The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 2

“Rebecca? Rebecca! I want you!”
Rebecca Morrison cringed as the querulous voice ricocheted from the floor above, immediately followed by the hollow thumping of a rubber-tipped cane pounding against bare hardwood planks. She had come home from the library early today, sent by Germaine to clean out the cupboards under the sink. She wasn’t certain exactly why this chore had to be accomplished today, since it didn’t look to her as if anyone had cleaned anything out from under the kitchen sink for at least twenty years, but it was what Germaine wanted her to do, and she knew she owed Germaine a very great deal. Germaine, after all, had explained it to her the day after the fire that had destroyed her aunt’s home.
“I hope you understand what a sacrifice Mother and I are making,” Germaine had said. She was perched on the edge of the single straight-backed chair that, save for the bed, was the only place to sit in the small attic room that Rebecca had been given. “Except for the cleaning girl, Mother isn’t used to having anyone but me in the house. However, if you’re very quiet, she might get used to you. We’ll have to let the cleaning girl go, of course, but with your extra hands to help us out, I don’t think we’ll miss her too much, will we?”
Rebecca shook her head, as she knew she was expected to do, and when she spoke, it was in the hushed tone she’d learned to use in the library. “I’ll be careful not to disturb Mrs. Wagner at all,” she said.
“You mustn’t call Mother ‘Mrs. Wagner,’ ” Germaine had instructed her. “After all, you’re not the cleaning girl, are you? I think if you call her Miss Clara, that will be fine.” Rebecca thought calling a widow who was nearly eighty “Miss” was a little strange, but after having worked for Germaine at the library, she knew better than to argue with her. “We’ll be just like a little family, taking care of each other,” Germaine said with a sigh of satisfaction, and for a moment Rebecca thought the woman might just reach out and pat her on the knee. Instead, she rose from the chair and, in the tone of a grande dame, added, “It isn’t everyone who would have taken you in, Rebecca. You should be very grateful to Mother for allowing you to live here.”
“Oh, I am,” Rebecca quickly assured her. “And I really like this room, Germaine. I mean, what would I put in the dressers and closets in all the big bedrooms downstairs?”
For some reason, her words seemed to make Germaine angry; Rebecca saw her lips tighten into the thin line she used to silence rowdy children in the library, but then she’d turned and left.
Left alone, Rebecca had unpacked her few belongings. All her clothes and possessions had perished in the fire, but she’d purchased some necessary items, and Bonnie Becker, Ed’s wife, had brought over some clothing that morning. (“I won’t hear of your refusing me,” Bonnie had said to her. “These things are almost brand new and they just don’t fit. They’ll be absolutely perfect on you.”) After Rebecca hung up the four blouses, one skirt, and two pairs of jeans, and stowed the meager supply of underwear in the tiny pine chest that squatted beneath the one dormer window in the attic room, she started back downstairs. Clara Wagner’s shrill voice stopped her just as she was passing the old woman’s open door on the second floor, near the foot of the stairs leading to the attic.
“You will bring me a pot of coffee every morning,” the old woman had instructed her from the wheelchair in which she was sitting. “Not so hot it will burn my tongue, but not cold either. Do you understand?”
For the next two weeks, Rebecca had done her best, and finally got it right. But more often than not, satisfying Miss Clara’s exacting tastes meant running up and down the stairs at least three times every morning before she and Germaine were finally able to leave for work at the library. During the evenings, and on her days off from the library, she’d been busy catching up on all the housework the cleaning girl never seemed to have gotten around to doing.
Now, her unsuccessful attempt to scrub away the cupboard stains was interrupted by Clara Wagner’s voice piercing through the vast reaches of the house. Rebecca stood up, stretched her aching back, and let the rag she’d been using drop back into the sink, which was filled with a mixture of hot water, detergent, and bleach.
