The idea made me feel so ill I had to close the scrapbook. Looking up was no relief. The circus animals parading around the room looked suddenly sinister, their anthropomorphized faces leering at me as they must have leered at Minnie when she came in here to nurse her baby—who wasn’t her baby, but an imposter. And when she told her nursemaid that the baby wasn’t hers they thought she was crazy and took her away to the mental hospital to keep her away from the baby. Which had only made her crazier . . .
The room suddenly seemed to be spinning, the circus animals going round and round like a carousel ride. I had to get out. I got to my feet, but stumbled. The room spun vertiginously. I lurched toward the door but the floor seemed to tilt like a fun house ride. I found myself leaning against the door frame, my fingers digging into the wall as if to the wreckage of a boat in a storm. When the room righted I was horrified to see that I’d torn long gouges in the wallpaper. I tried to smooth the torn paper back over the wall—and noticed something. Beneath the layer of wallpaper I’d torn was another layer of wallpaper. That wasn’t so unusual. Lots of people papered over old wallpaper rather than take the first layer off. It was a lot of trouble to steam old paper off—as I’d discovered helping my mother do it when we’d repapered my childhood bedroom. We’d peeled off layers of paper, from some hideous fifties-era clowns to delicate Victorian florals. But what was strange here was that the paper seemed to be the same pale yellow with the same white dots and—I had to rip a little more to see—yes, the same border of circus animals. Why paper over the same paper?
My fingers itched to tear off more of the wallpaper to see the layer underneath but I heard Trudy’s voice in my head telling me not to. “Why are you always picking at everything,” she’d admonished me when she found the patch of shredded wallpaper behind my bed. As if I’d been caught picking at a scab.
I pulled my hand away from the wall as if it had been slapped—and heard another voice. This one was coming from downstairs. I opened the nursery door and listened. There were two voices: Jess’s and Monty’s. So Jess had come back from his drive. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost dinnertime. I’d lost hours poring over Minnie’s scrapbooks. It wasn’t healthy. I needed to get out of this room.
I smoothed the wallpaper back over the tear—I’d find some paste and fix it later—and headed downstairs to join Jess and Monty. But first I stopped in my bathroom to splash water on my face. It was a good thing I did. I’d somehow managed to get glue all over my hands and face. I looked as though I’d been crawling behind the wallpaper, like that poor deranged woman in that story we’d read in Monty’s class.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As I came down the stairs in the rotunda I noticed that there was a third voice in the library—another man—and I wished that I’d changed into something more presentable than the grubby jeans, thermal shirt, and ratty old cardigan I was wearing. I’d become sloppy spending my days writing in the house with only Monty and Jess for company. No wonder Jess was hanging out at the local bars with a wife who’d started looking like a deranged spinster librarian.
I was turning around to go upstairs and change when I heard Monty’s voice call from the library. “Is that you, Clare?”
Who else would it be? I almost snapped back. For a big house with thick walls, sound traveled easily (something to do with its octagonal shape, I supposed). If Monty heard me on the stairs he often called out Is that you, Clare? which meant he wanted me to fetch him a cup of tea or come in and listen to an idea he had for the book, or adjust the pillow at his back, or stoke the fire. Sometimes I wished I could float soundlessly through the house like I had in my dream the night Sunny died. But I only called, “Yes, Monty, was there something you needed?” as I came into the library.
I was doubly sorry I hadn’t gone upstairs to change when I saw the man seated with Monty in front of the fireplace. He was wearing a suit and tie and polished brogues. A mirage of Wall Street come to visit Riven House and just the kind of “suit” Jess despised. I turned toward Jess to see what kind of withering look he was giving our visitor but was surprised to find Jess clean-shaven and dressed in a pressed button-down shirt, sitting upright with a cup of coffee in his hand, regarding the stranger with polite attention.
“Ah, Clare, there you are,” Monty said. “I was about to send Jess for you.”
