As I stood at the rail, a sound from farther along the deck reached me. Julian had come out of his study to lean against the far rail. Here was an opportunity I’d better take, and I walked toward him. He looked around without surprise.
“What did you mean by your gift of those amber beads to Jilly? Is this something I can use with her?”
He studied distant peaks, his tone pensive, sad. “I bought that strand of amber a long time ago when I was in Greece. I meant to give the beads to my daughter when she was older. They are really fine amber and valuable. She was too small to wear them at the time. Her name was Amber, and Jilly understands. She will value them.”
“I’ve been watching and listening,” I said. “You are the one who is helping Jilly. I don’t believe that you need me at all.”
He looked around at me, his dark eyes clouded with a still deeper sadness. “I wish that were true. Sometimes I almost make contact with her, and begin to think we are friends. Then she slips away. She’s afraid of friendship, of affection. Perhaps because she’s been let down too often.”
I had the strong feeling that he still wasn’t telling me everything. As I took my leave and hurried downstairs, I felt vaguely depressed by the walls he managed to set around me—even while he asked for my help.
Vivian waited for me, sitting on a low rock wall beside the curving driveway. Meryl hadn’t returned, and Jilly was in the middle of some plantings, studying a box turtle that had pulled into its shell suspiciously. A creature Jilly might feel an affinity for.
When I sat on the wall beside her, Vivian asked an immediate question. “That piece of turquoise—did Julian tell you it was to protect you from evil?”
“Yes, he did. Does that mean anything?”
Vivian’s smile was loving. “Perhaps Julian feels that if he plays at believing long enough, something magical will happen that will give him a power of healing he can use with Jilly.”
“And you don’t believe that?”
“Oh, I believe! But sometimes he frightens me a little because he goes too far. Perhaps it’s better not to tamper with the unseen. Never mind—here comes Meryl, looking upset.”
She did indeed look disturbed as she walked toward us in her usual brisk manner, springing down from the lower deck level without waiting for the step, then running toward us along the drive.
“I wonder what’s up,” Vivian murmured. “If you get a chance, see if you can find out, Lynn. She’s not likely to tell me.”
I didn’t care for that. “I’m an outsider—remember? It’s none of my business.”
Vivian shook her head. “You can never be an outsider. That’s one reason why Julian wanted you here. Whether you like it or not, you are involved. Because of Stephen you’re involved.”
There was no time to deny that. Meryl reached us and her irritation was clear. “Stephen didn’t want to talk to me! Paul made that up. He has his own irons in the fire—but never mind. Stephen still doesn’t know you’re in the house—and that’s as it should be.”
Vivian called good-bye to Jilly, and Meryl and I had just started toward Meryl’s car, parked below, when Carla Raines came down the front steps. She wore another of her sari cloth prints, long and saffron colored, with exotic yellow earrings dangling nearly to her shoulders.
“Glory, glory!” Meryl muttered under her breath.
Carla nodded to us and walked to where Jilly, kneeling to talk to the turtle, looked up and saw her. The interchange between them was out of my hearing, but Jilly’s reaction of discomfort was clear. She pulled away from Carla’s hand and ran toward Meryl’s car. She got into the back and fastened her seat belt, leaving the front bucket seats to Meryl and me. When I looked around she was fingering her amber beads as though she found comfort in touching them.
As we drove off, I saw Carla looking after us, her expression indignant.
“What did she want, Jilly?” Meryl asked.
“Just to lecture, as usual. She hates to see me have any fun.” She lost herself in watching as the road wound through foothills on the way to Charlottesville.
I spoke softly to Meryl. “Why are you doing this? Why were you so insistent about taking me off to Charlottesville?”
She answered lightly, “I could tell that you needed a change. How can you stand being in the same house with Stephen after what he did to you?”
“I didn’t come here because of Stephen, and I don’t expect to see him.”
“Is that right?”
I heard mockery in her words and, like Jilly, I fixed my attention on the view out the windows as the highway followed the curving hills.
The drive was as beautiful as I remembered. Every turn showed some new formation of mountains, and now and then I glimpsed a tiny clustering of houses—white, or green, or pale yellow—hardly large enough to be called a village, and vanishing quickly as the highway swept past.
Meryl was a good driver, though fast, and I sensed that she was taking out some irritation in the way she drove. I’d have liked to ask about her meeting with Stephen just now. More than anything I wanted to know what had prompted the desperate action he’d tried to take yesterday. But there were no questions that would sound casual, and Jilly might hear us from the backseat.
“Tell me about you, Meryl,” I asked.
“Me? Oh, I do well enough. I have a dress shop in Charlottesville, though I have a woman to run it, so it doesn’t take much of my time. I don’t like to tie myself down. Incidentally, Everett is taking us to lunch today. We already had this planned, though you and Jilly will be a surprise to him.”
Not a pleasant surprise, I suspected, and wondered what Meryl was up to.
“Everett doesn’t know I’m here?” I asked.
She laughed softly. “I love to surprise him. It will be interesting to see how he reacts.”
Her malice was clear and I began to wish I hadn’t come out with Meryl Asche.
