Ashes to Ashes

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “Looking back, I think so. But Athena was very practical. How was she going to support her own baby without a husband? Not that Rudolph ever admitted to a thing, you understand.”

  “Why should he? John Forbes would just have created a scandal by firing him.”

  Eric walked by, saying something complimentary to Jan. Her simper was a wicked parody of Dorothy’s. Grinning, Rebecca visualized Dun Iain filled with family and servants. It had never been an ordinary home. But it had not always been the part sinister, part absurd structure it was today. She said, “I saw a photo of Katherine— Katie— all grown up. She became an actress?”

  “She did some bit parts in Hollywood,” Louise answered. “Then the talkies came in and her voice wasn’t good enough. Back she came to Putnam. Rudolph and Athena left when Mr. Forbes died in the 30’s, and I haven’t seen Katie in ages. She’s probably dead now. Most everyone is.”

  Michael’s voice filled a lull in the conversational buzz. “As if the Clearances were no sae bad, noo they’re fillin’ the glens wi’ great bluidy forests. Turnin’ a quick profit on the lumber, they are, while the local people canna afford tae keep their farms. The values have been driven up by incomers who dinna even live there. Look at the adverts for rental properties, all the phone numbers are south o’ the border!”

  Mrs. West nodded eagerly, hanging on every word.

  “Oh aye, it makes you want tae pluck up sword and gun and fight it all ower again. A’ we’re askin’ is justice.”

  Or faith we’ll take it man? thought Rebecca.

  Eric fished Brian Sorenson out from under the table and tied his shoe. Phil Pruitt appeared beside Louise’s chair. “Happy Birthday, Grandma. And many more.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Philip,” she replied. “I could go tomorrow.”

  Phil was dressed in his Sunday best, a rusty suit that had come off a Sears Roebuck rack a good many years ago. Next to Eric’s tailored wool he seemed like a scarecrow. “Hello, Mr. Pruitt,” Rebecca said, but Phil was looking over her head toward the door.

  She glanced around. There was Heather, staring intently at— me? she thought for a moment. It was hard to tell: the girl’s eyes were so heavily encased in black makeup she looked like a raccoon. Oh. She must be staring at Steve, who was grazing among the punch and cookies.

  Sandra Hines, fluffing a pillow for the occupant of a wheelchair, glared at Steve and gave the pillow an extra hard thump, her bright red lips turned down in a scowl. Eric released Brian and looked Sandra’s ripe figure up and down. Sandra’s red lipstick might be the same shade as the tube lost in his bathroom. Rebecca smothered a smile. No, Eric was not fooling her at all, either with the surface gloss or the carefully banked fire beneath.

  She stood and kissed Louise’s cheek. “Happy Birthday, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

  “Thank you, dear. Come see me again sometime.”

  “I will.”

  Jan beckoned from the kitchenette and Rebecca headed through the crowd. “Did everything come off all right Friday?” Jan stage-whispered.

  “That’s terrible,” Rebecca told her. “Nothing came off at all. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Just as long as you’re not disappointed.”

  “No, actually I’m not.”

  Jan glanced over Rebecca’s shoulder. Peter was poking inquisitively into the motor of a wheelchair, the occupant offering querulous suggestions. Eric exchanged pleasantries with Heather. Steve was gone. Michael was flirting shamelessly with Mrs. West.

  “I invited Michael for Thanksgiving this Thursday,” Jan said. “It’s our duty to give him American lessons.”

  “Can I come too?” asked Rebecca.

  “Of course!” Laughing, Jan sped away after her offspring, dodging around Eric’s approaching form. Eric cornered Rebecca behind the door of the kitchenette and stole a kiss. “I’m off to Omaha tonight. I should be back in time for Ben’s Thanksgiving dinner— attendance required for us junior members. Are you going to be with Jan or would you like to come too?”

  Dinner at the Birkenheads’? “I’ll be with Jan,” Rebecca stated. “Good luck on your quest.”

  “Take care, then. I’ll see you next weekend.” He offered Rebecca her kiss back again, and she accepted it ruefully. This wasn’t turning out as she’d expected a casual affair should. But she had only herself to blame.

  The party was breaking up. Mrs West and Michael parted with assorted diphthongs and expressions of good cheer. He and Rebecca plunged into the gray, damp afternoon. At least it had stopped raining.

