The Mirk and Midnight Hour (20 page)

Seeley went out the door. Something that I had taken for part of the old lady wriggled beneath the quilt to the edge of the bed and dropped down to follow him out. A kitten.

“Now,” Miss Ruby Jewel said in a lowered voice, and her black eyes darted about like water bugs, as if she feared someone else might have stolen in when Seeley went out, “I done sent Jubal for that Dr. VanZeldt scoundrel. Thought maybe with all his foreign quackery he might know something that could fix me. He come with that young buck slinking in behind—the one so skinny there’d have to be two of him to cast a shadow.”

I pictured the young man looking disdainfully down his nose at Miss Ruby Jewel, at the cats, at everything in the place but Jubal—no one could despise Jubal. “And did he help you?”

“I swanny, he done told me same as old worryguts Hale. No more sweeties and no more tobaccy. And I ain’t about to give them
up. So I’m a goner and I know it. Only a matter of time.” She sucked at the candy for a moment. “But that’s not what I got to tell you. Come closer, girl.” Something about her lowered tone made me look at her sharply. Her eyes bulged and her mouth trembled. Miss Ruby Jewel was frightened.

I knelt beside her bed. She snatched at my hand when I laid it on her quilt.

“My kitties didn’t like the doctor. Hissed. And he”—she grimaced—“he was asking about you.” She began plucking at the skin of my hand. The lemon drop slid from her lips and plinked to the floor and neither of us paid it any heed.

“About me?” My voice was unusually high. It wasn’t the old lady’s words so much as her distress that sent shivers down my spine. “Why would he ask about me?”

“Don’t know. Prodding and poking about your family and friends and did you have a lover. Used that word—‘lover’—slow and slippery-like. Licked his lips. Seemed pleased that your father was away.”

“I know he wanted me to be friends with the girl, but from what you say …”

“Ain’t no telling,” Miss Ruby Jewel said, “only he’s up to no good. You don’t suppose he’s fixing to court you hisself?”

I recoiled in horror. “
No
. He couldn’t.”

She didn’t respond. Instead she seemed to sink deeper into her bed. Her grip slipped from my hand and her eyelids fluttered shut. “There,” she murmured, “I done told you and it’s off my chest. Now go away, girl. I’m tired.”

I lightly kissed her sunken cheek and left the room, pondering.
Surely it meant nothing. The doctor was merely making conversation. Still, I couldn’t melt the ice that edged my bones.

That night Sunny and I hunched over our handiwork after both Miss Elsa and Seeley had gone early to bed. My stepsister punctuated her stitching with loud sighs.

“This braiding is so hard to poke the needle through,” she said.

I lifted the hem of her project. “Do you really think Pa—or any soldier—wants his underclothes trimmed with itchy gold braid?”

“Why not?” she asked. “A gentleman should be distinguished both inside and out. Just as a lady’s underpinnings ought always to be as elegant as her outerwear.”

I contrasted the gorgeous lemon-yellow satin chemise I had glimpsed Sunny wearing that morning with the plain, black-dyed cambric underclothes I wore and gave a little sigh of my own.

The sound of the front door opening reached us just then, along with the thud of a carpetbag dropping to the hall floor.

“Dorian’s back!” Sunny cried. The sparkle returned to her eyes as she hastily tugged down the lace on her neckline.

He entered and surveyed the room.

She rushed to his side and clung to his arm. “Did you have a nice time?” she asked, leading him to a seat.

Dorian made a careless gesture. “Boring, really.”

“Tell us everything you did while you deserted us for two whole long days, Dorian Rushton,” Sunny demanded.

My cousin shook her off and moved back to the doorway. He glanced up the stairs, then back at us, as if he were having trouble focusing. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business, Anna Bess
Sluder.” He spoke a little too loudly and was unusually flushed; I wondered if he was slightly tipsy. He seemed to remember himself and smiled. “I’ll answer anyway. Not much. The Baxters held a party in my honor, and a young relative, Maria something or other, hogged all my time. Wouldn’t hardly let anyone else near. She was pretty, but not pretty enough.” He winked.

