The Quicksilver Pool

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Why not?” Wade asked. “We are not in the habit of turning out those who need us.”

  Morgan blinked and something of her normal spirit swept back to brighten her eyes with indignation.

  “Don’t you know that you may bring that mob down on this house for sheltering her here?”

  “If you don’t wish to remain in the house with Rebecca,” Mrs. Tyler said, “that is for you to choose. But Rebecca stays and we will protect her to the best of our ability. Our concern is not for gilt chairs, but for people.”

  “Exactly,” Wade agreed coldly. “Lora and I feel the same way, Morgan.”

  Lora, watching the tight, strained look of Morgan’s mouth, the burning fury in her eyes, found herself remembering Rebecca’s account of that day in the woods when she had seen Morgan returning from the direction of the pool. This might well be the time …

  She went to Morgan and put a light hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure Jemmy will be happy to have you rest in his room if you wish. Come. I’ll take you upstairs.”

  The fire went out of Morgan, leaving apathy behind. She rose without interest or will and followed Lora from the room. Lora ran ahead of her up the stairs and opened the door of Jemmy’s room. She had a plan now. Perhaps it was a cruel plan, but if Morgan knew something about Virginia’s death which she had never told, then she deserved no mercy.

  XXX

  Jemmy would have come too, but Lora sent him back to Wade and led Morgan into the dark room.

  “Since the shutters are closed, I can light a candle,” she said, groping over Jemmy’s dresser. “You’d better take off your hoop so that you can lie down comfortably.”

  She struck a friction match and held it to the candlewick. Thin light flared through the room, illumining Morgan in her dishevelment. While the other woman attempted to rid herself of her cumbersome hoop, Lora carried a small corner table across the room and set it against one wall. Then she brought the candle and placed it deliberately on the table. The spear of light flickered upon the picture which hung above the table.

  As Morgan turned and saw the portrait, Lora could sense her tightening.

  “We’ve had Virginia’s picture framed for Jemmy,” Lora said casually. “It has turned out very well, don’t you think? Tell me, does it look a great deal like your sister? I never found that your portrait looked very much like you.”

  Morgan turned away from the picture impatiently. “For heaven’s sake, I don’t want to stand here fainting on my feet, staring at that silly thing. Do help me with this waistband, Lora. The hooks seem to be caught.”

  “I will if you’ll stop wriggling and stand still,” Lora said mildly. “Hoops are such a nuisance, don’t you think? I can never get out of mine in a hurry.”

  Morgan stared at her queerly and jerked away from her hands.

  “Put something over that picture!” she cried. “I can’t stand the sight of it!”

  “Because it reminds you of something?” Lora asked. “Something you’d rather forget?”

  Morgan pulled at the band of her hoop, tore it loose, and flung the whole contraption clattering on the floor. Then she slumped down on Jemmy’s bed in her voluminous petticoats.

  “Do go away and leave me. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but such chatter hurts my head.”

  Lora looked at her sternly. “Rebecca was in the woods that day. You haven’t forgotten that, have you? She told me about it tonight.”

  Morgan’s shoulders seemed to shrink, as if she waited for some blow to fall, and she sat utterly still.

  “You saw something, didn’t you?” Lora persisted. “You were there that day?”

  Something stark looked out of Morgan’s eyes. Her lips trembled and she put up her hand as if to steady them with her fingers. But before she could speak, the crashing sound of a shot went reverberating along the hills.

  Someone ran through the hall downstairs. Lora and Morgan stared at each other for an instant and then Lora ran out of the room and down the stairs. She heard Morgan following her, but she had no thought of her now. This trouble was more immediate.

  The hall was dark, but in the open doorway Lora could see Wade silhouetted against the flare of torches outside. He held his pistols cocked and even as a cry of protest was choked in her throat, he stepped out on the veranda and pulled the door shut behind him. Lora peered anxiously through the glass panel and saw that the veranda was in deep shadow, thanks to the big horse chestnut tree which hid the moon. Wade had stepped into the shelter of a column and perhaps had not been seen by the mob.

