Dragonwyck (46 page)

For her own safety—that was the core of fear which he had discovered simultaneously with his acceptance of the fact of murder. If Nicholas had once scaled the barrier which separated normal humanity from the outlaws, there was nothing to prevent his doing it again.

Jeff turned and knelt down beside her, taking her limp hand in his. 'Miranda, you must never go back to Nicholas. I know this is a terrible shock and to you must seem unbelievable. I wouldn't believe it either except that I had a suspicion long ago at the time of—of the death. I was a fool, a criminal fool, not to have investigated more than I did. But I had nothing but a hunch to go on, and I couldn't find any trace of the common poisons, and I didn't know half as much as I thought I did.'

He spoke so as to give het time to recover and to collect himself. Both his nature and his training moved him to face reality squarely, no matter how intolerable that reality might be. She too must face it. She must emerge from this numb white silence and be convinced. Only too well he knew that he must battle her insensate loyalty for the man she had worshiped.

He began to speak quietly in a casual voice, trying to reconstruct objectively. 'He must have planned it ahead for a long time. I believe he waited until Johanna developed some trivial illness so that a doctor might be on hand. It was very clever.' Jeff paused to master a wave of bitter humiliation. Nicholas had very neatly used him as a cat's-paw. How shrewd to have chosen a young, inexperienced doctor, one too who was known to be a political enemy so that there was even less chance of suspicion in the countryside!

'It was,' he went on evenly, 'very like him to use flowers as an instrument of death. It would appeal to his fastidiousness. It happened, of course, when he was alone with her that night. And the tipsy cake, as I did suspect, must have been the agent. But how?' He thought a minute. 'The silver nutmeg mill, of course. He ground the leaves.'

He thought of Nicholas' peculiar remark: 'Her foul gluttony has killed her.' It had doubtless accorded with the man's sense of irony that Johanna's unhealthy passion for the cake had accomplished her death.

All too vividly Jeff now remembered the small green particles which had clung to the sticky slice he had examined. He had thought that they were angelica or citron. The rum with which the cake was saturated would have disguised any flavor.

'She was befuddled with her cold,' he said aloud. 'She wouldn't have noticed what he was doing with the mill.'

And at last Miranda stirred. 'What difference does it make how it was done?' she said in a dull, flat voice.

'It's only that you must believe the truth—to know,' he answered gently.

She raised her head and her lips parted in a blind and terrifying little smile. 'I think I've always known,' she said.

Jeff made an involuntary sound. She shook her head.

'No, not in the way you mean, not consciously. But in the dark, secret part of my soul where I never dared look.'

'Rubbish!' cried Jeff, made violent by relief. 'This is morbid, Miranda. Let's try to be sensible and face together what must be done. We must keep our heads and use them.'

She was not listening. She lowered her eyes and stared at the gold band on her left hand. 'I've been married four years to a murderer,' she said in the dull, thin voice. 'Enjoying the results of that murder.'

'You couldn't help it. You didn't know,' he said sharply.

'If it hadn't been for me, it wouldn't have happened,' she went on without listening to him. 'It was the weakness in me touched off the evil in him. Like flint and steel. Zélie knew, but I wouldn't listen.'

'Zélie?' repeated Jeff, bewildered. You mean that old half-breed servant of the Van Ryns'? But she was senile, her wits were gone, and whatever she knew or didn't know has nothing to do with you.'

He put his hands on her shoulders. 'Listen, my dearest girl. You must be brave and strong. You had nothing to do with Johanna's death. At worst you may have been the innocent cause, but you were innocent, and you must rid yourself of these morbid feelings of guilt. We can't change the past, but the future is clear. The murder must be exposed.'

She moistened her lips. You can't, Jeff. You said yourself there was no proof. No one would believe you.'

He frowned, releasing her shoulders. For a moment he quailed before the prospect of trying to indict Nicholas. Who, indeed, would take the word of a country doctor against that of the powerful patroon? Jeff would have to make a hash of his own reputation, admit to having been a dupe. There would first be the struggle to get an order for exhuming the body, and even then, he simply did not know whether analyzable traces of this particular poison would remain for so long in the viscera. This, of course, he could find out. And he thought with relief of Doctor Francis. The old man would help him. But suppose there were no traces. Then there was no proof at all. Nothing but a few ambiguous entries in a diary, and Jeff knew enough of the law to realize what Nicholas' counsel would make of those. There was, however—Magda. He suddenly remembered Johanna's embittered housekeeper. As he looked back on it now he felt certain that the woman had had suspicions too She had seen Nicholas give his wife the tipsy cake Perhaps she could be found and brought to testify.

