Part Two
He Said
While they waited for Honey to been seen by the doctor, Jim and Diana decided to go looking for dinner options for that night. In their exploration of the area, they had soon short-listed three places where they thought the group might like to eat. Despite his intention to avoid the area, Jim managed to drive past the cursed house that had featured in their last trip to Kentucky. A shiver ran through him, violent enough for his companion to notice.
“It looks even worse than it did the last time,” she murmured, staring at the old house as they went by. “I wonder what’s going to happen to it, now that Mr. Englefield is dead and it’s passing to Trixie. I don’t suppose she’ll want to keep it.”
Jim shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “I doubt that she will. And I can’t say I’d be bothered if it got torn down.”
“Bad memories.” Diana nodded. “I hope he didn’t leave Trixie with any conditions that were too terrible. He seems to have been a very strange man.”
Jim just nodded, wishing to say or hear nothing more on the topic for the time being. In an attempt to change the subject, he asked, “Was there anywhere else you wanted to go this morning? I’d guess that we still have a bit of time to fill in.”
His friend thought for a moment. “Let’s wait back at the motel. There’s something that I want to talk to you about and we need somewhere private.” It seemed that she read the apprehension in his expression, for she added, “Don’t worry; it’s nothing bad.”
He was not much relieved by that reassurance and kept quiet through the rest of the trip back. They went inside and Di sat down on one of the beds, gesturing to Jim to sit on the other one.
“I have a secret,” she explained. “I’d like you to keep this to yourself, but I just needed one other Bob-White to know. If things had worked out differently, I could have told Dan, but now that just isn’t a good idea.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” Jim told her, sincerely. “I hope neither of you is too hurt by it.”
Di shook her head. “It was mutual and not all that difficult, really. We were just heading in different directions. I think we were both a bit relieved, actually, that we could go back to just being friends.”
“I’m glad.” Jim smiled at her and waited for her to continue.
“So… the secret.” Di’s smile seemed nervous. “You remember me telling you that I’m spending part of this summer working in a gallery? Well, what I haven’t told anyone is where I’ll be staying while I’m there. Now, I know that my parents really would not approve of this, but I feel like I really need to be on my own for a little while and the place that I’ve found will let me do that. Only, I’m sure that if Mummy and Dad knew about it, they’d hit the roof.”
Jim felt a frown forming on his face. “What sort of place is it?”
She hesitated. “I’m not going to be there all that long, of course, so I couldn’t really rent an apartment for myself, but it’s really too long to stay in a hotel or something. So, I thought that the best sort of place would be something where I could share with some people and a friend of mine knew someone who lived somewhere like that and I’ve arranged to go and live there, starting next week.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Jim answered. “Where’s the catch?”
Di began to blush. “Well, it’s not just girls that I’ll be sharing with.”
For a moment, Jim paused. “And you think Dan would have gone for this, if the two of you had still been together?”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, now,” she pointed out. “We’re not together. But, probably, he wouldn’t have minded all that much, I don’t think. Mummy absolutely will mind, though, so can I trust you to keep this a secret? I’ll give you my real address, in case something happens and someone needs it, but I want to keep this completely in the dark.”
“I’m really not sure about this, Di. How do you know that you’ll be safe there?”
She smiled at him. “Thanks for caring about me, Jim, but I trust my friend and I know that it’ll be okay.”
“Then, I guess I’ll trust you,” he answered. “Yes, I’ll keep your secret for you.”
She Said
Trixie held her head high as she walked into the smart office building. She took the stairs to the upper level, entered the reception area of an accountant’s office and greeted the perky young woman on the desk. After being asked to take a seat, she flipped through a magazine she found there, but nothing caught her interest. A few minutes later, the young woman told her to go through, so she tossed the magazine back onto the side table and entered the inner office.
“Ms. Belden – or, is it Mrs. Frayne?” the man greeted, after closing the door. “My name is Steve Hosking.”
“It’s Belden,” Trixie answered, faintly. The composure that she had felt when she arrived was shaken, but not unsettled altogether. “Nice to meet you.”
