Thunder Heights

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Ross listened gravely until she was through. “Orrin Judd has done great things, big things. It’s hard to believe that he had so little in the beginning. He was born in Westcliff, you know. His father was a country doctor. Orrin worked in lumber camps hereabout, but he had a genius for managing men and running large affairs, and he had vision. So before many years were up he owned a lumber business of his own. From that it was only a step into the building trade. Though that’s a feeble term for what he wanted to do. He had no training himself as an engineer or an architect, but he learned from the men who worked for him and he was better than any of us. Perhaps he was more an empire builder than a builder of bridges and buildings and roads. He could see the future better than most men. He might have been one of the giants if he hadn’t lost heart.”

  Camilla listened eagerly. These were things she had understood little of as a child, and when she was grown her father never talked about them.

  Ross rubbed a hand wearily across his face and went on. “The time is nearly over for giants, I think. Their kingdoms grow too big and they control too many lives. America never suffers kings for long. But even when your grandfather withdrew to Thunder Heights, the world came to him. Not the social world—there’s been little of that he cared for in the years I’ve known him. I mean the business world. He wouldn’t go to New York after your mother died, but he made it come to him—often through me.”

  “I’ve wondered about your place here,” Camilla said.

  “Sometimes I’ve wondered myself. My father was an engineer and his good friend, though many years younger. After he died, Orrin Judd kept an eye on me, sent me to engineering school, since that was what I wanted most. When I graduated, he put me to work on some of his projects. He came to trust me and began to want me near him. Before I knew what had happened I was doing a sort of liaison job for him, instead of following the work I wanted to do. I suppose I’ve helped him keep the threads in his hands, though I never planned on playing aide-de-camp to a general.”

  “You’ve given up years of your life for this?” Camilla said wonderingly.

  “I don’t count them as lost. He gave me a chance to learn and there were things he intended me to do later. When he felt I was ready. Besides, I loved him.”

  Off in the brush they could hear the dog chasing some small wild thing. The sound of rushing water, the twitter of birds was all about them. But the two on the boulder were silent.

  “Thank you for telling me these things,” she said. “I can see how much you’ve meant to my grandfather. What was the change you wanted to see him make in his will?”

  For a few moments he did not speak, but sat watching as the dog bounded onto the path again, following some new and exciting scent. Then he stood up abruptly. His expression had changed, as if he grew angry again.

  “My usefulness here has come to an end. The will must stand as he left it. I can’t affect that now.”

  She was puzzled and a little perturbed by his sudden shifting of mood. “But how would you change it, if you could?” she asked.

  The lines of his face seemed to harden, making him look older than his years. “There’s no point in discussing that with you. You’re a Judd too, though there’s likely to be less of his fortune for you than for the others.”

  His words carried a deliberate sting, and she stood up beside him indignantly.

  “I expect nothing at all from my grandfather,” she said. “It’s enough for me that he was kind to me yesterday and wanted me here.”

  For a moment his expression softened, and she thought he believed her. Then he seemed to think better of such weakening and laughed without sympathy.

  “Do you mean that you’re willing to go back to being a governess, when if you stay you may get your hands on some of the Judd fortune?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being a governess,” she returned heatedly. “I like to think I’m a good one. I intend to return to New York right after the funeral. The Judds owe me nothing and I want nothing from them. I came only to see my grandfather.”

  “Then why didn’t you come before this?” he demanded. “Why did you wait till you heard he was dying before you came running to Thunder Heights?”

  She felt completely outraged. If this was what he thought of her, then she did not mean to stay in his company another moment.

  “Can you tell me if this upper path will take me back to the house?” she asked coldly.

  “I’ll come with you and show you the way,” he offered.

  Camilla turned her back on him and managed to get down the steep face of the rock without his help.

  “No, thank you. I can find it well enough myself,” she said and started up the path.

