Darkling

by R. B. Chesterton

  While people had respected Berta’s wishes for a private ceremony, they’d gathered at the house. I understood the kind impulse behind the act, but I also knew it was the last thing Berta should have to endure.

  When I walked up on the front porch, I was surprised to see the sheriff and Mark standing awkwardly in their uniforms. Mark’s face brightened when he saw me.

  “Mimi.” Mark came down the steps two at a time and pulled me into an easy embrace. “You okay? We didn’t want to intrude on the service.”

  I stiffened and he released me. “Why are you here? Do you have a lead?” They’d both been at Andrew’s funeral the day before—along with most of the town. Andrew had been a bad boy, but apparently a damn good mechanic. He’d worked on the cars and trucks of half the people of Coden.

  “We came to pay our respects. I’m sorrier than I can say that it turned out this way.”

  “Mark, how did Margo die?” No one had told me and I couldn’t ask Bob. I couldn’t. “Did she drown?”

  He glanced at the sheriff, who nodded. “Her neck was broken, Mimi. At least it was quick. Andrew wasn’t so lucky. He bled to death.”

  “Are there any new leads?”

  Mark grimly shook his head.

  I hid my disappointment behind a smile. “Come inside and get something to eat. There’s enough food to feed the town.”

  “Thank you. We’ll be inside in a minute.”

  I walked past him and into the house. Cora had taken over as hostess, and Berta, who had been given a sedative by Dr. Adams, sat in a straight-backed chair, her eyes glassy, her breathing shallow. This whole funeral feast was a cruelty. I started to go to her, to help her to her room, but Bob lightly grasped my arm.

  “She’s okay,” he said. “If she goes back in that room, she’ll want to stay forever.”

  He was right. “I’ll sit with her.”

  “If you could help Cora. She’s doing everything.”

  “Sure.” I glanced around for Annie, but I didn’t see her. She had perfected the art of disappearing when she was needed. In front of Bob and Berta, Annie was so earnest and helpful. The minute their backs were turned, poof, she was gone. But her days in the bosom of the Henderson family were numbered. I intended to see to that.

  For two hours, I brewed and served coffee, collected dirty plates and saucers, washed and dried dishes for the next round. Cora shaped the facts about Margo’s death as she spoke with everyone.

  “She’d fallen in love with Andrew,” Cora told Mrs. Baker, one of the town’s gossips. “Bob and Berta felt she was too young, but Andrew was a hard-working young man. No one is certain exactly what happened. They went on a date, to the movies in Mobile. Apparently they never got there.”

  “Who would kill two teenagers?” Mrs. Baker asked, a rhetorical question since she knew the cops had uncovered no leads.

  “We don’t know. It could have been someone passing through, someone drawn to the Moonies but not involved with them—the sheriff has checked that angle thoroughly and found no reason to suspect any involvement by the Unification Church.”

  I poured coffee and listened to Cora’s spin. Obviously she and Bob had decided to put to rest the rumors that Andrew had abducted Margo or unduly influenced her. Or harmed her. Which didn’t seem likely, since he was the one missing a hand, not her.

  All suspicions where thrown on a “stranger wandering into the community.”

  Well, they were partially right. But Annie hadn’t wandered in, she’d been brought in by my grandmother. Cora simply refused to visit the idea that Annie was behind anything bad.

  “Where are Donald and Erin?” I asked Cora when I hadn’t seen them for several hours.

  “Annie took them over to my house. We felt it would be easier for them.”

  “That’s not a good idea.” Coffee slopped over the top of a cup as I poured. My hands shook. “I should go get the children.”

  “No need for them to stand around here. Funeral feasts are hard on youngsters. They’re better off at my house.”

  But not with Annie. I simply couldn’t make Cora understand the danger. “I think they should come home and get some rest. Berta needs their support.”

  “Berta is going to have a hard time of it.”

  “She hates it here. I heard her telling Bob.”

