by Andre Norton
Once more she groped in her reticule, brought out the wardrobe key, inserted it. This time in vain. She feared she might break the shaft off in the keyhole if she persisted in forcing it. Though she pulled the pins out of one carefully rolled braid so she could set her ear tight against the wood, she could not hear any sound for several breaths. Then came a distant murmur which rose and fell—not quite a song, and she could not distinguish any words. What was Damaris doing?
There was something about that cadence which suggested the younger girl was not indulging in any conversation, rather that she might be repeating some formal wordage— a prayer? Saranna had a sudden feeling that she had no right to pry into this secret. She backed from the door, and returned to her own room.
The tray was gone, and so was Millie. Saranna took the precaution of locking her door again. Though they knew she had gotten out, any tampering now with that lock would give her some warning—
Warning of what? She paced back and forth trying to think coherently and logically. Mr. Fowke's attitude—in that she had found support. His denial that the collection had disappeared through Damaris' efforts and her own, while false, was so reasonable perhaps he could impress it on Honora. At least enough to make her reconsider her immediate plans.
Saranna was almost convinced that she could go to him with the truth. But from whence had those Chinese come, the ones who had carried away the hampers? Did they live in the hidden section of the garden, with the Fox Lady? Her head began to ache. She rubbed her fingers back and forth just above her eyes where the worst pain centered. If she went downstairs now, she would have little chance of speaking to Gerrad Fowke alone. Honora would make sure of that.
And what was Damaris doing? Throwing those painted wands again, trying to read the future by some superstitious trick? The heritage Captain Whaley had left his granddaughter might lead now more to her ruin than her happiness.
Slowly Saranna loosed the hooks of the dress which had given her so much confidence. As she folded bodice and skirt across the chair, pulled her faded and much-washed wrapper about her, plucked the pins from her braids so they swung free across her shoulders, she feverishly attempted to make some logical plan.
Suppose she were to write another letter to Mr. Sanders, and this time entrust the missive to Mr. Fowke? She could give the reason that she— No, tell him the truth! She still had that half-burnt scrap of paper. With that to show him, she did not think that she need worry about him accepting her story. Quickly she went to the table where the lap desk stood. But when she lifted the lid—no paper, no pens—it had been emptied! She was still staring down at that emptiness when there came a tap at her door.
"Who is there?"
"Me, Miss Saranna—"
Millie. How far she dared trust the maid now she had no knowledge. Would Millie dare to take a message to Mr. Fowke for her? Or was the girl too cowed by Mrs. Parton to be relied upon?
When Saranna did open the door, Millie sidled in. Her arms were piled high with recently ironed underclothing which gave off the very faint scent of lavender water used in the last rinsing.
Saranna settled in the rocking chair watching Millie sort, fold, and deftly lay her burden in drawers. The maid did not seem to want to even look in her direction, but kept her attention fixed on what she was doing.
She had patted the last petticoat into place and then arose from where she had been kneeling by the bottom drawer of the chest. For a moment she simply stood, her back half-turned to Saranna. Then she glanced warily over her shoulder.
"Miss Saranna—" she began, and then gulped as if she were choking on some word she feared to utter but did not know how to suppress—
"Yes—?" Saranna tried to show no agitation in return, keeping her voice calm and even.
"Miss Honora—she be very mad at you, with Miss Damaris. She say she goin' to fix that place, get rid of it—“ Millie pointed to the window and Saranna guessed her meaning.
"The hidden garden?"
Millie nodded emphatically. "She sent Joseph downriver. He have a letter for a man in Baltimore. They come here with guns—kill the foxes, all of them—and kill people maybe —too—"
"What people?" Saranna demanded.
Millie shivered. Her hands twisted the edge of her apron, wringing the cloth as if she had it before her straight from the washboard.
"They say—say there is strange peoples back in that place. Sometimes the foxes they be people, sometimes foxes. If they catches 'em as foxes they shoot them all for sure; if they catches them as people—they does that, too. Miss Honora, she says they is all gonna be done away with.”
