CHAPTER 15
The next morning I woke to a beautiful day. The air was cooler and dry, and the windows were flung open to let in the soft breeze. This was the way the South was meant to be enjoyed—with gentle warmth and sunny days in the autumn.
I went downstairs with a lightness in my step that hadn’t been there recently. I ate breakfast by myself and paged through the newspaper. Nothing happened to suggest that anything was amiss in the great house.
But when I left the dining room to get started for the day, I walked into the ballroom and stopped short with a gasp.
The ballroom walls, which the previous day had been a vibrant, deep blue, were now scarred with long, jagged streaks of black paint. There was paint on the floor and paint on the ceiling. That beautiful ceiling, which I had worked on for so many days! Looking at all the droplets on the walls, some of which were dripping in long scraggly lines, it was obvious that someone had taken a brush and flung paint all over the room. I walked quickly to the sitting room, trying to avoid stepping in any drops of black on the floor. The sitting room had thankfully been left untouched. I was confused, shocked, dismayed. I ran to the doorway of the ballroom and took off my shoes. I was going to run upstairs to find Evie and Graydon when the front door swung open. Heath peeked his head around the door. He smiled when he saw me.
“Good morning!”
Then he saw the look on my face. He came inside quickly and closed the door. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t speak. I pointed to the ballroom and he looked through the doorway. He turned to me, his face mirroring my own. “What happened?”
I shook my head and finally found my voice. “I don’t know.” I gulped. “I don’t know. It was like that when I went in there just a minute ago.”
“When did it happen?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning. I haven’t been in there since then.”
“Does Dad know?”
“I doubt it. I just found it myself.”
Heath went to the stairs. “Dad!” he called up, a sense of urgency in his voice. “Dad!”
We could hear doors opening upstairs. Graydon’s head appeared over the railing upstairs. “What is it?” he asked with concern.
“Come down here, quickly. There’s something you need to see.”
Graydon came downstairs, tying his robe. Evie clattered along behind him, still in her pajamas. Graydon looked from Heath to me, glancing at my bare feet. “What’s wrong?”
Heath pointed grimly in the direction of the ballroom. Graydon walked to the doorway, followed by Evie, and let out an expletive.
He turned to me. “What on earth happened?”
I threw my hands in the air. “I have no idea. It was like that when I walked in there just a few minutes ago.”
“Is the paint still wet?” Evie asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll go see.” I walked into the ballroom and ran my finger down one of the drips of paint on the wall. It was still a bit wet. I bent down and did the same with the paint on the floor. Same result.
“It’s not completely dried, but it’s not fresh, either. Someone must have done this a few hours ago,” I informed the group.
“That doesn’t really help us much,” noted Graydon, “unless someone was down here in the middle of the night and saw it happening.”
“Saw what happening?” asked Vivian. She had come down the stairs and was standing in the entry hall with the rest of us.
“Someone vandalized the ballroom,” Graydon informed her grimly. “There are streaks of black paint all over the walls and drops of paint on the floor and the ceiling.”
“What?” she exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Who did it?” she asked as she looked into the ballroom.
Graydon shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“What about the sitting room?” she asked.
“The sitting room is untouched,” I answered.
“Thank heaven for that,” Vivian remarked. “What do we do next?” Everyone looked at me.
“I guess we wait for the paint to dry and then I redo the ballroom,” I said simply. “I’ll try to remove as much of the black paint as I can from the walls, but it’s going to be hard to do that without damaging the plaster. I may just end up having to paint over the black. The same is true for the ceiling.
“And as for the floor,” I continued, “I’ll scrape it off as best I can and restain it.” I shook my head. “This will take some time. I guess I’ll get started in the front hall while I’m waiting for all the paint to dry.”
Just then Ruby came in the front door. She looked around at everyone, confused. “Is something the matter?”
“Ruby, do you know anything about the black paint in the ballroom?” Graydon asked.
“No. What happened?”
“Someone splashed black paint on the walls and floor and ceiling of the ballroom. It’s ruined and now Carleigh is going to have to do the entire room again.”
Ruby went over to the ballroom doorway and peered in. She turned around, her hands over her mouth, and stared at me with wide eyes. “This is terrible!”
“I know,” I sighed resignedly. “I’ll get started today on the entry hall. Normally I like to work on walls first, but I think I’ll work on the floor first this time.”
“It had to have been someone in this house,” Vivian said conspiratorially to Graydon loudly enough for us all to hear. “My money’s on Phyllis. She’s disgruntled.”
Graydon turned to her angrily. “If she’s disgruntled, then we have you to thank for it. So don’t go around making accusations like that. We have no idea who did it.”
Vivian stared at him stonily for a moment and then said, “Well! I guess we know where your loyalties lie!”
