Night of the Candles (28 page)

Amanda shook her head. Sophia said, “Not on an outing like this!”

“Water then…”

“I doubt it would do any good. From the looks of it I’d say Marta has been at the bottle most of the day. She probably won’t come to for half the night! Theo, Nathaniel, I have her shoulders. If you will just … that’s right. Careful.”

It was an awkward burden that completely relaxed, large woman. Jason looked back. “Sophia, from the sound of her breathing I’d say she needs a little more air. Could you…”

“Probably laced within an inch of her life … for what good it does. Yes, I’m coming. I’m coming.”

She would follow them in a moment, Amanda thought. Sophia might need help, and they would possibly go home earlier than they had intended, though not before extinguishing the candles surely.

But now she was glad to have this moment alone, a moment to try to sense the presence of the spirit of her cousin, not her ghost … she was not so superstitious, despite her growing belief in Jason’s theory … but only the essence of her personality, remembered charm, and vitality. She would like to conjure up the vision of the girl she had been, not the woman she had become. She would like to think of the girl lying there not as Jason’s wife but as her cousin, think of her … and bid her a last good-bye, among the flickering candle flames.

And so when the others were out of sight beyond the church she swung back, staring at the headstone of the grave before her.

AMELIA CONSTANCE TRENT MONTEIGNE

Born March 14, 1852

died July 21, 1871

Beloved, death is a gentle keeper.

Perhaps it was true, what was written there, perhaps death was more gentle for Amelia than life.

She thought of her cousin, so gay and happy, and of Jason and their elopement. It was odd how seldom things turn out exactly as planned. “Happily ever after” was more than a matter of intent. It was work and tolerance and shared joy. It was love but not necessarily romance. When had the happily-ever-after turned into a faded dream? When had it become a nightmare?

Did it matter? It was over. Death had taken the fear as well as the happiness. Death. The gentle keeper.

With a sigh that caught in her throat Amanda bowed her head. Opening her eyes after a moment, she turned away, catching at her skirt to keep it from the dew-wet sand. The wind whipped among the trees with a mournful sound and came rushing toward her making her glance fearfully up at the dark sky.

When she looked back a figure stood before her, a figure whose rags capped about him like a scarecrow, whose pale face shimmered in the fitful light of the sputtering candles, who had beside him, like some ancient guardian beast, the dog Cerberus. Marta’s grendel.

Carl.

“CARL,” she whispered. Then added more loudly, “You startled me.”

The dog growled, and Carl put a staying hand on his head.

“What is it?”

Still he did not answer. He was real enough, she thought nervously, for she could see the glitter of his eyes.

“Did … did you want something? Jason? Or Theo?” Was that high-pitched voice hers? She must control that. It could not be good for him to suspect that she was frightened of him. Then she jumped as he spoke.

“Where is my Madame?”

“Why … Jason told you. She is dead.”

“No. They put her in a box and shut the lid and carried her away. The box is there, under the dirt, but not my Madame, never my Madame Amelia. I won’t believe it! You took her place! But you are not my Madame! Where is she?”

“Please, Carl, you must believe me. She died.”

“You. You sent her away from me. You came with the other man. You came to take the place of my Madame. You have her hair, her face. Sometimes I look and I see my Madame staring from your eyes. Where is she? What have you done to her?”

Fear mixed with revulsion crept over Amanda. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she whispered, her hands clenched so tightly that her nails were cutting into her palms.

“I know!” he cried. “I know!”

“No! I’ve told you but you won’t listen. You don’t want to know. Amelia is dead. She’s dead, I tell you!”

Now Carl’s face was contorted with an infantile rage. She could see his lips moving. She could see men, running, from the corner of her eye. She could see the bared teeth of the dog Cerberus, his raised bristles, and straining muscles. Did Carl give a signal, an infinitesimal movement of his hand? Or was it only the rage in his voice that unleashed the dog to the attack?

“If she is dead … then … you killed her!” Carl screamed and, obedient to the wish if not the command, Cerberus gathered himself and sprang!

Blood and bone, fur and fangs she saw him launch himself, saw his yellow eyes gleam red, burning into hers.

