“How extraordinary!”
“What do you mean?”
“That you can pretend not to know why I am angry. You stand there posing. Do you believe I am still asleep? As I was when my poor mother needed a defense against your evil will, Cassandra? I was there on the floor, asleep.”
“Oh, so we’re on that theme again. Wonderful!”
He thundered on: “Yes, wonderful! That describes you, my wife. Perhaps you can explain why my mother was turned away at my own door, where she came in hopes of receiving a warm welcome from my wonderful wife?”
“You are mad,” retorted Cassandra. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There has been no such event.”
“Oh ho! Not so fast, Cassandra. There was an innocent witness to the event as described. I have heard the words from his lips on this very day.”
“Whoever says I turned your mother away tells a lie.”
“There is no reason for Horatio to lie. Unlike yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who was your gentleman caller on the terrible day of the closed door, Cassandra?”
The question hung in the air like a poisoned arrow aimed at her heart. She flinched, and he saw her movement as an unwilling confession.
“As your husband, I demand an answer! Who was the gentleman caller who kept you occupied while my poor mother was knocking at our door!”
“There was no gentleman who kept me from answering,” she said coolly. “And even if there were, you have no right to ask such an insulting question in that demented, sneering way. I swear I will not answer you.”
“By Heaven you will!” he shouted, raising his fist. “I’ll make you answer!”
The red blood inundated her face, previously so pale. He dropped his arm, but his tone remained menacing. “Do tell me, my darling. Where is he now who was with you that afternoon? Is he under the bed? Up the chimney? What’s extraordinary is that you should ever be alone in my absence, so compelling is your beauty!”
She faltered in answering. “I can't recollect anyone being with me, but you were here on that day. You would know so yourself.”
“That was the day,” said Nicholas, his tone growing more menacing with each word, “when I was sleeping by the chimney, and you shut the door against my mother and killed her!” He leaned over her, almost losing his balance. She drew back, clutching her hands. So overcome was she by human guilt, she neglected to recall she had the power to make him stop in his attack.
He grabbed her by the sleeve of her nightdress. “Tell me the truth! Do you hear me? Tell me the truth!”
“But I already have,” she insisted, pulling her arm away. “Nick, what are you going to do now?” Instead of letting her go, he was drawing her closer.
“Tell me the truth of—of your part in my mother’s death—or I’ll—I’ll—”
“Leave me now, unless you plan to do away with me altogether.”
“Kill you? Is that what you expect?”
“I would prefer it to the hell I live in.”
“Killing you would make you a martyr. You don't deserve it,” he said viciously. “Besides, I want to keep you as far away from where my mother is now as I possibly can, and she is in heaven. You are truly evil!”
“I have no desire to play a part on this earth, if that is your opinion of me.”
“Your part? Your part was to welcome her. Instead you sent my mother away to die like a dog in the heat. The lies! The treachery!”
They were standing toe to toe, staring into each other’s faces with ghastly expressions, like mutually frightened ghosts. He held her by both arms, and so she could not reach her fingers to her breastbone. Anyway it was too late, she believed, to use her powers now. She would have to take whatever fate her raging husband was compelled to deliver her into.
“Confess to every sin, harlot! Or I will never touch you again!”
Her mood suddenly veered from defeat to defiance. “Confess? Never! Even though I can clear myself of half of what you accuse me of. Why should I take the trouble to clear fantasies from a madman’s mind? Go on and think your untrue slander. I defy you to prove your accusations are true!”
He turned aside with tears of anger and grief wetting his eyes. “It is too much to bear. So much evil. But I must spare your life.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“By God, I can keep at this hot pitch as long as you can! Now, then, madam, tell me the man's name!”
“There is no man in my life.”
“How often does he write to you? Where do you put his letters? When do you meet? Wife, I demand you tell me his name!”
“I will not!”
“Then I will find it out for myself.” His eyes fell on a small wooden desk in her room where it was her habit to write letters. He rushed to it and tore open the lid. Several envelopes tumbled out.
“Those are my private things.”
“No longer.”
With a haughty face, Cassandra stood aside while Nicholas tore open envelopes and glanced through contents. By no stretch could any of the letters written to her in the past year be considered harmful to her reputation, with the exception of one, which providentially had been removed from its envelope and burned. The envelope was still in the drawer, an oversight. The handwriting on it was Drake’s. He had written to her soon after her wedding, begging her to run away with him. She had never answered.
Nicholas held up the empty envelope. Cassandra was silent.
“I am sure I can find more where this came from,” he said exultantly, the fevered look in his face increasing. “What was in this? Who wrote it?”
She shrugged.
“You refuse to answer?”
“I already did refuse.”
“Don’t look at me with those eyes. Don't you try to bewitch me. Answer me!”
“I wouldn’t tell you anything now, even if I was as innocent as the sweetest baby in heaven.”
“Which you are not!”
“Certainly I am not. But I haven't done what you accuse me of either.”
“If you were only sorry and confessed your sin, I could bring myself to pity you. Forgive you, I never can. I am my mother's son.”
“I don't need your forgiveness or your mother's.”
