"HERE COMES KATHERINE," James said with a trace of what sounded like relief in his voice. "I have some work to catch up on, so why don't you just sit here and wait for her," he finished, leading her back to the stone bench in the temple.
Amelia followed his line of vision and saw Katherine moving toward them down the slope from the house. The sun glinted in her hair and her long skirts lifted and swayed with the energy of her walk. They mounted the steps to the stone seat, and James stood waiting for Katherine while Amelia sank gratefully to the bench in the cool, deep shade. She still felt weak, and it was an irritation to her because she had always been so healthy.
"I see you took my advice," Katherine said as she came up.
"I'll see you later, Cousin," James said with a gentle smile and walked haltingly away, his back stiff as if he were afraid they might be watching.
Amelia answered James and turned to Katherine. "Yes, and I'm so glad I did," she said smiling. "This is a lovely place, even with its ghosts."
"Ghosts, my dear girl! What do you mean?"
"James has been telling me about the burning of Harvest Hall and Juan and Mary Louise.
"Has he?" she asked, staring after James's receding figure. Then, she smiled brightly and changed the subject. "I'm so glad you like it here, it's one of my favorite places, and often cool with a little breeze off the lake when everything else is sweltering," she said as she seated herself. "Do you like gardening?" she continued, handing Amelia a waxy, white, highly scented flower.
Amelia took the Cape Jasmine, though she would have liked to refuse it. It reminded her of the bouquet a neighbor had brought her mother just before she died. She supposed she would always associate death with the heavy smell of Cape Jasmine. But, even as these thoughts flashed through her head, she smiled and sniffed the flower and answered Katherine's question. "I really haven't had much experience with gardening. Mother loved it and taught me, as we walked along the sidewalk, to recognize things growing in other people's yards, and we had potted plants in our rooms at the boarding house."
"I'm glad to see you're interested, at least," Katherine said in unconscious disparagement. "We once had extensive gardens here with no less than ten yardmen for Mirror House alone. Now, there are only vestiges of the great beds, a few azalea, a row of crepe myrtles, a few straggling roses. You should have seen the roses we had! Teas, musks, and Bourbons. I had a York and Lancaster, the only one in the neighborhood."
"You must miss all that very much," Amelia said.
"More than you can ever know. It hurts me to see the house like it is, so run down and worn, but it takes money to keep up a place as it should be kept up. Even the grounds, the flowers, take so much money and labor and time. Some people think that you have only to stick a flower out any old where and it will grow, but it takes fertilizer and the right growing conditions and care. Knowing just what every plant needs is what people mean when they say that so-and-so has a green thumb."
"I would like to learn," Amelia said and earned a warm smile from her cousin.
"Just look at that wisteria vine growing up the side of the house. It's trying to go in at the windows, see, there at your room? The thing will overrun the place if I don't watch it! Growing things sort of creep up on you; they never stand still like people do. They are doing, growing, blooming, reproducing all the time during their season, so long as you treat them right. People aren't like that. You turn your back and they stop, so that you have to keep after them to get them to do anything with themselves."
"People have minds of their own," Amelia said, smiling to give her words a light air.
"Yes, I'm afraid they do, more's the pity," Katherine said sharply.
Amelia sternly repressed the smile that wanted to rise to her lips. It wouldn't do for her cousin to think that she was laughing at her. She was, of course, but not maliciously. It was just that in her quiet way she was often amused by people who were so unaware of their faults.
"Well," Katherine sighed, letting her shoulders relax. She straightened into her usual fence-post-straight position and continued briskly. "I enjoyed our little chat, but I have a lot to do and I had better get back to it. No rest for the weary, they say. Just you stay right here, Amelia dear, and enjoy the breeze. It will be good for you." And with a determined stride, she climbed the slope back to the house.
