House of Masques (9 page)

Chapter Nine

Kathleen stood alone in the shade of a large maple near the driveway at the front of the house. From the side yard she heard the click of croquet mallets striking wooden balls, the shrill of women's laughter, and an occasional man's shout of “Oh, good shot, well done!”

Where was Edward Allen? At least fifteen minutes ago he had disappeared around the house to get the coach. Kathleen unfastened and then retied the bow of her sunbonnet.
Clarissa
, she thought,
how is Clarissa?
She paced to the rose garden and back.
Clarissa will be all right
, she told herself, worried despite the doctor's assurances.

Ah, at last, Edward driving a small buggy, not the coach. She stepped to the top of the horseblock and waited while he brought the rig alongside. After she had pulled herself up to the seat beside him, Edward flicked the whip and the horse trotted along the curved drive.

“A damn fool errand,” he muttered as he wiped his sweating face on his sleeve. She neither replied nor looked toward him but stared straight ahead at the branches interlacing over the road. When Edward turned to the right at the Estate gatehouse, beginning the drive down the mountain, a late-morning breeze cooled her face and teased the dark curls on her neck and shoulders.

As they rode down the mountain, she related Mrs. Ehrman's story of her lost son, the grandson killed in the War, the journey to Washington climaxed by her meeting with the President. Edward sat silent, and when she finished he stared at their horse and at the road as though not wanting to meet her eyes.

“You know the way, I presume?” he asked in a biting voice.

“Yes,” she said, ending the word in an abrupt hiss. “Left at the bottom of the hill and about a mile farther on along the road. Mr. Blasingame told me.”

“Today of all days.” His tone accused her but she remained silent
He is probably right
, she thought,
I don't really know why I'm going. What will I be able to learn? Can they tell me anything I don't already know?

The buggy swayed on a turn, making her grasp the railing. Kathleen looked about and saw a stump fence separating the road from an almost dry creek. No rain had fallen during the night; as she searched the pale blue sky she found only a few high wisps of clouds. In the fields, laid out like an irregular checkerboard between the mountain and the bluff overlooking the river, men swung scythes in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

They reached the flatland at the foot of the mountain and Edward reined the horse to the left. “Gypsies,” he said scornfully. “Of what help will they be?”

“You didn't have to come,” she told him. “One of the stableboys would have been glad to bring me.”

“I told Josiah I'd look after you and I intend to, no matter how onerous you make the assignment.”

“I'm surprised,” Kathleen said, not trying to keep the annoyance from her voice, “you didn't want to stay with Clarissa.”

“Nothing more will happen to her as long as you're not there.”

Kathleen gasped with surprise and shock. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I think you know. Why must you always play the innocent?”

“Wasn't I the one who heard her cry out in the middle of the night and found her doubled over in pain? Didn't I fetch help? Didn't I stay with her waiting for the doctor to arrive? Didn't I assist him until she was sleeping and out of danger?” She spoke quickly and defensively.

“When I first met you in Newburgh,” Edward said in a low monotone, “I could sense your jealousy. The way you said Clarissa's name, the way you looked at her—because of Josiah in the beginning, now because of the Captain. Your feelings show on your face like those of a heroine in a melodrama.”

Kathleen flushed.
Am I so transparent?
“Clarissa is very beautiful,” she said, her voice quavering with anger, “and I see men falling over one another to pay her court, without Clarissa so much as lifting her little finger. I did resent her. But if you're saying I'd do her harm, you're wrong. I'd never hurt anyone, not purposefully.”

His incredulous stare confused her until she realized with a start what she had said. Flustered, she looked away from him across the fields and feigned an interest in two oxen which were straining to pull a loaded hay wagon up an incline to a barn.

“I'd never wish ill to Clarissa,” she said lamely.

Edward slowed the buggy for their way was blocked by a peddler's wagon, and she felt his impatience as they followed the other vehicle across a narrow bridge. Once on the other side Edward urged his horse around the wagon. As they pulled alongside Kathleen saw the brooms, pots, pans, and other assorted household articles in the back. The peddler, a young man with a fringe of beard, waved to them, and Kathleen nodded. Edward ignored him.

