House of Masques (5 page)

As the coach jounced from the courtyard into the street, Clarissa gazed back at Josiah. Her face was pale. Kathleen had never before seen a look of such devotion. Kathleen herself felt an emptiness, a loss. Even though she feared Josiah and had known him only three days, his absence left a void.

They drove toward the Estate five miles to the south. Clarissa sat quietly with hands clasped in her lap. She looked content, Kathleen saw, as though she possessed a knowledge that was hers alone.

If only I knew more of people and of the world
, Kathleen thought. She had been able to go to school only eight years and when she met more educated men and women she felt ill at ease. She knew she learned quickly, for in school she finished her lessons before anyone else and she liked nothing better than to curl up in a chair and read the books borrowed from the homes where she worked. There was so much to know. So much she needed to find out.

When this is over
, she vowed,
I'll read and I'll study and I'll go back to school.
And then the realization came to her that if she did kill Charles Worthington—and she knew she must—she would never be able to do all the things she dreamed of. She stared from the window at the murky water of the Hudson.

Edward Allen consulted a map on the seat beside him and guided the horses inland away from the river road toward the setting sun. Trees along the way cast long shadows in the direction of the mountains. Kathleen felt a tremor of excitement, for she knew they were rapidly approaching the Worthington Estate.

On both sides of the road scarecrows watched over the fields which lay parched from want of rain. The occasional streams ran low. They passed between a long double row of Lombardy poplars looking, Kathleen thought, like sentries at attention guarding the way to the Estate.

The coach skidded to a halt. Kathleen opened the door and looked up and found Edward Allen, mouth slack, reins limp in his hands, staring at the roadway. A tree blocked their path and two masked men stood alongside the coach. One held two pistols pointed at Edward Allen. The other, rifle at the ready, his finger on the trigger, walked slowly toward Kathleen.

Chapter Five

Kathleen froze, immobile, hand still on the door. The tree athwart the road. The two masked men. Highwaymen? She pulled the door shut and shrank back inside the coach.

“What…what?” Clarissa asked.

“Two men, with guns,” Kathleen whispered hoarsely. She heard a shout from the roadway, felt the pounding of her heart. Get away, get away! Clarissa, Edward Allen—no help there. Without thinking she unlatched the opposite door, and as she stepped to the metal foothold she felt the coach sway and knew the gunman was mounting from the other side.

Run. Hold the maroon dress high.
Run!

She glanced about in desperation. Where to hide? The row of poplars offered no cover. Past the trees she saw a creek bed where water trickled among the rocks and collected in stagnant pools. On the other side of the stream a woods sloped upward for some thirty feet to the crest of a hill. Beyond, a denser growth of trees promised shelter.

She ran, the dress heavy and awkward, her shoes twisting on her feet. The bushes in the undergrowth caught at her clothes and the bank of the stream crumbled beneath her and she slid to the bottom.

What was that? The slam of the coach door. Shouts—“Stop, stop!”—the thudding sound of a man running.

She leaped from rock to rock with her breath coming in short gasps, rasping in her throat. She scrambled up the far bank and stumbled at the top, falling, and pain stabbed her knee. On her feet again, the footfalls close behind, over the top of the bank. Heavy breathing behind. A hand grasped her arm and she pulled away, but the hand tightened and spun her about and she recoiled from the unshaven face and the yellow teeth. A mask drooped around the man's neck. A short man, hardly taller than herself.

She screamed. A cry of desperation and helplessness. He reached to her and slapped her across the cheek and her head snapped to one side. “Oh,” she gasped, surprised, face stinging, and tears filled her eyes. She slumped away from him.

His thumb and forefinger caught her chin and turned her head first to the right, then the left. “We don't want no damaged goods,” he said. She sobbed, defeated, and he smirked. His face, she saw, was streaked with rivulets of sweat. He shoved her ahead of him back across the creek where he retrieved his rifle from under one of the poplars.

Kathleen joined Clarissa and Edward Allen on the road and, while the heavy-set man with the pistols watched, his companion tied their hands behind them. He led the way to a wagon hidden in the trees and helped Clarissa and Edward Allen clamber aboard. They sat on straw heaped at the front of the wagon bed. After throwing the luggage into the wagon he motioned Kathleen to climb in the rear.

She stumbled and tried to hold the side of the wagon but her hands were tied too tightly and she fell backward. The short man with the yellow teeth caught her from behind and his hands circled her waist and moved up to cup her breasts. Nausea gagged her and she squirmed away.

“Nice, very nice,” he said and laughed. His hands slid down her back and he pushed her into the wagon.

