17 - Black Flemings by Kathleen Norris

Gabrielle has always called the imposing brick mansion on the rugged New England coast home. But when she returns to Wastewater Hall, she finds it transformed into a sinister place brimming with malevolence. As she delves deeper into the dark mysteries that have overtaken her beloved home, each step brings her closer to danger—and perhaps even death. Join Gabrielle on her harrowing journey to uncover the truth behind this haunting transformation. - Summary by kirk202

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter seventeen of The Black Flemings by Kathleen Norris. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter seventeen. She's
all right. She opened her eyes a few minutes ago.
She'll be all right. The voice was drowning away close
to her ear in the howling noise and blackness. Gabriella

(00:22):
made an effort to think and to move her head,
but her senses all reeled together in a sort of birdigo,
and her temples hammered as if they would split. She
relapsed into blackness again David's voice. Of course, she had
fallen from a great height, she supposed, for she was
lying in some bitterly cold place, out of doors. The

(00:45):
scene never sounded so close inside, beyond and above. The
sound of the sea breaking on the rocks was a
constant rushing of high winds, and the creaking and dashing
of bare branches, And there was another sound of sucking
and roaring, deep crashes, like the cascading of bricks. No, No,

(01:06):
she's all right, She's coming round. This was that droning voice,
David's voice, then a mutter of other voices, head as
saying something about China. John's the gardener's voice, telling someone
to hoist it over there. I feel like Bill the Lizard,
Gabriella thought, finding the idea very funny, and immediately beginning

(01:29):
to cry. And she opened her eyes brimming with tears,
and looked into David's anxious face close above her own,
against a background of red lights and shadows. Dizziness overcame her,
and she shut her eyes again, but not without a
bewildered and weary smile that tore at the man's heart.

(01:50):
And then there followed another period of utter darkness, during
which she could not quite tell if the roaring and
crackling were inside or outside of her head. Suddenly she
remembered they were in Tom's study. She and Tom and David,
and David had come up to say, and Gay instantly
sat upright and looked at David with wild and frightened eyes.

(02:14):
She wore the velvet gown in which she had dined
such endless ages ago, and about her, as she half
lay in David's arms, a heavy blanket had been wrapped.
David's face was grimed and sooty, and in the queer
lurid light in the summer house, she could see that
it was anxious and pale. They were in the summerhouse,

(02:36):
that was it. But why should they be here upon
this bitter, wild night? And whence came the queer, pinkish
glow that was lighting the black garden and bear trees
in so unnatural a way. John and Trudy were draping
great curtains. Were they the old library curtains against the
latticed walls outside, The closely set evergreen shrubs, and the

(03:00):
lee of the north wall combined to give the summer
house a sort of protection. Gabriella, dearest, David said, And
she felt a hot tear on her face and put
up her finger to touch it, wonderingly. You're all right, dear,
he added tenderly, and then to someone in the gloomy
confusion of old twisted benches and rickety rustic tables behind him,

(03:24):
She's all right, Sylvia, Tell Aunt Flora she's all right.
Gabriella heard a thick, fretful murmur in answer, and asked,
in a child's odd whisper, is Aunt Flora sick? Frightened?
David said in answer, And you fainted, dear Tom, and
I got you down by the kitchen stairway. Recollection was

(03:46):
beginning to come back rapidly now, and gave frown faintly
with the pain of it, as she said, Tom, you
came up. I remember now, But David, was that true?
All true, dear? But don't think about it now, David said,
and Gabriella closed her eyes for what seemed a long
time again. The man her poor little mother had loved

(04:08):
had been Roger Fleming. Roger was her father. Does Tom
believe it, the girl whispered, after a while, Oh, yes,
he is very very fine about it, gay, David said,
there will be no arguing, no trouble for you, dear,
Can you can you not worry about it? But David,

(04:30):
she was more like yourself every minute now, and spoke
with a voice full of its own peculiar vitality. What happened, fire, Dear,
Wastewater's going, Gabriella. In an hour, the old place will
be gone, wastewater, she echoed in a whisper, and for
the first time she turned her eyes toward the source

(04:51):
of the glow, three hundred yards away and lighting up
the whole black world upon the wild winter night, the
old house was one roaring, massive flames. Tom, the girl
asked instantly. Did he he was with us? Did everyone
everyone is safe? Dear? Some of the maids had gone

