Terrible Tide (5 page)

“I’d love it.” Holly knew from experience how much preliminary fussing it took to arrange the simplest studio shot. On location, a single photograph could take hours to organize. Being involved with her own field again would be far more fun than mopping floors and changing beds. Working with Geoffrey wouldn’t be so bad, either. Her new job was developing some unexpected fringe benefits.

T
HE NEXT MORNING HOLLY
stood in front of a half-filled suitcase wondering what to pack next. She hadn’t planned to take more than the basic necessities, plus jeans and jerseys and a warm sweater or two. Now that Geoffrey Cawne would be coming to Cliff House, maybe she ought to go prepared with a more intriguing wardrobe.

Then again, maybe she oughtn’t. He was too sophisticated a man to be taken in by such an obvious ploy. While she was debating the issue, Fan, who’d promised to drive her out to Parlett’s Point after breakfast, came pounding up the stairs.

“Hurry, Holly. He’s here to pick you up.”

“Geoffrey Cawne?”

“Don’t you wish it? No, Earl Stoodley, the trustee. He’s going to escort you in person.”

“Why the fanfare?”

“I told you Cliff House is Earl’s big project. He most likely wants to give you a pep talk about guarding the priceless relics. Be nice to him, won’t you? There’ll surely be some restoration needed before they start the museum, and that could be another job for Roger. Come on.”

Before Holly could protest that she hadn’t finished packing, Fan had grabbed the suitcase, slammed it shut, and chugged away down the stairs, her plump behind waggling in too-tight corduroy pants cut down from an old pair of Roger’s. There wasn’t much Holly could do but follow. They did manage a quick goodbye before Stoodley hustled her into an elderly Ford that smelled of fertilizer and began to snake his way back to the main road.

“It’s kind of you to do this, Mr. Stoodley,” Holly said, because she thought she ought to.

“Part of my job,” he told her with the automatic joviality of the born politician. “I figured you and I’d better have a little talk before you got started at Cliff House, eh. I hope you realize what a big responsibility you’re taking on. Strictly speaking, Claudine shouldn’t have hired you without asking me first.”

“She’s awfully worried about Mrs. Parlett.”

“Ungh.”

Stoodley pursed his babyish lips until they made a small red dot in the middle of his suety face, like a cherry on top of a pudding. He was an enormous jelly bag of a man altogether. “More belly than brains,” was how Fan had described him.

Holly wasn’t so sure. The shrewdness might be dwarfed by that ponderous gut, but she could see it gleaming out from the pale little eyes that kept darting from the road to her face and back while he primed her with facts about Cliff House and its role in local history. He was well up on his subject, and talked with fluency and color. Without coming straight out and saying so, though, he was making it clear Holly needn’t fret herself about the two old ladies. Her main responsibility would be to the house and its furnishings rather than to its bedridden owner.

“Not much anybody can do for old Mathilde now. She’s lived out her allotted time and then some. You might as well be prepared for the end to come any day.”

And that, she saw, was where Stoodley expected Holly Howe to fit into the picture. He evidently feared that as soon as Mrs. Parlett had drawn her last breath, Cliff House would be overrun by hordes of souvenir hunters, grabbing everything they could lay their hands on. What he wanted her to do was simply hang around, make no effort to stave off the fateful moment, but let him know the instant it happened so that he could rush up and stand guard.

Holly straightened him out fast. “We’d better understand each other right now, Mr. Stoodley. Claudine Parlett hired me to help care for her great-aunt and keep the household running. That’s what I plan to do. As a trustee you’re naturally entitled to know what’s going on, but if you think I’m moving into Cliff House as anybody’s paid sneak, you can forget it.”

“Now, now, don’t get me wrong. I want you to do your job. I only meant—”

“I know what you meant. I’ll carry on as best I can, and if anything comes up I think you should know about, I’ll give you a call. Let’s leave it at that.”

Stoodley was too clever to push her any further. He just smiled and tried to pat her knee, but Holly had been a model long enough to develop fast reflexes. The knee wasn’t where he patted. He was left making futile motions with a revoltingly dainty hand whose thumb curved backward in a too-supple arc.

“There’s another thing we ought to discuss,” Holly said, to take his mind off her knee. “Professor Cawne told me he has permission to take photographs at Cliff House. Since I have professional experience in photography, he’s asked me to help him. Is that all right?”

