One morning when Camilla found Hortense alone at breakfast, she tried to talk to her and draw her into some active role in the new plans for the house. But her aunt remained sharply antagonistic.
“If you had any sense,” she said, “you’d let things alone. This house has seen too much of tragedy. Don’t tamper with it. Don’t wake it up, or you’ll bring more down on our heads. There are times when I think it has a malevolent will to destroy us all. I don’t want to see it repaired and renewed.”
Camilla paid little attention to her words. The problem of Hortense was one she still hoped to solve, but it could be postponed in the face of matters more urgent.
Ross Granger, too, remained remote from all that was going on, though not to the extent of refusing to help if some immediate need arose. More than once he looked over repairs that were being made and made suggestions that saved time and waste. But he acted seldom and with evident reluctance. Often he carried his books and papers over to the comparative quiet of Blue Beeches, where there was less pounding and shouting, and where he was apparently welcome, as he worked to wind up his own part in Orrin Judd’s affairs.
Camilla’s first consultation with Mr. Pompton took place more than a week after the funeral. On the morning before Ross Granger was scheduled to leave, she received the lawyer in the library with a mingling of hope and hesitation, not sure whether or not he might try to stop her from spending money on the improvements she wanted to make. She was prepared to oppose him firmly if she had to. A sense of confidence was growing in her as she found that her orders were obeyed, her wishes deferred to—at least by those she employed.
Mr. Pompton had other matters on his mind, however. He droned on in monotonous detail about investments, holdings, interest, and other affairs of a similar nature, until Camilla’s head spun and she felt increasingly confused. Then he relented and let her know that there was little she need do about any of these matters at present, except to sign a few papers. Mr. Granger, he said, had been Orrin Judd’s lieutenant for years and he undoubtedly understood all the larger business affairs, which were not Mr. Pompton’s province. Mr. Granger had formed a liaison between Thunder Heights and New York, and she could inform herself about these matters through him.
“But Mr. Granger is leaving tomorrow,” she said in surprise that Ross had not let him know.
Mr. Pompton smoothed his pink scalp, unperturbed. “And when will he return, Miss Camilla?”
“He’s not coming back,” Camilla said. “He resigned from this work right after the funeral.”
The attorney stared at her as if he did not believe his ears. Then he got up and strode back and forth across the room several times. When he sat down again, he had clearly made up his mind.
“You must not accept Granger’s resignation, Miss Camilla. Later, perhaps, when someone else can take his place. But at the moment you cannot do without him.”
As Camilla listened, he made very plain the reasons why she could not let Ross Granger drop her grandfather’s affairs. Her first dismay began to fade as she heard him out, and she felt faintly relieved. Even though Ross had avoided her lately, his presence in the house had been reassuring. The fact of his being here had more than once bolstered her courage. She did not know quite why this was so, since she and Ross seemed seldom to be together without conflict or irritation. Nevertheless, at the moment she felt only relieved to hear that his continued presence was necessary.
When Mr. Pompton finished, Camilla rang for Grace and sent her upstairs to summon Mr. Granger from his room. He left his sorting and packing and came down to the library with his bright hair on end and a smudge of dust along one cheekbone.
“Please sit down,” she said, and plunged in before she could frighten herself by thinking what might happen if he refused. “Mr. Pompton has just made me understand how indispensable you are in Judd affairs. Must you really leave us, Mr. Granger?”
He did not seem surprised. “Your cousin Booth and your Aunt Hortense don’t want me here. And I certainly haven’t meant to force my services on you.”
Mr. Pompton coughed impatiently. “Stop playacting, Granger. You know she can’t move a finger without you.”
Ross’s straight mouth relaxed into a smile. “Miss King has been moving very fast in a number of directions without me.”
“Women’s matters,” Mr. Pompton scoffed. “Supervising pots of paint and getting seamstresses in to make new draperies. Planting grass and clipping back the underbrush.” He slapped the table before him impatiently. “What does she know about the Judd projects that are now in the making? These can’t be dropped in midstream.”
