House of Masques (8 page)

“You took the train? Where to?”

“Oh, didn't I say?” The old woman looked slyly at Kathleen. “To Washington to see the President. Like I said, I wrote him to have Stephen let go from the Army so he could work the farm. Such a big city, Washington. I left my bag in a rented room and walked to the White House. And what do you think?”

Kathleen shook her head.

“My letter hadn't come. They showed me to a room where a short man with bushy sideburns sat behind a desk. Smoking a big cigar, he was. ‘Letter?' he asks. ‘Mrs. Ehrman?' Like he never heard of me. He went away and after a while came back and shook his head. He sat and wrote, and I sat and watched, and when they closed I went to the rooming house. I was back the next morning. The man shook his head. Waved the cigar in the air. ‘There is absolutely no possibility of your seeing the President,' he said. ‘Absolutely no possibility.' For three days I kept going to sit in the office of the man with the cigar. On the third day, a Friday it was, the man was gone a long time. He came back looking the way a man looks when he knows better than somebody else but they won't listen to him. Instead of shaking his head he put his cigar in a tray and led me through high halls to an enormous room, all blue, the drapes, the carpet, the chairs. He left me alone, afraid to sit in one of those elegant chairs.”

The old woman's eyes wandered from Kathleen to the quilt and then to the window. They did not seem to see the yard or the woods but looked beyond them to another place, another time.

“He was in the room before I saw him,” she went on, her voice low. “Such a tall man. Older than I thought he'd be from the pictures I'd seen. And sad. Yet lively, too. I can't explain, yet he was both at once. His eyes… I'll never forget his eyes.

“‘Sit down,' Mr. Lincoln said and sat on a chair beside me. ‘Tell me about your grandson,' he said. Right off I wasn't frightened anymore. I told him about Stephen and the farm and Ephraim disappearing in the Forest. All the while I talked he didn't say a word, just sat with his large hands clasped together in his lap.

“When I finished he began to talk. Slow and friendly, like I'd stopped by for a chat of an afternoon. About his sons, 'specially the one who'd died. About the War some and the way he felt, the pain of the men killed and wounded. Not only the Union men, the rebels, too. And though he didn't use the words, I knew this was the cross he had to bear.

“Then something reminded him of when he'd been a lawyer in Illinois and he told me a story 'bout a judge, and I laughed right out loud, the way he put it, and he told some more funny stories about the times when he was young and there was no war. And he said he'd see to it that Stephen was allowed home and he called in the man with the cigar, though of course he didn't have the cigar then, and scrawled on a piece of paper. The man nodded and nodded. You'd've thought he'd forgot how to shake his head ‘no'.

“The President walked with me to the door just like he was a neighbor I'd been visiting in the village 'stead of the President of the whole United States. Dark outside it was by this time, with lights along the avenue and carriages stopping in front and men and women standing aside for him, bowing, ‘Good evening, Mr President.' ‘God bless you, Mr. President.' He'd had a carriage brought for me. I looked back through the isinglass window. He stood looking after me, a tall, lonely man. And I had this notion, this foolish notion, wondered whether he might not like to be riding away from the White House like I was, going home, to his real home where he grew up, instead of back into that great house that belongs to everybody.”

Mrs. Ehrman paused, her eyes closed. “Your grandson?” Kathleen asked. “Was he mustered out so he could come back to the farm?”

“Stephen? No, five days before I even left for Washington he'd been killed in the Wilderness in Virginia. Becky was waiting with the message when I stepped off the train.”

“I'm sorry,” was all Kathleen could think to say.

“We sold the farm to come here to the Estate. Mr. Blasingame, bless him, hired us both. Now Becky's married again and I'm alone.” She got up from her rocker to sit before the frame. “Do you like my quilt?” she asked.

Kathleen looked at the pieces of cloth arranged in a multicolored pattern, light and dark, as varied as life itself. “Very much,” she said.

“I know I weary them, the other help and the ladies and gentlemen. They're tired of hearing 'bout the time I went to Washington. They think I'm simple.” Her fingers began to work, the needle darting in and out. Kathleen came to stand beside her.

“All my life,” the old woman said, “I lived on the farm. My son is dead. My grandson is dead. What do I have left but memories? Once the President of the United States sat and talked with me and told funny stories and we laughed together.” Kathleen saw tears in the woman's eyes. Did she cry for her son and grandson? For the martyred President? For herself? For all times past? “Just like visiting a friend,” she said, “and he was the President of the United States.”

