“I’m sorry,” Lora said at last. “I’ve seen Mrs. Tyler only as someone who has hurt Wade and Jemmy—not as a woman who has been hurt herself.”
Ambrose had gone back to his dishwashing. “I’m not standing up for the hurting things she does to people,” he went on. “It’s just that I can’t forget the day when she came back from her honeymoon with Jack Tyler and began to live as a bride in that house where she’d grown up under her father’s thumb. It didn’t take long for Mr. Jack to show his colors. But how could she have known what to expect when she’d pretended all her life not to care for men, and when they cared so little for her? She was an easy mark for the first fortune hunter to spot her. And once they were married, he didn’t keep up the pretty ways that had won her. He held the purse strings then, according to law, and he could do as he liked. So he filled the house with his dogs and his friends and his liquor. He even started bringing women in when he was drunk enough. But the second time that happened I knocked him down and he didn’t try that again. Not in her house, anyway.”
Lora looked at the old man in surprise. He smiled at her expression and dumped out his pan of water.
“You’re wondering why he didn’t fire me? Well, to tell the truth, he did. But me and my family just stayed on for a while and he let things drift. Besides, when it came to a real scrap, I think he was always just a mite scared of that wife of his. Mostly she shut herself in her own rooms and had nothing to do with him. But one time when he tried to interfere with something she wanted to do about Wade, she told him to keep hands off or she’d take one of his own guns and deal with him for certain. Scared him good, I guess. Even scared me, for fear she’d really do something crazy like that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t make firing me stick. She wouldn’t have it and he’d learned to know a brick wall when he saw one.”
“What a terrible childhood for Wade,” Lora said sadly.
Ambrose wiped a cup and hung it neatly on a hook in the cupboard nearby. “Worse than you can guess, ma’am. Because, while he wasn’t like either of his parents, he was more like his father than he was like her. But she was bound she could change nature and turn him into the spittin’ image of old Jason, his grandfather. Everything he was good at she made nothing of, and she nagged and prodded and pushed all the time to turn him into what he wasn’t. Even his papa got sorry for the boy sometimes, but he didn’t dare interfere, and anyway he wasn’t much for the father stuff—not him. I never saw a little tyke who needed to be loved more than that Wade boy. He did fine, too, away from home. Girls always liked him and lots of the boys did too—except the real roughnecks. He was plenty smart when he forgot that his mother thought he was stupid. Outside, people listened to him and made a lot of him. And he warmed to that the way Jemmy warms to you.”
“Virginia listened to him, didn’t she?” Lora asked gently.
His back was to her and he didn’t speak for a minute. He hung up his dish towel and came toward the fireplace.
“Virginia thought he was Apollo and Lancelot and Abelard rolled into one. But I guess he didn’t believe all that himself. Maybe in a way he was leaning on her belief, instead of his own. That’s why you’re good for him—he’s beginning to find out he has some belief in himself after all.”
“But am I good for him?” Lora murmured. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
He reached toward the mantelpiece for a pipe in a cracked bowl, then remembered his company and drew back his hand.
“Please smoke,” Lora said quickly. “My father always smoked a pipe. I like it.”
He took the pipe down and packed it with tobacco, held a taper to the fire and lighted the fragrant weed. Then he drew the other rocker up to the fire beside her.
“One thing I can’t understand,” Lora said, “is why Wade should include you in his feud with Morgan.”
“That’s simple enough,” Ambrose rocked for a moment and drew on his pipe. “He offered me a home in his house after we lost Virginia. My wife had died a while back. But I decided to stay with Morgan. Funny thing, Lora—maybe it makes no sense, but no matter how much of everything Morgan’s got these days, I still feel like I need to be around, standing by. Just in case what she’s got doesn’t turn out to be enough after all.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t appreciate that.”
“It makes no matter. Something inside me bids me do this. But you can guess how much it peeved Wade. He wanted nothing to do with her, and when I chose to make my home here, he was mad enough to include me in the way he felt about her.”
