The dark fantastic (33 page)

"Come up here, Thorne. I want to talk to you."

"In a minute. Soon as I get something to eat." Thorne had been too busy with Jane's baby to make herself any dinner.

When she appeared in Judith's doorway she had a slice of bread and butter in one hand and an apple, rosy as her cheeks, in the other. Her hair was flying, her dress was soiled, and there was a rent in her stocking where she had climbed a fence. Never had she looked more like a heedless gypsy.

''Did you want something, Judith?" Her mouth was so full she could barely articulate.

To an onlooker it would have seemed the height of absurdity that the little hoyden could possibly be an object of jealousy to the carefully groomed woman plying the knitting needles. Yet the hatred in Judith's heart was so vehement that it gave her strength such as she had not felt since her ill-health began. No emotion she had ever experienced, not even her passion for Richard, was so exhilarating as was this violent anger against Thorne. It seemed to justify everything she had done, everything she purposed to do. It even made her forget for the moment the pain which now almost ceaselessly clutched at her throat.

"Are you feeling ill again, Judith?''

'I'm feeling quite well, thank you."

"If there's anything I can do for you "

"There's something you can do for all of us, Thorne. That's what I want to talk to you about." Judith's voice was gentle, holding no threat of what was coming.

"What do you mean?" asked Thorne.

"I should think it might have occurred to youwithout my suggestion. After last night."

"what do you know about last night?"

"I know all about last night. Richard has told me. As of course you would have known he'd do had you been a little older. Men always tell their wives, Thorne. That's what girls of a certain type never seem to understand."

"But " Thorne was bewildered. It was Richard's privilege, perhaps his duty, to repeat to his wife the conversation he had had with Thorne by the kitchen fire. Though in Thorne's code of ethics such behavior was not only unnecessary but extremely silly. Still, if Richard had confessed to Judith that he had asked Thorne to go away with him, then he must also have told her that Thorne had refused.

"Did he tell you everything, Judith?"

"Everything."

"On both sides?"

"On both sides."

Thorne considered this a moment. "Well, maybe it's better that he did. At least you know why I'm staying on here. I had decided to run away. Until I found that Richard planned to go with me."

Judith lifted her eyes from the sock she was knitting.

"Don't lie, please. I'll grant it's revolting to think of a girl so young trying to entice a married man from his wife and children under his own mother's roof—though with your background such morals are to be expected—but please don't lie. It's quite useless."

Thorne's astonishment at hearing herself thus branded as a home wrecker was so great that she stood speechless, staring at the woman who was damning her so very genteelly.

"I've expected something like this for a long while," Judith went on. "I've watched you throwing yourself at Richard in a way that—well, if you hadn't been so very young I should have ordered you out of the house. But I knew how friendless you were and how kind my husband is, even to dumb animals. We've talked it over many times. He always said that turning you out was like abandoning a homeless dog. But after last night he realized you were not a fit person to live in the same house with his wife and mother. So he asked me to tell you that you must leave."

Judith's eyes dropped to the work in her hands. Thorne's remained fixed upon the woman who had just uttered this outrageous falsehood. That it was a falsehood, Thorne never doubted for a second. Her faith in Richard was unshakable.

Yet Judith was Richard's wife, just as Abigail had been his wife. And Judith had succeeded to Abigail's jealousy as she had succeeded to her husband. Richard was bound until death to this woman, for there was no tolerance for divorce in the strict creed of the Tomlinsons. So long as Thorne remained at Timberley, Judith would make Richard's life a torment, as Abigail had done.

"I'll go, Judith. But not for the reason you ask. I don't know what Richard said to you. You must have misunderstood him. For he would never have lied about me. And it would have been a shameful lie if he had told you I asked him to go away with me. I love him far too much to let him do a thing that would bring disgrace on himself."

"Oh! You admit that you love him."

"Of course I do. I've never pretended anything else, I've always loved him; I always shall. But it's not true that I tried to take him from you. It was to keep him from leaving Timberley that I promised to stay here and go on as we had before."

