The Secret of Mirror House Read online

  "Here, drink this," Nelville said, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding a glass to her lips. She sipped cautiously and tasted a fiery liquor. She tried to shake her head, but he forced the glass back against her lips and she had to drink or have it spill down her dress. She drank, though she stared up at Nelville with angry tears in her black eyes. As she choked and coughed, he allowed her to stop, and in a moment, she was mortified to find that she felt better.

  "I've brought you a bite of supper," he said, turning away and retrieving the tray he had placed on the bedside table. "A chicken breast, a little bread, and a glass of warm milk. Will you eat it like a good girl?"

  There was, under the polite conversational tone, a suggestion that if she didn't eat, there would be another undignified struggle. She nodded, hoping that would satisfy him, but he only waited while she sat up on the side of the bed. Then, he handed her the tray and seated himself on the foot of the bed, prepared to watch her keep her word.

  Silently, she began to eat, though she felt certain that she couldn't swallow a crumb under his steady gaze. But, she found that she was starving. She was a little sorry, when it was all gone, that there had not been more. Feeling warm and replete and curiously light, she lay back down as Nelville rose and took the tray from her unresisting fingers. Her eyes would not focus well, so that she saw Nelville in a mellow glow of candlelight, and she wasn't surprised or alarmed, though somehow it seemed that she should be, when he sat down beside her on the bed and took her cool hand in his warm ones.

  "When I was a little boy," he began quietly, the way you tell a story to a sleepy child, "my daddy bought me a myna bird from a sailor down on the docks. Its feathers were as shining and soft and black as your hair, and its black eyes were as knowing as yours, but not as trusting."

  Amelia listened, not quite understanding, hearing the soft sound of his voice more than his words.

  "I could hold it in my hands," he went on, cupping her hand in both of his, "and it felt as fragile as this and as helpless, and I often thought how easy it would be to crush it. But, I was wrong. It had claws, but most of all it had its trusting eyes. It would look up at me, sitting so still in my hands, and it would say 'Nelville's a bad boy,' and I loved it too much to hurt it. You are the myna bird, Amelia, here in the palm of this house. But, houses don't love people. They weigh them down with old debts and pressures until they are crushed." He avoided her eyes, speaking slowly as if against some scruple. "This house will crush you like it's crushing all of us with its musty, moldy traditions and memories. But, you can get away, tomorrow, before it's too late. Before they can marry you to duty and sell your soul for their share of posterity."

  He reached across her face and picked up a lock of her long black hair that had come free of its pins. Slowly, he let it drift from his fingers and fall across her eyes, her eyes that watched him with such questioning steadiness.

  "Rainbows at midnight, tiny jewels trapped in the silk of woman's hair, who will be trapped in yours, darling little Amelia?" Abruptly, he stood, reaching for his half-filled brandy glass that sat on the table, and cradling it in one hand, he stood staring down at her.

  She lay with her eyes half closed, overcome with weariness and the effect of the unaccustomed drink and the drowsy influence of his presence, which filled her with an emotion she had not as yet thought to analyze. She looked up at him through her lashes, seeing his face twist suddenly with what seemed a painful desperation, as though things he knew gave him unbearable pain. Startled into wakefulness, she asked, "What is the matter?"

  "Never mind," he said, the harsh expression leaving his face to be replaced by the forbidding mask she remembered from the scene in the parlor, and her breath caught in her throat in a return of the fear and confusion of that time.

  He crossed to the door, and with his hand on the knob, turned back. "Don't think," he said, "that I am your ally for the sake of your lovely hair, or that I am any less the ally Mirror House for pity of your plight!" With a quick flip of his wrist, he was through the door and it had clicked shut behind him.

  So quietly did he move that it was a moment before Amelia realized he was really gone. Moving carefully, she swung her feet off the bed and stood. She felt much better, much stronger, even though she did seem to have rubber knees. She searched through her carpetbag for her gown and investigated the commode to find a pitcher of water and some cloths and soap.

