The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (86 page)

But he isn’t gone, Anne thought desperately. He is sitting in the robing room laughing to think of us standing here. He is not dead, but I wish that he were. For your sake. For all our sakes.

“Thank you for inviting me to tea,” Anne said, and walked rapidly away.

Anne went to the church after supper, taking ham and cake wrapped in brown paper. Elliott was
sitting in the dark. “I had to wait until my father had his supper,” Anne said, lighting the candle. “I had to sneak out of the house.”

Elliott
grinned. “It’s not the first time, is it?”

She put the parcel down on the pew next to the candle. “You cannot stay here,” she said.

He opened up the package. “I rather like it here. It is dry at least, too cold, but otherwise very comfortable. I have
good food and you to do my bidding. There will be few enough tears of joy at my resurrection. Why shouldn’t I stay here?”

“Your father has taken to his bed.”

“From joy? Has the bereaved fiancée taken to her bed, too? She never would take to mine.”

“Victoria is caring for your father. Her own father has gone to Hartford to settle your affairs. You can’t let them persist in thinking you are dead.”

“Ah, but I can. And must. At least until Victoria’s father pays my debts. And until you pay for not meeting me at the island.”

“It is wrong to do this, Elliott,” she said. “I shall tell.”

“I do not think so,” he said. “For I should have to say then that I had never gone on the river at all, but only hidden away with you. And then what will happen to my poor stayabed father and my rich Victoria?
You will not tell.”

“I will not come again,” she said. “I will not bring you your supper.” “And leave the minister to find my bones? Oh, you will come again, sweet Anne.”

“No,” Anne said. “I won’t.” She did not lock the door, in the hope that he would change his mind, but she took the key. In case, she thought, without even knowing the meaning of her own words. In case I need it.

Anne’s father
answered the door before she could get halfway down the stairs. She saw the sudden stiffening of his back, the sudden grayness of his ears and neck, and she thought, It is Elliott.

She had gone to the church every night for three days, taking him food and candles and once a comforter because he complained of the cold, taking the same useless arguments. Victoria’s father came home, spent a morning
at the bank, and left again. Victoria went past every morning on her way to visit Elliott’s father, looking smaller and more pale every day. There was still no word from her brother. On the third day she wrote asking Anne to tea.

Anne had
shown the note to Elliott. “How can you do this to her?” she said.

“To you, you mean. You accepted, of course. It should be rather a lark.”

“I refused. You
must think about what you are putting her through, Elliott.”

“And what about what I’ve been through? In an open boat in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm. I don’t even remember getting ashore. I had to walk halfway to Haddam before I was able to borrow a horse at an inn. Think what you’ve put me through, Anne, all because you didn’t choose to meet me. Now I don’t choose to meet
them.” He fumbled with the comforter, trying to cover his knees.

Anne had felt too tired to fight him anymore. She had put the packet of food down on the pew and turned away.

“Leave the door open,” Elliott had said. “I don’t like being shut in this coffin of a room. And tell me when Victoria’s father comes home again with all my debts honored.”

He will never come out, Anne had thought despairingly,
but now, standing on the landing watching her father, she thought, He has come out after all, and hurried down the steps. When she reached the foot of the stairs, her father turned to her and said accusingly, “It is Miss Thatcher. She has come to call.” He walked past her up the stairs without another word.

“It was improper of me to come,” Victoria said. “Now your father is angry with me.”

“He is angry with me. You have done nothing improper, unless showing kindness is improper.” They were still standing in the wind at the door. “Won’t you come in?” Anne said. “I’ll make some tea.”

Victoria put her hand on Anne’s arm. “I did not come to call. I—now I must ask a kindness of you.” She had not worn gloves, and her hand was icy even through the wool of Anne’s sleeve.

“Come in and tell
me,” she said, and once more she thought, It’s Elliott. Victoria stepped into the hall, but she would not let Anne take her black cloak or bonnet, and when Anne went to shut the door, she said, “I cannot stay. I must go to Dr. Sawyers. He—a body has been found in the river. Near Haddam. I must go to see if it is Elliott.”