I expected at least a grimace at “send Jess” but Jess only smiled and held out his hand for me. “I told Monty that we shouldn’t disturb your writing until we had to.”
“Oh,” I said, moving closer to Jess’s chair, “I would have come down right away if I’d known we had a guest.” I scraped away a scrap of glue from my hands, guiltily thinking that I hadn’t exactly been writing. “I’d have made coffee.”
“You see,” Monty said to the man in the suit, “she thinks of nothing but my comfort. How lucky I am to have found a daughter like Clare in my dotage—and a son-in-law like Jess, of course.”
“Lucky indeed,” the man said, holding his hand out to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Martin. Mr. Montague has told me so much about you—and of course I’ve come to feel I know you while drawing up the papers.”
“Drawing up the papers?” I asked, feeling a sudden draft in the room. I thought of Minnie coming down to this room and finding a contingent of doctors and Montague cousins banded together to tell her she needed a rest away from the baby, at a good hospital . . .
“My will, dear,” Monty said gently. “This is my lawyer, Cortland Montague—a second cousin, or is it third?”
Cortland shrugged. “Who’s counting? The important relationship here is the one between you and Mrs. Martin.” He turned to me. “Our investigations at the firm have confirmed that you are indeed the biological child of Amy Birnbach and that Miss Birnbach did indeed name Mr. Montague as the father. We could do DNA testing, of course, but Mr. Montague has insisted that won’t be necessary.” He smiled at me but I saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. He must have tried to talk Monty into the DNA testing. Any lawyer would—and a lawyer who was related to Monty and might stand to inherit some part of the estate most certainly would have.
“Could I submit to a DNA test voluntarily?” I asked.
“That isn’t necessary—” Monty began at the same time that Cortland said, “Yes, of course you could. It’s an excellent idea. After all, you might have children yourself one day and you would want them to have the benefit of a full medical history—”
“Or you could be using this as a means of holding up the new will Monty has asked you to draw up naming Clare as his beneficiary.”
I stared at Jess. So he had known about this? Why hadn’t he said anything to me? My face went hot as I had the dreadful thought that he had asked Monty to put me in his will.
“Why in the world would I care?” Cortland asked. “The previous will gives the estate to the college. I’m certainly happier to see it go to a family member.”
“How about this,” Monty said, sitting forward, fisted hands leaning on his knees. “We go ahead and sign the damned papers now and then we can get our blood tested if Clare wants. Frankly, I don’t care if it comes back showing we’re both Martians. This house belongs to Clare and Jess.”
Cortland looked as though he wanted to argue, but under Monty’s glare he unbuckled his leather briefcase and drew out a thick sheaf of papers. “We’ll need two witnesses—”
“You and Jess make two,” Monty said.
“It’s a bit irregular to have the spouse of a beneficiary witness the will—” Cortland began.
“That’s why I called an impartial witness,” Jess said. “I think that’s her now.”
I followed Jess’s gaze to the glass doors—and drew in a sharp breath. A shawled figure stood behind the fogged-over glass, looking for all the world like poor Mary Foley standing on the terrace. As if she had come to witness her child inherit Riven House.
But when Jess opened the door the figure came in, unwrapping a lavender angora scarf from h
er blond head.
“I thought Katrine would make the perfect witness,” Jess said, turning to me. “After all, she brought us here.”
AFTER MONTY HAD signed the new will and Cortland and Katrine had witnessed it, Jess went to the “cellar” (by which he meant the boot hall) to get a bottle of champagne. I went to the kitchen to throw together some hors d’oeuvres from the ill-fated caviar, crackers, cheese, and the last of the season’s Northern Spys sliced up. When I came back in Jess was already pouring a glass of champagne for Katrine, who was laughing and flirting with Cortland Montague, who, now that his official duties were over, had loosened his tie and was smiling appreciatively at Katrine. Again I was sorry I hadn’t changed as I watched Katrine cross her long silky legs. She was wearing a low-cut royal blue velvet dress with silvery stockings and shiny black patent-leather boots. I caught Jess staring at her cleavage when she leaned forward to take a cracker from the tray I held. In my dowdy cardigan I felt less like the new heiress to Riven House than the spinster aunt always counted on to put out sherry and biscuits for the guests.
