Amelia only shook her head, seeing that he didn't really expect an answer.
"It was Charles Harveston who named the place," he went on. "One day he had had too much to drink and some friends asked him why his brother built the houses just alike. Charles answered it was the closest thing his brother could get to a mirror for his house. Then, there was the business of Charles' wife and daughter having to accept Phillipe's mistress as a social equal at family parties-not in real society of course. The situation caused bad blood between the women, since Katherine's mother and Katherine also, naturally, were such strait-laced persons of churchly virtues. Not that there is anything wrong with churchly virtues, except that in some mysterious manner an excess of virtue seems to leave no room for tolerance."
"Some people might say an excess of tolerance leaves no room for virtue," Amelia said daringly.
"Better and better," he said looking down at her with an unreadable expression. Then, he looked quickly away and went on, just as if he were answering her question without extra comment, "They might, but why shouldn't we be tolerant of other people's sins? They aren't ours to live with and pay for. They do not affect us if we are all we should be. Why should we condemn them for having them, except for the satisfaction we get from congratulating ourselves that we don't have them? Self-satisfaction, that's the reason for condemning sinners."
"Yes," she said, absently agreeing, but following thoughts of her own that had reverted to the previous topic. "But, where did Isabella fit in, if everything was so open and obvious that the mistress attended family parties?"
"She didn't. By her own request, she was left out. She had her own rooms, her own servants, and her own sources of entertainment. If she was jealous, or even disapproving, nobody knew it. If she cared, if she loved or hated, she did so in private. She was not a parader of griefs and humiliations."
"I wonder why she didn't go back to her own people when her husband died?" Amelia said.
"You are rather hard, aren't you?" Nelville said without answering her question. "The 'mistress' was your grandmother and Isabella's husband was your grandfather."
Amelia colored slightly, but managed to say evenly, "I didn't mean to be, it's just that they seem more like people in a book or something than my relatives."
He looked at her, his face impassive. Then, he reverted to her question in his disconcerting way. "Isabella was caught, like everybody else here. We are trapped by the great need of Mirror House. It is a squatting monster, trading on souls, without even beauty or grandeur, ancient tradition or an obligation for past happiness to recommend it. It drags the youth and laughter out of our defenseless bodies by the tenuous hooks of duty. None of us escape."
"Why don't you just go away if you hate it so?" Amelia asked, a little shocked by his bitterness. "There are always James and Sylvestor to take over?"
He laughed. "James and Sylvestor? They are useless, nursing their wounds and endlessly remembering. They are gentlemen, don't you know? They have spent fifteen summers on this damn plantation since the war and couldn't even show a green hand how to hoe a straight row. Katherine could, but Katherine won't. She knows the uses of a fool."
"Aren't you being hard on them now?"
"You mean ungrateful, since they gave me a home?"
"Something like that."
"Here's something to remember when you start thinking that. They never gave anyone anything; beginning with Charles they have taken things as if they thought it was their right. Juan Phillipe gave me the roof, but Mary Louise, the mistress, made it a home. The rest only found it expedient to let it stand. Katherine likes to pretend I'm one of the family. It soothes her conscience when I pretend also, though I pretend none too well." He threw back his head and breathed deep, staring around at the endless blue of the sky bounded by the trees on the horizons. "Outside you can live.… I've always thought I would like to go to the land the Indians call the 'far reach of home'; no collection of rooms and fields, but the far reaches of space, land beyond sight."
Unconsciously, Amelia stared at the enclosing trees, trying to see what he saw, an endless reach of home. For an instant, she felt free of the crowding worries, the half-understood fears waiting in the house behind her; then, they flooded back, trebled in size, and through the surge of turgid despair that swept in with them, she felt a closeness to the man beside her, the man with his far-flung dreams and flamboyant expressions camouflaging his own despair.