“I shall leave you.”
She raised her chin. “No need. I will go. I want to.”
“Going to your lover?”
She was silent.
“Lost your voice, Cassandra? Is that what happened when mother was at the door? Think what an opportunity you lost. All you had to do was open the door and say hello. Instead, you killed her. And you ended our last chance for happiness.”
“Happiness?” she said in a low voice. “My chances for that ended when I sank into the mire of this wilderness life.”
“You might blame me instead of the environment.”
“I do not blame you, but you seemed other than what you are.”
“Am I to blame for your devilish wiles?”
She put out her hand. A cry of anguish escaped her. “No, Nicholas.”
“What? You dare offer me your hand? Good God! Do you think I would touch you now? How bewitched I was! How could there be any good in a woman everyone believed so ill of? Perhaps they were right. Based on what I now know, only witchcraft could have kept my mother from entering our house.”
“Oh, no!” she cried, falling on her knees before him. “Will you please, please stop? Please don't say such a terrible thing. There was no witchcraft. I confess I did not open the door when she first knocked. But I thought you would awaken any second. When you didn't wake up, I opened the door. But I was too late; she was gone. That is the extent of my sin. I beg you to believe me. I swear I wished your mother no harm.”
He looked at her with steel in his eyes.
“Was the man in the house with you Drake? Mother always suspected you two.”
“I cannot say,” she said desperately.
“You mean you w
ill not!”
“No one's at fault but me, and I am leaving.”
“I will go. You can stay.”
“I will dress, Nick, and then I will go.”
“Where?”
“Where I came from. Or somewhere else. What does it matter?”
As quickly as she could, Cassandra dressed herself in a traveling suit.
She looked at her gold locket where it lay in a mother-of-pearl box on the dresser. Finally she picked up her scissors, clipped a piece of her hair, and put it into the locket, which she then left out for Nicholas to find. The last things she put on were the amethyst ring Nicholas had given her and her traveling cloak.
While she was dressing, Nicholas walked moodily up and down outside her room. At last she came out, while attempting to tie on her bonnet. Her white hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t tie the strings.
Seeing this, he moved forward and said glumly, “Let me.”
She lifted her chin, the tears streaming down. The strings tied at last, she turned from him resolutely and pulled on her gloves.
“Do you still prefer to be the one who goes away?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Very well. When you confess the name of the man, I may have pity on you and allow you to return.”
“That will never happen.”
“So be it.”
Cassandra raised her chin proudly. She turned and went to the front door, leaving him behind. When Nicholas heard the front door close, he buried his face in his hands. Deeply, in the recesses of his wounded soul, despite outraged pride and suspicions about her nature, he already missed her, and he longed for her to return.
“God help me,” he muttered, “she has worked her way into my very soul.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two Dogged Knights
October 23, 1901
Mill’s Creek
My strong emotions after the collision with Nick made the five-mile walk to Alta seem the longest, most arduous journey I had ever undertaken.
Halfway there, I realized I had left my zither behind. I was wearing my traveling cloak, but in the lonely journey ahead of me, I would want the assistance of both instruments of power. Yet, I did not go back. Instead, I soldiered on, reflecting on the great irony that Mother Brighton had managed to do in death what she had not been able to do in life: separate me from her precious son. Even if she had been a siren, she could not have done a better job at getting her way.
However, it is not in my nature to look back after a defeat. Having decided to release Nicholas from my web, I was resolved it would be a final and permanent release. Nor should anyone imagine I was headed for my lover, the man I had snared, then spared, then snared again. It was far too late in the game for Curly. Despite my recent sexual relapse, I was not in fact running from Nick to Curly. For one thing, satisfying my sexual desire did not extend to tearing a man away from a newborn child and its mother. Clare had shown me only kindness when others cursed me. I was grateful to her and would not take Curly away from her again.
It began to rain as I came into the third mile of my journey, and so it was with relief that I saw Caleb Scattergood approach in a new van and a jingling team of horses. I stood and waited for him to stop, staring at him through the rain. He was like a guardian angel who always seemed to arrive when I needed him.
“Whoa!” he called out. “May I give you a ride somewhere, Mrs. Brighton?”
“How kind you are!” I said in my brightest voice. “I wasn't expecting this weather when I set out. If it is no inconvenience, I was hoping to make it to my grandfather's home. I should have taken a carriage, but I fancied the exercise would do me good.”
“No inconvenience at all,” said Caleb. “I was just going on to Alta myself.”
The sight of the beautiful woman standing motionless on the road to Alta brought vividly to Caleb's mind his first sight of her almost exactly a year ago. The dazzling image had burned into his brain so intensely at the time that, to right himself, he had jumped from the driver's seat of his sheep wagon and looked inside at Clare Brighton, who was sleeping there in his charge. The newcomer, Cassandra Vye, had stood at the Hat, motionless and beautiful as a statue of a Greek goddess, her cape blowing about her. Since then, it was odd how their paths seemed to intersect at fateful moments.
