The Siren's Tale (21 page)

All other dancers sat down fr
om time to time in exhaustion. Only tall, exotic Cassandra remained on the dance floor, spinning like the fairy-tale ballerina with the red shoes who is unable to quit dancing. She was surrounded by younger folk, drawn to her by her graceful movements and her loose, red-gold hair. Some young men had won white carnations at the games, which they gave to the beribboned, blushing girls. One lad, mesmerized to a standstill by Cassandra, bowed deeply as she whirled by. She stopped, and he bestowed on her his boutonniere, which she pinned into her glinting hair. More strangers arrived, forming a ring around her. Cassandra danced on while Drake watched from the sidelines, holding her parasol.

At last she could dance no more.

She was grateful to have Drake to lean on. He guided her to his livery gig, where she collapsed against the leather seat, fanning herself, her eyes still sparkling.

“
You seem to like dancing as much as ever,” he said, clicking the horse forward.

“
I do,” she replied gaily.

He asked casually.
“Can relatives dance together? We're relatives.”

“
Ah, yes, relatives. But, I think not.”

He looked over at h
er. She had never looked more beautiful. How near she was! He could hear her breathing. How badly she had treated him! And yet, here they were together, riding toward Bulette. His cock was full to bursting with unrequited desire. He was overwhelmed with nostalgia as they passed the brown church, thinking of his first sight of her in the Scottish Presbyterian churchyard, gazing at the old gravestones. Cassandra was simply wandering around, already half-bored with her new life, and he had been arrested by that glorious head of hair in the sunlight, the voluptuous body, creamy skin, and dazzling eyes. He had offered her a ride. While denying him the honor, she had looked directly into his eyes, and he was instantly hooked. By sunset of the following day, they were making love at the lovers' rendezvous in Hatter's Field.

He shook the reins.
“You always appear to me as a woman in a dream.”

Cassandra
was silent, still thinking of how the dancing had enraptured her, like a change of atmosphere. One moment she was frozen inside, hardly able to move or breathe for the pain of human existence. The next, her lungs and heart were wide open. 

“
Did the dancing tire you?”

“
No, not at all. I was exhilarated.”

“
Is it not strange we should meet here of all places, after not seeing each other for so long?”

“
We have made a point of not seeing each other, I imagine. Just as well.”

“
You began that,” he said moodily, “by breaking a promise to meet me.”

“
It is scarcely worth talking about now. We have formed other ties since then.”

“
I am sorry to hear your husband is ill.”

“
Not ill, only temporarily incapacitated.”

“
I sincerely sympathize. Fate has used you cruelly.”

She turned silent agai
n, but then she asked a question in a low tone. “Have you heard Nick is working as a hay cutter?”  

“
I heard it mentioned, but I didn’t believe it.”

“
It is true. What do you think of me as a hay cutter’s wife?”

“
I think the same of you as ever, Cassandra. Nothing can degrade you. You ennoble the occupation of your husband, whatever it may be.”

“
Thank you. I wish I could feel as nobly about it.”

“
Is there a chance of his eyesight getting better?”

“
He thinks so. I doubt it.”

“
I was quite surprised to hear he took a cottage in Bulette. Along with many others, I assumed he would be whisking you off to San Francisco. I suppose he will return there with you when his health improves?”

When Cassandra didn't respond
, he looked at her more closely and saw the tears brimming in her eyes. Images of a future never to be enjoyed with Nicholas had arisen with Drake’s words. Her escort could barely contain his own all-too-responsive susceptibilities. When he saw the proud young woman’s silent distress and her heaving bosom, he mistakenly assumed she was regretting the life she might have had with him. But he wisely restrained himself from commenting, and she soon recovered her calmness.

“
I hope you did not intend to walk home by yourself this evening.”

“
Oh yes I did,” said Cassandra. “Who would rob me?”

The minute
the words were out, she regretted them, thinking of the jewels she wore on her neck and wrist, and how much Nicholas had sacrificed to indulge her vanity. She blushed with guilty shame. Noticing the blush, again Drake mistakenly interpreted it as a good sign for himself and his future course of sexual abandon with Cassandra.