"When?"
"When the mens comes from the city—maybe two-three days.”
"Millie, does Mr. Fowke know about this?”
"Maybe not. I ain't sure. Miss Honora, she waits ‘til he leaves before she gives Joe the letter and sends him.”
"Could you get a message to Mr. Fowke?”
Millie appeared to think for a second or two. "I dunno. That there Nemos—he's Mr. Fowke's groom—he's sweet on Rose an' comes over a-courtin' after dark. He ain't afraid of the Partons none. Maybe so he would take such—were you to give him somethin' for his trouble."
"How much?" Saranna thought of her pitifully thin purse. If she only had the funds which Mr. Sanders might even now be holding for her!
"Rose, she ain't sure she wants to settle down none. She's got an eye for pretties. Were Nemos to get him somethin’ pretty, he could make bigger talk with her."
"Pretties—what kind?" Saranna followed that hint quickly.
"Somethin' to wear like. Rose, she does like to go to church dressed so all the men from the quarters roll eyes wide at her."
But Saranna was almost as destitute of such "pretties" as she was of money. Her small store of treasures were in the bottom drawer of the lacquered sewing cabinet. She pulled that open now.
Her mother's miniature painted before her marriage, a small locket of gold set with a pearl which contained her father's hair in a tiny braided coil; two rings much too large for Saranna's own fingers and unsuitable for her state of mourning. And, she drew out the last: the sandlewood fan, its scented sticks carved into lacy open work. As she spread it wide, the heavy perfume of the wood was easily detected.
"Would this be a pretty?" Softly she waved it back and forth. Her mother had cherished it because of its oddity, the wood from the Sandwich Islands wrought by some workmen in Macao into this trifle. Meant to be used in summer when its strong odor was reputed to be able to keep mosquitoes at a distance, her mother had never carried it after they had gone to Sussex.
Millie drew nearer and touched a fingertip to the fan's smooth outer surface.
"Miss Saranna, that sure do be such a pretty as Rose never saw before in her live-long days! I think Nemos, he would swim hisself all the way to Baltimore were he able to lay that in her hand come next Sunday!"
"Good enough." Saranna tried not to regret her proposed bargain. She had such a strong sense of impending danger that surely a fan, even one so long cherished, was nothing in the way of a price to pay for help.
"I have to have some paper, and a pen—" She had already handed Millie the fan and the girl was holding the wood close to her nose, inhaling its scent in delighted sniffs. "Someone has emptied my desk while I was gone."
Millie's interest in the fan quickly dissipated. "Miss Saranna, I don't know how you can get those. Do I try to get them for you—they is kept in the part of the house where I ain't never supposed to show myself. And do Mrs. Parton or that John see me—"
But Saranna was already trying to improvise writing materials. On the hearth! There was charred wood—dark ashes. She quickly knelt and scraped the blackest of these onto the dish-bottomed holder of the bedside candlestick.
Paper? The book she had brought to her room. Ruthlessly she tore out the flyleaf. Then she drew out from her store a knitting needle.
"Millie, can you get me some vinegar—very little—perhaps a coup
le of tablespoonfuls?"
The maid nodded vigorously. "I can and no one will ask none about that. 'Cause ladies rinse their hair in vinegar. I can wash your hair and no one will say it be somethin' as we ain't ever do."
"Good enough!" Saranna was already unbraiding her hair. "Get it right away. Oh, leave the fan here until later.”
Millie laid that on the table and was gone. How well her plan might work, Saranna did not know. But she did believe that were Gerrad Fowke to know of what Honora planned, he would put an end to it.
Millie was back shortly with an armload of towels, a jug which she announced contained rainwater, the only proper rinse for any lady's hair, and a much smaller jug of vinegar.
