The Ghost and Miss Demure

by Melanie Jackson

  She pulled open her purse for a bit of titivation material—she needed the added courage of a power lip color that wouldn’t fade or feather—and then, with her ablutions done, she felt as prepared to face her employer as she was ever going to be.

  Returning her lipstick to her bag, she spotted her cell phone. Someone had wiped it clean, but there were bits of calcified shell embedded in the tiny dents that covered it. A quick check showed that she had no signal. Curious, she looked through her pictures, hoping to see if she had gotten a clear shot on the urn at the gate. There was nothing that showed the urns, but she had miraculously captured the lightning.

  Karo shuddered. It was a reminder of how close death had come. Also, maybe it was just some weird trick of light, but the white thing rushing at her seemed to have eyes.

  “No. Stop it.” She put her phone away. It was time to face the music.

  She delayed only long enough to absorb the unusual view from the bedroom window. Because of the dense growth of the trees and creepers that stretched from the turnoff on Route 5 to the front of the mansion, it was impossible to see more than a small clearing at the plantation gate. It actually was a little like being Jack at the top of the beanstalk, or looking out from the world’s largest tree house. It was not an entirely pleasing sensation for someone who suffered from mild vertigo.

  Even with the recent storm, Karo could see that the treetops boasted an impressive collection of cluttered webs that throbbed slowly in the warm morning air; they were doubtless inhabited by an impressive collection of spiders and their six-legged prey. But there were no bodies, corporeal or otherwise. Whatever she’d thought she’d seen yesterday night, it had to have been a hallucination. Shuddering at the memory, she stepped back from the rippled glass, letting the sheers again cover the window.

  It was a good thing she didn’t take after her mother. Her mom was a world-class house keeper and inclined to view cobwebs the way most people viewed incest or infanticide. The disorder of this house and garden would make her crazy.

  Karo pulled open the double doors—still ugly and obscene—and walked out onto the landing where she turned right and headed for the main stairs. Facing the scene of her crimes on an empty stomach was not the way she would have chosen to start the morning, but it wouldn’t do to get lost in the house her first day on the job and have the boss thinking that she was half-witted—at least, no more of a half-wit than he already thought her.

  She didn’t hear anyone moving about below stairs, filling the smoky rafters with jolly laughter or cussing out the weather or any of the things workmen were inclined to do as they started their morning routines, which only confirmed the hypothesis that she and Tristam were alone in this great maze of a house. The tempting smell of coffee left an obvious trail to explore, and Karo decided that perhaps it was best that they were alone. If she was for the sack, she’d rather it be done without an audience watching her beg for caffeine before being thrown out bag and baggage into the muddy yard.

  Karo shut her eyes against the dusty abattoir in the hall where glass-eyed trophies stared, but opened them again when she passed through the mansion’s picture gallery. Most of the portraits needed cleaning, but Karo secretly felt that it might be best to leave them dirty. The paintings were mostly executed by artists not overburdened with talent, and a few that should have been made to apologize for their work. There was one picture that was especially hideous, but not because the artist lacked talent. On the contrary, the likeness was nearly lifelike; the somehow familiar, life-sized portrait followed her with a malevolent gaze as she crossed the room. One didn’t achieve a face like that by leading a life of benevolent kindness. Such furrows were created only by years of sneering and dissipation. Or maybe by actually being evil.

  She was relieved to finally escape its scrutiny. Hurrying down a tight corridor that had to violate all contemporary fire codes, heading toward the back of the house from whence the delicious odor of coffee was emanating, she discovered her polite boss at a badly scarred work table in the middle of an incongruously modern—and pleasant—kitchen. No way could it be an original room; servants and slaves were not pampered with luxuries like windows that looked out over formal gardens, or real slate on the floor. Karo sniffed. Her nose confirmed her theory; this room didn’t smell old and mouse-ridden like the rest of the house.

