Life on Tangier Island must have been hard, for Emily had aged and changed. The lively, eager young girl she had been had vanished. This might be the way Alex would have looked if she had become a waterman’s wife.
At last Hallie showed signs of leaving, and that was a relief. “You don’t really need us here,” she told Alex cheerfully. “You need to sleep. Emily can visit with me for a while before she goes back to the island, so I’ll take her home.”
As she said good-bye, Emily avoided Alex’s eyes, not ready yet to be friends again, and Alex couldn’t blame her. If there were to be overtures, she must make them, and she thanked Emily warmly for coming.
“Be well soon,” Emily said, “and let us know when you can come over and bring Susan. John told me to be sure and urge you to come.”
Alex promised nothing. She had seesawed for too long. In her present discouraged state, with pain nagging at her leg, making all the effort it would take to visit the island seem impossible. If John wanted to see his granddaughter, let him come here. How could she have thought that she could endure seeing Tangier again with all its bittersweet memories? The fall that had weakened her had also jarred some sense into her.
When Hallie and her sister had gone, Alex closed her eyes and sank back in bed. By now she hoped that Susan would say nothing about the carving.
Susan sat down close to the bed and began lightly. “How are you feeling? Peter said your leg would hurt for a while, but I have some pain medication he prescribed that will help.”
Alex waved that aside; physical pain was nothing. It was the inner pain she could no longer deal with.
But Susan was not ready to let everything go. “I saw the carving. What did it mean?”
Alex answered listlessly. “Fact and fiction always intermingled in his novels. For the sake of whatever story he was writing, he would do anything that served his purpose. His black swan was supposed to be evil, so he portrayed her that way in his carving before he wrote about her in the novel.”
She had known without the slightest doubt that her husband had loved her to the end of his life. He had never been less than kind, never too demanding, always showing her his gratitude that she was his wife. The choice she had made had been the right one. The wayward girl who had loved John Gower was old now, too; something she had never quite accepted, and it was about time she did.
Susan snatched at her words, looking relieved. “Of course! Juan Gabriel would have been illustrating what he wanted to write when he carved the swan.”
To Alex her own voice seemed disembodied. “Who else would he use for a model, since he was basing his dancer on Drina?”
Clearly Susan was trying to dismiss whatever disturbing emotion she’d felt when she first saw the carving, but Alex had no strength to further defend herself.
“Where is it now?” she asked.
“It’s upstairs in my room.”
“Then leave it there. I’ll sleep now. I have a handbell on my table, so I can ring if I want anyone. I’ll rest better with no one else in the room.”
For a moment she thought Susan might lean over and kiss her cheek—perhaps guiltily, and she was relieved when she merely reached for the copy of The Black Swan.
“I’ll go across the hall and read for a while,” Susan said. “Peter is going to stop by, so I can wait there for him.”
Alex watched her go, knowing she would seek answers in the book—answers she would never find from the man she believed was her grandfather. There were too many questions that Alex herself had never found answers to. Why had Juan Gabriel been found in the upper hall? Had he been trying to reach Dolores? Had he managed, by sheer force of will, to stumble across the hall from his wheelchair in an effort to save Dolores from some danger he recognized?
Some months later, at the end of his life, Juan Gabriel had come out of his coma to speak those alarming words she had never understood. She had begged him to tell her what he wanted, but in the end he had flung out a hand as though to point, though all he’d managed to do was knock over a bowl of oranges beside his bed. She had told Marilyn what had happened, and everything had been set down in the notes for the book. Marilyn had been sure that he was trying desperately to tell Alex something he knew. But there had been no possible way to know if she was right.
There was one thing she did know—in the end, a trip to Tangier would be pointless, and she could give it up without regret. She’d sent Susan away so she could sleep, but her mind was wide awake, and memory was only a torment. Seeing Emily had brought the thought of John Gower back all the more sharply. The changes they would see in each other would be shocking. How could she ever have believed that she could see him again?
She had been disturbed by the weathered lines in Emily’s face, the sadness in her eyes. She knew they had lost a seven-year-old son many years ago and had no other children.
There were other, unhappy memories she had always thrust away. At their last meeting, John Gower had been furious with her because she would not leave Juan Gabriel and run off with him. In those early days of the forties, Tangier men had been known for violence when duly aroused. So, she’d even been afraid for a little while.
But how could she have gone with John? Juan Gabriel had known her as Drina. Her dancer’s life meant nothing to John Gower. By now, of course, he had long realized that his marriage to Emily had been the right choice. He would have forgiven and perhaps even forgotten. Or did one ever forget young love that was cut off and lost forever? Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if John had stood his ground and refused to accept her decision. Perhaps it was fortunate for them all that he had let her go.
A tap sounded on the door, and she opened her eyes as Peter and Susan came into the room. Susan’s radiance reminded her of herself as she’d once been. Peter’s expression, however, was guarded, and Alex wondered if he noticed what Susan revealed when she looked at him.
“You’re better,” Peter said after examining her, “though Susan tells me you haven’t done much sleeping.”
