The Ebony Swan

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  For now it was good to have a few hours in which nothing of any consequence was likely to happen. Susan checked on Alex, who slept deeply, renewing herself physically, and probably emotionally.

  When she went upstairs, even the tower room seemed a haven that held no threats. As she kicked off her shoes, she glanced at the bureau and saw that the carving of the ebony swan was gone. She knew only one person who might have taken it, but she had no wish to track it down now. Tomorrow would be time enough to have this out with Theresa.

  For this little while she would relax and let everything drift away. Morning always brought new strength.

  She awakened early, feeling refreshed. Not even Theresa was up when Susan went downstairs. She fixed herself toast and coffee and a soft-boiled egg, glad to have this time alone. Just as she finished eating she heard Peter’s car and went out to the porch.

  “I’m ready,” she called to him.

  “Wait,” Peter said, coming up the steps. “There’s something I want to do first—by daylight. Let’s have a look at the board out in Juan Gabriel’s study—the one that broke under your grandmother’s light weight.”

  She went with him out the back door, steadying herself against facing her grandfather’s study again. Finding Alex there had been a shock, and Theresa’s dramatics hadn’t helped her feeling about the place.

  Early sunshine shone at the windows, sending long bars of light across the floor, driving all the shadows to the far corners of the room.

  Peter knelt before the wall of books and examined the broken board carefully while Susan looked around. Nothing “pulsed” in any corner, and she had no sense of the “presence” Theresa claimed to have felt.

  When Peter stood up, he spoke soberly. “Someone deliberately fixed this piece of flooring so it would break, intending injury. Who else could be expected to use this place but Alex? Only she might come in here. A good blow could have damaged the board so it would crack under her weight.”

  “But why? At worst, Alex might have broken a leg, but hardly anything more. So why was it done?”

  “Who knows? The fall might have killed her if her heart had given out. Or perhaps it was a warning—though about what only Alex could tell us. Anyway, let’s go talk to Hallie now.”

  As they settled into Peter’s comfortable old car, Susan found herself remembering Colin Cheney’s inevitable Mercedes. Peter’s patients needed this concerned doctor who had helped them because he cared. She was no longer sure that anyone needed Colin’s sort of doctor, who thought first of money and prestige.

  As they traveled east, Peter explained where they were going. “Hallie uses her skiff when she visits Alex, since the creek is the best shortcut between their homes. The long way around is to follow the highway above where Sawmill Creek ends. We’ll take a third way—the Merry Point ferry. The ferry is much shorter than going by the main road, and it’s an experience in itself.”

  Susan watched the mostly empty countryside slip past. August corn had grown high enough to block the horizon where there were no trees. Here and there were small modern houses built in the economical ranch style, alternating occasionally with old white clapboards. More than once they passed some tumbledown dwelling, abandoned, but apparently not vandalized.

  When the pale, rippled waters of the creek came into view and the road ended, Peter pulled the car to one side to wait for the ferry. A striped barrier protected cars from the water’s edge where they would board the ferry. Susan could see the curiously-shaped little boat chugging toward them out in the middle of the creek. Space for two cars set bumper to bumper ran along one side of the boat, with a high, windowed structure for the “captain” to sit on the level above. The boat was attached to a steel cable, submerged out in the water, so boats lighter than the cable could pass over it. Only two cars were making the trip, and theirs was the only one waiting on this side to cross the creek.

  “It will take a few minutes for the ferry to reach shore,” Peter said. “Then we can board right away.”

  This was the opportunity Susan had waited for, and she told him about the carving Juan Gabriel had created of the black swan from the ballet in which Drina had danced. As best she could, she described the wicked little face that had emerged from the wood—a face that clearly resembled Alex when she was young.

  “My grandfather must have been fictionalizing when he carved the swan, just as he did with descriptions in his novels. But I’m not sure Alex believes that. The carving must have disturbed her a great deal, and it’s my fault that it’s been unearthed again. Have you read The Black Swan?”

