Emery's Mansion: The Sequel to Rattle of the Looms

By Paul A. Lavallee

Paul A. Lavallee is a romantic when writing or talking about small town New England. He is an occasional contributor to a weekly newspaper publication, writing on local issues as well as timely articles of interest. He was born and still lives in the heart of the Blackstone River Valley, where Americas industrial revolution began.

A Marine veteran of the Korean War, Mr. Lavallees recollection of growing up in a small mill town during the war years of the 1940s, along with his later experiences at Parris Island, and then in war-ravaged Korea in the 1950s, all tended to inspire him to write his first novel, Rattle of the Looms. That novel was and still is so well received that a sequel seemed imperative. Thus comes the revisiting of the old mill town, Northcross, along with the eeriness of Emery Sibleys mansion, the few vaguely familiar faces over at Felix Morrells bar, as well as the folks who happen to be still around town in 1982, twenty-eight years after the close of the original novel that ended in 1954.

Semper Fi

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 23, 2007
• ISBN: 9781467086127

Paul A. Lavallee

Mr. Lavallee is a romantic when talking or writing about small town New England.He was born and still lives in the heart of the Blackstone River valley, where America's industrial revolution first began. He is a Marine veteran of the Korean war, a former VFW Commander, a DAV member, and a member of the Italian-American (ITAM) war veteran's post. He does not play bocce.

Book preview

Chapter One

Dave Ruell narrowed his eyes to read the fine print in the real estate section of the county newspaper. He’d been squinting for years, but his glasses never seemed to be handy when he needed them, like right now. Though a bit frustrated, he managed to read a few lines by holding the newspaper out as far as his arms would allow.

Ya know, Davy, teased his Uncle Peter from his favorite stool at the end of long, L-shaped bar, if yer arms were six inches longer you’d be able to read that newspaper with no problem at all.

Dave smiled without looking up from the newspaper, but not because of his uncle’s comical comment. He was thinking that his Uncle Peter was the only person in all of Northcross and Sibleyville who still called him Davy, and Davy just didn’t seem to be a good fit for a forty-nine years old man.

After a few silent moments, Dave glanced over to his uncle and said, I see the mansion’s up for sale again.

Oh, that’s nothin’ new, shrugged the old man. Christ, the doctor’s family’s been tryin’ to unload it fer the past ten years, ever since he died. I hear you can pick it up fer what they owe in back taxes, somewhere around two million.

Is that all? remarked Dave with mild sarcasm.

Uncle Peter took another sip of beer, then contemplatively asked, I wonder why the doctor ever bought it in the first place. He never spent so much as one night there in…what’s it been now…twenty years since the Sibleys?…

Ya, that is strange, said Dave as he refolded the newspaper. Maybe he bought it as a tax write-off.

Well, whatever the reason, commented Peter while easing himself down from the bar stool, it sure don’t seem like he got his money’s worth out of it.

I guess not, said Dave as he walked over to the light switch panel. Let’s close up and go home, unc. We’ve had a busy day.

He tucked the money bag under his arm and followed Peter out the door. Peter waited on the sidewalk while Dave fumbled with the lock.

Wait a minute, Davy. You forgot to turn off the sign.

Oh, shoot! That’s twice this week I do that,

Uncle Peter gazed up at the sign until it went out. Funny, he was thinking, that that same name, Felix’s, had been up there on the building even before he was born, seventy-five years ago. Old Felix would be proud if he knew that Davy had kept his name in neon lights all these years.

They hobbled across Providence Road towards Uncle Peter’s tenement house over on School Street. Dave still limped a bit from having been wounded in the ankle back in 1952, during the Korean War. With a little concentrated effort though, especially when he knew that people were watching, he could manage to walk without the slightest trace of a limp, although not for too long. Uncle Peter’s limp was partly because of his seventy-five years, and partly because his bullet-riddle body had survived the Marine landing on Bougainville in the South Pacific during WWII.