“Sleeping is for old people!”
“That sounds more like you. If you’re so wide awake, there’s something you should know about, Alex. When Susan and I had lunch at The Mulberry Tree, Priscilla Bates met us there. Did you know Priscilla?”
“Marilyn’s friend? Slightly.”
“Marilyn intended to stay with her in Richmond for a while when she left Kilmarnock. They were old friends from university days in Charlottesville.”
Alex had been sadly aware of the cooling of Peter’s marriage. Marilyn’s ambitions led in other directions than being a doctor’s wife and the breakup was inevitable.
Peter explained about the last pages of notes that Marilyn had left with Priscilla, and which she still held. Priscilla had decided to do something about them when she learned of the manuscript’s return.
“When you’re feeling stronger, you may want to talk with Priscilla yourself, Alex,” he suggested. “Perhaps you are the one who should finish Marilyn’s book.”
At the moment Alex had no heart for doing either. She had always been fearful about what Marilyn might choose to reveal in the conclusion of the book. Marilyn had asked for her help, but not her approval, refusing to write an authorized biography of Juan Gabriel’s life. He held a place in world literature, she’d insisted, and even unpleasant truths should be told about him. Up to a point, Alex had agreed. Beyond that point might lie monsters, as old maps had used to designate unknown territories.
“I haven’t the energy or the wish to see the book published,” Alex told Peter.
Before she could say more, the screen door at the back of the house banged and Theresa burst into the room. She looked pale and frightened, and her heavy coil of hair had slipped untidily from its pins. To see Theresa disheveled was alarming in itself.
“I’ve just seen him!” she cried. “I’ve just seen Juan Ga
briel!”
Alex sank back against her pillows and closed her eyes.
Peter said, “Hang on, Theresa. Sit down and catch your breath.”
Susan poured a glass of water, and handed it to Theresa who just stared at it, as though she didn’t know what it was.
Somehow Alex managed to speak patiently. “Where did you see him, Theresa? Upstairs in his old room?”
“No—no! He was in his study in the boathouse.”
“Tell us the rest.”
“After I left you I went outside, and I saw Hallie sitting near the dock with Emily. Emily was crying, and Hallie was trying to comfort her. When I asked what was the matter, Hallie said her sister was unhappy because her old friendship with Alex had been lost. She felt it was somehow her fault that it had been dropped over the years.”
Alex sighed. There was no way to make Emily understand, and she didn’t care whether Theresa did or not.
“I asked how I could help,” Theresa went on. “Hallie got a very strange look in her eyes and said that something terrible was going on that Juan Gabriel had started. The way she spoke gave me the shivers. Hallie has a sixth sense sometimes, just the way I have. She stood up and ran toward the boathouse and Juan Gabriel’s study. Emily and I followed her. Hallie went in and just stood there looking around. Then, like a sleepwalker, she walked toward the wall of books at the end of the room. If I hadn’t stopped her she might have stepped right through that broken place in the floor. I pulled her back in time and she seemed to wake up. I think she was really scared when she saw where she was, and she began to shake. Emily put an arm around her, but she went on shaking. Hallie believed there was something in the room with us. She thought it was Juan Gabriel’s spirit come back to warn us about something that threatened you, Alex.
“Finally, Emily managed to get her out of that room and down to the boat. When they’d gone, I sat at Juan Gabriel’s desk to try to collect myself.”
Alex listened intently as Theresa went on. Was it possible that Juan Gabriel—his spirit, or whatever might be out there among his things—had a message for her? Of course it wasn’t possible, but she listened.
“All of a sudden I knew he was there,” Theresa said. “I knew I wasn’t alone in that room, and I’ve never been more afraid.”
“Did you actually see something in the room?” Peter asked.
“I’m not sure now.” Dark hair tumbled over her face. “It was more like a feeling—a sort of pulsing in a far corner of the room. A thickening in the air that I can’t even describe. It made me want to run out of that place, just as Hallie had done. But I couldn’t move. Then, as I watched, the pulsing grew fainter and was gone. If it was Juan Gabriel’s spirit that Hallie thought she’d seen or felt, then it had brought some sort of warning with it.”
Alex waited, not trusting Theresa. This could so easily be one of her performances.
Theresa went on from behind the cloud of her dark hair. “Perhaps Juan Gabriel’s spirit is restless. His death couldn’t have been peaceful. I had a strong sense of warning. It made me feel that there’s something you haven’t finished, Alex? Something you ought to do?”
Theresa pushed back her hair, and Alex saw the brightness of her eyes. If malevolence existed anywhere, it might easily come from Theresa herself. Besides, Juan Gabriel’s death had been peaceful—she herself had made it so. Alex closed her eyes again.
“This is all too much! I don’t know what to believe. Please go away and let me rest—all of you!”
For a moment no one moved. They were watching her—Susan and Peter anxiously, Theresa with a certain triumph, perhaps, because she knew how badly Alex had been disturbed by her words.
