Isle of the Seventh Sentry

by Fortune Kent

  Beth knew at once which one was Charles Lewis—a small and compact older man seated to her left, hair cut short, face covered with a gray grizzle of beard. The woman sat to one side, hands folded in her lap, the serene face reminding Beth of Mrs. Shepherd.

  The second man at the table rose, slow and deliberate, looking at Matthew without expression. Hooded men crowded into the room, and Beth was shoved to one side until her back was to the window. She stood on tiptoe to see over their heads.

  “Sheriff Williams,” Matthew said, his voice muffled by the mask. Beth looked closely at the sheriff. Medium height. Middle fifties. He had blue eyes, a clean-shaven face, and white hair. Her gaze returned to his eyes. Intent, steady, deep-blue eyes. She imagined him leading a troop of cavalry in the Indian wars, could see him prone on the crest of a hill sighting over the barrel of a rifle.

  The sheriff smiled, seeming to ignore their hoods and robes. An almost imperceptible move of his hand brought the two armed men behind him where they positioned themselves, one on each side. Beth saw the butt of a pistol protruding from a holster on the sheriff’s hip.

  “This is no concern of yours,” he told Matthew in a flat voice. “The matter rests with me and Lewis.” He nodded to the farmer seated at the table.

  “What happens to Charles Lewis concerns us all,” Matthew said. “We don’t intend to have our heads cut off one by one and be plucked like chickens.”

  The sheriff shook his head. His blue eyes measured Matthew. “Don’t interfere. The law says Lewis gave up all right to the farm when he didn’t pay his rent. It’s out of your hands. Out of my hands.”

  “No, no,” the men muttered. More hooded figures pushed in through the door and forced those in front forward until Matthew stretched his arms wide to hold them back.

  Beth warmed to him. She admired his authority, his presence, the way men looked to him for leadership. And, she thought, he has shared with me a secret segment of his life, part of him known only to the two of us. Did she want to share the public side of Dr. Matthew Smith as well?

  “What’s this?” Matthew asked, pointing to a paper on the table.

  “The eviction order,” the sheriff said.

  Matthew picked up the paper. Beth saw the sheriff’s hand poised at his side. Matthew walked to the hearth and held the printed sheet over the fire.

  “Don’t,” the sheriff said. The hooded men, twenty or twenty-five must have been in the room now, pressed forward, and Beth noticed the sheriff moved so the table was between him and Matthew. The sheriff’s hand stayed near his gun. The two young deputies flanked him, their eyes darting from hooded face to hooded face.

  Matthew opened his hand and an “Ahhhhh” came from the men as they watched the paper glide down to rest on a charred log and burst into flames. The sheriff’s eyes remained on Matthew. Beth held her breath. There seemed to be no sound in the room other than the pounding of her heart.

  Sheriff Williams’s eyes left Matthew for the first time to sweep over the room. He whispered to his deputies, and the two men backed to the rear of the room and, still facing the tenants, left through the door.

  Without a word the sheriff turned on his heel and strode out. The men in the room were silent, stunned. Hoofbeats and the clatter of wheels came from the yard. Beth looked from the window and watched the buggy drive onto the road and saw a man pick up a stone and hurl it after the sheriff. The stone thumped on the roof of the buggy and ricocheted off into the brush.

  Matthew said a few words to the short man and then looked about the room. When he found Beth he came and took her arm and led her outside. “The sheriff has five other eviction notices with him,” he told her. “If he tries to serve them, I don’t know what might happen. Go to my place; you’ll be safe there.” He called to a horseman about to ride off after the sheriff. The man reined in beside them, and Matthew lifted Beth up behind him.

  “Leave this young fellow at my house,” he told the man, who nodded and rode off with Beth clinging to his robe. As the men hurrying along the road moved aside to let them by, she heard fragments of conversation—“the mountain road,” “tar and feather them,” “the Worthington place”.

  She slid from the horse in front of the doctor’s house and paced back and forth, undecided. She heard men running on the road beyond the creek. She paced faster. Heard the sound of the horses. Back and forth. Shouts and horns from higher on the mountain. Back and forth.

