She pulled her eyes away and stared at the lamplight that drew mosquitos from the open windows. The chimney was smoked and a tail of black soot-laden smoke curled to the ceiling in a genie's tail, undisturbed in the hot, heavy air.
Reba, beside Amelia on the couch, crossed her arms and sighed deeply, and Sylvestor, near hear, looked at her fondly and smiled. She returned his smile, a brief salute, and then she rose to go and stand by Nelville, looking out into the dark that was lit secondly by the lightning flashes. She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled up at him coquettishly. "Never mind," she said. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't it," he asked quietly, as if willing to be beguiled.
"No. There will be other summers and other cotton crops," she murmured, but her voice was perfectly audible in the quiet. "Come away from the window and play with us. We all need cheering up tonight." Though she included the others in her invitation, she might as well not have. No one was at a loss to know her meaning.
A smile tugged at the corner of Nelville's mouth as he looked down at her. "What? No cavalier, no cicisbeo?" he said quizzically.
"None that I prefer," she said with a pout, "none so interesting."
"Boredom overdone," he said, taking her hand off his arm as he turned and using it to whirl her halfway around. "Try another, do," he finished, and walking away from where she stood glowering at him, headed inevitably toward the brandy decanter.
Sylvestor had slumped down in his seat with his eyes closed and lay as if he had noticed nothing. James, who had been sitting off to one side engrossed in a book, looked up in surprise, and then putting his book down carefully on its face, levered himself out of his chair and walked haltingly toward Reba.
Nelville glanced at him as he poured himself a drink and then looked away expressionlessly. Silently, he poured another glass for Sylvestor and set it down at his elbow on the table. Without a word, Sylvestor reached out and closed his hand around it and brought it to his lips.
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging," Katherine said, speaking from her chair where she held a piece of embroidery on her lap.
"And he who is fooled and thereby is not wise," Nelville finished for her, "unless it is a woman with a medicinal or social need."
"I might have known you would tar me with the same brush, though how you can speak of my small imbibing in the same breath with your wholesale swallowing, I can't imagine."
"Each to his own needs, dear Katherine," he answered, staring at her with his green-eyed fox look. "My need happens, lately, to be great."
"Must you speak in that manner," Katherine said fretfully. "It puts me quite out of sorts, since I hardly know how to answer you."
"Then don't," he said shortly, tossing back his drink.
"You are in a fine mood tonight, aren't you," Katherine said, willing to be amused by his shortness. "Enough of a mood so as not to bother with dress." She looked pointedly at the dust on his boots and the limp and sweat-stained collar of his shirt.
A flush of suppressed anger flooded his face. "Farmers and field hands are not prone to prettiness in the heat," he said with a curl to his lip. "Cotton, blooms curling dead with a lack of water, condemns no man, and a horse judges a man not by the clothes on his back, but by the water in the trough and the hand on the rein and the weight on his back. With the cotton and my horse, Katherine, where does your importance lie?"
Angry in her own right, color swept over Katherine's soft white cheeks. "I may not rate very highly in your esteem, but you might consider the others. You never used to dress this way when there was the possibility of old friends passing by and dropping in for the evening."
A weary look crossed his face as it seemed that Katherine could and would carry the argument into doomsday. "I am sorry," Nelville said dully, "that I offend your outraged sense of propriety. Things being as they are, however, I find it unlikely that company will drop in for the evening."
"Whose fault is that?" Katherine asked belligerently, as if she expected that he was blaming her for the loss.
"The fault lies in the unwillingness of people to forget tragedy and their propensity for avoiding places of ill repute, you might call it. The new road those intrepid souls forged nearer the river and farther from Harvest Hall stands as a monument to that bit of truth. And as there are no passersby, and considering our reputation for moroseness and self-flagulating sorrow, there is a great unlikelihood of company dropping in."
