The only one left, p.3
The Only One Left, page 3
He yanks on the gate, and it lets out a squeak so awful I would have described it as pained if it had come from someone in my care.
“Do you work here full-time?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard over the sound of the gate.
“I do,” the man says. “There aren’t too many of us here anymore, although once upon a time this place was overflowing with hired help. For instance, there used to be a gardener, a groundskeeper, and a handyman, along with a bunch of part-time helpers. Now I’m all of them rolled into one.”
“Do you like it here?”
The man gives the gate one last shove, clearing it from the driveway. Turning to me, he says, “Am I scared, is what you mean.”
Yes, that’s what I mean. I’d intended it to be an innocent question. A natural one, considering what happened here. Yet in hindsight I realize how it also could be perceived as incredibly rude.
“I just—”
“It’s okay,” the man says. “You’re only being curious. I know what people beyond these walls say about this place.”
“I guess that means no.”
“A correct assumption.” The man removes one of his gloves and extends his hand. “I’m Carter, by the way.”
I shake his hand. “Kit McDeere.”
“Nice to meet you, Kit. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
I pause before driving away. “Thanks for helping me with the gate. I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t come by.”
“I think you would have managed somehow.” Carter studies me, his head tilted in curious appraisal. “You strike me as being pretty resourceful.”
I used to be. Not anymore. Resourceful people aren’t suspended from their jobs, can find new ones if they are, and don’t still live at home at age thirty-one. Still, I accept the compliment with a nod.
“One more thing,” Carter says, coming to the open car window and bending down so we’re eye-to-eye. “Forget what everyone says about Lenora Hope and what happened here. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Miss Hope is completely harmless.”
Even though he intended them to be reassuring, Carter’s words only underscore the surreal truth of the situation. Yes, I knew what the job entailed when I left Mr. Gurlain’s office. But it was an abstract notion, pushed to the background by packing, dealing with my father’s ambivalence, trying to find this place. But now that I’m here, it hits me like a sucker punch.
I’m about to meet a woman who slaughtered her family.
Allegedly slaughtered, I remind myself. Lenora was never convicted of any crime, as Mr. Gurlain so coyly reminded me. But who else could have done it other than Lenora? There was no one else at the house, no other suspects to consider, no one else left alive. The rhyme’s final line clings to my thoughts.
But she’s the only one not dead
A shudder runs up my spine as I pull away from Carter and head toward the main house. I drive slowly, my gaze fixed on the jaw-dropping structure looming up ahead. But as I get closer, the luxurious grandeur of the place fades like fog, revealing the neglect hiding in plain sight.
Up close, I realize, Hope’s End is a mess.
One of the second-floor windows is missing panes and now has plywood covering the gaping hole. Chunks of marble have broken off the detailing around some of the doors and windows. The roof is missing a fifth of its slate shingles, giving it a battered, pockmarked look that’s honestly a relief. At last, a place as broken as I feel.
The driveway ends in a roundabout in front of the house, with another spoke leading to a low-slung garage several yards from the main building. Turning through the roundabout, I count the garage doors.
Five.
How the other half lives indeed.
At the front of the house, I park, get out of the car, and hop up three steps to a massive set of double doors placed in the dead center of the mansion. Before I can even knock, the doors fly open, revealing a woman standing just inside. Her sudden presence startles me. Or maybe it’s simply her monochrome appearance that’s startling. White hair that brushes her shoulders. Black dress fitted tightly around a svelte frame. Lace collar that resembles the doilies my grandmother used to crochet. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Lipstick a bold cherry red. It’s all so dramatic and severe that I can’t quite pinpoint the woman’s age. If I had to guess, I’d say seventy-five, knowing I could be off by at least ten years in either direction.
A pair of cat’s-eye glasses hangs from a chain around the woman’s neck. She brings them to her eyes and peers at me for a breath of a second—an instant appraisal.