Amelia watched her go, then sat obediently, feeling the cool breeze ripple across her face. She watched the lake, the dancing edges lapping at the moss and time blackened stone steps that fell away in front of her, and her thoughts drifted slowly, as gently as the soft wind that moved through the pines, brushing the pine needles into sighs. Peace flowed over her and a deep content held her pacified. Much of what had happened the night before seemed dreamlike, and in the normality of James's and Katherine's actions and reassurances she felt safe. The incident of Nelville's drunkenness had assumed the character of a nightmare, not quite forgotten, but without its nighttime urgency. She felt vaguely curious about Nelville, wondering how he would act after the night before, and just a little uncertain of how she should act. But, just now, under the influence of the peaceful afternoon, the problem was not enough to bother her.
She was less calm that evening as she went in to supper, her first meal with the family. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling, casting a pool of light on the table and shining down on the people sitting there. Amelia was annoyed with herself as she saw she was the last one to the table, and she vowed silently, as she took her place, that she would find out, some way, the schedule this family kept. It did not seem to be enough to wait until she was called.
"Evening, Cousin Amelia," James said with a smile.
"Amelia," Katherine said with a nod, "I don't think you have met your cousin Sylvestor." She indicated the gray-haired man sitting at the head of the table. Amelia smiled and nodded, and without giving her a chance to speak, Katherine asked Sylvestor to say grace, and the meal began.
It was simple food, good and filling, and very little was said beyond a "pass the bread" and "thank you."
As the dessert dishes were pushed to one side, Katherine rested her arms on the table and made a temple of her slim fingers, asking in what seemed an accustomed manner, "How does the field work go, Nelville?"
Without the least sign of annoyance, Nelville answered slowly, "The cotton looks fair so far, but we will have to have rain soon. If not-" he lifted his shoulders expressively. "The kitchen garden is about over. I let the hands have the rest of the corn for the hogs and they promised enough pork for this winter. Another picking of peas should do for them, and the beans could stand picking if you intend them to last until frost."
"I'll have Bessie get them tomorrow. Are the grapes ripe yet? I'm ready to cook jelly."
"I suppose. I don't know whether they will be worth fooling with this year. They are mostly knotty shriveled things, what the birds haven't gotten. This dry weather-"
"Must we go through this every night!" Reba cut across their conversation. "I don't think I have ever heard anything so boring!"
"You never complained before," Katherine said.
"I was never quite as tired of it before," Reba said and looked down at her plate as if sorry for the outburst.
Sylvestor glanced up at her and smiled, a peculiarly sweet smile, then stared out into the night beyond the open doors.
"There is nothing more to say anyway," Nelville said with an odd glint in his eyes. Then, he looked up at the lamp and frowned in irritation. "Somebody has got to change that lamp to another place. I'm a little tired of eating two-thirds supper and one-third bugs." As if on cue, they all looked up at the lamp with its moths and tiny insects bumping against the clear glass globe and falling dead to the table below. A little pile of dead bodies lay in the clear spot directly beneath the lamp, but an ever-widening ring of them spread into the serving bowls.
With a grimace, Nelville pushed back his chair and started to rise, but Katherine circumvented his escape by getting up quickly, saying, "Let us all go into the front parlor for a little while. We never have a chance to talk anymore, and I'm sure we all would like to become better acquainted with Cousin Amelia."
Arrested in motion, Nelville stared at her, then shrugged faintly and followed her lead while the rest came along behind.
"If we only had a piano, we could sing and it might be like old times," Reba said.
"It would be nice," Katherine agreed, "but I'm sure we can make do without."
Amelia followed more slowly after the others, aware of the rather dubious honor that was being bestowed on her, and James, limping beside her, smiled as if in understanding.
"We might play a few games," Reba suggested gaily.
"Like cross questions and crooked answers?" Nelville asked in a hollow voice.
"Don't be a spoilsport, Nelville," Reba said, looking back over her shoulder and laughing. "You know you enjoy games as much as I do."
"It depends on the players," he said cryptically.
"Nelville," Katherine said angrily.
"Oh, I'll be good," he said, though his face was unreadable in the darkened hallway, and his voice did not sound promising.
