by Anya Seton
'I can't get to you, mum,' whispered Peggy hoarsely. 'I've been throwing pebbles at your window. All the doors between the servants' quarters and your part are locked. And the outside doors too.'
Peggy's face blurred and wavered in the twilight. Miranda clutched the window sill. 'Where is he now?' she whispered, and saw the maid shake her head. The sound of Miranda's voice did not carry downward.
Miranda thrust back the curtain and stared into the room behind her. It was as quiet and deserted as before. She leaned out the window and spoke louder.
'He's in the tower room, I think,' answered Peggy. 'Leastways there's a light. Oh, mum, what's happened?'
'I've got to get out. Tell one of the servants to bring a ladder quickly.'
'They won't budge, mum,' came back Peggy's frightened wail. They're all scared of him. They won't let me in again. Shall I try and get Hans? I'll run to the village.'
'Yes. Hurry—hurry.'
As Peggy vanished amongst the trees, Miranda turned back into the room. She walked to the smouldering fire and put on a log—and another.
A long time passed.
I must get warm, she thought. Somehow I must get warm. I've got to think clearly, but I can't when I'm so cold.
In the dining-room there was a decanter of brandy. Brandy warmed you. She picked up a candle and opened the door into the hall again. Except for the pounding in her ears, there was no sound. She glanced quickly at the little door at the far end of the hall, the door to the tower stairs. It was shut.
Holding her candle high she ran to the dining-room. She found the decanter and raised it to her mouth, and her teeth against the crystal rim made little clicking noises. After a moment a fiery warmth filtered through her veins. She put down the candle and leaned against the buffet. Her mind cleared. The downstairs windows, of course.
They were locked at night, and shuttered and barred. It took a strong footman to attend to this, but nevertheless she could manage somehow. Or there was that little outside door in the music room; perhaps he had forgotten to lock that.
She picked up the cut-glass stopper, reached out her hand to put it back in the decanter when she heard a sound upon the stairs. The stopper slipped from her fingers and fell to the parquet. Her impulse to blow out the candle and run wildly was checked by a surer instinct. She stood and waited by the buffet.
Nicholas walked in and stopped just beside the doorway, staring at her with bewilderment. 'You are making merry, Miranda?' he said incredulously. 'I heard you laughing and playing the piano.'
She saw the abnormal brightness of his eyes and the quivering of the muscle in his cheek. Slowly courage seeped back into her. She lifted her head.
'Do you imagine that I would laugh or play tonight! You've been drugging yourself, Nicholas.'
His gaze slid from hers and there came over him an uncertainty. He stood with his head thrown back as if he listened for something.
'Why did you lock the doors?' she said.
He dragged his eyes back to her face, but he did not see her.
'I heard you laughing down here, Miranda. I heard the piano. It was very clear.'
And suddenly she understood. There was a current of fear in the shadowed dining-room, fear and hatred. But the current no longer touched her. It flowed past her to the dark, motionless figure which stood by the doorway.
'I believe it was Azilde that you heard, Nicholas,' she said quietly. As your child heard her on the night that Johanna died. She's laughing because there's disaster coming again to this house that she hated.'
'You're lying,' he said. 'It was you I heard.'
'No,' she said.
At her denial he took a quick step toward her. She saw his right hand go to his pocket—and a gleam of silver metal. She did not move.
'Yes, I'm quite helpless,' she said. 'You can do me any injury you like. Bur you won't get away with it this time, Nicholas. Too many people know. Peggy knows that you've locked me in. And Jeff Turner knows about Johanna. He's going to the Governor to tell him.'
His hands slowly fell limp at his sides. She saw the effort he made for control, saw his face compose itself into a semblance of the old assurance. 'My dear, you're full of sinister allusions and melodrama tonight. I can only assume that you're having an attack of female vapors.—And now when you add ghosts—'
He broke off so abruptly that it was as though a knife had cut his voice. He turned his head slowly in the direction of the Red Room.
The candle on the buffet dimmed and flickered.
