by Andre Norton
There were no more hampers, and Saranna caught sight of the two men who had never spoken, now carrying the loaded filled ones one at a time out of the front door, to return in what seemed a very short time and select another. Saranna's back ached from kneeling to pack, but Damaris had finished taking all the pieces from their display shelves and now squatted, as intent on fitting them away as Saranna was.
The older girl was so tense she feared her very touch might splinter some of the delicate porcelain. She kept listening for any sound which might herald a descent upon them by some member of the household. But what she did hear instead was the approach of the storm. The last two hampers had to be transported out into the rain. Transported where? And who were the two silent helpers upon whom they had depended this night?
Damaris shut and latched the front door. They were once more in the deep dark, since the lamps were now out. There was a crack of thunder which made Saranna cringe at its sudden noise. Then she almost cried out as Damaris' arm went around her waist.
"We did it, we really did!" The child's voice was full of triumph.
"But who were those men? And where did they take everything?" Saranna wanted to know. She felt as if she had been under some spell from which that clap of thunder had awakened her. Why had she obeyed Damaris so meekly without any questions? This almost had the same force as that dream.
"Don't worry." Damaris sounded far too blithe. Saranna's irritation first with herself and then with the child, grew. "They are safe—and the treasure is safe now. It is where nobody dares try to get it. I put it where Grandfather would have wanted it if he had known about Honora."
"Damaris—you've got to tell me where!” Saranna flinched from another terrific crackle of thunder.
"It's in the garden—safe in the Princess' garden. I can't tell you any more. I said that only because you have the fox head. So she must trust you a little."
That "she" did not refer to Honora, of course. But— did Damaris mean the Fox Lady? What was a dream and what was not? If she only knew!
"Come on—we've got to get to bed. Sometimes when it storms like this the Poker goes around looking for open windows—"
Damaris pulled her toward the stairs, and Saranna felt her way up. She must know—she must make some sense of this. But Damaris had slipped on ahead, and the older girl felt that even if she cornered the child in her room she might not get any more out of her tonight. But there was always tomorrow, and Saranna could wait that long in spite of her impatience and uneasiness.
12
HSU-WAITING
But there was something Saranna could do besides demand explanations from Damaris; she could finish her letter to Mr. Sanders. She took out her small lap desk, brought out paper, made sure her pen was properly trimmed. Only when all her preparations were complete, she chewed at the tip of her quill, trying to think reasonably and coherently. She had a reason for writing, to ask whether he had heard from Pastor Willis concerning any small sum of money left after the sale. However, to that the lawyer could curtly reply yes or no, and she would have no immediate contact to ask him concerning Damaris' protection. At last Saranna believed that she had chanced on the proper formula. She was a young female, deprived of her natural guardian by Jethro's absence. Could she not play upon that note, suggesting that she needed mature, masculine advice concerning some problem which she did not wish to entrust to a letter?
A debt! That was it—some debt she had not formerly known about. And with that excuse, she was only stretching the truth a little. For she did feel a debt of responsibility toward Damaris, though they were no blood kin. But she might word her letter in such a way that Mr. Sanders could believe her dilemma now arose out of the past.
Saranna wrote slowly word by word, weighing each sentence as she set it down:
Honored Sir:
Since my worthy brother is now at sea and will not return to us for many months, I am turning to you as his legal adviser and good friend, to ask a very great favor.
There has lately come to me knowledge that I have an obligation, to which I was heretofore blind. It is of the greatest necessity that I give an answer very soon to this problem. However, my ignorance of such matters is great. I feel that I need well-informed advice as to how I must now proceed in this affair which is too detailed and private a one to set out in any letter.
I am begging your indulgence when I ask if you can arrange a meeting wherein I may explain this difficulty and gain from you guidance as to my future conduct.
