House of Masques

by Fortune Kent

  “So there was no thunder.”

  “No, and not a trace of rain, either.”

  Kathleen began to walk past Mrs. Lewis and up the stairs. “Oh, I forgot,” Kathleen said. “I went to the gypsy camp yesterday. I feel sorry for them, especially the children. The Estate should do something for them after not letting them stay here. Why doesn’t Mr. Blasingame at least send some food?”

  “The gypsies!” Mrs. Lewis snorted. “You’ll only encourage them to keep coming back year after year. They’re never satisfied. We have enough strangers here as it is.”

  The older woman’s opposition roused Kathleen. “Will you tell Mr. Blasingame what I suggested?” she persisted.

  Mrs. Lewis hesitated. “All right,” she conceded.

  Kathleen, upset by Alice’s hostility, climbed the stairs to return to her room, her mind sorting and resorting the events of the last few days. Should she leave the Estate? What possible reason did she have to stay? She had failed Michael. Her failure left an indelible stain on her image of herself, for never before had she not been able to finish what she began.

  And yet she wanted to remain if only to discover more about Charles and Josiah, to get to know Clarissa better and, she admitted reluctantly, Edward as well. Not from mere curiosity. Each day her life became more and more interwoven with theirs, and each day the unravelling became more difficult for her to imagine.

  A bearded Edward Allen waited for Kathleen in the hall outside her bedroom. She was surprised to find him wide awake so early on Sunday morning.

  “You couldn’t bring yourself to do it, could you?” he asked in a sympathetic voice.

  “No. I suppose I lost my nerve at the last moment,” she admitted. I have no need for concealment now, she thought. More than anything I need a friend, someone to talk to.

  “I have a message for you,” he said, taking an envelope from his vest. “From Josiah.”

  “Josiah? When did it come?”

  Edward shook his head. “He didn’t send the letter by post. Before he left he said to give you this if you didn’t go through with your plan.”

  “So he suspected all along,” she murmured. She tore a narrow curl of paper from one end and removed the single sheet. The message contained one word followed by two numbers. “John 8:32,” she read. “What can he…?”

  “We need a Bible,” Edward interrupted. “I saw one in the library. Come, we’ll soon know what Josiah has to say.” They went down the stairs to the windowless room on the first floor. After Edward lit the lamp she undid the brass clasp to open the Bible which rested on top of a small marble table. The pages rustled as she leafed to the New Testament.

  “Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,” Kathleen read the names of the books. “Chapter eight, the thirty-second verse. What can Josiah mean?”

  “And ye shall know the truth,” he read over her shoulder, “and the truth shall make you free.” He smiled. “Josiah and his riddles,” he said.

  “‘Know the truth,’” she repeated. “Could he be telling me…?” While she stared at the page her thoughts returned to Gleneden, and she saw the light reflected from Josiah’s face as he shook the logs in the fireplace.

  “Isn’t he saying I acted without knowledge? Suggesting I discover the truth of what happened between Charles and my brother Michael?” Yet how can I? she wondered. When will Charles return from the mountains?

  Edward frowned. “Many times the truth is best left unrevealed,” he said. “We can only be happy as long as we’re allowed our deceptions. Especially our self-deceptions.”

  “You can’t mean that,” she told him.

  His eyes, which had been glazed and inward-seeing, focused on her and narrowed. He shrugged. “I think you wanted a ride to church,” he said.

  She placed the red ribbon from the front of the Bible on the page containing John 8:32. If Edward wanted to change the subject, she was willing. “Yes, please,” she said. “Let me get my hat.”

  The day, Kathleen found as they drove from the Estate in the buggy, was the coolest in weeks. Serried rows of clouds covered the sun. “A mackerel sky,” she said. “We’ll have rain in three days’ time.”

  “I hope you’re right.” His tone told her he was skeptical.

