Ammie, Come Home (11 page)

 

IV

It had stopped raining, but the wind howled mournfully through the trees and shook sprays of leftover raindrops down on their heads. After the sedate silence and darkness of the side street, the garish lights and traffic of Wisconsin seemed like another world. The neon signs and the shifting colors of the stoplights reflected in the shiny wet blackness of the pavement made weird psychedelic patterns of crimson and green and yellow.

The picturesque brick sidewalks of Georgetown were slippery and uneven. Ruth clung to her escort's arm, and found its solidity reassuring in more ways than one. In the light and the cold, rushing air her spirits rose; ahead of her, Bruce looked down at Sara and spoke, and the girl's light laughter floated back to her.

As they passed the entrance to one of the new nightclubs they encountered a group of the new youth who frequented them. Long flowing locks and faded jeans adorned boys and girls alike, and the only distinguishing characteristic of the male was the shaggy, drooping mustache. One of the girls was barefoot. Ruth shivered in sympathy, and Pat began to chuckle softly.

“Quite a contrast,” he said.

“Georgetown past and present,” Ruth agreed.

“Hoopskirts and hippies? True, but that wasn't what I meant. How the hell can conventional spooks exist in a world which produces that?”

 

The restaurant—soft lights, candles flickering, the murmur of relaxed conversation—made spooks, conventional or otherwise, seem even less likely. Pat got his drink or two; when the second round arrived he lifted his glass and made Bruce a small ironic bow.

“Go on with the lecture. I'm sorry to have interrupted you, but you must agree that these surroundings are more cheerful.”

“Too cheerful,” Bruce said dryly. “They cast a glare of absolute unreality over the whole business. Okay, okay. So I gave you the reasoning—much abbreviated—which led me to start investigating the history of the house and the family. The conventional theme of violence, and the mention of ‘the General' made me think of wartime; that's why I keep harping on the Civil War. It was a time when sympathies in Maryland were bitterly divided, and when family tragedies often arose out of the tragedy of war. But I don't insist on that; I asked the girls to find out anything they could about family history.”

“Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you,” Ruth said. “But I found very little. Surprisingly little, in view of how much has been written about Georgetown. Wait a minute. Where did I put those notes?”

She disappeared under the table and the others heard her scrabbling and muttering as she went with both hands into the big black purse, which had to sit on the floor because it was too large to stay on her lap. When she emerged, flushed and sheepish, she met Pat's amused eye and blushed more deeply.

“I have to carry a big purse,” she explained defensively. “I have all these papers….”

“You can carry a suitcase if you want to,” Pat said tenderly. Bruce cleared his throat and looked disapproving.

“Anyhow.” Ruth leafed through the spiral notebook she had unearthed. “Here it is. The house was built about 1810 by Jedediah Campbell (good heavens, what a name!). He was a tobacco dealer.”

“Everybody was,” Sara remarked.

“Since tobacco warehousing and shipping were the main industries of Georgetown, that isn't surprising,” Bruce said impatiently. “Go on, Ruth.”

“We'd better order,” Pat said, indicating a hovering waiter.

Bruce growled under his breath and ordered chicken without bothering to look at the menu. Pat deliberated over the wine list. Bruce politely intimated that perhaps wine struck the wrong note for the occasion, and Pat ordered it anyhow. Then, just in time to prevent an explosion from Bruce, they got back to business.

“All this is just genealogy,” Ruth admitted. “Jedediah's oldest son Ebeneezer inherited the house, and so on, down to eternity. There is absolutely nothing interesting about any of them.”

“Then I took up the tale from 1850 on,” Sara said, through a mouthful of paté. “Remember the story about the Civil War Campbell that Madame Nada used at the séance? It's the only well-known story connected with the house. But he was an old man when the war broke out and nobody bothered him. Even though by then Georgetown was part of the District of Columbia, a lot of Georgetowners had Southern sympathies.”

“It doesn't seem to help,” Bruce admitted. “And later?”

“Goodness, I couldn't even find any names of people, not in the books. They must have been nobodies.”