Kathleen laid her hand on the other woman's shoulder and bent over to kiss her lightly on the forehead. For a moment the gnarled hands were still, then began to sew yet another fragment into the pattern. The quilt, Kathleen saw, would soon be finished…

Later in the day Kathleen returned to the library alone to browse among the books. “They have so many,” she told Clarissa that evening as they sat in Clarissa's room. “I wish I had the time to read them. There's so much to learn. Why do men like Captain Worthington think we're only interested in novels or
Godey's Lady's Book
?”

Clarissa smiled, her knitting needles clicking.

“I don't understand the Captain,” Kathleen said. “Sometimes I think he's trying to make me feel sorry for him. Other times, I don't know.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, he talked of the past like my grandfather used to before he died. He said this might be his last party at the Estate. People who talk that way never do anything. To themselves, I mean. They don't, do they?”

“You can't be sure,” Clarissa said, laying the knitting beside her chair. “Years ago when I was left alone and thought there was no reason to go on living I…” She paused. “Finally I went to Josiah. To live at Gleneden. If I hadn't…” Her voice trailed off. “Josiah saved my life,” she said.

A maid knocked and entered the room. “My milk,” Kathleen said. “Dr. Gunn's orders.” The maid handed her the glass and left. “The herbs taste horrible.”

“They're good for you.”

Kathleen made a face and placed the glass on the table. “I think the Captain's toying with me,” she said. “Taking advantage of me.” She rose and walked to the window where she could see the dull red in the west. “Red sky at night, sailor's delight,” she murmured.

“I've made a mistake,” Kathleen went on after a moment. “A grievous one. I've gotten to know him, the Captain, though only a little. And in many ways I like him. I've even been wishing I could go to the masquerade tomorrow night.”

“You are going. Josiah's idea, he said you should. The gown he sent from New York came this afternoon on the stage.”

“A gown? For me to wear to the ball? I couldn't go, I have no one to take me.”

“Edward Allen will escort you.”

“No. Impossible. Edward? I wasn't serious. Going to the ball will only make everything worse.”

“You should try to get to know Captain Worthington better. Find out more about him. I think you're being unfair.”

Kathleen shook her head. “No, he killed Michael.”

“Listen to what he has to say. You could be making a mistake.”

“I have to act now or I may never be able to,” Kathleen said. “I'll find a way. He showed me today where the ball is going to be, where the French windows open to the rear of the house. The ball…I think perhaps I should go to the masquerade tomorrow night. I have a feeling I'll be able to settle matters then.”

She paced back and forth in front of Clarissa. Her breath came quickly. She felt excited, expectant. “The revolver. Do you have the revolver?”

“No, I thought you did. In your carpet bag.”

“Edward Allen took the gun from me while we were at the cabin. He told me he'd clean it.”

Clarissa shook her head. “I didn't know,” she said.

Kathleen went to the door. “Isn't his room in the building beside the stable?”

“Edward Allen's? Yes.” Clarissa rose to her feet and started toward the door. “I wouldn't—” she began, but Kathleen pulled the door shut and hurried down the hall.

She left the house through the kitchen and the buttery. The sun had set and although a faint afterglow lingered in the sky the grounds and the surrounding woods were dark. As Kathleen followed the path at the rear of the house she heard voices and laughter from the side porch. She could see the glow of several cigars but no other lights, probably, she suspected, to avoid attracting mosquitoes.

The path to the stable curved close to the porch so she turned to walk across the grass. She breathed the scents of the night and the woods and listened to the pulsing chirrups of the cicadas. A small light blinked beside her. She stopped. Another. This one farther away.

Kathleen smiled. Another blinked nearby and she tried to catch it but found her hand empty. A moment later the light showed again nearer the house. She followed and at last felt the tiny insect flutter within the chamber of her palms. She separated her fingers to watch the light shine, go out, and shine again.

“Here, put him inside.” She spun around and looked into the unsmiling face of Charles Worthington.

“Wh-where?” she stammered. He held a glass jar to her and she put her hand over its mouth but the bug clung to her palm so she tapped her hand against the jar until the insect fell inside. Charles placed a glass lid on top.

“Let me help you,” he said, walking onto the lawn where now a myriad of lights winked on and off. “I've never seen so many fireflies,” he said.