  Tristam was sprawled over a generous quarter of the refectory table, calmly reading the paper as she came in, but he looked up immediately as she entered the room, folding the gazette away and giving her a long stare with his golden eyes. “Good morning.” The greeting was cheerful as he rose to his feet. He had certainly been raised a gentleman.

  It was a good sign, that smile—or maybe it was just reflexive courtesy. It would be difficult to say until they actually got past the tea and toast and discussions about the weather. Of course, superficial courtesy was better than no courtesy at all.

  “Uh-oh. Cat got your tongue?” The question was teasing but those yellow eyes were concerned as they loomed above her. It was heartening that he seemed concerned rather than irritated. Perhaps she wasn’t going to be canned before breakfast.

  “No, my tongue is still here. More is the pity. So, good morning,” she answered at last, allowing him to seat her. The faint smell of vanilla that surrounded him had her appetite stirring.

  He chuckled and turned away to prepare something at the professional-sized, sparkling brass espresso maker. Cappuccino. That was what he’d been drinking. If nothing else, her nose was obviously functioning again.

  “How do you take it?”

  “As strong as possible,” she told him. “Make it an Italian two to one.”

  “Good Italians drink three to one.”

  “This is an emergency. Hit me hard.”

  He smiled the same attractive smile that she had seen last night and set the tiny cup in front of her. It was not an antique mug, just rather old. Pure Goodwill bargain basement crockery. Maybe he didn’t trust her with the good stuff.

  “Thank you,” she said as he turned away.

  “How do you feel this balmy a.m.?”

  “Aces. Not that I was feeling any pain last night,” she admitted ruefully. “I want to apologize for crashing in on you that way. I assure you that I don’t usually behave like that.”

  “Apologize? Whatever for?”

  “Well…” She looked at him, standing there bright-eyed and neat as wax, and felt more than ever that she had been unforgivably discourteous. “I think I recall being very rude. For one thing, I said that your house was hideous.”

  “It is hideous. And it’s not my house. It’s just the one I’ve been hired to turn into a tourist trap—and on an impoverished budget,” he said.

  Karo snorted into her coffee cup and tried not to laugh. Her other employers had been given to rather loftier goals and higher-flying forms of rhetoric when describing their jobs. Tristam seemed to have no intellectual pretensions about “preserving history” for future generations who couldn’t care less about what went on in the “good old days.”

  “You shouldn’t laugh at the truth,” he complained. “It’s an art, you know. Telling the truth and also turning the useless and hideous into tourist attractions. I belong to a very select guild of skilled craftsmen. We have only three members, and I’m the only one currently working in the States. I’m as rare as an original Holbein. Surely you’ve heard of my triumph at Lesser Warwick Hall? It contains the most complete display of modern Mediterranean fish skeletons in the United Kingdom, don’t you know?”

  Karo let herself smile at his claim and slightly exaggerated accent. She was feeling more cheerful now that she knew she wasn’t to be fired, and as an added fillip that she probably didn’t deserve, it seemed that she was going to be working for a man with a sense of humor. As a contrast to F. Christian, the gods of ironic situations couldn’t have done better. Perhaps life was worth living for one more day.

  “Okay. But let me get this off of my chest. At the
very least I have to apologize for just wandering in and making myself at home in the library. I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry.”

  “Pure mashed potatoes! I’m glad you did come in. It shows excellent sense that you knew to get out of the rain. Truly, you could have knocked all night and I wouldn’t have heard you up in the garret. That room was designed to be…private.”

  “But I chased you out of your bed, too,” she said, being thorough in her contrition. “You probably had to sleep in the dungeon, with rack and thumbscrews and giant rats.”

  Tristam gave her an odd look, then laughed silently. “Sorry, no traditional dungeon. Too much groundwater, I expect. And please, say no more,” he finally added, refusing to let her apologize further. “Doctor Monroe agreed that you were wandering around in a daze because of the lightning strike. He says that you may feel some disorientation for the next few days. So, you can hardly blame yourself for anything that happened last night. And I certainly don’t blame you for not liking Vellacourt’s horror. It would take a certain type of person to appreciate this place’s dubious charm. It will be the greatest of feats if we can turn it into something tasteful, and for this I’ll need your help.”

