Restoring the Castle Ch. 07

"I don't think it would be a good day for you to take her up to the castle—or even to come down here to see her, Ally."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ally told Angela Harris over the telephone. "I thought she was becoming increasingly more aware and that it was time to reintroduce her to the castle."

"That may be the problem."

"Come again?"

"It's not that it's a bad day today because she is hazy; it's not a good day because she's more lucid than normal and has remembered the contract we had. I've continued to tell her that I just can't help her depart this world. But there's a new wrinkle now. She's saying that if I won't do it, then you have to do it. If you do come down to see her in the next few hours, you'd better be armed to deal with that."

"Thanks for the heads up. Perhaps I'll pass on a visit this morning, and we'll see if that's a fleeting notion or not. I couldn't do that anymore than you could."

"At least when it's not a physical issue—that she's not in perpetual pain—and as long as there might be a medical breakthrough to arrest this." Angela answered.

Ally tensed up. She wasn't sure herself if she could help her mother die even barring those circumstances. But Miranda and Angela had been so close for so long that Ally had to take Angela's views seriously.

She felt a sigh of relief travel through her when she disconnected the phone, but then felt guilty about it. She wasn't doing as much as either Lois or Angela for Miranda. She knew that was best for her mother, but she still felt guilty. It wasn't helping that she was growing ever closer to Hugh. She knew her mother wouldn't approve of Hugh—or, indeed, any man. But she still felt guilty that she was giving Hugh attention that she wasn't giving her own mother in her waning days. It didn't help that the model that Hugh had provided was to concentrate on the parent who was in the process of passing, because relationships with others had more of a future. Of course the sudden death of Chad didn't fit into that model all that well.

Her increasing connection with Hugh was beginning to take its toll on the construction site, and this was why she was secretly relieved she didn't need to go down the mountain to Washington this morning as she had scheduled. Jake wasn't taking the presence of Hugh well at all, and Ally suspected that Hugh, much younger than Jake, was quietly egging the other man on. Jake's growing ire wasn't obstructing work yet, but everyone was tense and tiptoeing around, waiting for something to happen.

And it was all under the scrutiny of the Washington Post. Tom Black and his photographer weren't being nuisances. They were full of good humor and the artisans—and Ally herself—enjoyed being asked questions about what they were working on, what tools and techniques they were using, and what effect they were after and then seeing this translated to articles twice a week in the Post. His presence had actually sped the work along and, Ally thought, most likely kept quality standards up. It gave the workers an extra charge of pride in their work, and it attracted highly skilled carpenters and artisans to the project.

The real problem of the attention by the Post was the curious onlookers it brought with its newspaper coverage. They came alone, in pairs, by the busload—up the road through the vineyard or down the fire trail from the Appalachian trail, as Tom has initially done. They set up picnic lunches out on the lawn to watch and, more annoyingly, wandered close around the workers, asking sometimes hilariously dumb questions and more often giving unwanted advice. It was this latter activity that was becoming irritating and wasn't helping the tension caused by Jake and Hugh's dance, apparently of age-old male supremacy for the attentions of a woman.

Well, Ally had news for both of them. She wasn't some trophy for any man. She made her own choices. And, news for Hugh, she hadn't made a final decision in this instance either. He was good for her sexually—but that might be something for the short term rather than the long-term. They hadn't discussed the long term.

Her thoughts were smashed, though, by the other problem—the wandering tourists. She could hear the cursing of one of the workman now. Yes, it was a good thing she didn't have to go down to Washington this morning, she thought, as she rose from her desk with a sigh and went in search of a situation that needed to be diplomatically calmed down.

* * * *

The next two weeks were a whirlwind. Ally finally had to call in her chit with the sheriff and obtain help with the curiosity seekers showing up to look at the castle on the basis of the Washington Post series. All she had to do really, though, was to say, "The first time one of them gets hurt up here, especially if they wandered off in the forest above the house, the first question will be why was there no control over the property—I do have 'No Trespassing' signs out and they aren't doing a bit of good. And who knows what they might trip over up there in the woods."

Sheriff Shiflet promptly sent a deputy up to take those signs down from the front lawn of the castle and move them up to the verge of the forest at the back of the house. The deputy then put up a rope line along the drive in front instead, from which spectators could get a good view of the construction progress but could be herded back to if they tried to get mixed up with the work. Shiflet didn't mind devoting the manpower, he said, because the restaurateurs and antique dealers down in the village of Washington were delighted with the extra business. The out-of-town traffic also paid for the extra police attention in what was added to the sheriff's department budget from the speed traps Shiflet set up around town. Even the local children benefited, as they set up soft drink and cookie stands to serve the visitors. The owners of the Mountain Castle winery were ecstatic.

The central portion of the castle now was under roof, and skilled carpenters were crawling all over the two floors in the main section, pouring over the photographs and sketches previously existing of this structure and of the one in Transylvania it was modeled from, and working wonders. Master carpenters were showing up in droves. No one else in the region was putting such ornate woodwork as this in their buildings.