  Cora sighed and patted my arm. “I know, honey. She wants to leave here. She thinks California is a place where nothing bad will happen. She’s scared. It’s important that you help her feel safe in Coden. Don’t make it worse by pointing blame at Annie. Let things settle. I told Annie to bring the children home by six. If they aren’t here, then we’ll worry.”

  I didn’t trust Annie with the children, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. Until the adults believed me, Annie was sacrosanct.

  “Do you think the Hendersons will leave Belle Fleur?” I almost couldn’t bear the idea, though I understood Berta and Erin wanting to leave.

  “Bob has put his heart into this house. Leaving now would mean financial ruin for him, especially since he got that renovation job on the Bienville Hotel in Mobile. And he’s got backers to begin work on the Paradise. That’s a lot of money, and he can’t do the work here and live in California.”

  “My head is splitting wide open. I’m going upstairs for a few minutes.” The majority of guests had departed. Only a few diehards remained, and Cora could easily manage them. Annie was out of the house for at least another half hour. Now was my opportunity to search her room.

  “I can finish this, Mimi. You were a tremendous help. Bob and Berta are lucky to have you here with them. They know that. But I worry for you. Maybe this weekend you can come home for a night or two. I want to pamper you and give you some time to grieve. You’ve had to be the strong one, the one everyone else looks to. Even rocks get worn down and need a respite.”

  Cora knew exactly how to comfort me. “I’d like that. If Berta is better, I will.”

  I was halfway up the stairs when Chad Petri came in the front door. He looked stronger, better nourished than the last time I’d seen him. He stopped at the parlor and looked around, and not with happiness. The house had awakened unpleasant memories for him.

  Even though I wanted to search Annie’s room, I sat on the stairs. Chad was not a friend of the Hendersons, nor of Belle Fleur. Cora went to him immediately, and I could tell by her expression that she was upset.

  “I intend to tell them,” Chad said. “They deserve to know.”

  Cora grasped his arm firmly and moved him away from Berta and Bob, who hadn’t noticed Chad enter. “Calm down, Chad,” Cora said. “This isn’t the time or place.”

  “That girl is dead. The boy too. It’s this house, Cora. It never should have been opened up again. You know that as well as I. You’ve always believed Belle Fleur would bring Coden back to life, but I know it won’t. The only thing that happens in this house is death and suffering.”

  Cora almost dragged Chad back into the kitchen. The door shut, and though I could hear their voices, I couldn’t understand what was being said. I’d caught the gist of it. I didn’t need to hear any more, and my opportunity was slipping away.

  I hurried up the stairs past the second floor and on to the third. If there was anything like a diary or journal to tell who Annie really was and how she was connected to Belle Fleur, I intended to have it in my hands before Annie returned.

  43

  The old suitcase was stowed in the very top of her closet, covered with a comforter and blankets. It looked to me as if she’d attempted to hide it. Taking care to remove everything so I could put it back exactly as it was, I finally dragged the suitcase down, surprised at the heaviness. She hadn’t arrived with much, but it felt as if she’d weighted the thing with bricks.

  Before I opened it, I checked the road from both the front and back balconies of Annie’s room. There was no sign of her. I had to search quickly and thoroughly and put everything back.

  The suitcase had a lock, but it was flimsy,
and I used a bobby pin to wiggle it open. When I lifted the lid, an old smell escaped, as if the past had been trapped there by some magic and I’d finally released it.

  I removed some of Annie’s clothes—things she hadn’t worn since she got to Belle Fleur. In the months she’d been in residence, Berta had taken her shopping in Mobile on several occasions for new jeans and tops. Beneath the clothes was a jewelry case. I opened it and found some trinkets of costume jewelry and what appeared to be a pearl necklace. Jewelry wasn’t my forte, but the necklace looked real. The pearls were a creamy white and when I tried them on, they glowed against my skin. Where had Annie gotten pearls?

