The White Jade Fox Page 4

  At the present, she was far more aware of her own fatigue and an overwhelming desire to reach whatever bed-chamber was assigned her, then to bed.

  "I am Saranna Stowell," she replied wearily. "And I am very pleased to meet you."

  The woman gave no response, merely stood waiting, her very attitude expressing impatience. Saranna turned a little from her, and perhaps it was the forbidding stance of the housekeeper of Tiensin which put an extra shade of warmth in her voice as she thanked Mr. Fowke for his assistance in her journey.

  Nor, in spite of her fatigue, did she turn her face from the river until the sloop cast off and was on its way farther northwest. Her sea chest had been lifted into the wheelbarrow, and now she walked with Mrs. Parton, one of the men servants carrying a lantern just ahead to light their way, Millie scuttling behind. Saranna was presently aware of a small twitch at her skirt and knew, without turning to see, that the maid had dared to seize hold there, as if such contact with Saranna was all that gave her the courage to follow.

  Mr. Fowke had mentioned moon rise. However, there was no moon tonight. Though the fog had lifted, lowering clouds remained. And they walked a narrow path between shaped and trimmed hedges toward the bulk of a building where there were enough lights in windows to suggest that it was of an imposing size.

  They were perhaps a third of the way toward that house when Saranna sighted small glitters, sparks of green, which were near ground level along the hedge. There were so many that her curiosity was fully aroused.

  "Please—" she broke the silence which Mrs. Parton had maintained since her self-introduction, "what are those—?"

  Whether the housekeper had seen her gesture toward the sparks, Saranna could not be sure. But she did feel the sudden jerk at her skirt which betrayed Millie's agitation. Then the woman beside her spoke in the same even tone:

  "Those are the foxes. You see their eyes reflecting the lantern light."

  "Foxes!" Saranna did not add as she wished—in such numbers? But she was truly astonished. She did not believe that foxes ran in packs as their more-to-be-feared cousins the wolves did. And in spite of Mr. Fowke's story, she had not been prepared for any sight such as this. It was almost as if the animals were so highly curious that they crowded to watch her arrival. They did not venture into the open, of course, but still they were close enough to the small party making their way toward the house to suggest that the animals had little or no fear of the hitman beings who claimed ownership here.

  "You will become used to them. Miss Stowell," Mrs. Par-ton continued. "They have been long protected by Captain Whaley, and are still so by his decree. Though the blacks are alarmed by them, they have never been known to be vicious or to attack anyone. Now, if you will just step this way—"

  They were at the house and Mrs. Parton glided ahead to open a door and usher Saranna and Millie in. There she threw back her own hood, allowed the enveloping cloak to slide from her spare shoulders.

  Though her skirt, of a small indigo-and-black sprigged print, was wide and full, her narrow shoulders, long neck, tightly netted hair beneath a plain cap, added to her height and to the suggestion of stern repression. Her hair was gray above a pallid face, with unnaturally plump cheeks bracketing a very small mouth. The nose separating her small eyes with their scanty lashes was a mere dab of a button, as if, Saranna thought, her whole countenance was fashioned of the kitchen scraps of dough, such as her own mother had given her to play with on baking day when she was small.

  "This way, please, Miss—"

  The survey Mrs. Parton had made of her in turn had been a very quick one. In fact, even when she faced Saranna squarely, her eyes seemed fixed on a point over the girl's shoulder. As if she had dismissed Saranna as unworthy of any notice, and so searched behind her for some more important visitor.

  The housekeeper picked up a lamp from a nearby table. Holding this in a firm grip, she turned to the stairway not far behind her. This had none of the wide grace of that in the town house. And, Saranna recognized a moment or so later, they must not have entered through the main doorway of the Manor at all, but were now in a humbler portion of the Great House.

  If this were the servants stairs, the treads were meticulously dusted. There was the faint odor of wax and polish to be sniffed, making quite certain that Mrs. Parton ruled her own domain well and with energy.

