Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics)

by Robert Marasco

  Ben lit another cigarette and sat listening to the sounds outside, steady, muted by the glass. The pool came into his mind again, and the image of David slamming backwards into the water. And Aunt Elizabeth standing at the other end, the water covering her shoes. He tried to call it all back, to reconstruct what might have been in his mind during that terrible five minutes or ten or whatever. It was still blank. A part of his mind, like something separate and beyond his control, had closed itself off from him. And if it should happen again, and again . . . ?

  The rain continued to beat down against the windows and the flagstone, and poured with a steady rhythm down the gutters. And for a few moments then, the sounds blended, and if he listened closely Ben could make out a low, steady beat, like a throbbing, outside the windows which were dark, like tinted glass.

  When Marian woke up the next morning, Ben was sleeping soundly beside her. She raised the windows on bright morning sunlight (it had rained through the night) and an incredibly sweet, fresh smell, put on her shirt and jeans, and left the bedroom. David’s door across the hall was open; she went in quietly, opened the window and covered him with the sheet he had thrown off. Aunt Elizabeth’s door was closed.

  The dinner tray in Mrs. Allardyce’s room had been untouched. In six days she had eaten, if that was the word, just once, and carrying up the tray and then bringing it down again was becoming an almost ritual gesture for Marian. Yesterday, rather than pour the untouched soup down the drain, she had reheated it and drunk it herself. She’d do the same with the chicken today. Somehow it made Mrs. Allardyce’s fast less disturbing to her.

  There were puddles on the terrace, where she brought her eye-opening cup of colfee, and the lawn reaching down to the bay sparkled, a little greener than it had been. The pool was off to the right, the poolhouse just partially visible below the rise. She placed the cup on the balustrade and found herself walking over the cool, wet grass toward the pool – toward the incident really. She stopped suddenly on the small rise.

  The water had overflowed the pool a bit, running over the concrete border and into the grass. It was clear in the pool, bright turquoise, and the metal rails descending were polished and shining. The concrete border was level and uncracked, and a wide swatch of grass around it, which had absorbed the overflow, was a deep, rich green. Marian moved closer, fascinated by the transformation.

  She could hear the filter from the poolhouse humming steadily, with the same sound, only stronger, that she recognized from the sitting room. Ben had been struggling with it vainly for days, she recalled.

  She walked around the perimeter. The debris had all been filtered out overnight, and finally she could see clear to the bottom which, like the sides, appeared freshly painted. She went closer and almost stepped on something near the edge of the pool. She bent and picked up the pair of shattered eyeglasses Ben had retrieved, and examined them. Ben wore reading glasses, not at all like them; and while Aunt Elizabeth should, she didn’t. Marian thought about slipping them into her pocket – that was pointless; instead she threw them into the trashcan beside the poolhouse. The pool itself was absorbing all her attention.

  How could it have happened so suddenly? The rain? The filter which had fallen into gear at last, on its own? That might explain the clarity of the water, possibly even the lining of the pool which may have been caked brown by the dirt. But the pavement, she knew, had been cracked and uneven. She searched for some traces, pausing at the rails which had become steady and unrusted. There were, of course, any number of explanations. (She had once heard, from friends of theirs in Valley Stream, of a backyard pool rising ten feet out of the ground at one end, with the spring thaw. This was the same thing, in reverse. Wasn’t it?) Any number of explanations, and reasonable, all of them. And all of them, she realized, she was rehearsing for Ben, if he should see the pool, which she would prefer he didn’t.

  Why?

  She brought Mrs. Allardyce’s breakfast tray up earlier than usual, as soon as she had hurried in from the pool. She closed the door behind her and set the tray down.

  There was a table now, along the left wall, which Marian had brought up from the living room where it had been hidden near the greenhouse alcove. It was small and exquisite, with a scalloped top formed by the odd turreted frame; on it was a tall Sèvres vase filled with roses from one of the few bushes that were blooming. There were roses in the Canton bowl as well, and clouds of asparagus fern. Marian had placed it, on its pedestal, beside the carved door.

  The room calmed her almost immediately. Despite the intimidation she had felt initially, the sitting room, separate and quiet except for the soothing hum, was becoming the one part of the house where she felt most completely at ease and most private. To Marian it had become the very center of the house, the room closest to the core, just as the rounded bay, somewhere beyond the carved door, was architecturally the house’s unifying principal. Everything about the room had become pleasing – the light, the peace, the vast, empty stretches which seemed to be waiting for the imposition of some personality.

  She moved around it, turning off the night lamp and opening the drapes, and with every motion a bit more of the uneasiness she had felt beside the pool passed away. She skirted the table where the photographs stood polished and rearranged (by her) on the velvet covering.

  From the rear windows she could see the pool, a bright turquoise rectangle, framed with white. She looked at it a long time, brushing the hair back against her temples. There was a transformation, that was clear enough; but from the vantage point of the sitting room, there was more wonder than shock or surprise in her reaction. The pool was now exactly as it should have been all along, and that, some part of herself insisted, was the most important consideration.

  She turned away from the pool and looked across the room at the intricate rose window the door’s carved pattern had become.

