by Fortune Kent
“You know the way, I presume?” he asked in a biting voice.
“Yes,” she said, ending the word in an abrupt hiss. “Left at the bottom of the hill and about a mile farther on along the road. Mr. Blasingame told me.”
“Today of all days.” His tone accused her but she remained silent He is probably right, she thought, I don’t really know why I’m going. What will I be able to learn? Can they tell me anything I don’t already know?
The buggy swayed on a turn, making her grasp the railing. Kathleen looked about and saw a stump fence separating the road from an almost dry creek. No rain had fallen during the night; as she searched the pale blue sky she found only a few high wisps of clouds. In the fields, laid out like an irregular checkerboard between the mountain and the bluff overlooking the river, men swung scythes in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
They reached the flatland at the foot of the mountain and Edward reined the horse to the left. “Gypsies,” he said scornfully. “Of what help will they be?”
“You didn’t have to come,” she told him. “One of the stableboys would have been glad to bring me.”
“I told Josiah I’d look after you and I intend to, no matter how onerous you make the assignment.”
“I’m surprised,” Kathleen said, not trying to keep the annoyance from her voice, “you didn’t want to stay with Clarissa.”
“Nothing more will happen to her as long as you’re not there.”
Kathleen gasped with surprise and shock. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I think you know. Why must you always play the innocent?”
“Wasn’t I the one who heard her cry out in the middle of the night and found her doubled over in pain? Didn’t I fetch help? Didn’t I stay with her waiting for the doctor to arrive? Didn’t I assist him until she was sleeping and out of danger?” She spoke quickly and defensively.
“When I first met you in Newburgh,” Edward said in a low monotone, “I could sense your jealousy. The way you said Clarissa’s name, the way you looked at her—because of Josiah in the beginning, now because of the Captain. Your feelings show on your face like those of a heroine in a melodrama.”
Kathleen flushed. Am I so transparent? “Clarissa is very beautiful,” she said, her voice quavering with anger, “and I see men falling over one another to pay her court, without Clarissa so much as lifting her little finger. I did resent her. But if you’re saying I’d do her harm, you’re wrong. I’d never hurt anyone, not purposefully.”
His incredulous stare confused her until she realized with a start what she had said. Flustered, she looked away from him across the fields and feigned an interest in two oxen which were straining to pull a loaded hay wagon up an incline to a barn.
“I’d never wish ill to Clarissa,” she said lamely.
Edward slowed the buggy for their way was blocked by a peddler’s wagon, and she felt his impatience as they followed the other vehicle across a narrow bridge. Once on the other side Edward urged his horse around the wagon. As they pulled alongside Kathleen saw the brooms, pots, pans, and other assorted household articles in the back. The peddler, a young man with a fringe of beard, waved to them, and Kathleen nodded. Edward ignored him.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her at last. “I’m not well this morning. My head throbs unmercifully.”
“I’ve seen the symptoms before,” she told him, remembering her father. “Will you be all right by tonight?”
“Tonight? Oh, the ball. Tonight’s the night when you propose to beard Worthington in his den. Yes, I’ll be ready. I wouldn’t miss your performance. I’ll take some laudanum if I don’t feel better. Nine o’clock will be about right, I think. I’ll come for you then.”
“My dress is lovely,” she said. “I unpacked and ironed it this morning.”
“Good,” he said without enthusiasm. “Clarissa won’t be able to go, will she?” Kathleen shook her head. “The doctor was probably right,” he went on, “about what happened last night. Something she ate, the oysters perhaps. And she’s never looked strong.”
“Wait!” The recollection came to Kathleen with sudden clarity. “I forgot something: the glass wasn’t in her room this morning.”
“What glass?”
“My milk. With the herbs. I didn’t drink any last night after the maid brought it to me in Clarissa’s room. I left the glass untouched on her table. Do you suppose Clarissa drank some? Could the medicine have made her ill?”
“Was there really medicine in the glass, or was something else substituted?”
