“Which will be when?” Aunt Amalie asked a trifle tartly.
Floria flounced in the seat beside me. “I won’t be pushed. I won’t be hurried. Paul and I will be sure this is the right step for us when we take it.”
This seemed strange. Floria had wanted Paul for most of her life and I could not understand why she was not rushing into marriage with him, now that he was willing.
Susy brought the coffee tray and set it on the low veranda table. There were hot biscuits as well, and blackberry jam. I spread one and bit into Southern succulence, accepted a strong cup of coffee.
“And you, Lacey?” Aunt Amalie asked gently. “It seems such a waste that you haven’t found the right man. Marriage would become you, dear.”
I shook my head ruefully. “I’ve told you before. I’m not the marrying type. I’m happy in my work. Happy with my life in New York, my friends there. Being unmarried isn’t the most dreadful fate in the world.”
Floria said, “In the South it is. But you can afford to be independent in the North. Don’t let Mother bully you.”
As if Aunt Amalie ever bullied anyone. What she did was far more subtly persuasive, as a rule. She opened up possibilities and choices for you to see, and then she let you choose the wisest course. But I had not come under her influence for a long while. There were men in New York whom I liked, but never enough for marrying. The shadow of Giles lay across my path and I could not tell Aunt Amalie that.
I finished my coffee and set down my cup. “This is only a short visit. I want to walk down to the beach before Elise calls me. I’ll be back to see you again.”
“I suppose you’ll be coming to the affair at the Sea Oaks plant tomorrow morning?” Floria said.
“I haven’t heard about it,” I told her. “I’m flying home tomorrow by the late afternoon plane.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to catch that,” Floria assured me. “We’re all helping Giles with some sort of celebration at the new plant. It’s to be opened up for full operation tomorrow, and there will be visitors from all over, and the family in attendance.”
“I don’t know—” I began, but Amalie nodded at me with reassurance.
“Of course you must go. If Elise is too busy playing hostess at the plant, you can come with us. We’re all very proud of Sea Oaks brands, you know. We have a great pride in Giles’s enterprise and success. Besides, it’s an interesting place to see for itself.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll come, if Elise wants me to.”
Aunt Amalie got up to go for her ride, and we all went down the veranda steps into bright sunshine. I saw the iris bed at one side of the steps and paused. Circling the plants, tilted on edge, was a long row of cockle shells.
“‘And cockle shells all in a row,’” I said. “Floria, do you remember what a thing we made of shells when we were young? We found so many on the beaches. I remember the sand dollars, especially. I remember how you used to exact a tribute of sand dollars from us for your services as Merlin.”
Floria laughed. “I did more than exact a tribute,” she admitted. “For me those were magic shells. They were my one weapon against Elise. Those and being a few years older than the rest of you. Elise was queen, but with my magic I could almost make her believe that she was queen only because I permitted her to rule.”
I remembered very well. We all collected the tawny sand dollars we found on the beach and paid them to Floria. When she wanted to be kind and encourage us, she would sometimes make us the open gift of a shell in return. But when she wanted to warn or punish us, a single sand dollar would be left among the possessions of the one to be warned, or in his path, or where he would be sure to touch it. I could still recall the shiver of dread that would go through me when one of those shells would appear in some unforeseen way. I could recall its chalky feel in my fingers and the way I believed implicitly in Floria’s magical powers in those days.
“What a tyrant you were,” I said. “Just because you were older and we were all a little afraid of you. King Arthur should have banished you from his court.”
She smiled wryly. “He knew he couldn’t. Besides, I’m not sure I wasn’t possessed of certain powers when I was young. Something I’ve lost, unfortunately, in growing up.”
Aunt Amalie was shaking her head over this interchange. She touched me lightly on the arm. “I’ll see you at lunchtime, my dear. Elise has invited us over today, in your honor. I’m going for my ride now.”
She went off around the house, and Floria and I walked through the white gate together and set out in the direction of Sea Oaks. When we reached the oleander thicket, Floria put a hand on my arm and held me quiet.
“Wait! Don’t go out there till he’s gone. I don’t want to meet him now.”
We stood still and watched as a man came down the steps of Sea Oaks and followed the drive, strolling idly beneath the live oaks.
“That’s Hadley Rikers,” Floria said. “I don’t see how she can stand him. All that racing and hunting and shooting!”
“Stand him?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t be an innocent,” Floria told me. “You must know Elise’s wonder-marriage is on the rocks. And it’s her fault too. She’s absolutely vile to Giles. Vinnie says they have separate rooms these days. And Elise’s men keep coming to visit. Not that she ever risks a scandal. It’s all done very quietly, with nothing Giles can pounce upon.”
Her words were raw and blunt—which was the way Floria often spoke her mind. She was telling me what I had come here to find out, but because of Richard the truth struck through me mercilessly. I knew in my heart that this was the truth, but I couldn’t admit the fact to Floria.
“That’s hard to believe,” I said. “After all, Elise has had everything she could want—”
Floria threw me a quick look. “You’ve forgotten what my dear sister is like. Anything is possible to believe when it comes to Elise. There—that man’s gone down the drive. Come along.”
