The Siren's Tale (27 page)

While she was dressing, Nicholas walked
moodily up and down outside her room. At last she came out, while attempting to tie on her bonnet. Her white hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t tie the strings.

Seeing this, he
moved forward and said glumly, “Let me.”

She
lifted her chin, the tears streaming down. The strings tied at last, she turned from him resolutely and pulled on her gloves.

“
Do you still prefer to be the one who goes away?” he asked.

“
I do.”

“
Very well. When you confess the name of the man, I may have pity on you and allow you to return.”

“
That will never happen.”

“
So be it.”

Cassandr
a raised her chin proudly. She turned and went to the front door, leaving him behind. When Nicholas heard the front door close, he buried his face in his hands. Deeply, in the recesses of his wounded soul, despite outraged pride and suspicions about her nature, he already missed her, and he longed for her to return. 

“
God help me,” he muttered, “she has worked her way into my very soul.”

My strong emotions after the collision with Nick made the five-mile walk to Alta seem the longest, most arduous journey I had ever undertaken.

Halfway there, I realized I had left my zither behind. I was wearing my traveling cloak, but in the lonely journey ahead of me, I would want the assistance of both instruments of power. Yet,
I did not go back. Instead, I soldiered on, reflecting on the great irony that Mother Brighton had managed to do in death what she had not been able to do in life: separate me from her precious son. Even if she had been a siren, she could not have done a better job at getting her way.

However, it is
not in my nature to look back after a defeat. Having decided to release Nicholas from my web, I was resolved it would be a final and permanent release. Nor should anyone imagine I was headed for my lover, the man I had snared, then spared, then snared again. It was far too late in the game for Curly. Despite my recent sexual relapse, I was not in fact running from Nick to Curly. For one thing, satisfying my sexual desire did not extend to tearing a man away from a newborn child and its mother. Clare had shown me only kindness when others cursed me. I was grateful to her and would not take Curly away from her again.   

It began to rain
as I came into the third mile of my journey, and so it was with relief that I saw Caleb Scattergood approach in a new van and a jingling team of horses. I stood and waited for him to stop, staring at him through the rain. He was like a guardian angel who always seemed to arrive when I needed him. 

“
Whoa!” he called out. “May I give you a ride somewhere, Mrs. Brighton?”

“
How kind you are!” I said in my brightest voice. “I wasn't expecting this weather when I set out. If it is no inconvenience, I was hoping to make it to my grandfather's home. I should have taken a carriage, but I fancied the exercise would do me good.”

“
No inconvenience at all,” said Caleb.  “I was just going on to Alta myself.”

The sight of the beautiful woman standing motionless on the road to Alta brought vividly to Caleb's mind his first sight of her almost exactly a year ago. The dazzling image had burned into his brain so intensely at the time that, to right himself, he had jumped from the driver's seat of his sheep wagon and looked inside at Clare Brighton, who was sleeping there in his charge. The newcomer, Cassandra Vye, had stood at the Hat, motionless and beautiful as a statue of a Greek goddess, her cape blowing about her. Since then, it was odd how their paths seemed to intersect at fateful moments.

He helped Cassandra
up into his ice wagon, which was twice the size of his old sheep cart. They rode on together amicably. She charmed her rescuer with intelligent and lively questions about his business, which he was pleased to answer. As they caught the first sight of the knoll beside Mill's Creek Pond, he thought to ask her about Nicholas.

Had the young man solved the puzzle of his mother’s sudden lapse of good will toward him in the last hours of her life?
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her, but then he saw there were tears standing in Mrs. Brighton's extraordinary lashes.

As they approached the stone house, it
appeared too dark and shut up for the Captain to be expecting a visitor. What, Caleb wondered, was the pagan queen really up to?

He decided to play dumb. There was no time for further interference in Cassandra's eventful life. Caleb
was anticipating an event of his own. He would be staying at the Plush Horse Inn over the First Fire Night holiday as a paying guest and delivering to Mrs. Drake a small goat cart he had built for her son. In his knapsack was a homespun Indian blanket, which he intended to present this evening as a soft lining for the baby's goat cart, should he be fortunate enough to find his beloved home alone. 