Two lamps stood on different tables at the entrance to the front parlor, but still it was dim, the rays of the light absorbed by the dark stretches of the huge room. The bare floors echoed hollow to the sound of their footsteps, and neither their presence nor the feeble light did anything to alleviate the dreary state of the room. The same cold ashes lay caked in the fireplace as had been there the night before, and the same red plush furniture, with the bare worn patches that made it look like a scabrous animal with mange, stood about the room.
"I really must do something about this room," Katherine said appraisingly, "just as soon as it is humanly possible. I do so hate to see everything going to ruin."
"There is nothing wrong with the room," James said stiffly. "I find it comfortable."
"Isn't that just like a man," Katherine said with a quick crooked smile in her sharp blue eyes for Amelia and Reba. "No, we really must throw all this away and get something modern. I've been looking at some advertisements for French reproductions. I would feel positively wicked sitting on a copy of the chaise longue Du Barry had in her apartment; but, I must say that sort of thing is graceful and elegant looking."
"It would go beautifully with the house," Reba said enthusiastically.
"No!" James said loudly. "I like it as it is! Just leave it alone." He glared at his sister and then the glare faded and he said, "Please, Katie. Just let me have this one place as my own. I need somewhere to rest and get away from everything."
"You have your room …" she began. But, as he started to protest, she said, "Oh, very well, if you feel that way." But, as his face smoothed out and he started to smile, she finished, "But, I really must get in here to clean. You can't deny that."
James hung his head and perched on the edge of the couch, swinging his lame foot and looking as though he would have liked to argue more about it, but desisted for the sake of good manners.
"Well," Nelville said, going to the brandy decanter that was sitting on the table. He poured a glass for himself. "Shall we converse about the weather? It's damnable. The crops? We have covered that subject. Our health? We are all well. The state of the Union? It survives, barely. I am now open for suggestions."
"We could play a game," Reba said, undaunted by Nelville's look of comic dismay as he lifted the decanter to fill two more glasses. "We could play 'walk out fair lady' or 'spin the tale.' "
"Yes, or 'drop the handkerchief,' or 'blindman's bluff.' Relics from your courting days, I presume? But, then you always did like games, didn't you?" he said mockingly.
"Must you be so hateful?" Reba said wrathfully as she jumped up to face him. She was beautiful in the lamp glow. It softened her features and caught auburn highlights in her long, carefully arranged brown hair. A dress of dark green stuff edged with lace at the bodice gave her an elegance to which her handsome stature and coloring contributed. The anger that burned in her eyes was that of a beautiful woman who felt unappreciated, and as he stood there laughing at her, she stiffened in rage.
"I believe," Katherine said distinctly, "that if you could spare a drop or two, we ladies might join you gentlemen in a drink, Nelville."
"Certainly," he answered civilly and poured the glasses and handed them around as Reba regained her temper and took her seat.
"I would like to propose a toast, if I may," Katherine said serenely, soothing the troubled air.
"Ladies do not drink brandy, I was told just recently," Nelville said as Katherine lifted her glass.
"A true lady does as she pleases without censure," Katherine said, "and adapts herself to changed circumstances. May I continue?"
Nelville tilted his head in a mock bow and she went on, raising her glass, "To Mirror House. And to our dear little Amelia-may she ever feel as welcome as she is!" She nodded at Amelia and sipped her drink graciously.
"To the South, and the courageous Confederate Army!" James said grandly.
"Here, here," Sylvestor said, speaking so calmly that everyone turned, suddenly conscious of his presence.
"To a ragtag and bobtailed cadre of gallant fools, admittedly brave, but unforgivably stupid," Nelville said softly, draining his glass and setting it down with a dangerous clink. "I believe," he said in the sudden silence, "that a walk would do us more good than this. Who would care to take a stroll down to the lake?"
"A very good idea," Katherine said a trifle breathlessly, and jumped up with little shooing motions of nervousness to gather the others into the party.
