Darkwater (7 page)

“I have not tried to steal your secrets, whatever they are,” Jennifer said, indignation momentarily overcoming her fear. “I have no interest in them, or in you.”'

“Liar.” The woman suddenly raised her large walking stick as if she would strike Jennifer with it.

Alarmed, Jennifer tried to step backward but her foot caught on a vine and to her horror she went sprawling into the mud and the tall grass alongside the path. Her hand came down in the greenish-black water of the swamp.

“Sneaking around, spying on me, I'll teach you,” the crone shouted, striking out at Jennifer with her stick. Her blow was wild and the stick struck the ground instead, an inch or two from Jennifer's face. Jennifer screamed in terror.

“Don't,” she cried, but the woman raised the stick to strike at her again.

“Think you're so clever, sneaking around, sneaking up on people....”

Desperately Jennifer kicked out with her foot. Her skirts prevented her from kicking with any real force, but it was enough to trip her attacker. The crone stumbled too and fell into the muddy grass alongside Jennifer.

Jennifer was young and agile and in a moment she had managed to scramble to her feet. She ran away before the old woman had recovered herself, along the path and back the way she had come, holding her skirts high. She sobbed and gasped as she ran. She had never suffered such a senseless attack before, not even in the heat of the war.

She came around a turning in the path and gave a little cry of alarm as she saw there was someone in the path, directly in front of her. He was too close and she was running too fast to avoid him.

She was in his arms before she realized it was Walter. Not even thinking of what was right or wrong, she threw herself against him, sobbing into his chest.

“What is it, what happened?” he demanded, holding her close.

“An old woman. She tried to hit me with a stick,” Jennifer sobbed.

“Mrs. Hodges. Wait here, I'll go....”

“No.” She grabbed his arm and, taking a deep breath, managed to quiet her sobs. “I'm all right now, truly I am. She did not harm me, she only frightened me.”

“She didn't strike you?” he demanded, looking down into her face anxiously.

“No. She swung at me with her stick, but I don't know if she really meant to hit me or if she was just trying to frighten me. Truly, I am all right. I was just terrified, that's all.”

She suddenly thought of how she must look and gave a little laugh that combined relief and amusement.

“I am a sight, though,” she said. Her dress, already wrinkled from a night of sleeping in Alicia's chair, was even more so by now, and in addition, it was torn slightly and stained from grass and mud. Her hair lay in damp strands and she knew there was mud on her face as well as on her hands.

“I think you look very beautiful,” he said in a changed voice. “I think you would always look very beautiful no matter what the circumstances.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up into his face, so near her own. Only a few minutes before she had been thinking of him, of his dark eyes boring into hers, of his strong arms, that now held her close.

For a moment neither of them spoke. She could not. She could only feel as if she were fainting, her legs going weak. She stared with wide eyes as his face came closer, closer, his lips parting to close over hers. His countenance blurred as he came too near to see him clearly, and she could only feel the heat of his body, the power of his arms locked tight about her, and his own heart pounding against her breast in a crescendo that matched her own.

Suddenly the world, that had faded from them, came back to her in a rush, and she cried, “No,” and turned her face away, so that his lips only brushed her cheek.

The moment was gone. His arms grew slack and fell away from her. She swayed as if she would fall, but she caught herself and stood firm.

“I think we had better go back,” she said, her voice quavering.

“Of course.” He took her arm again, but this time it was only a polite gesture, to help her onto the path. She went by him and began to retrace her route. Had it only been a few minutes ago that she had come this way? It seemed an eternity.

Because the silence between them grew so heavy, she asked, “How did you happen to come this way, anyway?”

“I was looking for you. I looked out the window and saw you, and then when I came outside later, you were gone. I asked Liza what had happened to you and she said you had gone into the swamp, so I came after you right away. You really should have been warned, it is not safe to be wandering around in here by yourself.”

“But Liza assured me it was quite safe.”

He smiled indulgently. “I suppose in her mind it is. She has lived in the swamp and she knows it like the back of her hand. She just didn't think that it would be different for you. I will speak to her about that.”