The upcoming First Fire Night marked the one-year anniversary of his rescuing Clare from her aborted wedding day. He wanted no
thanks, but he was glad to be able to afford a holiday after a year of slavish devotion in her service. He didn't regret his efforts, even if her marriage had proved to be a failure. In his breast pocket was the sweet note of thanks Clare had written him after he had safely delivered the family’s silver coins to her. The note meant more to him than all his new customers combined.

Caleb
had the words memorized, but he loved the ritual of taking the letter out of his breast pocket, unfolding it, putting on his spectacles, and reading it. He fancied he could breathe in Clare's good heart through the starchy odor of the vellum: “The delicate consideration you always show for my feelings,” she wrote, “proves you are a true gentleman and a discreet and stalwart friend. I hope you will never be a stranger.”

How much better this was than reading her older letter, rejecting his marriage proposal! Slowly but surely, progress was being made by beauty's dog.

After Caleb deposited his beautiful and grateful passenger at the top of the drive at Mill's Creek, he lashed his horses and drove off smartly. He did so without looking back.

And so Cassandra trudged alone to the
unlighted door of her grandfather’s stone house. It was locked! This was an unexpected problem and an especially unwelcome one. In her haste to get away, she had left her key to Mill's Creek in her dresser.

“
Oh no!” she groaned, as the clouds opened again, and their contents burst forth. “Not more cold rain!” She knocked again and again, but no one answered.

L
ike the heart of a man, a locked door was something she was equipped to defeat. Yet she hesitated to exert her powers, which had already caused her so much heartache. The rain was soaking through her bonnet and turning her red-gold curls into a damp mess around her shoulders. Shivering, she walked around the back of the house to see if anyone was in the barn.  

Just then a male voice pierced through the mist coming
from the near side of the pond. “Miss Cassandra! Is that you?”

“
Horatio!” she cried out. “Please, come here at once!”

The lanky lad came around the pond at a run, skidding to a stop about a yard away from her.
“Jeez, you’re all wet,” he said.

“
Don’t curse, Horatio. Can you get me into the house? It is locked and I don't have my key. Hurry, please!”

“
I don’t have a key either, Miss—I mean Madam. Captain always before left it unlocked, except this time he locked it. He has gone to Casper to get the roadster repaired.”

“
Oh! Fine thing!” she said, stamping her foot. “His machine hiccups, and I’m left standing out in the rain, catching my death!”

Her face showed more
distress than anyone besides Horatio would have thought was warranted. For Horatio, however, Cassandra’s every whim was an explicit command. He had always regarded her as a goddess, scarcely human.

“
No worries, Miss—Madam. I’ll shimmy up the ivy vines and find you a way inside. Here, take this; it will keep you a mite warmer and drier.” 

He handed her his
long sheepskin coat, which she quickly put on over her thin, wet traveling cloak. When she regarded him gratefully with dewy topaz eyes, he thought his heart would break with his hopeless, adoring love for her.

“
Up I go!” he called, grasping a heavy rope of ivy with the tenacity of a monkey and scooting along with his feet toward a tall, leaded glass window.

“
Oh no!” cried out Cassandra. “Don’t break grandfather’s—”

C-c-r-r-r-a-a-c-c-k-k-k
. 

Swinging his feet backward and then downward through the largest of the heavy glass panes, shattering it into a million pieces, Horatio rapidly propelled himself
through the gaping hole. He landed with a thud onto the stone floor of the living room. Cassandra remained speechless until the front door opened, and Horatio stood there with a wide, toothy grin, having miraculously survived without more than a few bloody scratches.

“
The Captain will tan you a new hide,” she said, sweeping through the doorway with some of her former grand manner. Her wet head was held high and her topaz eyes were flashing. “Please turn on the gas lamps and light a fire in here. You may stay for tea if you like.”

