Amber plucked at his sleeve and he followed the women back into the house. Bookshelves and cabinets, many with their lewd stained glass insets completely intact, were abundant. In the wide hall approaching the stairs, a floor-to-ceiling linen closet opened to a depth of five feet. Its doors were masterpieces of glass inlay, featuring life-size nudes, their fleshy bodies entwined with vines of red hibiscus and blue morning glories. Amber studied the art with interest, then noticed Theo smiling at her and immediately rolled her eyes and muttered, "Gross."
Next to that was a large laundry room and then an even larger bathroom. Here the corridor ended, but another hall led to the left and right. Toward the front of the house were two more rooms. The front one, David intended to make into his office. About twenty feet square, it had three windows gathered at the far end of the room. The west one faced the front veranda, giving him a view of callers and the lighthouse at Widow's Peak. The northern window faced the cliffs and Red Cay, and the eastern provided a view of the road that led out the finger to the house. He would put his desk under the one facing the northern cliffs and have an instant three-way view--at least after the protective plywood was removed tomorrow.
"Look behind you," Theo said.
David turned to see a portrait of a woman hung above the fireplace at the other end of the room.
"The portrait was hidden away in one of the dormer rooms," Theo said. "She's beautiful, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is." David crossed to the portrait. A number of pieces of the original furniture remained, the stained glass was miraculously intact, and now he had a portrait, too. I'm a lucky man. He peered at the signature in the bottom left-hand corner and realized he was even luckier than he thought. It was a Jeremy Winslow, dated 1914.
"I wonder who she is," Amber said softly.
"It's Lizzie Baudey," David said with certainty. The elegant woman's coppery hair was swept up into a loose bun ornamented with a forest green plume. A few long, flaming tendrils had escaped to frame her heart-shaped face and lay, like fire, on her bare white shoulders. The green of her empire-waisted gown matched the plume, making her hair seem even redder than it was. The gown was typical of the nouveau era--the muttonchop sleeves began below the shoulder and the straight bodice was cut so low that it came dangerously close to revealing the nipples of her stylishly small breasts. Luxuriantly long ropes of pearls hung nearly to her knees and the straight skirt fell to the ankles, except in front, where the soft multi-layers of satin and chiffon were drawn up in a graceful fall of folds to reveal a curved flash of ankle and calf.
"She doesn't look very happy," Amber said.
"You're right, she doesn't." Everything about the woman in the portrait seemed soft and sensual until you looked closely enough to see the determined set of her full lips and the sadness in her large green eyes.
"From what I've read about Lizzie Baudey, she didn't always look that way," David said. "She was a great businesswoman, but she was also one of the original party girls, at least until she fell and injured her legs. She was never able to walk again without canes. That was in 1915, and some believe her own daughter pushed her." As he spoke, he became uncomfortably aware of Theo's eyes on him. "Whether that's true or not, by the time this portrait was painted in 1914, her daughter was giving her a lot of trouble," he added.
"What kind of trouble?" Theo asked, glancing at Amber, who sullenly stared back.
The glance annoyed David, too, but he didn't say so. "You don't know the story of Christabel?" he asked.
"No, not really," Theo replied.
"It's famous," Amber said dryly. "You can find it in almost any book on hauntings."
"I don't read things like that," Theo said, then hesitated, perhaps realizing she might be insulting David. "I know the house is supposed to be haunted, of course, and that Christabel was a poor, misguided girl influenced by her evil mother. I hope that her soul has gone into the light by now."
At those words, Amber poked David with her elbow, a little too hard. He cleared his throat to cover up his reaction, both to the poke and to Theo's words. He realized that Amber was right about the realtor being a crystal-packer. "Since Lizzie and Christabel are the subjects of my next novel, I've done quite a bit of research," he began, "and I hope to uncover a good deal more information now that we're here. But I can tell you that though Lizzie might not have been a model mother-"
"She was a prostitute, David!" Theo blurted.
The poisonous tone of her voice took David aback, but he continued on as if she hadn't interrupted, "-she was, by all accounts, a warm, loving woman."