  Steve sprawled in the pickup, surrounded by a haze of sweetly scented smoke, his eyes half closed. “The lad’s beggin’ for trouble,” said Michael.

  “Want to go over and yell at him?” Rebecca asked.

  “No.” They sorted themselves into the icy interior of her car. “What was that shout aboot the Erskine letter?”

  “Oh!” As Rebecca negotiated the rain slicked streets she filled him in on Louise’s story of Elspeth, the butler, the baby, and the letter.

  Michael whistled. “She blamed poor old John, eh? Typical. You have tae wonder whether he didna chuck her oot the window after all. Her death and the baby’s solved a few problems for him.”

  “Sad to say. At least we know for sure he had the letter.”

  “Aye. I was beginnin’ tae think it was just rumor, like the treasure.”

  Rebecca glanced at him, but his face was noncommittal. “Not that Louise knew whether the letter said King James was Mary’s baby.”

  “Hard tae believe he was. He was ugly and intelligent, Mary and Darnley were beautiful twits.”

  “I think it was finding a baby’s body in Edinburgh castle— when was that, 1830?— that’s most damning. Wrapped in a silk cloth with the initial ‘J’, yet. I don’t suppose you have the bones in the basement of the museum?”

  “That’d come a treat, right enough.”

  “Well, even if James were Arabella Erskine’s son he was still a Lennox Stewart, since everyone was intermarried anyway.”

  “Did you ever think aboot the other woman at the birth, Lady Reres? She was James’s wet-nurse— she must’ve had a bairn o’ her own.” Michael poked Rebecca’s arm. “You remember her name?”

  It was… . “Aha! It was Margaret Forbes!”

  “Watch the road,” said Michael, and Rebecca swerved back to the right. “That’s why Johnnie wanted the letter.”

  “Like he modeled Dun Iain on Willie Forbes’s Craigievar. Like James contributed when Hector Forbes bought Culloden for the National Trust in 1946.”

  “The National Trust for Scotland in 1944,” Michael corrected. “Do you ken the English heiress who married into the Craigievar Forbeses was a Sempill? The Sempills fought for the Hanoverians at Culloden.”

  “Like the Campbells?”

  “Like many Scots. The issues were nae clearer then than noo.”

  “Sounded to me like you had the issues down pretty good for Mrs West.”

  “Got a wee bit carried away.” He shrugged. “Appreciative audience.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Rebecca. “The Sempills got a title for their daughter, like the Bowes at Glamis and the Gilstraps at Eilean Donan. But what did the Ramseys get marrying Elspeth to John? He had the money.”

  “Grief,” Michael said. “Ah, home again.”

  The maples drooped and wept over the driveway like the sentient trees of a Disney cartoon. The mausoleum crouched by the drive. The castle stood hunched as defensively as Michael with his hands in his pockets, the same bright, perceptive eye-windows gazing out under the brows of the parapets. When Rebecca turned off the engine, the only sound was the slow drip of water from the roof and the branches. Except for a meow. Darnley was sitting on the low stone wall. “How did he get out?” Michael demanded.

  “Oh Lord. Who was here with their handy-dandy counterfeit key?” She picked up the animal. Only his paws were wet; he hadn’t been out when it was raining. “Speak, Darnley. Who’s your partner in crime?” Th
e cat yawned.

  “Who wisna at the party?” Michael asked. “Dorothy? Warren?” He unlocked and threw open the front door with a crash. “Come oot, come oot, wherever you are!” His voice echoed eerily. No one and nothing answered.

  “Don’t do that!” Rebecca hissed.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, chastened. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  The lights worked perfectly. Each blazed into life at the flick of a switch as Michael and Rebecca yet again slogged from room to room. “I’d feel better if something were gone,” she said at last, throwing her coat over a kitchen chair.

  “Amen,” replied Michael. He opened the refrigerator.

  Darnley headed into the pantry. He lapped daintily at his water, then crouched and peered under the slightly unsteady shelf. Rebecca watched him. She’d seen a mouse beneath that shelf. “Have you ever owned a cat?”

  “Cats have lived where I’ve lived, but I canna say I’ve owned them.’

