Descent into Dust

by Jacqueline Lepore

  His movements were economical, even the slight nod he gave me now. “Oh, indeed I have.”

  “There it is,” I said, pointing to an archway as we passed.

  “Semper paratus.”

  His heavy eyelids lowered to half-mast, and he translated in a voice deeply resonant. “‘Always ready.’ Good advice, do you not agree, Mrs. Andrews?”

  “Indeed, but the question begs to be asked, sir: ready for what?”

  “Why, for anything.” He faced forward, his sphinx-like features as immutable as stone. “Anything at all.”

  Chapter Five

  By the time the soup course was concluded, I decided I did not like Valerian Fox. It was his stillness, as if every nerve were on alert, watching everything. Especially me; even when his eyes were directed elsewhere, I felt his awareness of me. He unnerved me. I dropped my fork twice, making a racket against the Wedgewood plate. My sister scowled at me, and I tried harder to steady my hand lest I overtax our new détente.

  Sebastian asked me, “You visited our Henri this morning?”

  “She beat me four times out of five at Peggity,” I said, carefully spearing a slice of ham. “And do you know what else? The little minx challenged me to chess.”

  Roger barked. “Chess? Did you teach her, Sebastian?”

  “You know me better than that,” Sebastian replied to his brother, his tone dripping in disgust. “Chess is not a game for a child. Chess is a game of master strategy. Now, I admit to showing her the important things for a child her age to know, such as how to ferret out the best gossip and the proper way to drape a cape off one shoulder. But chess?”

  I coughed delicately to cover my mirth. It amazed me that no one else thought him hilarious. “She informed me it was Marius who taught her,” I told them.

  Roger chewed for a moment. “Who on earth is Marius?”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Her new imaginary friend. Didn’t you get an introduction? He seems to be rather a formidable character. Victoria is quite put out at being displaced.” He pulled a face. “I never liked that doll. Too haughty.”

  I did laugh then before I could catch myself.

  “Darling,” Mary said to Roger, pointedly ignoring her brother-in-law, “do you have an ancestor named Marius? Perhaps she saw a painting in the gallery.”

  “I’m afraid I do not know offhand,” Roger said. “But that still does not answer where she learned chess.”

  I caught the look on Mr. Fox’s face just then. It seemed to me to be chillingly absent of any discernible emotion, and yet his eyes, glittering black as they swept the company around the table, were sharp with interest.

  Immediately after the meal was concluded, I returned to the third floor, where I found Henrietta seated by the window with a book on her lap. The puddle of sunlight angling through the leaded panes gilded her curls, setting them agleam like an angel’s, but her eyes were steady and somber as I greeted her.

  “She’s feeling a bit poorly,” Miss Harris informed me. “A quiet afternoon is in order, I should say.”

  “Every afternoon is quiet,” Henrietta said, turning back to her book. “And very long.”

  Hunkering down in front of the child, I took her hand in mine. “You aren’t very happy about being shut up inside, I see. Maybe that is what has you in the doldrums.”

  She lifted a slender shoulder in a pretense of diffidence, but I knew I’d struck on her problem.

  Miss Harris’s voice took on an uncharacteristic stridency. “Her father doesn’t wish her to go outside because of the illness.”

  “Yes, but maybe if we stay away from the village it will be all right. And we do not have to be out very long, just a nice brisk walk to put some color back in your cheeks. I’m sure your papa wouldn’t mind.” I considered the dappled light outside, then smiled down at Henrietta. “The day is getting milder, so it would seem the weather is inviting us. What do you say?” Henrietta smiled and nodded.

  The nursemaid tried to protest but I cut her off. “It is settled, then. We will not be long. Hen, go fetch your boots and grab Victoria.”

  Henrietta shook her head. “She’s left me.”

  Miss Harris clucked. “I’m afraid we’ve misplaced Victoria.”

  “We shall look for her when we get back,” I promised, and went to fetch my shawl. I would take her toward Overton. That path cut nowhere near any crofter’s cottage or farm and, as I’d been there before, there could be no question of our losing our way.

