House of Masques (14 page)

Chapter Fifteen

A few minutes later Kathleen and Edward found their path blocked again. Fire burning from the direction of the river had raced through the duff of leaves and needles on the forest floor, climbed into the dry branches of the trees, and leaped across from the low to the high side of the trail. Kathleen looked down and saw a semicircle of flame coming up the mountainside toward them. A rabbit, lost and frightened, scurried past her.

“We have to go straight to the top,” Edward said, nodding to the steep slope at their right. “There's no other way.”

“I can't go on,” she told him.

“You must. If we stay here, we'll suffocate in the smoke, or we'll be burned alive. Hurry.”

Kathleen left the trail and climbed, placed her toes in footholds on the jagged rock, pulled herself upward by grasping shrubs and branches. The lantern's metal handle cut her fingers, so she shifted it from one hand to the other and back again.

“Leave the lantern,” Edward told her. “We'll make better time.” Gratefully she set the light on a rock. From force of habit she turned down the wick and watched the flame flutter and go out.

Kathleen moved faster now, scrambled over loose earth, breath short, a catch in her side. She paused on a ledge of rock, then clambered on higher. She felt herself slipping and clutched a branch, heard the dry wood snap, and she fell. She did not get up.
I'll lie here
, she thought.
Nothing matters anymore except keeping very still, resting.
Edward touched her shoulder but she shook him off. He turned her over roughly and pulled her to her feet. She leaned on him for a moment, feeling a new strength flow to her.

The ascent became a nightmare. The fire flared high on both sides and behind, receded briefly only to flare stronger than before, throwing an eerie, flickering light on the rocks and trees. Smoke eddied around her. She remembered, as she had when she left the train at Gleneden, the swirling stream and writhing bodies in her father's old book. No depiction of Hell, she knew, could be more terrifying than the scene before her.

The air became hotter. She tried to blink the perspiration from her eyes, wiped her face with a sleeve. Her hair hung damp and disheveled. The dress clinging to her legs made her envy Edward's clothes.
Women's dresses are designed to hobble and impede
, she decided. Hers had become unrecognizable—buttons lost, the cloth torn and smeared with soot.

The fire surged close. A ball of fire hurtled up the slope scattering flame behind. Kathleen's eyes widened. Another rabbit, she realized, its coat ablaze. The animal stopped, quivered in its death agony, and she recoiled from the stench of burning flesh. She saw a flash above and in front of them, where no fire had been before, and a moment later flames shot into the crest of a tall tree, leaving it burning like a beacon against the sky.

She choked, felt the heat sear her face and hands. Wherever she turned she found no escape. A sudden gust blew her hair about her face. A shower of sparks whirled around her and, when they landed, small fires sprang to life in the leaves.

“Your dress!” Edward's voice was edged with alarm. She looked down to find a smoldering circle of burnt cloth spreading from an ember on her skirt. She shook the glowing fragment from the dress before bending to beat out the fire with her hand.

“No, no farther,” Edward called. “We're trapped.” She breathed warm air into her lungs, longing for coolness. Edward pulled himself up to stand beside her. He handed her the canteen. She felt the metal rim warm on her lips and, although she tipped the container high, a mere trickle ran into her mouth.

“Empty,” she said. He hooked the canteen back on his belt.

“Over here, we'll have to dig in.” Edward led the way across a rocky clearing to a group of huge boulders rising twice as high as a man's head and, leaving her at the base, scaled the sloping rock. He returned in a few minutes. “We have a chance. I found an overhang at the top with a crevice underneath. Not large, but large enough.”

“Help me up.” Kathleen placed her foot on the side of the rock.

“No, not yet. We've got to keep the fire as far away as we can. You go around to the right and clean out the debris. I'll go the other way.”

Kathleen stooped to remove branches which had fallen on the rocks and throw them as far as she could from what was to be their sanctuary. She knelt and cleared a two-foot dirt corridor by scraping the matted leaves from the base of the rock formation. Did moss burn? She did not know and, not wanting to take the risk, she clawed at the clinging growth with her fingers. But when she found she could dislodge only small segments, she abandoned the task.

A crashing in the brush made her turn, startled, her back against the rock with both palms flat on the rough surface. A stag bounded into the clearing and stopped with his antlered head cocked. Did she glimpse the reflection of the flames in those huge eyes? The deer swung about, jumped up the slope in a series of graceful leaps before disappearing into the woods.

Kathleen dropped to her hands and knees. As she dug into the dry leaves she winced as her fingernail tore, but she did not pause. She heard a voice and glanced up. “Edward.”

