Doppelgänger (5 page)

“It was purely a stroke of luck. The property was unusually cheap. The family who used to own it fell on hard times when George Niles's brokerage house folded last year. My father represented them in the bankruptcy, which is how I found out about it.”

“Bad business, that Niles affair,” Mrs. Norton clucked disapprovingly. She turned to her daughter. “Weren't the Quains friends of Niles?”

Anine noticed that this piqued Julian's interest. “The Quains?” he said. He was about to take a sip, but instead lowered his cup. “As a matter of fact, that's who I bought the property from.”

Quain.
Anine had never heard this name before.

“That's quite an interesting coincidence,” said Rachael.

“How so?” Anine asked.

“Mrs. Quain is living here in Newport now. Mrs. Quain's younger sister is married to Lucius Minthorn, and Lucius agreed to take her in. I'd heard she was in a bad way, but I had no idea the family was
that
destitute.”

“I should see why they were eager to not let it be known,” said Mrs. Norton.

An uncomfortable silence descended over the brunch table, broken only by the clink of china and the gentle rustling of the late summer breeze against the curtains. Anine knew such a silence was intolerable. She was thus not surprised when it was quickly broken by more small-talk. “Speaking of the Minthorns, did you hear about that dreadful party they gave for Ava Kirklow's engagement?” Mrs. Norton bubbled. “Supposedly it was a
complete
disaster. Their first mistake was deciding to have it in the garden…”

Anine quickly tuned her out. She noticed that Rachael was stealing glances at her, looking up or over as if sizing her up.
I think it might be advantageous to get to know her
.
Maybe she can help me swim through these shark-infested waters, and I need all the help I can get
.

After brunch Anine said she needed to get some air—she had already identified this as a handy excuse to avoid socializing—and fancied a walk on the beach. She was pleased that Rachael volunteered to go with her. They both, of course, needed a change of clothes, but an hour later in a new blue and white ruched silk summer dress, matching gloves and Chinese parasol Anine strolled along the well-kept pathway between the scrubby grass and the sandy beach, Rachael at her side. The afternoon was warm but not unpleasantly so, and a fresh breeze was blowing from the south, bringing with it the scent of salt water and, faintly, lilac.

“You want to talk about it, don't you?” said Rachael, her mouth bearing a hint of a mischievous smile.

“Talk about what?”

“What happened in your house. Everyone's heard one version of the story or another. I've been
dying
to ask you about it, but I didn't want to seem impolite. Certainly not a subject to discuss over brunch or high tea.”

Thank God. A woman willing to speak her mind
. Anine found Rachael's bluntness refreshing, and she felt vindicated that her intuition about the woman had proven correct. The thought of revisiting the horror was unsettling, but if that was the price of gaining Rachael as a friend, Anine thought it was a fair trade.

“It was horrible. We didn't even know he was there until Julian lit the gas. Then we saw him…
hanging
there.”

“Did you know him?”

“No, I'd never seen him before. Julian hired him through his firm somehow.”

“Why do you think he killed himself?”

Anine shrugged. “I haven't a clue. But it's going to be awkward going back there. Julian has promised the whole place will be cleaned out and nothing like it was before, but still it's unpleasant to think of such things.”

“Speak for yourself. I'd love to come see the place precisely because something like that happened there. Imagine, a body hanging from the stairs for months without anybody knowing!” Rachael was beaming mischievously. “I'm quite interested in ghosts and spirits, and I love reading books about famous murders that happened in the past. My fiancé thinks it's quite shocking, but I don't care.”

“Oh, you're engaged to be married? I didn't know that.”

“I've been engaged to Daniel for ages. Daniel Wythe. Now that you've fallen into my mother's orbit I'm sure you'll get quite tired of the Wythes very quickly. Daniel's the only one of them who's even the slightest bit interesting. Even he taxes my patience at times. I've thought seriously about taking a lover.” Rachael giggled.

Anine was slightly appalled but she wasn't about to ruin her chances to cement Rachael's friendship by rebuking her. “I'm so glad you're willing to speak plainly. Every time I open my mouth I fear I'll say something wrong and turn everyone against me.”

“You should be.” At first Anine was surprised that she'd said this, for it sounded rude, but then she realized it was mere honesty.
At least she respects me enough to warn me
. The words had barely died on her lips before Rachael motioned to one of the pathways leading up from the beach. “There's the path up to Rovensky Avenue. You want to see something? I'll show you where Mrs. Quain lives.”