  She had to ask, even though he was being extremely polite. “Um…did anything else happen last night while I was wandering in a daze?” Tristam cleared his throat, and Karo braced herself with another swallow of coffee. “Give it to me straight. What else did I do?”

  Tristam stared at her, looking entirely too thoughtful for her peace of mind. “Do you remember seeing the man in the library?”

  “Well, sort of. I remember thinking that there was a man in the library. He was wearing a period costume.” She frowned at her cup, trying to recall exactly what she had seen. Everything was very faraway and dreamlike. She remembered feeling like her skin was going to catch fire even when the rest of her was chilled to the bone. “His eyes were gold like yours. I think.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Karo. Doctor Monroe says that it’s quite normal to hallucinate after a bad shock. And the good news is that you aren’t hurt physically.” He leaned forward and stretched his long, lean arms across the table until he was nearly touching her. She could feel the magnetic pull and had to clamp her hands firmly to the table to keep them from crawling his way. She was restored to her wits; there was no excuse for bad behavior this morning.

  “Ah. That’s good,” she said.

  “Here, have a doughnut. They are a bit stale but I think still edible. The sugar will give you energy. The carpenter swears by them.”

  “How old are they?” she asked suspiciously, considering taking one simply to keep her hands busy.

  “Old, but the date on the box says they’re good for another month. And they don’t even need refrigeration! American food is amazing.”

  “Hm. I think I’ll pass. I make it a rule never to eat anything that mold won’t consume.”

  “That’s probably sensible, especially around here.” He paused, then said, “I moved your car into the carriage house. We’ve had some flooding out on the road and I didn’t want to risk anything happening to it if the creek overran its banks.”

  “Thank you. You were able to move the tree then?”

  Again, he stared at her.

  “Someone must have gotten there ahead of me, because the road was clear when I went down this morning. Maybe it got washed away.” Her host leaned back in his chair and Karo’s pulse settled back to its normal pace. “By the way, your muffler and back bumper are missing.”

  “Hm? Oh, I know. I lost them yesterday. I should have gone back for them but I was afraid to stop. That battery has been known to take long breaks between uses.” Karo drank some more coffee and tried to recall exactly what had happened to her out by the gate, but it was all rather fuzzy and undetailed. She couldn’t swear positively that there had actually been a tree in the road.

  “Autos. What are we to do with them?” he said agreeably, though she was willing to bet that his car had no such idiosyncratic behaviors.

  “You did say last night that you knew my father?” she asked, needing to be reassured that she remembered something of yesterday besides her boss’s splendid hair and eyes.

  “By repute. I enjoy World War One history and subscribe to some of the journals he writes for. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and he’ll decide to visit while you’re here. Does he still fly that old Feiseler Storch?”

  “As often as Mom allows. You said that you were a closet airplane buff? Is that why you hired me?” she asked. She couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. “You wanted a good excuse to invite my dad out here?”

  “How cynical! No, I hired you because I needed someone right away and you were the only remotely qualified applicant that would come anywhere near the place. I was getting desperate.” He laughed softly at her expression. “There! Now we’re even. I’ve just been appallingly rude to you, and I didn’t even mean it. Your resume is actually quite impressive.”

  “I bent the truth a bit. Well…I omitted a few details.”

  “That’s good. I’m afraid we will need to do a lot of creative lying about this place. Clearly I hired you because it was destiny. I was commanded by angels. Your voice on the phone was a clarion call! Deep calling unto deep—”

  “Talk about pure mashed potatoes!” Karo smiled back, not admitting that she had also had some thoughts about his voice, and then said: “I’ll get out of your room right away. I can do that much for you. You said that there is a guest cottage?”

