Norton, Andre - Novel 23 (26 page)

 
          
 
"It is locked!"

 
          
 
"Naturally, Miss
Damaris.
As Mrs. Whaley said, that is no longer your room. Come along
now and none of your tricksl"

 
          
 
Saranna was still too far away to interfere.
Nor could she have withstood the housekeeper armed as she was with the orders
of the one Mrs. Parton at least considered to be her mistress. Though the
knowledge of her helplessness did nothing to calm her conscience as she watched
Damaris pushed within a room on the opposite side of the hall, the door
slamming behind the child at once. By the time Saranna reached her side, Mrs.
Parton was turning the key in that lock.

 
          
 
"You can't—" Saranna began.

 
          
 
"I take Mrs. Whaley's orders, Miss,"
the woman returned with that cruel spark showing in her small eyes. "Miss
Damaris will stay safe until Dr. Meade comes. She is plainly too much of a
handful to be allowed to run wild any longer.
Just as Mrs.
Whaley has so often said.
And, Miss, if you will take any advice, you'll
look to your own future a little. Mrs. Whaley has a strong will and in this
house nobody questions her decisions."

 
          
 
Before Saranna could reply, the housekeeper
brushed past, reached the head of the back stairs, and was on her way down.
Saranna looked helplessly at the locked door behind which Damaris had been
imprisoned. What would happen when Honora found the collection gone? It was
plain in this house she was fully mistress.

 
          
 
Mr. Fowke—his offer of help.
But even were he willing to try to curb Honora, how
could
Saranna
let him know what was happening.

 
          
 
This Dr. Meade Mrs. Parton had mentioned, who
was he? Someone well primed by Honora who would declare that Damaris was a
danger to herself and must be carefully guarded? And where had the collection
really gone? If Saranna wanted to ransom the child by telling Honora that, she
was powerless to help because she had only suspicions, no truths. She believed
it was behind the wall of the hidden garden. But would Honora accept that
suggestion? And could she betray Damaris—

 
          
 
Torn by so many thoughts which had no answers,
she dragged back to her own room. Honora knew about the pendant. Therefore,
Rufus must have told her. And her strange hints, Saranna's face grew hot; she
raised her hands to her cheeks—

 
          
 
Their visit to Queen's Pleasure, Mrs. Parton
must have reported as a fancy of Saranna's own; that she had deliberately
arranged it so that she might be with Mr. Fowke! If Honora was jealous, then
that jealousy (however causeless it was) might be fed anew by any well-colored
story Rufus could give her of the scene in the orchard when Mr. Fowke had sent
him about his business.

 
          
 
There was her letter—if Mr. Sanders did come
(even if he believed her story against Honora's more plausible tale), was there
anything he could—

 
          
 
Saranna stood staring. There had been a fire
in the fireplace—and on the hearth lay a scrap of paper. Her own unmistakable
handwriting was on that. She stooped and picked up the scorched fragment.

 
          
 
"Honored Sir—'* she read. Her letter had
been burned here, in this very room, and this scrap deliberately left to warn
her.

 
          
 
Cold seeped through her though the room was
warm. The iron threat of what she had found fostered that chill.

 
          
 
"Honored Sir," she whispered again.
At that moment a click echoed behind her. Though she flung herself at the door,
she was too late. As Damaris, she was now a prisoner in her bedchamber.

 
          
 
Saranna fought a battle for self-control. If
she beat upon the door, screamed for her freedom, as every nerve within her
urged, she suspected all such efforts would be useless. Also, her pride and
dignity would suffer, and Honora would have good cause to believe she had
reduced Saranna to a state in which she would be biddable and her own puppet.
Therefore—

 
          
 
The girl made herself consider the door
carefully. Since she had come to Tiensin she had never had reason to use the
key, to lock
herself
in. Such bolting and barring to
achieve privacy was foreign to all her training. But with old keys sometimes
there was a similarity of locks. As when little Jimmy Bains back in
Sussex
had locked his small sister in the parlor
and then thrown the key down the well. Then the key to their back door had proved
most efficacious in releasing the prisoner.