A tremendous wave of anger swept over Anne at Elliott. She almost said,
“He is not dead. He’s in the robing room,” but Victoria, once she had started, could not seem to stop. “My father has gone to Hartford,” she said. “There was some trouble about gambling debts of Elliott’s. My brother is still at sea. We have had no news of his ship. Elliott’s father is too ill to go. My father went in his place to Hartford, and now there is no one to see to this. I cannot ask Elliott’s
father. It would kill him to see—I came to ask your father, but now I fear I have angered him and there is no one else to—”

“I
will go with you,” Anne said, throwing on her gray pelisse. It was far too light for the cold day, but she was afraid to take the time to go back upstairs for something heavier for fear Victoria would be too distraught to wait. I cannot let Elliott do this, she thought.
I will tell her what he has done.

But there was no chance. Victoria walked so fast that Anne nearly ran to keep up with her, and the words flowed out of her in great painful spurts, as if an artery had been cut somewhere. “My brother should be here by now. There’s been no word from New London, where they are to dock. He cannot have been delayed in port. But the storms have been so fierce I fear
for his ship. I wrote him on the day that Elliott was first missed. I knew that he was dead, that first day. My father said not to worry, that he was only delayed, that we must not give up hope, and now my brother Roger is delayed, and there is no one to tell me not to worry.”

They were on Dr. Sawyer’s doorstep. Victoria knocked, her bare hands red from the cold, and the doctor let them in immediately.
He did not take their wraps. “It will be cold,” he said, and led them swiftly down the hall past his office to the back of his house. “I am so sorry your father is not here. It is no work for young ladies.” If they would only stop, she would tell them, but they did not stop, even for a moment. Anne hurried after them.

The doctor opened the door into a large square room. It made Anne think of
a kitchen because of the long table. There was a sheet over the table, dragging almost to the floor. Victoria was very pale. “I do not like this at all, Victoria,” Dr. Sawyer said, speaking more and more rapidly. “If your father were here—It is a nasty business.”

Anne thought, As soon as she sees it isn’t Elliott, I will tell them. Dr. Sawyer pulled the sheet back from the body.

It was as if
the time, so hurried along by them, had stopped stock-still. The man had been dead several days. Since the storm, Anne thought. He was drowned in the storm. His black coat was still damp and stained like her cloak had been when she had tried to wash away the mud. He was wearing a white silk shirt and a black damask vest. There was a gray silk handkerchief in the vest pocket, wrinkled and water-spotted.
He looked cold.

Victoria put
her hand out toward the body and then drew it back and groped for Anne’s hand. “I’m sorry,” Dr. Sawyer said, and looked down at the body lying on the table.

It was Elliott.

“It’s about time you got here,” Elliott said, getting up. He had been lying on the pew, his coat folded up under his head. He had unbuttoned his shirt and opened his black vest. “I’ve been wasting
away.”

Anne handed him the parcel silently, looking at him. There was a gray silk handkerchief in the pocket of his vest.

“Did you go to tea at Vicky’s?” he said, unwrapping the brown paper from the slices of bread, the baked ham, the russets. He was having some difficulty with the string. “Comforting the bereaved and all that? What fun!”

“No,” Anne said. She watched him, waiting. He could
not untie the string. He laid the packet on the seat beside him. “We went to Dr. Sawyer’s.”

“Why? Is my revered father sinking or does pretty Vicky have the vapors?”

“We went to see a body, to see if we could identify it.”

“Ugh. A grisly business, I should imagine. Pretty Vicky fainting with relief at the sight of some bloated stranger, Dr. Sawyer ready with the smelling salts—”

“It was your
body, Elliott.”

She had expected him to look shocked or furtive or frightened. Instead, he put his hands behind his head and leaned back against them, smiling at her. “How is that possible, sweet Anne? Or have you been having the vapors, too?”

“How did you get from the river to Haddam, Elliott? You never told me.”

He did not change his position. “A horse was grazing by the riverside. I leaped
upon his back, the true horseman, and galloped home to you.”

“You said you got the horse at an inn.”

“I
didn’t want to offend your sensibilities by telling you I stole the horse. Perhaps I overjudged your sense of delicacy. You seem to have no qualms about accusing me of—what is it exactly you’re accusing me of? Murdering some harmless passerby and dressing him in my clothes? Impossible. As
you can see, I am still wearing them.”