I wonder how bad the inside of the mansion is now, asked Peter, what with kids breakin’ in every other week or so.

According to Chief Reilly, it’s not bad at all. He found out that the kids somehow sneak in there only when they’re challenged. They dare each other to spend the night there alone, you know, that old business about the place being haunted.

Maybe it is, said Peter. Maybe ol’ Emery’s ghost is still roamin’ about, or maybe Harry’s.

No way, said Davy with certainty. Harry’d already seen enough of this world when he blew his brains out, and I put Emery’s ghost to rest long before that.

Peter gave his nephew a peculiar glance as they turned onto School Street. An’ how’d ya do that? he questioned.

I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not tonight. It’s a long story.

I still think the kids might be right. That place is haunted! insisted Peter. I’ve always thought so.

Dave laughed aloud, but said nothing.

Sure, go ahead an’ laugh, reacted Peter, seriously, but how do you explain what happened that night when Officer Kelly was drivin’ along by the Mill Pond in his cruiser?

Dave laughed again, then replied, I think Officer Kelly was seeing things. He’s been known to see things through the bottom of that bottle he keeps under the seat of his cruiser. What he saw was likely just a reflection from his headlights.

Reflection my ass! retorted Peter. He swore on a stack of bibles that he saw a dim, glowin’ light floatin’ slowly across the parlor ceilin’, like a dull ball of fire, he said.

Ya, and what did he find when he investigated?

That’s just it! explained Peter. The place was locked up tighter than a drum. He radioed the chief fer the key, an’ when they searched the place they found nothin’ other than the faint odor of a kerosene lamp.

If my memory serves me right, unc, refuted Dave, they didn’t find the lamp, did they?

That’s what makes me think the place is haunted.

Listen, uncle, said Dave, decidedly, that all happened five years ago on Halloween night, and I think what maybe happened was that the kids set-up Officer Kelly. They somehow got into the mansion without breaking anything, waited until he drove along the road by the Mill Pond, then just at the right time dangled a kerosene lamp on the end of a long pole. By the time Kelly got there, the kids were already out the back door and into the woods. That lock on the back door is only a spring lock, so it locked automatically when they left. To me, the only mystery is how the kids have gotten in there all these years without actually breaking anything.

I still say the place is haunted! said Peter, convinced.

They climbed the steps to Peter’s tenement house, entered quietly, and found Jamie asleep on the couch with the television set blaring away and an open college textbook by his side.

Wake up, Jamie, bellowed Uncle Peter. Go up to bed.

Jamie stirred a bit, then mumbled sleepily, Hi, there, unc. Hi, dad.

Peter followed Jamie towards the stairway, but Dave made his way over to his favorite easy-chair across the room.

Ain’t ya comin’ up to bed, Davy? asked Peter.

Dave nodded, but said, I’ll be along in a little while. Got some thinking to do.

Chapter Two

Emery Sibley’s mansion, haunted or otherwise, had once been the pinnacle of the man’s fantastic success story. His booming textile and textile machinery business had made him a multi-millionaire while he was still in his twenties. That was back in 1900 or so. His business had thrived through World War I, survived the great depression of the 1930’s, and had been a major contributor to the manufacture of military supplies during World War II. His untimely death in 1943 from an accidental fall down the mansion’s stairs would, in time, indirectly mark the beginning of the end of the textile and textile machinery manufacturing business in the North.

When Emery’s son, Harry Sibley, took control of the business after his father’s death, there still was little in evidence to show that an eventual decline in orders would ultimately lead to bankruptcy. Although Harry would never become the shrewd businessman that his father had been, it was not his lack of ingenuity that would one day lead to the demise of the business in 1960. Harry had had to contend with increasing operating costs, cheaper labor down South, and, most importantly, foreign imports.

Fer chrissakes, Davy, hollered Uncle Peter from the top of the stairs. It’s one-thirty. Ain’t cha comin’ to bed?

Okay, okay, mumbled Dave. I’ll be up in a little while. Christ!

