Carol O’Connell - Winter House

„Nedda is our half sister,“ said Cleo, as if this might be what puzzled her guest. „Different mothers. And her mother drank quite a bit. Well, there you have it, the oldest family scandal. Edwina Winter was drunk when she went over the banister.“

„My father and his brother, James, saw her fall,“ said Lionel, directing his gaze upward to a large picture hanging on the second-floor landing. „That’s their portrait.“

Charles looked up at the oil painting of two adolescents. Even at this distance, he would call it a very bad piece of work, almost a cartoon.

„Their account wasn’t quite accurate,“ said Bitty.

„Daddy and Uncle James gave the only account,“ said Cleo. „How can it – “

„Quentin and his first wife hated each other.“ Bitty sipped sherry, stocking up on a little bravery from a glass. „I found the divorce papers filed just before Edwina died. They were charging each other with infidelity.“

„That’s enough, Bitty,“ said her mother. „Have some consideration for your aunt.“

„No, don’t stop because of me,“ said Nedda. „I never knew my mother. I was a baby when she died.“ She gave her niece an encouraging smile, apparently approving of this uncharacteristic demeanor.

„All the money belonged to Edwina Winter.“ Bitty was running out of false courage. She went to the bar and poured herself some more. „The staircase is full of ghosts. It’s a nervous kind of haunting. Can’t you feel it?“

„I know what she means,“ said Sheldon Smyth. „There’s always been something queer about this house. Always felt it, just as she says. And that damned staircase. It’s just plain wrong.“

„It’s the pride of the house,“ said Cleo. „It was featured in Architectural Digest. The writer called it the absolute triumph of form over function. His very words.“

Sheldon Smyth wore a condescending smile. His ex-wife had missed the insult in that quotation, and she was doomed to repeat it to anyone who would listen to this joke told by herself at her own expense. Politeness prevented Charles from enlightening her, informing her that life was not lived on the stairs, but in the rooms where people might take creature comforts, procreate and dream. But not in this house. Here everything revolved around the tension of the staircase; the inertia of lines rushing upward appeared to be all that kept it from falling down.

Taking Charles by the arm, Bitty smiled with newfound boldness. „You decide.“

Helplessly bound by good manners, he climbed the stairs with her until they gained the second floor. The rest of the party was also being pulled along, straggling upward without wills of their own. The dynamic of the dinner party had changed. Oddly enough, Bitty was running the show. She paused and, with the air of a tour guide, pointed to the place along the stairs where Quentin Winter had died in the famous massacre. Charles glanced back to see Nedda, last in line, giving wide berth to this area, as if she must round the dead body of her father before she could continue upward.

The staircase was not haunted – Nedda was.

„Edwina Winter died almost twelve years before the massacre.“ Bitty stood beneath the painting of the Winter brothers and instructed Charles to remain by the railing. „That’s where she was standing when she – -fell. Now remember, all the Winters were tall, and they married tall people, like you. Think you could fall by accident?“

He stood with his back to the railing, which was higher than one might expect, yet another design flaw, and he tried to imagine a scenario where he might go over the side; perhaps if the floor were slippery or he were to stumble. No, that would not work. His center of gravity would still be below the rail.

„Tricky, isn’t it?“ Bitty rested one hand on the smooth, round wood. „Now if it had broken, that would explain everything, but this is the original – perfectly sound. Give up?“ Without waiting for a reply, she turned her back on him to open a door into the blackness of a bedroom. She pointed to the spot where he was standing. As if commanding a very large dog, she said, „Wait there.“

The tiny woman was swallowed up in the shadows. Seconds later, she was rushing back into the light, running toward him, hands extended and palms flattened back, as if to push him. And she was fast. There was no time to grip the rail, nor even to raise his arms. Bitty stopped – dead stop – when her hands were a bare inch from his chest. She turned her smiling face up to his. „That’s the only way it could have happened. Quentin Winter murdered his first wife.“

„That’s enough,“ said Cleo, „I won’t have you saying these things about my father.“

„Why not?“ said her ex-husband. „Neither one of the Winter boys was a saint, not according to my father. It’s as good a theory as any.“

„And now – the other ghosts.“ Bitty was gleefully potted as she descended the stairs to a midpoint between the high ceiling and the parlor floor. She turned to look back at Cleo. „This was where your mother died.“ Bitty turned her eyes to Charles. „Alice was her name. The second Mrs. Winter was my grandfather’s favorite model. He was an artist, you know.“

All eyes followed the dramatic point of Bitty’s finger. „There was another body in the – “

„Stop! You weren’t there!“ Cleo yelled at her daughter. „You weren’t even born yet! You don’t know anything?“

Nedda Winter was not taking this well, either. She gripped the rail with a sudden need of support.

Had both these sisters witnessed the massacre of their family? Charles’s sketchy knowledge of this old story held no such detail.

Bitty was prattling on about the other deaths and where the bodies fell as she led the party down the staircase. „And then there was the baby,“ she said, almost as an afterthought. „A newborn. Sally was her name. She survived the massacre. What happened to her after that, Mother?“

Nedda paused on the last step and stared at Cleo, waiting on the answer to that question. Clearly, she had no knowledge of her baby sister’s whereabouts. How curious. Charles wondered if another of the Winter children had been… lost.

„Sally Winter.“ Sheldon Smyth was the first to reach the bar. „I haven’t heard that name in years.“ He smiled at Charles. „Everyone called her Baby Sally. I was just a boy, away at school when I heard the news. She ran off. Isn’t that right, Lionel? Isn’t that what the nanny told the police?“

„The nurse,“ said Cleo, „Sally had a nurse.“

„Quite right,“ said Sheldon. „As I recall, your uncle James fired that woman for stealing.“ He spoke to Charles, for the outsider would need a running translation. „James Winter was their guardian after the rest of the family was murdered. Yes, I remember him confronting the nurse about stealing.“

„You’re confused, old man,“ said Lionel. „It was Uncle James who was stealing.“

„Yes, of course,“ said Sheldon Smyth. „That’s why he left town so suddenly. If I remember correcdy, that was the year you turned twenty-one.“

Lionel turned his back on the man, then poured a double shot of whiskey from the bar and downed it quickly.

Nedda’s face had gone bloodless. She drifted back to the stairs, passing all of them by, and, without a good night to anyone. In dead silence, they all watched her climb and climb, then disappear behind a door on the floor above. Bitty, the living portrait of contrition and regret, trailed after her aunt.

Sheldon Smyth was quick to retrieve a briefcase from the floor of a closet, and now he made his retreat, backing up to the door, pleading an early appointment and urging his guest to stay on for a nightcap. The caterers were gone, and so were Cleo and Lionel. Charles opened the door to the dining room, hoping to find them there, to say good night and beat a hasty retreat.