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“Not once it was trapped in the thicket,” Diana said, shaking her head. “The creatures that stray there generally die there.”
I recalled the little bones that fell out of the nest and shuddered. “How awful! Can’t someone clear it?”
“It would just grow back,” Dory said. “But you can see why the spot isn’t so popular. Mrs. Ramsay’s bungalow, on the other hand, faces a lovely park…”
“I want to see Honeysuckle House,” I said, putting my napkinon the table. I had polished off the whole plate of French toast and a pumpkin scone as well. “Besides, you’ve already gone to the trouble of opening all the windows.”
Dory Browne stared at me. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I didn’t open any windows.”
Diana and Dory were up and heading out of the house before I could rise from the table. I really was sore now and I could only move slowly. By the time I got outside the two women were already across the street at the edge of the hedge, staring up at the house.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. They were looking at the house as if it were on fire.
“Oh yes,” Dory answered. “I forgot that I told my handyman, Brock, to come over earlier to air the place out. Diana?” She turned deliberately to the other woman and spoke slowly. “Perhaps you’d do me a favor and make that phone call we talked about earlier.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go inside with you?” she asked.
“No, we’ll be fine. Apparently the housewantsto be shown.” She laughed nervously as she fished out a key from her quilted tote.
Diana squeezed the Realtor’s arm. “Well, I’m just across the street if you need anything.”
I couldn’t imagine what the two women were worried about. Mice, maybe? Rotting floorboards? But when we walked up the porch steps I thought the wood seemed firm and in good repair. The wooden face in the pediment gleamed as if it had been washed clean by yesterday’s rain. It glowed in the morning light with the complexion of a young person who’d had a good night’s sleep. And when Dory opened the front door (with a long iron skeleton key that turned smoothly in the lock) there was no moldy or mousy odor. Instead the air the househuffed out at us smelled like honeysuckle. Dory held the door open and I stepped through first, into a wide foyer. Light from the stained-glass fanlight spilled onto the polished wood floor like a scattering of rose petals strewn for our arrival.
“The floors are oak,” Dory said, closing the door behind us. “As well as the banister.” She ran her hand over a carved newel post at the foot of a wide flight of stairs. “Silas had the wood milled himself at his shipyards. He wanted everything built like a ship. There are pocket doors leading into both parlors.” She opened a double door, both sides sliding into the walls with ashooshing noise that echoed loudly in the big, empty house. A draft from the stairs moved at our backs as we entered the dim parlor. Although the shutters were open, the honeysuckle shrubs and vines had grown over the windows, blocking out the light. Dory turned a switch and a crystal chandelier sprung into sight high over our heads.
“The ceilings are twelve feet high,” Dory informed me. “The chandelier was made in Venice.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, marveling at the fanciful shapes and colors of the crystal droplets. “Kind of exotic for these parts, isn’t it?”
“Silas made his fortune in the shipping business. He brought back treasures from all over the world. The tiles around the hearth”—she gestured to the fireplace—“are Wedgwood from England. The mahogany mantelpiece was brought over from an Italian castle.” I walked over to the fireplace and ran my hand over the intricately carved wood. A satyr’s face stared out of the center roundel; a procession of Greek gods and goddesses adorned the top frieze.
“The mantelpiece depicts the wedding of Cupid and Psyche,” Dory said in her tour guide voice. “The theme is repeated in the dining room frieze…” Dory had opened another pocket door that led into a large octagonal room. Plaster figures paraded across the walls beneath swags of pine boughs and acorns. There were built-in china cabinets in the corners.
“And here’s the kitchen. I’m afraid it hasn’t been modernized since the sixties…”
The “modernization” consisted of an Amana refrigerator and gas range, both in the same hideous shade of lime green. The floor was worn linoleum in a faded checkerboard pattern. “Matilda had this addition built on and spent most of her time back here,” Dory said, opening a door onto a mudroom with a washer and dryer and then another door to a rather drab bedroom papered in yellowed, peeling wallpaper with an old iron bed frame painted a matching peeling yellow. “Her arthritis made going up and down the stairs difficult and it was cheaper just to heat the downstairs. She closed off the library…”
“The library?” I asked. I was glad to leave Matilda’s little apartment behind. It had the atmosphere of a retirement home and, curiously, felt older than the rest of the house even though it was a newer addition.
“Matilda didn’t read much, so she had no use for the library. She donated all her aunt’s books to Fairwick College and closed off this room.”
I wondered if Dahlia LaMotte’s books were still in the college library. They might have notes in the margins…
My musings were cut short when Dory slid back the doors to the library. This room, which faced east, got the morning light. Streaming through a screen of shrubbery, it turned the room a glassy green, like a forest glade, but instead of being lined with trees the room was lined with floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases. There was enough room in here to shelve all the books in my apartment and storage unit and still have spare space to acquiremorebooks.
“Is this where Dahlia LaMotte wrote?” I asked.
“No,” Dory answered. “Her study was upstairs in the tower room off her bedroom.”
A studyanda library! In my apartment in Inwood I wrote at my kitchen table. I stored files and books in the kitchen cabinets. I imagined what it would feel like to have a proper deskand to wander into my own library to find any book that I needed. No wonder Dahlia LaMotte was prolific—she wrote more than sixty novels—this was the perfect house to write in.
Dory preceded me up the wide oak stairs. Her high-heeled pumps clicked lightly on the bare wood, while my crepe-soled sandals awakened a chorus of creaks and cracks that sounded like a swarm of crickets.
“You wouldn’t have to worry about a burglar sneaking up these steps,” I said. “They’re like an alarm system.”
Dory turned to me on the second floor landing. “No,” she replied, taking my remark seriously. “You wouldn’t have to worry about anyone breakingin. Besides, the town is quite safe.”
She showed me four small bedrooms—one complete with built-in bed and cabinets exactly like a ship’s cabin, which Dory told me had been Silas’s bedroom—a linen closet, a bathroom with an enormous claw-foot tub, and then, finally, she opened the last door at the end of the hallway. “The master bedroom,” she announced.