She took the seat offered in front of his desk and waited for the distinguished-looking older man to speak. He did so readily enough.
“You will have gathered from my letter that you will be receiving some property from Lucius Englefield’s trust,” he began. “To be a little more exact, the property consists of the old family home and its grounds – that’s the derelict house, which I understand you have seen in the past – plus the adjoining house in which Lucius lived and its grounds. There is also a small amount of money for upkeep, which should be enough to cover the taxes for the next couple of years.”
As Trixie sat in stunned silence, the man continued with his explanation.
“I would imagine that this situation has come as a surprise to you, and you’re probably wondering how it all came about. Lucius was an old friend of mine and I have been his trustee for many, many years. It was not all that long ago, however, that he revoked the original trust and added your name as a beneficiary to the new one.” He paused to pull an envelope out of the pile of papers in front of him and handed it to her. “When he did so, Lucius wrote an explanation for you, which you will find in here. I understand that he has also given you some instructions on what he would like done with the property.”
“And what if I don’t want to follow his instructions?” Trixie asked, not liking the direction that the interview was going, but feeling powerless to stop it. “Can I refuse the legacy?”
The man leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. “Lucius did consider the possibility that you might wish to do so and made alternative arrangements for that situation. You might want to see a lawyer about it,” he answered, “but for what it’s worth, I don’t see any reason why you should refuse – unless you believe in the curse, of course.”
“I don’t,” Trixie answered, shaking her head.
“Then, I’ll leave you to think about that for the moment,” he told her. “Take the letter from Lucius and read it; get some advice, if you want to. You’ll need to let me know of your decision as quickly as possible, so that I can transfer the title on the property.”
She nodded, frowning at the envelope in her hands.
“And, please, Ms. Belden,” he urged, “consider this carefully. This was very important to Lucius and I would very much like to respect his wishes in this matter – no matter what other people say about it.”
“I’ll do that,” she answered, looking up to see the melancholy expression on the older man’s face.
He gave her a small, sad smile. “Thank you. There’s just one other thing. Lucius left a parcel with me for you – and that is one of the reasons why I asked you to come here. He made me solemnly swear that I would give this to you in person and that I would ask you to keep its existence secret from the family, if they should ever try to determine whether you have this item. Can you do that?”
Feeling a thrill of excitement that was tinged with dread, Trixie promised to do so. The man handed over a large padded envelope, distorted into creases by the object inside. She hesitated a moment before taking it, finding it to be only moderately heavy and filled with some object of irregular shape, about fourteen inches long by eight high and deep.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Take a look,” he suggested. “The packet isn’t sealed.”
“Oh, just great,” Trixie muttered, after seeing what was inside. “Just what I needed.”
He Said
When Jim entered the room he shared with Trixie after her meeting, his heart sank. His secret wife was pacing the floor and muttering under her breath, a sure sign that something further had happened to disturb her. As he entered, she looked up and smiled, dropping a paper she held onto the bed as she hurried towards him.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she told him, giving him a kiss of welcome. “You won’t believe what Mr. Englefield wants me to do with his house.”
Jim cringed. “That bad? Before you tell me, though, I need to tell you what happened to Honey.”
As briefly as he could, he recounted the accident and its result. “Mart and I just helped her into her room,” he finished. “I’m sure she’d like to see you, when you have a minute.”
“I’ll go right now,” she answered. “The letter’s around here somewhere – oh, there it is, on the bed. You read it and I’ll go and see how Honey is. Oh, and he gave me another one of Mr. Englefield’s mystery parcels. You can have a look at it, too, if you want to.”
She rushed from the room and for a moment Jim simply gazed after her. He shook his head and went to pick up the letter. Sinking onto the bed, he started to read.
‘My dear Mrs. Frayne,
‘You will be reading this after my decease and will not be able to ask why I have taken this course of action. Curious as you have always been, I am certain that your possession of my family’s cherished home will puzzle you greatly, especially since I made it known to you that I have family members of a younger generation surviving. The simple fact is that I cannot trust any of them to administer it properly.’