  But he would not let her go alone. He jumped down from the rock and the spotted dog bounded along beside him as they turned uphill and back in the direction of Thunder Heights. Whether she liked it or not, she had to accept their company. She walked quickly, ignoring him, though now and then he pointed out landmarks by which she could find her direction if she chose to come this way again.

  For example, he said, there was that weeping beech on ahead, from which she would be within sight of the Judds’ house. She could not ignore the tree, for she had never seen one like it. It grew to a considerable height, but unlike other beeches, all its boughs trailed downward toward the earth, making a canopy of blue-black branches around the tree. It was as weird as something out of a witch’s tale—a good landmark to remember.

  When they reached the tree, her companion whistled for the dog and turned back. “I’ll leave you here,” he said curtly. “I’m not going in yet. You’ll have no trouble by yourself the rest of the way.”

  He went off without waiting for any thanks she might have offered. For a moment she stood looking after him in a mingling of displeasure and bewilderment. What a strange, unpredictable, maddening person he was. Then she shrugged the thought of him aside and looked more closely about the hillside where she stood. Back a little farther it rose steeply into a cliff overgrown with wild vegetation and scrubby trees. There was a break in the brush at one point, as if a path to the top might open there. She was in no mood for exploration now, however, and hurried down toward Thunder Heights.

  She had climbed well above the house, she found as she came out upon a bare, craggy place where she could overlook its gray towers. From this high rocky eminence, she could see a separation in the trees toward the north, and for the first time she had a glimpse of Blue Beeches from the land side.

  The sunny yellow of the house looked brighter than ever in the morning sunlight. It shone fresh and clean, where Thunder Heights appeared drab and dingy. Looking at it, she felt an unexpected reluctance to return to the dark Judd household. Blue Beeches seemed far more inviting.

  As she watched, she saw the spotted dog bound from the edge of the woods and go loping across a wide lawn. A woman came down the steps, laughing and calling to him. The breeze brought the faint sound of her voice. Camilla could not see her clearly enough to know whether she was plain or pretty, young or old. But it was clear that she had a friendly greeting for Ross Granger as he came more slowly out of the woods and joined her. Linking arms, they went up the steps and into the house.

  Wondering, Camilla continued down the hill. The path from the rocky outcropping dipped briefly through the woods again and then came out on a level with the Judd house. Instead of seeking the veranda to make her reentry the way she had come out, Camilla approached from the rear and saw that here more order and attention had been given to the grounds. A space of earth had been cleared of weeds, and there were paths leading among beds where planting had begun, with a small sundial marking the garden’s center. A marble bench near the sundial invited one to rest and contemplation.

  Camilla walked along one narrow path, noting bits of green already pushing their way out of the earth. As she neared the house, she looked up at the windows, but saw no sign of life, no face at any pane. Queer how dead the house always looke
d from the outside, even though she knew there were people within.

  Grace opened the back door for her, and Camilla said good morning to Matilda, the cook and housekeeper, as she went inside. Voices reached her from the parlor, and she knew that the sad rites connected with her grandfather’s death had already begun. Before she could slip past, a man appeared in the doorway and saw her. It was Mr. Pompton.

  He held out his hand to her gravely. “It is sad to meet again under such circumstances, Miss King. But I’m glad you were able to reach your grandfather before his death.”

  “I think he wanted me here,” she said. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  “That was his wish.” His tone was courteous, but his manner seemed no more approving than it had been in New York. It was clear that her coming here was not his desire. “You will be staying on for a time now?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No longer than the funeral. With my grandfather gone, I am not wanted here.”

  He did not deny this, but made her a stiff bow and returned to the parlor. As she started up the stairs, Booth came out of the library to join her.

  “You’ve been for a walk?” he asked. “Did you get no more sleep at all last night?”

  “I didn’t feel like sleeping,” she said.

  His mood seemed kinder and less remote than it had been the night before.

  “A sad homecoming for you,” he said. “If you stay with us a while, Cousin, perhaps we can make up for it.”

