Hallow House - Part One Page 9

  Perhaps Marie had seen something. Taking Johanna with her, she marched across the hall and knocked on Marie's door. There was no answer. After a moment she knocked again and this time she thought she heard someone call from inside so she opened the door and looked in.

  "Miss Naughton?" she said tentatively, entering the room and almost immediately stopping. Directly in front of her, Marie Naughton lay sprawled on a chaise longue that was upholstered in midnight blue. Her eyes were open but unfocused.

  "Are you all right?" Vera asked, concerned.

  "Who--oh, it's the nurse, what's-her-name." Marie's voice was slurred.

  "Yes, It's Vera Morgan. I--"

  Suddenly Marie's eyes opened wide and she cried,

  "Oh my God, you brought that little monster in here. Take her out! Out!" She tried to rise, but fell back.

  Smelling the brandy on her breath, Vera realized Marie was drunk. She backed away from the chaise.

  "Can't stand her," Marie muttered. "She's my cousin but I can't bear her." She began to cry, waving a hand at Vera. "Wrong, all wrong."

  At the door, Vera asked, "Do you have any idea where I might find John Gregory?"

  "Who knows?" Marie swiped at her tears. "Library. Out in the fog. Lost." Her head dropped back against the chaise. "Lost," she repeated, tears running down her cheeks. Wondering what had upset Marie, Vera retreated to the nursery to pick up the bottle of formula. Still carrying Johanna, she hurried along the dimly lit corridor toward the stairs, determined to find John Gregory.

  The hall, paneled in dark wood, was as gloomy as everything else at Hallow House. Vera had the odd notion that behind all the closed doors people waited, listening to her pass and biding their time.

  Which was sheer foolishness. Where was she getting such fanciful ideas? Something was definitely wrong in the house, yes--maybe that's what Marie had meant with her "all wrong"--but nothing would be accomplished by imagining horrors. Whoever had harmed Johanna would have to be caught and prevented from hurting anyone else. Perhaps then the wrongness would cease.

  John was in the library with Stanley Aarons. Vera stood in the half-open door and heard a radio announcer talking about the China Clipper reaching Manila safely on its maiden flight. Remembering the plane had left San Francisco a week ago brought to mind the realization that she'd only left the city this morning. It seemed she'd been in Hallow House much, much longer.

  "Mr. Gregory?" she said, pushing the door farther open. Both men stood. John flicked off the radio and came toward her.

  "Some has attacked Johanna," she said without preamble. "Look at her forehead."

  Mr. Aarons hurried over and bent to peer at the baby, all but pushing John aside. "See," he said to John, "I told you the dark forces were at work here." He touched the baby's forehead gently. "Four is the devil's own number, you know."

  "No, I wasn't aware of any such idiotic concept," John spoke forcefully. "That sort of superstition is ridiculous and I won't--"

  "The devil has marked this child for his own," Mr. Aarons insisted.

  "Damn it, Stan, stop that nonsense!"

  Vera refused to believe the devil had anything to do with Johanna's injury and it angered her that the two men were arguing rather than trying to find the attacker.

  "I saw an old hunched-over woman coming out of the nursery," she said before either man could speak again. "Johanna was screaming and when I went in I found these bleeding scratches on her forehead. I have no idea who the woman was."

  "Probably Theola," John said. "She's Aunt Adele's companion. But I can't imagine her injuring anyone." He stared down at the baby. "Who would do this?"

  "I don't know." Vera's anger boiled over and she glared at John. "Why do you just stand here talking? It was bad enough that Samara had to remind you someone was needed to care for Johanna. If she hadn't watched out for her little sister, heaven only knows what might have happened to the baby. How could you be so cruel and unfeeling?"

  "I wasn't aware--" John began.

  Vera rushed on, words spilling from her. "It's your house, you should have been aware. And Johanna is your--is your wife's daughter. You were responsible. Have you ever taken a good look at the condition this baby is in?" Vera unfolded the blanket to show him the baby's stick-thin legs, before going on.

  "She's been starved, that's plain to see. I don't think much else, if anything, is wrong with her. Why is everyone so reluctant to do anything for this poor little thing? She's no monster. Why are they afraid? Who would creep into her room and mark her as they have? What kind of people live in your house?"