She led the way and I followed her past Sea Oaks to the place where the well-worn path to the beach opened up. Once this path had been trod by the three children we had been. Now my son’s feet would know it best.
Floria came a little way with me and then stopped. “Don’t look so appalled. You must have been weaving fantasies about Hampton Island if you thought that marriage could last forever.”
“But Giles—” I said, “how does he—?”
Floria shrugged. “Ask him. I’ve wondered myself. There’s the boy, of course. Giles loves him devotedly, and for Richard the sun rises and sets in his father. Well—there’s your beach. I’ll go back now. See you at lunchtime.” Abruptly she was off on her own way and I was left alone.
I turned toward the beach, suddenly running, dashing through the palmettos. I felt pursued, invaded, as if by nightmare. Floria’s words had shaken my safe, sad, private little world.
3
The smell of the ocean is something one never forgets. I breathed it deeply as the wind came whipping into my face, tossing my hair. The tide was part-way out and the sound of surf rushing in over the low shore summoned me to follow it. I walked toward the sea wall.
There was no native rock on the island—no rock at all, except that which was brought in from outside. Originally this had meant rock carried as ballast in ships that sailed to Hampton Island, but now it came from nearer at hand. Outside rock had built the long sea wall that bisected this portion of the beach, running along it parallel with the water, protecting the banks from deeper erosion. It was not a proper wall in the sense of being compactly built, but was more like a stone row piled loosely together, with sand interlaced between the rocks. Down near the house there was a wooden walkway built over the piled-up stones, but I did not bother with it.
I remembered certain stepping-stones across the wall which I had made my own as a child, scorning the wooden steps,
until these stones had come to be known as “Lacey’s way.” Once Floria, always delighting in her influence over my young imagination, had said, “It’s lucky to have your own private way to the beach, Lacey,”—and forever after I clambered faithfully over the rocky wall.
I took the rocks now, fitting my feet into the natural steps I had discovered so long ago. There was no reason to risk bad luck at this late date, and I liked my way best. I climbed across to the beach and started over the sand.
Somewhat farther along, the old, abandoned lighthouse tower stood upon its spit of land, cutting into the beach. The circle of ground around its foot was still kept trim and neat, and the tower must have been given a coat of paint not long ago, because it stood white and dazzling in the morning sun. How we children had loved to climb to its top when some adult was willing to go with us, and once Giles had taken me up there on a moonlit night. Most of the time the door was kept locked, and its heights were taboo to us. I wondered if Richard found adventure in that climb, as I had done.
The sands of Hampton Island were neither white nor tawny, but a silvery gray. When I had crossed the loose dry sand to the wet band above the tide, I found it hard-packed and smooth beneath my feet. This was the scene of my dreams, but I would not think of that now. For this brief moment I had come home. For me this place would always be the heart of the island. The haunted heart of Hampton Island.
I sat down in a place where the rolling surf would not reach me and clasped my hands about my knees. Except for a few shells the beach was unlittered, free of debris. It seemed as though its very emptiness might empty my mind, lull me into ease for a few restful moments before I had to come to grips with ugly reality. It would be lovely to sit here in the early sunshine. For a little while I would not think of Floria’s words, I told myself. I would not think of Giles being unhappy. Nor of Elise’s waywardness. I would not think of the days when I had been a child. Most of all, I would not think of Richard. I would simply bask in the sun and let my mind run free.
But I found quickly enough that my thoughts must turn relentlessly to Hampton Island—to what it meant to me, and had meant for so much of my life. I had come here to shake off its spell, to free myself of the old, nostalgic magic it had laid upon me, and I was not succeeding. I knew the dangers of an island. It could offer a peculiar isolation which must be guarded against. Once felt, once lived through, that treacherous sense could be carried into one’s outward life—always lying in wait with a false promise of safety. Safety for me lay elsewhere. I must be free of old dreams, old longings. If tragedy hovered in the wings at Sea Oaks, what could I do about it? Why had I come here? Must I always be greedy for a life I could not have?
I watched the waves rush endlessly in below me and followed the distant smoke of a ship on the far horizon. When I turned my head toward the south I could see other purple islands floating in their own waters beyond this spit of land. They belonged to another world, not to this tiny, enclosed world of Hampton Island. It was up to me to be conscious of their reality, aware of the reality of all the outside world. It was what I experienced here that was unreal and must be banished.
I was lost in these uneasy thoughts when Giles walked down the path from the house and came over the wooden steps to the beach. He wore navy trunks with a white belt, and a towel was flung over one shoulder. His feet were bare and so was his dark head. I had not known it would be like this—the freezing inside me, the sickness of old longing.
He saw me at once. “Hello, Lacey. They told me you were here,” he called, and came purposefully in my direction.
The words neither welcomed nor rejected me. The old coolness was between us again, as it had been the few times I’d seen him since I had run away that summer long ago, and he had not followed me. Perhaps neither of us would ever forget or forgive. And that was ridiculous. We no longer meant anything to each other. I had no business freezing, or feeling sick at the sight of him. I could afford to be more generous. I held out my hand.
“Giles!” I said. “It’s been such a long time.”
