The Master of Phoenix Hall (5 page)

“You're married?” Nan asked, her mouth turning down in disappointment.

“Not yet, Ma'am.”

“You have a girl?”

“Not a steady one. There's Betty Bransten—”

“Who is she?”

“A girl not half so pretty as you, Ma'am.”

Nan gave him an encouraging smile and he helped us up to the seat. The dappled-gray horse trotted briskly down the street, kicking up a cloud of dust. Soon the village was behind us and we were driving on a tree-lined road that led through a thick woods. Billy talked pleasantly about himself and his ambitions and directed discrete questions towards Nan. She would not commit herself, but we were not a mile away from the village before it was firmly established that Billy would deliver all our groceries and supplies for us and be available any time we needed him.

The country was rich and green and thick with trees. I saw dark, shadowy pathways beneath the boughs, leading to cool isolated forest clearings. Golden sunlight sifted through the leaves, making a hazy, golden veil. We soon entered what appeared to be a private park, the rugged wilderness giving way to a more orderly arrangement. We passed through a gateway made of old stone columns, the rusty iron door held back, and the drive beyond it was lined with elm trees. We drove for a long time before I saw the house in the distance.

It could not properly be called a house. Castle, perhaps, would be a more suitable term. It was huge, sprawling over several acres of land, a vast pile of ugly stone adorned with turrets and wings and arches, brownish gray in color. There were hundreds of windows, and the sunlight glittered on the glass, throwing off silver reflections. It set far back from the road, but even from the distance I could see that it was in a poor state of repair. Wooden platforms had been put up outside one wing, and men were climbing over them, working on the house.

“That's Phoenix Hall,” Billy said. “And those men you see are doing repairs. Roderick Mellory brought them all in from Devon, would not give the work to the men of Lockwood.”

“Do the workmen live at the house?” I asked.

“They put up shacks in back—far away from the house. They stay there, when they're not raising Hell in Lockwood. There is over fifty of them. Loud, crude fellows who seem to think that the maids of Lockwood were created especially for their pleasure. There's been a lot of fights, even a knifing. The people blame Roderick Mellory for all of it, and rightly so.”

“How long will the men remain at Phoenix Hall?” Nan asked.

“For another month, at least,” Billy replied.

“Why did he bring them from Devon?” Nan inquired.

“For meanness,” Billy said, “meanness of heart and of purse. He wouldn't pay the men of Lockwood decent wages, and they refused to do the work. So he imported these louts from Devon. They'll work for a pittance.”

“The men of Lockwood must hate Roderick Mellory,” I said.

“He ain't out to win their hearts, that's for sure,” Billy said. “I think he relishes their hatred. He wants to be hated and feared. It gives him a sense of power.”

“I should think he would be the one to have fear,” I said, “with all that feeling against him.”

“If he weren't his father's son, he might wake up some day with a knife in his stomach. But he is gentry, and he is Bradford Mellory's son. That fact protects him when nothing else would.”

“They loved Bradford Mellory, didn't they?”

“If ever a man was more loved by the people I don't know who. He was like a Saint.”

“And his other children? How do the villagers feel about them?” I asked.

“Miss Laurel is exactly like her father. She does all she can for the people and would do more if her brother didn't interfere. She takes care of the sick and poor when she can, but her brother keeps her away from the people as much as possible. He doesn't want her to be contaminated by the peasants.”

“And the boy, Paul? What about him?”

“No one sees much of Paul Mellory. He's lame, you know. He stays confined to the Hall and its grounds. I don't suppose he's been seen in the village for five years.”

“What an unusual family,” I remarked.

“You'd do best to keep away from them, Miss Todd,” Billy said. “A young woman like you—” He clicked the reins, failing to complete his statement. “Some mighty strange things have been happening hereabouts. I'd hate to see you get involved in any of it.”

He drove on silently and did not elucidate this remark. Nan let out a little cry as she saw a deer wandering across the road. It was a beautiful animal with a silky beige coat and silver-brown antlers. It paused to watch our progress with pensive brown eyes. Billy pointed out a salt lick to us and said that the Mellorys had a number of deer in the park, tame creatures who roamed at will over the green lawns and through the woods. He said I would see many of them near the Dower House and beside the stream.

