Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Since that harrowing day in the cemetery, now many weeks past, when Xavier had heard that melodic, teasing, never-explained sound sift out of the very air,—and had seen, for the first time, truly, his youngest cousin (who, until that extraordinary moment, had impressed him as being but a sallow-faced peevish child, of no interest to a youth his age)—why, he had behaved most strangely, in wandering out of his way in the city that he might, by chance, catch a glimpse of her: lounging about the base of the bronze memorial to Nathan Hale in Parthian Square, for instance; or strolling with hearty nonchalance along that stretch of Berwick Avenue where the ladies’ millinery and glove shops were located,—for someone had mentioned seeing Thérèse and Perdita, in the company of the dowager Mrs. Bunting (young Harwood Bunting’s mother), entering one of these little stores. None of these actions need have been deemed “spying”; but Xavier uneasily supposed that that was his intention, for his heart leapt a dozen or more times when, mistakenly, he believed he had caught sight of Perdita: or,—such was the youth’s infatuation—when he believed he had caught sight of Thérèse! Once, while moodily walking along the lower end of Water Street, in a rough sort of neighborhood, Xavier had found himself staring at a freight train that rattled past: the locomotive with its fanning white smoke, that, in its chugging and wheezing power, suggested to him some urgency (and, alas, some futility) residing in his own breast; the noisy clattering cars, thirty or more, that appeared to be empty; the caboose with its pair of unlit red lamps, and a hollow-cheeked porter lounging at the rail, gazing blankly toward Xavier. And how abrupt it was, the sudden cessation of noise, when the last of the cars had passed!—like a restoration of sweet calm to his own troubled soul. He had been brooding overmuch, of late, of Perdita; and Mrs. Whimbrel (now confined, it was said, to a hospital, that she might not do harm to herself or her remaining children); and of certain problems within his own household; and of his secret failure as a “detective,”—the which glamorous enterprise was scarcely what he had expected, being, it began to seem, virtually impossible to undertake.

  Now Perdita, in pale diaphanous attire, her wavy tresses loosed upon her shoulders, and her delicate heart-shaped face turned just slightly aside, had, it seemed, come to him: tiptoeing noiselessly past his moonlit window, a spray of lilac raised to her face, that she might inhale its rich sensuous aroma, with dark nostrils just perceptibly widened, and thick-lashed eyes nearly closed. Her awareness of him,—for it was a certainty, his beating heart informed him, that she was aware—made the long wondrous moment all the more enchanting: for she would soon glance at him over her shoulder,—would she not?—ah, would she not? Xavier stared, and stared; his parched lips moved to utter her name; but no sound issued forth; nor could he, as he realized of a sudden, move any of his limbs or his head, being paralyzed.

  “She has died, up at the Manor,” Xavier thought, going cold with fright, “and this form is but her spirit, her departing ghost! And I am too late to save her!”

  Taking no notice of him, or of the sleeping Colin beside him, the graceful figure advanced to the whitewashed brick fireplace in the inner wall, and, as Xavier stared, in a veritable paroxysm of amazement, her slender fingers groped for, and deftly found, the loose brick that had long been Xavier’s secret; and eased it soundlessly out; and took, or seemed to take (for the fireplace was partly in shadow, and Xavier could not be certain what he saw), a ruby ring he had hidden there long ago—!

  Silent, and resolutely unhurried,—though, surely, she must know how passionately he watched—Perdita slipped the ring on her finger: and seemed about to glance back over her shoulder at Xavier when, of a sudden, a clattering on the cobblestones outside caused her to vanish: for it was the milkman’s horse and wagon, and no longer two o’clock, but four-thirty!—and Xavier woke dazed and agitated with the name Perdita on his lips.

  HE KNEW IT was naught but a dream, and he would not succumb to the temptation of rising from his bed, to check his hiding place in the wall: for long ago he had found a ruby ring in the street, covered in filth, and had thought he might present it to his mother,—and hid it away,—and afterward wondered guiltily if he had done wrong, in not reporting it—and, alas, it was too late,—and the ring was beautiful,—and so he had most irresponsibly procrastinated, and dared not reveal his find. Now, it seemed, the dream-spirit of Perdita had come to make her claim: though assuredly Xavier had but imagined her presence—?

