That he did. Such a clamor! A crew would work for a week, then be curtly dismissed, only to be replaced by a new crew who would last perhaps five or six days before Mr. Hobbes sent them packing as well. Finally, he himself set about working in the old cellar, building a storeroom for canned goods and supplies—or so he said, for Ida was not allowed below. “Too dangerous,” he’d told her with a smile that did not reach his eyes. (His eyes, those cold and mesmerizing eyes.) “Wouldn’t want you to catch your death down there.” There were other peculiar changes in the house. Doors that went nowhere. Decorative rosettes that framed holes in the walls which produced a strange smoke that Mr. Hobbes insisted was good for the lungs and necessary for higher spiritual work. A long laundry chute that Mrs. White assured her would help the poor laundress. They were down to only three servants—a laundress, a housemaid, and a groomsman who doubled as a driver. It was disgraceful, and Ida hoped no one knew how bad things were. But then Mary would smile and tell her she’d been visited by the spectral form of Ida’s father, and he was holding rosemary, for remembrance, a sure sign that he was watching over them all, and Ida would feel grateful for this small comfort. For Ida’s nervous state, Mary offered her sweet wine, which sometimes gave Ida the strangest dreams of fire and destruction and the ghostly visages of sober-faced men and women.
Things began to turn sour. Strange meetings were held late into the night. Once or twice a month, Ida heard music and chanting from downstairs. People came and went.
“What do you do at these meetings?” Ida asked anxiously one evening when they dined. She only picked at her food; the roast beef was far too bloody for her taste.
“Why don’t you join us, my dear?” Mrs. White suggested.
“Babylon, that great city, is fallen. It is time for a cleansing. A rebirth. Wouldn’t you say, Miss Knowles?” Mr. Hobbes asked, smiling. His eyes were so very blue that Ida felt quite undone. For a moment, staring at him, she wondered what it would be like to dance with Mr. Hobbes. To feel his kiss. His caress. And as soon as she thought it, she was overcome with revulsion.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Her hands trembled. The blood from the roast beef formed a small, sickening pool on her plate. “I… I’m not well. If you’ll excuse me, I shall go to bed.”
That night, she heard strange sounds coming from inside the house, the most terrible bestial noises and whispers. She was too afraid to leave her bedroom. She lay awake shivering under her covers till morning.
In a cabinet in the formal parlor, Mr. Hobbes kept a large leather-bound book, rather like a Bible. But when Ida tried to get at it, she discovered that the cabinet was locked. Her own cabinet in her own house, locked against her! Shaking with anger, she confronted Mrs. White (for she no longer regarded her with the sisterly affection of “Mary.”) “I won’t have it, Mrs. White. I won’t,” Ida sniped.
“It isn’t your house any longer, my dear,” Mrs. White answered, and her smile was cruel.
It was a Tuesday when Ida discovered a pile of bloodied clothing scraps that Mr. Hobbes assured her, in as delicate a fashion as was proper, belonged to the laundress and which was due to the girl’s monthly curse. (“The poor dear, how embarrassing for her. Of course we offered her fresh clothing and sent her home to rest. The poor, poor dear. I fear she is too overcome by shame to return to us.”) Ida wrote a desperate letter to her cousin in Boston, who sent the authorities, but when they came Ida was in such a torpor that Mrs. White told them she was not well but was being cared for, and that she hoped even this effort to descend the stairs and submit to their questions had not put her health in danger. The authorities retreated, mumbling apologies.
The last remaining servant, Emily, left in the dead of night without so much as a good-bye. She didn’t even stop to collect her wages.
Ida had had enough. She’d stopped drinking the wine. Her body, though weakened, was strong enough to carry her down the stairs, for she intended to know what was happening in her own home. Yes, her home! It had been built by her father, for their family! She was a Knowles, not like these Johnny-come-latelies with their new money and airs: that charlatan Mrs. White, who had left to conduct a séance at the country house of some poor soul with more money than sense. And Mr. Hobbes. Mr. Hobbes, with his cold eyes and arrogant air, his lies and secrets. Wicked man! Ida needed to know what was happening in her house, and she would begin by looking in the forbidden cellar.
She took the long, narrow staircase down into the dank, dark space. It smelled of earth and something else. Ida gagged at the foulness of it. She’d have a quick look around and, hopefully, she’d find what she needed to go to the authorities and have these horrid people thrown out of her house. Then she’d look for a proper tenant, or even—dare she think it?—a husband. A knight noble who would share her life. Together, they’d make the house glorious again. Host parties attended by decent people, people of consequence and status. Knowles’ End would reign once more.