Household (51 page)

❖

The banshee was wailing, the cat was screeching, Miss Lawrence was gurgling.

Livia paced the floor in her bedroom, her hands to her ears. What was afflicting Molly? What did she foresee? If only she could reach her on her perch, but that was impossible. She wondered where the Old Lord could be? He would be able to interpret and confide—and why was Kathie so late? It was already 7:30! And where was Septimus? He had gone out to get the evening paper an hour earlier and wasn’t back yet. She was nervous and unaccountably worried over him. And why hadn’t Richard come home? She felt so dreadfully alone. She couldn’t even hear Mark’s howls from the cellar and the moon was rising. That ought to have comforted her, but it didn’t. He always howled when the moon rose. Was she getting deaf? It wouldn’t be surprising, She was at that age.

She hurried downstairs and stopped short in horror near the cellar door. It was hanging on one hinge. Something had battered it down from inside! How had that happened? Then she saw the crumpled newspaper on the floor.

“Septimus!” she shrieked, staring into the blackness behind the broken door.

A cold wind blew through the hall. The front door swung open and then banged shut.

Livia fainted.

❖

It had been a desperate day, a last chance day. Her energy was leaving her quickly, and she didn’t know why. Still the stage was set and ready for action. The beast was on the loose; guided by her, he loped through the dark streets toward their goal. He was her puppet. They were all her puppets; she had a handful of strings and all she had to do was jerk them. After that she would not care what happened to the poor few remnants who were left to plod their weary way toward oblivion. She would be vindicated at last.

❖

Why hadn’t Matthew returned?

The watchman was talking and talking. He stood between her and the door, a medium-sized but hulking figure of a man, most unprepossessing in appearance. He talked to her in a low voice, grinning at her with an appreciation she was beginning to loathe and even fear. He had been smoking the whole time, without asking so much as a by-your-leave! He had lit one cigarette from the next, and the air was heavy with the smell of cheap tobacco.

Kathie’s nails were digging into her hands. She longed to tell him to go, but there was something in his eyes that gave her pause. Then she heard a sound outside—a footstep? With exaggerated relief, she said, “I think Matthew’s coming.”

“Yeah? I don’t hear anything.” He opened the door and glanced out. “Nope, baby, false alarm.”

His use of the term ‘baby,’ both grated on her ears and frightened her. He had no right to talk to her like that, to compare her to all the other ‘dames’ who had sat in Matthew’s office, making him sound like a combination of Casanova and Don Juan. The watchman must be a little crazy. He had been hurt in the war, he’d told her, playing on her sympathy in the beginning. Now he had taken a match from his pocket and struck it. He was holding the flame toward yet another cigarette. He paused.

“Hey, there
is
something out there. Sounds like a dog’s sniffin’ around. Who’d be walkin’ his damned dog on a set? Dogs ain’t allowed!” He pushed open the door, and Kathie came out after him, unwilling to stay inside and have him return to taunt her. As she closed the door firmly behind her, she heard a deep growl followed by a prolonged howl. She felt as if each separate pore in her skin had become an icy pricking needle! She recognized the howl, had heard it all the years of her life on nights when the moon was full. There was a loud yell from the night watchman. He tried to run and stumbled, falling on a heap of gunny sacks.

Looking around her, Kathie saw a huge greyish shape in the darkness. There was laughter, a woman’s laughter, high and eerie, fading and swelling. It was all about her, that shrieking, terrible laughter. Then it changed in timbre and became low and gloating. It seemed to Kathie that her bones were turning cold inside her flesh. She shrank back against the door, one hand searching out the knob and finding that it would not turn. A wind was rising; it blew against her, tearing at her garments, almost as if it had developed fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the watchman, still screaming, run awkwardly away. Meanwhile there was smoke in her nostrils. A fire was rising from the pile of gunny sacks where he had cowered. The flames were leaping high, fanned by that infernal wind, and they seemed to be coming in her direction. She tried to run but she could not move.

