The dark fantastic (18 page)

The big house groaned and creaked throughout the night. The wind whined at the windows and rapped at the doors; it stole in through the cracks and went sighing through the halls and passages. It was an increasingly chill and bitter wind, as though its mission was to blow summer and soft pleasure away. The household slept but fitfully. There were numerous calls for more bedcovers. Miss Ann, going downstairs in the small hours to fetch a drink for the wakeful children, encountered Cousin Lutie getting a snack from the kitchen in the hope that it might induce sleep. She hadn't closed her eyes all night, she declared. Miss Ann said that Thorne seemed the only one in her room able to sleep. ''And she's sleeping so heavily, it frightened me. I thought when I lit my candle that she had stopped breathing."

"The witches are sure riding tonight," said Cousin Lutie as they trudged back upstairs together. Miss Ann thought it would either rain or snow before morning.

But toward morning the fierce gale subsided. Suddenly, ominously, there was hushed stillness in the starless hour before dawn. Weary bed tossers turned on their sides and sank into heavy slumber. Miss Ann looked at Thorne and saw that color had crept back into her pale cheeks, the deathlike stillness of her body had relaxed. She was warm and moist and breathing naturally. With a sigh of relief Miss Ann lay down beside her and fell into restful slumber.

In the bridal chamber Judith, sleeping in her lover's arms, had a strange, disquieting dream.

She thought she was standing before her old pupils in Tim-berley schoolhouse. In the midst of hearing a class she suddenly discovered that she had no clothes on. Her pupils were staring at her with horrible relish, and she saw that they were not the children of Timberley district, they were the silly women who had undressed her for her bridal bed. They had stolen her clothes and left her nothing, not even the misty nightgown. She demanded indignantly, "Who did this?" And they all giggled, pointing to a rear desk where someone hid behind a big Atlas. "She did it!" they chorused. "It's one of her tricks." It was Thorne's desk to which they pointed.

Judith seized a riding whip and went down the aisle between the seats and cried in a choking voice, "Come out from behind that Atlas. You can't play tricks on me. Tell me what you did with my clothes or I'll flog you." But when she jerked the Atlas away from the culprit, it was not Thorne who looked back at her. It was Abigail. She was dead and they all knew she was dead. Yet she moved among them as though she were living.

Judith awoke from this dream in shuddering terror and clung to Richard. He did not waken, but his arms about her tightened automatically. Gradually reality asserted itself. She had been the victim of nightmare. But the macabre qualitv of the dream had been so peculiarly vivid that it was a long while before she slept.

The sun rose clear and cold on a world of extreme untidiness. The lawn of Timberley looked as though it had been the playground of imps and demons. Trees and shrubs were stripped of leaves, and their naked hmbs were decked with debris from all over the neighborhood. Or was it debris. . .

Jesse Moffat was late getting down that morning, owing to difficulty in finding his socks. He finally put his bare feet in his boots and came down to the kitchen to start the fire for the lavish breakfast which must be prepared for the houseful of guests. When he ignited his fresh-laid fire, smoke belched into his face. He examined the drafts in the stove. There appeared to be some obstruction in the pipe. Smoke rapidly filled the low-ceilinged room.

Millie, in her room over the kitchen, smelled smoke and yelled, "Fiah!" As she came clattering down the back stairs Jesse hushed her sternly.

"Do you want to scare everybody in the house? Nothing's on fire. The pipe's stopped up. Here, give me a hand and we'll see what's blocking it."

They took down a section of the stovepipe and found it stuffed with what appeared at first to be rags.

"Rags, nothin'!" snorted Millie. "Them's somebody's clo'es."

And clothes they were. Wearing apparel of divers sorts stuffed the stovepipe far into the chimney. When Jesse pulled the last article out he found to his amazement a handsome pair of new whipcord breeches.

"If those aren't the pants Lucius Goff was wearing last night, I'll eat my hat!"

"Who do you s'pose played a low-down dirty trick like that?" said Millie. "Stuffin' folkses' best clothes in that ole chimney. Looky there! Nice white shirts covered with soot, coats and pants that'll nevah come clean."

Jesse said, "I looked for 'em to play pranks at this wedding, but spoiling good clothes is going too far."

"Wait'll Miss Ann sees this," said Millie. "Somebody'll get a blistered behind."

"Maybe the felloW that did this is too old to blister," grinned Jesse.

When Miss Ann appeared she demanded sternly, "Where are everyone's clothes? Someone sneaked through all the rooms last night and stole the clothing of our guests. Are you the culprit, Jesse Moffat?"

