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The house has a green tile roof and somewhat opaque windows. It was modeled after a house the first owner saw on a postcard from France, but the big man, being what he was, had to mix in a bit of the South, and although the Spanish moss hides most of the unattractive facade those who get close enough would undoubtedly laugh.
The servants still lived there after the master died, too old to go anywhere else, and to underfed too do any of the work. Sometimes at night when George, the old groundskeeper was feeling exceptionally good, they'd build a fire in the West wing and talk about all the parties they watched from afar long ago. The gowns came alive in the stained halls and the patterns on the worn oriental rugs were vibrant again. Ms. Beasley always took special care when telling about the time the senile old master had once touched her in "that spot", back when she first came to the household. Still she was quick to point out that her husband had after all died in the war and she was alone and needed the work; and George quickly reminded her of how fast they became a family, the three of them.
Over the years many fires had been built in the East wing, but as in the great hall, the ashes piled so high it was no longer possible to get a flame going. At which point Mr. Crass, the merchant man from England, sealed the doors. Sometimes in the West wing the three would talk about the end, when the ashes would rise and couldn't be cleaned out. George thought it was nonsense because after every fire he took as much of the ashes, as he could carry, brushed them with his hands into a broken carafe, and dumped them behind the red velvet wing-back in the corner of the parlor. Still the other two had their doubts. They both knew George tried, his hands were often so black with soot he had to be fed by hand, because the water in the cracked well was almost gone and had to be used sparingly. Once he tried to wash off the blackness in one of the old ponds only to fall sick the same day. That time they all almost died, having no fire to keep them warm. Ms. Beasley always said the blood doesn't flow well when the body isn't given something to do. It was summer though, and Ms. Beasley amused herself watching Mr. Crass try to kill the few garden snakes that came close enough for his blind eyes to see.
George would watch from his window on the second floor. The mildewed odor of age was around him, and he smelt it. He knew they wouldn't enjoy life much longer. He thought Ms. Beasley would surely go first. Her strong mind wasn't enough to keep her alive in the harsh winter that was coming. He felt that in his bones, way down deep in his cold bones, he knew.
Mr. Crass brought George some soap and a wire ring, and to pass the time he would blow bubbles out the window. Sometimes they'd land on Ms. Beasley's head and for a moment he thought he could discern a spark of youth in her eyes; but just for a moment.
In the late afternoon it was silent. George and Ms. Beasley slept. The only sound was the old house marking its territory like some small mammal, settling farther into the earth each lazy day. Mr. Crass stayed awake and watched the newts explore the new crags around the foundation. The blue lizards weren't afraid of Mr. Crass anymore, and he had long since gotten over his curiosity of them. He knew every stripe down their backs, and every way in which they could twist and slither to catch the sun. He even knew their tails could come off and grow back though he'd only seen it once. He accidentally rocked over one in his wicker chair and for one afternoon was fascinated with the scales, as deep a blue as his first wife's eyes, and the way the tail writhed for a good five minutes before his arthritic hands could pick it up somehow reminded him of his marriage to her.
It was during those afternoons he would relive the days he spent wandering the moors in sport until his wife would call him from the roadside in the MG roadster he had bought her. She would lean on the fender, parked on the shoulder of the winding highway, always in the same white dress. It seemed to him now as if it were always holiday, bright and shining, she would hold him and they'd make-love in the lawn after dinner, itching and peering through their hedgerow into the night sky.
Mr. Crass rarely thought of the war in North Africa and how his darling wife was killed in a bombing raid, leaving him nothing in England. Sometimes he remembered the swelling seas that took him to the United States and his hateful life that followed until he met George and Ms. Beasley. Usually these thoughts hit him at twilight when the newts had all gone away and the closing darkness made him feel so alone. It was then he would wrap his hands around the rusted doorknob, echoing through the halls in search of his friends.
These same days found Ms. Beasley tucked in her room surrounded by yellow photographs of the old master, obese and white. He had been an albino, and an eccentric who found pleasure in Ms. Beasley and when she wasn't with George or Mr. Crass she was in his room watching it like a sentry and cleaning it like the maid she once was. She preferred it that way, frail hands oiling the four oak posters on his bed until they grinned back at her with a suggestion of better times. In his room the mirror reflected yesterdays and the sheets smelled like an attic full of old secrets. When George was sick she spent almost all her time there, save for the few moments she spent with Mr. Crass.
Maybe that's why George died like he did, with urine stains on his clothes and his right hand clutching the novelty railroad watch that belonged to his son before the train wreck killed him and thirty-eight other passengers. Maybe he would have died anyway, but the house wasn't the same after Mr. Crass found the body.
Soon after, the days began to grow shorter. Mr. Crass haunted the damp upstairs halls of the East wing. Water stains ran down the walls, looking like the ink blot tests he was given in England as a child. The holes in the roof up there kept Mr. Crass cool enough; besides Ms. Beasley would never go up there. She hated spiders and the decrepit condition of the halls and rooms, all full of dust and absent light, would only put an unnecessary strain on her old frame.
She spent those remaining days outside in the heat. Ms. Beasley always did like the heat, ever since she was a girl. On those last days she'd recall the farm, most vividly the smell of fresh manure around noon behind the barn. Her father forbade her to go to the barn, but she did it anyway while he was plowing the fields. She would watch his tractor crest the Southern furrow, her father's silhouette passing the silos. Once out of sight she'd skip past her mare and the pile of oats, her summer dress flowing around her legs, her bare feet ignoring the ring- worms, finding solace behind the flaking barn. There she'd lie in the dusty haystack waiting for Andy. He'd show up with half a pack of Luckies and they'd smoke before she took off her dress for him. Andy was older by three years but he said it didn't matter 'cause his mom was five years older than his father. She knew it was true, her father was ten years her mother's senior. So they did what they wanted, or mostly what Andy wanted, until he had to get back to his chores. Then she'd sweat in the reshuffled stack, her crotch wet, smoking the Lucky he left behind.
Ms. Beasley would prune the wild flowers that assaulted the old house and sweat the same way, only she thought it smelled different. She missed George and wondered about the fire because lately she felt a chill as the evenings grew closer to the afternoons. She had seen Mr. Crass but once in the last week down in the cellar where they kept the canned food. They didn't speak at all. After a while only the covers from her old master's bed could keep her somewhat comfortable and she soiled them fast enough.
It was a week after the first pangs of winter could be felt that the well ran dry. Mr. Crass labored with the old bucket, cutting his finger on one of the thin rusty bands that held the wood together. Pieces of the rope blew away as the bucket fell deeper and deeper, coming up dry.
The same thing happened to Ms. Beasley on the same day. In anger she filled the pail with gravel, let it go, and untied the rope, letting it trail down to join the bucket and lichen forever. Then she turned and walked back to the house, head down, dragging her master's sheet in the dirt.
She went to the West wing only to find it had been sealed. She went to the cellar, only to find it had been locked too. Every door she tried the key to the lock had been turned, and somewhere within roamed Mr. Crass, fantasizing about shooting Germans in North Africa.
With no other choice she went out to the once happy veranda, wrapped herself in the worn sheet, and waited for the oncoming winter.
Eight hours later Mr. Crass had a vision of the bluest pair of eyes he ever saw hovering two inches in front of his face. He reached out to caress them at about the same time Ms. Beasley could have sworn she smelt manure baking in a Southern sun.
goodnight 4.2.98