But as she walked the narrow path, Jennifer found herself remembering how confidently Liza had reassured her, and she recalled Liza standing looking after her, lifting her hand to wave.

Had she meant that gesture to be a last goodbye?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jennifer was surprised to learn that something so simple as her taking a stroll could have caused so much excitement. When she and Walter returned to the house, Helen and Bess were waiting in the yard. They looked Jennifer over as she walked up, as if expecting to find limbs missing.

“Liza told us you were in the swamp and that Walter had gone looking for you,” Helen said. “Are you all right? You look a fright.”

“I am all right,” Jennifer said, trying to make light of the incident because her own emotional state was anything but calm just now. She found she could not look directly at Walter's mother without a sensation of guilt. “I took a fall trying to get away from some mad old woman with a stick who accused me of spying on her.”

“Mrs. Hodges,” Walter said in a grim voice.

“The swamp witch,” Bess murmured.

“Thank God I came along when I did,” Walter added. “There's no telling what she might do when she's riled up.”

“And she is only one of the swamp's dangers,” Helen said as they came into the kitchen. “You must be wary of going there alone.”

“Only us local people go into the swamp,” Bess said. “Me, I know what to expect, and no self-respecting snake would bite me anyway.” Her comment made the others smile and some of the tension in the air was dissipated.

* * * * * * *

Even as she was speaking, though, Bess watched the others with a keen eye. She looked from Jennifer's face, where not even the mud smeared across it could hide her confusion, to Walter's, that glowed with a new, inner light, and she knew without a doubt that these two were in love, although maybe they did not yet know it themselves.

And Lord knows, he deserves some happiness, Bess thought. Aloud, she said, “I better fix you some tea, sweet and cold. What are you doing out anyway without having had a decent breakfast?”

“I think I would like to change into a clean dress and freshen up a bit,” Jennifer said.

“You go right ahead, dear,” Helen said. “And you never mind about the children today. You've had quite enough to do staying with Alicia all night. A day off won't hurt and the children will probably enjoy a holiday.”

“I don't want to set the children a bad example.”

“I'll hear no more about it,” Helen insisted. “Go on, clean up now, and come back down and Bess will give you a real breakfast.”

Jennifer did as she was ordered and Walter left the kitchen in her wake. As they went out, Bess and Helen exchanged glances. They had known one another many years. Each of them knew just what the other was thinking.

* * * * * * *

For her own part, Jennifer would as soon have been occupied today of all days, but she did as Helen insisted. When she came downstairs a short time later, the others were waiting breakfast for her in the dining room.

By now Jennifer's experience with Mrs. Hodges in the swamp was sufficiently distant to seem much less horrendous than it had at the time. She could even chide herself for being driven to panic by an old woman whom she ought to have been able to manage. She scoffed at herself for being such a baby.

As for her other experience in the swamp, with Walter, that seemed even more portentous. She had come so close to kissing him! And she knew that once she had allowed such feelings to be expressed, there would be no turning back from shame and tragedy. How had she come so far, come to feel so much, in so short a time?

That was not to matter, she promised herself. She would thrust him from her mind, except in his role as her employer and Alicia's husband. She would not even give love an opportunity to take root and flourish in her heart. It would take an exercise of will and a conscientious watching of her thoughts, but surely that was better than the alternative.

When she came into the dining room, however, and saw the way his eyes sought hers at once, her resolve threatened to crumble and she felt herself tremble slightly. Never mind, she told herself silently and firmly, and looked away from his handsome face. Never mind.

She soon found that Walter did not look back upon the business with Mrs. Hodges as lightly as she did. When she had greeted the others and taken her place at the table, he rose and excused himself for a moment, leaving the room. He was back almost at once, with Liza in tow.

“Miss Jennifer had some difficulty in the swamp,” he said to Liza. “As it has turned out, she was not hurt, but she might very well have been. She could have walked into the sand and been swallowed up forever, she might have met a snake or tripped or fallen and hurt herself. Or Mrs. Hodges might have actually hurt her instead of just scaring her.”