Propelled by the two strongest wills, the rest headed for the door, and Amelia found herself pushed ahead with Nelville. James and Reba followed and Katherine and Sylvestor brought up the rear.
It was warm and soft and dark outside, with a sliver of moon lending enough light to see the shapes and bulks and shadows. The sweet scent of honeysuckle drifted on the air that moved, not as a breeze, but as a warm current, heavy as the waving drift deep in the ocean. A few stars sprinkled the sky, pulsating like visible heartbeats of light in the vast and lonely black sweep, and the faraway bark of a dog heightened the loneliness of the dark around them. Behind Amelia, Reba stumbled on the uneven brick path and James caught her arm to steady her. Reba laughed, a warm and intimate sound that pained Amelia with its implications of camaraderie, and though she did not realize why, she winced and turned her head away.
Beside her, Nelville strode recklessly, unmindful of the uneven path, and his long strides took him toward the road and the woods rather than toward the lake as he had suggested. Amelia tried to match his stride, but he walked too quickly and every now and then she skipped to keep up. But, she did not mind, exactly. She would have liked to run-spinning, whirling, in the curtaining dark to the tune of the sense of glorious life beating within her.
"Nelville!" Katherine shouted, and they turned to see her straggling far behind with Sylvestor at her side. "You young people go on," she called. The mosquitoes are eating me alive! Sylvestor will take me back!" And with a wave of her hand, she turned away.
Amelia thought she heard the man at her side chuckle, but when she glanced up at him, his face was obscured by the dark. As he turned toward the opening in the trees, he continued the walk at a much more sedate pace. With his hands pushed into his pockets, he began to whistle softly.
They walked along under the dark roof of overlapping tree boughs, kicking the deep sand of the road that sparkled whitely in the moonlight. James and Reba murmured to each other behind them, and now and then a light laugh would be heard. Nelville and Amelia were silent. Almost total darkness surrounded them as they followed the road deeper into the woods. Unconsciously, Amelia moved nearer Nelville and slowed so the others could catch up, not that she was frightened, but it seemed the natural thing to proceed more cautiously where she could not see, and where she was unfamiliar.
"Amelia," Reba said as they came within easy speaking distance, "did you ever hear of the panther ghost of Louisiana?"
"I don't believe so," Amelia answered dubiously.
"There was once a young Creole girl whose lover left her for another woman. She turned herself into a panther with the help of juju magic and prowls the dark looking for her lover so she can tear him to pieces." Reba recounted the tale in a hushed voice that was absurdly chilling, since Amelia knew it was meant to be.
"Panthers have been known to prowl around here, haven't they?" James asked.
"Yes," Nelville answered with what sounded like reluctance. "The Prudhommes killed one last fall that followed them home from a dance."
"And, there were wolves not so long ago during a bad winter, and always bobcat, and fox, and in the swamp to the north, wild boar and bears. We are not as civilized as we seem out here," Reba said, and then dropped back as she bent to pour sand out of her shoe.
Nelville continued walking, and Amelia, after staring hard at Reba whom she suspected of laughing, went on with him instead of waiting for the others. "Do you do much hunting with all this wild game around?" she asked innocently as they strolled along.
It was a moment before he spoke and his voice sounded compressed, as if he had been laughing to himself. He answered, "Yes, a little-deer, squirrel, birds in the fall. But, nothing like when we were boys."
"Were you ever lost?" she asked conversationally, not wanting to go back to the strained silence of before.
"Not really. It wouldn't have been hard, had we lost our heads, but this road curves and turns through these woods for miles, and you will always run into it if you know approximately where you are and which side of the road you're on. Also, the river is only a mile or two south, and once you hit it, you're bound to find help if you follow it. The thing to remember is never to go north. To the north of this road, there is little but swamp and forest land for more than a hundred miles. Oh, you might run into a homesteader shack or a small settlement, but the chances are a thousand to one that you would starve to death first." There was a seriousness, a warning note, in his voice that made Amelia wish she could see his face, for it reminded her of a phrase she thought she remembered him saying. Something about leaving, running away. Then, she dismissed his words as conversation, and to keep up her end, asked, "You have lived here a long time, haven't you?"