  “Alex never wanted me to, and I never questioned her, since it seemed a private matter. I’ve read most of the other novels. Have you read The Black Swan?”

  “Only parts, because Alex wanted me to. That was the book she went to Juan Gabriel’s study to get for me. She must have just taken it down from the shelf when she fell. Afterward, someone brought it into the house, and I’ve been dipping into it, reading the ballet scenes. Alex told me that the only time he described her dancing was in that book. She wanted me to read the passages about the white swan. They are beautiful—and written with such admiration and love. Not at all the way he described the black swan.”

  “Two sides of the same woman?”

  Susan didn’t want to believe that her grandmother was anything like what Juan Gabriel had seen in his black swan. She shook her head uncertainly.

  “Alex put the box that contained the swan away in the tower room where she wouldn’t see it. When I brought out the box, while we were going through a trunk, she stopped me from opening it. Later she changed her mind and sent me upstairs for it.” Susan paused.

  “I’m sorry you were upset,” Peter said gently. “But this was long ago—it can’t matter now.”

  “I’m not sure. My grandfather seemed to be saying something about Alex that I don’t want to believe is true. Yet the carving almost convinced me for a little while. I left it in my room, meaning to put it away later on, but when I went upstairs last night, it was gone. Only Theresa could have taken it, but I have no idea why. Sometimes I wonder if she really cares about my grandmother. She’s a very complicated woman and not always sensitive. She’s told me that she thinks I pushed my mother on the stairs.”

  “Marilyn also believed that Dolores was pushed to her death. But not by you, Susan. Don’t think that for a moment.”

  She wished she could take comfort from his words.

  “But there were only two other people in the house—my grandfather and me.”

  “Marilyn thought there might have been someone else. Someone who got away. I’ve wondered if she knew more than it was safe for her to know.”

  “Sometimes flashes come into my mind—almost giving me visual scenes. But they fade out before I can grasp them.”

  He put an arm around her, drawing her close. “Honey, I wish I could help.” A deep tenderness sounded in his voice, and when he bent toward her she knew that in another moment he would kiss her in a far from brotherly fashion. Without hesitation she raised her head, knowing this was what she wanted more than anything else.

  At that moment, however, something stopped him. He withdrew his arm abruptly, turning from the open invitation of her lips. When he began to speak, the words came rapidly, as though he needed to fill a dangerous silence—a silence in which he might have committed himself to too much?

  Susan felt shaken and rejected, unable to understand the sudden change. He was talking about her grandfather now, and she tried to save her own pride by listening.

  “I can remember watching Juan Gabriel when he was carving one of those little figures—sometimes human, sometimes animal. He would sit on that bench near the edge of the creek and work with wood almost as though it were clay. If I was very quiet, he would let me stay. He told me once that he wasn’t merely carving. He was freeing himself for the story forming
in his mind. I’m not sure he always knew what he was creating from the wood. Some unconscious part of his mind seemed to guide his hands.”

  What hidden part of Juan Gabriel had told him to create that evil little ebony swan? But none of this seemed important to her now. The only thing that mattered was the way Peter had drawn back, as if from a perilous brink.

  The ferry crossing toward them had reached the docking place, and a ramp led the two cars off the boat. When the ferry was ready, Peter drove aboard, and then got out to place chocks behind the back wheels of his car, so they wouldn’t roll. He stood for a moment talking to the young man on his high perch above the engine, where he could view the creek. When the noisy machinery started up, Peter came back to the car, and they sat watching lightly rippled waters flow past. She was glad for time to raise her own defenses.

  On the opposite bank, trees grew thickly down to the edge of the creek, and only an occasional roof could be seen. A strip of sand had collected in one place, forming a narrow beach. Farther downstream the creek curved out of sight on its way to the Chesapeake.

  “Tidewater Virginia,” Peter said, raising his voice above the engine sound. “I’ve always been glad this is my bit of country.”