He's hearing her now, thought Miranda, watching his appalled face. She stood frozen by the buffet, watching. She could hear nothing but the harsh noise of his breathing.
He put out his hand, groping for support on the top of the high walnut chair at the head of the table. His own chair. 'You hear it?' he whispered. You hear it too?'
She shook her head.
He made a quick gesture as though to close his ears to the sound of that high, mindless laughter. In that moment she felt pity at the expression of his eyes.
She clasped her hands and her lips moved soundlessly. 'Under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night...'
She felt the subtle change in the atmosphere of the room, heard him give a long sigh. 'It's stopped,' he said.
His hand dropped from the chair. He straightened his shoulders and force came back to him. He laughed briefly. 'It was an hallucination. The opium, I'm afraid. I don't know how I could have been so credulous.'
He walked to the buffet and poured himself a glass of brandy.
'Will you join me, my love?' he asked in a perfect imitation of his usual courtesy.
She stared at him. Was it possible that he intended to act as though nothing had happened!
'Nicholas,' she said, 'I'm leaving Dragonwyck. You must know that. Wasn't that why you locked the doors?'
'I locked them,' he said quickly, 'simply on impulse because you were in a foolish, hysterical state. You're not leaving Dragonwyck, Miranda, nor will you ever leave me. Don't you remember I told you once that only death would part us?'
He leaned toward her smiling a little.
Yes, she thought, he told me that on our wedding night—'only death will part us'—Death—it was death that brought us together. Her hands crept to her chest in an effort to hide from him the agonized pounding of her heart. He stood, lithely poised between her and the doorway, behind her no refuge but the conservatory, from which there was no other exit. And even had there been, all the doors were still locked and the servants neither able nor willing to hear her call. I must be brave, she thought desperately, as I was a few minutes ago. She moistened her lips.
'Nicholas—' she whispered, but the last syllable ended in a cry, for a thunderous knocking shattered the heavy silence of the house.
Peggy, she thought in a great surge of relief, and knew at once that was impossible. She would never have heralded her approach like that.
The banging on the front door continued.
'We have an insistent caller, it would seem, my love,' said Nicholas softly, watching her through narrowed eyes. 'Would it interest you to find out who it is?'
He put his arm around her waist, pulling her with him into the hallway while from his left-hand pocket he took a key and unlocked the door. 'Ah, it's indeed Doctor Turner,' said Nicholas. 'I hoped it might be.'
His arm tightened painfully around Miranda's waist so that she swayed perforce against him and they stood like that in the rush of night air —a charming picture of devotion—the handsome master and mistress of Dragonwyck welcoming a guest.
For a second Jeff was fooled and dumfounded; then he saw Miranda's eyes.
'I was afraid of this!' he cried, advancing to her quickly, ignoring Nicholas. 'That's why I came. Are you all right?'
Her lips moved wordlessly, while Nicholas, releasing her, with one swift motion locked the door again behind Jeff. 'It was good of you to come, Turne
r,' he said pleasantly. 'As a matter of fact I sent a messenger for you a little while ago; perhaps you passed him on the road?'
'I doubt that I would have come again at your summons,' said Jeff, also quite pleasantly. He knew that he must play for time. He had no means as yet of knowing the exact situation, or how much Nicholas knew, but Miranda's eyes held terrified warning.
'I didn't think you would,' answered Nicholas, moving slightly. 'The message you would have received had you waited for it, my impetuous young doctor, would have been from Miranda, of course.'
Jeff looked at the girl, who shook her head in almost imperceptible denial. Her lips were drained white and her eyes as black as the shadows in the hall behind them.
This is going to be bad, said Jeff to himself, and there's no use hoping it isn't. For he had seen and recognized Nicholas' negligent unfinished gesture toward his right-hand pocket, and the faint silvery gleam there. Jeff had seen just such gleams in many holsters in Mexico.
'Let us,' said Nicholas, picking up the candle, 'go into the Red Room where we can sit comfortably and chat. We've always considered this room the coziest and most homelike in the house, haven't we, my love?' He smiled at Miranda, who caught her breath and stumbled in the direction he pointed.
