The clock ticked, the rain dripped, the room breathed slowly, like a slumbering dog.
“Maude?”
“Hm? Oh—yes, Charles. I know. You want to know what was in those letters that I fear so much. But I won’t tell you. Can’t tell you, I should say. I pledged myself—to him—never to tell. So you’ll just have to read it for yourself in Faun’s book. Skeletons indeed.”
“Are you telling me this is something that will make a difference to anybody?”
Again her eyes went to the bust on the pedestal. “It’s a question of the family honor,” she replied. “At my age I find that things make very little difference. She’s right, you know, I won’t be around much longer. I know that. I’ve been prepared to go for a long time. I want to go. It’s almost twenty-one years and I still miss him, every day I miss him. I’ll be so happy to see him again. But I don’t want to meet him knowing that that wicked girl over there has besmirched the name of Crispin Antrim.”
Her look was fervent and her glass shook, glittering in the firelight. Her voice had begun to go hoarse. “Nothing’s enough for her; there isn’t enough love or understanding or compassion—or money—in the whole world to satisfy the greed that’s in that girl.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “She’s bent out of shape.”
Maude looked up sharply. “Bent! What a felicitous word! She is bent. And—I—simply—will—NOT—have it!” Her face was drained of its blood and she spoke in a voice of brimstone. She was Lady Macbeth or Clytemnestra, Medea, all the great vengeful women. It was something to see. When she had polished off her drink she handed me the empty glass. “‘Please, sir, may I have some more?’” What was wrong? Was she going to get plastered tonight? And on Old Overholt?
I got up and splashed a little more into her glass and carried it back to her.
“Well,” she said, holding up the glass against the flames, “here’s to crime.”
I glanced sharply at her but she was staring into the fire again. We heard footsteps on the terrace and Ling stood in the doorway, embarrassed because of the water he was dripping onto the floor.
“It’s all right, Ling, don’t worry about a little wet. Come in. Is she all right?”
Ling came into the room and shut the door. “Missy Fonn all pass out. I no can move her, she go sleep on sofa.”
“Oh, the foolish creature!” Maude exclaimed impatiently. “She’ll catch her death over there.”
“Why don’t I have a look,” I said. “I can carry her up to bed.”
“No, you stay here, please,” Maude said abruptly. “Ling, fetch me a coat, and come along.”
In seconds Ling was back with another slicker. I helped Maude into it and opened the door again, letting in another damp blast of air. The two went out together; I closed the door and sat down to wait. After a few moments I went to hot up the fire again. In a moment the clock chimed. I circled the room, peering out into the darkness; then I sat and waited some more, but recurring pangs of nervous energy and curiosity propelled me from my chair again and I went to the doors, cupping my hands as I peered out. All I could see among the dark trunks of the trees was a glimmer of light through a downstairs window over at the Playhouse. Finally I opened the door and stepped out onto the terrace. The rain had stopped, but the gutters and eaves were dripping noisily. Again I peered across to the Playhouse, then decided to investigate. I loped across the lawn until I came under the beeches, whose wet branches sent cold drops down my neck. When I came abreast of the house, I looked in the nearest window. The room was empty. I opened the door and went in. The place was cold; there was no fire.
“Hello?” I called between the stairway’s carved balusters. When there was no reply, I went up. At the top I saw the dim glow of light from the bedroom. The floor squeaked badly as I crept up to the threshold and peered in. I could see Faun lying on the bed bundled under a comforter, while on the far side of the room, by the porcelain stove, Maude and Ling were huddled, lighting matches and whispering together.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
Maude all but jumped. “Oh. It’s you,” she said. “What a fright you gave me. You really needn’t have come.” I detected a note of annoyance, as if she didn’t want me there. Suddenly I was no longer her hero but an inconvenience.
“Can I help?”
“No, thank you. We have it now.” She nodded to Ling and they stood. Ling adjusted the gas and went to the doorway.
“She asleep?” I asked, nodding at Faun.