“Good, the circle's complete,” he said. She joined her firebreak to his on the far side of the boulders where, for the moment at least, they were shielded from the heat.

He looked over his head at a tall hickory and frowned. “That dead tree worries me.” One great branch, black and leafless, reached above them. “If the limb splits and falls…”

Edward climbed onto the boulder and reached down to pull her up beside him. They had walked only a few paces along the top when he stopped her. “Down there.” He pointed to a crevice no wider than her body cutting across the rock like a dark wound.

“You first,” he said, “I'll help. Be careful, the inside's deeper than it looks.”

Holding to his hand, Kathleen slid feet first into the cleft between the rocks. He was right, for the crevice was not only deeper but also larger than appeared from the surface. The dirt floor sloped gently down, widened and became higher until she could stand if she crouched. Kathleen inched ahead with one hand touching the wall, the other extended in front of her. As the passage narrowed abruptly her outstretched hand struck a damp slab of rock.

Probing up and down on the wall with her fingertips, she satisfied herself she had reached the end of the cave. Not really a cave, for a long, narrow opening high on one side extended its full length. Through this jagged crack she saw an orange glow spread across the sky.

Kathleen backed from the rock wall until she could turn. Edward stood where she had left him outlined in the entryway. He swung himself into the opening and dropped down beside her.

“Make sure there's nothing that will burn,” he told her. Together they crawled on hands and knees, gathering leaves and twigs.

“The soil underneath is moist,” she said.

“Must be a spring somewhere near. We're in luck.” Edward piled the litter together and climbed from the crevice to hurl it down the slope.

When he returned they sat together in the cave watching the fire leap toward them, race along the ground, flame into the trees. Edward covered his face with his hands, but not before she saw his mouth twitch uncontrollably. “Trapped, trapped,” he muttered.

Smoke billowed above the fire and drifted into the cave, forcing them to hold handkerchiefs over their mouths. Kathleen felt her throat contract. She bent forward with head to knees, held her breath, but could not prevent the spasm of coughing.

The heat. Was there no escape from the pulsing, searing heat? They lay flat on opposite sides of the cave with faces pressed to the walls. A roar outside told her the fire had climbed into the hickory. She looked up, felt the blast of heat, drew back and huddled closer to the rock. The cave was light as day. The walls seemed to gather and focus the heat on her body.

The splintering of wood. She tensed. A crash. The thudding impact shook the walls of the crevice, while rocks and dirt rained on her head. The branch had fallen. Flames sprang to life within the cave. She scooped dirt onto the burning pieces of bark and wood, stamped on the smoking embers. Edward had not moved from where he lay on the floor of the cave.
Is he ill?
she wondered.

She looked outside and saw that the limb had slammed onto the rock and rolled to rest against a tree on the ground below. The heat seemed to have lessened. “The worst is over,” she said. Edward did not reply. “The fire's going on beyond us.”

“Thank God.” His voice shook.

Kathleen sighed and lay still, exhausted. She had feared she was going to die. Now she knew she would not. She gathered dirt in her hand, squeezed, and felt it trickle from between her fingers. The feel of the earth gave her pleasure.
Everything will be different
, she told herself.
I've been selfish, unappreciative of what I have. I'll change.

Edward, lying with his back to her, drew up his knees and clasped them to his body.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“It's nothing.”

She touched his shoulder and found he trembled like a man with the ague. “Don't worry about me,” he murmured as he shifted away from her hand.

I want to help him
, she thought. All her life she had avoided touching others or being touched, yet now she wanted to reach to him and hold him in her arms while she assured him she would not leave, would be there when he needed her. But, afraid of being rebuffed again, she lay on her back staring through the crevice at the pale glow in the sky. She felt alone and unable to help. There was so much she did not understand about Edward.

Kathleen woke with a start. When she realized her body was curled against Edward's she pulled back.
Is he awake? Has he noticed?
She could not see his eyes in the darkness.

“The wind has changed,” he said. His voice, calmer now, startled her and she jumped. He was awake. She felt herself blush. The breeze flowed cool on her face and, still only half-awake, she savored its freshness. She stretched, turning this way and that to find a comfortable position on the hard ground.
Who are you, Edward Allen?
she wondered. She remembered him beside the creek in the glen when she thought he would kiss her, pictured him fighting Floyd, then huddled in the cave with his back to her.
Who are you?

Again she slept.

Such a pleasant noise. I'm so cool, so relaxed
, she thought drowsily.
What is the sound? The rustle of leaves? The brook splashing in the glen?
Kathleen opened her eyes. She recognized the sound now. Rain.