  Was the sheriff at the estate? Was Matthew in danger? She had to know. She hastened to the bridge and onto the road to the mountain. Stragglers passed her. I’ll stay in the background, she told herself, keep out of the way, merely watch what’s going on.

  The men were gathered on the road before the Worthington estate. More than a hundred, Beth guessed, and more coming all the time.

  “They went in to get their orders from Worthington,” the man next to her reported to another late arrival.

  “Here they come,” a man near the gate shouted. The horse and buggy drove toward them from the direction of the house, and when the deputy at the reins saw the hooded men blocking the exit to the road, he pulled the horse up just before the gate. Beth saw the buggy framed by the two pillars—rough stone pillars some four feet on a side and over ten feet high. The black metal gates were open, pulled back at right angles to the pillars. On either side was a fence, the one to the right joining the gate to the two-story gatehouse, the one to the left extending only a few feet where it ended at the top of a steep bank.

  “Look,” a man beside her said in a low, excited voice. “Worthington himself.” Beth felt a shiver run up and down her body. Jeffrey, John Price, Wendell Bemis, and two other men appeared at the curve in the drive and walked together to the buggy. All except Jeffrey carried rifles. The sheriff and the two deputies leaped to the ground, and Jeffrey and the sheriff talked in whispers while the other men, letting the farmers see what they were doing, poured powder from their powder horns into their palms and then into the barrels, and loaded their muskets and rifles by ramming home the round balls of shot on top.

  Beth edged along the fringes of the crowd to the pillar near the gatehouse and slid along its rough surface until she reached the driveway. She saw the sheriff step to the road where Matthew waited.

  “What are you doing here?” the sheriff asked the suddenly quiet throng.

  “We have a petition for the Worthingtons,” Matthew said. Beth was surprised. This was the first she had heard of a petition.

  The sheriff shook his head. “Petitions are none of my business,” he told Matthew.

  “The evictions are. We demand no more evictions.”

  “The law must be obeyed.” The sheriff’s tone was determined. “Let us pass.”

  “You may pass, to return to the county seat, nowhere else.”

  “I go where I please.”

  “No, not today.”

  Jeffrey walked to the sheriff’s side. Behind him Beth could see the men pulling the rear triggers of their guns so they would fire with the slightest touch on the front trigger. Jeffrey ran his hand through his hair, then put his hands on his hips.

  “A man must be a coward to hide like a woman beneath a bedsheet,” he sneered.

  Matthew reached up and snatched the hood from his head and flung it to the ground at Jeffrey’s feet. With his spectacles and gray hair he looked to Beth more like a schoolteacher than a leader of a revolt.

  “No more a coward,” he said, “than a man who hides behind the guns of others.”

  Jeffrey laughed and spoke past Matthew to the crowd. “I’ll listen to no petition,” he shouted. “Stop this masquerade. Go home. You can pay your rents tomorrow. Without penalty. Without eviction. I will go no further.”

  A boy ran from the road toward one of the deputies. Beth saw the boy raise his arm, and there was a round white object in his hand. He hurled the egg. The deputy turned aside and was struck above the ear, and the white and yellow liquid ran down his neck. He swung at the boy with his rif
le, hit him on the leg, and the gun fired with a sharp explosion. The boy dropped to the ground. The crowd, stunned, drew back.

  Sheriff Williams reacted first. “Behind the gate,” he called, and the deputies and the men from the estate retreated into the driveway. “Close the gates,” the sheriff commanded and the deputies ran, one to each side, to swing the metal gate shut. The sheriff slid a bar across to secure the two sections. Behind the gate Beth saw the deputy reloading his rifle.

  As though on signal—yet Beth was sure there was no signal—the hooded men advanced, shouting, screaming, hurled themselves on the gate, climbed the horizontal railings, grasped the bars, and swayed to and fro until Beth heard a rending in the concrete of the pillar beside her. The men redoubled their attack, the bolts ripped loose, and the gate crashed down, the men falling to lie sprawled in the dirt of the driveway.

