I awoke to silence and the feeling that I had slept much too long. The feeling grew, and with it came a heavy sense of something that had to be done. I sat up abruptly, and as I did the memories of the previous day flooded over me.
I was home.
As irrational as that thought might have seemed, even yesterday I had known it was true.
I plumped the pillow into the corner of the sofa and pulled myself into a sitting position against it, looking at the room I had first seen the night before. A square gas heater sat in front of the fireplace, its flat metal top painted to give the appearance of wood grain. On top of the stove sat a bucket, steam rising from the water within it. From behind the stove, copper tubing snaked along the wall, disappearing through a neatly taped opening in a window. A spotless aluminum coffeepot sat on a nearby propane burner, and I became aware of the aroma of freshly perked coffee.
Even the servants' quarters showed the care that had gone into the building of the house, and the neglect it had endured. The room I studied also bore signs of Martha's caring. The glass in the windows sparkled; no gray here. The wooden mantel, smaller, less elaborate than those downstairs, glowed from recent polishings, and the hardwood floor, although worn, was clean and freshly waxed.
The coffee summoned me from under the quilt at last. I wondered about Martha's absence. The coffee was hot. A clean cup sat beside the hot plate, next to the kerosene lamp we had used the night before. I started to wander into the adjoining rooms but felt suddenly reticent about invading Martha's quarters without her, even though she had already given me a tour.
I took my coffee back to the couch and snuggled under the quilt, knees drawn up, while I studied the room. An electric light fixture, brass, with two etched glass globes, hung from the ceiling. There were two electric outlets, but nothing was plugged into them: no radio, no television, no clock, no lamp. Behind one of the doors across the room was a large, old-fashioned bathroom, complete with a floor of tiny ceramic tile, a claw-footed tub, and a separate shower. Also inoperative. No electricity. I remembered Martha's words as she had shown me the bathroom, before leaving me there with a bucket of water heated on her makeshift stove.
"It's the pump," she had said. "It won't work without electricity, if it will work at all now, and the power company won't agree to turn on the service until an electrician checks out the bare wires in the house."
"Even if McCollum asked them to?"
She looked at me and sighed.
"And he won't have the wires checked?"
She avoided my eyes.
It seemed that nothing in this enigma of a house worked without electricity, except for the huge coal-fired furnace in the cellars I had not yet seen. That simply didn't work. And except for Martha. I didn't understand why she expended so much effort on the house. Or maybe I did, after listening to her last night as we stood in the bathroom, as she ran her hand, almost caressingly, over the gleaming fixtures.
"They used to talk about this house when I was growing up," she had told me. "About how the colonel kept adding to it, modernizing it, and keeping it so fine, even at the last, just as though he was waiting . . ." She suddenly became very interested in the spot she was polishing, but her eyes didn't lose their faraway look. "And I used to dream about how it would look, dream so hard I could almost see inside without ever coming up the hill."
I heard a door slam below, bringing me back to the reality of hot coffee and bright morning sunshine. Footsteps paused outside the door, and then Martha entered, lugging a pail of water.
"Oh, you're awake," she said pleasantly as she put the bucket she carried beside the other one on the stove. "I should have seen that you got to bed proper last night, but you were so tired I just covered you up and let you sleep. I hope you don't mind."
I shook my head, and she turned back to the first bucket, testing its contents with a tentative finger. "Good," she said. "The water is just about right."
I shrugged out of the quilt and walked over to where she stood. She wouldn't take my thanks for the extra effort I caused her, I had tried to offer them the night before and only embarrassed her. I looked out the window. A solitary hawk circled over the slope of the overgrown hillside. Other than that, the hilltop was still. Still, quiet, and lonely. Waiting. Or so it seemed to me. As the colonel had waited? As I had waited? And then I wondered where that thought had come from.
Closing my eyes, I threw back my head, twisting it, trying to ease the sudden tightness in my neck. In my throat. In my heart. I hugged myself against the chill I felt standing in front of the lighted stove.