  The flight gave upon a hall where lay a carpet of dark red patterned in buff, yellow, and dull blue, while the paneled walls were broken at intervals by white doors. The lamp, as they passed, caught framed, glass-protected strips of embroidery mounted on those panels like pictures. Faded creamy silk provided backgrounds for exotic birds, flowers, and sometimes queer stiff animals, none of which Saranna could identify so swiftly did Mrs. Parton whisk them along.

  At last the housekeeper paused to set hand to a door latch. Someone spoke out of the dusky shadows beyond the reach of her lamp.

  "So she's come—“

  The voice was clear and young, but it was not childish. Then the speaker moved into the light with a quick dart as if she feared Saranna might vanish before she reached her. Though her eagerness was perhaps not meant to express pleasure in the visitor's arrival; rather the reverse.

  "Miss Damaris—" Mrs. Parton began.

  The child hunched a shoulder, not even glancing at the housekeeper, her attention fixed solely on Saranna. She was very thin, her arms, within the knitted lace of her under-sleeves, scarcely rounded at all. Her dress was an unhappily chosen drab green which made her skin look sallow and yellowish, as if she were recovering from some dire illness.

  For so young a girl (she might perhaps be twelve, Saranna decided) her features were strongly marked, too much so for any claim to the rosebud prettiness which was the youthful ideal. Straight dark brows lined over eyes which rested on one with a disconcerting and piercing steadiness as if Damaris wanted not only to see the object of her regard, but beneath the surface into the bargain. Her nose was as marked as Mrs. Parton's was self-effacing, her mouth nearly as straight as her brows, with more than a shade of stubbornness in its setting.

  Dark hair had been bundled up into a net, but not very tightly, so that a strand or two had come loose to stray over her shoulders and around her thin neck. She was plainly not the sweet and biddable child so often idealized by those who know very little of children.

  Saranna held out her hand:

  "I am Saranna—"

  "I know," Damaris spoke fiercely. “She said you would come. She wants you here. But you're not going to keep me in order. You can't, you know, not if you want to please her, you can't. She wants me bad—I know—" The words poured from her lips in a passionate burst of speech. “She hates me. She's sorry 'cause Grandfather gave me Tiensin. She wants to make me sorry, too. You needn't think I'm going to let her or you or anybody in the whole world do that I 'Cause you can't—you can't ever do so!"

  She whirled about and was gone with a flap of skirt, a bob of uncoiffed hair, disappearing into the shadows. Without a word of comment, Mrs. Parton opened the door and proceeded with unruffled calmness into the room, placing her lamp on a table.

  "Sarah will bring you tea and hot water," she said. "Millie is to have the trundle bed." She shot a single, quelling glance at the maid. She might have been noting her presence for the first time. Saranna saw Millie shrink back as if the last thing she wanted was to attract Mrs. Parton's attention.

  To her own surprise, the housekeeper continued to make no comment on Damaris' dramatic arrival and retreat. And Saranna decided to ignore it also for the moment. She sensed that beneath the outwardly ordered surface of life in this house, there must be many whirlpools. Those she must chart before she launched into any hurried speech or action.

  As the door closed behind the housekeeper, the girl untied her bonnet strings, to lay that and her shawl aside. Millie still stood near the lamp table, her eyes shifting fearfully from side to side.

  "Did you see them, Miss? They was a-watchin' us. They was
—all them foxes. They goes an' tells about us comin' to the haunt. All they sees, they tells." She shivered. "Then the haunt, it knows an' it can—" She was crying again, her voice rising in a wail.

  "It can what?" Saranna went to the girl, laid her hands on the bowed and shaking shoulders. "Millie, you are quite safe here—look around you. Do you see any foxes? They don't come into the house ever, now do they?"

  "Never so far, they ain't," the girl admitted.

  "Well, then, do you have to worry about them here and now?" Saranna was not yet sure what steadying words she could best use with Millie. She would have to discover the best way of soothing the maid when she was not quite so tired, nor worried over Damaris' reception.

  "I guess so—" Millie concluded, reluctantly.