“
The first half of my way home is the same as yours. I can deliver you to your door if you like. You live just down from Lucy’s Corner, do you not?” 

As she remained silent
, he said, “Or perhaps it would be better if I were not to be seen with you. I could let you down at Lucy’s Corner, and you could easily walk the rest of the way.”

She agreed with a quick nod. The milepost at
Lucy’s Corner was a few hundred yards from a turnoff and a short path that branched away toward the cottage. They went on, drawing nearer to Lucy’s Corner, until two men appeared in the distance, headed in their direction. Both wore leggings and one wore protective goggles.  

“
There is my husband,” said Cassandra, “on his way to meet me.”

“
The other is my enemy,” said Drake, pulling his horse up short. 

“
But that is Caleb Scattergood. You don’t mean he is your enemy?”

“
That is the man.”

“
He is no enemy of mine.”

“
Think again. He has not forgotten a minute of our meetings at Hatter’s Field, and he is thick as thieves with your husband. Do you really think he will believe we met today by chance?”

“
Very well,” she said testily.”I am unlucky at every turn, like a cursed princess in a fairy tale. Leave me here and drive on quickly, before they come up.”

After she got down, Drake spun his gig around and drove
off fast in the other direction. Cassandra opened her parasol against the rays of the sun and slowly walked on. In five minutes, she met her husband and the ice man, and they went on together.

“
My walk ends here for tonight, Caleb,” Nicholas said to his companion. “I will accompany my wife on to our cottage.”

“
I am going home as well,” said Caleb, peering past Cassandra into the distance. “I hope to see you fully recovered soon, Mr. Brighton. Good evening, Mrs. Brighton.”

Caleb had keen eyesight, and he had spotted Curly Drake in his gig racing away. His renewed suspicion was underlined by a recent conversation with Clare Drake. After he had delivered the box of silver coins to her and received a kiss for his trouble, he had stood in the door, staring at the little bundle in her arms.

“
This is some charge you two have undertaken,” he said shyly.

“
Oh, not so bad,” Clare said. “Little Nick is a burden I never tire of.” She then added a plaintive comment: “But I do worry about what a burden we must be to my poor husband.”

“
I can imagine he has a lot of responsibility running such a busy Inn,” Caleb said as neutrally as he could manage.

“
Exactly! I used to be a help to him, and now I…well, you see what I am.” She smiled nervously and hugged the baby closer. “No wonder he wanders off.”

“
Yes, I do see,” he murmured, thinking what a lucky dog Drake was and how little he deserved his wife and son. “Is Mr. Drake often away, then?”

Clare made a
tinny-sounding attempt at a gay tone. “Oh, yes, in the evenings. But no more so than any husband is. Handsome husbands will play the truant, you know.”

Clare's words, along with his espying Drake's mad dash to escape being seen with Cassandra, created a new sense of urgent alarm in Caleb, vis-à-vis his beloved Clare. After giving the matter considerable thought, he decided to enlist the assistance of
Widow Brighton in reining in the wayward husband of her niece.

On October 1, three weeks after the fair and on the pretext of an ice delivery, Caleb sought out his former landlady.  The Widow obligingly invited him in for a cup of tea. At the end of his visit,  Caleb hinted Clare might not be entirely easy in her mind.

“
Now ma’am,” he said, “It seems to me you could not do a better thing for both your children than making yourself a familiar presence in their homes.”

She jutted her chin.
“Both my niece and my son disobeyed me. They disregarded my advice in their choice of whom they married. I wash my hands of them. Any troubles they are having they brought on themselves.” 

Her tone was crisp
and her words unforgiving. However, inwardly she was in a turmoil, which Caleb perceived, so he stayed with his point.

“
That may be true, and I don't mean to alarm you. There is no harm done yet. If there was, I would have put an end to it with my gun. But, ma'am, you know what they say about an ounce of prevention. Have you visited the newlyweds yet?”