"Since I was seven. My parents died in a yellow fever epidemic. My mother was a distant cousin of the family and she sent me up on the steamboat with Juan Phillipe who was in New Orleans at the time on a buying trip. When they died, I had no one except some cousins up in Kentucky. My father came down the Mississippi in a keelboat and settled in New Orleans after he married my mother. Mother's family felt that she had married beneath herself, and so they weren't too concerned about the keelboater's son. Except Tante Isabella. She had known my mother at the convent school, and since she hadn't been around during the squabble over the marriage, Tante Isabella held no grudges, so I was welcome."
He stopped abruptly and Amelia glanced up quickly to see Reba pull her hand back, and somehow she felt that, under the cover of darkness, Reba had been motioning to Nelville. She felt chilled and at the same time, a little angry, but she moved on as if she had seen nothing, the words of sympathy she had been about to speak, dead on her lips. She searched her mind for something else to say, but found her mind empty except for a pulse beat of unreasonable agitation. Walking without thinking, she tripped suddenly over a tree root growing into the road and went to one knee. Nelville's hand under her elbow helped her to her feet, but after her murmured thanks he still kept it there, in what Amelia felt was an unnecessarily firm grip. She leaned over to dust the sand from her skirt, leaning a little farther than strictly necessary to break his hold, but he did not let go and she straightened, trying to think how to get her arm back without making too much of it.
Then, she looked over her shoulder to see if Reba and James had noticed, and they were gone! "Where did they go?" she asked quietly, standing firmly in the middle of the road with one hand free and one arm ridiculously, so she felt, in his grasp.
"Does it matter?" Nelville asked bluntly.
"Yes," she answered with difficult calmness.
"Would you believe me if I said I didn't know?"
"No, I would not," she answered evenly.
"But," he said dropping her arm and withdrawing his dubious protection, "I'm afraid that, strain though it will be, you must." He turned and started back the way they had come.
She stood still, watching his dark form disappear in the deeper blackness of the wood-dark night. Then, the sound of his footsteps ceased in the soft sand and all was quiet. She was alone in the woods that seemed suddenly filled with menace. Far away, the echo of a night bird's cry drifted on the quiet, and the faint rustling and crackling in the underbrush nearby sounded loud in the empty night. What were they trying to do? Frighten her? They had succeeded, but she certainly didn't intend for them to know it! She held her hands together tightly and listened. There was no sound, but the crisp drift of a leaf falling through the branches. Then, there came a soft tread and the whoosh of something brushing through the underbrush, a repeated sound like the measured stalk of a big cat slinking along. Her heart beating wildly, Amelia stood listening, hearing the sound coming first from one side of the road and then from the other. James and Reba, she wondered. Of course, it had to be, or did it? For all she knew, these woods really were infested with panthers and wolves and bears that might stalk someone. But, that didn't make sense. No one would casually go for a walk in them if they were, would they? No, it was James and Reba, and possibly Nelville, no, probably Nelville.
Slowly, she began to walk back toward the house, stifling an impulse to run, for even if it was only James and Reba she had no way of knowing what they intended. Perhaps, they did want to frighten her. Everything so far had been so strange that they might even want to hurt her. Something cold in the warm night passed over her body like a chill, some feeling of danger abroad, moving in the dark, stalking her with intelligent intent an inhuman glee. Unconsciously, her footsteps quickened with her thoughts.
Behind her, in time with her footsteps, the stalkers came faster, rustling louder and crashing through the sage and vines that lined the side of the road. Then, in the middle of the road in front of her, she brushed against something warm and soft, and with a gasp she broke into a run!