Dave Ruell felt like an old man, a tired, lonely old man. Oh, he didn’t usually feel that way since bartenders and bar owners were supposed to be a cheerful breed, but it seemed that whenever the subject of the mansion came up like it did tonight in his conversation with Uncle Peter, his mind would wander back through the years, sometimes as far back as when he was a ten year old boy delivering newspapers during that great blizzard, the night he found old Emery lying dead at the foot of the mansion’s stairs with his eyes wide open. It seemed that most of the things that made Dave Ruell reminisce in sadness were associated with the mansion, mainly the death of his young wife, Pamela, Emery Sibley’s granddaughter.

Hey, Dad, it’s two o’clock, hollered Jamie from the top of the stairs. You’ll be exhausted all day tomorrow. C’mon up to bed, will ya?

Will you two leave me alone! I’m just reminiscing a bit.

About what?

At the moment, about your great-grandfather, Emery—and your mother, too.

I wish you’d stop looking at that painting on the wall, Dad. You get so down when you do that. I’m sure that my mother wouldn’t have wanted you to be unhappy every time you looked at her painting. You’ve always told me that she was a ray of sunshine in your life. Why can’t you let her be that?

Okay, okay. I’ll be up in a few minutes.

Emery Sibley’s empire is only a faded memory now. If not for the name of the town he once owned, developed, and ruled over, Sibleyville, the several public buildings that still bare his name, and the weathered plaque attached to the old, red-brick Northcross Mill that tells of his beginnings there, there wasn’t much in evidence left to link Emery Sibley, the person, with anyone in today’s 1982 Sibleyville, except for the little-known and vaguely remembered blood that flows in Jamie Ruell’s veins, for Jamie is Emery Sibley’s great-grandson, his only remaining blood descendant. And since Jamie has always, from birth, lived in a tenement house with his father and his father’s Uncle Peter, not many would suspect that he is, or would have been, the rightful heir to the Sibley empire, had it survived.

Jamie’s other great-grandfather, Pierre Ruell, was father to both Uncle Peter and Dave’s father, Joseph. Joseph had died from the pressures of having been senior vice-president at the massive Sibley manufacturing complex during its waning years, just prior to the reduction in its workforce of from 4800 or so employees to none. Joseph had insisted that a big layoff was necessary if the company was to survive, but Harry Sibley, who had always been a people person, felt responsible for the welfare of his employees and their families. And so, Joseph Ruell died from worry and Harry had gone broke trying to keep the company afloat. That was the end of the Sibley empire. What had once been the vibrant, crown jewel town of the textile industry soon became nothing more than a town cluttered with vacant industrial buildings, made even more unsightly by an ever increasing number of broken windows, all repossessed by the government for non-payment of eleven million dollars in back taxes, the mansion included.

If I catch the little bastards, I’ll boot their asses, Harry Sibley had once raged to Dave Ruell, his son-in-law, shortly after he’d walked out of his main office building for the last time.

Why worry about it, dad, Dave had responded. Empty factory buildings with all those windows and boys with bb guns or stones kind of go together.

Jamie Ruell, of course, at almost twenty-one now, never knew his grandfathers or great-grandfathers. Much of what he learned about them he got from Uncle Peter, who was never known to hold back whatever was on his mind. The lad must have been devastated with guilt several years ago when Uncle Peter, who’d been drinking heavily at the time, told him that his mother, Pamela Sibley Ruell, had died while giving birth to him, that great-grandfather Pierre had dropped dead on that very morning from the shock of the news, and that Pamela’s father, Harry Sibley, who had already been devastated over the loss of his company, had not been able to further cope with the loss of their only child, had shot and killed his wife, Charlotte, before turning the shotgun on himself while visiting Pamela’s grave several days after her funeral.