“
Well, no. I suppose you are right. I should make amends with my son, before he is too far gone. All right, I will do as you suggest, Caleb. Tomorrow I will visit him at his cabin. Oh, what is it Thomas? Can't you see I have a guest? Well, come in.”

“
Here are some vegetables from the garden, ma'am. They're wilting in the uncommon heat, and I thought you might like some for your supper.”

At the same moment Mrs. Brighton was bidding good evening to Caleb Scattergood at her kitchen door, Nicholas was in his bedroom, deep in conversation with his wife about the war with his mother.

“
I get no sleep at night from worrying. The silence must end. I will go see her alone and call a truce. She is getting old, and I am her only son.”

“
She has treated us shabbily.”

“
I agree. But if she shows a willingness to be reconciled, I want to meet her halfway and welcome her here. Will you stand by my side when I do so, wife?”

“
Of course I will, Nick. But please don't expect me to seek her out and sit down with her as though nothing has happened.” 

“
You seem different since the fair,” he said, a new tone entering his voice.

She said nothing. W
as it possible he was jealous? Or was he reading her mind? Recently she had been dreaming about making love with Curly Drake. She would awaken from these erotic dreams with her muscles in spasm, and she would have to grit her teeth to keep herself from moaning aloud as she climaxed next to her sleeping husband. Night after night she burned with a voracious desire for sex, and she would push her hand onto her mound and rub it hard until she came to orgasm as her husband snored beside her in the cold, narrow bed.

Sometimes she regretted having given up her passionate lover
, and she feared she would go mad unless she escaped this cold, confining place soon.

The day after the discussions in the Brighton households, Curly Drake was riding in his gig along a back way that led from Corinthus into the countryside south of Bulette. He arrived at the front gate to the cabin of Nicholas Brighton and walked to the front door. After knocking several times, he waited. There was no sound. He peered inside through a little pane of glass at the top of the door.

The cottage was clean, with Cassandra's
artistic touches evident: a Victorian engraving on the wall and a scarlet silk scarf thrown over a rude lantern. Then he spied Nicholas with his head on his arm, lying on an Indian blanket spread before the fireplace.

“
Uh-oh,” he said to himself, “the hay cutter is home.” 

Drake had b
egun to turn away when Cassandra opened the door.

“
Curly!” she exclaimed, in a tone that was half excited and half disapproving. “Whatever are you doing here?” 

She was
looking at his damp, curly hair, how it glistened on his forehead. She had once loved twining it in her fingers. Last night she had dreamed again of having mad, passionate sex with him. The thought made her blush with embarrassment. He noted the flush on her neck and cheeks with intense interest.

“
I decided it was time to pay my overdue respects to the newlyweds and pass the time of day with an old friend.”

He glanced toward Nicholas
lying soundlessly on the floor, then at Cassandra's face, which showed uncertainty as to what he meant.

“
I can come back at a different time, Mrs. Brighton, if it isn’t convenient.”    

“
It is bloody inconvenient, as you can see for yourself. Mr. Brighton is napping, and he needs his rest. He is a light sleeper. Well, come in anyway, after your trouble. We can visit quietly for a few minutes in the back. Then you must go, if he has not awakened.”

Putting two fingers against her lips, she
took Drake's hand and led him through the house and into a sitting room adjacent to her bedroom.

It was prettily outfitted with her books, a colorful rug, and a white silk divan with a rolled armrest on one end
, her one cherished item of furniture, which was a wedding gift from the Captain. “In England,” she told Drake, “my divan would be called a 'fainting couch.' Isn't that silly? As if women should spend their lives fainting. You may sit down there,” she said imperiously, taking the couch for herself and indicating an embroidered footstool beside it.

“
Thank you, Mrs. Brighton. It is hot today, isn't it? Can't remember a hotter one.”

“
What possessed you to drop by, Mr. Drake?”

“
I was having fond memories of a certain sassy lady and our many adventures.”

“
You are impertinent. I shouldn’t have let you in. Nicholas will not want to see you. He has heard through the grapevine the scandalous tale about your gambling away the family's silver coins.” She rolled her eyes, indicating she did not share the general indignation about the dice game.

