“It’s all right,” Ellis assured her. “What about Captain Walker?”
“Isaiah?” Jenny beamed. “His ship was driven aground against Curtis Island a few years back. Sank there with all hands lost save him only. He said he came from a terrible place across the water and that he was glad to have made the harbor here in Gamin. He told me all about the sea. I used to listen to him for hours even though none of us were supposed to talk to him.”
Now the ocean on the page was a violent and raging black satin. The ship was different yet again, this one a woodcut print of a two-masted schooner pushed hard over in a gale. The strange figures were again on the ship in exaggerated size, this time represented by cloth dolls. Monstrous creatures made of burlap, seashells, buttons and charms rose up to threaten the vessel while foil lightning crashed downward from a gray linen sky. This time there were other dolls depicted as being in the black water.
“Won’t it be exciting, Ellis?” Jenny smiled as she turned the page again.
The storm from the previous pages continued. This ship was from a different woodcut print but sailing away from Ellis. On the horizon, just peeking above it, was a broken glass button shining brightly against the darkness of the page. Threads of gold reached out from the broken glass like the rays of hope at the end of the storm. The ship, carrying a single figure, sailed toward the light.
“Only one aboard?” Ellis asked.
Jenny flushed. “It’s why I took the book from the Nightbirds Society. I needed to fix it before I put it back. That’s why I took it from the literary society and brought it home.”
“You keep your scrapbook at the society?” Ellis was astonished.
“Well, we all keep them there,” Jenny said. “Everyone here in Gamin has one! Everyone wants to have their day. You’ll have one, too, and when you do you’ll—”
A distant knocking froze Jenny midsentence.
“Ellis? Jenny?” The sound was muted by the walls.
“It’s Merrick!” Jenny breathed, terror on her face. “He can’t find out I’ve got my book here! You’ve got to get out and distract him. Send him away, Ellis, please!”
Ellis tried to calm her cousin. “If we just wait quietly, perhaps he’ll go away. Then we can—”
“He won’t.” Jenny was in a near panic. “He’ll come in and trap us in this room!”
“Ellis! Where are you?” Merrick’s voice was growing more insistent. There were other voices, lower and less distinct, that could be heard as well.
“Why did you ever design a room like this!” Ellis fumed. “It’s a trap, Jenny!”
“Me?” Jenny was incensed. “This design was entirely your idea!”
The muffled, distant sound of the front-porch door slamming came through the walls.
“Ellis? Jenny?” Several voices now called out their names. A woman’s voice was distinguished from the men’s.
Jenny was shaking, staring at the patch of blank wall through which she and Ellis had entered the workroom from the rotunda arch beyond.
Ellis stepped over to the section of wall next to it where the second door was located. The latch was still open as she pushed on it. The bookcase swung outward and Ellis slipped quickly into the music room. She hesitated for a moment but was relieved to see that the double doors that led to the vestibule were still shut. Ellis crossed to the doors and pulled them open.
“Mr. Bacchus!” she called out as she stepped into the vestibule. “I am rather surprised to find you in my home, sir.”
Merrick, standing in the arch at the far side of the rotunda, turned from the vase on the bookshelf with a look of puzzled surprise on his face. Alicia and Ely both stood in the rotunda and looked relieved to see Ellis in the vestibule behind them.
“My apologies for not answering you earlier, but I was engaged here in the music room,” Ellis said. “I’m afraid I was carried away in my reveries and did not hear your knock.”
“Of course,” Ely said at once. “Quite understandable.”
Merrick’s gaze fixed on Ely for a moment before returning to Ellis. “We were concerned when you did not answer.”
“Jenny is indisposed at the moment,” Ellis said at once. “I must beg you to leave the house. I do not wish to disturb her rest.”
Merrick stepped away from the bookcase in the archway and strolled casually toward Ellis across the parquet floor of the rotunda. He passed between Ely and Alicia without a glance. “I am sorry to hear Jenny is unwell. Strange, though, that you should have taken ill at the quilting today and now it is Jenny who needs to recover.”