"What do you mean—go on as youhad before?"

"Nothing—I meant nothing, Judith Don't, please!"

Thorne backed away in sudden fear, for Judith had risen, the long steel knitting needle clutched like a dagger in her hand, and was coming closer and closer as Thorne retreated toward the door,

"Tell me what you promised to go on doing that you had done before!" The terrible gasping voice hissed the words in Thorne's face while the point of the needle pressed her breast.

But Thorne was too frightened to speak. All her old fear of Abigail came upon her, only now it was fear of Judith and ten times more potent. For Abigail, at her worst, had threatened only banishment. But Judith, Thorne suddenly realized, would be capable of doing an adversary to death.

With a smothered scream she broke from Judith's clutch and fled in terror from the room, from the house, and down the long slope to the grove.

Judith, watching from her window, saw her disappearing beneath the canvas top of a covered wagon.

As Richard came up to the house at dusk he had to stop in the lane to let a wagon pass. He smiled at the ludicrous banner announcing its destination and waved farewell to the driver, the only occupant in sight. The rest of the migrant family was under cover, and as the lumbering vehicle pulled out on the turnpike, the popular ditty of the road— slightly revised—floated back on the evening breeze:

"I come from Pennsyvania, my banjo on my knee, I'm goin' to California, my true love for to see: Oh Susanna, oh don't you cry for me . . ,"

CHAPTER 25

There was a first and second supper table at Timberley that evening, for among the people who had come out from Woodridge were a number to whom the Tomlinson hospitality was a matter of course. John Barclay, Dr. Caxton, Doc Baird, and that loquacious war veteran, Mitch Rucker, were among those who put their legs under the long table that night. Mitch declared he had not seen anything since Bull Run to equal the day's excitement.

"I've a standing offer of five hundred dollars to anybody who'll explain the bricks your wife saw, Richard. Or produce the ones we heard whiz through the air. I don't expect to be taken up." Which was just as well, since Mitch hadn't five hundred dollars to his name.

They were halfway through the meal before Richard noticed Thorne's absence. The children were being served in the kitchen, and he supposed she was with them.

But when the company adjourned to the front room after supper and Thorne still did not put in an appearance, Richard drew his mother aside and asked her to send Thorne in.

"I don't want her hidden away. Mother, It looks as though we thought her guilty of something."

"No one's hiding her away, son. She's not here."

"Where is she?"

"She hasn't come back from Jane's yet."

"Then I'll go for her. It's too late for her to come home alone."

"You have company, Richard. Your place is here. Jane won't send the child home alone, they'll probably keep her all night."

The company stayed late. There was much talk. Because there was not a person present who hadn't some anecdote or theory to add to the rapidly growing legend of the brick throwing.

Dr. Caxton said, "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed an entire community could so hypnotize itself as to credit what did not exist. Half the people who were here today will tell their grandchildren, years hence, about seeing bricks from nowhere crash through the Tomlinsons' window."

Miss Ann glanced uneasily at her daughter-in-law. Judith had appeared at the supper table, looking much as usual and apparently in better spirits than she had been all day. Ann Tomlinson hoped this talk would not disturb her,

"Otis Huse was out there this afternoon," she said, to change the subject. "I expected him to come up to the house for supper. But he drove away."

This turned the talk on Huse and his long-standing grudge against Richard. It was agreed that Huse would stop at nothing to embarrass the man of whom he had always been jealous. But here, even the lawyer's disparagers stopped and went no farther. No one who had mingled with the excited mob that afternoon could accuse Otis Huse of having assembled it.

The strangest experience of the day was reported by John Barclay and Doc Baird.

"Doc and I went close to the house once," said the schoolmaster. "Doc stood in front of the window. I stood not far from the door. We determined to stand there until somebody fancied he heard another brick coming."

Richard grinned. He seemed determined to treat the whole thing lightly. "Weren't you afraid you might be struck?"

The blacksmith said gravely, "I wish I had been."