  Two shots. Beth gasped. Wisps of smoke curled from the muzzles of the deputies’ rifles, both aimed over the tenants’ heads. The crowd stopped, checked, yet Beth knew they must go on, knew they could not rest until they threw themselves onto Jeffrey and the armed men and overwhelmed them.

  She saw Jeffrey, hands folded on his chest, waiting. She knew with certainty the farmers would hurl him to the ground and trample him beneath them, and she knew with even greater certainty she must prevent them.

  “Stop, stop,” she cried, unheard in the tumult. She darted to the men scrambling to their feet, pulling off her hood as she ran, tripping on the gate, almost falling, now between the groups of men, hair free to her shoulders, seeing them staring, not knowing what to make of her. Some recognized Beth, and she heard the surprised murmur of her name.

  She faced the hooded men. Matthew held his hands aloft, and they were still. “I’m Miss Worthington,” she heard herself saying. They could not hear so she repeated the words, shouting. “I speak for the estate,” she went on. “Bring your petition in the morning. I’ll hear you then.”

  Matthew stepped to her. The boy was with him, limping, otherwise unhurt. Matthew nodded. “We accept,” he called out, and the crowd fell away, dispersed into small groups, shaking hands, boisterous with triumph and relief.

  Beth was weak, drained. She turned toward the house, and the sheriff moved aside to let her pass, the deputies stepped back, Jeffrey faced away. Alone, she walked past them, hands at her sides, head high, forcing her legs to go one before the other, tired, fighting back the trembling.

  Why did I do it? she asked herself. What terrible chain of events have I set in motion? What will become of us all?

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What made you agree?” Jeffrey demanded. All during the afternoon she had expected the question, but he had remained silent until after supper when he followed her to the library. Beth sat in a straight-backed chair while Jeffrey stood over her, his face tight and scowling.

  Beth blushed. She couldn’t tell Jeffrey the truth—couldn’t say, “I agreed because of you. I acted to protect you.” She couldn’t tell him, so she temporized.

  “So many reasons,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt like the boy was. If someone were killed, and a tenant could have been, or one of the estate men or the sheriff or one of his deputies, the blemish on the Worthingtons could never be removed, not in our lifetime.”

  “Why don’t you say what you really mean? Why not say you were afraid? And not for the tenants or the deputies. Admit you feared for the safety of your friend the doctor.”

  She was silent before his angry gaze. How little he knows me, she thought. Beth felt guilty because when danger came her concern had been for Jeffrey, not Matthew, for the man who rejected her rather than the one who seemed to care. Matthew deserves better from me, she told herself.

  “And what now?” Jeffrey asked, becoming sarcastic. “What do you plan to do tomorrow when the downtrodden tenants march in here to tramp mud on our carpets while they present their petition to the gracious lady of the manor?”

  “I want you and Charles to be with me,” Beth said. “I’m sure I couldn’t manage without you; you both know so much more about the estate than I do.”

  Jeffrey stalked to the fireplace, returned to look down at Beth. She watched the pulse throb in his throat. His fists clenched and unclenched.

  “You don’t quite fit the role of the innocent young girl,” he said. “You seemed to be getting along very well without us today.”

  “Stop!” She felt the color rise to her face. She got up and stood looking into his flecked eyes. “What I did had to be done.” Her voice trembled as she fought to control herself. “I could do no more,” she said quietly.

  He gripped her upper arms, and she winced as his fingers dug into her flesh. “Oh!” she gasped. “Let go.” He relaxed his hold, but his hands remained on her arms. “Take your hands off me,” she told him. Tears came to her eyes.

  Jeffrey dropped his arms to his sides. He smiled his infuriating mirthless smile. “I forgot that only Dr. Smith has the privilege of touching you,” he said. “And I’m sure he takes advantage of his privilege.”

  She swung her hand hard and struck him across the face, and he flinched, hair flying, mouth open in surprise, his cheek first white, then red.