  It would have been her country too, Susan thought, if her mother hadn’t died, if her father hadn’t taken her away. Perhaps then she might have been the one to marry Peter.

  He smiled, watching her. “You’re a lot like your grandmother, Susan. I don’t think you even guess how much you resemble her.” He was friendly, as always, but it was as though that moment of tenderness had never existed.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I suppose it’s a mixture. We’re all mixtures, and somehow we have to make sense out of the conglomeration we’ve been handed.”

  “Alex seems very wise to me, and I haven’t been very sensible about my life.”

  “Don’t be too sure about Alex’s wisdom. You seem to have a practical sort of good sense, with compassion behind it. I’m not sure how compassionate your grandmother is, except toward her family and close friends. And we certainly don’t know how wise she was at your age.”

  As they talked, the little ferry reached the far bank of the creek. The docking arrangement was the same, and when they drove ashore, Peter took a side road that followed the water.

  “It’s only a short distance,” he told her. “The Townsend house is older than the Montoros’, and it has always been in their family.”

  After a few miles he drew into the foot of a short driveway, and Susan looked out at a house that was neither as eccentric and fanciful in its architecture, nor as elegant as Alex’s home. A long straight porch ran across the front, with a slanted extension of overhanging roof. Azaleas that must have been glorious in the spring formed a bushy green line below the front edge of the porch. Above, set into white clapboards, were three windows with gray shutters.

  Hallie must have heard the car, for she came to the front door to greet them quizzically. “Hello! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” She turned her head. “Gilbert, we have company.”

  As Susan and Peter left the car, Hallie crossed the porch. “Come on in,” she invited, though her tone was less than welcoming.

  Peter thanked her amiably. “We came early so we could catch you before you left for work.”

  “I’m off today,” Hallie said. “How’s Alex?”

  “She’s doing very well. May we talk to you for a few minutes, Hallie?”

  If Hallie’s nervous elbows had been wings, she would fly, Susan thought as she and Peter entered a parlor that emanated a faded Victorian flavor.

  Whatnot tables abounded, crowded with miniature family pictures. There was a shell collection, and various china objects of no particular distinction. Susan recognized some of Theresa’s decorative eggs. The curved-back style of the sofa belonged to the last century, as did several cushioned chairs. Above the sofa, a bank of framed flower prints had been arranged on the wall.

  Peter wasted no time. “While we were with Alex yesterday, Hallie, Theresa came in from Juan Gabriel’s study in an upset state. She told us that you had sensed some sort of presence out there, and that you were so upset that you ran away. We all know that Theresa has a great imagination, but this seemed important, so we’d like you to tell us what happened.”

  Gilbert had come quietly to the door of the parlor and stood listening. He acknowledged Susan and Peter with a nod and then spoke sardonically to his sister. “Yes—do tell us what happened, Hallie.”

  Hallie looked even more flustered. “It’s easy to stir Theresa up. Sometimes I can’t help baiting her. That Incan princess bit of hers puts my teeth on edge. So I told her I could feel Juan Gabriel there in his study, and that’s all there was to it.”

  One never knew when Hallie was telling the truth, and Susan asked her own question. “Was that really all there was to it, Hallie? Are you leaving anything out?”

  Hallie fluttered her hands. “I was just making it up. Only—” she broke off and looked at her brother.

  “Go on,” he directed impatiently.

  “I know you won’t believe it, Gilbert,” Hallie said, “but I think Theresa saw something. The way she looked scared me, and I ran out and went down to my boat, Emily followed me. We came home together, and a friend picked Emily up to take her back to the island. I don’t know what Theresa saw.”

  A movement across the room caught Susan’s attention, and for the first time she saw a man sitting quietly in the shadowed corner—Eric. He had probably kept still so he could listen unseen. Now he stood up and came into the light, his good looks making him almost a younger replica of his father.