“Thank you for telling me these things,” Lora said. “I’m not prying idly—I want so much to understand. Serena has told me a few things too. So has Jemmy. And even Morgan. I can fit all the bits and pieces together and begin to see the pattern. But, John, I’d hate to feel that human beings can only be what they are made to be. I don’t want to believe that Wade, or Jemmy, or Mother Tyler, or I can only be part of a set pattern that was fixed in the beginning.”
“I know what you mean, Lorie,” he said.
Her eyes blurred at the sound of the name he must have picked up from Jemmy. Hearing him use it was like hearing it on Doc’s lips.
Ambrose reached toward the bookcase beside him and pulled a volume from the shelf. “Just the same, Lorie, there’s a weaving to start with we can’t much help. There’s a casting of the colors and a starting of the pattern that we’ve nothing to say about. Something’s handed us and we have to go on with it. But the going on is up to us.”
He paged through the book and she saw that it was by Matthew Arnold.
“Listen, Lorie,” he said.
“The will is free:
Strong is the Soul and wise and beautiful:
The seeds of godlike power are in us still:
Gods are we, Bards, Saints, Heroes, if we will.”
Lora sat very still and the words seemed to echo in the room long after Ambrose had closed the book. His voice had not been made for reading as was Wade’s. His words lacked any cultured cadence, but she sensed wisdom in this man, and a simple goodness.
A log fell with a small crash in the grate and Lora came back to the present with a start and felt the circle of gold still held within her palm. She uncurled her fingers and showed the earring to John Ambrose.
“I found this in the woods today. I think it belongs to Rebecca.”
He nodded. “She’ll be glad to have it back. Her mother gave her that pair long ago, she said. She felt bad about losing one of them.”
“I found it in the ruins of the Hume house,” Lora told him.
Ambrose puffed on his pipe, but did not look at her.
“I wonder what Rebecca is really like,” Lora said. “I don’t think Morgan regards her as a person at all.”
“You’d like to return the earring to her yourself, wouldn’t you?” Ambrose asked. “Suppose I go look for the girl and send her here. Won’t take me a minute.”
She waited while he went out of the room. Once she got up and looked through the windows on the downhill side. But the woods shut off the view and there was only the cool brown of clustered maple and oak across the road.
Rebecca’s step in the doorway was so light she might not have heard her entry had not the door squeaked as the girl closed it. She stood there with her back against it, bright in her usual gay plumage, looking at Lora guardedly. Against her cheeks hung hoops of tortoise shell.
“Mr. Ambrose says you want to see me, ma’am,” the girl murmured.
Lora tried to make her smile reassuring. “Good morning, Rebecca. Come in and sit down, won’t you?”
The dark eyes gave her a quick, bright look of suspicion as Rebecca came into the room. Reluctantly she seated herself on the very edge of a chair and waited for whatever might come next.
“I found your gold earring this morning,” Lora said. She leaned toward the girl, extending it on her palm. “It was under a bush in the old Hume place.”
“Oh!” Rebecca gasped. “We looked all over for it.” She took
the earring while mingled relief and pleasure flashed briefly across her face. Then it was dark and shuttered again. “I reckon I’d better go back now. Mrs. Channing will be needing me real soon. Thank you for finding this, ma’am.”
Lora watched her helplessly. She wanted to offer her help if Rebecca needed it. Yet there was no way to get past her suspicion, her distrust. At least she had betrayed something when she had used the word “we.”
“I’m glad you’ve found a friend,” Lora said gently.
Rebecca clasped her hands together, the earring pressed between her palms. “Mrs. Channing doesn’t want me to—to have—friends. You don’t know how Mrs. Channing gets when she’s mad.”
“Mrs. Channing can’t keep you from having some sort of social life,” Lora protested.
“She can if she wants.”
“But you’re not a slave. You can do as you like. It’s not for me to interfere, but if you wanted to leave her employ tomorrow you could easily get work elsewhere.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t leave. She’d make real bad trouble. Besides, she pays me more than I’d get most places.”