They sat down, Miranda—and Jeff after a moment—on the two small horsehair chairs. Nicholas placed the candlestick on the center table where it flickered over the red rep cloth and piled books. He seated himself on the sofa and folding his arms surveyed them both with sardonic amusement.
Miranda sat as though hypnotized, her staring eyes on her husband's face, but Jeff forced himself to lean back negligently and cross his legs. He received Nicholas' gaze with a bland smile while his eyes watched the right-hand pocket, and his brain darted over the situation. Fool I was not to have brought a gun, he thought grimly. But his old army pistol had disappeared long ago, and in hurrying to Dragonwyck he had acted on impulse, never previsioning any such situation as this; he hadn't in fact believed in his hunch that Nicholas might return, he had simply been worried about Miranda.
'Miranda tells me that you think you've made an interesting discovery,' said Nicholas in a light and social tone.
'I don't think it, I know it,' answered Jeff. 'Though you were exceedingly clever.' So we're going to talk, he thought, fence for a while. Perhaps he won't shoot until he's enjoyed himself prolonging this, and before that happens I've got to act first. He measured the distance between them; a sudden rush might do it, but there was the certain danger that in that case the reflex shot would hit Miranda.
The candle flared suddenly and Jeff saw more clearly those blue masked eyes. He's had opium, thought Jeff; not much, but it may slow him up.
'You're a remarkable man, Van Ryn,' said Jeff. 'A genius, I believe. You could have been the most powerful man in the country—had you directed your talents more wisely.'
'Your kind opinion enchants me,' said Nicholas. 'Can it be, my love—' he turned to Miranda, 'that the good doctor thinks me susceptible to flattery?'
There was a silence. They sat there, the three of them, as though molded in lead. Against the rose-papered wall, Nicholas' shadow seemed to expand and darken.
Then Miranda made a small rasping noise, bur she did not move.
Nicholas leaned forward. 'You're very quier, my dear.' The slight smile was gone from his mouth. Aren't you interested in what the doctor thinks?—Oh, but I believe you are—' With a panther-like movement, Nicholas was on his feet. In the same instant so was Jeff. But Nicholas wheeled, and now the whole of the silver pistol was visible. With a violent motion of his other hand, Nicholas tore the net from Miranda's hair, roughly shook the gleaming golden mass until it fell loose over the chair back nearly to the floor.
'Look!' he cried, turning on Jeff. 'It's pretty, isn't it! Have you ever seen anything more seductive? But perhaps my wife—like this—isn't a new sight to you. I'm wondering if she hasn't permitted you to glory in it, already!'
He raised the pistol, forgetful of the girl beside him, secure in her long pattern of loyal worship, but Miranda's paralysis shattered. With her clenched fist she struck out from behind Nicholas and knocked the pistol from his hand. As the wild shot exploded through the room, Jeff leaped forward.
The girl shrank, panting, against the wall. In the dim light as now one struggling figure now the other was uppermost she could not tell which was Jeff. As she watched them, she prayed.
Jeff had great strength, but he was handicapped by the old wound in his arm, and Nicholas' strength, as always in moments of danger, was nearly superhuman.
The moment came when Jeff, partly wedged beneath the sofa, felt the long powerful fingers at his throat, and as the sweat poured from his face and there came a rushing and roaring in his head, he thought, This is it, my lad. God bless Miranda, somehow.
At first he couldn't believe it as he felt the murderous grip on his throat slacken. Blood coursed back to his brain in great surges.
He opened his eyes, focusing them painfully on the dark face above his. On that face he saw an incredible emotion—a dazed fear.
Nicholas sank back, completely off guard, his eyes dilated and staring—as though he listened.
Jeff jumped to his feet. 'Bring me that bell rope!' he shouted. Nicholas recovered himself then, but the violent strength had gone out of him, and Jeff pinioned the thrashing arms until the girl had yanked the long embroidered bell-pull from the cornice and run with it to Jeff. He bound Nicholas securely, his nimble surgeon's fingers manipulating the heavy material as though it were twine. The body on the floor ceased to struggle. The head turned away from them.