The hired man's denial was emphatic. "Look what I found in the chimney." He pointed to the sooty clothes upon the floor.

Ann Tomlinson was angrier than either of the two had ever seen her.

"A charivari is one thing. A stupid joke like this is a disgrace to Tomlinson hospitality. If I find that any member of this household had a hand in it, he shall certainly hear from me."

There was commotion now through all the house. Doors were slamming, excited voices clamoring. Feminine squeals and masculine growls were mingled in a rising chorus of indignation. Will Tomlinson charged down the back stairs in his nightshirt, demanding, "Who hung my drawers at the top of the big locust tree?" The little group in the kitchen stared at him blankly.

"At the top of the tree!" said his mother.

"At the very tip of the topmost branch. If you don't believe me, go look. I saw them from my bedroom window. It's disgraceful."

They all hurried outdoors. A weird spectacle greeted them. The trees and shrubs of Timberley bore strange foliage. It was as though the wind, which had stripped them of their autumn glory, had swept through the house collecting what it could to clothe their nakedness. Neckties, socks, and handkerchiefs fluttered from airy twigs; waistcoats, pantaloons, and petticoats dangled grotesquely from boughs. Nor were they hung on lower limbs where they could be easily picked off. They were suspended from the highest and most inaccessible branches.

"No man—or woman either—could possibly have crawled up there," said a voice behind Miss Ann. It was Lucius Goff, in night clothes and greatcoat, shivering with excitement.

They were all coming down, guests and relatives; a fantastic little company of half-clad people wrapped in shawls and cloaks, for the morning air was crisp. Good nature predominated, though some were inquiring rather pointedly if anything of the Tomlinsons had been touched.

The Tomlinsons, fortunately, had suffered as much as anyone. Miss Ann's stays decorated the pasture fence. Jesse Moffat's socks hung from the top of the windmill. Even the bride had not escaped. The bridal underclothing—which the women had neatly folded the night before—was draped over the tops of the two tall poplars that guarded the family burial ground.

Only one Tomlinson had been passed over by this angel (or demon) of mischief. Nothing belonging to Richard had been touched.

"Where's Thorne?" someone asked suddenly.

It was Judith. She had come down with Richard when the murmuring excitement spreading through the house had reached their room. She had not yet discovered her own loss when Richard, wrapped in a dressing gown, had stepped out into the hall to see what was happening. When he reported that someone had been playing jokes and everyone's clothes were missing Judith had laughed. It all seemed part of the delirium of the night and the luxurious detachment of the morning. And then she glanced toward the chair where her own garments were laid and—she saw that the chair was empty.

Springing from bed in queer panic, she searched frantically all over the room. Her clothes were gone. Richard laughed at her consternation.

"You don't think they'd pass up the bridal chamber," he teased.

"Nothing of yours is gone," said Judith. Her face was pale. She remembered her dream.

But she followed Richard downstairs and listened to the talk of the others. The two cousins from Bridgeport—small, wiry lads and notorious practical jokers—were the favorite suspects. They in turn afHrmed their belief that Richard was the culprit, since nothing of his had been touched. Lucius Goff retorted that Richard had something better to do last night than play pranks on his guests, and then blushed at his own ribaldry when he saw Judith appear with her husband.

"Granted someone was agile enough to climb up there," he said hastily, "granted he was able to collect clothes from every room without waking anyone, I still don't see how he had time to hang so many small articles in so many outlandish places."

"Working by himself, he couldn't," said young Will, "but if he was twins he might," and he cast a dark look at the cousins from Bridgeport.

One of them said quickly, "Nothing but a cat could have crawled that high."

"Or a child," amended his brother.

At this implication Miss Ann said emphatically, "The children slept in my room. I was up and down with them all night. Not one of them could have left his bed without my knowing

it."

"Thorne too?" asked Judith.

Richard gave her a look which she pretended not to sec. But other voices took up the question. Where was Thorne? All who had seen her dance the night before suddenly recalled that her body had seemed as light as thistledown. Would those branches bear her weight?

Ann Tomlinson put an end to all conjecture. "Thorne didn't stir all night. I know, because she slept with me. And she slept like the dead."

Judith shivered. It was just a wedding prank, but it was so queerly, so damnably, like her dream.

It took the better part of the day to dislodge all the pilfered clothing. Ladders were requisitioned; boys with fishing poles

were sent up into the trees. When the last piece of wearing apparel had been extricated from a willow down on the creek the owner was heard to declare, "By golly! There must have been a witch in that house last night." And that was what everyone was saying by the time the tale reached Woodridge.