“Absolutely.” Earl Stoodley nodded into a nest of chins. “That project has my full support. Furthermore, I’ll be there myself. The professor asked me to come along and keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t pinch anything. Geoff’s a great kidder, you know.”

No, Holly hadn’t known. So those cozy sessions she’d been looking forward to were going to be chaperoned by this great tub of lard. She hadn’t liked Stoodley before, now she loathed him.

“Yep, Geoff’s pretty smart,” Stoodley was going on. “If anything should turn up missing when it comes time to settle the estate, nobody will be able to say he took it because I’ll be right there watching him.”

“And who’s going to be watching you?” Holly couldn’t resist asking.

“Why, you are,” said Stoodley.

So that was it. Stoodley was a fox and she was a fool. Now if valuables were lost, he’d have Holly Howe to lay the blame on.

“Mr. Stoodley,” she said, “I’d like to know whether a complete inventory has been taken at Cliff House. If not, I suggest you turn straight around and drive me back to Howe Hill.”

The man beamed as though she’d said something witty. “You’ve got a long head on those young shoulders. Rest easy, Holly. First thing after I was appointed trustee, the lawyer and I came out here and listed everything from the parlor chesterfield to Jonathan Parlett’s false teeth that his wife still kept in a tumbler beside the bed, don’t ask me why. Got used to seeing them there, I suppose. Mathilde had got so she wouldn’t throw away so much as an empty cracker box, so the inventory was an awful job. I could have used Claudine’s help, but she wouldn’t come. Trust a woman to hold a grudge. Anyway, it’s all written down and filed in a tin box at the lawyer’s office, so you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

“Oh don’t I?” Holly thought, but it was too late to back out now. They’d reached Cliff House. She could see a wizened face through the window, pushing aside a grimy lace curtain and peering through smeared glass. That must be the housekeeper, Annie Blodgett. No wonder Claudine worried about her being able to carry on alone. Annie looked almost as old as the house itself.

Cliff House was an enormous square of gray clapboard and garish stained glass, with a slate roof and a whole row of fancy wrought-iron lightning rods at the peak. Its little front porch looked like the observation platform on an old-fashioned train, with a totally useless iron fence around the roof.

Maybe the porch was meant to be symbolic. Stoodley had told her the Parlett fortune came from manufacturing plumbing fixtures for Pullman cars. She’d taken that as a hopeful omen. Cliff House might even have indoor plumbing and a real bathtub. That would be a pleasant change from Howe Hill.

After Stoodley stopped the car, Holly got out her suitcase and went up the steps trying to smile, hoping her facial scars wouldn’t scare off that already frightened-looking old housekeeper. Apparently they didn’t. She could hear bolts being drawn and chains rattling. Holly expected the hinges to creak when the massive oak door at last swung open, and they did.

“Morning, Annie,” said Stoodley. I expect Claudine phoned you about our new girl here?”

“Yes, and I sure am glad you’ve come, Helen. Was it Helen she told me? I wrote your name down somewhere, but I can’t seem to—” Annie fluttered into silence, wiping a veined claw across her wrinkled chin.

“I’m Holly,” said the new girl. “You may know my brother Roger Howe, the cabinetmaker.”

“The one Bert works for?” Annie brightened up. “Bert talks about your folks a blue streak, but I’ve never met them. I don’t get out.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to take some time off now that I’m here.”

Holly sounded false and hearty, like Earl Stoodley. She couldn’t help it. Inside, the gloom, dust, and clutter were enough to depress anybody. And this was only the front hall. What must the rest of Cliff House be like?

Annie didn’t seem to know how to cope with the situation. She dithered back and forth across the doorsill until Stoodley had to ask, “How about it, Annie? Going to let us in?”

“Oh Earl, I don’t know.”

“Why not? Claudine says it’s all right.”

“Claudine’s never heard what I have. It was here again last night, Earl.”

Holly had to lean forward to catch the end of the sentence. The housekeeper’s voice had sunk to a terrified whisper.

“Now, Annie.” Stoodley gave Holly a knowing wink. “Old houses always squeak and groan at night.”

“I know this house a long sight better than you do, Earl Stoodley.” Annie might be scared, but there was still a little fight left in her. “Why in Heaven’s name won’t anybody believe me?”

