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The Secret of the Elms
by Daniel Mannix
Chapter One
The little girl struggled down the steps of the suburban local dragging her suitcase behind her and stood looking stolidly around, jostled by the more experienced commuters on their way to the parking lot. She shivered in the chill March wind. Although she was twelve, she was small for her age. She was dressed in a school uniform, consisting of a jumper, blouse and bunchy bloomers, while her pipe-cleaner legs were fitted into skintight black stockings. She wore a maroon school blazer with St. Agatha's embroidered on the vest pocket. She was painfully thin and her skin seemed to be made of wax paper. Her hair was mouse colored and her only striking feature was her eyes: brown and intensely serious. They looked enormous in her pinched, colorless face.
The station platform was only a large shed with some heavy wooden benches. There was a parking lot half-filled with cars toward which most of the commuters were plodding, dangling their brief cases, and a turnaround where several cars, with their engines running, were driven by women who were waiting. Around the station was a wooded area, and the setting sun streaked through the thin trunks of the trees. To one side of the woods was a development of identical houses, each with a handkerchief-sized lawn planted with a couple of saplings scarcely as high as the girl.
No one came for the child. She sat down on one of the benches and stared out toward the woods. Only once when a bird flew past did her eyes focus and then her face went blank again. She sat still while the sun dropped lower and lower.
It was almost dark when a car swung off the road into the turn-around. The girl looked at it with studied indifference as though not willing to run the risk of disappointment. As the car pulled up before the platform and she could recognize the man and woman in the front seat, she got up and started for it, lugging her bag with both hands. The man was fat and almost bald. He was slumped down in his seat and seemed half-asleep. The woman, who was driving, was blond, slender and well-dressed. She looked tired and worried.
As the girl reached the car, the woman said with an air of forced joviality, "You must have thought we'd forgotten you."
The girl replied in a toneless voice, "Yes, I did. It wouldn't be the first time." She opened the car door, hoisted her suitcase in the rear seat, and then climbed in after it.
The woman spoke in a strained voice. "You might say that you're glad to see us. We drove all the way from Ohio to pick you up here, and I had to do most of the driving. Your father is very tired."
"I see he is," said the girl. "When I saw you were driving I knew he would be — tired."
The stench of alcohol was strong in the car. The man roused himself and said, "Hello, pumpkins, glad to be out of school for the Easter vacation?"
"Why did you want me to come to Pennsylvania? In your letter you said something about my staying with my grandmother. Does she live near here?"
"About an hour's drive — at the end of the Philadelphia Main Line. I guess it was once the most fashionable district in America. Anyhow, the people who lived there thought it was. Great big estates, big houses and lots of money. We're taking you to where your grandparents live and where I was born. It's right on the edge of the Pennsylvania Dutch country so maybe we'll see some of those people driving along in their buggies. Won't that be fun?"
"I suppose so," the girl said indifferently.
They left the turn-around and hit the main road, a road so narrow that two cars could barely pass on it. It led through the woods, and the branches of the trees came together over it so that they seemed to be driving down a deep tunnel. The road had once been an old wagon trail so it twisted and turned, following the lay of the sloping land.
The woman said, "This will be a long vacation for you. The Mother Superior wrote us that one of the nuns caught you smoking pot and that you're expelled. Is that true?"
"I wasn't smoking pot. I don't even smoke tobacco."
The man said, "She sounded awful sure of it in her letter. Suppose you tell us what happened?"
The girl spoke in a dead voice. "There was a bunch of girls smoking pot in the dorms and I knew they'd taken in a little girl named Betsy. They thought it would be a joke to get her hooked. Betsy and I are pals so I went up there. She was smoking a reefer with a paper clip so I told her to throw it away and come with me. The others gave me a hard time and Betsy tried to act big and wouldn't do what I told her, so I grabbed the reefer. Then some of the other girls grabbed me and while we were fighting, Sister Teresa came in. She reported all the girls who were smoking and me too."
"Why didn't you explain what had happened?"
"I couldn't without getting Betsy in trouble. I told you, we're pals. She's the littlest girl in the school and her parents are divorced."
"Well, that's no crime," said the man angrily. He slurred his words slightly.
"I know, but I remembered how I felt when you and mother got divorced and you started marrying over and over again. Betsy's really shook up and she knows her mother is trying to find someone to marry her and she doesn't want Betsy. That's why she was sent away to school. If she was expelled, the way she feels right now, she might've gone crazy or something."
The woman said resentfully, "You'll find it's hard enough looking out for yourself in this world without bothering about other people."
The man added, "And now you've gotten yourself expelled. Your grandmother isn't going to like that."
The girl said angrily, "It doesn't matter what happens to me. I love Betsy. She was the only friend I had in that school. Nobody wanted her except me and I wouldn't let anything happen to her."