“Why would anyone do that?”
He shrugged. “Gypsy magic depends on poison,” he said, “or so I’m told. And gypsies use the same word to mean both medicine and poison. Gypsy physicians, if there are such, must have a difficult time.”
Poison. Could poison be the explanation for Clarissa’s illness, put into her milk with the idea the taste would be hidden by the herbs? No, she was sure no one would try to harm her. And yet…what did she really know of these people, of Edward Allen and Clarissa, Captain Worthington and Alice Lewis? Who had placed the coffin on the porch? Why was the Captain’s life being threatened?
And Josiah. She wondered, as she often had in the last few days, what manner of man he was. She feared him and felt easier in his absence, yet more and more she was becoming aware of the vacuum created by his absence. She found she actually looked forward to his return.
Were the gypsies involved? No, neither Kathleen Donley nor Kathleen Stuart meant anything to them. This whole affair, she thought, was a puzzle with so many pieces missing she could find only the merest hint of a design.
“You have strong feelings about the gypsies, don’t you?” she asked Edward.
“Yes, and I don’t know why exactly. I suppose I’ve been wary of them since I was a child. I remember my mother reciting a rhyme when we passed one of their camps, I even remember some of the words—
“Gypsy hair and devil’s eyes
Ever stealing, full of lies
Yet always poor and never wise.”
“They’re charlatans, tricksters. Once in Baltimore after a late party I went to visit a gypsy fortune teller. I can still see her, dirty and whining, making vague pronouncements which could be true of anyone. ‘Three times,’ she told me, ‘your passions have gotten you into great trouble,’ and ‘thrice have you been in danger of death’. Ridiculous.”
“I admire them,” Kathleen said. “They go their own way without undue concern about what others might think is right or proper. They’re not afraid to be different.”
Edward snorted. “Because they’re too lazy to work, if the truth be known.”
“Look!” Kathleen pointed ahead. “Their camp.”
Edward reined the horse onto the wheel tracks leading to the wagons which were screened from the road by a second growth of hickories. Short-haired brown dogs ran barking from the camp, snapping at the horse’s hooves and the wheels of the buggy.
Six wagons formed a semicircle, four of them long and narrow, with black canvas stretched over wooden frames, the other two, the farthest from the entrance, larger, built of highly polished oak with three windows on a side, heavy, spoked wheels, and a raised driving platform in front.
Kathleen smiled at the children who danced and shouted around the buggy. Dirty, ragged, happy children. White smoke from two campfires drifted in their direction, and Kathleen held a handkerchief to her face until they were past. Over one of the fires a high tripod of poles supported a black cauldron. Women squatted near the fires or walked to and from the wagons, women dressed in ankle-length skirts and low-cut loose blouses, wearing golden earrings and bracelets, their white teeth emphasizing the darkness of their skin.
Several men lounged beneath an elm; horses fastened with long chains snorted in a nearby meadow; more dogs trotted from under the wagons. Along the creek, clothes wer
e spread on bushes to dry.
One of the men rose, approached them with an easy grace and stood beside the rig. A short dark man, hands on his hips. “Welcome,” he said, smiling. His teeth flashed.
The gypsy seemed to appraise them; Kathleen felt alien in her yellow muslin with its matching sunbonnet. He picked a stick from the ground and shouted at the dogs in a strange tongue until they sidled away, tails hanging.
As Edward helped Kathleen to the ground she saw his nose wrinkle from the unidentifiable odors of the camp. “The young lady would like her fortune told,” he said.
The gypsy bowed. “This way.” He led them to one of the large wagons where he climbed the steps and opened the door. “Tshaya, Tshaya, geja,” he called inside. He held the door for them. “Please,” he said, “enter. Tshaya will see you.”