“There, there. Don’t you start taking on.” The trustee’s tone was like baby oil, soothing and greasy. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. Why shouldn’t Jonathan Parlett’s ghost come back and haunt his own house if it takes a notion? What ghost’s got a better right, eh?” He winked at Holly again.

“Maybe he’s after his teeth,” Holly giggled. She couldn’t help it. A terrified old housekeeper in a mouldering mansion set on a lonely spit of land overlooking this great bay with its menacing tides was too totally stage gothic. Maybe Annie and Stoodley had worked out this act together, as publicity for the museum-to-be. More likely, isolation and overwork had worn poor Annie’s nerves to the breaking point and beyond. Holly slipped a comforting arm around the humped shoulders.

“We’re going to manage just fine. I’m not afraid of ghosts and you won’t be either, now that I’m here to keep you company. Where do you want me to sleep?”

“Cousin Edith’s room is the nicest, but that was where—”

“Cousin Edith’s room will be fine. I presume Cousin Edith isn’t around any more?”

“Not that I know of. We buried her forty years ago, or was it forty-five? My poor head’s got so it won’t hold a thing.”

“Never mind,” said Stoodley. “You go on up and get Holly’s room ready. I want to show her the front parlor.”

He beckoned Holly into the huge room and shut the door. “I guess I don’t have to draw you a picture,” he murmured.

“You certainly don’t,” she snapped back. “Now I see why Claudine Parlett’s been so worried. It’s too bad nobody else is interested in Mrs. Parlett as well as her possessions.”

For once, Stoodley had nothing to say. Holly brushed past him, got her suitcase from the front hall, and went up the grand staircase, her feet driving puffs of dust out of the heavy carpeting at every step. By the time she’d reached the second floor, she’d built up a gigantic sneeze. Unfortunately, it exploded just as she came to where Annie Blodgett was leaning over a bed, feeling to see if the mattress was damp. The old woman jumped and turned dead-white.

“My stars!” she gasped. “You scared me out of a year’s growth.”

“I’m sorry, I had dust up my nose.”

Holly felt like a worm. Jonathan Parlett’s ghost mightn’t be real, but Annie’s terror certainly was. No wonder. The atmosphere around here was enough to give anybody the jimjams. She hoped Cliff House owned a vacuum cleaner. As soon as Stoodley got out from under foot, she was going to do something about that dust.

The house was worth cleaning. Spruced up and redecorated, it could easily become the showplace Stoodley dreamed of.

According to the brief historical sketch Geoffrey Cawne had given her last night, the Parletts had been Loyalists from Boston who’d fled to Canada at the first sign of revolution. They’d loaded a coasting vessel with all their household possessions and sailed up here with every chattel intact. They’d built a log cabin here at Parlett’s Point, lived in it until they could erect a frame house nearby, raised a few more generations of Parletts, then finally built the present place and torn down the older houses for firewood.

Cawne seemed to think it a pity that the Parletts had kept on making money down through the years. If they’d been less successful, the frame house or even the log cabin might still be here. Though less rich in historical interest, this third and last house did have its own importance. Its dust-covered accumulations were a record of one family’s survival from century to century, a long strand in the tapestry of Canada’s history.

And now Cliff House was going out of Parlett hands. How did Claudine and her brother feel about that? Was the feud with Mrs. Parlett caused by her having willed Cliff House to the town, or had old Mathilde made that strange will as a result of the quarrel? Annie Blodgett must know and would probably tell, once they could get cozied down by themselves over a cup of tea.

Her curiosity could keep. Right now Cousin Edith’s room had to be cleaned and aired. Holly wasn’t about to sleep under a canopy of cobwebs. “Annie,” she asked, “where do you keep the cleaning stuff?”

“Eh? Oh, downstairs in the broom closet beside the back stairwell.” Annie emitted an apologetic titter as she led Holly down the back stairs. “I daresay you don’t think much of my housekeeping, but one pair of hands can do just so much work, as I’ve told Claudine time and again.”

Blessedly, there was a vacuum cleaner, a cumbersome black upright that would make a good exhibit for the museum. It worked, though, and made enough noise to drown out whatever Earl Stoodley was trying to get off his chest. The trustee hung around for a while to show he was still in charge, then gave up and took off.