  Should she question Millie about the situation here? Ask her about Damaris? Maybe in the future, but not now. Saranna's one thought as to how to handle the situation for the present was to ignore that scene by the door as thoroughly as Mrs. Parton had done. To discuss the young mistress of Tiensin with Millie was not a good way of beginning. Honora's comment concerning Damaris' excitable temperament and the sad family heritage behind the girl was a warning.

  A maid almost as young as Millie brought in a can of hot water and a little later, a tray with a pot of tea, some biscuits, and a small china dish of jam. Millie went with Sarah willingly enough, after Saranna's urging, to get some food for herself.

  When they both had left, Saranna went to the window to look out, wondering if she could see any of those foxes that had watched her coming. That the animals' behavior was unnatural, she could admit. Why had Captain Whaley seemingly made pets of such woods creatures? Had his sheltering really tamed them so? There was surely some reason—

  Though the night was still cloudy, she could see, now that her eyes were turned away from the lamplight and adjusted to the gloom outside the pane, something of the land beyond the house. But there was only a short clear stretch here.

  Then there arose a tall hedge thick and overgrown enough to form a stout wall. The lost garden!

  Its untended brush showed inky black in this less than half light. In the gloom, that growth had a threatening look, as if it were a portion of some awe-inspiring fortress. Saranna could now understand those who believed what it guarded was evil. Now there was no sparkle of eyes along its edging. If foxes still paced there, the loom of the hedge kept their ways well secret.

  Saranna let fall the curtain and began to inspect the chamber. The room was well sized, but not as luxuriously furnished as that which had so briefly been her quarters in the Baltimore house. However, there was, on the mantel above the fireplace, something which drew her attention the minute she sighted it.

  Picking up the lamp, she carried the light closer to see it better.

  A carving of some smooth brownish substance. Saranna drew a breath of wonder and delight. A patient craftsman half the world away (for she had no doubt that this was indeed one of the treasures from China which Mr. Fowke had mentioned) had wrought in delicate and detailed miniature a tiny landscape with towering mountains and lower lands. That artist, who had brought some dream of his own so to life, had most cleverly utilized the natural mottling of the stone to enhance the effect he desired.

  Saranna knew very little of art nor of the timelessness of such creations. But she recognized utter beauty, and she wanted to hold the piece in her hands. Returning the lamp to the table she went to pick up that wonder, run fingertips over the minute indications of tempest twisted trees, the gnarled faces of rocks less in size than the span of her own fingernail. One could never tire looking at this because there was always something new to see, some later discovered wonder to astonish.

  "Give me that! You're just like her —grab, grab!"

  Saranna had heard no door opening. She was totally unprepared for the coming of the hand which fiercely snatched the carving, wrested it from her own grip in an instant.

  Damaris, her face ugly with a black scowl, clasped the carving tight against her flat chest.

  "It's mine! Every one of them are! Grandfather said so. She wants to get them, she always has. I heard her lots of times, always talking to Father about how they were no good buried out here. But she never liked them. She only wants them because they're worth lots and lots of money. Grandfather told me so. He said I must never sell them— just keep them to look at—to learn how to know beauty. And you're not going to get a one of them!"

  The child backed toward the door, one arm holding the carving very tight to her, her other hand outstretched with the fingers crooked a little as a cat might show unsheathed claws in warning.

  "You just try to get this—anything else—" she hissed. "You just try—"

  This action must not be allowed to finish so, Saranna knew. If Damaris left now she might never be able to establish any proper contact with the child. She moved more swiftly than Damaris now, dodging around the child so that she stood with her back to the door.

  "I did not want your treasure to keep— “ She tried to make her words as emphatic as she could. "I only wanted to look at it closely because it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

  Damaris still scowled, but she slowly lowered that threatening hand.

  "She sent you—and she wants it—“

  Saranna decided this was the time for the truth, what she believed to be the truth.

  "Honora sent me here," she said, "because she wanted to get rid of me."

