Thunder Heights

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Now that she thought of it, Camilla realized that her mother had talked more of the house than of its occupants. There had always been a soreness in Althea King that had turned away from stories of her father or her sisters. But now Camilla could go to Thunder Heights and see the bright turrets, the marble hands, the staircase, for herself.

  It was not, however, the house that interested her most. A warm current of eagerness flowed in her veins, an eagerness to please her aunts and her grandfather, to love them and be loved by them. Whatever had happened in the past must be buried by the years that were gone. She was not responsible for any of it, so how could she be blamed for what was none of her doing? She would be as sweet and agreeable as it was in her to be, so that the family would delight in having her there—even Aunt Hortense who held some unaccountable grudge against her own dead sister.

  She went to sleep with a smile on her lips and all her dreams were loving.

  TWO

  The following afternoon she bade Mrs. Hodges a polite good-by, kissed the weeping children with the pang she always felt on leaving charges she had grown to love, and went out to her cab, carrying her suitcase. The trunk would follow her in a day or two. She had to stay at Thunder Heights for a little while at least.

  She had never taken a trip up the Hudson River before, yet the river had always been a part of her memory of her mother. Sometimes the two of them had gone by horse car to the lower tip of Manhattan, where the river emptied into the harbor, and stood watching the busy water life. The Hudson had meant home to Althea King, and she had told her small daughter tales of the dreamer, Hendrik Hudson, and his ship the Half Moon. Stories too of the Dunderbergs and the Catskills, of Storm King, and Breakneck Ridge, and Anthony’s Nose. All history, it seemed, was part of the Hudson, from Indian days to the present. Commerce had followed the vital artery and made a great nation even greater.

  But Althea King had seen the river with more personal eyes. She had known the Hudson in its every mood—when its banks glowed brilliant with autumn foliage, when ice encrusted its inlets, when spring laid a tender hand upon its shores and when summer thunderstorms set the cliffs reverberating.

  Yet after her marriage her mother had never again set foot on a Hudson River boat until the final summons from her father. “I want to remember,” she had said, “but I don’t want to turn the knife in my heart.” Strange words to a little girl’s ears, but her mother’s passion for the river had remained, and now Camilla felt eager and alive, ready to fling her arms wide and embrace the new life that must surely lie ahead. That life was her heritage from her mother, and the river was a vibrant part of it.

  Nevertheless, the river had taken her mother away, she thought with a twinge of guilt. Althea had never returned from that last journey up Hudson waters to Thunder Heights. Remembering that, she wondered what the river might hold in the future for Althea’s daughter.

  The boat that awaited Camilla was one of the Hudson’s fastest—four decks high and gleaming with white paint and gold trim. The tourist season had not yet begun, but there was a continual flow of traffic between New York and Albany, and passengers were already boarding when she reached the pier.

  The day was gray again. This was storm-brewing weather, with an electric quality in the air and a wild wind blowing—weather that carried excitement in every breath. It was cold for the first day of April, and the cutting wind sent most of the passengers scuttling for the comfort of the gold and white salons.

  Since the trip would be a short one for Camilla, she had no cabin, but as soon as she had checked her flimsy suitcase, she climbed the grand staircase, her hand on the fine mahogany rail, and went into the main salon where passengers were making themselves comfortable out of the wind. She looked about, wanting nothing so tame as this. She wanted to be outside where everything was happening.

  Over her hat she tied a gray veil that matched her gray tailleur suit, knotting it in a bow under her chin. Then she went out on deck into the very teeth of the wind. With a great tootling of whistles the boat was drawing away from the pier, turning its back upon the harbor of New York as it began its journey up the Hudson River. The paddle wheels churned a frothing wake, that sent waves rolling away to rock all smaller craft. Gulls soared and dived in the great air drafts, as if they too felt the excitement of the day.

  Every manner of river craft—barges, tugs, ferries, sailboats, freighters—steamed or sailed or chugged about their individual business. As Camilla watched, she let the gale whip color into her face, breathing the fresh, tangy odor—the odor of salt air. It was as if she were truly breathing for the first time since her father’s death.

  Only one other passenger had dared the cold out on deck. Ahead a man leaned against the rail with his back to her, while the prow of the boat cut through choppy gray water like a great white swan among lesser fowl. He wore a sandy tweed jacket and a cap pulled over his forehead. So absorbed was he by the sights of the river that Camilla could watch him curiously without being noticed.

  As she stood below him at the rail, a child of no more than four suddenly darted out of a doorway. The little girl was laughing as she ran up the deck, and Camilla, looking about for her mother to follow, saw no one. At once she hurried after the child, lest she come to harm. But the man had heard the sound of small feet running and he turned in time to see the little girl and catch her up in his arms. Then he saw Camilla approaching.

  “An open deck is a dangerous place for a child,” he said curtly and handed her to Camilla.

  His misunderstanding was natural, and she did not take offense, but accepted the child and walked back toward the companionway just as a frantic mother rushed out and looked around in distraction.

  “Here she is,” Camilla said. The mother thanked her and hurried the little girl back to the shelter of the doorway. When Camilla turned, smiling, she saw that the man in the tweed jacket was watching her.