“What can you do with money if you have no life of your own?”
“I can’t—” Rebecca stopped, but this time her eyes met Lora’s searchingly, not as a servant’s but as the eyes of another woman looking for an assurance that she could trust.
“I’d like to help you, Rebecca,” Lora told her. “If there’s anything I can do—”
For the first time her sincerity seemed to penetrate the other girl’s guard. Rebecca spoke softly, in a little rush of words.
“I’m saving to buy freedom for my mother and my little sister, ma’am. They’re still back home and they belong to Mrs. Channing. But she said she’d sell them to me if I save my money. That is, if I’m a good girl and do just like she wants.”
For a moment Lora was at a complete loss for words. What a brutal weapon to hold over the girl’s head, to cow her with, and make her a chattel. Why should Morgan want to do so cruel a thing? Besides, she was a Northern woman—she had no right to talk of buying and selling human beings.
“You need pay no attention to that now,” Lora assured her. “President Lincoln has freed all slaves in the states that are fighting against us. So your mother is free. She can come here any time.”
Rebecca shook her head disbelievingly. “Mrs. Channing says the President’s Proclamation don’t rightly mean much. She says it won’t mean much unless the North wins the war. And the way she thinks, the North isn’t going to win.”
Unexpectedly a flash of denial went through Lora. “Of course the North must win!”
The thought surprised her. Until now she had believed her whole being to be set against war itself, wanting neither side to win. This unexpected upsurge of loyalty for the cause of the North indicated a change of which she had been unaware. She recovered herself and went on.
“I’m going to see about this, Rebecca. I’m going to see if I can find some way to help.”
The girl twisted her hands nervously. “Mrs. Channing says she’ll sell them quick as a wink if she thinks I’d try anything. No’m, Mrs. Tyler—I guess my way’s right for me. It’ll take a long while, I reckon, but—” Her words were lost in the sudden opening of the door.
The hand which had pushed it open was plainly an angry one, and Lora turned in her rocker to see Mrs. Channing herself in the doorway. Morgan had flung a wool mantle over her wrapper and nightdress, her dark hair hung thick and heavy over her shoulders, and there was wrath in her eyes. She took in the tête-à-tête before Rebecca could rise from her chair, her indignation centering upon the colored girl, ignoring Lora.
“So I am to ring for a half hour in the morning without being answered?” she cried. “When I go in search of you, Clothilde tells me you are down here. What is the meaning of this? You are having your morning tea, perhaps? Or perhaps you are entertaining the neighbors in your own right?”
Rebecca said nothing. She stood submissively before her mistress with downcast eyes. Lora had been too shocked by the outburst to move, but now she too rose to her feet.
“Good morning,” she said, trying with her calm greeting to draw Morgan back to quiet and reason. “You mustn’t blame Rebecca for this. It is entirely my fault and—”
“It is no one’s fault but Rebecca’s,” Morgan snapped, not troubling to glance in Lora’s direction. “She knows where she is to be in the morning when I waken. She knows her duties exactly. But lately I’ve noted some uppitiness and I won’t stand for it an instant. These people must be kept in their place. Well—what have you to say, Rebecca?”
The colored girl hesitated a moment, then held out her palm with the gold earring upon it. “Mrs. Tyler found this on—on the path and brought it to me. Mr. Ambrose told me to come down here and see her, ma’am.”
“And are you in Mr. Ambrose’s employ or mine? Mrs. Tyler’s or mine?”
“Yours, ma’am,” said Rebecca in a low voice.
“Give me the earring,” Morgan commanded. “I’ve never liked that pair anyway.”
Rebecca made no move to obey. She stood like a woman of bronze, scarcely breathing.
“Please listen, Morgan,” Lora pleaded. “I understand that Rebecca’s mother gave her that pair of earrings. It’s natural that she should treasure them and be glad to have the missing one back. If I had known I was interfering with your rising time—”
“Give it to me!” Morgan repeated.