  The mass comforted her as it always did. The statements, the vestments, the ritual, the sonorous phrasing, the same here in Cornwall as in Ohio, the same now as in her early childhood. To Kathleen, Sunday mornings were islands in a sea of change.

  She had attended a Benedictine school. In Cleveland for a year after her mother died. Awed by the learning of the nuns, she dreamed of entering a convent. The wish receded as she grew older, was forgotten for months at a time, only to return when she was reminded of her craving for knowledge. How else, she wondered, could a girl become educated?

  After the service she found Edward sitting in the buggy on the road in front. As they passed strolling churchgoers dressed in their Sunday best he smiled at her. Through the open doors of a white-steepled church Kathleen heard the rise and fall of the voices of the congregation.

  “Onward Christian soldiers

  Marching as to war…”

  Many times she had hummed the martial tune after hearing friends singing it. Today, strangely, the words made her ill at ease.

  Edward stopped the horse across the street from the church. “Presbyterian,” he said. “The Worthington’ church in the old days. Not now, of course, since Charles’s mother is a Roman Catholic. The family plot is in the cemetery down the hill toward the river.” She followed his nod to where willows swayed above rows of headstones.

  He clucked the horse on as the congregation began a new hymn.

  “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored

  He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword…”

  The chorus echoed in her mind after the music had faded behind them. She shuddered. Would a vengeful God punish her for her sins? After all, she had meant to kill Charles. Do not think about death and retribution, not today, she told herself. They rode toward the village in silence.

  “Such a beautiful day,” Kathleen said at last.

  “Shall we drive for a while?”

  “Yes, I don’t want to go back just yet. I’d like to put the Estate from my mind, if only for an hour or two.”

  They passed the school, the firehouse, the livery stable, and the general store. On a tree-lined street large homes stood stolidly, squarely in the center of cared-for yards. A few hundred feet farther on, the road narrowed and became a cart path with grass growing between two worn tracks. On both sides gold-and-black butterflies flitted over fields of daisies dipping in the breeze.

  When they came to a woods Edward put the whip in the socket on the side of the rig, pulled up and tied the horse. Kathleen heard the sound of running water coming faintly over the whispering of the pines. They walked in the hushed shade, slipping on the needle-covered path, the earth brown and without undergrowth in the perpetual twilight. The path led to a wooded glen in whose depths Kathleen saw the sparkle of water.

  She followed Edward along a trail zigzagging down a steep hill. He stopped to help her over roots and around protruding rocks, not speaking, seeming to sense her mood, her need for a quiet sharing of the cool serenity of the day.

  A flash of color higher on the bank caught her eye. A few feet farther on, when they came to a break in the trees, she looked up to see a couple embracing, the women in red, the man’s arm tight about her waist, his head bent to her, his lips on hers. Had she and Edward come to a trysting place? Embarrassed, she glanced at Edward and sighed with relief when she found his eyes on the path ahead.

  They reached the bottom of the glen where the stream, although far below its natural banks, swirled around rocks, rushed in a deep ch
annel between large boulders, and arched over a falls as high as a man.

  They climbed down to a pool below the falls. Kathleen sat on a flat rock, removed her broad-brimmed hat, and felt the breeze disarrange her hair. She had seen no one other than the couple. She and Edward were alone, in a world apart. Lulled by the sound and motion of the water, she drowsily watched the stream surge over the rim of the falls to plunge to the rocks below. Each time the sun appeared from behind the clouds rainbow segments glimmered above the water.

  A sound from the pool startled her. Edward, sitting a short distance away, with his back against a tree, threw another stone into the water. Ripples spread in ever-widening circles toward the shore. Small bugs skittered across the pool’s surface. A devil’s darning needle darted above her head, stopped in midair, its wings a whirring blur.

  She became aware of Edward’s eyes on her. Was something wrong? She leaned forward to examine the reflection of her hair, her face, her dress.