  We would, however, pass near The Sanctuary. In the broad light of day, the thought of seeing it again made me feel strangely excited. I suppose I was eager to prove there was nothing to be afraid of, that whatever fancy had gripped me temporarily was quite done with.

  We had a happy walk, for Henrietta came alive like a wilted flower reviving in the sunlight. The air held that certain crispness that comes after long rains, and it had a renewing effect on me as well. I inhaled deeply of the sweet breeze and my head felt clear. The sound of Henrietta’s laughter floated around me as she skipped and leapt at my side.

  When Marius’s tree came into view, my heart gave a great surge, and I could not prevent myself from scanning the tall grasses around it to see if the birds were anywhere in sight. Nothing disturbed the meadow, or the wild holly bushes at its edge, not even a breeze. The long, lazy branches of a weeping willow barely made a stir. The grass was thick and deep here, and it was not easy going as we thrashed our way through.

  There was no detectable change in Henrietta as we approached, then passed, the strangely shaped hawthorn. Relief swelled in me. It had all been a bit of nonsense.

  A patch of early wildflowers occupied us for a while. I showed Henrietta how to string them together to form a daisy chain. She grew bored and wandered off to fetch more flowers. I got rather lost in figuring out the knack of tying the little blossoms. It had been some time since I’d undertaken such a winsome activity.

  When I’d finished the first chain, I looked up and saw, to my surprise, that the field was empty. I scrambled to my feet. “Henrietta!” I called, and, at once, my fine sense of well-being evaporated.

  The object of my labor fell from my hand. I searched franti cally along the top of the grass for a cap of golden curls. “Henrietta?” I called.

  Lifting my skirts clear to my knees, I broke into a run. The height of the grass was an impediment, and I was not graceful as I loped through. I had a thought she might have made for the hedgerow and set off in that direction.

  Then something touched me, a presence, burning lightly into the flesh of my back. My steps slowed. I stopped. The air grew electric, and the sense of pressure, the terrible stabbing pain inside my head, sprang to life.

  I swung about to look behind me. I was standing by Marius’s tree. A terrible feeling saturated my flesh, aching a dull pain in my bones—it was coming from there. The feeling was coming from that direction.

  The sound of Henrietta’s voice drifted over to me. “No,” she said in a tone calm and measured, “I do not think it is so.”

  I felt relief, for I had found her, but it was quickly cut off, replaced by a creeping finger of dread that ran up the vertebrae in the small of my back. She was talking to someone.

  I spotted her, sitting cross-legged on the ground among the high grass. Her face was upturned as if there were someone standing just an arm’s length in front of her.

  She went still, as if she were listening. Whoever spoke to her did so in such a low tone I could not hear it. Then she laughed. “I should like that very much!”

  I approached quickly. What trick was this? Was someone hiding behind the tree? I could not see properly, so I cut a wide berth behind the child to trap him. Circling, I stopped short.

  The meadow was empty.

  Henrietta was even now smiling and nodding, as if in response to words I could not hear. But there was nothing there.

  Fear cut into me, a deep, razor-edged terror. When she’d played pretend with Victoria, I understood that she knew i
t was a game. This looked so real. As if something or someone really were there, speaking only to her…

  I cried out as a sudden burst of pain descended upon me like a hammer’s blow. I went down on my knees with a gasp, clutching my hands to my hair. I felt like I was being wrenched open, as though something inside me were tearing, and then, as I curled forward, mouth open in a silent cry, a sharp final snap burst upon me, as if a twig were rended in two.

  And then I felt no pain, just breathless relief. I lay there, unmoving, for only a moment before I remembered Henrietta and made myself rise. Unfurling myself, I found her motionless before Marius’s tree, enraptured. She still had no idea I was present.

  But now I saw it, as if a veil had been finally ripped aside. A shadow, the suggestion of a male figure, enshrouded in mists, stood in the shelter of the wild tangle of branches of the ancient hawthorn tree.

