The Lady of Lyon House (16 page)

Agatha Crandall did not appear at lunch the next day, but she came to the parlor later on that afternoon. I was reading a book about trees, and Corinne was playing solitaire, slapping the cards ruthlessly on top of each other, occasionally emitting a sharp cry of irritation when they did not fall to suit her. She looked up when Agatha came in and pushed the tiny card table away from her knees, scattering the cards on the floor. Agatha arched an eyebrow and swept across the room in a very grand manner, holding herself very erect. She smelled of gin.

She wore a suit of plum colored taffeta, the jacket trimmed with bits of gray velvet. On her head was mounted an enormous hat of plum velvet, a dozen slightly tattered gray plumes curling about the brim. A thin veil of plum gauze half-concealed her face, but I could see her eyes snapping with excitement. She slowly pulled off one long gray velvet glove, tossed it on the sofa and then began to remove the other, deliberately making a small production of it. The room was tense. Only the sound of her taffeta skirts rustling broke the silence.

“Well?” Corinne said finally. “Where have you been?”

“Can't you guess?”

“Don't make riddles!”

“I've been out.” She spoke each word carefully, as though it took an effort to enunciate each one clearly.

“You've been to the tavern, it would seem! You reek of gin. If the windows weren't open we'd all be asphyxiated from the fumes!”

“Mr. Ashley gave me the gin,” Agatha said, tossing her other glove on the floor. “He was very polite, very polite indeed.”

“So you went to see him after all?”

“Indeed I did, dear,” she replied smugly, sitting down carefully. She slumped a little on the sofa, but she held her hands folded neatly in her lap, and there was a small smile fixed permanently on her lips.

“And he plied you with liquor?”

“Plied? No, dear. He served it in a tea cup, a tiny cup with a blue rim. He didn't have any glasses. The place was really a mess. There were paintings stacked all over the room, and some of the furniture still had sheets covering them. Dust everywhere. The man is a wretched housekeeper. There was a dog in the room, gnawing a bone at my feet. Disconcerting, to say the least.”

Corinne was silent. Her fingers moved restlessly in her lap. She was furious, but, more than that, there was a look in her eyes that I could only describe as fear. She was afraid of something. It showed in the movement of her hands, in the way she sat on the edge of her chair.

“Mr. Ashley is quite interesting,” Agatha continued. “He told me all about his painting and his studio in London. He is a wealthy man, and he does not have to work. So he paints. He talks in a coarse voice, like a thug. The sound of it is enough to startle one. And he looks like Mephistopheles himself, heavy arched eyebrows, a sharp nose and a scar, dear, going right down his face. He explained it to me, the scar. He said he got it dueling.”

She paused dramatically, waiting for questions. She looked at Corinne, then her eyes swept over to me. She was enjoying herself immensely. This seemed to be an important event in her life, and she was determined to suck every drop of pleasure from it.

“Dueling, yes, but not what you think. He was taking fencing lessons at the academy and somehow or other the protective ball on the tip of his partner's sword came off. The scar was the result of that accident. So he says. It's probably a story. He probably got it in a street fight. He looks like the sort who would participate in tavern brawls, although he was a perfect gentleman to me, you understand. Very attentive, he was. He was most curious about you, my dear.”

Corinne tensed. She started to speak, then she clamped her lips together tightly. Agatha waited a moment, then she continued her monologue. She held her hands out, examining them casually as she spoke.

“Most curious. It seems he met you once when he was a little boy. You made quite an impression on him. His father is an art dealer, and he sold you several nice things.”

“I never knew an art dealer named Ashley,” Corinne said. “The man is lying.”

“Nevertheless, he described you vividly—at least he described you the way you used to be.” She made this thrust with a cruel jab, looking up to see how Corinne would take it. Corinne did not blink. She stared at Agatha with eyes that were now expressionless.

“He wanted to know about you and about Edward and all about Edward's trips to London. And—” She paused again, this time looking at me. “He was most curious of all about Miss Meredith. Yes, he wanted to know all about her and why she was here and how long she would stay.”

