All night and into the next morning, she turned over schemes in her mind of all the spells she knew how to do, and the spells she had yet to try. None of them fit her purpose. Each of her plots ended with Barnabas as her mindless slave, and above all, she wanted his mind intact. She dared not tamper with that spectacular mind of his that had spoken of Descartes and Shakespeare and the epic poems of Greek men long dead. She did not want a puppet or a zombie lover; she wanted him as he was in Martinique, if only Josette had not gotten in the way.
The eyes in the flames watched her, silently, offering no advice but clearly amused in waiting to see what she would do.
She went about her daily chores alone, in service to the Countess duPres and apart from the other servants of the Collins household. Undergarments had to be laundered separately in a tub of freshly drawn well water scented with lavender potpourri. Stockings had to be hung to dry near the lady's bedroom fireplace. Shoes had to be brushed and scrubbed clean of every trace of soil, and the inner soles sprinkled with talcum powder. First thing in the morning, the bed sheets needed to be stripped off the mattress and aired indoors to avoid freezing to stiffness outside. Whereas, in Martinique, she would have aired the lady's blankets in the sun, there was no sunshine in Collinwood. Of course he sees me as nothing better than a servant, if I do nothing else but labor at menial chores. What can I do to make him call for me?
She recalled the advice that Countess duPres had offered to Josette, a strategy of courtship that she had ridiculed at the time. A lady must entice a man with her charms, but not directly. When he finally comes to her, she must at first reject him—but not too vehemently. Only in this courtly dance will a lady learn of his true intentions, for if a gentleman is determined to pursue her through all obstacles, then his love will be everlasting. Perhaps it was not such a silly idea after all, considering that Josette's manipulations had won his offer of marriage.
What Barnabas needed was an obstacle to fight through.
She waited until evening for the little girl Sarah to go to supper with the family in the dining room. Phyllis Wick the governess spent, at best, half an hour tidying up the playroom before she went downstairs to eat her supper in the kitchen.
Angelique searched the girl's playroom for any remnant of her older brother's childhood. She passed over a miniature tea service for six dolls elaborate down to the last details of sugar bowl, cream pitcher, and varying sizes of tin spoons. She pawed through baskets full of silk thread and bolster pillows spiked with pins for the girl to learn to make lace. Sarah owned some balls for tossing, a wooden flute that Barnabas had bought for her in the West Indies, and some puzzle boxes from China and India too recently acquired to have belonged to Barnabas as a boy.
The window seat was a built-in chest with a cushioned lid. She went there as a last resort. As expected, she found a variety of useless artifacts from Sarah's infancy: a flannel swaddling blanket embroidered with the girl's name, smaller sized gowns and lace bonnets, and a silhouette portrait in black felt framed on white silk. Did Joshua Collins discard everything of his son's childhood when his precious daughter was born? Then, just as she was about to give up in defeat, Angelique discovered at the very bottom of the chest a wooden figurine.
It was a soldier carved out of wood, the paint chipped and worn, but still recognizable as the blue uniform of the American troops, a black tricorn hat, and holding a musket in one hand. The joints of its arms and legs were fitted with pegs so that a child could adjust the figurine's position. One might imagine a little boy making the wooden soldier march into battle with General George Washington for the glory of the revolution. A lonely little boy once played solitary in his room and idolized the heroics of his patriot father.
#
Angelique brought the wooden soldier back to her own room. She carefully laid it on the top of her bureau with the tenderness of settling a baby in its cradle. "You have a very important job, little soldier," she said in French, the language she preferred when she was alone. "Would you like to know what it is? No, I don't think I should tell you. I think you should be surprised along with the rest of them."
