Craig hobbled around to the back of the car, took the umbrellas out of the boot and opened them up. Even so, Effie screamed as they hurried through the rain. 'God, it's cold!' They climbed the semi-circular brick steps which led up to the portico, and found themselves facing Valhalla's double front doors - weathered, dull, with scarcely any paint left on them. In the centre of each door was a heavy, corroded knob. On the right-hand side hung a bell-pull, cast in bronze in the shape of a snarling wolf.
'Do you think we ought to ring, just to warn the ghosts that we're here?' joked Craig.
Norman didn't seem to think that was particularly funny. 'You see this bell-pull? It's supposed to be Coyote, the Native American demon. If you pull it and you're not welcome, or you've come to the house with evil in your heart, it'll, like, bite your hand off.'
'Where'd you learn that hogwash?' asked Craig. He took out the key that Walter Van Buren had given him, and fitted it into the door.
'Excuse me, that's not hogwash. My mom told me. She's an expert on all that kind of stuff. She said it's something to do with the doorway facing east.'
'Your mom's been here?' asked Effie. Craig was having trouble with the lock.
'Oh, sure, we used to bring picnics up here, pretend we were rich. It's pretty nice when it's sunny.'
At last Craig managed to turn the key in the lock. He pushed the door and it swung open in complete silence. 'Come on, then,' he said. 'Let's see just how much of a disaster this is. Or maybe it isn't.'
They stepped through the doorway into a huge oak-panelled hall, with a pale marble floor. There were two wide oak staircases, one on either side of the hall, both leading up to a galleried landing. On the newel posts of each staircase stood bronze statuettes of naked women, each holding up a torch. The glass flames from each torch were broken, and one of the women was headless, like the statue outside.
Effie looked up. There were high leaded windows on either side, through which she could see the lightning still flickering. Dozens and dozens of panes of glass had been broken, and the marble floor was crunchy with grit and splinters.
There was a strong, strange smell in the house, too. Not dry rot or wet rot, which she would have expected, but a pungent smell like some kind of liniment - camphor and menthol and aniseed. It reminded her of changing-rooms and clinics and the hospital where her father had died. She suddenly thought of her mother, standing at the very end of a long, brightly-lit corridor, her face devastated by what had happened, like a smashed jelly-jar.
Norman had brought a powerful flashlight with him, and he switched it on. The beam darted up to the landing, then back down again, then pointed at the floor. 'This hall area is pretty sound. The floor's good, just needs cleaning up. There's a marble restoring company in Albany, Schuhmacher's, they'll probably do it for you for less than four thousand.'
'Four thousand?' Effie repeated. 'Just for cleaning the floor?'
'It's terrific marble, imported from Belgium. Beautifully brecciated. That means kind of a broken pattern. You don't see marble laid like this, not these days. It's not purbeck, it's proper genuine marble. It would be worth the money, like, just to see it, the way it was.'
'Four thousand isn't bad, for a floor like this,' said Craig, with his back turned. His voice echoed so much that it sounded as if he were hiding under the right-hand staircase and speaking from there; and that his twin was speaking from the gallery.
The flashlight beam jumped up to the windows. 'The floor may be reasonable, but the windows will cost you. These are all handmade, full lead glass. Some of them are overscaled, like these. Some of them are underscaled.'
Craig turned around. For a second, he looked foxy-eyed again, but then he said, 'What does that exactly mean, overscaled and underscaled?'
'Oh… it means that some of them are bigger than they traditionally ought to be, right? and some of them are smaller. It's kind of an architectural trick, you know, to make them look more varied. Whatever, none of them are standard, so you're looking at two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of specialist glazing; and that's if we can find somebody cheap, who'll do it for the glory.'
Craig nodded, but said nothing. It seemed to Effie that his nod was echoed; albeit silently; as if the house understood that here was somebody who found it exciting. She had seen women at cocktail parties unconsciously imitating Craig's affirmative nods, oh, yes, Craig, yes, Craig, yes, and that was usually when she ostentatiously linked arms with him, in case there was any mistake about the fact that he was happily married.
