Dark Masquerade (19 page)

She stamped her foot. “Don’t be silly. Anybody can see there is something wrong when a seventeen-year-old girl is kept in short skirts!”

“Seventeen!”

It could be true, the girl was as tall as Elizabeth, and mere had been her wiry strength that night they struggled over the lamp.

“You know, and you were seared of me, so you decided to get rid of me just as we knew you would!”

We? Theresa had used that word before.

“No, Theresa, I promise you it isn’t true.”

“Lies. Nothing but lies! Everybody lies to me!” Her voice was rising and rage invading the rational look of her eyes. She began to advance on Elizabeth.

“Theresa!”

The harsh voice of the Frenchwoman halted the girl The blue moiré taffeta of her dressing gown seemed frivolous compared to the black she usually wore. As she walked into the room with quick, angry steps the ruchings that swept the floor about her feet made a whispering sound. The small hoops swinging in her ears caught the light with a sheen, that was echoed by the goose grease on her face. Over the knots of rolled hair studding her head she had donned a wrinkled muslin mob cap.

Theresa spun around, all expression draining from her face until she looked plain and dull-witted. Her mouth fell open but she seemed bereft of speech.

“I don’t know how you did it, my girl, but this will be the last time you get away from me. I am having bolts installed the first thing in the morning! Then we shall see how much wandering you do.”

“Denise—you wouldn’t—”

“See if I don’t. I am tired of receiving complaints of incompetence and being questioned as if my word was good for nothing. What they expect of me I don’t know, I am no gaoler. Mon Dieu! You would try the patience of a saint. I don’t know whether you are an imbecile or a demon. Non, there shall be no more complaints when I have you safe behind a bolted door!”

“I will go, to Bernard,” Theresa said in a low voice. “I will tell him how I am treated and ask him to free me. He will not be pleased at your treatment of me.”

“By all means. Go to your step-brother, if you think he will believe you before me, after the things you have done. You should have thought of the consequences before you went off on a mad tear.” A shade of triumph lit Denise’s narrow face. She was enjoying taking her spite out on the girl.

Theresa clenched her hands into fists. “You are a witch and I hate you, a beastly, ugly witch, and that is all you will ever be. No matter how much you simper in front of a mirror or make calf eyes at him, my brother will never look at you. Darcourt has more taste.”

Denise’s hand flashed out as she slapped Theresa in the face. “Impertinent little wretch. You will be sorry you spoke to me like that.”

“Denise!” Elizabeth could not help the exclamation. “Surely there was no need for that.”

The Frenchwoman’s black eyes glared at her with a maniacal anger. Spots of color flamed on her cheeks. “You know nothing of the circumstances. It is not for you to say what is necessary. It is my thankless task to control this mad creature, not yours.”

“That will do, Denise.”

The quiet masculine tone stopped the tirade short. Bernard stood just inside the room. In his hand he carried a book, his forefinger still marking his page. He wore a dressing gown over his evening clothes. Beneath its large rolled collar his white silk evening shirt could be seen, though he wore no coat or cravat.

“We will not need you any longer. Take Theresa to her room at once, and keep her there. I will speak to you later.” His voice was quiet but he emphasized the last words with such clarity that Denise blanched.

Gripping the arm of the crying girl, Denise pulled her from the room.

When the sound of their footsteps had faded down the hall, Bernard still stood regarding Elizabeth with a thoughtful expression. Elizabeth fidgeted under this steady gaze, nervously aware of her bare feet showing beneath the hem of her gown. The gown itself was the serviceable type without lace or embroidery, thick, warm, and completely enveloping, but it was still improper for him to see her in it. She would have been more embarrassed if she had felt that he was equally aware of the impropriety. As it was she doubted he really saw her at all.

Trying to move unselfconsciously, Elizabeth reached for the dressing gown that lay across the foot of the bed. She swung it around her shoulders and pushed her arms into the sleeves. When she had jerked the belt fight she felt much better, as if she were armed, though against what she could not say.

As she glanced up at Bernard she caught a glimpse of sardonic humor just fading from his face. Her head came up instinctively and the green of her eyes deepened to the cold dark jade of a winter sea. The candle glow behind her framed her head in a nimbus of fiery light, sending gleams sliding along individual russet strands of her long hair.

“Well?” she said, her uneasiness made a challenge of the word.

Interest flickered in his eyes, an interest coupled with an unwilling appreciation

“It was good of you to champion Theresa,” he said abruptly.

“Good?” She was wary of the compliment.

“After her tantrum in the library the other night.”

“Oh.” She was surprised at the flat sound of her voice. It was not as if she wanted there to be anything personal in his comment, was it? She went on impulsively, “I’m glad you did not think I was responsible for what happened that night.”

“Responsible?”

“Because of What Theresa said.”

“That. No, I am familiar enough with her temperament to realize that you were probably not to blame. Usually it takes something upsetting to trigger a violent reaction. Was anything said, that you can remember, that might have set her off?”

Elizabeth felt the warmth of a flush rise to her cheeks as she remembered what had led to her argument with Theresa. Hopefully the dimness of the room would hide it from Bernard. She wished she had never brought up the subject. Still, she could answer with a negative truthfully enough: it had not been anything she had said to Theresa that had set her off.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, of course.” she answered steadily.

Bernard ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling; the smoothness. “I don’t know. I would have sworn she would never have turned violent. She isn’t mad, just backward. She is like a child, a temperamental ten year old.”

“She told me she was seventeen,” Elizabeth said, speaking quietly, afraid Bernard would stop, that he would think better of this impulse to explain to her.

