Twilight's Burning

by Diane Guest

  "No. Not Hester." The voice was soft, toneless.

  Susannah sat up, straining to see. "Caroline?"

  "Mrs. Morgan, if you don't mind."

  Susannah's eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and she could see Caroline standing just to one side of the door. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and almost screamed out loud when the forgotten burns on her feet hit the floor.

  Caroline said, "How tragic. But how fortunate you were to have Sylvanus along to rescue you." She paused. "You might have been burned alive."

  Something in her voice kept Susannah from speaking, from asking what it was she wanted.

  Caroline stood looking at her for a minute across the room. Her voice never changed in pitch or quality, but her words hit Susannah like a blast of winter wind. "I don't mind if you sleep with my husband," she said. "He has to satisfy his needs. I know and I understand."

  Susannah was stunned. What is she talking about, she thought wildly. She was about to protest when Caroline's tone changed, and malevolence, carefully controlled up to this point, boiled out of her, sending chills up Susannah's back. "You may copulate with him. I cannot stop you. But remember one thing. I am Mrs. Morgan. Don't ever think to take him from me. Not ever."

  A sound on the stairway below startled her. She looked as though she was going to say something else, but thought better of it. Without another word, she turned her back on Susannah and was gone.

  Susannah was still sitting on the edge of the bed when Sylvanus came in. "How are the feet?" he asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. There was no point in telling him about Caroline's visit, but she still felt stunned.

  "Come along, old woman," he said, helping her off the bed. "Mrs. Deidrick is preparing to serve us a dinner guaranteed to make us forget all our aches and pains."

  For the first time, Susannah realized that hers were not the only battle scars. An ugly burn stretched from Sylvanus's right ear to the collar of the loose shirt he wore, and disappeared under the soft linen. "You're hurt," she said.

  He shrugged. "Not nearly so inconvenient as yours, since I don't normally walk on my neck. Now then." He helped her to her feet. "Can you walk?"

  She nodded and took one painful step. Without a word, he caught her up in his arms and carried her out into the hall. At the first instant of physical contact with him, all thought of Caroline Morgan disappeared because Susannah was forced to apply the full concentration of her will in a desperate effort to control the trembling in her arms and legs.

  He carried her effortlessly, seemingly unaware of the tremors that had taken hold of her, and she turned her face into his shoulder, thankful that he couldn't see the flush that she knew was riding high on her cheekbones.

  Sylvanus had been right. The dinner was superb, and Susannah enjoyed every bit of it, surprising herself at the ferocity with which she attacked the food. When the soup dishes had been cleared away, Mrs. Deidrick presented them with the most temptingly garnished pork loin and German fried potatoes she had ever been served. They ate almost in silence and Sylvanus found himself fascinated by the single-minded concentration she was applying to everything she ate.

  The self-consciousness she had felt ever since he had carried her into the dining room began to evaporate and she leaned back in her chair. "I am a pig," she said, as Sylvanus poured her a cup of coffee.

  "You are." He found himself wondering again at the strange combination of reactions she always aroused in him.

  "And you, sir, are a cad to be so quick to agree." She took a sip of her coffee. Usually she preferred tea, but tonight the bitter taste suited her mood. "Were you able to let Abigail know that I was all right?"

  "Yes. I don't need to tell you that they were worried when you didn't come home. There isn't anyone in Penobscot Landing who isn't apprehensive, Susannah. These fires have got us all chewing the edges of our teeth."

  "I know. But it isn't just the fires that unnerve me. It's more than that."

  "Edwin?"

  She nodded. "And Jake Shepherd." She almost said, "And your wife," but she was too embarrassed to tell him about that. I wonder why she thinks we're lovers, she thought, swirling the black liquid around in her cup. She flushed at the thought, remembering the physical tremors that had washed over her when he had picked her up. Maybe if I talk about something else this nonsense will pass. "What was it like in town?" she asked.

  "The fire that hit us apparently changed direction before it did much damage in the Landing," he said. "But several thousand cords of winter firewood caught fire over behind the mill and scared the devil out of a lot of people."

  Susannah looked down at her hands, hardly hearing his words. "I wish I could go home," she said, and was surprised to hear her own words spoken out loud.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "We'll go on horseback around the road. We shouldn't have any problem."

  She smiled. "I didn't mean Penobscot Landing. That's not home to me. I meant Massachusetts." She looked over at him. "And it's just foolish talk, so pay no attention. I know I can't go."

  Sylvanus wanted to say, "I'll take you home." He wanted to reach out and touch her cheek and promise her that she would never have to be upset by anything again. He was shocked by the force of this extraordinary urge and he leaned back in his chair, watching her with a curious intensity, this woman who was so gentle, who loved her children so much, who was trying to be so brave inside her crumbling world, who thought she was being such a coward.

  She was unaware of his scrutiny. "Did you ever feel like the world was upside down, that nothing made any sense?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "That's how I feel. Friday morning my life was sane, predictable. Not happy maybe, but predictable. Since then it's been one catastrophe after another."

  Sylvanus leaned forward. "Nothing about life is predictable, Susannah. I'm surprised you've only just discovered it."