“See for yourself.” Maude turned down the cover and I saw Faun’s pale face. “Dead to the world; you couldn’t wake her with an earthquake.” I thought her voice sounded more natural now. She stood beside the bed, gazing down at the sleeping form, absently smoothing the cover for a moment or two; then she glanced around at the stove. “I don’t think there’s anything else, Ling,” she said. “We can go along now.”
I turned and went out, Ling behind me. Maude had started out with him, but at the last moment she went back into the room, leaving the two of us to continue along without her.
Downstairs, Ling faced me with his usual deadpan expression. His dark eyes shone in the light from the lamp that burned on the table. We waited; after a moment he went to the stairs and called up in a stage whisper. “Missy Maw’ come quick now, please?”
There was a slight sound from above, then silence; presently he moved to the door and opened it. A gust blew in, wet and chilly, lifting the corners of the rug. Above us, Maude’s feet came into view on the staircase. “Come, Mistah Cholly, please, we go now.” Ling actually ushered me out by my elbow, and I found myself among the dark, dripping trees. A moment later, I heard Maude’s voice and saw her appear in the glow of the lamp Ling held in his hand. He led her out and shut the door from the outside.
“Wait, you forgot your lantern.” I started back.
“No, no—I left it,” she said quickly, “for Faun. She might wake up—be frightened.”
Odd, I thought, Maude having just said an earthquake couldn’t waken her. She’d taken my arm and was moving me away from the entrance. “Come along, do let’s get out of this nasty wet before we drown.” I could feel her hand shaking and her breath came in little pants as she urged me along. We bridged the distance between the two houses and came up to the terrace doors; then we were back inside.
Maude hurried to the fire and rubbed her palms together. “I expect the coffee’s gone cold. I think I’d like a fresh cup,” she said, “if you’ll be so kind. Charlie, coffee? Oh, what’s the matter with me, you don’t drink coffee at night, do you?”
Ling went out and I bent to poke up the fire. I added a couple of smallish logs, pumped the bellows, and when we had a merry flame to warm us, I joined Maude on the sofa. She looked utterly done in. I felt her shiver and asked if she was cold and would she like Ling to bring her her coffee in bed? She thanked me no, and in a moment she glanced again at the doors, then settled back against the cushions, hunching her shoulders and clasping and unclasping her hands.
I heard Ling’s step along the outside hallway, and in a second he appeared in the doorway with the coffee tray. At the instant he crossed the threshold his whole figure became illuminated by a glaring burst of light that shot in through all the windows and doors, and for a second he turned white and everything on that side of the room was bathed in an eerie violet light. This blinding flash was followed by a deafening explosion and the tray literally sprang from his hands. When I felt the impact, my first reaction was to snatch Maude to me and pull her to the floor, our bodies protected by the bulk of the sofa. She crouched in my arms, shaking and murmuring to herself. As soon as I felt reasonably sure there would be no second shock, I got up and rushed to the French doors, opened them, and ran out onto the terrace.
Through the trees I could see the Playhouse engulfed in flames, while burning pieces of debris fell back to earth, parting the branches of the trees. The explosion had made a lurid light and I remembered what had been said
only minutes ago about the sleep of the dead and earthquakes waking them. I was running then, running hard, but even as I ran I realized how foolish it was to imagine anything inside that house having survived such a blast.
From the gaping hole that had been ripped from the roof clear down one wall, I could assume that the explosion had happened upstairs—in the bedroom. Helpless to do anything, I danced around the conflagration, and, finding no way inside, I ran back to the big house to call for help. But the fire department needed no alert; already I could hear the wailing siren as vehicles wound their way up the canyon road.
As I came into the Snuggery, the house lights blinked on and off several times, then stayed on. Maude stood by the open doors, staring wordlessly at the blaze. Before I could say anything she turned from the sight and dropped into her chair again. The clamor of the fire engines filled my ears as the trucks pulled into the drive and a voice began barking out orders over an amplifier. Two men came running toward us, and I opened the door, letting in a gust of smoke-filled air.