I am, sir, with respect—
Stiff and formal. However, such an approach Saranna judged would be to the taste of Mr. Sanders, perhaps impress him more than anything which was in the least effusive or struck a more friendly tone. She checked the page for both penmanship and any errors of grammar or spelling, gave a sigh as she folded and sealed it. The letters going out of Tiensin, though those were very few save during the days when Honora was in residence, were placed in a post bag which in turn was taken down to the wharf to be collected by any sloop inward bound to Baltimore. Saranna hated to entrust this missive to such an arrangement, but she knew no other way to send it.
Now she shivered as she turned down the lamp, undressed, and crept into a bed where the sheets seemed chill. She should be tired after their frenzied activities of packing below, yet she was never more wide awake. The tension of that work still held. And what would be the reaction in the morning?
In the absence of Honora or any guests the great parlor and library were kept closed. Yet surely before the end of the day, Mrs. Parton, on some necessary household errand, would discover the loss. What would happen then? Such a large-scale disappearance of the whole collection, with the exception of a few too large pieces (such as the blue and white parlor screen), could not be the work of an ordinary thief. No—it would be speedily guessed who was responsible.
Then what—?
Saranna sought and discarded explanation after explanation which might be advanced for the stripping of the room. That the action would be traced back to Damaris, she was entirely certain. And where had those hampers been taken?
There was only one logical place that Damaris had given —the hidden garden. The Chinese men were clearly from that. Then was also the Fox Lady a truth? Were they her servants? But who or what was she? And how had she come to Tiensin?
What of Gerrad Fowke's story of how Captain Whaley had imported Chinese servants to labor on the house and the garden? However, Mr. Fowke had stated they had all been returned to their native land when their work here was done. Who had counted them—then? The Fox Lady— Saranna now summoned to mind all her memories of her meeting with that strange dancer in the moonlight.
The woman's grace, the jewel box of a house in which she lived—if it was not all part of a dream (and Saranna, against her will, was beginning to think that it was not)— then the dancer was plainly no servant but a personage of standing and authority.
The Captain's—wife?
Saranna wondered. Had Captain Whaley indeed married some lady of birth and breeding in China and then hesitated to bring her openly to the attention of the neighborhood here, fearing that some narrowness of prejudice might well preclude her being received honorably as she should be? All that was plausible, except for the fox visage. No woman born could wear a fox's mask for a face!
Some deformity of birth—to blight her life?
Saranna's hand sought the fox pendant which still lay on her breast. Against her skin it was not as chill as the sheets; it rather seemed to generate a warmth of its own. In the dark she traced the carving with a fingertip. A white fox—she had seen at least two among that silent company who had watched the dancer. Did it have some meaning?
Damaris' Prmcess—the Fox Lady? And Damaris said the pendant was a mark of favor. Perhaps, now that Saranna herself had aided Damaris in this late act to hide the collection, the younger girl would be moved to more and complete explanations.
The storm which had raged was now spent. There
were no more fierce cracks of lightning, roars of thunder, though the rain fell steadily outside. Saranna's hand turned on the pillow. She found herself watching the two rounds of light which marked the eyes of the Emperor's cat.
Somehow as she lay there, her hand upon the pendant, her tension began to ease until at last she slept.
Millie, in a flurry, aroused her once more. So that Saranna was still half-bemused with slumber she had not completely shaken off, when she descended to the breakfast room. Damaris stood by a window looking out on a dripping world. She smiled back over her shoulder at Saranna. "It is still raining," she commented. "What if it rains forty days and forty nights again? We might be washed right away—"
The prospect of that did not seem to dampen her spirits any. She had an almost festive air about her as she came to the table. To Saranna the younger girl had the appearance of one relieved from some burden, now at peace with herself and the world. Did Damaris believe their looting of Tiensin would simply go unnoticed?