She stared at him a moment, as if giving him the argument, then said confidently, "Well, perhaps now that Amelia is with us, things will return to normal and we will be a happy family again. Surely, our old friends will come to visit then."
"Oh, yes," Nelville said, smiling down in a disturbing seriousness at Amelia before he moved to stand behind her where she sat on the couch. "They have been positively beating the door down with their offers of hospitality, but to be sure, later, when there is a 'happy family'-children, bless their runny little noses-perhaps they will not be able to restrain their curiosity and will certain come to call. But, then, I'm sure we will all be presentable, including the house," and without pausing he quoted expressionlessly:
"Not are frolic; not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house:
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door . . .
"Or will it be the skeletons, Katherine, instead of dust?"
With a hand that trembled slightly, Katherine rubbed her forehead and was silent as if her head ached.
And because she was a little tired of his stare that made her want to grind her teeth in irritation at the insolence of it, Amelia tilted her head back and said squelchingly, "You make a terrible Puck. I prefer you as Oberon."
A small laugh of surprise and amusement combined escape him, but he was hardly silenced. "And who will you be? Titania, or one of the lovelorn?"
"The queen of the fairies, Titania, of course," she said. Then, she raised her chin slightly and a blush rose to her cheeks as she saw the devil gleam that suddenly leaped in his green eyes.
"Beloved Oberon, king of the fairies, and who defied him for the sake of a changeling boy?"
"The same Titania," she said defiantly, staring up at him with her black hair catching jewels of light from the lamp, slowly realizing that she was enjoying fencing verbally with him.
"Then, for us, all this misery, the refusal of the elements go their wonted way, the clouds to dump their rain, this all comes from our quarrel?"
"Precisely," she said, laughing even as she spoke at the ridiculousness of it.
Fairies away!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay
'Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.'
A giggle bubbled up from Amelia and Nelvbreak
ille laughed with her, though there was a disturbing light deep within his eyes that promised a retribution indeed.
"Charming!" Reba said sarcastically, breaking in on the moment. "I will remember not to play charades with either of you, for it is clear that you are both too adept in the art."
"Don't be devious," Nelville said to her, straightening and heading once more for the brandy, "it isn't in you, Reba, and it isn't necessary."
Reba's face went blank, and then she left James who stood staring from her to Nelville in bewilderment, and went to sit beside her husband. She smiled hesitantly, took his hand, and leaned against him with a sigh. He reached and pressed her head a moment into his shoulder and resumed his study of the soot-blackened lamp.
Amelia looked away, tears pushing at her eyelids, though she could not say just why they should. And the only sound was James limping out of the room. In a few minutes, Katherine gathered up her sewing and the rest got stiffly to their feet and followed her out, leaving Nelville in sole possession of the parlor and the brandy and the lightning that flickered beyond the bedraggled lace at the windows.
The thought was with her, as
Amelia climbed the stairs, of the copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream left at the boardinghouse by a Shakespearean company that stayed a few days. She and her mother having so little else in the way of entertainment, had enjoyed the comedy, although Amelia always thought the lovers rather silly and the play company portion a thin joke. It was the speeches of Puck, Oberon, and Titania that she had liked well enough to memorize, and as she prepared for bed there sang within her head the sweet and melodious lament of Titania for the seasons and her quarrel with Oberon.
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Chapter Ten
SHE CLOSED THE door of her room behind her and set her lamp down on the bedside table, fighting a feeling of depression. Something desperate and strange seemed to hang in the thick air and she felt it as an aching pain like incipient tears in her throat. She took a fresh clean gown out of the drawer, saw to it that all the jalousies were closed firmly, and then she put her washbasin on the floor and poured it full of cool water, all with the mindless serenity of someone deliberately not thinking. Removing her clothes, she stood in the basin and squeezed water from a cloth, letting it run down over her in liquid delight. She soaped herself with an English lavender soap that left a delicious clean scent that she loved and then rinsed off with more clean water Bessie had brought up earlier for that purpose. The cool clear water running over her gave her a feeling of sweet sensuality that lingered as a sense of well being.
