Summer Lightning

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  “Absolutely.” What choice did she have?

  After a moment or two of silence, Edith called again, “Louise? Are you still there?”

  Silence was her only answer. Edith crossed her arms across her chest. The air in the cellar was dank and cool. The temperature chilled her like a cool cloth dripping on her skin. It was refreshing, compared to the heat and humidity of the day.

  The smell, however, reminded Edith of the fresh earth of a burial. She shivered, not entirely from the cold. Remembering that Maribel was supposed to be down here, she called her name.

  As her eyes adjusted to the little streamers of light that filtered through the slats of the door, Edith peered around her. A few large barrels took up some of the room, and these had two or three smaller ones resting in the spaces between their rounded sides. Strings of onions and bags of potatoes hung from pegs driven into the supporting floor beams.

  Moving farther into the darkness, Edith realized this was a larger space than she had first thought. It must run under half the house.

  That gave her an idea. Perhaps there was a way into the house from the cellar. It made sense that Sam’s wife and Gwen hadn’t wanted to tramp all the way around the house every time they wanted a carrot or a turnip. What about in the winter? They must surely have rebelled at the thought of getting all bundled up just to obtain a few vegetables.

  After bumping into two dirty partitions, Edith decided she would recommend a few things to Jeff’s next wife. It was just as she was deciding that electric lighting was really a necessity for mankind that too much light suddenly filled the cellar.

  Once more Edith found her eyes watering. She stumbled toward the opening. A broad-shouldered figure fell across her vision like a shadow.

  “Sam?” she asked, stepping blindly forward.

  “No, it’s me. Edith, are you all right?” Jeff dashed down the rickety wooden stairs to take her hand.

  “Don’t trouble about me. Maribel is down here, and she won’t answer when I call her.”

  “Maribel? But she’s out . . .”

  Once more, the light was cut off with a slam. Jeff and Edith jerked around with one accord. Releasing her hand, he climbed the steps determinedly.

  “Louise,” he called. “Are you playing a trick on your old dad?”

  “No, sir.”

  Faintly, Edith heard the inevitable echo. “No, sir.” So Maribel was outside all along.

  “Are you positive about that?”

  Two little voices. “No, sir.”

  “All right then. You’ve had your joke. Now open the door, Louise,”

  “I can’t. It’s too heavy. I’ll go get Grandpa.”

  “You’d better. And then we’ll have a little talk about this, young lady.”

  Edith put her hand on the railing and looked up at Jeff, crouching like Atlas. “I didn’t think they disliked me so much.”

  “They don’t dislike you at all. This is just a practical joke. All kids do it. Didn’t you?” Looking down into her face, lit palely by the sifted sunlight, he answered his own question. “Of course you didn’t. You probably played sedately with your dolls and never got your tucker messed.”

  Responding to the note of pity in his voice, Edith tossed back her head. “That’s right. I was never a wild animal like other children.”

  “Your aunt saw to that. I’m really going sour on . . .”

  “It has nothing to do with my aunt. It’s just the way I am. Why, even before I left the orphanage, I ...”

  “Orphanage? What orphanage?”

  “The one I lived in until I was ... I must have been about Maribel’s age. The papers never gave a clear birth date.”

  “You’re adopted?” Jeff sat down on the top step.

  “Of course. My aunt never married.”

  “She wasn’t your mother’s sister? Or your father’s?”

  Edith lifted her shoulders. “Neither. She really wasn’t related to me at all. She told me to call her aunt. I never knew who my real parents were until after Aunt Edith died. My real name, believe it or not, is Jessica Hawes. But I can’t imagine answering to it. It belongs to a stranger.”

  “Jessica’s a pretty name. What else do you know?”

  “The details were in the papers she left behind.” Her gaze sank to the floor. “They were burned with everything else.”

  “Do you remember your parents?”

  “No. That is, not really. Sometimes I think I remember something. A song, or a smell will make me think . . . that was my mother. But it’s never any stronger than that.”