“What did you tell him?” Corinne said, speaking each word separately. Her voice had the quality of steel.

“I have tact, my dear.”

“What did you tell him, Agatha?”

“Nothing. He kept plying me with gin—your word, plying. I kept on drinking it, and I pretended to be very groggy, and you can see I am not the least bit groggy. I did not tell him anything. You can relax, dear. When I left he did not know anything he didn't need to know, rest assured. He asked me to call again. He seemed quite anxious that I call again. He serves very nice gin. I may call again.”

She burst into a girlish giggle at this last, then she slumped back on the sofa, exhausted. Corinne stood up, very composed, very regal now. She clapped her hands sharply and a servant girl came into the room. Corinne told the girl to summon Clark. Clark was the gardener, a burly, taciturn man who silently appeared in the gardens every morning and spent all his free time in his room, sleeping. He came in now and Corinne pointed to Agatha, not saying a word. Clark scooped her up, supported her on his shoulder and led her out of the room. Agatha staggered, the preposterous hat tipped at a crazy angle on top of her head.

I was in the library later on when Corinne came in, saying that Agatha was safely in her room, sleeping off the effects of the gin. She seemed disgusted with the whole business, all signs of the earlier fear gone. My sketchbook was on the desk and she picked it up, idly flipping through the pages. I had not shown the sketches to her after all. She paused, turning around to face me. She held out the sketch Philip Ashley had done of me. I explained the sketch and told her briefly about my encounter with him, leaving out most of the details. She looked alarmed, far more alarmed than she had been earlier in the day.

“What did he say to you?” she asked carefully.

“Nothing much. He was—polite.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?”

“I—I just didn't think it was important. Was it, Corinne?”

She hesitated, decided not to make an issue of it. “No—” she said, “It wasn't—important. I just thought he might have—might have been rude to you.”

“He wasn't,” I replied calmly, puzzled by her attitude.

“Don't go there again, Julia. I suppose I don't have to tell you it would be highly—improper. You are very young—”

“Of course I won't,” I said lightly. “I wouldn't have in the first place if I had known Dower House had a tenant. Do you like my sketches?” I asked, changing the subject. “I tried to get all the details right. I like the one of the fern, don't you?”

Corinne was unusually cheerful at dinner that night but I could tell it was a forced cheerfulness. She was nervous, on edge, and her talk had an almost giddy quality. She drank three glasses of wine, which was unusual; she usually didn't take any. Edward talked about the stalls the farmers were going to set up for the fair day after tomorrow, and he mentioned a steer which he hoped would win a blue ribbon and fetch a good price at the market. Both of them were talking for my benefit and I could sense that they wished to be alone, to discuss something much more urgent than the fair. I went to my room immediately after dinner, hoping to give them the opportunity they so obviously wanted.

It was much later when I came downstairs. I had left my book in the parlor and had come to fetch it; I wanted to read for a while before going to sleep. As I approached the parlor, I noticed that the door was pulled to, although it was not completely closed. I had my hand on the knob when I heard voices. I stood very still. Edward's voice was calm, soothing, while Corinne's sounded strange, as though she was on the verge of hysteria.

“It takes time, you must realize that,” Edward was saying. “It will all work out, just as I told you it would. It just takes time.”

“I'm afraid,” Corinne said. “Not for myself. I don't give a damn about myself. I'm afraid for Julia. Why can't we just drop everything and get her out of here? I'm afraid for her. She is so innocent. She has absolutely no idea—”

“Calm down. Everything is all right. It's nerves, just nerves. No harm will come to her. I'll see to that. She's safe here. You really must get hold of yourself. You must. I hate to see you upset like this.”

“Mattie would never forgive me if anything happened to Julia.”

“Nothing is going to happen to her. Just hold on—”

“She'd never forgive me. I'd never forgive myself.”