“They don't come too near your place, though,” he remarked. “In the past your aunt set up traps to keep them out of the garden. They used to trample her herbs and vegetables, and she waged war on them. She was a grand old woman.”

“Did you know her well?”

“I used to make deliveries to the house,” he said, “and once, when my ma was ill, your aunt came and watched over her and made the pain go 'way. You don't resemble her, Miss Todd.”

“She was my mother's sister. I take after my father.”

We rounded a bend in the road and I saw the Dower House for the first time. It set beneath the shade of several large oaks and their large limbs cast soft purple shadows over the bleached gray stone. It was two stories with a green slate roof and a crumbly red chimney. The front door was painted green and there were green shutters at all the windows. It was a small house, compact and lovely, bearing its age with a faded grace. There were flower beds in front and gardens on both sides.

I could find no words to express my emotions. I was speechless at the beauty and serenity of the place. It was like something out of a dream. After so many years in a shabbily furnished boarding-house, I was to live in this home, and it belonged to me. I sat staring at it, seeing it all through the soft mist of tears. Billy unloaded our luggage and set it on the porch. A sleepy brown and yellow cat crawled up to watch the process. Nan lifted her canary cage high and shooed the cat away.

Mr. Patterson had given me the key to the door, and I opened it, directing Billy to move the bags into the front hall. I did not go inside at first. I wanted to wait a few moments until I had proper control of my emotions. I suppose this was the happiest event in my life and all by the grace of an eccentric old woman I had never known.

“You'll need some wood chopped,” Billy said, finishing with the bags, “and I'll come round this afternoon to cut it for you.”

“That would be nice,” Nan told him.

“I'll bring some fresh eggs and butter and milk, and you can make a list of things you'll need in the way of provisions. Is there anything else I can do now?”

“I don't think so,” I replied. I took a few coins out of my bag, preparing to pay him. Billy refused the money. He claimed meeting us was all the payment he needed, and although he used the plural form of pronoun his eyes were on Nan alone. She gave a little curtsy, standing on the porch to watch as he drove away.

“A fine lad,” she remarked, smiling to herself.

“Indeed,” I replied, calmer now.

“Shall we go into our new home, Miss Angel?”

I took her hand and we went inside. It was cool and dark, and I threw back the shutters to let the sun come in. In a moment the rooms were flooded with silvery white light. Although it had been closed up for a while and had a faint odor of dust and dampness, the house was fragrant of home, of decades of wood fires and flowers, spices and herbs, of people who had lived here and left. There was the aroma of old wood that had been scrubbed and waxed for years.

Nan and I spent two happy hours exploring the place, going over each room and commenting on it and fingering all the things it held. I was pleased with the simplicity of everything. The walls were a faded gray, silvered with age, the floors golden brown hardwood that shone from years of beeswax rubbed into the grain. The furniture was simple too, hard, sturdy pieces of oak cut down to size, without the ornamental carving so prevalent in this Victorian age. The house was all bright and simple and comfortable, a place in which to live an uncomplicated, orderly life.

Upstairs there were two bedrooms, one large, one small. I chose the larger one for myself. It looked out over the gardens, and far away, over the tops of the trees, one could see the gables of Phoenix Hall. On the lower floor there was a study with oak desk and bookcase, a small parlor and dining room and a compact little kitchen with a blue and white tiled fireplace, a huge black stove and a zinc drain board. A huge black iron pot hung in the fireplace and black cooking utensils hung neatly on the walls. There was a tiny bedroom next to the kitchen and Nan decided she would prefer it to the extra room upstairs.

A door in the kitchen opened onto the stone steps that led to the cellar. It was very large, very cool down there, and so dark that we had to light a candle to see our way with. Unlike the rest of the house, it was cluttered and messy in the cellar. On the shelves were hundreds of jars of pickles and preserves and other foods, all neatly labeled, but strands of silky cobwebs stretched over them, and dust coated the tightly sealed jars. On the floor were stacks of jars, pots, boxes, old discarded tools, a broken spinning wheel, a litter of all the things there was not room for upstairs.