"I'd better get dressed," I said finally. "It's time for me to meet Stanley McCollum."
Richards Spur did not appear as inviting as it had the day before. A harsh, cold wind blew, pounding a loose shutter against an unseen wall as I parked in front of the general store. The yellow dust and grit flung by the wind bit into my face and hands and tore at my hair beneath its restraining band as I hurried through the door.
Marie LeFlore waited in the rocker. Hesitantly I walked to her and dropped to my knees beside her, taking her hands in mine.
"Good morning, child," she said, tightening her fragile fingers around mine. "Did you sleep well?"
"Beautifully," I told her, wanting to ask her what she had meant by her last, cryptic words to me, wanting to tell her about the strange occurrences that had shaken me, and sensing somehow that this woman held a key that I needed.
"You did?" Louise Rustin's voice broke in before I could begin.
"Yes." I rose to my feet, trying not to let my annoyance at her interruption show. She stared at me dumbly, as though I were lying, and when she remained silent, I sighed, remembering my reason for being there. "May I use your telephone?"
I thought for a moment she was going to refuse. Instead she agreed grudgingly, then busied herself nearby, listening, I was sure, to every word as I placed the call.
Mr. McCollum was in conference and couldn't be disturbed before noon. At least that was what his secretary coolly informed me.
I felt a knot of frustration lodge within me as I replaced the receiver. He had expected my arrival this morning; surely it wasn't too much to presume that he would see me. Think power. The thought came uninvited. Toward a penniless orphan from Columbus, Ohio, his actions were still rude, but as the possible heir of a large estate, one for which he was responsible, wasn't I entitled to a little more than "poor relation" status?
"Eliza." Marie's voice stopped me as I reached for the door.
"Elizabeth, Grandmother," Louise snapped. "If you're going to call Miss Richards by her first name, at least get it right." She glared at Marie and at me before disappearing into the rear of the store.
"Eliza."
I went to her and took the quivering hand she held out to me.
"He never meant it to be this way," she said, answering my unspoken questions and creating more in my mind. "He wanted everything to be perfect for you."
I clasped her frail hand, wanting to ask so much more and yet afraid of what I might hear. "Thank you," I said, meeting her smile.
The drive from Richards Spur to Fairview didn't take long. It didn't take long at all, because the farther I went, the angrier I became at McCollum's attitude, and the angrier I became, the harder I pushed the accelerator. Along with the anger came questions. David Richards had built the house and maintained it in style until his death. He had left it in trust, meaning for it to be maintained until claimed by someone—a specific someone. Why? And who? And what I was experiencing was nothing new to me, I knew that now, just more intense. Memory? It felt like memory. More real, more clear than any memory I had from my childhood. But if it was memory—was I Eliza? Marie LeFlore seemed to think so. My hands shook on the steering wheel. Marie LeFlore was ancient.
Reality. Reality. Gran's words hammered at me. I gripped the wheel. This was reality. A stingy trustee was reality. A neglected house was reality. And I held on to all of them until I reached Fairview, a town that was a curious mixture of the very new and the very old. I drove past acres of earth-moving machinery and oil-field drilling equipment, past bright new shopping centers, modern schools, and sleekly designed housing developments, to the heart of the town, which, except for traffic lights and parking meters and false fronts on some of the buildings, could have been the model for a turn-of-the-century painting.
I located the bank building with no trouble. It was the tallest in town, three stories, with a clock and a beautiful stone front that, unlike the surrounding structures, wasn't hidden by metal paneling. Inside, though, the building was new. Electric heat surrounded me, and my feet sank into plush carpet. The noises of calculators and typewriters were subdued behind soundproofed walls and insulated glass.
The young woman at the front desk looked at me, clearly wondering who I might be. She appraised me and decided to be pleasant. "May I help you?"
"Mr. McCollum's office."
"Second floor, front office." Her telephone buzzed discreetly, and she turned to it, forgetting me before I crossed the hall and mounted the stairs. A lovely old banister graced the stairwell, and I had a sudden vision of those other stairs, with their crumbling varnish and crude bolts marring the paneling.