  “We were never in one place long enough for a pet.” Rebecca knelt and looked where Darnley was looking. The shadow of the shelf was almost opaque; she couldn’t see where the stone walls of the pantry met the stone flags of the floor. “But I’ve known plenty of cat lovers.”

  Michael laid a couple of plastic containers on the cabinet and glanced quizzically at Rebecca. “Worshippin’ the Royal Doulton?”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s just that cats are weaselly little critters.” She stood up, brushed off her knees and got the flashlight from the drawer. She said to Michael with a grin, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

  Down she went to her knees again, this time shining the light beneath the shelf. Sure enough, there was a cat-sized gap where one tier of stones had cracked and settled away from the floor.

  Darnley parked himself next to his food dish and twitched his tail, sublimely unconcerned. Michael knelt beside Rebecca. “You dinna mean… . Ah, how dense can you get!” He laughed. “Come on, let’s find the exit.”

  The flashlight danced like a firefly along the castle walls where they dived into the damp darkness of turf and weeds. In several places the covering harl had chipped and flaked from years of weather, exposing the granite blocks beneath. On the opposite side of the building from the door the tiny gleaming square of the pantry window punctured the wall.

  “Shine the torch doon here.” Michael crouched beside several rather bedraggled rosebushes planted along the foundation and reached gingerly into the tangle of branches. “Looks like the builders tried to scrimp a bit by usin’ stone scraps. One’s pulled loose… . Ouch!”

  He stood. One hand had a long scratch across the back, the other held a tuft of butterscotch and white fur. “Castles usually have postern gates. Even if they’re just moggie-sized.”

  They tramped back into the house. Rebecca anointed Michael’s hand with antiseptic while he protested, “It’s just a scratch, hen.”

  Hen? An affectionate pet name, for her? She looked up with a smile that was both bewildered and shy. He smiled similarly back. So he approved of the ways things were, or were not, going with Eric. Okay… .

  She released his hand and said, “I don’t know whether to give Darnley some extra liver or kick him. He really had us going, didn’t he?”

  “The night he did. But he didna lock the lumber room Friday night.”

  “No, he didn’t.” With a sigh she confronted the plastic containers. “I’ll make something out of that pitiful little roast.”

  “Shepherd’s pie?” Michael asked. “I’ll mash the tatties.” He picked up Darnley and scratched his ears. “So you were havin’ us on, were you?”

  Darnley, as much as a cat could, smiled.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rebecca was almost ready for bed, flannel nightgown, socks, and fifty strokes of the hairbrush. She plugged in a Tannahill Weavers tape and looked again at Elspeth’s portrait. So she hadn’t been the stereotypical victim. Rebecca decided she liked Elspeth better for that surprisingly hard edge.

  Odd— that pipe solo had a depth she’d never heard on her inexpensive player… . Michael was downstairs playing a pibroch. Apologizing to the Tannahills, Rebecca turned off the tape, closed her eyes and drifted on the aching tranquillity of the songs. Men wouldn’t cry, so they made music.

  The pibroch slid into a reel and then into a modern ballad. When the songs ended the last note vibrated in the hush of the lonely house. Rebecca pulled the cold sheets over her head and curled numbly into a knot, her thoughts eddying with the skewed imagery that haunts the frontier of sleep.

  With one flick of his paws Darnley pushed aside a huge block of stone. Brian and baby Katie paddled like ducklings in the punch bowl. Young Louise and old Mrs West danced a strathspey as Athena’s cooking pots drummed accompaniment. Steve dropped his cigarette and smoke blotted his image.

  Eric’s eyes were smoky quartz. He cornered Rebecca and kissed her. But they weren’t at Golden Age, they were in his condo, stretched across his bed. All Rebecca wore was Elspeth’s jet, garnet and diamond choker. Her skin was smoke and sweat against Eric’s. She writhed, exultant. But his body slipped through her grasp and vanished. She was alone.

  With a strangled gasp she awoke. For a moment she lay disoriented. Then she threw the smothering covers aside and scraped the damp strands of hair from her face. She could barely see the dial of her clock registering two AM; the dim light of the nightlight was filtered through a mist, as if she really had been burning… . She inhaled. The room was filled with smoke.

