P. N. Elrod - Barrett 03, page 21
Jericho, being extremely familiar with my habits, had built the fire up into a fine big blaze during my absence and set out my slippers and dressing gown. I listened intently for a moment to the sounds of the house. Jericho was in the kitchen exchanging light conversation with the coachman and the cook. I couldn't quite make out the words, but the voices were calm, ordinary in tone, indicating that all was peaceful belowstairs. Just as well.
The itch in my chest was no more. A second look at the place of my wounding both assured and astonished me. All trace of red was gone, and the scar appeared to be weeks old. In time, most probably after my next vanishing, it would disappear altogether.
Suddenly shivering, I pulled a chair closer to the fire and sat miserably huddled in my cloak.
I thought of Father, missing him and his sensible, comforting manner with me whenever life became troubling.
"You should be glad that you still have a life to be troubled about," I muttered aloud. God knows with the times being what they were, had I not been cut down by that fool at the Captain's Kettle over a year ago, I'd have met a bad fate soon after.
And recovered from it. Because of my change.
A nasty sort of unease oozed through my belly as I pondered on how things might have been had I not met Nora. Without her, I'd have certainly stayed in my early grave; Elizabeth would be dead as well, foully and horribly murdered. That would have shattered Father, to lose us both.
I shivered again and told myself to stop being so morbid. It was all because of that damned duel and that damned Thomas Ridley. The thought of him filled me with fury and disgust, the former for his picking the fight, the latter for his stupidity in continuing it. Blooding aside, I'd not enjoyed my revenge against him. My hand could still feel how my blade had stabbed into the tough resistance of his fleshy arm until it grated upon and was stopped by the bone beneath. A singularly unpleasant sensation, that. He'd be weeks healing, unless it became fevered, and then he'd either lose the arm or die.
Well, as with everything else, it was in God's hands. No need for me to wallow in guilt for something not my fault. Yes, I had wanted to kill him for his insult to Elizabeth, but that desire had gone out of me after the first shock of my own wound had worn off. It was as if I'd seen just how foolish he was, like a child trying to threaten an adult. To be sure, he was a very dangerous child, but he'd no earthly idea of just how overmatched he'd been with me. And I . . . I'd forgotten the extent of my own capabilities, which made me a fool as well.
No more of that, Johnny Boy, I thought, shaking my head.
Warmer, I threw off the cloak, exchanging it for the dressing gown, and struggled to remove my boots. I'd just gotten my left heel lifted free, ready to slip the rest of the way out, when someone began knocking at the front door.
Damnation, what now? Slamming my foot back into the boot, I made my frustrated way to the central hall and peered through one of the windows flanking the entrance.
A man wrapped in a dark cloak stood outside. For a mad second I thought he might be Ridley because of his size, but the set of his shoulders was more squared and there was nothing amiss with his right arm. He turned and raised it now to knock again and I caught his profile.
Cousin Edmond Fonteyn? What on earth did he want?
Probably come to berate me about the duel. He was something of a dogsbody to Aunt Fonteyn—and to her only—and if she wasn't of a mind to vent her doubtless acid opinion of the matter herself, she'd have sent him in her stead. Not that I had a care for the substitution or even his presence. So much had happened tonight that I was simply unable to raise my usual twinge of guilt from having hung the cuckold's horns on him that Christmas years past.
"I'll get it, sir," said Jericho, emerging from the back.
"I'm already here, no need." Obligingly, I unbolted and opened the door, and Edmond swept in, seeming to fill the hall. It was not his size alone that did it, so much as his manner. Stick-in-the-mud he might be, according to Oliver, but when he entered a room, people noticed.
"Hallo, Edmond," I began. "If it's about the duel, I can tell you—"
"Bother that," he said, his brown eyes taking in the hall, noting Jericho's presence, then fastening on me. "Where's Oliver?"
"In bed by now."
"Have him fetched without delay."
