by Van Reid
Ephias stepped into the kitchen and cast his eyes about before settling by the stove to put on his boots.
“There was an owl outside my room,” came another voice. Bird stood in the doorway, looking thoughtful.
“There is one hereabouts,” agreed Ephias. He sent a meaningful glance in his wife’s direction, which told Lydia that they had discussed the significance of owls already and that Ephias wasn’t keen to discuss it any further. Emmy looked innocent and proceeded to cut the bacon.
“He looked at me when I went to the window,” said Bird. He came into the kitchen and sat between Emmy and Ephias.
“This morning?” said Lydia. It was strange if an owl was sitting outside the house with the sun recently up.
“Last night,” he said. “I heard him at the window, and I went and looked under the curtain.”
“You shouldn’t be getting up in the middle of the night,” was all that Lydia would say. “Didn’t Wyck hear you?” She could hear her son’s out-of-balance tread coming down the stairs and decided that it was time to change the subject. “I see you have your moose badge on this morning,” she began.
Bird fingered the little tin shield pinned to his shirt. There was the image of a moose hammered into the badge like a crest, marred by the crease of a bullet. The badge had been given to the boy by an old clock maker while Bird was in hiding, and it had proved something of a talisman. Lydia knew he wore it whenever he was thinking about the Moosepath League, whose members had done their best to shelter and protect him.
“I want to take something over to Mrs. Partout this morning,” said Lydia. “She and her husband have both been under the weather. a shame so near Christmas.”
“I’ll get some boughs when I’m out to the acres,” said Ephias, meaning the woodlot.
Lydia was surprised; she knew that Ephias had never entirely approved of celebrating Christmas but that he had resigned himself these past years to her love of it. Nothing from past Christmas ides had prepared her, however, for his actual involvement in readying the house for Christmas Eve.
“Thank you, Ephias,” she said, realizing then that he was probably thinking of the boy; the perception didn’t make her like her son-in-law the less. “You should go with him,” she said to Bird, and he looked as if he might like to, though his present concern was with Wyck’s whereabouts.
Wyckford had come down the stairs but had not entered the kitchen, and returning to the stove, Lydia wondered what he was doing, and where. It was like machine work how everyone came downstairs each morning and settled in the kitchen.
By the time Lydia was nearly finished with the pancakes, she and Bird were not the only ones to wonder where Wyck had gotten to; Emmy went to the stove and without subtlety took over the cooking. Lydia went into the hall and listened for a moment, then was startled when she passed the parlor door and caught sight of Wyck standing in the middle of the room, looking at the portrait of the young woman.
“I almost think she knows about us,” said Wyck when Lydia had stood in the doorway for so long that she thought he hadn’t heard her.
“I think we should put that picture away. There are thriving imaginations in this house.”
Wyck laughed softly. He had been thinking about the Moosepath League since he woke, was thinking about them even now. His big frame shook and his shoulder hurt. His mother raised one quizzical eyebrow. “I was thinking of Mr. Eagleton,” he said, “and the dog that ran off with his hat.”
“One of the gentlemen who took care of Bird,” she said, remembering them from Wyckford’s account.
He chuckled again. “Well, they did their best.” He felt kindly toward Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump, though their stewardship had very nearly ended in disaster.
“Kindness counts for a great deal,” she said.
“I think I can ease up on things, Ma,” said Wyck, almost fearing to say what came to his mouth. “I think he’s here to stay.”
Lydia had not her son’s sense of assurance, but she put on a bland face and nodded, not wanting to harm what might be a fragile construct. The letter they had received from Mr. Plainway had been full of assurances, but they had not met the man yet, nor had he met Bird-or should she be thinking of the little fellow as Bertram? She returned to the kitchen and shook her head when Emmy cast a glance her way.
After breakfast Wyckford insisted that Bird go with Ephias, and Lydia was surprised that the boy seemed confident enough in Wyck’s well-being to do so. When they had gone and Emmy had taken a horse down to the Partouts’ with a basket of things to eat, Lydia could hear the arrhythmic blows of the ax behind the barn.