"So much for the impossibilities," he said on a short laugh. "We remain, changeless future, we remain, in spite of our invocations to the gods of fate." Turning away from the fields, he started back toward the house. "We have an appointment with a lady," he said, indicating with a sweep of his arm that Amelia was to precede him.
As they entered the house, he asked, "Are you a normal woman, or are you as incurious as you pretend?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing back at him as she passed through the door.
"Most women would be overflowing with questions after the opening I gave you."
"I'll learn in good time, won't it?"
"Yes, but wouldn't you like to be prepared?"
She only laughed as she went before him up the stairs as he indicated. At the landing, she looked back down at him and said lightly, "I suspect I know."
"I thought so," he said maddeningly.
Silently, they moved to the room across the hall from Amelia's, and her heart began to beat faster as she saw that they were indeed going to see Isabella. Isabella-of-the-silver-bell who rang for her henchman, Nelville. Nelville-of-the-masque.
Nelville knocked softly. A scuffing sound moved to the door and it opened a crack. An eye popped out and then the colored woman moved aside and the door opened wide. When they entered, she closed the door behind them and moved slowly out of the room.
Here, in this room, there was no sign of the hard times that had come to the rest of the house. A huge bed of dark wood surmounted by a soaring canopy stood to one side with its hangings and spread of rose silk glinting in the light that flooded the room. Rose drapes were looped back from the windows, while panels of lace filtered the light pouring through. Carpets in mellow old rose, gold, and green covered the polished boards, while the dark highboy and wardrobe of the furnishings and the turned bedposts and headboard showed the gleaming patina only hand rubbing can give.
The walls were papered with a soft, cool green and hung with tapestries, while beside a needlework frame sat a white-haired lady dressed.
As they advanced into the room, the lady rose with a smile in her eyes that went no further because of her masque.
"Amelia," Nelville said simply by way of presentation.
"I am so very glad to meet you," came the musical voice, soft and sweet, from behind the masque. She turned an inquisitive glance to Nelville, and when he nodded slightly, she continued, "I am your grandmother, Mary Louise."
"What?" Amelia said stupidly, "what?"
"Are you shocked? I am terribly sorry," her grandmother said with an accusing look at Nelville. "Please sit down and let us explain."
"I thought … I thought …," she murmured, trying to recover her wits as she accepted the chair Nelville pulled up for her.
"That I was poor Isabella? It is what you were meant to think, of course. You and everyone else, except Nelville, though I will admit I have often wondered just how successful we have been."
"But, why? I don't see-"
"No. I am sure you don't," Mary Louise said softly as she resumed her seat and Nelville went to stand beside her in a protective gesture that was unconsciously endearing.
"In the beginning, there was no thought of concealment," she began, leaning forward in her eagerness to make Amelia understand. "Salome, the one they call Grannie Salome now, was a maid at Harvest Hall and it was she who pulled me out of the fire. I was a pitiable sight. My clothes were charred ruins, I had no hair or lashes or brows, and I was burned, so terribly burned, especially around the face and neck. Salome car
ried me to a cabin she had built in the woods and everyone thought me dead along with Isabella and Juan, your grandfather. They buried what was found of the bodies, but they were, of course, virtually unidentifiable." She stopped and took a deep breath, then went quickly on. "After several days, I do not know how many, I came to my senses. I was plastered with swamp mud until I was mummified in the dried mess, but I was alive thanks to Salome who had always fancied herself something of a witch doctor, a juju priestess of some sort. I never inquired too closely. But, I did remember what had happened. I sent Salome for Nelville and it was his idea that I pretend to be Isabella."
"It was only to be for a little while," Nelville said quietly, "a month or so, until she was able to travel. But, then New Orleans was captured and travel became impractical, if not impossible."
"No one seemed suspicious. Salome sent her daughter Cassie with me to care for me. My hair came back white as snow and I Adopted Isabella's masques and manner of dress, and since she had always been seclusive no one was surprised when I continued the habit."