“I can give you the names, from family records,” Ruth said. “After all, Cousin Hattie was born in the 1880's. Her father's family was large and prolific; when the family fortunes declined, the children scattered. Their children are all over the place now—California, Canada, New England. And my bunch, in the Midwest. And none of them, I assure you, has even been inclined toward violence.”

“I'm not interested in the diasporic Campbells.” Bruce put a hand over his glass to prevent Pat's refilling it. “Had Cousin Hattie any dark secrets?”

Ruth sputtered into her wine.

“Sorry! But that really is ludicrous. She was the most proper old lady who ever lived; she wore long black dresses from the day her father died till she passed on in 1965. And she died of old age, peacefully, in her bed.”

“What a letdown,” Pat said with a grin. “I hoped she would turn out to be a secret Satanist, indulging in wild sexual orgies in her parlor, and kissing—”

“Never mind,” Ruth said.

“Where did you read about that charming little rite?” Bruce asked. He too was smiling; his mood had lightened considerably.

“I didn't; I don't read that sort of thing!” They all laughed at her indignation, and she added, smiling, “It was obvious from Pat's expression what he was going to say.”

Pat sobered.

“Cousin Hattie is a case in point, though. I'm not seriously suggesting that she was a devil-worshiper; but she could have been, with nobody one whit the wiser. Even if you're right about the roots of this trouble lying in the past, you haven't the slightest hope of finding out the truth.”

“I knew it wouldn't be easy.” Eyes on his plate, Bruce was crumbling a roll into fragments.

“Easy! It's impossible by its very nature. Look here, don't you see that your theory of a violent act can be proved only if the violence was public knowledge at the time?
Which it wasn't.
If there had been any tragedy, such as murder or suicide, connected with that house, we would have known about it. It would be part of the family history and probably one of the classic legends of Georgetown. The fact that we haven't come across any such legends means that one of two alternatives must be true: Either there was no tragedy, or it was so well concealed that there is no record of it—no trial, no funeral, not even any gossip. And in the latter case—how do you propose to find out about it?”

There was a short but poignant silence.

“Oogh,” Sara said, groaning. “That's a nasty one, Pat.”

“Nasty, but not unexpected.” Bruce sounded confident; but he drained his wineglass with more speed than good manners permitted.

“You mean you knew there wouldn't be anything in the books?” Sara demanded. “And you made me read all those dusty—”

“They had to be checked!” Bruce flung his hands out. “Can't any of you understand? We're all crazy—all but Pat—and our hypothesis is wildly insane; if we are to get anywhere with it, we must handle our research as sanely as possible.”

There was no satisfaction in Pat's expression at this half-submission. Instead his face softened sympathetically.

“I see your point and I agree, absolutely. I'm just a tired old pessimist…. What do you plan to do next?”

“The obvious thing. Public records failed, as we expected them to. Now we try the unpublished material.”

Pat shook his head.

“Damn it, Bruce, I don't like to be the perpetual wet blanket, but I've had personal experience with the family records of old Georgetown families. I did a paper once, in my distant undergraduate days, on the attitudes of Georgetowners toward the Revolution and separation from England. I went calling, with my big toothy grin, on several little old ladies, looking for letters and family papers. Talk about violence! One of the old darlings chased me out of the house with a rolled-up newspaper.”

“Oh, Pat, how lovely,” Sara chortled. “What did you do to annoy her?”

“I intimated that maybe her revered ancestor had not been, after all, a Patriot. You know these screwy organizations like the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution insist that you have an ancestor who fought in the Revolution. Turns out, oddly enough, that practically everybody in the Revolutionary Army was a lieutenant or better…. You can imagine the furor that would arise if some old biddy's great-great-great were found to have fought in the wrong army! I think they would cheerfully commit murder to keep it a secret.”

“How ridiculous,” Sara said contemptuously.

“You didn't tell me that you'd done research on Georgetown,” Bruce said.

“Hardly amounted to that.”

“I'd like to see that paper sometime.”

“I don't even know where it is.”

“Could you look for it?”

“Oh, for—If it would make you any happier.”

“Oh, it would,” Bruce murmured. “It sure would…. No thanks, no coffee for me. Nor brandy. Haven't you had enough, Pat?”