She lay with straw pricking her face while she fought the bitter taste of bile in her mouth.
I hate them!
she sobbed.
All of them, with their hands and their foul mouths and their leering faces. I don't want them touching me. I never want to be touched. Never, never
, never
!
Sobs shook her body.

She heard horses neigh, and after a time they bounced forward across uneven ground, moving slowly, the wagon pitching this way and that. The ride smoothed and she knew they had reached the road.

Kathleen opened her eyes and found the straw in a latticework before her face. Scratching, tickling, infuriating straw. She wanted to wipe her perspiring face and she strained her hands until the cord cut into her wrists. She struggled onto her back and freed her face from the straw. Above her head she could see the tops of trees and the sky aglow with wisps of pink-tinged clouds.

“Clarissa,” she whispered.

“No talking,” a harsh voice commanded and she lay quiet. What was happening? Where were they being taken?

Now no trees reached from the sides of the road and she felt the wagon turn and begin climbing. They went uphill for what seemed to Kathleen an endless time before the road leveled and they turned again. The pink had faded from the clouds which pointed like gray and black fingers in the darkening sky. Trees again. Thicker than before, the branches joining above. At last the wagon stopped and the heavy-set man led Clarissa and Edward Allen away. She heard the horses being unhitched and the luggage unloaded. A hand pulled her upright and she flinched.

“Come on, let's go.” Kathleen hunched her way to the tailgate and dropped to the ground. They were in a clearing in front of a cabin. Yellow light shone through a window and an open door. The heavy blackness of a mountain loomed behind the cabin and a scattering of stars glimmered in the sky above. Clarissa and Edward Allen and the man with the pistols were nowhere to be seen. The short man motioned her ahead along a stone walk and through the door.

A large room with a table in the center. Two oil lamps. A black iron stove near the far wall with a stovepipe angling back and up through the roof. Cots were placed along two sides and doors to other rooms opened at the rear and on the near side. She saw her carpetbag piled with other luggage near the stove.

The man walked past her and opened the second door and motioned her to go in. She stumbled as she went by him, tired, her body sore and aching. Inside she found a bureau and a small bed high off the floor. She leaned against the wall and the man came to her and she cringed away, afraid, hating him. He laughed and reached behind her, without touching her, and cut the cord on her wrists and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Kathleen sat on the bed. Her hands tingled and she rubbed her wrists. The room seemed to spin and she lay back, trying to grip the sides of the bed with her numb fingers. She shut her eyes and finally the movement stopped. She lay exhausted on the bed.

Had she slept? She could not be sure, but thought she had. The room was dark. She was calm now, her head clear.
Why am I here?
she wondered.
What do these two men intend to do?
Had she and Clarissa been kidnapped for ransom? Perhaps Josiah had spread stories of their supposed wealth and unwittingly led some local adventurers to waylay them. Or were the Worthingtons in some way involved? After all, they had been almost on the Worthington doorstep when the coach was stopped. Could there be a connection between these men and the guards at the Estate? She had no answers.

I must escape
, she told herself. She hated inaction and became impatient with those who waited and hoped for the best. Good fortune, she believed, came to those who sought it out. And she must act alone, for Edward Allen had shown himself to be of no help at all.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness and she noticed a thin slit of light under the door to the main room. She heard voices, but although she strained her ears she could not make out the words. A door opened and closed, and someone walked across the next room. There was no more talking and then the footsteps also stopped and the cabin was still.

Raising her torn skirt, Kathleen touched the cut on her leg and winced. Just a scrape, though, she decided. She swung both legs from the bed and stood and the dizziness returned, and she had to lean on the rough wood of the wall until the whirling subsided. Very slowly, very quietly, she lifted the latch on the door and pushed. The door, either bolted or locked, did not move.

She paced from the door to the far wall. Eight steps. Paced the width of the room. Only five steps. She discovered a window and placed the heels of both hands wider the frame and shoved upward, but the window refused to budge. No light showed through. Nailed shut and boarded on the other side, she concluded.

The bureau. She opened the top drawer and her fingers touched porcupine-sharp balls. Puzzled, she warily handled the objects and smiled in recognition. Pine cones. Four or five of them. And nothing else.

The middle drawer. Packed full. The feel of wool on her palms. Clothing of some sort. The bottom drawer rattled when she opened it and her fingers groped about before closing over a long waxy rod. A candle. She explored further and found and shook a small box. Yes, she thought, matches. And she felt the faint stirring of hope.

The first matchstick broke. She tried another and the sulphur hissed and flamed, and she lit the candle. The room sprang into view and her shadow wavered on the wall behind her. The room had one window and one door, and the window
was
boarded over.

