written to the steamship agent in London to arrange return passage for her. As soon as possible.' Her triumphant look at Kate said, How do you like that, miss? as plainly as if she had spoken the words.
'You are challenging me in this way,' Aunt Sabrina said, 'because you know how I feel about what you did yesterday. After that disgraceful business with Jenny, I told you that your power to discipline the servants did not extend to physical punishment or discharge. What happened with Nettie sickens me, Bernice. I intend to-'
'Be careful what you intend, sister.' Aunt Jaggers's voice was flintlike, her words barbed. 'Remember what I know.'
Aunt Sabrina seemed to flinch and turn away, and Kate was startled to see something very like fear come into her eyes-fear and hatred. What could Aunt Jaggers possibly know that could make Aunt Sabrina afraid? What secret could be so compromising that it would force her to submit to her sister's tyranny? Kate was stunned. Aunt Jaggers was a blackmailer! No wonder Aunt Sabrina hated her.
Aunt Sabrina's face was white, without expression. When she spoke, her voice was so low that Kate had to strain to hear the words. 'You may use your ill-gotten knowledge once too often for your own welfare, sister.'
'Perhaps I have not used it often enough,' Aunt Jaggers retorted, 'for my own welfare.' She felt she had the upper hand; Kate could see it in the confident lift of her head and the aggressive line of her jaw. 'Perhaps I should use it with your dear friend the vicar as well. Perhaps he would be willing to-'
Aunt Sabrina's hand moved so fast that Kate almost didn't see the slap. But she went cold inside as she heard the smart smack of flesh against flesh, and heard Aunt Jaggers's shriek.
'You struck me!' she cried furiously, her hand going to her cheek.
Aunt Sabrina's shoulders slumped suddenly, all the rigidity gone out of her, and a look of self-disgust crossed her face. It was as if having stooped to physical violence, she had lost the high ground of her moral position. 'I am… sorry,' she said, struggling for control. 'Forgive me, Bemice. I did not intend-'
But Aunt Jaggers's eye had fallen on the Golden Dawn tarot deck. 'Fortunetelling cards,' she shrilled. 'Oh, Sa-brina, how low you have fallen!' Her nostrils flared at the painted figure on the card. ' 'I see the mark of the cloven hoof in your forehead!' She was shouting now, fixing all her inflamed morality, her burning hatred, upon the pieces of cardboard.
Aunt Sabrina took a step forward. 'Don't touch those cards, Bernice,' she said. 'They are not mine. They belong to-'
'The Devil!' Aunt Jaggers shrieked. And with one wild gesture, she swept up the cards and hurled them onto the blazing fire. As Kate stared in paralyzed horror, the thin pasteboard cards flared brightly in the flames, curled into ash, and were gone.
'Bernice!' Aunt Sabrina whispered, horrified. 'What have you done?'
Aunt Jaggers seemed to have taken strength from her action. 'I have done what I should have done weeks ago. I have taken a stand against evil.' She raised her hand in a commanding gesture, her eyes like silver coins. 'Mark me, sister. I have burned your cards. And unless you banish the
rest of this deviltry, I promise you I will burn it, as well!' She stepped smartly to Kate's alcove and shoved Kate's box of letters onto the floor.
Aunt Sabrina straightened her shoulders. She seemed to be grappling within herself. 'If you don't get out, Bernice,' she said between clenched teeth, 'I will… I will-'
Aunt Jaggers lifted her chin. 'You will do what, sister?' When Aunt Sabrina did not answer, a thin, triumphant smile crossed her face, and she turned to Kate. ' 'I will let you know when arrangements have been made for your departure,' she said.
In the fireplace, the flames flickered brightly.
30
'It we believe a thing to be bad… it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn the consequences.'