  Jemmy came out of the library and bumped into Lora in the dark.

  “They’ve been shouting for Rebecca!” he whispered. “They think she’s in our house. Did you hear that shot? It was a signal to Uncle Adam, and it scared those men. They’re afraid to come on now.”

  Jemmy at least had to be kept out of this, Lora thought.

  “We need you to do something very important,” she told him. “Go upstairs and stay with Rebecca. Go in and lock the door and don’t open it except for one of us. Don’t let Rebecca be frightened.”

  Plainly he wanted to stay where the excitement was at its thickest, but the idea that he had an important task to do appealed to him and he ran upstairs, with only a backward look for the front door.

  Behind Lora, Morgan spoke in a low, tense voice. “Why don’t you give them the girl? Get her out of the house! Do you think she’s worth Wade’s life?”

  “Stop it!” Lora said sharply.

  She ran into the library and saw that John Ambrose stood at the partly opened shutters with a gun in his hands, his eyes upon the crowd on the driveway. At that moment Wade revealed himself by calling something to the throng. A stone hurtled past his head and crashed through a parlor window. Immediately there was a shot from the bushes on the right of the house and Lora knew that Adam was there.

  The crowd yelled and for a moment it looked as if the brave rioters might break and run. Then a rough voice shouted, “Give up the nigger wench and we’ll leave your house stand, mister. If you don’t we’ll burn it down.”

  “If you want to stay alive you’d better not set foot across that walk,” Wade called from behind his post. “We’ve got you covered from every window.”

  There was a muttering among the mob. Those in the rear urged attack, but those in front were more anxious for the safety of their skins. Wade spoke again from his shelter and as the crowd quieted to listen, his voice rang out compellingly.

  “You, Billy Barnes!” Wade cried. “You know better than to be out on a job like this. I know your wife and she’ll have your hide tomorrow.”

  There was sudden laughter and then an angry muttering from the rear again.

  “And Tom Busby! For shame. I remember you from the days when I was a kid and used to go down to the docks. And O’Reilly—Tim, isn’t it? You’re an honest man. What bad business is this you’re mixed up in? When the police take hold you’ll be sorry your name’s known.”

  The muttering began to die sheepishly away. Those on the outer rim began to scatter toward the lane and the crisis might have been over if one of the stone throwers hadn’t taken sudden aim and hurled a rock toward Wade’s pillar. Lora heard the sickening sound as it struck flesh and bone, and heard Wade grunt in pain. The torchbearers rallied and broke for the steps, but at the same instant shots rang out from several quarters, and this time the aim was not high.

  There were yelps and shrieks of pain from the mob, followed by a wild stampede toward the lane.

  Lora pulled open the door and rushed onto the veranda. She found Wade leaning against the post, his hand dazedly to his head. Quickly she put an arm about his waist, half supporting him, and brought him inside, slamming the front door shut behind them. Somehow she got him into the library, helped him onto the sofa. All these movements were familiar to her. These were things she was repeating out of the past. But then she had helped a stranger. This was a man she loved.

  There was blood on h
is forehead and he seemed stunned, but the wound looked superficial—there would be more bruise than blood.

  Ambrose spoke from the window. “It’s over now, I think. Those ruffians have no stomach for gunfire. It’s our good fortune they had no guns themselves.”

  Lora scarcely heard him. All her attention was for Wade, who was coming out of his dazed state.

  “I must go see how Adam is faring,” he muttered, trying to sit up.

  But Adam and Serena’s older boy, Eddie, were coming in the back door at that moment, both with guns in their hands. Adam saluted Lora cheerfully.

  “So you see, my dear young lady, the ability to fire a gun may come in handy after all. Eddie here helped out our army considerably. How are you, Wade?”

  Eddie grinned at Lora, but he remembered that other time in the meadow when she had scolded him. “We didn’t kill anybody. We just aimed low at their legs to give them a taste. They’re off down the hill now going a mile a minute and dragging the wounded with them.”