  But there was another part, another voice, still filled with shock and surprise, that was resisting the insight and clarity the room was trying to give her. There had been the incident with Ben and David, and then the transformation, overnight.

  It was absurd, totally unreasonable, to associate the two; as absurd as Ben’s retelling of the incident. And to accept it would be to accept the presence of some inexplicable malevolence. And what then? Flight? Give up the house? The house?

  She lifted her eyes to the cornice above the door and the gold silk covering the walls. What sort of malevolence could there be in something so perfect, something that could draw her so irresistibly, until it seemed almost an extension of herself?

  It was Ben’s failing: seizing on something, magnifying and distorting it; manufacturing complexity.

  The pool was as it should be. And maybe if she stared at the door long and hard enough and lost herself in the hum, she’d accept it without question, for the wonderful mystery it might be.

  Ben slept late. Marian had over an hour to put the finishing touches on the large, panelled library she was setting up for him. She put the textbooks he’d be using on the oval Hepplewhite desk, beautifully grained mahogany with a red leather top, and on the Hepplewhite library table in the center of the room, under the gilt-bronze chandelier. The center of the ceiling was coved, set off by a circular band of stucco molding. She unpacked his set of Arden Shakespeare, even though there were several impressive sets, large and beautifully bound, in the bookcases that lined one end of the room; Chaucer, and commentaries on the Canterbury Tales: and a whole brace of nineteenth and twentieth century novels, some of which Marian had read.

  She wanted everything just right for him, a perfect retreat out of bounds to all of them. And whether it was the work that was absorbing her, or the reassurance she had found in the sitting room, the mystery of the pool seemed less pressing at the moment. She accepted it, and the only possible difficulty would be Ben’s reaction to the transformation. If somehow she could
manage to keep him away from it, or at least prepare him.

  She met him in the entrance hall where the rug, another project, was still rolled against the wall.

  “Morning,” she said, studying the mood.

  He said, “Morning,” and reached out and hugged her. “I overslept.”

  He was holding onto her, tightly. “You were out cold when I got up,” she said. “That’s a good sign.” She drew back a little. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he said, dismissing it. “David up?”

  “Nope. Just me. I’ve been puttering around for hours; inside, outside.” She moved away and reached for his hand. “Want to see?”

  She led him toward the study, wondering whether she should mention the pool. What could she say? That she’d been out, polishing the rails; that she’d managed, with a fumbling competence that shocked her, to get the filter going, and it was incredible the difference that made?

  She said, “Close eyes,” when they reached the library door, opened it and said, “All yours,” watching with pleasure as he examined the books and ran his hand over the polished wood of the desk. “Like it?”

  “It’s great,” he said, and finally there was a full, untroubled smile.

  She pointed to a table beside the window. “Typewriter’s there, paper too. Your attaché case is next to the desk.” She pulled open drawers, cataloguing, “Yellow pads, pens, writing paper, envelopes. That television goes; I’ll set up something in the servants’ quarters. It’s wrong for the room anyway, you should forgive the expression.” She came up to him and threw her arms around him, rubbing her fingers against the back of his neck. “Nothing to distract you, nothing to disturb you. Your very own turf.”

  He tightened his lips and nodded, impressed. “Now,” he said, “if we could just think of something for me to do.”

  “You’ve got loads to do. There are two new courses, and if Byron’s pressing on that Master’s, well, now’s as good a time as any to start thinking about it.”

  “You don’t just think about a Master’s.”

  “Whatever you do with it. I’m dumb, remember?” He smiled again and she said, “Do that a little more around here, hunh?” She kissed him, and what kind of malevolence could there be in a house where she felt such warmth and tenderness? “It’s okay, Benjie, isn’t it?”

  “The room?”

  “Everything. Yesterday’s such a long time ago that I’m not even sure it ever happened. Let’s start all over, hunh?”

  He raised his eyes and looked at the rows of leather-bound books. “It’s a good room,” he said. “Thanks.”

  They heard Aunt Elizabeth’s voice calling down the corridor: “Anybody?”

  “In here,” Marian called back; “Ben’s study.”

  She appeared in the doorway, carrying the almost-finished watercolor she’d been working on; her other arm was around David’s shoulder. He was carrying her paint box. She nudged him into the room.

  “David’s decided to take up painting,” she announced. Her voice was strained and her face pallid under the large sunhat. “We’re off to search out a view after breakfast. Isn’t that so, David?”

  He said, “Yes,” shyly, sneaking looks at Ben and trying not to look too hard at the bruise on his face. Aunt Elizabeth gave him another small push.

  “Isn’t this nice?” she said, inspecting the room. She had slept fitfully and it showed in her walk as well.

  “And out of bounds to all of us,” Marian warned. “Daddy’s got work to do.”

  “Marvelous room,” Aunt Elizabeth said, “good vibrations. Don’t you feel that, David?”

  David said, “Uh-hunh,” and stayed close to Aunt Elizabeth, shifting the paint box to his left hand.