  She was silent as he climbed the stairs with her, not wishing to point out that his mother had given her little welcome. As they reached the second floor, Hortense came down the hall with a tray in her hands.

  She wore voluminous black today, with a fringe of formidable jet twinkling across the bodice. The tray she carried held a tea service, with a quilted English cosy over the teapot, and a glass, medicine bottle, and spoon besides.

  “I knew Letty would make herself ill last night,” she said impatiently. “And now she has run away to the nursery again. As if I didn’t have enough to do!”

  Booth took the tray out of her hands. “Let me take it up to her, Mother. Camilla will help me with Aunt Letty. Pompton’s downstairs, you know, waiting to see you.”

  Hortense gave up the tray gladly and made a vague tidying gesture that did her red pompadour no good.

  As Camilla followed Booth up the stairs to the third floor, she glanced back and saw that Hortense had not gone down to Mr. Pompton at once, but was gazing after them with an air of uncertainty.

  On the third floor, Booth led the way to the door of the old nursery, and Camilla opened it so that he might carry in the tray. The nursery was far from the cheerful room of her mother’s stories and her own imagination. It was long and narrow, a bare, cold room. No fire had been lighted in its grate, and on this northern exposure of the house, sunshine had not reached the limply curtained windows. At the far end of the room Letty Judd lay huddled beneath a quilt on a narrow couch. Her face was swollen from crying, and she murmured faint sounds of apology as Booth approached her with the tray.

  “You shouldn’t bother about me, my dears,” she said.

  Booth set the tray down on a small table covered by a fringed red velvet cloth. “You know I’ll always bother about you, Aunt Letty,” he told her cheerfully. “Mother sent you some tea and medicine. We can’t have you ill, you know.”

  At Letty’s feet Mignonette lay curled in a warm, tight ball. She stretched herself, yawned widely, and regarded Booth’s preparations with interest.

  “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Aunt Letty,” Camilla said. “Would you like me to light a fire so it will be warmer up here?”

  Booth answered for her. “Don’t bother, Cousin. As soon as Aunt Letty drinks some tea and has her medicine, I’m going to take her downstairs.”

  Letty managed a tremulous smile, and there was affection in the look she gave him. “I like it up here. There are always memories to comfort me. Camilla, your mother used to play with Hortense and me in this very room.”

  “First your medicine,” Booth said, and she swallowed the concoction gratefully.

  “Balm and vervain tonic are wonderfully strengthening,” she said. “I mixed the elixir myself. What tea did she fix for me, Booth?”

  “I’ve no idea,” he said, pouring a cupful with easy grace and bringing it to her. “Your herb mixtures confuse me. At least it’s hot and potent.”

  Letty sniffed the aromatic steam and nodded, smiling. “Mother of thyme with a bit of hyssop. Just the thing. You know what David says in the Bible—‘Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.’”

  She drank deeply, and Mignonette mewed and climbed daintily over the hump of bedding made by Letty’s outstretched legs.

  “Give her a saucerful, Camilla—there’s a dear,” Letty said. “She doesn’t want to be left out.”

  Camilla took Letty’s saucer and poured tea into it, set it on the floor. Mignonette leaped lightly from the bed and lapped the hot liquid with a greedy pink tongue.

  Booth watched, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen such a cat. Don’t those mixtures ever upset her?”

  “Of course not!” Letty’s tone seemed overly vehement. “They don’t upset me, why should they upset her?”

  Booth shrugged and turned away to bring a chair for Camilla. Letty watched him unhappily.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she began.

  “I’m not thinking a thing, except that I want to see you strong and well as soon as possible,” Booth said. “The funeral is tomorrow and you’ll want to be up for that. It’s to be a quiet family affair, without an invasion of people from New York.”

  “I shall be up,” Letty said and sipped her tea.

  Mignonette licked the saucer and sat back to clean her whiskers tidily.

