Prose: "Lazarus"

Lazarus

Megan Yarusso, Class of 2025

Saturday visits were always hardest for him, when I insisted on opening up the old parlor for guests. Though the floors had been re-carpeted and the furniture was some of the best in the house, nothing about the room could please him, not even the freshly cut peonies, artfully arranged in Hattie’s lily-white china. But it was always the favorite room in the house, and what would they think, I asked him, if you boarded it up without warning? He said nothing, only breathed softly through his nose, and turned away. In spite of himself, I could still rely on him to see the reason in things, so that we never fought on important matters. It got so that I did not like it when he breathed at me and said nothing; I had rather he spoke sharply about what was on his mind. 

That Saturday he was wearing a fine blue waistcoat, lovely wool trousers, and a brilliant silk tie, all of which I had picked out for him. When he had first returned, I ordered an entirely new wardrobe, accounting for every kind of weather. I called every catalog in the state, his measurements carefully taken down on one of Hattie’s old pink letter cards. The people I spoke with on the phone always asked the occasion—newly married? Son off to university? Just arrived from somewhere far away? A friend of mine is in need, I told them. He’s trying to get back on his feet. Graciously, I received their sympathetic clucking, their insistence that such a friend had surely changed the tide of his luck, seeing that I was at his side. Would it have made their day, to hear it was my fault he needed a new wardrobe in the first place? Before he came back, I could not stand to have his things in the house, even boxed up in the attic. The charity shops in the city are now littered with silk shirts bearing his initials, but he has not asked after them once. 

The tie was different. No catalogs or phone calls involved. I came across it a week before the funeral was to be held, at a Camden shop peddling very smart vintage clothes. It caught my eye for its shade of green that was almost identical to the time-beaten flat cap he used to wear whenever it snowed. The hat had irked me—what a raggedy thing for such a well polished man to warm his head with in winter! And yet in Camden, the color alone stirred me into excess, and I quite forgot I had meant to be saving my money to buy something for Hattie’s birthday. So I bought the tie instead, thinking of him. When I got home from the airport, I put it in the bottom drawer of my dresser, intending never to look at it again. 

Watching him over breakfast that morning, I remembered the incident with a smile. Everything had seemed so very final in Camden. The tie was a bit crooked around his collar, but I didn’t mind much, so long as he was presentable. On Saturdays, I buttoned his cuffs for him, and made sure his shoes were laced up properly. Though I dare say he was always the best-looking person in the house, he had grown unobservant as of late. To compensate, my eye for detail sharpened by the hour. In the five years that had passed since I had come into his and Hattie’s employ, I had learned well the fragile patterns that governed their way of life, and fallen in love with the careful placement of cutlery at the conclusion of a meal, the gentle tipping of a hat to a passing acquaintance. White gloves and gold cufflinks, in the proper lighting, had come to thrill me more than I could say. 

We didn’t get a great many visitors this time of year. Mostly locals from the countryside, or city people on holiday, would stop in every now and again, and we would entertain them, and serve them tea, and watch them drive away from the library windows. He did alright with those sorts of visits: plain people, full of common little sayings, with equally sized senses of style and humor. I liked them terribly myself. They never pressed much: all their questions were about what was served for dinner, how often he went hunting, if it was very quiet in the country. Very dull, very nice things to ask.

This was not the sort of visitor we encountered that Saturday morning. Instead, Miss Haskell had come to tea with the worst of her society; a throng consisting of three young ladies and two gentlemen from the city, all dressed in very disorienting fashions. Whenever one of them moved, the rest would flock after, clashing a dozen gaudy patterns into a cacophonous rainbow. I got quite the headache whenever one of them made to cling at Miss Haskell’s arm. These were not the sorts of visitors we were good with. I shouldn’t have expected anything but disaster. 

He had been slumped down in his chair, leafing through an old volume, when I announced her arrival at the drawing room door. “Is that Hattie’s old aunt?” He asked me and did not look up. “I can’t remember all of her relatives.” 

“She’s Hattie’s cousin’s mother-in-law, sir,” I informed him, and gently took the book from his lap. “She’s waiting for you in the parlor.” 

“Why’d you go and put her in the parlor?” He asked, shifting out onto the edge of his seat, brushing my hands away from where they had gone to straighten his tie. 

“She insisted on taking tea there. What would you have me say?” 

