Kathleen woke from a dreamless sleep and turned onto her back, rubbed her eyes, and sank deeper into the softness of the bed. Over her head she saw a canopy, blue tassels dangling from its scalloped sides, covering the top of the four-poster. Very pretty, she thought, and nothing but a dust catcher. She frowned. Stop thinking like a girl who works, she told herself. I’m a guest, not a maid.
From the light filling the room and the heat which seemed to press in upon her, Kathleen knew the sun was already high. She threw back the coverlet and sat on the edge of the bed, saw herself reflected in the mirror on the wardrobe. Such a huge room. The elegance of the flowered wallpaper. The softness of the thick pile of the blue carpet bordered with a gold fringe. White curtains drifted inward from the three windows, but the breeze brought no coolness.
Kathleen stretched both arms above her head. A guest. She was a guest on the Worthington Estate, and this was a new day. And she had only five days left. She remembered her night fears of a few hours before and shuddered, thinking of the fog and the casket. Don’t think, be active. Get up. She walked about the room, trying to push the panic from her mind. After all, she thought, I have accomplished a great deal. I am in the Worthington house. I do have Clarissa and Edward Allen to help me. I will succeed. I will, I will!
A light tapping on the door. “Good morning, Miss Stuart.” Clarissa came into the bedroom dressed in a loose white gown gathered at the waist by a sash the color of her hair. “You’ll never guess what the Worthingtons have,” she said. Kathleen looked puzzled. “An indoor bathroom. It’s new and on this very floor.”
“Indoors. I’ve never seen one before.”
“And,” Clarissa added as Kathleen walked by her, “they use store-boughten soap.”
When Kathleen returned to the bedroom, still in nightgown and robe, she found Clarissa rocking beside one of the windows. The room was on the second story, and through the window Kathleen saw an elm reaching skyward like a giant fountain. Beyond the elm, the mountainside rose in a series of wooded ridges to the summit.
A maid stood by the bed with a tray and Kathleen smelled ham and coffee. Breakfast in bed, she thought, sliding back under the sheets and beginning to eat. I’ve never known such luxury.
“How do you feel this morning?” Clarissa asked when Kathleen had finished. Kathleen lifted the tray onto the night table and lay back on the piled pillows.
“A little sore. My knee and my wrist.”
“You must have gotten a lot of smoke in your lungs from the fire. Does your chest hurt?”
Kathleen took a deep breath. “No, not at all.”
“Well, we’ll see what the doctor has to say.”
“A doctor? For me? What in heaven’s name for?”
“If we’re to stay here at the Estate, we need a reason, and Josiah suggested illness as a good excuse. What would be more natural than to have a doctor forbid you to travel? Edward Allen has gone to fetch him.”
“Clarissa, there’s nothing the matter with me. The doctor will only—” Kathleen began to protest.
Clarissa walked to the bed. “Let me tell you about the doctor,” she said. “He’s—” A knock at the door interrupted her. “Oh, the maid. Come in.”
It was not the maid, but a short, middle-aged woman instead, plump and smiling. “I’m Alice Lewis,” she said. “Mrs. Lewis,” she added as she inspected the room, shaking her head in disapproval. “The help you get nowadays. Some of them, like old Mrs. Ehrman, are nothing but drones. I don’t know how we’ll ever be ready for the ball on Saturday night. Times have certainly changed. Why, when I first came to work for the Worthingtons we had nowhere near as much help, and still we got as much work done. You wouldn’t believe me,” she said coyly, “if I ever told you how many years ago that was.”
Mrs. Lewis sat by the bed. “Mr. Charles asked me to see how you were feeling this morning,” she told Kathleen. Mr. Charles. Of course, she must mean Captain Worthington.
Clarissa held the window curtains aside and then let them fall into place. She walked to the door and glanced at Kathleen and began to speak, hesitated, finally made up her mind. “Captain Worthington offered to show me the Estate,” she said. “Will you be all right if I leave you for a while?”
Kathleen sat up in surprise. Her first impulse was to say, “No, don’t go!” She bit her lip, confused. “Yes, I’ll be all right,” she whispered at last. Clarissa closed the door softly behind her.
“La,” Mrs. Lewis said, “your aunt’s a very handsome woman.” Kathleen did not comment. “You poor dear,” the older woman went on, “kidnapped and manhandled by those horrible men, and as if that weren’t enough, to come here and find the casket on the porch.” She lowered her voice. “With Mr. Charles’s name and the dates, as though he’s to die this very year. ‘Traitor.’ What could that mean? Such troubled times we’ve had, ever since the gypsies.”
“The gypsies?”
“Yes, they came this April as they do every year in their long wagons with black canvas tops. Came to the Estate and asked to camp like they always do and Mr. Blasingame, him what’s in charge of the Estate, says no, not this year with the Captain home and feeling poorly. I was there in the driveway when they argued, the dark men and the women with hoops of gold in their ears and chains and bangles and short, looped-up skirts.”