  Rebecca catapulted out of the bed. The door wasn’t hot. She threw it open. The corridor was thick with smoke. Yellow light flickered in the stairwell. Not pausing to grab her glasses, she hitched up her nightgown and scrambled up the stairs, her sock-clad feet slipping, her lungs burning. She dived into Michael’s room, threw herself onto the bed, and pummelled the long lump beneath the covers. “Get up! Get up! We’re on fire!”

  Michael heaved, snorted, and mumbled plaintively, “I’m no even hot!”

  She found an arm and yanked at it. “The house is on fire!” His chest and shoulders above the blanket were stark naked. That figures. He would have to be one of those men who don’t wear pajamas.

  His slightly blurred eyes clicked into focus. He swept Rebecca and covers aside and leaped to his feet. In the feeble, hazy light she saw that he was wearing a pair of soccer shorts. She didn’t have time to be relieved.

  Michael hurriedly wet towels in his bathroom. He slapped Rebecca’s face with clammy terry cloth, ordering, “Put this ower your mouth.” He wrapped his own face. They ran through the big bedroom, down the back staircase, out into the Hall. The high ceiling was matted with smoke. The light of the flames flickered on the walls.

  The metal trash can from the kitchen stood on the landing. Already the flames shooting above its rim were subsiding and the thick black smoke dissipating. Michael slipped past the can, down the steps and to the kitchen. A few soup pots of water later the fire was out.

  The front door was standing wide open. Rebecca slammed it shut, hoping the eyes she felt watching her were only Queen Mary’s marble ones.

  Once again she and Michael trekked through the house, turning on lights, checking the artifacts, and opening windows on all floors but the sixth. There Elspeth’s window was already open, not the inch or two it usually was, but flung wide. The door and the window had drawn the smoke through the height of the house as if it had been a chimney.

  Michael adjusted the window to its usual crack. “Was Elspeth ticked off at your bletherin’ aboot her the day?”

  “Maybe she decided to help the fire along, but she didn’t set it. Someone very real was in the house.” Rebecca’s voice arched suddenly and she steadied it. “Was he— she— were they trying to kill us?”

  He glanced at her, raised his hand, and wiped his hair off his forehead, leaving a streak of charcoal across his skin. “It was another warnin’. Like lockin’ me in the storeroom. Like murderin’ my tape.”

  “A threat. An order to
leave.” Rebecca hugged herself, the cold draft slicing through her gown and drawing gooseflesh from the skin that had only moments before been hot and sweaty.

  “Whoever it is,” Michael said, “must’ve taken a proper scunner tae us, tae try and set the place on fire.”

  Back down they went, and considered the blackened trash can. The intricate white plaster ceilings of Hall and study were bruised with soot, but there was no other damage.

  “Bluidy stupid way tae give an order,” said Michael. “These places may be built o’ stone, but there’s enough wood inside tae make one— this one— go up like a torch. Especially when we’re miles from the fire brigade. A good thing you woke up. See, the drapes on the window were singed by sparks.”

  Now that the excitement of both dream and fire were over, Rebecca felt hollow and slightly sick. She was much too embarrassed to tell Michael why she’d waked up. She uttered a four letter word that surprised herself and made his brows shoot upward.

  “Excuse me.” Inhaling deeply of the cold but clear air, she peered down into the entry. Small chunks of mud like chocolate bits lay scattered on the floor and the steps up to the landing. “Look. The mud that squishes up beside the sole of your shoe and then falls off when you walk.”

  “Aye, Sherlock?”

  They followed the faint mud track into the kitchen. The stone floor of the pantry was marked by one faint, smeared footprint. “Here’s where they found their fuel,” Michael said. “The old newspapers for packin’. Pasteboard boxes. Dorothy’s dustrags.”

  Rebecca rubbed her arms briskly, wondering if her flesh was going to break off her bones, it was so cold. With a smothered groan she picked up the towels that were still lying on the floor, rose, and found she didn’t need her glasses to appreciate Michael.

  Smudges of soot looked like bruises on the fair skin of his arms and shoulders. The hair on his chest was indeed auburn, his legs below the shorts were lean and strong. If his waist wasn’t as slender as it had probably once been, he still had a way to go before flab dulled his wiry lines. Nice, she thought, if grubby. With a corner of the towel she went after the charcoal smear on his forehead.