Thunder Heights

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Camilla closed the door and went quickly into the room. With the nausea subsiding, she could almost chatter in relief.

  “Did you enjoy the party, Aunt Letty?”

  Letty sniffed the lavender absently. “I want to talk to you, dear.”

  “That’s fine,” Camilla said. “I’d like to talk to you, too. Mrs. Landry told me something about—about my mother’s death. I think you should know what she said.”

  “I do know.” Letty closed her eyes and waved the lavender beneath her nose, as if to gain strength from its pungent odor. “That’s why I must talk to you. I know what Laura Landry believed at the time. And in part she was right. But only in part. Sit down on the ottoman, dear. Come close so I needn’t speak loudly.”

  Camilla drew up the big footstool and sat down, almost touching Letty’s knees.

  “Mrs. Landry doesn’t know what happened that late afternoon when Althea went riding on the mountain. She doesn’t know that it was I who sent her to her death.”

  Camilla waited in silence and without belief for her to continue.

  “Perhaps you don’t realize that the horse that nearly killed me several years before was the same horse that killed Althea.”

  Camilla heard her in surprise. “No, I didn’t.”

  “She was a mare named Folly. As beautiful a little mare as I’ve ever seen—delicate and good-mannered and affectionate. She was my horse, Camilla, and I loved her dearly. Until I found out that dreadful day, I never knew that she had a wild streak in her that made her go crazy in a thunderstorm.”

  “She threw you then?” Camilla asked.

  “No. I had dismounted to look at the view. There was a storm coming up, and the whole Hudson valley was a queer livid color, with thunderheads boiling up and lightning flashing in the distance. It was frightening and very beautiful. Hortense was riding with me that day, but she didn’t get off her horse. She was impatient to get home. I stood on a rock to put myself into the saddle, and just as I set my foot in the stirrup there was a clap of thunder that might have startled any horse. But Folly was more than startled. She went mad. My foot was caught and she trampled on my arm trying to get free of me, dragging me until my foot came loose from the stirrup. Folly ran away, and Hortense managed to get me home.”

  Letty’s voice was quiet, empty of all emotion, but her fingers twined together tightly as she went on.

  “I was very ill for a long time afterwards. The doctor feared a brain injury, as well as the broken arm that never healed properly. Papa would have shot Folly, but in spite of the way I was hurt I loved her, and I pleaded for her all through my delirium. To soothe me, he promised that she could live and I could keep her as a pet, providing no one ever rode her. I know she never meant to harm me, and she remained my friend after I was well. But none of us rode her again. All this, of course, was after Althea had gone away and married.”

  “When my mother came here on that last visit, didn’t she know that Folly wasn’t supposed to be ridden?” Camilla asked.

  Letty bowed her head. “She knew. Booth told her, when he tried to stop her that day.

  “He had been painting her, you know. But they didn’t hit it off very well, and I think she never liked him. She posed for him, but she made fun of his painting. She was always gay and I think she only meant to tease, but she made him angry. She told him she was a better woman than the girl he was painting in the picture, because she would have had that rearing horse in hand and ridden him if she wanted to. Booth said the horse in the picture was my Folly and that she was a dangerous animal—a killer.

  “I was there at the time, and I can remember the way Althea laughed and said she would ride her. And she would do it right then. I heard the whole quarrel between them. I tried to make her understand that a storm was coming up, and she said that was exactly the point she wanted to make. She was a good enough rider to handle a horse under any circumstances.”

  Letty paused, shaking her head sadly.

  “She was always like that—even as a little girl. The moment anyone told her she couldn’t do something, that was what she must do.”

  “Where was Grandfather while this was going on?” Camilla said.

  “He had been ill—that’s why he had sent for her—and he was in bed upstairs in his room at the time. Booth had been painting outside on the veranda to get the best light. Althea was wearing her habit for the picture, and she laughed in his face and ran down the steps and off toward the stable. I wanted to go to Papa then, but Booth said not to disturb him. I think Booth was really upset by Althea’s outburst. Perhaps he thought Papa would blame him. He was so often in the wrong with his grandfather. He said he would go after her and stop her, keep her from riding.”

