Thunder Heights

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Attend, my dear. I have a problem for you to consider. A theoretical problem. Do you see this line I’ve drawn? Let’s say it represents the lifespan of a man. The salt cellar here is his birth, the napkin ring his death. Do you follow me?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I haven’t explained myself yet,” he told her. “The point is this—at certain places in the lifeline there are forks in the road, choices a man may take. Or a woman. One road may be a pleasant one, with opportunity and safety and very little excitement. The other choice may spell danger, disaster, perhaps. You see the dilemma? The choice of roads a man makes depends, I suppose, on what he is. While I’m not sure there is any conscious choice involved in the matter, I’d like to think there is.”

  Camilla broke a piece of toast and buttered it, added a dab of honey, avoiding the waxy bits of comb embedded in the amber. She said nothing at all.

  He watched her, smiling. “Last night I’d have sworn the honey could melt any wax. What is it, my dear? Do I fail to interest you this morning?”

  “I don’t know the rules of the game you’re playing,” Camilla answered.

  “I was merely seeking your advice in a serious matter. Which road shall I choose, Camilla? Which way shall I follow?”

  “What choice have you decided to make?” she countered.

  “I’m not sure that I’ve decided. In this case both ways tempt me. A man may have his work, even at Thunder Heights. But I am a man who needs more than sufferance, Camilla, and a paid income.”

  She had no answer for him. When Letty came through the door, she looked up in relief.

  “Good morning, children. How well I slept last night!” Letty said. “I didn’t waken once. It seems strange that the thunder didn’t disturb me, as it usually does.”

  “Booth gave you a sleeping draught, Aunt Letty,” Camilla said.

  Letty took the chair Booth pulled out for her, and the look she turned upon him was suddenly intent. He spoke before she could question him.

  “Camilla is right, dear. I didn’t want you to suffer a headache all night long. I know what a spartan you can be, and I thought I could spare you that for once. Besides I wanted to be alone and unchaperoned for once with Cousin Camilla.”

  A flush came into Camilla’s cheeks, and Letty glanced at her and then away. “I see,” she said. She turned her attention to breakfast and asked no more questions.

  Booth picked up a spoon and crisscrossed the lines he had made on the tablecloth, raising a dark eyebrow quizzically at Camilla as he did so.

  “I think I’ll do no painting today,” he said. “I have a feeling my model is not in the mood.”

  “But you’ve only a little more to do on the picture,” Letty said. “I’ll be glad when it’s finished.”

  “You’ve never liked that picture, have you?” Booth asked, but Letty did not answer.

  They were still at breakfast when Hortense returned from her journey across the river. Booth went to the door to help her with her bag. Camilla heard them talking in the distance, but Booth did not return.

  “What happened last night?” Letty asked when they were alone in the dining room.

  “Nothing,” Camilla said, not meeting her eyes. She wanted no one to know what had happened. “The storm seemed to key him up. I went to bed early.”

  “Good,” Letty approved. “Sometimes I think Booth’s high moods are almost as difficult as his low ones. It’s best to leave him alone until he gets over them.”

  When Hortense came in to join them for breakfast, it was clear that this second trip had brought her no more success than had her journey to New York. Her manner was disgruntled, and she seemed unwilling to speak to anyone. Camilla was glad enough to excuse herself from the table and leave her two aunts alone.

  Preparations for the lawn party were moving ahead by now, and answers to the invitations were beginning to come in. The affair was to be next week, and there was still a great deal to be done. A big box of Japanese lanterns had been sent up from New York. Caterers had been hired for that day to assist Matilda in the kitchen and help serve refreshments on the lawn. Camilla threw herself into the work of preparation and planning and put away from her the disturbing thoughts that wanted to crowd in. These things she would think about later. Not now.

  Some of the little tables that would be used on the lawn needed painting. This was something she could assist with herself. Late that morning she went downstairs to the cellar to find brushes and paint in the room that had once been Grandfather Orrin’s workshop.