  “I did and there is, but I don’t think that you should move out there just yet.” He stopped smiling. “I want to keep an eye on you for a little while longer. You can move out tomorrow if you really want.”

  The charming buffoon was gone, and the man who had replaced him looked to have formidable potential as a tyrant lordling. His voice was calm and unconsciously edged with a tone of authority. He had said last night that his family was all “Rule, Britannia” and the Union Jack. She believed him; only one born to the manor could be so exquisitely polite while being bossy.

  “I can’t blame you for thinking that way,” she said, feeling color creep into her cheeks.

  “Excellent sense.”

  “But truly, I’m fine now.”

  “Probably. But I’ll feel better if you stay in the main house for another day or two.” When Karo didn’t answer, he put down his mug and looked at her seriously. “You aren’t going to make me pull rank first thing, are you? Be sensible. Right now I’m sorting though the accumulation of junk—I mean, taking an inventory of the main house’s contents—and it is filthy work. You have a shower at the cottage, but it has no water pressure and it’s cold. Also, I can’t swear that I’ve killed all the mice in the chimney who have spent the last thirty years building a palatial nest. And, flooding always brings out the snakes.” He added this last as a clincher.

  Karo stared at Tristam English. He wasn’t anything like a curator ought to be. Maybe that was because he saw himself as more of a carnival shill than a dedicated academic. Whatever the case, if she was honest with herself, she would have to admit that she didn’t mind staying close to this charming, strange man while she sorted through the refuse of Belle Ange looking for treasures. It would be a lot more fun than her old job.

  On the other hand, he might not be charming at all. It might just be that he possessed super pheromones that were throttling her higher brain functions; and everyone knew that idle brain waves were the devil’s playground. A little caution was in order. Quick pain apparently hadn’t been an efficient teacher the first time around, but the prolonged embarrassment she had suffered on the last job was fairly instructive.

  “I’m not afraid of mice,” she said firmly, trying to read Tristam’s expression to see if he was hurt or offended by the show of strength. A thin skin would be a definite minus in their coming relationship.

  “But you are sensible—at least, when you haven’t been struck by lightning? Or are you afraid o
f being alone with me, Karo? Do you worry that next time I might bite back?”

  The very gentleness of the inquiry was a waving red cape before her wounded ego. Still feeling a bit of the recklessness that had caused her to throw over her old job, she gave in to her baser impulses with a small laugh. “Okay, I’ll stay. Why not? I guess we can share. I never liked cold showers anyway,” she added, and then blushed at the way that sounded. Should she make it plain that they were sharing a house, not a bedroom? “I’ll help you fix up another room,” she added firmly.

  “Thanks. Herr Frankenstein and I are both grateful. Neither of us is a dab at handling the linens, though he is perhaps slightly better at it than I.”

  “Wait a minute! Let’s not add any sins to my list. I may have implied that the grand entry looked a little like it had been decorated by Edgar Allan Poe on a cocktail of mescaline and acid, but I never said that you were a monster maker.”

  Tristam laughed. “Certainly not. I was referring to the cat. A spoiled creature, an absolute black hole of neediness and gluttony.”

  He jerked a thumb to the left. Karo looked over at the sideboard where he was pointing and found herself under observation. A large orange sphere reclining in a pedestal bowl had opened its emerald eyes and was yawning hugely, apparently unimpressed by the guest. The fat tail twitched once, and then the huge head laid itself back down to return to its interrupted nap.

  “Spoiled, did you say?”

  “Extremely. He’d like it especially if you allow him to share your bed. He was quite put out at being turned away from your door last evening. But we shall both be very glad to have your help with packing up most of Vellacourt’s so-called treasures. ’Stein keeps getting his tail caught in the piles of deer antlers he persists in exploring for mice. They are everywhere! The last owner must have had a hunting mania, because the closets were stuffed full of them—antlers, not mice. Though, we have both. I can’t believe the junk that has accumulated.”