Finished with her bath, she put on her gown-a soft pastel flowered dimity, straightened the room, and then stood before the commode mirror giving her hair its nightly one hundred strokes. But, suddenly she stopped and stared into the mirror as it reflected the door of the huge wardrobe behind her slowly swinging open!
She swung around, watching the door, not sure the door wasn't opening by itself, jarred open by her movements about the room. Then, she jumped as it flew open to bang against the wall, revealing a dark scrawny figure framed in the doorway. A wide grin of devilish joy split the sunken old features of Grannie Salome, "Spit of your grandmama at your age, same curves, same velvety looking skin on you. Would 'a knowed you anywheres. Startled you didn't I?" she said in a raspy voice as she jumped down from the wardrobe and smoothed her apron. She was dressed in a clean, neat red-checked gingham and had a white scarf tied over her hair with a knot in front, so that the folds stuck up like cat's ears. Her feet were bare, but clean, even to their yellow, horning toenails.
"How did you get in here?" Amelia asked, stunned with surprise.
"Oh, I jus' ghosted in, you might say. Use my juju magic and walk through the walls, right pass' they noses," she answered with a cackle. "I got the power and the glory. I can make you sick, make you well, make you love, make you hate, make you wanta lay right down and die. You got that juju charm I make fer you?"
"Yes, I did," Amelia answered automatically as the last sharp question was hurled at her. Then, she recovered her aplomb and smiled, touching the little charm hanging on its chain around her neck. "Yes, I did," she repeated. "Thank you for wanting me to have it."
"Had to do somethin' after scaring the daylight outta you," she said an closed her mouth tightly, rubbing her toothless gums together ruminatingly. "You wearing it now, ain't you?"
"Yes, it smells so good," Amelia said truthfully.
"Smells good? Smells good!" Old Grannie sputtered. "Don't you ever take it off even when it smells bad!" Then, she amended, "Well least ways not till you long gone from here. You in danger, gal. You done 'scaped two, maybe three time. You need you juju charm to 'scape again."
"What is it? What's the matter?" Amelia asked tensely.
"Don't know yet," she answered solemnly. "Things happen, bad things maybe, I know, by 'n' by. You keep the charm close by you and you be all right. You got powerful charm yourself already," she added grudgingly, "else I'd have brained you on her say-so the other day."
"Whose say-so?" Amelia asked with startled interest.
"Hers, that woman. She say you going to take over and throw Miss Mary out of her room. She say you one mean woman. She knew I protect Miss Mary, and knew I would know you for Miss Mary's own if I see you before to strike. She smart, that one," she finished with an admiring nod of the head, again rubbing her gums together in her nervous gesture.
"Who, Grannie, who?" Amelia pleaded.
Old Grannie stared at her a long moment and mumbled, "This game, she ain't played out yet, no she ain't. I gots to go," and she whisked to the door, opened it silently and peeped out. "I got to sneak away like a rat done stole the cheese," she whispered over her shoulder. The hall obviously clear, she turned back again. "You just remember, keep that charm by you, gal child, keep it by you." With that reminder, she stepped out into the hall, but then she stuck her head back in. "Sleep tight, wake up bright, in the mornin' light," she said on a croaking laugh, and then disappeared for good.
Too befuddled by what had just happened, the questions racing dizzingly around in her head, Amelia decided the best thing to do would be to go to sleep and think in the morning. But, though she lay down and tried to sleep, the air within the room seemed too thick to breath, and the heat pressed her down into the thick, soft mattress until she felt she would suffocate. She got up and put her faded wrapper over her gown. She walked around the room, wiping her face and arms with a cloth wrung out in the tepid water in the basin for coolness, and brushing her hair, damp with sweat, up off her neck. She was alive with nervous energy and the lightning that lit the darkened windows of her room gave her a tingling feeling that she felt all the way to her fingertips.