  She glanced up again toward him. The light behind him, reflecting off his thick, fair hair, gave him a halo. “I’ve never told anybody else about my adoption. I don’t know why.”

  His voice was deep as he said, “Maybe because between us, there should be no secrets.”

  Chapter 16

  Jeff paced back and forth at the bottom of the stairs. Edith, watching him, thought of a pendulum clock. Then she sank again into a fantasy.

  From her chains, Lady Jessica Hawes listened to the slow drip of water from the goatskin bag upon the wall. Clever Lord Ivor, to torture her thus! But she would never yield to his foul demands, though her life pay for her stubbornness.

  The deep-barred oaken doors at the top of the slimed stone steps creaked open. The smoking torches set in high brackets around the dungeon walls flickered in the rush of cool air. Was this her deliverance? The chains cut into her wrists ax she strained forward to see.

  A dark hulking figure stumbled over the threshold, held up by the cruel arms of her jailers. A sharp shove and the figure fell, tumbling down the steps, helpless to save himself. He lay at the bottom, in a tangle of soiled straw. The guards laughed harshly and clanged the great doors shut.

  After a moment, the figure raised his head and Jessica looked upon the features, cut and bruised but yet defiant, of Jeffrey the Dane. He said, “I don’t know where those kids are, but I’m going to have something to say when I get out of here.”

  “I’m sure it’s only a joke, as you said,” Edith told him, jolted into reality.

  “Well, they’re taking it too far. They should have brought Dad by now, unless he’s in on it.”

  “Why would he be?”

  Jeff began pacing again. “He might think it was funny.”

  “Your father hasn’t struck me as a man to make silly jokes.”

  “Not any more. He was once.” Jeff wondered if locking them together in a cellar was his father’s ideas of matchmaking. He realized it might very well be Louise’s idea of it. Push two people together in a situation like this and they could wind up in each other’s arms. Especially if the woman has shown herself to be scared of snakes.

  “You know,” Jeff said, stopping again in front of her. “I don’t want to alarm you, or anything, but . . .”

  “Yes?” How handsome he was with the light on his face! She didn’t know what he had been doing when Louise brought him to rescue her, but he had a hardworking, windblown look about him as though he’d been wrestling with the earth and sky.

  Jeff struggled with his baser self. He lost. “You know, sometimes snakes creep into cool places like this to wait out the heat of the day.”

  “Do they?” Her tone was calm but she drew her skirts together around her ankles.

  Darn! he thought. He’d been enjoying the glimpses he’d had of those delicate underpinnings. “Yeah,” he said. “But I’m sure you’re safe there. I don’t think they can climb stairs.”

  “I won’t budge.”

  He went back to pacing. Edith returned to dreaming.

  The big, blond god of a man inched his way over to her like a lowly worm. Every motion caused his brow to contract and his lips to set hard against the pain of his bindings. Tears flowed freely from Lady Edith’s crystalline eyes as she suffered each pain with him. At last, he could lay his head in her lap.

  “I came to rescue thee, “ he said. A bitter laugh broke from his throat. “A fine h
and I have made of it.”

  “ ‘Twas bravely done. “

  “Nay, ‘twas folly. But when I learned what had become of thee, my brain was fired. I listened not to the counsels of my cooler friends, nor heeded any call but that of my love for thee. And now, what can I? Only die with thee. “

  “That is enough,” she whispered brokenly, “For I would die gladly with thee.”

  “What are you crying about?” Jeff asked, one foot on a step. He leaned forward to take her hand- “It’s not so bad. They’ll be along. Or listen ... I could try to break the latch again. I’m pretty sure I felt it give a little before.”

  “I’m a fool,” Edith said vehemently, pulling her hand away. “Don’t take any notice, please.”

  “What do you mean, don’t take notice? If you’re upset about being down here . . .”

  He sat on the step beside her and put his arm around her waist. Snugging her against his side, he said softly, “Come on, darlin’. It’ll be all right.”

  “I know,” she protested, sliding away from his warmth. She couldn’t accept his comfort under false pretenses. “The thing is ... you see, I make up . . .”