(05:12):
into Crowchester when John took in his wife. The others
are here. Sylvia was the coolest of all. She was asleep,
but she had time to grab some clothes got out easily.
Aunt Flora was in the downstairs sitting room where I
had left her. She's here. I think the shock has

(05:33):
been terrible, but she is safe. You fainted, seemed to
come to just as we got you down here, and
then fainted or went off into a sort of swoon again.
But now you feel all right, perfectly, even my head.
But David, I want to see Tom. Tom. He was

(05:54):
with John and the girls, saving what they could until
it was too late. But he's here now, Tom, David said,
raising his voice, and immediately Tom, who had been with
the group of maids in the doorway watching the fire,
turned and came toward them. He was grimed in sooty,

(06:15):
his black hair tossed about wildly, and he had a
great overcoat on. Gabriella saw the look on his handsome face,
half desperate, half shamed, all questioning, and as he knelt
before her with a sudden impulse, she opened her arms
and laid her wet face against his own. Tom tightened

(06:35):
his own arms convulsively about her, and for a long
minute they clung together. Is it all right, Gabriella whispered,
and Tom, gently putting the silky tangled web of her
disheveled hair back from her earnest face, answered, we got
you out. Huh, Tom, she said, clinging to him and

(06:56):
looking into his face anxiously. I'm so glad I've never
had anybody of my own, are you, he said, awkwardly
yet pleased, in a low gruff tone as she stopped.
You've got a brother now, huh, he added, with a
sort of clumsy lightness for answer, Still resting her pale

(07:17):
and soot streaked cheek against his own. She tightened her
arm about his neck, and he felt her breast move
on a deep sigh, half of weariness, half of content,
and David saw his half brother, very reverently, very gently
kiss her upon her closed eyes. The wind straight out
of the northwest, Tom said, then, in a significant tone

(07:41):
to David, the whole place is bound to go, nice thing.
If we'd gotten him into John's house like you suggested,
No you were right about that, David conceded, as Gay,
smiling bewilderedly and still a little dizzy, got to her feet.
John tells me the barn roof was caught south wing. Sir, everything,

(08:04):
my god, she's doing it up in style. Now, Walker,
the chauffeur said from the group of watching maids and
men in the summer house doorway. All the night was
lighted by the demonaical glare. Banners of flame were being
blown and twisted like rags upon the shrieking winds. Keep
this blanket about you, Gay, and over your head, David commanded,

(08:27):
as they joined the others. Goodbye, waste water, he added
under his breath. Do you see that the library wing
has collapsed already? You're looking straight across at the woods beyond.
She's going like tinder, David. But surely that's the library
wing burning now the highest point of all. No, that's

(08:49):
the very center of the house. That's about where Uncle
Roger's old rooms were there. That's your corner where that
jet of fire blew out that wall. Go next, Gabriella
shuddered and shivered with the cold. Mother seems broken, Sylvia
said at Gay's shoulder. She loved the old place. There's

(09:12):
going to be a change in the wind. Tom muttered
that river of sparks may be turned this way, a
change in the wind. Gabriella echoed increduously, for to deduce
any hint of a change from the furious gale that
was blowing so strongly seemed miraculous to her. Even now.
The rush of air was so furious that they had

(09:34):
almost a shout at times to be heard. Somewhat sheltered
in the black, old, shabby doorway of the long unused
summer house, Gabriella felt David's arm tight about her shoulders.
Was he conscious of it? She did not know, But
she was exquisitely aware of it, even under her vertigo,

(09:55):
weariness and excitement, and so reinforced she might have endorsed
a score of such wild nights. They all stood in
the shelter, exclaiming and looking over each other's shoulders at
the fearful conflagration that was sending great worlds and showers
of sparks far up against the black winter sky. Flora

(10:15):
alone made no move. She was rolled in what appeared
to be a miscellaneously chosen half dozen of blankets, a
seventh rolled to pillow her head. She sat in the
summer houses one chair, an old wicker armchair, with her
bare head disheveled and dropped back, and her eyes closed