59. One Final Scoundrel
It was hardly more than the sound a mouse would make in the woodwork, but Sundry heard it, and his eyes opened to the dusky light of the predawn. He was rather surprised that he had slept at all and wondered what had wakened him; it might have been Mister Walton turning over in the next room or a subtle change in the direction of the wind. Then the soft noise came again, toward the main body of the house and above his head, and in another minute Sundry was half dressed. He eased himself across the floor of the bedroom and tested the door; a narrow fellow, he did not have to open it very wide before he was able to squeeze himself into the hall.
He carried his boots and moved softly in his stocking feet, taking his time to tread the back hall, hugging the wall, where the floorboards would be less apt to complain. In the front hall he listened at the door that led to the main attic stairs, and hearing a tread grumble there, he retreated behind the door to the ell.
The first hint of daylight had hardly glimmered over the rim of the world, and the details of wallpaper or the shapes of furniture had not risen from the obscurity of night. Sundry felt blind in the windowless hall of the ell, and when his mind formed bits of white haze or warping folds of darkness where there was nothing to see, he closed his eyes and listened. Was there another creak of a tread and the unintended rattle of a doorknob? He never heard the door to the attic open, but he thought he had remained hidden so long that the unknown prowler must have changed his mind or be a ghost.
When Sundry peered into the front hall, he was surprised to see the attic door open and the top of a head disappearing down the main stairwell. Before he reached the landing, Sundry knew who it was, and he considered how many stairs he might clear at a time, and how many leaps it would take to reach the man and knock him down. Or perhaps he could conk the fellow in the back of the head with a boot.
Then at the foot of the stairs the wild-haired man in the voluminous coat experienced a moment of clairvoyance and turned to look up the flight at Sundry. The wide-eyes grew wider still, and the mustache-covered lips parted in a startled gasp. With one hand on the newel-post, Eustace Pembleton (known to Daniel Plainway as Edward Penfen) had pivoted toward the back of the hall when a strange noise, a sort of groan or cry, came from that quarter.
Matthew Ephram was half stumbling in his white nightshirt from the kitchen, where he had inexplicably found himself sleeping by the stove, and with a great yawn he seemed to Pembleton like a mournful ghost. Sundry leaped down the stairs with one hand on the banister, clearing four steps at a time, his boots clattering after him. Pembleton let out a frightened grunt and turned to the front door, which he had half opened when Christopher Eagleton stepped out of the parlor, not a yard away from the man, and himself in the throes of a powerful yawn.
This second noise sounded as mournful and frightening as the first; Pembleton’s response was more a cry than a grunt, and he left the half opened door to charge into the drape-darkened front room. a terrific shriek of fear (encouraging similar feats of vocalization from Ephram and Eagleton) fractured the first light of day, and Pembleton reeled back into the hall, clutching at air, and falling with a crash onto his back into the rectangle of light from the open door.
With his hand gripping the bottom post, Sundry cautiously bent over him, and when the wild-haired man did not move or even seem to breathe, Sundry felt for a pulse at Pemblet
on’s throat. The thrum of Pembleton’s life was sturdy, if a little erratic, and no sooner was this registered than Sundry crept to the door of the front room.
Several cries of surprise and concern came from above, and Daniel Plainway, Mister Walton, and Thump came together at the head of the stairs. “What is it, Sundry?” said Mister Walton, half in a whisper. “Good heavens! Mr. Pembleton!”
“Penfen!” said Daniel.
Sundry was keen with the memory of the voice he had heard the night before and not so keen to peer beyond the threshold of the front room, but he eased his head and shoulders slowly past the jamb and considered the dim room. a quick jolt in his frame was visible to those above, and he stepped back into the hall.
“What is it, Mr. Moss?” asked Daniel Plainway, hardly daring to move.
