The dark fantastic (34 page)

"You mean " she began, then stopped. She would not bring Thorne's name into this. All that was gone now.

"I don't quite know what I mean, Judith. There's something dark and shameful between us that I don't understand. Sometimes I think it's because we married too soon after Abigail died. And again I think it came from that terrible feeling of relief I had when she was gone. But—whatever the cause—I've always had a feeling of guilt with you."

"That's your Puritan conscience convicting you of sin for finding pleasure in love."

"No, you're wrong. I don't hold love a sin, except when sinners indulge in it."

"And you call us sinners, with our double-ring marriage ceremony?"

"I don't mean that " He made a futile gesture. It was something he could not explain.

"I have to think things out, Judith. If you don't mind, I'll say good night."

She took her candle and went up the stairs alone.

It was past midnight when Richard awoke from a sound sleep. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming, for he seemed to be in a theater watching Charlotte Cushman come down the stairs in the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth.

She wore a trailing robe and held a candle high above her head, and her hair fell in long braids on either side of her breasts. She looked pale and distraught, and in his half-slumbering state Riehard acknowledged that she was a marvelous aetress. She did not look haunted. She was haunted.

Then he started into complete wakefulness and realized that he was looking through his own open door and that the woman with the taper, descending the stairs, was Judith.

He sat up and reached for a night robe, but he did not go to her. If she were walking in her sleep it was dangerous to waken her. He waited till she reached the foot of the stairs and started down the hall. Then he followed her.

She went straight to the south bedroom. Carefully she set her candle on the table. Then she opened the closet door and dropped to her knees. He saw her thrust her hand into the hole under the floor. When she drew it forth, full of nothing but cobwebs, her eyes were wide with terror. But they were alert and conscious. She was not asleep.

"If you're looking for the doll, Judith, it's not there."

She turned in the direction of his voice, and he saw that she was utterly undone.

"Otis Huse found the doll the night he slept here."

She rose to her feet, swaying dizzily, and began brushing the dust from her hands. She offered no explanation for what she had been doing.

Richard went on: ''Huse guessed that the doll had been used to kill Abigail. I had to tell him that it was I who hid it here—in order to protect Thorne."

She seemed not to be listening. She seemed only intent on getting the cobwebs off her hands.

"But now I know that it was you, Judith, who hid the doll. You tied the string round its neck and put it on Abigail's bed, hoping it would frighten her to death. You planned it, step by step, how she might die from fear. And you seized on a child's harmless toy to feed her superstitious terror. When you read her those books about witchcraft you had the doll even then and knew how you were going to use it. Didn't you, Judith?" His low, relentless voice was like a prodding hand, pushing her to the very brink.

"And when you had frightened her into a heart attack you hid the doll where you thought no one would ever find it. Because there was no one to see you, except the woman who was dying. You forgot about her, didn't you?"

She left off brushing her hands and began plucking at her throat.

"Maybe you have seen phantom bricks, Judith, and heard phantom clocks. Maybe that is why you were looking for the doll tonight. Because you suddenly recalled that only Abigail knew where you had put it."

She no longer heard him. She had crumpled in a senseless heap. He lifted her in his arms and carried her up to her room.

It was noon the next day before it was discovered that Thorne was not at Mitchell's. Alec came over to see how Judith was, and when Miss Ann inquired about Thorne he said that she had not been at their house since the day before.

The dinner bell had already rung, and the Tomlinson men could be seen approaching the house. Miss Ann said, "Don't say anything about this to Richard. Not till we've located Thorne."

But at first sight of his brother-in-law Richard demanded, "How much longer are you and Jane going to keep Thorne?" Then, catching a glance between his mother and Alec, "She is at your house, isn't she?"

"Why—no, Richard. She's not."

"Didn't she stay there last night?"

"No."

"And you waited till noon today to tell us?"

"Well, great Scott! I didn't know she was lost."

The word was like an alarm bell. Richard's face drained of color.