I took a glass of champagne from Jess and sat down on the hassock beside Monty’s chair. Cortland was explaining to Katrine how he was related to Monty’s side of the family. “We’re the Connecticut Montagues. My great-grandfather Maunsell was Monty’s grandfather Birdsill Montague’s brother.”
“Ah,” said Katrine, “didn’t Maunsell marry an Astor?”
“He did indeed. You know your genealogy, Miss Vanderberg.”
Katrine dimpled prettily. “You pick it up selling real estate in the valley. My New York City buyers love to know who owned their houses before them. An Astor or a Montague can boost property values by ten percent.”
“It’s good to know the family name is worth something,” Monty said, taking a sip of champagne. His face was a hectic pink and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Still, I made a mental note of where his nitroglycerin tablets were. I could see the slight bulge in his left breast shirt pocket under his cardigan.
“Oh, it is!” Katrine enthused, leaning forward again for no good reason. “But what they all like best is a ghost.”
“Even if one was ridiculous enough to believe such things,” Cortland said, “you’d think it would be a deterrent rather than an attraction.”
“It depends on the buyer,” Katrine said. “I can usually tell. I had two men relocating from Brooklyn last week who specifically wanted a haunted house.”
“And were you able to accommodate them?” Jess asked. The mocking tone he’d used with Katrine during our house hunting had crept back into his voice, but his gaze on her legs wasn’t mocking at all. I leaned forward to rearrange the crackers, blocking a little of his view.
“Yes, in fact I showed them the old Jackson farmhouse—isn’t that where you grew up, Clare?”
“Didn’t two Bailey professors buy it?” I asked, making a daisy pattern with the crackers and apple slices.
“Yes, but they’re retiring to Florida. I told the couple from Park Slope—two sweet men who want to raise goats and make artisanal cheeses—the apple blossom girl story.”
“But she doesn’t haunt the farm,” I said. “She haunts Riven House.”
There was such a long silence that I looked up from the plate I was rearranging. Everyone was looking at me. I guess I’d found a way of getting their attention without showing off my legs or my tits.
“Have you, er, seen a ghost here?” Cortland asked with a nervous smile.
I looked at Jess. He was clenching his jaw the way he did when he was tense. If I carried my anger in my shoulders, Jess carried his tension in his jaw. I was pretty sure I knew why he was so tense. The last time I’d “seen a ghost” I’d wound up in the hospital for a month. I knew I should tell them I’d been kidding and make a joke of the idea of a ghost, but something in the way they were all looking at me made me want to shock them a little.
“I’ve seen her four times,” I said, and then proceeded to tell of each sighting, from the first day by the pond to the last time from the terrace after Dale’s accident. They listened spellbound. “So you see,” I concluded, “she came to tell me that Monty was her child and that I was Monty’s. Now that she’s done that I don’t think she’ll haunt Riven House any longer.”
When I finished there was only the sound of the fire crackling and the wind rattling the glass doors. Then Monty said, “What a lovely story, Clare, and how fitting, as Henry James would say, to have a strange tale in an old house at Christmastime.”
“Oh, I see,” Cortland said, looking relieved. “It’s a story. Ha ha. You writers must spend all your time spinning tales for each other.”
“When we’re not sharpening our quills,” Jess said, “or dashing off our novels.”
“And good thing for us,” Katrine said, putting down her half-full glass. “I’m going to use that story with my buyers, if you don’t mind, Clare. They’re sure to like the idea of a ghost roaming their apple orchard.”
“A ghost with a baby,” Jess said, draining his glass. “Two ghosts for the price of one.”
“Absolutely—and speaking of buyers, I have two to pick up at the Rhinecliff Station. I hope the snow holds off until I can show them a few houses.”