“
Such a fuss over nothing, but I am afraid it has cast an eternally dark pall over my relationship with Mother Brighton. We are still not on speaking terms.”  

He laughed.
“That old woman dislikes you even more than she does me. It was your honor I was thinking of, lass, when I played for the coins.”

“
Yes, I believe you.”

They talked for a time. Then, from his cramped position below her, he looked up into her b
rilliant eyes adoringly, and she looked away. He shook his head, as though to say he was sorry for everything. But all he said was: “Oh Cassie!” 

She laughed
and kicked the stool with her stylishly booted foot. 

“
Do not ‘oh Cassie’ me! This mess is all your fault, Mr. Drake!”

He looked into her eyes
, and the current buzzed between them as loudly as it ever had. Impetuously, he threw himself upon her, and at first she fought back. But soon nature took its course. Her resistance was feebler for her voracious sexual needs and the lack of exercising her siren willpower. Drake's big hands fumbled inside her blouse, and their lips hotly meshed together. 

While Cassandra and her guest were blindly groping each other and tottering on the brink of sexual consummation, Widow Brighton was laboring up the last of the foothills that bordered the area where her son lived.

Setting off that morning for her five-mile journey to her son’s home,
the Widow had chosen to ride alone on horseback rather than hire a carriage and driver. She planned to leave her horse at Like’s Livery Stable in Bulette and make the last part of the journey on foot. That way, so ran her thought, she could get the lay of the land before the meeting. As for the hot weather, in her opinion she had set out in worse.

She
had intended to be well advanced in her journey before the day heated up, but instead she had attended to her wilting garden through the morning. The large leafy vegetables in the Grange garden had flagged by nine o’clock, and the rhubarb was bent downward at ten.

The journey
turned out to be hotter and more arduous than expected; every valley was hot as a kiln and every hill was scorched brown earth. The horse’s breathing was labored, and she had to stop along the road to let him rest. She took off her bonnet, the sun beating down mercilessly, reflecting off the white streak in her graying black hair. It was half past noon when she finally reached the outskirts of Bulette. By then the heat was turning her pale complexion red.

After quartering her horse, she left
Bulette proper and stoutly walked south along the worn country road. In her rush to be off, she had left behind her parasol in the livery stable. It was almost one o’clock when she passed Lucy’s Corner and wearily trudged upward along the rougher walking path over two foothills that led circuitously to her son's isolated cottage. 

In the distance
, she could see his horse Teddy tethered before a dilapidated and tiny cabin. The home was oddly shaped, she thought. It reminded her of the way bread looks, flattened and skinny, after coming out of a presser. In the field before the house, she noted a dray filled with raking equipment. Well, she thought glumly, this must be the place, and he must be at home.

Caleb had said Nicholas's
haymaking was carried out in the morning and that he stayed at home during the middle of the day because of the sun’s harmful effects on his injured eyes. Seeing a tree stump nearby, she decided she would rest for a moment and catch her breath before going on to the house.

She had not
yet considered exactly what she would say to her son once she got there. What if Cassandra opened the door, as certainly she might? The thought made her feel panicky and weak.

“
Zelda Parker Brighton,” she said to herself. “Now is no time for cowardice. You have come this far. There is no going back until you have seen your son or died trying.” 

After a few minutes, she mopped her brow w
ith her handkerchief and dusted herself off. There was not a breath of wind today, a rare occurrence.

“
I would gladly give a day of my life for only a small gust!” She loosened her light shawl and wiped the sweat off her face with it, not willing to appear at her son’s door with a shiny face. In her heart, she regretted her promise to Caleb she would come, and she had a strange sense of foreboding.

On one side of Nicholas’s house was a knoll, and on the knoll was a clump of singularly tall fir trees thrust up
into the sky. It occurred to Mrs. Brighton a second period of rest in a shady spot would get her closer to the door and also make her better prepared for the ordeal ahead.

There was no sign of life anywhere as she reached the knoll. She moved slowly upward toward the fir trees
, her skirts dragging in the dust because of the incline; she was too tired to hold them up. After sitting for a time, the Widow took note of the tree above her. It was in a stand of pines singularly battered and wild-looking, even for this region.