A shout, a strangeness in her mind, a blank, featureless moment when out of the past interdependence she cried, “Amelia!”

And the dog at the last moment turned his head. His body struck her, and they fell to the ground. They lay stunned a breathless instant. Then she sensed the movement as Cerberus rolled over on his belly and crawled toward her. In a moment she felt a warm roughness on her fingers as the dog licked her hand in repentance. She raised herself to touch his head in benediction, in forgiveness.

“Goddamned crazy idiot! What do you mean? I thought you had killed her!” Theo yelled as he came to a breathless halt, dropping to one knee beside Amanda.

“She killed my Madame. She killed my Madame! She killed…”

“Shut up that screeching! Amanda didn’t kill Amelia! You did!”

The silence felt like a blow on the ears. Candles dimmed as the wind, gathering force, picked up sandy dirt and flung it, stinging, against them. Jason stepped forward to put his hand on the dog’s collar, his eyes scanning quickly over Amanda, as she lay braced on one arm. Sophia raised one hand to her eyes against the wind. They did not speak and, with her heart thudding sickeningly against her chest, neither did Amanda. She could not.

“No,” Carl said shaking his head. “No.”

Theo leaned toward him his lips drawn back, so intent on the thrust he was about to make and his pleasure in it that he was unaware or uncaring, that he had an audience.

“Oh, yes. Yes! You gave her medicine. You remember, medicine in a green bottle with a black stopper. I poured it out for you and you carried it to her room. You watched while she drank.”

It was a long moment before Carl spoke, then his voice carried that chilling note of sanity he could sometimes evoke. “You … you let me kill her.”

The aching horror in Carl’s voice seemed to touch Theo with remorse. He put out his hand. “She needed to die. She wanted to die, Carl. And I could not do it. I could not. You helped her, Carl, you helped her!”

But Carl backed away. “No, no.”

Theo stood, took a hasty step toward him, but Carl stooped and swept up the lighted candle from Amelia’s grave then two others in quick succession. Brandishing them at Theo in half defense, half aggression he shouted a wordless, animal sound of bitter, unbearable loss. The candle flames flared and dimmed but burned on.

“Carl!” Theo said, an arm before his face, anger overcoming his remorse. “Put those down!”

But Carl thrust the candles at him once more and then, as Theo fell back, he whirled and ran toward the woods, his terrible, crazed laughter sweeping back to them on the wind.

They watched him leaping, loping, rags fluttering in the weird light, saw him merge with the black shadows of the woods.

“Oh, Theo, Theo.” It was Amanda’s voice, chiding, pleading, and commanding. But she had not meant to speak.

Theo turned to stare at her, his brown eyes wide and liquid. Then he straightened his shoulders with a deep breath and turned his face back toward the woods. He looked back one final time at Amanda, then he ran after Carl.

Beside her the dog gathered himself, his ears pricked forward as if to heed a silent command. Amanda, abruptly aware of the stiffness of his fur beneath her fingers, lifted her hand from his neck. Released from the last restraint he bounded to his feet and raced after the two men.

“Stay with the women,” Jason told Nathaniel before he followed at a run.

The sound of their hurried progress through the underbrush came to those who waited for a few minutes, then all was quiet.

Nathaniel helped Amanda to her feet, and she stood, her fingers biting into his arm, listening.

It was Sophia who first smelled the smoke. It came on the wind, a faint acrid intimation of the holocaust to come.

The darkness hid the first gray plumes of smoke from them but soon they could see the sparks, like darting orange fireflies, rising above the black spikes of the tree tops. Then beneath the smoke soared the first shooting yellow arrows of flames, and with them came the ominous crackling of burning brush and dried foliage.

“That idiot has set the woods on fire,” Nathaniel said unnecessarily. “This wind is fanning it right toward us. If we stay here we may get caught in its path.”

“They’ll all be killed,” Sophia cried, her hand to her mouth. “Why don’t they come out?”

“Jason.” Amanda said the name softly, her thoughts crystallizing around that one word. With the smell of smoke in her nostrils she felt herself, her every sense alive to fear and a bitter, unbelievable, but undeniable truth. She had come, somehow, to care more for this man, her dead cousin’s husband, in a few short days, than she did for the man whose arm she clung to so desperately.