 
          
 
Keys— Damaris appeared to have her own private
store of those. But Saranna had certainly never expected such a situation as
this to arise. There was— Memory suddenly freshened. She went to the tall
wardrobe, pushed back the few dresses hung within. Yes, she had remembered
correctly! Hanging from a hook at the very back, secured by a bit of tape, was
a key. Probably for the wardrobe itself, but it looked large enough to fill the
keyhole of the chamber door.

           
 
She took it quickly to the door. The shaft
slid in easily enough, but would it now turn? Slowly, for fear that it might
somehow break, or jam the lock, Saranna worked the key around. There followed
another soft click.

 
          
 
Feeling weak with relief (for only at this
moment did she realize the full strength of the dismay which had gripped her at
being a prisoner), she turned the knob. The door responded.

 
          
 
But she would not go out yet. No, let them
believe her safely confined. Their assumption would give her a chance to think,
to plan. Her self-confidence grew. She had won the battle of the lock, but that
might be only the smallest of trials now facing her.

 
          
 
That Honora would have her own answer for the
vanished collection Saranna had no doubt at all. Sooner or later, Mrs. Whaley
would descend upon Saranna—or Damaris—for an accounting. And, if Damaris was
entirely defiant, the child would only bring more trouble upon herself.

 
          
 
Saranna returned to sit down in the chair by
the small table where her workbox rested. She had been doing the last stitching
on the poplin dress; its folds were now draped carefully across the bed. Now
her eyes caught that unfinished task.

 
          
 
Busy her hands while she thought. Mother had
always said that one's mind was clearer when one was at work. The girl pulled
the waist to her, began to set small even stitches, making herself concentrate
with one part of her mind on exactly what she was doing.

 
          
 
There was no chance of her reaching Mr.
Sanders.
Unless she could devise some surer method of
smuggling out another letter.
To entrust such to Millie, as friendly as
the young maid seemed to be, was folly. None of the servants would venture to
disobey any order from either the housekeeper or Honora. There remained now
only Mr. Fowke.

 
          
 
Yet the few miles between Tiensin and Queen's
Pleasure might now be equal to the distance between the river wharf and
Baltimore
, as far as Saranna was concerned. Unless—
She
carefully withdrew her needle, having made tight the
last hook— Unless Gerrad Fowke came visiting.

 
          
 
Her old distrust of Honora's chosen
husband-to-be stirred. Yet there was his promise given to Damaris, and to her,
that he would be their friend in any emergency. Somehow that stayed in her
mind, as if he again swore solemnly and irrevocably.

 
          
 
Saranna tensed at a knock at the door. But why
would anyone knock when they knew, or thought that they knew, she was locked
in? Could this be a trap?

 
          
 
Quietly she arose and moved forward, to stand
at the door itself, her hand on the knob,
her
lips close
to the crack.

 
          
 
"Who is it?" she asked softly.

 
          
 
"Millie, Miss Saranna."

 
          
 
"You are alone?"

 
          
 
"Yes'm."

 
          
 
Saranna opened the door. The young maid held a
tray on which
was
a covered dish, a small pot, and a
cup and saucer.

 
          
 
"I bringed you
somethin’ to eat.”
She sidled around the door. "Miss Saranna, Miss
Honora, she's mighty mad. She is a-yellin' out that she’s been robbed. She sent
Albert ridin' over to Mr. Fowke's with a letter—"

 
          
 
Millie put the tray down on the table from
which Saranna hurriedly cleared her sewing. Then she stood, big-eyed, watching
Saranna as if she expected to see some alarming change in her person.

 
          
 
"Did she ask Mr. Fowke to come
here?" Saranna asked eagerly.

 
          
 
"Don't know." Millie shook her head
to emphasize her lack of knowledge. "Just see Albert ridin' off in a big
hurry. And Mrs. Parton, she's fit to be tied. She's afraid of somethin'."
At that, Millie looked almost cheerful.
"Somethin' about
Mr. Fowke.
When she heard about Albert goin', she sent Zorbus, down to
the fields to call Mr. Collis to come—
There's
a big
somethin' what bothers her—"

 
          
 
Were the Partons afraid of Mr. Fowke? Had they
already heard that Saranna had told him of the treatment the foxes had received
from Rufus? But how could anyone have overheard that exchange down by the
orchard fence? However—

 
          
 
"Stay here, Millie," Saranna made
her decision. "I have something for you to do."

 
          
 
"Yes'm."