“Relax,” he said, his voice soothing. “Just relax—”

“And now this—”

A servant was coming down the stairs. She turned towards the parlor and I hurried away from the door. I slipped through the dining room and down the hall. It was not Julia going down the hall. It was someone else. I had an impulse to laugh. I wanted to laugh and laugh. It could not be Julia going down the hall. It had to be someone else.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
T WAS COOL
outside. There was a chilliness in the air that cooled my burning cheeks and steadied my trembling hands. I took deep breaths, delaying hysteria and finally conquering it. In its place came a frightening kind of calm. The words that I had overheard, the emotions I had felt took their place in that bewildering parade of events that had begun when I had first been aware of someone following me in the fog as I walked to the music hall back in London. There must be a solution to it all; there must soon be an answer. I knew I could not go on like this for long. If something terrible was going to happen, I wished that it would happen now so that the tension would be over.

I moved away from the house, hardly aware of the cold night air on my arms and shoulders. The heels of my shoes tapped on the tile of the terrace and my skirts made the noise of gently crackling flames. The pounding of my heart had subsided, and I was breathing evenly. I paused, looking up at the ink-black sky frosted with tiny pin points of stars. I no longer wanted to laugh. I wanted to be someone else, in another place. I stood listening to the crickets making their noises between the cracks of the tile, and far off, in the darkness of the trees, I could hear a solitary bird calling hopelessly for its mate.

I strolled among the gardens, feeling that none of this was real. The house, shrouded now in shadows with just a few lights burning in the windows, seemed unsubstantial. It might vanish in the mist. The garden was a maze of dark shapes and shadows, touched here and there by rays of moonlight, and none of it seemed real to me. It might all have been a stage set cleverly arranged, and I felt unreal, too.

I wished that this was a part in the theater that I could put aside. I wished I could take off make up and costume and become once again the Julia who was secure and happy. For a while, as I strolled among the gardens, I thought about the little girl with the puppets, about Mattie and the boarding house and the noise and music and laughter of that life, and I longed to be a part of it again. Then I realized that this was foolishness. In a little while I would be crying, and tears would do no good.

I came out of my reverie, and for the first time I became aware of the cold air. I folded my arms about me and rubbed them, welcoming the discomfort. At least it was something I could act against. I could go inside any time I wished and find the comforting warmth of my room. But I did not want to go inside just yet. I wanted to stay out here and be uncomfortable and think about what I must do.

There was no clear course of action. I could not take matters into my own hands and bring things to a head, because I did not know what was going on. I could not go back to London. Mattie had sent me away, and she had asked me to trust her. It would do no good to go to Corinne or Edward and ask them to help me, for they would give me careful evasions and half truths and pass the matter off lightly. They were trying to protect me from something, and it seemed essential that I know nothing about whatever it was they were protecting me from.

Everything was lovely and peaceful and I must enjoy myself. I must be a good child. I must not ask too many questions, and I must not go to the village alone. I must not talk to strangers. I must pretend, as everyone else seemed to be doing. I did not know how much longer that would be possible.

I felt that I was trapped in the center of a silken web, the strands drawing tighter and tighter, the danger drawing nearer and nearer, and I could do nothing about it because I did not know what the danger was. There was nothing to fight. There was nothing to struggle against. All I could do was wait.

A mist had risen from the river. It spread in swirls, moving low over the ground and coming to dance at my feet. Soon it would rise up and veil the rose bushes, and in an hour or so the gardens would be invisible. The mist churned as I passed through it, and I could feel the damp tendrils on the hem of my skirt. I was off the tiled terrace now, my shoes crunching on the damp ground. The gardens were behind me and I was walking down the path towards the river. I wanted to watch the dark waters rushing along in the moonlight.

I passed the small clearing where the gazebo sat. It looked more dismal than ever in the darkness with its decaying roof and boarded sides. The mist swirled against it, hiding the bottom, and it seemed to be something ugly and evil floating in the gray-white swirls. I walked around the dark clump of trees that hid the river, and I could see the flimsy little pier built out over the water. The moon shed very little light, but my eyes were accustomed to the dark.