They walked up the path and down a road running between two broad neatly-trimmed lawns. Rachael pointed out a large house sheathed in gray stone that sat imperiously on a low grassy rise. Yellow canvas awnings hung like droopy eyelids over the windows on the top story. Behind the house the ocean was visible, crashing against the jumbled rocks.

“That's the Minthorns' summer cottage,” said Rachael. “Mrs. Quain came to live there just a couple of months ago. It must have been right after she moved out of your house. Anyway, they say she hasn't set foot out of there since. She stays in her bedroom all the time, seeing no one. It's probably one of those top windows with the curtains drawn.”

“Is she an invalid?” Anine asked.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Rachael leaned in closer and said with obvious relish, “They say she went mad.”

Anine looked back at the Minthorns' house. A shudder went through her as she suddenly realized that Mrs. Quain must have been the cheerful woman in the portrait she'd seen in the parlor that terrible day they moved in. There had been no trace of madness behind those eyes, which had obviously been painted years ago; Anine wondered what she looked like now.

“So now you see why I'm interested in your house. Mrs. Quain went barking mad in there, and the same thing may have happened to the caretaker. Even if the events aren't connected you have to admit it's rather…
odd
.”

As they stood there looking at the house a stray cloud passed in front of the sun. For a few moments the scene was bathed in a strange inky darkness, but it quickly passed and soon it was again just an ordinary summer afternoon. Gravel crunching under their shoes, the women started back toward the beach path. Anine was glad of Rachael's companionship, but if her new friend had set out to make her even more apprehensive about returning to the house she couldn't have done a more thorough job.

Chapter Four

The Deathful Silence

After Julian snuffed out the lamp Anine lay in bed, feeling the stuffy darkness of the house seeping all around her. It was her second night at home, though in many ways she counted it as her first. Yesterday, the day of their return from Newport, had been so hectic and stressful that it was almost indistinguishable from the exhausting bustle of travel. It was a long and busy day, but she was comforted by the fact that she and Julian weren't the only people under the roof. They had returned to a veritable throng of workmen—carpet-layers, furniture movers, painters and even a decorator—hastily bringing in and arranging the furnishings that Anine had ordered from catalogs during their time in Europe, and which had been sitting in various New York warehouses while Bradbury's body slowly rotted.

Beasley, the interim caretaker Julian hired to supervise the fitting-out of the house while they were in Newport, departed for good at about five. He left behind a cook named Mrs. Hennessy and a ladies' maid, hired just that afternoon. She was a big, raw-boned Irishwoman called Mrs. O'Haney. The cook commuted but Mrs. O'Haney planned to live in the servants' quarters in the garret. Right after Beasley introduced Anine to her Mrs. O'Haney said, “If you don't mind, I'd like to move in right away, ma'am. It'll save me a night's rent at the boarding house.” Anine nearly swooned in relief. The maid was gone for two or three hours but returned just prior to suppertime, all of her worldly belongings contained in a flimsy cardboard suitcase and a dusty burlap sack. As evening fell she'd gone about lighting the gas lamps in the bedroom and the parlors and laying out Anine's dress for tomorrow. She barely knew Mrs. O'Haney but she'd already come to rely upon her. She was the bulwark against the most awful thing Anine could imagine about the house: being alone within its walls.

She was relieved that Julian had not wanted to make love tonight. They hadn't been physical since the end of their honeymoon. It hadn't seemed appropriate to engage in conjugal relations either in Lucretia's house or Cornelius's place in Newport; Anine was at first expecting that Julian would be eager to resume having sex with her now that they were home, but both tonight and the night before he hadn't seemed interested. She was glad of it. Being constantly nervous and on-edge—about the nightmares, about the memory of discovering Bradbury—sapped her of any hint of desire.

Julian fell asleep quickly, as he nearly always did. Within minutes his breaths were very even and hollow-sounding, almost a snore but not quite. Anine willed herself to relax. She was surprised how much tension she'd been unconsciously holding in her joints.

Except for the ticking of the clock and Julian's breathing the room was deathly silent. The house's walls were so thick that they blocked out all sound from the streets around them. The bedroom's beautiful furnishings were all so new and alien to Anine that she still didn't feel like it was home. She hoped she would get used to it.

What's that?
With a sudden jerk she raised her head off the pillow. It felt like some time had passed and she thought she had been asleep, but there was no telling how long. Something had awakened her, but as she listened in the darkness she could hear only Julian's breaths and the relentless ticking of the mantel clock. Her muscles were tense again. She relaxed them.
“Ingenting där,”
she whispered.
Nothing there
.