Jim frowned and glanced at the other side of the paper, which was covered in the same spidery handwriting. Turning it back, he continued:
‘My nephew, closest living relative to myself, made the slip of mentioning in my presence that he considered the land on which our old home stands to be valuable, and overdue for redevelopment. He suggested apartments! The other members of the family near him agreed. This, I could never countenance.
‘Therefore, I considered the other potential recipients of the property. At length, I came to the conclusion that you would be the most appropriate owner, since I can forever rely on my sister’s curse to discipline you, should you fail to live up to the letter of the conditions which I now impose.
‘These conditions are as follows: Firstly, the land in its entirety shall remain your property through your whole life. Secondly, the main house shall remain standing as a memorial to my sister, Dulcibella Englefield Belden and shall remain unaltered in any significant way for that same period. Thirdly, the main house shall remain unoccupied and the adjoining house shall only be occupied by yourself and members of your family. Fourthly, no further buildings are to be built on any of the land. Lastly, you shall place similar conditions on the heir to the property in the event of your decease. I would also encourage you to keep the grounds in the manner in which they have always been kept, that is, neat and tidy.’
Shaking his head, Jim paused to consider those conditions for a few moments. There were a few things about them which made him feel very uneasy. Frowning still more deeply, he turned his attention back to the letter.
‘I trust that you will respect my wishes in this matter. You are doubtless aware that my sister’s memory is of utmost importance to me. My desire is that the travesty of her death be mitigated in some small way by a perpetual remembrance of her. I have chosen you to perform this function. I trust you to do so, for the rest of your life.
‘Yours, forever,
‘Lucius Englefield.’
Putting the letter down, Jim breathed out noisily. It could, he considered, have been very much worse. It was true that this could turn out to be an awkward situation, but when thinking of some past encounters with Mr. Englefield, this seemed a little mild.
A sound in the doorway caused him to look up and see Trixie enter the room. “Poor Honey. Mart’s threatening to ban her from the state of Kentucky if she does anything like this again, but I think she’s about ready to never come back of her own accord.” Her smiled faded. “What do you think of the letter?”
“Well, I’ve read it,” he told her. “I’ll admit that I expected something a little worse – especially from the way you were pacing before.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s because you’re not the one being saddled with this white elephant. What am I supposed to do, Jim? Do I refuse? I can’t just let the house sit there, falling down around itself, like he seems to want. It’s just not right.”
Jim picked up the letter once more and glanced through it. “I don’t remember seeing anything that says you have to leave the house to fall down, only that it should remain unoccupied.”
“And unaltered,” she pointed out. “He means that I should keep it just how it is now.”
Her husband hesitated. “I’m a little reluctant to point this out,” he admitted, “but he doesn’t actually say that, Trixie. And, even if he did, I don’t think anything here would be legally binding. Unless he’s written actual conditions and consequences into the trust, he’s relying only upon the curse to frighten you into compliance with his wishes.”
Her face lit up with inspiration. “Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, Jim! That’s a wonderful idea – instead of doing what he meant, I can do what he said, and that way I can treat the house the way I think it should be treated and I can do something worthwhile with it, but without going directly against the wishes that he’s set out here.”
“Well, I guess so,” Jim agreed.
“I wonder what sort of work could be done there? And how could it be done? I wouldn’t be here to see what was happening, of course, so I’d have to leave someone else in charge. I don’t know quite where the money will come from to pay for it, but I’m sure we can figure something out. And I’d need to research the needs of this community, to find something that they don’t already have.” She beamed at Jim and threw her arms around his neck. “I was trying to think about how to get out of this, but now I can’t wait to get started. And I can even fulfil the bit about the house being a memorial to her, by naming it after her. And wouldn’t it be a better memorial if the house looked all well looked-after and alive?”
Some of her enthusiasm started to rub off and Jim smiled back down at her and returned the embrace. “I think, maybe, you’ve got something there. It’s certainly not what Mr. Englefield intended, but it would certainly be a better memorial than the curse is.”
A shadow crossed her face at its mention. “I sure hope that doesn’t interfere with what I want to do. It would be awful if no one wanted to use my building just because a crazy old man spent his whole life talking about a curse on it.”