McCollum's secretary was as cool and impersonal as her telephone voice, and just as firm. "I told you. He is in conference. He cannot be disturbed before noon. If you'd care to leave a telephone number where you can be reached, I'll contact you for him at his convenience."
At his convenience. It seemed to me that too many things had been done at Stanley McCollum's convenience, or not done at all. He didn't like me, he didn't want me there, and I doubted there was anything I could do to make things better, or worse. I looked at the closed door behind her and walked toward it.
"You can't go in there," she said again as I opened the door.
He sat behind a large teak desk. "None of the others—" His voice broke off as I entered.
He studied me silently for a moment, as I studied him, then nodded at his secretary. Quietly she left the room, closing the door behind her. I approached his desk, not sure now what I would say. He was younger than I expected, handsome in a manner some women would find appealing, carefully and expensively tailored, styled, and turned out.
"Mr. McCollum," I said, choosing my words and keeping my voice as low and controlled as I could. "That house is uninhabitable."
What could have passed for a smile crossed his face, and he visibly relaxed in his oversized leather chair. "Miss Richards. I heard that you had gone directly to the house last night. I wish you had listened to my advice or had at least seen me first; we might have been able to save you some discomfort." He shuffled through the one folder on his desk and brought forth a typewritten document which he held toward me. "But since you didn't . . . please sit down. Now as I explained previously, since you have been unable to stay in the house, it will be necessary for you to sign this relinquishment."
I stared at him in amazement. He thought—he actually thought—I would give up this quickly, this easily? "I'm not talking about my ability to stay in the house," I told him, brushing aside the paper and refusing the chair. "I'm talking about the condition to which you have let it deteriorate."
"Living there for the required year does mean sleeping there, too," he said, the condescension in his voice giving me yet another reason to dislike him.
"I slept there last night."
His smile faded. "All night?"
He ought to get himself a direct line to Louise Rustin, I thought; their questions were remarkably similar. "Thank you for the concern over my sleeping patterns," I told him, "but I will say this once more, and only once. I slept there last night. I slept as comfortably as possible considering the lack of heat, electricity, or running water. I slept soundlessly, dreamlessly, and late."
A bead of perspiration popped out on his upper lip.
"Now it's my turn to ask a question," I went on, prompted by a strength and a knowledge I didn't understand. "What is he annual allowance for maintenance of the property?"
He leaned back in his chair, studying me. His eyes narrowed, his lips thinning in a parody of a smile. "The figures are none of your concern at this time. The amount is . . . adequate."
I seemed to have tapped some inner source of courage that I'd never known I had. "Then I'd like to know what you've done with the money, because you certainly haven't spent it on the house."
He sat up in his chair, a retort framed, but I continued. "Not this year, nor the year before, nor the year before that. You haven't spent a cent on the house in the past seven years, and very little before that."
I took the paper he still held, glanced at it, and tore it in half. "No. I'm not relinquishing anything. On the contrary, I'm demanding what I think must be available. Funds to make the house livable. A cleaning crew, electricians, skilled laborers to undo some of the damage you have allowed to happen, and the keys, because I don't intend to spend the rest of this year taking doors off hinges and picking locks."
Picking up the pieces of the paper I had dropped on his desk, he glanced at them, at me, then at some point over my shoulder. "I'm sure you know that most of your demands are unreasonable."
I shook my head. "What I'm sure of is that not once in the past seven years have you been as negligent in deducting your fees for management of the trust as you have been in fulfilling your obligations."
"Young lady," he said, rising to his feet. "I don't know who you think you are to—"
"I'm Elizabeth Richards," I told him. I looked at him steadily. Then, with a deep, quiet confidence, I said, "I meet those requirements for inheritance set out by David Richards in his will. I have come to claim what is mine."
Once again he glanced behind me. His lips tightened to no more than a thin line against his chiseled features.