  When she finished her toilette, she wandered from window to window feeling languorous and slightly bemused and surprised at how quickly night had fallen. She sat down in the chair between the open front windows and looked out over the gallery to the lake, shining cool and silver black in the light of a rising moon, and at the dew sparkling on the grass. Crickets and katydids shrilled their strangely musical calls in a continuous song, and from the lake came now and then the croak of an amorous bullfrog. A breeze, cooler and fresher than the stale air in the room, wandered in the window, and breathing deeply, Amelia could smell the dust damp with dew, the honeysuckle, and the warm sweet scent of growing things.

  Suddenly, beneath the gallery on the lower porch, she heard quick footsteps followed by steps that were a shuffle and drag. "You are ruining everything, and being a colossal fool in the bargain! Don't you want to be master of Mirror House?" The voice belonged to James, a whispery entreaty that floated up clearly in the still night.

  "Don't be an ass. You are the chosen groom. Don't beat your hands and mock your fate and pretend to share it with me. You at least have more choice than poor little-"

  "Nelville! Have you no discretion? She'll hear you."

  "And why not?" Nelville's voice suddenly lost its mocking tone and became hard. "Why shouldn't we have this open and honest, instead of sidling into it like a bunch of thieves. "Let her choose. She might even do as we want."

  "But, if she doesn't, we have so much to lose." But, James was talking to empty air, for Nelville's footsteps, grating in the gravel of the drive, continued around the house and out of hearing. Below, on the porch, James's halting shuffle retreated into the house and a summer night quiet fell, filled with the sound of the dark that was alive with insects. A mosquito ghosted with his whine through the window, drawn by the candle that still guttered beside the bed, and Amelia slapped at her wrist, where another mosquito was standing on his needle nose. Rubbing the spot, she stared into space, aware with an instinctive knowledge that the quarrel below had concerned her, absorbing a conviction that she should leave now, and thinking that somehow she should leave secretly. She was almost ready to rise, to abdicate to common sense and go, when she heard the sound of hoofbeats. She looked out the window to see a huge roan horse and rider pounding along the drive.

  The horse kept trying to balk at the control of his movements, and he tossed his head with blared nostrils as if enraged with the red-haired man clinging so effortlessly to his back. At the curve of the drive, where it rounded in front of the house, the horse skittered to the side and then reared, his eyes rolling whitely in the moonlight. But, Amelia saw that there was no anger in the horse, only a playful pretense, and she heard the man laugh and the horse whinny and they seemed to be one-a mythical centaur, half man, half beast. As they fought each other in the pale light of the moon, there seemed about them a fierce, wild joy that transfigured them and made them seem unreal. Then, the man conquered and they were gone down the drive, disappearing into the round, black hole in the woods that was the road through the forest.

  Amelia found suddenly that she was holding to the windowsill with aching fingers, and as she released her grip and turned toward the bed, she felt tears begin to slip down her cheeks. Gone was the inclination to leave the house and the complicated and perhaps dangerous lives of her kin. Somewhere inside her there had been born the determination to belong, the determination to have someone of her own to care for and laugh with, to capture for herself a part of that wild exhilarating joy.

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  Chapter Two
r />   IT WAS NOT the soft diffused sunlight flowing out-side the large windows, but someone entering her room that awoke Amelia. Through the gauze of the mosquito netting, she watched a woman advancing cautiously into the room with a tray in one hand. Memory suddenly stirred, bringing scattered, incoherent pieces of the things she had seen and heard the night before, and involuntarily she moved. At the rustle of the bedcovers, the woman stopped.

  "Did I wake you?" she asked, placing the tray on the bedside table and removing the one containing scraps from Amelia's meal of the night before.

  "It doesn't matter," Amelia said, returning the woman's bright smile. "I must have slept a long time."

  "It's around two in the afternoon, but I expect you needed the rest. James said you fainted dead away as you were talking to him and Nelville." She paused in the act of hooking the mosquito netting to the canopy of the bed, so that it draped out of the way. She seemed to be waiting for an answer, for as Amelia said quietly, "Yes, I did," without adding anything else, the woman seemed to relax.