Leaving the kitchen, she made her way through the walnut-paneled dining room, then into the immense foyer. The pride of the house, the entry hall rose a majestic three stories, crowned by an immense stained-glass skylight set in the roof above, its sunburst pattern filling the huge space with a rainbow of color. On the second-floor level, a broad mezzanine circled the foyer. At the end of the hall opposite the double front doors rose a sweeping staircase that split halfway up, branching in both directions. Sometime after the house had been built, an elevator had been installed on the left side of the foyer, directly opposite the marble-manteled fireplace that dominated the right side. Rebecca had been cautioned that she was never to use the elevator; it was only to be used by Clara Wagner on her infrequent forays to the first floor of her house. Rebecca caught herself holding her breath every time the old lady pushed the button that set the machinery, hidden somewhere in the attic, to grinding ominously as the ornate brass cage rattled slowly from the first floor to the second, or back down. Someday, Rebecca was certain, the ancient contraption was going to break down. She only hoped that Clara Wagner wasn’t in the cage when it happened.
As Rebecca mounted the long flight of stairs, the old woman’s cane struck the floor twice more. “Rebecca!”
“I’m coming, Miss Clara,” she called. “I’ll be there in just a second!” Reaching the second floor, she hurried down the long mezzanine toward the room next to the attic stairs.
“Must you shout?” Clara Wagner demanded as Rebecca stepped through her open door. “I’m not deaf, you know!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Clara,” Rebecca apologized. “I was in the kitchen trying to—”
“Do you think I care what you were doing?” Clara demanded. Her wheelchair was drawn up close to the room’s fireplace, in which a few embers were glowing brightly. With one clawlike hand she pulled her shawl tighter around her thin shoulders, while she used the other to jab her cane toward a glass that sat on a table no more than two feet away.
“Hand me that glass,” she said. “And put some more wood on the fire. It’s freezing in here.”
“Would you like me to turn the heat up?” Rebecca offered.
Clara glared at her. “Do you have any idea what oil costs these days? No, of course you don’t! Why would you? You always had your aunt to take care of you, didn’t you?”
“Heating oil costs a dollar a gallon,” Rebecca offered.
“Don’t you dare mock me, Rebecca Morrison!” the old woman snapped. “You might get away with it with my fool of a daughter, but I won’t tolerate it. As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head!”
Rebecca’s face burned with shame. “I’m so sorry, Miss Clara,” she began. “I didn’t mean to—”
Clara jabbed her sharply with the cane. “Don’t tell me what you meant and what you didn’t mean! Now, what are you waiting for? Hand me that glass, and do something about that fire. And mind you, don’t leave the door open when you bring the wood in! I hate a draft as much as I hate laziness,” she added, glaring pointedly at Rebecca.
Rebecca handed her the glass from the table, then hurried out of the room and downstairs. The woodpile was back behind the garage; Germaine had forbidden her to move any of the firewood closer to the laundry room door, where it would have been much handier. “The woodpile has always been behind the garage, Rebecca,” Germaine had explained. “And that is where it will stay. Mother doesn’t like to see things out of their usual place.”
Rebecca, though, was fairly sure that Clara Wagner hadn’t been anywhere near the laundry room in years. Except for her brief public appearance at Elizabeth McGuire’s funeral, Rebecca doubted the old woman had even been outside the house in years. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to argue with either of the women who had been kind enough to take her into their own home. Picking up the leather sling that was the only thing Germaine allowed her to carry wood in, she went out to the backyard, stacked five pieces of wood into the carrier, and returned to Clara’s room.
“That’s hardly enough to keep me warm for the evening,” the old woman observed tartly as Rebecca piled three of the logs onto the fire, then used a bellows to fan the embers back to life.
“I’ll bring more later on,” Rebecca promised. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly five. “Right now I have to finish in the kitchen. Germaine wanted the cupboard under the sink clean before she came home today.”
“Then I suggest you don’t waste any more time chattering,” Clara told her. “And I shall have tea this afternoon. In the front parlor. Have it ready at six. And I don’t mean ready in the kitchen at six, Rebecca. Have it in the parlor at six!”