Edmond always looked serious, but there was a dark urgency to him now that made my flesh creep with alarm. I signed to Jericho. He'd already started up the stairs.
"There's a fire going in the parlor," I said, gesturing him in the right direction.
He frowned at me briefly, then accepted the invitation, striding ahead without hurry. Under the cloak he still wore his Harlequin guise, though he'd traded the white skullcap for a normal hat. He wore no wig, revealing his close-cropped, graying hair. It should have made him seem vulnerable, half-dressed in some way, but did not.
"What's all this about?" I asked.
His eyes raked me up and down, caught mine, then turned toward the fire. "Duel," he said. There was derision in his tone, like that of a schoolmaster for an especially backward student.
"What about it?"
"Never mind, it's of no importance."
"Then tell me what's going on."
"You'll know soon enough," he growled.
Very well, then, I'd not press things. It seemed forever, though, waiting for Oliver to come down. Edmond was throwing off tension like a fire throws off heat; I could almost feel myself starting to scorch from it. Relief flooded me when Oliver finally appeared, clad also in a dressing gown, but wearing slippers, not boots.
Sleepily he glanced past Edmond to me, as if asking for an explanation. I could only shrug.
"Oliver—" Edmond paused to brace himself. "Look, I'm very sorry, but something terrible has happened, and I don't quite know how to tell you."
All vestige of sleep fell away from Oliver's face at these alarming words. "What's happened?" he demanded.
"What?" I said at the same time.
"Your mother . . . there's been an accident."
"An acci—what sort of—where is she?"
"At the Bolyns'. She had a fall. We think she slipped on some ice."
"Is she all right?" Oliver stepped forward, his voice rising.
"She struck her head in the fall. I'm very sorry, Oliver, but she's dead."
———abbb——————abbb——————abbb———
In England, for those in high enough and wealthy enough circles, funerals were customarily held at night, which was just as well for me as it would have raised some comment had I not attended, but then I only wanted to be there for Oliver's sake and not my own.
The weather was atrocious, all bitterly cold wind and cutting sleet—most appropriate, considering Aunt Fonteyn's temperament. Her final chance to inflict one last blast of misery upon her family, I thought, cowering with the rest of the family as we followed the coffin to its final destination. I walked on one side of Oliver, Elizabeth on the other, offering what support we could with the bleak knowledge that it was not enough. For days since the delivery of the bad news, the color had drained right out of his face and had yet to return. He was as gray and fragile as an old man; his eyes were disturbingly empty, as if he'd gone to sleep but forgotten to close them.
I hoped that once the horror of the interment was over, he might begin to recover himself. The ties are strong between a mother and child, whether they love each other or not; when those ties are irreparably severed, the survivor is going to have a strong reaction of some kind. For all his years of abuse from her, for all his mutterings against her, she was, as he'd said, the only mother he'd got. Even if he'd come to hate her, she'd still been a major influence in his life, unpleasant, but at least familiar. Her sudden absence would bring change, and changes are frightening when one is utterly unprepared for them. Certainly I could attest to the absolute truth of that in light of my past experience with death and the profound change it had delivered, to my family.
The memory of my demise came forcibly back as we shivered here in the family mausoleum a quarter mile from Fonteyn House. No mixing with other folk in the churchyard for this family; the Fonteyns would share eternity with their own kind, thank you very much; and no muddy graves, either, but a spacious and magnificent sepulcher fit for royalty, large enough to hold many future generations of their ilk.
The huge structure had been built by Grandfather Fonteyn, who was presently moldering in a carved marble sarcophagus a few yards from where I stood. His eldest daughter's coffin was even now being pushed into its nearby niche by the pallbearers. Tomorrow its stone cover with a brass plate bearing her name would be mortared into place on the wall.
As depressing as it was to stand here surrounded by the Fonteyn dead, it was preferable to standing 'round a gaping hole in the ground with the sleet stinging the backs of our necks. The cloying scent of freshly turned earth might have been too much for me, though being at a funeral, period, was bad enough. The same went for Elizabeth, for she not only had memories of my burial to wrestle with, but those of James Norwood's, too.