“Mmm,” I said.

“ ‘Mmm,’ is it?” Dorian exclaimed. He strode to my chair and snatched my yarn away. “Is that any sort of response to my story?”

“Did I say ‘mmm’?”

“Quite distinctly, coz dear.”

“Mmm …”

“Maria deserves to be slapped,” Sunny said crossly.

“Yes,” Dorian said. “That’s a better reaction to Maria.” He tossed back my yarn and fiddled with the folds of his paisley silk cravat. “I guess you heard New Orleans has fallen? Yanks will circle us soon. We’ll feel the squeeze.” He idly picked up the garment Sunny had been sewing and pretended to inspect it. However, I doubted he was really seeing it since he made no comment about the braiding. He dropped it abruptly. “No more talk of my doings or the war—do I assume nothing interesting happened while I was gone? Tell me what you ladies have been up to. I missed you.”

“Prove it,” Sunny said boldly, tipping her head to one side.

“Pardon?” Dorian said.

“Prove you missed me.”

His eyes narrowed and he advanced toward her. “Be careful what you ask for, my girl.”

She giggled and I ducked out quickly as his hand slid low around her waist.

Upstairs, a half hour later, I wrote in my journal, although there was little I dared put down on paper. A noise made me pause in mid-stroke. It was a soft, regular sound—stealthy footsteps crossing the upstairs landing. And then the faintest scraping of Sunny’s bedroom door opening, a giggle, breathy whispers, a shushing, the creak of the bed. I closed my ears.

I had been asleep for a while when the patter of rain on the roof awoke me. Usually I loved to lie there listening, but now I worried. The Lodge was bound to leak. Lieutenant Lynd was alone in the pitch dark, unable to move away from dripping water. The aloneness was the worst part. If only his fellow soldier hadn’t died.

I went rigid because another picture came to mind—that of the redheaded corpse lying in the courthouse yard with a gash across his throat. The memory sickened me as always, but now it had a new meaning: there had been a mojo bag about the neck, connecting the corpse with the VanZeldts. Did the lieutenant’s friend Jorgenson, who disappeared as Lieutenant Lynd slept, have red hair?

I was swiftly certain that the body was Jorgenson’s. The VanZeldts had killed the poor man after rescuing him. Why? I sat bolt upright and had to stop myself from leaping out of bed and dashing off to warn Lieutenant Lynd.

How easy it would be to slit the throat of a sleeping cripple in the night.

I told myself that until two days ago I hadn’t even known Lieutenant Lynd existed. Nothing was any more likely to happen to him this morning than at any other time. However, the early chores had never seemed to take so long.

As I swept the kitchen, my thoughts about the soldier were confusing, changing from moment to moment. Was I anxious to see him to warn him? To bring him more food? To show off the fact that I was not the disheveled hoyden I had appeared the day we met? Was I a traitor to the Cause because of all of these things?

“King’s out in the barn,” Laney mentioned. “You better say something to him about that gun. It’s him got it down, don’t you reckon?”

“Probably,” I said, making her move her feet so I could sweep beneath them. “I hate to accuse anyone, though, when we don’t know it for a fact. And even if he did leave it there, he would be devastated if he thought he almost hurt Seeley. He loves that boy.”

“Don’t go accusing. Just warn him to be more careful.”

When I went to the barn for the milking, King was indeed there. His lower lip hung down in concentration as he hunched on top of a barrel, painstakingly polishing his master’s silver spurs and bridle buckles. His shirt gaped open where buttons were missing, showing a massive belly.

I spoke his name.

The big man looked up sluggishly, as if it were an effort to switch his attention.

“Did you hear that Seeley got hold of an old, broken rifle in here yesterday and it exploded when it fired?”

King sat up straighter and his eyes bulged. “Master Seeley all right?”

“Yes, he is,” I hastened to reassure him. “But he might have been killed. Someone had taken the gun from the rafters and left it down low.”

He gave a shake of his bald head. “No, Miss Violet. Didn’t never hear ’bout that. That’s bad. Shouldn’t never leave them things lying around. No, sir.”