The flashlight darted up to the galleried landing, and illuminated a coat of arms, carved out of mahogany. 'See that?' said Norman. 'That was put up by the guy who built Valhalla, Jack Belias. There's a bobbin in one quarter… that's to represent his textile business. Then dice in the opposite quarter, because he was crazy for gambling. Then a dragon, because the name Belias was supposed to be something to do with dragons, like. Then a skull.'
'What was the skull for?' asked Effie.
'I don't know. Life and death, maybe. Jack Belias was known for taking ridiculous risks. I guess he was so rich, he thought what the hell. He flew airplanes, drove race-cars and powerboats and all that kind of stuff. He used to have a revolver on his sideboard, that's what they say, with one bullet in it and every day before breakfast he used to spin the cylinder, stick the muzzle in his mouth and pull the trigger.'
'That motto underneath… do you know what that means?' asked Craig.
'Non omnis moriar? Who knows?'
Effie said, 'That means something like, "Not all of us shall die". No, no, wait a minute, it's first person singular. It means, "I shall never completely die".'
'Pretty creepy for a haunted house,' said Norman, and shone the flashlight under his chin so that his face looked like a glowing, disembodied death mask.
'I thought I told you no ghost talk,' Craig reminded him, sharply. 'My wife doesn't like it.'
'I don't mind,' said Effie. 'I like a good ghost story. Just don't ask me to spend the night here, that's all.'
Thunder rumbled indigestively, but the storm was obviously moving away south-eastwards.
'Come take a look at the ballroom,' Norman suggested. 'Fishkill really did a job on it. It's a pity they ran out of money.'
He led them beneath the broken windows where the rain sprayed in, and along the panelled corridor that took them along the southern side of the house. Their feet crunched on shattered glass and grit. Through the overscaled and underscaled windows, Effie could see the terrace outside, and the rain steadily sifting across the lawns. Most of the terrace was humped with lumps of black, halfliquefied moss, and impossibly tall thistles grew up between the bricks. She felt as if she were walking through Sleeping Beauty's castle, neglected for a hundred years. She could almost believe that there were people still sleeping in the bedrooms upstairs. She couldn't explain it, but there was certainly a feeling that Valhalla hadn't been deserted. While the roofing collapsed and the rooks made nests in the chimney stacks; while rainwater poured through the ceilings and windows cracked in the summer heat, the house hadn't died, but simply closed its eyes and slumbered.
She reached out and took hold of Craig's hand, and he clasped it warmly.
'Can't you just see us living here?' he asked her. 'Talk about style. We'd have to dress for dinner every single evening.'
'Dress for dinner? We'd have to dress to go to the bathroom.'
He laughed, and kissed her. 'I forgot you. I forgot how funny you were.'
She kissed him back, and what started out as a small peck on the lips became a sudden, urgent embrace. It was only broken up by Norman turning around with his flashlight.
'Oh, excuse me. Didn't mean to break anything up or nothing.'
'That's okay,' Effie told him. 'Realty over one hundred thousand square feet always has that efFect on me.'
But Craig held her hand in both of his hands; pressed it like a lily in a bible; and his eyes were bright.
'Then shall I awa
ke to the original fervour, upright and alone in an ancient flood of light, lilies! and one of you for innocence.'
'Mallarmo,' Effie breathed.
'You remembered.'
'Remembered? I never forgot.'
They followed Norman along the corridor until they reached a wide pair of double oak doors, with an arched Gothic-style architrave. 'My mom says the ballroom is definitely haunted. In fact it's one of the most haunted loci in the whole house, except for one bedroom upstairs, which is so seriously haunted that she won't even go within fifty feet of it.'
'I thought you were supposed to be encouraging us to think about buying,' said Effie, squeezing Craig's hand tighter. 'Not scaring us half to death.'
Norman shook his long wet hair. 'Hey, don't worry about me. I don't care if you want to buy it or not, except that it could give me some work if you did. I'm here to give you the guided tour, for which Mr. Van Buren will slip me a ten-spot. And a few ballpark costings, if you want them. That's all. Anyhow, you'd be amazed how many people love the idea of a house with ghosts in it. They even pay extra.'