  Yet, in the morning, when, unobserved, he went to the fireplace to grope behind the brick,—he discovered to his astonishment that the ring was missing after all.

  It was missing, and in its place had been left a dried and shrunken sprig of lilac,—its tiny blossoms scarcely more than dust, and its sweet fragrance long since vanished.

  II

  After so uneasy and protracted an anticipation, Xavier found his approach to Glen Mawr,—by way of the handsome half-mile avenue of pink-toned gravel only slightly overgrown with weeds, and edged in sumptuous bridal wreath, with a double row of gracious old plane trees on either side—surprisingly unimpeded: and it was only as he ascended the great stone steps of the mansion, which were semicircular, and of the size and weight of ancient millstones, that he grew somewhat nervous, imagining himself observed. And yet, what harm might come to him? And on so splendid a June morning? It had been the youth’s strategy to approach Glen Mawr in no craven, stealthy way,—by the rear, for instance, ascending from the river—as one or another of his detective heroes, of doubtful integrity, might have attempted: he was a Kilgarvan, after all, and thought it wisest to make his approach as openly, and as innocently, as if he had been summoned, and could not possibly be denied entrance. (For the occasion he had dressed in a somber cotton-and-woolen suit, with a stiff-starched white shirt, like any young gentleman making a formal visit to so noble a house, having explained to his mother that he was embarked upon an adventure of sorts,—but hinting to her, not altogether honestly, that it had to do with summer employment. “And will you be applying to Osmyn Goshawk, as your father has suggested?” Mrs. Kilgarvan anxiously asked. How Xavier replied to her, with a courteous murmur that succeeded in conveying both a negative and a positive response, and an embarrassed disdain for the very question,—I do not know: but it should not be held against him that, at the onset of his “career,” he must needs now and then tell fibs to his mother.)

  Yet, forthright though he was, and unhesitatingly as he had rung, and then rapped, for entrance, no one came to the door: and for some painful minutes, knowing himself observed, he paced about, hands in his pockets and head bowed, as if brooding whether to depart. His face colored slightly; he grew uncomfortably warm; and thought it an impractical decision, after all, to have dressed so formally, as if for church,—for if the Kilgarvans denied him entrance, why, then, it might well be, Xavier should have to force his way in by surreptitious means. Was not Glen Mawr partly his father’s and, through his father, his own?—by all moral, if not precisely legal, necessity?

  Thus he paced about beneath the great-columned portico, and cast his eye upon the tall stone urns, with their Egyptian cast, on either side of the door; and upon the numerous tall, narrow, English-style windows of the façade, which cloudily reflected light, and gave the illusion of a ghostly human presence beyond. (Imposing though Glen Mawr assuredly was, with its steep slate roofs, and massive stone-and-stucco chimneys, and ornamental trim in Italianate style, the fact that nearly half of the windows had been shuttered, both upstairs and down, very much detracted from its aesthetic harmony: and gave, so Xavier thought, an appearance of shabbiness and neglect.)

  In the company of other boys, Xavier had frequently trespassed upon the forbidden territory of Glen Mawr, approaching it from the rear, which is to say from the river: for Juniper Park at its easternmost extreme was naught but a great woods, shading into the Glen Mawr forest, and one might unknowingly leave the one and penetrate the other, if warnings against trespassing were infrequent; or had been torn down. But, from the river, one s
oon came to a high stone wall, cruelly spiked at its top, and littered with glass: which, while whetting schoolboy appetites for adventure, did a great deal to thwart them. Xavier had never seen the terraced “Japanese” garden his grandfather had insisted upon building, at inordinate expense, into the hill beyond the wall; nor had he seen the various subordinate buildings attached to the house,—the washhouse, the bakehouse, the meathouse, the gardeners’ sheds, the old slaves’ quarters (which, his father bitterly declared, was more sturdy a structure, being built of brick and stucco, than the ramshackle wood-frame house,—formerly an inn—where the Kilgarvans of Wycombe Street were forced to live): but of course he had been told of them: and had long imagined a haughty sort of grandeur where, now, in the morning’s hazy warmth, with the sweet scent of bridal wreath and rambling rose undercut by a deeper, harsher, yet not unpleasant odor of lichen, toadstools, and rotting leaves, he was forced to revise his estimation: for the Manor, which had been intended to be so conspicuous a showplace in the Winterthurn Valley, a testament to Phillips Goode’s lavish good taste, as well as to his fortune, had indeed fallen into decline,—and why his eldest son had allowed this, with his fortune, was legitimately to be wondered at.