The news sometime later that the mansion had been sold saddened Dave, he recalled. They had no right, he’d thought. It didn’t belong to them. It belonged to Pamela and Emery and Harry and Charlotte and Clara, and it belonged to him, too, to his memories. How could they have sold his memories when they weren’t for sale? For him it would always be Emery Sibley’s mansion even though a doctor from Boston had purchased it. It was then that he had made his vow, he remembered, that one day he’d return the mansion to its rightful owner, to his son, Jamie, for the Sibley blood that flows in Jamie Ruell’s veins does not belong in the tenement houses of Northcross.

Chapter Three

You’re gonna be in great shape to play golf with Uncle Peter this afternoon, Dad, commented Jamie from the doorway.

W-Why, what time is it? asked Dave, startled awake.

Seven o’clock. replied Jamie with a trace of disgust in his voice.

Holy Christ!

Ya, holy Christ! echoed Jamie as he turned and headed for the kitchen. Why didn’t you come up to bed when we called you?

I know, I know, groaned Dave as he rose from his easy-chair and hobbled over to the couch. He fixed the pillow, pulled the comforter up under his chin, then hollered, Wake me up when you leave, will you, Jamie?

I’m leaving now, Dad, in a couple minutes. I’ve got an early class.

That’s okay. Uncle Peter’ll wake me up when he gets up.

Jamie returned to the living room from the kitchen holding a doughnut in one hand and four college textbooks tucked under his arm. Gotta go, dad. See ya sometime next Friday—unless there’s a party. I’ll call you.

Okay, Jamie. Drive slow, and no surprises.

Don’t worry, dad, replied the young man, grinning. I’m always careful—about my driving, too. And he slammed the door shut.

Little bastard! reacted Dave, chuckling.

Just then, Peter’s voice resonated from upstairs, I suppose you’re gonna call off our golf match this afternoon.

Why would I do that?

Because you were up all friggin’ night.

So what? It’s Monday, you know, my only day off, and I have two knuckleheads nagging at me all night long. Can’t a guy have a little time to himself, for chrissakes?

Sure, but I’m only thinkin’ of you. You’ve got that annual harvest dance meeting tonight at the country club. When are ya gonna get some rest?

Oh, shit! I forgot about that damned meeting. Maybe I’d better catch a few winks right now.

Five buck says we won’t play golf this afternoon.

You’re on.

Although he tried desperately to recall the good times, Dave couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything other than the tragedies that had happened when Pamela died. He remembered that a magnificently brilliant, early morning sun had glittered across the Mill Pond that morning, almost blinding him as he drove along the roadway towards his grandfather Pierre’s cottage on the Sibley mansion grounds. Then again, maybe it had only seemed to be so brilliant because of the great tears that had welled-up in his eyes, magnifying the light. Why he’d decided to go there first, he really didn’t know, except that his grandfather had always been a tower of strength, even more so than his dead father, and he’d needed that then, at that moment, a strong shoulder to cry on.

Old Pierre had awakened with a start from Dave’s impatient knocks on his door, and he’d focused his sleepy eyes towards the alarm clock in disbelief—it was quarter to six! He’d scrambled out of bed as quickly as his eighty-one year old body would allow and shuffled to his door, cursing a bit as he went.

Pepere, she’s dead! She didn’t make it! Dave remembered blurting out in tearful panic. What am I going to do now?

Who’s dead, Davy? Pierre had asked, shaken.

Pamela’s dead, Pepere! My Pamela’s dead. She died at the hospital. I….

He’d thrown himself into the old man’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably, but the shock of the news had obviously been too much for Pierre to bear. His once powerful arms had suddenly fallen away, and his limp body had begun to slump to the floor, eased down gently by Dave’s own powerful arms.

Please, Pepere, please, Dave recalled screaming, hysterically, don’t you die on me, too! Not now! I need you!

But the old man had breathed his final breath.

In the early months of Pamela’s pregnancy, she insisted that it was only fair for Dave to be the one to choose a name for the new arrival, should it happen to be a boy. She had chosen Alison for a girl’s name. He remembered that conversation as though it had happened yesterday when she had asked, Have you decided on a boy’s name yet?

