The Siren's Tale (24 page)

Because of the day’s
former heat, the windows were wide open, and as she got nearer she could hear voices from within.

“
Please, doctor, what's her condition? Does she know me? Why don't she speak?”

Instantly she froze. The voice was her husband's
! But to whom was he attending? She felt a spasm of curiosity, followed by a determination to learn who it was with her own eyes. She made her way through the small, stifling room, quickly and silently.

As she moved forward, no one moved aside for her
or looked at her. How odd she felt! But her gaze was fixed on Nick at the far end of the room. He was bent over a rude cot, with a bearded doctor in close attendance. Who could the sick person be?

“
I'm afraid her condition is very serious,” said the doctor. “The poisonous bite and heat prostration have slowed her pulse to almost nothing.”

“
I always told mother not to walk in this weather. But she wouldn't listen,” said Nick in such a mournful voice that Cassandra shuddered. She stood still, absorbing the shock. The afflicted person on the cot was Mother Brighton. For a long time there was utter silence in the room. Then there was the sound of very loud snoring. 

“
Doctor, what does it mean?” asked Nick in the same agonized voice.

The doctor d
id not reply at once. He held the old woman's limp wrist in his hand. “I’m sorry, son. She is sinking fast. She may have had a weakened heart already, and what happened today has been too much for her.” 

Just then the door of the cabin opened, and the crowd parted to let someone through.
Cassandra looked around with the others and was very surprised to see her houseboy making his way through the crowd. She had thought Horatio would be safely home in Alta long before.

The lad stopped and looked around drowsily, as though he were sleepwalking
. Instinctively Cassandra turned her face away; if anyone could see through her invisibility cloak, it would be this boy. But Horatio took no notice as he moved past her and slowly made his way to the cot where the unconscious woman lay.

H
e cried out when he saw her, and the crowd went completely still. 

“
I’ve got something to say,” said Horatio in a shrill voice. “That woman lying there said I was to tell everyone how I seen her today, and that she was a broken-hearted woman rejected by her son.” A muffled cry of pain escaped Nicholas.

Cassandra moved rapidly to the bedside, and she silently willed Mrs. Brighton to hang onto life.
There was a reedy, gasping sound from the old woman's throat, as though she were trying to speak, and then a horrifying stillness.

“
It is all over,” said the doctor, gently pulling the rough blanket over her face.

Cassandra hastily pulled the cowl of her cloak
closely around her face and moved quickly through the crowd and out the door. Her invisibility was fading as she reached the place where she had left the lantern. Holding up the lantern, she stared down into a puddle of water, and even though it was dark, she could see she was visible again. Then she looked back to the road.

A procession was moving along slowly,
led by Horatio Nelson. It was wending its way by lantern light toward the dead woman’s home, bearing the draped body aloft.

Weeping, Cassandra
ran into the cabin, not knowing what else to do except wait for her husband. There was a clap of thunder, the winds came up, and the rain came down sideways, taking the remaining heat with it. 

BANG
BANG BANG
.

She
opened the cabin door, and there were her husband's friends, drenched through. Sam and Jason had brought him home on the back of his horse.

“
Come in, please.”

“
We won't stay, ma'am,” said Sam. “We thought we should tell you. Your husband lost consciousness after his mother passed away in Bulette, about a mile from here. You best watch him close tonight.”

Overnight
, Nick regained consciousness, but he did not recognize his wife. She was stricken with terrible guilt and fear, the worst she had ever felt, as he ranted and raved incoherently. What if he died? For some reason, it had never before occurred to her that Nicholas, too, was in danger of falling victim to Widow Brown's curse. She herself had fallen prey to a religious superstition, believing that the sacred words they uttered in the church would somehow protect him. Now, here was a first death that might be laid at her doorstep by ignorant villagers, if they knew the whole story. She wondered if there might be something to that curse after all.

I stopped my play on the zither.
I had been drawn out by the bright, chilly light of the big harvest moon to our front gate. I stopped when I saw that Sam, my husband's friend, was approaching the cabin.

“
Good evening, Sam.”

At the sound of my voice, Sam drew back nervously, and I wondered what was being said in Alta
in the weeks since the funeral.

“
How is your husband tonight?”

“
Better, but still unwell.”

“
Is he still insensible, ma’am?”

“
Of course not. He regained consciousness the night of the unfortunate accident.” 

“
It was very unfortunate,” said Sam, stressing his words, “that poor Horatio ever spoke out with his mother’s dying words.”

“
In point of fact, they were not her dying words. Mother Brighton died in my husband’s arms without a word of reproach. Horatio, who works for us, was on the knoll picking berries when he spotted her. She had already been bit by the adder. He didn’t know who she was, nor the state of her health. Evidently the poison made her lose her mind. Or else he misunderstood what she said.”

