“You’re out of your senses,” Brandon said coldly. “This sort of behavior will merely get you into the scandal sheets.” He glanced at me. “Let no one in, Megan, until she recovers enough so that I can take her home.”
I opened the door a crack to the matron, took the bottle of smelling salts from her, and said that Mrs. Reid wished to be alone with her husband. She did not challenge my presence, and I was able to close the heavy door before Leslie’s voice made itself heard beyond the room.
All the stored-up emotion in her was finally spewing out, and it was a dreadful thing to behold. Her beauty had vanished in this ravishment of her features; her voice was high with tension.
“It’s time I spoke the truth! It’s time I told the world that it was you who killed Dwight. You, who were so determined that nothing should smear your precious family name, that you shot your own brother to death and used the boy to hide your crime.”
Her voice broke, and a dreadful silence lay upon us. Horror possessed me. For one shocked moment I almost believed her. Then denial and incredulity washed through me and I knew Brandon must be protected from such madness. I braced myself against the door, knowing that I must let no one into this room.
His face had gone deathly white, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. When his hands closed into fists I thought he would do her bodily harm. Then his fingers opened slowly and he did not touch her, even though her words ran on in a wild stream of accusation.
“The boy had a pistol in his hands, yes! But it was your gun that fired the shot, not the one he held. Have you forgotten that afterwards I helped you to get rid of the extra pistol so that it would never be found? I protected you! Because I was foolish enough to love you in spite of everything.”
She would have struggled up from the sofa, but he took her by the shoulders in a grip that must have hurt and held her there. Now, surely, he would deny her words. He would laugh at this vicious nonsense that could have no basis in reality. In silent anguish my thoughts pleaded with him.
He said nothing. He held her in that crushing grip till her head fell back and she stared up at him with a dawning of realization in her eyes. I think she knew then how close she was to death. And knowing, she went limp in his hands. He let her fall back upon the sofa and stepped away from her. I longed to be anywhere but in that room. I had seen and heard more than I could bear to live with, if Brandon did not deny her words. Yet still he said nothing.
Released from momentary danger, Leslie sat up and again her voice took up the tenor of dreadful condemnation.
“Do you think you can silence me now? Do you think I’ll let you escape me for one of your light-o’-loves? Never! You’ll stay with me and suffer as you’ve made me suffer. If you take a step away, I’ll tell the truth to the world, as I nearly told it today!”
Brandon’s hand flashed out, and the slap of it across her cheek sounded sharply through the room. Leslie crumpled upon the sofa cushions, silenced at last. He stood looking down at her, and, if there had been hot anger in him before, it had now turned to icy disgust.
“Get her home,” he said curtly to me. “I can’t trust myself if I listen to her longer.”
He opened the door and went past me without reassurance or denial, and I closed it behind him, turned the key in the lock. I was torn in a dozen ways. I wanted to leave Leslie there and escape the very sight of her. I wanted to run after Brandon and beseech him to tell me that none of what his wife had said was true. But there was in me as well a primitive impulse to force a denial of her words from this woman by sheer force. That I should be so shaken by an instinct to injure, shocked and steadied me. For a moment longer I stood with my back to the door, waiting for my breathing to quiet so that I could act. There was, of course, only one thing I could do.
A quick look about showed me that the room opened upon a small service area, with a cellar staircase leading down. If I could rouse Leslie, perhaps we might escape without being halted for questions or sympathy. This was the only purpose I could cling to with certainty in my state of sick shock.
I went to the sofa and took her hand, pulling her up without gentleness. To my relief, she offered no resistance, more like a rag doll in my grasp than a woman. I could not speak to her with any kindness, and the sound of my voice was harsh in my own ears.
“Come,” I told her. “You are ill, and we must get you home at once.”
