Fyrea's Cauldron Read online

  “Oh, Madeleine, I’m so sorry,” Marie said, seeing the girl’s wide-eyed expression complete with soon-to-be released tears. Marie felt solely responsible for the accident. If she hadn’t been up and spying, but, rather, been in bed, where she should have been, none of this would have happened. “I’m afraid my nerves are just a little on edge, lately.”

  She went to her knees and began picking up the flowers, continuing a running one-sided conversation she hoped would convince the girl that Marie wasn’t going to beat her for clumsiness.

  Finally, Madeleine’s horror at dropping the vase was replaced by the horror of Marie busy doing the cleanup in which Madeline should have been the one engaged.

  “Oh, Madame, do let me do that!” Madeleine said, hurriedly grabbing up the last flower from the rug and depositing it in the luckily undamaged vase Marie, also, surrendered to her.

  “Well, it looks as if the two of us have sufficiently rectified any damage, doesn’t it?” Marie said with a wide smile.

  Madeleine looked a little dubious as she noticed a sizable watermark on the rug, by the doorway, but Marie gave additional assurances, watching as the young girl finally deposited the salvaged vase and flowers on a bedside table.

  Nonchalantly, Marie moved back to the window, noticing neither her husband nor the mysterious Little Mother any longer standing along the border of the lawn.

  * * * * * * *

  Charles entered while Marie was having breakfast in the dining room. He was obviously surprised to see her.

  “I thought for sure you would prefer breakfast in bed, this morning,” he said, coming around the table and picking up a hot muffin from the serving counter. He reached Marie’s chair, bent, and kissed his wife gently on her right cheek.

  “Had you witnessed how much time I spent in my bed during the voyage here, you might well understand my reluctance to stay bedridden now,” Marie commented.

  “Feeling quite refreshed, then, are you?” he asked. Then, before she could answer, he informed a servant he would merely be joining his wife for coffee and a muffin, since he had eaten quite a large breakfast earlier.

  Coffee cup in place, the last of his blueberry muffin eaten, he turned his full attention on Marie.

  “I feel much better, thank you,” she told him. “Actually, I’m quite anxious to get out and about. You mentioned the lake in The Cauldron.”

  “Well, that does, indeed, sound like a complete recovery,” he said, flashing an attractive smile. “However, I might suggest a few minor forays before we undertake such a major one. I’m afraid both of us will have to roll out of bed a lot earlier than this to make it to the lip of The Cauldron and back by nightfall.”

  “Quite far, is it?” Marie asked, although, by that point, her question was obviously superfluous.

  “I wouldn’t want to exhaust you completely after one such marvelous recovery,” Charles said, sipping his coffee and covetously eyeing another muffin on the service table. “I have to check the lower east valley this morning. Purely routine. I shall be perfectly free this afternoon, if you’re up to a look around of the grounds.”

  Marie, who would have preferred a ride immediately after breakfast, surrendered to the fact she would obviously have to spend some time getting down the routine of the household. Certainly, she couldn’t expect Charles to handle domestic supervision now that he was married.

  I’ll have Marc show you around the house, Charles said, anticipating the tangent his wife’s thoughts had taken. “Don’t worry too much about getting the hang of things too fast. This house has been without a mistress for....”

  His eyes went suddenly glassy. His unfinished sentence made the resulting silence pronounced. His right hand began a slow drumming on the tabletop.

  “Charles, are you all right?” Marie would have been up and out of her chair, or at least calling a servant, but his spell (or whatever it was) was short-lived. He shook his head, as if to clear it, gave a grin of embarrassment, as if he knew he’d been caught at something not quite normal.

