SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  She simpered. "You could not do anything badly, my lord."

  He shared a conspiratorial look with Johanna. "You do me too much honor, Miss DuBois." He stood up and walked her to the old piano. It bore a fine coat of dust from long disuse. He had just pulled out the bench when Lewis sprang up, produced a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, and began to dust the piano with furious diligence. Finished with his work, he sidled past May into the kitchen to wash his hands.

  "Thank you, Mr. Andersen," Quentin called after him. He sat down and ran his fingers gently over the keys. "Only a trifle out of tune," he remarked. "It's a fine old instrument." He leafed through the brown-edged sheet music moldering in a basket beside the piano.

  Irene plucked a sheet from his hand. " 'Lilly Dale,'" she said. "It's frightfully old, but I shall do what I can." She returned the music to Quentin and assumed a theatrical air, more for his benefit than that of her audience.

  "One moment." Quentin turned toward the kitchen door, where May waited so quietly, and held out his hand. "I'll need someone to turn the pages. Will you help me, May?"

  The girl ducked her head, on the verge of flight. Then, slowly, she rose and crept into the room, hesitating every few steps like a nervous fawn. She laid her hand in his.

  He positioned her on the other side of the piano, away from Irene, who was far from pleased. "I'll let you know when to turn the pages."

  But May surprised everyone. "I can read music," she whispered. Even Lewis, returning to the parlor, paused at the rarely heard sound of her voice.

  Johanna resumed her seat, puzzled but gratified. May's behavior was truly exceptional, and all due to Quentin. She must actually regard him as a protector, to venture in among the others.

  "Well, then," Quentin said. "Shall we begin?" Anxious to reclaim his attention, Irene hardly waited for him to play the introduction.

  " 'Twas a calm still night, and the moon's pale light,

  Shone soft o 'er hill and vale;

  When friends mute with grief stood around the deathbed

  Of my poor lost Lilly Dale.

  Oh! Lilly, sweet Lilly,

  Dear Lilly Dale,

  Now the wild rose blossoms o'er her little green grave,

  'Neath the trees in the flow'ry vale."

  Irene's voice cracked on the high notes, but she was heedless of her own imperfections.

  "Her cheeks, that once glowed with the rose tint of health.

  By the hand of disease had turned pale,

  And the death damp was on the pure white brow

  Of my poor lost Lilly Dale.

  Oh! Lilly, sweet—"

  "Stop!"

  She broke off, staring at Lewis. He stood before his chair, fists clenched, face drained of color.

  "What's wrong with you?" Irene snapped. "How dare you interrupt my performance. I'll have you thrown out."

  Her painted lips curled, and her eyes narrowed with crude cunning. "Or does my song remind you of someone, Reverend dear? Is that why you don't like it?"

  Lewis didn't move. May pressed back against the nearest wall.

  "I think we should try a different song," Johanna said firmly. "Something more cheerful, perhaps."

  "As you wish." Irene began to sing again without accompaniment.

  "Forth from my dark and dismal cell,

  Or from the dark abyss of Hell,

  Mad Tom is come to view the world again,

  To see if he can cure his distempered brain.

  Fears and cares oppress my soul,

  Hark how the angry furies howl,

  Pluto laughs, and Proserpine is glad,

  To see poor angry Tom of Bedlam mad."

  Quentin rose from the piano bench. "Miss DuBois—" She marched into the center of the room and sang directly to Johanna, no longer making any attempt to stay on key.

  " 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said a spider to a fly,

  ' 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;

  You've only got to pop your head within side of the door,

  You'll see so many curious things you never saw before! '"

  "That is quite enough, Irene," Johanna said. "You may retire to your room."

  "Just so you can have him to yourself!" Irene shrieked. "You are the spider, weaving your treacherous webs, but I can weave webs of my own. Soon you won't be able to stop me from doing whatever I want to do. Just wait and see!"

  Johanna stepped forward to grasp Irene's wrist. Irene raised her free hand and struck Johanna viciously. Johanna slapped her in return.