  As she came down the steep flight of cellar stairs, she saw Booth ahead of her and paused, not wanting to meet him alone. But he had not heard her and he moved with purpose toward the larder. When she saw him go into the room where Letty kept her herbs and cooking materials, Camilla darted toward the door of the tool room next door and stepped inside. She would get her things quietly and slip out before Booth emerged. She was curious, however, and wondered what he was doing down here.

  As she groped for the things she wanted in the dim room, she heard him utter an angry exclamation: “So! I thought you might be down here.”

  For an instant she thought in dismay that he had discovered her. Then he went on in the same angry tone.

  “You’re up to your old tricks, aren’t you?”

  There was a smothered cry from someone in the larder, and Camilla heard the crash of glass, as if a jar had been dashed to the floor.

  “I’ve warned you not to try that again,” Booth cried. “Do you want to find yourself in prison?”

  The murmured reply was lost to Camilla’s ears, though she pressed close to the wall, trying to hear.

  “Tansy!” Booth said and the word lashed like the snap of a whip. “Enough of it can kill, as you very well know. Are you such a fool that you think they wouldn’t uncover so clumsy a trick? Clear up that mess and don’t try it again.”

  Once more there came a soft mumbling reply in a voice Camilla could not distinguish. She shrank into the dark space behind the tool room door as she heard Booth stride toward the stairs and spring up them as lithely as the tomcat he often reminded her of. The cellar door closed sharply above, and a soft brushing sound began in the next room.

  Camilla slipped out of the workshop and fled upstairs and outside, escaping to the serenity of the herb garden. Here there was brightness and warm, perfumed air. Bees hummed around the balm, and all was quiet and peaceful. Yet not altogether so. For the very herbs in this garden had powers she could not know and did not trust.

  She shivered in the warm air. What was she to do? How was she to live with the undercurrent of dark purpose that existed in this house? Hortense or Letty—which one? Oh, not Letty, surely not Letty! Booth would never have spoken so roughly to the woman who had given him love and trust over the years. Or would he, if he were angered? How little she really knew of Booth. And what of his own frightening purpose?

  Here in the bright sunlight she tried to tell herself that it was a purpose she need only ridicule to destroy. He could scarcely marry her against her will. Yet she had felt the intensity of single-minded purpose behind him. “Don’t fight me,” he had said, and there was something in the words that terrified her, even in retrospect. All the more so because a portion of her fear was of herself.

  In the days that followed she began to dread the event of the lawn party. How was she to carry it off with the gaiety she had intended? How was she to pretend a pride in Thunder Heights and a desire to throw it open once more to the world, when all the while she knew the very core of it to be sick with evil?

  Strangely enough, there was a change in Hortense, and this too made Camilla uneasy. Was it a result, perhaps, of Booth’s warning to her in the cellar that day? Or would he have spoken so to the woman who held his fortunes in her hand? At any rate, Hortense became almost cheerful about the coming party and actually began to take part in the preparations. She displayed an interest in the ident
ity of the guests who had accepted and went through the answers Camilla had received, exclaiming about this one and that. She would look forward to seeing old friends, she said, and was pleased that some of those from the best old families had accepted. Only one name caused her displeasure. When she came upon the note Nora Redfern’s mother had written, she brought it indignantly to Camilla, who was once more painting lawn furniture.

  “Do you mean that Mrs. Landry has actually accepted your invitation?” she demanded, waving the bit of notepaper under Camilla’s nose.

  Camilla had spread newspapers on the big veranda overlooking the river, and was kneeling there before an upended chair, a pot of green paint beside her.

  “Why shouldn’t she accept?” Camilla asked, brushing long green strokes down the leg of the iron chair. “Mrs. Redfern is coming, and she says her mother and mine were the best of friends when they were young. They seem to have no wish to keep up an old feud.”

