She clung to him more tightly than ever. “No, no! We mustn’t ever be apart again. Ross—I’ll do as you say. I’ll give up the inheritance and go wherever you wish. If only you want me with you—that’s all I ask.”
He kissed her again. “You know how much I want you. But in the end you’d never forgive yourself, or forgive me. I was angry when I asked you to throw away what you feel is your responsibility. It’s not a sacrifice I could accept.”
He put her out of his arms, as he had done once before, but this time his hands were gentle and there was pain in his eyes.
“Stay here in the cemetery a little while longer,” he said. “Then we won’t be seen together outside. It won’t help you if the Judds think you’ve met me here secretly.” He started away from her and then turned back for an instant. “Please be careful, Camilla,” he said and hurried off toward the gate.
She stood stricken and helpless, watching him go. What was she to do? What was the answer for her? To know that he loved her and wanted her brought a mingling of pain and joy with the knowledge, but pain was uppermost, and she could not tell where to turn.
When she heard the gate creak and knew he was gone, she went to stand for a little while beside the grave of Althea Judd King. How young she had been to die. Yet she had known the fullest meaning of happiness. She had lived with her love and borne him a daughter whom they both had loved. And now that daughter stood beside the place where Althea lay and knew that something of herself must die too soon, as surely as the body which lay beneath the granite slab had died too soon. But in Camilla it must die without the taste of happiness or fulfillment.
Once more her thoughts turned to that stormy night on the mountain and all the dark puzzle of what had happened there. If she could find the full answer to these things, might she not find as well an answer to the problem of her love? Why she should feel this to be a possibility, she did not know, but the conviction was strong within her.
If Althea had been too good a rider to be thrown, how had Folly freed herself and come home with an empty saddle? And what had happened between Althea and Booth out there in the stable before she had ridden off in the storm? Why had she struck him with her riding crop? What was the basis of the angry quarrel that had flared between them?
She thought again of the crop as she reached the stone lions that marked the gateway to Thunder Heights. How could it possibly have fallen into those bushes? Could Grandfather have tossed it there despairingly after the accident? Yet Grandfather had taken loving care of Althea’s riding things in the attic. And why had Aunt Letty taken the crop away, kept it out of sight, said nothing to the others about the finding of it?
None of these questions could be answered, and it was the present she must face, not the past.
TWENTY-TWO
Luncheon that day was a solemn meal, with only Hortense and Letty to keep her company. Letty said Booth was working upstairs on his picture. Only a few touches to the background remained to complete it, and he wanted to work straight through, while the mood was upon him.
“I’ll take him something when we finish,” Letty said. “I’m glad he’s working again. I’ll be happy when this painting is finished.”
There was something in her tone that made Camilla glance at her. “Why will you be happy?”
“It’s as Booth says—I’ve never liked it,” Letty said. “It’s too painful a picture to be endured. I can’t look at it without seeing Folly’s rearing hoofs, striking at me. Just as they must have struck at Althea.”
“Do you suppose she dismounted the way you did?” Camilla asked. “Do you suppose that is how she was thrown?”
Hortense said brusquely, “Do talk about something else. We can do without such a gloomy subject with our meal.”
They finished the meal in silence.
Afterward, when Letty had fixed a tray for Booth, she asked Camilla to come upstairs with her to his studio.
“He wants you to see the finished picture, dear,” she said, when Camilla looked as though she might refuse. “I think he wants you to be pleased with it.”
Camilla would have preferred never to look at that picture again. She felt as Letty did about it, but she had no reasonable excuse to offer. And she could not avoid Booth all the time. Not if she was to continue living in the house.
Up in the nursery, he had set his easel facing the long windows along the north wall. When they came in he had finished the last brush stroke and was standing back to study the picture with critical eyes.
“I’ve brought you something to eat, dear,” Letty said, and set the tray on a table.
Booth hardly glanced at it. His look was on Camilla. “It’s done,” he said. “Come and tell me what you think.”
Letty slipped a hand through Camilla’s arm, and they approached the easel together.
With the background completed, the violence of the scene seemed to hurl itself at the beholder. Folly, rearing with wild hoofs, was a deadly sight. Her ears were laid back, her nostrils dilated, her lip curled above vicious teeth. But the girl who stood clinging to her bridle was almost laughing in exultance, as if she had thrown herself into the furious satisfaction of taming this rearing beast. Althea herself would surely have applauded such reckless courage.
Camilla, staring at the picture, could not be sure whether the face in the picture was her own or her mother’s, but she knew that the wild emotion the artist had caught in the woman’s storm-lighted face could well have been Althea’s.
“I think I’ve never looked like that,” she said to Booth.
“But I can imagine you like that, after seeing Althea angry,” he said.
Letty had stepped closer to study the picture’s details. The background of stormy sky had been completed, and the dark, stony ground beneath the feet of horse and girl had been painted in detail. The scene was clearly the bald top of Thunder Mountain, with the edge of the cliff dropping off not far away. The girl in the picture had dropped her riding crop in her struggle with the horse and it lay a short distance away in the left foreground.