“Was anybody in there?” one man asked breathlessly. Maude looked at me before answering. “Yes,” she answered finally, “my granddaughter was in bed upstairs. I don’t believe she could have possibly gotten out alive.”
The firemen agreed and said they were sorry. They ran away with the news, and we watched while dark figures dragging hoses dashed across the wet lawn. My eyes kept going to Maude’s face as she watched impassively through the glass, as if she were witnessing some event entirely unrelated to her. What a cool customer, I thought.
“Missy Maw’,” said Ling from the doorway, “I will go make coffee, lots of coffee; the men will want it.”
“That’s a good idea, Ling, please do.”
He trotted from the room, calm and collected as ever, and at that moment it struck me that for neither Maude nor Ling had there been the slightest element of surprise concerning the explosion, and it dawned on me then that it must have been expected.
“The Swedish stove, of course,” I heard Maude say, peering out, while the tautened hoses began to quell the lurid flames. Outside, all was action and furor; inside, only the crackling snapping fire and the eloquent silence that lay between us. “I’ve been saying for years it ought to be fixed—fixed or done away with.”
“Like some other things,” I thought but did not say. “Done away with if they could not be fixed.” In this world there were some things that could never be fixed.
“Ought we to telephone Belinda, let her know?” I asked.
“At this hour? Gracious no,” she replied with her old asperity. “It’s late, and I don’t want to upset her before we must. Perhaps we should go out and see what the men are doing.” I reached to help her to her feet but she brushed my hand aside. “I can manage, thank you. I don’t need any assistance.”
Her brusque words spoke for themselves. I saw it all. I understood it all. Some things were best left to the Maudes of the world—if there were more Maudes, other Maudes, which I steadfastly believed there were not. Unique, indomitable, and, I suspected, now somehow at peace. Suddenly Sunnyside, her domain, had been made safe again. Now there was nothing to touch it or harm it, not any longer. And if Maude was safe and Sunnyside was safe, then Belinda, too, was safe; no one could hurt her anymore, either. I was seized by the urge to see her, to be with her and tell her she’d been made safe again. I wanted to reassure her that Charlie would see to everything.
I felt Maude’s hand steal into mine, our fingers entwined. In our hands lay a secret, almost certainly in Ling’s hands as well. Maybe I should have been ashamed of what I was feeling, but there it was: relief, pure and simple relief.
There would come a time, however, when these feelings would pass and I would be left with my thoughts, heavy thoughts of the thing that had happened that night, the accident in the Playhouse, the gas stove that had breathed the flames of the lamp that had been left for Faun in case she woke up and was frightened.
I persuaded Maude to remain inside while I went out to talk to the fire officers. Yes, they said, it certainly must have been the stove, that old Swedish porcelain job with the faulty jets. Escaping gas, the burning lantern, nature had taken its course—naturally.
To be sure—quite naturally.
I said that was how we too had guessed it had been—Mrs. Antrim and I.
“Is that her?” asked the captain. “Golly, I saw her a long long time ago—when I was just a kid. She was with Jackie Cooper—can’t remember the name—”
I said he must mean Fanny and Kiddo. “By gosh,” he said, “you’re right.” Sure I was. Dead right.
By now the men were rolling up their hoses, the captain was checking among the smoldering ruins for hot sparks. Others were poking around with flashlights, looking for human remains. Though they kept their voices down, I knew they were telling each other that there wouldn’t be much to find in that mess.
When this process came to naught, I took the captain over to speak with Maude in the Snuggery, and after a while the police arrived to deal with the situation. An officer took out his pad and respectfully wrote down our answers to his questions. Maude looked badly torn up, as if the loss of her beloved granddaughter were a great tragedy, which I supposed it was—to Faun. Maude’s display of emotion was acute and beautifully articulated.
When our guests had had their fill of questions, they all trooped out amid apologies and condolences. Maude stood gallant to the end, shaking hands and giving each a polite word of gratitude for services rendered. I closed the door behind them, threw another log on the fire while, slowly—even ceremoniously—she drew the curtains across the windows, shutting out sight and sound, and we stayed there in the Snuggery until dawn, talking, shoes and ships and sealing wax, just the way we’d begun on that other dark and stormy night; cabbages and kings.
