by Savage, Tom
Holly, Mildred thought, looking around at the garlands and candle arrangements. Mrs. Randall has been very clever, using that particular Christmas green throughout the decor for the party. The guest of honor, the birthday girl, was its namesake. Even as this thought occurred to her, she heard the children begin to rehearse another carol, the obvious request.
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the greenery in the wood
The holly wears the crown.
O, the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer …
She smiled again, gazing approvingly around at the bustle of activity. It really was like the old days, she thought, when Miss Emily and Miss Alicia had presided at such festivities once a year. Mildred’s mother-in-law had been there to ensure that everything ran smoothly. And now, more than thirty years later, Mildred would do likewise.
Mrs. Randall might not prove to be the hostess her predecessors were, Mildred realized, but tonight was going to be a memorable event, just the same—she and Mr. Wheatley and Mrs. Ramirez would see to that. The three of them had discussed it: they didn’t care for Catherine Randall, not one little bit, but they were all very taken with their new employer. They would do their utmost best to make certain the party was a success, because they were doing it for Holly.
O, the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir …
The sweet singing of the choir followed her as she crossed the Great Hall and went into the dining room to see to the folding of the napkins.
The first guests had arrived at seven, and by eight-fifteen most of them were milling happily around the ground floor of the house, eating and drinking and chatting. Holly stood at her bedroom window, watching a latecoming couple get out of a white Porsche in the drive below. One of the local men hired for the evening drove the car away, and the couple came into the house. Holly closed the curtains and went back over to her dressing table.
She studied her reflection in the mirror. The royal blue satin Donna Karan evening dress went well with her eyes, and the bare shoulders and upper bosom were appropriately dramatic. No jewels, a light makeup, and the hair was perfect. A simple sweep back into a French twist.
That had been the most difficult part of today. They had driven into Greenwich this morning, just the two of them, to have their hair done for the party. She had spent some two hours with the woman, smiling and talking amiably. And all through the long ordeal, the driving and the hair dryers and the facials, Holly had stolen surreptitious glances at the woman, wondering in retrospect why she hadn’t been able to see it immediately, why she hadn’t simply known.
But she hadn’t known. Now, two days into her knowledge, she was still getting over the shock. She had not assessed it completely, examined all the possible repercussions. Not yet. But soon she would have to do that. She would have to go away somewhere—back to Indio, perhaps—and try to figure out what to do. Until then, she would have to survive as she had survived the last two days, on automatic pilot. And she must start with this party.
Ten minutes, she thought. In ten minutes, at eight-thirty, I am to make my entrance.
Kevin would be there, thank God. And Missy and her brother and his wife. And Gilbert Henderson, with any luck. When she’d been told about the party, she’d asked if the lawyer could be invited, and she’d later been told that he had been notified. Friendly faces would help considerably. Ichabod would not be there, of course, especially now. Now, more than ever, he had no intention of leaving his room.
Ichabod. She’d gone to his room that evening, after she’d returned from Kingston, and told him what she’d learned. He’d listened in silence as she recounted her interview with Mrs. Jackson. He’d remained silent for a long while after that, staring down at his chessboard. Then, at last, he’d said what she’d been hoping he’d say, that he was going to leave it all up to her. He would let her decide what they were to do with their knowledge.
She would have to decide soon. Even now, that woman was downstairs with her husband, her longtime associate whom she had not met five years ago in Monte Carlo. Heaven only knew what she was planning. Holly shuddered, remembering the fate of the last person who had threatened that woman’s access to the Randall millions, not to mention the unfortunate fellow prisoners who had crossed her. And Jane Dee. Poor, lonely Jane Dee, lying in a pauper’s grave with another woman’s name on it, alone and unlamented.
Perhaps she was planning another murder.
Automatic pilot. With a last, deep breath, Holly forced herself to smile at the woman in the mirror. It was an easy smile, she decided; unaffected, blithe. She knew she might have good reason to worry for her safety, but the others must not know that. A hundred and fifty people were waiting downstairs for her, and none of them, not one of them would see what Holly saw, know what she knew.
Then she stood up and left the bedroom. She walked down the hallway to the gallery and took her assigned position near the top of the stairs, exactly on the stroke of eight-thirty.
It was time for the charade to begin.
There was a sudden flourish of music, and a hush fell over the big crowd of people in the Great Hall. Holly saw only the back of the woman in the sequined red dress who stood on the bottom steps, a little above the others, and made the announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the guest of honor: my niece, Holly Randall.”
As Holly came down the grand staircase, the children began to sing. “The Holly and the Ivy.” Of course. She grinned around at the applauding throng as she came down to join the woman at the bottom of the stairs. The woman held out her arms. Still smiling, Holly stepped forward into those arms and embraced her mother, Constance Hall Randall.
“Hello, Cathy,” she said.
A light snow began as Dora Jessel came out of the gatehouse and made her way across the grounds, keeping close to the border of trees near the front wall of the estate, toward her favorite place.