She came with me blindly, as though she scarcely knew my identity. On the stairs she stumbled and might have fallen if I had not put an arm about her to steady her as we went down. My flesh crept at the touch. I could have no task more abhorrent to me than to give aid to Leslie Reid. Yet even as I shrank from contact with her, my wayward mind heard again the torrent of her words and began to question of its own volition.
Could there be the faintest truth in anything she had said? For if there was, who was I to shrink from Leslie Reid? I, who loved a man who might have committed a murder and allowed a child to shoulder the blame?
No! I thought. No—never! Not Brandon.
Once down the stairs, I found a rear door easily and in a moment we were out upon the sidewalk. The hall had been drafty and we had both retained our wraps, so we were ready for the street. I made no attempt to find the Reid carriage, but hailed a passing hansom cab and bundled my companion into it. In mutual silence we sat side by side in the leathery-smelling dimness. The weight of shock still lay upon me, and I was fearful of my own traitorous thoughts that would not give unquestioning belief in Brandon as I wished them to.
The cab jounced along over uneven pavement, and Leslie began to recover. She sat up and fastened her plumed hat more firmly upon her head with its long skewer of a hatpin, thrust her tumbled red hair into place beneath the brim. Her breathing had gone faint after Brandon had slapped her, but now it quickened and she seemed aware of me for the first time.
“How queer that it should be you who rescued me,” she murmured. “Have you ever thought of how we’ve been drawn together under strange circumstances, you and I? If you had trusted me, I could have helped you, I could have saved you from the trouble you are in.”
“I am in no trouble,” I told her unsteadily. I wanted none of her deceptive gentleness.
She went on, her voice soft as a whisper, and I remembered that day when she had stood in the window of her room and watched us drive away, that day I’d gone to the play with Brandon and the children. I had thought of her then as a ghostly presence in the house. How wrong I had been.
“You are in very great trouble, Miss Kincaid,” the soft voice insisted. “You are in the same trouble I was in from the moment I first saw him. You are in love with him, and any woman who loves him must suffer.”
I ignored her reference to me. “How could it be from the first moment? You were going to marry Dwight.”
She nodded, and the plumes on her hat ruffled gently with the movement. “Yes. And I married Dwight. Because he loved me and always would. And because my father was ruined and everything had crashed about my head. But I never stopped wanting Brandon. Afterwards—when Dwight was dead and there was no safety to cling to—what choice did I have? Even to becoming an accomplice after the fact. And what could he do but marry me and thus assure my silence? Believe me, Miss Kincaid, he was not above buying that protection. Otherwise he would never be tied to one woman. Once he has what he covets, he grows bored and there’s an end to it. Perhaps an end to everything for the woman. Do you think that would not happen to you also?”
I wanted to put my hands over my ears to shut out her words. Instead, I tried to deflect them.
“It was you who wanted Jeremy out of the house,” I said. “You, most of all.”
She made no attempt to evade the accusation. “Naturally. Because sooner or later the boy would convince someone that a second pistol existed and Brandon would be convicted. I still loved him. I still wanted to save him from the results of his own act. There would be no injustice to Jeremy. He is unbalanced and violent.”
“He is your son,” I said. “Yet you have no love for him.”
“Selina is the child I love. Jeremy has always frightened me. He was so much his father’s son, and I could never love him. You’ve seen for yourself how dangerous he is.”
“I’ve seen nothing of the kind,” I said. “I’ve seen only the aftermath of his self-blame.” I turned my head and looked at her there beside me in the dim interior of the cab. How pure her profile, how deceptively lovely. “It was you who smashed the Osiris head, wasn’t it?”
Faint laughter brimmed to her lips. “How clever you are! Yes, of course it was I. Brandon would never believe in his own danger. His sense of guilt has caused him to be overly generous to the boy. Your presence and influence on Jeremy has made everything worse, and I had to prove that we could keep the child with us no longer.”
I could feel only loathing for the woman beside me. “Then it was you who took Miss Garth’s scissors and thimble and hid them beneath Jeremy’s pillow.” I did not question; I stated. “But now the truth must be told,” I went on. “All of it. Jeremy must understand his own innocence.”