Highway signs were beginning to indicate turnoffs to various sections of Charlottesville. Main thoroughfares cut through in a straight line, with stoplights to control the complicated flow, and roads of access led off to each side, winding in what could seem utter confusion. I’d always found Charlottesville fascinating and attractive, but not an easy city for a stranger to get around in.
There were no really high buildings, and it was a low city of gentle hills, with mountains circling around without encroaching. A green city of trees, and in the spring glorious with flowers. Now many of the city’s open spaces were exposed to raw earth—yellow scars of excavation where new business structures were being built. Obviously, Charlottesville was alive and thriving, with Thomas Jefferson’s university still at its heart. While traffic moved faster than in New York City, the pulse was slower, with more consideration toward strangers.
The mixture of residential and business sections had always fascinated me. One could be in a totally commercial area of shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, restaurants, and gas stations, yet a few blocks away, around some curving, hilly road, would be an area of trees and homes and back yards where children played and schools were set apart from the city bustle. Areas as quietly secluded as if in distant suburbs.
The old section of the city that had been called “downtown” was really not downtown anymore, since there were now clusters of shopping malls everywhere: Barracks Road, Fashion Square, Seminole Square, the Downtown Shopping Mall (for pedestrians only), and others. Much of this had grown up since I had gone to school here.
“We’re picking Everett up at the office,” Meryl said. “It’s still in the same place, though now Asche and Baker occupy the whole building.”
“Asche and Baker?” I questioned.
“That’s the firm’s name now. Since Stephen isn’t able to work these days, there’s a new partner, and several new young architects have come in. Everett has moved fast to take over what needed to be done. There’s a good deal of building going on in Virginia, and Everett’s company has to meet the competition.”
<
br /> Everett’s company. I hated that. Though even when I had been married to Stephen, Everett had managed the business end, so that Stephen could be left to the creative work he cared about.
“Doesn’t Stephen work at all anymore?” I asked. “Even if he’s in a wheelchair, I should think—”
“You haven’t seen him,” Meryl told me shortly, and I let it go. I didn’t want to hear anymore.
The streets we drove along grew familiar. We were in Thomas Jefferson territory now. Main Street narrowed, with small, rather shabby stores on one side and the long wrought-iron fence that bordered the university grounds on the other. Copies of Jefferson’s classic architectural style were to be seen everywhere in Charlottesville. Banks flaunted brick facades with white columns and porticoes. But here inside the enclosure was the real thing. The glorious Rotunda that Jefferson had patterned after ancient Rome dominated the grounds.
I didn’t want to remember the time when I’d been a student here and strolled across the great Lawn with my hand in Stephen’s. But whether I liked it or not, those experiences were as real and as much a part of me as anything happening now—even though I’d buried them for so long. The little stores and eat shops along this street were much the same as when I’d been one of the students who frequented them. Everything I saw was a reminder—and unwelcome.
Meryl found a parking place near the old brick building of the office, with its high arched windows that Stephen had loved and thought exactly right for their firm. Buildings outlived men and all their paltry emotions, but that fact didn’t help my own feelings from becoming agonizingly real.
“Would you like to come in?” Meryl asked, and her solicitous tone made me self-conscious. She knew very well that retracing these old paths was painful for me. Before I could refuse, however, Jilly stirred in the backseat.
“I’ll show you where my father used to work,” she offered as she got out of the car. This was the first time she had volunteered anything, so I got out too, following Meryl and Jilly through a side entrance.
5
Spacious, partitioned cubicles, where several architects worked at their drawing boards, ran down the center of the long, high-ceilinged room. A wide, steep flight of stairs led to upper rooms, where the company partners had their offices, and where Stephen’s office had been. Jilly couldn’t know how well I was acquainted with this place, though it seemed strange and cold to me now, lacking Stephen’s presence.
Meryl had brought us in unannounced, bypassing the receptionist at the front of the building. Upstairs, she led us to the open door of Everett’s big office. He had just put down the telephone and he looked up to see Meryl, Jilly, and me in the doorway. For an instant a look of disbelief crossed his face as his eyes rested on me. Then he left his desk and came toward us, though not in warm greeting.
“Hello, darling,” Meryl said and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Surprise! Look who’s visiting the Forsters.”
Everett made no effort of pretense toward me. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
I met his look for a moment, not liking what I saw, any more than I had in the past. Everett Asche was large and commanding in manner. He’d been in the Army and the stamp of an officer came to him naturally. He’d always seemed totally the opposite of all that I’d loved in Stephen. But my husband had looked up to his brother and listened to his counsel with respect.
Since he raised my hackles all over again, I challenged him by holding out my hand cordially. “That’s a long story, Everett. How are you? You’re looking well.”
He took my hand, not trusting me, and dropped it quickly. Even though he had never liked me, his reaction to my presence seemed extreme.
Meryl touched her husband’s arm. “I’ll tell you all about it another time, dear. Right now you’re taking us to lunch, and you should be happy with all this delightful feminine company.”
Everett threw her a dark look, but he knew when he was trapped. “Where do you want to go?” he asked curtly.