  “What?” he asked after a long pause. She was blushing as though she were confessing a secret fondness for blood sacrifice at the height of the full moon.

  “I invent stories. Awful lies.”

  “Lies? Or stories? There’s a big difference.”

  “No, there isn’t. A lie is an untruth, a falsehood. And a story is the same thing—making up people who never existed and who do things no one has ever done.” She hung her head. “I’ve always done it in secret.”

  “That’s not so terrible,” he said, laughing a little at her air of utter disgrace. “Whoever told you . . . ? Let me guess. Your aunt.”

  Edith made a further confession, not trying at all now to disturb his comforting arm. “Ever since she died, I have been . . . sneaking novels out of the library.”

  “Is that some sort of a crime?”

  “It’s unfair,” she said, surprised he didn’t understand. “And it might be illegal, I suppose. It was her subscription and she would never take a novel home. To her, they were the devil’s books. Do you suppose it really is against the law?” Her blue eyes, looking black with dilated pupils, went round at the idea.

  She shook her head over her own wickedness. “It’s like an illness. I have tried to stop, to read only wholesome works-travel and biographies—but I always wind up taking home Dickens and Twain and Verne.”

  “Three dangerous men.” He grinned at her and cuddled her closer in a teasing way, telling himself he was behaving just like a big brother. “Whose company I enjoy myself, when I’m not working on the stud records or the accounts. It’s not a crime or an illness to love to read great stories, Edith. I don’t care what your aunt told you. She was wrong.”

  His face was so sincere that she was reassured. She said, “But you must admit that there is a difference between reading stories and making them up. That is a vice equal to drink.”

  “Now how did you decide that?”

  “When I am reading, I can put down the book and be Edith Parker again. I can do my household tasks and carry on rational conversations, when there is anybody there to talk with.”

  Thinking of the squalor of her boardinghouse, Jeff hoped she had not talked much with the people he’d seen there. Drunken landlords and neighbors who looked to him like women for hire were not fit confidants for this gentle, intuitive girl.

  “But when I make up stories,” Edith went on, “then it is a very different thing. My food burns, my bed isn’t made . . . and I talk to people without knowing what they said or how I answered.” Her voice dropped to a thread. “Some people in St. Louis thought I was crazy. But I was only thinking I was someone else.”

  “Who?”

  She shook her head and wouldn’t answer.

  “Have you ever written any of these stories down? I’d like to read . . .”

  “Oh, no! I mean, I could never let anyone read any of my stories. I just couldn’t. Besides, they are all gone now.”

  “The fire?”

  “Yes. Everything I knew about myself and all my dreams . . .”

  Jeff cupped her soft cheek in his rough hand. Bringing her head up, he met her gaze. “You haven’t lost a thing,” he said, his thumb moving gently next to her quivering mouth. “You still know who you are. And you can find new dreams.”

  What might have happened next haunted Edith’s thoughts. But just as she thought Jeff was about to kiss her—her eyes had even begun to close—there was a loud thump on the boards behind them.

  “Hey, son. You down there?”

  Jeff’s arm dropped from Edith’s shoulders. “Yes, sir. We sure as heck are!”

  “Why?”

  Half-laughing, Jeff shouted back, “What do you mean ‘why’? Get us out of here!”

  “Yes, please, Sam, do,” Edith added.

  “How in tarnation did you get the bolt across is what I want to know,” Sam said after wrenching open one of the doors. The prisoners emerged into the light, blinking and squinting.

  “Those fool . . .” Jeff began, but Edith put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “I’m so glad that the girls found you, Sam. We might have been trapped down there all day.”

  “Better you than me,” Sam answered with a shudder. “Always hated damp, enclosed places. The very idea gives me the jumps.”

  “I don’t blame you! But I do thank you for rescuing us.”

  “My pleasure, Cousin Edith. Always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress. I just never expected her to be in my root cellar with the big bohunkus I call ‘son.’ “ Sam headed off, his limp slightly more noticeable than usual.