“Fireflies? We always called them lightning bugs or glowworms. I think I like your name better.”

He smiled and held the jar before him and soon two more were inside. Kathleen followed and captured another and still another. She was a child again, felt as she had then, free, savoring the endless summer days, finding wonder in a flower or a bird. A time of joy and expectation when all things were possible. As she ran through the grass the fireflies swarmed into the air behind her so she seemed to be followed by a wake of soft intermittent lights.

She skipped to Charles, laughing, and he laid the jar on the grass and held his arms to her, caught her about the waist and swung her in a circle with skirt whirling, her legs high off the ground. He slowed, then stopped, gently returned her to her feet and looked down into her flushed face. His hands moved up to grip her by the shoulders. All she could hear was the beating of her heart.

She became aware of a movement behind him. She stepped back and he released her. His arms still reached toward her. A dark figure approached them from the direction of the house.

Alice Lewis. She glanced from Charles to Kathleen and back to Charles. “Your guests are waiting,” she told him.

Charles straightened his cravat and smoothed his hair. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, “tell them I'm coming.” He smiled at Kathleen. “Thank you,” he said and strode to the house, followed by Mrs. Lewis.

Kathleen knelt on the grass and removed the lid from the jar. The fireflies crawled to the rim and launched themselves hesitantly into the air. All except one which crawled deep into the jar where Kathleen could see him darting this way and that. “You're as lost as I am,” she said.

The plaintive song of a mandolin rose above the voices from the porch. The talk and laughter died down, then stifled, and she heard a man singing, the words slow and melancholy—

“Tenting tonight,

Tenting tonight,

Tenting on the old campground.”

Kathleen felt a nostalgia, a longing for all days gone by. She stood alone on the dark lawn listening, the jar in her hands, surrounded by the fireflies flickering like a thousand stars.

Chapter Eight

Trees arched over the barns and stables. Kathleen passed into their shadow, leaving behind the fireflies as, when she was young, she closed a book of fairy tales to return to the reality of her upstairs room where she would watch the branches writhing in the wind outside her window.

She walked by the barn with its neighing, stamping horses. A rumble came from far behind the mountains, causing her to look for lightning in the sky, but she saw none. The dark outline of the servants' quarters rose before her. Was this Edward Allen's door? She knocked, wishing she had remembered to bring a light. A hush followed in which even the night noises quieted. No sound came from within, and she could see no lights.

She turned from the door to grope her way to the side of the building. Gravel crunched beneath her feet and she realized she was on the path to the stable where she had strolled earlier in the day. A light from a window above her head threw a pale rectangle on the ground, the soft glow reminding her of the night of her arrival at the Worthington Estate. She tried without success to erase the image of the empty coffin from her mind.

What was that? She stopped, listening. Was someone following her? She held her breath, pulse racing, a tremor coursing up her legs. The moon had not yet risen and the night was dark. She heard nothing, could see nothing.
Why am I so foolish?
she wondered.
What have I to fear?

She searched for another door but found none, so she left the graveled path and walked with one hand touching the side of the building. Another corner. Kathleen paused, hesitating to go to the back of the building, the side farthest from the main house. She sensed a presence near her yet could not be sure.
Should I go back for a candle?
she asked herself.
Should I wait until tomorrow?

“Who are you?”

A scream rose in her throat. She hid the cry with her hand, cringing away from the figure barring her path.

“I-I-I'm—” she began. The rough siding of the building pressed sharply into her back. She heard a scratching, a light flared, and for a moment all she could see was the flame and the hand holding the long match. The light dimmed to reveal an unshaven face, dark clothes, a rifle held in one hand. She sighed in relief, recognizing the man who had stepped aside on the trail during her walk with Charles. The guard.

“So it's you,” he said. His face was expressionless. Weighing? Deciding? “I've followed you for the last five minutes. What brings you here?”

“Our coachman. Edward Allen.” The words tumbled one over the other. “I must find him.”

The guard did not speak, but she noticed a smile touch the corners of his mouth.

“Ach!” The match fell from his fingers. He ground the stub into the dirt with his boot.

The impulse to justify her presence was almost overwhelming.
No
, she thought,
I don't need to, I have a right to be here.
“Do you know where his room is?” she asked.