  (“Perhaps, Father, he feels guilt for his crime against you,” Xavier once suggested, when the subject had come up, as it frequently did, “and is ashamed to hire workmen to do repairs, or even to hire new servants as the old die off, for that reason.” But, though the well-phrased statement had doubtless pleased Mr. Kilgarvan, he could not bring himself to concur, saying, with a wry shake of his head, that so reptilian a criminal as Erasmus Kilgarvan would never identify himself as a criminal, let alone suffer so human an emotion as simple shame: “For all that he does, my boy, is perpetrated, in his eyes, as an expression of rectitude,—and not personal wish.” Xavier had thought for a moment; then said, with flashing eyes, and a spirit of angry bitterness not unlike his father’s own: “Why, then, he is invulnerable!—and can even God discover a way to punish a sinner who does not sin?”)

  As these troubled thoughts sifted through his mind, and caused a pulse to beat behind his eyes with such sullen forcefulness, he frowned in pain, Xavier heard a faint tapping, and his murmured name: and saw, at a casement window nearby, leaning out, the figure of a slender young girl in black,—lovely Perdita herself.

  With hurried, cautious gestures, as if she feared being detected, Perdita motioned to him to come beneath the window, that she might help him climb inside: and was, for that purpose, lowering a mourning shawl, in black brocade richly fringed, for him to grasp. “The front entrance to our house is always kept bolted,” the girl told Xavier beneath her breath, in a low, melodic, rippling voice that seemed, in its murmurous beauty, to vibrate along his very nerves.

  So it came about that Xavier recklessly ran to the window, and, with protestations of extreme gratitude, climbed into the house long forbidden to him, as readily as any of his adventurer heroes might have done; and, one might surmise, with considerably more childlike abandon. What felicity, her presence at the window!—and what rare courage, in a girl of her age, to invite an intruder into her very home: nay, to lend him her own small white hand, in so doing!

  Scarcely able to catch his breath, Xavier managed to utter only her name,—“Perdita”—in a choked, and somewhat incredulous, voice.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “but quick, quick—come inside: and take care that the window is bolted behind you.”

  Perdita looked very much as she had looked at her father’s melancholy gravesite, in March, and less as she had looked in Xavier’s bed-chamber the previous night: though beauteous enough, with a perfect petal-smooth skin and fine, fierce, dark-lashed eyes, she was inordinately pale, even to appearing sickly; and was possessed of a precocious air of bereavement which, about the eyes in particular, expressed itself in subtle, fleeting modulations of irony. Alas, only twelve years of age, and so irreversibly mature! With a gesture as much of impatience as solicitude, she urged Xavier forward, that she might draw the brocaded shawl safely in, and fasten the casement windows.

  For a long awkward minute, then, the cousins stared at each other, with unabashed exultation; but dared not touch. Xavier could not yet altogether believe his good fortune, but stood panting, and blinking, and essaying feebly to smile, as if fearful that some sudden rude motion of his, or unguarded gesture, might cause Perdita to “vanish” on the spot: and only by degrees, as the vertiginous hammering of his heart slowed, did he see that this was no faery child, but a very real young girl: his Perdita.

  “You are very brave to allow me in,” he said in a rapid, lowered voice, glancing over his shoulder, “for I know how your sister,—I mean your eldest sister—despises all of my family. And I know I cannot be welcome here.”

  So softly and shyly did Perdita speak, Xavier had to bend to her, to hear: “Well,—you are very brave to come here,” she said.

  The large, deep-set, liquid-bright eyes were as Xavier hungrily remembered them, or nearly; the chestnut-brown hair was less lustrous, it seemed, but wonderfully thick and wavy, despite the spartan style into which it had been twisted; the small mouth,—now smiling, or straining to smile—was as lovely as any besotted youth might wish. Had Xavier not, in his fevered dreams, often envisioned those lips,—had he not, in truth, pressed his own desperately against them? So strange as they were, were they not also familiar?—as known to him as his own mirrored countenance?

