Mary Clark - A Cry In The Night

She felt Erich’s hand stroking her cheek. “Wake up, darling, we’re nearly home.”

“What? Oh. Did I fall asleep?” She pulled herself up.

“I’m glad you slept, darling. But look out the window now. The moon is so bright you should be able to see quite a bit.” His voice was eager. “We’re on county road twenty-six. Our farm begins at that fence, on both sides of the road. The right side eventually ends at Gray’s Lake. The other side winds and twists. The woods take up nearly two hundred acres alone; they end at the river valley that slopes into the Minnesota River. Now, watch, you’ll see some of the outer buildings. Those are the polebarns, where we feed the cattle in the winter. Beyond them are the grainery and stables and the old mill. Now as we come around this bend you can see the west side of the house. It’s set on that knoll.”

Jenny pressed her face against the car window. From the background glimpses she’d seen in some of Erich’s paintings, she knew that at least part of the exterior of the house was pale red brick. She’d imagined a Currier and Ives kind of farmhouse. Nothing Erich had said had prepared her for what she was looking at now.

Even viewed from the side, it was obvious that the house was a mansion. It was somewhere between seventy and eighty feet long and three stories high. Lights streamed from the long graceful windows on the first floor. Overhead the moon blanched the roof and gables into glistening tiaras. The snow-covered fields shone like layers of white ermine, framing the structure, enhancing its flowing lines.

“Erich!”

“Do you like it, Jenny?”

“Like it? Erich, it’s magnificent. It’s twice, no five times larger than I expected. Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I wanted to surprise you. I told Clyde to be sure and have it lighted for your first impression. I see he took me at my word.”

Jenny stared, trying to absorb every detail as the car moved slowly along the road. A white wooden porch with slender columns began at the side door and extended to the rear of the house. She recognized it as the setting of Memory of Caroline. Even the swing in the painting was still there, the only piece of furniture on the porch. A gust of wind was making it sway gently to and fro.

The car turned left and drove through open gates. A sign, KRUEGER FARM, was lighted by the torchères that topped the gateposts. The car followed the driveway skirting snow-covered fields. To their right the woods began, a thick heavy forest of trees whose branches were bare and skeletal against the moon. The car turned left and completed the arc, stopping in the driveway in front of wide stone steps.

Massive, ornately carved double doors were illuminated by the fan window arching over them. Joe hurried to open Jenny’s door. Quickly Erich handed the sleeping Tina to him. “You bring in the girls, Joe,” he said.

Taking Jenny’s hand, he hurried up the steps, turned the latch and pushed open the doors. Pausing, he looked directly into her eyes. “I wish I could paint you now,” he said. “I could call the painting Coming Home. Your long, lovely dark hair, your eyes so tender looking at me… You do love me, don’t you, Jenny?”

“I love you, Erich,” she said quietly.

“Promise you’ll never leave me. Swear that, Jenny.”

“Erich, how can you even think that now?”

“Please promise, Jenny.”

“I’ll never leave you, Erich.” She put her arms around his neck. His need is so great, she thought. All this month she’d been troubled by the one-sided aspect of their relationship, he the giver, she the taker. She was grateful to realize it wasn’t that simple.

He picked her up. “Jenny kissed me.” Now he was smiling. As he carried her into the house he kissed her lips, at first tentatively, then with gathering emotion. “Oh, Jenny!”

He set her down in the entrance hall. It had gleaming parquet floors, delicately stenciled walls, a crystal and gold chandelier. A staircase with an ornately carved balustrade led to the second floor. The walls were covered with paintings, Erich’s bold signature in the right-hand corner. For a moment Jenny was speechless.

Joe was coming up the steps with the girls. “Now don’t run,” he was cautioning them. But the long nap had revived them and they were eager to explore. Keeping one eye on them, Jenny listened as Erich began to show her through the house. The main parlor was to the left of the entry foyer. She tried to absorb everything he was telling her about the individual pieces. Like a child showing off his toys, he pointed out the walnut étagère, kidney-shaped and marble-based. “It’s early eighteenth century,” he said. Ornate oil lamps, now wired, stood on either side of a massive high-backed couch. “My grandfather had that made in Austria. The lamps are from Switzerland.”

Memory of Caroline was hung above the couch. An overhead light revealed the face in the portrait more intimately than it had appeared in the gallery window. It seemed to Jenny that in this lighting, in this room, her own resemblance to Caroline was accentuated. The woman in the painting seemed to be looking directly at her. “It’s almost like an icon,” Jenny whispered. “I feel as though her eyes are following me.”

“I always feel that way,” Erich said. “Do you think they might be?”

An immense rosewood reed organ on the west wall immediately attracted the children. They climbed onto the velvet-cushioned bench and began to press the keys. Jenny saw Erich wince as the buckle of Tina’s shoe scratched the leg of the bench. Quickly she lifted the protesting girls down. “Let’s see the rest of the house,” she suggested.

The dining room was dominated by a banquet table large enough to accommodate twelve chairs. An elaborate heart motif was carved out of each of the chairbacks.

A quilt was hung like a tapestry on the far wall. Pieced entirely of hexagons with a scalloped border and stitched in flower motifs, it added a bright note to the austerely handsome room. “My mother made it,” Erich said. “See her initials.”

All the walls of the large library were covered with walnut bookcases. Each shelf held an even row of precisely placed books. Jennie glanced at some of the titles. “Am I going to have a good time!” she exclaimed. “I can’t wait to catch up on reading. About how many books have you got?”

“Eleven hundred and twenty-three.”

“You know exactly how many?”

“Of course.”

The kitchen was huge. The left wall contained the appliances. A round oak table and chairs were placed exactly in the center of the room. On the east wall, a giant old iron stove with highly polished nickel chrome and isinglass windows looked capable of heating the whole house. An oak cradle next to the stove held firewood. A couch covered in a colonial print and matching chair were at rigid right angles to each other. In this room, as in the others she had seen, absolutely nothing was out of place.

“It’s a little different from your apartment, isn’t it, Jenny?” His tone was proud. “You see why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to enjoy your reaction.”

Jenny felt an urge to defend the apartment. “It’s certainly bigger,” she agreed. “How many rooms are there?”

“Twenty-two,” Erich said proudly. “Let’s just have a quick look at our bedrooms. We’ll finish the tour tomorrow.”

He put his arm around her as they walked up the stairs. The gesture was comforting and helped to relieve some of the strangeness she was feeling. All right, she thought, I do feel as though I’m on a guided tour: Look but don’t touch.

The master bedroom was a large corner room in the front of the house. Dark mahogany furniture gleamed with a fine velvet patina. The massive four-poster bed was covered with a spread of cranberry-colored brocade. The brocade was repeated in the canopy and draperies. A leaded crystal bowl on the left side of the dresser was filled with small bars of pine soap. An initialed silver dressing set, each piece an inch apart, was to the right of the bowl. The dressing set had been Erich’s great-grandmother’s; the bowl was Caroline’s and had come from Venice. “Caroline never wore perfume but loved the scent of pine,” Erich said. “That soap is imported from England.”