The coolness in him seemed to melt. He came toward me over the years and took my hand in his warm clasp. Then he lowered his tall frame to the sand beside me. He looked older, and a little worn, I thought, but his eyes were as deeply green as ever. He had gained no weight. His body was as lean and hard as I remembered. Try as I would not to stare, I drank in every detail of him like a woman who has been thirsty for a long time.
“What were you thinking of just now?” he asked me. “When I came over the steps your face was intent on some sort of dream. Not a happy one, I think.”
I clasped my hands more firmly about my knees and gazed out toward the far line that marked the edge of the ocean.
“I was thinking about islands,” I told him. “Thinking about the escape they seem to offer.”
“Escape?” he said. “I’d have said a prison, rather.”
“That, too. It’s a false escape, of course. I was thinking about their dangers as well.”
“Go on,” he said.
I put my fancy into words. “I suppose I used to love the feeling of shutting out the world, of drawing a line of water around myself and letting all my troubles stay outside the line. I used to do that when I came to Hampton. An island is like a castle with a moat around it. The world can’t get at you—or so I used to think.”
“Camelot?” he said, smiling. “Camelot floating in its own dream. Is that what you mean? But why do you say ‘used to’? Don’t you believe in the dream any more?”
I shook my head almost violently. “I don’t believe in it at all. I suppose that’s the reason I’ve come back—so I can put everything in its perspective and get rid of sentimental notions that belong to my childhood. I know there isn’t any Camelot now.”
He looked at me, and when I turned my head to meet his eyes I found a surprising tenderness in them—a tenderness that might be based on old affection for the child I had been. I would not accept it, would not meet it.
I stared out across the beach, where waves curled in and withdrew, leaving the sand a dark, wet silver. It was a calm morning. There were no real breakers today. Sandpipers ran along the wet sand, and now and then a gull soared in to light.
Giles went on, speaking almost as if to himself. “There’s something to what you say about islands. Sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if I had grown up in Malvern—or anywhere else. Sometimes I wish I’d never known the island at all.”
This ground seemed dangerous with quagmire and I said nothing. Though we had taken a step toward each other, we were strangers, Giles and I. There was no comment I dared to make. Quite suddenly the urge to be away from him was upon me. The dangers were clear, and I wanted to get away. I had come here to learn how to be free, not to involve myself further. I had loved this man when he was a boy. He was my child’s father. But I had no right now to either.
I glanced at the watch on my wrist and jumped up. “It’s later than I thought. Elise will want me. I must . . .” I let the words trail off and ran up the beach. Ran heedlessly, so that I slipped on loose sand and went sprawling clumsily upon my hands and knees.
The fall made me angry with myself, and when Giles came quickly to help me up and set me on my feet, my cheeks were flushed over so ignominious a departure. He saw how I felt and laughed at me gently.
“You remind me of a certain coltish, bright-eyed little girl who used to bring me gifts of seashells and driftwood.”
He pulled me to him, kissed me on the cheek in brotherly fashion, rumpled my hair teasingly—and I did not like the response that sprang up in me at his touch. Oh, no! I thought. Not again with Giles Severn. I must not feel this way about Giles.
He looked at my face and kissed me again, almost bemusedly, as though he had not expected to do this. Then he let me go and I fled back to the house along the path that led from the beach.
; With my heart pounding, I went up the steps to the side veranda and into the big double parlor through a French door. The long, beautiful room was as I remembered it. The graceful Chippendale was the same. The black and gold chest with its chinoiserie ornament was there, and so were the Italian sofa and faded Persian rugs. Around the walls and over the mantel hung a number of good paintings, all chosen by Giles’s grandfather, who had a taste for collecting art.
For a moment I thought the room was empty, and then a man rose from a wing-backed chair in the corner and came toward me. He was not as tall as Giles, though somewhat more stocky—handsome and virile, his brown hair swept by an early marking of gray at each temple, his mustache and beard neatly trimmed. His smile flashed at me in a room darkened against the later heat of the sun.
“You must be Lacey Ames,” he said, and held out his hand. “I’m Hadley Rikers and I’m delighted to meet you.”
I had no time to wonder why he should be delighted, because even as I gave him my hand, Elise came quickly into the room. Her small person seemed just a shade plump in beige slacks and creamy blouse, but becomingly so. She had never been a thin girl like me. Brushed smoothly, her fair, page-boy hair shone in the dim room, and her eyes were a deep violet-blue.
“Oh, there you are, Lacey. I see you’ve met Hadley. I’ve something of his to show you—I know you’ll be interested.”
She went to the piano and picked up what was obviously a manuscript box and carried it toward me. I suppressed a sigh as I took it from her. This, undoubtedly, was why I had been so urgently summoned to Sea Oaks for the weekend. I might have known.
“It’s Hadley’s book,” Elise said. “His experiences as a racing driver. Absolutely fascinating. Will you read it while you’re here, sweetie, and tell us what you think? You’ll know exactly what should be done with it, I’m sure.”
“I don’t have much to say about publication,” I warned her. “I can only recommend what I like, and I’m not sure this is my sort of book. I don’t know anything about the subject.”
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