In two steps, she was caught from behind and jerked around, then dragged to the side of the road and pulled down into the underbrush. A hard, rough hand covered her mouth and an arm fastened her to the ground while the length of a man's body pressed against her, with part of his weight resting across her chest. She twisted violently, but succeeded only in having her legs pinned to the ground. She struck at his head three, four, times and he accepted her blows without flinching or retaliating as he leaned down and whispered, "Be still," in her ear. She froze abruptly, recognizing Nelville's voice, but unable to see his face. In the quiet that fell, she could feel the steady pumping of his heart where his chest rested against her and could hear the nearby crashing of her pursuers.
Then, the noise ended suddenly. "Where did she go?" Reba asked laughing. From the sound of it, they were a little down the road from where Amelia and Nelville lay.
"I don't know," James said. "It's too damn dark to see, and we were making too much noise to hear her."
"Probably ran like a scared rabbit," Reba said, still in an amused tone. "We'll find her at the house."
"Suppose she ran into the woods?"
"Not her, she's not the type," Reba answered.
Amelia squirmed at that mocking tone, but Nelville pressed down harder and she desisted for lack of breath.
"Do you think she knew it was us?" James went on worriedly.
"Of course, what do you think?" Reba asked, her voice dwindling as they walked away together toward home.
"She may not," James said hopefully. "It might ruin everything if she did."
"Don't be silly. She may look like a Dresden-china rose, but she's not a complete fool. She needs us."
James's reply was lost in the distance. Nelville took his hand from her mouth, but didn't move away until Amelia wiggled impatiently, stung by a briar that was biting into her shoulder. Then, he got quickly to his feet and helped her up.
"Was that strictly necessary?" Amelia asked as she stepped into the road and brushed the trash off her dress.
"Not absolutely," replied Nelville, likewise engaged with his own clothes.
"Why did you do it then?" Amelia asked of the dim form beside her in the dark.
"Because," he replied evenly, in a voice that did not invite a continuation of the subject, "I wanted to."
Silenced by the forbidding evenness of his tone, Amelia fell silent herself. She was also afraid to question why he had wanted to drag her into the bushes. The answer might not allow her to walk so quietly back down the road beside him. Sternly, she repressed the thought along with her temper and her misgivings. Could it all be dismissed so lightly and easily? She thought he glanced at her curiously as they went along, but in the darkness it was hard to tell and anyway she was tired of trying.
Shortly, they came out of the woods into the faint moonlight and started the slight climb toward the house on its promontory. Perhaps, it had been a mistake, Amelia thought to herself as they climbed, to think that because Nelville hid her from James and Reba he was on her side. Perhaps, he, too, was playing a game, but a game of his own. To get away from such thoughts, she swung around and asked, "What did they mean, if I knew it might ruin everything?"
"Seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be made known to you. Biblical, possibly inaccurate, and totally untrue," he said and strode away from her into the house.
She stared at him in bewilderment mixed with apprehension, and with dragging footsteps, she followed after him, dreading entering the house and facing the rest of them. What would they say? How would they act? She felt so alien and alone out there in the dark.
She climbed the steps and crossed the porch, entering through the open door. Katherine stood on the stairs holding a lighted lamp that cast dancing shadows on the walls. She was on her way up to bed and looked surprised at Amelia's entrance. She smiled a little wanly at Amelia and looked relieved when she responded. "There you are, dear," she said with unnecessary brightness. "I wondered what had become of you. Reba said they had lost you. So childish of them … but you won't mind them, I know."
As Amelia looked away, Katherine plunged on. "Well, never mind. You must be as tired as I am. Why don't you come on up to bed. I've put your lamp on the table there. Just fetch it and we'll go on up."
Obedient because she dreaded meeting the others, Amelia did as Katherine suggested and went down the hall where a burning lamp stood ready on the table. She picked it up, but even as she turned with it, it began to flicker and abruptly went out. An experimental shake told her that it was out of oil.