Liza said nothing. Her eyes were downcast and there was a sullen look on her face that Jennifer had come to recognize from their lessons. It meant that beneath Liza's seemingly placid exterior she was raging and resisting whatever you were trying to get her to do.

Yet if you did not look closely, she would seem to be quite chagrined by the whole thing. Jennifer wondered briefly if Walter had come to recognize and understand that look, or was his affection for the child so strong as to blind his otherwise keen perception?

“There really was no harm done,” Jennifer said, because it was plain to her at least that Liza did not intend to make any reply. “I let myself be frightened rather too easily.”

It was not only Jennifer's desire for peace that prompted her. She felt genuinely sorry for the girl, despite her failure to establish a friendship with her. Liza was the object of so much disapproving adult attention, and so often the victim of Alicia's temper. Nor did the usually loving natures of Bess and Helen respond to the child's desire for affection, because they both saw Liza as a problem in the house, a cause of Alicia's “spells” and Walter's further harassment.

“The point is not whether you were hurt or not,” Walter said. “You might have been hurt, seriously hurt, and it would have been at least partly Liza's fault. You did tell Miss Jennifer it would be safe for her to go into the swamp, did you not?”

“I go there all the time,” Liza said in sudden defiance, looking up at him. Her eyes flashed with youthful anger, but Jennifer detected what was below the surface of that anger—a silent plea for Walter's understanding.

Perhaps he saw it too, for when he spoke again he sounded less angry. “But you are used to it. It was careless of you not to remember that Miss Jennifer is a stranger here and unaware of the dangers.”

He paused and when there was no reply forthcoming, he said, “You will have to apologize.”

For a long moment the girl struggled with herself. Jennifer saw the quick look she gave Walter, but his face must have told her he was adamant.

At last Liza raised her face and looked directly at Jennifer. “I am sorry,” she said simply.

Jennifer was shocked. Although the words were delivered in a colorless monotone, Liza's face was turned so that only Jennifer saw it directly. What she saw was a look of utter hatred. Liza was furious with her, and in a flash she realized it was because of Liza's deep attachment to Walter and her feeling that Jennifer was somehow responsible for Walter's present displeasure with her.

Jennifer recovered herself quickly, though, and as the others were waiting in silence, she said, “I accept your apology, and I think the less to-do we have over this in the future, the better for all.”

Despite her efforts to smooth things over, however, Jennifer knew that between her and Liza passed a strange antagonism that she did not fully understand. It was as if in that moment the two of them were locked in combat, with Walter as the prize.

What fanciful nonsense, Jennifer told herself when the family's attention was finally returned to their breakfast. As if Walter belonged to either of us, which he does not and cannot. He is married to Alicia, and I have no claim on him, and Liza is only a child with a child's adulation of someone who has protected her.

Yet when she again saw Liza that morning, disappearing down the hall, she had once more that strange feeling of a contest between them, try though she might to dismiss the idea.

Since she had been firmly excused from teaching this morning, she went to look in on Alicia. She found the convalescent sitting up in bed and looking more alert than she had in days.

“Good morning,” Jennifer greeted her. “It is a very pretty day, isn't it?”

“Is it?” Alicia asked, narrowing her eyes. “I heard you had some difficulty already this morning.”

“Nothing of any consequence,” Jennifer said, wondering how on earth Alicia had managed to learn of this morning's business.

Alicia was not to be put off that easily, though. With one birdlike hand she seized Jennifer's wrist so tightly that it hurt.

“I want to hear all about it,” she said in a fierce whisper.

Jennifer told her what had happened, minimizing as much as possible the danger, and especially the import of the scene between her and Walter. Alicia, however, for all her possessiveness and her shrewdness, seemed entirely uninterested in Walter's role in the proceedings. She was concerned with Liza and, to Jennifer's surprise, with Mrs. Hodges.

“That's her,” Alicia said, her head bobbing furiously. “The swamp witch. It's her mother.”