  He took off his cap and the wind ruffled hair that had the glossy sheen of a red-brown chestnut. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought she was yours, and it’s a wonder I didn’t read you a lecture. A child was badly hurt the last time I made this trip, and I get impatient with careless mothers.”

  She nodded in a friendly fashion and went to stand next to him at the rail, watching the steep cliffs of the Palisades rising ahead. She was glad he had spoken to her. Now she might ask him questions about the river. “Do you know the Hudson well?” she began.

  He drew the cap down over his eyes again. “Well enough. I’ve lived along its banks all my life, and I’ve been up and down its length a few times.”

  “How wonderful,” she said. “It’s strange to think that I’ve lived all my life in New York City and have never sailed up the Hudson River. Today I feel like an explorer. I wish I could go all the way to Albany.”

  He stared off into the wind without comment, and she hoped he wasn’t shutting her out. In her eagerness and exhilaration she was ready to spill over in conversation with almost anyone, but she contented herself for the moment by studying the strong line of his jaw, his straight nose and jutting brows. It was difficult to judge his age—probably he was in the mid-thirties. There was a certain ruggedness about him, a muscular breadth to his shoulders that marked him for a man of action, rather than, like her father, a man of books. She observed his hand upon the rail, long of finger and wide across the back. A hand that revealed strength and vitality. The sum of all these things interested her, made her a little curious.

  “I’m going upriver to Westcliff,” she said tentatively.

  He looked at her more directly than before, and she saw that his eyes were gray as the river that flowed past the boat, and set widely beneath heavy chestnut brows.

  “Westcliff happens to be my destination too,” he admitted, but offered her no more in the way of explanation.

  The wind had increased its velocity, tearing at her hat as if to snatch it from beneath the enfolding veil, pulling black strands of hair from beneath its brim.
Camilla pushed them back breathlessly and laughed into the gale in sheer delight. There was something satisfying about resisting its elementary force. She would choose a storm any day to brooding safely in the shelter of a small gray room whose very walls shut her away from the tempests and clamor of life.

  “I’m glad you’re going to Westcliff,” she told him, speaking her mind without hesitation. “I’ll at least have an acquaintance in the vicinity. I don’t know a soul where I’m going. Do you know the place called Thunder Heights?”

  His face was not one to be easily read, but she sensed that he was startled. The set of his straight mouth was unsmiling, his gray eyes guarded as he looked away.

  “Is—is there something wrong with my going to Thunder Heights?” she asked.

  He did not meet her look. “Why are you going there? Surely not to look for employment?”

  “No,” she said. “I work as a governess and I believe there are no children in the house at present.” She hesitated because she had never before claimed openly her relationship to the Judds. Then she went on with a faint hint of happy pride in her voice that she could not suppress. “My grandfather is Orrin Judd. My mother, Althea, was the youngest of Orrin Judd’s three daughters. I am Camilla King.”

  He made no move and his expression did not change, yet it seemed to Camilla that there was a withdrawing, as if something in him moved away from her. He spoke beneath his breath, almost as if to himself.

  “Another one,” he said, and she sensed hostility in him.

  He was judging her in some mistaken way, she was sure, though she did not know what there was in her Judd relationship to misunderstand.

  “My grandfather is very ill,” she hurried on. “I—I may be going to his deathbed. I believe he had a heart attack a few days ago.”

  This time she had truly surprised him. “A heart attack?” he repeated unbelievingly. “He has been ailing for some time, but—how do you know this?”

  “An attorney of my grandfather’s—a Mr. Pompton—came looking for me. He said my grandfather wanted to see me. Mr. Pompton arranged for my passage and I was able to take the boat at once.”

  He recovered himself to some extent, but she could see that her news had shaken him. He was studying her face now, clearly without liking.

  “So you’re still more of the family?” he said, and the inflection was not flattering.

  His rude rejection both cut and angered her. She drew herself up with the dignity she had learned to adopt in households where she might be treated with less than the respect she wished. But before she could manage a reply, the billowing thunderheads that rode the sky burst and flung a torrent of rain upon them. Her companion would have taken her arm to help her across the deck, but she drew away and fled from him into the warmth and shelter of the main salon. He did not follow her there, but disappeared along the deck to another entrance.

  She found an upholstered seat near a window where rain slashed the glass, obscuring all vision, and pretended to peer out into the storm. She felt somehow disappointed beyond reason. She had been ready to like this man and accept him as a new acquaintance who might well become a friend. But the name “Judd” had turned him abruptly from her, and the realization brought with it a vague uneasiness to stem her earlier feeling of joy. She wished now that she had answered him in some way, or at least challenged him to explain the scornful tone of his voice. When she saw him again, she would do just that. If the Judds were held in bad repute, that was unfortunate, but it had nothing to do with her.

  She found the remaining time before Westcliff frustrating. Longing to view the river scenery, she could see nothing for the driving rain, and though she wandered about for a while below decks, she did not see again the man she had spoken to earlier.

