by P. N. Elrod
By slow degrees I resumed form, alert to the least movement so as to vanish again if necessary to avoid discovery. But nothing moved, not even when I was fully solid and listening with all my attention.
Quite a lot came to me—the small shiftings of the house itself, the hiss and pop of fires in other rooms, tardy servants finishing their final labors for the night—but I discounted all for the sound of soft breathing close by. Quietly pulling back the window curtains to avail myself of the outside light that allowed me to see so well in an otherwise pitchy night, I discerned a shape huddled beneath the blankets of a large bed. From the size, it was a man, and he was alone. As I softly came closer, I recognized the white and wasted features of Tony Warburton.
He was older, of course, but I hadn’t expected him to have aged quite so much in the last four years. I hoped that it was but a trick of the pale light that grayed his hair and put so many lines on his slack face. He and Oliver were identical in years, yet Tony seemed decades older.
But no matter. I could not allow myself to feel pity for him, any more than I could have compassion for Caroline. But for the chances of fate both of them would have murdered me and others in their madness and greed. Another kind of madness had visited them, overwhelmed them, left them in the care of others with more kindness of heart than I could summon. Though I sponsored Caroline’s care with quarterly bequests of money, I did so only because it was expected of me. I’d have sooner provided for a starving dog in the gutter than succor one of the heartless beasts who had tried to murder Elizabeth.
Enough of that, old lad, I thought. Put away your anger or you’ll get nothing done here.
I gently shook Warburton’s shoulder, calling his name.
His sleep was light. His eyes opened right away and looked without curiosity upon his post-midnight intruder. He gave not the least start or any hint that he might shout for help. That was no small relief. I’d been prepared for a violent reaction and was grateful that he’d chosen to be quiescent. He seemed not to know me, but I chose not to trust this show. For years he had successfully dissembled before his closest friends, hiding his true feelings even from Nora. By all accounts and from my own experience he was mad, and mad people were dangerous.
“Do you remember me, Tony?” I kept my voice low, putting on the manner I used when calming a restive horse.
He nodded after a moment.
“I have to talk to you.”
Without a word he slowly sat up, slipped from his bed and reached toward the bell cord hanging next to it.
I threw my hand out to catch his. “No, no. Don’t do that.”
“No tea?” he asked. The expression he wore had a kind of infantile innocence, and on a face as aged as his, it was a ghastly thing to see.
“No, thank you,” I managed to get out. “Let’s just sit a moment.”
He removed himself to a chair before the fireplace and settled in as though nothing were amiss. The room must have been cold after the warmth of the bed; I noticed gooseflesh on the bare legs emerging from his nightshirt, but he gave no complaint or sign of discomfort. The fire had been banked for the night; I stirred it up again and added more coal.
“Is that better?” I asked as the heat began to build and light flooded the room. I would need more than the thin cloud-glow pouring through the window.
No answer. He wasn’t looking at me. His gaze wandered, as though he were alone.
“Tony?”
“What?” Same flat voice. I recalled how animated he’d once been, full of jokes, the boisterous one of any party. How sincere had it been? Had he ever been happy or had it always served to conceal a darkness of heart?
“Do you remember Nora Jones?” He blinked once. Twice. Nodded. “Where is she?”
He drew his right hand up to his chest, cradling and rubbing the crooked wrist with his left. It had never healed properly since that awful night of his attack on myself and Nora.
“Nora has come to visit you, has she not?”
His gaze wandered first to the door, then to the window, as though as though she might appear there. He had to turn slightly in his chair to see.
“She’s visited you in the late hours? Coming through the window?” A slow nod. He continued to stare at the window and something like hope flickered over his face.
“Nora?” he breathed, his voice light and soft, so different from before when hate had charged it with harsh venom.
“When was she last here?” I had to repeat this question several times, after first getting his attention.
“Don’t know,” he said. “A long time.”
A subjective judgment, that. God knows what he meant by it. “Was it this week? This month?”
“A long time,” he said mournfully. Then his face sharpened and he sat up a little straighter. A spark of his old manner and mind flared in his eyes. “She doesn’t love you. She loves me. I’m the one she cares for. No one else.”
“Where is she?”
“Only me.”
“Where, Tony? Where is she?”
“Me.”
I gave up for the moment and paced. Should I attempt to influence him? Might it upset whatever progress Nora had made for his recovery? I didn’t care for his sake, only hers. She’d been to much trouble over him, owning a compassion I did not have. She would not thank me for setbacks, but I could stand that if my action now could bring us together again.
Would it even work?
One way to find out.
I knelt before him, got his attention and tried to press my will upon him. We were silent for a time, and I focused so hard that my head began to ache. Tony made no sign of succumbing; eventually, he turned away to look at the fire. I might as well have tried to grasp its smoke. To him I was little more than furniture.
“Is she in England?” I demanded, not bothering to keep my voice low.
He shrugged.