  “Humph!” Hortense’s snort made her red pompadour tremble. “And did she tell you that Laura Landry was horribly rude to us after Althea’s death and came near making a public scandal?”

  “A scandal about what?” Camilla asked, concentrating on her work.

  “Laura took your father’s side,” Hortense said. “And of course all John King wanted was to make trouble—as we very well knew. He felt he had been slighted by his wife’s family, and he wanted his little revenge.”

  “That doesn’t sound like my father.” Camilla set her brush down and gave her aunt her full attention. “Just what are you talking about?”

  “I’ve no intention of dredging up something that had no basis in fact in the first place,” Hortense said, showing signs of hasty retreat. “But you can take my word for it, Camilla, that Mrs. Landry was extremely rude to Papa and that he told her she need never set foot in his house again. The same went for your father.”

  Hortense had begun to stride up and down the veranda in her agitation, and Camilla watched her soberly. Once this woman had been in love with John King. How had it been for him—for them all—when he had come back to Thunder Heights for Althea’s funeral? What reception had he received?

  She asked her question suddenly. “Were you still in love with him, Aunt Hortense? I mean when he came back that last time?”

  Hortense whirled about, and the long silver chains she wore about her neck swung and glittered. “In love with him! I have despised your father for more years than I can remember. He led me on when I first knew him, and I would have married him if it hadn’t been for Althea and her sneaking ways. It’s a good thing I didn’t so demean myself, since his true character was revealed when he ran away with her.” With that she flounced into the house before Camilla could answer her.

  Camilla hurried now with her painting, and as soon as she could pause she went in search of Letty. She found her in the upstairs sitting room, working on a pile of soft lavender material she was making into one of her drifty dresses for the lawn party. Camilla asked her point-blank about what trouble there had been between Grandfather Orrin and Nora Redfern’s mother. How had it involved John King?

  Letty glanced up vaguely from her sewing, and Camilla could almost see her pulling her mists about her, to shut out what she did not wish to consider.

  “That was all so long ago,” she began, using her favorite retreat.

  Camilla persisted. “Aunt Hortense says that Grandfather told Mrs. Landry never to set foot in this house again. And now Hortense is upset because I’ve invited her to the party.”

  “Perhaps she won’t come,” Letty said.

  “She has already accepted. Aunt Letty, surely you know what happened between her and my grandfather.”

  Letty’s needle never paused as it moved in and out of her work. “Laura had some foolish idea about what happened to Althea. I don’t recall exactly what it was.”

  Camilla reached out to cover the lavender material with her hands, so that the sewing must stop.

  “Are you against me too, Aunt Letty?” she asked.

  Letty’s lips were trembling. “Please,” she said, drawing the goods out of Camilla’s hands. “I must hurry if I’m to have this dress ready in time. If you like, dear, I’ll play the harp for your guests at the party. Would that please you? I could play all the old Scottish airs Papa used to love. I think they might enjoy my music.”

  It was no use, Camilla knew. She rose without further pleading and went to the door. At once Letty dropped her work and came after her.

  “Don’t be angry with me, dear. I’ve begun to wish there was to be no party. I wish Mrs. Landry weren’t coming. I—I’m afraid of what may happen. Please be careful, Camilla. Be very, very careful.”

  TWENTY

  Deliberately and with an effort of will, Camilla focused her attention on her coming duties as hostess. The lawn party must be a success for Thunder Heights, no matter what lay beneath the surface.

  The additional servants came in the day before the party to help with preparations. Hortense was in her element, giving orders right and left, while Letty quietly countermanded those that were too absurd.

  Before the servants arrived, Letty had locked the door to the cellar.

  “If any of you need anything, come to me for the key,” she told the rest of the family. “I’d rather not have strangers moving around downstairs.”

  It was clear that she was thinking of her precious herbs. Hortense remarked that she was being ridiculously cautious, but no one really objected and the key remained in Letty’s pocket.