She had been sitting in her bedroom upstairs, trying to concentrate on her writing. But the constant arrival of cars and the loud activity of the parking attendants at the front gates had finally driven her out into the night to seek a quiet solitude. She had returned her current journal to its hiding place beside the others before going down the stairs, tiptoeing past the living room where her father was asleep in his chair, and leaving the house.
Now, as she crossed the dark lawn, she could hear music in the distance. The main house was brightly lit, and even from here she could see the silhouettes of a hundred happy partygoers at every downstairs window. The music and the movement gave an impression of happiness, of contentment, of safety. But she, alone of all people, knew that this impression was false. It was an evil house, and evil people lived there: that phrase came to her every time she looked at it.
She knew better than to go there. She had made that mistake once recently, a few weeks ago, but she had been confused that day. She occasionally had spells of confusion, she knew, whole days and even weeks when she was not at all certain what she was doing. But that episode had been the worst one in a long time. She’d broken some figurines in the living room, she was later told, and she’d shouted things. Things that, had she been behaving responsibly, she would never have said, no matter how much she wanted to say them. When Kevin had asked her what she’d meant, she had not replied.
She couldn’t tell Kevin. She couldn’t tell anyone. It would mean the loss of her parents’ employment, and the loss of their home. The only home she’d ever known. And she would be blamed. No, she would never tell anyone.
But it was all in the diaries she had filled over the years. The whole, terrible story.
As she moved, tiny flakes of snow drifted down and landed softly on her face, only to melt immediately. It was not an unpleasant sensation, however. The cold snowflakes refreshed and invigorated her. She was
aware of every sense: she felt acutely alive tonight.
In the darkness and the light snow, Dora arrived at her destination, the fence above the cliff. She couldn’t see the water far below her, but she could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. It was a lovely sound, especially mingled with the new sound from the mansion behind her. Across the lawn she now heard the singing of the children.
The holly and the ivy
When they are both full grown …
Holly, she thought. Very clever.
Holly Randall seemed to be nice, and she was certainly beautiful. But Dora frowned when she thought of her: she had been confused the day she found Holly Randall in the cemetery, and she had only succeeded in frightening her, when all she’d wanted to do was warn her.
She must be careful in the future, careful not to disturb people. If her occasional bad days became a burden to her family, they would send her back to the clinic. She did not want to go there again. The clinic was another evil place, just like the house on the hill behind her.
Clutching the fence railing in her gloved hands, Dora closed her eyes and listened to the distant singing.
O, the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer …
It is Christmas Eve, she thought. That beautiful young woman’s birthday, or so she’d heard her mother say. That was the reason for the party. That was why all those people had come here tonight. There had not been a party like this one at Randall House since Dora was a little girl, before Mr. James’s wife had killed him in New York City. Since the murder the Randalls had been—what was that word, the one she’d read somewhere and had to look up in the dictionary? The word she loved because it so perfectly described the Randalls …?
Pariahs. Yes, that was it. The Randalls were pariahs.
Between the singing and the rhythmic sound of the breakers, Dora Jessel never heard anyone approaching. She stood at the railing, staring out into the darkness. She was thinking about her long-lost baby again, unaware that she was no longer alone on the cliff until the gloved hand reached out from behind to grasp her arm. She was whirled around, not brutally but firmly, to confront the figure standing behind her. A wave of numbing shock coursed through her as she stared into the eyes of the Devil.
“You!” she cried.
The children were beautiful. There were some twenty of them in two semicircular rows at the bottom of the stairs, and each child was holding a single white candle. When they were done with “The Holly and the Ivy,” they sang “Good King Wenceslas” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and “Silent Night,” followed by a charming, comical rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock.” Then they led the entire party in singing “Happy Birthday” to Holly.
She thanked the children profusely and handed out gifts to each of them. Amid much loud applause, they were then sent off for cake and ice cream before being driven to their homes. When the birthday cake had been passed out and consumed, the orchestra started playing again in a way that made it clear that dancing was to begin.
Holly searched the Great Hall for her uncle. She even looked in the living room and the music room and the library, but he was nowhere to be found. This was unfortunate: everyone else in the Hall was politely holding back from the dance floor, waiting for John and Holly to start them all.
She didn’t see “Aunt Cathy” around, either.
Just as Holly was ready to give up the search, the front door opened and John came hurrying in from outside, shedding his coat and gloves as he rushed toward her. Mumbling something about having helped one of the elderly, early departing couples to get their car from the attendants, he took Holly’s arm and led her out onto the floor.
There was a burst of applause as the two of them waltzed around the black and white marble tiles, and soon the guests began to join them. In moments, a hundred people were whirling to the music. Holly would later remember that the waltz seemed to go on forever, but she made the best of it, grinning at her uncle in a perfect semblance of delight, as if this was the one thing in the world she wanted to be doing.
John smiled at the grinning young woman in his arms as they waltzed, thinking, Where the hell is Ed?
