Thunder Heights

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Camilla saw affection in the look Letty turned upon her sister’s adopted son. His arm about her shoulders supported her, and his every movement was kind as he led her out of the room.

  Ross watched them go and then glanced idly at Camilla. “An interesting family you’ve acquired, isn’t it?” he said and went out of the room, leaving Hortense and Camilla there by the fire.

  At once Hortense began to rub her brow with her fingers. “Headache,” she murmured. “You had no business coming here, of course, and now that you’re here … Most regrettable, I’m sure. If you’ll excuse me?” Her words sounded befuddled, as though her thoughts followed a separate road from her tongue.

  When she had left the parlor, only Camilla and Mignonette remained. The small gray tabby regarded her distantly and then stretched and yawned mightily, before settling down for another nap while the fire lasted. Camilla sat on for a little while before the orange-red embers, thinking about the tense, uncomfortable scene she had just witnessed, and about the undercurrents of conflict and antagonism that played back and forth between the walls of Thunder Heights. Why had Grandfather said to watch Letty, and what had Letty done that had helped to bring on his illness?

  Suddenly she felt overcome by weariness. The long day with its emotional upheavals had left her more drained than she realized. She was eager for her mother’s room with its wide, inviting bed and air of peace long undisturbed.

  Before she went to her room she paused at her grandfather’s door, to see if she might bid him good night, but the nurse said he was sleeping quietly and mustn’t be disturbed. She hurried down the long hall to her room, only to find the hearth cold, its comforting warmth dispelled, so that she had to undress shivering, and get quickly into bed.

  She fully expected to lie awake for a long while, thinking over the events of the day, wondering about this strange household that lived together in uneasy aversion. But the bed was warm and soft with comforters and her body was utterly weary. She drowsed into sleep before disturbing thoughts could awaken her.

  It was the sound of music that roused her sometime in the hours after midnight. Camilla sat up in bed, bundling a comforter around her as she listened. She could not be sure of the direction from which the mournful sound came, but it seemed to drift downward from the floor above. Someone was playing a harp, plucking the strings so that plaintive trills and chords stole through the house like a voice crying. Listening in astonishment, she could make out the strains of “Annie Laurie.” Orrin Judd’s mother had come from Scotland, Camilla knew, for Althea had always been proud of the Scottish strain in their blood. But how strange to play this Scottish air so late at night.

  On Camilla’s floor a door opened and closed, and after a little while there was silence. But the music, while it lasted, had made as lonely a sound as Camilla had ever heard. Even after the harp was still, she felt the echo of it along her very nerves, pleading, bewailing. But for what, or for why, she could not tell.

  Troubled now, she could not fall asleep again, and after a time she got up and went to the heavy draperies pulled across a French door and drew them back so that she could look out into the darkness. It had stopped raining, but the night was inky black and there were no stars. With the lower mists blown away, she was surprised to see lights far in the distance and wondered about them for a moment, before she realized that they were lights on the opposite bank. That black band between was the river. The far shore seemed another world, with little connection or communication with this one. This, too, was an aspect of the Hudson. It was barrier as well as highway.

  The country silence, which had seemed so surprising and all-enveloping to her on her arrival, was not, she discovered, silence at all. She heard the rumbling of a train on the opposite shore, the whistle of a boat on the river, the rustling of trees all about the house. And somewhere not far away, the rushing sound of a brook tumbling down the mountain. Spring peepers were chirping out there in the darkness, keeping up an all-night chorus of their own.

  There were sounds, too, within the house. As she drew back from the balcony door, listening now to the house, the very halls seemed to stir and whisper. Someone went past her door and there was the sound of hurrying footsteps on the stairs. Had her grandfather taken a turn for the worse? Camilla wondered.

  She drew on a warm flannel wrapper over her long-sleeved white nightgown. When she opened her door, she heard the sound of someone weeping softly. Her own wing of the house was empty, but the lamp still burned above the stairwell and a candle flickered in a holder on the hall table beyond the stairs. It was from that direction the sound of weeping came. Concerned, Camilla followed the cold hall to its far end.

  There on the carved chest outside Orrin’s door sat the slight figure of Letty Judd, crying bitterly, with her hands over her face. Her sobs had a choked sound, as if they were wrung from her against her will. When Camilla touched her shoulder gently, she looked up with tears streaming down her face.

  “Is Grandfather worse?” Camilla asked. “Is there anything I can do, Aunt Letty?”

  Letty was still fully dressed, with her long braids bound as neatly about her head as they had been earlier in the day. Clearly she had not gone to bed, and her face looked weary and ravaged. She shook her head at Camilla and glanced sorrowfully toward her father’s door.

  “He’s dying,” she said, “and they won’t let me in.”

  Even as she spoke, Hortense came to the door. She too was fully dressed as she had been for dinner. Her face was twisted in a grimace that might, or might not, be that of grief.

  “It’s over,” she said. “Papa is gone.”

  Camilla heard the words in blank dismay. She had not expected her grandfather to be gone so quickly—when she had only just found him.

  A rising sob choked in Letty’s throat. She stood up to face her sister in despair.