  “Damn you,” he said and stepped to her, grasped her shoulders and began to shake her. Before she could protest, his arms enfolded her and his lips were on her cheek, on her lips, his hands rough on her back holding her tight against him, his lips moving on hers. She was passive in his arms, confused and frightened by his sudden passion.

  His hands fell from her, and in the moment before he turned away, she saw the firelight reflected in his eyes. Without a word he strode from the room and slammed the door. Beth folded her arms across her chest, her hands massaging the soreness. She stared at the closed door. She hated him. She could live with the hating. She also knew she wanted him and the wanting frightened her.

  She walked to the fire and held her hands before her. They tingled in the heat, and gradually the warmth spread over her body. She looked down at her hands, the fingers still smarting from striking Jeffrey, and she ran them over her lips and down her body. Enough, she told herself. Find Charles and discuss the petition. See Mrs. Worthington. Visit Mrs. Jamison. Seven o’clock. Time was running out.

  Beth hurried along the corridor to the front hall. A man, a stranger dressed in black, leaned on the wall beside the door. She glanced at him, puzzled, and he looked away. She walked past and up the stairs.

  Mrs. Jamison lay propped on the pillows, reading. When Beth entered she placed the book face down on the bed beside her.

  “How could you?” she asked before Beth could speak. “Just when we were doing so well. Why did you have to spoil everything?”

  Beth started to answer, but Mrs. Jamison continued talking as though she weren’t there.

  “I’ve tried and tried,” she said in a choked voice. “Is it my fault you’re pigheaded? No—not mine. Although I should have guessed how you’d be when you first came to me with your superior airs. Yet how could I have known we’d end like this, me laid up with a broken leg while you gallivant about the countryside with a rebel calling himself a doctor? If only you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened.”

  Beth saw tears come into Mrs. Jamison’s eyes, and she extended her hand to comfort her and began again to explain, but the older woman turned her head to the wall. “Later, later,” she sobbed. Beth retreated to the doorway where she looked back and started to speak, realized the uselessness of words, and left.

  She opened Mrs. Worthington’s door. Ellen placed a finger on her lips, and Beth saw the ill woman lying motionless in the bed, asleep, so she nodded to the nurse and backed from the room.

  She must talk to Charles. Where was he? Where was Jeffrey? She searched along the upstairs halls, returned downstairs to the parlor and living room, looked in the library, glanced into the dining room. No Charles. No Jeffrey. Beth, at a loss, walked to the kitchen and was gazing out of the window, wonde
ring where to look next, when Alice entered.

  Beth continued to stare at the full moon rising behind the trees, not wanting to talk, expecting the girl to go on with her work. After a few minutes Beth realized Alice had not moved from beside the door.

  “What is it, Alice?” she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.

  The girl, blonde and blue eyed, seemed shy, and when she spoke the quick pert manner was gone and her words were slow and hesitating. “Miss,” Alice said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you did.”

  “What I did?” Beth repeated in surprise.

  “Yes, during the fight at the gate today when you said you’d listen to the petition and all.”

  “Why, thank you, Alice.”

  “You knew I was a Lewis, didn’t you,” the girl asked, “and the Lewises, the ones the sheriff was evicting today, are my uncle and aunt?”

  “I didn’t know,” Beth said.

  “They are, and they and all the other tenants feel the same as me. I don’t want to be ungrateful to Mr. Jeffrey but, well…” she paused, “if I can ever be of help, let me know.”

  “I’m so glad you told me,” Beth said. “I feel better knowing someone’s on my side.” The girl blushed. So demure, Beth thought, how could I have disliked her? Beth was ashamed of her hasty judgment.

  “There is something,” Beth said. “Do you know where Charles and Jeffrey are? I can’t seem to find them.”

  “Oh, yes, I just served them sherry. They’re in the solarium.”

  “The solarium? Isn’t the solarium closed? The room gets so cold this time of year.”

  “Not tonight it isn’t. They’ve a grand fire going, and I had to open the window the room got so hot.”

  Beth walked past the girl and touched her on the arm. “Thank you,” she said.

  “And one thing I forgot,” Alice said. “A strange man was with them.”