"I'll say." Amber snickered softly.
"Christabel's father was a sort of voodoo priest in the West Indies. Actually, it was voodoo mixed liberally with black magic. Anyway, Lizzie visited there with her father when she was just out of college. She met the hungan and, shortly after, her father died. Later, she claimed the priest cast a love spell on her, and blamed him for her father's death. At any rate, Christabel was born and Lizzie, a vital, well-educated young woman, languished on the island, a virtual prisoner. When her daughter was twelve, word came that her brother, Byron Baudey, had died, leaving her this house. She and Christabel managed to escape with the help of the captain of the boat that brought the news." He paused dramatically. "It's his headless ghost that's rumored to walk the lighthouse. As the legend goes, he was the first victim of Christabel's black magic. But she wasn't too good at it yet--the neck wasn't cleanly cut. Rather, it appeared that some huge beast had torn it off with its bare hands."
Lizzie's emerald eyes seemed to watch him from the portrait and, suddenly nervous, he cleared his throat. "Lizzie had wanted her freedom, but even more, she wanted to get Christabel away from her father. By the time they were rescued, the father had taught the girl the black arts--he'd been instructing her since she was barely a toddler--and Lizzie knew her daughter's mind was being poisoned. By giving Christabel a fresh start, enrolling her in a good eastern boarding school, Lizzie hoped to undo the damage."
"So she came here and opened a cathouse," Theo said sarcastically. "That makes a lot of sense.”
"Boarding schools are expensive. So is maintaining a house like this. And Lizzie had no desire to be poor, so she carefully organized and opened a business, a very classy business, I might add, that would pay those bills. She took excellent care of the women who worked for her and she carefully screened the clients before accepting them.
"She never had any intention of having her daughter in the midst of the business and she sent her off to the school she herself went to as a girl. But she was soon sent home. For nearly two more years, she enrolled Christabel in school after school, and the girl continued to be expelled."
"Geez, Dad, what'd she do?" Amber asked. "Blow up toilets?"
He chuckled, despite himself. He'd told Amber a good deal of the story on their way out west, so she already knew. She was just adding to the drama to torture Theo, who still wore a look on her face like she was smelling a fresh pile of manure. His earlier attraction to her began to fade and he continued his tale with gusto. "Blowing up toilets would have been preferable to Christabel's proclivities. She liked to kill things. No chicken coop was safe, and if a school happened to have dogs or goats in residence, she took care of them also. But chickens were her favorite. She sacrificed them to Erzuli, the goddess her father had taught her to worship.
"So she ended up back here. Her mother interested her in art--doll making--and, for a time, she seemed to reform. But it didn't last. Against her mother's wishes, she became involved in the business. The information is sparse about how she accomplished that." David cleared his throat. "Then, eventually, she destroyed it. So," he finished, crossing his arms, "that's why Lizzie Baudey wears the expression she does in the portrait."
"Still, a cathouse," Theo said doubtfully. "It's no wonder she was so troubled."
"Lizzie had inherited the house and grounds but no money to speak of." He stared at the portrait. "Look at her. Does she l
ook like the sort of woman who would take in laundry or sewing?" He shook his head. "Of course not. She used her business sense and opened a house of prostitution that was world famous at the time. Lizzie had a hedonistic nature to go along with her artistic talents, and her business sense allowed her to indulge in both." He saw the sour look on Theo's face and added, "You have to admire a woman of that era who knew how to get what she wanted, even if it wasn't approved of by other people."
Theo harrumphed then said, "Shall we see the rest of the house?"
They moved to the other end of the hallway to explore a large bedroom with a wall of built-in wardrobes whose glass art was just short of scandalous. As he inspected the room, David began to suspect that this had been Lizzie Baudey's private sitting room. She would have wanted to stay near the front door, where she could keep an eye on the comings and goings of her customers. If, as the story often went, she broke her legs and couldn't walk without pain, she might well have slept down here, as well.
"God, Daddy," Amber cried, "do you know what these are?" She squinted at the glass on one wardrobe door.