  “You had no right to shut me out. I should have been with him when he died. It’s cruel that you should have kept me away from him in his last moments.”

  Hortense made a futile effort to thrust back her sliding pompadour. “The sight of you upset him. He didn’t want to see you. Besides, he died in his sleep quite peacefully. He saw no one when the last breath went out of him.”

  “I knew it would come tonight,” Letty said dully. “I knew.”

  “I must call Booth,” Hortense murmured. She seemed to waver on her feet, and Camilla moved to her side and took her arm to steady her. Hortense glanced at her in vague surprise, and then seemed to remember who she was. “Your coming disturbed him too much,” she said, as if seeking a new scapegoat.

  Across the hall a door opened, and Booth came out of his room. He wore a handsome dressing gown of maroon brocade, and he had paused long enough to smooth back his thick dark hair.

  “What’s happened?” he asked. “Is he worse?”

  Hortense’s lips quivered and she had difficulty controlling her voice, but again Camilla was not sure that her emotion was one of grief.

  “Your—your grandfather is dead, Booth dear,” she said. “I was just telling Camilla that I fear her coming—”

  “Don’t blame Camilla,” Booth said. “I’ll go downstairs and send Toby for the doctor. Or perhaps I’d better see Grandfather first myself.”

  With an effort, Hortense seemed to pull herself together. “Please—not now,” she said. “Go send Toby for Dr. Wheeler, dear.”

  For an instant Camilla thought Booth might walk past his mother into the room, but instead he turned and strode toward the stairs. Hortense seemed to sigh in visible relief, and Camilla wondered why.

  “Shouldn’t someone call Mr. Granger?” she asked.

  Hortense paid no attention to her question. “Go to bed.” She spoke to Letty, but her look included Camilla. “There’s nothing you can do. Miss Morris and I will stay with Papa. You’ll do no good here in the cold, Letty. You’re likely to be ill tomorrow.”

  Letty rose stiffly, like a wooden doll. “I want to see him,” she told he
r sister. “Come with me, Camilla.”

  Reluctantly, Hortense let them by. Within the room the nurse was busying herself about the bed, but she drew down the sheet so that Letty and Camilla could stand beside Orrin Judd and see his face as it had been in the moment of death. To Camilla’s eyes he looked younger now and somehow happier—this great fallen eagle of a man.

  Letty bent to kiss his cheek, and as she reached out her hand, Camilla again saw the restriction her crooked arm placed upon such a gesture.

  “Good-by, Papa,” Letty whispered, and went sadly out of the room.

  Camilla stood in silence, studying the proud, strong face, as if she might find there the answers to many questions. Only a little while ago he had lived and spoken to her. He had wanted something of her and had said they would talk again, when he was less tired. But now he was beyond reach, and the things he had wanted to say to her, the warning he had tried to make, would never be spoken. A longing seized her to repeat the promise she had made yesterday to help him achieve whatever it was he had wanted. If only she might reassure him again, let him know she was ready to do his bidding. But she had no knowledge of what that bidding was, and without him to instruct her, to stand beside her, there was nothing she could do.

  “Good night, Grandfather. Sleep well,” she told him softly and turned away from the bed.

  An unexpected movement across the room caught her eye, and Ross Granger stepped out of the far shadows. Camilla stared at him in surprise.

  “How long have you been here?” she whispered.

  He took her arm and led her out of the room. Hortense brushed past them with an indignant glance, returning to her father’s side.

  “I’ve been here all night,” Ross said flatly.

  She knew now why Hortense had not wanted Booth to go into the room. Ross must have been there against her will, and perhaps she had feared a clash if Booth had discovered him there.

  “But—why?” Camilla persisted.

  “It was the least I could do for him,” Ross said. “Though I think he never knew I was there. Get yourself some sleep now. The watch is over.”

  Her throat felt choked with grief, and she could not speak. She nodded and slipped away from him down the hall.

  In her room the little clock on the mantel told her, surprisingly, that it was almost five o’clock. Somehow she had thought it was nearer midnight. It seemed all the more strange that someone should have played a harp in this house at such an hour. Had the musician been Aunt Letty? Why had neither she nor Hortense undressed or gone to bed, all this long night through? And why had Ross Granger insisted upon remaining in the same room, even though Orrin Judd was unconscious?

  But it was not of these things she wanted to think. Moving automatically, she put paper and wood in the grate, lighted the kindling and watched the newborn flames lick upward, eager and greedy, until the larger sticks crackled with blue and orange light. Then she dropped down upon the hearth-rug, warming herself and thinking.

  How strange that her grandfather’s death should seem so great a blow, when she scarcely knew him. The sense of loss was an aching within her, to which she could not bring the relief of tears. If only she had dreamed that he would welcome her, how gladly she would have come to Thunder Heights long before this. She would not have let her father’s prejudice hold her back. Now it was too late, and she could never do for him the things he had wanted to ask of her, because she would never know what they were.

  Carefully she went over his words in her mind. He had asked her to stand with him against the “vultures” who were waiting for him to die. He had warned her against them all. He had said she must help him to save his house that Althea had loved. He had spoken of Letty. But in spite of her promise, there were no practical steps she could take.