“I’d like to learn,” Camilla said quickly.
Mr. Pompton and Ross Granger exchanged glances that were clearly despairing.
“You must stay, Granger,” Mr. Pompton said. “You owe it to Orrin Judd.”
Ross glanced at the portrait over the mantel. “I suppose it’s impossible to leave without making some attempt to help. For a time at least.”
“Then you will stay?” Camilla asked, and found that her tone sounded meeker than she had intended.
Ross hesitated for a moment longer, before he gave in. “All right—I’ll stay. But not under this roof. I’d have moved out long ago, if Mr. Judd hadn’t insisted that I be where he could call me the instant he wanted me.”
“He left you the use of the rooms over the coach house in his will,” Pompton said. “That was a bribe, wasn’t it? To give you what you wanted, so you’d stay on and assist Miss Camilla?”
“Perhaps.” Ross smiled wryly. “Or else it was meant to infuriate Hendricks.”
Camilla looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand. Why should it infuriate Booth?”
“Mr. Hendricks has his studio in those rooms,” Mr. Pompton said. “He dabbles at his painting there.”
So that was where Booth went when he absented himself from the house.
Camilla considered the matter, still at a loss. She did not want to antagonize Booth by putting him out of rooms he liked to work in. At the same time, she did not dare to lose Ross, and he was clearly firm about getting out of this house.
“There’s no immediate hurry, is there?” she asked. “If you’ll give me a little time, I’ll talk to Booth and persuade him to work somewhere else.”
Ross quirked a doubtful eyebrow, but did not object to a delay. Mr. Pompton gathered up his papers, found still another for Camilla’s signature, and then went off, shaking his head doubtfully.
“I’d better get to my—unpacking,” Ross said when Pompton had gone.
On impulse Camilla held out her hand to him. “Thank you for staying. I know you didn’t want to.”
He took her hand, bowed over it remotely and went out of the room without further comment.
Left alone, Camilla wondered about the best way to approach Booth. Perhaps Letty could help her on this, since she and Booth seemed on affectionate terms.
Camilla found her in the rear garden. Her aunt knelt at her work, the sleeves of her gray dress rolled up and her hands gloveless as she handled the soft brown earth, preparing it for planting. So this was why Letty’s hands were not the pale, protected hands of a lady, but had a sturdy look of usefulness about them.
Much of her work seemed to be done with her left hand, but she brought her right hand frequently into play by bending her body forward to accommodate the stiff arm. Her rolled-up sleeve revealed to a pitiful extent the misshapen right arm, thin and twisted. As she drew near, Camilla saw with a pang of dismay the ugly, welted crescent of a sear on the inner flesh of the arm.
At that moment Letty heard her. The bent head with its silver coronet of braids came up, and at once Letty pulled down her sleeve to cover the scarred and crooked arm. The gesture seemed more automatic than distressed, as if it were something she did out of long habit, to save the sensibilities of others. Her smile of greeting for Camilla was affectionate.
“Spring is the exciting time of year,” Letty said
, sounding as exuberant as a girl. “There’s something about the smell of earth warming in the sun that’s full of wonderful promise. I can almost feel things beginning to grow.”
“I can at least see them beginning.” Camilla laughed, and sat down on a flat rock at the edge of Letty’s garden. “There’s green everywhere you look today. Are you planting flowers, Aunt Letty?”
“No—herbs. Toby raises a few flowers, and I’ve planted a white narcissus fringe along the edge of the wood up there. But it’s my little friends the herbs I like best. Look at coltsfoot there—already blooming. He’s a bold one. That means warm days are on the way. He comes up as quickly as a dandelion, and just as bright and yellow, with his thick leaves close to the ground.”
She gestured toward the plant beside her, and Camilla reached out to touch a leaf and turn it over, revealing its white, woolly underside. Watching Aunt Letty, listening to her, Camilla felt once more impatient with Hortense and her unkind insinuations. It was not Letty in this household who was to be distrusted.