  “But he didn’t, did he?” Camilla said.

  Letty was silent for a moment, as though she were trying to remember something. “He tried. I sat there on the veranda waiting, with the sky growing darker, knowing there would be an early dusk, due to the storm. I waited for Booth to bring her back to the house. But after a while he returned alone with a red slash across his face where she had struck him with her riding crop. They had quarreled out there in the stable.”

  “Couldn’t you have sent someone after her?” Camilla asked.

  “The only one who could have handled her in a mood like that was Papa. I should have gone to him then. But I knew he would be wild with Booth, and I was afraid he might even put him out of the house for good, if he knew about this trouble with Althea. So I sat there and did nothing. I can remember my thoughts at the time. Remember them so well. I was thinking that Althea was always the beautiful one, the gifted one, the lucky one. She had led a charmed life, and nothing could happen to her. So I sat there and let her go to her death. And all the while there was a voice speaking to me inside, telling me that this time something would happen. But I wouldn’t listen.”

  Letty’s calm had begun to dissolve, and she was weeping gently, a scrap of lavender-scented lace to her eyes.

  “You mustn’t blame yourself,” Camilla said. “The fault was Booth’s, not yours. Grandfather couldn’t have stopped her either by that time, and he was ill.”

  “No, no!” Letty looked up at once. “It was not Booth’s fault. Even though she had struck him, he was worried and upset about her. I can remember the way he strode up and down the veranda, watching the storm blow up, helpless and frustrated because he could do nothing.”

  “Do you think he might have been acting?” Camilla said. “Mrs. Landry thinks there was something—deliberate about what happened.”

  “Mrs. Landry is a gossip,” Letty said, her tone unusually sharp. “A troublemaker. As I know very well, she tried to make a great deal of trouble afterwards.”

  “When did you go to Grandfather?”

  “When Folly came home with an empty saddle. Booth heard her gallop into the drive, and he ran out to catch her and put her into her stall. Then he sent a groom out to search for Althea, and came running to the house to let me know what had happened and that he would go out searching himself. That was when I went to Papa. When it was too late. He got out of bed and had his own horse saddled. And he rode up the mountain where he thought she was sure to have gone. Booth was out looking for her too, but he chose the wrong route. He thought she might have taken the easier road along the river. He couldn’t believe she would be so foolish as to go up the mountain on a crazy horse in the storm. But that is what she did. And it was on the mountaintop Papa found her.”

  “Where was Hortense?” Camilla asked.

  “She had a headache and went up to her room to lie down. She didn’t know what had happened until they brought Althea home.”

  A silence settled upon the room. Letty wept softly, her handkerchief to her eyes, while Camilla sat lost in unhappy reverie. A rising wind whispered in the chimney, and Letty looked up uneasily.

  “Listen to the wind. It’s beginning to blow again. I don’t want to stay alone tonight, Camilla. I don’t want to get up in the night a
nd go walking about the house.”

  “You needn’t, Camilla said quickly. “Stay here with me. The bed is plenty big enough for two, and I’d like someone to keep me company tonight.”

  Letty began to speak again in a rush of words, as though she wanted to hold nothing back. “I’ve suffered for so many years because I didn’t act. I could surely have found a way to stop Althea if I had really tried. So I am the one who is guilty. I’m the one Mrs. Landry has a right to blame, if she blames anyone. But you see that I couldn’t remain silent forever. A few months ago I tried to tell Papa exactly what had happened. I wanted to gain his forgiveness. But he was so badly upset by what I told him that it brought on his last attack. So I was responsible for his death too. And for his changing of his will—because after what I told him, he said he could never trust any of us again.”