  The day of the lawn party presented clear and sunny skies—a perfect day. The guests would not begin to arrive until four, and at three-thirty Camilla and Letty, dressed and ready, sat down on the veranda to rest.

  The little tables and chairs set about on the lawn were fresh in their leaf green paint, and Japanese lanterns had been strung the length of the veranda, and from tree to tree on the lawn. At dusk Thunder Heights would be a beautiful sight. Letty’s harp waited at one end of the veranda, with a stool drawn up to it, so that she could sit there and play for the guests when the time came. And there were fiddlers coming from the village later on to play the old dance tunes, and even a modern waltz or two.

  “After all,” Camilla said, “this is a country party. We aren’t trying to imitate New York.”

  She wore a new summer frock of frilly muslin with sleeves that pushed up in soft puffs. Letty’s lavender dress was soft and drifty, and the scent of lavender floated about her when she moved.

  Booth had absented himself from the house for most of the day, admitting that he detested domestic preparations. He would rather appear with the guests and enjoy himself without responsibility. In these last days Camilla had found his eyes upon her whenever she looked up. He said little, as though he could afford to bide his time, and even though his persistent attention made her uncomfortable, there was a perversity in her that almost welcomed it. If Ross had no eyes for her, at least someone else did.

  Only one thing had disturbed this day of the party. Mignonette had disappeared, and no amount of calling brought her to view. For a while Letty did not seem especially perturbed. “She’ll turn up eventually,” she said. “She’s much too clever to let anything happen to her.”

  Only now, as they sat rocking on the veranda, did she begin to fret a little.

  “It’s not like Mignonette to stay away so long. She’s very fond of me, you know.”

  “Do you think you might have shut her in the cellar when you locked it yesterday?” Camilla asked.

  “No, because she was around early this morning. And I haven’t been down there since I locked the door.”

  A voice sounded within the house, and Letty stopped rocking. “Hortense wants you, dear. I do hope she hasn’t overdressed for this afternoon. She wouldn’t tell me what she meant to wear.”

  Camilla went inside, to find Hortense at the foot of the stairs striving ineffectively to set spikes of larkspur into a brass bowl. Her gown, as Letty had feare
d, was on the elaborate side. It was her favorite emerald green color—a somewhat threadbare satin, with an old-fashioned bustle. The skirt was looped up at the side to show a panel of yellow, embroidered in black. Her pompadour was anchored soundly with the little combs studded in green jade. Somehow her elegance of a day long past seemed a little pathetic, and Camilla found herself moved by a pity she did not show.

  “Oh, there you are!” she said as Camilla reached her side. “No one has fixed any flowers for the post stand here at the foot of the stairs. I thought this brass bowl would do, but it’s not deep enough. Do run down to the cellar and get me a china vase that will be deep enough. Here—take this brass atrocity with you.”

  The brass bowl was large and heavy and Camilla took it in both hands. Letty gave her the key, and she hurried through the busy workers in the kitchen and down to the landing door and pushed it open. As she stepped down upon the first step something dark leaped wildly past her up the stairs and out the door. Alarmed, Camilla jumped and dropped the bowl. The leaping creature was only the lost Mignonette, but the harm had been done. The bowl bounced out of her hands and down the stairs with a frightful clatter, and Camilla stood looking after it in dismay.

  As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she saw that the bowl had done an extraordinary amount of damage in its heavy progress down the steep stairs. The third step, just below where she stood, had splintered and collapsed completely. If she had stepped upon it without looking, she would have been pitched helplessly to the concrete floor, a good twelve steps below. The stairs had no rail, and nothing could have saved her from a dangerous fall.

  There was so much noise in the kitchen above that no one had heard the clatter of the bowl, or come to investigate. Camilla stepped carefully over the broken step and made her way to the foot of the stairs. One or two of the other steps had been faintly dented by the bowl as it bounded down, but only the third step, on which she must have dropped it, had been completely shattered.