Norton, Andre - Novel 23 (24 page)

 
          
 
She had a feeling, which grew more intense
every
moment, that
she was being spied upon.
By one of the roaming foxes?
Though she peered along the
hedges at ground level, she could not see any hint of red-brown fur nor sharp
eyes.

 
          
 
The foxes— Those made her think of the pendant
and she drew the jade out of hidmg, held it in her hand, marveling anew at the
beautiful workmanship of the carving. As she turned it a little this way and
then that, the gem eyes had their same appearance of life, as if knowingly they
studied her in return even as she gazed upon them.

 
          
 
"Well, now, that there's a pretty
trinket, ain't it?"

 
          
 
Saranna froze. In an instant, her hand closed
about the pendant trying to slip it back out of sight. But somehow Rufus crept
up on her. Now this hand moved around her upper arm, his fingers closed
painfully around her wrist.

 
          
 
"Give us a look at your pretty," he
drawled. "Seems like it's something maybe Missie gave you. Was that it?
Better not take it for yours then. Missie ain't the right to give none of the
Old Captain's stuff away. Let's have a look, I say!"

 
          
 
His painful hold tightened yet farther.
Saranna bit her lip lest she cry out. She tried to jerk free, but his strength
was far more than hers. Then
came
a growl, echoed by a
second.

 
          
 
From out of the shadows two foxes advanced,
stiff legged, their lips lifted in snarls to show their teeth. They were larger
than their fellows, and they were whitel

 
          
 
Rufus dropped his hold of Saranna and she was
able to pull free. The foxes did not even notice her. They were too intent upon
the young man. He backed away one step and then two, his hearty high color
fading.

 
          
 
"Get off, you vermm, get off!" He
swung out with his riding crop. But this time, his prey was not netted, held
fast for punishment. The nearer of the foxes sprang, caught the crop with ease
between its jaws. Rufus aimed a kick which did not land.

 
          
 
Saranna wanted to see no more. She began to
run. Since Rufus was between her and the house, she went through the orchard,
holding her skirts as tightly to her as she could to keep from catching on any
low growing thing. The fear of Rufus so possessed her that she clung
despairingly to the rail fence she came to, hardly seeing the road beyond,
striving feebly to pull herself up over those rails.

 
          
 
"Miss Stowell!"

 
          
 
She had neither heard nor seen the rider who
was bending down toward her from his saddle, concern in his face.

 
          
 
"Please—oh, please—"

 
          
 
"What is it?" Gerrad Fowke's voice
was sharp as he swung off his mount and was at her side on the other side of
the fence. His hands, warm and soothing closed over hers where they grasped the
rough wood of the top rail.

 
          
 
At that moment all her sensible prudence
deserted her. She had difficulty controlling her voice but she was able to get
out a strangled:

 
          
 
"Please—"

 
          
 
"What is it? Who has frightened
you!
" The sharp demand in his voice pierced through her
wall of fear, brought her out of that terrible panic.

 
          
 
"I am sorry—" Her breath caught
raggedly as she tried to regain control of herself as quickly as possible.

 
          
 
The weight of his gloved hand on hers
continued to hold her palms imprisoned against the weatherworn wood of the
rail.

 
          
 
"Tell me!" he commanded.

 
          
 
"I—" But how could she tell him?
Only she could not get away from him either, though she was becoming more and
more disturbed at the strange confusion which swallowed up her panic.

 
          
 
"Someone has frightened you," Mr.
Fowke's face was stem and closed looking now. Saranna realized that he would be
satisfied by nothing but the truth.

 
          
 
"I—" she tried to begm again. If she
could only trust Gerrad Fowke, if she could only be sure that he was not so in
sympathy with Honora that any appeal to him would be worse than useless.

           
 
"So there you are, Miss!"

 
          
 
Saranna could not suppress her start. Her
hands jerked in Mr. Fowke's grasp as Rufus spoke from behind her. And her eyes
sought Mr. Fowke's with a plea she was hardly aware she expressed.

