotten pretty feeble and hadn’t been out of his room by himself in two months. A nurse came in every day to check him over and keep him tidy. Though how anyone could stay clean in this dusty old place… . “Dorothy adjusted her glasses and peered critically at a wonderful Landseer landscape hanging in the stairwell. “Well, I tried to help.”

  Rebecca frowned. “If Mr. Forbes was that decrepit, what was he doing on the staircase?”

  “He’d gone soft in the head,” insisted Dorothy. “No telling what he thought he was doing.” Grasping her vacuum and her basket she headed on up the stairs, presenting Rebecca with a vision of her rear end like a sausage encased in pink double-knit slacks. “I’d better get going— still got the rooms up above. I did yours yesterday. I have a system, a rotation pattern… ”

  That voice had enough vinegar in it to etch tracks in the stone steps. Fortunately the vacuum roared into life and blanked it out. Rebecca shook her head, half amused, half appalled. So the local gossip was that there was a treasure here. Romantic fancies, no doubt. Forbes’s stocks and bonds weren’t nearly as interesting as some mythical trove.

  The old man had fallen down these very stairs and died there, alone, in the darkness… . All right, Rebecca thought, she certainly wasn’t going to be intimidated by that macabre image. She turned and climbed up to the fourth floor. And it was the fourth, despite Michael’s calling it the third; when in Rome do as the Romans, or the Americans, do.

  Through the door on her left she saw a bedroom littered with cast off T-shirts, papers, and books. The History of Scottish Second Sight lay open on the unmade bed, Michael’s idea of light bedtime reading. There was no corresponding picture of a woman on his bedside table. The lawyer, Adler, had mentioned to her that the young Scot was single.

  Scrubbing sounds emanated from an adjoining bathroom; Dorothy was removing toothpaste and whiskers from the sink just as Rebecca had once cleaned for her brothers. She was the only daughter, after all. One thing she’d always appreciated about Ray was how tidy he was. Not only did he wipe out the sink, he even hung his dirty shirts back in the closet.

  A large bedroom was straight ahead and a small one to the right. The floor above had the same plan, except that here, on the level of the turrets, the rooms bulged into oblong protuberances filled with furniture. Every available space was distended with richly draped beds and cluttered tables, cabinets, and shelves, every wall was hung with tapestries and artwork. Impassive painted eyes followed her at every step.

  On the next floor, the sixth, a long room stretched completely across the building. Couches and tables arranged on a hardwood floor proclaimed this to be a ballroom. A scrapbook lying on a chair held faded sepia photos of bustled ladies and boatered men picnicking in Dun Iain’s fantastic shadow. Beyond the long room was a warren of smaller ones. Servant’s quarters, probably. Nowhere did Rebecca see any signs of Dorothy’s mice. No wonder Darnley the cat was so sleek and self-satisfied.

  It was lighter up here, the walls thinner and the window embrasures not as deep. From one of the overhanging turrets the parking area seemed a long way down, Rebecca’s and Michael’s cars and Dorothy’s Fairlane looking like miniatures on an architectural model. The only noise this high up was the murmur of the wind and Rebecca’s own footsteps, each producing a faint but precise squeak from the old floorboards.

  And it was cold, bone-chillingly cold. Rebecca fantasized about vats of hot coffee. Just a few more doors. Behind two were rooms crammed with piles of crates, boxes, and old books. A third opened onto a straight staircase. Light and an icy draft spilled down the steps. Ah, the roof. A sudden explosive burst of beating wings and swooping shapes made her leap back, slam the door, and stand against it, swallowing her heart back into her chest. Nesting blackbirds, she assured herself. Not an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

  Rebecca rubbed her hands together as much in glee as to warm them. What a place! The corners were subtly curved, the walls met at eccentric angles, alcoves hiccuped at odd places. The ceilings were glorious confections of molded plaster like wedding cakes, and most of the walls were wood-paneled. The house itself was a treasure.

  And had she really seen unique and wonderful artifacts tumbled indiscriminately with pure rubbish, or was she just wishfully thinking herself into hallucination? Even the famous Curle portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, hung on the wall by a bed draped and canopied in crimson silk. Forbes Senior had been a magpie collector, buying on whim and leaving his acquisitions strewn about without any discernible order. Junk, Ray would’ve said, just as Dorothy had. What did he know? This wasn’t his field, it was hers.

  Dun Iain was a modern Pompeii, a labyrinth of walls and rooms and passages drifted with the remains of ancient fires— politics and religion, love and hate. Drifted with the ashes of time, waiting to be sifted by an academic arson team. Campbell and Reid, Rebecca thought wryly. Abbott and Costello.