“Miss McDeere,” she finally says. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” I say, even though there’s literally nothing welcoming about the woman’s tone. It’s clear she’s the same person I talked to over the intercom. The disinterested voice is unmistakable.
“I’m Mrs. Baker, the housekeeper.” The woman pauses to take in what I’m wearing, seemingly finding my coat lacking. It’s blue wool and pilled in too many places to count. I’ve had it for so long I can’t remember when or where I bought it. Or maybe Mrs. Baker’s apparent distaste is reserved for what’s under the coat. White blouse. Gray skirt. Black flats last worn at my mother’s funeral. If so, I can’t help it. These are the nicest clothes I own.
After a moment of clear hesitation, Mrs. Baker adds, “Do come in.”
I hesitate as well, hovering just outside. It’s the doorway that gives me pause. Almost as wide as it is tall and surrounded by more of that ubiquitous marble detailing, it sort of resembles an open mouth. Looking at it reminds me of something Carter said.
This place can bite.
I suddenly long for home. A complete surprise, considering how that house hasn’t felt like home since my mother died. But it had once been a happy place, full of equally happy memories. Snowy Christmases and birthday cakes and my mother in her silly floral apron making French toast on Sunday mornings. Does Hope’s End have any happy memories? Or did they all vanish that one horrible night? Is sorrow the only thing that remains?
“Coming, dear?” Mrs. Baker says after an impatient clearing of her throat.
Part of me doesn’t want to. The entire place—its size, its ostentatiousness, and especially its reputation—makes me want to turn around and head right back home.
But then I think about my father, my bedroom, the dregs of cash in my savings account. None of that will change if I don’t do something about it. If I leave—which I desperately want to do—I’ll be stuck in the same limbo I’ve inhabited for the past six months. But working here, even for just a few weeks, could change everything.
With that in mind, I take a deep breath, pass through the door, and allow Hope’s End to swallow me whole.
FOUR
The inside of Hope’s End is nicer than the outside, but only slightly. Just beyond the door is a grand foyer with marble tile, velvet drapes at the windows, and tapestries on the walls. The furnishings range from potted palms to fancy wooden chairs with dusty cushions under brocade pillows. Overhead, an oil-painted sky full of puffy-pink clouds adorns the arched ceiling. It all looks simultaneously fancy and shabby and stopped in time. Like the lobby of a four-star hotel that had been suddenly abandoned decades ago.
To the left, a long hallway runs past tall windows and a single open doorway, on its way to a set of wide double doors that are currently closed. It then takes a sharp right, disappearing around a corner. On the right is another hallway, offering a straight shot to a sun-drenched room.
My attention, though, is mostly focused on what’s in front of me. A red-carpeted staircase directly across from the front door that rises a dozen steps before splitting in two like a pair of wings. Each symmetrical half then curves upward to the second floor. A stained-glass window looms over the center landing, through which slant streaks of sunlight in rainbowed hues that color the carpet.
“The Grand Stairs,” Mrs. Baker says. “Built with the house in 1913. Very little about the place has changed since then. Mr. Hope made sure to choose a design that was timeless.”
She keeps moving, her heels clicking like a metronome on the marble tile. I trail after her, tripped up slightly by the floor. It’s uneven in spots, swelling and ebbing like the ocean outside.
“You can collect your belongings later,” Mrs. Baker says. “I thought it would be nice to chat in the sunroom first. It’s a cheerful little room.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. So far, nothing about Hope’s End suggests cheerfulness, even the few pretty bits. Gloom and doom seem to have taken up residence in the corners, gathered there like cobwebs. There’s also a chill to the air—a salt-tinged, intangible something that makes me shiver.
I know it’s just my imagination. Three people died here. Horrifically, if legend is to be believed. Knowledge like that can mess with your brain.
As if to illustrate that point, we pass a framed oil painting that depicts a teenage girl in a pink satin gown.