Doubtless she was with Katrine in Albany.

Jeff winced at the thought of what the exposure would do to Katrine, and Miranda too. He hadn't viewed it from this angle. With a sinking feeling he thought how hard it would be to prevent Miranda's dangerous involvement. She would naturally be considered an accessory, if not an accomplice.

Miranda had been watching him quietly. She saw the dismay in his face, though she only partially understood its reason. 'Yes,' she said. 'No one could touch Nicholas. He's stronger than anyone.'

'He's human like the rest of us, I suppose!' cried Jeff in sudden fury. And I shall see to it that he doesn't continue to go scot-free from punishment for a cowardly and loathsome murder. I hesitated only because of you. Miranda, you must not go back to Nicholas.'

'I deserve to suffer too,' she said. 'I married him.'

'And do you consider that you also deserve to be murdered?' cried Jeff, beside himself. He saw the startled flicker in her eyes, heard her indrawn breath. You little fool,' he went on bitterly. 'In your blind passion for this man, don't you realize that you yourself are in danger? You too can become an unwanted wife; you won't always be young and beautiful. You, no more than Johanna, have gratified his mad obsession for a son. Suppose he finds some other woman, as he found you; or without another woman, suppose you happen in some way to thwart his insane ego, his lust for power.—Do you think, Miranda, that you would be safe?'

She turned her head and a long shudder ran through her body. For suddenly she knew that he spoke the truth. A hundred unconsidered signposts came back to her. 'But what can I do?' she whispered.

He saw that she was near to breaking and that he must think for her.

'When does Nicholas return?' he asked.

'Tomorrow evening on the up-boat.' Her lips barely moved.

That's God's own mercy, thought Jeff; then, speaking very slowly and clearly, he said: 'You must be gone before he gets there. Tell one of the servants to flag the morning boat. Pack a trunk tonight. Take Peggy with you. When you reach New York, go directly to Doctor Francis.' He went to his desk and scribbled a note, pressing it into her hand. She nodded and slipped it in the bosom of her dress.

'Francis will hide you and take care of you for a few days until I get there. I dare not let you go home to Greenwich. That's the first place Van Ryn would look for you.'

Yes,' she said faintly. 'I understand. But what will you —what can you do, Jeff?'

'Once you're safe, I'll go to Dragonwyck and confront Nicholas with our discovery.'

'Aren't you afraid?' she whispered.

As a matter of fact, I am, thought Jeff wryly. No so much of what the man would try to do—Jeff had no doubt that Nicholas' first action would be an effort to get rid of the inconvenient young doctor—and then where would Miranda be! She could never fight Nicholas alone. Bur it was not fear for his own skin that concerned Jeff. It was the seemingly insuperable difficulties involved in accusing Nicholas, and the impossibility of guessing what he would do. I should have advice, thought Jeff, as to the best way to go about it. And a sudden inspiration provided him with the answer.

'I'll go directly to the Governor,' he said. 'Tomorrow. Lay the whole case before him.'

She got up, holding on to the chair back as she rose. Jeff put his arm around her and for a second she leaned against him.

'Be brave, darling,' he said softly.

She straightened, and fastened her cloak around her neck. She walked a little way to the door, then turning with her hand on the knob she gave a choked, mirthless laugh.

'Be brave—yes,' she said. 'Brave enough to understand that my love—that all my dreams, were evil.'

NICHOLAS DID NOT RETURN TO DRAGONWYCK ON the following day as he had expected to do. He arrived home at five o'clock in the afternoon at the exact moment that Miranda walked out of Jeff's house in Hudson and re-entered her carriage for the drive back.

The business matter which had taken Nicholas to New York had been quickly disposed of. It consisted in signing his name to the lease of three acres near Odellville at East Forty-Ninth Street, where an optimistic Irishman wished to open a country tavern in emulation of Mr. Odell, for whom the district was named.