“Poetic justice, I think, Mr. Plainway,” said Sundry. He considered the man at his feet. Ephram and Eagleton inched closer to the prostrate form, and the three men from above hurried down the stairs.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump met one another with many questions and declarations. “Good heavens, Thump!” cried Ephram, “I found myself in the kitchen this morning!” and Thump replied, “I was sitting in a chair in the room opposite!” Eagleton had less to say, but he peered into his empty hand, then lifted the hand to his throat.
“Was it that then?” said Daniel, standing at the door to the front room. The portrait of Nell Linnett looked out from the sofa, where he had placed it the night before. In the darkness of the room the skirt of the couch might have been the edge of her petticoats; Daniel felt a tremor sympathetic to what Pembleton must have known.
“He’s fainted dead away,” said Mister Walton. He was leaning over the man. The cold morning without had gripped the hall, and Sundry was reaching over the prostrate form to close the door when Pembleton let out another terrified scream, shouting, “I don’t have him!” and appeared to vault to his feet without benefit of hands or knees. They would not have credited his bony form with such explosive strength, but Sundry and Mister Walton were knocked back by the wild man’s violent movement, and before anyone could react, Pembleton was charging out the door, screaming, “T ell her I don’t have him!”
Sundry barely avoided collision with Mister Walton as he caught hold of Pembleton’s coattails. Pembleton had enough of a start to get himself across the piazza: but he tumbled down the front steps, and Sundry, after a stride or two into the cold air, nearly went with him.
Pembleton was struggling out of his large coat when Sundry landed beside him and caught the man by the collar. Pembleton swung around as if to hit Sundry, but the two men froze in deliberation of each other. Pembleton looked like a creature from some ancient tale, the troll from beneath the bridge or the hermit from the cave; he looked absolutely mad, and he gaped from his bearded, dirty face with such fear and astonishment that Sundry would have liked to let him go then and there.
Mister Walton too felt a measure of pity for the man as Sundry ushered Pembleton back inside. “Every soldier is someone’s son,” an old major had told him once, when Mister Walton was very young. Now he tried to imagine what Eustace Pembleton-if that was his name-had been like as a child and what sort of life had led him to this ragged end.
Daniel Plain way saw only the man who had taken Nell Linnett’s child.
The remainder of the Moosepath League were congregated in a night shirted trio at the foot of the stairs. “Good heavens!” Eagleton said several times over. He searched for his journal, but his nightshirt had no pockets (the journal was in his coat), and while he watched the proceedings, he conducted a roundabout exploration, without entirely realizing what he was doing.
Ephram caught sight of Eagleton’s unconscious search for his journal, and the impression of a man chasing a flea was so strong that Ephram wondered if he didn’t feel an itch himself.
“Do you know what you’re going to do with him?” wondered Sundry.
“He’s as much a danger to himself as anyone,” said Mister Walton softly. “At least, with the authorities, he’ll be decently fed and clothed.”
Thump, who was feeling a little peckish himself, couldn’t help wondering where the remainder of the goose was being kept.
“There’s a kidnapping charge for him to face,” said Daniel, not ready to entirely relinquish his anger. “You shouldn’t have come back,” he said to the man, “though I guessed you would.”
“It’s somewheres about,” Pembleton growled.
“It hasn’t been found if that’s what you mean,” said Daniel.
The man glared at Daniel. “It’s in her eyes,” he said. “The old man said it was in her eyes.”
Daniel shivered. “That’s not exactly what he said, no.”
“He said it was in her eyes,” repeated the man. He had lost some of his terror, and he looked less wild. Nonetheless, the Moosepath League afforded him a wide berth as he preceded Sundry into the parlor.
Ephram was now chasing an imaginary flea about his chest and shoulders and Eagleton watched him with curiosity. Not realizing that he had instigated Ephram’s belief in a flea, Eagleton began to feel an itch himself.
“I’ll watch him while you gentlemen dress,” said the young man.
“Right,” said Daniel. “Mrs. Cutler will be here soon enough to make breakfast.”
This was reason enough for Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump to quit the front hall, and they hurried up the stairs with as much terror as if Mrs. Cutler were rushing out of the kitchen even now to catch them in their nightclothes.