"The keys, please," I said in the same calm voice that had carried me through the past moments.
He looked at me then, his eyes cold and angry, and nodded abruptly. "They're in the vault. I'll see that they're brought up." Then, without another word, he left the room.
"Well done, Cousin."
I stiffened at the softly spoken, lightly mocking words as I realized who must be standing behind me. McCollum's interrupted conference. John Richards? The cousin I had not known of until the day before? I turned to face him and then had to grasp the edge of the desk. I stared at the long, lean figure posed so confidently across the room, at the face that had become so familiar to me. "David?" I whispered the name before I could stop myself, knowing even as I did so how wrong I was.
"Hardly." He laughed harshly and moved closer to me. "Thank God I don't have the name, too."
Then I saw his eyes and the look of possession that claimed me before he masked it. "It's a remarkable resemblance, isn't it?" he went on. "A genetic fluke, a throwback. One more thing to keep his memory alive."
The bitterness in his voice denied the heritage for which David had fought so hard, denied the goodness I now knew he had possessed.
"But don't hold the fact that I look like our crazy ancestor against me, will you? I assure you, I've hated this face since I first saw it reflected in a history book."
His gaze raked over me, inventorying each inch of my appearance, and then returned to my face. "Do you know what it's like to have people constantly comparing you with someone long dead? To know they're saying, 'He looks just like crazy David Richards who built his own castle and still couldn't be king'?"
I was incapable of speech, reacting completely out of proportion to what the encounter demanded. The desk supported me as his words and his bitterness battered at me.
"Of course you don't. But take care, Cousin, that they don't say, 'There goes crazy Elizabeth Richards, who thinks she has a right to live in that castle.' "
McCollum returned. Somehow I took the box of keys from him. Somehow I walked across the room. When I opened the door, I paused, gripping the knob as I had the desk. My breath, rapid now, scraped in my chest and grated in my throat. The expression in John's eyes once again claimed me. I turned, avoiding the image I now knew I had longed to see, and faced the once again self-assured man who stood between us.
Somehow, my voice didn't break. "I believe there are provisions for a housekeeper's salary. I also believe that Martha Wilson has earned that salary."
Somehow, holding on to the beautiful old banister, I made my knees hold me upright as I started down the flight of stairs. They seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, and the faintest glimmers of a memory began hammering at my mind echoing as relentlessly as John Richards's words.
Somehow I was in my car, through the city, and on my way back to Richards Spur. When I neared the hill, his face appeared before me, blinding my vision. I felt tears creeping down my cheeks, although I didn't know the reason for them. A fresh load of trash had been dumped on the pile near the gate, spilling out into the road, but I didn't see it until I was upon it. I swerved, and the car skidded on the loose dirt and into a leaning fence post, which snapped with the impact. The car came to a shuddering stop beneath the pines, and I leaned my head on the steering wheel, surrendering to what I was very much afraid was inevitable, to the images crowding against me. . . .
"You don't go into the woods, now, you hear me? That hell-born horse of your father's can just stay lost before I let you get hurt lookin' for him."
"Yes, Bessie," Eliza said patiently, but she didn't heed the warning. Bessie was always worrying about her. She wandered across the narrow neck of the forest and sat beside a creek overlooking a clearing and the fence that separated her father's land from Jameson's. That vile stallion had destroyed the vegetable garden before escaping, but she was half-inclined to thank him for it, because only fear of her father's wrath had prompted Bessie to let Eliza leave the tenuous protection of the house's grounds by herself.
Oh, drat the roan! Her father was going to have an absolute fit when he came home if the stallion was still missing, especially after having gone to so much trouble to hide the horse from both armies.
She heaved a sigh, rose and dusted her skirts, and was taking one final look at the clearing when she saw him. At first she thought it was the roan, running free, but as it came closer, she saw that it was not her father's horse, and that there was a rider, one who rode as she had never seen anyone ride before. He seemed a part of the animal, crouched low against it, urging it onward.
"Oh, don't try that fence," she whispered as he drew near the briar-covered barrier.