“My cloak is ruined beyond repair,” she said slowly. “My boots were caked with mud. The hem of my dress was stained and torn. How did you manage to ride a horse all the way from Haddam in a storm and arrive with your boots polished and your coat brushed?”

He sat up suddenly and grabbed for her hands. She stepped back. “You did all that for me, Anne?” he
said. “Waiting on the island, drenched and dirty? No wonder you are angry. But this is no way to punish me. Locking me in this dusty room, telling me ghost stories. I’ll buy you a new cloak, darling.”

“Why haven’t you eaten anything I’ve brought you? You said you were famished. You said you hadn’t eaten for days.”

He let go of her hands. “When should I have eaten it? You’ve been here all this
time, badgering me with silly questions. I’ll eat it now.” He picked up the paper packet and set it on his lap.

Anne watched him. His hands were windburned to a dark red. The body’s hands had had no color. It was as if the river had washed it away.

Elliott fumbled with the brown paper on the bread. “Bread and cake and my own sweet Anne. What man could ask for more?” But he still didn’t open
the packet, and after a few minutes he replaced it on the seat. “I’ll eat it after you’ve gone,” he said petulantly “You’ve made me lose my appetite with all this talk of dead men.”

When she went back the next day, he was fully dressed, his gray handkerchief neatly folded in his vest pocket, his coat on. “What time’s the funeral?” he said gaily. “The second funeral, of course. How many funerals
shall I have, I wonder? And will I have to pay for all the flowers when I return?”

“It is this afternoon,” Anne said, wondering as soon as she said it if she should not have lied to him. She had dressed for the funeral, thinking all the while she would not go see him, that it was too dangerous, concentrating on dressing warmly in her brushed and cleaned wool merino, on taking her muff. But the
key was in her muff, and as soon as she saw it, she knew that she had meant to go see him all along. It was just like the night she had gone to meet him on the island. She had not cared about warmth then, only about not being seen, and she had dressed in her black cloak and her black dress, her black bonnet, as if she were going someplace else altogether. As if, she realized now, she were dressing
for a funeral.

“This
afternoon,” he repeated. “Then Victoria’s father is back from Hartford?”

“Yes.”

“And my father, is he well enough to attend? Leaning on his cane and murmuring, ‘A bad end. I knew he would come to a bad end.’ Is it to be a graveside service?” Elliott said, picking up his hat.

“Yes,” she said in alarm. “Where are you going?”

“With you, of course. To the funeral. I missed
my first one.”

“You can’t,” she said, and backed slightly toward the door, clutching the key inside her muff.

“I think,” he said coldly, “that this little game has gone on long enough. I never should have let you dissuade me from walking in on the first funeral. I certainly shall not let you keep me from this one.”

Anne was so horrified she could not move. “You’ll kill your father,” she said.

“Well, and good riddance. You shall have someone to bury then besides this poor stranger who is masquerading as me.”

“We are burying you, Elliott,” she said, and there was something in his face when she said that that gave him away. “You know you’re dead, don’t you, Elliott?” she said quietly.

He put his hat on. “We shall see if my fiancée thinks I am dead. Or her father. How glad he will be
to see me alive and free of debt! He shall welcome me with open arms, his son-in-law to be. And pretty Vicky, she shall be a bride instead of a widow.”

Anne thought of Victoria’s kind gray eyes, her little hand holding Anne’s hand in the doctor’s kitchen, of Victoria’s father, grim-faced and protective, his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Why are you doing this terrible thing, Elliott?” Anne
said.

“I do not like coffins. They are small and dark and dusty. And cold. Like this room. I will not let them lock me in the grave as you have locked me in.”

Anne sucked in her breath sharply.

“They
will be so overjoyed they will quite forget what they have gone to the cemetery to do.” He smiled disarmingly at her. “They will quite forget to bury me.”

Anne backed against the door. “I won’t
let you,” she said.

“Dear Anne, how will you stop me?”

She had not locked him in, not since the funeral. She had left the door unlocked each night in the hope that he would come out. “Leave the door open,” he had shouted after her, but he had not opened it himself. When she went back the door was still shut, as if she had locked him in. “I will lock you in,” she said aloud, and clutched the
key inside her muff.