  “Nothing’s the matter, Kathy,” he said. He had never called her Kathy before. “The truth is, I enjoy looking at you.” She felt a blush rise to her neck and face. “The way you bring your hair from behind your head over your shoulders, the tilt of your nose.” She clasped her arms about her knees, wanting to look at him but feeling shy. She knew a pleasurable excitement and a wariness at the same time. Was Edward playing another role?

  She heard him scramble to his feet. Suddenly his face appeared reflected above hers in the pool.

  “You’re young, Kathy,” he said. “You have time to be anything you want. Anything in the world.” He tossed a twig into the water where it circled and circled before being swept downstream. “For most of us it’s too late. We’re writing our last acts, and last acts can only be the culmination of all that’s gone before, the plot and the characters moving inevitably to the final curtain. But not for you. You’re only beginning to write your story. What shall you be? What do you want from life?”

  “I-I’m not sure,” she said. “Something other than I have. Something more.” Her voice grew passionate. “All over the country women are breaking from the cocoons you men have kept us in: Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Lucretia Mott, Victoria Woodhull.”

  “Last night I saw you set men’s heads awhirl. You were lovely, Kathy. You proved you can be what you wish—a lady, a princess.”

  “I’m not at all sure I want to be a lady or a princess.”

  “Do you know what I wish?” Edward asked.

  She looked into his intent face and shook her head.

  “I wish I could know you ten years from today,” he told her. “Oh, Kathy, what a wonder you’ll be then!”

  “I don’t know what to make of you,” she said, her voice low. Edward reached down to touch her elbow and she stood facing him, their bodies almost touching, only a sigh separating them. Very gently he laid his hand on her cheek. The warmth of his touch made her skin tingle.

  “Accept my words as your due,” he said. “As a gift from an admirer to a lovely woman.” He ran his fingertips along her cheek. He’s going to kiss me, she thought. In a moment, Edward will kiss me.

  Panic rushed through her, followed by an emotion she did not recognize, had never known before. A quickening, a new awareness. She no longer heard the splashing of the creek, for she could hear only his breathing. She no longer saw the rushing water, the trees, or the sky, for she could see only his hazel eyes gazing into hers. The world consisted of the two of them, herself and Edward, nothing more.

  He dropped his hand from her face and walked to the bank of the stream where, his back to her, hands behind him, he stared at the water cascading over the falls. She felt a pang of disappointment. Did I do something wrong? she wondered. With an effort she kept from running to him.

  “I’m not being fair,” he said. “I’m forever letting my feelings take command when I should know better.” His black hair curled, she noticed, just above the nape of his neck. “You have my apologies,” he told her.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said with a catch in her voice.

  “I’m of a different time,” he said, still not facing her, “a different world. Kathy, I’ve seen things and done things you could never dream of.”

  He’s right, she thought, I should be careful. He’s an adept dissembler, he’s moody, he drinks too much. He’s older. And Josiah hinted at a terrible secret in his past. I don’t care, I don’t care! she wanted to cry out. Before she could speak he approached her.

  “It’s time we were going back to the Estate,” he said. His eyes met hers, then glanced away. “We’ll be remarked on if we stay too long.”

  Without waiting for a reply he took her arm and led her to the path up the hill. She was more conscious of him than she had ever been of any man—the texture of his hair, the curve of his cheek, the lithe movement of his body. She watched him as though she meant to memorize each of his features.

  While they climbed she repeated his words to herself. He had called her “lovely”, a “princess”, said he admired her. She savored the words, secreted them in her mind with the knowledge they would always be where she could find and cherish them.

  Sitting beside Edward in the buggy, Kathleen was acutely aware of his presence, noticed each touch of his arm against hers. She hoped the ride would never end.

  “Listen,” he said. A church bell, she thought No, higher pitched, more insistent than any church bell.

  “What can it be?” she asked.

  “Fire,” Edward said.