“Nothing,” he rose, and fetched his book from where I had laid it on the arm of his chair. “I’ll be down in a moment.” 

Though Miss Haskell had evidently ordered her disciples to leave him an empty seat at her side, he placed himself, as he always did, in the blue-velvet high-backed chair. It was the oldest piece of furniture in the room, and its dark color and grand curves naturally drew the eye away from the parlor’s airy shades of wedding-cake wallpaper and lily-white china. I was pleased that no one in Haskell’s party had dared to sit in it themselves; the chair matched his waistcoat perfectly, and I shuddered to think of that respectable old seat swallowed up by some awful frilly frock. 

“I must say, the house is all the brighter, now that you’ve come home!” Haskell leaned over the table to address him, any offense she may have taken at his choice of seat having vanished beneath the gentle ruffles of cooing and chittering from her companions. “I’m sure Hattie is very happy to have you back. You can always tell, when there are fresh flowers, that the woman of the house is very happy.” She smiled at him. He smiled back, in the way that we practiced together. I poured him tea, and he met my eyes as he thanked me, before turning to deliver his reply. 

“Hattie isn’t around anymore, actually.” 

I felt my heart stutter, and the teapot in my hands began to falter as my breath hitched around his confession. Haskell only grinned wider, her eyebrows knotting together as he stirred sugar into his tea. Her companions had at last stopped their chatter, but I could not bring myself to relish in it. “You mean, she is away, visiting family, or on holiday in the city?” 

“Perhaps. I don’t know where she’s gone.” 

Haskell let out a high laugh, and her companions followed suit, until the beautiful old parlor brimmed with bemused squawking. The carnival has come to town at last, I told myself. This is everything you have worked for undone. Haskell clasped her hands over her chest, and I wished someone would do the same to me, and hold my heart down before it burst. 

“My dear, what can you mean by this! You and Hattie haven't had a row, have you?” 

He peered thoughtfully into his tea, as if the cup could take the floor for him, and let him slip back to the library window. 

“No, I don’t suppose we have.”

A blanket of quiet fell over the parlor. No one dared take tea in such a silence, though it would certainly be a comfort, to have a proper excuse not to speak. The door had fallen open at last, the ugly truth had slithered out for all to see. He is back, and he is as well-dressed as ever, and the parlor as lovely as ever, and the house as clean and well-kept as ever, but Hattie has gone away. It occurred to everyone at the same time, though they waited for Haskell to voice it. 

“If your wife no longer lives here, who keeps up the house? What will become of this place?” 

“I am thinking of selling it. So perhaps someone else will know what to do with it.” I turned away from him so I could put down the teapot. I could not support it any longer. The edges of the room seemed strange and dark then, clotted with dust and disuse. No one came here, except on Saturdays. I should’ve boarded it up weeks ago. I should’ve left with Hattie when I had the chance. 

“Sell the estate! What of your wife?” 

“She won’t mind.” 

“Well, I say!” suddenly animated by her indignation, Haskell nearly upended an entire row of teacups as she struggled to her feet beneath the heavy layers of her satin dress. “This is all terribly vexing. Sell the estate! As if Hattie would ever allow it. Come, my dear boy, let us take some fresh air. It’ll clear your head,” she reached for his arm, and I was too distracted, too outside of myself to prevent it. I knew what he would do before it happened, as if cursed by a second sight. As his wrist went slack, I dimly wondered if Hattie had known this would happen. I was certain then, as certain as I’d ever been, that Hattie could’ve kept him from dropping the cup, and letting the hot tea splash over the front of his waistcoat, down onto the green silk tie. 

“You will excuse me,” he said to Haskell with a smile. “I must go and change.” 

When they had all gone, I faced him at last as myself. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked him, half-possessed by impulse to check his forehead for a fever. “You hardly acted like a person at all! You were doing alright, up until you said that thing about Hattie. Why’d you go and spill the tea? Do you know how expensive that tie was?” 

He had changed into a white linen shirt, though it was much too cold for such a garment. I suppose he did not care if he fell ill and died anymore. What was to prevent it from ensuring he stayed dead? 

“You can take however much it cost from the accounts. Hattie won’t care.” 

Hattie used to manage all the accounts by hand in her study, pouring over the expense of every crumb of cheese and cut of flowers to ensure nothing was extraneous, nothing wasted. There was no use in mentioning it. 