  I stood on shaking legs. “Henrietta!” I cried.

  She whipped her head around. The shadow dissolved and Henrietta jumped to her feet, her little body going rigid. I reached her, snatching her by the shoulders and pulling her toward me.

  Her head twisted to turn back to the tree. “You made him go away. He was being nice to me.”

  “Who? Is that Marius?” I grasped her shoulders and shook her, perhaps a bit more roughly than was necessary, but my blood was pumping furiously in my veins. “Is this Marius, Henrietta? Please tell me.”

  Something dawned on her and she looked upon me with a new amazement. “You saw him.”

  I was about to reply and stopped. What had I seen? “It was just a shadow, but like a man. Tall, and very dark. Is…is that what you see, darling?”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s very handsome. He talks to me.” She smiled, a chilling, ghostly smile. “He tells me things sometimes. I like it when he’s nice.” Her face went cold. “I’m afraid of him.”

  My heart plunged into ice. “Isn’t Marius your friend?”

  She bobbed her head, but her little forehead puckered and she whispered, “But I don’t like it when he wants to talk to me at night. He’s different then. He gets angry.”

  He taps on the glass at night, I recalled. “Who is Marius?” I whispered.

  A moment pulsed as I gazed into Henrietta’s face. In the pureness of her eyes, I could see the agony of indecision, of divided loyalties.

  I pulled her away from the tree. “We must never come here again. Your father was right, it is dangerous. I wonder if he knows just how much so. Come, hurry.” I left unsaid the remainder of my thought: Before he comes back.

  We fled that place with me all but dragging Henrietta behind me. We’d gone a short way when I saw a figure framed on a hilltop in the direction in which we were headed. With the low-hanging sun behind him, I could make out a man astride a horse. I thought it was Sebastian. Perhaps he’d come from the house to find us.

  I fled toward him, our progress slowed by tiny Henrietta battling the hip-high grass. Finally I scooped her up and carried her, running against the tangle of my skirts and the uneven ground. He saw us, and kicked his horse into a gallop down the hill. As the gap between us closed, I could see the tall, slender figure commanding a huge black beast was Valerian Fox. He reined in his horse directly in my path and peered down at me.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Andrews?” he demanded sharply. His dismount was fluid, controlled. Once he was on the ground, he reached for Henrietta. The act so surprised me, I surrendered her without question.

  His eyes lifted and scanned the horizon behind me, his face as inscrutable as ever. “You are too far from the house. It is dangerous out here.” His gaze jerked abruptly to mine, and I had a clear, unwavering revelation—

  He knows.

  Then he drew his horse close and issued a curt order to the beast. It was either some kind of code or another language, but the horse bobbed its head and went stock-still.

  “You will have to ride astride,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  I set my teeth edge to edge, grasped the pommel, and turned my mind away from the humiliating business of having Mr. Fox haul me astride. But the process was done quite handily, his strength proving astonishing for one without the excess of brawn. Astride the saddle, skirts bunched around my lap and the hem nearly to my knees, exposing my boots and a peek of stocking, I straightened tentatively, very uncertain at the unaccustomed height I found myself upon the back of his great horse. The gelding remained perfectly still. Fox handed Henrietta up to me, and she curled comfortably in my lap.

  Taking the reins, Mr. Fox led us back to the house.

  Chapter Six

  I understand that is the second time you have come to some ill near that place,” Fox said. We were in the library, where he had asked me to meet him after seeing Henrietta to the nursery. I’d wished to duck into my room to freshen my appearance, and this thought, as soon as it occurred to me, struck me as strange indeed, considering the much more important things I had on my mind.

  “What do you mean?”

  He reached out and cradled my bandaged hand in his. There was sureness in the way he touched me, as if we weren’t strangers. As if we’d known one another a very long time. “You cut your hand out there.” His finger traced the line of the cuts, visible through the bandage by the seeping blood. I’d ripped them open carrying Henrietta.