“Yes, Miss Clara,” Rebecca replied, scurrying out of the room.
As she returned to the kitchen, she wondered—not for the first time—if perhaps she’d made a mistake moving in here. But where else could she go? Oliver had offered to take her in—he was so sweet—but Germaine made it clear that such an improper arrangement simply would not do. Even now Rebecca could remember Germaine’s words as she’d brought her into the house the night of the fire.
“There aren’t many people who would do this for you, Rebecca. So I suggest you make everything as easy for Mother and me as you possibly can.”
Since then, Rebecca had been laboring to please Germaine and her mother, and she would continue to. But sometimes it seemed that no matter what she did, it was never quite enough.
As she lowered herself back down to her hands and knees, determined to go after the stain under the sink and vanquish it, Rebecca chastised herself for her ingratitude.
She would just have to try a little harder to please Miss Clara, and everything would be all right.
They would be just like a little family—just the way Germaine had said.
Oliver’s timing was almost perfect: he’d added fifteen extra minutes to his estimate of the time it would take him to stroll along the path through the woods to the top of Harvard Street, then down to Main and over to the library. Ten minutes had been added in response to his spring fever, which had noticeably worsened as the weather improved throughout the afternoon. He’d tacked on another five to account for a few minutes to survey again the ruins of Martha Ward’s house: he was still trying to fathom the twists of psychosis that had led to that strange night a month ago when Martha had burned the place down around herself while she prayed in the flickering light of her votive candles, surrounded by her beloved religious icons. The fire chief determined that the blaze had been deliberate, but no one had yet found any trace of the dragon-shaped cigarette lighter, although Rebecca guessed that they’d find it in the ashes that were all that remained of her aunt’s chapel. While he’d said nothing to Rebecca, Oliver privately suspected that someone—perhaps one of the volunteer firemen—had indeed found it, and simply pocketed it as a macabre souvenir of that terrible night. Still, after circling the blackened pit where the house had once stood, he’d poked among the ashes for a minute or so on the off chance that he might stumble upon it.
He hadn’t.
Now, at precisely five minutes before the library was due to close, he jogged up the steps and pushed through the double set of doors. As usual, Germaine Wagner glanced up as Oliver entered her domain; also as usual, her expression hardened into a thin-lipped grimace as she recognized him. Since Rebecca had moved into the Wagners’ house, Oliver had decided, Germaine’s disapproval of him had grown stronger than ever. When a quick glance around didn’t reveal Rebecca, he forced himself to give Germaine a friendly smile and approached the counter.
“Is Rebecca around?” he asked, hoping to seem casual, though he did not feel at all nonchalant.
“No,” Germaine replied. For a moment there was an impasse as the editor and the librarian gazed at each other, neither of them willing to impart any more information than absolutely necessary.
Oliver broke first. “She isn’t sick, is she? Did she come to work?”
Germaine Wagner seemed to weigh the possibility of getting him to leave without pressing her with endless questions but quickly decided the chances were close to nil. “Rebecca’s fine,” she reported. “She simply left early today. There were some chores at home she needed to complete.”
Needed to complete? She made it sound as though Rebecca was late with her homework, Oliver thought. He wondered if Germaine used the same patronizing tone when she talked directly to Rebecca as she invariably did when she talked about her, and whether it annoyed Rebecca as much as it did him. But of course it wouldn’t—it was exactly the sort of trait Rebecca always managed not to notice in people, let alone find offensive.
Not for the first time, Oliver reflected that if Martha Ward had really been as interested in saints as she claimed to be, she should have been able to recognize that she had one living in her own house. Martha Ward, though, had been just as condescending to Rebecca as Germaine Wagner was.
“Well, maybe I’ll just stop over and say hello,” he said, deliberately keeping his gaze steadily on Germaine, waiting to see if she would object. This time it was she who broke, turning brusquely back to her work, but gripping her pencil so hard Oliver could see her knuckles turning white.