But a moment later she heard it again. It was the creak of floorboards, moving in the hallway outside the bedroom door. It moved from right to left.

Anine was at once startled and annoyed. She knew it had to be Mrs. O'Haney, but why would she be moving around in the middle of the night, especially around their bedroom?

As she turned over, fluffing the pillow, Anine heard the creak of footsteps on floorboards again, this time moving right to left. She heard something else too: soft giggling. From behind the thick oaken door of the bedroom it was barely audible, not something one could have heard without listening intently, but Anine definitely heard it.

All right. Enough.
Anine swung out of bed, reaching for the dressing-gown she'd left on one of the posts. “She ought to respect our sleeping hours,” she whispered. Mrs. O'Haney was not starting out her term of employment well. Her references were glowing; she'd been a ladies' maid for twenty-seven years, or so Beasley had told her. He was the one who had hired her.

She grasped the doorknob tightly but pulled the door open very gently, hoping not to wake Julian. Out in the hallway there was only slightly more light than in the bedroom. In the dimness the thick green carpet of the entryway—wall-to-wall and brand new, still smelling of wet wool—appeared inky black. Anine saw no lights on anywhere, up here or down below, and there was no trace of Mrs. O'Haney. There was no sound, only silence.

She must have gone back to bed. Well, good.

Anine closed the bedroom door and returned to bed. As she crawled under the covers Julian snorted, stirred and muttered groggily, “What's going on?”

“Nothing. Thought I heard something.”

She slept.

In the morning when they woke Julian rang the bell cord. Anine heard him do it but she was conscious for only a few moments, and then drifted blissfully back toward heavy sleep.

She was awakened by Julian's gruff voice: “Where the hell is she?” Anine opened her eyes and raised her head off the pillow. It was morning, and sunlight slanted through the chinks in the shutters over the bedroom windows.

“What's that?” said Anine.

“I rang for the maid three times.” Julian sat up in bed, and then stabbed both hands toward the ceiling in a monstrous stretch. “I think she's lazy,” he said, barely intelligible through his yawn. He reached over and snatched the bell cord again, pulling it sharply.

She did not come.

“God damn it,” Julian hissed as he put on his dressing gown. “First morning on the job and she's already botched it.”

“I heard her moving around last night.”

“Did you? Isn't that just like the Irish. Up all night, sleep 'til noon. Maybe we should let her go and hire a
white
woman instead.”

He opened the bedroom door, stepped through it and slammed it behind him. Anine, still very groggy, was nearly back to sleep in a matter of seconds.

The bedroom door came open again after what seemed like only an instant, but must have been several minutes. Julian stood in the doorway. “She's dead,” he announced, his voice flat.

Anine squinted her eyes, then opened them. What he'd said took a few seconds to sink in. “
What
did you say?”

“Mrs. O'Haney. She's dead.”

Mrs. Hennessy was not yet in and Julian had not yet hired his manservant, so he had to summon the doctor himself. Anine stood outside the door of the maid's quarters in the garret, continually wiping her sweaty hands on the folds of her dress. Mrs. Hennessey, who arrived in the midst of the doctor's investigation, stood nearby, occasionally daubing her eyes with a handkerchief. Through the doorway Anine could see Mrs. O'Haney's face. It was the color of ashes and the lumps of her body stuck up under the gingham spread that covered the narrow bed. Julian stood, arms folded across his chest, in the corner of the maid's room.

“Natural causes,” the doctor pronounced, folding up his black bag. “It seems to have happened in her sleep. She didn't suffer.” He looked up at Julian. “Do you know how old she was?”

“Not precisely. Sixty, maybe?”

Anine was still in shock. “She seemed fine last night,” she told the doctor. “I thought I heard her walk by my door in the middle of the night. She even laughed.”

“Laughed?” said Julian, surprised.

“I'll have to notify the coroner,” said the doctor, passing Anine as he stepped out of the room. “Someone from the city will come and remove her. It shouldn't take more than an hour or so.”

“Yes, the coroner is already familiar with this house,” Anine replied, looking into the doctor's eyes.

The man paused. Under his mustache his mouth quivered for an instant, but he said nothing.

“Thank you, doctor,” Julian said, following him.

Anine embraced Mrs. Hennessy who cried quietly. “We have to find her family,” said the cook, between sniffles. “I only had two conversations with her. She didn't mention a husband, but…” Her voice trailed off.