Meryl seemed to be enjoying herself, and I remembered her liking for explosive situations, for stirring things up.
“Let’s go to the Book Gallery,” she said brightly. “Jilly will enjoy that.”
Jilly had the look of a child who would enjoy nothing. She was staring at Everett fixedly, but at least her air of fearfulness seemed to have lifted.
“I want to see my father’s office,” she announced abruptly.
“He doesn’t have an office here anymore,” Everett told her. “You know that.”
“Where are his things?”
“What do you mean—things?”
This interchange was between Jilly and Everett and she continued to face him doggedly.
“Sometimes I used to come here to see my father, and there was a cork board on the wall, where he could pin up pictures and clippings. And he kept some little ornaments on a shelf. Maybe I could have those things now. So where did you put all that from my father’s office?”
“Now look”—Everett seemed caught off balance by Jilly’s persistence—“I don’t have any idea where—”
Meryl spoke quickly. “I seem to remember a carton of articles that was put away in a closet when the new man came in to use Stephen’s desk. Let’s see what we can find, Jilly.”
Jilly followed her aunt into the hall, and Everett waved me reluctantly into a chair.
“My wife’s taste for the dramatic hasn’t lessened. I’ll admit it’s a surprise to see you here, Lynn. Why have you come?”
“Julian Forster asked me to come. Because of work I’ve done with children, he thought I might be able to help Jilly in some way.”
“Help her? What’s wrong with her?”
Everett had never been particularly sensitive to others, and the needs of a child would probably be beyond him. Sometimes I’d wondered how Meryl could put up with his callousness. Except, of course, that he had given her a style of living she enjoyed, as well as a position in the social community. Meryl’s father had worked in a garage and her mother had been a waitress—which wouldn’t have mattered if Meryl herself hadn’t put her parents down and wanted to escape her own background. Everett and Stephen’s family had been “old Virginia.” However, though Meryl had social aspirations, her own independent nature must have made it difficult to fit into anyone’s else conventions. Once she had talked to me about all this when she’d been upset by some occurrence or other.
Now I tried to answer Everett calmly and not let him get under my skin. “Mr. Forster believes that Jilly is unhappy and that she needs help, guidance. Perhaps, more than anything else, she needs a father who cares about her, and a mother who is home more often. Both are apparently impossible goals, from what I’ve learned since I arrived.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Everett said. “I mean, bringing you here. None of this is any of your concern.”
“I couldn’t agree more, and I expect I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Have you seen Stephen?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
“That’s wise. He won’t want to see you either.”
To my relief, Meryl and Jilly returned, and Jilly was carrying a cardboard box, which Everett eyed suspiciously. “What’s in that?”
“Nothing valuable,” Meryl assured him. “Just some family pictures Stephen used to keep in his office. There’s no reason why Jilly shouldn’t have them if she likes.”
Everett lost interest. “Then let’s go to lunch.” His main wish, I suspected, was to get the next hour or so over with.
We followed him downstairs to his Mercedes, and this time I got quickly into the backseat with Jilly, where she sat with her precious box held tightly on her knees.
“Will you show me your photographs sometime?” I asked as we drove into traffic. I was making conversation, but Jilly removed the lid so that Oriana’s beautiful face gazed up at me from the top, and I was sorry I’d asked.
“This is my mother,” Jilly said fondly and handed me the p
hotograph I didn’t want to see.
I glanced from it to the next picture in the box—Oriana and Stephen, with Jilly as a small child, standing against a deck rail of the house that might have been mine. I couldn’t bear to see any more.
“Show them to me another time,” I suggested. “I think we’re arriving.”
Barracks Road Shopping Center—one of Charlottesville’s popular malls—was not far away, since nothing ever seemed far in this Virginia city. The Book Gallery occupied a corner of the mall, with steps, sheltered by a blue awning, leading up to the book section. A long window to the left, fronting the restaurant, displayed new book titles, inviting one to eat and browse.
I tried to put the imprint of those photographs from my mind by paying attention to my surroundings. The powder blue exterior of the Book Gallery was attractive, with its little white tables and chairs outdoors, and a blue umbrella over one of the tables. Inside the restaurant, the light shade of blue was repeated on the walls, while a darker blue carpet offered comfort underfoot. Blue napkins contrasted with white tablecloths—the whole pleasing to the eye and quietly elegant. Local artists displayed their paintings on the walls—currently showing mainly rural scenes. The atmosphere would have been relaxing—if only I could relax.
Meryl, sitting next to Jilly, seemed watchful of the child, but Jilly knew how to behave among grown-ups and performed all the proper rituals with a young dignity that I found touching. Only when she glanced at her uncle, which wasn’t often, did some deep inner resentment simmer near the surface, making me uneasy.
We were certainly an ill-assorted group, and Meryl must have known just how this would be. I wondered what restless dissatisfaction drove her to enjoy making others uncomfortable. Everett seemed not to mind—if he even noticed—as though he were accustomed to his wife’s little taunts and didn’t take them seriously.
The Singing Stones Page 7