Miss Ann said quicWy, "She's not lost."

"Mother! You told me "

"Now keep cool, Richard. I took for granted when she didn't come home that she was spending the night with Jane. But I suppose she stayed with Nancy Turner instead. Will, get your horse and ride over to your sister Kate's and bring Thorne home." Ann spoke with as much certainty as though Thorne's presence at Turner's was an established fact.

"I'll go myself," said Richard, and before his younger brother could marshal his slower faculties he was out of the house and on his way to the barn. A few minutes later he could be seen galloping across the open field. The Turner farm was less than a mile as the crow flies. It was three miles by the road.

Judith stood by the window and watched her husband ride away. Young Will, looking unusually glum, sat down and began eating his dinner. Perhaps he resented his brother's usurpation of his own rights of primary concern for Thorne's safety. No one—not even their mother—had given a thought to Will's feelings. They had taken for granted that Richard was the one on whom the blow had fallen.

"Sit down. Alec, and eat with us," said Miss Ann. "Come, Judith. No use waiting for Richard. He won't be back till he finds Thorne."

Alarm leaped to Judith's eyes, as though this were a turn she had not foreseen. Miss Ann, misinterpreting, added quickly, "She's around the neighborhood somewhere."

The meal was eaten in almost unbroken silence. A rare occurrence at the Tomlinson board. A strange foreboding stilled the usually lively tongues. Even the children were quiet. Everyone seemed waiting for Richard's return.

He rode up on a sweating horse just as they rose from the table. One look at his face and they guessed his news.

"Wasn't she there?" asked Will quickly.

"Hasn't been there," said Richard. "Hasn't been seen by any of the Turners."

Dark color rose in Will's cheeks, as though something in his brother's look angered him.

He said shortly, "I'll go over to Cousin Lutie's."

Jesse Moffat volunteered to go over to Henry Schook's.

Alec Mitchell said, "The thing for us to do is to take different directions. There are four of us. And at each house we come to there'll be others to join us. We can comb the whole district before dark."

For the first time the gravity of the situation was put into words. ITiorne might not be at anyone's house. She might be lying behind some hedgerow, or in some dark thicket of the woods. There had been a motley crowd at Timberley the day before. It had been afternoon when the young girl had set out to walk home alone from Jane's.

Alec's plan was put into action. Richard rode off again, not waiting for food, taking the dirt road to the south. As soon as horses could be saddled the other three men rode north and east and west, following by-lanes and fence rows as well as beaten paths, missing not a house. And at each house there was someone ready to join the search. By nightfall Timberley district had been combed as with a fine-toothed comb.

But no trace of Thorne was found.

No one could even remember seeing her after she left Jane's house, though nearly every person in the countyside had been to Tomlinson's the day before.

"No, sir, never saw Thorne while I was there," was the report on all sides. Frequently followed by, "I remarked about it. 'Cause there had been talk a while back that all the funny stuff Miss Judith had been seein' was nothin' but Thorne's magic tricks. But I says to myself, 'I reckon this clears the girl of witch doin's. Richard's wife is seein' things this time and Thorne ain't even here.'

No, Thorne had not been seen by anyone the day before.

Only when it became too dark to see did the men return to the house. And then there were only three.

Miss Ann asked sharply, "Where's Richard?"

The men replied that they had not seen him. He would be in soon, no doubt.

But Richard did not come.

Ann Tomlinson, no longer gallantly pretending, prayed silently:

"O God, bring him home. O dear God, don't let him be hurt too much." And she remembered a time long ago when his dog had been lost and he had stayed out half the night— a little seven-year-old lad—searching the dark woods for his pet, until she and his father had had to search for him.

To his mother he was still that little boy searching for something he had lost.

Will Tomlinson, eating his supper, listening for his brother's step, wondered jealously why Richard should search later than he. And the anger he had felt at noon rose again within him. Then, remembering the look he had seen in his brother's eyes, he knew that he would never be able to grieve for Thorne as Richard would grieve. It would have been a terrible mistake for him to have married her when Richard loved her so. It was better, perhaps, that this thing had happened.