 
          
 
"You can eat that if you wish."
Saranna pointed to the tray where Millie had revealed sandwiches lay under the
dish cover.

 
          
 
"But—what you goin' to
eat then.
Miss Saranna?"

 
          
 
"My usual lunch," Saranna returned
firmly. It took a great deal of inner stiffening of her will to carry out her
plan. But if she allowed Honora to control her life in any way, then she feared
she was lost.

 
          
 
"Miss Honora, she say you eat in your
room
— "

 
          
 
"I do not think it is going to
matter," Saranna returned, hoping that she was speaking the truth,
"what Mrs. Whaley has said. She is very much upset, Millie. When she has
had time to consider the matter, she will be of a different mind."

 
          
 
As she spoke, she unhooked the bodice of the
ugly calico, unfastened the skirt below, and let the clothing slide to the
floor in a discarded heap. The new skirt she had so carefully put together went
on over her head, and then the chemisette of fine black mull; over that, the
bodice was contrived from the worn poplin one, its deficiencies either
eliminated by careful cutting and turning, or hidden by the ruffling Saranna had
devised from the satin skirt.

 
          
 
She stood before the mirror surveying the
results of her handicraft carefully and felt a throb of excitement. Not for a
long time had she worn so well cut a dress, or one of such fine material.
During their poverty-lean years in
Sussex
, her mother had never been able to produce
for herself and her daughter more than the plainest and most utilitarian of
clothing, never in style.

 
          
 
The black of the mourning made her skin
fairer, her lengths of ruddy hair even brighter. Too bright, Saranna decided
quickly. Some of that must be extinguished with the new cap.

 
          
 
Memory of a new style of hairdressing which
she had seen in one of the fashion pages Damaris had brought to the sewing room
decided her to try something different. She had always worn her hair, not in
any profusion of ringlets after the most popular fashion, but parted in the
middle and drawn severely back, to be coiled up and securely pinned. Now she
went to the dressing table and sat down before the smaller mirror.

 
          
 
"Millie, if you would be a lady's maid,
you have to learn to dress hair—"

 
          
 
"Know that. Miss Saranna. Polly, she
do
Miss Honora— an' what a lot she got to do—curl papers an'
curler iron in a candle flame an' all the rest. Polly—Miss Honora sent her to
be learnt just how to make all them curls an' things—"

 
          
 
"Well, I don't want any curls, Millie.
But you can make braids, can't you?"

 
          
 
Millie had come to stand behind her, looking
down at Saranna's heavy, straight hair.

 
          
 
"That I sure enough do, Miss
Saranna."

 
          
 
"Then this is what I want you to try for
me, Millie. Part all the way, front to back, in the middle. Then make braids on
each side coiled around over my ears—"

 
          
 
"But that ain't no fashion—" Millie
began.

 
          
 
"It is in France, Millie. It was in one
of those pictures we looked at while we were sewing."

 
          
 
"This ain't
no
France
—" However, in spite of the last
protest, Millie reached for the brush.

 
          
 
"No, but I wouldn't look right with a lot
of curls, so let's try it," Saranna kept to her plan.

 
          
 
Millie was deft and she indeed could braid,
tightly and evenly. The two braids were pinned up with Saranna's pins just as
she had ordered, though she had to draw on a further supply of those dark shell
holders before they were through.

 
          
 
She surveyed the results in the mirror, not
with any touch of vanity, but to hope that she had achieved her goal. The
severe style was certainly in complete contrast to Honora's curls and floating
ribbons, but Saranna decided it suited her well, and it certainly made her look
older, more responsible.

 
          
 
"The cap now, Millie—"

 
          
 
That she took from the maid's hands and
adjusted herself. It was a small puff of mull and lace with streamers cut from
the black satin. And, once in place between the braids, she was herself astounded
at the effect. She did not look like Saranna Stowell, penniless orphan. No, she
had dignity, a kind of presence which she had never dreamed she could ever
achieve. She was not pretty as prettiness was judged by the world, but she
believed that she would not be overlooked in company either.

 
          
 
It was not for any need of compliments she had
tried for this effect, but rather that in her person she could produce some
sense of credibility for any counter-measure she might have to take against
Honora. That clothes which suited a woman were her armor of defense was
something men liked to deny, but women knew was the tmth.