Leaning out, she looked down the length of the house and saw thin tendrils of smoke oozing from between the slats of the jalousies down the wall!
| Go to Table of Contents |
Chapter Nine
SHE TURNED AND ran across the room and out into the hall. Nothing stirred, not a sound could be heard in the long afternoon quiet except the buzzing of a bumblebee trapped within the walls of the hall, unable to find his way back to the open doors leading to the galleries and the open world. Running down the hall, Amelia knocked on the door to the room she thought corresponded to the jalousies along the wall. She listened, but there was no sound within. She knocked more loudly, feeling a growing alarm. Was someone asleep inside? Whose room was it? She didn't know. In another minute she was going to start screaming, for she could see coming from under the door a few wisps of smoke, and the smell of burning cloth was much stronger!
Across the hall a door opened and Katherine stepped into the hall, buttoning her dress. "What is it?" she said blankly, her voice still thick with sleep and her hair frowzy from the pillow.
"Something is burning," Amelia said, forgetting her independence and her quarrel with Katherine as relief swept over her at having someone in the family to take charge.
Katherine pushed unceremoniously past her, opening the door and going into the smoke-filled room. A man lay sprawled with one arm dangling from the bed which seemed to be a cloud of smoke. Then, Amelia saw the greedy little red teeth of flames eating at the rug that lay beside it, burning slowly because of its thickness. Katherine threw open the jalousies, and the fire flamed up in the sudden draft. Spying the water pitcher sitting on the commode, Amelia grabbed it and emptied the contents over the rug. With a sizzling and a great cloud of smoke, the fire was extinguished and Katherine gingerly caught the edges of the rug and carried it to the window and flung it into the yard. Flapping her skirt at the smoke, she turned to the bed.
As the smoke began to clear, billowing out the windows, Amelia wiped her streaming eyes and watched Katherine loosen the collar of the man on the bed and shake him experimentally. Sylvestor, his hair rumpled and straggling in gray disorder, lay inert, unresponding. "Get some water, some brandy," Katherine said over her shoulder.
Amelia brought the pitcher from her room and went in search of brandy. She found him a little in a decanter in the front parlor on what appeared to be James's writing desk. As she picked it up, she thought she heard quick footsteps going to the stairs. She found a glass and followed.
As she reentered the room, she saw Nelville holding a sagging Sylvestor before a window. "What happened?" Sylvestor was saying in a thick voice as she crossed the room.
"Your valiant, but unsuccessful effort to cremate yourself failed," Nelville said harshly.
"I told you you would burn the house down around our ears," Katherine said.
"Such a calamity," Sylvestor said, managing to be sarcastic even as he coughed with his face screwed up with pain.
"I never thought you would care," Katherine said with unnecessary vehemence out of her fright which had turned to anger when the crisis was over.
"Why should I?" Sylvestor said, staring at her with smoke-reddened eyes. "Why should I, it isn't my home?" His breathing was heavy and hoarse in the suddenly quiet room.
"What's going on here?" Reba asked from the doorway. "I saw smoke . . . Sylvestor! Are you all right?" she finished, hurrying into the room and going to his side.
"Perfectly," he said stiffly, straightening from Nelville's supporting arm and brushing his clothes. He smoothed his hair with trembling hands and smiled at Reba who was quite pale.
"Are you sure?" she asked with wide eyes.
"Yes, of course he is," Katherine said with a brisk pat on the shoulder, "but he has ruined the rug."
"Rug?" Reba said absently.
"He set fire to it with his stinking pipe when he fell asleep," Katherine said, not without an odd sort of satisfaction. "I told him he would one of these days."
"That, I did not," Sylvestor said distinctly.
"What do you mean?" Katherine asked, "of course you did!"
"He means he set his pipe here in the tray before he fell asleep," Nelville said from where he stood beside the table.
Katherine looked startled. "Regardless, he must have knocked the dottle out of it onto the rug when he set it down. How else could it have started?"
"How else, indeed?" Nelville mused.