"Miss Honora," she announced, "is a-lyin' in her room with a headache. She got that triflin' Polly, who think she's so mighty big 'cause she's Miss Honora's maid, a-sittin' there a-puttin' cloths on her head and a-gettin' her thmgs. I heard tell as how Mr. Fowke, he talked sharplike to her before he rode off. And she didn't take kindly to that nohow—"
While Millie got ready the towels and washbasin, Saranna experimented with the vinegar and the charcoal from the fireplace. She mixed a black enough liquid, but whether it would last after drying was a question. In the meantime, she thought of what she must say.
"I go an' get the hotted water now," Millie announced. Saranna nodded absently in reply.
She dipped the point of the needle into her mixture and began to print out letters. Since she had neither the time nor the space on her torn-out page to be formal, this must be terse and to the point.
Mr. Fowke:
They plan to attack the hidden garden. Men from the city. Kill the foxes and whoever may be within. I must ask help for Damaris—and for Tiensin.
She made her signature a single S. Saranna was sure he would not have any difficulty in knowing who had sent this. She laid her message out to dry. Though she had gone over each letter in those words twice, she could not be sure of the staying power of her improvised ink.
When Millie returned, she went through the lengthy ritual of washing her hair, applying towels from the mammoth pile the maid had provided, as well as brushing and sitting in the full sunlight of the afternoon in order to dry it. But the strands were still faintly damp as she had Millie rebraid it for her appearance at dinner.
Honora and Damaris might not attend that meal; if so, Saranna determined to dine in solitary state, so asserting her independence before the household. She had Millie once more hook her into her dress, deciding not to vary that with the more formal satm waist, and descended the stairs with a firm step.
As she entered into the breakfast room she found it in semitwilight, no candles lighted, no place set. They had not expected her then. But with a determined wiU, she pulled at the bell cord. It was Rose, not John who came in answer to that perhaps overforceful ring.
"Where is dinner?” Saranna said. "Surely this is the hour—"
"We—Mrs. Parton—she say you take a tray in your room, Miss Saranna."
"Nonsense. I am perfectly well and able to be here. You will bring my dinner now." Saranna had never been so authoritative in her life. But she sensed that she must prove that she was not a nonentity in this house. The spirit and pride which had carried her and her mother through the dark days in Sussex had come back to her full force. She was young, that was true. And were Jethro here, her duty would be to obey the wishes of the master of the household. But that did not mean that she had to let Honora stand in authority over her.
She waited, watching the appearance of John, who eyed her first as if he were going to protest, but then turned to set out silver and fine china before the chair which had been hers since she had come to Tiensin. Saranna fully expected Mrs. Parton to confront her with some prohibition from Honora. But the housekeeper did not show herself, and Saranna ate slowly and methodically as if this was the only possible arrangement she could countenance.
There was no reason to sit alone in the parlor. Having achieved her purpose so far, she returned to her own room, lighted the lamp, and took up her book. Though she found that even when she had read several pages, she had no idea of the story. Finally, she laid it aside.
The storm last night had seemed to clear the air. There was a moon rising. She looked down from her window to the hedge which walled in the hidden garden. How very tall that growth was, cutting off the view from even this second-story window. And it was thick, too. If Honora ordered that cleared away, the hands who did it would have a very difficult job before them.
Suddenly Saranna was tired. There had been so much happening this day and she had been up well half the night before helping Damaris repack the treasure collection. Slowly she undressed, aware of the aches of fatigue in her body. She put on her muslin gown, tied her nightcap firmly in place, and settled herself among her pillows. But, once she lay prone, her desire for sleep seemed to have fled. There was something else, a sensation she had not experienced before— a little nagging feeling that she had left something important undone. Yet as she went over all her memories of the day, she could not locate that omission. Done—or undone?
Had she made a bad error in judgment in her appeal to Mr. Fowke? Or was it that she must make sure before she slept of Damaris' whereabouts? With a sigh, Saranna sat up. Then she heard it!