“I'm sorry,” he said to her at last. “I'm not well this morning. My head throbs unmercifully.”

“I've seen the symptoms before,” she told him, remembering her father. “Will you be all right by tonight?”

“Tonight? Oh, the ball. Tonight's the night when you propose to beard Worthington in his den. Yes, I'll be ready. I wouldn't miss your performance. I'll take some laudanum if I don't feel better. Nine o'clock will be about right, I think. I'll come for you then.”

“My dress is lovely,” she said. “I unpacked and ironed it this morning.”

“Good,” he said without enthusiasm. “Clarissa won't be able to go, will she?” Kathleen shook her head. “The doctor was probably right,” he went on, “about what happened last night. Something she ate, the oysters perhaps. And she's never looked strong.”

“Wait!” The recollection came to Kathleen with sudden clarity. “I forgot something: the
glass
wasn't in her room this morning.”

“What glass?”

“My milk. With the herbs. I didn't drink any last night after the maid brought it to me in Clarissa's room. I left the glass untouched on her table. Do you suppose Clarissa drank some? Could the medicine have made her ill?”

“Was there really medicine in the glass, or was something else substituted?”

“Why would anyone do that?”

He shrugged. “Gypsy magic depends on poison,” he said, “or so I'm told. And gypsies use the same word to mean both medicine and poison. Gypsy physicians, if there are such, must have a difficult time.”

Poison. Could poison be the explanation for Clarissa's illness, put into her milk with the idea the taste would be hidden by the herbs? No, she was sure no one would try to harm her. And yet…what did she really know of these people, of Edward Allen and Clarissa, Captain Worthington and Alice Lewis? Who had placed the coffin on the porch? Why was the Captain's life being threatened?

And Josiah. She wondered, as she often had in the last few days, what manner of man he was. She feared him and felt easier in his absence, yet more and more she was becoming aware of the vacuum created by his absence. She found she actually looked forward to his return.

Were the gypsies involved? No, neither Kathleen Donley nor Kathleen Stuart meant anything to them. This whole affair, she thought, was a puzzle with so many pieces missing she could find only the merest hint of a design.

“You have strong feelings about the gypsies, don't you?” she asked Edward.

“Yes, and I don't know why exactly. I suppose I've been wary of them since I was a child. I remember my mother reciting a rhyme when we passed one of their camps, I even remember some of the words—

“Gypsy hair and devil's eyes

Ever stealing, full of lies

Yet always poor and never wise.”

“They're charlatans, tricksters. Once in Baltimore after a late party I went to visit a gypsy fortune teller. I can still see her, dirty and whining, making vague pronouncements which could be true of anyone. ‘Three times,' she told me, ‘your passions have gotten you into great trouble,' and ‘thrice have you been in danger of death'. Ridiculous.”

“I admire them,” Kathleen said. “They go their own way without undue concern about what others might think is right or proper. They're not afraid to be different.”

Edward snorted. “Because they're too lazy to work, if the truth be known.”

“Look!” Kathleen pointed ahead. “Their camp.”

Edward reined the horse onto the wheel tracks leading to the wagons which were screened from the road by a second growth of hickories. Short-haired brown dogs ran barking from the camp, snapping at the horse's hooves and the wheels of the buggy.

Six wagons formed a semicircle, four of them long and narrow, with black canvas stretched over wooden frames, the other two, the farthest from the entrance, larger, built of highly polished oak with three windows on a side, heavy, spoked wheels, and a raised driving platform in front.

Kathleen smiled at the children who danced and shouted around the buggy. Dirty, ragged, happy children. White smoke from two campfires drifted in their direction, and Kathleen held a handkerchief to her face until they were past. Over one of the fires a high tripod of poles supported a black cauldron. Women squatted near the fires or walked to and from the wagons, women dressed in ankle-length skirts and low-cut loose blouses, wearing golden earrings and bracelets, their white teeth emphasizing the darkness of their skin.