"I don't know," Sylvestor said slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I have the strangest feeling someone came into my room. I remember somebody calling my name, but I was too sleepy to answer. Then, they came in and said something else, maybe asking if I was asleep. I thought if I said nothing they would go away and leave me alone. Then, there was this pain in my neck and that's all I remember."
"Are you trying to blame somebody else for setting the fire?" Katherine demanded angrily.
"No, no," Sylvestor answered her slowly, "I was just trying to think what happened."
"Well, think again," Katherine said, letting exasperation creep into her voice.
"I can't. I was so nearly asleep, you know how opinion is."
"You mean so nearly unconscious," Katherine said bitingly. "Was it a man or a woman?"
"I tell you I don't know."
"And why the rug? Why not set fire to the bed while they were about it?"
"I don't know. I just know I didn't do it." Sylvestor's voice was becoming peevish under Katherine's relentless questions.
"If you only knew how stupid that sounds! A fool could see that you were too drunk with that vile smoke to know what you were doing or what happened!"
"Leave him alone," Reba said, standing protectively in front of Sylvestor. "Can't you see he isn't well."
"I can see he is killing himself. If he isn't well, it is his own fault!"
"Who has a better right? It is his life. Besides, how can you be sure it's his fault. How do you know? People do things for more than one reason."
"Say what you mean," Katherine said, tight lipped.
"I'm sure you wouldn't want that, not in front of company."
"Leave her out of it," Katherine said, following Reba's sardonic gaze at Amelia.
"I'd love to, but it just doesn't seem possible, does it? She is here, whether we want her or not."
"You are jealous," Katherine said.
"Am I? Of what?" Reba asked, supremely arrogant.
"Of her youth and beauty. You are afraid of getting old."
"You make me laugh!" Reba said without a sign of humor. "She has taken what should be mine. Am I supposed to be grateful?"
"You and Sylvestor are well matched," Katherine said with equal harshness, "both fools. Why I ever expected help from you is beyond me."
"We'll help you, though not exactly as you might like. Now, get out, all of you. Get out and leave us alone."
Katherine turned with an angry swirl of skirts and made for the door. James, who had come so silently none were aware of his presence, stepped back to let her pass, and Katherine stopped a moment as if surprised to see him there, then swept on out of the room.
Embarrassed for them and their exposed emotions, Amelia followed with lowered eyes, and Nelville pulled the door behind them, shutting in the sight of Reba, her face hard, but her eyes filling with tears, holding Sylvestor while she stared unseeingly at the wall over his bowed head on her shoulder.
Feeling strangely like crying herself, Amelia walked out onto the gallery, hugging her arms across her chest. She felt sore and bruised, as if the hate-filled words that had passed around her had the power to hurt physically, and she wondered silently what was going to become of her. Where would it all end?
Thunder rolling like far away wheels on a cobbled street brought her attention from herself, and she saw the faint gray lines of clouds marching around the sky. Katy-dids shrilled in the magnolia tree that grew with its branches encroaching on the gallery, shrill and discordant like a million tiny bagpipes. A small
breeze fanned the air without cooling it.
Hearing a sound behind her, Amelia turned to see James limping out onto the gallery. His face was set in grim lines and he stared ahead with hollow eyes, oblivious of her presence. He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. Then, slowly he relaxed in the chair, his arms dangling and his stiff leg stretching out before him.
"Don't you feel well?" Amelia asked, to make herself known to him, walking toward him with a smile.
Slowly, James opened his eyes, bright blue, but blank with some inner conflict. "Oh, it's you," he said, and shut his eyes again. Then, they snapped open and he stared at her speculatively and offered up a weak grin. "I guess I'm not feeling quite the thing. This heat drags the energy out of a person. Gives me a headache too."
"Maybe you should lie down," she suggested.
"No!" he said too loudly, then as if realizing it, went on more quietly, "I thought some fresh air would be better. Lying down doesn't seem to help. Besides, it reminds me of when I was a child and was always made to lie down during the heat of the day."
She smiled and said, "It would help us all if it would rain."