He opened the double doors. 'Besides,' he added, 'you shouldn't pay too much attention to what my mom has to say on the subject of the supernatural. My mom thinks that just about every building in the Hudson River Valley is possessed by spirits. Even the Cold Spring supermarket. She says that, at night, the shopping carts roll up and down the aisles on their own. Nobody pushing them.'
'That's even spookier than a haunted ballroom.'
But it wasn't. Because when Norman opened both doors, and they saw the ballroom for themselves, they saw a silent, dusty room that must have been peopled by the kind of memories that, for most of us, are only fairy stories, and dreams, and half-forgotten snatches from black-and-white movies.
It was over a hundred feet square, with a high pillared gallery all the way around it. Its ceiling rose right up to the roof of the house, and was pierced by an elegant oval skylight. None of the glass in the skylight was broken, but it was clogged with fallen leaves and obscured with livid green lichen. From the centre of it, a long chain hung down. Presumably it had once carried a large chandelier, but now it ended in nothing but a huge hook and four electric wires bound with insulating-tape.
Effie walked through the diagonal beam of the flashlight across the floor. She was entranced. The room was dusty, but it had been immaculately restored, with gilded acanthus leaves on the pale stucco pillars, and elegant bronze wall-lights in the shape of women's hands holding up blazing glass torches. The window frames and the panelling had been stripped and polished, although the polish had a breathed-over look from damp and neglect. The floor had been completely relaid and still looked highly-burnished even beneath a two-year coating of dust.
'See this floor?' said Norman, darting the flashlight right and left. 'Canadian maple… best possible dancing floor you could find. It actually springs when you step on it.'
Craig kept turning around and around, looking up at the pillars and the gallery and the decorated ceiling. 'Isn't it amazing?' he breathed. 'You can almost imagine the music. You can almost see people dancing.'
'This room doesn't need anything more than a cleanup,' Norman remarked. He peered at a small scabrous patch on one of the walls, and then prodded it with his finger. 'There's some damp coming through, but you could soon fix that.'
Craig took Effie in his arms and danced three or four steps of a waltz with her. Outside, the skies were beginning to clear, and the first wash of sunlight lit the ballroom windows, and formed patterns on the floor. Craig said, 'Mr. and Mrs. Craig T. Bellman request the pleasure of your company at a grand summer ball. Dress: amazing, if you please. Supper at ten, breakfast at four, carriages at six.'
'You're mad,' laughed Effie.
'Mad? Me? I'll buy the house Monday and have the invitations printed by the end of next week.'
'Let me show you the kitchens,' said Norman, switching off his flashlight. 'The kitchens aren't haunted.'
Two more rooms led off the ballroom: a huge morning-room with french windows overlooking the gardens; and a derelict room that might once have been a library. The ceiling had partially collapsed, and the plaster on the walls was bulging with damp, like leprosy sores. The flooring was covered with damp grey sheets, and it must have been water-damaged, and warped, because it rattled under their feet as they walked across it, as if they were wearing clogs.
They reached another wide staircase. Effie went halfway up it to have a look. It led up to a large, high-ceilinged landing, with clerestory windows all around it. When it was built it must have been airy and bright, but most of the windows were obscured with grime, and water had penetrated one side of the landing, creating a hunched figure out of fungus and diseased plaster. It even seemed to have one dripping eye, this figure - glaring at Effie from underneath a heavy elephant-man forehead of bulging moss.
'The water's got in pretty bad all around this side of the house,' Norman remarked. 'There's a whole area of flat roofing that's been leaking since the house was built. These days, it's just got worse, that's all, and most of the north-facing bedrooms need new ceilings and new floors.'
'How much?' asked Effie, holding Craig's arm.
'One point seven-five, give or take. That's if you want it to look something like the way it did when it was first constructed.'
'You mean one and three quarters of a million dollars?'
'Give or take.'
'I don't think I need to see the kitchens.'
'Come on, they're like really interesting. They have all the original equipment, in amazing condition. An Elkay sink, a Westinghouse icebox.'
