“A few moments ago you were encouraging me to ride,” Camilla said. “What made you change your mind?”
“I—I don’t know.” Letty looked as if she were about to crumple in upon herself. “I never understand these feelings or how they come. I just know they must be listened to. It’s a feeling I have about that horse. You know I was against your buying the mare from the first. Just as Ross Granger was against it.”
“And I’ve proved you both wrong,” Camilla said. “Firefly and I understand each other. I feel safer with her than I do—in this house.”
Letty drew back as if Camilla had slapped her. Then she turned and went up the steps, a drooping, pitiful little figure, her crooked arm held against her body. With a mingling of impatience and sympathy, Camilla walked away toward the stable. There was nothing more she could say to Letty, and it was just as well to leave her with that last thought.
TWENTY-THREE
She had not sent word to have Firefly saddled, so she had to wait for it to be done after she reached the stable. More than once she scanned the sky to see if there was any evidence of Letty’s threatened storm, but it burned blue and empty and no hint of a breeze stirred the breathless air. She wondered if Ross were upstairs in the rooms over the coach house, but she could find no reason for calling to him.
Firefly was restless and eager for a run. She stood impatiently, while Billy helped Camilla into the saddle. Out upon the road Camilla gave the mare an easy run as far as the place where the winding trail led up Thunder Mountain. With the horse moving like a dancer beneath her, full of spirit and life, something of the joy of riding returned and Camilla could put Thunder Heights away from her for a little while. For her there would always be both a physical and an emotional release about riding.
They climbed the trail up Thunder Mountain, but this time Camilla did not dismount at the top. Firefly was behaving skittishly, sidestepping and swinging her hind quarters about in a balkish way. She was like a lady in a state of sulks because no one had paid attention to her for several days. She would be sweet enough after a while, but first she would make clear her displeasure and refuse to forgive the neglect. Camilla coaxed her, teased her, spoke to her lovingly, but Firefly tossed her pretty head and would not relent.
“All right,” Camilla told her, “I’ll let you have your fun, but first let’s get over to the next hill. There’s more room there for your tricks. I don’t care for them at the top of a cliff.”
Rising on the far hill were the “ruins” of Castle Dunder. From this distance the gray heap of stones looked convincingly like an ancient castle, and rather grim and forbidding.
With her hand firm upon the reins, Camilla urged the mare through the woods that hid a trail winding around the inner curve of hill. They walked now, due to low-hanging branches and the very narrowness of the path. When they merged upon an open slope of hillside, they were just below the ruins, and the clustered stones rose ahead on the crest of the hill. Approached from the rear, the place looked an empty shell and far less picturesque than it seemed from a distance. However, the main tower appeared solidly built, for all that the crumbling walls which fell away behind embraced only an empty expanse of weeds and grass.
There seemed to be a shed built at the rear of the structure, and Camilla let Firefly prance up the slope. Clearly the mare distrusted the gray pile of stones, but Camilla insisted and she gave in, though still displeased. A low wall offered an easy foothold for dismounting, and Camilla stepped down to it, jumped to the ground and tethered Firefly in the shelter of the stable-like shed.
As she started across the grassy field toward the main tower of the castle, a spate of rain struck her head and shoulders. She looked up in surprise and saw that the wind had risen so that trees on the hillside were thrashing their branches. Letty’s threatened storm clouds had puffed their sails with wind and were moving up the sky.
She hurried toward the tower entrance where a few stone steps led to an oblong opening and stepped gingerly into the dark lower room. In the dim light she could make out a circling of stone stairs marching to the top of the tower. The room smelled of damp left over from old storms, and the stone walls had the authentic chill of a castle. She had no desire to linger here in the dim light that came through the door.
The circling stone steps drew her, and she followed their spiraling wedges upward in a dizzy climb until she emerged in a bare room at the top. Here several archers’ windows, deep and narrow, slit the circular stone walls, letting in slivers of gray light. A rusty iron ladder led upward to still another level and what appeared to be a trapdoor to the roof.