“But she’s been here. Has she been here since your return from Italy?”
Nothing.
“Tony, have you seen her since Italy?”
He blinked several times. “She . . . was ill.”
“What do you mean? How was she ill?”
A shrug.
“Tell me!” I grasped his shoulders and shook him. “What illness?”
His head wobbled, but he would not or could not answer.
I broke away, engulfed with sudden rage and the futile, icy emptiness of worry. How could Nora possibly be ill? I’d not suffered any sickness since my change, even that time when our whole house was consumed by a catarrh late last winter. While others took to their beds I remained strong and well. What could be the matter with her?
Suddenly I felt a presence close by and turned, startled. Warburton was out of his fireside chair and had gathered his straying attention together enough to bring it upon me in full. His mouth set, and hard as though with anger, but none of that reached his eyes, which were alight with secret amusement. The unnerving combination made me shudder, and I didn’t want him near me.
“Let me tell you something,” he whispered.
“Tell me what?” Now was I conscious about being alone in a room with a madman. Had my heart been beating it would have tried to break its way from my breast. I kept still, hoping he would not make a violent row.
Tony reached forth with his left hand, and his fingers plucked at my neck cloth. I resisted the urge to push him away, thinking it might set him off.
“Hush, now,” he said, almost seeming normal. It was the first sign of interest he’d shown in anything. “Let me see. . . .”
He was swift and had the knot open in an instant. Then he pulled the cloth down to reveal my neck. I allowed him have a close look. He smiled, twice tapping a spot under my right ear. “There. Told you. She doesn’t love you. Only me. Now look you upon the marks of her love.” He craned his head fro
m one side to another to show his own bare throat above his nightshirt. “See? There and there. You see how she loves me. I’m the only one she wants.”
“Yes, Tony. Of course you are.”
His skin was wholly innocent of any mark or scar.
He continued smiling. “The only one. Me.”
The smile of a contented and happy man.
A man in love.
CHAPTER SIX
Elizabeth looked up from the household records book she’d been grimacing over to regard me with an equal sobriety. “Is it our new surroundings or is something else plaguing your spirits?”
“You know it’s the same trouble as before.” I’d just asked for the post, and found nothing waiting for me, not one word about or from Nora. It was too soon, of course, but the lack threw me deeper into the foul humor I’d brought home a few nights ago from Warburton’s.
“I was hoping for a change, little brother.”
“Sorry I can’t accommodate you,” I snapped, launching from my chair to stalk from Oliver’s parlor.
“Jonathan!”
I stopped just at the door, back to her. “What?”
“You are—”
Anticipating her, I snarled, “What? A rude and testy ass?”
“If that’s what you think of yourself, then yes. You’re going through this torture for nothing, and you’re putting the rest of us through it as well, which is hardly considerate.”
She was right; since my frustrating interview with Warburton, I’d been in the darkest of moods. Not even the move from the inn to the comforts of Oliver’s big house had lifted my blackness. Oliver noticed my distraction when greeting me earlier tonight, but received only a cool and undeserving rebuff from me when he made inquiry about it. I spoke to Elizabeth about what I’d done, briefly, so she knew something of the reason for my boorishness. She also wasn’t about to excuse it. Unfortunately, I was still held fast in its grip and was perversely loath to escape. I was full of anger with no place to vent it.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” I demanded. “Act as though nothing’s amiss?”
“Use the mind God gave you to understand that you can’t do anything about it right now. Oliver and all his friends are doing their best. If Miss Jones is in England, they’ll find her for you.”
And if she was not in England, or lying ill and dying, or even dead? I turned to thrust these bitter, unanswerable and wholly unfair questions at Elizabeth, but never got that far. One look at her face and the unworthy words withered on my tongue. She braced in her chair as though for a storm, her expression as grim and guarded as it had ever been in the days following Norwood’s death. By that I saw the extent of my selfishness. The hot anger I’d harbored now cooled and drain away. My fists relaxed into mere hands and I tentatively raised, then dropped them.
“Forgive me. I’ve been a perfect fool. A block. A clot. A toad.”
Her mouth twitched. With amusement perhaps? “I’ll not disagree with you; you have been positively horrid. Are you quite finished?”
“With my penance?”
“With the behavior that led you to it.”
“I hope so. But what am I to do?” I repeated, wincing at the childish tone invading my voice. “To wait and wait and wait like this will turn me as mad as Warburton.”
She patiently listened as I poured out my distress for the situation, only occasionally putting forth a question to clarify a point. Most of my mind had focused upon the one truly worrisome aspect of the whole business: that Nora had fallen ill.
“What could it be?” I asked, full knowing that Elizabeth had no more answer than I’d been able to provide for myself.
“Anything,” she said. “But it seems impossible. When was the last time you were sick?”
“On the crossing, of course.”
