by Diaz, Debra
As he left he said, “When you’re well, my dear, we’ll talk more about that large family I spoke of.”
Catherine decided that a sudden relapse would be in order. She slept little that night, so the next day she did not find it difficult to appear wan and listless. She waited until late in the morning before dressing and going downstairs. The sound of somber music drifted from the piano. She had just reached the lower hall when she heard a knock and Ephraim opened the massive front door. A soldier stood there, hat in hand.
“I’m here to speak to Mrs. Henderson.”
Sallie came at once out of the parlor, her eyes wide and her hand at her throat. “I am Mrs. Henderson.”
“Ma’am, you reported your brother missing, Mr. Bart Ingram. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Have you found him? Where is he?”
“I regret to inform you, ma’am, that a body has been discovered which, in some ways, matches the description of your brother. We’ll need someone to come and make an identification. Is your husband at home?”
Catherine approached and put her hand on Sallie’s shoulder, expecting her to swoon. “Mr. Henderson is at his office. Please get him.” She gave the soldier the address. He bowed, put on his hat, and left.
Sallie stood like a statue. Catherine gently turned her toward the parlor. She looked up and saw Andrew standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s happened, Catherine?”
“It’s Bart. They found his…they found someone they think is Bart.”
She and Andrew went into the parlor with Sallie. Sallie never said a word but sat with her blue eyes very large and her face set like marble. Catherine wanted to say some comforting word…something to the effect that perhaps the body was not Bart’s at all…except she couldn’t do that when she knew the truth. Andrew also respected Sallie’s silence and said nothing.
After an interminable wait, Martin came. Sallie took one look at his face and cried, “No! No, Martin!”
Martin drew her to her feet and put his arms around her. She stood there for a moment, then pulled away. “I knew it,” she said, with a blank look. “I’ve known all this time that something must have happened to him.”
“What happened, Martin?” Andrew asked quietly.
Martin turned toward him, his face haggard and gray. “He’d been shot. He was in an old abandoned house in the woods. Someone hunting passed by and noticed—” Martin checked himself. “I’m sure it was…an instant death, Sallie.”
“Do they have any idea why?” Andrew asked. “Do they have any clues as to who shot him?”
“No. They found nothing, except a boy’s cap. It looked brand new. It was in the room with Bart.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Catherine felt her face blanch. She had forgotten all about the cap. She had thrown it at the intruder before she recognized Clayton; probably he had forgotten it, too. No doubt it had gone under the table or into some shadowy corner where they had not seen it before they left.
But there was no way anyone could connect it with her.
Sallie said, bewildered, “A boy’s cap?”
“A small man could have worn it.”
“What sort of cap?” Andrew asked curiously.
“A kepi, sort of like the soldiers wear.”
No one said anything. Sallie announced abruptly that she was going to her room. Martin followed her, his head lowered.
“Well,” Andrew said. “I’m sorry to hear it. Are you all right, Catherine?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I mean no, I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll go to my room, too.”
He watched her as she ascended the stairs. She was aware that he left the house after lunch on one of Martin’s horses, as he usually did. Later, she was in the window seat of the sitting room upstairs when she looked down and saw a horse trotting up the short driveway. Its rider, a man in uniform, sat straight and easy in the saddle. Clayton, she thought, her pulse leaping.
She jumped up and ran to the stairway, then stopped for a moment to compose herself. She walked with dignity down the stairs. Ephraim was about to show Clayton into the parlor when the latter looked up and saw her.
“Mrs. Kelly,” he said, sweeping off his hat. “I’ve come to offer my sympathy and assistance in this difficult time.”
She preceded him into the parlor. “Thank you, Major. Ephraim, would you call Miss Sallie, please?”
Ephraim looked serious but nevertheless had a twinkle in his eye at the appearance of Clayton. “Yes, ma’am. I expect it might take a few minutes. There’s, ah, nobody else around just now, Miss Catherine.”
He disappeared down the hall, but Clayton’s embrace and kiss were all too brief.
“Something’s wrong, dear…I see it in your face.”
“Oh, Clayton, he knew about my wedding night! He guessed that I knew about John. He said John was killed and thrown off a riverboat before the war started.”
Clayton frowned. “I see.”
“And the cap I wore that night, the one I threw at you. They found it in the house!”