The man grunted, whether he meant a yes or a no she could not tell. “A young lady like yourself shouldn't be abroad this time of night,” he said.
I was right
, she thought,
I've satisfied him.
“They're watching,” he went on, “watching all the time. Waiting for their chance. Not in the daytime so much, I don't feel them lurking about during the day. In the night, though, it's different. I can tell they're hiding out there in the night.” She looked at the enclosing woods and shivered.

“Who are they?”

“I don't know,” he replied. “I wish I knew who they are and what they want, but I don't.”

The guard lit another match. “Come with me,” he told her. “Look, you go through this doorway and up the stairs and to the right. You'll find your coachman's room there.”

She thanked him, pushed open the door, and climbed the steep steps. A slit of light shone from beneath a door a few feet along the hall. She knocked. “Who's there?” asked a muffled voice.

“Kathleen,” she answered. When there was no reply she raised her voice. “Kathleen, Kathleen Stuart.” The door inched open wide enough for her to see the side of his bearded face.

“Come in,” Edward Allen said. He showed neither surprise nor pleasure nor irritation. She had expected one of these reactions, and was annoyed at his seeming indifference. Behind Edward the room, lit by a lone kerosene lamp on the table, was gloomy.

“Sit you down,” he said. Again he surprised her. She thought he would sprawl in his chair as he had at the inn. Instead he held a chair for her, waited until she was seated, then sat with his hands clasped on the table. He had been writing. Or drinking. Or both. Arrayed before him was a glass, an unlabelled bottle holding an inch of golden-brown liquor, an ink well, a quill pen, and scattered papers covered with writing in a neat, precise hand.

“Brandy?” he asked. “A liquor lauded by eminent physicians for its medicinal qualities. No?” He poured more into his own glass. Kathleen was puzzled by both his speech and manner. He did not seem the Edward Allen of a few days before.

“Your humble servant,” he said, raising his glass to her. His hazel eyes roved from her face to the square neckline of her dress, then followed the curve of her body downward. She shifted uncomfortably and her eyes left his to glance about the room.

She saw more papers bundled in an open trunk on the plank floor, a rumpled bed along the wall, a scarred chest of drawers with pitcher and basin on top, a wardrobe closet, and trunks and boxes piled in the far corner. Through the window came the chirrup of the cicadas. Only one decoration interrupted the sameness of the brown walls—a set of two bronze-colored masks. She recognized the ancient Greek symbols of comedy and tragedy.

Her gaze returned to Edward Allen sipping from his glass, while he continued to observe her over the rim. She felt a sense of unease, of foreboding. The masks. She looked at them again, more closely than before, and grimaced. The faces leered dark and bulbous, the noses small, the lips thick, the eyes staring blankly. Grotesque.

“Don't you like my friends?” She shook her head.

“At first I felt the same,” he said, “but I've become accustomed to them. Repulsion changes to acceptance, which in turn gives way to affection of a sort. Which, if you think on it, is not unlike the plot of many of our romantic dramas.”

“I know nothing of the stage.”

“‘All the world's a stage,'” he quoted.

“And I know very little of the world,” she added.

“If ever you desire instruction, I await your pleasure.”

“I have need of something more immediate.”

He raised his eyes.

“My gun,” she said.

“So, the purpose of your visit is revealed. I'm disappointed. I thought you'd come to ask about the ball. You are going, aren't you? To the masquerade?”

“Probably.” She was cautious. “At first I thought not, then Clarissa said a gown had come for me from New York. Such a bother and expense for Josiah. I should go, if only to please him. Yes, I think I'll go.”

“Good, I enjoy masquerades. ‘What shall I wear?' the ladies ask, while the men shrug and pretend an unconcern. Don't be deceived. They care, oh, how they care, and choose their disguises every bit as carefully as do their ladies. At times it seems to me the costume is the truer man, the man who might have been or should have been. His day-to-day face is in actuality the mask.”

Kathleen was about to reply when she realized he had led her far from her purpose. “The gun,” she said. “Please give me my gun.”

He stood, pressing down on the table with his fingers to steady himself, and walked with exaggerated precision to the far corner of the room where he pushed aside a trunk and a black satchel. He brought back a small metal box. “Here, I've unloaded and cleaned your revolver.”

“Please,” she said. “Load the gun.” She looked more closely at the satchel.

Edward Allen sat on the floor and opened the breach and inserted the percussion caps and bullets. He laid the gun on the table.

“What's that?” Kathleen got up and moved past him to stare down at the black bag.

“Go ahead, look inside. It's not locked.”