"But, why was it necessary?" Amelia protested.
"Because someone, either James, Katherine or Sylvestor, tried to kill me."
Amelia stared at her. "Are you sure?" she asked when Mary Louise did not continue.
"It happened like this. Your grandfather was in bed upstairs with a stroke. The war news had been very upsetting and there were other personal things that disturbed him. He sent for his lawyer and he came about dark. There was something, some small thing, he wanted to add to his will. He was worried that his son, Phillip, would die in battle and he wanted to word the will so that there was no mistaking what should be done with his property in such a case."
"They were finishing when Katherine, who was always curious about our visitors, arrived. She had recognized Lawyer Mason's carriage on the drive and told Sylvestor and James. Thinking that Juan Phillipe might be worse, they all came, but Katherine was in time to hear the will being read back by Mr. Mason for Juan's approval. After Mr. Mason left, they came into the room and she quite brazenly admitted she had eavesdropped. She was outraged. Juan had left everything, even Mirror House and its acreage, to Phillip and his heirs. Isabella and I were to have permanent homes in the houses in our lifetimes, but beyond a cash settlement, his brother and his brother's children received nothing. I am afraid it was a petty thing on Juan's part, but he had put up with much and gotten nothing, not even respect in return. All was accepted as though it was due. He was very incensed, especially, I'm afraid, with their treatment of me, and of their failure to welcome our son's bride, your mother, Amelia, into the family and introduce the young couple into the plantation society. They could have done so easily. In fact, very few people would have recalled Phillip's parent age so often if Charles and his wife had not lamented it with such breast beatings at every opportunity, despite the fact that he was adopted by his father and his legal wife as a baby, so that in the eyes of the law he was legitimate." Her fine eyes misted with hurt tears, and in an effort to hide them, she looked at her hands in her lap.
After a moment, she continued. "There was a terrible scene. Katherine was enraged. James was very white, though he had little to say, but Sylvestor backed up Katherine's every word. That is hard to imagine now, isn't it? Juan was not at his best. He also said some unforgivable things. I tried to calm them, but it only made matters worse. Things were said, names, accusations, things they must have thought, heard their parents say, and harbored against me all their lives. Then, Katherine bumped into the table near the bed and the candle fell over and went out. I went to the top of the stairs and called down for Salome to bring up a lamp, and then I went back into the room."
"I was very upset and worried about your grandfather who was too excited for a man in his condition. It was dark in the room when I entered and I could hear them breathing and someone whispering. I asked them to please go, as they were making their uncle ill, but no one answered and I felt suddenly that there was danger in the dark, like one of the queer feelings of menace you get in the middle of the night and which nearly always proves false. But, this one wasn't false." She shivered a little remembering, her eyes far away and her mind back in that darkened room. "Just then I saw Salome approaching with the lamp. You could see the glow of moving light coming nearer. Just as she came through the door, a figure rushed toward her, and then, before I could move or think, the lamp came hurtling across the room toward me! It hit my chest pouring oil down the front of my dress and fell to the floor rolling across the carpet, igniting the oil as it rolled and the flames whooshed up my dress before I knew! I was so dazed and shocked that the rest is a blur. I can remember the smell of the burning oil and hair and flesh and feel the pain and the smoke stinging my eyes and hear them running down the stairs. They were young, James was the youngest, about fifteen. I suppose they panicked when they saw what they had done."
"There is always the possibility that it was planned that way," Nelville said in a hard voice.
"I have thought of that, and it is one reason I continue this masquerade; the other being, of course, that they would never let me live in this house if they knew who I really was. And I want so much to live here. After so many years, where else could I go? And now, I can look out my window toward Harvest Hall and remember it as it was, or perhaps better than it was; that's an old lady's prerogative."
"But, what of Isabella? Couldn't she have escaped the fire?" Amelia asked.