"Wouldn't it? But, it can go on like this for days, weeks. Sticky damp heat, and the rain always hovering, falling away off, moving around us, gradually building up to a storm."
"Everything is burning to a crisp," Amelia agreed. "Look at the dust on the trees."
"Yes. Nelville says the cotton is in danger, and this heat! We are all feeling it. Look at how Katherine and Reba sounded off at each other. It makes people as mean as hornets in springtime."
"I suppose so," she answered vaguely, feeling it just as well not to go into the subject of Katherine and Reba.
Slowly, James got to his feet and came to sit by Amelia where she leaned on the railing. "Have you thought, Amelia, about marriage, as Katherine suggested. I mean to Nelville or me? Oh, I know it isn't very romantic, but these aren't very romantic times. People who need each other should . . . have got . . . to stick together. We all need you here. I would be very good to you, if you felt you could marry me. I think in time we might come to love each other. Surely, we could, if neither of us loved anyone else?"
"James, I don't know . . ." she said uncomfortably.
"There isn't anyone else, is there?"
Amelia stared at the wall, then said slowly, "No, no one else."
"Then, why couldn't we make it work? We are friends. We like each other, at least, I like you very much. That may not be much of a basis for marriage, but our ancestors often married with less."
"That's true," she said in a detached tone, "but I suppose like all girls, I've dreamed of something finer, more splendid."
"It's not . . . you won't hold my lameness against me, will you?"
"Of course not," Amelia said indignantly. "A wound won in honorable combat? You should be proud of it. I don't even notice it really, you carry it so well." That was not strictly true, but Amelia felt somehow that it should have been, and she said it with more force than necessary because of it.
"I'm glad," he said, then sat rubbing his lame leg, seemingly unconscious of what he was doing. He went on. "But, sometimes, when I see Nelville doing things I wish I could do, it is hard to bear with patience."
"I'm sure it is, but we all have to put up with things."
He only smiled, as though he doubted her ability to understand. "But, you haven't answered my question. Will you marry me?"
He seemed so vulnerable sitting there, so boyish and afflicted and uncertain and easily hurt. Nothing in Amelia responded to him as she had always imagined she would respond to the man she would marry. Certainly, she didn't love him. Could she marry him anyway. Could she make herself go through with it? What was the alternative?
The poorer than poor existence of a seamstress, or a waitress, if she could get the word in this terribly poor South with its overflow of widows and fatherless, brotherless girls on their own. There had been breathless gossip around the boardinghouse about the women, too many of them, who had found the drudgery of taking in washing and sewing too great for the pittance paid, and who had joined the ranks of the painted women in the saloons, or disappeared with strange men to be heard of later, deserted sometimes with children. Would she fare any differently, left to her own devices? In this South of 1880, few could afford housekeepers, or governesses, or paid companions. Schoolteachers and store clerks were men. The position of poor relative carried with it certain penalties, an eternal niceness. She smiled wryly. Her position at Mirror House merely held the penalty of marriage, which was really just becoming one of the fortunate family. There were girls who would envy her.
But, even as her thoughts ran through her head, an odd reluctance was hardening within her. Suppose Nelville and Mary Louise were right? Suppose they wanted to marry her to James to gain legal possession of the house and land? Then, it was all a shoddy guise and one she had no intention of being taken in by.
If James was aware of the sham, he gave no sign, and he had been friendly from the beginning. Her tender heart would not allow her to hurt him unnecessarily, and he was waiting for his answer. "Will you?" he repeated, watching her face carefully.
"It's too soon, I need more time," she said, using the ancient feminine excuse. "I've only known you a short time, and there will be the rest of our lives to regret it if we make a mistake."
"You're right," James said. "I didn't mean to push you. I guess I just got tired of hearing Katherine endlessly explaining my duty to me. She is so positive about everything. Wouldn't it be nice to be so positive about what should be done?"
"Wouldn't it?" Amelia agreed, hiding a smile for the lukewarm nature of her first proposal, though she thought more of him for not pretending undying passion.