  "I expect it was the heat and the trip and everything," she said smoothly, dismissingly, as she fussed with the tray. "I'm sure your long rest has put everything to rights … Oh! I'm your cousin, Katherine." She looked up with a wry expression of apology for forgetting to introduce herself, but her face also held a trace of annoyance, as though she was mildly angry with herself for forgetting or with Amelia for presenting her with the necessity of an introduction.

  "I'm sorry I overslept," Amelia said uncertainly.

  "No, no, don't get up," Katherine said with her brief bright smile as Amelia started to throw back the covers.

  "Stay in bed the rest of the day if you feet like it." Then, she added, "But, you might want to drink your coffee while it's hot. There is toast and jelly too, if you like. I started to bring a bowl of vegetable soup from dinner, but I thought you might like to start the day from the right end."

  Amelia thanked her and watched her covertly as she moved about the room with energy, flickering at the furniture with a dust cloth she took from a voluminous pocket. Her hair was a faded blond, drawn back in a soft knot at the nape of her neck, which was smooth and white like the soft, plump skin of her face. Her bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle with animation and she moved constantly, though purposefully and with good effect. She had a slightly rounded figure, not too much though for her age, which Amelia took to be around forty.

  Made nervous by so much energy, Amelia slipped out of bed and hunted through her carpetbag for her dressing gown. With it on, she sat on the edge of the bed, sipping her coffee, a rare luxury for her. She felt strangely depressed and ill at ease despite Katherine's friendliness. She had never liked people fussing with her things, and it made her feel uncomfortable to watch Katherine setting her room to rights, a chore she had always performed for herself. Thoughts and memories chased themselves in her mind, and yet little was clear. She seemed to have moved through the happening of the night before in a fog that kept her from seeing and understanding clearly. Whole sentences stood out in her mind, but they seemed to have little rational meaning. Frowning, she shook her head.

  "Something the matter?" Katherine asked, pausing in picking up Amelia's traveling dress from where she had left it at the foot of the bed.

  "No," Amelia answered quickly. "The coffee is very good. You shouldn't spoil me like this." She smiled, trying to overcome her own confusion, then continued, "I haven't thanked you for asking me to stay, with you. I am very grateful."

  "Don't be silly," Katherine replied. "We are glad to have you, someone young, in the house for a change. We hope you will be happy here with us." She glanced down at her hands, then went on, but slowly, as if reluctant to speak. "James also mentioned that Nelville was a little rude. Really, you mustn't think anything of it. Being a young girl living alone with only your mother, I know you have had a fairly sheltered life, but I'm sure you understand men and drink."

  "Yes," Amelia said shortly, unreasonably annoyed at the unconscious patronization in Katherine's tone, as though she were an ignorant schoolgirl and her sheltered life an unavoidable disadvantage.

  But, Katherine was saying, "Poor Nelville. Since the war, he hasn't really been responsible for the things he says while intoxicated, but he is entitled to his relaxation. After all, supervising the hands in the fields, caring for the livestock, seeing that we all have clothes and food and a roof over our heads hasn't been easy these last few years with every sort of scalawag and crooked tax collector to deal with, somehow. I'm sure you will make allowances." She smiled and nodded briefly, as if she were satisfied with the way the conversation had gone, and then carrying the stained travel dress, she crossed to the door. "I'll just have Bessie wash and press this for you, and don't come down until you feel up to it, hear?"

  With another of her quick smiles, she was gone, closing the door behind her with a decisive click. For a long time, Amelia stared at the closed door, wondering why she didn't feel better. Katherine had said the right words, yet somehow she still didn't feel welcome. Or rather, perhaps she did, the same way a turkey feels welcome and coddled before Thanksgiving, though she was immediately shocked at the thought and searched her mind unavailingly for the reason for it.