Theresa looked dreamily off into space. “Lawrence belongs to the spirit world now too. What if it was his presence both Hallie and I sensed in that room? Lawrence was very angry after Dolores died. Angry with you, Alex. I was only twelve, but I remember that. If he never stopped being angry, he could be an angry spirit now. A spirit who wants to punish someone in this house.”
The room was hushed for a moment.
When Theresa laughed, it was not a pleasant sound.
“You should all see your faces! The way you look! I’ve certainly given you something to think about, so now I have other things to do.” Better things, seemed to be the implication.
No one tried to stop her, and when she’d gone, Peter said, “I think that’s enough explosive emotion for now. You don’t need this, Alex, and I hope you won’t pay any attention to Theresa. Her imagination runs away with her.”
That was true enough, but Alex was troubled by the effect upon Susan, who looked stricken and confused by this talk about her father.
“Aside from Theresa’s nonsense—which Peter and I are accustomed to,” she told Susan, “I’m sure Lawrence’s spirit is not troubled and that he would have better things to do than stir us up. Hallie’s notions can be as far out as Theresa’s, and I don’t think we should give serious attention to any of this.”
Though she’d tried to sound matter-of-fact, she was aware of Peter’s watchful look, and she couldn’t be sure what he was thinking.
“If only I could remember what happened when my mother died,” Susan said. “But no matter how hard I try—”
“Don’t try,” Peter said. “That will only drive it deeper. You can’t force this, and you’ll only torment yourself.”
“But I want to remember! I don’t think I can find any peace of mind until I do.”
Alex spoke to Peter thoughtfully. “You’ve worked with patients who have needed to bring back forgotten episodes in their lives to help with present illness. Perhaps you could try that with Susan?”
Peter shook his head emphatically. “Susan isn’t ill, and I don’t want to tamper with her psyche. I’m not qualified.”
“I don’t want that either,” Susan agreed.
Alex gave up. These two young people could only help themselves, and all she could hope for was that they might make better choices than she had.
She closed her eyes and waited for them to leave. The moment she was alone she sat up on the edge of her bed, moving her leg carefully. Dizziness and a stabbing of pain subsided after a moment, and when she could stand she hobbled across the room to her bureau and opened a drawer. She had hidden the sealed letter from Lawrence that had fallen out of Dolores’s book of stories, and now she drew it out from beneath the nightgowns under which she’d tucked it. The time had come to learn what Lawrence had written—those words she’d been afraid to read so long ago.
Overhead a ceiling fan whirred softly at low speed, touching her with its gentle breeze as she sat in her armchair. The letter’s creases had deepened with the passing years, but the ink was still clear in Lawrence’s rather cramped handwriting.
Alex:
I am taking Susan away with me to my new teaching post in New Mexico. I do not wish her to grow up in that house of violence and depravity. I do not believe that my wife died a natural death, but to stay there in order to learn the truth would not bring her back. And, in any case, I think truth is something that you decided to live without long ago.
Any letters you send will be burned. Any effort to contact Susan will be refused. I will tell her nothing.
My only regret is that I injured Juan Gabriel, whom I have always admired. I shall see that Susan grows up without prejudice against him. But, of course, with every prejudice against her grandmother.
Lawrence Prentice
Alex read the letter through twice, but it told her nothing new. She was still not sure of what Dolores might have revealed to her husband, though she could guess. Nor did she know for certain why Lawrence and Juan Gabriel had quarreled. She still could not face what she had feared at the time. Even now, so many years later, the pain of what she suspected struck too deeply to be faced. She could not endure the thought that in the very last mo
nths of his life Juan Gabriel had learned the truth. After the fight with Lawrence, he had refused to explain or discuss the matter. The next day a stroke had made speech so difficult for him that she would not urge him to say more about the incident.
The letter didn’t matter, except that it had brought so much pain to the surface again. However, she could show it to Susan, and it would at least explain why her granddaughter had never heard from her.
All that mattered now was the present, not the past. She would go to sleep asking for help, and somehow she would be guided. Tomorrow she would know what to do.
9
Peter drew Susan into the hall. “I’d like to talk to Hallie about what just happened. Sometimes Theresa goes off the deep end, but I’d like to hear Hallie’s version of Theresa’s story. It’s too late now, but will you come with me in the morning and we’ll visit the Townsends together? Perhaps we can catch Hallie off guard.”
More had happened than Susan could digest. She wanted to talk to Peter about so many things, and this would offer an opportunity.
“Of course I’ll come with you, but not just to talk to Hallie. So much has occurred that I can’t sort out, and I’d like to tell you something that has happened between Alex and me.”
“I’ll be happy to listen, Susan. The ride will give us a chance to discuss a lot of things.”
“What if my worst nightmares are based on something that really happened—that I had a part in?”
“If that’s true, you’re carrying a heavy load. But Theresa can make up fantasies, so don’t accept anything she says at face value. If you want to rest easier, Susan, you need to let that inner child come out. That’s the only way you’ll learn the truth.”
He put an arm around her and kissed her cheek lightly before he went away. She was still his childhood friend and perhaps that was the way it ought to be.
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