Dark Masquerade (24 page)

“For my mother’s part in this.”

“Oh. That wasn’t your fault.” Giving him a tired smile, Elizabeth started toward the door.

Darcourt put out a hand to detain her. “I meant what I said. If you want help you need only ask. I will be going into town late tonight. If you would like to go with me, wait near the end of the driveway—no, you might be seen. Wait near the chapel.”

Elizabeth stared at him a long measuring moment while Theresa’s cries came to her through the thick paneling of the door. She had told herself that she must trust to heaven for a way to get away from the house. Here it was. Abruptly she nodded, gave him a brief smile, and left him.

Night was slow in falling. The afterglow lingered in the sky, tinting it shades of rose and lilac and a dusky blue-gray. On the horizon the trees gradually turned from dark green to black, the shadows across the gallery outside the window deepened, and the white cylinders of the column merged into the darkness. The scent of the flowers, mixed with the smell of roasting meat from the outside kitchen, drifted on the cooling air. A night bird called, a pure and sorrowful note above the song of the crickets.

Elizabeth was left strictly alone. During the long hours she could hear Grand’mere moving about in the other room so that she was prevented from speaking to Callie. Perhaps it was just as well, though being unable to plan on Callie’s cooperation increased her apprehension.

For a time she heard voices raised in argument, Darcourt’s and his mother’s, coming from Alma’s room on the other side. She could not make out the words. Later she heard slamming drawers and something scraping across the floor like a trunk. Ordinarily she would have paid no attention, but the movements had a stealthy sound. Thinking of the possible reasons for them and for the quarrel gave her something to occupy her mind.

No one made an attempt to see if she intended to come down to supper. A tray was brought to her room by one of the maids, who placed it on the washstand and went away again without once looking directly at Elizabeth. The story had obviously reached the plantation grapevine.

A short while later she heard Grand’mere leave the room to go down to supper. As soon as the old lady’s footsteps were no longer audible she moved swiftly to the door connecting the two rooms and eased it open.

“Callie?”

Without intending it she whispered, and then as she realized what she had done she spoke louder. “Callie?”

“Yes’m?”

Elizabeth walked farther into the room. Grand’mere was indeed out of the room, but even so she hardly dared raise her voice.

“Callie—”she said again, and then took a deep breath. “We are leaving. Tonight.”

“What! Mis’ Elizabeth, how we going to do that?”

“Not so loud, someone will hear you. Never mind how. I want you to sleep lightly. If Grand’mere does not look sleepy, or if she is slow to go to bed, I want you to encourage her to use her laudanum.”

“Yes’m, I-—think I can do that.”

“Good. Gather together what you want to carry with you, plus a dress to wear. Bring it to my room as soon as you can. When Grand’mere is asleep I want you to get up, wrap Joseph up in his blanket and bring him to my room. You can slip your dress on there. All right?”

Callie nodded, her eyes large but unafraid. She could be trusted.

Returning to her own room, Elizabeth ate her supper slowly to kill time, savoring each bite, each drop of wine, for it might be some time before she was able to eat in peace and comfort again. Even so, there was time and to spare to check the bundles again when Callie brought hers, go over everything to be sure they had what was most needed, and secrete them back under the bed before the maid returned for the tray.

She paced, she tried to read, she stared out the window at the night. At last she heard Grand’mere come up to bed, and then she heard her cross to the door so that she was forewarned when the knock came.

“Elizabeth? Could I speak to you?”

Elizabeth’s gaze swept the overhang of the bedspread to see that it concealed the bundles beneath the bed, and then she thought of the dress she was wearing. It was late to be still dressed. Would Grand’mere be suspicious, or would it go unnoticed under the circumstances? Perhaps it would be better to take no chances. In any case she did not feel as though she could bear a lecture just now.

“I’m very tired,” she called. “Could we postpone it until morning?”

There was no answer for a long moment. “In the morning then,” Grand’mere agreed finally, her voice tart, before she went away.

Silently Elizabeth sighed with relief. Then came the longest wait.

At last she heard the creaking of the bed ropes as the old lady in the next room climbed into her four-poster bed. For a little longer there was movement up and down the hall outside, and then the house grew quiet, the last door slammed. The servants left for the night; she could hear them laughing and talking as they made their way to the house servants’ quarters directly behind the house. She grew stiff and cold with inactivity. Her nerves stretched as she listened to the creaks and groans of the house settling. A little later the moon rose half-full, as silvery as a scimitar blade, and without comfort in its cold remoteness.

When Callie did not come, Elizabeth began to worry. Perhaps Darcourt would not wait for them. He would think they were not coming. Callie would not be able to take the baby from his bed without waking him and having him cry out. Grand’mere would wake and prevent her from leaving the room. She might even raise the alarm. Then at last there came a brushing sound against the door. When she hurried to open it, Callie stood there with Joseph cradled carefully in her arms. Beyond her Grand’mere lay in her bed in the dark room, the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep whistling softly in and out between her lips.

Elizabeth whispered one word as she held her arms out for the sleeping child. “Hurry.”

They crept along the hall and down the stairs, feeling their way in the dark with the help of the pale luminescence of the moon glowing through the windows at the end of the hall. Freezing at each creak of a board, listening for some sound above their own heartbeats thudding in their ears, starting at shadows and praying Joseph would not awake, they went down the stairs and along the hall. At last the front door loomed before them.

As her fingers touched the doorknob Elizabeth noticed that her palms were damp with perspiration. She stood listening to the silence. She could hear the clock in the library ticking and Callie breathing beside her, nothing else. The darkness of the high-ceilinged hall was thick, no gleam of light pierced it. It seemed safe, but she was oddly reluctant to open the outside door. It was as if something fateful awaited her outside the house. Though she knew differently, she had the overwhelming feeling that inside the walls of Oak Shade was where their safety lay. Abruptly, impatient with her own dithering, she gave the knob a twist. Nothing happened. The door was locked!