  “He must have run all the way,” Jeff said fondly, watching him go. “Thanks for stopping me telling him everything. He’d be awfully disappointed in the girls.” He turned toward her. Except for some dirt around her hem, she looked not a hair the worse for her confinement.

  “I felt it was between you and them.”

  “And you too. You’re in this discussion, all the way in.”

  “Oh, but as a stranger . . .” Edith said, hanging back.

  “Even a stranger has rights. You were locked up without a trial—that’s against the Constitution.”

  “Are you a lawyer, too?” Edith asked as she followed reluctantly along.

  “Heck, no. Paul is, though. He told me he’d taken an apprenticeship in the law while he was in San Francisco, though he could have bought and sold the fellow that schooled him. That’s why he’s only now getting around to coming back to Richey. And points East.”

  “Miss Climson doesn’t know Mr. Tyler’s a lawyer, does she?”

  “Not unless he told her last night. Dad said Paul asked to be dropped off where Miss Climson’s boarding this month. He seemed to think they might have stayed up late talking.” Jeff glanced back. Her face was so alive with speculation that he could almost read her thoughts.

  “Now, look,” he began. “If you’re getting any ideas about matching Miss Climson up too . . ,”

  “Too? But I had nothing to do with Mrs. Green and Mr. Hunaker. It was ... a force of nature. Like a tidal wave or an earthquake. Just because I was there doesn’t mean I caused it.”

  “I don’t know ‘bout that,” Jeff said, mock-seriously, as he tapped his boot on the ground and his fingers against his chin. “Stands to reason that anybody who’s made as many matches as you have just might not be able to help herself.”

  Catching his mood, made up no doubt of the sun peeking through the silvering clouds and the fresh breeze that seemed to fan the heat away, Edith said, “You may be right. Maybe it’s not under my control anymore. My astral self might just be matchmaking without my knowing anything about it.”

  She pressed her hand to her brow and swayed as though in a mystic trance. “Yes . . . yes . . . ,” she sighed. “I can see it all so clearly. The past ... the future . . . Paul Tyle
r . . . Miss Climson . . . yes . . . yes. . . .”

  Hearing those “yesses” on her sighing breath sent Jeff’s temperature up to the top of the mercury. He could easily imagine his kisses calling forth those provocative murmurs. Nevertheless, he made a real effort to hold on to this light-hearted mood.

  “Oh, wise Madam Edith, never mind those other folks, tell me my future. Will I marry the woman I adore?”

  “Describe her to me and I shall consult the spirit guides.”

  “Oh, I’m on fire for her. She’s three feet tall, and moonfaced. Has a cast in her right eye and a hairy wart on the end of her nose. And, oh, how could I forget, a wooden leg.”

  “That’s pretty vague. Left or right leg?” Edith couldn’t keep back a gurgle of laughter.

  She snapped her eyes open as he pulled her against his hard chest. “You should laugh more often,” he said, his brown eyes intense. “It suits you.”

  Edith wondered later if that was the moment she fell in love with him, or afterward when she saw him being stern yet gentle with his daughters? He held them each on one knee and made it clear that he never wanted them to play such a trick again. He never raised his voice nor his hand but he let them see his disappointment.

  Maribel began to sniff and cry very soon after he started to speak. Louise, made of sterner stuff, kept a stone face. When her father excused them, however, she flung her arms around his neck and whispered something against his shirtfront.

  Then both little girls crossed the room to where Edith sat, feeling very much in the way. “We’re sorry, Cousin Edith,” Louise said, her eyes more than her face betraying the depth of her feelings.

  “Very sorry.”

  “We won’t do it again,” Louise stated. Maribel looked mournful and shook her head.

  “That’s all right,” Edith said, feeling as bad as they did. “Don’t cry any more, you’re good girls. I’m not angry. I was just worried about you.”

  She glanced at Jeff to see if he approved of what she said. He returned her look with a smile and a thumbs-up. Warmed, she reached out to gather Maribel into her arms. Edith kissed the child’s soft, warm cheek. Maribel shyly touched her lips to Edith’s cheek in return.