Eagleton, when he returned to his room, was sure that something was biting him, but he left off chasing the phantom itch when he was washed over suddenly by the sentiment (rather than the memory) of a dream.
“What do you suppose I was doing in the parlor?” he wondered when they were dressed and Ephram and Thump met him in the hall once again.
“It is an extraordinary thing,” agreed Ephram, “for I woke in the kitchen with my feet on the oven door.”
“I was asleep in the young woman’s room,” said Thump, abashed to divulge this information. “In a chair,” he added. He had been rather startled by his circumstances when he was wakened by Pembleton’s shouts.
“Do you know, Thump?” said Eagleton. “I believe I saw you there on my way to the parlor, but I haven’t the slightest idea what I was doing.”
“We saw no ghosts, at any rate,” said Ephram with a wink and a nudge.
“Oho!” said Thump, with great good nature. “And its being the longest night of the year. We shall have to tell Mr. Burnbrake that his hypothesis has yet to be proved.”
Ephram laughed as he imagined joking with the nice old fellow about his solstice ghosts.
“Though perhaps,” said Thump, “he would be disappointed.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Thump,” said Ephram. “Of course you’re right.”
“Ah, well,” said Thump philosophically. “We were asleep, weren’t we? Is everything well, Eagleton?”
Eagleton looked like a man who knew he was missing something, though he knew not what. “Do you know?” he said, “I remember having something around my neck.”
“Was it a nightmare?” wondered Thump, who was concerned.
“Not at all. Strangely, I have very good feelings about having it and also about having given it up somehow, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.”
“It?”
“Whatever it was, you know.”
Thump hadn’t the slightest idea what his friend was talking about, but he was fascinated. He nodded, giving Eagleton a mistaken impression of his understanding.
“It’s very odd, isn’t it, Thump?” said Ephram about Eagleton’s situation. Ephram understood only enough of Eagleton’s perplexity to be perplexed himself.
“Very much so,” agreed Thump. “I should certainly say.”
“I had no idea how exhausted I was,” said Ephram.
“Does one tend to sleepwalk when one is exhaust
ed?” wondered Thump.
“It would follow.”
Eagleton still looked as if he had lost something. It wasn’t till several months later when he perused his journal that he came across his notes on the incident with the unpleasant cabbie and the French-speaking woman and how he had come into possession of the little silver cross, but he would never remember very clearly what he had done with it.
“Was it a collar you were missing?” wondered Ephram.
“I don’t think,” replied Eagleton, but obviously he was not very sure. “It is very difficult to remember something when it’s missing.”
Thump smelled bacon cooking, and Eagleton and Ephram too lifted their heads, one after the other, as if fallen under a spell.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t keep Mrs. Cutler waiting, the good woman,” said Ephram sagely.
“Exactly, Ephram!” said Eagleton.
“Thoughtful,” said Thump. “Very thoughtful.”
60. One Possible Answer
“It’s somewheres about,” said Pembleton again, though by now Sundry realized that the man was talking not to him but to himself. Whatever madness that possessed the man did not curb his appetite, however, and when Mrs. Cutler offered breakfast, Pembleton was willing to break bread with Sundry in the parlor.
“Goodness’sakes, Mr. Plainway!” Mrs. Cutler declared. “What has been going on about the place!”
“We’ve snagged Edward Penfen, Mrs. Cutler. Or rather, Mr. Moss has snagged him. I believe he was the man you sensed in the attic rooms.”
“That’s well and good,” said the woman, “but that doesn’t go a long way to explain all the traffic out in the yard.”
There was a lot to do and think about that morning, and the six men took shifts eating and watching Pembleton and strolling the grounds to ponder over the welter of tracks that covered the grounds before the evergreen woods and trailed in all directions along the carriage drive.
“It’s in his mother’s eyes,” said Pembleton when Daniel came back inside.
“That’s not what he said,” said Daniel softly. Sundry and Mister Walton were sitting within a quick reach of the man, and Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump stood about looking uncomfortable whenever the wild man’s gaze fell upon them.