Her eerie laughter bubbled again, and afterwards the silence between us was potent with meaning.
To think of Jeremy was no longer safe. Freeing him from the years’ weight of guilt might mean to seal Brandon’s fate. Yet Jeremy must be cleared. There was no other choice. My heart contracted at the thought of his long helpless suffering. Surely, surely Brandon would never have taken his own freedom at so great a cost to a child. I would never believe that of him. He might kill in hot anger, but this he would never do. And he must tell me so himself.
I had only one purpose now. As soon as it was possible I would see him and ask for the truth. He would tell me that Leslie was a liar, that she held nothing over his head. He must tell me that he was innocent of his brother’s death, of this long torturing of Jeremy. I could live only for the moment of seeing him. Nothing else mattered.
When the ride ended, Leslie got out of the cab and went up the steps without my help. She rang the bell insistently while I paid the cabby. When Henry opened the door, I followed her into the house.
TWENTY-SIX
The moment Leslie was inside, she turned limp and helpless again. Garth was summoned to take her upstairs, and the household was in a stir of concern over her state. Such histrionic ability no longer amazed me. This was the way she kept everyone jumping through her hoops.
When I found that Brandon was not yet home, I went directly upstairs. I hoped to avoid Jeremy for the moment, but he was watching for me on the third floor.
“Come and tell us everything that happened, Miss Megan,” he invited eagerly.
There was no escaping him, and I went into the schoolroom, where morning lessons were coming to an end. Selina and Andrew sat at the table. Andrew saw my face and brought me a chair, but I would not sit down. I wanted only to satisfy Jeremy and make my escape.
“I’m sorry,” I told the boy, “but I have little to report. Dr. Clarke, the minister, gave a fine talk about your father, and there was a great crowd of people there. But the strain was too much for your mother. She became ill, and I had to bring her home. So I’ve no idea of what went on at the ceremony after that.”
“Why you?” Andrew asked. “Why didn’t Reid bring her home himself?”
I could not stand there and quibble. Fear and anxiety were building up in me, and Andrew recognized the fact that something was wrong. He did not press his own questions and he checked Jeremy.
“No more now,” he said. “Miss Megan is tired. I’ll see her to her room.”
Not even the reassuring pressure of Andrew’s hand beneath my arm could save me from my frantic fears. I wanted only the solitude of my room, where I could wait until Brandon returned to the house.
Andrew opened my door for me, but he did not let me go at once. “Tell me what’s troubling you, Megan,” he pleaded.
I was near the breaking point and I looked at him a little wildly. “Mrs. Reid has accused Brandon of his brother Dwight’s murder. She is out of her mind—completely mad. What happened was dreadful—dreadful and nearly disastrous.”
“So it’s come at last,” he said. “The lid has blown off with a vengeance. You’d better tell me about it, Megan. Perhaps it will help you to talk.”
Even in my distraught state, I saw his concern for me, but I could only shake my head. “I don’t know the truth yet. Perhaps I can tell you later—when I know. Let me go, Andrew, please let me go.”
He put a hand on my arm in a quick, comforting gesture and released me. I went into my room and flung off my wraps, letting them fall where they might. I could not lie on the bed, or settle myself in a chair. I could only pace the small room. I heard the summons to the midday meal, but I did not go down. Would anyone in this house ever again be able to eat a quiet meal? The thought of food sickened me.
Once I paused in my pacing and summoned Kate, to ask if Mr. Reid had yet returned to the house. She told me that he had come home and was now closeted with his wife. I could not refrain from questioning her. I no longer had any pride.
“Are their voices angry?” I asked. “Do you think they are quarreling?”
There was pity in her eyes, and I wondered how much of my “secret” was known to the servants.