Rebecca took a step backward and put her hand behind her. For the first time she raised her eyes and looked at Morgan directly, not as servant at mistress, but gaze for gaze, as woman to woman.
“Such impudence!” cried Morgan. Her hand flew up and struck the colored girl a resounding smack across the cheek.
Rebecca’s golden skin turned ashy, except for the place where dark blood surged up beneath the blow. But she stood proudly and her eyes did not falter.
Lora went to the girl’s side and touched her arm gently. “Go now, please. Fix Mrs. Channing’s tea, or whatever you must do.” She squeezed her arm gently, secretly, impressing her friendship. At her touch Rebecca turned and went from the room, moving with her usual soft and graceful step.
Morgan stood where she was, angry, distraught, unbeautiful now with her skin rage-mottled, her nostrils distended. Without speaking, Lora reached for her shawl and flung it about her shoulders.
“Good day, Mrs. Channing,” she said formally, and went toward the door.
Morgan seemed to see her for the first time, and for the first time to be uncertain. “Wait, Lora! It wasn’t your fault, of course. Though I should think you would know better than to take the side of one of her kind.”
Lora said nothing. She opened the door and went through it without a backward glance. John Ambrose came quickly to open the gate for her and she knew that he surmised what might have happened.
“Don’t let her do anything to Rebecca,” Lora whispered as she went through the gate.
The old man shook his head sadly, and it was not in promise. “I’ve never in my life been able to keep that one from her headlong ways. I’m sorry, Lora.”
She went down the hill slowly. The sun was high and warm now—a true spring day bestowed as a gift before May was here to sanction spring’s appearance. The breeze that had blown the mist away rippled the surface of the little pool in the woods. A soft, rippling motion sped across the surface. Like quicksilver, Lora thought, remembering Jemmy’s words.
She stood beside the water, thinking unhappily of the scene which had just been enacted on the hilltop. The young Morgan of long ago who had turned in a rage to kick down a house of twigs and then teetered her way recklessly along an iron fence was still there, untamed, beneath the present Morgan’s polish. Such rages were something Lora had never witnessed and even the memory made her a little sick. Perhaps there could be an illness of the spirit, just as there was physical illness.
The words John had read aloud
returned to her mind: The will is free … Gods we are … if we will. But demons too, she thought, destroying ourselves and those about us … if we will.
She turned away from the pool, found the place where the path opened on the downhill side. For the first time she was shaken in her conviction that she had been right in helping to persuade Wade to work with Morgan Channing and the Knights of the Golden Circle.
XXI
In the week or so that immediately followed, Lora saw nothing of those who lived on the hilltop. Apparently quiet reigned again and Rebecca had made peace with her mistress. Lora did not forget her promise to the girl, but she had as yet thought of no way in which she could help her.
Then one night in April Wade came home from a meeting at Morgan’s bearing news.
Lora had gone to sleep, but his tap at her door woke her and she called to him to come in. Only embers burned on the hearth, but he knelt to renew the fire without lighting a candle. Lora lay beneath the covers and waited till the fire was going and he had pulled up a hassock where he could sit before the warmth and stretch out his lame leg.
Every now and then he came to her room like this to talk for a while and then went away again. Sometimes a sudden flare of love-making might follow, but more often not. It was as though Wade were gradually coming to accept her as a person in herself, instead of as a substitute or as an image he could put into Virginia’s place. Now he made love to her only when caught up in the old, dangerous make-believe, and she was relieved to find these times coming less often.
She had an affection for him, yes. Perhaps even a growing affection, but it was not that of sweetheart for lover, or wife for husband. She still shrank within herself at his kisses and could only lie inert beneath his touch.
Often when he came home after one of these meetings he was keyed up, tense, eager to release himself in talk with her before returning to his own bed. And these times she was coming to value, as she might have valued the confidences of a brother of whom she was fond. In this role of listener she could give herself gladly and even find satisfaction of a sort.
The Quicksilver Pool Page 23