  Hearing voices, Jemmy came out of the bedroom and dashed downstairs to hear what had happened. He regarded Eddie enviously but was somewhat comforted that Temple had been kept at home.

  “Rebecca’s all right,” he told Lora. “She’s awake and she’s scared, but I told her we wouldn’t let anybody hurt her.”

  Mrs. Tyler came into the room, leaning heavily on her cane and looking both shaken and fierce.

  “Where were you, Mother?” Lora asked, but before his mother could answer Wade smiled at her.

  “One of those upstairs shots came from you, didn’t it? I’d no idea you were a marksman.”

  “I learned to fire a gun long before you were born,” his mother said tartly. “Not that my aim is much good by now. But the Lord helped me pull the trigger and I probably wounded the chestnut tree.”

  For the first time since danger had engulfed them, Lora thought of Morgan and went to see what had happened to her. She must not leave this house tonight until her full story had been told. She must not be given time to recover herself and invent new lies.

  But though Lora looked into the parlor and even into Mother Tyler’s sitting room, Morgan was nowhere in evidence. Nor was she anywhere upstairs.

  In the kitchen Lora found Ellie making coffee for the besieged party.

  “Have you seen Mrs. Channing?” Lora asked.

  Ellie pointed to the door. “She popped out there a while ago. Didn’t say a word. Just went out like she was seeing ghosts. Guess she was going back uphill to find out what those hoodlums did to her house. Peter says he doesn’t think they burned it, or they wouldn’t have come down here so fast.”

  Lora returned to the library for Wade. “Are you feeling better now? Do you think you could come with me to find Morgan? Ellie says she’s gone back through the woods, and it’s important to go after her quickly.”

  The earnestness of her manner must have impressed him for he stood up at once.

  “I’m all right. Of course I’ll come with you.”

  “And so will I,” said John Ambrose from his post by the window.

  The three climbed the dark path silently in Indian file, their way lighted only by the mottled moonlight falling through leaves overhead. Not until they reached the pool did the greenish light break into the open, crinkling a path across the water—a metallic path, circled darkly by the rim of trees.

  Ambrose reached the clearing first and stopped ahead of Lora. Peering past him, Lora saw Morgan on the far bank. Because of her dark dress she was hardly visible except for the oval of her face, pale in the eerie light.

  When Ambrose would have spoken Lora put a hand on his arm. “Let me,” she whispered, and went along the bank toward Morgan.

  The other woman saw her coming, but she did not move or speak. If she knew of the presence of the two men at the edge of the woods, she gave no sign. She waited for Lora as if in a trance, saying nothing until she was close.

  “I’m not as evil as you think,” she said in a low voice. “Evil, yes—but not as you think.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Lora said gently. “Tell me so that you may live with yourself again.”

  Morgan went on dully, without passion. “I was in the woods that day. I saw her here on that rock reaching for a turtle just as she used to do when she was a little girl. She didn’t know I was watching her. When her foot slipped and she fell, she didn’t know there was anyone near who could have helped her.”

  “And didn’t you help her?”

  “I meant to. Truly I meant to. But my hoop would have dragged us both down. I had to loosen the band, to get out of it.” For the first time her words faltered. “And I—I couldn’t. My hands were shaking and—and—”

  “So she drowned while you stood there on the path watching? Is that the way it was?”

  Morgan’s voice was hardly audible. “Yes.”

  “And what happened afterwards?”

  “I was frightened. I knew I would be blamed—that I was to blame. So I ran back up the path and no one would ever have known I was near the pool that afternoon if it hadn’t been for Rebecca.”

  The pool, the trees, the night were utterly still as if they too listened. Suddenly Morgan moved. She went past Lora to Wade, her hands lifted as if in supplication. But Wade turned sickly away and she let them drop to her sides.

  “I’d thought to—to follow Virginia tonight,” she said, “but I find I am a woman of little courage.”