'Hurry, Miranda!' cried Jeff. 'Get your cloak!' He pulled the key from the pocket of that motionless figure, and when Miranda came running to him, they passed through the great front door of Dragonwyck Manor—for the last time.
Jeff's horse, patiently cropping the sweet May grass, stood tethered to the hitching-post outside. 'Get on behind me!' cried Jeff, lifting the girl. The sturdy horse with its double burden trotted briskly up the river road to the north. Already it was light; a mauve and pink glow effaced the stars in the eastern sky.
'What are we going to do—Jeff?' she asked faintly.
He frowned, considering. After a few minutes he said: 'I'm going to put you on the morning boat at Schodack Landing; we'll just about make it. Then you'll go on to New York as we planned, and straight to Francis. I'll hurry on to Albany and the Governor. When he hears all the evidence and the story of this night, I'm sure we'll get action by tomorrow evening or the day after at the latest.'
'Nicholas may escape,' she said faintly.
'I know. But he won't get loose from those bonds until someone helps him. And with all the servants terrified and locked out, that shouldn't be for a long time. Anyway, I'm going to send a smart lad I know in Schodack down to watch the Manor House; if Nicholas does leave, the boy can follow him. He won't get far. But I've a feeling Nicholas won't leave Dragonwyck. It'd be more like him to shut himself up in his manor house and defy everyone. He's so cocksure of his own power.'
'I don't think so,' she said. 'Not any more.'
'Well, he's powerful, all right. He all but did for me,' said Jeff, grimly feeling his throat. 'I don't know what Heaven-sent thing threw him off guard a second. The opium, I suppose.'
'No,' she said. 'It wasn't that. It was Azilde. He heard her laughing again. I don't know if he really heard it or just in some dark part of bis mind. But he's afraid of it. He fears as he never feared anything that symbol of his family's defeat and doom. Oh Jeff—' Her voice broke into a sob. From her seat behind him on the horse, she tightened her arms about him and laid her cheek against his shoulder. 'It was Heaven-sent, for it saved you.'
He turned in the saddle and kissed her gently. She had managed to braid her hair and bundle it somehow into a coil at the nape of her neck. Her little face was pale and shadowed under the gray hood.
'Try not to worry, darling,' he said with some confidence.
The horse jogged steadily on. A rooster crowed from a near-by barnyard, and a cow lowed plaintively for her early milking. The morning sunlight flooded the pretty village of Schodack, and for Jeff life resumed again its normal values. Nicholas, the atmosphere of Dragonwyck, even the struggle in the little Red Room, seemed fantastic and unreal.
When they reached the landing and stood amongst several other passengers to watch the first morning boat steam up to them, he was detached enough to notice that it was a fine new boat in gala trim, all her multicolored pennants flying, the gilded eagle which perched on her foremast twinkling bright. And her name was the Mary Clinton.
As she set foot on the gangplank, Miranda clutched at him suddenly. 'Jeff, let me come to Albany with you. I'm frightened.' Her hazel eyes looked at him piteously.
He shook his head. 'We can't risk what people would think or say if you went with me. There's nothing to be frightened of now. Look at all the people on the boat, laughing and enjoying themselves. Sit amongst them in the air and sunlight. Try to get some rest.' He smiled at her and squeezed her hand under cover of her cloak. 'I'll be with you in a few days.'
She nodded like an obedient child and walked slowly up the gangplank to the crowded deck. At once the boat cast off and they hastened down-river.
She did as Jeff had suggested, sat down in a corner of the deck. When we pass Dragonwyck, I shall not look, she thought. But as the boat's whistle blew and the Mary Clinton threaded her way down the far channel past Houghtaling's Island, Miranda found that she could not help herself. She moved to the rail and stood there while the silhouette of the Manor glided slowly toward them. Then under her feet she felt a sharp slackening of speed, and the boat swerved to port. She lowered her gaze from the summit of the high tower and stared at the dock. For the red flag which signaled the boats to stop was fluttering in die wind, and beside it stood a tall figure.