I glanced over to see how she was holding up, and she gave me a thin but confident smile meant to reassure. Much of her attention was concentrated on Oliver, which was probably why she was able to get through this at all.
Sheet-white and shaking miserably with the cold, he looked ready to fall over. He wasn't drunk, and he should have been; he was in sore need of some muzzy-headed insulation from what was happening. He stared unfocused at his mother's coffin as they pushed it into place, and I had no doubt that every detail was searing itself forever into his battered mind.
He must have help, I thought, and wondered what I could possibly do for him. No shred of an idea presented itself though. Perhaps later, after we were out of this damned death house, I could come up with something.
The service finally concluded. Since I'd not listened to one word of it, I knew only by the last amens and general stir about me. No mourners lingered in this torch-lit tomb. As one, we left Elizabeth Therese Fonteyn Marling to God's mercy and all but galloped back through the crusty mud and snow to the lights and warmth of Fonteyn House.
The servants had set up a proper feast for the occasion, and the family set to it with an unseemly gusto. Soon the gigantic collection of cold joints, pies, sweets, hams, and lord knows what else began to steadily disappear from the serving trays. The drink also suffered a similar swift depletion, but no one became unduly loud or merry from all the flowing Madeira. Oliver, I noted, never went near the groaning tables.
Very bad, that, I thought.
There had been an inquiry about Aunt Fonteyn's death, but only a brief one, since it was obvious to all that it had been an accident. She'd been found in the center of the Bolyns' shrubbery maze, having had the bad luck of somehow slipping on a patch of ice and striking her head on the edge of the marble fountain there. Some servant had found her and raised the alarm. A doctor was sent for, but her skull had been well and truly broken; nothing could be done. At least it had been quick and relatively painless, people had said; that should be something of a comfort to her family. After all, there were worse ways to die.
Of the talk I overheard or participated in, it was universally agreed how unfair and awful it was, but then God's will was bound to be a mystery to those who still lived. Thankfully, Cousin Edmond assumed the duties of making arrangements for the funeral. A lawyer himself, he moved things quickly along out of deference for Oliver's condition, and three nights later most of the family had gathered at Fonteyn House to pay their last respects.
If everyone had not been garbed in black, it might have been another Fonteyn Christmas. All the usual crowd was present, and one by one they expressed their sympathy to Oliver. Some of them, being sensitive to his downcast countenance, were even sincere.
One or two latecomers were ushered in by the sad-faced mute hired for the task. Gloves and rings had been distributed to the closest relatives; I'd gotten a silk hat hand and chamois gloves, all black. God knows what I'd do with them, being unable to truly hold any grief in my heart for the foul-minded old hag, but I was expected to put on a show of it, nonetheless. Hypocritical to be sure, but I took comfort from the fact that I could hardly be the only member in this gathering with such feelings. Aunt Fonteyn had not been the sort of person to inspire deep and sincere mourning from anyone in their right senses . . . then I suddenly thought of Mother and just in time whipped out a handkerchief to cover my painfully twitching mouth before betraying a highly improper grin to the room.
The only thing that settled me was the knowledge that I'd have to write home with the news. Father wouldn't have an easy time of it—not that he ever did—once Mother learned about the demise of the sister she doted upon. With that in mind I was just able to play my part, nodding at the right times and murmuring the right things and trying to keep my eye on Oliver as much as possible.
He was still hemmed in by a pack of relatives and not too responsive to whatever they were saying. Elizabeth was with him, doing her best to make up for his lack. Oh, well, no one would think badly of him for it and only put it off to grief.