“And since your change, nothing other than that. Not even a chill after that time you were buried all day in the snow. And you were the only one not abed with that catarrh last winter. ‘Not natural,’ was what poor Dr. Beldon said, so I am inclined to connect your healthful escape to your changed condition. Perhaps it’s because you don’t breathe all the time that you are less likely to succumb to the noxious vapors of illness.”
“Meaning that Nora could be just as hardy. I’ve thought and thought about it, and if that is true, then what terrible thing could strike her down? How much worse must it be to affect her?”
“I know but you must also consider that Mr. Warburton may have last seen Nora when they were crossing the Channel. To him she might have appeared to be poorly, if her reaction to sea travel is anything like yours. She could have also told him she was ill so as to gracefully quit his company for some reason.”
“It’s possible. But Tony’s mother said she hadn’t seen Nora since Italy.”
“There is that, but Nora could have wished to travel incognito to avoid questions on her whereabouts during the day. However, we are straying much too far into speculation. All I intended was to provide alternatives to the wild assumptions that have made you like this. Heaven knows I love you, little brother, but not when you’re being awful.”
“I am sorry, and I do appreciate your putting up with me. Truly I do.” God, why hadn’t I spoken to her before? Like the anger, my worries and fears were beginning to drain away. Not all of them, alas. A goodly sized block still remained impervious to Elizabeth’s logic, though it was of a size I could manage. “I’ve been such an oaf. I’m sorry for—”
She waved a hand. “Yes, you’ve been a bloody idiotic oaf to be sure. Just pledge to me that you’re back to being your own self again. And Oliver, too. The dear fellow thinks you’re angry at him for some reason.”
“I’d better go make amends. Is he home yet? Where is he?”
“Gone to his consulting room with the day’s post.”
“Right, I’ll just—”
Before I could do more than even take a step in the door’s direction, it burst open. Oliver strode in, face flushed and jaw set. He had a crumpled piece of paper in one nervous hand.
“Oliver, I’ve been uncommonly rude to you and I—”
“Oh, bother that,” he said dismissively. “You’re allowed to be peevish around here, it’s certainly my natural state.”
“It is not.”
“Well, I am peevish now and with good reason. We’re in for it, Cousins,” he announced. “Prepare yourselves for the worst.”
“What is it? The Bolyns haven’t canceled their party, have they?” We had hardly been in town long enough to know what to do with ourselves, when the festive Bolyn tribe had yesterday sent along our invitation to their annual masqued ball. It had been a bright point for me in my self-imposed gloom, for it was at one of their past events that I’d first met Nora. I had hope that she might attend the coming revel.
“No, nothing like that,” he answered.
“More war news?” I’d thought we’d left behind the conflicts of that wretched disturbance forever.
“Oh, no, it’s much worse.” He shook the paper in his hand, which I perceived to be a letter. “Mother has sent us a formal summons for an audience at Fonteyn House. We dare not ignore it.”
Elizabeth’s face fell, and I mirrored her reaction.
“It was an inevitability,” he pronounced with a morbid air. “She’ll want to look the both of you over and pass judgment down like Grandfather Fonteyn used to do.”
“I’m sure we can survive it,” said Elizabeth.
“God, but I wish I had your optimism, Coz.”
“Is she really that bad?”
Oliver’s mobile features gave ample evidence of his struggle to provide an accurate answer. “Yes,” he finally concluded, nearly choking.
She looked at me. I nodded a quick and unhappy agreement.
“When are we expected?” I asked.
�
�At two o’clock tomorrow. God, she’ll want us to stay for dinner.” He was groaning, actually groaning, at the prospect. Not without good cause, though.
I frowned, but for a somewhat different cause. “Ridiculous! I’ve other business to occupy me then and so do you. We’ll have to change the time.”
Oliver’s mouth flapped. “But we couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course we can. You are a busy physician with many important calls to make that day. I have my own errands, and Elizabeth is only just getting the house organized and requires that part of the day as much as we do to accomplish what’s needed. Why should we interrupt ourselves and all our important work to accommodate the whims of one disagreeable person? Good heavens, she didn’t even have the courtesy to ask first if we were even free to attend the engagement.”
Elizabeth’s eyes went a little wide, but she continued to listen, obviously interested to see what other nonsense I could spout. Full in the path of this wave, Oliver closed his mouth. His expression might well have belonged to a damned soul who had unexpectedly been offered an open door out of hell and a fast horse. All he needed was an additional push to get him moving in the right direction.
So I pushed. Lightly, though. “You’ll send ’round a note to tell her it will have to be six o’clock instead. That way we can avoid the torture of eating with her and make an early escape because of the lateness of the hour. Is she still in the habit of nodding off on the stroke of seven?” Desperation to shun anything taking place in the daylight had inspired me mightily.
“Yes, but . . . .” He crushed the paper a little more. “She’ll be angry. Horribly angry.”
“She always is,” I said with an airy wave. “When is she not angry? What of it?”