  “I’m quite all right,” he told her, pushing back his chair and coming to his feet. “I was telling you not to worry too much about the chaos, wasn’t I?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Just remember to be firm with the staff,” he said, coming around the table to plant his second affectionate kiss of the morning on his wife’s cheek. “The heat spawns a good deal of laziness, but, on the whole, you’ll find most of our people much more energetic than their peers in the villages and city.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Marie responded with a smile. What she really wanted, she realized, was for Charles to take her upstairs to bed. However.... “You said you’d have Marc show me the ropes?”

  Marc was the black butler. Thank God, Marie wasn’t going to have to endure any early-morning powwows with the little old lady. She had no immediate desire to confront the old hag with the inappropriateness of that crone having invaded Marie’s sitting room in the dead of the previous night. Although in the light of the morning, Marie wondered if the old woman could really have forbidden her to follow Charles into the hallway. Whatever had taken place last night obviously occurred while Marie was suffering from acute physical and mental exhaustion.

  “I’ll have Marc stand by for as soon you finish breakfast,” Charles said, making his exit. He returned, momentarily, pausing long enough to thrust only his head back into the room. “Have Karena fix a picnic lunch. I’ll get back early enough to enjoy it with you. Okay...?”

  Before Marie could react with obvious pleasure, Charles was gone.

  * * * * * * *

  The management of the household was far from the chaotic state Charles had insinuated. In fact, everything seemed exceptionally well-oiled. Marc seemed pleased, in a very formal way, when informed by Marie that she really had no intentions of making any major waves in standard routine. She did make a request for a formal meeting with each of the servants (excluding the old lady). During the meetings, she took myriad notes, jotting down little things, like how they were two Helenes on the premises. Old Helene, not really old at all, except when taken in comparison to Young Helene, a girl of fifteen.

  Julie, one of the parlor maids, proved the most talkative, dropping all sorts of household gossip, once Marie had skillfully broken down the girl’s reserve: Rolphe, one of the gardeners, was supposedly sweet on Sylvie; Julie preferred one of the stable boys, Theodore; Karena, the cook, had a husband and five children, with hopes, although not yet having broached them with Mr. Camaux, of her eldest daughter eventually being brought into household service.

  Julie proved such a storehouse of useful information that Marie was shocked when she realized it was almost noon. She hadn’t yet informed Karena there would be the need for a picnic lunch for two in only a matter of minutes.

  She began her discussion with the cook, however, by asking about whether Karena knew of the availability of any local girl Marie might train to be a personal maid.

  “I would certainly prefer looking to someone whose references could be vouched by someone already in the household, rather than bring in some complete stranger,” Marie said, remembering the conversation had earlier with Julie about the existence of the cook’s eldest daughter. As expected, Karena immediately jumped at the bait. After Marie agreed to interview Karena’s daughter, the next morning, she, only then, glanced at her watch and delivered an exclamation of well-acted horror. She followed with the confession to Karena that Marie had completely forgotten about the picnic Charles had suggested for their lunch.

  The picnic basket was ready by twelve o’clock.

  Originally, Marie had had intentions of possibly promoting Madeleine to the post of personal maid, but Jannette (Karena’s daughter) obviously came with the advantage of not being one of the inner circles of servants at the house at the time of Marie’s arrival. Marie liked the idea of having someone brought in from the outside even newer than Marie was. Of course, Jannette’s connections w
ith her mother would give that girl access to certain avenues of information not otherwise available to Marie. After all, it was very important for the mistress of any house to know the undercurrents at play in the servants’ quarters if she ever hoped to keep a well-run establishment.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHADOWS DANCING

  They made love in an isolated spot right out of some travel poster, complete with waterfall, vibrant exotic blossoms, and black-and-gray granite, among tropical greenery.

  There was a pool at the base of the falls (the same falls Marie had seen the previous day from the vantage point that overlooked the estate on the way in from town). The water was deep and clear, its depths cluttered with massive car-size boulders that looked like giant billiard balls.

  The spray supplied an occasional delicate mist that cooled the area pleasantly. Open to the sun, their picnic spot, surrounded by trees, was a beautiful interplay of color, light, and shadow.