  4

  HENG-PERSEVERANCE

  Damaris eyed the older girl searchingly, as if by the very intensity of that survey, she could gauge the truth of what Saranna had said.

  "Old Poker—I heard her talking. She was to send you to keep me in order, that was what Poker said!" She spat. "After Prune Face left, because she was too nosy for her own good, then she said that they would find somebody to keep me in order! So she sent you."

  Saranna shook her head. "I was sent because Honora did not want me in Baltimore." And because she was certain that that was indeed the truth, perhaps her words made some impression on the child.

  "Why?" was Damaris' bold demand.

  "Why? Well, because I am in mourning." Saranna indicated the limp spread of her black skirt. "Because I do not fit in—“

  "Then who are you? If you're not one to keep me in order?" Damaris demanded. "They never tell me things, you know." She pointed with her chin toward the door behind Saranna as if to indicate the rest of the household. "I have to listen to learn anything at all. Old Poker—when Grandfather was here—she'd never dare act this way. He would have sent her packing. That's what he used to tell me. *Never allow insolence, girl. Send 'em packing if they don't give the Captain his due.' I'm like the Captain—but they won't admit it—they listen to her and—“

  Saranna saw the quiver of the child's mouth. "I do wish Grandfather was here," she ended. Then the scowl came back.

  "I got rid of Prune Face all right. And I'll get rid of you —if you try to spy on me." Once more her tone was fierce. "If she sent you, then you don't belong here."

  "No, I don't," returned Saranna as bluntly. "But just now I have no place else to go. So you will have to bear with me until I can find one. I am not a governess hired by Honora. I am Jethro Stowell's half sister from Massachusetts."

  "But—" Damaris said slowly, "Mr. Stowell's old, real old. How can you be his sister when you're so young?" She was plainly wary, not in the least convinced.

  "Because his father—my father—was married twice. I was born long after Jethro was a man."

  "You look a little—just a little—like Jethro," Damaris conceded. "You look—foxy!" For the first time she smiled. "That's what I'm going to call you—Kuei-Fu-Lu-Li—" The strange syllables came easily from her lips. "You didn't know I can speak Chinese—real Chinese, did you?" Her head tilted a little to one side. "I can, you know. I learned, Kuei-Fu-Lu-Li—that means Fox Lady. What do you think of that!"

  Her scowl had faded, and there was a chang
e in her attitude. The defiance she had earlier shown was ebbing.

  "I think you are a very clever girl, Damaris," Saranna returned. "From what I have heard, Chinese is a very difficult language."

  "It is. Grandfather said most of the traders talked just ‘pidgin.’ “ Now there was the sharpness of scorn in her voice. "But he said 'pidgin' was an insult to his intelligence. He hired a scholar to teach him the real Chinese talk and then he taught me—a little anyway," she corrected herself with honesty.

  She hesitated a moment and then held out the carving. "I guess you weren't grabbing after all. If you want to look at this, go ahead. You know what it really is?"

  Saranna shook her head as she accepted the peace offering.

  "It's a rest for a writing brush. The Chinese, they don't write with pens the way we do, they use brushes. When Grandfather left Canton, the scholar who had taught him Chinese gave him that. It's brown jade, and there's even a name for it—the Mountains of Peaceful Contemplation.

  That means that you can look at it and feel peaceful, but you have to think about what it means."

  "The Mountains of Peaceful Contemplation," Saranna repeated, running her fingertip down the flank of the tallest of those carved mountains. "Thank you, Damans, for telling me that. It is like looking down into a small world, isn't it?"

  The girl nodded. "Grandfather, he used to take one of the treasures 'most everyday—put it on the table and just look at it. He told me that was the way to learn. So I do it —sometimes—unless I'm made to do something else— “ That scowl flitted across her face again.

  "Old Prune Face, she wanted to lock everything up, saying I might break things. Break them! Grandfather taught me to be very careful. She said no child ought to be allowed to handle things—and that they were heathen things anyway and bad for the young mind." It was apparent Damaris was quoting. "She used to slip around spying—until—"