The cellar was as large as the lower floor of the house, and it had a musty, unpleasant odor I did not recognize. There was something I did not like about the place, something creepy and indefinable. I felt the cold dampness of the place and sensed something wrong, something I could not put a finger on. Nan stood on the bottom step, holding the candle. It flickered and spluttered, casting wild shadows over the walls.

“I don't like this place,” she said.

“So you feel it, too?” I replied. “Something—wrong.”

“Let's go up, Miss Angel. I feel a chill.”

“What's that odor, Nan?”

“I don't know. I only know it's not right.”

I felt something like fear, standing there on the earth floor, and I tried to laugh at myself, knowing it was foolish to feel this way. The cellar was messy, it smelled bad, but there was nothing wrong. Or was there? The place seemed so incongruous with the neat, bright rooms upstairs.

I stepped over to one wall and looked at the opaque brown jugs sitting beside some tiny wooden boxes that contained what looked like dried grasses and roots. I assumed they were some of my aunt's herbs, but the odor of them was acrid and bitter. Several small jars contained a cloudy green liquid and there were skull and crossbones scratched on the surface of the glass.

“Poison,” I said. “All kinds of poison.”

“Poison!” Nan cried.

“All kinds of it. I suppose my aunt made it.”

“Whatever for?” Nan asked, shivering.

“Why—for insects, I suppose, or rodents. Perhaps she sold it to the farmers.”

“Let's hurry, Miss Angel,” Nan pleaded.

We went back upstairs into the sunny brightness of the kitchen. Nan closed the cellar door, and I was resolved to buy a lock and chain to put on it. There was no apparent reason for the distaste I felt for the cellar, and yet I felt it, strongly. Nan had felt it, too.

“Let's go out in back,” I said. “I could use the fresh air.”

The gardens in the back of the house were neat, the beds lined with gleaming white shells, a flagstone path leading from the back door to the grey stone well. An old oaken bucket dangled by its rope, and I dipped it into the water and pulled it up. I ladled out some of the water and tasted it. It was incredibly cold, deliciously fresh. There was a neat small smokehouse behind the garden, damp and cool inside, with hams and bacon and salted meat hanging from pegs. In the metal cooler there were blocks of cheese and butter wrapped in wet white cloths, even a dozen or so eggs, light brown and speckled.

“It seems that we are well provided for,” Nan said.

“My aunt died so suddenly. All these things must have been here at the time of her death.”

“Those hams look good. I will take one inside to cook.”

“Isn't this smell heavenly?” I remarked.

Nan and I walked past the gardens and down a long slope to look at the deserted granite quarries Mr. Patterson had spoken about. They were an interlinking series of great cavities in the earth, all jagged and raw and ugly. They were deep and covered several acres with large, sharp rocks marking the walls and huge boulders littering the floors. If someone fell, it could mean instantaneous death. There had once been a wooden railing around the outer edges, but it had rotted away and collapsed in a heap of splintered slats. I kicked one of the slats with the tip of my shoe and sent it hurtling down into the quarry. It fell for a long time and then smashed on the rocks with a loud crash. Nan gripped my hand.

“We'll want to stay away from here,” she said emphatically.

“It's a good thing there are no children about,” I remarked.

We went back inside and began the long process of unpacking. It would take a long time for us to settle in properly. We found linen in the hall closet, fine sheets scented with verbena, and we made up the beds. I wiped dust off the surfaces of furniture, eager to begin a thorough spring cleaning tomorrow morning.

The sun was setting when Billy Johnson returned. He had a loaf of bread his mother had just baked, a pail of milk, some eggs and a small block of butter. Nan greeted him with enthusiasm and put him to work chopping wood for the fireplace. He came into the kitchen with a pile of small neat logs which he put into the wood box beside the fireplace. I had just made a pot of coffee.