Nicholas' presence had not really been necessary. Solomon Bronck had negotiated far larger and more complicated real-estate transactions with no help from his employer but an indifferent letter of acquiescence. The agent was therefore astonished to see Nicholas stride into the little office on Broad Street and demand to read the lease.

'Certainly, mynheer,' said the conscientious Dutchman, ringing his handbell for the clerk. 'I trust you're not dissatisfied in any way with my accountings.' He said this a trifle resentfully, for it was galling to make money for a man who neither took an interest nor made the slightest effort. It was Bronck, alone, who had continued the remunerative policy started by Nicholas' father—selling one of the original Van Ryn holdings for a good sum, buying cheap on the edge of town, and then, as the town advanced with incredible rapidity, repeating the process.

'I'm entirely satisfied with you, Bronck,' said Nicholas with a vague smile. When the clerk brought the lease he barely looked at it, and rapidly affixed his signature.

That isn't what he came to town for, then, thought the agent, puzzled. He noted his employer's air of abstraction, the jerky motions he made as he glanced through the papers which Bronck put before him.

'Yes. Yes,' said Nicholas, pushing them aside. 'All seems in order.'

'You've a deal of money not invested,' Bronck pointed out patiently. 'I thought maybe we'd buy a lot on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street way up Fifth Avenue. Nothing there now but a shanty and a couple of goats, but you never can tell. Might be somebody'd want it some day and you can afford a long shot.'

'As you like,' said Nicholas. 'Send me the deed later.'

'Or—' went on the agent, determined to do his duty and trying to ignore Nicholas' obvious boredom—though if he was so uninterested why didn't the man go? Indecision was the last trait one expected to see in the patroon. 'Or—' said Bronck, 'would you fancy buying a share in the new river boat the Mary Clinton? The owner wants to sell. She leaves Friday on her maiden trip to Albany. And they say she'll be far and away the fastest thing on the river.'

Nicholas looked up. 'Fast enough to beat the Reindeer, or the Utica?'

Bronck frowned. 'I don't know, mynheer. I hope she doesn't try to race. The racing's a wicked thing, mighty dangerous for the passengers; look at all those that were lost on the Swallow. It's immoral, that's what it is.'

'Indeed,' said Nicholas. 'I find it most exhilarating.'

Bronck flushed, for Nicholas expertly conveyed by his expression that he thought the agent a milksop. If it's excitement the man wants, thought Bronck angrily, why can he not find it in some way that won't be dangerous to others?

'I'll go look at the boat,' said Nicholas, rising, 'and if she looks right, we'll close the deal tomorrow. I appreciate your suggestion, O most worthy Bronck. I can't think why it hasn't occurred to me before.'

The agent, left alone, fell into gloomy apprehension. I wish I'd never mentioned the damned boat, he thought, biting the end off a cigar. The patroon had changed, and yet for the life of him Bronck couldn't put his finger on the change. He had always known his employer to be a haughty and moody man, given usually to indifference, yet capable of rare but almost fanatical enthusiasms. Today had been no exception, yet for a moment the man had had a look—not normal. From this line of thought the agent shied away; he mopped his forehead with a red silk handkerchief. He called the clerk and issued orders for getting in touch with the Mary Clinton's owner, knowing that Nicholas would stand for no delay once he had made up his mind.

Bronck dared take no chances. There were five little Broncks in a cottage in Chelsea, and another on the way.

Nicholas bought a half-share in the Mary Clinton after he had examined her from stem to stern as she lay at dock in the North River.

She was a beautiful boat, built at the best yards in Hoboken—240 feet of clean, symmetrical lines. Her boilers and her engines were of the latest model and as new as the white-painted oaken decks and the giant paddle wheels. Nicholas could find no fault with her, and he changed his plans for return home so as to accompany her on her maiden trip Friday.

At first he was inclined to disapprove of the captain, John Hall of Jersey City, who seemed over-young and inexperienced to handle the new boat. But after talking with him Nicholas discovered that the young man knew every current and eddy in the river, and that he more than shared Nicholas' desire for speed. So Nicholas left the dock satisfied. He left the dock and dismissed the hackney cab in which he had driven to the river. He walked down Desbrosses Street until he came to Canal. At the junction of Canal Street and Broadway he hesitated. His natural route lay south down Broadway to the Astor House, where he was staying during his short sojourn, his town house being shut.