“Miss Hope,” Mrs. Baker says, not bothering to glance at the portrait as she trots by. “Commissioned by her father to mark her birthday.”
Unlike Mrs. Baker, I’m stopped cold by the portrait. In it, Lenora is seated on a white divan, with pink-striped wallpaper behind her and, just over her shoulder, a sliver of mirror in a gilt frame. Lenora leans somewhat awkwardly against the armrest of the divan. Her hands rest on her lap, fingers intertwined, suggesting a tension the painter tried hard to disguise with a too-casual pose.
Her pale skin and delicate features make me think of a flower just before it blooms. Young Lenora had a pert nose, ripe lips, and green eyes almost as bright as the stained glass over the Grand Stairs. She stares directly at the painter, a spark of mischief in her gaze, almost as if she knows what people will be saying about her decades in the future.
Mrs. Baker, five paces ahead of me, turns to give me an impatient look. “The sunroom is this way, Miss McDeere.”
I move on, although not before taking one last look at Lenora’s portrait. Three others, identical in shape and size, hang in a row next to it, all hidden behind black silk crepe. Rather than draped over the paintings, the fabric is stretched taut and held in place by nails driven directly into the frames. All that effort, though, doesn’t entirely hide the portraits. I can faintly see them behind the sheer crepe, hazy and featureless. Like ghosts.
Winston, Evangeline, and Virginia Hope.
And Lenora’s the only one still on display because she’s the only one left.
I catch up to Mrs. Baker, following her quickly down the rest of the hall, passing rooms with their doors firmly shut, suggesting places that are forbidden. At each one, I feel another brief chill. Drafts, I tell myself. Happens all the time in big, old mansions like this.
The sunroom is at least brighter than the rest of the house, if not exactly cheerful. The furniture is the same kind of musty antiques spotted elsewhere around Hope’s End. So much velvet and embroidery and tassels. A grand piano anchors the far end of the room, its lid lowered and shut tighter than a casket.
The room’s stuffiness is leavened by the rows of floor-to-ceiling windows along two walls. One row of windows faces the lawn, through which I can see Carter in the distance, back to raking leaves. The other set of windows looks out onto an empty terrace. A short marble railing, not even waist high, runs the length of the terrace. I can’t see anything past the railing because there’s literally nothing else to see. Just an endless expanse of cerulean sky that makes it seem like the mansion is literally floating in midair.
Mrs. Baker grants me a few more seconds of gawking before gesturing to a red velvet love seat. “Please, sit.”
I lower myself onto the edge of the love seat, as if I’m afraid of breaking it. Which I am. Everything at Hope’s End seems so old and so expensive that I assume nothing here can be replaced. Mrs. Baker shows no such hesitation as she drops onto the love seat across from me. The motion produces a small plume of dust that rises from the fabric in a miniature mushroom cloud.
“Now, Miss McDeere,” she says, “tell me a little about yourself.”
Before I can speak, someone else bursts into the room with a clomp and a rattle. A young woman carrying a metal pail in one hand and using the other to drag a vacuum cleaner behind her. She freezes when she sees us, giving me a few seconds to take in the sheer spectacle of her appearance. About twenty, if that, she wears a formal maid’s uniform that wouldn’t have been out of place in a black-and-white movie. Black, knee-length dress. Starched white collar with pinpoint tips. White apron bearing a smeared print where she presumably wiped her hands.
The rest of her, though, is pure Technicolor. Her hair, dyed a garish shade of red, also contains two streaks of neon blue that trail down both sides of her face, dangling like octopus tentacles. A similar shade of blue streaks across her eyelids before fading at her temples. Her lipstick is bubblegum pink. Rouge colored a darker shade of pink cuts over her cheekbones.
“Oops, sorry!” she says, doing a double take when she sees me, clearly surprised by the presence of a stranger at Hope’s End. I suspect it doesn’t happen often. “I thought the room was empty.”
She turns to leave, producing another rattle that I realize is coming from the half-dozen plastic bracelets in rainbow hues that ride up each of her wrists.