"This is a good day to sew," Damaris observed, helping herself liberally to hot biscuits and then to comb honey. "I took my basket to the sewing room before I came downstairs—"
Such unconcern Saranna could not share. But perhaps she could and must counterfeit an appearance of it. She agreed that it seemed an excellent day for some indoors employment, and then was caught up answering a round of questions Damaris showered upon her. Apparently the younger girl had collected some of the Godey Ladies' Books which Honora had left behind and had been studying the various fashion plates, now professing a desire to learn how to make this or that elegant trifle until Saranna warned her that such skills might well be beyond both of them.
Every time the door opened to admit John or one of the maids with fresh coffee, hot breads, or the like, Saranna braced herself to hear the alarm raised. When that did not come she found, to her surprise, that she was growing impatient, that she wanted to face the worst and get it safely behind her. Did Mrs. Parton (of whom they had seen nothing this morning so far) not inspect the rooms under her care? Even though Damaris insisted that the maids not be allowed to dust the collection, still the carpets must be brushed, and other housekeeping chores waited within the closed rooms.
Mrs. Parton's continued absence added to Saranna's sense of all not being well. At length, as they finished the meal, and Damaris paused in her flow of comment on what might or might not be fashionable, Saranna dared to ask the first question of her own:
"Where is Mrs. Parton?"
"Down at the quarters," Damaris returned promptly. "Old Jane is ill." For a moment her smile faded. "I wanted to go, but the Poker wouldn't let me. Old Jane, she was my mother's own nurse when she was just a little baby. But the Poker says she has a fever and it could be catching. Always afraid of something catching—the Poker is."
"But she went herself—" Sararma pointed out.
"Yes, but you ought to see her. She has an herb bag around her neck and she smelled—" Damaris inelegantly pinched her nose between thumb and finger. "Saranna," she drew closer to the older girl as they went out into the hall, "what's the matter? You kept looking at the door all the time as if you were afraid something horrible was going to come in—"
"But, Damaris," Saranna was taken aback, "surely you know that Mrs. Parton, that everyone will want to know where your grandfather's collection is! The minute they discover the pieces gone they will—"
Her words grew slower because Damaris was slowly shaking her head. The young girl flipped up her apron and showed under the string which had held the key to the room upstairs with the four camphor wood storage boxes. There were two more keys jangling against it now, both large and heavy.
"Locked," she explained. "Oh, I suppose the Poker will be upset when she finds them locked. But if she looks in her key basket she is not going to find her keys. That will give us the time—"
"Time for what?"
"Time for someone else to make sure that the treasure is never going out of Tiensin." Damaris seemed entirely confident, though Saranna had no equal belief that any amount of time right now would solve the problem. It would only defer the reckoning which they both must face sooner or later.
But perhaps her letter would reach Mr. Sanders if Damaris could continue to cover up the disappearance of the collection, even by so crude a method as merely locking doors and hiding keys. A little heartened by that thought, she hailed John who was just turning into the breakfast room and held out the sealed envelope she had taken from her apron pocket.
"For the mailbag, John, please—“
It seemed to Damaris that he took the letter reluctantly, just as he would not look directly at either girl, but rather kept his gaze mainly at their feet.
"Yes'm. Bad on the water today. Maybe no one goin' in. But we puts the bag down anyhow—"
"Who were you writing to?" Damaris had none of the tact demanded to make social contacts easier. And Saranna gave her the answer she had ready. If there were listening ears, they would have a plausible explanation.
"Mr. Sanders. He undertook to collect some money for me—money from the sale back in Sussex. I am asking if he received it."
"You need some money?" Damaris appeared surprised. "But what about that Mr. Stowell left you?"
It was Saranna's turn to be astonished. "Money Jethro left me? But he didn't leave me any money. I did not even see him again before I came here."
Damaris nodded. "Then she took it! I thought so. She wants money, quite a lot. You see, she wants bride clothes. I think she buys so much all the time that she doesn't have enough pocket money to suit her. She doesn't get any from Tiensin. My grandfather made sure of that. All she has is a little money my father left her, not nearly enough, or so she says."