  Johanna broke into a wail. Vera wrapped the blanket back around her and sat in the nearest chair, temporarily abandoning her outrage as she rocked the baby back and forth, murmuring, "There, there, everything's all right, sweetheart. Here's your nice bottle."

  "You haven't told this young woman anything at all, have you, John?" Stanley Aarons' tone was reproving.

  "Miss Morgan was hired to take care of Johanna, not to listen to family chronicles."

  Vera looked up at him. "Please explain to me how I can protect her when I have no idea what's going on." Switching her attention to Johanna, the sight of the blood- encrusted number on the baby's forehead prompted her to speak her mind. "Unless an unknown madman entered the house unseen, someone in Hallow House must be insane. No normal person would deliberately hurt a baby."

  John shook his head. "I doubt any stranger got in. I'll talk to Theola right away. While I don't believe she's responsible, she may have seen someone else."

  "According to the Talmud, four is the symbol of the devil," Stanley Aarons said. "You'd best be warned, John. Some things are older than Christianity, more ancient than the Talmud. Your ancestors trifled with forbidden powers when they built the room with the black door."

  Vera stared at him, hair rising on her nape. Irma had hinted at something terrible happening behind the black door and now Mr. Aarons spoke of the devil and of forbidden power. Where was the room with the black door? She controlled an impulse to make the sign of the cross to ward off evil.

  "I don't care to discuss such things." John's words were clipped.

  "You don't want to face them, you mean," Mr. Aarons said. "Certainly your very perceptive Miss Morgan ought to know how Johanna was left behind in that room, offered up on the altar like a sacrificial lamb. The room where Delores died in a welter of--"

  "Enough!" John shouted, his face chalk white.

  Vera watched with concern as John sank into a deep leather chair, one hand covering his eyes. Stanley Aarons ignored him to bend over Johanna and examine her forehead again. The baby, sucking on the nipple, regarded him solemnly.

  "What's your first name again, Miss Morgan?" he asked.

  Caught up in what she'd heard and John's distress over it, she stared blankly at Mr. Aarons for a moment before saying, "Vera."

  "Ah, yes. You appear to be a level-headed young woman and the name fits you. I don't stand on formality and hope you won't. Call me Stan, if you like. We'll have to work together to convince this stubborn Cossack I have for a business partner that evil does exist."

  Vera's religion had trained her to believe in good and evil, but she wasn't sure Stan meant the same thing the nuns and priests had called evil. If he was referring to demonic possession, she couldn't believe that. As a nurse she'd learned human disease could be of the mind as well as of the body, but certainly mental illness had nothing to do with the devil.

  "A deranged mind is sick rather than evil, Mr.--Stan," she said firmly.

  "I'm not speaking of insanity." Stan's brown eyes gleamed behind his glasses with the enthusiasm of a fanatic. "Evil exists as a separate entity."

  "Well, yes, the devil and his demons. But to imply an innocent baby belongs to the devil--certainly not!"

  Stan shook his head. "She isn't his yet, there hasn't been time. However, she's been marked as his possession." Vera cuddled Johanna closer and glanced at John, who'd raised his head to stare at Stan.
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  "I don't understand what Stan means, Mr. Gregory," she said to him. "Please tell me what did happen to Johanna and why everyone seems to be afraid of her. I've no desire to pry, but I think I should know--especially since someone has attacked her."

  John sat straighter in the chair and took a deep breath. "I suppose you'll hear distorted stories anyway. You do deserve the truth."

  Stan settled back in a chair whose legs ended in brass eagle's talons grasping glass balls. A silence fell. Vera heard the crackle of the fire at the end of the room, an occasional creak as the old house settled for the night and--what else? Why did she have this sense that an unseen observer was watching and waiting?

  Firmly, she repressed a shiver. She would not give rein to her imagination. Checking Johanna, she saw the baby had finished the bottle and propped her against her shoulder.

  John sighed. "My wife, Delores, died last month under unusual circumstances," he said in a flat, even tone. "I--we think she committed suicide by cutting her own throat."