Shots rang out behind him as a troop of Yankee cavalry broke from Jameson's woods. The rider's speed never once checked as he raced toward the fence. Another volley of shots sounded as the horse cleared the top rail, and she thought she saw the rider fumble, but onward he came, never slowing, toward her.
The Yankees' horses balked at the fence, and she laughed with delight as one soldier was unseated into the briars.
"Come on," she silently urged the lone rider. "You can make it." She saw his dark hair caught by the wind, his long, slender hands on the horse's neck, the stain spreading across his gray jacket.
For the first time, the war came close to Eliza. For the first time she realized it was more than parades of young men marching gaily off to whip the Yankees, more than the privations that her household was finally feeling in spite of her father's hoarding. For a moment it stunned her.
She saw the spot where the soldier would enter the woods and hurried toward it. She reached it just after he did. He had turned to look back over the clearing. His breath came in ragged gasps and he slumped in the saddle, his lips compressed against the pain. His horse was lathered in sweat, its sides heaving. A twig snapped beneath her foot, and the soldier whirled, revolver drawn.
"That fence won't hold them long," she told him. "Send your horse on and follow me."
"You're little more than a child," he said, panting.
"Will a Yankee bullet know that?"
Without another word he slid from the saddle, turned the horse into the woods, and slapped it on the flank, sending it clamoring through the underbrush.
He stumbled. Instantly she was beside him, guiding his arm over her shoulder. She slid her arm around him, feeling the warmth of his blood through her sleeve. As quickly and quietly as possible she led him through the forest. He tried at first to walk alone, but by the time they reached the edge of the woods behind her home, she was supporting most of his weight.
Bessie stood beside the barn, looking toward the trees, and when they came into sight, she ran to them, her huge bulk and aprons flapping.
"Lord, child, what have you gone and found?"
"Just help me get him into the house," Eliza said, now breathing almost as raggedly as the soldier.
Upstairs, in her ruffled white bedroom, Eliza pulled out the chair before her dressing table, and the soldier collapsed onto it. While Bessie prepared the bed, Eliza removed his gun belt and helped him out of his jacket. She saw him bite back a moan as she worked the jacket off his shoulders and reached into her embroidery basket for scissors to cut away his shirt over the wound. She drew back when she exposed the ravaged flesh, and had to turn her eyes away. Taking a deep breath, she tossed the bloody fabric beside the washbasin and searched the basket for a strip of linen. Finding it, she turned back to him, her hand once again steady. She had just dampened the cloth and started to cleanse the ragged wound when hoofbeats sounded on the drive.
"They must not find me yet," were the first words he spoke. There was no fear in his voice, but it was low and hoarse.
"They won't," Eliza promised him, promised herself. "Bessie, turn back the mattress on the far side."
He shook his head, trying to smile. "That won't work, girl. That's one of the first places they'll look."
She helped him to his feet. "No gentleman is going to search a lady's bed when she's in it."
There was no time for anything else. Pressing the linen against his wound, she helped him into the bed, placed his revolver in his hand, his belt beside him, his jacket under his head. "Whatever happens, don't move until I tell you to."
Quickly, she and Bessie spread the feather bed over him, smoothing the covers. The horses were at the door.
"Hurry, Bessie. Downstairs. Tell them he stole father's roan stallion and rode east."
Bessie started out the door.
"Your apron," Eliza whispered. "Give me your apron. It's bloody."
Voices sounded from the porch. "Here's fresh blood, Captain." They were pounding on the door. Eliza looked at the bloody scene around her, at her sleeve that was soaked through. No time. There was no time.
"Try to stall them, Bessie." They would not find him. No matter what, they would not find him.
The front door was flung open; Bessie started down the stairs.
"Where is that rebel savage?" a voice called out.