“
Thank you,” he said, promptly turning to the tasks at hand.

Within a half hour, the fireplace was blazing and the chill
was off the living room. Horatio crouched by the settle, gazing longingly at the white hands of his mistress, who sat in a cozy old-fashioned horsehair chair, big as a donkey wagon. Her bare feet were tucked in and the rest of her was bundled up in a huge buffalo robe that her grandfather sometimes lounged around in.

The best teacups were laid out, and Horatio was told to pour. 

“Not too full,” she ordered. “No spills on the cherry tray. I suppose there is no food in the house.”

“
Not that I know of. I can run and get some rum cake from my mother’s house. It won’t take me more than an hour.”

“
In this downpour? I’m not that cruel. Anyway, I don’t care for rum cake.”

“
Well, to tell the truth, it's what’s left from last night’s supper and probably stale.”

“
Always tell the truth, Horatio. Honesty turns out to be the best policy.” She laughed, then sighed deeply.

“
Yes, Miss—Madam.”

“
You may continue to call me Miss. If the shoe fits…”

The silence lengthened in the room. Horatio had no
idea of what her unannounced visit meant, but he was ready to fetch and carry for his mistress, whatever she might desire. He cracked his knuckles.

“
Hadn’t you better be getting along home? I’m sure your mother is looking for you.”

“
Well, I was hoping you might let me stay in the piano room tonight, if it ain’t too much trouble, Miss. I get the fever when I go out in the rain, and mother says I am not to get wet if I can help it.”

“
So you were willing to run through the rain for rum cake, but now you want to stay here. Well, I don’t mind having someone else in the house. When is my grandfather returning?”

“
I expect him back first thing tomorrow, Miss. I was just doing chores in the barn when you arrived.”

“
Obviously, he wasn’t expecting me tonight.” She sighed again. “I suppose I may tell you, if you promise not to gossip, that I have had some trouble with my husband just now.”

“
What is the matter, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“
My life here is over. That is all,” she said flatly.

It gave Horatio
a lurch at his heart to hear her talk in such a way. The last time a woman spoke of her life being over was when he had stayed with the old woman on the Bulette hillside. That day had turned out very badly indeed. In his mind he turned over what his mistress had just said, looking at it from as many angles as he could.

“
Do you mean to go away because of the trouble, Miss?” he asked slowly.

“
That is exactly what I mean to do!” she vowed, with a dangerous flash in her eye and a tremble on her pale lips.

Cassandra's angry vehemence made Horatio nervous. This situatio
n was looking worse and worse. He hoped the young Mrs. Brighton wouldn’t go the way the older one had. His mother had told him the old woman’s sadness might have contributed to her death. Could that also happen to his beautiful goddess? His alarm grew. Meanwhile Cassandra was yawning repeatedly, a sign clearly meant to say he should take his leave.

“
Is there anything else I can do for you tonight, Miss?”

“
Has my room been tended recently?”

“
Annie May cleans it every time she’s here. She aired it out before the Captain left.” 

“
Please go in and beat the blankets for me. You may sleep in the reception room, my little knight. I will attempt to do the same shortly.”

“
It is good sleeping when it rains.”

“
'To sleep, perchance to dream'—aye, there's the rub.’ I hope I may not dream at all tonight,” she murmured in her dulcet tones.

Horatio was troubled by
Cassandra's train of thought, which sounded suicidal. Reluctantly he went to bed, but he remained awake. The reception room was cluttered with a sewing machine and other miscellaneous trappings, among them a broken pianoforte, which was why he had called it the “piano room.”

He lay on his back in a
small cot wedged into the corner, eyes wide open and ears poised for any sound of Cassandra's distress.

Around midnight Horatio
was startled awake by a noise in the kitchen. He crept downstairs. The noise proved to be a cat prowling around. He noted that his mistress had fallen asleep before the fire in the horsehair settee, instead of going up to her old room. He curled up in a corner, staying to make sure the fire remained burning.