Kathleen sat on the bed with the candle in her hand and looked from the locked door to the boarded window to the bureau and back to the bed.

“Oh!”

She dropped the candle and wiped the melted wax from her hand. The candle lay on the bed and the sheet browned and the odor of burning wrinkled her nose. She retrieved the lighted candle, dripped a puddle of wax on the top of the bureau and pushed the base of the candle into it.

She piled the bedding, the clothing from the drawer, and the pine cones along the far wall and held the candle under the pile. The cloth singed yet would not burn. The pillow. The covering was old and thin and ripped easily in her hands. Feathers spurted into the air. She shook the rest of the feathers from the case and wadded them beneath the pile of clothing and held the candle to them and nodded in satisfaction as the flames leaped upward.

“Fire, fire!” she called and ran across the room and pounded on the door with her fist. The fire flickered higher and smoke rose to the ceiling and drifted toward her. “Fire, fire,” she called again. The flames crackled as the pine walls began to burn.

The smoke stung her nose and throat, and she gasped for air. She tried to call once more for help but choked and bent over in a fit of coughing. Kathleen's eyes watered and she blinked and rubbed them with her palms and felt stabs of pain.

She slumped to the floor with her head leaning on the door. Flames crawled across and up the far wall. Unhooking and removing her shoe, she pounded with the heel on the door. Her eyes smarted and watered, and she felt as if her head would burst.

A scraping. A bolt sliding. The door pushed against her head, so she crawled aside and the door swung open. The man on the other side backed away, coughing. “My God!” he shouted and she heard his steps running away from her. The smoke spewed into the large room and she crawled through the door, gulping down the clearer air.

The short, unshaven man, a handkerchief to his face, ran past her into the bedroom carrying a pail. She stood unsteadily, one shoe lost, and groped her way across the room. Her carpetbag sat beside the stove and she reached inside, pushing the clothing out of the way until she found the tightly wrapped bundle near the bottom. She unwound and spread the cloth on the floor and placed the revolver on top.

Her father's gun. A Colt .44, loaded except for the chamber beneath the hammer.

The second kidnapper ran from outside into the room and, without seeing Kathleen, entered the bedroom. She heard the two men shout to one another, and in a few minutes the smoke lessened and she could no longer see flames. She stood and waited. At last the men came from the bedroom and she saw that their hands and faces were streaked with soot.

Kathleen faced them with the revolver in her hand. The men shook their heads as though trying to tell her she did not understand and advanced on her with their hands before them in gestures of entreaty.

“Stop,” she whispered and her thumb cocked the revolver. “Stop,” she said louder. Her hand shook. The men looked at one another and she saw surprise on their faces.

“What are you…?” the short one began.

“Raise your hands,” she interrupted. Slowly their arms moved up.

Kathleen sensed someone moving behind her and she began to glance back when a blow struck her hand and the revolver clattered to the floor. She gasped and held her wrist tight against her body. Her assailant leaped in front of her and knelt, his back to her, and picked the gun from the floor and faced her. The two kidnappers looked at each other and turned and ran from the room through the door at the rear of the cabin.

Kathleen's mouth opened and she stared at him. Where had
he
come from? Why had he disarmed her?

Edward Allen smiled and slipped the pistol into his pocket. Kathleen slumped into a round-backed chair and held her throbbing wrist pressed tight in her lap. The wicks of the two kerosene lamps were turned low, and the dim light left much of the room in shadow. She stared before her at the inch of amber liquid in a glass and at the cards scattered on the table. The two eyes of the king of spades stared back.

“Listen.” Edward Allen's voice. She looked up and saw him poised but unmoving. Hoofbeats pounded in front of the cabin.

“In here,” Edward Allen told her and opened the door of the second bedroom. Clarissa sat facing them, hands folded, and in the mirror on the wall behind her Kathleen saw the reflection of her uncombed wisps of golden hair.

“I had to take the gun,” Edward Allen said. “The barrel is rusted. You might have blown your hand off.”

The crack of gunshots came from outside and she started at the noise which reminded her of the logs snapping in Josiah's fireplace. A man shouted an order and then she heard the thudding steps of men running.

The door opened and two men entered. The first, tall and dark and with an orange scarf knotted around his neck, stood just inside the door with pistol in hand. The second man, she noticed, paused behind and glanced at him as though waiting for directions.

“Are you all right?” the tall man said. The two women nodded. “Thank God,” he said. Kathleen straightened her disheveled dress and smoothed her hair.

Before the stranger in the orange scarf spoke again she knew who he was and what his next words would be. Knew with certainty. And she was right. “I'm Captain Worthington,” he told them.