"They're... they're..." she paused, at a loss for the word, then sputtered, "Trouser mice!"
"They're what?" Theo asked. The dark mood that had hung over her like a pall in the other room had lifted.
David peered closely at the glasswork. "Penises," he said, catching a whiff of the sweet perfume.
"Dad!"
"That's what they are, kiddo." He glanced at Theo. "Amber's always felt that the correct terms for reproductive organs are more improper than almost any euphemism."
"They're gross-sounding words," Amber said hotly.
Theo joined them at the wall of wardrobes and put her fingers to the arched glass over the rosewood doors. Amber backed away, looking disgusted.
"When Lizzie Baudey inherited this house, she poured her artistic talents into it," David told them. "She replaced a lot of the original wood panels with glass. And since she was running a house of prostitution, I assume she thought that pornographic art was good for the mood. It probably appealed to her sense of whimsy, too, so that's what she designed and commissioned."
"They're not really pornographic," Theo said, her voice throatier than usual. "They're too beautiful to be obscene."
"Well, I don't want any of those things in my room," Amber stated with disgust. She walked out of the room.
"They are well done," David remarked to Theo, even more aware of the sweet scent. "I especially like the way Lizzie's sense of humor shows in some of the designs." The two-inch pink, rose, and purple penises in the glass arches were entwined with fig leaves and many of the elegant little organs seemed to be hiding, rather coyly, behind the foliage. He opened his mouth to say so then snapped his jaw shut, shocked that he'd been about to say this to a woman he barely knew. Exhausted, he thought, I must be too exhausted to think straight. "It's getting late. Shall we finish the tour?"
Theo smiled and gestured at the door. "After you."
He stepped toward the threshold, aware of Theo right behind him. A second later, he jumped as a hand caressed his left buttock. Shocked, he whirled to stare at Theo.
"What's wrong, David?" The surprise on her face appeared genuine.
"Uh, nothing. Nothing." He stood back and gestured for her to take the lead. The woman copped a feel, he thought, following her dumbly out the door. He couldn't believe it, but he knew what he had felt. Or maybe she'd just brushed him with her purse? That could be, he supposed. Maybe...
"I see you've found the billiards room, Amber," Theo said, entering the already-lit room. David followed her in, wondering how she’d react to a subtle goose.
Amber, standing on the far side of the huge billiard table, just shrugged. "This lamp's not bad," she said, looking at David.
"It's magnificent." The billiards lamp was five feet long and eighteen inches wide, and its leaded shade was comprised of hundreds of multi-colored circles representing billiard balls. "They cleaned up the wood," Theo said, pointing at the table's massive carved legs. "But we've had a hard time locating someone who knows how to re-cover the table top. She laid her hand on the stained threadbare felt. "My secretary finally located a man down in Santa Barbara who'll do the work, though. I'm really sorry it's not done already."
"No problem." The ancient material, once green, was almost colorless except for the huge blackish stains in the center of the table. David looked up and noticed that Amber had a slight smile on her face. Her eyes were on Theo's hands, one of which was actually resting on a big black spatter. Her gaze rose to the woman's face and she cleared her throat, obviously relishing the moment when she'd inform Theo that she was touching a seventy-year-old bloodstain.
"Are you ready to see the second floor, kiddo?" David asked, giving her the eye.
"Sure," she said, giving him a shrug that meant I'll get her later.
"We didn't see quite everything down here," Theo said as they headed back to the sweeping central staircase, "but there will be plenty of time tomorrow, won't there?" She put one hand on the ornate banister and the other over David's elbow, unaware of Amber's glare.
Or ignoring it. Troubled, David watched his daughter walk ahead of him up the staircase. Beside him, Theo was going on about the new roof, but he barely heard her because he was thinking about how possessive Amber had become. He supposed it resulted from all the time they spent as a family of two, though for the time that Melanie had lived with them, Amber never exhibited much jealousy. He wondered what it was about Theo that set it off so strongly and hoped that, whatever it was, he could nip it in the bud because he was thinking that he might like to see more of her.