 
          
 
His lips tightened a fraction as he looked
down at her. Then he loosed his grip and, deliberately setting hand on the
rail, he vaulted easily over the fence, coming then to stand beside her. She
had not yet turned to face Rufus, but somehow she could feel him. And her
shoulders hunched as if he were physically threatening her with a blow.

 
          
 
"What are you doing, Parton?"

 
          
 
Saranna had heard that ring in a man's voice
before, when her father had had some reason to bring a malingering seaman to
attention. With one hand on the rail to support her, for she felt oddly faint
and a little dizzy, Saranna edged around.

 
          
 
Rufus Parton, his face flushed, that same look
in his eyes, that twist of the lips he had shown when he had been beating the
trapped fox, faced them both. His eyes shifted under Mr. Fowke's deliberate
measurement.

 
          
 
"Nothing out of the way—sir—" He
added that term of respect as if it were wrung from him against his will.
"We was just walkin' when this here mad fox, foam in' mad he was, sprang
out. Miss Saranna—she ran—"

 
          
 
"No!" Saranna's denial had been
forced out of her, but she wished the minute it had left her lips that she had
not said that.

 
          
 
"No?" repeated Mr. Fowke.
"There was no mad fox, Miss Stowell?"

 
          
 
She was caught. Having gone so far she must
now go all the way.

 
          
 
"There were two foxes—white ones. Mr.—Mr.
Parton was holding my arm. They—they came out of nowhere and flew at him—"

 
          
 
Rufus Parton's flush deepened. "And why
was I a-holdin' you. Miss Saranna?" he demanded. "Because you had
somethin' what belongs to Mrs. Whaley. I was asking where you got it, connin'
it out of a poor, little weak-minded Miss like Miss Damaris. I was telling you
she had no right to give it to you.
That I was doin' for your
own good, Miss Saranna.
If you know what's best for you—"

 
          
 
"I know what's best for you,
Parton!" Again the quarterdeck voice of Captain Fowke cut clearly across
his babble of words. "You will be on your way, man, and that
speedily."

 
          
 
Saranna saw Rufus' hand ball into a fist,
half-raised. His face was near scarlet with wrath. But, after a long meeting of
stares with Mr. Fowke, he turned and slouched off.

 
          
 
"Can you tell me now what this is all
about?" Mr. Fowke's tone was quite changed. He spoke, Saranna thought, as
he might to someone who had been hurt and needed his aid.

 
          
 
She drew a long breath. Honora's betrothed—but
still he seemed ready to aid her. Maybe she could trust him in a little.

 
          
 
"I fear," she began shakily,
"that this may be a foolish and perhaps foundationless dislike, Mr. Fowke.
But I do not care to be alone with Rufus Parton. He surprised me while I was
waiting for Damaris who had gone on an errand—to see her mother's old nurse who
is ill in the quarters. I was examining this—" Reluctantly, only because
Rufus had mentioned it, she brought out the jade pendant. "I found it on
the dressing table in my bedchamber several mornings ago. But Damaris assured
me she did not put it there."

 
          
 
He did not offer to touch the fox head, only
surveyed it.

 
          
 
"I am no authority on such pieces. But I
would say that it is old and perhaps quite valuable. But Damaris disowned
it?"

 
          
 
"Yes. And I cannot be sure because the
catalogue of her grandfather's collection has disappeared. Otherwise, I might
be able to find it listed. But also, I cannot see any reason why Damaris would
lie about such a matter. She quite openly urged upon me a yellow ceramic cat
which she is sure was once a night lamp m the
Imperial
Palace
."

 
          
 
"No," he agreed readily,
"Damaris would not lie. When she is generous, she gives her gifts openly
and makes no secret of the act. But if it is not from the Whaley collection,
then from whence did it come?"

 
          
 
Saranna twisted her hands together. "I
wish I knew!" she burst out. "I was afraid to leave it in my room
before I learned. If it was seen by one of the maids, by Mrs. Parton —well, I
have no explanation. And now when Damaris has—"

 
          
 
She stopped short. In spite of his sympathy at
this moment, she could not share Damaris' secret with him. That the collection
had gone into hiding might be discovered soon enough, but she was too uncertain
of friend or foe to take him any farther into her confidence.