There was not
a bough among the five that was not torn almost sideways or lopped and distorted by severe weather. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning strike, while others were blackened as coal mines or fire pits; the ground at her feet was strewn with dead fir needles and heaps of cones. The firs kept up a perpetual moan with their movement in the wind.

She shuddered as she recalled the name given by the Indians to this spot: Devil’s Bellows. It was thought that women forced to live nearby would eventually go mad—
”cabin fever,” it was called. To find Nicholas living in such a neighborhood!

T
he exhausted woman sat for another twenty minutes, summoning the courage to go down to her son's house. She was a proud woman, and it seemed humiliating to be obliged to make the first move. But she had considered all that and was determined to appear not only the wiser but also the humbler of the two women in her son's life.

From her elevated position, Widow Brighton
could see the garden behind Nick's cabin, and she happened to be looking in that direction when two figures appeared there. She readily recognized Cassandra's masses of curly, flaming hair. The man's identity she could not make out at first, until he turned his face, and then she recognized the dark hair and mustache of Curly Drake. Of course the situation was perfectly innocent, a visit among in-laws, and yet she viewed the couple in the distance with a grimace of distaste.

“
Ouch!”

A
strong sensation of pain in her right calf had prompted her to jump up quickly, but she did not stop to investigate the cause.

Before her courage deserted her, she must ge
t on with her mission. Her face set in a resolute expression, she marched briskly down the knoll and up to the front door of the cabin.

The Widow knocked smartly
several times, meanwhile looking through the small window pane and noting her son lying beside the fireplace. Was he was asleep in the middle of the day? His face was turned away from the door.

Sever
al more times she pounded at the door. Still no answer, though she knew for a fact three fully grown human beings were close by, and her son was a light sleeper. Her blood began to boil.

To regain her composure, the Widow
moved away from the door and walked around the corner of the house, thinking she would call out to the back garden.

At that same
moment, Cassandra put her head out the open window of her sitting room.

The jutted window casing and Cassandra’s head were in full view of the corner where Widow Brighton s
tood near the front of the house. Cassandra was unable to see her visitor, because the corner was shaded and the Widow's grey form merged into the shadows.

The Widow had spotted
Cassandra, however, and so she quickly turned around and briskly moved back to the front door. The last thing she wanted was to appear to be spying. 

As the Widow
moved from the shadows into the sun, Cassandra realized who had been knocking. She stepped back and exclaimed: “Bloody hell! It's my mother-in-law!” 

Drake
regarded his beloved with boggled eyes. Of course she was furious with him for being there at such a time, but what could he do? Certainly none of this was his fault. How could he have expected Clare's aunt to pick such a time to pay a call on the couple? Hadn't Cassandra just been complaining about the widow's uncharitable refusal to do so?

“
Did she see you?” he asked Cassandra.

“
No. Her back was turned. What should I do now?”

“
Wait until she knocks again. Maybe she will change her mind and go away.”

Cassandra paced the room, undecided as to what to do.
She was all too aware of how, only minutes before the Widow's arrival, she had been engaged in passionate, illicit lovemaking with Drake. Might the Widow, who was already suspicious, recognize the telltale flush upon her neck and recognize it for what it was?

“
Leave it to fate. If she knocks again, she will rouse your husband. And then you will be off the hook, Cassie.” 

“
Yes, that will have to do. Go out the back way, and be quick about it!” 

Drake did not
need to be told twice. Hurriedly pulling on his dandyish bowler hat and throwing Cassandra a hasty kiss, he disappeared into the garden, where he emerged as a blur bolting up the hill to the place where he had left his gig. Cassandra watched his exit through her sitting room window, composed herself, then moved slowly into the front room, where Nicholas still lay before the fire.

T
he third series of knocks came, loud and clear.
BANG, BANG, BANG
. Cassandra jumped with each one, fully expecting to see Nicholas rise. They seemed much louder than before, but this was only because she was much nearer. She had hidden herself behind a chair, so she was not visible from the window pane of the door.