Across the clearing came the beast. She could see him now in the lurid light of the flames—the fearsome head with the bestial features, retaining human characteristics but stretched and elongated, half-covered with bristling red hair and made even more horrible by the madness she read in its fiery, golden eyes. Mark’s eyes! Its body was that of an animal, covered with grey-red hair. It was coming closer and closer to her. It rose on its hind legs, its muzzle wrinkled in a snarl and deep, low growls issuing from its throat. It arched its long back. It was about to leap at her.

“Mark, Mark, Mark, down boy!” she screamed senselessly, foolishly to the unhappy creature.

Incredibly, it stopped in mid-leap and, staring at her, uttered a long sorrowful howl and fled from her, its tail between its legs.

“Back, come backkkkkkk...” The scream resounded in her ears as the fire drew nearer, the smoke choking her. Suddenly another wind blew from behind. She felt battered between the two of them. And in that wind, which seemed to be fanning the flames away from her and driving them back, she heard a voice she seemed to know from half-forgotten dreams. “
Go back... go forth, woman. The price has been paid and our sanctuary found!
”

“Kathie! Kathie!” Matthew called frantically.

She wanted to go to him but the fingers of the opposing wind still pressed fiercely against her. Then, with a despairing shriek, the pressure was relaxed, and Kathie heard the Old Lord cry, “
Go, child, and let me guide you
...” At that same moment, she was blown into Matthew’s arms.

Moments later, standing with him across the street, she watched the huge bonfire that had been the set of Paris, 1786, turn the sky a flaming orange. Looking at it, she wondered dolefully if Matthew would be able to fit into her father’s magic act.

K
itty’s place was bright with lights. In the large parking lot Mercedes limousines rubbed fenders with svelte Pierce-Arrows and custom-made Packards, as well as a dozen other makes of auto not excluding the ubiquitous tin lizzie. All of these had disgorged brightly clad, incongruous occupants who seemingly hailed from Spanish haciendas, medieval monasteries, fairy tale palaces and every period in history from a fig-leafed Adam and Eve to Edward VII’s court. Sheiks, gypsies, Robin Hoods, pirates, nuns, bears and gorillas, crowded into the establishment. In spite of the pick of studio wardrobes and elegant made-to-order costumes no one took the eye more than Juliet in a replica of the white gown she had worn for her birthday ball and Colin in a copy of the suit he donned that same night.

Juliet’s golden curls, heavily powdered, looked like spun glass above her delicate, beautiful little face. The excitement in her eyes recalled those moments when life had seemed a glorious adventure to her. Her expression held no trace of the wry sophistication which had been so evident in the years that followed. She seemed incredibly young and glowing, a beacon light among the weary pleasure seekers that thronged about her on that glistening floor. In his powdered wig and white brocade suit with the diamond sprinkled lace at his throat and a court sword at his side, Colin resembled a prince from a fairy tale. They arrived late and did not stay long, just long enough for Juliet to dance with an eager and adoring Gareth, but for once they did not tango. Instead they whirled around the room to the strains of a Viennese waltz.

Gareth, in the white robes of an Arabian prince, stared at her incredulously. “You look, my love, as if you had just dropped from another world.”

“Perhaps I have.” She gave him a roguish smile.

“I’m ready to believe that. I think I always have.”

“What can you mean by that?” She had meant to speak lightly but could not quite achieve the proper tone.

“I’m not sure,” he mused. “I wish the music would go on forever.”

“Nothing goes on forever.”

“I...” He paused, frowning as a Pierrot in wine-splattered white satin and a Columbine in a wilted net tutu careened into them, nearly knocking them to the floor. “Damn you, Dane, why the hell don’t you look where you’re going!” Gareth exclaimed furiously.

“Sorry, Gary.” The Pierrot turned a handsome, boyish and very famous face toward him. Juliet recognized him as Dane Fuller, a talented and popular actor with a flair for comedy on screen and a penchant for trouble off. He was with Helena Browning, his sometime leading lady and, some said, his partner in disaster. Though she had the serene beauty of a madonna, at least when her face was in repose which it practically never was, she was known for her comic and cruel impersonations. She was also known for drinking the night away and burning her candle at both ends.

Looking at her, as she blushingly and tipsily apologized for slamming against them, Juliet felt sorry for the girl. Though she was little more than 20, she already appeared weary and dissipated. Obviously that candle was melting fast.