"Why?"

"That would have proved that bricks were being thrown," said Doc, and glanced significantly at Judith.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the group.

"Well," said Richard after a pause, "I suppose when no trick came "

A voice said coldly, "A brick did come." It was the first time Judith had spoken. She looked straight at the schoolmaster. "Tell them, Mr. Barclay."

Barclay, visibly embarrassed, took up the tale. "Somebody in the crowd called out that he heard a brick coming. Someone else cried that he heard it fall. A few minutes later we heard a muffled scream within the house. Doc and I rushed inside and found Miss Judith. She was staring at—a spot on the floor."

Judith said in the same cold voice, "Of course either of you could have removed the brick."

"We could have," said John Barclay, "but we didn't."

"Because," said Doc, "there was no brick to remove."

Judith's hands gripped the arms of her chair to still their trembhng. "You accuse me of lying?"

"We know you're not lying," said the blacksmith solemnly. "You saw something on the floor that frightened you speechless. We saw nothing at all. That's why I said I wished I had been struck by a brick."

Richard said matter-of-factly, "what Juditli saw on the floor was a spot of sunshine," and put an end to ghostly speculation.

But the pallor of Judith's face caused Dr. Caxton to look at her sharply. She laughed to show how little the talk affected her. But there was a shrillness in her laughter that the doctor did not like. lie lingered a moment when the other men had departed.

"You don't look so good tonight. Miss Judith. Maybe I'd better leave you a dose of calomel. Spring of the year makes people bilious."

"If you leave me anything, Doctor, let it be some more of that sedative."

"Still having trouble sleeping?"

"Now and then,"

"Well, go light on this." He handed her a bottle from the black bag without which he never traveled. "You can't take this like you took that other stuff. Enough of this will put you to sleep permanently."

Judith smiled. "You can trust me to use it in the right proportions."

When the doctor had gone Judith said to her husband, 'Your friends tried their best to make me believe I've been seeing supernatural manifestations. It's what might be expected from that ignorant blacksmith. But I'm surprised at a man of John Barclay's intelligence."

Richard's reply was smothered in a yawn. He had decided in his own mind that Judith was malingering and he was no longer concerned with what she saw or claimed to see. He was troubled and uneasy because Thorne had stayed at Jane's. He was afraid something had been said to hurt her feelings, but he did not like to start another argument with his wife. So he banked the fire and mumbled good night and waited for Judith to go upstairs so that he could go to bed in the alcove. The rest of the family had retired.

But Judith had something on her mind. She was burning to know if he had missed Thorne.

"By the way," she said casually, "where was Thorne this evening?"

"She's spending the night at Jane's."

"Oh. I see." She stood turning the bottle of sedative in her hands.

"Don't take too much of that stuff, Judith."

"Why?"

"I heard what Dr. Caxton told you."

"Would  you care, Richard, if I took too much?"

He looked at her sharply; alarmed, at first, then exasperated.

"I think you'd better give it to me."

He reached for the bottle. She surrendered it obediently, like a child. She was in a queer mood tonight.

He said, "I'll bring this up to you if you need it. But try to sleep without it tonight." He yawned elaborately. "Better get to bed now. We're both tired and sleepy."

But she still lingered. "Richard "

"Yes?"

"Surely you're not sleeping down here tonight."

"Why not? Tm not afraid of your bricks."

"I don't mean that."

She came close to him; her perfumed hands touched his face.

"Darling, haven't you sulked long enough? Come back upstairs to our room and stop behaving like a bad little boy."

The exquisite scent which had once stirred his senses no longer moved him. There was nothing left of their relationship except a strange feeling of guilt. Why this should be when she was his wife, he did not try to understand. But he knew now that always there had been between them the dark thrill of something illicit.

"I'll sleep down here, Judith."

The gentleness of his tone misled her.

"I'll stay with you then," she whispered.

"No." He spoke with harsh finality, so that she drew away from him. "There is too much that is wrong between us, Judith."