Now the wind tore at their hair and clothes, carrying in its ferocity the heat of the fire, laden with black cinders and sand. Smoke swirled around them making their eyes stream.

“Come on!” Nathaniel shouted to make himself heard. “I’ve got to get you three women out of this!”

He dragged at Amanda. Sophia started back toward the carriages, to the horses, who were plunging and neighing with a rising terror.

Amanda could not bear to leave. “The candles, we must put them out,” she said, grasping at anything to delay. But then looking about her she saw that the wind had done that chore. The graves lay dark, huddled to the ground. The glow of light about them was from the fire!

But no, there was one candle left, a single candle shielded from the wind by a headstone and a large vase. Twisting away from Nathaniel, Amanda ran toward it, plucked it from its holder and upended it, ready to snuff it out in the soft earth. A gust of smoke caught her and she began to cough, turning away from the woods. Then as she looked through tear-filled eyes she saw a man stagger into the open.

“Jason!” she cried, seeing his burden only as she began to run.

His clothes smoldered, his hair and brows were singed, and the tracks of the tears of smoke irritation made white streaks in the grime on his face. The body in his arms appeared lifeless, the head thrown back and the arms and legs dangling helplessly.

“It’s Theo,” he said as she neared him, but she had to read his lips for his words were drowned in the thunder that rumbled overhead.

Lightning forked from the black sky as if trying to meet the leaping flames. Darkness closed in around them. There was no need for words of warning or hurry. Their danger was all too clear.

They ran, stumbling among the graves in the dimness, through the gate and past the church, orange-hued in the gloom as its whiteness reflected the fire, to the carriage. Theo was lifted inside as great fat drops of rain began to fall. Thunder combined with a hissing sound of wet heat around them, and then they were moving at a runaway pace set by the terrified horses. Behind them clouds of steaming black smoke billowed like mountains into the sky. Behind them lay the fire. And somewhere in its seething, blinding mass, hiding and hidden, lay Carl.

They found Carl when the coals had died at last in the hearts of the trees and the smoke had blown away with the wind. His body was charred almost beyond recognition but he had died, so they said, of smoke inhalation. Was that meant to be a solace? It did not help nearly so much as the finding of the body of Cerberus at his side.

The funeral was held in the little church built by the Monteignes. Its back wall was somewhat smoked and the grass around it had crisped into sooty curls, but the rain, coming like a smothering wet blanket, had saved the building. Still the fresh white headstone they placed in the cemetery, near Amelia’s grave, looked strange, out of place, among the other gray markers. In years to come when memories grew short, they would always be able to determine the date of the fire that nearly destroyed their church by the difference in the color of the headstones.

Despite a valiant effort and the suppurating wounds of his terrible burns, Theo did not die. He lived to lie on his bed and beg ceaselessly for death. Once, in his pain and despair and self-blame, he snatched the bottle of laudanum from Amanda’s hand.

She struck it from his mouth before he could drink.

“Why?” he asked as he fell back gray-faced on his pillow, watching the dark medicine bubbling out onto the floor. “Why won’t you let me die?”

“I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t make that kind of decision.”

“I can,” he said, his eyes hard.

She stared at him, remembering, accusing, wanting him to remember that he had made that decision once for Amelia and once for himself, but neither time had he been able to carry it out.

At last he turned away, his eyes closed, the lines of anguish deep about his mouth.

“You win,” he said, but he added, “for today. Only for today.”

“Theo…” she said in a soft helplessness. She could not hate this man for what he had done, she found. She could only pity him.

He turned to look at her, his eyes searching her face. He seemed to hold his breath. Then he let it out with the whisper of a laugh, set his teeth, and turned to the wall.

Nathaniel accosted her as she came slowly from the sickroom.

“How much longer are you going to stay here?” he asked without preamble. “I’ve got to be getting back to my office. Been gone too long already.”

She looked down at the tray in her hands. “I don’t know, Nathaniel. Someone must stay with Theo night and day to keep him from … doing anything foolish.”