"How vexing," Katherine said, leaning over the stair rail. "The things are always running out when you least expect it. Reba and Sylvestor have gone up to bed, but I think James is still in the living room." Lifting her voice, she called loudly, "James!"
"Oh, but I can do without a lamp," Amelia protested, not wanting to see anybody just then, least of all, James.
"Nonsense, you must have light to dress by. It will only take a minute to refill your lamp from the can in the kitchen. James won't mind doing it for you at all, I'm sure."
"I could do it myself," Amelia said quickly. "There is no need to bother anyone, really."
"No bother," Katherine said, then turned away as James appeared in the door. "James, dear. Amelia needs a little oil for her lamp. Get it for her like a nice boy, won't you?" She smiled on them from her stance high above them; and then she turned and mounted the stairs, carrying her lamp, and leaving them in darkness, except for the faint light spilling from the living room door.
"Just a minute," James said and stepped back into the room for a light. He came toward her, lighting her way into the kitchen with an expressionless face. Amelia went stiffly before him and stood back in the middle of the room as he took down a sloshing can marked Kerosene and filled the lamp.
He returned the can to its shelf and took a sulphurous match from a metal container beside the stove. Gently, he struck the match on the stove and held it between two fingers while he picked up the unlighted lamp with his left hand and began to limp toward her. The match burned with a yellow glow that was reflected as two tiny flames in his eyes. A lump of fear grew in Amelia's throat, making her breathe quickly, for there suddenly seemed to be something else in the room with them-a nameless fear, a voiceless dread, an echo of malevolence. As he neared her, James held the refilled lamp out to her, and when she took it, he removed the glass globe, touched the match to the oil soaked wick, and replaced the globe as the lamp began to bum smokily. Then, he passed the match through the air, watching its comet tail of smoke. With each pass, he brought the flame nearer and nearer a ringlet of dark shining hair that fell forward over Amelia's shoulder. Amelia stood perfectly still, holding her breath, ready to scream, run, strike out, yet caught in the enthrallment of the moment, frozen by an acute awareness of danger and an intuitive knowledge that to do anything at all might be disastrous. In that strained moment, as James's blue eyes held her hypnotically, she became vividly aware of her other senses. She could feel the warm velvet of the summer night against her skin and smell the mingled odors of the kitchen-old smoke, old fat, stale dishwater, with an undertone of baked bread, boiled vegetables, and fresh ground coffee. The earthy night smell and sounds came through the open window above the sink, reminding her of the essence of freedom, a mute protest against her immobility.
Then, the match flickered and went out and James sighed. Unconsciously, Amelia let her breath out also.
"What did I tell you?" a voice said from the doorway. "Nerves of steel. If she did not have them, she would have screamed the house down last night." Nelville detached himself from the door frame, sauntered into the room with a lazy smile, and took the lamp from Amelia's nerveless fingers.
Reba, her dark eyes flashing both amusement and animosity and her skirts swishing, followed him in. "You win again," she said to Nelville, "and here is your usual payment." She placed her hand on his arm and standing on tiptoe, kissed him lightly. "I will learn one of these days not to bet with you two." Turning to James, she bestowed a kiss on him also. To Amelia, she said artlessly, "You will forgive us won't you, dearest Amelia, if we frightened you. But, a little wager now and then does liven things up so."
Nelville stared at the oil swirling in the lamp as he turned it in his hand, and James looked from Amelia to Reba with a rather diffident smile. Reba stared at Amelia in blatant triumph.
Amelia stared at them in return, and then turned on her heel, angry with herself for being frightened by such a shabby trick and hurt and humiliated and furious at the same time that they had seen fit to do such a thing to her.
She walked quickly toward the door, her hands clasped tightly before her, her head held high to prevent the tears that hovered in her eyes from spilling over; but, when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she had to look down to see the tread, and the tears began to fall.
Seeing the light blossom in the hall from where she had come. Amelia began to climb the stairs, but had not gotten far when Nelville called to her, "Your lamp, my lady."