  Footsteps pattered across the floor of the ballroom. Rebecca looked around
but saw no one. She must’ve heard Mrs. Garst’s steps on the staircase. A strange echo, to make the steps appear to be on wood rather than stone, but that’s what it had to be. The steps hadn’t squeaked as hers had.

  It was cold, and so silent she could hear her own pulse in her ears. Coffee, definitely. Rebecca started down the nearest flight of steps, another spiral staircase but not the same one she had come up.

  She passed a back door into the large fifth-floor bedroom, another one into the corresponding room on the fourth, and then a long doorless stretch of curved wall. Tiny windows admitted watery light and an occasional glimpse of the surrounding trees, their dark carnelian contrasting oddly with the muted green of the lawns. There was Dorothy, leaning against the toolshed smoking a cigarette. That’s why she’d abandoned the upper story— break time. She’d certainly made quick work of all those flights of stairs.

  A third door was at the bottom of the cylindrical stairwell. Rebecca opened it, peeked out, and found herself in the far corner of the Hall from the piper’s gallery. All right then. She had it figured out. The building was a fat L-shape. The Hall on the second floor and the ballroom on the sixth extended completely across their respective legs of the L. The smaller rooms were set into the L like building blocks. No need to unroll a ball of string behind her as she’d first feared.

  She strolled down the main staircase, pausing to look quizzically at Mary Stuart’s inscrutable marble smile. Darnley had been sitting on the sarcophagus last night even as funny bumping noises came from upstairs. The hot water pipes, probably. Dun Iain would have made even phlegmatic Ray jump at his own shadow, let alone Michael, or Dorothy, or Rebecca herself.

  She stepped into the brightly lit haven of the kitchen. An enamel kettle simmered on the range. Michael sat at the table, a mug of tea at his fingertips, a book propped against the marmalade jar. Darnley dozed on a chair, paws tucked in, looking like a furry butterscotch and white tea cozy.

  “Good morning,” Rebecca essayed. Her lips stopped before they could form the words “Dr. Campbell”. He simply didn’t have the august air of a Ph.D., even though he looked more domesticated than he had yesterday. His hair was smoothed tidily from his face as if awaiting the powder and ribbon of an 18th century portrait. His sweatshirt was a conservative blue that reflected the blue of his eyes, its chest embossed with a white Saint Andrew’s cross.

  “Good mornin’,” he replied. “I wasn’t goin’ to knock you up, but then the char came hooverin’ in.”

  You weren’t going to what? Rebecca was wavering between indignation and a whoop of laughter when she realized that she’d foundered on the shoal of dialect. He was being polite. She hazarded, “You weren’t going to wake me, but the cleaning lady turned on the vacuum?”

  “Thought you’d be needin’ your sleep,” he said equably. “Tea?”

  “I’ll fix some coffee, thank you.” She lifted the kettle from the burner and asked, remembering the incessant beat of footsteps during the night, “What time did you get to bed?”

  “Right after you. Slept like a bairn until seven, when I heard Mrs Garst lettin’ herself in.”

  She glanced curiously at him. How could he lie with such a straight face? Why bother to lie at all? But his eyes were fixed guilelessly on his book. She attacked a jar of instant coffee, promising herself to buy some real coffee in Putnam at the first opportunity.

  Darnley opened one eye, decided there were no cat comestibles forthcoming, closed the eye. Michael marked his place, unfolded himself from the chair, and headed for the range shoving his sleeves up to his elbows. “The toast should be ready. There’s no egg or sausage, but you could have a grilled tomato if you’d a mind to.”

  “No, thank you,” returned Rebecca. He threw open the oven and filled a toast rack with slabs of dry toast. Good God, the man could cook. Rebecca’s father and brothers had always demanded their toast and muffins, eggs and bacon, before her long-suffering mother had had a bite for herself.

  Michael dealt out butter, plates, napkins, and cutlery. Rebecca watched, delighted to have someone wait on her for a change. She decided she’d give him an A for effort and an F for consistency. “The Forbeses had a toast rack. They really were Anglophiles. Or— there must be a better word— Britophile or something like that.”

  “Even the lingo is Sassenach,” Michael snorted.

  Rebecca laughed. “Let me guess. You’re from one of the Campbell strongholds in Argyll with walls fifteen feet thick.”

  “No… ” Michael sat on the cat. Darnley squalled and leaped for safety. Michael swore, reversed course, and collided with the counter. Rebecca winced, looking after the cat as he whisked into a small doorway in the corner of the room. But anything moving that fast couldn’t be hurt.

  Michael sat warily down with an embarrassed grimace she at first attributed to the cat incident. “No, I was born in Torquay.”

  “Torquay? The resort on the English Channel?”