  My mouth opened, and I was about to ask him where he could have learned such a thing when it occurred to me that a man like him had numerous methods to gain intelligence.

  I disengaged my hand with some difficulty. “Funny,” I tossed out with a smile, “but I’ve never been accident-prone before.”

  He changed tack. “The child is unharmed?”

  “She is fine. I appreciate your concern. And your help. Your arrival was timely.”

  “Yes…” He stood with his feet braced apart, looking like the captain of a ship poised at the prow. “Might I have a word with you?” he asked.

  “We are having words now,” I replied, trying to be tart and then, hearing how I had just misspoken, blushing.

  He smiled slightly and his eyes, too, eased somewhat in their intensity. “Surely our conversation was not that extreme. I meant, might we speak a bit more…plainly, you and I?” Moving toward me, he gestured to one of four wing chairs by the unlit hearth, inviting me to sit. I complied. He took the chair closest to me, his long legs stretched out so that his shoe nearly touched the hem of my gown.

  Resting his elbows on the armrests, he laced his fingers just at his chin and leveled his black stare at me. I folded my own hands on my lap and returned his gaze evenly.

  After an interval, the smile came again, this time a tad deeper. “It seemed from my vantage point that something disturbed you today on the Overton Hill.”

  “How long were you watching me, Mr. Fox?”

  “A while,” he admitted without embarrassment. “I noticed the child by the tree. What was she doing?”

  “Nothing.” My reply was quick and obviously defensive. “Merely taking a rest.”

  He disengaged a long finger, using it to stroke his lip. He said, “I had just come over the crest of the hill when I spotted you wading through the grass to her, but the child…The child was, if my eyes did not mistake me, talking to the tree.”

  I swallowed first, then made my voice light. “I wonder you cannot find something more interesting to occupy an afternoon.”

  That elegant finger leveled at me. “And I noticed you had a fright.”

  My mouth worked a half-second before my voice came through. “I had lost sight of her. I was naturally overset. Let me ask you something, Mr. Fox. How was it you saw so much? You were very far away, and I could barely see from where I stood the outline of a figure of a horse and rider, let alone all this nuance of expression you claim to have noticed.”

  “I have excellent eyesight,” he said.

  “It must approach the vision of an eagle, I daresay.” I attempted a show of arrogance to indicate my disbelief, but succeede
d only in feeling childish. “And you happened to be riding in the area of The Sanctuary this morning? Why?”

  A ghost of some emotion passed over his face. “I am most interested in that tree.”

  “Do you have an affinity for botany, Mr. Fox?”

  His laughter came suddenly, an abrupt bark that punched sound into the quiet room. His smile lingered, showing teeth this time. They were very white and even. The fully blossomed smile was devastating on his somber face, and I saw he could very well have been very attractive indeed had he had better manners.

  His eyes on me were keen. “I have many interests.”

  “Including spying on us.”

  He froze me with that icy calculation of his. “I wonder, was your mission on the hill so clandestine that my observing you creates discomfort?”

  “I find it odd that you are so curious about an outing of a widow and a child,” I said pertly. I might as well have said: I find you odd, Mr. Fox.

  Nevertheless, he took no offense. He merely shrugged. “Inarguably.”

  He would give nothing. Well, neither would I. I had the very strong, very definite sense that he knew something, and he was attempting, in a sly, disarming manner, to pry some sort of admission from me.

  And yet I am embarrassed to admit that a small part of me—a part I most emphatically repressed—wanted very much to tell all to him, lay it at his feet and share the dark burden that was gathering across my shoulders.

  I rose abruptly. “Well, I need to see to changing for dinner. Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. Thank you again for the generous use of your horse.”

  He waited until I was at the door. “Mrs. Andrews.”

  I paused, turning my head enough to see him approach with a feline grace. He drew uncomfortably close. I was forced to gaze upward to meet his eye. “May I ask you a question on a rather delicate matter?”

  My heart, for some reason, beat wildly. “I am intrigued. Ask, then.”

  His cheek twitched. “I fear my manner has offended you.”