House of Masques by Fortune Kent

led the way now, for shrubs crowded in on the path from both sides. When he turned to make sure she followed, he seemed preoccupied and only perfunctorily polite.
    Am I being honest about my feelings toward the Captain? she wondered. Am I deceiving myself in this, too?
    They climbed the steps of the gazebo to an upper deck where Kathleen placed both hands on the railing and looked over the valley. Below her the river narrowed as it curled northward, reminding her of a jester’s cap. At the spot where the cap’s bell would have been the river disappeared in the haze. To her right Storm King Mountain rose in terrace-like formations, heavily wooded except for the outcropping of rock at the summit. The trees near the crest were scraggly and wind-bent.
    As they stood side by side without speaking, Kathleen found her thoughts coming back time and again to the Captain. I know I am jealous of Clarissa , she told herself. I detest this man for what he did, while I resent the attentions he pays another woman. Am I warped in some way? How can I have both feelings at the same time?
    On the way back to the house the Captain took her along a different trail which twisted and turned down a short, steep hill. Halfway to the bottom an unshaven man with a rifle under his arm stepped aside to let them pass. One of the guards, she supposed. She saw Charles nod and look quickly away.
    The path crossed a gully to a field in which countless stumps were all that remained of what must have been a thick woods. Two men walked among the stumps, carrying water buckets suspended from yokes over their shoulders.
    â€œI’ve ended lumbering on our land,” the Captain said. “We’re replanting with seedlings from the woods.” He kicked a severed root buried in the earth and she watched dust puff into the air. “We have to bring water in or they’ll die. I’ve had enough of death.”
    They left the path and climbed a hill where the pine needles made the forest floor feel soft beneath her feet. Bushes barred the way until the Captain held the branches to one side and Kathleen stepped through to find herself but a few feet from the Worthington house. She held her hand to her mouth, startled, the three stories of the mansion looming over her, the chimneys on the outside of the walls leading her eyes up and up, past the multitude of windows, up to the steep-pitched roofs where pointed lightning rods thrust into azure sky.
    â€œWe’ve never used the whole house,” he said, coming to her side. “My grandfather added rooms and towers and turrets, year after year, for no apparent reason except to build. To create. I never knew him, he was killed before I was born, and I used to think him foolish, one of the nouveaux riches . The kind of man who likes a metal deer on the front lawn. Now I’m not sure. In a way I’d like to leave behind more than I receive, leave the Estate better than I found it.” He motioned back along the way they had come. “Like planting the trees,” he said.
    They walked past the kitchen with its fresh bread smells to the side yard where two upstairs maids used looped metal beaters to send dust rising from a rug hanging over a clothesline.
    â€œYou have so many servants,” Kathleen said.
    â€œI know. Five years ago my father left Blasingame in charge. His solution to every problem is to hire more people. We have servants, servants, and more servants. What can I do?”
    â€œYou might let some of them go.”
    â€œI couldn’t. My father makes those decisions.” Kathleen held her tongue.
    â€œAt least they’ll be busy this weekend,” he told her. “See where the stone balustrade makes a half-circle behind the house? Those French windows open from the ballroom where we’ll have more than a hundred guests at the masquerade tomorrow night. They’re coming from all over the State, from New York City, Albany and Poughkeepsie. A few