Jim shrugged and kissed her hair. “We’ll have to cross that bridge if we come to it.”
She Said
Helen Belden heaved a sigh and walked up the stairs to the attic. She had been certain that she had put Bobby’s birth certificate safely into the filing cabinet, but no amount of searching had brought it to light. She decided to check the file boxes in the attic, in case it had been put up there by mistake, but suspected it was going to be a long, hot, and possibly fruitless task.
She set the nearest box onto the convenient flat top of a chest and pulled off the lid. It took her only a few minutes to realise that the box she had chosen was too old – it dated back before Bobby had started school and she had certainly needed the certificate since then. She was in the process of replacing those files she had taken out when something caught her eye.
“Now, what is this?” she wondered, aloud. Her breath caught in a gasp. “I didn’t know that we still had this!”
Her fingers traced over the spidery handwriting of the letter, her eyes drawn to the words, even though she wanted more than anything to forget what was written there. At the bottom of the page was a signature and the name caused her to shiver, even though the man was now dead. She stared at the name, Lucius Englefield, then shoved the letter back into the box, stuffing in the rest of its contents and closing the lid.
Helen’s hands shook as she replaced the box and found another. She sighed in relief as Bobby’s birth certificate slid out from between two files. Replacing the box, she hurried out of the attic and tried to turn her mind to other things, but for the rest of the day, she kept coming back to the long-ago words of a curse.
He Said
When he got back from a short sight-seeing trip around town, Mart went to check up on Honey. She had insisted that he go and enjoy himself, adding that she wanted to have the privacy to call her mother and talk about fertility issues. That circumstance alone had almost convinced Mart to stay with her and avoid the matter a little longer, but he manfully forced himself to respect her wishes and he went out. The topic was at the front of his mind and he had to ask about it almost as soon as he got there.
“Did you speak to your mother?” He half-dreaded the reply, but also felt that he really needed to know the answer.
His girlfriend nodded. “She did have a lot of trouble getting pregnant. It took more than six years to get me. They tried for years afterwards, and even had a few rounds of IVF, but never managed to have another one.” She was wringing her hands together and would not meet his eyes. “I really don’t want that to happen to me. I want to be a mother someday, and I don’t want to have to adopt, or go through awful treatments for it to happen – and Mother said that the reason they didn’t continue with IVF was because she couldn’t stand another round, and not even just the terrible disappointment of failing, but the actual process of doing it, which she said was awful. What I really want is for it to happen naturally.”
“That sounds like the best plan to me,” Mart agreed, though in rather a faint voice. “But you don’t really need to be worrying about that now, do you? You’ve still got years and years to spare.”
“Do I?” she wondered. “Mother was twenty-two when she and Daddy started trying for a baby. That’s only two years older than I am now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Is it?” He felt that his voice sounded less masculine than it should, so he dropped his tone a little. “Well, two years is still a long time.”
“But, what I’m saying is that two years from now could be too late, so I was thinking that now would be better than two years from now.”
“Now, just wait a minute here, Honey,” Mart objected, trying desperately to keep his voice in its proper range. “I’m pretty sure we had a conversation almost the same as this last summer, and that I told you then that I wasn’t going to have anything to do with–”
She shook her head and he broke off. “This isn’t the same at all. That time, it was all kind of…. hypothetical, I guess you’d call it. Now, I need to know where I stand with you.”
“What do you mean?” He felt thrown off-balance by the unexpected statement.
“What are your intentions, Mart? Do you really mean the things you’ve been saying to me about forever?”
“Of course I meant them. I still mean them,” he whispered. His voice did not seem to be working properly, perhaps because his heart was in his throat. “I just didn’t expect forever to start so soon.”
He could see tears in her eyes, now. “You mean, you’re not going to help me?”
Mart grabbed her left hand and held it up. “See this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“The lack of wedding ring on your finger,” he answered, with a ghost of a smile. “When it comes to babies, I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. No wedding ring, no procreation. Okay?”
“So, let’s get married.” The tears were still in her eyes, but there was a pleading there, also. “It’s not that far to the state border. We could be back almost before anyone knew we were gone.”