The man he’d hired to do the job for him had proved to be remarkably efficient until now. For this reason, John was beginning to worry about him. He’d been here four days ago, checking out the BMW in the garage, just as John had suggested he do. John had told him where the keys to the cars were kept, behind the shelf. The two men had spoken on the phone briefly that day, John having called the motel from a pay phone at a highway rest stop. Ed, or whatever his name really was, had promised to meet him in the lane the next day.
But Ed had never arrived.
Today, John had debated with himself about calling the motel again. But Ed would be back in New York, he reasoned, and the message could not be conveyed to him until he arrived there again. That could be weeks from now, for all John knew. No, he wouldn’t chance another message.
But where the hell was he?
John smiled again and told Holly that she looked beautiful tonight. She smiled and thanked him and told him that he looked very nice, too.
As they danced, John wondered what to do. He didn’t have an address for Ed in New York, and the unlisted phone number in Brooklyn was useless. John had tried it twice, and it just rang and rang. Ed obviously wasn’t the sort of man who would have an answering machine.
He didn’t want to bother his friend J.T. again. J.T. had done more than enough for him already, and it was never a good idea to overstep the bounds.
He would wait, he decided. He’d wait a few more days, until after the holidays. If he still hadn’t heard from the man by then, he’d bite the bullet. He would call J.T. and ask for an address.
He wouldn’t tell his wife about it. Her last words on the subject had been a suggestion to call Ed and include Cousin Icky in the plan, which John had pretty much decided not to do. Icky was not a threat to them: he was certain of it. She was just being paranoid. Besides, she’d already made it very clear that she didn’t want to know any details. She wanted to be innocent of the whole thing.
This struck John as terribly funny. Innocent, he thought. Her?!
He looked around the Great Hall, finally spotting his wife’s red sequined dress through the crowd. She was standing just inside the front door, being helped out of her coat by one of the guests. What the hell had she been doing outside? he wondered. She was laughing at some joke the man was telling her, looking for all the world like the lady of the manor.
Good, he thought. If we play our cards right, that’s exactly what she will be.
He smiled at Holly again.
He decided that he would be immensely relieved when the waltz was finally over.
Holly decided that she was immensely relieved when the waltz was finally over.
Then, her duty done, she handed Uncle John off to “Aunt Cathy,” who’d finally appeared again, and began to leave the dance floor. But she didn’t quite make it. The band began to play another number, something slow and romantic, just as Kevin Jessel, looking terrific in a black dinner jacket, materialized in front of her. With a big Irish grin, he stepped forward to take her in his arms, and she was dancing again.
This dance was considerably more pleasant than the first, she decided.
“Good evening,” he said. “You’re looking beautiful, as ever.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re here.”
He smiled. “As a guest, you mean? I understand I have you to thank for that. I’m fairly certain that if it were up to your uncle and Mrs. Randall, I’d be parking cars rather than dancing with you.”
Holly shook her head. “Tonight, you are my guest.”
He leaned forward then, and kissed her lips. “Happy birthday, Holly.”
They glided gracefully around the Great Hall, their bodies pressed lightly together, until the dance came to an end. There was a smattering of applause from the other couples, but they stood quite still on the
dance floor, the two of them, regarding each other. Holly realized in that moment, surprised, that she had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to tell him everything. But not now, she knew. Not here.
“I hope we’ll be able to have another dance tonight,” she said instead.
Kevin shrugged. “I hope so, too. But now I must leave you for a while. My mother cornered me in the kitchen and asked me to go down to the gatehouse. She wants me to check on Da and—and my sister.”
Holly nodded, noting his hesitation, his vague embarrassment. She remembered her meeting with Dora in the cemetery, but she had never mentioned it to him. She suspected that Mildred Jessel’s current anxiety was not strictly for her husband.
“I understand,” she said, smiling at him as he turned to go. Then she remembered the presents she wanted to give him. “Wait a minute, Kevin.”
She took his hand in hers and led him through the crowd to the Christmas tree. It was a while before she could find the gifts she’d placed under the tree earlier, because the number of brightly wrapped packages there had grown dramatically. These are all for me, she realized as she rummaged around for signs of the Saks wrapping paper. Presents for me from a lot of people I don’t even know …
She found her packages near the back, behind piles of others, and handed him the five presents for his family. Two pairs of driving gloves, the aftershave lotion, and the two designer scarves. She smiled, wondering if Mildred Jessel and her daughter would ever wear the boldly patterned silk scarves. Both women seemed to favor black. Oh, well …
“Put these under your tree,” she said, “to be opened tomorrow morning. And there are two more here, for Toby Carter and Tonto, but I don’t know where to find them.”
“Give them to me,” Kevin said. “Whenever they come around, their first stop is always the stable. I’ll leave the gifts there. They’ll find them.”
“Thank you. And hurry back, please. You’re practically the only person I know here tonight, and I could really use the moral support.”