The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,443

like shrines,” she said.

Beyond the long window, the bougainvillea grew so thick over the side porch that the lower railings could no longer be seen. This was the porch above Deirdre’s porch. Open, because only that lower part had been screened in.

“Yes, all these rooms have fireplaces,” he said absently, his eyes on the fluorescent purple blossoms of the bougainvillea. “I’m going to have a look at the firebricks in the chimneys. These little shallow grates were never used for wood, they were used for coal.”

Now they housed gas heaters, and he rather liked that, for in all this time, he’d never seen a little gas heater blazing away in the cozy winter dark, with all those tiny blue and gold flames.

Rowan stood at the closet door. “What is that smell, Michael?”

“Lord, Rowan Mayfair, you never smelled camphor in an old closet?”

She laughed softly. “I’ve never even seen an old closet, Michael Curry. I’ve never lived in an old house, nor visited an old hotel. State of the art was my adoptive father’s motto. Rooftop restaurants and brass and glass. You can’t imagine the lengths to which he went to maintain those standards. And Ellie couldn’t stand the sight of anything old or used. Ellie threw out all her clothes after a year’s wear.”

“You must think you slipped off the planet.”

“No, not really. Just slipped into another interpretation,” she said, her voice trailing off. Thoughtfully she touched the old clothes hanging there. All he saw were shadows.

“And to think,” she whispered, “the century is almost over, and she lived all her life right here in this room.” She stepped back. “God, I hate this wallpaper. Look, there’s a leak up there.”

“Nothing major, honey. Just a little leak. There’s bound to be one or more in a house this size. That’s nothing. But I think the plaster’s dead up there.”

“Dead? The plaster is dead?”

“Too old to take a patch. See the way it’s crumbled. So we’ll put in a new ceiling,” he said, shrugging. “Two days work.”

“You’re a genius.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“Look, there’s an old bathroom there,” she said. “Each room has its own bathroom. I’m trying to see everything cleaned and finished … ”

“I see it,” he said. “I see it all with every step I take.”

Carlotta’s room was the last major room at the end of the hallway—a great gloomy cavern it seemed, with its black four-poster bed and its faded taffeta ruffles, and a few dreary slip-covered chairs. A stale smell rose around them. A bookshelf held law texts and reference books. And there, the rosary and the prayer book as if she’d only just laid them down. Her white gloves in a tangle, and a pair of cameo earrings, and a string of jet beads.

“We used to call those Grandma beads,” he said with vague surprise. “I forgot all about those.” He moved to touch them and then drew back his gloved hand as if he’d drawn near to something hot.

“I don’t like it in here, either,” Rowan whispered. She was hugging the backs of her arms again in that chilled, miserable gesture. Scared maybe. “I don’t want to touch what belonged to her,” she said, looking vaguely repelled by the items strewn on the dresser, repelled by the old furniture, beautiful as it was.

“Ryan will take care of it,” she murmured, becoming ever more uneasy. “He said that Gerald Mayfair will come and take away her things. She left her personal things to Gerald’s grandmother.” At last she turned as if something had startled her, then stared almost angrily at the mirror between the side windows. “There’s that smell again, that camphor. And something else.”

“Verbena, and rose water,” he said. “See the bottle? They plant little things like that now in quaint northern California bed-and-breakfast hotels. I’ve planted them on many a marble-top table. And there they sit. The real thing.”

“It’s too real,” she whispered, “it’s dreary and unhappy.”

They moved on to the rear door of the room which opened onto a little corridor and a short stairs, and then two small rooms, following one upon the other.

“The maids slept here in the old days,” Michael explained. “Eugenia has that room back there now. Technically we are looking into the servants’ wing, and they would never have used this connecting door, because it wasn’t here until recent years. They cut through the brick wall to put it in. In the old days the servants would have come into the main house by means of