Kathleen started to speak and Mrs. Lewis held out her hand.
“Wait, I know what you’re going to say. Yes, they do steal, a few eggs maybe, or some milk, but, oh, the bad fortune if you turn them away like Mr. B. did. Their chief stood on the seat of his wagon, I can see him now with his arms spread wide, and he cursed us in his heathen tongue, cursed this place and everyone living here, and not a week later the troubles began. Now, not two days ago, they came back, not to the Estate, but they’re camped less than a mile away.”
“We had gypsies in Ohio,” Kathleen said, “and they never harmed anyone.”
“Well, of course there are gypsies and gypsies. I’ve nothing against them or their fortune telling and I don’t believe all the things I hear. I just know what I know: children have disappeared after the gypsies were in the neighborhood never to be seen again. Like little Chancy Ross in the song. It’s just lucky we have no children living on the Estate, that’s all I have to say, or else there might have been worse trouble than we’ve already had.”
“What kind of trouble? Do you mean like the coffin on the porch last night?”
“Yes, for one thing. Nothing you can really put your finger on and explain, and that’s what frightens me. Mr. Charles, he shrugs and says it doesn’t bother him, but I know he’s worried, poor man, and he’s got enough on his mind without this, too. What he really needs is someone to look after him. You asked me what troubles we’ve had. Threats Mr. Charles has gotten, and last week the fire on the lawn at the back of the house.” She motioned toward the windows.
“Did you see the fire?” Kathleen asked.
“The flames and the shouting woke me in the night and I thought the house must be burning. I’m always afraid of fire in these great old houses, and especially now with the woods so dry. Not the house, though, it wasn’t. Boards piled on the lawn, stacked upright, like one of those Indian houses, what do you call them?”
“Tepees.”
“Yes, like a tepee on the lawn, with the flames shooting toward the sky and the men running to the well for water and throwing bucketfuls on the flames, afraid they were the fire would spread.”
A tepee, Kathleen thought. Indians. She shuddered as she remembered her dream and the near-naked Indian standing over her. What had happened on the Kansas plains that the evil had spread like a malignancy through all their lives? Michael could never tell her. Would Captain Worthington?
“…never had a bad fire here, thank the Lord,” Mrs. Lewis was saying. “Luckily, when old Jared Worthington built the house, the one we’re in now, not the first house which was built by his father, he used stone from the quarry as well as wood. Jared was Mr. Charles’s grandfather, you know, and invented the Worthington Stove. Before my time, he was, but they say—”
A knock at the door. This time it was the maid, accompanied by a man of medium height, clean-shaven, with gray-black hair. The black bag in his hand told Kathleen he was the doctor.
“Dr. Samuel Gunn, delighted to make your acquaintance.” He walked to the bedside. “Your man, Edgar something-or-other, found me in the village. He was journeying to Newburgh to seek a physician when he chanced to stop in the taproom of the local inn and through a chance remark discovered I was visiting in the vicinity. Well, how’s my patient this morning?”
“I don’t really believe there’s much wrong with her,” Mrs. Lewis said. “She seems to be completely recovered.”
“Hrrrp,” the doctor cleared his throat. “We’ll see, we’ll see. An experienced practitioner often discovers symptoms overlooked by the layman, no matter how discerning she may be. After four years at the Philadelphia School of Medicine, and having written several modest essays for the Medical-Surgical Journal, and lately having devoted myself to research for a medical volume for home use, I consider myself well-qualified in the science of diagnosis.”
He sat beside the bed and felt Kathleen’s pulse, and his hazel eyes peered with interest into her mouth, eyes, and ears. “I had a patient only last year,” he said with a sideways glance at Mrs. Lewis, “a young bride who, not wanting to forego her wedding entertainments, ignored an inflammation of the throat, and three weeks later passed to the great beyond. Most unfortunate. The bridegroom was quite overcome with grief, as you can well imagine. He’s since remarried, however, and this time he chose a home-loving, though plain, girl.”
“I knew a similar circumstance some years ago at the Krom Place,” Mrs. Lewis began. “One of the young Krom sisters—”
“Yes, I’m sure,” the doctor said. “Quite common these days.” He removed a stethoscope from his bag and inserted the earpieces. “Remove the robe, please,” he told her. Kathleen sat up and Mrs. Lewis took the garment from her and laid it across a chair. “Lay on your back,” he instructed Kathleen.
“Hmmmm,” the doctor said. The instrument was cold on her chest, and she flinched away. “Breathe deeply. Again. Yes, I was afraid so.”
“What is it?” Mrs. Lewis asked. Kathleen began to feel the gnaw of worry. Was something really the matter? Had she inhaled too much smoke after all?
“Genteel,” the doctor said. “That’s the problem. Too genteel to perform physical exercise to ward off the onset of disease. Girls and women who should know better, beautiful girls like this young lady, from vanity go thinly dressed, coming out of warm rooms into inclement weather, neck and arms bare, clothed in thin muslin or fancy dresses. Who can expect anything else from such a course of conduct but sore throats, pleurisy, rheumatism, and a variety of other diseases which may suddenly destroy life or injure the general health?”