  Not until late afternoon did the storm roll away so that a glinting of pale sky showed through the veil of gray. The decks were drenched and wet, the wind still cold, but Camilla went outside eagerly to watch the steep shores of the Hudson glide by. The river had curved sharply and seemed now to be enclosed on all sides by rocky cliffs, as if the boat had turned into some great inland lake. This, she knew, must be the gateway to the Highlands. She watched, entranced, as the boat glided around the jutting crags, always finding one more opening to let it through.

  Ahead on the west bank loomed a great hulking mass of mountain, its stony head cutting a profile into the sky. She could not see beyond its jutting, thickly wooded sides—still covered by the brown woods of winter—but Westcliff must not be too far ahead.

  “That is Thunder Mountain,” a quiet voice said in her ear.

  She turned quickly to find her recent companion beside her. This time she did not wait, or give him a chance to escape again.

  “May I ask why you spoke so scornfully of the Judds?” she said.

  He did not seem taken aback by her sudden question. A flicker of amusement lifted one corner of his mouth and vanished.

  “I should have identified myself,” he told her. “My name is Ross Granger. For the last ten years or so I have worked as a close associate of Orrin Judd. Your sudden news about his illness came as a shock, since he seemed no worse than usual when I left him last week.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “Then you must be the person Mr. Pompton wanted to see in New York. You must have missed him.”

  “That’s possible,” he said and turned back to watching the river. “You can see the house now,” he added. “Up there below the mass of the mountain—there’s your Thunder Heights.”

  The white boat, cutting through choppy gray water, was slipping past the mountain, and Camilla could see that its far slope gentled, opening into a wide, tree-grown level high above the river. She forgot that the rail was sopping wet and clung to it tightly with her gray gloves. Now she could look up and see the house for the first time.

  The point of prominence on which it stood commanded an entire sweep of the river, and the structure was as fantastic and impressive as anything in her dreams. Orrin Judd had built to suit himself, as Camilla knew, and he had built with imagination, but little regard for restraint. The house was a conglomeration of wooden towers and gingerbread curlicues, with sloping roofs from which jutted gables and dormer windows. A wide veranda, arched and bracketed beneath its eaves, gave upon the river, and Camilla searched its length eagerly to see if any of the family stood there watching the boat steam past. But the veranda was empty, and so were the grounds. Shutters framed blank windows which stared at her without recognition. Plainly the house did not know her, and was not waiting for her.

  The turrets were no longer bright as Althea King had described them. Storms had weathered the house to a dingy gray, left too long unpainted, and the trees crowding about gave it the look of a place uninhabited. It appeared enchanted, spellbound, there on its remote heights. Not a house, but the picture of a house, torn from the pages of fantasy.

  “What a strange, wonderful place,” Camilla said softly. “I think I’m going to love everything about Thunder Heights.”

  The man at her side made a faint, derisive sound. “If I were you, I wouldn’t approach it with ready-made sentimentality. You’re quite likely to be disappointed.”

  She would not let his words dampen her feeling about the house. Even if the place didn’t know her now, it would accept her later. How could it refuse, when she would offer it the love of a granddaughter coming home?

  “It’s strange to think that my mother grew up there,” she murmured.

  “How did she escape?” Ross Granger asked dryly.

  What an annoying person he was, she thought—without sentiment, or kindly feelings. Why had her grandfather kept him on all these years, if he thought so little of the Judds? Then, because she hated to condemn anyone in this moment of anticipation and eagerness, she relented. Perhaps he did not really know her mother’s story.

  “My father came to teach in Westcliff,” she told him, “and my mother fell in love with him. But Grandfather Orrin had other plans for h
er. I suppose he didn’t think much of a poor schoolteacher as a husband for his daughter. So one night they ran away to New York and were married there. My grandfather never forgave her and she only returned once—just before her death.”

  “I’ve heard several versions of that story,” he said. “I came to Thunder Heights four or five years after your mother’s death, so I never met her. It was always Pompton who had the job of keeping track of her, and later of you. But she must have been a bit frivolous and reckless—your mother.”

  Once more she sensed disapproval in his tone, and resentment prickled through her.

  “I remember her as being gay and happy,” she said with dignity.

  Ross Granger looked up at the house on the mountain. “Frivolity seems out of place at Thunder Heights. Its gay times are long past, I’d say. You’re likely to be frowned upon if you so much as laugh out loud these days. For my taste, I prefer this second house coming up here below the Judd land. That’s Blue Beeches, and I can assure you its architecture is more typically Hudson River than Orrin Judd’s house.”

  Blue Beeches, though further upriver, was below the Judd heights and closer to the water. It shone in bright yellow contrast to its more somber neighbor above. Its green shutters looked freshly painted and it stood upon the bank with the foursquare solidity of brick, as if it knew its own sound position as a family house well accepted by the community. Here there were signs of life. A woman sat rocking on the broad veranda, while three children of varying ages ran down to a small landing at the water’s edge, waving eagerly as the boat went past. Ross raised an arm and returned their salute, and the children shouted and waved all the harder.

  Apparently Ross Granger had friends here, among the children at least. She was puzzling over further questions to ask him, when he drew her hands from the wet rail and turned them over to reveal the gloves soaked and stained.