Dark Masquerade (6 page)

Twenty thousand dollars. A wave of bitterness like pain swept over Elizabeth. She could not disguise her cold anger.

“Do you mean this money has been on deposit since Felix was killed?”

“Not that long, no. The legalities had to be observed, the sale took time to arrange and complete, and then more time for the money to change hands.”

“How long?”

“Since November of last year.”

“Six long months—why wasn’t I informed?”

Her voice was harsh as Elizabeth realized what the money might have meant to her sister: adequate food, comfort, decent medical care, a chance that she might have lived. More than that, the knowledge that Felix had loved her enough to see to her security before his death would have comforted her in her desperate grief for her young husband.

If her distress, her regret, communicated itself to Bernard he did not show it. His voice was level, with a touch of scorn, as he answered her questions.

“An invitation was extended to you to come here where you could be told as soon as the sale was completed. Believe me, we did not know of your situation until you informed us. No doubt you believe we should have made inquiries earlier into your welfare? You are right, we should have, but perhaps you will try to understand our position?

“My brother Felix was officially betrothed to Celestine before he left for Texas. He bestowed on her the family betrothal ring and they were feted with the usual parties. It was an alliance of long standing between the two families, but Celestine was very young and disinclined to be left, a bride, so soon after the wedding, and so it was postponed until Felix returned from the fracas. He considered this jaunt to war in no more serious a light than a protracted hunting trip. We all did.”

Bernard’s face looked drawn, and Elizabeth realized again as his hand clenched on the letter opener that his control was on a tight rein.

“Imagine our surprise,” he went on, turning the tiny sword in its scabbard over in his hands, “and yes, our dismay, when Felix wrote to tell us that he had met another woman and that he intended to marry her. By the time his letter reached us the deed was done. Naturally we waited to hear more. And then he was killed in battle. We were stunned. Again we waited. It seemed so unlikely. Impossible. I can’t think how to make you understand. You have no idea of how uneventful, how circumscribed by tradition and convention our lives are. We received Felix’s instructions written before the tragedy at Goliad and the machinery was set in motion to carry them out, but we felt we should move with caution. I considered going myself to Texas to see you, to investigate—”

“In short to see what kind of woman your brother had married. Or did you think I had tricked him into marriage against his will?”

“The idea had occurred to me.”

“What made you decide not to come?

“I was needed here. We decided to wait and communicate with you by mail. In addition we had not given up hope that Felix was still alive. Often there are mistakes made on the battlefields of distant wars fought in strange countries. We waited, I suppose, for a miracle to clear all difficulties.”

He confessed his faults so dispassionately that it was hard to remain angry. Elizabeth could understand his reasons for avoiding a confrontation with the woman his brother had so unexpectedly married; she could even appreciate his frankness in speaking of them. But she could not quite forgive him or conquer her resentment. She got to her feet, but he detained her with a lifted hand.

“There is one thing more. I will see to it that you receive your widow’s portion as quickly as possible, however our commission merchant and the attorneys who will attend to it will need proof of your identity. I assume you have something to prove you are who you say?”

“Certainly,” Elizabeth replied, trying not to let the intentness of his dark eyes half-hidden behind thick lashes annoy her further. “There is the marriage record, a copy of it, and also the Brewster family Bible. I will bring them.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I insist.” Elizabeth started toward the door.

“Wait. Since you are determined, we will send a servant. Your woman knows where to put her hand on the things you want?”

“Yes.”

Bernard summoned the butler and gave him his instructions. Elizabeth returned to her chair, and in a moment they heard the butler calling for a houseboy to carry the message upstairs. While they waited for the request to filter through the hierarchy of the house servants, Bernard removed the necessity of making conversation by opening the mail that lay on his desk. It had arrived that morning on the river packet, and it had been sent out to the house by special carrier.

The sight of the letters reminded Elizabeth of the day the invitation to Oak Shade had arrived in the hand of a passing stranger. Ellen had been in bed. Excitement had brought back some of the color to the thin face above her swollen body. They had held a conference and decided to send to the Spanish Mission for a copy of the marriage record. It had seemed at the time only a natural precaution. That it should rankle to be asked to present it now was, Elizabeth recognized, a bit of perversity.

It had been nearly two weeks before someone, a distant neighbor this time, came by to carry the message to the mission. He carried also the letter to the Delacroix from Ellen accepting their kind invitation on behalf of herself and her unborn child. She planned to go to them as soon as she recovered from her confinement. Ellen had not been proud, or rather she had been more certain of the generosity of the Delacroix than Elizabeth. The letter had also contained a vivid description of the destitution and lack of funds for the journey, a description Elizabeth found hard to put on paper even after Ellen had told her exactly what she wanted to say. Ellen had wanted to ask that her husband’s people include Elizabeth in the invitation, but she would not allow it. She had wanted to be independent, to make her own way in the world, rather than to be a poor relation by marriage at the mansion called Oak Shade.

Eventually the requested record, written in pure Castilian Spanish, scrolled and dangling with ribbons and seals, had arrived. The young priest who had brought it had smiled at the maternal picture Elizabeth had made standing with the baby in her arms in the doorway of their homestead. It was a natural mistake. Before he left them he baptized the baby and led them in a rosary for the girl in the grave near the house. The name he carried back with him for the death record was Elizabeth’s own. Ellen would have understood, Elizabeth was sure. Her last wish had been for Elizabeth to carry her child to her husband’s family and see that he received his proper heritage.