  The room became a tableau, frozen in time. Johanna regarded her own treacherous hand with horror.

  "You bitch," Irene hissed, holding her palm to her reddened cheek. "I'll make you sorry you did that. See if I don't."

  Quentin took her arm. "I think you should lie down, Miss DuBois," he said. He was deadly serious, brooking no argument. "I'll escort you—"

  "You whore—you harlot!" Lewis shouted. "Leave this house!"

  "Be silent! "

  Quentin's voice was hardly raised above normal speech, but he might as well have roared. Lewis sat down abruptly. Irene went white. May remained motionless, and Oscar began to wail.

  "It's all right, Oscar," Quentin said. "No one is angry with you." Oscar sniffled and rubbed at his eyes. "May, you needn't be afraid. I'll speak to you in a few moments."

  May slipped from the room. Quentin steered Irene toward the hall. She didn't resist.

  Stunned, Johanna comforted Oscar and got him working on his puzzle again. She went after Quentin and found him emerging from Irene's room, his features devoid of expression. At almost the same instant, Harper stepped into the hallway. His movements were furtive, his posture crouched, as if he expected imminent attack. When he saw Johanna and Quentin, he straightened, though his gaze flicked this way and that, searching for some hidden threat.

  "I heard yelling," he whispered. "What's going on?"

  "Be at ease, my friend. Just a bit of a row in the parlor." Quentin grinned. "Women on the rampage. Nothing you need worry about."

  Harper's shoulders relaxed. "If it's about ladies, I'd better stay out of it."

  "Very wise." Quentin glanced at Johanna, who took his hint.

  "I'd like to speak with you for a little while before you retire," Johanna said to Harper. "I'll come by within the hour, if that's agreeable."

  "Yes," he said. He retreated into his room, and Johanna shut the door. She tested the door to Irene's room and found it barricaded, doubtless with a chair jammed against the inside knob. Well, there was no harm in leaving her alone for a while. It was probably the wisest thing to do.

  Composing herself, she turned to Quentin. "What you said to Harper was inappropriate."

  "Why? Because I made the comment about women? It wasn't so far from the truth."

  She flinched. "I should never have struck Irene. I'm well aware of that. It was inexcusable."

  "But understandable." He was as serious as he'd been in the parlor, almost grim.

  "No," she said. "I am a doctor."

  "And a woman with feelings that can be hurt, like anyone else. Whatever Irene's problems, she went too far."

  "You don't understand. I haven't yet been able to reach her, and until I do—"

  "She struck you. That cannot be permitted."

  "The mistake—the misjudgment—was mine. In any case, you must not interfere."

  His eyes lit, turning cinnamon to flame. "I'll always interfere if anyone tries to hurt you."

  "Not with my patients—"

  He took both her hands in a grip both painless and unbreakable. "You watch over your patients with such devotion. Who watches over you?"

  "I have never needed anyone to watch over me."

  "And what if it was not Irene but someone else who struck you?" he said between his teeth. "A man, capable of doing real harm?"

  "None of the men here would hurt me. Certainly not Oscar, or Lewis—"

  "How can you be so sure?
Do you really think you know everything, Johanna?"

  She stared at him, trying to make sense of this change in him. There'd been an inkling of it on the walk, and again in the parlor. He was behaving subtly, but noticeably, out of character.

  "I know what I'm doing," she said, in the calm tone she ordinarily used with distraught or manic patients. "Oscar has learned how to control his strength, and as you see he is not aggressive. Lewis reacted as he did because he lost his wife in a tragic manner; Irene's song reminded him of it. I've always taken care with Harper. Are you suggesting I should be concerned about you?"

  His pupils constricted in shock, and he let her go. "You think I'd hurt you?"

  "If I thought you were a danger to any of us, I'd never have allowed you to stay." She sighed and rubbed her wrists, though she'd hardly felt Quentin's grip—not, at any rate, as pain. "I've seen how well you get along with May, when she would never trust anyone but me. Oscar likes you, and Harper has improved since you came." She turned away, fighting a lump in her throat. "I should be very sorry to see you gone, but I must insist that you not attempt to interfere as you did in the parlor."