“We have an invitation to deliver,” Alicia said quickly. “Once that’s done, we’ll not trespass on you further.”
“Yes,” Ely said, licking his lips. “Only please say you’ll come.”
“An invitation?” Ellis asked.
“Yes,” Merrick said. He was standing uncomfortably close to Ellis once again, as though he had a right to her space. “Alicia and Ely both feel you are in need both of welcoming and cheering up. They propose a soiree this evening in your honor.”
“There’ll be dancing,” Alicia said, an urgent pleading in her voice.
“And music,” Ely added insistently.
“I have offered the use of my home for the occasion,” Merrick said, gazing down at Ellis. “I trust you’ll save a dance for me?”
“But may I beg the honor of your first dance?” Ely added at once. “Please do not disappoint me.”
Ellis thought of Jenny panicking in the workroom. She had to get these people out of the house, although why Jenny should be so upset over a scrapbook she did not fathom.
“Please say you’ll come.” Alicia bit at her lower lip.
“Of course,” she answered. “What time are we expected?”
17
SOIREE
“Isn’t it beautiful!” Jenny exclaimed as they stepped up the stairs and onto the veranda at the back of the Norembega.
Ellis remained thoughtful. The veranda overlooked a terrace below. Chinese lanterns had been strung along cables that were, in turn, suspended from poles placed at intervals around the terrace. Wide iron cauldrons had also been set about the terrace, their coals and wood providing welcome if somewhat localized relief from the chill in the air. The Victrola from the literary society blared the poorly reproduced sounds of a Scott Joplin rag from one corner where a number of couples were dancing. The crowd covering the wide terrace spilled out onto the large lawn that ran down the slope affording an unhindered view of Gamin Bay. The beam of the lighthouse on Curtis Island stood out clearly against the twilight of the horizon, its beam sweeping like a searching eye.
It called to Ellis.
“Ellis?” Jenny prodded.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied, shaking herself from her reveries. “What were you saying?”
“You are distracted.” Jenny laughed. “Well, a good party will set you to rights. Diversion is always a good cure for distraction, I always say.”
Jenny took Ellis by the right hand and led her to one of the two facing flights of stairs that gave access down from the veranda at the back of the house to the terrace just below.
In moments they had descended into the milling crowd. Ellis had shared with Jenny one of the party dresses from her trunk and her cousin had been most anxious to show it off from the moment she had seen it. Now, however, as Ellis moved through the crowd, she found no familiar faces among them. As the soiree had been given in her honor, she had expected the guest list to have included someone she had met before—
But, she reminded herself, you don’t really know anybody. Still, she would have thought that some of the faces in the crowd would be recognizable from the Nightbirds Literary Society or Jenny’s friends who occasionally called at Summersend. There were no soldiers present so far as Ellis could see and, for that matter, Dr. Carmichael’s scarecrow visage was absent as well. She would have even welcomed seeing the rather sour face of Finny Disir. Yet both Ely and Alicia had been s
o insistent that Ellis come. Surely they must be here somewhere in the throng.
The laughing, roaring horde pressed close about as Jenny tried to lead them across the terrace from the base of the stairs. The Joplin rag had ended and been replaced rather incongruously with a waltz. The crowd around them shifted, jostling them suddenly. Jenny’s grip slipped from Ellis’s hand. Almost at once Ellis lost sight of her cousin in the throng.
“Jenny!” Ellis called out, but her words were swallowed up by the laughter, chatter and shrieking of the mob about her. “Jenny!”
Someone firmly gripped Ellis’s hand, pulling her sideways through the crowd and into the more open, welcoming expanse of the dance floor.
Ely, she thought gratefully as she blindly stumbled onto the floor. His first dance.
She followed the lead with the lift of her hand, pirouetting under the arm and emerging into a classic dance hold.
It was not Ely.
She was staring with suddenly wide eyes into the face of the man of her nightmares.