  Vera choked back a gasp.

  "Johanna was with her when she--when she died." John, who'd been looking somewhere above Vera's head, let his gaze drop to meet hers. The pain in his eyes made her want to reach out to him.

  What a dreadful burden he had to bear!

  "Delores had dismissed the baby nurse and insisted on caring for Johanna herself," he went on. "Stan mentioned the black door. The room behind that door had been unused for years. The door was locked and I thought the key had been permanently lost. I was wrong. Delores found the key and apparently had been using the room for some time. We found her there."

  He glanced away from Vera, focusing on the fireplace. "She was lying on a raised platform--"

  "An altar," Stan put in softly.

  "--and Johanna was underneath her. I--we thought they were both dead. The blood..." John shook his head.

  So much blood and only one of them dead. The words echoed in Vera's head. She bit her lip, wishing she could do something to ease the pain he must be feeling as he relived the horror. For horror it surely was.

  "Johanna wasn't injured," he said, leaning forward to look at Vera again. "I assumed Marie had taken over her care, but I realize now I should have made certain what was going on. When Samara told me Johanna was being neglected, I found a nurse as fast as I could."

  "I'm sorry about your wife," Vera said. "It's a terrible tragedy. But I still can't understand why no one wants to touch Johanna."

  "The gray eyes," Stan said. "Only witches have silver eyes. Haven't you noticed how the baby's eyes glitter in the light with almost a metallic sheen? I was told by old Theola that Johanna's eyes are the same as her great-grandmother's, like Tabitha Gregory's, who had the room with the black door built to her specifications. The feeling among the staff is that somehow Johanna is tainted and so was responsible for her mother's death in that room."

  "That's ridiculous!" Vera cried, looking from Stan to John, who seemed lost in his own thoughts again. "Even if I believed in witches, which I don't, I certainly wouldn't think every gray-eyed person in this world was a witch.:

  Feeling Johanna wriggling, she shifted the baby from her shoulder to her lap again and gazed down at her. Johanna stared back with wide gray eyes and chose that moment to smile at Vera for the first time, as though on purpose.

  Vera almost recoiled. She closed her eyes and cuddled Johanna to her, telling herself to stay calm. A six-month- old baby couldn't possibly understand what they were talking about.

  She senses I'm her friend, so she smiled at me, that's all it amounts to, she told herself firmly. I'm as bad as any superstitious servant if I read anything else into that smile. All this about family curses and witches and rooms with black doors must be affecting my judgment. Well, I won't let it.

  Vera opened her eyes. "I intend to lock the nursery door and my own door." she said, "Until I know who's responsible for scratching Johanna, I won't leave her alone for a minute unless she's asleep behind a locked door that only I have a key to."

  John rose and crossed the room until he stood over her and the baby. Slowly he reached out a hand until he touched Johanna's cheek. She smiled at him and this time Vera saw the smile for what it was--a baby's toothless, happy grin.

  "She's a miserable little thing, but still she smiles. That takes courage." He felt the thin arms and Johanna's tiny hands clutched at his fingers. "I didn't mean to neglect her," he said.

  "You hired me as soon as you knew." Vera's voice held forgiveness.

  When he looked at her, John's brown eyes glowed with warmth. "I'm glad you've come."

  The warmth from his eyes spread through her and she told herself it was because she was happy to see he cared about Johanna.

  "We have to find who's responsible for injuring her," he went on. "I'll talk to Theola and see if she saw anyone in the nursery. Meanwhile--lock your doors."

  When Vera returned to the nursery, she found to her dismay that while her own room had a lock with a key on the inside of the door leading to the hall, the nursery did not. Telling herself she wasn't unduly nervous, that it was common sense after what had happened to make sure no one was hidden in either room she checked the closets and even looked underneath her bed before securing her door. Then she went through the connecting door into the nursery with Johanna and sat in the rocking chair facing the unlocked door to the hall.

  Once Johanna fell asleep, Vera laid her in the crib, picked up a straight-backed chair from beside the chest of drawers and wedged it under the doorknob as firmly as she could.

