("Most of the wooden wedding-cake trim is gone now," Mark said. "It was too expensive to paint and repair. The houses aren't exact duplicates anymore because over the years people added things like bathrooms and kitchens. But the floor plans are the same.")
The name the Turnbulls gave their home was typically pretentious, but names were not pure affectation, they were a convenient form of identification before street names and route numbers. The Bateses also named their house.
("It's funny," Mark said. "Most of the old names are remembered. Not that one. It's mentioned in one old book, and nowhere else. Freedom Hall. You could reasonably assume a New England schoolteacher would be an abolitionist. The name he gave his house makes it certain.")
The slave owner and the antislavery schoolteacher might not have been the best of friends, but the two families lived side by side in apparent amity for almost fifteen years. Turnbull had one daughter from his previous marriage. Lavinia presented him with another child, a son, born in 1844. Louisa was more prolific than her sister, but not much more fortunate. Her first child was also born in 1844, but it did not survive infancy. She became pregnant again almost at once, producing twins in 1845-a boy and a girl. She had other children, but only one of them lived as long as eight years. By 1860 the pattern of duplication still prevailed, with two members of the younger generation in each of the twin houses. Lavinia's stepdaughter, Mary Jane, was twenty-six. Her son Peter was sixteen. The Bates cousins, Edward and Susan, were a year younger than Peter. In that year the war clouds were gathering, hanging low and dark over divided border states such as Maryland.
II
They had agreed not to interrupt Mark. No one did, but Pat was amused at the effort it cost Josef Friedrichs to keep his mouth shut. Every now and then a particularly questionable statement or undefended assumption would produce a visible contortion in the older man's face, his cheek muscles twitching as he struggled not to speak. When Mark ended with his dramatic metaphor Josef could contain himself no longer.
"You'd be a great trial lawyer," he said caustically. "Eloquent, florid, and full of hot air. How much of that is factual?"
"There's a genealogy," Mark said. "Deeds, architect's plans-"
"I assumed you had those. Where did you get all that about Bates's abolitionist beliefs?"
"But, Dad, it's obvious," Kathy exclaimed. "Can't you see the conflict building between the two families? Maryland was a border state. It almost seceded. It probably would have if the federal government hadn't occupied Baltimore and thrown a lot of Southern sympathizers in jail. There were Maryland regiments in both the Confederate and Union armies-"
"I'm glad you're learning a little history in that expensive school," Josef said. "Oddly enough, my dear, I knew all that. But you haven't proved that the two families who lived in these houses were divided in their sentiments, or that, if they were, there is any connection whatever with the presumed apparition that-"
"I'll prove it," Mark said. His lips set in a stubborn line, his dark brows drew together. "I've just started to look. But, damn it, I know I'm right. I'll do it myself if I have to, but it would go a lot faster if I could get some help from you guys."
"I'll help," Kathy said.
Josef looked at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time that morning. His eyes widened.
"Where did you get that-that garment?"
"It belongs to Mrs. Robbins." Kathy contemplated a splash of coffee with some dismay. "Gosh, Mrs. Robbins, I'm sorry. I guess I'm getting it dirty. I'll wash it-"
"The time is midafternoon and you are sitting around in a bathrobe," Josef said indignantly. "Get dressed immediately."
Kathy made a mutinous face, but obeyed. She had barely left the room when the front-door bell rang.
"It's probably one of your friends," Pat said to Mark. "Tell him to come back later. I don't think we want the whole town to know Kathy spent the night here."
"Okay, okay." Mark went out.
Josef rose. His face had fallen back into its rigid lines.
"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Pat. I did not intend-"
"Oh, stop being so pompous," Pat said. "We can't go back to the old formality, can we? I don't know what to say about Mark's crazy theory, but one thing is certain: you two can't sleep in that house until we figure out what went on there."
Before Josef could answer, the swinging door to the kitchen burst open and Mark entered.
"It's Mrs. Groft," he hissed, like a stage villain. "She says you were supposed to go antiquing with her. She's in the living room, but you know her, she's got the biggest mouth in town, and she'll be coming out here any minute…"
"Darn, I forgot," Pat exclaimed. "Of all the people we don't want to know about this-"
Josef's eyes opened wide. Through terror, distress, and even unconsciousness he had maintained a certain dignity; this threat reduced him to quivering, unconcealed cowardice.
"I know that woman. She's been driving me crazy ever since I moved in. For God's sake, Pat, head her off. Mark, keep Kathy out of sight. If she sees-"
Nancy 's not so dulcet voice reverberated, even through a closed door and a long stretch of hall. "Pa-a-at! Aren't you ready?"
Josef made a brief, vulgar comment and bolted, leaving the back door ajar. Mark fled in the other direction, up the back stairs. Pat leaned against the sink and laughed.
III
She caught Nancy before that inquisitive lady reached the kitchen. The piled-up dishes would have been a dead giveaway. She could imagine Nancy 's delighted innuendos: "My, my, what class-brunch at one p.m., and with whom, my dear? Not, by any chance…" Fortunately Pat was already dressed to go out; she had only to snatch up her purse and propel her friend from the house. Upstairs Mark was thundering around like a herd of demented moose, presumably in order to cover any sounds Kathy might make.
The antique show was in Gaithersburg, a fast half hour's drive away. Fortunately it was a good show, and Nancy, who collected everything from old silver to antique duck decoys, was sufficiently absorbed to leave Pat alone. Nancy was known to, and hated by, most of the dealers, since her method of bargaining consisted of making derogatory remarks about the merchandise. Pat wandered off, leaving Nancy arguing with a gray-haired woman who was selling old glass.
In the cold light of day she found it harder and harder to believe what had happened the previous night. Surely- surely!-there must be some sensible explanation. Mark was young and given to strange enthusiasms… but he was just plain nuts if he really believed this ghost theory. Kathy was also young, and so infatuated with Mark she would believe the sun set in the east if he told her it did.
Pat couldn't dismiss Josef's experience so easily. She tried, though; and as her eyes moved unseeingly over displays of medicine bottles, postcards, Victorian chamber sets, and other dubious treasures, she finally came up with a hypothesis-not a wholly satisfactory hypothesis, but one that was easier to accept than Mark's ghost. The Chinese vase was tall and top-heavy, tapering down from swelling sides to a relatively narrow base. If Josef, running to his daughter's aid, had tripped and started to fall, his outflung arm, or even the vibration of his footsteps, might have toppled the vase. In his overwrought state, he might fancy the object had moved of its own accord. The whole thing was self-hypnotism, autosuggestion… And that same convenient diagnosis would explain her own sensations as she stood in horrified suspense under Kathy's window.
Pat grimaced. The theory was unconvincing, even to her. It was hard for her to dismiss her sensations of loathing as sheer imagination.