My lovely cousin Clarinda moved in and out through the crowds, having assumed the duties of hostess for him. I could not honestly say that black suited her; tonight she looked almost as drawn as Oliver. Though far more animated than he, her natural liveliness was well dampened owing to the circumstances. We'd exchanged formal greetings earlier, neither of us giving any sign of having a shared secret. I suspected, given Clarinda's obvious appetite for willing young men, that our particular encounter had faded quite a bit in her memory. Not that I felt slighted in any way; relief would best describe my reaction if this proved to be so.
I moved among the various relatives as well, shaking a hand here, bowing to a lady there, but inevitably ending up with a group of the men as they spoke in low tones about the tragedy. As there was actually very little one could say about it, and since it was considered bad taste to speak ill of the departed, no matter how deserving, the topics of talk soon shifted from things funereal to things political. The dispiriting details of General Burgoyne's surrender were now in the papers, and the men here had formed the idea that I could somehow tell them more than what had appeared in print. But with my mind on Oliver's problems, I had no interest in discussing the situation in the Colonies tonight.
"Forgive me, gentlemen, but I know only as much as you do from your reading," I said, trying to put them off.
"But you're from the area, from New York," insisted one of my many Fonteyn cousins.
"I'm from Long Island, and it's as far away from Saratoga as London is from Plymouth—and with far worse roads in between."
This garnered some discreet laughter.
"But you weren't so very far from the general fighting yourself if Oliver is to be believed."
"I've been close enough, sir. There have been some incidents near our village concerning the rebels, but the King's army has things well in hand now." I hope, I silently added, feeling the usual stab of worry for Father whenever I thought of home.
"You're being too modest, Mr. Barrett," said another young man, one of the many in the crowd. I had a strong idea he was here more for the feasting than to pay his respects. He was a handsome fellow and familiar, since I'd seen him before at other gatherings, but nameless like dozens of others. "I believe by now all of you know that your cousin here is a rare fire-eater when it comes to battle," he added. "Perhaps some of you were there at the Bolyns' party and saw him in action."
I didn't like his manner much or the fact he'd brought up the subject of the duel. Unfortunately, the other men were highly interested and wanted a full recountal of the event.
"Gentlemen, this is hardly an appropriate time or place," I said, being as firmly discouraging as possible.
"Oh, but we may never have another opportunity," the young man drawled with expansive insistence. "I think we'd all like to hear how you defeated Mr. Thomas Ridley after he'd so grievously wounded you."
"Hardly so grievous or I'd not be here, sir."
More suppressed expressions of good humor.
"Do you call me a liar, sir?" he said slowly, deliberately, and worst of all, with no alteration in his pleasant expression.
Great heavens, I'd dreaded that some idiot might turn up and make a nuisance of himself by wanting to provoke a duel with me, but I hadn't expected it to happen so soon and leastwise not at Aunt Fonteyn's funeral. Those around us went very still waiting for my answer.
I could have found a graceful way of getting out of it, but the man's obvious insult was too annoying to disregard. "Your name, sir?" I asked, keeping my own voice and expression as bland as possible.
"Arthur Tyne, sir. Thomas Ridley's cousin."
If he expected me to blanch in terror at this revelation, he was in for a vast disappointment. "Indeed? I trust and pray that the man is recovering from his own wound."
"You have not answered me, Mr. Barrett," he said, putting an edge into his tone that was meant to be menacing.
"Only because I thought you were making a jest, sir. It seemed polite that I should overlook it, since we are all here to pay our solemn respects to the memory of my aunt."
"That was no jest, sir, but a most earnest inquiry. Are you prepared to answer?"
"You astound me, Mr. Tyne. Of course I did not call you a liar."
"I find you to be most insolent, sir."
"Which is not too surprising; poor Aunt Fonteyn often made the same complaint against me." If some of those around us were shocked by my honesty, then more were struggling not to show their amusement.
"Are you deaf? I said you are most insolent, Mr. Barrett."
"Not deaf, only agreeing with you, dear fellow." I fixed my eyes and full concentration upon him. "Certainly you can find no exception to that."