  Rechecking to make sure her own door was securely locked, she took out her new yellow pajamas to begin getting ready for bed. As she kicked off her shoes, she noticed a doll on her bed, the rag doll she'd last seen in Johanna's cache of toys. Vera drew in her breath, the hair on her arms prickling. Who'd put the doll there?

  She reached for it, then drew her hand back a black object bulged from the doll's throat. Slowly she reached again, touched glittering jet, and drew forth a long gold hat pin. Faint rusty stains married the beige cloth at the doll's throat. Johanna's blood?

  Feeling chilled to the bone, Vera examined the hatpin with the jet head, becoming convinced this was what had been used to scratch the baby. Whoever had done that had later come back to thrust the pin into Johanna's doll and then leave it on bed for her to find. When she recalled that Delores Gregory who'd cut her own throat, a sharp sliver of terror wedged itself into her mind.

  A horrifying possibility struck her. What if Delores had been visited in that mysterious room with the altar by the same person who'd scratched the four on Johanna's forehead and then thrust the pin into the doll? Maybe Delores hadn't cut her own throat, maybe that other person had done it for her.

  Vera tried hard to push such a frightening notion from her mind. If true, the person responsible was a murderer. And still very much present at Hallow House.

  Chapter 11

  Despite the locked doors, Vera slept uneasily, waking often to listen. Was someone trying her door? Had Johanna cried? The baby spent a far more restful night than she, and woke at six, hungry.

  Half-asleep, Vera threw on some clothes before going down to the kitchen with the baby in her arms. Irma was there with Blanche.

  "I made some nice cream-of-wheat," the cook said. "Would you want a little for the baby?"

  Johanna ate a small dish of cereal and then finished off her bottle while Vera sat at the kitchen table holding her. "I think I'll bring down the high chair from the nursery," she said.

  "No need. There's another stored in the pantry," Irma told her. Seems like there's two of everything around here from the time the twins were little."

  "Were you here then?"

  "No. None of us were 'cepting Jose." Irma turned from the stove to survey Vera. "Don't take me wrong, but you ought to be real careful in this house." She fixed her attention on Blanche who was watching her, wide-eyed.

  "What do you mean?" Vera asked.

  "Just tend
to what you came for and maybe you'll be all right." Her voice held doubt. Vera noticed neither she nor Blanche were looking directly at her.

  Sitting the baby up straight on her lap, Vera said, "Did you see Johanna's forehead?" She pushed the scanty pale hair back from the scabs.

  "God save us!" Irma exclaimed. Blanche crossed herself.

  "Do either of you have any idea who could have scratched her like this?"

  Both women shook their heads.

  "I'd say it could've been the missus's cat, but he--" Irma broke off.

  "Then there is a cat in the house?"

  "Not no more. He's dead." As she spoke, Irma turned back to the stove.

  "He was in that there room," Blanche whispered.

  Irma swung around and glared at her. "Best not to talk about it," she said with finality. "Blanche, you go find Jose and tell him I need some more oranges."

  After Blanche left the kitchen Irma said, "She's afraid. If she didn't need the money so bad I couldn't keep her here. And I don't know that money'll be enough if anything more happens in this house. That's why I don't want to talk--about things. Mr. John could find someone to replace Blanche, but I'm used to her and she's a good worker."

  "Mr. Gregory told me about his wife's death," Vera said. "A suicide is terribly depressing--much more than any accident."

  "She didn't die natural."

  "I realize that. Suicide isn't natural."

  Irma glanced around and lowered her voice. "Don't you believe that story. The missus wasn't like that. She'd never have killed old Diablo, she loved that cat. As for taking the baby with her if she was to plan such a thing..." Irma stopped abruptly as the kitchen door opened and Geneva entered.

  "About time you got here," Irma told her. "You ain't getting paid to sleep all day. Get busy on those breakfast trays."

  Vera rose from her chair. "I'll be down later to fix more of Johanna's formula. If you'd bring the high chair from the pantry, I'd appreciate it. And thanks for the cereal."

  Back in the nursery, Vera pored over what Irma had said. Did the cook's denial of Delores's suicide mean she, too, wondered if someone else was involved? Or was Irma just reluctant to believe Delores would have killed herself?