He helped Cassandra up into his ice wagon, which was twice the size of his old sheep cart. They rode on together amicably. She charmed her rescuer with intelligent and lively questions about his business, which he was pleased to answer. As they caught the first sight of the knoll beside Mill's Creek Pond, he thought to ask her about Nicholas.
Had the young man solved the puzzle of his mother’s sudden lapse of good will toward him in the last hours of her life? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her, but then he saw there were tears standing in Mrs. Brighton's extraordinary lashes.
As they approached the stone house, it appeared too dark and shut up for the Captain to be expecting a visitor. What, Caleb wondered, was the pagan queen really up to?
He decided to play dumb. There was no time for further interference in Cassandra's eventful life. Caleb was anticipating an event of his own. He would be staying at the Plush Horse Inn over the First Fire Night holiday as a paying guest and delivering to Mrs. Drake a small goat cart he had built for her son. In his knapsack was a homespun Indian blanket, which he intended to present this evening as a soft lining for the baby's goat cart, should he be fortunate enough to find his beloved home alone.
The upcoming First Fire Night marked the one-year anniversary of his rescuing Clare from her aborted wedding day. He wanted no thanks, but he was glad to be able to afford a holiday after a year of slavish devotion in her service. He didn't regret his efforts, even if her marriage had proved to be a failure. In his breast pocket was the sweet note of thanks Clare had written him after he had safely delivered the family’s silver coins to her. The note meant more to him than all his new customers combined.
Caleb had the words memorized, but he loved the ritual of taking the letter out of his breast pocket, unfolding it, putting on his spectacles, and reading it. He fancied he could breathe in Clare's good heart through the starchy odor of the vellum: “The delicate consideration you always show for my feelings,” she wrote, “proves you are a true gentleman and a discreet and stalwart friend. I hope you will never be a stranger.”
How much better this was than reading her older letter, rejecting his marriage proposal! Slowly but surely, progress was being made by beauty's dog.
After Caleb deposited his beautiful and grateful passenger at the top of the drive at Mill's Creek, he lashed his horses and drove off smartly. He did so without looking back.
And so Cassandra trudged alone to the unlighted door of her grandfather’s stone house. It was locked! This was an unexpected problem and an especially unwelcome one. In her haste to get away, she had left her key to Mill's Creek in her dresser.
“Oh no!” she groaned, as the clouds opened again, and their contents burst forth. “Not more cold rain!” She knocked again and again, but no one answered.
Like the heart of a man, a locked door was something she was equipped to defeat. Yet she hesitated to exert her powers, which had already caused her so much heartache. The rain was soaking through her bonnet and turning her red-gold curls into a damp mess around her shoulders. Shivering, she walked around the back of the house to see if anyone was in the barn.
Just then a male voice pierced through the mist coming from the near side of the pond. “Miss Cassandra! Is that you?”
“Horatio!” she cried out. “Please, come here at once!”
The lanky lad came around the pond at a run, skidding to a stop about a yard away from her. “Jeez, you’re all wet,” he said.
“Don’t curse, Horatio. Can you get me into the house? It is locked and I don't have my key. Hurry, please!”
“I don’t have a key either, Miss—I mean Madam. Captain always before left it unlocked,
except this time he locked it. He has gone to Casper to get the roadster repaired.”
“Oh! Fine thing!” she said, stamping her foot. “His machine hiccups, and I’m left standing out in the rain, catching my death!”
Her face showed more distress than anyone besides Horatio would have thought was warranted. For Horatio, however, Cassandra’s every whim was an explicit command. He had always regarded her as a goddess, scarcely human.
“No worries, Miss—Madam. I’ll shimmy up the ivy vines and find you a way inside. Here, take this; it will keep you a mite warmer and drier.”
He handed her his long sheepskin coat, which she quickly put on over her thin, wet traveling cloak. When she regarded him gratefully with dewy topaz eyes, he thought his heart would break with his hopeless, adoring love for her.
“Up I go!” he called, grasping a heavy rope of ivy with the tenacity of a monkey and scooting along with his feet toward a tall, leaded glass window.
“Oh no!” cried out Cassandra. “Don’t break grandfather’s—”
C-c-r-r-r-a-a-c-c-k-k-k.
Swinging his feet backward and then downward through the largest of the heavy glass panes, shattering it into a million pieces, Horatio rapidly propelled himself through the gaping hole. He landed with a thud onto the stone floor of the living room. Cassandra remained speechless until the front door opened, and Horatio stood there with a wide, toothy grin, having miraculously survived without more than a few bloody scratches.
“The Captain will tan you a new hide,” she said, sweeping through the doorway with some of her former grand manner. Her wet head was held high and her topaz eyes were flashing. “Please turn on the gas lamps and light a fire in here. You may stay for tea if you like.”
“Thank you,” he said, promptly turning to the tasks at hand.
Within a half hour, the fireplace was blazing and the chill was off the living room. Horatio crouched by the settle, gazing longingly at the white hands of his mistress, who sat in a cozy old-fashioned horsehair chair, big as a donkey wagon. Her bare feet were tucked in and the rest of her was bundled up in a huge buffalo robe that her grandfather sometimes lounged around in.
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