  She held cold hands to the fire, shivering. Now all her own plans must change again. She would stay for her grandfather’s funeral and then take quick leave of his family. In spite of Aunt Letty, whom she was ready to love, she could not stay on under the same roof with Hortense. Her aunt did not want her here and would not invite her to stay.

  Dawn was brightening the windows when at length she left the fire and went to the French door, opening it once more on the little balcony. The early morning air was clean and fresh with the wet scent of earth and new-growing things. The Hudson had turned from black to pale silver, and the sky above the hills on the far bank was streaked with delicate rose. She stood at the balcony rail, watching the sunrise fling streamers of rose and aquamarine across the sky and reflect its brilliance in the river.

  At this quiet moment of dawn she sensed again the changing moods of the Hudson. How still its waters seemed now, as if they scarcely moved. Had her mother stood thus at this very window in some long ago dawn, watching the river she loved come to life with a new day? As Camilla watched, a sailboat moved serenely into view, finding some hint of breeze to puff its sails so that it drifted like a ghost along the smooth water and out of sight beyond the bend. Before the coming of steam those white birds had thronged the river. Her mother had told her of them often and of sailing in them herself. A gull swooped down toward a spit of land that thrust itself into the water just below Thunder Heights, and she heard its shrill cry.

  It was as if the river called to her in a voice made up of all these things, setting a spell upon her heart. Yet now she must turn her back on it and go away forever, and she felt suddenly regretful of leaving. She could almost hear her grandfather’s voice saying, “Don’t run away, girl. Stay and fight.”

  But what battle was she to fight? And why? Now that he was gone, she would never know.

  SIX

  After an early breakfast that morning, Camilla put on a jacket and went through a door that opened onto the wide veranda. There were steps on the river side, and she walked down them and across wet grass. Once, here on this high ledge, there must have been a pleasant lawn between the tall elms growing on either side. Directly across the river a white-steepled little town hugged a narrow valley, and several small craft were to be seen on the water before it.

  What a view there must be from the top of Thunder Mountain. She wondered if there was a way that wound to the crest. But that was no walk for this morning. She turned from house and mountain and followed a narrow brown path that wound down from the heights, crossed railroad tracks that were hidden from the house, and wandered beneath the bare trees that edged the river.

  The thought of her mother had been with her often since she had come here yesterday. But now a sense of her father’s presence returned as well. He had lived in Westcliff for a time. He had met Althea while he worked there as a teacher, though his real home was in New York. Where and how had they met? Camilla wondered. Had they walked together along this very path during their secret courtship, with the river flowing calmly beside them as it did now?

  By now Thunder Heights was hidden by the trees, and as she walked on, the clamor of bird song rose to full voice on all sides. She came suddenly upon the noisy, tumbling brook she had heard in the night, its waters freshened by spring rains as it rushed toward the river. A little wooden bridge offered a crossing, and she went on along the path.

  She followed the curving way only a little further when she came suddenly upon a man sitting on an outcropping of rock above the path. It was Ross Granger, and he was dressed for the outdoors in a corduroy jacket and trousers, his chestnut head bare to the sun.

  He had not seen her, and his face in unguarded repose wore a sadness that betrayed his troubled thoughts. Beneath his eyes smudged shadows told of his long night’s vigil. For an instant she did not know whether to go or stay, hesitating to break in upon this solitary moment. Then he looked about and saw her.

  “You’re out early,” he said, standing up on the rock.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Nor I,” he said.

  “Why did you stay all night in my grandfather’s room?” she asked him again, feeling that there were matters she must understand
before she went away. Otherwise she would ponder them endlessly the rest of her life.

  “I didn’t want to see him bullied about a new will,” he said. “I trust none of them.”

  “And they don’t seem to trust you,” she said.

  His smile was wry. “Hortense took care of that. She spent the night in the room too, with Letty posted as a watchdog outside, except when she went off to play her harp. But I doubt that he was aware of us at any time.”

  “It seems to me,” Camilla told him frankly, “that it was dreadfully cold-blooded for you all to be thinking about wills while Grandfather lay dying.”

  Ross’s expression did not change. “A man is dead for a very long time. The stipulations he leaves behind may affect other lives for generations. This was not a moment to be squeamish about such matters.”

  A spotted coach dog, young, awkward and big, came bounding suddenly out of the woods and ran to Ross with an air of joyful exuberance. Ross accepted his clumsy greeting, pulling his ears affectionately.

  “Champion is from Blue Beeches,” he explained. “He’s Nora Redfern’s dog. Down, fellow, I prefer to wash my own face.”

  The dog went gamboling off on an exploratory expedition along the edge of the woods, and Ross removed his jacket and spread it on the rock beside him.

  “Come sit down a moment,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  He offered a hand to pull her up the face of the boulder, and she seated herself on his jacket.

  “How much do you know about your grandfather?” he asked when she was comfortable.

  “Know about him?” She was not sure what he meant. “Perhaps not a great deal. My father detested everything about Thunder Heights. He never wanted to talk about it. But in spite of the way Grandfather treated my mother, I’m sure she never stopped loving him.”

  Camilla smiled, remembering, and told him about the building her mother had once taken her to see in New York.