He wore a charcoal gray military greatcoat of worsted wool with the cape still attached, but if there had ever been rank insignia or service pins adorning it they had been removed. He wore no cap. His carefully combed hair was dark and wavy. His eyes were of a gray-green color that she found compelling, but they spoke to her of a sadness and longing of such depths that it frightened her. He had a face of that type that was perpetually youthful at any age.
But it was the paisley-shaped bruise that surrounded his right eye and arched across his forehead that made her tremble.
The waltz spun its opening bars across the terrace with scratchy tones from the Victrola.
The Nightmare Man pressed lightly with his right hand while pulling her waist with his left.
Transfixed, Ellis spun with him into the small world of their dance.
“Do you know me?” he asked with hope.
Passion. Heat. Pain. Desire. Giving. Taking. Holding. Fear. His voice called up thoughts and impressions unbidden. Terrible. Familiar.
“Who are you?” Ellis gasped as all of Gamin whirled around them.
“I am Jonas,” he said.
Ecstasy. Trembling. Anger. Betrayal. Tears.
“No. I don’t know you.” She knew it was a lie even as she spoke the words.
He knew it, too. He smiled even as his eyes welled up with tears.
“You have known me forever,” Jonas said as they whirled among the dancers on the floor. “I have loved you since before you breathed your first breath. I love you still and I’ve crossed heaven and hell to bring you back.”
“I just came back!”
“This isn’t where you belong.”
“I do belong here!”
“Not anymore,” he said, the world spinning in the distance beyond them. “I failed you once before. I am so sorry—more sorry than I can say—but I swear I will never fail you again. I’ve come to free you from this place forever.”
“Like you freed those women in Halifax or Bar Harbor, I suppose,” Ellis insisted. “Or that artist woman here in Gamin. I’ll not be going anywhere with you, sir!”
“This isn’t the life you’re meant to live,” Jonas insisted. “You need to live, Ellis … and I can help you live again.”
“Live again?” Ellis felt a chill run through her as she said the words. “So you see me as dead already?”
“No.” Jonas smiled. “Not yet, but very soon if—”
Jonas suddenly flew backward. Ellis, released from their dance hold, stumbled, turning once before she regained her footing.
Merrick held Jonas by the collar of his greatcoat. The tall man hooked his foot behind Jonas’s ankle and threw him back down onto the stones of the terrace.
Someone stopped the music.
Ely and Alicia pushed their way through the stunned partygoers and hurried to Ellis’s side.
“His face! Just as you described it!” Alicia said in a hushed whisper. “Who is he, Ellis?”
“I … I d-d-don’t know,” Ellis stammered.
“This is a private function, Lieutenant.” Merrick seethed as he stood between the prostrate Jonas and where Ellis stood trying to catch her breath. “I was most clear that soldiers were not welcome at this event or ever, for that matter, at my home. And need I add that it is the law in Gamin that soldiers be in uniform at all times. Now I find that these very distinct instructions have been lost on you.”
Jonas struggled to his feet, rubbing his chin. He unbuttoned his greatcoat, pulling it open. As he extended his arms, the panels of the coat opened up like wings.
The lining of the coat had been rendered in silk paisley.
“As you can see, I am in uniform,” Jonas said. Beneath the paisley-lined greatcoat he wore an officer’s jacket with a leather belt and shoulder strap. His jodhpurs and jacket, however, both bore dark stains and dirt. “I see that you have also banished Dr. Carmichael from your gathering. At least your prejudices are evenhanded, Merrick.”
“Get out, Lieutenant.” Merrick spat the last word with distaste. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Welcome or not, I’ve come for her,” Jonas said, pointing at Ellis.
“She’s come home,” Merrick said, shaking his head. “You’re an outsider and cannot possibly think that you have any authority here.”
“She was mine,” Jonas insisted.
“She was mine first,” Merrick countered. “You’re a thief. Your stolen goods were returned to their rightful place and now you whine that the property you stole is no longer yours. But this is my day, Jonas. My rules. My law.”
“I’m not bound by your law,” Jonas replied. “I’ve come for her, Merrick … and nothing is going to stop me!”