The sudden animosity in the last question brought into the open the hostility he had been concealing. Pat refused to take offense. Smiling lazily, he said, “Tact, tact, my boy.”

“Sorry.” Bruce flushed. “But damn it all, we've got to keep our wits about us.”

“Oh, I agree.” Pat raised hand sent the waiter running for the check. “You want to get back, I gather. So let's go.”

As they walked back to the house, Bruce explained his plans.

“Tomorrow I'm going downtown. I'm not sure whether it's the Archives or the Library of Congress I want, but I know a guy who's majoring in American history, and I can ask him about sources. I might even try to call him tonight. What time is it?”

“Only about ten.”

“I thought it was later. It feels later.”

“It's a miserable night,” Ruth said, shivering as a spray of icy water swept her face. “All sensible people are indoors, in front of a fire.”

“I'll call Ted tonight, then. And maybe we can start on another project. One that ought to keep you girls busy all day tomorrow.”

“What's that?” Sara asked in a muffled voice. The hair blowing around her face got in her mouth; she pawed at it.

“Seems to me Cousin Hattie ought to have left some papers. What about it, Ruth?”

“She left an incredible amount of junk, certainly. I've never looked through it. There might be something in the attic, I guess.”

They turned up the short walk toward the house. Ruth was in the lead, since she had the key; but as her foot touched the bottom step she stopped, so suddenly that Pat bumped into her. He began to expostulate. Then he saw what she had seen, and fell silent.

The balanced Georgian facade had a door in the center, with long windows on either side—those of the dining room, now dark, on the right, the living-room windows on the left. They had left the latter room brightly lit. The light, shining through the blue satin drapes, gave them a heavenly azure glow, like the robes of a lady saint. But the shining folds were moving.

Ruth's gloved hand clutched at Pat's sleeve.

“Look—”

“Don't say anything,” Bruce ordered. Instinctively they spoke in low voices, as though something could hear them. With an equally atavistic impulse they all moved close together, in a huddled, shivering group.

“I'm not going in that door,” Sara said.

“Me neither,” Pat agreed. “You realize, don't you, that this could be anything from a burglar to an open window elsewhere in the room?”

“Then why don't you want to go in?” Bruce made his challenge in a fierce whisper.

“I'm afraid of burglars,” Pat said equably. “Is there a back door?”

“Of course, the kitchen. Come on.”

This time no one laughed when Ruth groped in her purse for the back-door key. It took her a long
time to locate it. Her fingers were icy cold. The shivering, quivering movement of the curtains continued.

The house was so close to its neighbor that the passageway between them looked like a black tunnel.

“Why the hell didn't I bring a flashlight?” Pat shouldered Ruth out of the way. A tiny flame sprang up and promptly went out. The wind blowing down the passageway was too strong for his lighter. He swore and plunged into the blackness. The others followed, with Bruce bringing up the rear.

The passageway was not only dark, it was cold and windy and damp. Puddles squished under Ruth's feet and splashed her ankles. She was glad to get out of the tunnel. But the backyard was not much better. They huddled again on the paved stones of the patio, now dangerously slippery with rain. Behind them the gloom of the night-dark garden, shaded by pines and unlit even by moonlight, was filled with constant uneasy movement.

The kitchen windows were dark. Ruth silently cursed her inherited Scottish thrift. From now on she would leave every light in the blasted house on, day and night! Very dimly she could make out the white painted steps that led to a little wooden annex at the back, where she kept mops and garbage cans. Through this annex entry to the kitchen was gained.

“Give me the key,” Pat muttered, and Ruth gladly allowed him to precede her up the stairs. After a few seconds of muttering and scratching he said grumpily, “I can't see a damn thing. Bruce, come up and hold the lighter, will you?”

Then, for the second time that night, they were gripped simultaneously by the unexpected. Ruth had been hearing the noise for some time. She told herself it was the wind in the trees, but she didn't believe it. But not until Bruce started up the stairs did the moaning sigh form audible words. They were the words she had heard before; but now, with no walls between her and the source (what source???) they were much more distinct. The great sighing voice came at her from all sides and from no sides; from inside her head, from every point of the compass, from the cloudy turmoil of the sky…and died away in a long, sobbing cry.