The project was obviously becoming very expensive, especially as the work started moving into the artistic embellishments. Both Jake and Hugh were making noises about the cost. Jake, who clearly wanted the project to continue, kept mentioning that, with the Post coverage, which Ally never let him forget he had instigated, and the uniqueness of what was happening here and the setting, banks would loan her restoration money if she needed it, and that she was sure to turn a profit when she sold the place to some billionaire, the extremely well heeled having the habit of flocking to the Virginia countryside anyway. She just had to wait it out. And Hugh mentioned almost daily that he had inherited money and he'd help float her. She just agreed with Jake and told Hugh that she appreciated his offer but had no intention of calling on his help. She was reticent to tell either of the men that she, herself, was a millionaire, thanks to her great-grandfather's strange turnabout in acknowledging his descendents and her mother's frugality. She just didn't want to have the added element of either men knowing she had money.

The workers were all toiling merrily away, pleased to be part of such a high-profile project—and to be able to list it on their résumés—at least it was this way for a week after the security rope was put up. While they were working, though, they were also buzzing about the mystery of the corpse in the wall. The word had gone out that the lab tests on the body were, at last, finished and the results had gone to the State police. An identification surely was about to be made.

Then on a Friday afternoon, the animosity that had been seething between Jake and Hugh came to a head.

Ally was on the second floor of the central wing, doing a video interview with Tom Black on the detailed plasterwork being applied to the ceiling of one of the front bedrooms, a video that would run on the Post's Web site, when she heard the surge of crowd noise below and in front of the building such as one would hear at a boxing match. She—and Tom and his video photographer, as well—hurried to a window on the front and looked down into the forecourt. Jake and Hugh were rolling around on the ground and throwing punches, some of which were connecting with an alarming thud. They were fighting inside a ring of workman that had quickly gathered around them. Most of the construction workers had suspended their work and obviously were enjoying the fight. Only the women carpenters seemed to be more interested in carving than watching.

She called down for the two men to stop and for the others to disperse and get back to work, which, of course, they didn't even hear over the crowd noise. Turning and looking for something to help make her be heard, she picked up a strip of tin that was being used for the ceiling installation of a nearby bathroom. Then she turned to a workman who was enjoying the fight from one of the windows in the room; yelled for him to give her his hammer, which he did; and then went to the window and banged on the tin with the hammer until everyone, including Jake and Hugh, both already with bloody noses and swelling eyes, looked up at her in surprise. The crowd quieted down.

"That will be quite enough of that, gentleman. I would like to see both of you out by where you've parked your truck, Jake. Now, please, gentleman."

When she'd pulled the two men away from where the workers could hear the conversation, she turned and looked at Hugh. She had placed herself between the two men, who were still posturing their belligerence.

"I won't even ask who started it—and why," she said. "Both of you need to cool off. Hugh, I suggest you go to your trailer for a while. Jake, I'm going to have to ask you to take the rest of the day off. Please leave."

"With pleasure, your highness," Jake growled through clinched teeth. "Come on guys, let's go."

"Just you, Jake. The crew can keep working."

"Most of these are my men, Ally. If I go, they go. I said come on guys, I'm calling this job site closed down."

Ally felt pressure at her elbow and realized that the Post videographer was getting the whole scene on camera. Looking on the other side of her, she saw a grinning Tom Black. His expression immediately changed when he realized that Ally was looking at him. "Sorry, but this is great news drama," he said. And then when he was still met with a frown. "But you're amazing; it will be just as good news seeing how you work this out."

Ally never saw Jake on the construction site again. And some of his crew didn't return either. She could continue work only because most of the master craftsmen were direct hires and didn't work for Jake.

She took Tom Black's statement that it would be "good news seeing how" she'd work this out as encouragement and became quite businesslike in walking around and assessing where projects stood and who was left to work on them. She didn't want to show any indication that she was either throwing in the towel or panicking. She took the reporter and his photographer—as well as Hugh Coles—along with her for the next three days as she went to Luray and also as far as Harrisonburg and Front Royal to recruit a new set of construction workers for the project. In the end, many of the men and women who had been there under Jake's subcontract came back to work directly for her. Both the publicity and the pay were good, and, as it turned out, Jake didn't just leave the construction site, he disappeared altogether—and, it turned out, he seemed to have left with most of his company's funds.

Within days the restoration work was back in full swing, Tom Black said he had dynamite material for his Post series, and Lois and Angela were reporting that perhaps it would be good now for Miranda to visit the castle—that seeing it rising from the ashes as quickly as it was might be beneficial for her.