Letty uttered a soft exclamation. “You’ve painted in Althea’s riding crop!” she cried.
“It’s a good touch, don’t you think?” Booth said. “I needed something to fill that empty spot.”
“But the crop was never found up there,” Letty said softly.
Booth shrugged. “Aren’t you taking this too literally? After all, the entire scene is something I made up. I started painting it before I ever knew what would happen to Althea.”
Letty said, “Wait for me here, Camilla. I’ll be only a moment.”
She hurried off and Booth smiled at Camilla. “What’s the trouble these days, Cousin? You hardly came near me at the lawn party yesterday.”
She wanted to say, “There’s the ugly matter of a broken step between us. And how will you explain that?”
But she remembered Ross’s warning and suppressed the words. She would not be safe in this house until a will had been made. And she could not go to Mr. Pompton until tomorrow. In the meantime caution was her safest defense. If Booth did not know that she suspected him, she would be far safer than if he did.
“I was busy with our guests,” she said quietly. “I had no time for members of the family.”
“Yes,” he said, “I saw the attention you were paying to Mrs. Landry. I suppose she tried to fill your ears with old scandals out of the past?”
Before Camilla could answer, Letty had returned, carrying in her hands the little riding crop with its head of silver chrysanthemums. She held it out to Booth.
“Here you are,” she said.
Booth took it, and the queer, electric excitement kindled in his eyes. The moment of danger, Camilla thought. The crop had meaning for him—that was plain.
“Where did this turn up?” Booth asked.
“Camilla found it. She can tell you where.”
Booth turned the crop in his hands, examining the polished silver cap, the leather thong that had rotte
d through.
“Suppose you tell me, Cousin,” he said.
The roof of Camilla’s mouth felt suddenly as dry as her lips. Booth was watching her. Letty was watching Booth, and there was an undercurrent of sick excitement in the room. Camilla touched her lips with the tip of her tongue and began to speak.
“When I climbed down to that spit of land that strikes out into the river below Thunder Mountain,” she said, “I found the crop caught in a crotch of brush.”
“As if it had been flung there,” Letty puzzled. “But where could it have been thrown from, I wonder? Not from the top of Thunder Mountain—the spit is too far out for that.”
“And why, if Althea had carried it up there, would she have thrown it over the cliff?” Booth said easily. “I’m sorry there’s been such a mystery about it. I can tell you what happened.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you tell us sooner, dear?” Letty asked. “Why didn’t you tell us when Papa kept wondering about the crop and looking for it to keep with the saddle and bridle?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Booth said, “because Althea struck me across the face with the crop, and that was not something I cared to tell. I took it out of her hands, and she mounted Folly and rode away. I carried the crop to the lawn above the river and flung it out as far as I could throw. Into the water, I thought. I intended that she would never strike anyone with it again.”
Letty’s sigh was a soft release of breath, as if she had been waiting in dread for his explanation. She took the crop from him and held it out to Camilla.
“You may have it now, dear. Carry it the next time you wear Althea’s things. I’m sure she would want you to have it.”
“I’ll carry it this afternoon,” Camilla said. “I’ve had no time for riding lately. But I’ve wanted to explore those queer ruins that look like a castle over on the next hill.”
“That will be nice,” Letty said. “Booth dear, do come eat your lunch.”
“You’re right about the ruins,” Booth said. “They are those of a castle. But they’re man-made. A few families along the Hudson got the notion years ago that they would give the river a look of the Rhine. They thought a few expensive castle ruins would be picturesque—but the idea never caught on. When I was a boy we used to use Castle Dunder for picnics, didn’t we, Aunt Letty? It’s a good spot for a view.”
He had turned his attention to the food before him, and Camilla smiled at Letty and slipped away from the room. There was in her a growing urgency to be out on Firefly again, riding through the hills. Away from this house she would be safe just that much longer. She could use the entire afternoon for riding and exploring the ruins. Then there would be only dinner, the evening, and one last night to get through. She would lock herself in, perhaps ask Letty to stay with her again. And in the morning she would go to Mr. Pompton’s office in Westcliff and await his coming. Ever since she had talked to Ross this morning the need for action had been building within her. She was no longer undecided as to what she meant to do. Somehow, ever since she had looked at the finished picture of girl and horse, she had known that she must fight for her life. She must act swiftly while there was still time, and while Booth was without suspicion of what she meant to do.
The riding crop lay on the bed where she had tossed it, and as she dressed in Althea’s gray habit, she glanced at it now and then. Booth’s explanation had been glib and logical, but she did not believe it. He might fool Letty, who loved him as a son, but he could not fool her. His story of what had happened to the crop was a lie. She had seen it in the exultance in his face, in his supreme confidence that he could step to the very knife edge of danger and back away in time to save himself.
Yet, even while instinct told her that he was concealing something about the crop, her mind drew only a blank when she tried to think what it might be. Why had he painted the crop into the picture unless it had really lain there on the ground near Althea when she had struggled with the horse? Had he done it deliberately, playing with danger? Or had he done it from memory, without thinking—with an artist’s unconscious observation of every detail?