  When she finished her late breakfast, she dressed in a cool yellow dimity, made her bed, and then looked around for something else to do. Heat poured through the windows and she closed them and pulled the limp white curtains over the glass. She unpacked her bag and put her clothes away in the large wardrobe where they seemed to shrink in shame. There had been little money to spend on clothes in the last few years.

  When she had done all that could be done, she walked around the room wondering at its bareness. There were no rugs to soften the naked boards, and the faded fabric that covered the walls was split and rotted and rusted in spots where nailheads were in the walls. Large spots of white with tiny dark red roses, showing where pictures had once hung, gave the only indication of what the fabric had once been like. A door that had gone unnoticed the night before opened into a small bedroom much like her own, and she shut the door quickly, feeling like an intruder even though it had been bare and empty except for a single bed and a chair. But, there had been a feeling of living in it, as if despite its barrenness, it was in use.

  Looking between the windows on the side of the room, she found a fireplace behind a cheesecloth-covered frame, and she discovered that what she had thought was a shelf was really a mantle.

  Satisfied that the room held no more surprises, she picked up the two trays and went out. A great hall, like the one downstairs, ran through the house with double doors, surrounded by small panes of glass, opening off the hall on each side, and the bannistered stairway was against the wall opposite her room and down the hall a few feet. The great high-ceilinged hall echoed hollowly as she crossed it and went down the stairs.

  Down below, everything was quiet with the sluggish heat of midafternoon. Amelia looked about curiously as she turned toward the back of the house, searching for the kitchen. She set the tray down on the cloth-covered eating table, noticing the cheap plainness of the chairs and the green checkered cloth that looked oddly out of place with the gold-banded, bone china sugarbowl and salt and pepper shakers that were serving as a centerpiece on the table.

  Hearing voices, she went toward the open door on the right and entered what was obviously a kitchen. A large black stove against one wall gave off enough heat to make the room stifling. Seated at a table near an open window, Katherine had been making entries in an open book, but as Amelia paused in the doorway, she was talking earnestly to a tall, dark-haired woman dressed in riding clothes, and pointing her pen for emphasis.

  The dark-haired woman's face was sullen and tight with some guarded emotion, though she nodded in what seemed a reluctant agreement.

  "We must all forget our preferences," Katherine was saying in her calm, reasonable voice. "You must see that this is the only way; otherwise, we don't know where we stand. We co
uld lose everything." Looking up, she saw Amelia and immediately smiled. "Come in, Amelia, and meet another of your cousins. This is Reba, my brother Sylvestor's wife. You two should become good friends, since you are near the same age."

  Reba glanced sardonically at Katherine, then her dark eyes surveyed Amelia coldly from under high-winged brows. Her hair was pulled severely back giving her a Spanish look of austerity that was heightened by a fine white shirt and long brown riding skirt and leather boots. She might have been thirty, certainly not Amelia's age as Katherine had suggested, and she was handsome, almost beautiful, except for an aura of coldness and a discontented mouth. A nod of her head was the only response to the introduction. "I had started for a ride," she said, indicating with a slight wave the riding crop that had been hidden in the folds of her skirt, and then she walked quickly from the room as if she didn't trust herself to say more.

  "I will be tied up here a little longer," Katherine said with a grimace toward her account book. "Perhaps, you would like to see the grounds … well, there really isn't much to call grounds, but there is a lovely little naturalistic garden near the lake. I could join you there later if I get the chance." There seemed to be as much dismissal as suggestion in her voice.

  "Isn't there something I could do to help?" Amelia asked.

  "No, I don't think so, at least, not today. You should take it slowly, you know. It's best not to overdo in this bheat."

  "I feel perfectly well now," Amelia protested, thinking that the hot kitchen was not an ideal place for Katherine either. Her upper lip was beaded with perspiration and her gray-blond hair clung to her forehead in damp tendrils.

  "Anyway, I would feel better if you would let us pamper you a bit," Katherine said with a firm smile, and pointedly returned to her books.

  In defeat, Amelia retraced her steps back down the hall and out the front doors. She hesitated at the steps, feeling the afternoon heat like a solid wall waiting beyond the shade of the porch.