  Quentin's breath sawed in and out like that of a large, angry beast. The small hairs prickled on the back of Johanna's neck. Her instincts screamed for her to turn around and face him as she would a dangerous animal. A wolf.

  Ridiculous. She forced herself to remain where she was until Quentin's silence left her no choice but to speak. He leaned against the wall, his hands braced to either side of his head.

  So lonely, Johanna thought. So sad... "Quentin, I know you mean well—"

  In a blur of motion he snapped around, mouth contorted and hands raised as if to strike. She had a single, precisely delineated view of his face. Had she not known who stood before her, she might not have recognized it.

  Rage, That was what she saw—rage, and a kind of vicious satisfaction. Quentin's features seemed coarser, more brutish than she could have imagined possible.

  Involuntarily she took a step back. Quentin looked like a man ready to kill.

  The moment passed instantly, but not before she realized where she'd seen such a thing before. Harper had behaved so from time to time, before he'd entered his long period of cataleptic depression a year ago. He had never hurt anyone, but he'd walked on the edge of violence and might easily have become dangerous. He'd relived his service in the War as though it had never ended, prepared to attack or be attacked, kill or be killed. And after the manic periods passed, he had shown no indication of remembering what he'd said and done.

  Quentin had already revisited his own oppressive, half-forgotten memories of war. Was this another manifestation, far less benign than the other?

  Sweat pooled on Quentin's brow, as if he had just emerged from a battle. He slumped against the wall with a rueful shake of his head.

  "You're right," he said. "I went too far. I'll try to remember my proper place from now on." He smiled to take the sting from his words. Johanna knew at once that he was unaware of his sudden alteration.

  "Very well," she said, wanting very much to consult her notes. "If you'll excuse me—"

  "Let me prove I'm worthy of your trust," he said, stopping her. "I've been thinking—I know how much care your father requires. He believes I'm a doctor, and he likes me. I'd be glad—honored—to see to his needs, so that you can spend more time with the others."

  Time and again Quentin had pushed past the appropriate boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship, and she'd let him do it. With this offer, he reached into a part of her life that she'd kept completely private.

  "I told you that my father died when I was very young," he said to her silence. "It would be as much for me as for him."

  Did he mean it? And if he did, could she trust him with the only man who'd accepted her, and loved her, without question?

  Just now Quentin had revealed a side of his nature utterly foreign to what she knew of him, a new face of his illness. Yet she had always intended that the Haven's residents should help each other, form friendships that would support them in their struggles. Quentin might set a good example. If she had assistance with her father, she'd be able to work more diligently with Irene, May, and Harper. With Quentin himself.

  And she was touched. Deeply touched, as much as she'd been troubled a minute before.

  "Perhaps you can join me when I visit with him," she said. "After that, we shall see."

  "Thank you." He glanced toward Harper's room. "I've another favor to ask. I assume you'll be hypnotizing Harper, now that he's speaking?"

  "When he's ready. I shall not rush him."

  "I understand," he said. "I request that I be allowed to observe your meetings with him. It might improve my ability to respond when you hypnotize me. I'd like very much to be your model patient."

  The mischief was back in his eyes, along with that devil-may-care grin. She found her doubts and concerns banished as if by magic.

  "That must be up to Harper," she said. "If he seems competent to make the decision, I shall ask him."

  "Fair enough. I promised to speak to May tonight—please give my best wishes to Lewis and Oscar, and apologize for any distress I may have caused." He took a step toward her, stopped. "I will prove myself worthy, Johanna."

  He gave her no chance to reply, but swung around and strode out the back door.

  After she had seen the others to bed, Johanna went to her father's room and sat with him awhile, watching him sleep.

  "I believe him, Papa," she said softly. "I trust him." She set her jaw. "I am not losing my reason. It is possible to think and feel at the same time, is it not? It's only a matter of finding the proper balance. That is what I must concentrate on. Balance."