“They’re all so different, these herb people,” Letty went on, more talkative now than Camilla had ever heard her. “Sage has leaves like velvet, while some herbs have leaves shiny as satin, or prickly, or smooth, or tough. Of course they’re not much when it comes to flowers, yet the garden can look gay as a carnival when my herbs are in bloom. You’ll see, later on.”
Her bright, intense gaze, strangely young, lifted to meet Camilla’s look frankly.
“I’m glad you’re going to stay with us, my dear. At first I thought the only answer for you was to let the house go. But perhaps I was wrong.”
“I hope so,” Camilla said soberly.
“Of course you mustn’t live the way we’ve lived.” Letty prodded the earth with her trowel, continuing her work. “I mean shut in with each other, turning our backs on Westcliff and all our neighbors. Booth has a few friends he meets away from the house, but that’s not enough. You could open the house, if you wanted to—make it like it was in the days when we were young and your mother was alive.”
Camilla moved on the rock and drew her knees up, clasping her hands about them. “That sounds like fun, but there’s so much to be done first, and it’s still hard to believe in what has happened to me. I haven’t begun to get used to it yet. Yesterday, when I was going through my trunk after it arrived from New York, I found myself wondering how I could remake some of my clothes, so they would last another season.”
She laughed out loud, remembering her own foolish behavior. Suddenly, as she puzzled over the problem, it had come to her that she might have all the new clothes she wanted. Whereupon she had rolled up a bundle of her old things, rejoicing in an outburst of reckless abandon, and packed them off for charity. A gesture which left her with hardly a stitch to her back until the matter was corrected.
Letty laughed with her gently, as she told the story. “Perhaps you’ll let Hortense help you with your planning of new gowns.”
“Of course,” Camilla promised readily. “Let’s plan a new wardrobe for all three of us.”
Letty nodded a little absently and returned to her work.
In a little while, Camilla knew, she must bring up the subject of Booth, but it was so pleasantly peaceful here in the herb garden that she wanted to postpone that problem for the moment. She wondered about Letty as she watched her work. It would be interesting to know what thoughts went on behind her present tranquillity. She did not look like a woman who would walk in her sleep, or ever intend the slightest harm to others. Did she ever guess how her sister maligned her?
In the picture Grandfather Orrin had left, Letty’s right arm had looked as straight as her left, so the crippling must have occurred after she was grown. What had caused the ugly scar that welted her arm? And why had so sweet a person as Letty never married?
“A normal social life would be good for Hortense, too.” Letty paused, trowel in air. “She has been hungry for gaiety for a long time.”
“Yet she doesn’t approve of what I’m doing,” Camilla pointed out. “She says the house is born to tragedy and we must let it alone, or be destroyed by it.”
Letty sat back on her heels to gaze up at the dark towers above them. “I know what she means. Once death has stepped into a house it leaves a shadow.”
“Every old house knows death,” Camilla protested. “Why should we mind that? Grandfather was an old man and he must have lived a full life. Perhaps we shouldn’t grieve too much for his going.”
The silver braids about Letty’s head shone in the sun as she bent over the bed where she was working, crumbling earth idly in her fingers. Her silence was only a cloak for her thoughts, Camilla knew, and she spoke to her softly.
“You’re thinking of my mother, aren’t you, Aunt Letty? That she died in this house—died too young. Will you tell me what happened? When those reporters were here, one of them mentioned her. He spoke of her being—smashed up. Why shouldn’t I know the truth, whatever it was?”
Letty’s brown eyes, so warm and unlike her sister’s, rested on Camilla’s face for a moment and then flicked away. In that instant Camilla glimpsed in them something of—was it fear? There was a long silence while Letty dropped seeds into the earth and patted them down, moving on along the row, not minding the earth stains on her skirt. A robin, fat and red-breasted, hopped close enough to pull a worm from the far side of the herb bed. There was a warm odor of earth and sun and pine needles in the air, and Camilla thought she had never been in so quiet and peaceful a place. Peaceful except for the glimpse of quickly hidden uneasiness she had seen in Letty’s eyes.