As he left the library, Oliver wondered once again exactly what Germaine Wagner’s problem really was. Was it him? Rebecca? Both of them? But as he emerged back into the warmth of the late afternoon, he decided he didn’t really care—it was far too nice an April day to waste much energy on worrying about Germaine Wagner.
Walking up Princeton Street, he crossed Maple, then turned right on Elm. It was just a few minutes after five o’clock when he raised the knocker on the front door of Clara Wagner’s house. Rapping it twice, he waited a moment, then pressed the button next to the door. Before the chimes had quite died away, Rebecca opened the door. The questioning look in her eyes as she pulled the door open instantly gave way to a warm smile. The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, as Clara Wagner’s voice called down from above.
“Rebecca? Who is it? Who’s at the door?”
Rebecca glanced anxiously over her shoulder. As she hesitated, it occurred to Oliver that she was going to close the door in his face. But then she opened it farther, quickly pulled him inside, and, maneuvering around him, shut the door.
“It’s Oliver, Miss Clara,” she called to the upper reaches of the house. “Oliver Metcalf!”
Oliver stepped farther into the foyer. From this vantage point he could see Germaine’s mother. Sitting in her wheelchair, a shawl clutched tightly around her shoulders, she was glaring down from the mezzanine.
“What does he want? And don’t shout, Rebecca. I’m not deaf, you know!”
“Hello, Mrs. Wagner,” Oliver said, nodding to her. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
It was as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’m going to need more firewood, Rebecca,” Clara Wagner said. “My room is no warmer than it was an hour ago!” Turning her chair away from the balustrade, she wheeled herself back into her room. Oliver and Rebecca heard her door close with an angry thud.
“Is she always that charming?” Oliver asked.
Rebecca’s eyes clouded slightly. “She’s old, and she doesn’t get out very much, and—”
“And she can still be polite,” Oliver cut in, but as Rebecca flinched at his words, he wished he could take them back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re right.” He grinned lopsidedly. “I guess I’m just not quite as nice as you are, am I?”
“Oh, no!” Rebecca protested. “You’re very nice! It’s just—well, she and Germaine have been so good to me, and she really is very old, and—”
Oliver put his forefinger gently to Rebecca’s lips. “Enough,” he said softly. Then: “I went by the library. I was going to walk you home and try to convince you that you ought to let me take you out for dinner tonight. We could go to the Red Hen, or even drive up to Manchester, or—” Feeling flustered, he broke off, then spoke again. “Maybe I better find out if you want to go at all.”
Now it was Rebecca who seemed flustered. Involuntarily, she glanced up at the gallery where Clara Wagner had been only a moment ago, then back toward the kitchen. “I don’t know,” she fretted. “I’ve got so much to do.”
“I can bring the firewood in,” Oliver told her, breaking in again before she could totally refuse his invitation. “And you can let whatever else you were doing wait.”
Now Rebecca looked utterly at a loss. “I’d love to go, Oliver, but Germaine wanted me to get the stain out of …” Again her words died away, this time because a car had pulled into the driveway. As they heard its door slam shut, Oliver took her hands in his own.
“Rebecca, you can go out to dinner with me if you want to. Germaine and Clara don’t own you. I know you feel grateful to them for giving you a place to live, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a life of your own.”
Before Rebecca could reply, the front door opened and Germaine Wagner came in. Though Oliver was almost certain he saw a flash of anger in her eyes, it disappeared so quickly he couldn’t quite be sure it had been there at all. One thing he did know: the smile on her lips was far less genuine than she obviously intended it to appear.
“Isn’t this nice,” Germaine said. “You have a gentleman caller!” She turned to Oliver. “Like in The Glass Menagerie”
Oliver glanced at Rebecca, who appeared to wish she could disappear through the floor. “I just came by to ask Rebecca if she’d like to have dinner with me,” he said.