(10:36):
in a leaden face that, even in the hideous light
of the fire, looked deathlike this night's work will kill her,
had a whispered, once, glancing over her shoulder at her mistress,
and Trudy solemnly nodded. The flames of Wastewater swept southward,
howling like fiends as they flung themselves up into the dark,

(10:57):
crowded always from their places. As the waves are crowded
onward by fresh, roaring surges of fire. Where there had
once been attic or mansard rooms in wastewater, there were
now pits where pink flames burned under a play of
dancing blue lights. At intervals of only a few minutes.
Fresh portions of roofs and floors collapsed, and the maids

(11:20):
would exclaim under their breath as the fresh grinding and
sucking and devouring begin. There won't be a wall left,
Tom said, And she's not been burning an hour, Tom,
it must be almost morning, Gabriella whispered, too, dazed with
the night's events to believe herself yet awake. In answer,

(11:40):
he twisted his wrist about, and in the pink light,
she saw the tiny face of his watch. Not yet
one o'clock. What I can't understand, David said, is why
five hundred men aren't here from Keyboard or Crochester. Of course,
there's a terrible tide, and that rolled through the dew
UNEs to Tenseils may be underwater, but you'd think a

(12:04):
mob would be out here to watch the old place go.
You mean they might have saved it, David, Sylvia asked,
shuddering with cold and nervousness as she wrapped herself in
her blanket and stood huddling at his side. Oh no,
nothing could do that, he said, not even with all
that water within a few feet. He added, with a shrug,

(12:25):
toward the sea. That's the end of wastewater. David, we
were all way upstairs. Did you and Tom get me
down the stairs, Gabriella asked, presently, that's one of the
things we'll talk about tomorrow, David said, But immediately, he added, quietly,
Tom saved us all. My instinct was to rush away

(12:48):
from the flames. His being a sailor, was to get
through them, and if we had run away, I believe
we would have been trapped. Tedda tells me the only
stairs in the far wing where I would have gone
has been locked for years. Tom got us back of
the wind by crossing the upper hall, and we climbed

(13:10):
over that strip of roof to the old sewing room
and broke the window, and after that it was easy
down the kitchen stairway. The fire was coming where straight
up that main stairway, as if it were a furnace.
And did we cross near it? David hesitated, and Tom,
on Gabriella's other side, said gruffly, not very. Gabriella shivered,

(13:35):
and for a while they all watched the fire in silence.
John's wife and little girl, and Daisy and Sarah went
into Crowchester yesterday. David presently explained. It seems that John
saw it first. It started in the billiard room wing.
We think it may have been something the electricians did,

(13:56):
or perhaps just rats and matches. John saw one one
of the windows all pink from his room, but he
thought probably some of us were down there, and actually
went to bed, But after fifteen minutes or so he
got up and looked out again. My god, my heart
turned to water, John himself said simply, as David paused.

(14:18):
The fire was bursting out of a dozen windows at once.
She must have been burning since late afternoon to get
that start. I yieled for Frank, the Italian and Walker,
and we all run into the house. Seemed to me
we'd never rouse the girls we sleep, Hetta said gravely.

(14:39):
They ran up and waked Aunt Flora, David added, and
got her out here. She was still in the sitting room,
and Sylvia had the presence of mind to grab a
sheet full of clothes and things. The maids got out
some china and all the blankets that were in the
store closet, and their own trunks. But there won't be
much saved, he finished, shaking his head comfort to think

(15:02):
that if there were five hundred men here, we couldn't
have saved it. After long silence broken only by exclamations
of horror and concern, as the flames had their way,
had us set again softly. This'll kill missus Fleming all right.
Sylvia had gone back into the summer house and was
leaning over her mother. They could hear Flora's feeble, hoarse

(15:26):
murmurs in reply to the girl's tender inquiries. Gabriella felt
again that there would be no end to this fearful blackness, wind, noise,
and confusion of body and soul. An hour later there
were shouts in the garden. A motor car rattled in,
driven already with a strange disregard for what had been

(15:48):
the stately boundaries of waste water straight over the ashy garden.
It was the keyboard carpenter, with fifteen or twenty excited
young men hanging on his car. The high tide had
washed out a hundred feet of the road, he announced.
Couple hundred people watching the fire from the other side.
In spite of the wind some fire, said Harry Truman.