  "Maybe it isn't for you," she said, and lifted her eyes so he could see the depth of her confusion. "But your life is worlds apart from mine. I've been able to predict most of the events of my life with the same surety that I could predict the in and out of my breath. Boring. Yes. Routine. Most certainly. Unexciting. Without doubt. But safe." She drowned and dropped her eyes, concentrating hard on her fingers. "I don't know why I'm telling you this," she said finally, and lowered her voice. "I think I'm frightened." She looked up to see if he found that ridiculous. "I 'm sorry to bore you with this. I seem to go from bad to worse." She forced a smile.

  Sylvanus reached across the table and took her hand. "I'm happy to have you around," he said.

  She pulled her hand back, unnerved to find that the physical sensation she had experienced before at his slightest touch had not diminished in the least.

  "You are jumpy, aren't you?" Sylvanus said.

  Susannah nodded.

  He glanced sideways at her. He had felt no physical attraction to her in the beginning—yet now, looking at her face so solemn, so still, he felt his pulses quicken. She is beautiful, he thought suddenly, she really is, and his eyebrows flew up in surprise, as if he had been the first to discover it.

  Susannah saw his expression. "Did I do something to startle you?"

  "No," he said. "On the contrary. I just did something to startle myself."

  Susannah relaxed. "Sylvanus, may I ask you something?"

  "What?"

  "What do I do to make you dislike me?"

  "I don't dislike you," he said softly; then he repeated it as if it was something he should have known always. "I don't dislike you at all."

  She smiled at him, a smile that threatened to shatter his last lines of defense. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. It was reserved. "I expect you'll want to leave early in the morning, so perhaps you had better get some sleep."

  Susannah stood, unsteady on her burnt feet, her head whirling at this change of mood.

  "Let me help you," he said, reaching out to give her support.

  He had no intention of kissing her. On th
e contrary, his impulse had been to get away from her as quickly as he could. But without warning, she leaned against him to steady herself. And then he was kissing her.

  Her body seemed to lose its form. "Jesus," he whispered against her lips. Then she melted against him as if she had no substance, as if she were passing from herself into him. His hand moved up and touched her breast.

  She jerked away and would have run if he hadn't held her arm. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was a mistake."

  Oh God, she thought, it was. It was indeed. She couldn't look at him. "Let's just forget about it," she said, and the sound of her own voice made her want to cry.

  "I think that would be in everyone's best interest," he said stiffly. Without a backward glance, he turned and left the room.

  Susannah stood for a long minute, leaning against the door frame, forcing herself to take deep, even breaths, her mind bent on recovery, not daring to think about what had just happened, not daring to think about what it meant.

  The bed was unbelievably comfortable and yet she couldn't sleep, kept awake by the spiral throbs that wound around her legs from her feet up to her knees, and by disturbing thoughts of Sylvanus Morgan. For a while she had wrapped herself in the illusion that she was a young girl again, free to be courted, free to be loved. The memory of his kiss and the touch of his hand kept coming to the front of her mind. "What's the matter with you?" she said aloud. "A simple kiss, nothing more." But she knew it was far more, at least to her. In a desperate effort to force it out of her mind she tried to think about her children, and all at once, she was sure she could hear Aaron crying.

  She sat straight up in bed and listened. The sound came from far off. I'm coming, Aaron, she thought, and slipped out of bed. So intent was she on the sound that she paid little heed to the bottom of her feet.

  She opened the door and passed out into the hall. She listened. No sound now. But she had been certain she had heard him crying.

  A faint red glow from the midnight sky sifted through the clerestory window at the end of the hall and spilled down the corridor so she could see her way clearly. She walked toward the stairway that led to the third floor rooms where her children slept, moving as quickly as her injured feet would allow.

  She climbed the narrow steps, setting one foot before the other carefully, trying not to place her full weight on either blistered sole. There was still no sound.

  At the top of the stairs, a row of closed doors stretched before her down the hall and for a minute she stood confused. Then, with sudden resolve, she went firmly down the hall and opened a door a crack. The room was empty.

  She closed the door quickly and moved away, cursing herself for not having taken better notice of which rooms were which. A creaking sound brought her attention to a door that stood slightly ajar. She looked in.

  The same hellish glow that had illuminated her way up the stairs flooded the room and allowed her to see that she was in a studio of some sort. Canvases were stacked one upon the other, strewn across the floor, some on easels, some hanging, some thrown with contemptuous disregard into the corners and under the eaves.

  She glanced down at the paintings nearest her feet and was surprised to find that she recognized most of the subjects. John's house. The mill pond. She gasped. My God, she said to herself, here's one of Henrietta Glidden. And a remarkable likeness at that. She smiled, wondering why in the world anyone would ever want to paint a portrait of fat, old Henrietta Glidden.

  Intrigued, she moved to the next stack and was about to investigate further when a painting hanging under the eaves of the roof caught her eyes. She crossed the room, ducking her head to keep from hitting the ceiling that sloped to the floor on one side at a precipitous angle.