Once inside, Kathleen found she could stand upright, but Edward had to stoop. The air was hot and close; she felt the perspiration gather on her forehead. A candle burned on the table and diffused light came through curtains on the small windows. She heard the woman before she saw her, heard the striving for air, the wheezing breath. When Kathleen’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw Tshaya, small and old, sitting on an upholstered chair at the far end of the wagon.
“Let me go first,” Edward said. He walked to stand in front of the gypsy woman. “Will you tell us what the future holds?” he asked. Her reply was a barely perceptible nod. The gypsy’s wrinkled face was paler than those of the women around the campfires, her hair was gray, and her only ornaments were earrings and a ring with a blue stone on the third finger of her right hand.
“Your hand,” she said to Edward Allen. Each word seemed an effort. Kathleen saw her glance at his palm, then search his face, staring into his eyes.
The gypsy began talking in a hoarse whisper. “Such a handsome gentleman, I’m sure I’ll find many broken hearts in your past.” She went on in a sing-song voice while Edward smiled knowingly at Kathleen.
Suddenly the gypsy paused. She gazed intently into his eyes, her mouth slightly open, her breath rasping. She dropped his hand. “No,” she said. “No, you must leave.”
“What do you see?” he asked.
The gypsy shut her eyes. “No,” she said again.
“Here, let me give you these.” He reached into his pocket and offered her some coins. “Tell me what you see.” The gypsy folded her arms, shut her eyes, and turned her head to one side.
“Come along,” Edward said to Kathleen. “She’s lost her senses.”
Kathleen hesitated. “I came to have my fortune told,” she said.
“You can see she won’t.”
Kathleen knelt in front of the gypsy. “Tshaya, will you read my palm?” she asked. The deep brown eyes opened to stare into hers. “For you, yes,” she said.
“Wait outside,” Kathleen told Edward. “Please,” she added when he made no move. He turned and strode from the wagon, ducking to avoid striking his head on the door.
Tshaya sat up. “Give me your hand,” she said to Kathleen, “and put three silver coins on it if you would hear what I see.”
Kathleen reached into her reticule and gave the coins to the old woman, who slipped them inside the folds of her dress. “What has Edward Allen done?” Kathleen asked. “What is his secret?”
“A veil covers his past,” the gypsy said, “a veil I cannot pierce.”
She held Kathleen’s hands in both of hers, studied them, then looked into her eyes. “Be wary of that man,” she whispered. Her voice was slow and urgent.
“I see you will return to the beginning,” the gypsy went on, “to the start of all. I see a love surpassing any you have known or imagined with one you would never suspect. I see clouds, many clouds without rain. And great danger.”
She stopped. Kathleen heard the chatter of birds from the trees beside the wagon and the old woman’s breathing. “Nothing more?” she asked.
“Nothing.” The gypsy closed her eyes. For a long moment Kathleen looked down at the old, old face before quietly backing from the wagon.
“Well, what did she say?” Edward Allen wanted to know. “Anything about me?” Kathleen repeated the gypsy’s words, omitting only the warning about Edward himself.
“Is that all?”
“Nothing more,” she said.
He took her arm and led her back to the buggy, all the while shaking his head. “A trickster, a charlatan,” he said. Kathleen smiled to herself. You may scoff, she thought. I’ll wait and see.
They drove in silence under the hot midday sun. Tonight, Kathleen told herself. I must get ready for the ball, lay out my clothes, bathe, roll my hair in curl papers. And hide the gun.
The horse’s hooves pounded on the dirt road and she leaned back and closed her eyes. She felt lightheaded. As she swayed with the motion of the buggy she repeated the gypsy’s words to herself. “A return to the beginning…a surpassing love…clouds without rain…great danger.”
The masquerade. Would the prophecy begin to come true that night at the masquerade?
Chapter Ten
“Beautiful. You look beautiful,” Clarissa told her. Kathleen had found the sick woman sitting up in bed with her golden hair loose and flowing over the pillow. Although her pain was gone, she remained pale and weak. In reply to Kathleen’s question, Clarissa told her she had begun to drink the milk the night before but soon set the glass aside because of the bitter taste.