CHAPTER 15

Seasons were reversed in the country. Winter, the period of greatest activity in town, was the farmer's time of relaxation. Judith had been well aware of this fact when she insisted upon a fall wedding.

She had plans for the winter. It would have shocked the entire family had it been known how long these plans had been incubating. From the moment she first set foot in the house, not quite one year ago, she had mentally tabulated certain changes she would like to make at Timberley.

But she was not long discovering that living among the Tomlinsons as a daughter-in-law was quite another thing to living among them as a boarder. The winter before she had found them completely charming. They were quite as charming now. But she had never been so aware of their formidable unity until she became one of the family. She began to feci that she had married, not a man, but a tribal community in which married daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren had an equal vote with herself. She never had a moment alone with Richard except at bedtime.

Of all the family she preferred young Will, because he was silent and sullen and usually took himself off after supper, either to his own room or into town to see some girl. He had no steady sweetheart, and his trips into Woodridge were matters of anxiety to his mother. After talking to him subtly once or twice, Judith decided that there was basis for Miss Ann's fears. The lad was lonely and in fair danger to get into bad company. He should have had a nice girl whom he could eventually marry. She tucked this knowledge away for future reference and dismissed young Will from her immediate calculations.

She wished she could dismiss the rest of the family as easily. She had, by Thanksgiving, done nothing toward furthering her plans for making Timberley the center of a charming little group of intellectual society and gradually shedding the burden of constantly entertaining relatives and family friends. Richard's education and talents fitted him for leadership in such a society. All he had ever lacked had been a charming cultured wife for hostess.

Early in November she proposed to Richard that they give a small party; just a few congenial spirits interested in discussing something besides neighborhood affairs. He grasped her idea immediately and was enthusiastic. They began to discuss the chosen few—and struck a snag. He insisted that any such gathering at Timberley should include Doc Baird. She had difficulty in making him understand that the local blacksmith was not her idea of gentility. She decided to postpone the whole thing until after the holidays and concentrate on small innovations.

These could be lumped under two heads: domestic and religious. Under the first came house furnishings and service at meals. Under the second, family worship. Her idea on this point was iconoclastic. The family altar had no place in the picture she was creating of modern life in a postwar Timberley. But she was too wise to suggest this to Richard just yet.

She began with lesser changes. "You know, dear, I think we should get rid of that old clock."

They had been married six weeks and still occupied the bird's-eye-maple room. Richard had hinted more than once that it was time they moved downstairs and let Thorne have the smaller chamber, Judith had dealt with this problem by having Jesse Moffat install a heating stove in the room, making it so cozy that Richard had been wooed to its warmth and luxury and finally agreed that the downstairs room be kept for a guest chamber.

He lay now in bed, drowsily comfortable, watching the movement of Judith's bare arms as she brushed her hair for the night. She kept the room at a temperature that made a wrapper unnecessary. Bedtime, she had discovered, was the ideal time for securing his endorsement of controversial issues.

"Did you hear what I said, Richard?" She was watching him in the mirror.

He murmured, "Um ummmmm," his eyes on her breasts as they rose and fell with each upward movement of the arm holding the brush.

"Well--what do you think?"

"I think"—he smiled—"that's it's fun being married to a hussy."

"Richard!" She laid down the brush and reached for a night robe. "I was talking about the clock downstairs."

"What about it?"

"It doesn't run."

"Naturally." He yawned. "It has no mainspring."

"And a new one can't be got, I understand."

"I'm afraid not. It's a very old clock—made in Switzerland. I don't believe parts for it can be bought in this country."

"Then let's get rid of it."

He opened his eyes wide, as though he had been asked to shoot one of the family.

"Get rid of Grandfather Tomlinson's clock? Why, it's over forty years old. Father brought it all the way out here from Virginia."

"But it doesn't keep time. A timepiece that doesn't run and can't be fixed is as useless as a chronic invalid who won't die."

The words had scarcely left her lips before she wondered, in consternation, what had induced her to make such a remark.

He carefully avoided her eyes in the mirror, but he answered casually enough:

"We'll see if it's possible to get a new spring. Mother said the clock had a beautiful tone. I'm sure she'd be glad to hear it striking again."

Judith did not want the clock repaired; she wanted it removed. It was the gloomiest piece of furniture she had ever seen. But when the jeweler in Woodridge reported that only a Swiss clock mender could repair the clock, the family voted unanimously that the defunct timepiece should remain where it was. That was when she learned about the corporate unity of the Tomlinsons.

She was more successful with her mother-in-law.