The minutes passed and there was no sign of the records, nor a message from Callie. Elizabeth had not had time to grow really worried, however, when Bernard, frowning at a letter in his hand, got to his feet.

“Forgive me, but I must leave you for a moment to speak to my overseer. A matter of business.” Without waiting for her acquiescence he crossed the room in a few strides and was gone, the letter fluttering in his hand.

She sat alone, listening to the seconds ticking slowly by on the ormolu clock on the mantel, staring at her reflection in the crepe-draped mirror beside it. With the palm of her hand, she smoothed the arm of her chair, growing increasingly nervous and perplexed. Bernard did not return, nor did the things she had sent for arrive. At last she heard quick footsteps approaching, and she got to her feet and turned toward the door.

There was a light knock, and without waiting for an invitation Celestine swept into the room.

“I thought Bernard was here,” she exclaimed, staring at Elizabeth with a wide, inquisitive glance, her fun skirts swaying as she stopped.

“He was. He stepped out for a minute.”

“How odd, and most inhospitable of him.”

That was precisely what Elizabeth had been thinking, but she did not say so.

“I wonder what he is about. No telling. He is a very busy man. I’m sure he did not mean to desert you.” Celestine’s voice was smooth, but Elizabeth heard the malice, as she was sure she was supposed to.

“I expect you are right,” she answered quietly.

A shadow of annoyance touched Celestine’s small features. “I don’t imagine it is necessary to wait. Bernard will not expect it if he has been delayed.”

That seemed likely. “I was thinking of returning to my room,” Elizabeth said.

“Just what I would do,” Celestine agreed. “I will tell Bernard that he has been most rude and he must not treat you so. It will be a lesson to him.”

That was not at all what she had intended. “Oh, no. Tell him, please, that I have gone to see about the documents he wanted.”

“Oh, I was not going to wait for him now,” Celestine objected, her voice expressing an obvious reluctance to serve as Elizabeth’s messenger. She drew back to allow Elizabeth to go through the door ahead of her.

Why then had Celestine come to the library if she did not want particularly to see Bernard, Elizabeth wondered as she went through the door and down the hall toward the stairs. The only reason she could think of was curiosity, pure feminine curiosity about what was keeping Elizabeth in the library so long.”

She had put her foot on the bottom stair when a sound near the top made her glance up. She stopped, frozen into immobility, afraid to make the slightest sound.

At the top of the stairs, his blanket trailing over the edge of the top step as he kicked and waved his arms, lay Joseph.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. Elizabeth hardly heard them.

“My apologies,” Bernard began as he came in sight from the back of the long hall, then he stopped as he saw Elizabeth’s rigid stance.

“Bernard, mon cher,” Celestine greeted him, ignoring the other girl as she moved toward him with her arms outstretched. “I was looking for you.”

At the top of the stairs the sound of their voices had attracted Joseph. Turning his head he saw Elizabeth and with a wide grin began to squirm, trying to turn over.

“Don’t!” she cried, and picking up her skirts started up the stairs at a run. She hoped the harsh sound of her voice would hold his attention long enough for her to get to him. Hampered by the fullness of petticoats and dress she tripped, going down to one knee, catching at the bannister. She saw the baby turning and knew even as she jerked the skirt from under her feet and started on again that she could not hope to reach him before he rolled down the stairs.

Suddenly she was pushed aside as Bernard raced up the steps two at a time. But even he was not quite fast enough. With a muffled thud followed by the rasping, throat-tearing cries of a small baby Joseph fell face down onto the next stair step.

Bernard stopped his fall as he hung half off the step. By the time Elizabeth reached his side Bernard had the baby against his shoulder.

“Give him to me,” she said when they had gained the landing in the upper hallway.

Blood stained the baby’s lower lip where it was already beginning to swell, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. He soon stopped crying as Elizabeth rocked him against her pounding heart, murmuring to him softly. But as her anxiety eased, anger and suspicion took its place.

“Who did this? Who in the world would do such a thing? And why?”

“I imagine your nursemaid put him down on a pallet and he got there himself,” Celestine said as she leisurely climbed the stairs.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Elizabeth snapped. “Four-month-old babies don’t crawl.”

Celestine shrugged. “Where is his nurse then? It seems very careless to me. Perhaps you should bring in another woman for your nephew, Bernard. Someone dependable.”

Bernard did not answer. Nor did Elizabeth, though Celestine’s question was a good one. Where was Callie?

Turning sharply she marched across the hall with the baby in her arms. She skirted the stairwell and stepped to the door of Grand’mere’s room. She pushed open the door that hung ajar but there was no one inside.

“Callie?” she called.

There was no answer. The only sound that trespassed on the silence of the room was the buzzing of a fly trapped behind the lace curtains over the window.

“Callie?”

Where could she have gone? The blankets in the cradle at the foot of the old lady’s bed spilled over the high wooden side, dragging onto the floor. The sticky porridge dish from Joseph’s breakfast still sat on a small table, and damp, wadded cloths from the baby’s bath were piled on the floor beside a pan of water already forming a cold soap scum. Elizabeth had the feeling that some time had passed since anyone had used these things, though they had not been there when she passed through the room before breakfast.

Bernard stepped into the room behind Elizabeth. Celestine trailed after him, though her face wore a look of ill-concealed impatience. For some reason their presence was an annoyance to Elizabeth, and she moved farther into the room away from them.

Her action brought her in fine with the open door of her own room. She glanced in, and then stopped, her eyes wide. From where she stood she could see Callie’s feet, in her brown lisle stockings and black slippers, sprawled out on the floor with her long dress twisted around her.