Midnight Bayou Page 3

  Manet Hall, Louisiana

  January 2002

  His mother was right—as always. Declan Fitzgerald stared through the mud-splattered windshield into the driving winter rain and was glad she wasn’t there to gloat.

  Not that Colleen Sullivan Fitzgerald ever stooped to a gloat. She merely raised one perfect eyebrow into one perfect arch and let her silence do the gloating for her.

  She’d told him, very succinctly, when he’d stopped by before driving out of Boston, that he’d lost his mind. And would rue the day. Yes, he was pretty sure she’d said “rue the day.”

  He hadn’t sunk as low as ruing—yet—but studying the jungle of weeds, the sagging galleries, the peeling paint and broken gutters of the old plantation house, he was no longer confident of his mental health.

  What had made him think he could restore this rambling old derelict into its former splendor? Or, more to the point, that he should? For God’s sake, he was a lawyer, a Fitzgerald of the Boston Fitzgeralds, and more tuned to swinging a nine-iron than a hammer.

  Rehabbing a town house in his spare time over a two-year period was a far cry from relocating to New Orleans and pretending he was a contractor.

  Had the place looked this bad the last time he’d been down here? Could it have? Of course that was five, no, six years before. Certainly it couldn’t have looked this bad the first time he’d seen it. He’d been twenty and spending a crazed Mardi Gras interlude with his college roommate. Eleven years, he thought, dragging his fingers through his dark blond hair.

  The old Manet Hall had been a niggling germ in his brain for eleven years. As obsessions went, it was longer than most relationships. Certainly longer than any of his own.

  Now the house was his, for better or for worse. He already had a feeling there was going to be plenty of worse.

  His eyes, as gray, and at the moment as bleak, as the rain, scanned the structure. The graceful twin arches of the double stairs leading to the second-floor gallery had charmed him on that long-ago February. And all those tall arched windows, the whimsy of the belvedere on the roof, the elegance of the white columns and strangely ornate iron balusters. The fanciful mix of Italianate and Greek Revival had all seemed so incredibly lush and Old World and southern.

  Even then he’d felt displaced, in a way he’d never been able to explain, in New England.

  The house had pulled him, in some deep chamber. Like a hook through memory, he thought now. He’d been able to visualize the interior even before he and Remy had broken in to ramble through it.

  Or the gallon or two of beer they’d sucked down had caused him to think he could.

  A drunk boy barely out of his teens couldn’t be trusted. And neither, Declan admitted ruefully, could a stone-sober thirty-one-year-old man.

  The minute Remy had mentioned that Manet Hall was on the block again, he’d put in a bid. Sight unseen, or unseen for more than half a decade. He’d had to have it. As if he’d been waiting all his life to call it his own.

  He could deem the price reasonable if he didn’t consider what he’d have to pour into it to make it habitable. So he wouldn’t consider it—just now.

  It was his, whether he was crazy or whether he was right. No matter what, he’d turned in his briefcase for a tool belt. That alone lightened his mood.

  He pulled out his cell phone—you could take the lawyer out of Boston, but . . . Still studying the house, he put in a call to Remy Payne.

  He went through a secretary, and imagined Remy sitting at a desk cluttered with files and briefs. It made him smile, a quick, crooked grin that shifted the planes and angles of his face, hollowed the cheeks, softened the sometimes-grim line of his mouth.

  Yes, he thought, life could be worse. He could be the one at the desk.

  “Well, hey, Dec.” Remy’s lazy drawl streamed into the packed Mercedes SUV like a mist over a slow-moving river. “Where are you, boy?”

  “I’m sitting in my car looking at this white elephant I was crazy enough to buy. Why the hell didn’t you talk me out of it or have me committed?”

  “You’re here? Son of a bitch! I didn’t think you’d make it until tomorrow.”

  “Got antsy.” He rubbed his chin, heard the scratch of stubble. “Drove through most of last night and got an early start again this morning. Remy? What was I thinking?”

  “Damned if I know. Listen, you give me a couple hours to clear some business, and I’ll drive out. Bring us some libation. We’ll toast that rattrap and catch up.”

  “Good. That’d be good.”

  “You been inside yet?”

  “No. I’m working up to it.”

  “Jesus, Dec, go on in out of the rain.”

  “Yeah, all right.” Declan passed a hand over his face. “See you in a couple hours.”

  “I’ll bring food. For Christ’s sake, don’t try to cook anything. No point burning the place down before you’ve spent a night in it.”

  “Fuck you.” He heard Remy laugh before he hung up.

  He started the engine again, drove all the way to the base of what was left of those double stairs that framed the entranceway. He popped the glove compartment, took out the keys that had been mailed to him after settlement.

  He climbed out and was immediately drenched. Deciding he’d leave the boxes for later, he jogged to the shelter of the entrance gallery, felt a few of the bricks that formed the floor give ominously under his weight, and shook himself like a dog.