  “My parents ran a guesthouse called, so help me, Granny’s Hieland Hame. My father wore the kilt and piped the boarders into dinner. Tryin’ to make a livin’, mind you, playin’ music hall Scots like they do in the big hotels in Edinburgh.”

  No wonder he was embarrassed. But it would’ve been easier to lie about his birthplace than about his wandering around during the night. “Your family didn’t have any antiques to sell for thirty pieces of silver?”

  “Those jokes about thrifty Scots aren’t all music hall blether. When you’re poor, you have to be thrifty.”

  “Tell me about it,” replied Rebecca sardonically.

  Michael plopped marmalade onto his toast. “Accuse me of havin’ the zeal of the convert, if you will, but we did flit to Inverness to live wi’ my grandparents when I was eight. I wisna born a Scot, really, but I was brought up one. No a teuchter, though, I promise you that. As for my family bein’ from Argyll or Breadalbane or whether some ancestor found it expedient to take the name of the local imperialists, I dinna ken. Don’t know,” he translated.

  He was trying so hard to be considerate Rebecca didn’t tell him not to bother, she understood the Scots dialect. Some of it. “Teuchter?” Her mouth couldn’t squash the word like his could.

  “Country yokel. Used to mean Highlander. Now it’s a term of ridicule. Like— oh— redneck, perhaps.”

  “Like Sassenach?”

  He grinned. His face was transformed, a Scotch mist dispelled by sun.

  Dazzled, she went on, “And you play the bagpipes, too?”

  “I was first piper in the Mitsubishi Glendhu Distillery Pipe and Drum Band. Kilt, bonnet, the lot. Won a prize in the Edinburgh Festival.”

  “Mitsubishi what?”

  Michael’s grin skewed with that dry humor she’d glimpsed the day before. “You get those pieces of silver where you can the day.”

  “Of course.” Rebecca responded with an answering grin. The ceiling lights dusted his hair with auburn, and his eyes danced like sunshine on a loch. When he was good, she thought, he was very good. Quickly she scrunched her toast and dropped her eyes to the book on the table. MacKay’s British Antiques. “Studying up?”

  “I’m a historian and a museum curator, no an antique dealer.”

  “You were qualified for this job.”

  “I got it the same way you did, by volunteerin’. No other way I could afford to see America. More toast?”

  “No thank you.” She’d trained herself not to eat much. Ray was always holding help sessions with skinny coeds who didn’t know the difference between Plato and Pluto but who hung breathlessly on his tweedy good looks, gushing, “Oh, aren’t you just too clever, Dr. Kocurek,” as if he were the philosophy department’s answer to Indiana Jones.

  “American women,” teased Michael, “always slimmin’.” He dangled the toast rack temptingly before her.

  Ah, so much for Ray and his coeds, too. Rebecca took another piece and defiantly slathered it with butter. The cat reappeared. To Michael’s wheedling, “Eh, kittlin?” he re
sponded with a baleful glare and wrapped Rebecca’s ankles, his sleek body vibrating with a purr. The narrow kitchen windows, chutes in the thickness of the lower walls, brightened a bit. Maybe it would be another pretty day. Maybe she’d find the Erskine letter right off the bat. Coming here was the best idea she’d had in years.

  She was just drawing breath to tell Michael about her own background, such as it was, when the phone rang. It squatted on the counter at her elbow; she lifted the receiver. “Hello, Dun Iain Estate.”

  The voice on the line was like Darnley’s purr translated into a velvet baritone. “Good morning. Is this Ms Reid?”

  The American accent seemed flat after Michael’s lilting cadences. “This is she.”

  “This is Eric Adler, Ms. Reid. We exchanged letters. I’m an attorney, the executor of James Ramsey Forbes’s will.”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Adler.”

  Michael shoved his chair back so abruptly it thunked against the wall. He swept the plates and mugs off the table and dumped them into the sink. The Scotch mist fell again over his face, congealing his expression into something resembling an outcropping of conglomerate rock.

  Adler’s voice said, “I was planning to drive up from Columbus about noon to bring you and Dr. Campbell the inventory that James Forbes had on file with us. Would that be convenient?”

  “Yes, it would,” Rebecca replied.

  “What does he want?” asked Michael.

  Rebecca said, “Excuse me,” and covered the mouthpiece. “To bring us Forbes’s inventory.”

  “Why didna he bring it last week?”

  How the heck am I supposed to know? Rebecca retorted silently. She turned her back on Michael. And when he was bad he was horrid. “We’d be delighted to have you visit, Mr. Adler.”

  “Eric, please,” he told her.

  She’d pictured an old family retainer, white-haired and bespectacled, but the voice belonged to a younger man. “Eric. And I’m Rebecca.”

  “See you about noon, Rebecca.”