Fumbling in the dark, she searched down the door plate to the keyhole. Then she sighed. The key was in the lock. She turned it before she had time to change her mind, wincing as it grated. As she again turned the knob the great door eased open of its own weight. She held it while Callie passed through with Joseph, and then pulled it shut after herself.

Their footsteps on the brick floor of the lower gallery made little sound as they hurried across it and down the wide steps. Avoiding the open where moonlight fell, glittering on the dew in the grass, they made for the tree-shadowed drive. Spurred by fear, they walked quickly and silently, keeping to the grass verge away from the gravel. The shadows beneath the oaks moved as the wind stirred through their branches. A rabbit or some other small creature scuttled away through the grass, and somewhere nearby a hunting owl swept by with a whir of wings. At each small sound and movement Callie made a smothered sound in the back of her throat. Now and then they would run a few steps, looking back over their shoulders at the house for signs of pursuit, probing the darkness around them with wide eyes. Callie, carrying the awkward weight of the baby, began breathing hard, and soon Elizabeth developed a stitch in her side. They slowed their pace but they could not stop.

Elizabeth’s throat tightened and she averted her head as they passed the curve where two nights before she had been attacked. Once past the spot the house was no longer visible behind them and they could no longer be seen from it. They breathed easier. Elizabeth switched her bundles to the other arm and they went on.

Soon they began to catch glimpses of the chapel gleaming whitely between the trees and at last they came to the pathway that led to it. There was no sign of Darcourt, nothing to indicate that he had been there.

Looking up and down the empty drive, with its white gravel shining in the moonlight, Elizabeth considered. Were they too late? Too early? As she stood there, the night wind fluttered her skirts and cooled the film of nervous perspiration on her face. She shivered a little, wishing she had worn her shawl or her mantle.

“Dry work, walking,” Callie said, her voice hushed in the still darkness.

“Yes.”

“Sure am thirsty. We could have brought water if we had thought.”

Elizabeth glanced at Callie. “In what?”

The woman was silent for a moment. “I could have brought the preserving jar I keep Joseph’s boiled water in.”

Elizabeth smiled in the dark. “Now you think of it.”

Callie granted. After a minute she spoke again. “We not the only ones leaving.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Mis’ Alma, she left. She packed her things and went out the back. Folks in the quarters is saying she went away with that overseer Mr. Bernard threw off the place.”

“I see. So that’s why she told Celestine about me. She had nothing to lose if she was leaving.”

“I reckon. She sure didn’t lose any sleep over that girl of hers. They say she left Mr. Bernard a letter. She told him she was going and he could see after Mis’ Theresa cause she held him and his family responsible for her being the way she was. Strange, her leaving without Mr. Darcourt.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s a terrible thing she is doing, deserting her child, even if she is unstable. But it doesn’t change anything for us.”

“No’m.”

“I suppose we had better wait near the chapel as we were told.”

“Who told us?”

“Darcourt.”

Callie looked doubtfully toward the chapel just visible among the trees at the end of the path. “I don’t like that place.”

Neither do I, Elizabeth thought, a shiver running over her again.

“Here, give Joseph to me awhile,” she said briskly.

Transferring the bundles to Callie, she took the baby in the crook of her arm and moved toward the small white building. Callie followed.

As they neared the chapel they saw a wavering light. It appeared to be inside, the glow of a candle glimmering on the marble walls, just visible through one of the double doors that stood half open. Elizabeth looked back at Callie and they quickened their steps, thinking that they were keeping Darcourt waiting inside.

With Callie crowding behind her, Elizabeth stepped through the doorway. Just inside they halted.

On the altar a single candle burned low in its socket. In the glow they saw a basket sitting on the altar bench, but there was no one there.

“Now isn’t that nice and thoughtful?” Callie said. Setting her bundles on the floor she slipped past Elizabeth and reached for the checked napkin that covered the contents of the basket. “Plates and cups, cake and pie, sandwiches of some kind—little bitty things,” she reported over her shoulder, and then picked up a metal flask and drew the cork.

“Smells like lemonade.”

That was peculiar. It sounded very much like the refreshments Theresa had asked for that afternoon when she had wanted to prove that she could play the role of hostess. “Have some if you want it,” she told Callie abstractedly, her attention caught by a sound outside. Then as she looked over her shoulder the door began to move.

The wind, she thought, or the door’s own weight. Behind her the sound of lemonade gurgling from the flask into a cup halted abruptly.

“Mis’ Elizabeth! The door!”

It was closing faster, and. as she heard unmistakably the scrape of a footfall on the other side, she knew. They were being shut in!

She moved then, but it was too late. Even as she reached fumblingly for the edges, the thick metal door clanged to with a strength greater than her own behind it. The bolt shot home, a sharp rasp with finality in the sound, and all was silent.

Joseph, jarred from sleep as Elizabeth ran, began to cry. She rocked him in her arms automatically as she examined the door. It was solid, cold, hard bronze. There was no inside handle to grasp or pull, no access to the locking mechanism. The hinges were on the outside and the plates with their screws were between the brick walls and the thick doors. Kneeling, Elizabeth found that she could just slip her fingers underneath the door and she called to Callie over her shoulder.

Callie gulped down the lemonade she had poured into one of the glasses provided, a kind of nervous reflex action, and hurried to help Elizabeth. But though they tugged and pulled together they could do no more than sway the doors the barest fraction of an inch.