Germaine’s eyes darted toward Rebecca, then shifted back to Oliver. “And what did she say?”
“She hasn’t said anything yet,” Oliver replied. Then, knowing that if he stayed in the house much longer he would say something he’d regret, he opened the front door. “Why don’t I wait for you outside?” he told Rebecca. “Even if you decide not to have dinner with me, at least we can take a walk.”
As he closed the door, he could already hear Germaine starting to lecture Rebecca. When Rebecca came outside several minutes later, he could not only read her decision on her face but see her unhappiness as well.
“I really can’t go with you, Oliver,” she said. “There’s so much I have to do, and I promised Miss Clara I’d make tea for her.” She peered anxiously at him. “You understand, don’t you?”
For a second Oliver was tempted to argue with her, then just as quickly he realized that his words wouldn’t change her mind, but would only upset her more. “Of course I understand,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the package he’d wrapped for her. “I brought you this,” he said. “I found it in my attic today, and—well, you’ll understand when you see what it is.”
Her expression instantly clearing, Rebecca carefully removed the wrapping paper from the package, then opened the box Oliver had found for the handkerchief. As she lifted it out, her eyes widened in a gaze of delight at the delicate lace and embroidery. “Oh, Oliver, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. Her finger traced the mirrored R emblazoned in one corner. “And it has my initial! I’ve never had anything with my initial on it before.”
“Then from now on, finding you presents is going to be easy,” Oliver replied. “All I have to do is look for R’s.” Leaning over, he kissed her quickly on the cheek, then started down the steps. “Promise me you’ll have dinner with me one night next week?”
Rebecca hesitated, then smiled. “I promise,” she said. “And I won’t change my mind either. I’ll just do it.”
“Is he gone?” Germaine asked as Rebecca came back into the house.
Rebecca nodded. “I told him I’d go out with him next week,” she said. “And look! He gave me a present!”
Germaine took the handkerchief from Rebecca. She could see at a glance that although it was spotless and carefully pressed, it was very old. As she examined both the lace and the embroidery, she realized something else: not only was the work flawless, but it had all been done by hand. “It’s beautiful,” she pronounced, bringing a happy smile to Rebecca’s face. Then she smiled herself. “Mother will love it.”
Rebecca’s pleasure at Germaine’s compliment for the handkerchief instantly collapsed. “Your mother? But Oliver gave it to me.”
Germaine clucked her tongue as if chiding a child who was being deliberately dense. “But what would you do with it? You’d only lose it, or ruin it. A work of fine craftsmanship like this should be enjoyed by someone who can truly appreciate it. And I can’t think of anyone better than Mother.” She paused a moment, then: “Can you?”
Rebecca hesitated; she reminded herself of how kind Germaine and Clara Wagner had been to her. “No,” she said at last. “I’m sure she’ll love it as much as I did.”
As Germaine started up the stairs to present the beautiful handkerchief to her mother, Rebecca returned to the back of the house. First she would bring in the firewood, then she’d fix tea for Miss Clara.
And she would console herself with the memory of the look on Oliver’s face when he gave her the present she didn’t get to keep.
Germaine paused outside the door to her mother’s room, girding herself to face the woman whose only goal in life appeared to be to make her daughter’s life as miserable as her own. How long had it been since her mother had announced one morning that she could no longer walk? Fifteen years? Closer to twenty, Germaine suspected, though she’d long ago given up keeping track. After all, what was the point? Nothing was ever going to change until her mother had passed to her heavenly reward, and Clara Wagner was showing no signs of joining her Maker anytime in the near future.