She turned to see him holding the lamp up to her with its glow falling full on his face, outlining his twisted smile and the fathomless expression in his eyes. "The light of reason," he quoted softly, "in case you meet a phantom panther on the stair, a masked lady in the hall, a lunatic in the attic, or a water sprite in your washbasin."
She glared at him, ignoring the two tracks of tears on her cheeks. "Thank you so much," she said sarcastically and lifted the lamp from his fingers.
He put his hands on his hips and smiled up at her in amusement. "Fear is a strange thing," he said, "it feeds on itself."
"Or on strange things," Amelia answered in an attempt to match his wit.
"Nothing is strange when you know what it means."
"Make up your mind," she said quickly. "Is it nothing, or is it something meaningful that I'm supposed to be afraid of?"
"Neither. Only the familiar in an unfamiliar setting," he answered with a mocking grin. The lamplight gleamed on his planed pirate face and dancing eyes, reflecting on the whiteness of his teeth and the pearly gleam of his shirt buttons. He hardly seemed real, and his words leant another touch of unreality.
"You enjoy being confusing, don't you," Amelia stated rather than asked.
He inclined his head in a nod that was almost a bow saying, "With or without the help of amontillado."
"And, which is it now?" Amelia asked, turning back up the stairs, though it hardly seemed possible that he could be anything but sober.
Instead of answering the question, Nelville said, "Sleep well, bride of fate, but not so well you do not awake. The Gabriel horn does not blow a waltz of love nor, contrary to popular opinion, a paean everlasting."
She halted a moment, trying to think of a suitable reply, but hearing in her mind the echo of his words, she shivered and quickly mounted the stairs without looking back.
As she walked into her bedroom, Amelia saw Katherine just shutting the drawer of the commode. "There you are," Katherine said, turning leisurely to greet her. "I was just checking to see that your water pitcher was full and that you had everything else you need." Then, seeing Amelia's tear-streaked face and high color, she went on quickly, "Why, what's the matter? Is anything wrong?"
Amelia shook her head with a quick smile.
Katherine came forward hurriedly and put a gentle hand on her arm. "I'm sure there is," she said softly, "and you must tell me. I insist."
The friendly sympathy was such a contrast to the mocking derision and animosity she had just been subjected to that Amelia answered slowly, "It was just a bet, a joke of some kind they played on me in the kitchen. I was silly to be so upset." She tried to turn away, embarrassed because putting it into words made it seem so trivial.
"I'm so sorry, but don't you think anything of it," Katherine said dismissingly. "It is so boring here day in and day out that sometimes the amusement gets out of hand. They didn't mean anything by it, I'm sure. We are all so proud you have come and hope you will stay a long, long time. You just put it out of your head and you'll see that everyone will have forgotten all about it by morning." With what was meant to be a reassuring pat, Katherine walked quickly to the door, "Good night," she said, and smiling again in reassurance, shut the door behind her.
When the sound of her footsteps had faded away, Amelia went to the commode for her gown. She noticed as she pulled out the drawer that her gowns and handkerchiefs were tumbled, and one corner of her writing portfolio was pulled out at an odd angle. For a moment, the suspicion that Katherine had been going through her things ran through her mind, a suspicion she could not entirely dismiss even as she saw a new pile of clean washed cloths in the corner of the drawer. After thinking about it as she undressed, though, she attributed the plundering to idle curiosity. She smiled wryly as she pulled her gown over her head. Anybody who looked through her things was bound to be sadly disappointed. She had nothing valuable or beautiful or interesting. Even the portfolio was filled with nothing, but a childish letter or two from girlhood friends and sheets of blank paper.
When she finally lay down, she could not relax, but kept going over and over the painful scenes of the evening, a little like a child that keeps pressing a bruise or sore place to see if it still hurts. Why had they treated her like that? It was so baffling, so unexplainable, almost as if they all had some kind of grudge against her. It made her feel as if she must somehow be at fault, though she could not imagine how. Fearful and uneasy, she lay awake for a long time.