 
          
 
There was a lengthening moment of silence
between them. She looked straight ahead into the orchard where Rufus had
disappeared, waiting for Mr. Fowke's questions. But those did not come.
Instead, he said at last, slowly and deliberately:

 
          
 
"Am I to take it, Miss Stowell, that you
do not indeed welcome the attentions of young Parton?"

 
          
 
That was a subject now so removed from her
mind that she answered again without taking any thought, blurting out the
truth:

 
          
 
"Yes!"

 
          
 
"I see. You did not know him before you
came to Tiensin?"

 
          
 
Now she did swing her head, indignation rising
warmly in her.

 
          
 
"Certainly not!
I never saw him before in my life."

 
          
 
Then she realized what she had done. If
Damaris' eavesdropping had not been at fault, Saranna had given the lie direct
to all Honora had told this man. And she had no reason to believe that he would
accept an assertion which ran so counter to the confidences of his betrothed.

 
          
 
But to her surprise, he was not frowning, had
not withdrawn again behind that front of command he had shown to Rufus. Instead
he nodded as if he had no more questions.

 
          
 
"It seems that you have had some
annoyances to face. But that can be easily remedied. Now, if I did not have
this confounded beast to hand—" He glanced at the horse standing with
dropped reins in the road.

 
          
 
Then he laughed. "But that need not
matter. Hurricane is lazy; loop his reins on the nearest bush and he'll stand
patient enough. There was never an animal who so belied his name."

 
          
 
Once more Gerrad Fowke nimbly vaulted the
rails, brought his mount close enough to the fence to drop the reins over one
of the jutting stake ends. Then he quickly returned to Saranna.

 
          
 
"Miss Stowell," he bowed a little,
the smile lighting his face and suddenly chiseling years away from his rugged
features. "You perceive in me," he continued extending his arm a
little in invitation, "a most devoted escort to see you safely to your
door, reports of rabid foxes or no."

 
          
 
"The foxes—" She felt herself unable
to maintain the proper distance with this masterful man. Perhaps he now
considered himself as one of the family, and she did not want to offend by not
accepting his company.
Though she thought that there would be
eyes to watch their arrival at the house.

 
          
 
"The foxes," she began again.
"I do not believe they were rabid. They might have a good reason to attack
Rufus Parton—"

 
          
 
"So?" he encouraged. "And what
would that be?"

 
          
 
She told him of the captured fox whose
ill-treatment she had interrupted.

 
          
 
"I do not know whether animals are able
to resent what happens to their fellows and avenge it," she ended.
"But if such
a sympathy
exists among them, this
might be the reason for their attack. And they were strange foxes—"

 
          
 
"White you said?"

 
          
 
"Yes. I have not seen their like—"
Again Saranna hesitated, for she had. Among those of her "dream" were
the white-coated ones standing out in vivid lack of color under the moon.
Luckily Gerrad Fowke did not appear bent on following up her hesitancy.

 
          
 
"Albinos occur among many animal species.
Though to find two together may indeed be a very unusual
event.
But I shall have a word with Collis Parton and with Mrs. Whaley.
There have always been rules about any mistreatment of foxes here at Tiensin.
The Captain had some which were quite tame. I remember, during my momentous
visit here, that we chanced upon a quite large one sitting on a chair in the library,
eyeing us as gravely as any judge from the bench. The Captain even nodded to
the beast as he might nod to a good acquaintance he chanced upon in an inn
parlor. He left strict orders in his will, you know, that the foxes were not in
any way to be disturbed. I believe that Collis Parton and his wife were given a
legacy with that condition attached. And I do not think that Parton would take
kindly to his son's endangering that. I shall have a word with him before I
leave."

 
          
 
They had passed through the orchard back to
where Damaris had left Saranna. As they approached that small roomlike expanse
between the hedges, the younger girl herself appeared. She surveyed them both
questioningly,
then
smiled eagerly at Mr. Fowke.