  There should be vines climbing up the corner columns, he thought. Something with cool blue blossoms. He could see it if he concentrated hard enough. Something open, almost like a cup, with leaves shaped like hearts.

  Must’ve seen that somewhere, he mused, and turned to the door. It was a double, with carvings and long arched panels of glass on either side and a half-moon glass topper. And tracing his fingers over the doors, he felt some of the thrill sneak into him.

  “Welcome home, Dec,” he said aloud and unlocked the door.

  The foyer was as he remembered it. The wide loblolly pine floor, the soaring ceiling. The plaster medallion overhead was a double ring of some sort of flowers. It had probably boasted a fabulous crystal chandelier in its heyday. The best it could offer now was a single bare bulb dangling from a long wire. But when he hit the wall switch, it blinked on. That was something.

  In any event, the staircase was the focal point. It rose up, wide and straight to the second level, where it curved right and left to lead to each wing.

  What a single man with no current prospects or intentions of being otherwise needed with two wings was a question he didn’t want to ask himself at the moment.

  The banister was coated with gray dust, but when he rubbed a finger over it, he felt the smooth wood beneath. How many hands had gripped there? How many fingers had trailed along it? he wondered. These were the sort of questions that fascinated him, that drew him in.

  The kind of questions that had him climbing the stairs with the door open to the rain behind him, and his possessions still waiting in the car.

  The stairs might have been carpeted once. There probably had been runners in the long center hallway. Some rich pattern on deep red. Floors, woodwork, tabletops would have been polished religiously with beeswax until they gleamed like the crystal in the chandeliers.

  At parties, women in spectacular dresses would glide up and down the stairs—confident, stylish. Some of the men would gather in the billiard room, using the game as an excuse to puff on cigars and pontificate about politics and finance.

  And servants would scurry along, efficiently invisible, stoking fires, clearing glasses, answering demands.

  On the landing, he opened a panel. The hidden door was skillfully worked into the wall, the faded wallpaper, the dulled wainscoting. He wasn’t certain how he’d known it was there. Someone must have mentioned it.

  He peered into the dim, dank corridor. Part of the rabbit warren of servants’ quarters and accesses, he believed. Family and guests didn’t care to hav
e underfoot those who served. A good servant left no trace of his work, but saw to his duties discreetly, silently and well.

  Frowning, Declan strained his eyes to see. Where had that come from? His mother? As tight-assed as she could be from time to time, she’d never say something that pompous.

  With a shrug, he closed the door again. He’d explore that area another time, when he had a flashlight and a bag of bread crumbs.

  He walked along the corridor, glancing in doorways. Empty rooms, full of dust and the smell of damp, gray light from the rain. Some walls were papered, some were down to the skeletal studs.

  Sitting room, study, bath and surely the billiard room he’d imagined, as its old mahogany bar was still in place.

  He walked in to circle around it, to touch the wood, to crouch down and examine the workmanship.

  He’d started a love affair with wood in high school. To date, it was his most lasting relationship. He’d taken a summer job as a laborer even though his family had objected. He’d objected to the idea of spending those long summer days cooped up in a law office as a clerk, and had wanted to work outdoors. To polish his tan and his build.

  It had been one of the rare times his father had overruled his mother and sided with him.

  He’d gotten sunburns, splinters, blisters, calluses, an aching back. And had fallen in love with building.

  Not building so much, Declan thought now. Rebuilding. The taking of something already formed and enhancing, repairing, restoring.

  Nothing had given him as big a kick, or half as much satisfaction.

  He’d had a knack for it. A natural, the Irish pug of a foreman had told him. Good hands, good eyes, good brain. Declan had never forgotten that summer high. And had never matched it since.

  Maybe now, he thought. Maybe he would now. There had to be more for him than just getting from one day to the next doing what was expected and acceptable.

  With pleasure and anticipation growing, he went back to exploring his house.

  At the door to the ballroom he stopped, and grinned. “Wow. Cool!”

  His voice echoed and all but bounced back to slap him in the face. Delighted, he walked in. The floors were scarred and stained and spotted. There were sections damaged where it appeared someone had put up partitions to bisect the room, then someone else had knocked them out again.

  But he could fix that. Some moron had thrown up dry-wall and yellow paint over the original plaster walls. He’d fix that, too.

  At least they’d left the ceiling alone. The plasterwork was gorgeous, complicated wreaths of flowers and fruit. It would need repairing, and a master to do it. He’d find one.

  He threw open the gallery doors to the rain. The neglected, tumbled jungle of gardens spread out, snaked through with overgrown and broken bricked paths. There was likely a treasure of plantings out there. He’d need a landscaper, but he hoped to do some of it himself.

  Most of the outbuildings were only ruins now. He could see a portion of a chimney stack, part of a vine-smothered wall of a derelict worker’s cabin, the pocked bricks and rusted roof of an old pigeonnier—Creole planters had often raised pigeons.