"Being mortal, we can only do what we feel is best, or what our impulses tell us."
"I guess so," she said, not following his thought, and it seemed from the look in his eye that he had something in particular in mind.
He came to earth to say with a grin, "Not that Katherine is omnipotent, just that she thinks she is!" but as Amelia smiled in return, he qualified hastily, "I'm only joking. Katherine has had her hands full taking care of this place and holding it together. My father never cared much for country life, and he cared even less after my mother died. So, Katherine took the responsibility of management, and of raising me. Somehow she never married. We used to tease her about being in love with Phillip, your father. I don't know. I never believed it much until she invited you back here."
Troubled by such a thought, Amelia said nothing, wondering if he were right. No, she would prefer not to see Katherine as a woman moved by a sentimental impulse. She preferred to think of Katherine as the sort of managing person who liked to direct other people's lives, to tidy up all the loose ends like providing security for the family, an heir for Mirror House, and a husband for her, as well as a wife for James, or Nelville. She mustn't forget that she was offered a choice. Though it seemed possible, from the way emphasis was kept on Nelville's sins instead of his virtues, that the choice might be an illusion, held out for the sake of pretended fairness.
As James continued staring silently at the sky in the direction from which the thunder came, Amelia let her mind wander even further. Was Sylvestor right? Had someone tried to burn him to death as he insisted? The same person who had thrown a lamp at Mary Louise so many years before, if Mary Louise and Nelville were to be believed? What was Katherine trying to hide by denying the presence of them all at Harvest Hall that night? Could it have been her? But, why would she harm Sylvestor now? It didn't make sense. Perhaps, Sylvestor had set the fire to himself and was too sick to know, or too ashamed to admit it? Or had he done it on purpose? Remembering Reba disappearing into the grove with a man, it seemed possible that he might have a reason for suicide. And who was the man? She had somehow never dwelled on that too much. A stranger, someone from town, or a nearby plantation? Or one of the men in the ho
use? Who was it more likely to be? Somehow she didn't care for the answer to that one.
She shook her head. She was only going around in circles and coming up with reasons as strange as anybody's could be. Much better to accept things as they appeared, because that was the way they likely were. She didn't think to ask herself if the appearances weren't worse than the possibilities.
"What is the matter?" James asked.
"Hummm?" Amelia said, preoccupied.
"You were shaking your head as if you were worried."
"Just thinking," she answered with a smile.
"Anything in particular?" he asked, leaning back on his braced arms on the railing.
"This and that," she parried, unwilling to trust him with her thoughts.
"Well, I had better get back to work," he said, and pushing away from the railing with his arms, moved off with a stiffness that hinted of anger.
Amelia watched him go, frowning slightly, hoping she hadn't hurt his feelings too badly. She smiled to herself as she noticed that he moved much more smoothly when he wasn't worrying about someone watching him. The limp was still there, but not nearly as pronounced. Behind her the thunder grumbled again, and at the edge of the clouds, the lightning blinked, a surprising dart of flame that brought hope for rain
Days later lightning still blinked fitfully, and the fact that it stayed away on the far horizon made the nerves of the people sitting in the front parlor quiver like soft antennae against the supercharged air.
"God, why doesn't it rain," Nelville said suddenly, banging his fist against the window frame and leaning against his forearm as he stared out at the uncooperating night sky.
"Why?" Katherine said dully, "it won't help the crop now."
"The interest, of course. Enough to pay the interest on the loan," he said without turning. His head, sleekly auburn in the darkling light of the lamp, was erect, but it seemed an effort. The last few days of unbelievable heat and the mocking promise of rain, hovering like a hope of heaven denied, had worn them all, but Nelville most of all, it seemed. Amelia watched him covertly, seeing that only a few weeks before had been jaunty and straight, strong on joy as when he rode the horse beneath her window the first night. She didn't know whether he was for her or against her, white knight or devil, and the doubt was settled like a cancer in some region of her heart, lying there, eating at her vitality.
The Secret of Mirror House Page 13