“I don't understand.”

“Mrs. Hodges. She is Liza's mother.”

“No,” Jennifer said, stunned. She thought of the vicious old crone in the swamp. It was impossible to believe that she could be the mother of anyone as young and pretty as Liza.

Yet, Peter had said the same thing. And Liza had reacted with a violence too strong for ordinary childhood teasing.

“It's true,” Alicia said. “She is the swamp witch, that's how everybody around here knows her. She has lived in a shack in the swamp as long as anyone remembers, since long before the war. She brews all sorts of vile potions and works spells. There's some as has gone to her for help with their problems, but I call that the devil's work, not the sort of thing a good Christian would get into.”

Jennifer stirred herself to try to answer these charges logically. “Surely you don't mean that literally. You can't believe she is truly a witch.”

“But I do. It is her magic that is killing me. Hers and Liza's, and that's who Liza learned it from.” For a moment her face looked so ghastly that Jennifer felt a little shiver of alarm travel her spine.

“I didn't think anyone in this modern day and age really believed in witches,” Jennifer said with a smile, trying to make light of the subject.

“That's because you have not read your Bible fully. Remember Luke, 8:2...‘And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils....' Now, do you believe what the Bible says?”

“Yes, but not always literally. Devils, as referred to in the Bible, often meant epilepsy, and you certainly do not believe Liza is an epileptic.”

“What about the witch of Endor?”

“She was a medium. And I have not heard that Liza communicates with the dead.”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” Alicia said with a disgruntled look. “She's always up to some tricks. Once she pulled an apple out of Walter's hat when he had just taken it off his head, and he swore there hadn't been anything in it.”

“Why, that's just sleight-of-hand. How wonderful. I for one would like to see her do some of her tricks, and I am sure it will be seen to be only trickery and not magic. But I wonder how she learned them. Is she really Mrs. Hodges' daughter?”

“Yes. Walter came in one night, over a year ago, with this ragged bundle in his arms. He said he had found Mrs. Hodges beating her and he had taken the girl away from her, and she was going to stay here until he could find her a home.”

“Perhaps he has not been able to find anyone to take in an orphan. Since the war, so many people have been left destitute in the South.”

“But there are people who would take her,” Alicia said bitterly. “The Woodbirds said they would take her to work. They needed a girl, but he won't send her over there.”

Jennifer thought she knew why. She had seen plenty of girls in the last few years who, poverty-stricken, had to go into servitude. She knew how cruelly they were often treated, sometimes far worse than the blacks had been treated before the war, and all so they could earn a place to sleep in an attic and a meal a day. No, Walter would not want to commit a child, any child, to that if he could help it.

“She is a witch,” Alicia went on, speaking in a monotone, as if she had said all this often before. “She has him bewitched. He thinks more of her than he does his own children. Why, he thinks more of her than he does of me.”

Jennifer smiled to herself at this comment, which she felt sure went to the heart of the matter. Jealousy was a poison, but she did not say this aloud.

“And I have been sick ever since she came,” Alicia concluded.

“I think you are sick because you do not eat properly, and you spend all your time in bed. The blood has no opportunity to circulate if you are not moving about a little. That is the latest medical opinion in Memphis, at any rate, and I think you could do with some fresh air and some sunshine. I wish you would let me arrange for you to spend some time outside, on the porch, perhaps. It is quite warm now and I don't think there could be any danger.”

Alicia sank back upon her pillow, looking gloomy. “I'm not well enough to go outside.”

Jennifer shrugged. “Very well, but you cannot continue to blame Liza for an illness you will do nothing to mitigate.”

Alicia gave her an angry look. “You think I'm crazy. They all think I'm crazy, but wait, you will see. The time will come.”

Outside in the hall, Jennifer paused to consider what she'd been told. Liza, the daughter of Mrs. Hodges, that vicious creature in the swamp? And she, Mrs. Hodges, was regarded locally as a witch. It was no wonder that Alicia credited Liza with using magic.