Mrs. Lewis began to answer, but the doctor did not pause. “Take the daily life of the wives and daughters of our men of wealth. From morning to night the same listless, sluggish, stagnating existence, with no physical exercise more invigorating than a walk up and down the street. With no mental employment more inspiring than the reading of a few indifferent novels, or the making of idle morning calls, or spending evenings at balls where late hours, thin dresses, excessive dancing, and improper food do more injury than you can imagine.”
The doctor nodded his head as he spoke, and by the time he finished Mrs. Lewis was also nodding vigorously. So much talk, Kathleen thought. Dr. Thompson, back in Ohio, had been terse and to the point. But what had the doctor found, she wondered. “Wh-what’s the matter with me?” she asked.
“Inflammation of the lungs. A relatively mild case. You were very fortunate to seek out a physician before the disease could establish a foothold and make dangerous headway.”
“My father once had inflammation of the lungs,” Mrs. Lewis said. “We sliced an onion in two and let sugar seep in, and then squeezed the juice for him to drink.”
“An old-fashioned remedy,” the doctor said, “which will make the patient no worse. I advise letting Miss Stuart sit for a half hour with her feet and legs in warm water, and have her drink some warm sweating teas with bloodroot or sage added. Then, place a blanket about her shoulders, after removing her clothes, and boil a quantity of bitter herbs in a large pot or kettle. The blanket confines the steam rising from the herbs and hot water and allows it to come in contact with the body as high as the neck. Continue this treatment for another half hour, occasionally throwing into the vessel a hot brick or rock to raise the steam.”
“Should we use a mustard plaster?” Mrs. Lewis wanted to know.
“Only if she shows no improvement. If you do, place the compress on her chest for as long as the young lady can bear it. And keep her warm with hot bricks about the body while she’s in bed, or put boiled corn in her ears.”
The doctor snapped his bag shut. “This is a mild case,” he said. “Miss Stuart, if she feels well enough, can get out of bed tomorrow. But in no case is she to travel during the next week.”
Kathleen sighed with relief. The doctor was prescribing exactly what Clarissa had hoped. Could Edward Allen have persuaded him? If so, how had he accomplished it?
“Quite an inconvenience to me, my coming here,” the doctor said to Mrs. Lewis. “In these cases I charge double my usual fee. That will be one dollar,” he added in a low, apologetic voice. Mrs. Lewis brought forth a purse and handed him a bill.
“And,” the doctor said from the doorway, “if either of you charming ladies should chance upon the March 1869 issue of the Medical-Surgical Journal, pages thirty-eight through forty-five, you might be interested in perusing my article on the salubrious effects of railroad travel.”
“Railroad travel?” they asked almost in unison.
“Yes. I point out that the velocity with which a train moves through the air is very refreshing where the run is for some miles. The vibratory, or rather oscillatory motion communicated to the human frame is very different from the swinging and jolting motions of the stagecoach, and is productive of more salutary effects. It equalizes the circulation, promotes digestion, tranquilizes the nerves, and often causes sound sleep during the succeeding night. In my humble opinion, the railroad bids fair to be a powerful remedial agent for many ailments to which metropolitan inhabitants are subject.”
Doctor Gunn was standing by the door with the open-mouthed Mrs. Lewis to one side. Did Kathleen see him wink at her? No, she must be mistaken. He held his hat aloft and bowed and was gone.
“My,” Mrs. Lewis said, “he seems a very learned gentleman. I’ll make sure his advice is followed.”
“He reminds me of someone,” Kathleen said. “A picture in a book I once read, I think. An author, not a doctor, though. Someone else. I can’t remember.”
Mrs. Lewis held the curtain aside and again Kathleen could see the giant elm. “Ah, poor Mr. Charles,” Mrs. Lewis said, shaking her head. “Walking across the lawn, with your aunt, hands behind his back, head down, like a great sadness is upon him. If only I could help. If only he’d let me.”
Mrs. Lewis’s curls were like those of a young girl, Kathleen thought, yet when she turned from the window the harsh light of midday exposed the folds and wrinkles in her neck and the web of lines around her eyes. The contrast between the hair and the face made her seem even older than she was.
“I’m sorry,” Kathleen said, not sure whether she referred to the Captain or to Mrs. Lewis herself.
“Sorry? Being sorry does no good. There is evil in this house where evil never existed before. Nothing goes as it should anymore. Is there a gypsy curse on all of us?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Mrs. Lewis walked to the door and looked back at Kathleen who drew the covers higher about her neck. Did she see distress in Mrs. Lewis’s face? Or was hatred there as well?
“Yes, a curse is on this house,” Mrs. Lewis said. She opened the door, and as she left she muttered as though to herself, but loud enough for Kathleen to hear. “And that curse,” she added, “was what brought you among us.”