While her father had refused to speak of Althea’s death because of his own pain, and his desire to keep his daughter from unnecessary hurt, the silence which surrounded Althea’s death at Thunder Heights had in it something more. Something that savored of concealment, of a fearful reluctance to have the truth known.
It would be no use, Camilla knew, to repeat her question. The time for the answer to be given her was not yet ripe. In as matter-of-fact tones as she could manage, she began to speak of Booth’s studio over the coach house and of the fact that Ross, if he were to stay, must have the use of those rooms.
Letty listened, nodding thoughtfully. “Of course we can’t afford to lose Ross Granger if he is willing to stay. Booth will have to give up his studio. But he won’t want to, you know. And he can be difficult when he chooses. Perhaps I had better speak to him.”
For just a moment Camilla was ready to accept Letty’s offer. For all that Booth had been kind, she had a feeling of strangeness about him. He had never shown anger toward her, yet she had a sense of dreading his anger. Nevertheless, she put aside her feeling of readiness to rely on Letty. If she was to make her home at Thunder Heights she could not sidestep the difficult tasks. This was something she must solve herself. She had come to Aunt Letty only for advice.
“I’ll speak to him myself,” she said.
There was approval in Letty’s look. “You’re right, of course, dear. Perhaps you might offer him some other place when you tell him about this. Why not—the nursery? It’s big enough and the light is good up there. Booth only moved his workroom out of the house because Papa came to dislike the smell of paints and turpentine. But I don’t think the rest of us will mind it up at the top of the house.”
“Thank you, Aunt Letty,” Camilla said. “I’ll go talk to him now.”
But still she did not spring up at once to go in search of Booth. “I saw your herb collection in the cellar the other day,” she went on idly. “You must have given a great deal of study to the subject to put up all those different things.”
Letty nodded. “I love to mix my tisanes and infusions. Herbs have so much to give when you understand them. I used to treat most of the villagers in the old days, whenever they got sick. They trusted me more than they did the doctor. There was a friendly rivalry between Dr. Wheeler and me at one time. Of course I don’t do that any more.”
Camilla studied her
aunt’s face with its fragile bone structure and hint of inner strength. “Why did you stop, if you helped people and if you enjoyed nursing them?”
Letty did not answer at once. She pressed earth over seeds she had dropped and smiled down at them fondly.
“You have to be careful about planting herbs. They’re likely to come up—every one—and grow elbow to elbow like city folk. So we have to give them room in the planting.”
Camilla waited, and after a moment Letty went on, not meeting her eyes as she spoke.
“Hortense didn’t like what I was doing. She didn’t think it was a fitting occupation for a Judd.”
“Why not start again, Aunt Letty?” Camilla asked.
“It’s too late,” Letty admitted sadly. “Too late for so many things.” She bent her head, so that only her silvery braids were visible.
There was no point in postponing her unwelcome task any longer and Camilla stood up. “Do you know where Booth is now?”
“I saw him going out toward the coach house this morning,” Letty told her. “He’s probably still there. If he’s angry with you at first, don’t mind. I’ll get him to come around.”
“I’ll get him to come around myself,” Camilla said with a resolution she did not entirely feel. She walked around the house and took the driveway in the direction of the stable.
TEN
As she approached, the coach house could be seen ahead near the gate. Here, too, an unconventional imagination had been at work in the design. It looked almost like a miniature of the main house, with its own turrets and gables and the barge-board bracketing that was typically Hudson River.
She found the barnlike lower door ajar and saw that it was somewhat the worse for weathering. More repairs would be needed here, as well as fresh paint. From the open doorway she could see a steep flight of stairs running upward to the floor above. She did not approach them at once, but moved among the dusty stalls and examined the big room where a carriage had once been kept. Dust and cobwebs lay over everything. Only the stairs had been swept clean. An old set of harness hanging from a nail rattled as she struck it in passing and Booth’s voice challenged her at once from above.
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