But there was no way in which Booth could have been on the mountain to see what had happened. He had come in to tell Letty that Althea had refused to listen to him and that she had gone out alone into the rising storm. Then he had remained at Thunder Heights until her riderless horse had come home. After that he had roused the house and sent out searchers. Orrin Judd had gone up the mountain. Booth had chosen the river path for his search. He had never been near the mountaintop that night at all. There was no way in which he could have affected what had happened to Althea. Nor could he have seen the crop on the ground at her feet. That is, if the crop had really been there, and was not merely the imaginative touch Booth claimed it to be.
When Camilla was dressed and ready for her ride, she went to Letty’s room and tapped on the door. Someone moved inside, but there was no answer and she knocked again. To her surprise, Hortense opened the door, and Camilla saw that she had been crying.
“I was looking for Letty,” Camilla said.
Hortense stared at her in antipathy. “All the trouble that has come to this house since Papa died is due to you. Why don’t you go away?”
“Do you know where Letty is?” Camilla repeated.
“I don’t want to know. I came here to make her understand something, and she flounced out and left me. You’ll have to look for her.”
Camilla met Grace on the stairs, and the girl said Miss Letty had gone down to the cellar. Camilla hurried down and found that the broken step had been repaired. Nevertheless, she stepped cautiously as she went down the steep flight. Letty was in the larder, and she glanced up as Camilla came in the door.
“Rosemary and lavender make a lovely tea,” she said, busy with her jars of herbs. But Camilla saw that her hands were trembling.
“Did you know,” Camilla asked, “that Hortense is upstairs in your room?”
“I know,” Letty said. “She came in to see me just now, but I walked out and left her there, I didn’t want to listen to the things she had to say.”
“About me, Aunt Letty?”
Letty waved the question aside. “Her nonsense doesn’t bear repeating. I see you’re ready for your ride, dear.”
“Yes. I’ll go out in a little while. But I wanted to talk to you first, Aunt Letty.”
“You, too?” Letty sighed. “I came down here to be busy and peaceful.”
Camilla wondered if she dared tell Letty about the will she meant to ask Mr. Pompton to draw up tomorrow. There was nothing greedy about Letty and her advice might be worth seeking, if she were not in one of her vague and evasive moods. But first there were other things to be said, and there was no use trying to approach them delicately.
“I think you ought to know,” she said, “that the step that might have killed me yesterday was deliberately tampered with. I’d have shown it to you if it hadn’t been mended so quickly. The wood wasn’t rotten at all. There was no reason for it to break so easily.”
“Tampered with?” Letty’s hands went on with their work, and she did not look at Camilla. “For what purpose? By whom?”
“I think it was intended that I should be badly hurt on that step. But I don’t think you planned such a trap, Aunt Letty. Nor do I think Aunt Hortense did. It’s the sort of thing a man would execute.”
Letty whirled to look at her and there were high spots of color in her cheeks. “You’re making a dangerous accusation. And without proof.”
“The proof is gone,” Camilla said. “But I know what I saw.”
“I don’t believe it,” Letty said, her lips quivering as she spoke.
“What about the riding crop then? I know that worried you when you saw that Booth had painted it into his picture. And I think I know why. You were wondering why he saw it there in his mind’s eye—just as I was wondering. That’s why you brought it in and showed it to him, isn’t it?”
Letty shook her head a little w
ildly. There was no serenity in her now. “I won’t listen to such insinuations, Camilla. Ever since Booth came to this house, everyone has been against him. No one has understood him or loved him but me. I didn’t expect you to turn against him too. Of course he is—different—and perhaps a little eccentric. But that is often true of the highly gifted.”
“Then you don’t believe, Aunt Letty, that Booth would ever make an attempt on my life? Or even, perhaps, on my mother’s?”
There was a long moment of silence in the room. Letty seemed to be struggling with too strong an indignation for words. In the end she merely shook her head fervently in answer.
“Very well,” Camilla said. “I just wanted to know where you stand in all this, Aunt Letty. I’ll go out for my ride now.”
As she went upstairs, she felt torn and saddened. If it came to a choice between her safety and Booth’s, she suspected that there would be only one decision Letty could make. She was no more to be trusted than Hortense or Booth himself. At Thunder Heights every hand was against her, and that was as it would always be. And for such emptiness she must give up her love.
She let herself out the heavy front door and started down the steps. Behind her Letty’s voice called out and Camilla turned around. Letty stood on the steps, breathless from running upstairs.
“Don’t go riding, dear,” she said. “There’s going to be a storm.”
Camilla looked up at the sky. It was blue and hot and still. What clouds there were still hung motionless on the horizon as they had seemed to do all day. Not a breath of air stirred the leaves in the park before the house.
“There’s not a sign of a storm anywhere,” Camilla said.
She would have walked on toward the stable, but Letty came after her and caught at her arm in entreaty.
“Please, dear. You must believe me. I have a feeling that something terrible will happen if you go riding today.”
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