“It’s my fault, Jessica,” Mrs. Baker says. “I should have informed you I’d be needing the room this afternoon. This is Miss McDeere, Miss Hope’s new caregiver.”
“Hi,” I say with a little wave.
The girl waves back, her bracelets clattering. “Hey. Welcome aboard.”
“The two of us were about to get better acquainted,” Mrs. Baker says. “Perhaps you can continue cleaning in the foyer. It’s looking a little neglected.”
“But I cleaned there yesterday.”
“Are you suggesting my eyes have deceived me?” Mrs. Baker says, displaying a smile so clenched it borders on the vicious.
The girl shakes her head, setting her hoop earrings in motion. “No, Mrs. Baker.”
The young maid curtsies, an act of sarcasm Mrs. Baker seems to mistake for sincerity. Then she leaves, giving me another curious glance before hauling her pail, vacuum, and rattling jewelry out of the sunroom.
“Please forgive Jessica,” Mrs. Baker says. “It’s so hard to find good help these days.”
“Oh” is all I can say in return. Aren’t I also considered the help? Isn’t Mrs. Baker?
She puts on her glasses, adjusting them atop the bridge of her nose before peering at me through the thick lenses. “Now, Miss McDeere—”
“You can call me Kit.”
“Kit,” Mrs. Baker says, flinging my name off her tongue like it’s a bad taste. “I assume that’s short for something.”
“Yes. Kittredge.”
“A bit fancy for a first name.”
I understand her meaning. Fancy for someone like me.
“It was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name.”
Mrs. Baker makes a noise. Not quite a hmmm, but close. “And your people? Where are they from?”
“Here,” I say.
“You’ll have to be more specific than that.”
Again, I understand. There’s more than one here. There are the mansions clinging to the Cliffs, home to the moneyed ranks the Hope family used to tower over. Then there’s everyone else.
“Town,” I say.
Mrs. Baker nods. “I thought so.”
“My father is a handyman, and my mother was a librarian,” I volunteer, trying to impress upon Mrs. Baker that my family is just as worthy of respect as the Hopes and their ilk.
“Interesting,” Mrs. Baker says, in a way that makes it clear she finds it anything but. “Do you have much experience as a caregiver?”
“Yes.” I tense, unsure how much she already knows. “What did Mr. Gurlain tell you?”
“Very little. I wish I could say you came highly recommended, but that would be a lie. I was told next to nothing about you.”
I take a deep breath. This could be a good thing. Then again, maybe not. Because it means I’ll have to explain everything myself if asked.
Please don’t ask, I think.
“I’ve been with Gurlain Home Health Aides for twelve years,” I say.
“That’s quite a long time.” Mrs. Baker holds my gaze, her face unreadable. “I assume you learned a lot in those twelve years.”
“I did, yes.”
I start listing all the things I know how to do, ranging from the pedestrian—light cooking, light cleaning, changing sheets with a person still in the bed—to the professional. Giving sponge baths and inserting catheters, drawing blood and injecting insulin, checking shoulder blades and buttocks for bedsores.
“Why, you’re practically a nurse,” Mrs. Baker interrupts when I’ve droned on too long. “Do you have much experience caring for stroke victims?”
“Some,” I say, thinking of Mrs. Plankers and how I cared for her less than two months before her poor husband ran out of money to pay for the agency’s services. Mrs. Plankers was moved to a state-funded nursing home, and I was assigned to another patient.
“Miss Hope’s condition might require more attention than you’re accustomed to,” Mrs. Baker says. “She’s been plagued by bad health most of her life. A bout of polio in her twenties weakened her legs so much that she’s been unable to walk since. Over the past twenty years, she’s suffered a series of strokes. They left her unable to speak and the right side of her body paralyzed. She can move her head and neck, but it’s sometimes difficult for her to control them. All she has, really, is limited use of her left arm.”
