Norton, Andre - Novel 23 (6 page)

 
          
 
"See that you remember that." His
tone was so serious that Saranna was a little surprised. Had he really not been
teasing at all? Could he have meant that there was some particular danger at
the Manor? But such a suspicion was absurd, of course.

 
          
 
The thick fog was breaking, stirred by a wind
which twanged the lines of the sloop's rigging. Within what seemed to Saranna a
very short time—sails were raised to catch that wind, and they scudded forward
at a pace which suggested that Mr. Fowke's pessimistic estimate of their time
of arrival might be wrong.

 
          
 
But dark had come and they had eaten a cold
meal from a basket the master of the sloop provided before the sloop did nose
in to a wharf on which hung a pair of lanterns. There was a woman, with a
hooded cloak about her shoulders, standing well to the fore, to welcome them;
behind her, several blacks,
one
with an empty
wheelbarrow.
As Mr. Fowke helped Saranna onto the wharf, and
then swung Millie bodily up and over in her wake, the woman moved forward to
drop a stiff curtsy of an earlier day.

 
          
 
"We had word from the headlands you were
coming," she said in a low, emotionless voice. "Mr. Hangton's man
brought it. I am Mrs. Parton." Again she bowed.

 
          
 
In the dark, which the lanterns of those about
them did little to
break,
Saranna could see nothing of
Mrs. Parton's face, which was hidden in the shadow of her hood. There was
something, however, forbidding in her manner—in the stiff way she held herself.
Though perhaps, Saranna thought, again she was imagining things.

 
          
 
At the present, she was far more aware of her
own fatigue and an overwhelming desire to reach whatever bed-chamber was
assigned her, then to bed.

 
          
 
"I am Saranna Stowell," she replied
wearily. "And I am very pleased to meet you."

 
          
 
The woman gave no response, merely stood
waiting, her very attitude expressing impatience. Saranna turned a little from
her, and perhaps it was the forbidding stance of the housekeeper of Tiensin
which put an extra shade of warmth in her voice as she thanked Mr. Fowke for
his assistance in her journey.

 
          
 
Nor, in spite of her fatigue, did she turn her
face from the river until the sloop cast off and was on its way farther
northwest. Her sea chest had been lifted into the wheelbarrow, and now she
walked with Mrs. Parton, one of the men servants carrying a lantern just ahead
to light their way, Millie scuttling behind. Saranna was presently aware of a
small twitch at her skirt and knew, without turning to see, that the maid had
dared to seize hold there, as if such contact with Saranna was all that gave
her the courage to follow.

 
          
 
Mr. Fowke had mentioned moon rise. However,
there was no moon tonight. Though the fog had lifted, lowering clouds remained.
And they walked a narrow path between shaped and trimmed hedges toward the bulk
of a building where there were enough lights in windows to suggest that it was
of an imposing size.

 
          
 
They were perhaps a third of the way toward
that house when Saranna sighted small glitters, sparks of green, which were
near ground level along the hedge. There were so many that her curiosity was
fully aroused.

 
          
 
"Please—" she broke the silence
which Mrs. Parton had maintained since her self-introduction, "
what
are those—?"

 
          
 
Whether the housekeper had seen her gesture
toward the sparks, Saranna could not be sure. But she did feel the sudden jerk
at her skirt which betrayed Millie's agitation. Then the woman beside her spoke
in the same even tone:

 
          
 
"Those are the foxes. You see their eyes
reflecting the lantern light."

 
          
 
"Foxes!"
Saranna did not add as she wished—in such numbers? But she was truly
astonished. She did not believe that foxes ran in packs as their
more-to-be-feared cousins the wolves did. And in spite of Mr. Fowke's story,
she had not been prepared for any sight such as this. It was almost as if the
animals were so highly curious that they crowded to watch her arrival. They did
not venture into the open, of course, but still they were close enough to the
small party making their way toward the house to suggest that the animals had
little or no fear of the hitman beings who claimed ownership here.

 
          
 
"You will become used to them. Miss
Stowell," Mrs. Par-ton continued. "They have been long protected by
Captain Whaley, and are still so by his decree. Though the blacks are alarmed
by them, they have never been known to be vicious or to attack anyone. Now, if
you will just step this way—"

 
          
 
They were at the house and Mrs. Parton glided
ahead to open a door and usher Saranna and Millie in. There she threw back her
own hood, allowed the enveloping cloak to slide from her spare shoulders.

 
          
 
Though her skirt, of a small indigo-and-black
sprigged print, was wide and full, her narrow shoulders, long neck, tightly
netted hair beneath a plain cap, added to her height and to the suggestion of
stern repression. Her hair was gray above a pallid face, with unnaturally plump
cheeks bracketing a very small mouth. The nose separating her small eyes with
their scanty lashes was a mere dab of a button, as if, Saranna thought, her
whole countenance was fashioned of the kitchen scraps of dough, such as her own
mother had given her to play with on baking day when she was small.