Judith's thoughts, too, were on that lonely rider searching the woods. How long would he look for the girl before relinquishing hope? And afterward—what then? Would he turn to his wife for consolation? Last night's discovery she could easily turn to her own account, as proof of her overwhelming desire for him. But would Thorne, absent, prove an even sharper barrier than Thorne, present, had been?

Supper was put by. Chores were done. Bedtime came, but no one went upstairs. At eleven o'clock Ann Tomlinson said to her younger son, "I think you should go look for your brother."

Will promptly rose, as though the thought were already in his mind.

Jesse Moffat said, "I'd better go with you."

Fresh fear struck Judith, sharper than any she had known.

''Why should you look for Richard? Isn't he old enough to come home by himself?"

Will said, "There's no telling what he might do—if he found what he feared to find."

A scream rose in Judith's throat, but her clutching hand held it back. The thought of Richard . . .

"It is you who should jump in the millpond." She laughed to cover the scream. "Thorne is your loss, not Richard's."

"Thorne belongs to Richard," said young Will. And no one contradicted him.

They did not search for Richard after all. Before the men got started he came in, looking so tired and spent and utterly hopeless that those who sprang up eagerly at his step stopped in consternation at sight of his face.

"Richard! Where have you been?" cried his mother.

It was as they had feared. He had been dragging the mill-pond. He and Ralph Tatum had worked by the light of lanterns when it got too dark to see. They had found nothing.

But he had come home. The thing they dreaded had not happened.

He sat in his chair, his head between his hands, refusing the food his mother set before him. He did not seem to hear when the other men tried to paint as hopeful a picture as possible.

"No news is good news, Richard. Thorne has come to no harm or we should have found her. Remember, there were people here yesterday from as far away as Bridgeton. She must have gone home with someone."

The words held false comfort. Thorne never went anywhere without permission.

When Alec had gone home Will said, "There's nothing more we can do tonight. I'm going to bed." He took his candle and started for the stairs.

Richard's voice halted him.

"Don't you care?"

Will stopped with his foot on the step. "You mean about finding Thorne?"

"What else matters?"

"Why—a number of things," said Will. "The plowing of the south field matters. There's corn to be planted. If we don't get to bed pretty soon we won't want to get up in the morning." He went on up the stairs.

Judith had said nothing. She had sat in silence, watching her husband sunk in grief—and something worse than grief —the torture of the unknown. She wondered how far she dared go in putting an end to his uncertainty. He could not go on like this. He would be ill.

So when the others had retired she said to him, "Has it occurred to you that Thorne might have gone away of her own volition?"

"You mean run off? Never!"

"Not run off. Just decide to leave. She's often talked of it."

"She'd never go without letting me know. She promised."

"Not if she were suddenly offered a chance?"

Richard looked at his wife suspiciously. "What do you know?"

"Nothing," said Judith smoothly, "except what everyone knows: that Thorne left Jane's house yesterday and started for home. And what was going on here? An excited mob was milling about the house. I daresay there was plenty of talk circulating about Thorne. Suppose—this is just conjecture— someone on the outskirts of the crowd offered her a chance to escape from what was becoming an intolerable situation?"

"And who," said Richard skeptically, "could have offered such a chance?"

"Did you notice a covered wagon in the grove yesterday?"

For a moment every pulse in his body seemed to stop. He recalled the wagon which had passed him at dusk in the lane. Could Thorne have been beneath that canvas top—and his heart not have told him?

He said, "She would never go off with a Pennsylvania farmer."

"He wasn't a farmer," said Judith. "He was a traveling showman."

"How do you know?"

"He came up to the house for water. I talked to him."

"Wliy? You're not usually so interested in vagrants."

The sarcasm was ignored.

"When Thorne came from Jane's," said Judith, "she must have passed this wagon."