“
So it ain’t clear yet, what she was doin’ out in all that heat?” asked Sam.

“
No.” 

He was eying me suspiciously.
“You wasn't there, so how could you know? I was. I went and got the brandy for Mr. Brighton to give her.”

“
Then you know what I say is true. I have it on good authority she was unable to speak a word, not a single word.”

“
Yes, that is so, I guess. It must prey on his mind some. Mr. Brighton’s, I mean. Not having his mother’s blessing at the last.”

“
Surely there were blessings given on both sides, just not spoken.” I gazed straight into Sam's eyes, willing him to believe me. 

“
I am sure you're right. They had been very close at one time,” answered Sam readily. Having achieved the desired aim, I turned away to end the conversation.

“
I won’t trouble you no more, ma’am. We are all prayin’ for him.”

“
Thank you, Sam.”

I entered the house and went into the front bedroom, where a single light was burning. In the bed lay Nicholas, pale, haggard,
and tossing from one side to the other, his weak eyes shaded with a dark cloth. 

“
Is that you, Cassandra?” he said as I sat down on the bed. “I thought I heard you playing outside.”

“
Yes, Nick, I was playing. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“
And how restless you must be, taking care of me hour after hour.”

“
The moon is shining beautifully,” I said hopefully. “Not a leaf is stirring. It would be a lovely time for us to take a turn in the garden.”

His mood
s turned on a dime, and he lashed out. “But what is a moon to me? I wish I may never see another without her.”

“
Don’t talk like that, Nick. It is too morbid.”

“
I can’t help but think as I lie here, I did my utmost to kill her. I don’t deserve to see another moon while she lies in a dark grave.”

“
Nick, please don’t return to that thought, dear.”   

“
It is useless to excuse me. My conduct to her was hideous! I made no attempt to see her, and she couldn't bring herself to forgive me. Now she is dead, and I am too late.”

There was no
power I possessed that could make a dent in his grief. Clearly, he was in love with his morbid emotions more than he was with his life.

“
If I had only met her halfway, shown myself willing to be friends. She didn’t know I was going to her house that night. She was too insensible to hear me when I told her, I am sure of it.”

“
You don’t know that, Nick. She might have heard every word you uttered. You were there with her at the end. That is all that matters, isn’t it? Be practical.”

“
How can I? If I were a practical man, I would not have waited until it was too late to see her! My blindness now looks like a punishment for my foolishness.”

A sigh escaped me, but luckily it went unheeded.

“If I could only get one assurance that she forgave me.”

“
But Nick, you just said yourself that she was at heart a forgiving woman. Of course she was ready to forgive you! Weren’t you there, holding her hand, offering a son’s devotion and loving words? Didn’t you do everything humanly possible to save her?”

He
took off the cloth and looked at me blankly. “How would you know? You weren't there!” 

I bowed my
head, afraid to say more. I was preparing to leave the room so he could sleep, when he began again. “If only she hadn't died thinking I was angry at her. That is the worst of what I have to bear. It drives me mad!”

I'm sorry to say I was thinking
other men’s mothers have died without their sons going all to pieces. Nicholas glared at me. Had he guessed my disloyal thought? His tone was petulant when he said, “Why don't you accuse me of killing her? I could stand that better than your thinking me mad. How long was I out of my senses?”

“
Two days.”

“
And then I became calm.”

“
Yes, for seven days.”

“
And now I have left off being calm, and you are unhappy with me.”

“
No, no. But do try to be quiet and you will get stronger, Nick. If you could remove that insane impression from your mind that you're at fault—”

“
Yes, yes, I know you all want that from me. My cousin Clare said the same thing when she was here. Was that yesterday?”

“
Yes, she came with the baby. He is a darling little guy, and they named him after you. He seemed to take to you. Do you remember? When you get stronger, we can go visit them.”

“
But I don’t want to get strong. My mother is dead. It would be better for me to die, and it would certainly be better for Cassandra. Is Cassandra here?”

“
I am here, Nick.”

“
Certainly it would be better for you if I die.”

“
Don’t say that. It isn't true. Nick, would you like for me to play for you again? It seemed to calm you earlier. I could go outside and play, if the strings set your nerves on edge too much when I play close by.”   

“
No thank you dear. Unfortunately, I am going to live, whether I am calm or agitated. I feel myself getting stronger.”

H
e suddenly changed the subject. “How long is Clare going to stay in Alta, now her husband has come into all that money?”