  Her father murmured something in his sleep that she couldn't make out. She took comfort in it nonetheless. She kissed him on the forehead and left him to his sleep.

  Chapter 11

  Quentin clucked softly to the old mare, encouraging her on her slow, steady pace toward Silverado Springs. The summer morning was warm, the road not unbearably dusty, and he was remarkably content to be holding the reins of a nearly decrepit equipage as different from his old racing phaetons as Daisy was from the fine-blooded horses he'd once ridden in England.

  Oscar perched on the seat at his side, face bright with anticipation. His weight lent a considerable tilt to the buggy, but Quentin was glad for his company.

  He'd had much on his mind the past several days. The minor incident in the parlor earlier that week, which he ordinarily would have forgotten, continued to gnaw at his thoughts. It wasn't because Johanna had rightfully reminded him that he had no place in disciplining her patients, or even her vague hint that he might be forced to leave the Haven if he didn't conform to her rules.

  No, nothing so simple. The thing that most disturbed him was the brief but very real gap in his memory immediately following her warnings—the familiar sense of losing himself and returning without knowledge of where he'd gone or what he'd done.

  It was the second such blank period he'd experienced since awakening in the guest bedchamber. At the Haven, he'd been out of reach of the drink that had always preceded such spells in the past. But this time, as with the first, he hadn't been drinking.

  Only an instant, this time. Only a few seconds of disappearing, and then all was normal again. Johanna hadn't shown any alarm. He couldn't have done anything… said anything… too intolerable.

  But he couldn't be sure. And then there'd been the conversation with Johanna on their walk earlier that same day, when he'd been so possessed by jealousy that he'd felt separated from his own mind and body.

  A jealousy to which he had no right whatsoever. Johanna had taken that in stride as well, but even she must have her limits.

  All he could do was try to make up for his behavior by promising Johanna the full measure of his future support and cooperation.

  He'd lived up to that promise, at least. Today he and Oscar were headed into town to pick u
p much-needed provisions that Mrs. Daugherty hadn't the means to bring with her to the Haven. Among those supplies was lumber to replace the rotten planks in the barn, which Quentin had begun to repair.

  He generally had company during his daily chores. May was his second shadow more often than not, satisfied to watch him or, on rare occasions, speak shyly of the book she'd been reading. Oscar was eager to imitate his actions, an unlooked-for responsibility that he tried to treat with the seriousness it deserved. He'd never had to hold himself up as a standard for anyone else's behavior, and it was a daunting task.

  As for the others, Lewis responded with guarded civility to his questions about the roses the former minister tended in the garden. Harper was often in Johanna's office or in his room, but Quentin suspected the two of them might eventually become friends.

  Only Irene avoided him, and he was glad enough for the reprieve.

  Johanna was too busy to spare much time for him outside of their so-far fruitless hypnotic sessions, but he was constantly aware of her—of her scent drifting out a window, the low, familiar sound of her voice, the firm tread of her step. His heart skipped the proverbial beat every time she came near. He hid his little vulnerabilities from her quite well.

  And, gradually, she seemed to dismiss any remaining concerns she might have held about him. She permitted him to spend additional time with her father, providing meticulous instruction on Dr. Schell's care. He needed bathing, help with eating, exercise of his wasted limbs, trips into the garden, and company most of all.

  Quentin had seen Johanna's doubt—doubt that he could seriously wish to take on such burdensome and tedious care for a stranger. Doubt even about his motives. But after the first two days, she had trusted Quentin with her father's morning bath and meal. She'd spent that time with the patients, Harper and May in particular, and thanked Quentin at the end of the day with real warmth and gratitude.

  Johanna's gratitude. How ironic that it should mean so much to him. But looking after the elder Dr. Schell wasn't some scheme born of his inconvenient desire for one of her rare smiles. It felt almost like caring for his own father—a man he hardly remembered, dead when he was a boy. He caught glimpses, in talking to the old man, in watching him and Johanna together, of what it would have been like to grow up with such paternal love and support.