  They swam the water and made love again, Marie deciding the lead-in had been well worth it. Charles’ lovemaking had definitely improved within such exotic surroundings. He was more spontaneous, more aggressive, and more physical than he’d ever been in London.

  If Marie had had any doubts about this being Charles (had she actually imaged there being an identical twin out to play games with her?), she knew this body belonged exclusively to her man, right down to the small scar on its left shoulder, gotten as a result of a fall on a wooden garden stake when Charles was ten.

  For the first time since her arrival, Marie actually was confident that things were going to be all right. If she’d had doubts, well those had been only because it was possibly just natural to question the motives which had rushed her into a hasty courtship, quick marriage, and sudden uprooting from the only life she’d ever known.

  Love, of course, had been the scapegoat she’d used for every step along the way. Love for this handsomely exciting man who had suddenly appeared in her life at an otherwise thoroughly boring London party.

  “I’ll bet I can tell you more about the man you’re planning to marry than even you know,” Carolyne Nelson had told her daughter upon being informed Charles had proposed, “and I know very little, indeed, except he chooses to live on some isolated island in the Caribbean, even though he has money enough to live anywhere. He raises cacao, coffee, and little black Sambos. He’s connected to the Blaines by some marriage of the Duke of Geoose to a lady-in-waiting of Empress Josephine during the days of the Napoleonic Court.”

  “I love him,” Marie had insisted.

  Certainly, she had loved the envious glances she’d gotten from friends, like Mildred Galen-Wayde. Certainly, she had loved the way Charles’ stand-out tan made Englishmen pasty-complexioned in comparison. Certainly, she had loved the idea, too, of being whisked away from stuffy London society to a place in the sun where primitive natives frolicked in half-naked idyllic bliss.

  On the journey to Saint-Georges, having realized there had been those extenuating factors in attendance, Marie had wondered if she hadn’t moved too quickly. However, now, once again, in Charles’ strong arms, she regained her assurance that her love for this man had been the prime motivating force in her having picked him—not someone else—to be her husband.

  The two returned to the water of the pool, splashing and enjoying themselves like youngsters feeling deliciously wicked in indulging, once again, in co-educational nudity.

  It was Marie who was first back out of the water. She came up on a flat stone that was toasted warm in the sun. Using the flats of her hands, she scraped drops of liquid off her tanning flesh, watching Charles still swim the cool water.

  He moved gracefully. His body, slightly distorted by the liquid around and over it, sliced through the liquid like some exquisite machine or animal designed just for aquatic exploration. When he reached the far side, he turned in the water, using his feet to kick off the far shore, much like Marie had so often seen Olympic swimmers do. The pool swirled behind him, forming myriad vortexes and eddies that caught the sunlight and refracted it into shards of brilliance.

  Marie experienced a decidedly warm and erotic sensation from just watching her husband’s movements. Eroticism of this particular metal hadn’t been at all a part of their courtship or their marriage in London.

  Having seen what she had of the island, so far, Marie thought she might have a hint as to what kept Charles anchored to this particular stretch of ground instead of to any of the major world capitals. Saint-Georges was beautiful beyond belief. It offered everything he needed for a comfortable existence. It allowed him the exercise and outdoor living which would keep him physically fit while his counterparts in the big cities grew fat. While there was undoubtedly an island class system (Charles had briefly mentioned the need to introduce Marie to Saint-Georges’ society), it would—Marie suspected—be far more to the tastes of a relaxed and informal man than the more rigid structure found in either London, Paris, or New York.

  Yes, drying off in the warmth of a tropical sun, turning another shade of heavenly bronze that would have had her mother clucking her tongue and issuing warnings about skin cancer, Marie was more than happy to have snatched the opportunity to come here with Charles. She was becoming more and more sure that her paranoia of the past few hours could be attributed solely to her sickness on the ship, her exhaustion from too much travel all at once, the trauma of trying to settle into a strange place, and her initial apprehension that she might have acted rashly in the first place.