(16:12):
He had had to drive twelve miles out of his
way to get here at all. He added cheerfully that
he had thought he might find the whole family burned
to cinders. A stiff wind was still blowing, but his
violence had enormously abated. The air was warmer every instant,
and the fire, less than four hours after it had
been discovered, had done its work and had actually been

(16:35):
blown out against many a shattered remnant of black wall.
Here and there it was still gnawing hungrily, sucking like
a vicious and unsated animal, among ruins that by its
dying light the Flemings could barely recognize as the library,
the old downstairs play room, the office. Now it was

(16:57):
safe to move the women to what was left of
John's house house. The windmill collapsing had inundated the lower floor,
and one side of the house had been caught by
the flames. But on the south side, a bedroom, dining room,
and kitchen were intact, and Gabriella and Sylvia found a
lamp and turned down the bed where John's little Etta

(17:19):
had slept for most of her fifteen years. Eda's innocent
little trophies, Miss Alcott's books, pencil boxes, and hand painted
cups were ranged neatly about. Flora Muttering was lowered tenderly
into the sheets, and the blankets and little blue comforter
spread over her. No further danger from the fire. The

(17:42):
worst was over. Rain was now sluicing as gently, as
steadily and calmly over the wreckage, as if the night
of horror had only been a dream, as if Gabriella
might awaken in her comfortable big bed, as she had
so often awakened to look out upon typical autumn sky
and sea, a nameless, little poor relation in waste water

(18:05):
splendid walls. But now wearied, confused, puzzled as she was,
she knew that wastewater itself had not disappeared from the
earth more completely than that old Gabriella. If she had
not a name, a place in the world, she had
a brother, And to Gabriella, this utter earthquake was like

(18:27):
the presage of a more sunshiny and smiling morning than
she had ever known. Downstairs, in John's dining room, sacred
hitherto to golden oak and tasseled plush, was heaped the
incongruous salvage from waste water, soup plates and cups filled
with blackened water, chairs with city footprints upon the brocades, catchen,

(18:52):
utensils and pots. Books that had been useless and unread
for sixty years, and that were so much rubbish of paper,
paste and leather. Now the shade of a lamp standing alone,
and another great lamp without its shade, Just such miscellany
as maids, chauffeur and gardener had been able to snatch

(19:12):
and carry away by the light of the fire itself.
Gabriela and Tom worked valiantly at storing this mixed assortment.
At one side of the room, John lighted a coal
fire in his own grate, and Heda and Trudy toiled kitchen,
word extricating a coffee pot from the crushed and saturated kitchen,
and finding among Etta's neat stores all the necessities for

(19:36):
a meal, which was served in the dining room. At
about four o'clock. Sylvia was now upstairs with her mother,
and David called Gabriella aside, and with a grave face,
advised her to go up to her cousin. She gathered
a good deal from Aunt Flora's muttering gay, and I've
just been explaining things to her. Poor Sylvia, it's come

(19:58):
like a thunderbolt to her. Suppose you go up and
tell her we want her down here, that we're having
some coffee. Gabriella went up obediently. The lamp in young
Eda's bedroom was shaded now, and Flora seemed asleep. Sylvia
was sitting in the shadow, but Gabriella saw that she
had been weeping. She rose at once and followed Gabriella

(20:22):
into the little upper hall and Gabriella put her arm
about her. Sylvia seemed confused and shaken. She said, in
a worried, quick tone, Mamma is very very ill. David
tells me he thought she was even before she had
the shock of the fire. I feel as if I
were in a terrible dream. I can't believe what he

(20:44):
tells me, added poor Sylvia, I can't. I shall never
believe that my mother could be, could be capable, my mother,
whom I love so dearly. She stopped. It doesn't mean
that one can't love one's mother, Gabriella suggested, timidly. You'll
feel better when you've had some rest and some coffee.

(21:06):
She did it to protect Uncle Roger. We always knew
she loved him. Oh gracious, how little you understand, how
little anybody understands, Sylvia explained under her breath, in despair.
You tell me that I needn't stop loving her, And
David tells me that it makes no real difference in

(21:26):
my own life. As if I could, as if I
could go on living and believing that my mother had
been Sylvia's voice deepened, had been living a lie all
these years, she finished, suffocating. I tell you, I simply
couldn't bear it. I'm wrong. Perhaps it's all just pride, perhaps,
but I never could look anybody in the face again.