Evidently he wasn’t going to admit that it was he who had taken down the gun. “Big people have to watch out for young ones.”

His small eyes squinted as if in pain. “I always tries to look out for Master Seeley. He’s my little friend.”

The spurs King was working on glinted in the morning light.

“Don’t you think those are shiny enough now?” I said.

There was a stubborn set to his lips. “No, Miss Violet. I gots to do it perfect. Master Dorian, he told me to make them perfect, and won’t do to get him mad. Won’t do at all.”

I stood watching the poor man. Dorian, for all his laughter and
winning ways, was persnickety and must be an exacting master. “Do you have another shirt? A second one?”

“Yes’m.”

“Will you go change into it now, while I’m milking the cows, and bring this one to me so I can sew new buttons on it?”

He started to rise, heavy with reluctance, then sank back down. “Sorry to disoblige you, Miss Violet, ma’am, but can’t do that. Not till I finish this work. Master Dorian told me to polish them right quick. Can’t get him mad. No, ma’am.”

“Is Master Dorian so very bad-tempered with you?”

King made no response.

I sighed. “Then bring me this shirt tomorrow, all right?”

“All right, Miss Violet. I’ll do that. Thank you, ma’am.”

Star nickered softly, and I gave her a pat.

After finishing the milking, while Seeley drove the cows to pasture, I scurried upstairs to my bedroom and removed the figurines and packet of letters from their hiding place. I unwrapped the carvings to look upon them once more. Their eyes seemed to be upon me as well. Beautiful, fascinating, and somewhat disturbing. I would miss them.

The string tying the packet was loose. Some of the letters had slipped out, and I caught another glimpse of the spritely Addie’s rounded handwriting. Hastily I stuffed them back in, retied the packet, and slipped everything into my pocket. Now that the owner was no longer a stranger, I was ashamed of reading the letter from his sweetheart. But I was glad I knew about her. It was the sort of thing a girl needed to know about a man.

I still took extra pains with my grooming, combing my hair until
it was silky smooth and adding a pale blue ribbon around my snood and dainty opal earrings to my ears.

As I passed the sitting room on my way to the kitchen, Miss Elsa called out. She beckoned with one thin white hand so that the trailing sleeve of her gauzy gray dressing gown flapped. It was unusual for my stepmother to be awake so early; she must have come down expressly to catch me.

“Violet, darling, could you speak to Michael about my poppies? They simply aren’t growing quickly enough. I only have two remaining bottles.…”

“I’ll talk to him,” I said, entering the room, “even though I’m sure he’s doing whatever can be done. The buds are forming now. At what stage should you harvest them? Do you know?”

She sighed. “Yes, I know. I’ve studied the article I clipped from the
Ladies’ Monthly Home Companion
most carefully. I must wait until the petals drop off naturally, and then the capsules ripen for two weeks after that. But oh, it has been raining, and the instructions say particularly that the plants must be kept dry during blooming time. Michael must do something.…”

Sunny had been standing by the window, the curtain pulled back in her hand as she gazed out. She glanced over her shoulder. “Mama,” she snapped, “Michael can’t control the weather. You’d better ask Violet to speak to God instead.”

Dorian stepped in then, still in his shirtsleeves and fumbling with the cuffs of his white linen shirt. “Morning, y’all.”

“Good morning, kind sir,” Sunny said, sweeping up to him. “Here, let me do that.”

He held out his wrists and she fastened one mother-of-pearl cuff
link. She had begun on the other when, with a provocative look from under her eyelashes, she whisked the stud behind her back and scurried to the opposite side of the room.

“What will you give me for it?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“The devil!” Dorian rolled his eyes. “Not in the mood, Sunny. I’m in a hurry. I’ve business in Tennessee this afternoon. Be a good girl and hand it here.”

She pouted. “You just got back. You’re smuggling from behind the lines, aren’t you? You promised you’d take me next time.”

“And I
will
next time. But not this time. I’m meeting a friend and he doesn’t believe in mixing ladies with business.”

“Does it matter to you what he believes?” she asked with scorn.