They drove on in silence. The road came out of the woods into farming country. Every mile or so a farmhouse appeared, nearly always with a huge red barn beside it. The woman asked, "Why are you so bitter, Mary Ellen? We've sent you to good schools, we've sent you to camp in the summer, why do you hate us?"
"I don't hate you. You can't be any different from the way you are, I guess. I wish father didn't have to drink so much."
"He can't help it. It's a sickness. You can't blame someone for being sick, can you?"
The man snapped, "I don't see what my drinking has to do with you, Mary Ellen. It's the only pleasure I have left. My businesses have all failed and I can't start another at my age. If your grandmother hadn't relented and helped us, we'd really be in the soup now. I think you could show me a little consideration. You'd better show your grandmother some, believe me."
Mary Ellen burst out, "Why are you always talking about grandmother, grandmother, grandmother? Why don't you ever mention grandfather? Oh yes, now I remember. She's the one who has all the money, isn't she? Why haven't I met them before?"
There was no answer. After awhile, Mary Ellen asked. "What's she like?"
Her father hesitated before replying. "Hard to get along with. You know, she and I had a big fight many years ago and I left home. That's why you've never met her. She wanted me to live my life her way and I wanted to lead my own life. She sends me money sometimes when I need it really badly, but Mildred and I have only seen her and father once in the last fifteen years — a couple of months ago in Philly at the Bellevue. She wanted to talk to us about having you stay with them for awhile."
"What you do in the next few weeks is very important — very important indeed," the woman said in a tense voice. "It will affect your whole life. Also our lives, although I don't suppose you care much about that."
The girl did not answer. The woman went on, "Ever since your father's last business failed, we've had to live on an allowance from your grandmother." "Yes, I know. She pays the alimony for father's ex-wives and pays for my school too."
Her father said angrily, "So what?"
"So nothing. We're lucky we have her."
The woman went on, "Your grandmother is an old, old lady and she's been sick. She won't live much longer. She knows she's dying and the doctors can't help her. She probably has only a few months. Perhaps not that."
"What about grandpa?"
"He's very old too. He can't live much longer either, but he isn't sick the way your grandmother is . . . only very old."
The man said, "Here's the gateway. Golly, I remember it as though it were only yesterday. Turn in here, Mildred."
To their right, the headlights picked up two great stone gateposts, surmounted by carved stone lions holding shields. The woman turned the car onto a gravel driveway. The trees here were enormous, bigger in circumference than the car, and so high their tops were out of sight. There was a gatehouse but no light showed in it. The drive seemed endless; it was well over a mile.
Ahead was a gigantic Victorian-Gothic mansion, the size of a castle. It was built on a little rise of ground, with towers and battlements and ramparts showing dimly against the night sky. In front of it, a long path had been cut through the trees and at the far end a lake gleamed in the starlight. They drove under a stone porte-cochere big enough to contain a small house. As the car came to a stop, a wild scream rent the air. It was an uncanny, terrifying sound, so shrill that it seemed to be in the car with them.
Mary Ellen screamed too, losing all her composure for a moment. "What's that? What's that?"
Her father laughed. "That's one of the peacocks. They make good watchdogs, don't they? There he is on the barbican. See him?"
Mary Ellen was still shaking as she looked where her father was pointing. There were so many heraldic figures on the crenelation that at first she could not tell the bird from the others, but then he moved slightly and she could see him.
"Maybe that's the same old fellow who was here when I was a kid," said her father. "They live forever." He got out of the car and looked around. "See that lake? Well, way up on that hill beyond it, I planted darned near a whole forest. The highway department was putting a road through about a mile from here and it drove me nuts watching the bulldozers tearing up the trees. I used to go around in the evenings after the men had left and dig up all the saplings I could find. I carried them here and planted them on that ridge. God, what a job that was! I damned near died from the heat. I remember toting those saplings and crying all the way, I was so tired. Father called it Birnam Woods because it moved overnight. That's from Macbeth."
Mary Ellen had climbed out of the car and was standing by her father looking toward the lake. "You cared about trees and birds and books once?" she asked curiously.
"Well, I was just a kid then — no older than you," her father said apologetically. "I could tell you lots about this old place. I had a swing down there." He pointed. "Elmer, the gardener, put it up for me. He had to climb thirty feet up a big elm to hang it from a branch. I wonder if it's still there. There used to be a maze over there." He pointed with precision toward a section of the woods. "I got lost in it a couple of times." He laughed at the memory. "Man, was I scared to death! I thought I'd die in there. Of course, after awhile I got to know every inch of it."
Mary Ellen looked around at the vast stone building with scores of casement windows staring out at the night like the eye sockets of a skull. The place both attracted and frightened her. She could not imagine herself living here, a mouse in a castle. She wondered if it were haunted.