Kissing her forehead, he pulled her against himself, murmuring into her hair, “Give me some time to think about it, Hon, and talk about it some more. I can’t make life-altering decisions on the spur of the moment. And we’re definitely not going to elope. If we do get married, I want all our family and friends to be there.”
He felt her shoulders shake as she began to cry in earnest. “Oh, Mart!” she sobbed. “That’s – that’s beautiful. I love you so much!”
Mart smiled and held her tighter. “I love you too, Hon. And we’re going to get through this together.”
She Said
“What do you think I should do with this?” Trixie asked, when she and Jim were alone in their room that night. She held out the package that Steve Hosking had given her.
“I didn’t even look at it,” he replied, startled. “What’s in it?”
Trixie reached inside and pulled out a clock of the kind which might sit on a mantel. Its case was of polished wood, inset with well-shone brass and decorated with a crest of some kind. The design gave it an old-fashioned look, as if it might have been crafted a century or more before. The name ‘Englefield’ was emblazoned across the top in fancy script. The movement was of the kind which is wound with a key.
“It must be a family heirloom,” Trixie noted, pointing out the name. “I have no idea why he wanted me to have it, though. Why would I want a clock with his name on it?”
“That’s a good question,” Jim answered, frowning. “Does it work?”
She shrugged. “No idea. I don’t know how to wind it and, even if I did, the key doesn’t seem to be with it.”
She picked it up and gave it a gentle shake. It made an odd noise, almost as if something was loose inside, but unable to move much in any direction.
“Maybe you should get someone to take a look at it,” Jim suggested. “They could tell you whether it was in working order, or if it could be fixed.”
“Yes, but do I even want it to work? I don’t think I would want to have it on display in my house, if I ever have one. Why would he think that I’d want it?”
Jim frowned. “Why did he do anything that he did? He was a terrible old man, who lived to make other people’s lives a misery, like his own. I hope, no matter what terrible things happen in my life, that I’ll never become that bitter.”
She squeezed his arm. “I’m sure you won’t. But you still haven’t told me what to do with it. Presumably, it’s kind of valuable. Members of the family are apparently going to be fighting to get it. It’s going to make me unpopular when they find out it’s gone to me, I bet.”
He nodded. “I think the best thing is to keep its existence as secret as possible. We’ll hide it somewhere, back home. Though, maybe we should get an opinion on what it’s worth.”
“I guess that sounds like the best plan,” she answered. “I just can’t help wondering why I’ve got it, though. There has to be some reason.”
Jim shook his head. “Considering who left it to you, your guess is as good as mine.”
He Said
The Preserve was cool and quiet in the early morning light. Dan walked at an easy pace, savouring the solitude. He had wandered off the main trail, onto a little-used path. If he remembered correctly, it should emerge not far from the lake, where he intended to take a dip. He was not far from his destination when something caught his eye to one side of the rough track. He bent to snag the edge of the plastic bag with his finger, intending to throw it out when he got back to civilisation. Contrary to expectation, it was not empty.
Dan frowned as he looked inside, at the pile of damp-stained papers and the remains of a large, torn envelope. The plastic had sheltered the papers, in the most part, but they were still blackened and puckered along the outer edge, sticking together in places. Despite this, he sensed that these were important. Seeing Jim’s name on the uppermost page, he wondered whether his friend had lost them. He was easing the pages apart, trying to see what was underneath, when he encountered a print-out of a photograph.
“Well, I’ll be,” he murmured, staring at it. “I never knew that Jim had that in him.”
He let the pages fall back together, knowing that he had no business looking any further. He wondered what, exactly, he should do about this. His first instinct was to go to Jim and ask for an explanation. His second instinct was to go to Trixie and warn her. He shook his head; that second course of action would lead to nothing but trouble.
“When Jim gets back, he and I are going to have a little talk, I think,” Dan decided.
He tucked the bag under his arm and headed down to the lake. The way he was feeling right now, he needed to get cooled off. He reminded himself that there might be a reasonable explanation for this, but the anger he was feeling still remained. It was going to be a long wait until he could have that talk with Jim.
Continue to part three.