  While Letty finished her tea, Camilla told of her walk that morning and of her glimpse of Blue Beeches and its dog. She said nothing about meeting Ross. She had a feeling that Booth, with good reason, would not approve of that meeting, and she had no wish to displease him.

  “I’m glad you’ve had a look about the place, my dear,” Letty said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t go too near Blue Beeches. Not that I have anything against Nora Redfern. As a matter of fact, her mother and yours were good friends in their girlhood. Mrs. Landry, Nora’s mother, lives upriver now, and we haven’t seen her for years—which is just as well. Nora is a widow with three children. Personally I think she is a young woman of considerable courage, but Hortense doesn’t approve of her.”

  “Or her mother’s sharp tongue,” Booth added. “If you’re through with your tea, I’ll carry you downstairs to your room, Aunt Letty. Sad memories won’t make you feel any better up here.”

  “They’re not sad memories—they’re the happiest of my life,” Letty insisted. But she raised her arms to Booth.

  He lifted her as if she weighed nothing, and her crooked arm went about his neck as he carried her toward the door. Camilla picked up the tray and followed, with Mignonette springing along at her heels. Just before she reached the door Camilla saw something she had not noticed when she’d entered the room. In a shadowy corner near the door stood a harp. Its cover had been laid aside, and a stool upholstered in needlepoint was drawn before it as if the musician had risen hurriedly from her playing and failed to return. So it was from this room that the harp music had issued in the dead of night.

  She hurried down the stairs after Booth and waited until he had carried Letty into her room on the second floor.

  “She’ll sleep now,” he said when he rejoined her. “Grandfather Orrin’s death has been a shock to her. A shock to all of us.”

  “If she blames herself for something in connection with him,” Camilla said, “that must upset her more than anything else.”

  “Aunt Letty is always ready to take on blame of one sort or another,” Booth said. “And she has an imagination that gets her into trouble. Don’t take her words too seriously, Cousin. I
’ll go down now and see how Mother is coming out with Mr. Pompton.”

  He gave her the quick flash of a smile that had surprised her before, always seeming unexpected in his somber face. After Ross’s sharp words she warmed to Booth’s kinder manner toward her.

  As she went to her room she wondered about the circumstances of his adoption. Why had Hortense, who had never married and did not seem a particularly motherly person, chosen to adopt a boy of ten? And how closely was Booth tied to this family? It seemed strange that as a grown man he had been willing to live on in this gloomy household.

  Camilla spent the rest of the morning in her room, not knowing what to do with herself. She had an unhappy sense of marking time between the poles of two different lives, belonging at the moment to neither one.

  At noontime Letty remained in her room, Booth had gone to the village, and Ross did not appear, so she and Hortense ate alone in the big dining room. Her aunt seemed increasingly keyed up and distraught, and the black jet fringe on her dress quivered and trembled, as if stirred by the agitated beating of her heart. At least she seemed less distant than she had been when Camilla had arrived the day before.

  “What will your plans be now, Aunt Hortense?” Camilla asked.

  “We’ll get rid of the house, of course,” Hortense said. “Whether we sell it, give it away, burn it down, doesn’t matter. Just so we’re rid of it for good!”

  “It seems a wonderful place to me,” Camilla said gently. “Isn’t it rather a shame to let it go out of the family?”

  Hortense snorted, her pompadour trembling. “You haven’t been tied to it against your will for most of your life. When Mama was alive we had houses everywhere, including a splendid townhouse in New York. I can still remember the parties and balls, the fun and gaiety, the trips abroad. Even after she died, Papa didn’t give up as he did when Althea went away. Life was exciting, with new clothes and gay friends—exactly the sort of existence I like best. But when Althea married, Papa sold all the houses except this one, that was Althea’s favorite. He behaved as though she had died and he wouldn’t go anywhere, or let us go anywhere. It has been like living in a prison all these years.”