A hard rain drummed on the burned leaves, quenched the last, smoldering embers, collected in black pools in hollows on the boulders, ran off in rivulets which emptied into streams rushing toward the river. Although clouds hung low over the mountain and the cave remained dim, the soft light outside told her the morning had come. She remembered waking on rainy mornings at home feeling warm and protected under the covers of her bed.

Edward stirred in his sleep. She watched his lips move, heard him groan, his face contorting as though from a frightening dream. He reached to her and his hand ran along her side in what she believed must be an almost instinctive caress. He quieted and she saw him smile.

Half-awake, he shifted his body until he lay against her. When she felt his fingers move lightly down her side to her leg she stiffened, shrank away, but he spoke her name and she relaxed, accepted him, trembling as his hands moved on her body beneath her clothing. But she accepted him. As though she had no choice.
This is right
, she told herself, pushing doubt from her mind.

He kissed her, gently at first, then demandingly, making her shiver with an excitement she had never known. She adjusted her body to receive the weight of him, felt him strain to her, knew fear and pain and joy. She held him, her fingers in his hair, repeating his name again and again—“Edward, Edward, Edward!”—the syllables an affirmation, an entreaty, a caress.

After a long while she quivered beneath him and he moved with her, and then was still. When he raised himself from her she opened her eyes, tried to read his expression, but in the pale light she could not.

“My darling Kathy,” he said. “My lovely, lovely Kathy.”

She felt warm and content, afraid yet happy. She pulled him closer, holding, touching, murmuring.
He's mine
, she thought,
mine for the rest of my life. Even if I should never see him again, he's mine.

In
the stillness she could once again hear the whisper of the rain.

Chapter Sixteen

When the rain lessened, Edward and Kathleen came down from the mountain. They met no one in the fire-charred woods, not Floyd nor Jeb nor Charles. After crawling over rain-slick rocks, sliding on muddy trails with water oozing in their shoes, at last they saw, through the drizzle, the Estate house standing dark and quiet.

All during the journey Edward had been solicitous. Overly so, Kathleen thought. Too helpful, too careful of his words. She much preferred the old Edward with his quixotic moods and long silences. That Edward had been real.

Does he already have regrets? What does he think of me? Does he still respect me?
Kathleen frowned.
His feelings can't be the same as mine
, she decided. Her feelings were uncomplicated—she wanted to be near him, wanted to help him. He was by far the most attractive man she had ever met. And, strangely, his weaknesses were more appealing to her than his strengths. While she could list his faults, label them and count them one by one, they were as nothing.
This must be what they mean by love
, she thought.

The gypsy had foretold she would find love. She repeated the prophecy to herself. “I see you returning to the beginning, to the start of all. I see a love surpassing any you have known or imagined with one you would never suspect. I see clouds, many clouds without rain. A great danger.”

The clouds without rain must be the smoke from the fire. And certainly she had known danger. Could Edward be the surpassing love? But how could he be one she would never expect? And returning to the beginning—what had the gypsy meant by that?

“Look. On the far side of the elm.” Edward nodded to a chestnut stallion cropping grass.

“Charles's horse,” she said. “The one he rode when he came back to the Estate with the cadets.”

Edward glanced from the horse to the French doors leading to the ballroom.

“I'll go in by way of the kitchen,” Kathleen told him. She looked down at her wet, bedraggled dress. “I don't want to meet anyone. I look like the wreck of the Hesperus.”

“No, it's too dangerous to separate before we know what's going on. Take my hand.” His fingers, strong and warm, interlaced with hers, his touch making Kathleen forget her appearance. Edward led her to the semicircular stone railing outside the ballroom.

He pointed to a wedge of dirt. “Mud on the doorstep from the instep of a riding boot.” Charles, she thought.

“Stay behind me.” Edward pushed the handle and the door swung open. Kathleen, peering around him, saw a single candle burning on a table in the middle of the room.

Motioning her to stay where she was, Edward took the revolver from his waistband and stepped quickly inside. Again he was the self-confident Edward she had known before they took shelter in the cave. She heard a voice from within call to him, but the words were lost in the echoes of the cavernous room.

“You're right.” Edward's answer was a mixture of chagrin and relief. “I was an easy target coming through the door.” He looked back, held his hand to her and together they crossed the parquet floor.

“Who…what?” she asked. Not replying, he urged her on. The light from the single candle left the sides of the room in shadow. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she made out a tall figure standing on the raised gallery near the entrance. Edward stopped at the foot of the stairs. Kathleen gasped.

“Josiah!”