Merrick leaped toward Jonas with a cry. His grasp closed around the collar of the greatcoat as Jonas turned. The coat sagged.
Moths, hundreds in various sizes and shapes, erupted from the collar of the coat, rushing upward into the deepening night sky.
Silence gripped the crowd.
Ellis trembled between Alicia and Ely, the world growing distant as she felt she was about to faint.
Merrick turned, the now-empty coat still held up in his grip.
A broad smile came to his face.
“Magic!” Merrick declared with a laugh. “Abracadabra! I’ve made the bogeyman disappear!”
Tittering laughter sprinkled through the crowd.
“I hope you all enjoyed our little entertainment.” Merrick beamed, waving the greatcoat as though it were a matador’s cape. The laughter grew as Merrick posed with the coat, flicking it for his audience. Soon applause ensued and a few cheers. Merrick took a bow. “I may not be Houdini, but I trust our little drama was diverting!”
Ellis was not applauding, nor, she realized, were Alicia and Ely next to her. Above Merrick’s smile Ellis noticed his brow was glistening. The man was sweating.
Jenny emerged at last from the cheering mob, excited and flushed. “Ellis, was that the man you saw in your dream?”
“Yes.” Ellis nodded, trying to swallow, but her mouth had suddenly gone quite dry.
“Of course, it couldn’t have been the man in your dream, really,” Jenny went on. “I mean, it must have all been part of Merrick’s clever little performance.”
“There was nothing clever about it!” Ellis snapped at Jenny. “Even if he had arranged such a thing, it would have been a cruel joke!”
“I’m sure he meant well,” Jenny said, taken suddenly aback. “Really, Ellie, I know that Merrick can sometimes do things that make him appear difficult, but he has our best interests at heart.”
“Does he?” Alicia demanded. “Don’t you ever question him?”
“Why should I?” Jenny answered. “It’s his day and I honor it as we all should.”
Merrick took another bow and then raised his hand in a beckoning gesture. “Let the party continue. Strike up the music once more, my good friends. I feel like a nice Castle Walk.”
The Victrol
a screeched back to life as the needle dropped back into the recorded groove. It was another Joplin ragtime dance—the “Pleasant Moments” rag—and the dancers returned to the floor moving at once into a Castle Walk step. It was a simple step, Ellis observed, one easily taught to the inexperienced.
Merrick tossed the greatcoat over a lawn chair at the edge of the dance floor and strode up to where Ellis was standing. Jenny brightened considerably as he approached, but her expression fell as Merrick ignored her and spoke directly to Ellis.
“I see that my little play has upset you,” Merrick said, holding out his hand by way of invitation. “Perhaps I can make amends by—”
“I believe Miss Harkington has promised her first dance to me,” Ely interrupted.
“But Ellis has already danced,” Merrick said, casting a cool eye on the young man.
“I hardly think that the unwanted attentions of a masher should qualify for the first dance of the evening,” Ely said, taking up Ellis’s hand.
“I’m sure that Miss March will be delighted to be your partner, Merrick,” Alicia added. “Then when Mr. Rossini has returned with Ellis she will be delighted to take a turn around the floor with you.”
Jenny beamed up at Merrick.
“Miss Harkington?” Ely urged.
“Mr. Rossini.” Ellis nodded as she moved in front of him to take up her dancing position.
Ely gave gentle pressure with his hand and Ellis stepped back with the beat. They quickly merged with the other couples on the floor, Merrick staring after them in their wake.
“Mr. Rossini,” Ellis said, “thank you for being kind, but did you see that man with the paisley-shaped—”
“We have not much time,” Ely said, his words quick and clipped. “Can you show us the gate?”
“Show you the … what gate?”
“We have to get out,” Ely continued. “I’ve been trying for some time. I’ve listened to the soldiers and spoken with Dr. Carmichael, but I don’t want the responsibility that either of them demands. Alicia and I both want to get out—the same way you did—and you’re the only one who can show us the way.”
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