  Gilbert’s exclamation was one of impatience. “Why aren’t you at the restaurant? You should have been there for the breakfast hour.”

  “Why aren’t you there?” Eric countered, and then spoke to Peter. “What happened with Theresa isn’t unusual. She’s had these tizzies before.”

  “This seemed different,” Hallie said softly.

  Apparently no one had told either Eric or Gilbert what had happened to Alex. Peter explained that a board had been deliberately damaged in Juan Gabriel’s study, so that Alex had fallen through and hurt her leg.

  Gilbert stiffened at the mention of Alex’s injury, and Susan noted how sharp his features could seem in profile, contradicting the more amiable mask he displayed full face.

  “Probably a rotten board,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Peter began, but a telephone in the hall startled them with its sudden ring, and Hallie went to answer it. When she returned she looked worried.

  “That was Theresa. She wants to speak to you, Peter. Alex seems to have disappeared again.”

  Susan followed Peter into the hall and listened anxiously as he spoke on the phone.

  “. . . I see. We’ll be home as soon as possible. No—don’t call the police. If she’s gone off on some errand of her own, she’d only be annoyed. Don’t worry, Theresa.”

  “If there’s anything I can do—” Gilbert said, sounding anything but eager to help.

  “There’s nothing,” Peter told him.

  “Leave your car here, Peter,” Hallie said. “I can take you more quickly in my boat.”

  For a moment Susan thought Eric might insist on coming with them, but a look from his father stopped him.

  Hallie hurried toward the back of the house and Peter followed. Susan, however, stopped to look around the parlor one last time. She had a strange feeling that she’d missed something—something she ought to notice. When she studied the mantel again she realized with a shock what was there.

  At the far end, where she hadn’t seen it before, stood the ebony swan. The tiny, sly face, filled with wicked secrets, looked out over graceful arms, extended and crossed at the wrists. There was just one way it could have come here. Theresa had
taken it and given it to Hallie. But why?

  When she caught up with the others, waiting for her on the dock, Peter helped her onto a seat across the square end of the flat-bottomed skiff.

  With the outboard motor running, there could be little talk, and Susan waited impatiently during the short time it took to reach the Montoro dock. Once ashore, she held Hallie back for a moment.

  “I saw the carving of the ebony swan on your mantel, Hallie—how did it get there?”

  “An ugly little thing, isn’t it?” Hallie spoke carefully. “Theresa gave it to me yesterday when I was at your grandmother’s house. She didn’t want Alex to see it again and be upset.”

  The explanation was simple enough, yet Susan still felt uneasy.

  Theresa came down to meet them, looking upset, and Peter spoke to her. “Let’s go inside and you can tell us what’s happened.”

  The light summer coverlet on Alex’s bed had been thrown back, and her nightgown lay crumpled at the foot, as though she had dressed hurriedly.

  Gracie had joined them, and she went to the closet to look along the hangers. “Only Miss Alex’s blue slacks and one of her special jackets are gone—the pale violet one.”

  Theresa made a wailing sound, and this time Peter shook her gently by the arm. “Stop that! I doubt that Alex has had a second accident. Tell us whatever you know.”

  “I don’t know anything! That’s the trouble. I was upstairs dressing when I heard the phone ring. Somebody answered, and I didn’t pay any attention. I assume Alex picked up the phone in her room.”

  Gracie spoke firmly, as though needing to convince herself. “I heard Miss Alex answer, but I waited till she hung up before I went in. She looked like she’d gone back to sleep, so I didn’t think the call was anything that mattered. I went on back to the kitchen. You and Mr. Peter had already gone, Miss Susan.”

  “Who discovered that Alex wasn’t in her bed?” Peter asked.

  Gracie and Theresa looked at each other, and Theresa answered. “I suppose we both did. I came into her room from the hall, and Gracie came from the back of the house about the same time. And we saw just what you’re seeing now—an empty room. It’s funny she’d go off without telling anybody.”