Speaking to the painted eyes, as if the wooden figurine were alive but sleeping, Angelique started to feel the power of her passion go into it. In the wood itself was an old native spirit, a lonely fragment of all that remained of the tree from which it was made. She imagined Barnabas handling the toy, using his own voice to make it seem to shout out orders, or obey orders—and that was most powerful magic of all. Barnabas as a boy had infused the figurine with a personality and a life force shared with his own. She smiled broadly at the swell of force radiating from the simple figurine. A power came not from herself or from the spirit of the wood, but Barnabas Collins himself. She could not have fabricated a stronger talisman.
Someone knocked on her bedroom door. Barnabas asked, "May I come in, Angelique?"
Hurriedly, she stashed the wooden soldier in the top drawer of her bureau. Then she rushed across the room, not far because the room was very small. She opened the door to let him inside. "Aren't you afraid someone might see you in the servants' quarters?"
Barnabas took a stand by her writing desk. He looked awkward and uncomfortable, drumming his fingers on the back of her upright chair. "I came here to tell you I'm sorry about what happened last night."
"You are?"
"I see no reason why we can't be good friends."
She gasped, restraining an urge to laugh wildly at how ridiculous he sounded. "Merely good friends?"
"Anything else would be quite out of the question. You can see that, can't you?"
In three quick steps, she thrust herself against his chest. Her hands reached to his shoulders and clutched at the soft velvet of his green coat. "I only see one thing: the real reason you came here! You didn't come here to tell me that you just wanted to be friends."
"Yes, I did."
"No, no, my darling, you could have told me that anywhere else in the house! You didn't need to come secretly to my room to do it, but you did." She raised herself on her toes to nearly equal his height. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder and inhaled the wood-smoke scent of his collar and bleached cravat. "And I'm very glad."
His trembling hand grasped hold of her arms. "Angelique, listen to me."
"You cannot resist me, Barnabas. Just as I cannot resist you." She raised her cheek off his shoulder in order to gaze up into his face.
"You don't understand any more than you did last night." Just inches away, she felt the warmth of his words. His breath carried the aroma of cinnamon and coffee.
"Oh yes I do understand! Our destiny was sealed those nights in Martinique. You haven't forgotten those nights, have you?"
Barnabas said more tenderly, "I will never forget them."
"Nor will I, what we meant to each other those nights. That is the only reality. You understand? The only reality!"
Without warning, he swooped into a kiss that smothered her face. Angelique gripped him behind the neck, hanging on for her life. His tongue thrust in between her teeth, plunging to her throat, almost gagging her. She whimpered a little into his mouth. Heat poured down through her core. All she could see in the darkness of her closed eyes was the fantasy of them tumbling and staggering over to her narrow little cot—just a few steps away—and losing themselves in a wild drumming dance.
All too soon, he broke away. He launched off across the room. Five quick steps took him to the curtained window. There he stood facing the wall.
Wobbling off balance, Angelique shouted at his back, "I told you, you cannot resist me!"
He whirled around and faced her. "I admit, you're difficult to resist. I lost control of myself for a moment. I'm sorry."
She laughed heartily at how pathetic and tortured his confusion. She swooped in close, returning to the position they had just been standing. Once more, she gripped the lapels of his tailcoat. "You didn't lose control of yourself. You did what you wanted to do."
"No, I shouldn't have." He pried her hands away and forcefully pressed her arms down to her sides. "Do you understand? I'm going to marry Josette because I love her! And to continue any relationship with you would be..."
Wonderful! she said with her eyes.
"...quite wrong. Angelique, stop making this so difficult for me!"
Fury gave her the strength to wrench herself out of his grip. Gone was her smile. Gone went the shine of hope and love from her eyes. Her hands clawed at the empty air between them, like a prisoner reaching through the bars of a jail cell. "All those sweet words you said to me in Martinique! They meant nothing? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
He looked to her with a sad, pleading frown. "They meant something then, but only then. It can't continue. I'm engaged to marry Josette now."
She walked away from him. Fury blurred her sights. She was hardly aware of the furniture, the walls, the room—all the solid things around her became insubstantial, unclear. It felt as if the two of them stood on a bleak gray cliff overlooking the crashing spray of sea. A gray wind rushed between them.