"Miss Ann, dear, do you mind if we serve the soup first? And then remove the plates before bringing in the meat and vegetables? Let's not put the pie on the table until we have finished with the rest of the meal. It's really no more trouble and it makes more room than putting everything on at once."

Ann Tomlinson had not made up her mind what she thought of this new daughter-in-law and her advanced ideas. She did not consider that it mattered what she thought. She had advanced ideas herself regarding the limitations of parenthood. Richard was no longer the inexperienced lad for whom a bride had been selected willy-nilly. He was a mature man who had made his own choice. He must be allowed to manage this second marriage his own Way. She had held her tongue and refrained from saying one word against it when there was still time. Now that the time was past, her only interest was in co-operation. She had discerned that small things were important to Judith. A pleased wife made a happy husband. Richard's mother could help, at least that much,

"It takes more time, Judith, to serve the meal the way you suggest. The men are always in a hurty at noon. How would you like to try it out at the evening meal?"

Judith was elated with her easy victory until she thought it over later, and then she was not sure whether she or her mother-in-law had scored.

But the more formal service of the evening meal was installed, with Millie grumbling audibly at the extra steps entailed until it was discovered that the table was cleared—or nearly so—by the time the meal was over and the business of dishwashing really expedited. The Tomlinson daughters, on their first visit, were charmed with the arrangement, and Kate announced that she was going to try it in the Turner household. The Tomlinson males—with the exception of Richard--were bored with the whole procedure. Richard declared that he liked it.

It was that way in everything. During the first weeks of their marriage he approved every suggestion Judith made. Many were so impracticable as to impede seriously the work of the busy farm household, but Richard merely advised getting more help if it were needed. Sometimes his brother Will looked at him in exasperation and once scornfully asked if he were losing his wits. Richard's infatuation seemed complete.

But Judith could have told her brother-in-law that actually her influence over her husband went no deeper than the play of sunlight on the face of a cliff. He agreed with her when it was a matter which concerned him little, such as the laying of a supper table. On a question which touched him personally he was impervious as granite.

This was brought home to her very soon after their marriage.

They attended a lecture in Woodridge one evening. It was their first appearance in public since their wedding, and after the speaking they held quite a little reception among their friends. The talk turned on the wedding and the joke that had been played on the overnight guests. Richard was asked if he had ever discovered the identity of the mischief-maker and he answered promptly that he had. His two cousins from Bridgeport had been the culprits.

On the way home in the phaeton Judith said to him, "You really shouldn't have told a falsehood, darling, about our wedding charivari."

"I told no falsehood."

"Of course, dear, I realize you were trying to protect Thorne."

She felt him stiffen at her side.

He said, "The Car boys played the prank, and when they saw how people's clothes were ruined they were ashamed to own up to it."

"Did they confess their guilt to you?"

"They did. I saw them in town the other day and frankly charged them with the mischief."

After a moment's silence Judith said, "I don't believe it was the Gary boys."

"You mean you think I'm lying?"

"No. I mean I don't believe it could have been an adult. Everyone agreed that only a child or small animal could have crawled to the tops of those trees. An animal is out of the question, so it must have been a child. Your boys are much too young. There was only one other child in the house."

He said, "A ladder and a fishing pole were used to bring the clothes down from the trees. The same implements could have been used to put them up there."

"And who," murmured Judith, "is more adept at using theatrical props than Thorne?"

He gave his attention to the horse, who had fallen into a jog.

"Have you ever questioned Thorne about this?" asked Judith.

"No." His voice was the voice of a stranger.

"Then how do you know whether it was her work or not?"

"Because I'm satisfied it was the work of the Car boys."

But still Judith seemed unable to let the matter drop.

"You must remember, Richard, that Thorne went to bed that night very angry at me." This was the first time Judith had alluded to the incident, and she now proceeded to eat humble pie in cathartic doses. She pleaded nerves, headache, all the timeworn feminine alibis for bad temper, concluding meekly, "I take the whole blame. Thorne was perfectly justified in feeling a desire to get even with me for sending her to bed."

"I agree with you," said Richard much too promptly. "But because she was justified, it does not follow that she was capable of harboring a feeling of petty revenge. That prank was horseplay of a very low order; a performance of which Thorne would have been incapable."

''But she's just a child, Richard, with a child's love of mischief. You're making the thing entirely too serious."

"It's you who are making the thing serious, Judith. Even when I tell you that Bob Gary admitted to me that he and his brother planned it in advance, you seem inclined to doubt my word."

Judith said suddenly, "Will you let me do one thing, Richard? Will you let me tell Thorne what you have just told me —and watch her reaction?"

"I intend to tell the whole family. You may watch the reaction of anyone you choose."