'Norman,' Effie interrupted him, 'I'm sure the kitchens are very interesting, but if it's going to cost one and three quarters of a million dollars just to stop the rain from coming in, we'll just have to say thank you but no thank you.'
'Come on, sweetheart,' Craig cajoled her. 'There's no harm in looking.'
'Well, I don't want to look. If we're rich enough to buy a house like this, we're rich enough to have servants. You don't think this Jack Belias ever visited the kitchens, do you?'
'It's pretty historical,' said Norman. 'An original 1929 kitchen, in showroom condition.'
'You mean an antique kitchen that's going to cost half-a-million dollars to renovate?'
Norman chewed on his hair. 'I guess that's one way of putting it. But I know a guy in Newburgh who puts in brilliant imported kitchens at fantastically low prices. You like Neff? He can do Neff for practically nothing.'
He took hold of Craig's elbow, and led him across the hallway to the kitchens. Effie thought: oh well, I guess it's historical, I guess I ought to be interested, and she was just about to follow them when she thought she heard something.
She stopped, and listened, looking up towards the landing where the dripping moss-creature stood. Norman was still talking to Craig, explaining how Elkay's 1929-model Butler's Pantry sinks came in copper, nickel, white metal, crodon plate or monel metal, and how- They pushed their way through the squeaking kitchen door, and it swung closed behind them. Effie stayed where she was, straining her ears.
The wind was still moaning through the broken windows; and thunder still crumpled in the distance. But she was sure that she could hear a woman sobbing.
She hesitated, then she took two or three steps up the staircase, and listened again.
She was sure she could hear it. The low, agonised cries of a woman who was really desperate, really in pain. It was very far away, in one of the upper bedrooms, but there was no mistaking it.
She turned around and called, 'Craig!'
There was no answer, so she went to the kitchen door and pushed it open. The cream-decorated kitchen was deserted, although the door to the cellar was ajar. Presumably Norman had taken Craig down below to see Valhalla's boilers.
'Craig!' she called, but there was still no reply.
She waited for a moment, then she went back to the hallway. She listened and listened and she coul
d still hear it, that terrible agonised sobbing.
She started to climb the stairs.
SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1:11 P.M.
She held onto the banister rail as she climbed, because some of the stairs were darkly rotted where water had been pouring down the wall. Three-quarters of the way up, one of the stairs lurched downward an inch, and Effie heard nails pulling out of old, pulpy wood. She hesitated for a moment, holding her breath, not sure if she ought to continue.
But then she heard that anguished sobbing again; and it seemed much nearer. Whoever it was, she couldn't leave her. She sounded so much in pain.
Effie reached the top of the stairs. The landing was covered with a thin, rucked-up carpet. It had once been yellow, and patterned with flowers, but now it was water-stained and faded to the colour of old skin. On the opposite side of the landing, the grey-green figure of leprous plaster watched her with its single rheumy eye. She stared back at it, defying it to move, and of course it didn't; but there was still something horribly animate about it, as if it were brooding with deep resentment about its own hideous face, like the Elephant Man.
Two corridors led away from this landing: one to her left, to the bedrooms over the kitchens - the other to her right. But directly beside her, another staircase led up to Valhalla's third storey.
She paused, and listened, and it seemed as if this was where the sobbing was coming from: somewhere in the half-collapsed roof.
She heard a door banging downstairs, and she turned back and called out, 'Craig?' hoping that he had finished his tour of the cellars. But it was only the library door, banging in the wind that blew in through the broken windows.
The sobbing had become almost a mewling now, an endless self-pitying litany of indistinguishable words. Although she held her breath so that she could hear better, Effie still couldn't make out what the woman was crying about. She went to the foot of the second staircase, and held onto the decorative newel post. Halfway up the staircase there was a stained glass window, glazed in very pale ambers and yellows and faded pinks. It depicted a woman in a nun's habit, her eyes closed, standing in a field of lilies. Behind her, in the middle distance, stood a man dressed in black, with his back turned. Even further away, on the horizon, stood a castle with black pennants flying from it.
The House That Jack Built Page 7