She undid the clasp and pulled the top apart so the bag yawned open. A stethoscope curled within. Like a snake, Kathleen thought.

“Dr. Gunn's bag,” she said. “What are you doing with…” Still kneeling, she turned to stare at him. He smiled. “There is no Dr. Gunn,” she said accusingly. “You're Dr. Gunn.”

“You're right and you're wrong. Wrong to say Dr. Gunn doesn't exist. There is a Dr. Gunn somewhere. But you're right about my being the doctor. At least I was yesterday.”

“You must think me a simpleton not to have known.” She closed the bag and stood facing him.

“Not at all. My performance would have convinced the most doubting of Thomases. Why, I suspect, no, I'll wager you, the next time Mrs. Lewis requires a physician she'll wish the learned Dr. Gunn was available.”

He pushed a four-inch-thick book across the table and she sat so she could read the title:
New Domestic Physician or Home Book of Health.
The title page promised “many valuable rules for avoiding disease and prolonging life”.

“My source,” he said, “for Dr. Gunn's theories. You'll notice he's the author. I borrowed the book from the Worthington library.” He touched his whiskers. “If you were wondering about the beard, it's detachable.”

She handed back the book.
I will not underestimate Edward Allen again
, she told herself. Or Josiah, who had chosen him. She watched Edward place the
New Domestic Physician
beside his own manuscript. Without thinking she tried to read the words upside down.

“No,” he said, gathering the papers into a pile. “Tm sorry, the world isn't ready yet. Soon, but not yet.” He didn't smile. “I'm putting everything down. This is the true story, my justification you might say. Josiah would use a different term. My expiation, he would probably label it.”

Again she heard the rumble from afar. “Listen,” she said, “thunder.”

“I heard nothing.” He stood and paced back and forth, glancing at the papers in his hand, lips moving as he murmured the words to himself.

“Are you writing a history?”

“No, a piece for the theater. A tragedy.” He stopped beside the table to sip more of the liquor. “Wait.” He shuffled through the pages and selected one “A few lines I composed tonight. Here, tell me what you think.” He leaned forward to hand her the page. “First, before you read, I'll set the scene. The hero, his cause lost, lies dead by his own hand and his principal antagonist, after pursuing him through storm and fire, stands over the martyred body and bids him farewell.”

She read while Edward Allen walked to the window and stood looking into the night.

This was the noblest of them all.

All the conspirators, save only he,

Did what they did in envy or for greed.

He only, thinking of the good of all,

His people sore oppressed, became one with them.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him that we now can stand

And say to all the world, “This was a man.”

Kathleen tingled. Not from the words themselves. Something else, some fleeting disquiet, some glimpse into the unknown.

“Well,” he said, “tell me the truth. How do you judge my rough draft? Don't be afraid to say what you think. I believe I'm man enough to hear.”

“I like the rhythm,” she said. “On the other hand, I find a strange familiarity.”

He took the passage from her and began to pace up and down as he scanned the lines, frowning, declaiming to himself. “Often,” he told her, “strong writing wakens echoes in our minds.”

Kathleen closed her eyes. She was tired. Her head whirled and black dots spun before her. The sound of Edward's pacing on the bare floor made her forehead ache. The masks, the doctor's bag, Edward Allen's tragedy. What did they mean? For an instant she believed the answer was in her grasp, but it eluded her and was gone. She sensed…there was no other word—evil. A sensing of evil.

“I must go,” she said, taking the revolver from the table. His eyes followed her to the door and when she ran along the gravel path she looked up and saw him outlined in the window, still watching her.

The great house was quiet. No longer did fireflies flicker over the lawn. She saw no one as she hurried through the hall and climbed the winding stair. She went directly to bed. She longed for someone to comfort her, to cherish her.
This Estate is my castle
, she thought.
If I go to the window, I will see a horseman riding along the drive like a prince in a fairy story, a prince to love me forevermore.
As she slid toward sleep she thought she saw a vague shape in the corner of her room. Thick lips upturned in mock laughter. Thick lips turned down in an exaggerated grief. The two masks stared at her from the shadows.

Kathleen shook her head.
There is no prince
, she told herself.
There will never be a prince.
She lived not in a castle but in a house of masques. She knew she should leave while the masks remained in place, for she suspected the false, artificial faces were far preferable to the reality beneath.

She woke in the dark of night. What had she heard? The sound came once more. A long, low moan, a keening, followed by a scream of pain.