Almost as if she had guessed Juliet’s thoughts, Helena gave her a drunken salute. “You’re not so perfect, either, Miss Prim,” she said giggling.

“C’mon, Hel, let’s raise some hell,” burbled Dane Fuller. “Wanna go for a swim?”

“Sure, why not?” She laughed loudly and, tripping over his feet, sat down in the middle of the floor. “Look at me,” she chortled. “I’m hitting bottom like they always said I would.” She giggled wildly as her escort lifted her in his arms and bore her off.

“I’m sorry about that,” Gareth said regretfully.

“Let’s not think about them,” Juliet pleaded.

“No, let’s just dance. Juliet, my dearest, I do love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she said, thinking now of Lucy. She was actually envious of her. Lucy had known love and birth before death, while she... but it was too late to dwell on that. She must be grateful to Lucy for having shown herself and Colin the way—and what would happen afterwards? Oblivion?

“Juliet!” Gareth raised his voice. “Where are you? I can’t reach you.”

“I couldn’t be much closer.” She tried to smile, but was not successful.

“There’s a strangeness about you.”

“So you’ve already suggested.”

“More than ever. Juliet, my darling, please reconsider Arno’s offer. You don’t want me to be saddled with a leading lady like Helena Browning, do you?”

“No, I really don’t,” she said far more sincerely than she had intended.

“Please, darling, make that test.”

She did not want to lie to him on this night of all nights, nor did she want to see the unhappiness in his eyes. Reluctantly she said, “Maybe I will.”

“Will you?” he asked joyfully. “Promise.”

“I will think about it, but I must leave now.”

“Leave? You’ve only just arrived.”

“We’ve been here quite a while. You just didn’t see us.”

“I couldn’t have missed you,” he burst out. “What sort of game are you playing with me?”

“No game, Gareth.” She stood on tiptoe to caress his cheek and kiss his lips, then breaking from him, she fled across the dance floor where Colin waited for her. She grasped his arm. “Let’s go.”

They threaded their way through the shrieking crowds, stepping over some drunken merrymakers who lay sprawled on the floor and avoiding others who were dancing on the tables and grabbing at them. The music was loud, the laughter, born of wine and booze, was even louder.

Colin said regretfully, “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“No, we should have come here,” she contradicted. “This is the world we know,” she whispered and tensed, feeling rather than seeing that Gareth was close behind them. “Hurry,” she urged. “I dare not look at him again.”

Colin moved swiftly then, as only he could move, as only they could move, skirting the crowds, reaching the entrance, losing themselves among the trees and finally, effortlessly, gliding down the cliffs to the white sands stretching below.

“Juliettttttt...” She heard her name called frantically.

“And not even a glass slipper for him to find,” Colin said.

“Don’t,” she begged.

“I’m sorry, dearest.”

They stood on the sand. A gentle breeze fanned their cheeks. Though it was sail dark, there was a lightening along the horizon. Juliet, standing beside her brother, wondered how much of the dawn they would be allowed to see. She had always been afraid of the dawn before.

A shriek of laughter disturbed her mood, and she saw the Pierrot and Columbine run screaming across the sands but fortunately not in their direction. Soon all she could hear was their howls of laughter as they disappeared down an incline in the sand.

“The sea is beautiful tonight... and such a lovely moon,” she said.

“One more moon day to go,” Colin remarked.

“Poor Mark, I wish...”

“Don’t think about him,” he said.

“No.” She held her brother’s arm, watching the waves swelling, breaking and retreating from the shore.

❖

Later, when the firemen who had tried in vain to put out the blaze that had consumed Paris, 1786, though not much else of the giant studio complex, they found the nigh watchman crawling around on all fours and yelling loudly. When he became somewhat calmer, he still couldn’t describe the dog that had knocked him down and run away. At leas they ascertained that it was a dog. The other attributes, the eyes, the ears and the fangs, were strictly from the realm of an imagination fed on bathtub gin.

Bathtub gin was the excuse the police formulated for the well-spoken, extremely surprised and strangely exultant young man they found wandering along the shoreline tracks just outside Culver City. Naked as the day he was born, he was staring up at the moon as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was also rubbing his hands together and repeating, “No hair... no hair on my palms.”