He looked into her eyes for a moment. “I knew you threw something, but it didn’t occur to me just then to question what it was. You…surprised me. It must have gone somewhere out of sight.”
“Nobody saw me wearing it.”
“Except the man at the livery. Someone made a mistake…they weren’t supposed to release any information of that nature. I’ll get rid of the cap. Don’t let it worry you. Catherine, are you certain you didn’t recognize anything about the man you saw leaving the house that day, after the shot? Was there anything familiar about the way he moved or walked?”
“No,” she said, after a moment. “The wind was blowing. He was sort of braced against it.”
“Could it have been a woman?”
“No,” she said, surprised. “No, I don’t think so. Why do you think
that?”
“I don’t. It was only a vague sort of notion. Now about this man calling himself your husband…nothing of what he said proves anything one way or the other, except that the riverboat incident does tie in with what Mrs. Shirley managed to discover so far.”
“Then that means he was telling the truth!”
“John Kelly’s body was never recovered.”
“But he couldn’t have lived—”
“Someone’s coming,” Clayton said, moving away from her.
Sallie came into the room. Her eyes were red but she was immaculately dressed in a snug-fitting bodice and wide skirt. Not a hair was out of place. The scent of cologne drifted from her as she extended her hand to Clayton.
“I heard the news this morning. May I express my very deep regret about your brother, Mrs. Henderson.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pierce.” Her eyes moved over his uniform. “Why, it’s Major Pierce now, isn’t it?” She gave him a tremulous smile.
“At your service, ma’am.”
“Oh, Major Pierce,” she said wistfully, batting her eyes, “can’t you do something? I must know what happened to Bartie.”
“I’m sure everything is being done to find the person responsible for your brother’s death, Mrs. Henderson. I’ll do what I can.”
“Oh, thank you, Major. I shall be in your debt.”
“Not at all. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend the funeral, as there are meetings scheduled for the next several days.”
“Of course, Major. It was kind of you to come.” Sallie touched her eyes with a lacy handkerchief.
“Good-bye. Good-bye, Mrs. Kelly.”
Catherine stepped forward. “I’ll see you to the door.”
He glanced at her. “That’s not necessary. I’ll see myself out. Again, ladies, let me know if I can help you.”
He left, and something vital and electric, the sheer power of his presence, went out of the room. Catherine felt strangely deflated. Sallie paused, gave her an enigmatic look, and swept regally from the parlor.<
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After a moment Catherine lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs, arriving in time to see Sallie’s door closing, then she rushed to the window seat and looked down. She watched with a feeling of pride as Clayton rode away. Everyone said President Davis, who frequently rode through the city, sat a horse better than anyone in Virginia, but Catherine decided that Clayton had even better form than the president, for he was completely casual and unpretentious. He had almost reached the end of the driveway when he was met by another horseman.
With a pang, she recognized Andrew. He drew up to Clayton and they talked for a moment, then Clayton pulled on the reins, set his horse to a trot, and disappeared down the street. Andrew proceeded along the driveway, glancing up at the window where she sat. She drew instantly back, but he couldn’t have seen her, not with the glare of the afternoon sun on the glass. She went to her room and he did not disturb her.
She spent the rest of the afternoon reading the newspapers. In the west, General U. S. Grant doggedly kept trying to figure out a way to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi. The armies skirmished in northern Virginia. Everyone seemed convinced the Yankees were preparing for another attempt to take Richmond. Clayton had already told her that. And he would be right in the middle of it, she thought dismally.
That evening many callers came to express their sympathy as the news of Bart’s death spread through the neighborhood. Catherine remained in her room, pleading ill health. Sallie also stayed upstairs. Andrew, Martin and Miranda received the visitors.
Miranda had been out most of the day; Andrew had told her the news on her return. Her shriek of horror filled the house, then in a moment Catherine heard her go puffing by to her room. She recovered sufficiently, however, to go down for supper and later to talk with her usual gusto to anyone who would listen.
A heavy silence fell around ten o’clock, and Catherine surmised that everyone had retired. Feeling a pang of hunger, she remembered she hadn’t eaten supper and decided to go down to the kitchen to see what she could find to nibble on.
She tiptoed down the stairs in her nightgown and slippers, wishing she had worn a wrapper, for the house had already turned cold. It seemed very still and so dark that the little candle she held barely illuminated her path, as though the thickness of the air were trying to absorb the light.