"Please leave me, Barnabas. I would like to be alone."
He crossed to the door. His shoulders slouched in confused defeat. With his hand on the knob, he paused. "May we still be friends?"
Angelique stared ahead at the brick wall. "I will always be closer to you than you know." With the storm of rage blowing in her ears, she could hardly hear him leave. Soon she felt the absence of his solid presence and the closing of the door.
Trembling with rage, she rushed for the top drawer of her bureau. She pulled out a kerchief monogrammed with the letter B and the wooden soldier.
Then she caught her own reflection in the small warped mirror of cheaply made glass. Seeing herself with the fire of killing wrath in her green eyes, she did not recognize her own face. This is his fault; this is what his cruelty has done to me.
"No, little soldier," she said in French to the figurine. "I think you shall need to wait a while longer to perform your duty. I will wait until Josette arrives. It would be wrong if she weren't here to see Barnabas suffer."
#
Word came at nightfall that Josette and her father Andre duPres had indeed arrived. A large carriage lit by torches pulled up to the base of the grand staircase. The weather had been clear all day. Servants had labored for hours to shovel up ramparts of slush to either side of the road in preparation for their arrival. No hailstones or rain for you... No carriage stuck in the mud... No hiking for an hour until you're soaked to the bone... What a charmed life you lead, Josette.
Angelique hurried in from the pantry, hoping to the first to greet Josette before anyone else in the house. Especially she wanted to intercept ahead of Barnabas getting there.
She found Josette standing in the parlor. She wore her beige and lavender traveling gown, a smart tailored coat with a feminine version of a man's lapels and double-breasted buttons. She had removed her dainty hat, adorned with silk flowers, and carelessly tossed it to a chair. As always, Josette expected that someone else would be tidying up after her.
"Mademoiselle!" Angelique cried out a grand performance of seeming overjoyed to see her mistress.
Josette answered in French, "I'm so glad to have arrived at last!"
The two young women clasped hands and smiled broadly into each others' faces. For all her arduous travels, by stormy sea and by carriage, Josette seemed as fresh as if she had just taken a stroll in the garden. Her chestnut hair was perfectly coiffed into a bouquet of curls. Her skin retained its warm tone of cafe au lait. If anything, the cold weather made her more lovely, as the frost pinched up a hint of rouge in her cheeks.
"What do you think of this frosty weather, mademoiselle?"
"It terrifies me more than a thunderstorm at sea," Josette said. "And yet, when I saw my first snowflake, it was the most exquisite thing."
Barnabas came to the columned archway that separated the parlor from the foyer. He said in English, "What a beautiful language, but not as beautiful as you are. Josette, my love, welcome to your new home."
Josette rushed into his arms to receive a warm, relaxed embrace. Angelique watched from across the room. How casually they fit together, how familiarly his arms slipped around her slender waist and made no hurry to push her away. Then Barnabas bowed into a gentle kiss, full on the mouth. They held the pose for so long that Angelique feared they would fall asleep together, standing, their faces sealed. He dares to kiss her with me here watching! His cruelty knows no bounds.
When they separated at last, Josette turned calmly to her servant. "Angelique, is my room ready?"
"Oui, mademoiselle. I spent all day yesterday arranging it as I thought you would like."
No longer a friend, no longer remotely anything like a sister, Josette spoke plainly in English in the tone of a mistress of the house. "Then would you please unpack my things for me?"
"Of course." Angelique picked up Josette's hat with the lavender flowers, the spotted fur muff, the shawl, the gloves, and the drawstring purse. On her way to the stairs, she had to pass within a inch behind him. Barnabas did not so much as glance to her passing by.