He made the disclosure the next morning at breakfast. It was greeted with mingled amusement and indignation. Miss Ann said she had suspected the Bridgeport cousins from the first. Will said he had felt all along it was the work of more than one person. Jesse Moffat was relieved to learn it wasn't witches. Thorne was frankly overjoyed at this proof of her innocence.

"I was afraid people would think I had done it. It was so much like my magic tricks."

"You couldn't have done it, Cricket, with all your cleverness," said Richard. "Not unless you were twins."

Judith did not join in the laughter that greeted her husband's sally. She felt as though she had lost the first skirmish in a battle which had barely begun.

Yet she was very happy those first months of her marriage. He was all that she had anticipated. If he was a little more than she had bargained for, that was only an added stimulus. He was ardent, yet aloof. He delighted and at the same time provoked her. Sometimes she wondered if she ever would know what went on inside his mind. He was a passionate lover but strangely absent-minded. She could not recall that he had ever told her that he loved her.

But he was the man she had desired above all others, and the satisfaction of having him for a husband was worth all it had cost her. She had been obliged to perform a number of unpleasant chores in order to bring the present felicity to pass. She regretted nothing, but she did think it rather too bad that she had to be reminded of Abigail at every turn.

For instance, there was an album on the table in the front room filled with pictures of Abigail and Abigail's relatives. Judith saw no reason why that album couldn't be put away with the dead woman's other things, instead of being left out where she must look at it. She had a queer compulsion which moved her, every time she was near the album, to open it and look at Abigail's picture. It was most unpleasant.

She took the matter up with Richard in a roundabout way.

''There don't seem to be any Tomlinsons in the album."

He answered, "Not in that one. That's the Huse family album. Abigail had it before we were married."

"Don't you think, dear—I mean—really, it's not good taste to keep family pictures in the front room, is it?"

"I don't know." He glanced at the fireplace, above which hung portraits of his Tomlinson grandparents. "Most people around here keep family photographs—if they're fortunate enough to have any—where they can be seen."

"But these are photographs of strangers."

'They are my children's maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins," said Richard quietly. "And the only likenesses we have of their mother."

"Oh, I didn't mean " Judith blushed at her own faux pas. "Of course the pictures will be priceless to Ricky and Rodgie when they're older. That's the reason they should be put somewhere for safekeeping."

"Where would you suggest?" he seemed amenable. "Maybe we'd better take them upstairs to our room."

Judith repressed a slight shudder. "I don't think they should be kept out at all. They should be preserved, like the treasured heirlooms they are. Didn't"—finding it impossible to speak Abigail's name, she was at a loss what to call her—"didn't the boys' mother have a chest in her room in which she kept her most cherished belongings?"

"Yes."

"Then why not put the album of photographs in there?" Judith looked up from her work to find him regarding her with a curious smile.

"All right," he said, "if it bothers you having them around."

She flushed. "It doesn't bother me. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I merely "

"I think it does," he interrupted, still smiling. "I think you find it unpleasant to open the album and see Abigail staring back at you. Of course you don't have to open it every time you pass the table "

"We'll say no more about it, Richard." She bent over her fancywork with flaming cheeks.

"Oh, come now. I was only teasing. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Judith. I believe second wives are supposed to feel that way about things belonging to the first. And I think I'm supposed to feel flattered."

She hated the whole conversation. She resented the mischievous twinkle which usually she adored. She loathed being reminded that she was a second wife.

"Please, Richard, don't say any more."

But he picked up the album and left the room. When he returned he tossed a small key into her lap.

"The album is now in the chest, along with her quilts and silver. The chest is locked, and there is the key."

"Keep it yourself," muttered Judith, and tossed it back to him. He caught it, laughing, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and slipped it on the ring.

"Abigail was a great one to hoard silver," he went on. "Would you believe it, her purse was filled with quarters and dimes, besides four silver dollars and a fifty-cent piece."

"What did you do with them?" asked Judith idly.

"Oh, I put them back for the boys. They're quite a rarity these days. She must have had them before we were married, because this house hasn't seen any silver since before the war."

As he put his key ring back in his pocket he drew forth a roll of paper money: two-dollar bills, one-dollar bills, and small currency as low as ten cents in value. "Shinplasters," he chuckled. "How Abigail detested shinplasters. And brass and wooden tokens for nickels and pennies."

"Is it absolutely necessary that we discuss Abigail?" asked Judith sharply.

He glanced at her in mild astonishment. "Why, no, I wasn't aware that I was discussing her. I was talking about postwar currency." He returned the money to his pocket, but he continued to look curiously at his wife.