Her stepmother spoke in a strained voice. "Before we go in, Mary Ellen, there is something else I want to tell you. We had thought that when your grandmother died, she would leave everything to your father."
"Yes. I've heard you say that as soon as grandmother dies, everything will be all right."
There was a constrained silence. "I hope we didn't put it quite like that. Well, your grandmother is a very strange person, Mary Ellen."
"You mean she's crazy?"
"I didn't say that. She has — ideas. Your grandmother not only sent for you, she also sent for her other two granddaughters, Alice Hamilton and Adele Reeder." "I never heard of them."
"I wish — that is to say, they've had no connection with the family for a long time. Their mothers are your father's sisters. They too, broke away from your grandmother a long time ago, and from your father too." She paused for a moment, then continued, "Your grandmother lives only for this estate. It's been her whole life. We've good reason to believe she doesn't want to see it broken up after her death. She knows your father is heavily in debt and would sell it if it were left to him. We think she intends leaving everything to one of you three girls — everything, you understand, so the place can be kept up."
"What would happen to you and father then?"
A pause. Then her father answered. "We'd be finished. I couldn't get a job with my record and you know damn well I drink too much. It would be the end."
For the first time in her life, the girl felt a twinge of pity for the fat, bald man she had resented for so long. He went on doggedly, "I guess you don't think much of me, kid, but it's hard when you've failed at everything you ever tried. When I was young, I didn't figure on ending up like this. I had plenty of ideas. They just didn't work out."
Mary Ellen considered. "What are these other two girls like?"
Her stepmother said eagerly, "Well, I've heard you won't have to worry about Adele Reeder. She's short, squat and stupid, and about a year older than you. Her mother ran away with a riding academy instructor and your grandmother never forgave her. The girl was brought up in the stables and all she cares about is horses. By the way, remember your grandmother hates horses. Never mention them to her."
"I don't know anything about horses."
"That's fine. Unfortunately, Alice Hamilton is quite different. I understand she's pretty and can charm a bird off a bush. She's three years older than you are. Her mother ran off to marry a man who owned a dress shop in New York. Your grandmother cut her off without a cent, and now her father's dead."
"Grandmother sounds like a mean old lady. She doesn't seem to have liked anybody."
"She liked Clinton," her father said resentfully. "Clinton was God as far as she was concerned. He was my youngest brother. Oh well, he's dead now."
"Yes, some people get all the breaks," agreed Mary Ellen.
Her stepmother grabbed her shoulder so hard that Mary Ellen winced.
"You must make an effort to get her to like you. It means so much to all of us and to you too! Pretend to love The Elms no matter how you feel about this wretched old pile. Do everything your grandmother tells you. You're smart, Mary Ellen, I know you are. This is your great chance in life. If you fail, you'll never have another."
"It's the other girls' great chance too, isn't it?"
"You mustn't think about them. Think of your father and me — and of yourself too!"
Her father said, "And if mother likes you, she'll probably let you bring Betsy here for the summer."
Mary Ellen's voice went up to an excited squeak. "Oh, do you really think so?"
"I'm sure of it," said her stepmother. "Think of what that would mean for Betsy. You said her mother doesn't like her and she has no place to go. Now remember, you must be the one your grandmother selects."
Mary Ellen's father led the way up the broad, stone steps. "When I was a boy, there was always a light turning here — always," he explained. "Ridges was the butler then. I don't suppose there's a butler now. The whole place looks deserted."
"Perhaps it is," said Mary Ellen hopefully.
"There must be someone home," said the woman.
"If there is, it's probably Dracula," suggested Mary Ellen.
"I don't think that was very funny," her stepmother retorted.
The door was massive, with oak paneling set in brass. On either side were stained-glass windows showing lions holding shields like the gateposts. "The bell should be here," said the man, and pressed an invisible button, Mary Ellen tried to see through the windows but the interior was dark.
After a long wait her father said, "I don't believe that bell works." He hammered on the door with a bronze knocker. There was still no answer.
"I know, I'll go around to the back," said the man after a pause. "There'll be someone in the kitchen."
"Please don't leave us alone," said his wife, her voice shaking. Mary Ellen was feeling a little queasy in her stomach. She wondered what strange creatures might be around. Would there be others more formidable than the peacock?
Now a light flickered behind the stained-glass windows. They could hear heavy footsteps — clumping closer and closer.
"I was wrong about Dracula," said Mary Ellen in a conversational tone. "It's Frankenstein. That's the way he walked in the Late Show."
Her stepmother pressed her shoulder. "Please stop talking like that," she begged.
There was a rattle of chains and the sound of an iron bar falling. Slowly, the door swung open. An enormous woman stood there holding a candle in a stand. She was dressed in white, and her face was as expressionless as a bowl of porridge. She seemed to be looking past them, not at them. She was motionless, as though barring the way.