Angelique trotted up the single flight of stairs to the second floor. She dashed down the corridor to the east-facing room that was chosen for the master's bride-to-be. She had arranged the things, it was true, but Barnabas had selected all of the furnishings and décor according to his own understanding of Josette's taste. For a man, he had an instinctive understanding of color palette and design. The room was the ultimate symphony of femininity. White walls were stenciled in stripes of gold. The Persian carpet was also yellow and curry gold, with a paisley pattern that complimented the lilies molded into the fireplace. Lace frills were icicles around the canopy of the four-posted bed. A white dressing table held an array of silver toiletries. A little round table by the fireplace displayed a vase of freshly cut flowers—pink camellias, the only flower that blossomed in Maine in the winter. And what do I have? A servant's room with brick walls and a spinning wheel.
Angelique slammed Josette's gloves into the top drawer of the bureau. She hurled the hat and muff into the armoire and slapped the cabinet door shut. Growling like a cat in the rain, she stomped a circle around the little tea table. It took all her self-control to resist throwing the vase of flowers at the fireplace. She did not need mystic eyes to see in her imagination Barnabas and Josette downstairs. At this moment, Josette now savored the sweet lips that had Angelique had tasted only an hour ago.
Her wrath caused a blazing fire to surge out of the cold logs. An instant roaring blaze called into existence, without kindling, without scratching at a tinderbox, without fanning and patiently feeding the fire. Now is the time.
Angelique rushed swiftly and silently down the stairs. She tried to ignore the sight of them kissing, but she could not help catching a glimpse of them standing quietly in each others' arms. Their faces pressed together, their eyes closed oblivious to everything else in the world.
#
In the privacy of her room, Angelique was breathless from running all the way. She rushed to her bureau and brought forth her tools from the top drawer. "Wake up little soldier. The time has come for duty. My mistress has arrived to prepare for her wedding. But there isn't going to be any wedding, is there."
Angelique sat down at the writing table. First, she balanced the wooden figurine on its feet so that it stood at attention facing her. Then she rolled the monogrammed handkerchief into a cord. Finally, she tied the handkerchief around the wooden soldier's neck.
"Now everything is ready."
Angelique pinched both ends of the kerchief. She felt the heat of power and wrath flow out of her hands, into the cloth, into the doll. She felt the spirit of Barnabas in the toy, how many happy hours as a lonely child that he had pretended it had a voice of its own.
"We'll start with just a little pressure. Just enough to make him slightly uncomfortable."
Angelique paused for breath like an archer who had just released the first arrow of a volley. Her eyes blurred with the force of her wrath radiating outward. She knew—without knowing—that it had found its mark. He might think that his cravat was tied too tightly. Josette might fiddle clumsily with the knot, but she knew nothing of undressing a man.
"The moment has come, Barnabas. I wish I could be there when you feel the pain." She gripped the kerchief and pulled each end, out to the side, tighter and tighter. "I wish I could see the look on Josette's face!"
She pulled it so tightly that her wrists trembled with the raw strength of giving everything. Not just her arms but the burning force of her will flowed into the wooden toy and into Barnabas himself from afar.
#
Angelique got the word from frantic servants that Barnabas had collapsed. It was a seizure of asphyxia that came on quite suddenly. No one knew the cause. She feigned concern and bewilderment, mirroring the mood of the Bavarian cook and the blonde scullery maids who lingered at the kitchen door. They kept out of sight of the masters, afraid to go upstairs for what they might see.
She strolled past the uncle Jeremiah Collins in the foyer. He stood at the base of the stairs, arguing with a plainly dressed older gentleman in a long brown coat. "Doctor, can't you do anything?"
"I don't know what's wrong with him," the gray-haired doctor said. "He wasn't eating and swallowed the wrong way. He certainly isn't injured. There's no fever. From what I see, there's no reason for his symptoms."
"But there must be a reason!" Jeremiah insisted. "He can't breathe."
"Aye, that's so." The doctor carried his black leather bag to the door. There he put on his wool cloak and a plain flat hat. "It's in God's hands, now."
Angelique ascended the stairs, allowing herself a gleeful spring in her step that others would misinterpret as the urgency of concern. You are doing your duty well, little soldier. Your endurance is formidable.