“I couldn’t hear a thing,” she told me frankly. “Though I listened outside the door. Garth came out soon after the master went in and she nearly caught me there. But their voices were low, miss.”
When she had gone, I left the shelter of my room. The children were in the nursery, and Garth was with them now, Andrew gone. Like Kate, I listened at the door to make sure. After that I paced the third-floor hall instead of my room. Up and down, up and down, pausing occasionally at the stair rail to look down at the floor below, or to hold my breath and listen. Now and then a murmur of voices reached me, but they were not raised until the very end. When I heard the door of Leslie’s bedroom open, I went a few steps down without care for being seen. Thus I heard his words and saw them both in that angry moment.
“You can do your worst!” he flung at her in a voice that was deadly to hear. “It doesn’t matter any more.”
In her yellow gown, Leslie seemed as stiff as a dressed-up doll. But her face, as I saw it before she closed the door of her room, was that of a woman who would stop at nothing.
I waited only until Brandon went into the library. Then I flew down the stairs and entered without knocking. Entered and shut the door behind me. I would not let him send me away.
He stood before the window, where I had seen him so often, and he did not know I was there until I spoke his name. Then he turned and looked at me down the length of the room. Again I was aware of the high sweep of dark hair above his forehead, the gray eyes, the nose with its faint hump of bone, the mouth that could be cruel as well as kind. I knew only that this was the face of my love and that I must suffer now as he so plainly was suffering. Yet when I took a step toward him with my hand outstretched, he left the window and put the desk between us.
“What are you here for?” he asked coolly.
“I want only to understand the truth,” I told him. “I will believe whatever you tell me.”
His short laugh was far from reassuring. “The truth? That is a very large term. Do you, for instance, know the truth behind every action of your own, Megan?”
I had often enough had doubts of my own motivation, but now I wanted concrete reassurance—not of motives, not of reasoning behind some troubled act, but the truth of the act itself. There were exonerating facts, I was sure, if only he would reveal them, if only he would deny.
“What did she mean about there being a second pistol?” I asked.
For an instant I thought he would dismiss me angrily from the room. But he seemed to think better of it. With an absent hand he picked up the jagged stone, all that remained of the Osiris head. He spoke without looking at me, his finge
rs moving down the nose, touching lips that still smiled serenely.
“Leslie has always been a skillful fabricator of lies,” he said. “She will invent any fantasy that suits her need, or play any part her fancy dictates. There was no second pistol that night, Megan. I was there when Jeremy fired the shot, as I’ve told you before. I picked up the pistol he used and found it still warm. You can take no hope for the boy’s sake in this fantasy of another gun. She will say anything she could to condemn me.”
He seemed to recognize the object in his hands and set it down as though the face of a judging Osiris repelled him. I leaned forward to touch the broken piece of stone.
“Mrs. Reid told me it was she who smashed the head with a pistol shot. Not Jeremy.”
My words seemed to break through the guard he had raised against me. He stared at me for a moment and then nodded.
“Yes, I suppose that’s possible. There’s no end to what she may try. But I’m done with her now. Done with this house and everything in it. I’ll be away as soon as possible. I’ve told her she can do her worst.”
“I know,” I said. “I heard.” Once more I stepped toward him, wanting only to offer him my belief and trust. “Brandon, take me with you!”
His look softened. Then he shook his head, not unkindly.
“No, Megan. You must leave the house too. But you must leave alone. I’ll involve you no longer. What is coming will be desperately unpleasant for everyone. It may destroy me completely. I’m ready to face that now.”
“I would stand beside you, if you’d let me,” I said.
He came to me then and took me by the shoulders. He shook me with something of his old exasperation and yet gently, with great tenderness.
“You will do nothing of the kind. You will go out of this room and out of my life and you will never look back. You will go now, Megan, while there is still time.”
I saw there could be no fighting him at this moment. I would not be put aside forever if he wanted me, but I could not oppose him now.
Window on the Square Page 24