  Ben held out his hand, a little stiffly, smiled, and said, “Come on in, Dave.” Marian and Aunt Elizabeth watched without saying anything. David took a few hesitant steps forward, and when Ben asked, “Friends again?” he nodded very positively, as though that’s all he’d been waiting for, and threw himself into Ben’s arms, really meaning it this time.

  Marian let out a relieved sigh. “Hey, everybody!” she called out, “I’ve got a great idea. A picnic lunch; someplace we haven’t even explored yet. Maybe that rickety old summer pavilion.”

  “With a game of softball,” Ben added. “How’d you like that, Dave?”

  David said, “Great!” enthusiastically.

  “Girls against the boys,” Aunt Elizabeth said, and Ben clapped his hands and said, “We’ll clobber them, right, Dave?”

  “Right!” David said, and softball struck him as a really fine idea, better even than painting with Aunt Elizabeth. Either way, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere near the pool.

  She had, as she suspected, been magnifying the problem. Ben didn’t see the pool, not that day which was warm, cloudless and perfect for a picnic. (“It’s worth the whole summer, isn’t it?” Marian said, lying back on the grass; “just this moment?” Ben agreed.) And not the next day which was gray and threatening; providentially, as far as Marian was concerned. He began to spend his time in the library, more and more each day. And while the dark mood had passed, she noticed a certain distraction in him which she attributed to whatever he was working on behind the closed library door. She mentioned it at one point and he said, “I didn’t sleep much last night,” and changed the subject.

  Aunt Elizabeth finished her seascape, L’Été, which she would show to Mrs. Allardyce whenever she might appear. She set up her easel near the summer pavilion for a picture to be called Temps Perdu, or Time Past. It would be moody and impressionistic, she decided, “representing loss.” She avoided the pool, and so did David who became briefly interested in his painting lessons, then bored, wondering where all the neighborhood kids hung out, and why hadn’t they been smart enough to bring his bike with them for the summer. He spent a good deal of time in the sewing room where Marian had sent the ancient television set. Once, Marian took time out from the greenhouse, which she had finally gotten to, and watched him try to swim in the bay. Ben had said, “No. Busy,” through the closed door when she had asked him to come along.

  Once again, just as Marian began to feel some concern about Mrs. Allardyce, she found the napkin unfolded on the lunch tray, and the soup dish nearly empty.

  She stayed in the sitting room for hours at a time, locking the outer door now, even though no one had come near it in the nine days they’d been in the house. Mrs. Allardyce remained invisible, and there was still no sound but the hum behind the carved door. The room had been empty, shapeless except for the wingchair and the table of photographs (which Marian arranged and rearranged with endless fascination). And of course the door. She was filling it now, shaping it, with no interference, with a silence that had to indicate approval on Mrs. Allardyce’s part, shaping it to her own taste. She had carried up small consoles and endtables and enameled chests from other parts of the house; and Chinese bowls and vases, Dresden figurines, and delicate Venetian glass, most of which had been hidden in closets or coated with dust.

  She had even steeled herself one morning and gone down to the basement which, as the Allardyces had said, went on and on, with narrow passages and sub-basements and locked steel doors. It was dark and damp and frightening, with sheeted, spectral heaps shadowy against the stone walls. As she suspected, there were treasures among the broken tables and andirons and piles of ancient magazines (and, spookily, rusted wheelchairs, two of them). She salvaged a round Italian mirror in a gilded frame, a beautiful rococo piece, which she hung in the sitting room and flanked with bronze wall sconces.

  It never occurred to Marian to question the reason behind the activity, or the secrecy of it all. It was giving her pleasure and enormous satisfaction; the most complete expression of her responsibility to the house and to Mrs. Allardyce. And if it should manage to dr
aw the old woman out of the bedroom finally, that would be gratifying of course, but purely incidental. Or reasonably incidental.

  Ben, fortunately, was spending as much time in the library, and David had rediscovered his “Hot Wheels” toy and, miraculously, was reading for something approaching pleasure. Gradually, they were finding a routine, casual and refreshing, and gradually too the pool incident would fade completely, and that would become part of the routine as well, with enough time elapsed to make the transformation less conspicuous; she hoped.

  Marian never left the grounds. Once or twice she thought about a trip, preferably secret, to the local drugstore, wherever that might be. There was a bit of gray now, easily concealed, at the base of her neck. The problem was becoming less momentous, however, the more she got involved in the house.

  Ben went into town once during the week, for milk and the mail (the larder, packed with the Allardyces’ beneficence, was holding up beautifully). When he returned he found Marian winding the clocks and actually succeeding in making the brass Regency clock on the mantel work for exactly three minutes; the “Hallelujah!” died on her lips.

  “I’ll get it eventually,” she swore; “all of them.”

  Ben had that same, vaguely distracted look. He was complaining about the driveway again. “It’s barely passable,” he said.

  “So you’ve told me. Why not fool around with the clippers?” She pinched his cheeks. “Get rid of some of that scholar’s pallor.”

  He found the clippers, spent a few hours trimming the foliage, and then, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the job, gave up. He wondered what the hell they would do in a week or so.

  “Hole up and disappear,” Marian said later. “Everything we need is right here.”

  From the way she said it, Ben couldn’t quite tell whether she was kidding or not.