 
          
 
"This way, please, Miss—"

 
          
 
The survey Mrs. Parton had made of her in turn
had been a very quick one. In fact, even when she faced Saranna squarely, her
eyes seemed fixed on a point over the girl's shoulder. As if she had dismissed
Saranna as unworthy of any notice, and so searched behind her for some more
important visitor.

 
          
 
The housekeeper picked up a lamp from a nearby
table. Holding this in a firm grip, she turned to the stairway not far behind
her. This had none of the wide grace of that in the town house. And, Saranna
recognized a moment or so later, they must not have entered through the main
doorway of the Manor at all, but were now in a humbler portion of the Great
House.

 
          
 
If this were the
servants
stairs, the treads were meticulously dusted. There was the faint odor of wax
and polish to be
sniffed,
making quite certain that
Mrs. Parton ruled her own domain well and with energy.

 
          
 
The flight gave upon a hall where lay a carpet
of dark red patterned in buff, yellow, and dull blue, while the paneled walls
were broken at intervals by white doors. The lamp, as they passed, caught
framed, glass-protected strips of embroidery mounted on those panels like pictures.
Faded creamy silk provided backgrounds for exotic birds, flowers, and sometimes
queer stiff animals, none of which Saranna could identify so swiftly did Mrs.
Parton whisk them along.

 
          
 
At last the housekeeper paused to set hand to
a door latch. Someone spoke out of the dusky shadows beyond the reach of her
lamp.

 
          
 
"So she's come—“

 
          
 
The voice was clear and young, but it was not
childish. Then the speaker moved into the light with a quick dart as if she
feared Saranna might vanish before she reached her. Though her eagerness was
perhaps not meant to express pleasure in the visitor's arrival; rather the
reverse.

 
          
 
"Miss Damaris—" Mrs. Parton began.

 
          
 
The child hunched a shoulder, not even
glancing at the housekeeper, her attention fixed solely on Saranna. She was
very thin, her arms, within the knitted lace of her under-sleeves, scarcely
rounded at all. Her dress was an unhappily chosen drab green which made her
skin look sallow and yellowish, as if she were recovering from some dire
illness.

 
          
 
For so young a girl (she might perhaps be
twelve, Saranna decided) her features were strongly marked, too much so for any
claim to the rosebud prettiness which was the youthful ideal. Straight dark
brows lined over eyes which rested on one with a disconcerting and piercing
steadiness as if Damaris wanted not only to see the object of her regard, but
beneath the surface into the bargain. Her nose was as marked as Mrs. Parton's
was self-effacing, her mouth nearly as straight as her brows, with more than a
shade of stubbornness in its setting.

 
          
 
Dark hair had been bundled up into a net, but
not very tightly, so that a strand or two had come loose to stray over her
shoulders and around her thin neck. She was plainly not the sweet and biddable
child so often idealized by those who know very little of children.

 
          
 
Saranna held out her hand:

 
          
 
"I am Saranna—"

 
          
 
"I know," Damaris spoke fiercely. “She
said you would come. She wants you here. But you're not going to keep me in
order. You can't, you know, not if you want to please her, you can't. She wants
me bad—I know—" The words poured from her lips in a passionate burst of
speech. “She hates me. She's sorry 'cause Grandfather gave me Tiensin. She
wants to make me sorry, too. You needn't think I'm going to let her or you or
anybody in the whole world do that I 'Cause you can't—you can't ever do
so!"

 
          
 
She whirled about and was gone with a flap of
skirt, a bob of uncoiffed hair, disappearing into the shadows. Without a word
of comment, Mrs. Parton opened the door and proceeded with unruffled calmness
into the room, placing her lamp on a table.

 
          
 
"Sarah will bring you tea and hot
water," she said. "Millie is to have the trundle bed." She shot
a single, quelling glance at the maid. She might have been noting her presence
for the first time. Saranna saw Millie shrink back as if the last thing she
wanted was to attract Mrs. Parton's attention.

 
          
 
To her own surprise, the housekeeper continued
to make no comment on Damaris' dramatic arrival and retreat. And Saranna
decided to ignore it also for the moment. She sensed that beneath the outwardly
ordered surface of life in this house, there must be many whirlpools. Those she
must chart before she launched into any hurried speech or action.

 
          
 
As the door closed behind the housekeeper, the
girl untied her bonnet strings, to lay that and her shawl aside. Millie still
stood near the lamp table, her eyes shifting fearfully from side to side.

 
          
 
"Did you see them, Miss? They was
a-watchin' us. They
was—
all them foxes. They
goes
an' tells about us comin' to the haunt. All they sees,
they tells." She shivered. "Then the haunt, it knows an' it
can—" She was crying again, her voice rising in a wail.

 
          
 
"It can what?" Saranna went to the
girl, laid her hands on the bowed and shaking shoulders. "Millie, you are
quite safe here—look around you. Do you see any foxes? They don't come into the
house ever, now do they?"

 
          
 
"Never so far, they ain't," the girl
admitted.

 
          
 
"Well, then, do you have to worry about
them here and now?" Saranna was not yet sure what steadying words she
could best use with Millie. She would have to discover the best way of soothing
the maid when she was not quite so tired, nor worried over Damaris' reception.