Ally wasn't so sure the timing was good the morning she came down to Lois' farm to pick her mother up. Miranda's awareness seemed to be drifting in and out. But she was placid enough, claimed to recognize Ally, and kept patting her daughter's arm and giving her affectionate smiles as they drove up through the winery and into the turning circle at the front of the castle, telling Ally rather nonsensically that everything would be all right, as if Ally were the patient. Ally kept looking furtively at her mother as soon as the castle came into view to see what effect seeing it had on Miranda. But if Miranda noticed anything special at all, she didn't react.

Ally had asked Hugh to stay in his trailer while her mother was there to avoid any chance of Miranda seeing him. And she made similar requests to the men among the construction workers, asking them to work somewhere else other than in the area extending from the grand foyer, past the ballroom, and to the quarters that had once been her mother's and that now had been restored for Ally's use.

"It's going to be lovely someday," Miranda murmured as she looked around the grand foyer. Ally couldn't tell from that if Miranda had any idea where she was. Ally stopped on purpose at the door leading into the ballroom, which was partially restored and had been returned to its original dimensions.

"This is the ballroom, Mother. Remember it?"

"It's big. I like smaller rooms."

"It had a partition dividing it at one time," Ally said. She was doing this on purpose. She remembered that the sheriff wanted to pin down when that partition had been put in and who had done the work.

"Of course, I remember," Miranda almost snapped with a "do you take me for a dummy" response. "I had it put in myself."

"Yes, you did, Mother. I'm glad you remember. Do you remember when it was put in and who you had do it?"

"Yes, of course I do," her mother shot back.

There silence reigned for several seconds.

"When was it and who did it, Mother?"

"Was what and who?" Miranda said, the ethereal tone of her voice telling Ally that she was at least momentarily in another world again. "I do believe I am thirsty. Could you ask Lois to bring in some Coke for us—with maybe a tad of whiskey in it?"

"Come on into your rooms, Mother," Ally said with a sigh. "We'll see what I have that I can give you."

Ally was stopped by one of the women woodworkers while they were moving to Ally's living quarters, and Miranda wandered around the construction site a bit, clucking at this and giving a low laugh at that, seemingly fully entertained by the reconstruction process.

Once in the suite of rooms Miranda herself had occupied for several years before she burned it out, Ally's mother forgot all about being thirsty. She moved from object to object, picking it up lovingly and examining it closely as if it was a long-lost friend. She was muttering about where and under what circumstance she had collected each piece. Ally had done what she could to arrange the room just as Miranda had had it. When Miranda came to the mantelpiece, she immediately put her hand on the silver cup with the "A.D." initials on it, but rather than picking it up, she muttered something in an ugly, growly voice and shoved the cup back toward the wall. Her hand then went immediately to a bisque statue of a French court couple in a romantic pose. Ally moved forward in half alarm that her mother would break the delicate figurine after the violent shove she'd given the silver cup. But Miranda held and examined the figurine as lovingly as she had the other objects she had picked up before finding the silver cup.

There was a masculine clearing of a throat at the open door to the central house, and Miranda almost dropped the bisque figurine in surprise. Ally was quickly there to hold Miranda's hand steady, though. Ally could feel her mother trembling—doubtlessly because of the intrusion of a man.

"Sorry, Ms. Templeton. But you did say to let you know when the paint you ordered had arrived—what they've been waiting for to use on what you say is the music room. They say you need to sign for it. I'm sorry, but—"

"That's quite all right, Eric, I'll come out and sign for it now."

She turned to her mother, suggested that she might want to sit and rest for a few minutes while business was attended too, and, once Miranda was settled in a club chair, Ally went to the kitchenette and poured a Coke into a glass, tipped in just enough whiskey to be able to truthfully claim to her mother that she had done so, and, after giving this to her mother, left the room.

As soon as Ally left the room, Miranda gave a sly little smile and rose from the club chair. She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the cigarette pack with three cigarettes still in it that she had snatched off a stack of boards in the ballroom while Ally was talking with the woman woodworker. Miranda started gliding around the room, looking for matches.

There were a few other questions to address while Ally was out in the main section, but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes before she returned to her rooms.

No Miranda.

Ally looked everywhere in the suite of rooms without seeing her mother. She couldn't have gone farther into the maze of what once was a servants' wing, because Ally had that locked off and the key placed someplace Miranda could not have quickly found it. She was about to leave the suite and start searching for Miranda in the formal areas of the castle when her eyes went to the staircase in the tower leading up four flights.

"Oh, no," Ally exclaimed as she raced for the stairs. She quickly checked each level of the tower on her way up to the battlements at the top of the tower. As she feared, when she got to the fourth level, she could see the hatch open to the top of the tower's open-air battlements. She struggled up the ladder and leaped out onto the stone-floored top of the tower.

She heard the gasps and hubbub coming up from the ground and rushed to the stone balustrade and looked down four flights to the ground. A shocked and murmuring group of workmen had gathered in a circle around the spread-eagled body of her mother, her arms and legs at impossible angles. Miranda was lying on the ground on her back, staring up at the top of the tower, a peaceful smile on her face.