Chapter 8
Eight
After eighteen years in business, the Beverly Hills Hotel was still the most impressive establishment of its kind in that fabled city.
Shortly after four o’clock in the morning, Franklin rented a luxurious bungalow.
As a bellhop pushed a luggage cart, we followed him quietly, in respect of the many sleeping guests, along a softly lighted path through lushly planted grounds to our accommodations.
In the barest breath of a breeze, the tall palms whispered to one another—she, she, she.
I felt as if I were entering a heretofore secret world, an American Shangri-La, and that even the trees knew I did not belong in such a paradise.
This was Sunday, the seventh of September. Franklin and Loretta were not scheduled to return to Bramley Hall until Thursday. They said that we would in fact go home on Tuesday, after I had been prepared well for that event. I didn’t know what they meant by “prepared,” but I was too sleepy to ask.
The bungalow provided a charming foyer, a living room, and two bedrooms more beautifully furnished than any place I had ever seen.
The air smelled faintly of spices and roses, a scent that I would later discover came from small decorative porcelain dishes filled with potpourri.
Each bedroom had its own spacious bath. Although no more than ten or twelve minutes had elapsed since Franklin asked the front desk clerk if rooms were available, a night maid had been to the bungalow ahead of us to switch on lamps and turn down the beds.
The bellhop, Steven, was a handsome young man, a little cheeky for such an elegant establishment, but in a sweet way.
After he placed the luggage where Loretta wished to have it, he smiled at me and winked and said, “Your outfit is very stylish, Miss Riding Hood, but you don’t have to worry about wolves.
They’re only to be found in the early evening in a nearby speakeasy.
” I thought that was funny, and as Franklin tipped him, I thanked Steven for his advice as to the habits of the local wildlife.
When he had gone, I said, “He was very nice, wasn’t he?”
Loretta smiled. “You’ll be charmed by everyone in this town from the gas-station pump jockeys to the dolled-up shopgirls in the best department stores. They’re all actors hoping to be discovered, and they think anyone they meet could be a casting director or have the ear of one.”
I felt inadequate for the town, yet I was enchanted by the magical quality of it and grateful to be there.
As bookish as I am, I thought that Quasimodo must have felt much like this, to an extent enchanted by the magnificence of Notre Dame and yet aware that he would always be an outsider, scorned by many and loathed by some, yet seeking the mercy that surpasseth all understanding.
My eyes burned, and I longed for sleep, but bed would have to wait.
My bathroom had both a shower and a tub.
The tub was clean and the water was hot and there were plenty of towels—three conditions that never occurred simultaneously in the motels where Captain and I stayed.
There was a selection of soaps with different fragrances.
If I’d fallen asleep in the tub and drowned in my bathwater, that would have been as fine a way to go as any.
Considering the strange and fearsome body that Nature has given me, I do not expect to have a long life.
Although I have never been sick, the wrongness within me must equal the wrongness without.
I have not been examined by a doctor or X-rayed, and I hope I never will be.
I don’t want to be forewarned that some tangled coil inside of me will one day rupture, filling me with brief pain and eternal darkness.
Whatever comes, let it come upon me by surprise.
As dawn arrived, I slipped into my bed and fell asleep at once.
In the nightmare, we arrived at Bramley Hall and discovered that Captain Farnam had moved in uninvited.
The children were nowhere to be found. When we asked about them, the moonfaced hateful pitchman only smiled.
He carried a black bag of the kind that a doctor might carry when making a house call, and he would not let us look in it.
Franklin went to search the basement—and didn’t come back.
In the kitchen, on the gas stove, something was boiling in a huge soup pot, but Captain prevented us from removing the lid.
Loretta opened a drawer to get a butcher knife with which to drive him out of the house, but the knives were all missing.
I woke with a gasp and sat up in bed, shaking so violently that it seemed the bungalow itself was being rocked by an earthquake.
The blackout draperies were drawn shut, and only weak light traced the edges of them.
Although the room was swathed in shadows, I knew I must be alone.
The bungalow was silent. Franklin and Loretta weren’t up and about.
According to the bedside clock, I’d been asleep only two hours.
A dream is just a dream. It portends nothing.
Nothing. I was exhausted. The dream was just a dream, not an omen.
I lay down again and soon slept peacefully, untroubled by Captain.