(21:50):
Never hold up my head, Sylvia, Do come downstairs, Gay pleaded.
It isn't as bad as that, really, it isn't. Oh
what do you know, Gabriella, Sylvia exclaimed impatiently. You think
being the child of a nobody, I suppose is much
the same as being Uncle Roger's own daughter. I would

(22:11):
rather have the name of Sharpjay honorably than any name,
as I have it, Gay answered proudly and shortly, as
you have it, Sylvia echoed. I don't believe you still understand,
she added, bewilderedly in a lower tone, and was still.
She let Gabriella guide her downstairs and slipped into her

(22:33):
place at the improvised table, quietly, not looking up nor
tasting the solids, although she drank her hot coffee gratefully. David,
could we possibly get mamma into a doctor, to a sanitarium,
she asked presently in a low voice. John and Walker
have gone round the long way to Crowchester for the doctor,

(22:55):
David said, glad to talk. The roads washed out, you
know they ought to be back in another hour, and
then we can tell something. She looks like death, Sylvia said,
with suddenly trembling lips. I think it is only shock,
David answered. Gabriella, warmed and lulled by the food and fire,

(23:17):
had dropped her beautiful, disheveled head against the back of
her chair. Tom had flung himself upon the little sofa
and was already asleep. David replenished the fire, and he
and Sylvia sat watching it, sometimes exchanging a few words,
or sometimes going upstairs to look at the invalid who
seemed to be sleeping. The doctor came and went at five,

(23:41):
without waking either Tom or Gabriella. A cold dawn was
over the world when the girl stirred under her heap
of comforters and sat up, blinking and rosy, wondering for
a long stupefied minute where she was and why Tom
should be stretched out sound asleep. A few feet away,
Margaret had come out from keypoard. John's wife and daughter

(24:03):
were lamenting and sympathizing in the disordered kitchen, and two
or three score of sightseers were already picking their way
about the ruins of what had been wastewater. Gay going
out with Tom, just as the winter sun rose, dazzling
and clear, and feeling strangely stiff and stupid, looked about
her in blank Amazement, where the house had stood for

(24:26):
more than a century, was only a singed and hideous
stretch of wreckage. Now heaps of blackened bricks tumbled, masses
of half burned plaster and mortar. Twisted pipes glistened wet
in rain. The hole smelled acridly. Here and there some
hidden heap of wood or paper smoldered sullenly. The garden

(24:47):
paths had been partly obliterated by fallen walls. Trees were down,
and ashes coated the leafless rose trees and the evergreens.
The sea was rolling gaily in the sunrise, eyes emerald
green flecked cheerfully with white. Gulls were dipping and arching.
The fresh, clean, peaceful air was tainted acridly with the

(25:09):
smell of wet, burned ruins. The day was so crystal
clear that Gabriella could see the tiny figures of men
going out under the white sails at Keyport and at Crochester.
When between David and Tom, with her hair twisted up
into a great coil, and one of John's colts buttoned
about her. She walked slowly about the incredible desolation of

(25:33):
the walls. The villagers drew back a little and eyed
the family curiously. Pretty tough. Welcome home, Tom, one of
the younger men said, shyly but heartily sympathetic. Oh that's
all right, Tom said, with a nod. Dead loss, eh,
asked an older man, interestedly, making a tut tutting sound. Nope,

(25:56):
some insurance, Tom admitted, but the other mere shook his
head and made the same pitying shocked sound again. When
they walked past what had been the sitting room, Tom
climbed over a mass of bricks and kicked free with
his foot a segment of charred and sulk frame, to
which a tattered strip of canvas, stiff with paint still clung.

(26:19):
Remember this, he asked. David and Gabriella looked at it, nodding.
There were but a few useless inches of it left,
but they could see it had been a painting. Still
to be seen was a finely executed hand, a man's
hand laid upon the head of a beautiful greyhound. Uncle

(26:40):
Roger David said, gravely. My father, said Tom, and mine,
Gabriella added softly, a warm, young, vital hand in David's,
her beautiful eyes not raised from this tragic, little last
glimpse of the splendid and victorious black fleming of waste water,
and of Chapter seventeen,