He smiled and came halfway down the steps to meet them. Edward released her, held out his hand, and the two men clasped hands, not speaking. Josiah turned from Edward and placed his hand on top of Kathleen's head. She felt the fingertips pressing painfully on her scalp, then the pain was gone and with it the tenseness and fear. Shutting her eyes, she relaxed and let herself be enveloped by weariness, yet at the same time she felt serene and at peace. When he lowered his arm she walked slowly up the stairs by his side. “Josiah, I'm so tired,” she said.

“Be patient, we'll soon have done. The denouement approaches.” Kathleen saw Edward standing to one side so she moved to him and put her hand lightly on his arm.

“I returned earlier than expected,” Josiah was explaining. “I wasn't needed in Washington after all. Tell me what's been happening.” Both Edward and Kathleen spoke at once.

“You first,” Kathleen deferred to him.

“You know about the fire?” Edward asked.

Josiah nodded. “I've talked briefly with Captain Worthington.”

“Then you know Kathy was kidnapped and the cadet killed at the bridge?” Another nod. Edward went on to tell of finding Kathleen on the mountain and of their flight from the fire to the sanctuary of the cave.

“You were there all night?”

“Yes, all night.” The two men stared at one another as though they were locked in combat. Edward dropped his eyes first.

“You know you don't have the right,” Josiah said. Kathleen, her heart thudding, knew Josiah referred to her, but the leaps of his mind left her far behind. Edward walked away from them to the gallery at the side of the room. Kathleen followed.

“Oh,” she cried.

In the shadows a coffin partially covered with an American flag rested on two sawhorses. She ran her fingers over the polished wood, felt the metal plaque, leaned over to read the inscription:
CAPTAIN CHARLES WORTHINGTON—1845—1871—TRAITOR
—the same coffin they had found on the porch of the Estate. She gripped Edward's arm with both of her hands.

“They're sending a caisson from West Point,” Josiah said. “They'll hold services in the cadet chapel before they send the cadet's body home.” Josiah's voice made death seem an everyday occurrence. Kathleen faced him.

“You're cruel,” she said.

He looked at her without expression. “You've changed,” he told her. “In the few days I've been gone you've become a different person.”

“I'm not afraid of you anymore. I don't know why, but I'm not.”

“For someone so fearless you didn't accomplish what you set out to do, did you?”

“You know I didn't.”

“I never believed you would. Not for a moment.”

“I might have if Charles—”

“Charles, is it?”

“—if Captain Worthington hadn't as much as asked me to shoot him. He seemed to want to die.”

“Then he must have admitted killing your brother.”

“Yes, he did. I expected him to deny it, to produce all sorts of excuses for himself, but no, he told me he killed him. Then he walked right at me while he dared me to pull the trigger. I couldn't, Josiah, I just couldn't.”

“Edward gave you my message?”

“‘
And ye shall know the truth?
' Yes, and you're right, I must find the answer to what happened on the plains, if only to stop the dreams. I dream about him, about Michael. As though he won't let me rest. About the Indians, too. Not dreams—nightmares.”

“First we've got to find Jeb and Floyd,” Josiah said. “They're a crucial part of what happened in Kansas.”

“You keep looking past me over my shoulder. Do you expect them to come from behind the house?” Josiah nodded.

Edward cleared his throat. “You're being too obvious,” he said to Josiah. “I suspected your snare—the Captain's horse hidden in the trees, the mud on the doorsill. They'll suspect, too, and know someone intends to lure them into the ballroom.”

“Edward, if you were Jeb and Floyd coming to the house from the mountain, what would you do?”

Edward stroked his cheek. “First, I'd reconnoiter to find another way in. Perhaps at the front, or a window on the side.”

“You'd discover yourself blocked. We have cadets posted in both places. Inconspicuously, but Jeb and Floyd will spot them.”

“The servants' quarters across the lawn by the barn, then. They overlook the back of the house and this room. I'd know you have a trap baited here so I'd lie low, determine the Captain's whereabouts if I could, and wait for dark.”

Josiah seemed pleased. “Good,” he said.

“Why good?”

“The trap is in the servants' quarters. The Captain and two cadets are hidden there. And they could use your help.”

“Josiah, I should have known your plan wouldn't be straightforward. You think in convolutions. Kathy. Will Kathy be all right?”

“This house is secure, she'll be safe. Right now she needs dry clothes more than anything.”

Edward gripped the older man by the arm. “It's good to see you again, Josiah. I want to talk when we have time.”

“We need to talk. But first, Jeb and Floyd.” Edward strode down the steps and across the dance floor. He slipped through the door and was gone.
Without a word to me, without a gesture
, Kathleen thought.