Something creaked behind her and she stopped. A shiver went over her. She cast an apprehensive glance over her shoulder, half expecting to be faced with some dreadful apparition—perhaps the ghost of Bart Ingram, a compliment ready for her on his grinning lips. It was, after all, a house of death.
Don’t be silly, she told herself firmly. The dead don’t come back.
Except Andrew had.
She swallowed hard and walked slowly through the dining room, aware of the towering china cabinet whose glass dimly reflected the flame of her candle. The huge sideboard reared up to her right. She had seen that sideboard almost every day for over three years, but now it looked strange and forbidding. Nothing seemed familiar. The door to the kitchen loomed uninvitingly before her.
Suddenly she was no longer hungry. She only wanted to go back to her room, crawl into bed, and draw the covers over her head.
Before she could move, the candle fell out of her hand and rolled onto the floor, extinguishing itself. Catherine stood completely still for a moment. Why, she thought, someone knocked that out of my hand.
A swift, stealthy movement came out of the darkness, something brushed against her hair, and a crushing pressure closed around her neck. She could not make a sound. The pressure increased. She reached back instinctively with her hands and encountered two sleeves, which she clawed in desperation. She kicked out with her feet, striking the kitchen door. It flung open to bang against the wall.
At once the deadly pressure stopped. Catherine sank to the floor, gasping for breath, her heart pounding hurtfully in her chest. She thought she heard someone running, then the kitchen door swung open again and someone charged through the doorway. She heard Ephraim’s voice.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” “It’s me,” she croaked. “Help me. Wait a minute, there’s a candle.”
She groped on the floor for the candle and couldn’t find it. In a moment a match flared and Ephraim lit a lamp on the sideboard. Catherine saw as through a fog that he was in his nightshirt, his white hair practically standing on end.
“Miss Catherine, what in the world are you doing there on the floor?” He helped her up, but her knees wouldn’t support her. She flopped into one of the dining room chairs.
“Somebody tried to strangle me.” She could hardly believe what she was saying, yet the pain in her throat assured her she had not imagined it.
Ephraim took her arm in one hand and the lamp in the other. “Come to the kitchen, Miss Catherine.”
She stood up on wobbly legs and let Ephraim lead her into the kitchen, where she immediately sat down again. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher.
“Drink this now.”
She tried to drink, choked, and then managed to swallow some of the water. Her hands shook so that Ephraim had to steady the glass for her.
“Who, Miss Catherine?” he asked. “Who did it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything.”
“Must be somebody in the house…a robber. I’ll get Mr. Martin. You go on in Jessie’s room and wait.”
The kitchen door opened suddenly, startling them both. Andrew rushed into the room, his face red with exertion. “Catherine! I heard a crash all the way upstairs. What’s happened?”
Ephraim replied, “Somebody attacked her, Mr. Andrew. I reckon we need to search the house.”
Andrew knelt beside her, his hands closing around her upper arms. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, then unexpectedly burst into tears. Andrew put his arms around her and pulled her head onto his shoulder.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. I won’t let anything happen to you. Ephraim, go get Mr. Henderson—though I’m sure whoever it was has gone by now.”
The entire house was roused. The women gathered in the parlor while Andrew, Martin, Tad and Joseph searched the house, inside and out. Ephraim, who had donned trousers and suspenders over his nightshirt, remained with the women. Sallie sat unmoving, her wide blue eyes traveling from Catherine to the doorway. Miranda sank down on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket she’d brought from her room, her face like a blancmange.
They found no one. The men entered the parlor with grave expressions.
Andrew said, “I found this on the floor in the dining room.”
It was a woman’s white stocking, perhaps her own, wrinkled and stretched out of shape. Obviously it had been pulled taut by someone’s hands; Catherine felt again the clamp on her throat.
“Anybody could have taken that,” Ephraim said. “Jessie hangs them on the rack by the kitchen stove after she does the washing.”
Miranda’s face flushed suddenly with excitement. “Oh!” she cried. “Are you certain there’s nobody here, hiding?”
“We’re certain,” Martin answered. “I think it’s obvious this was an attempt at robbery. Probably he meant to take the silver in the dining room. Catherine came in and surprised him. Perhaps he’d already picked up the stocking in case he was discovered.”