Germaine had always suspected that nothing was wrong with her mother when Clara suddenly announced her status as an invalid; indeed, none of the many specialists Germaine had taken her mother to had been able to find any physiological cause for the woman’s paralysis. But Clara had insisted she could no longer move her legs, and by now it was undoubtedly true. Certainly her mother had grown smaller over the years, her whole skeleton seeming to shrink as her body adapted to the cramped contours of the wheelchair. Her muscles had quickly atrophied from lack of exercise, her legs turning into useless sticks. The pounds had dropped from her once stocky frame, and Germaine was sure she no longer weighed even a hundred pounds. Her eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and her skin hung in wrinkled folds from her cheeks and arms. But the strength of Clara’s voice had never failed her over the years, nor had her will to dominate everything—and everyone—around her.
Most of all, Germaine.
The years had ground slowly by as Germaine waited on her invalid mother. She prepared her meals and kept her bathed. At first, when she’d still believed that Clara would either recover or quickly die, she tried to keep her entertained as well. She’d gotten her to movies and concerts, even taken her on trips. But it had never been good enough. There was something wrong with everything they did and every place they went. After a while, when it became clear that Clara was neither on the verge of recovery nor hovering on the doorstep of death, Germaine had given up. It was no longer worth the effort to try to cajole and plead and lift and push her mother into activities that Clara showed no sign of appreciating. Her father had left just enough money to keep up the house, and Germaine’s paycheck, while not generous, yielded just enough for her to hire a part-time cleaning girl, giving her at least a partial respite from her mother’s complaints each day.
But every day when Germaine came home from the library, Clara demanded to know what she had brought her, like a spoiled child asking for candy.
Well, today she had something to offer, even if it was only the little gift that Oliver Metcalf had given to Rebecca.
She would have to do something about that situation. When the idea of inviting Rebecca to live with her had come to her in a flash of inspiration as she watched Martha Ward’s house burn to the ground, it hadn’t occurred to her that Oliver Metcalf might be a problem. Indeed, it had seemed to Germaine that Rebecca would be the perfect solution for her. She would take Rebecca in, and a grateful Rebecca could take over not only the duties of the cleaning girl—thus allowing her to save a dollar or two—but much of the care of her mother as well.
It also hadn’t occurred to her how quickly she would become annoyed by everything about Rebecca. The girl never complained about anything, and always seemed able to find the good in everything. As far as Germaine was concerned, that made her a fool.
But it was Oliver Metcalf who bothered her more. He was starting to hang around—a situation that could lead to no good at all in Germaine’s estimation. Well, she would simply forbid Rebecca to see him anymore, and that would be that. At least Rebecca—unlike her mother—would do as she told her to do.
“Germaine? Is that you?”
She flinched as her mother’s voice jabbed into her reverie as sharply as needles stuck into flesh. “Yes, Mother,” she said, finally stepping through the doorway to face the old woman.
Clara’s hooded eyes fixed on her. “What were you doing out there? Were you spying on me?”
Germaine cast around in her mind for an excuse for having lingered outside the door, but knew there was none that would satisfy her mother. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she finally admitted.
“You were spying on me,” Clara accused.
“For Heaven’s sake, Mother, why would I do that?” Too late, Germaine realized she’d let her exasperation be revealed by her voice.
“Don’t use that tone on me, young lady,” Clara snapped. “I’m your mother, and you’ll show proper respect.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t bring me anything today, did you?”
“You’re wrong,” Germaine said. “I brought you something wonderful today. Look!” Crossing to the wheelchair, Germaine knelt and placed the handkerchief in her mother’s lap.
Clara stared at the handkerchief for a long moment, then her gaze shifted and the bright black eyes fixed sharply on Germaine.
“Where?” she asked. “Where did you get this?”
Germaine’s jaw tightened in anger. Was that all her mother cared about? Where it had come from? Next she would be demanding to know how much she’d paid for it. Well, if that was all that counted, fine! “I found it in Janice Anderson’s shop,” she said.
“Liar!” Clara rasped. Then, with no warning at all, she spat in her daughter’s face.
As Germaine fled from the room, Clara’s voice rose in a furious howl that pursued her down the stairs. “Liar! Liar! LIAR!”