  She reached for the tablecloth which Karena had packed in the picnic hamper. Coming to her feet, she draped the pale blue cotton around her body like a native sarong. Doing so made her feel even more like a real islander.

  She was headed around the shore toward the spot where she thought Charles would touch upon his next return from the far side of the pool when something caught her attention out of the corner of one eye. At first, she thought it was a small bird, then possibly a berry, fruit, or even a nut. Then she saw that, whatever it as, it was hanging from the branch of a large bush just off to one side of where she was walking. She detoured for a closer look.

  It was a small figurine, carved from some kind of black wood, and threaded with a leather thong through a hole in its head. The leather, knotted by its two ends formed the loop from which the wooden pendant hung.

  On first appearance, Marie suspected that the branch had inadvertently snagged the prize of some unsuspecting passerby who had continued on without it. However, closer inspection proved the thong so placed within the branch that it couldn’t have possibly gotten there by mistake. To get it free, Marie first had to untie the knot completely. That meant that someone had specifically placed it there, probably some swimmer who hadn’t wanted to lose it. Yet, if such precautions had been initially taken, why had the necklace been forgotten?

  The figurine untied, Marie brought it up for a closer look. Certainly, it was an ugly little carving. It had bulged eyeballs, arched brows, roughly carved holes for nostrils, and a gaping mouth that came complete with obscenely parted lips.

  “What do you have there?” Charles asked from behind his wife, giving Marie a decided start.

  “Oh, Charles, you scared me,” she said, punctuating with a nervous laugh of relief. Her right hand, holding to the little wooden pendant, had gone to her throat. Suddenly, she realized he wasn’t looking at her but at the talisman.

  He got that same glassy expression on his face that he’d had that morning over breakfast. In one quick second, Marie felt all of her previous contentment drain to the ground beneath her feet.

  “Cécile, you’re going to be the ruin of both of us, yet; you know that, don’t you?” Charles said. His body was glossed with water from the pool. The veneer of slick liquid reflected sunlight to blind Marie as he took the few remaining steps that separated him from her.

  “Charles?” she asked uncertainly. She didn’t know what else to do or say. His eyes, once focused on the wooden figurine, now seemed fo
cused on nothing in particular. His large blue pupils were strangely dilated for the amount of sunlight having access to them. “Charles?”

  She thought he reached for the necklace; she moved to hand it to him, but his hands settled gently on her neck, instead.

  She experienced a shiver and chided herself for whatever the fear suddenly having taken root inside of her.

  “Why? Why?” Charles asked. His face looked decidedly pained; lines formed at the corners of his eyes and mouth where they hadn’t been before.

  “Why what, Charles?” Marie asked. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Yet, what she had said seemed highly inadequate for the occasion.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Marie continued to have the impression he wasn’t presently talking to her. To whom, then? Had he called her...Cécile?

  “I love you, too, Charles,” she said, wondering when he was going to come out of his trancelike state, this time around. At the breakfast table, it had been gone in mere seconds.

  “Anyway, I think I love you,” he said. “Sometimes I get confused. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder. You know what they’re saying, don’t you?”

  “No, Charles. What are they saying?”

  “They’re saying you’re a witch who has seduced me; broken all of the rules because of your lust; condemned us, and all around us, to destruction.”

  Marie had yet another shiver. Bumps, like large icy beads, arose along her flesh. She tried to say something, even got her mouth open to do so, only to realize that Charles’ hands gradually tightened around her neck.

  “Are you a witch, Cécile?” he asked, his hands clamping event tighter into the softness of his wife’s pretty throat. “Are the two of us really working together to conjure a hell upon this earth?”

  “Charles, you’re hurting me.” Marie was plunged into some horrific nightmare. How could she possibly have gone from ecstatic bliss to this new low in such a few short minutes?