Cortland got up and helped Katrine on with her coat.
“Is it supposed to snow tonight?” I asked, watching Katrine wrap her fluffy lavender scarf around her throat. The color brought out the blue in her eyes.
Katrine and Cortland both looked surprised at my question. “My goodness gracious, you writers really do live in a little bubble!” Katrine exclaimed. “The blizzard’s all anyone’s talking about out there. They’re saying we could get up to two feet.”
“Aaah.” Cortland waved his hand dismissively. “You can’t trust these forecasts. It’s all to boost television ratings.”
“You always were a skeptic, Cort.” Monty clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “I suppose it’s why you went into the law.”
“With a name like Cortland how could I not,” he quipped. Then with a graver look he added, “It’s dealing with people that’s made me a skeptic.”
I thought his gaze lingered on me for an extra moment, but then he smiled and shook my hand and congratulated me on “landing in my rightful place.”
“Make sure you get out a little,” he said, waving an admonishing finger, “lest you start seeing any more ghosts.”
Everyone laughed at that—except Jess. He walked Katrine and Cortland out through the boot hall because it had already begun to snow and the terrace steps would be slippery. Monty sat down heavily when they’d gone. He looked pale and I realized that the afternoon had taken a lot out of him.
“I’m going to clean up and start dinner,” I said. “You might want to . . .” I was going to suggest he take a nap, but knowing how much he hated to be treated as an invalid, amended it to “Get a little work done. I bet you haven’t had a chance with all this business on your mind.”
He looked at me gratefully. “No, I haven’t, but I wanted this out of the way. I’d hated leaving it to Bailey after how they treated me, but I didn’t want it to go to those money-grubbing Connecticut Montagues. I’m happier knowing it will go to you.”
“You know it wasn’t necessary, Monty. I’m . . . well . . . thank you. It means a lot that you’ve acknowledged me.”
He looked up at me, his eyes gleaming. “I know it doesn’t begin to make up for the time we missed, Clare. When I think of you growing up not a mile down the road—”
“It’s okay, Monty. The important thing is we’ve found each other now.”
He clasped my hand and then asked if I wouldn’t mind handing him his notebook and pen from the desk and then his reading glasses and then a book. I left him with all his writing supplies, but I knew that he would most likely doze off in a few minutes, as he usually did now in the late afternoons. I brought the plates and glasses into the kitchen and washed them, scrubbing at the burgundy stain of Katrine’s lipstick
on the rim of her champagne glass. She’d hardly drunk any. Perhaps she was watching her weight—or she liked to keep a sharp head for her buyers. Clever of her to tell ghost stories to the hipster Brooklynites. Just like she’d known what to say to draw Jess and me to Riven House. And clever to stay in touch. I remember what she had said that day about having someone on the inside when the house went up for sale. How well it had worked out for her that I would inherit the house. I supposed she thought Jess and I would sell. After all, we probably wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep.
I threw together a quick stew of chicken, diced sweet potatoes, and the apples leftover from the cheese tray, added curry and chicken stock, and put it on the stove to simmer. I heard Jess come back in and head upstairs. He must have walked Katrine and Cortland to their cars, but why had he taken so long? Had they been talking about the will? Or about the ghost story I’d told? I shouldn’t have told it. Look at what had happened when Minnie told everyone she’d seen a ghost. And Amy Birnbach. Both of them had ended up at the Hudson River Mental Hospital. It was not a place I ever wanted to see again.
I’d be more careful next time. Any ghost story I told I’d make sure I said it was fictional. And I’d get out more like Cortland said. Being stuck in this old house with two writers would drive anyone a little batty. I’d go into Rhinebeck to do some shopping, buy Christmas presents for Jess and Monty, buy a new dress—maybe a velvet one like the one Katrine had worn, only in emerald green for the holidays. I couldn’t blame Jess for ogling Katrine if I let myself go.