  That all this unhappiness had existed behind Letty’s quiet serenity was disturbing. Yet there was no real comfort Camilla could offer. Any reassurance would sound hollow and meaningless. True, Letty’s self-blame was exaggerated out of all proportion to reality, but Camilla knew better than to try to dissuade her in her present distraught state. Later, perhaps, at a calmer time, they could talk about these things, reason them out sensibly.

  “I’ll go get my night clothes from my room and come right back.” Letty rose and slipped out of the room, a slight, frail figure in pale lavender, moving in a faint aura of lavender scent.

  Later that night, when the lamp was out and the room dark except for a bar of moonlight from the balcony, Camilla lay awake and quiet beside her aunt. Tree branches soughed in the wind all about the house, and she lay very still, waiting for Letty to fall asleep. But Letty’s breathing remained ragged and uneven, and it was Camilla who slept first.

  Once during the night she wakened uneasily and stretched out her hand to find Letty gone. But when she stirred and reached for a candle and matches, Letty spoke from the rocking chair by the hearth.

  “I’m here, dear. Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch. Don’t worry about me. I have so much to think about.”

  And Camilla fell asleep again and did not waken until morning. When she sat up in bed, she found that Letty had taken her clothes and returned to her own room.

  But she had other matters to think about now. Today she was to meet Ross at her grandfather’s grave. In Ross she centered all hope of escape from the frightening dilemma in which she found herself. She had no actual evidence of any kind to offer him, but she thought he would listen with sympathy to her story. And perhaps he would tell her what to do.

  When the time came she gathered an armful of flowers and set off on the road to the village. The day was once more hot and still. Distant clouds in the east seemed to hang motionless, and the morning steamed with humid, oppressive heat.

  The cemetery drowsed on the hillside in the warm June sun. Slowly Camilla climbed the path that led to the burial plot of the Judds. She always felt a sense of peace and friendliness in this place. Here all storms had quieted, and those who slept held no rancor against the living.

  A tall stand of yew trees shielded her from view of the road, and she sat on the grass beside Orrin Judd’s grave and took off her big straw hat. Other than those who lay beneath the stones, no one awaited her. The old man who tended the graves nodded from a distance and went about his own work. All else was still and somnolent in the sun. When the flowers she had brought were arranged, Camilla tucked her white skirts about her, leaned her cheek against her propped-up knees, and closed her eyes.

  She knew, however, the very moment when Ross reached the cemetery gate. Though she heard no more than his step, no more than the creaking of a hinge, her quickening senses told her it was Ross. She sat up eagerly and waited for him.

  He climbed the path and she watched him come toward her, saw with love and pride the broad strength of his shoulders, the clean length of his stride. But it was his face she sought most eagerly, so that she might read in it his mood toward her. There seemed no antagonism in his look this morning, but only the gentleness she had sensed in him yesterday. Her heart began to thump raggedly, and she had to remind herself of the purposes which brought her here to talk to him.

  “A pretty picture you make,” he said, “there on the grass in your white dress.”

  He dropped down beside her, stretching out to his full length, leaning on one elbow. She could not bring herself to destroy the peace of the moment with the words she had to speak, and he did not ask her purpose in bringing him here. It was as if he, too, wanted to preserve this moment of companionship between them.

  Idly he began to tell her about shad fishing at night on the Hudson, when the run had been on, and how he had gone out one evening with Toby and they had filled their nets with silver shad and brought the fish home to Thunder Heights and Blue Beeches. She listened with pleasure, wishing that she might go out on the river with him another year.

  Then, when she felt lulled and quiet, he sat up so that he could look into her face. “You were afraid of something yesterday, Camilla—what was it? Why did you want to meet me here?”

  She began to tell him then what had happened—all of it. About the tea that had made Mignonette sick. About the night when Booth had said he wanted to marry her and she had run away from him. About the words she had overheard in the cellar, and finally about the broken step.