Eliza heard Bessie trying to talk to them, trying to keep them from searching the house, and then she heard their steps on the stairs. She reached for her scissors. If she couldn't hide the blood, maybe, just maybe she could explain it. With the strange sensation of having lived through all this before, she put the tip of the scissors to her arm, feeling the point even through the sticky wet cloth. Gritting her teeth, hearing the sound of footsteps over her own heartbeat, she dragged the blade along her arm and slid the scissors into the already pink water of the basin. She fell onto the bed, her weight pushing the feathers even higher to cover the soldier, just as a Yankee captain, gun in hand, kicked open the bedroom door.
Bessie's eyes widened when she saw Eliza's arm, but she said nothing. Eliza looked at it, wondering why it didn't hurt, watching her blood mingling with his.
The captain stopped. "I beg your pardon, miss." But there was no apology in his look. Sunlight through the open window glinted against his golden hair and highlighted the harsh arrogance in his eyes as his look traveled from her arm to her face and then down the length of her body.
Bessie pushed between them, snatching up the basin and the forgotten piece of the soldier's shirt and moving to Eliza's side. "I told you there wasn't no soldier up here," she huffed as she hid the bloody cloth beneath the basin as she placed it on the bed. "He's done gone on that red devil of a horse." She cut away Eliza's sleeve and pressed a cloth against the wound.
The officer stepped farther into the room. "How did that happen?"
Eliza bit her lip. She'd already had Bessie call him a horse thief. Surely one more lie wouldn't hurt. "I did not want him to take my father's stallion."
"You're lucky you still have your scalp," he said. "He's not one of your gentleman soldiers. If you should see him again—"
"Do you really think we will, Captain?"
"Markham. Owen Markham," he said, and still his eyes lingered on her.
"Captain Markham." There had to be some way to get him out of the room. Eliza threw her free arm over her eyes and spoke tremulously. "Bessie?"
"My apologies, miss. I'll send my medical officer to see to that."
"No," she said. She knew it had come out too fast, too harsh. She caught herself and resumed her pose. "No, thank you, Captain Markham. There will be no need for that, but . . ."
"Yes?"
She looked demurely away from him. "It does hurt frightfully. Could you please leave me something for the pain?"
Eliza hid behind curtains, a compress pressed against her arm, and watched while Bessie claimed the medicine. When the riders turned down the drive and rode away, she released her breath, aware for the first time that she had been holding it.
Bessie came lumbering back up the stairs and pushed the medicine toward Eliza. "It's not for me. It's for him."
She stood to one side while Bessie pulled the mattress back. His eyes were closed. He lay so still.
"Is he dead?" Eliza whispered, kneeling beside him.
He opened his eyes. He saw her sleeve. He reached for her arm, caught it, and drew it close to him. He looked into her eyes and held her still. "Very brave," he murmured.
"I promised you," she said simply.
With the last of his strength he raised his head and pressed his lips to her wrist, just below the torn flesh.
He healed quickly—too quickly, Eliza thought as she kept vigil while he slept, realizing that soon he would be strong enough to leave. Gone were those terrible hours when he had been near death, when the strange, musical language had broken incoherently from his lips, when she had grasped his hand as though her strength could hold his soul within his body, could keep him from sliding from this life.
Gone, too, were the hours when she had watched him in restless sleep, her glance lingering on the strong, proud lines of his face until drawn by some power stronger than her will to his lean, graceful body.
The memory of his lips on her wrist brought a warm glow to her. She wondered what it would be like to have his arms around her, holding her close, to have his lips pressed against her lips, to have his eyes look at her with love.
He moaned and turned in his sleep. His arm slipped from under the sheet and dropped to the side of the bed. She put aside her forgotten mending and lifted his arm onto the bed. She let one hand remain on his bare shoulder. With the other, she smoothed the soft hair from his forehead. She bent closer to him, aching to touch her lips to his face. Just this once, while he slept. He need never know.
His shoulder tensed. His eyes opened. She felt her blood rushing to her face. Could he have read her thoughts? His eyes met hers with an intensity that frightened her, but with a gentleness she had not thought possible in a man.
He raised his hand and touched her face.
"Thank you," he said.