Several men lounged beneath an elm; horses fastened with long chains snorted in a nearby meadow; more dogs trotted from under the wagons. Along the creek, clothes were spread on bushes to dry.

One of the men rose, approached them with an easy grace and stood beside the rig. A short dark man, hands on his hips. “Welcome,” he said, smiling. His teeth flashed.

The gypsy seemed to appraise them; Kathleen felt alien in her yellow muslin with its matching sunbonnet. He picked a stick from the ground and shouted at the dogs in a strange tongue until they sidled away, tails hanging.

As Edward helped Kathleen to the ground she saw his nose wrinkle from the unidentifiable odors of the camp. “The young lady would like her fortune told,” he said.

The gypsy bowed. “This way.” He led them to one of the large wagons where he climbed the steps and opened the door. “Tshaya, Tshaya,
geja
,” he called inside. He held the door for them. “Please,” he said, “enter. Tshaya will see you.”

Once inside, Kathleen found she could stand upright, but Edward had to stoop. The air was hot and close; she felt the perspiration gather on her forehead. A candle burned on the table and diffused light came through curtains on the small windows. She heard the woman before she saw her, heard the striving for air, the wheezing breath. When Kathleen's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw Tshaya, small and old, sitting on an upholstered chair at the far end of the wagon.

“Let me go first,” Edward said. He walked to stand in front of the gypsy woman. “Will you tell us what the future holds?” he asked. Her reply was a barely perceptible nod. The gypsy's wrinkled face was paler than those of the women around the campfires, her hair was gray, and her only ornaments were earrings and a ring with a blue stone on the third finger of her right hand.

“Your hand,” she said to Edward Allen. Each word seemed an effort. Kathleen saw her glance at his palm, then search his face, staring into his eyes.

The gypsy began talking in a hoarse whisper. “Such a handsome gentleman, I'm sure I'll find many broken hearts in your past.” She went on in a sing-song voice while Edward smiled knowingly at Kathleen.

Suddenly the gypsy paused. She gazed intently into his eyes, her mouth slightly open, her breath rasping. She dropped his hand. “No,” she said. “No, you must leave.”

“What do you see?” he asked.

The gypsy shut her eyes. “No,” she said again.

“Here, let me give you these.” He reached into his pocket and offered her some coins. “Tell me what you see.” The gypsy folded her arms, shut her eyes, and turned her head to one side.

“Come along,” Edward said to Kathleen. “She's lost her senses.”

Kathleen hesitated. “I came to have my fortune told,” she said.

“You can see she won't.”

Kathleen knelt in front of the gypsy. “Tshaya, will you read my palm?” she asked. The deep brown eyes opened to stare into hers. “For you, yes,” she said.

“Wait outside,” Kathleen told Edward. “Please,” she added when he made no move. He turned and strode from the wagon, ducking to avoid striking his head on the door.

Tshaya sat up. “Give me your hand,” she said to Kathleen, “and put three silver coins on it if you would hear what I see.”

Kathleen reached into her reticule and gave the coins to the old woman, who slipped them inside the folds of her dress. “What has Edward Allen done?” Kathleen asked. “What is his secret?”

“A veil covers his past,” the gypsy said, “a veil I cannot pierce.”

She held Kathleen's hands in both of hers, studied them, then looked into her eyes. “Be wary of that man,” she whispered. Her voice was slow and urgent.

“I see you will return to the beginning,” the gypsy went on, “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. And great danger.”

She stopped. Kathleen heard the chatter of birds from the trees beside the wagon and the old woman's breathing. “Nothing more?” she asked.

“Nothing.” The gypsy closed her eyes. For a long moment Kathleen looked down at the old, old face before quietly backing from the wagon.

“Well, what did she say?” Edward Allen wanted to know. “Anything about me?” Kathleen repeated the gypsy's words, omitting only the warning about Edward himself.

“Is that all?”

“Nothing more,” she said.