As Theo snuggled her hand more securely about his elbow, he realized that one of the reasons Amber disliked the woman had to be her habit of touching people. His daughter wasn't used to that kind of familiarity. Neither was he, for that matter. Some sort of West Coast thing, he told himself. Amber even had a snide name for it that he couldn't recall. The sweet flower scent suddenly rose again, stronger, more familiar and exciting than ever.
"You smell that, Dad?" Amber asked as they reached the landing.
"Yeah." Relieved that she had picked up the fragrance too, he gently extricated himself from Theo's grasp. The air here felt cool and thick. "What's it smell like to you, kiddo?"
"Flowers. Jungle flowers."
"Do you smell it, Theo?"
"Yes, David, I do now," she said slowly. "That's what you were smelling when you asked about my perfume downstairs, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"It reminds me of night-blooming jasmine."
"You never noticed it before?" he persisted.
"No… but I haven't been here at night before, either. That's the only time the flowers have fragrance." She smiled at him as if he were a small child. "That's why they call it night-blooming jasmine, David. It's delicious, isn't it?"
Sweet and citrusy at the same time, the scent cloyed in his nostrils, so heavy now that the air seemed weighted by it. And suddenly he remembered where he'd smelled it before. Two summers ago, during his first book tour, he'd stayed in a ground floor suite at the Rolling Sands Resort in Palm Springs. Melanie had flown in, surprising him with a chilled bottle of Mumms and a scandalous lack of underwear. They'd spent the evening in his Jacuzzi, soaking and drinking champagne.
After a while, a sweet fragrance began to rise from the yellow flowers coating the bushes that edged the private patio. Back inside, they left the sliding door open, despite the desert heat, and made love, slept, made love again. It was a night of hedonism and excess and the exotic flowers' perfume had been part of it. The scent of the jasmine had faded with the dawn, and he'd forgotten it until now. No wonder Melanie was on his mind.
"David?"
"Hmm? What did you say?"
Theo stared at him quizzically. "Are you all right?"
"Maybe somebody left the windows open to air out the paint smell," Amber suggested.
"Are any windows open, The
o?" he asked.
"I don't think so. You can only smell night jasmine on very warm summer nights. It's summer, but it's certainly not warm." She glanced around apprehensively. "Perhaps Mrs. Willard used some air freshener…"
"Maybe it's just ghosts," Amber said.
The fragrance dissipated as quickly as it had materialized, and David turned to his daughter. "You might be right." In fact, he was virtually certain now that it was a manifestation of some sort and, if that were true, Baudey House was breaking with haunted house tradition.
"I thought you said nothing ever happens the first night, Dad," Amber said, reading his mind.
"So sue me."
"Do you really think it's a spirit, David?" Theo asked softly.
He studied the woman, thinking that she might be the reason behind the phenomena: certain people seemed to set things like this in motion and Theo appeared to fit the bill. It wasn't something he could detect as much as sense: he thought of some people as "grounded," and others as the opposite. An ungrounded person seemed to feed their own energy into a manifestation and make it stronger. With Theo's sensuality and her thinly veiled volatility, chances were excellent she was feeding it an eight-course meal.
"It's not a spirit, Theo," he said finally. "It's a memory."
"I don't understand."
"When I was a little kid, I loved to go to my grandmother's house," David explained. "There was a scent--I realized later that it was my grandmother's sachet--that I always associated with the house. With her. When I was ten, she died and my parents brought some of her things to our house. Years later, when I was home from college, I went up into our attic hunting for a pair of skis--and I saw my grandmother's old steamer trunk. I knelt down in front of it and opened it," he said softly. "And was overcome by emotion because I felt like my grandmother was with me, like she was everywhere around me. I cried like a baby, remembering her--when I was ten I pretended her death didn't bother me-but the trunk held linens and little satin sachet bags which still held that sweet smell after all those years." Tears sprang to his eyes and, abruptly, he cleared his throat. "That's more the sort of ghost that we're experiencing here."
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