“Josiah…” she began tentatively. He tilted back until the chair creaked. “Josiah,” she said, looking down at him, “more happened than Edward told you. I feel differently toward him, not at all the way I did at first. I care so much for him, but I can't tell how he feels about me. I, too, want to talk. I want you to tell me the truth about Edward.”

“The truth? Remember what I said back at Gleneden: never seek to uncover Edward's past. When I saw the two of you together I knew, guessed at least, about you and Edward. Everything is new, and yet all remains the same. Yes, we'll talk as soon as the question of the Captain is resolved. If it ever is.”

He shut his eyes and she saw the results of the demands of many years in the wrinkles on his face. So Josiah, too, became weary. Kathleen took one of his large hands in both of hers. She wanted to kneel and lay her head against him as, when she was younger, she had sought comfort from her father. She hesitated, the moment passed, and the impulse was lost.

“I'll change my clothes,” she told him, releasing his hand and backing away.

“And rest,” he called after her.

In her room Kathleen put on a simple red-and-white-checked gingham frock which buttoned to the neck. She clasped her arms about herself and whirled around the room as she relished the freshness of the warm, dry clothes. What remained of the gray dress lay folded on the floor of the wardrobe. If only it were as easy to discard the memory of Floyd and the fire along with the clothes. And yet if they had not kidnapped her, if there had been no fire, Edward very well may have remained as aloof as he had been in the glen. The good mingled with the bad, like the light and dark interwove in Mrs. Ehrman's patchwork quilt.

As she changed clothes, Kathleen had paused from time to time to peer through the rain-spattered window into the yard. Beneath the elm, the Captain's horse impatiently pawed the earth. Otherwise the grounds were deserted. When she finished buttoning her shoes she took a last look, saw a movement in the brush behind the woodshed. She watched. The branches parted and two men, each with a revolver in hand, ran to the shelter of the shed. Jeb and Floyd.

They waited a few minutes then, crouched low, dashed to the side of the house beneath her window. Her breathing quickened. They were headed for the ballroom where Josiah sat alone. Although Kathleen pressed her face to the glass she could not see them because of the sill. She considered raising the window but did not for fear they would hear the noise.

She looked to where the ballroom jutted out from the rest of the house. Jeb arrived first, Floyd following. The two men examined the doorstep and the closed door itself. Floyd began to swing his leg over the railing. Jeb touched his shoulder and the older man paused. They whispered together. Kathleen's breath misted the window so she rubbed the glass with her sleeve.

When she could see once more Jeb and Floyd were gone. The door to the ballroom remained closed. She clenched her hands close to her sides. Had they gone through the door in the few moments she had been unable to see? No. There they were, hurrying back into the shelter of the woods, dropping flat on the ground to lie motionless, heads turned to one another. Floyd rose first and ran, crouching behind the low shrubs, to disappear behind the barn. Jeb followed. The two men reappeared on the other side of the barn, sprinted the few feet to the door of the servants' house. Josiah's plan was working.

Floyd tried the door and she saw it open. A movement in the window above their heads, as though someone had released the curtain, caught her eye. Kathleen held her hand to her mouth. Jeb glanced up, extended his arm to caution Floyd. A sparrow swooped from under the eaves, circled about their heads, flew back to the roof again. Jeb shrugged and the two men entered the building.

Just as Kathleen relaxed a shot barked. She flung up the window, cautiously leaned out and felt the veil of rain wet her face. The horse neighed and pulled at his tether. She heard no other sound. She waited.

Floyd emerged first, then Jeb, hands above their heads. Charles, Edward, and two cadets followed, marching their captives toward the rear of the main house. No one appeared to be hurt.

Kathleen shut the window and ran from the room down the narrow circular staircase to the ballroom entrance. She stopped in the shadows just inside the door. Josiah, his back to her, was lighting another candle on the long table. Jeb and Floyd stood before him, hands now at their sides, the cadets flanking them, Edward and the Captain farther back near the French doors.

“Captain,” Josiah said, “come here.” Charles walked forward. “Your gun.” Josiah nodded to the table. Charles hesitated before laying his revolver beside one of the candleholders.

“Now we shall seek the truth,” Josiah said. “Are you willing?” he asked Charles.

“Willing? For what?”

“You must stand trial.”

“For what crime?”

“The murder of Michael Donley.”

“I've already been court-martialed and acquitted.”

“In the eyes of the Army you're innocent. To the world you're guilty. Your own conscience seems to convict you. I'll ask once more. Are you willing?”