Another death
.
The second servant in a month who has to be carried out of the place.
It occurred to her that if word of this latest horror got around—as surely it would—the domestics of New York City would collectively brand this house as cursed. She still needed a ladies' maid, and Julian his valet; but that, of course, was secondary. Anine felt for the old Irishwoman and her family, if she had one. As she had for Bradbury she intended to write a letter of condolence and to pay Mrs. O'Haney's next of kin in full for her brief time of service. That was the least she could do.

Supper that night was dreary and muted. Over roast beef, mushroom-celery soup and a rather middling claret Anine and Julian said little to one another. In the emptiness of the gigantic dining room the clank and ting of silverware against china sounded jarring and loud. It had been a warm day but a fire glowed dully between the andirons. The house felt desperately empty.

“You're sure you heard her walking around?” said Julian, apropos of nothing.

So he was thinking about her too.
Anine took a sip from her wine glass. “Yes. Her footsteps woke me.”

Julian grunted. “You sleep so lightly that the sound of a mouse breathing could wake you.”

“I
did
hear her laughing.”

He seemed bothered by this. “What reason would she have to be laughing outside our bedroom door in the middle of the night?”

“I have no idea, Julian. We knew nothing about the woman.”

“Well, it's certainly queer.”

That it was. Anine did not eat much more. Soon Mrs. Hennessey came to take away the plates and it seemed only minutes later that she was announcing she was leaving for the evening. In the drawing room with Julian, who sat reading a volume of Sherman's Civil War memoirs, Anine tried to pass the time with the Walter Scott novel that Lucretia had let her keep, but the time stretched curiously long and the feeling of the house's emptiness was almost suffocating.

“Well, let's turn in,” said Julian after snapping shut the book. Anine's stomach sank.
How can he expect to sleep after all of this? After yet another body was carried out of here today?
But she gave no protest and soon joined him.

Tick…tick…tick…tick…
Each stroke of the mantel clock seemed in the inky stillness of the bedroom like the crash of a cymbal. In strange contrast to its monstrous ticking the clock's chime on the hour was quite muted, like the ting of a spoon against a glass. Not long ago it had chimed two and Anine hadn't slept a wink. She thought of the silence that must have pervaded the house during the summer months while Bradbury's body hung undiscovered from the balustrade.

She imagined the moment of his death. Did he cry out? Did his neck snap audibly when the rope jerked taut? The next sound would have been a gentle creaking of the rope against the railing as his body swayed, dangling like the pendulum of that noisy clock (
TICK…TICK…TICK…
) until it finally came to rest. After that the house was silent. If Julian and the police inspector were right Bradbury hanged himself on June 4. The next sound to break the deathful silence was the sound of Julian rapping on the door with his walking stick, two and a half months later. For ten weeks this house had been completely and ominously silent.

For some reason Anine was more horrified by the thought of that long unbroken silence than she was by the imagination of the suicide itself.

TICK! TICK! TICK!

Then Anine heard something else: a creaking noise, like footsteps on the floorboards, under the thick new forest-green carpet outside the bedroom door.

Her body jerked taut but she didn't sit up.
No—I can't have heard that! I imagined it!
The sound lasted for only a split-second and indeed she'd only half-heard it. It reminded her of the ominous rustling noise amongst the leaves in her dream of Ola returning from the grave even though the sound she'd just heard did not resemble it. She listened intently, counting the ticks of the clock. After twenty-five when there was no recurrence of the sound she decided firmly that she
had
imagined it. She turned over, fluffing the pillow. Next to her Julian made a somniloquistic grunt.

TICK…TICK…TICK
(
creak
)…

Then she heard the giggle—the same one she had heard the night before.

“Julian!”
Anine cried, grabbing him. He was awake instantly, his body giving a savage jerk that nearly flung her off the bed. “Someone's here! Someone's in the house!”

Instantly he launched himself off the bed and bolted for the bureau. She heard a drawer open and him fumbling about in the dark, and then she froze at the cold metal click of the gun that she hadn't known until this moment that he possessed. “Stay here,” he said. “Don't make any sound.”

He paused for just a moment before the bedroom door, then flung it open and bolted into the hallway. His voice boomed through the hallway and the stairs:
“Who are you? I'm going to shoot you!”

Anine quivered, clutching the bedclothes around her. The ticking of the clock now suddenly seemed much softer than it had before.

She head Julian's forceful footfalls up and down the hallway and then down the stairs. “Who's here?” The next time she heard his voice it sounded much less commanding. “Is anyone here?” After a while she saw through the ajar bedroom door the very faint hint of orange light from below—he lit a lamp—and she heard him call out in various other parts of the house. But there was no answer.