  He’d only gotten three acres with the house, so it was likely other structures that had belonged to the plantation were now tumbling down on someone else’s land.

  But he had trees, he thought. Amazing trees. The ancient live oaks that formed the allée dripped with water and moss, and the thick limbs of a sycamore spread and twisted like some prehistoric beast.

  A wash of color caught his attention, had him stepping out into the rain. Something was blooming, a tall, fat bush with dark red flowers. What the hell bloomed in January? he wondered, and made a mental note to ask Remy.

  Closing his eyes a moment, he listened. He could hear nothing but rain, the whoosh and splash of it on roof, on ground, on tree.

  He’d done the right thing, he told himself. He wasn’t crazy after all. He’d found his place. It felt like his, and if it wasn’t, what did it matter? He’d find another. At least, finally, he’d stirred up the energy to look.

  He stepped back in and, humming, walked back across the ballroom toward the family wing, to check out each of the five bedrooms.

  He caught himself singing under his breath as he wandered through the first of them.

  “After the ball is over, after the break of morn; After the dancers leaving, after the stars are gone . . .”

  He stopped examining baseboard and looked over his shoulder as if expecting to see someone standing behind him. Where had that come from? he wondered. The tune, the lyrics. With a shake of his head, he straightened.

  “From the ballroom, idiot,” he mumbled. “Ballroom on the mind, so you start singing about a ball. Weird, but not crazy. Talking to yourself isn’t crazy, either. Lots of people do it.”

  The door to the room across the hall was closed. Though he expected the creak of hinges, the sound still danced a chill up his spine.

  That sensation was immediately followed by bafflement. He could have sworn he smelled perfume. Flowers. Lilies. Weddings and funerals. And for an instant he imagined them, pure and white and somehow feral in a tall crystal vase.

  His next feeling was irritation. He’d only sent a few pieces ahead, including his bedroom furniture. The movers had dumped it in the wrong room, and he’d been very specific. His room would be the master at the corner, overlooking the garden and pond at the rear, and the avenue of oaks from the side.

  Now he’d have to settle for this room, or haul the damn stuff himself.

  The scent of lilies was overpowering when he shoved the door all the way open. Almost dizzying. Confused, he realized it wasn’t even his furniture. The bed was a full tester draped in deep blue silk. There was a carved chifforobe, a tall chest of drawers, all gleaming. He caught the scent of beeswax under the floral. Saw the lilies in that tall, crystal vase on a woman’s vanity table, its legs curved like the necks of swans. The chair was delicate, its seat an intricate needlepoint pattern of blue and rose.

  Silver-backed brushes, a brooch of gold wings with an enameled watch. Long blue draperies, ornate gaslight sconces set on a low, shimmering light. A woman’s white robe tossed over the back of a blue chaise.

  Candlesticks on the mantel, and a picture in a silver frame.

  He saw it all, snapshot clear. Before his brain could process the how of it, he was staring into an empty room where rain streamed outside uncurtained windows.

  “Jesus Christ.” He gripped the doorjamb for balance. “What the hell?”

  He drew in a breath. There was nothing in the air but must and dust.

  Projecting, he told himself. Just projecting what the room might have looked like. He hadn’t seen anything, or smelled anything. He’d just gotten caught up in the charm of the place, in the spirit of it.

  But he couldn’t make himself step over the threshold.

  He closed the door again, walked directly down to the corner room. His furniture was there, as ordered, and the sight of it both relieved and steadied him.

  The good, solid Chippendale bed with its headboard and footboard unadorned. The one point of agreement he’d had, always, with his mother was a love of antiques, the respect for the workmanship, the history.

  He’d bought the bed after he and Jessica had called off the wedding. Okay, after he’d called it off, he admitted with the usual tug of guilt. He’d wanted to start fresh, and had searched out and purchased the pieces for his bedroom.

  He’d chosen the bachelor’s chest not only because it appeared he was going to remain one, but also because he’d liked the style of it, the double herringbone inlay, the secret compartments, the short, turned legs. He’d selected the armoire to conceal his television and stereo, and the sleek Deco lamps because he’d liked the mix of styles.

  Seeing his things here in the spacious room with its handsome granite fireplace in dark green, the arched gallery doors, the gently faded wallpaper, the pitifully scarred floors, clicked him back into plac
e again.

  The adjoining dressing area made him smile. All he needed was a valet, and white tie and tails. The connecting bath, modernized from the look of it sometime in the woeful seventies, had him wincing at the avocado-green decor and yearning for a hot shower.

  He’d take a quick walk through the third floor, he decided, do the same on the main level, then take the ugly green tub for a spin.

  He headed up. The tune was playing in his head again. Around and around, like a waltz. He let it come. It was company of sorts until Remy showed up.

  Many the hopes that have vanished, after the ball.