The house quieted slowly and finally fell silent, except for the groans and creaks that an old house makes shifting, the heat-warped boards expanding in the damper air of night. Still. Amelia felt wide awake, achingly alone as though nothing else lived in the world except the threatening lighting, the heat lightning with its false promise, its held-out hope of relief from the sultry heat of the night.
So certain had she become that she was alone that when the soft, furtive knock came on the door, she jumped, her nerves fluttering. She went to the door and opened it to find Mary Louise standing there looking curiously ghostlike in her long dressing gown of fine lace-edged white lawn, and a face masque of cream silk.
"Were you asleep?" Mary Louise asked anxiously as she moved into the room, her slight figure holding its queenly bearing. "I can't seem to settle down. This weather, so depressing and at the same time, so exciting. I love a storm, don't you?"
"I don't think it's going to storm yet," Amelia said, shutting the door behind her and smiling at her quick words and nervous gestures so like her own. In a strange way, seeing someone else agitated by the unseen elements made her more relaxed, as if she had transferred her fears to someone else and needn't be bothered by them anymore.
"No, probably not. Not with the lightning staying off on the edge of the world like that," Mary Louise agreed. She went to the open widows, walking quickly along them, staring out. She paused at the window that looked out onto the gallery and turned her back to it. "It isn't just the weather I wanted to talk to you about," she said. "After what happened this afternoon, I'm afraid. Nelville is too, though he won't admit it, of course. He knows one of his childhood friends is quite mad, but he won't let himself think about it, or else he thinks that like a broken arm or leg, if he stays close and waits and watches, he can help. Nelville is like that."
"You think Sylvestor's accident was no accident?"
"I'm positive of it," Mary Louise answered in a hard voice. "I know Nelville thinks so, because, ordinarily he would have damned him for a fool, but Sylvestor has his sympathy, a thing not easily given. It was what he didn't say, that convinces me."
"Yes, but it's so senseless. Why Sylvestor?"
"I think I know, but I'm only guessing. Anyway, what do the reasons matter? What matters is, who will be next? They are mad, I tell you. I can feel it. I'm older, I've had more experience with these things. Can't you feel the danger? I think I can taste it." She
moved away from the window, wringing her small, white hands together.
"Do you think there is any danger, I mean, do you think we could be in danger?"
"I am sure of it. We have to get away. You must help me convince Nelville. You and I and Nelville could take a carriage or a wagon and go. I have money Juan gave me years ago. We could provision Natchitoches and be in Texas in a matter of days. Nelville says Texas is wide open land, where you can see forever, and all you have to do is claim a part of it. He wants to go. He would go if he were not tied here to what he feels to be his duty."
"But, why is it any worse now than in all the years before?" Amelia asked quietly, unwilling to be swayed by fear.
"Before there was always youth to blame, an accident, we could tell ourselves, but then you came. You are the cause. I am sure of it. They know that unless they do something, Mirror House may not be theirs any longer. You are the heir. It changed everything, and one of them may be getting desperate." She stopped and swung away from Amelia's level stare. "Oh, I know it sounds feminine and emotional, but I can just feel something is not as it should be!"
Amelia only half listened to the words she was, saying. Her mind was busy with the thought of going west, to Texas. Why did it seem such an exciting adventure? Wasn't she more or less secure where she was, discounting Mary Louise's fears? But, perhaps she didn't discount them as much as she thought. Perhaps, she wanted to leave Mirror House and all it stood for: her father's unhappy childhood, the brooding, charred ruins of Harvest Hall. What did she have in common with these people, her relatives? Well, certainly it was a heady thought that she owned Mirror House and the surrounding land, except that the plantation was something of an albatross, an unlucky burden, and besides that, she could not quite believe it was hers. Whatever the reason, she was ready to leave. She could even be surprised at the strength of her desire to leave.
The Secret of Mirror House Page 14