  Fire. She knew a thrill of fear and excitement. Edward flipped the reins and the horse trotted into the street leading to the village square. Three men in blue-and-gold uniforms hurried down the steps of the bandstand in the center of the square. Kathleen looked a short distance beyond them where four horses pulled a pumper from the firehouse. Men and women leaned from windows or gathered on the sidewalks, talking, gesturing. Children ran past along the side of the road.

  The fire apparatus, headed away from Edward and Kathleen, slowed while volunteers ran alongside and pulled themselves aboard. Edward reined their buggy into a line of wagons and carriages following the firemen. As they passed the firehouse Kathleen held her hands over her ears to muffle the reverberation of the bell ringing from atop a tower behind the building.

  A man in the carriage behind them called a question to a group of boys in front of the firehouse. “The Estate,” the boys chorused in reply. “The Estate. The Estate,” she heard repeated on all sides.

  Kathleen looked through the trees to the mountain a mile away. Halfway up its wooded slopes smoke billowed into the gray sky. Below the smoke she saw the orange flare of flames.

  Chapter Twelve

  When they reached the foot of the mountain they found a tall young man with a deputy sheriff’s badge on his shirtfront waving carriages away from the road to the Estate. The other drivers either pulled their teams into an adjacent field, where they tethered the horses before proceeding on foot, or drove off along a road following the base of the mountain. Edward did neither. He went directly ahead onto the mountain road. The deputy blocked their way.

  “No,” he shouted, grasping the horse’s bridle. “You can’t go on.” He released the horse and walked to stand in the road below Edward.

  “We’re from the Estate,” Edward told him.

  “Makes no difference. The fire’s closing in on the big house. They’re evacuating now.” Above the trees Kathleen saw gray smoke blowing eastward to hang like a haze over the mountain’s summit.

  “They need our help,” Edward persisted. Kathleen saw the deputy hesitate.

  “I’m Captain Worthington’s aide,” Edward added.

  The deputy stood aside. “All right,” he said, “if there’s trouble, it’ll be on your head.” He motioned them by.

  As they approached the Estate the sky darkened. She saw the chimneys of the
house and knew they were almost there. “The fire’s still a half-mile away,” Edward said as he drove between the entrance pillars. The gate was open, and Kathleen looked but could not find the guard.

  In the distance she heard a crackling mingled with the faint shouts of many men. Gray-white flakes floated to the ground like a gentle snowfall. One warm flake landed on the back of her hand, leaving a black smudge when she tried to brush it off.

  The great house, as gloomy as the lowering sky, no longer appeared threatening. Instead, enclosed on three sides by the forest, the many roofs and the expanse of weathered wooden sidings seemed alarmingly vulnerable to the fire. Kathleen saw women carrying pails of water to the rear. The thud of axes echoed from near the stables.

  Edward tied the horse to the hitching post across from the front porch. After helping Kathleen to the ground he continued to hold her hand. “Find Clarissa,” he said, “and drive her to the village. This house is a huge firetrap.”

  “Where will you be?” she asked, trying to keep the concern from her voice.

  He nodded in the direction of the fire. “I’ll go and see if I can help.”

  “Be careful. Please!” She squeezed his hand, then watched him stride toward the stables. When will I see him again? she wondered. I must stop deluding myself, to Edward I’m only a meaningless flirtation. But still she was worried and knew she wanted to see him again, and soon.

  Kathleen ran up the stairs, found the porch and entryway deserted, hurried along the upper hall to a side corridor where she looked into the sewing room. The quilt lay stretched on the rack but Mrs. Ehrman was nowhere to be seen.

  Back in the main hall, she found Clarissa’s door open. The curtain blew inward. The bed was unmade. She stopped in the center of the room. Where would Clarissa go? Where should she look next?

  “So we’ve found you after all.” She whirled. A young man, a stranger, lounged against the door frame. He had sandy hair, cold blue eyes in a sharp face, wore a campaign hat, a neckerchief, and a uniform-like shirt and pants. A gun protruded from the holster on his belt.