He rolled his eyes. “Vivian, don’t start. You know my loyalties lie with my family. But you can’t go around treating Phyllis like that! She’s worked for us for many years, and her mother for many years before that, so I think we owe her a certain amount of respect.”
“Where is Phyllis, anyways?” Evie cut in, probably to stop her parents’ bickering.
“She wasn’t in the kitchen when I came down to eat breakfast,” I answered. “I imagine she’s in her apartment.”
“Maybe I should go look for her,” Ruby said.
“You do whatever you want,” Vivian replied sourly. “I’m going to work.” She walked out the front door, closing it quietly behind her. Ruby went into the kitchen, presumably in search of Phyllis.
“Carleigh, I’m real sorry this happened,” Graydon said. “You’re a good girl to keep working on this house.” Evie, smiling, rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb toward her father at his antiquated chivalry. Her reaction lightened the mood.
“Daddy, for heaven’s sake, don’t call her a good girl. She’s not a child.”
He looked at me sheepishly. “Sorry, Carleigh.”
I grinned at him. “That’s okay.”
“I think we need to notify the police about this,” Graydon said. “I’ll call them and I’m sure they’ll be over here before long.”
He went upstairs, leaving Heath and Evie and me standing in the entry hall.
“Who do you suppose did it?” asked Evie.
“I can’t imagine,” answered Heath. “Why would anyone here want to vandalize the house? We all live here.”
“Do you agree with Mother?”
“That is was Phyllis? Could be. Mother sure made her angry last night.”
“I don’t blame Phyllis for being mad, but she needs to find a better way to express herself,” Evie replied with a sigh. “Carleigh, what do you think?”
“I have no idea who did it. That doesn’t seem like something Phyllis would do, but I really don’t know her very well.”
“Carleigh’s right. It seems out of character for her. Do you suppose someone could have broken in and done it?” Heath asked.
Evie shivered. “I hope not. That’s a scary thought. Don’t you think we’d see evidence of a break-in if someone from outside had done it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure the police will check that out once they get here.”
“I wish I could stay here to help you,” Heath told me. “But I need to get into Charleston to work. I’ve got court this morning.”
“That’s okay. This is my job, remember? Just because there’s been a setback doesn’t lessen my responsibility to complete it. Go on. Have a good day.” I shooed him toward the front door.
He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you tonight,” he promised.
“I’ll come down when the police get here,” Evie said, heading up the stairs.
I sighed and stood looking into the ballroom. Who could have done the damage to the ballroom? Phyllis? Even Vivian? She was pretty angry last night. Maybe she vandalized the room out of spite. But I didn’t want to be the one to suggest to Heath and Evie that their mother might have been the culprit.
I gazed around at the entry hall for a few moments. Some areas of the marble had become discolored through the long years, and I wanted to try to clean them before thinking about having the floor replaced.
I was gathering the supplies I would need to tackle the marble when the police arrived. After looking around the ballroom, they examined the doors and windows on the rest of the first floor. Evie and Graydon and I waited for them in the drawing room. Then they questioned us in turn in the kitchen. They left after explaining that they could find no evidence of a break-in and that this appeared to be a domestic problem. They suggested that we keep our eyes and ears open for anything suspicious, but there appeared to be nothing they could do about it. I was discouraged, as were Evie and Graydon.
I threw myself into my work that day, scrubbing the marble until my arms hurt. I think I was trying to forget about the scars in the ballroom. By late afternoon I was starving and ready for a break. Phyllis came into the entry hall to offer me a glass of sweet tea.
“Ruby told me what happened in the ballroom. The police questioned me, too,” she told me. “It’s too bad your work was ruined. I saw how hard you worked in there and it looked nice.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I wish I knew why someone threw paint in there.”
“You know what I think?” she asked.
I looked at her askance. I knew where this conversation was headed. But I answered anyway. “What?”
“It’s that dog.”
I shook my head at her. “Phyllis, I hope you aren’t suggesting that Addie came into the manor house and threw paint on the ballroom walls.”
She arched her eyebrow at me. “I didn’t say the dog did it. But I warned you about stray dogs. They bring nothing but bad luck to a house. It wouldn’t have happened if Heath hadn’t adopted her.”
“Don’t talk like that. Addie doesn’t even live in this house! She lives with Heath!”
“Doesn’t matter,” she answered, shaking her head. “She lives on this property, doesn’t she?”
Apparently there was no reasoning with her. I was exasperated. “Thanks for the tea, Phyllis. I have to take a shower.” I went upstairs and as I reached the top I looked back down out of the corner of my eye. Phyllis was watching me. I shivered. The very idea—that Addie could be responsible for Harlan’s death and for vandalizing the ballroom! Between Phyllis’s superstitions and her belief in ghosts, I was beginning to think she was more than a little creepy.