Now she wanted to reach the very battlements and watch the storm clouds rise. Testing the rungs to make sure they would hold her weight, she climbed up beneath the trapdoor. At first it refused to give as she pushed with her shoulder, but when she persisted, it creaked open, sending shivers of dust and rotting wood down upon her head.
Up here the air smelled sweet and clean. She stepped out upon the flat, open top of a tower, and stood beside the circling parapet. The spurt of rain was over for the moment, but wind rushed at her jubilantly and tore at her veil and hat. The distant mountains of New England were obscured by mists, and even the nearer Catskills had been hidden from sight, but the rolling panoply of the storm gave in itself a tremendous view. Far below the Hudson was whipped with curling threads of foam, and the entire scene was like one of Booth’s wild Hudson valley paintings.
So lost was she in watching the swiftly rising clouds that she had almost forgotten Firefly when the mare neighed. She must go down at once, she thought, and start for home. Letty had been right after all, and it would be raining hard before long. As she hesitated for a last long look, she heard the answering neigh of another horse.
At once she walked to the land side of the tower and looked toward the shed. Firefly was there, and tethered near her was a second horse, a man’s saddle upon its back. No rider was visible, and she was puzzled and a little uneasy. This was not one of the horses from Blue Beeches, and she wondered what passerby might have discovered her presence. At the foot of the tower a step sounded, and she leaned over the steep parapet to look straight down.
She was just in time to see a man enter the narrow doorway below. It was Booth Hendricks. A shiver ran through her as she shrank back from the parapet. He must have hired a horse in the village and ridden out here deliberately. She could hear him walking about below and wondered helplessly what she must do.
He came to the foot of the spiraling stairs and called up to her. “Camilla! Are you there, Camilla?”
If she did not answer, perhaps he would not come up to search for her. Perhaps he would think she was elsewhere and go away. But almost at once she heard his footfall on the echoing stone of the steps and knew he was coming up the stairs. She was trapped with no means of saving herself and only the riding crop in her hands to fight him with.
With deadly certainty she knew what his purpose would be. There would be no need for indirection this time in his attempt on her life. A fall from the tower could be easily explained later, and Booth’s ends would have been met.
In a moment he would emerge in the room at the top of the tower and then it was only a few steps to the roof beside her. As she trembled there, her mind turning this way and that like a hunted thing, a course of possible action came to her mind. Foolish, perhaps, and hopeless. But the only chance she had.
She pulled the gray hat from her head and tossed it to the far side of the tower. Then she dropped to her hands and knees and crouched in the one hiding place the roof offered—the niche made by the trap door where it lay propped against the parapet. The door itself shielded her and he could not see her as he climbed the stairs. He would need only to turn around for her to be visible, but for an instant when he stepped from the top of the ladder to the roof, he would have his back to her hiding place.
Her breathing seemed almost as noisy as the rising wind. Her throat was tight with fear. She pulled he
rself small in the cramped space as he came up, his feet ringing on the iron rungs.
“Camilla?” he called again—and was out upon the roof.
He saw her hat at once and went toward it. In that instant Camilla flung herself from her hiding place and down the ladder. She had no time to feel for her footing, but used her hands as well as her feet to swing herself down. Caution was impossible. There was no time to be quiet, and she set the echoes ringing. She was on the stone steps now, slipping, stumbling, catching herself before she pitched headlong. Above her she could hear him following—and he was unhampered by a heavy riding skirt.
At the tower door, she did not trouble with the few steps down, but sprang to the ground and fled across the grass to the shed. Firefly heard her coming and pawed the earth, neighing in nervous excitement. But Booth could move more swiftly than Camilla and his hand caught her arm, whirling her about. She saw his face in the gray light. He knew she had guessed the truth. There was danger in his eyes—exultant danger. And death.