  He listened grimly and discounted none of what she told him. She saw the dark blood rise in his face as he listened, saw the anger in his eyes.

  “There’s only one thing to do,” he told her when she came to an end. “You must get away from the house. Break your grandfather’s will and do as you please. You have no real obligation to any of these people. They’d never given a thought to you. If you must, settle something upon them so your conscience will be free. But get away from Thunder Heights yourself and don’t come back. It’s the only way.”

  “If I went, I could keep nothing of the money or property. I would leave everything behind with the house. If I couldn’t live up to Grandfather’s wishes, then I would have no right to any of the inheritance he left me.”

  There was a light in Ross’s eyes that she could not read. “Do you really care? Do you want it? You lived without it before—you can again.”

  “That’s not the important thing,” she said helplessly. She had hoped he might understand. Knowing that he did not, she felt defeated. She could not put into words her feeling about all this. How could she make him hear the echo of her grandfather’s sorrowful voice? How could she convey her tenderness for Letty, whom she could not abandon? Or her conviction that she must somehow pick up life in her mother’s place? The ties that held her to Thunder Heights were intangible and emotional. They could not be held up to the cold light of reason.

  He saw refusal in her face and sighed. “I was afraid you’d feel this way. It’s ridiculous, of course, but the choice is yours and I shan’t try to dissuade you. But if you’re to stay, you must safeguard yourself and you must do it at once.”

  “How?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  “You must make a will. Pompton’s in New York now, but he’ll be home tomorrow. See him then and tell him what you want.”

  “What good would a will do? If anything happened to me, everything would go to Hortense and Letty. In a will I could make no other arrangement.”

  He reached out and circled her wrist with his fingers. “Oh, yes you could. In fact, that’s the whole idea. The will must leave everything you have to charity—with no more than a bare pittance for Letty and Hortense. And you must let them know the wording of the will as soon as it has been safely drawn up. Then you’ll be safe. You’ll be worth a good deal to them alive, and they’re likely to guard you tenderly.”

  “They would hate me for it. At least Hortense would. And Booth. How could I go on living at Thunder Heights in an atmosphere like that?”

  “How can you live there anyway?” He dropped her hand impatiently, and she could see that he was growing ann
oyed with her again. “There’s no choice, apparently, that is acceptable to you. Don’t you understand—this is the only safe move for you to make! That is, unless you do as I first suggested and give the whole thing up.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that.”

  “Then think about the matter of the will,” he told her. “But do something about it soon. They must realize you might take such a step, so they’re unlikely to wait, once they’re sure you’re suspicious. These—accidents—may grow more deadly.”

  Camilla plucked a blossom of white clover, twirling it between her fingers. She felt painfully torn between conscience and duty.

  “I’d better get back,” Ross said. He got up and stood looking down at her.

  She stood up beside him, not wanting him to go, but knowing no way to hold him here. The anger had died out of him and there was only pity in his eyes now—and something more. He stepped toward her as if he could not help himself, and she was in his arms where she had been once before, held close to his thudding heart, clinging to him and weeping.

  “My dear,” he said. His hand was on her hair, and he held her head against him for a moment before he bent and kissed her lips. There was only tenderness in his touch now, only a great sadness.

  “Why must you go away?” she wailed. “How can I live if you go away?”

  “You must know I can’t stay any longer,” he said gently, his lips against her hair. “I’ve given ten years to your grandfather, but they were years of preparation. Now I must get on with my work. I believe I’m ready for it now.”

  “Build your bridge here,” she whispered. “Build it for Grandfather. Build it for me.”

  “And if I did?”

  “Then you could stay nearby. For all the time you were building it you would be a part of my life.”

  “But after that I’d be gone,” he said. “As you’ve just told me, you’re tied to Thunder Heights, Camilla. You could never come with me to all the places where I’ll go. It’s better to end this now. It would hurt us all the more later. I didn’t ask to love you. Indeed, I’ve fought against it.”