Oh, I don’t know, he’d replied, shrugging. I have one in mind, but you may not like it.

Why wouldn’t I like it, unless it’s Junior, she’d teased, grinning.

Okay, then. How about James? he’d suggested.

James? Where did you ever get that name? she had laughed. I thought you’d name him after somebody in the family, or at least some famous person.

You mean names like Emery, or Harry, or Pierre, or even Rock after Rock Hudson?

I suppose James does have a better ring to it, she’d said, repeating the name several times over. James, James, James—yes, I like it. We could call him Jamie.

I was hoping you’d like it.

Yes, I do like it, but what made you think of it? We don’t really know anyone by that name, not anybody close, do we?

I do.

Who is he, then?

His name is Lieutenant James Michael Fagan, United States Marine Corps.

And he wouldn’t mind if we named our son after him?

He wouldn’t mind.

Chapter Four

Whadda ya think, unc, a six iron? asked Dave.

For you, a six iron, chuckled Peter. For me, a two wood.

Maybe I’d better use a wood myself. I don’t feel too chipper today.

How the hell could you feel chipper? You were up all friggin’ night.

I know, unc, but sometimes I can’t turn my mind off.

Ya know, Davy, suggested Peter as he turned his body from side to side without moving his feet, to limber-up, I think what you need is more now and less back then.

Easier said than done, commented Dave while addressing the ball. Then, swishh, and the ball hooked to the left. Should’ve used an iron, I guess.

Peter stood over his ball, narrowed his eyes, and swishh, straight for the cup. See what happens when you get a good night’s sleep, he teased.

They walked along towards Dave’s ball limping like two invalids. Along the way Peter asked, Who ya takin’ to the dance?

Oooh, I don’t know, replied Dave, hesitantly. I might not go.

You’re on the board of directors; you have to go.

Maybe I’ll ask that Jenny Scovill. She’s still in damn nice shape for a forty-five year old broad. Her divorce came final a month or so ago. Saw it in the paper.

Peter grinned, then said, Oh, she’s lovely all right, but ya gotta ask yerself what drove the husband away.

Whadda ya mean by that?

Well, I was watchin’ her the other night at your place when she came in to eat with some guy I didn’t know.

And? prompted Dave.

Well, the poor bastard never got two words in. All she did was yak, yak, yak all the time they were sitting there, and the poor bastard looked like he couldn’t wait to take her home. Christ!

Dave mulled that over for a moment, then said, Maybe I’d better give that a little more thought. I hate yakkers.

Before they even got to his ball, Dave began to complain. Look where my God-damned ball landed, buried in a hole. That’s a free lift, he decided.

Free lift, my ass! exclaimed Peter, seriously. You move that ball an’ it’ll cost you a stroke! I’ve got the friggin’ scorecard!

Okay, okay! submitted Dave, reluctantly. Think I’ll use a nine iron, high with backspin. Then, clunk!

Uncle Peter couldn’t hold back his laughter. Looks like the only one not smilin’ around here is you, Davy. That’s ball’s smilin’ at you all the way over on the next fairway.

Dammit! I didn’t get under it.

After two more attempts, Dave finally made the green, and he waited there next to his ball while Peter went through some antics he’d seen the pros do on television, closing one eye and holding the club vertically with the tips of his fingers—for alignment.

Dave became impatient. What the hell are you doing, unc?

Linin’ up my ball. Whadda ya think I’m doin’, fer chrissakes?

I hope you’re not gonna use that putter and roll it on.

Why the Christ not?

Because you’re not supposed to use a putter on the fairway. Jesus, you’re not even on the apron yet.

You show me in the book where it says that I can’t use a putter on the fairway.

Okay, okay! surrendered Dave, because he didn’t know for sure.

Here it comes! hollered Peter. And it’s headin’ right for the cup. It’s gonna drop in! Quick, pull the pin!

Dave knew that he couldn’t get to the pin in time, so he just stood there and watched as the ball rolled in a perfect