Before she approached the door, she could hear Josette weeping loudly. Others of the family stood in the hallway as a vigil. Angelique had to control her urge to smile at the plan unfolding even more delightfully than she had imagined. Barnabas was suffering for his carelessness. Josette was learning for the first time how to cry genuine tears.
Naomi Collins, his mother, said, "I don't know why the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with him. There must be some reason for him to be choking!"
Joshua remained stoic as he regarded the oil painting of a summer landscape. "I told that ignorant Scotsman he should have tried leeches. 'A few cups worth of blood-letting is what my son needs,' did you not hear me say?"
"I heard you, Joshua," his wife answered. "But I agree with Doctor Thornton. I can't see how draining a man's blood is going to help him stop choking."
"He should have done something!" Joshua said.
Angelique entered the room. She found Josette kneeling by the bed and distraught in a way that she had never shown, even when her own mother had died. For once, all of her attention was focused on someone else's welfare.
Barnabas lay propped up on a pallet of pillows. His face had turned ashen; his lips were blue. Someone had removed his cravat and opened his collar to a V of starched wings. His hand clutched weakly at the buttons of his satin waistcoat. His lungs ached for air. He strained to suck a whistle through his closed throat, and little by little, was losing the strength to make the effort.
"What should we do!" Josette cried.
Standing calmly behind her, Angelique said, "Perhaps if you pray. Do you have your holy medal of Saint Pierre?"
"It's in my valise." Josette sprang to her feet. "I know right where it is! I'll get it. Watch over him, Angelique."
"I will, mademoiselle."
Josette ran out of the room.
Now they were alone, and Angelique stepped a little closer to him. She listened to him rasp and gargle on the back of his own tongue. This was the moment she had waited for: to see him suffer as he had made her suffer. But the longer she watched him claw at his chest, the more elusive her delight.
His pathetic wheezing for air drew her down to her knees. She reclined at the side of bed, where Josette had just been. "Do you have something to say that you think I might like to hear?"
Only his eyes turned to her. The whites were going bloodshot. His jaw pumped open and shut like a fish dying in a net.
"Let me see if I can give you some comfort." Very slowly, she wiped her fingertips across his Adam's apple. She smoothed away the sparkles of power that only she could see, brushing them off as she once asked a favor of the mosquitoes on that starry night far away. She eased the bond of the wooden soldier just enough that he could hoarsely gasp out a few words.
"Help me!"
She sighed. Those were not the words she was waiting to hear. He had not learned his lesson yet. She faked a gentle tone of comforting despair. "Everyone is trying to help you, and they have all failed. Even the doctor."
"Angelique, listen to me. I'm going to die."
His voice was not his anymore, but the wail of a ghost falling into its grave. He was not rambling like a fearful man. He spoke a simple statement—the truth known to the one who felt his life seeping away.
She sprang to her feet in panic. "Oh no, you must not die!"
He rolled his head from side to side, his eyes going blank and blind. "Death is all around me. Please, my angel, help me."
Is he speaking to me, or have angels come into this room ready to take his spirit away? She spun about and collided with Josette who came in the door just then bearing a tiny silver medal. Angelique did not say excuse me, but scrambled on past her.
In the corridor she picked up her skirts and ran as fast as she could. She rushed past his stunned parents and curious little sister. She galloped down the stairs, past the servants who lingered wonderingly in the shadows. More frantic by the minute, she did not stop running until she reached her own little humble room.
Her panicked fingers could not untie the knotted kerchief fast enough. I don't remember tying it so tightly! The power of her fury was stronger than the power of her love for him. She dug in, prying almost hard enough to rip out her own fingernail with it. Should I get a knife? At last the kerchief loosened.
She yanked it free and the wooden soldier could take a clear breath once more. "I'm sorry, little soldier. I've been foolish. I almost destroyed the only man I will ever love."
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