“
A few more months. They are thinking of moving to Casper and then traveling abroad. As you speak of Clare, remember what she said on her visit. She said your mother would certainly have reconciled with you, had she lived. So it’s not just I who thinks you are grieving yourself unnecessarily, Nick. Clare said that you must not take a one-sided view. When your mother said those awful, unfair words to Horatio, you had not found her and taken her into your arms.”

“
Clare said all that, did she? Well, I don’t recall it. But my mother refused to come to see me, though I asked her to the wedding and to come visit us after. Had she come to our home, she would never have died saying, ‘I'm a broken-hearted woman, rejected by my son.’ My door has always been open to her. A welcome here has always awaited her. But she never came to receive it. I don't understand why.”

The turn his monologue had taken was making me extremely nervous. I bustled about the room to hide my agitation.
“You had better not talk any more now, Nick.” I soon found an excuse to flee into the room at the back, where I burst into tears.  

I could see no alternative but to continue in my self-imposed hell, sitting hour after hour listening to my husband’s self-incriminations, knowing all the while t
hat I alone was at fault. My guilty conscience was troubling me greatly, but how could I tell him the truth about that day without hurting him even more? What if he went insane? What if rage made his eyesight further disintegrate? What if the news actually killed him?

My dreams were no help. I continued to see the old image of Drake lying dead at my feet. What could it possibly mean? Had I not sacrificed our relationship so I would not be the cause of his death? Had I done so for nothing? Indeed, m
y dreams were growing far more troublesome to me as time passed. One night I no longer saw only Drake. I also saw my husband lying dead among the ashes of a fallen building. The vision frightened me so much that I gave up on my new resolve to tell Nicholas the truth about the part I had played in his mother's last day on earth.

My worst fear continued to be that Nick
would slide back into madness and die, fulfilling Widow Brown's prophecy that all associated with the siren are destined to suffer untimely ends. And so I continued to resist my nature and to say nothing. I had a presentiment that my continuing to stay would end in disaster, but Nicholas needed me too much for me to entertain any thought of leaving.

As the October days passed,
Nicholas slowly began to return to health. He was able to work in the garden when the autumn rains permitted it, and I was grateful for the improvement.

The remaining cloudiness in Nicholas's brain prevented him from doing much that was practical, including matters that needed to be attended to at the Grange. One evening in the third week of October, he was standing in his garden with a weeding hoe, lost in thought, when a bony figure turned in through the gate. 

Nicholas looked up and thought he saw Thomas Hawker,
formerly his mother’s employee, approaching.

“
Thomas, is that you?” he asked. “Or are you a shade from the beyond?” 

“
It is I, Thomas,” the young man said, with a shudder at the blind man's reference.

“
My vision still isn't what it should be. How are things at the Grange?”

“
The very reason I’ve come to see you, sir. The ranch foreman says to tell you the herd is increased, and he would like your approval to go to auction.”

“
Yes, of course. I’ll go over and meet with him. I have been negligent in not doing it sooner. Heaven help me! There is so much to be done at the Grange, and here I am tending to myself. Thomas, I’ll want your assistance in helping me put the house in order.  Is it locked up as we left it?”

“
Yes, Master Nicholas.”

“
Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?”

“
Yes, and without a drop of rain, thank God.”

Nicholas turned the hoe around and around in his hand absently, but his voice was sharp
er when he spoke again. “Now listen closely to me, Thom.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Did you see my mother the morning before she died?”

“
No, sir, I did not.”

Nicholas’s face showed
disappointment.

“
But I seen her the evening before.”

His master’s face lit up with wonder.
“Really? Amazing! Tell me more!”

“
The garden vegetables were all wilting with the heat. I had to ask her what to do with them. I brought some in for her dinner table, and I overheard her say she was going away the next day. I recollect that is what she said.”

“
Going away? To see whom?”

“
To see you. She was coming here to your house. You understand me, sir?”

Nicholas regarded Thomas with intense surprise.
“Well, no, I don’t understand. Why didn’t you ever mention this before, Thomas?”

“
I ain’t seen you, Master Nicholas, as you ain’t been yourself. And anyways, as I heard it told, she wasn't in your house. So I didn’t think of it as somethin’ to speak of.”

“
I’ve been wondering all this time what in the devil she was doing over here! Well, did she tell you what she was coming to me for? Think hard, Thom, for I’m very anxious to know.”

“Well, she didn’t say nothing to me about it. But come to think on it, she may have said to someone else.”

“Who, Thom?”

“I hope you won’t mention my name to him. I’m afraid of him, and I’m not ashamed to say so to you. He used to be all black, and now they say he is the ice man. But it makes me nervous to think on him, just the same. I seen him one night—it was last Fire Night, almost a year ago—and he give me the creeps, like he was a fiend of the devil.”

“
Man, you don’t mean you regard Caleb in that superstitious light?”