  Perdita, though several inches shorter than Xavier, was not so diminutive as he recalled from the day of the funeral; nor would the casual eye have dismissed her as a mere child. A palely blooming womanliness lay within the timidity of girlhood, evidenced by a graceful and innocent coquetry of her wrist, shoulder, and chin; and the graceful white curve of her throat. (Xavier saw that her slender fingers were ringless.) As for her ill-laundered mousseline dress, in a gray so harshly dark it might have been black,—Xavier noted only that its tight stand-up collar and narrow-ribbed bodice were executed in fine bobbin lace, and that its layered skirt was too long, and tattered about the hem. Yet even this attire, with its air of the cast-off and scorned, was, in his eyes, as becoming as a silken gown of the gayest hue—!

  Surely this was, yet could not be, the enchanting specter-girl who had trespassed Xavier’s bed-chamber the night before, and stolen away his prized ring, to leave a sprig of desiccated blossoms (which he carried now in his vest pocket, close to his heart) in its place—?

  Thus, like any gently bold young lover, Xavier dared to grasp Perdita’s hand in his: finding it chill, and fragile-boned as the smallest song sparrow, and slightly resistant, with a natural maidenly restraint. Speaking softly, with as much trembling formality as he could summon forth in the presence of his belovèd (for so dramatic, extreme, and adult an expression is not inappropriate in this remarkable context), Xavier stated his mission at Glen Mawr: his simple and straightforward request to examine the room in which the tragedy had lately occurred, that he might see, with his amateur’s eye, if any clues remained; and his proffering of any assistance lying within his power, to both Perdita and Thérèse, if they required it.

  Perdita abruptly withdrew her hand from his, and turned shyly away; seemed about to speak; then, after a blushing hesitation, said that she could not quite comprehend his meaning, in offering her and Thérèse “assistance”: but hoped, certainly, that he did not mean to insult. (“For Glen Mawr is our home,” she said. “We were born here: we know no other place.”) So far as an exploration of the Honeymoon Room, or even much of the house was concerned, she saw no pressing reason for the examination, but no reason to impede it: as Xavier was her cousin, and must mean well. She doubted, however, that he would discover much of value, as the sheriff and his men, and a noisome troupe of police, detectives, and “experts” of divers kinds, from as far away as Vanderpoel, had poked about for days and found nothing. “Save evidence of rats?” Xavier asked.

  But Perdita had already turned away, to lead him on his sea
rch, a forefinger to her pretty lips, and her manner both stealthy and playful, as if this were, to her, but a child’s game: and she and her cousin both children.

  They passed through the Judge’s library, a long, narrow room paneled in black walnut, with a faded carpet underfoot, and, above the mantel, a somewhat dark portrait, in oils, of their famed ancestor General Pettit Kilgarvan, whose likeness Xavier had frequently studied, with boyish curiosity, shading into anxiety, whether that great man’s blood might yet flow, in some wise, in his own veins. Upon the mantel was a cast-iron bull, in belligerent stance; and, lying atop a table, as if it had just been set down, Erasmus’s gnarled Don’t-tread-on-me walking stick. Xavier paused, to take note of the great mahogany desk, which must have measured six feet along its width; and the several leather chairs; and, upon the bookshelves, rising to the shadowy ceiling, leather-bound tomes stamped in gilt, of the multivolum’d works of such giants of the law as Nathan Dane, and James Kent, and Ephraim Kirby, and Joseph Story, and Theophilus Parsons, and the great Lemuel Shaw himself,—these names being dimly known to him from his father’s remarks, and Mr. Kilgarvan’s embittered pursuit of Law. Xavier was about to take up one of the books, but Perdita dissuaded him, saying that they must hurry; and must not touch anything. “For Georgina, when she is well again, will discover it at once. Every object in this room, Cousin, has its particular placing, and cannot be disturbed even by the maids,—else Georgina flies into a rage.”

  Xavier followed his companion into the foyer, which opened for two stories, and pleased the eye rather more than did the Judge’s library, as it was less shrouded in shadow. The painted and gilded ceiling was supported by tall, somewhat thick Grecian columns, with much ornamentation at their base; the floor was of a pallid milky-red marble, badly discolored, and beginning generally to crack; opening off the foyer were several stone archways of a medieval character, executed in red sandstone. How potently Xavier’s heart flooded with a sensation of resentment,—for such palatial pretensions, and such ill-used wealth, denied to him and his family!