"I don't suppose we will ever know," Mary Louise said, leaning her head back and shutting her eyes. "I have often thought that she loved Juan Phillipe as much as I. He did rescue her from disgrace and seclusion as a sort of freak in her family. I think she may have tried to save Juan. I hope so. As much as I envy her common grave with him-does that sound morbid-I cannot help but think that she earned that grace by staying with him and easing his way to death. I am sure that is what happened. She was his wife, and without him, she had no meaning. I have always regretted that my love had to diminish her life, but it could not be helped, and she bore me no grudge for it."
"How do you know it wasn't Isabella who threw the lamp?" Nelville wondered pensively, not as if he wanted to know, but as if he wanted to help Amelia grasp the situation.
"I don't." Her answer seemed to hang in the air, another piece of the misery that hung around the house. Another unanswered question.
"But, why? The will was made," Amelia said.
"Because they knew-their father Charles Harveston who was away in the army at the time had written them-that Phillip was dead. Your mother had left and told no one where she was going or that she was expecting a child. If Juan died without an heir, Charles would inherit, of course. But all this is just guessing. I have never given up hope that the entire tragedy was the result of an unthinking act of anger."
"It came as a distinct shock when they discovered that Phillip had left an heir. The buzzing in a hornet's nest is a valid comparison," Nelville said, walking to the window and looking out.
"Yes, I enjoyed that very much," Mary Louise said with the ghost of a smile in her eyes. "I keep up with the things that go on in the house, even though they never come near me. They have sat back all these years and let time go by, never doing anything about the legal side of the inheritance, but now time is catching up with them. I would not have missed this for the world." She sobered. "But, you must be careful my dear, we cannot be sure that someone might not try to see that Phillip's heir does not inherit."
"Are you trying to say that someone may try to kill me?" Amelia asked, watching her with steady brown eyes.
"Not now. Not right away, while they hope you will marry into the family. But, I am afraid you may be in danger if you let them suspect that you are not going to." She shook her head, then said, as if reluctant to voice the words, "Perhaps, you should marry one of them, James or Nelville. I believe it would end the danger."
Amelia looked from her to Nelville to find him watching her with the hard expressionless gl
are of the red stuffed fox, and suddenly a suspicion burgeoned in her mind that the whole tale was a fabrication directed at her for the purpose of persuading her to marry Nelville, the elaborate tale, the carefully tempered suggestion of danger seemed a ruse to throw suspicion on James, to slight him as a suitor. In that house, nothing seemed too fantastic to be believed.
"Don't you understand?" Nelville said. "Aren't you going to gloat? You are the heir. This all belongs to you." He gestured widely, flamboyantly, taking in the house and land and lake and land beyond in one encompassing sweep.
"I can't seem to make myself believe it," Amelia said in a guarded tone as she dropped her eyes from his fierce gaze.
"Why not? Is your imagination so poor?"
"It is not as real for her as it is for us," Mary Louise said gently, her soft voice cutting across his angry one.
"I'm sorry," Amelia said with a small smile of apology for Mary Louise, a token of thankfulness for her understanding. "I didn't mean I doubted your story."
"It would not be surprising if you did."
"I only meant that I can't quite accept it as something that really happened. It seems so unreal."
"It was real enough," Nelville said harshly, and his arm shot out to catch Mary Louise's masque and rip it away!
What he exposed did not go with the sweet eyes and smooth forehead. The flesh was twisted and crisped like bacon fried too quickly, with deep pits and little runnels that looked like mice burrows. The skin of her neck that disappeared beneath a ruff of lace, was red and wattled with flame-shaped scars running upward.
"Don't!" she cried out in the anguish of a once pretty woman exposed in ugliness, and she began to cry as she reached blindly with entreating fingers to Nelville for the return of her masque and her self-respect.
He stepped in front of her to shield her from Amelia's stunned gaze, and with tender hands helped her adjust her masque again while he murmured his apology.
The Secret of Mirror House Page 11