Out of the night came that strange off-tone music again. She scrambled over the edge of the bed. Her wrapper— Where had she left her wrapper? This time she had forgotten to light the Emperor's night lamp and she bumped forceably in the dark against the chair where she had hung the wrapper. With that about her shoulders, her feet forced stockingless into her slippers, she crept to the door and unlocked it. She then threaded the key onto the tie of her wrapper.
Damaris! She was sure Damaris might be bound for the hidden garden. And this time she herself had not awakened from any sleep, she was very certain that what she heard was no part of any strangely vivid dream.
She went first to Damaris' door. That was tight shut and did not yield as she turned the knob. She dared not knock or call without perhaps arousing Honora's maid in the chamber near the fore of the hall where a crack of light showed strongly at floor level.
Damaris—could she have already gone on into the hidden garden? If that were where the treasure had been taken, then there was good reason for the child to check upon it. Saranna moved cautiously down the dark hall. Now her hand was on the pendant she wore, both night and day. The gem seemed not to be chill and cold, rather warm—though that was certainly only a fancy.
Step by step she descended the back stairs. There was a light glow from the direction of the kitchen, the sound of voices, but all safely muted. She was at the outer door now and had lifted the latch.
The night wind was almost too fresh for the gown and wrapper she wore. She wished she had taken more time and dressed. But again that urgency gripped her. It was here and now she must move!
Around the house she went, to front the hedge. The eerie trilling of a flute had risen slightly above the other sounds which combined to make a harmony which, to her Western ears, did not sound like music at all.
Saranna felt her way along the edge of the hedge and then she stopped, pulled aside brush limbs with both hands, and found the concealed doorway. Once more, she fought her way on into the garden, down the twisting path, beyond the small house of the flower-grated windows until she could see the terrace.
But tonight, in spite of the music, there was no fox-faced dancer swaying gracefully under a waning moon, no company of foxes transfixed by her movements. The musicians sat back in the shadows under the overhang of the eaves as they had done before. But in the moon door of the house stood a woman who could only have been the dancer save that tonight it was a human face she wore.
Her robe was not the loose-flowing, high-belted one which had swirled about her in the moon dance, rather it was richly heavy, stiff with embroidery, high-collared and clasped upon the shoulder. Her hair was stretched over a frame in a formal fashi
on, decorated with pins which glittered, as did the long earrings hanging from her exposed ears. She was as majestic as a Queen in her own courtyard, and if this was Damaris' "Princess," the title was very fit.
Her eyes were upon the path and, as Saranna emerged from the growth behind her, one hand arose as her very long sleeve folded back upon the wrist to show the fingers with their gemmed nail guards. She beckoned, and Saranna, again feeling neither awe nor fear, rather that this was an ordained act, came forward upon the terrace, approaching her who stood in the moon door.
''Mei —" The lady stepped back into the room where the lamps were lit, and once again Saranna followed.
"You are welcome, younger sister." Though the lady spoke English, her words had a slightly sing-song quality. Now she pointed to that wide bed which was also a place to sit. Once more the table divided them as they settled themselves upon its padded surface. But this time no tea service was waiting.
Rather the Fox Lady put her hand upon a box of lacquer work whereon were many foxes patterned m red and gold on the black surface. From that she took a bundle of small ivory sticks like those of a dismembered fan, yet of the same width throughout. Then Saranna saw that some were divided by an inset bar of dull red, while others were untouched.
"Younger sister, you have come and the hour is a propitious one. At such a time, the Great Ones make known what may lie ahead for those of us who have not yet ascended. For my own life, I know all readings well, but this is the moment when I must also find what influences lie before you, and whether the path which is yours is also, for this space of time, mine.
"Therefore, take these into your hand, let them fall upon this surface. And while you still hold them, do think about that which troubles you and clouds your way—"
She held out the bundle of ivory sticks and Saranna found herself taking them. In this time and place, it seemed entirely natural that she should obey this regal woman who had about her the air of one who had never had any order she had given put to question.