  She was startled to find that the painting that had drawn her to the farthest corner of the room was only one of many almost like it. Some were stacked, some hanging, some just leaning against the wall. But they were all almost the same, all likenesses of a woman and a boy in the early years of manhood, captured in various stages of existence. There was a mystical quality about them, a lack of substance, unlike the absolute realism she had admired in the other paintings. It was as if they were committed to canvas from dim memory, created from a desperate wish for something that no longer existed. Oh Sylvanus, she thought, I am sorry. Would it help if I said it? Oh God, would it help to make you well? She put her hand across her mouth and it was only that reflex that kept her from shrieking aloud when she heard the sound of his voice behind her.

  "What do you mean by coming here where you are not welcome?" he said from the doorway.

  Susannah turned and faced him across the room. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I was trying to find Aaron." Tears began to gather under her eyelids.

  He stood as still as stone for a minute. Then he said, "Get out. There's nothing here to concern you. Nothing here you have any right to see."

  The fire rushed into her face and in her haste to escape she scraped the bottom of one foot on a stack of picture frames. Pain shot through her and she fell forward on her hands and knees. Humiliated, she struggled to get up. Oh God, she prayed, if You ever were going to help me, help me now. Please let me get out of here. Tears poured over the rims of her lids and ran down her cheeks.

  Before she could move he was beside her, gathering her up in his arms, holding her against him, whispering against her hair. "I'm sorry, Susannah. It's all right," he said softly. "It's all right."

  He held her for a long time until he knew she was calm. Then he lifted her to her feet and led her to a chair that stood in one corner of the room. "Sit," he said, and turned away from her to stare silently out into the night.

  "I had no business coming in here," she said. "You have every right to be angry."

  "I have no right," he said. "You meant no harm. How could you know that I keep my shriveled soul hidden away up here?" He pointed toward the paintings Susannah had just looked at. "That was my wife. And my son. All that remains. And now I find that even my memory of them mocks me."

  Susannah said nothing.

  "They've been dead too long now," he said. "And try as I may, I cannot seem to bring them back." His pain was a living thing, separate from him With an essence all its own.

  Susannah wanted to touch him but she was afraid to. "I'm sorry," she said finally.

  He looked at her with sharp intensity. "Don't pity me," he said. "Don't pity me."

  "I don't. Being sorry isn't the same thing at all." She was suddenly filled with an awareness that no matter how he felt about her she was powerless to back away. Her commitment to him was complete.

  He sat down beside her. "Do you know what it's like?" he asked. "To lose someone who was as much a part of you as your arm or your leg? To know they're never coming back? That's the word that destroys my soul. Never. How can you know what never means?"

  He was talking more to himself than he was to her. "Everything was still there. Her garden. Her clothes. Even her reading glasses. How could her plans still live on and flower as if nothing had happened?" Sylvanus turned his face away.

  "Maybe if you had someone to care about," she whispered. "Maybe you and Caroline…"

  His voice was cold. "Caroline is nothing to me."

  "But as long as you live here with her, how can you ever hope to be happy?"

  "I don't hope to be happy. I just want peace."

  "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard," Susannah said. "Everybody wants to be happy in some way."

  "Are you?"

  "Not always." She smiled. "But sometimes. When my children are close. When spring comes. When I taught Jane Griggs to read."

  Sylvanus couldn't help but smile. "It doesn't take much, I see, to please you."

  Susannah flushed. He was looking at her with such intensity that she was afraid for a moment he was going to touch her. She thought that if he did, she would faint.

  But he didn't. Instead, he stood and said almost to himself, "I'll be damned if I know what's going on." He turn
ed and lifted her to her feet, holding her at arm's length. "What are you doing to me?" he asked roughly, and pulled her against his chest, holding her tight for an instant.

  Then, as suddenly as he had embraced her, he dropped his arms and said with a wry laugh, "Lord, madam, look to what straits you have brought me." With that, he turned and left the room.

  Susannah sat down weakly on the chair, filled with wonder at the emotions that drained her of all strength, all resistance. I love him, she thought simply. And if there was anything in the world that she would have wished for at that moment it would be that he would love her too, even if only for a little while.

  OCTOBER 5, 1871

  Susannah saw very little of Sylvanus in the morning—only once when he stuck his head into the kitchen and told her they would be leaving for town within the hour. He was aloof, distant. He's sorry he talked to me last night, she thought with a sinking heart. He can't wait to be done with it.

  Well, it's just as well, Susannah told herself. But she knew it wasn't just as well. Not for her.

  After her feet had been rebound in clean cotton strips and she had hugged her children good-bye for the tenth time, Sylvanus lifted her onto a horse and they left Morgan House, picking their way tentatively through the woods to the east side of the house and down toward the bay.

  There was little evidence of fire here, only smoke and the constant shower of hot ash. Sylvanus led them along the water's edge for a way, and then cut back up toward the road just above the landing.

  He hadn't spoken since they left Morgan House and Susannah was beginning to get annoyed. I'm not a child, she said to his stiff back. You may be sorry that you confided in me last night, but don't imagine for one minute that I 'm going to assume that it means anything at all. Consider it forgotten.

  Yet by the time they reached the center of town, she was not only exasperated with him, but even more with herself for having dreamed for one minute that he might care for her. Susannah, you are an ass, she told herself.