She struck at him with the silver head of the riding crop, lashing it across his face. For an instant he was taken by surprise. Pain blinded him and he drew back. She twisted free of his grasp and sped the few yards to the low stone wall beside the shed. In a second she was up on the wall, from there into the saddle, and the reins were free in her hand.
She swerved Firefly about and made her rear, her front feet striking out in Booth’s direction. Again he fell back, and Camilla turned the mare toward the woods trail and was away, with Firefly’s hoofs pounding the turf. Crouching low over the saddle she gave the mare her head along the narrow trail. Caught up in Camilla’s own fear, Firefly hurled herself into breakneck speed, seeking only to flee the unknown terror. At least the curve around the hill was steady and gentle, so no sharp turns need be taken. Camilla could not hear the other horse behind, and she dared not look back, but Booth would be in the saddle by now and after her.
“Hurry, hurry!” she moaned to Firefly. “Hurry!”
Suddenly they were in the open, and she knew they had reached the top of Thunder Mountain. Before she could turn the mare, Firefly was out upon the bare top of the mountain, with cliffs falling away on three sides, and the downward path behind them. Camilla fought her to a halt and turned her about. She could hear hoofbeats now, as Booth ran his horse through the woods, and despair swept over her. Thunder Mountain, with the way down cut off, would be as bad a trap as the top of the tower.
And then, without warning, Ross Granger rode out from the lower path and was between her and Booth. She jerked Firefly about and urged her toward him.
“It’s Booth!” she gasped, pointing.
Ross understood at once. He leaned over and slapped Firefly’s flank with the flat of his hand.
“Go home!” he shouted. “Ride for home!” With a violent jerk, Ross wheeled his own horse across the path to intercept Booth.
She had no need to urge the mare now. Firefly was tearing down the lower path. But now there was something new and frightening about her gait. She lunged against a tree in passing, and Camilla felt a crushing pain in her left leg. The mare was fighting to get the bit between her teeth, and she was trying as well to rid herself of a rider she now feared.
Camilla ducked low beneath the next branch before it swept her from the saddle, and clamped the toe of her right boot behind her left calf. It was clear what Firefly was trying to do. This was no pretty sulking spell. She meant to dash her rider against a tree, or scrape her off beneath a branch, and she was wickedly intent on her purpose. Camilla could only flatten herself over the pommel, ducking as well as she could the thrashing branches. The pungent taste of pine was in her mouth, and her hands ached with their effort to bring the mare under control.
The trail was steepening and danger lay in a misstep, lest the mare stumble and roll on her. Pinned beneath her mount, she might readily be killed. But the fight was hard on Firefly too, and with Camilla clinging like a burr to the saddle, and never relinquishing her struggle to get the mare’s head up and under control, the horse was tiring too. When the road suddenly opened on a level before them and the trees fell away, the fight drained out of the mare and she cantered to a halt a little way down the road. Camilla had won.
The quiet, the absence of buffeting and wild motion was almost shocking. Firefly was still on the dirt road, and both girl and horse were trembling. Camilla pushed her tumbled hair from her forehead and spoke in a low, soothing voice to the mare. She was docile enough now, her wild fright drained away, and Camilla turned her toward Thunder Heights.
Only then did she have time to think of what might be happening back there in the woods. Ross, she knew, would stop Booth and engage his attention. But what would happen between the two men? Both had been spoiling for trouble for a long while. If it came to a fight, Camilla knew Ross would handle himself well. But she did not trust Booth. He would stop at nothing if he were pressed, and she was suddenly fearful of the outcome. But there was nothing she could do now but wait. More than once, she drew the mare in and listened for the sound of a horse’s passage on the hillside above. Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning flashed far away. There was wind in the trees, but no other sound. And still it did not rain.
At the gate of Thunder Heights Hortense stood waiting. When Camilla turned off the road, she called for the stableboy, and came forward herself to take Firefly’s bridle.
“Get off,” she said curtly to Camilla. “If you can. You look beaten.”