“She is, physically, but her mind is the mind of a child much younger. She has never grown up. It is as if she stopped growing three years ago and reverted to childhood.”

That would explain the short dresses, the hair worn down when most young ladies put theirs up at the age of fifteen or sixteen. But it did not explain the rages, the attempts to harm her. Bernard must have seen the doubt in her face, for he went on.

“In most ways. Theresa is normal, childish certainly, but a normal child. But lately she has developed an uncontrollable temper. She cannot bear to be denied anything. It has been worse since you came. I would have sworn that in spite of her rages she would never hurt a fly, until you came. She was never sensitive to her condition or defensive of it. She was truly like a child, she played with toys, was happiest with some simple game. Now it is almost as though she were trying to grow up emotionally, or was being forced to do so.”

His eyes came to rest on Elizabeth’s face again, as if despite her protests, Elizabeth thought uncomfortably, he suspected she might have had something to do with it. Was it possible? Could Theresa, in her sensitive mental state, detect the falseness of her position? It did not seem reasonable that she could.

“Why is Theresa like she is? What happened?”

Now Bernard became evasive. “Who can tell? God’s will, perhaps.”

He turned toward the door. Elizabeth followed him to see him out and close the door behind him, more a courtesy than a necessity.

Just as she began to close the heavy door, Bernard swung back, one hand going out to stop it. “You seem to be recovering from your—accident.”

“Yes. I’m feeling much better,” she answered carefully. “There was no need to treat me like an invalid.”

“I was under the impression that women enjoy playing the invalid.” His smile was bleak.

“Some do, and some don’t.”

He reached out and took her hand, which had been resting on the door jamb. Turning it over he examined the deep scratch that slashed across the palm.

“The overseer that I dismissed has not been found,” he said frowning, running his thumb over the callouses at the base of her fingers, gently outlining the scratch. “He has left the parish, apparently, possibly the state. We could find no evidence that he was ever on the plantation, or, as far as that goes, that anyone else was. The thick grass and leaves cushioned what footprints there might have been. Regardless, you need not be frightened. Nothing of the kind will happen again.” His voice hardened. “This is a promise.”

Quickly he carried her hand to his mouth. His lips brushed near the raw scratch with a feather kiss, and then he was gone.

In spite of Bernard’s assurances it was a long time before she slept. She longed to feel reassured, to know again that nearly forgotten state of security, but too many things prevented it. Not the least of which was a haunting suspicion that she had been taken in by Bernard’s concerned manner, lulled into trusting him by some emotion that would not bear daylight.

“Bernard told me about Theresa,” Elizabeth told Grand’mere next morning. They were having coffee and croissants on the upper gallery. They sat in the shade, but the sunlight inched toward them across the floor as the morning advanced.

“Did he? I am glad. I have been encouraging him to do so. It was not fair to allow you to remain in ignorance.”

“It is sad. I would hate something like that to happen to a child of mine.”

“It has been a great shock and a disappointment, this latent streak of violence in her. She was such a sweet child, very seldom into trouble, and then usually because she was following someone else. She was always easily led. Oh, she was mischievous, all children are, but I never expected her to turn out this way.”

“You think then that she is responsible for the things that have happened?” She waited tensely for the answer.

Grand’mere pushed her steel spectacles up from where they had slid down her nose. When she spoke her voice had a flat sound.

“She must be.”

“Last night—and also that night in the library—she spoke of someone who had told her that I intended to put her away. Perhaps someone else put her up to all these things.”

“My dear, who? I know you have had a few distressing experiences, but you must not let such ideas run away with you.”

“You said yourself that she was easily led—”

“No, no. What sane person would do such things? I prefer to believe Theresa mad than to entertain such a possibility.”

But was the older woman’s agitation the result of this disturbing idea, or was it that she did not wish Elizabeth to pursue this line of thought? Well, she could not prevent her from doing that. She sat resting her elbows on the arms of her chair, clasping her cup in both hands, sipping it without noticing that it had grown cold. Rousing herself at last, she turned to Grand’mere.

“I have been meaning to ask, what has become of the key to my room?”

“Key? Odd that you should ask, Bernard was asking about the keys himself only yesterday. We never lock our rooms, you know, not when it is just the family. The outside doors are locked after the servants retire to their quarters in the back at night. I had to refer Bernard to Denise. And of course you must see her too, though I cannot blame you for wanting to lock yourself in. Denise has kept the keys for me for some years now. I gave up all pretense of being the chatelaine—that was synonymous with being the keeper of the keys in the old days. It was much too fatiguing. Which reminds me. I must ask her if she removed the chapel key from my reticule. It is gone, but I don’t remember giving it to her. But perhaps I did, I’m becoming forgetful these days.”

Elizabeth smiled in commiseration. She wondered whether the antagonistic Frenchwoman would release her bedroom key even if she could find a convenient time to ask for it.

Grand’mere crumbled a croissant and threw the pieces at a green chameleon streaking across the floor.

“There is something else,” she said broodingly. “I have been sitting here debating whether I should tell you. Theresa was here at the house the day Gaspard died. It was being built then, you remember. Gaspard had brought her with him in the carriage. For a step-father and step-daughter they were close, and Gaspard was indulgent with her. The carpenters had gone; it was getting late. My son had climbed up to inspect the framework, the ceiling joists or some such thing; a foolhardy thing to do. A storm was coming up with thunder and lightning. He fell and broke his neck. Theresa was a perfectly normal child until that day. She has not been the same since. Rainstorms, thunder and lightning, have always affected her badly.”