“I wish you were coming to the ball with me,” Kathleen said, feeling nervous and unsure.
“Don’t fret, you’re a lovely young lady. I’ll be able to go another time. I’ve lived this long without seeing a masquerade, I’ll get by awhile longer.” Her words were without bitterness, and when Kathleen left she was drowsily leafing through a worn Bible she had brought from Gleneden.
Kathleen heard the hall clock chime the hour as she returned to her room. Nine o’clock. She was ready, having dressed without seeking help from any of the maids, for she wanted no one except Clarissa and Edward to know her disguise.
She went to the mirror. Was she beautiful? No, she decided, but she knew she looked different tonight. She turned first to the right, then the left, making the hundreds of glass beads on her blue skirt sparkle in the light from the lamp. Was the neckline of the snug-fitting bodice too low? She found the bareness extending from her neck to the upper swell of her bosom startling.
Kathleen touched the hair which she had drawn away from her face and gathered with a clip at the back of her head. Tight curls dusted with gold powder cascaded over her shoulders. As she adjusted a silver tiara on the front of her hair an insistent tapping sent her to the door.
It was Edward Allen. His knee-breeches, waistcoat, cape, and mask were an unrelieved black, his ruffled shirt white. A sword hung at his side. Without the beard he looked like a younger Dr. Gunn, for now the dark hair was untouched with gray.
Edward scrutinized Kathleen, from the tiara on her head to the white ballroom slippers on her feet. “Ahhh,” he said, nodding with approval, “truly a fairy princess. All you need is a magic wand.”
“And you? Do you come from a book of fairy tales, too?”
“No,” he said, “but a prince all the same. This is my interpretation of Hamlet. A prince to escort a princess.” He removed his mask. A handsome man, Edward Allen, she thought. Again she was troubled by his resemblance to a picture glimpsed long ago.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve remembered who you remind me of.”
“Who?” he asked sharply. His face became pale and cold.
“In part it’s your name. You look like a daguerreotype of Poe I once saw in a book of poems. And your names are so familiar—Edward Allen, Edgar Allan.”
He relaxed. “I’m flattered,” he said with a smile. “I’ll admit a few others have remarked a resemblance. I’m taller than Poe, I think, and my hair doesn
’t curl like his did.” Edward offered her his arm. “Shall we go?”
“Wait.” Kathleen went to the dresser and returned with a short wooden rod. “I do have a magic wand. Josiah thought of everything.” She touched him on the shoulder with the silver tip. “You may have three wishes,” she said. “You’ll be given whatever you want.”
“Whenever I want…” He grimaced. “My first choice is impossible,” he said. “I can’t change the past no matter how much I might want to.”
“Make a wish,” she said softly.
“My wish is a wish for you,” he said. He placed his hand on her forearm and she began to pull away, but something in his eyes stopped her. “Because you’re so young,” he went on, “and have so much of life before you, I wish you the most elusive gift of all. I wish you happiness.” She looked at him in surprise. His voice was low and earnest and for the first time she warmed toward him, wondered about him as a person. She covered his hand with hers.
“Thank you, Edward,” she said. Looking into his hazel eyes, Kathleen sensed the presence of a deep hurt. Can I help him? she asked herself. Edward pulled his mask down over his eyes. Putting on the mask seemed to change him, make him more remote, turn him once again into an enigma. The moment of warmth was gone. She handed him her white mask and turned so he could tie the bow at the back of her head.
Edward, his black cape flowing behind him, led her along echoing corridors. They found the narrow passages of the old section of the house empty. The servants, she supposed, were helping at the ball, or had gathered on the porch to watch the guests arrive.
The hall ended in a paneled wall. Two corridors, one leading to the front, the other to the rear, branched off at right angles.
“The ballroom is on the other side of this wall,” he told her. “A huge place, three stories high, extending the whole depth of the house. One of the young maids was kind enough to show me through yesterday.”