Camilla’s body felt sore from the lashings and her left leg was bruised, but she took her foot from the stirrup and slipped down into the stableboy’s grasp. When he set her on her feet, she swayed for an instant, and Hortense gave the boy the bridle and took her arm.
“That mare has a vicious streak, hasn’t she?” Hortense said. “I’ve been waiting for it to come out. I expect she’s killed a rider or two somewhere along the line. That’s why Booth had her brought here to Berton’s. That’s why he told me to … ‘find’ her for you in the village. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Camilla shook her head wearily. “It was my own fault. I was frightened and I frightened the mare.”
“I’ve been a fool,” Hortense said. “I believed that he only wanted to make you afraid—so you’d give everything up and leave. I wanted that myself. I thought if I made you sick with that tea … but the cat drank it. Letty knew I’d been down in the larder that day … she could have told you.”
Camilla could only stare at her numbly. Hortense looked faintly bedraggled, for all her old-fashioned elegance. The lace at her throat was worn, and pins were visible at her belt line. Yet in spite of this outward disintegration, she was more convincing and forceful than Camilla had ever seen her. She was a woman to be heeded.
“He means to kill you, Camilla. You must know that now. He tricked me on the matter of sending you down to the cellar on a trumped-up errand. I’d never have been a knowing party to that broken step. I’ve never meant you serious harm. But Booth will stop at nothing.”
“Yes, I know.” Camilla’s lips barely formed the words. All this was something she must come to later. Now the only part of her mind that still functioned focused entirely on what might be happening on Thunder Mountain. For herself, she wanted only Letty’s ministering hands and ointments and a bed to lie upon.
“Where is Aunt Letty?” she asked.
There was a strained note in Hortense’s voice. “She’s locked herself in her room. She’s waiting for them to bring your body to her. Down from Thunder Mountain. The way they did Althea’s.”
TWENTY-FOUR
The driveway seemed endlessly long as Camilla followed it, leaning on Hortense’s arm. She limped a little as she walked, but bruises were nothing compared to the pressure of anxiety in her mind.
“Who sent Ross after me?” she asked.
“I did,” Hortense said. “When I learned that Booth had hired a horse from the village and was riding up the mountain, I knew he meant you
harm. So I told Ross. He got a horse from Blue Beeches and went out at once.”
“Aunt Letty didn’t want me to ride,” Camilla said. “She tried to stop me from going.”
Hortense tossed her head scornfully. “You mean that nonsense about a storm? It must have surprised her as much as anyone else to have one really blow up. She was afraid to tell you the truth—about that horse. Though she knew, because that’s what I went to her room to tell her. She said she didn’t believe me. Perhaps she didn’t want to believe me. Booth has always been the center of her existence. Or—perhaps she knew all along.”
“Letty never wanted to harm anyone,” Camilla said. “I know that.”
Hortense clutched her arm and Camilla winced. “Look—there on the steps!”
The afternoon was growing dark, and a few lamps had been lit inside the house. Against the light a man stood before the front door of Thunder Heights—a tall, lean, elegant figure. It was Booth, and he stood as if braced, with his legs apart, his arms akimbo. His eyes were alive with a grim mirth as he waited for them.
Hortense ran toward him. “How did you get here? Where is your horse?”
Camilla followed, and as she drew near she saw the jagged tear in his jacket. His tie was gone, his hair disheveled. A cut from the riding crop marked his forehead, and a bruise had begun to swell the cheekbone under one eye.
He gestured carelessly in answer to Hortense. “I left my horse and came down the cliff by way of the shortcut.”
“Where is Ross?” Camilla demanded—that one question uppermost in her mind.
“We met—if that’s what you’re wondering.” He regarded her almost airily. “Granger managed to interfere with my seeing you home, Cousin. But where he is now I don’t know or care.”
“What did you do to him?”
“A better question might concern what he did to me. I’ve never taken to rude physical brawling. But I know the mountain better than he does. I knew it as a boy.”
Thunder Heights Page 27