  I was tempted to take them to Jimmy Finch, but I couldn’t risk Annie looking for them and finding them gone. I’d describe them as best I could, and perhaps he could find out something. Maybe she’d stolen them from her previous family. I put the jewelry case away and dug deeper. At the bottom of the suitcase was a photo album so old the pages were crumbling.

  So, little orphan Annie who claimed to have no knowledge of her past was stupid enough to drag a photo album with her. I should have thought to look in the suitcase long before now. Margo might still be alive if I’d routed Annie when I first began to suspect what she was up to.

  I carried the album to the window and sat down in an old rocker to examine it. The overcast day was almost too dim, but I didn’t want to turn on a light. If Annie walked home through the woods, she’d be able to see it and know someone was in her room. I made do with the natural light and opened the crumbling cover. There was no name, no markings, no indication of where the photos came from.

  On the first page, I recognized Belle Fleur. The photo was taken in the mid-1800s when Belle Fleur was brand new, a sparkling white gem of a house with new camellias and azaleas—only two feet high. The oaks, a grove of young trees, shaded the front lawn where a family sat in straight-backed chairs. A man, a woman, and a young girl. The Desmarais family. I couldn’t determine the details of their features, but I knew them. The photo was so old, it was a tintype.

  I flipped the page, and stopped at a picture of boats docked in the small Coden harbor. Same era. I moved through the photo album, amazed that Annie had found a history of Coden that no one else could produce. Where had she gotten the album?

  Why had she arrived with it?

  How did she know she would come to live in Belle Fleur? Cora said she found her wandering the streets of Mobile and within days, Annie was with the Hendersons. How had she found these pictures, this album in that length of time? Or had she had it all along, had she come to Mobile, sought out Cora, and manipulated her to get to the Hendersons and Belle Fleur?

  I continued through the album that captured Belle Fleur at the beginning, a jewel in the heart of lower Alabama. The house built on the hope of Henri Desmarais. The house that had become a prison, and finally the home to a new family.

  The last photograph in the book was a portrait of Sigourney. Though there wasn’t a name, I knew her. She’d once been beautiful, but there was darkness and cruelty in her eyes and the set of her lips. Haughty defined her, and ruthless also came to mind.

  Closing the book, I glanced out the window and jumped to my feet. Annie and the children were coming across the front lawn. They were only moments away. I jammed the album in her suitcase, put in the jewelry case and her clothes and shut it. Heaving it into the top of the closet, I put the comforter and covers on top and closed the closet door. I darted into the hallway, closed her door and made it to the servants’ staircase as she and the children came up the main staircase. By a matter of seconds, I escaped detection.

  And I’d escaped with a better than average lead. Wherever Annie came from, she’d studied Belle Fleur and its history. Not library research, but she’d found original source material. Things like that could only have come from a family descendant or from someone who’d known and been a confidante of the Desmarais family. Another possibility was like a punch. Maybe Chloe hadn’t died, as Annie had noted that day in the cemetery at Chloe’s grave. Maybe her baby had lived. Maybe Sigourney and Henri had another child.

  I slumped to the wooden treads of the back staircase. The constant coming and going of servants had worn the wood so it was slightly cupped. Hidden in the shadows there, I calmed myself.

  As I thought through Annie’s arrival and all that had happened, I faced the fact that my own grandmother had been manipulated by a very smart teenager. Cora’s tender heart had been played, and in a way that was much, much darker than I’d anticipated. Annie had come to Belle Fleur not because Cora had brought her. She’d come because she’d manipulated Cora. I had no doubt that Margo was dead because of her. Now I just had to prove it.

  44

  The days bled into mid-November, and I minimized my role in the Henderson family until I became part of the background. As Annie’s influence grew, I allowed mine to wane. I tutored, did the chores, and kept my opinions to myself.

  Singed by the ugly gossip and rumors regarding Margo, Erin dropped out of public school. She walked the four miles home from school one morning, her face streaked with tears, and refused to consider going back. Bob allowed her to quit. I don’t know if Berta was consulted or not, but I was glad that Erin had returned to me. I worried that her sister’s death had severely marked her. She withdrew from contact with the outside world and rode Cogar obsessively, meeting four times a week with her riding coach.