  John Ambrose went to her quietly and took her by the arm. “Come, my daughter,” he said. Then he turned back momentarily to Wade and Lora. “I’ll be taking her away from the island when things quiet down. Don’t concern yourselves.”

  They did not speak as Morgan went with him listlessly toward the path that led uphill to the great white house. As Lora watched them disappear into shrouding darkness, a lump choked in her throat. Not of pity for Morgan, but of affection for the man who was her father. All this while he had waited nearby, knowing that one day his unruly daughter might have need of him. Now that the moment had come, he would find it in his philosophy to forgive and comfort the living, even while he grieved anew for the dead.

  In silence Wade and Lora turned toward home. Not until they reached the lane did Lora speak again.

  “You’re free now of all blame,” she said.

  “I’d already wakened from my bad dream,” Wade told her. “What we’ve just learned is deeply saddening, but it makes no real difference.”

  Back at the Tylers’, Adam and Eddie and Jemmy were eating sandwiches informally in the kitchen and Mrs. Tyler was drinking coffee. Wade gave them no more than a brief greeting and went upstairs at once to his room.

  “Did you find Morgan?” the old lady asked Lora.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Lora said with a quick glance at the two boys. Mother Tyler understood and said no more.

  Tomorrow, Lora thought, she would tell her all about what had happened in the woods. But now she had no heart for it.

  “I’ll take a cup of coffee up to Wade,” she said, “before he turns in for the night.”

  A few moments later, when she tapped on his door, there was a pause before he called to her to come in. He had not lighted a lamp, and only a single candle burned on the mantel. He sat on the sill of the open window, looking out into the darkness of the lane.

  “I’ve brought you coffee,” Lora said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Do you think there’ll be any more trouble tonight?”

  “I don’t believe so,” he said. “Those bully boys were looking for someone they could cow with clubs. They’ve no taste for facing gunfire. By now the army must be sending men to New York’s aid and our soldiers will be returning soon from Gettysburg.”

  He turned to watch her come toward him in the dim light. “How well that dress becomes, you, Lora. What was the matter with us all that night of Serena’s party?”

  She had completely forgotten the dress she was wearing. She glanced down now to find that leaf mold clun
g to the hem, and some twig had torn a small rent in the skirt. How long ago it seemed that she had dressed for her birthday celebration.

  She smiled at Wade. “You wanted me to look like Virginia that night, and I did not How could you help but be disappointed?”

  “How could I not see you as you are?” he said gently. “In the months you’ve been here, Lora, you’ve become the very heartbeat of this house. Do you know that?”

  She could not tell what he meant, and to hide her confusion she gave him the cup of coffee with so quick a gesture that a little spilled over the brim. He took it from her absently, but did not drink. The strangeness was still in his eyes as he studied her and she felt the need of plunging quickly into words.

  “Rebecca is going to stay in my room tonight.” Again she tried to sound casual. “So I wondered—”

  “Of course,” he said quickly. “I’d forgotten about that. You’d like to have my room for tonight, wouldn’t you? I can easily sleep on the library sofa.”

  “If it won’t trouble you too much,” she said with stiff courtesy. “I’ll go and get my things.”

  But before she had reached the door he set the coffee cup down and came after her. “I’m tired of not knowing the truth. Ever since the night of the fire, after Morgan told me about Adam and you, I’ve wanted to know what he meant to you. That night when we stood in the yard together listening to the sounds of spring, I knew how dear you had become to me. But I couldn’t know how much you might want release from this make-believe marriage I’ve foisted upon you. I have no wish to hold you against your will.”

  She looked up at him quickly, searching his face with eyes in which she willingly betrayed her heart.

  “But I thought—” she faltered, and the old sense of shyness was upon her again.

  He was not like Adam. He would never be like Adam—rough and sudden and compelling. There was both tenderness and gentleness in his arms, though they were strong as they drew her close. There was no need to tell him what she thought because his mouth was warm upon hers and even as her pulses stirred she knew that his kiss meant more than this quick response of the blood. It meant both climax and beginning.