"But this money you say Jethro left me—how did you—"
Damaris smiled. "She left those Lady Books here and I had Rose get them out of her room. I wanted to see all about the new dresses and bonnets. And this was in one of them— See?"
From some hiding place under her apron, she brought out a sheet of paper which had been much creased and which now smelled of Honora's favorite violet scent.
Saranna:
This is in haste. I am sorry that events have moved so that we have not had a chance to become better acquainted. But that is a matter which shall be remedied upon my return. Honora tells me that you are deeply affected by your mother's passing and have begged her to allow you to retire to quiet at Tiensin. This I can understand and I hope that you will discover its air to be beneficial to both your health and your nerves.
In the meantime, however, I wish you to have funds that you may prepare to take your proper place in the best circles in Baltimore, such a position as a Stowell may claim by right of name. Please use the enclosed to any advantage which seems to you necessary to accomplish that.
Your affectionate brother—
"But I never saw this!" Saranna smoothed the paper between her fingers. What had Jethro enclosed with the letter which she had not received? She could only believe that Damaris was right and there had been a sum of money which was now missing.
"How could Honora dare?” There was wonder as well as anger in her voice. Such an act would certainly be uncovered as soon as Jethro returned. Did Honora have her father so bemused that he would believe any lie she might utter to cover her own interception of his message and the appropriation of a sum which had accompanied it?
"She doesn't expect you ever to see her father again."
"What!" Saranna halted on the bottom step of the stairs, stared at Damaris enough ahead of her so that the girl's face, as she half-turned around to deliver that statement was nearly on a level with her own.
"I told you—" Damaris had the ghost of that sly look about her, "I listen. She's afraid of you, not that she told the Poker so. The Poker guessed, and I'm sure she's right She's afraid that your brother is going to give you things. And she wants it all for herself. The Poker knows that. She didn't just go back to town to shop, though she'
ll do that, all right. She went to see Mr. Sanders—"
Saranna caught her breath audibly. Mr. Sanders—her own letter—
''She wants to make sure that Mr. Stowell didn't leave you anything in his will. They say Brazil's awfully unhealthy, such a lot of fever down there—“
Saranna gripped Damaris' arm hard. "You don't know what you're saying!"
"Oh, don't I?" The old sly maliciousness was to the fore now, more than Saranna had seen it for days. "I heard the Poker and Mr. Poker talking about it. They think Rufus is going to marry you, take you away. She wants that done before her father comes back. Then he'll be mad at you, good and mad. Because he'd think Rufus isn't good enough for his sister. So she's promised Rufus some money to do it, and maybe some more later if it all turns out like she plans. So she wouldn't care now if you learned about that—" Damaris pointed to the letter Saranna still held.
The older girl wanted to say she did not believe a word of what Damaris had just said, that the child was spinning some fantasy. Unfortunately, her story fitted all too well. Saranna gave a harried glance around her, feeling much like a fox who hears the cry of the hounds behind on his trail. Then she steadied herself with the thought that Honora might scheme all this but she, Saranna, was warned and she could make her own plans. That she was like a gaming piece to be moved around on some board at Honora's pleasure and to Honora's profit was not and never would be true!
Swiftly, she refolded the letter and tucked it mto the folds of her chemisette beneath the edge of her outer bodice. She wanted nothing less than to sit quietly sewing, but she felt that such an occupation this morning might steady her nerves and give her a chance to think clearly about what she could do to escape the web Honora seemed to be spinning.
Millie awaited them in the sewing room. And the maid hastened to lay out the unpicked lengths of dresses which Saranna had been reducing to their basic materials in order to create something passably wearable out of Honora's castoffs. She had discovered that the satin top of one dress could be agreeably combined with a cashmere skirt, using lengths of the unstained portion of the satin skirt to make two discreet flounces which would not be too indecorous for mourning. And the poplin could be turned and restitched to a very good advantage.