  She was up at dawn and rode before breakfast and her studies. Each afternoon, she returned to the stables and the big gray horse. I was glad she had her riding, because there was little else for her in Coden.

  Donald found solace in the woods and his fishing. He never brought fish home—he’d lost the desire to hunt and kill—but I watched him casting into the bay, the yellow sally winking in the sunlight as it flew through the air to land in the water. Moving deliberately, he’d reel the false bait in. Some days, I tracked him down to Crystal Mirror Lake. More than once I found him sitting on the bank, staring at his reflection in the still water, and I wondered what he saw. I could not forget the small creature that mimicked him so perfectly, except for the sharpened teeth and claws of a dog. Margo’s death had robbed him of his joy in the natural paradise of Coden, but I was afraid the nester would take more than that.

  If the nester’s desires had been satisfied, time would heal both children, and the parents, too. Cora said it often, and I believed it. Time was their greatest ally. I had not seen the creature for two weeks, nor the dark-haired girl. To that end, I allowed Annie to have her way in the house. As she ascended to power, perhaps her needs would be met and the nester wouldn’t remove another child.

  But I never assumed they were gone. Only waiting.

  Bob threw himself into his work. When he wasn’t in Mobile on a project, he was in the small room next to the library that he’d turned into his office. He was obsessed with beginning renovations on the Paradise Inn. He worked late into the night, but Berta didn’t notice. He’d begun to drink heavily each evening, but Berta didn’t take note of that either. She found her own escape in the prescription drugs that rocked her into a slumber so deep her grief couldn’t touch her. She’d made a dangerous decision, but I hoped in time she would come to her senses and return to her family.

  If she didn’t, Annie would totally usurp her. I saw it play out, hour by hour, as Annie moved from teenage ward to Bob’s companion. If he didn’t come out to eat, she prepared a tray and took it to him. Late at night, she took brandy or wine into his private sanctum. A bottle and two glasses. If he walked over to the Paradise, she threw on her coat and gloves and went after him. When she caught me watching them, she would only smile, confident she would succeed, that I was powerless to stop her.

  Oh, but I had other plans. Even as I lurked in the shadows, the obedient tutor, the governess who did the daily chores of existence to run the household, I was plotting and taking small, secret steps.

  I made an appointment with Jimmy Finch and told him
about the pearl necklace and the photo album. Intrigued was a mild description of his reaction. Little by little, I began to convince him of Annie’s plot. Once he found some solid evidence—and I knew he would find something—I would try again to convince Cora. If I could only make her see Annie in a true light, I could win. If I could win one adult to my side, just one, maybe I could stop what I knew would happen.

  To that end, I made it a point to call Mark and talk with him about insignificant things. Respecting my grief, he didn’t press me for intimacies. He stopped by the house at least twice a week, at my request, for dinner or to watch a TV show or play a game or listen to some records. He made Erin and Donald laugh as he imitated the dances of our high school years like the Monkey or the Swim. I had quite a collection of ’60s and early ’70s albums, and we’d gather in the family room and put them on the stereo. Mark was a good dancer and a total exhibitionist. He loved making Erin laugh, and sometimes even Bob came out of his lair to watch. It lifted my spirits considerably to see him smile and interact with his children.

  Annie was always on her best behavior. Those were the nights she volunteered to clean up the kitchen and then went up to her room “to read” instead of disappearing into Bob’s study. Watching her, no one could fault her conduct on those evenings. Only I knew her dark intentions.

  Cora had given up trying to get me to stay with her, but she came to the Hendersons almost every day. She brought home-baked goodies and sometimes sat with Berta in her room. While I cleaned the house or cooked, I sometimes heard her talking, her calm and lulling voice sharing inconsequential moments of the day with Berta, keeping her in touch with national news, local events, and a sense of community. I wondered if it did any good, but I was glad she tried. My attempts to reach Berta failed utterly.