When the sun rose behind the curtains, I drew the cord to open them. Turning, I saw that Maude had slipped from the room. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day. Ling said she was resting, and we agreed that was a good idea.
Later, nosing around in the Playhouse debris, I found the charred remains of a typewriter—the machine Faun had been writing her book on. But there was not a single page to be found.
In a later time we sat together, Maude and I, near the spot where the Playhouse had stood, now demolished, the blasted area now seeded into healthy green turf where the croquet court had been moved. It was evening, the air was warm, and there was a special mood to our being together there, something quiet and solemn, as well as a profound air of finality, for we each realized it would be one of the last times it would happen. And for good reason: Sunnyside was to be sold. It had been less than a month after the explosion, when workers were still cleaning up the charred debris, that Maude surprised me by saying she was going to put the place on the market. Sunnyside—her home for fifty-four years? I couldn’t believe she really meant it. How could she leave the place after so long, start life over in some apartment? But that’s exactly what she’d done, turned the whole estate over to Felix Pass to get rid of.
Now we lingered there, gazing out across the waist-high wall, watching the shadows lengthen, the dusk come on, while the darkening hills fell away beneath us. Along the landscape of flattened canyon peaks and knolls the glimmering lights of the neighboring houses gleamed for us, those grand old silent-movie mausoleums, Valentino, Lloyd, Pickfair, in their lofty grandeur, and, ah, the stories their stucco-and-brick walls could tell; ah, the laundry airing on the lines, sheets taken from the beds where the late great had loved and mated, movie gods who were no more gods than you or I, but only mortal creatures with feet of clay. Maude was a goddess, yes, though she’d abdicated now. Yet admirers like myself would keep her name enthroned. As for this place, this Sunnyside that Crispin had built and made his home—it had been his creation, was still his; Maude was merely its caretaker. Behind the mullioned windows of the Snuggery the flame burned; she was the keeper of that flame, and she had protected it in the o
nly way she could.
Soon nuns of a cloistered order would stand where we now stood, gazing down on this same view, wandering the corridors of the house, whispering their litanies, their knobby devotional hands clasped in prayer, prayer for lost souls like ourselves. We were sinners; but we would not confess, either of us. We would keep our unholy secret; it would lie between us, silent and unspoken. The Inquisition tortures of a Torquemada couldn’t drag it from me, while she, she would carry it to her grave. As for a possible third party, when had Ling ever spilled a bean?
Here I stood, at the purple wall where the white clematis climbed, here with Maude Antrim, Hollywood’s great lady, its dowager queen, chatelaine of Sunnyside, the closest thing to Camelot that movie folk could boast. Soon the stone halls of her house would fail to echo her light step, the coigns above the musicians’ gallery would no longer reverberate with her champagne laughter. At Sunnyside the clock would stop, the Snuggery’s embers would die to cold ashes, and one day the last light would go out. It wouldn’t be just the end of an era, but the end of an age. In my heart I sorrowed for Maude, who had chosen to go, and also for the empty rooms, which had no choice but to stay—alas, without her.
The air drew on a hint of fog, a touch of chill, and we started in. As we walked along the gravel path, our eyes were inevitably drawn to the spot, there where the little wire wickets had been inserted into the earth. Maude paused; I beside her. The name we almost never spoke came to my lips. I said I thought she’d been a poor tormented soul.
“Perhaps.” Maude shook her head. Clearly, she didn’t want to discuss this subject. She gave my hand a squeeze, taking me along beside her. Ling was waiting in the doorway, behind him Suzi-Q.
“Sleep well,” I said to Maude as we got to the door, and I smiled and kissed first one cheek, then the other. Maude Antrim, who’d put a roof over my head and given me happy times. I loved her then, I love her still, I will always love her. Then, an afterthought: “Some people don’t really deserve to be born,” I said.