Aunt Sabrina left the library a few minutes after Aunt Jaggers, saying only that she was going to her room and did not wish to be disturbed. Feeling as if she had been caught in a furious crossfire (as perhaps she had), Kate retrieved two or three cards that had escaped the flames and picked up the correspondence that Aunt Jaggers had flung on the floor. She noted that it contained a recent, already opened letter to Mrs. Farnsworth from Mr. Mathers, from Paris. The letter, marked 'Private and Confidential,' must have been inadvertently ineluded with the correspondence of the Order, which Mrs. Farnsworth had given to Aunt Sabrina.
Kate put the envelope on Aunt Sabrina's desk and busied herself with the typing of the cipher transcript for Mr. Yeats. Given Aunt Jaggers's threat to deport her, it was difficult to concentrate on her typing. But Kate pushed her worries to the back of her mind as best she could, and simply let her fingers do their mechanical work. If Aunt Jaggers was determined that she should not stay, there was hardly anything she could do to prevent her.
Kate was not surprised that Aunt Sabrina did not reappear when it was time for luncheon. The argument with her sister had been bad enough, but the loss of the tarot deck must be even more cruel. To members of the Golden Dawn, Mr. Mathers's precious deck of cards was a spiritual document, a map of the journey to self-transcendence and transformation. The cards were literally irreplaceable, their destruction inconceivable. Kate could not imagine how her aunt would explain it.
When Kate went at one o'clock to the kitchen to make herself a roast beef and pickle sandwich, the house was a tomb. Aunt Jaggers had ordered luncheon brought to her room; Aunt Sabrina was still absent. Mrs. Pratt was stonily silent, Harriet crept about like a mouse, and poor Nettie was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she had been exiled again to the cellar, Kate thought with a feeling of sad helplessness. Amelia and Mudd were somewhere abovestairs, going invisibly about their work.
It was another gray, misty day. After she had eaten, Kate pulled on wellies, wrapped herself in a shawl, and went with an umbrella into the garden, where stalks of purple asters vied for pride of place with mounds of yellow chrysanthemums and fragrant lavender. But not even the wistful autumn loveliness of an English garden could keep her mind from Aunt Jaggers's threats, and she turned them over uneasily in her thoughts. What hold did the woman have over Aunt Sabrina? Could she really compel Kate's return to America? And what was that odd business about the vicar? What role did he play in the lives of these two women?
After a while Kate came back inside and built up the library fire once again, noticing that Aunt Sabrina had been in the room and had taken Mr. Mathers's private letter to Mrs. Farnsworth from the desk. Ten minutes later, as she was settling down to work, she heard the sound of wheels on gravel. She opened the French doors that led onto the terrace outside the library, and saw that Pocket, a mackintosh cloak thrown over his shoulders against the rain, had brought the carriage round.
Kate turned away from the French doors as Aunt Sabrina came into the library, wearing a coat and fur hat. There was a wild, almost frantic look about her.
'Why, Aunt,' Kate said, immediately concerned, 'whatever is the matter?'
'I must go out,' Aunt Sabrina replied distractedly. She was holding Mr. Mathers's letter in her hand.
'Must you?' Kate asked. 'It's chilly outside, and wet. If you wish to return Mr. Mathers's letter to Mrs. Famsworth, I'm sure I could do it for you just as well.'
Aunt Sabrina was trembling. 'What I have to do, / must do,' she said, almost incoherently. 'Only I can prevent-' She stopped. 'It is a matter of the utmost urgency.'
'Then permit me to go with you,' Kate said, beginning to be frightened by her aunt's strange behavior. 'If you will wait just a moment while I get my-'
'No,' Aunt Sabrina said, disregarding Kate's hand on her arm. She pulled on a glove, dropping the other in her haste. 'My errands may take some time, Kathryn.' She picked up the glove and yanked it on. A button snapped off and bounced across the floor, but she did not notice. ' 'I shall likely not be home until after tea.'
Kate stepped back, dismayed. What could be so urgent about Mr. Mathers's letter that it had to be returned on such an inclement day? Why did Aunt Sabrina herself have to do it? And what did she hope to prevent?