“What made you say that about Hattie?” I implored. We had agreed, when she left, that it was best not to mention it. That people would wonder, and delight in asking after it, and so it was necessary not to mention it. He shook out the cuffs of his sleeves, and began trying in vain to button them. 

“Hattie doesn’t arrange the peonies. You do.”  I took his left arm, and did up the cuff before he drove me insane. 

“What does that matter? It's meant to be her job.” 

“Why do you do it then?” 

“What would people think, if we left the petals to dry and wither all over the new carpet?” I finished the right cuff, and he drew away towards the window, watching the grey midday sky with sudden interest. Little things captured him so easily since he’d come back; bird calls, and morning fog, and the subtle shifting of the clouds.

“We could lock up the parlor.” 

It would’ve been kinder if he had struck me, or spat on me. Cast to the very lowest rung of his regard, I was below even his contempt. I stepped in front of him, dragging his gaze down from the sky. I drew the curtains closed. 

“Why’d you come back at all?” I demanded, and found the question exhausting, having weighed against me ever since he had appeared at the door, and Hattie had fled at the sight of him, and we had gone on regardless. “Why die and come back if it does you no good to be alive?” 

“Hattie wanted me back,” he said, frowning. “Here I am.” 

That was not good enough. I fell back against the red velvet curtains, and only saved myself when he moved to catch me, and I thought I better spare myself the humiliation. 

“I ran this place, while you were gone,” I told him. “Hattie couldn’t lift a finger thinking of you.” He frowned, hands still raised to steady me, or perhaps to draw open the curtains and let the light back in. Why did we keep the rooms so dark? 

“Where did she go?” He asked, and drew his arms back into himself. “What if she came back?” The laugh that escaped me would’ve rivaled Miss Haskell in her best humor, and he recoiled from it, as if slapped. 

“She isn’t coming back!” How I hated him for letting me raise my voice at him. I must’ve looked ghastly, pale and trembling, and he could only stare back at me, no more astounded than he would be looking in a mirror. 

“No, I suppose she isn’t,” He agreed, something growing dim around the edges of his eyes, a coolness that made me shiver. “I won’t sell the house. I’ll let you have it. You can do what you like with it.” I placed my hands around his shoulders, as if to shake him from a nightmare. 

“You can’t do that.” 

“Why not?” 

He released himself from me, widening the current between us to an impossible distance, and I was left unanchored in his wake. The image he’d conjured made me sick: I, head of the estate. Taking tea in the parlor, forcing a smile for Haskell and her crowd, writing letters and sending invitations, dressing well–impossibly well–and placing myself in the blue-velvet high-backed chair. Wearing white gloves and gold cufflinks. I could never do it. I would be eaten alive. I would make one slip, and they would eat me for it. He wanted me to be devoured alive.

“It wasn’t made for me,” I said. A wave of fatigue carried me back into the curtains, and I thought of the window behind them, and of the sky overhead. He watched me for a long time, without a word passing between us. 

“We will do this every Saturday,” his voice came as a whisper at first, then grew steadier. “Forever, whether or not Hattie ever comes back.” I could’ve wept. I could’ve thrown myself at his feet, weeping. 

“Yes,” I breathed, encouraged by his resolve. “It isn’t really so much that’s being asked of you.”

“And yet,” he fiddled with the buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves. “I continue to falter.” 

“It isn’t your fault,” I assured him, and returned slowly, cautious not to over-crowd. “You used to be very good at it, Sir. I remember.” How wonderfully he used to put in the lunch order, and take coffee on the lawn. How they used to go out riding on weekends, lively and flushed from the wind. 

“I’ll take my afternoon tea in the parlor,” he told me. I smiled at him. He smiled back.

Judge's Notes:

“This story immediately grabs you and doesn’t let go. Tension and foreboding are immediate in what at first glance is an innocuous opening, reminding me of H.P. Lovecraft in its ability to make the little hairs on your arms stand up with an undercurrent of creepiness you just can’t put

your finger on. The protagonist’s attention to detail (clothing, household condition, fresh flowers) tells us fastidiousness is paramount, not just for running the estate but for maintaining control over an unexpected situation. Tension slowly builds for the protagonist (and the reader) as that carefully built control begins to crumble, and it slowly dawns on us what has actually happened in the house. I was incredibly impressed with the writer’s attention to perfectly placed details, weaving a story that gets under your skin.”