“It’s still a creative community,” Elaine interrupted.
Denis went on. “La Casa de la Sombra was built by a writer lucky enough to have money. In style, it’s Mediterranean, and it drops down a steep hillside on several levels. The big vaulted living room used to be a gathering place for the literary crowd long ago—Jack London, and George Sterling, who really put his stamp on Carmel, along with Mary Austin. Carmel was perfect in those days for a ‘bohemian’ existence. Go back a little further, and Robert Louis Stevenson left his own mark, working here for a while.”
“I hope you get to see more of the house than Jody’s sickroom,” Elaine added. “I remember when Francesca Fallon did a radio interview with Tyler in the handsome library up there. That was a wild broadcast. Tyler absolutely lost control for a moment, and Francesca got pretty mad. She was a really terrible woman.”
There was silence while the waiter served them, and when Denis spoke again, his tone of voice put an end to Elaine’s chatter.
“Francesca’s dead.” The words had a stark, almost challenging ring, though Denis looked at neither of them.
“Who was Francesca Fallon?” Kelsey asked.
“I shouldn’t have brought her up,” Elaine said quickly. “What happened can give Carmel Valley a bad name that it doesn’t deserve. Anyway, she has nothing to do with the present problems at the house.”
Denis still looked troubled.
Elaine went on. “Legends were always built up around Francesca. Empty legends, I think. She liked to encourage them since she hadn’t all that much substance. When she was young she used to act bit parts in B pictures. Then she disappeared for a while, thanks to alcohol and probably drugs, as rumor has it. When she got herself straightened out, she started writing a gossip column for a Los Angeles paper, and did pretty well, since that was her thing. Until she dropped it and bought a small ranch in Carmel Valley, though not, of course, to do any ranching. That was when she started her local radio program out of Monterey. She always thought she belonged on big-time television, but she couldn’t make it there.”
“Tyler should never have done that interview,” Denis said gloomily.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Elaine dismissed his words, and Kelsey wondered if this was something her aunt wanted to gloss over. “After all, he and Ruth and Francesca were old friends back in the Los Angeles days.”
Denis disagreed. “I wouldn’t say friends. Anyway, why do we keep talking about her?”
But by this time Kelsey was curious. “What happened to this Francesca?”
Elaine said, “She was murdered about six months ago, right there on her own little ranch. The police never found out who did it. Now let’s get off that subject. You know, for a time, when Tyler and Ruth first moved into the House of Shadow, things were pretty lively again. Ruth tried to revive the custom of holding a salon for writers and artists. Though ‘salon’ is too formal a word for Carmel. It was fun for a while.”
“It didn’t last?” Kelsey asked.
Elaine sighed. “Tyler hated it. He’s a recluse at heart, I suppose, and he disliked all the traipsing in and out, and all the chatter that he thought was superficial. Some of those people preferred talk to production. So he put a damper on Ruth.”
“Even if he was right, he doesn’t sound like much fun,” Kelsey said.
Denis snorted. “Fun isn’t the word you’d use around Tyler. Fun was Ruth’s thing, but of course he squelched it out of her. Now he’s becoming more of a hermit than ever, shutting everyone out, sealing himself in. How can Ruth recover at all in an atmosphere like that?”
There seemed to be no safe topic, Kelsey thought, and her own depression returned. She had lost her brief eagerness to see Jody and face Tyler Hammond. He sounded more and more formidable and she didn’t want to fight anyone. She would be glad when tomorrow was over and she could forget the troubles of strangers, and begin to pull her own life together.
They finished the meal with coffee, skipped dessert, and walked silently back to the inn. Elaine wanted to stop at the office, where messages were waiting, and while she leafed through them, Denis drew Kelsey aside.
“I’m sorry all this has been thrown at you. I never wanted Elaine to involve you in the first place. Kelsey, would you care to go down to the beach for a while? When I walk beside the ocean at night it always calms me down. And we might talk a little.”
Elaine heard him, and she held up a piece of paper. “Come back to the cottage first. There’s a message here for either you or me, Denis, to call your mother at Tyler’s.”
Denis looked alarmed. “Something’s happened!”
“We’ll find out,” Elaine said calmly.
They hurried down a flight of rustic steps outside and through a passage at the rear. Lights had been left on in the cottage, and under the peaked roof its windows looked warm and welcoming. In the sitting room Elaine picked up the phone, dialed, and then set it on the amplifier so the others could hear.
Dora Langford, Ruth and Denis’s mother, answered at once. “Thank you for calling back. I wanted to let Denis know that everything’s all right now—more or less.” She paused, and Denis spoke quickly.
“I’m here, Mother. What is it?”
With an effort, Dora Langford went on. “Ruth tried to kill herself tonight. I went to make a call away from her room, and while I was gone, she picked up a fruit knife and was trying to cut her wrists. I stopped her before she’d lost much blood.” Again Mrs. Langford paused, as if to get her breath.
“Are you all right, Mother?” Denis asked.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s Ruth’s mental state that frightens me. Tyler’s with her now, and I hope she’s sleeping.”
Denis said, “I’ll come at once.”
Her voice broke. “No—Tyler said not to. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how she is.”
“I’d like to see for myself.” Denis was insistent. “I want to talk to her.”
“Not now, please. She’s been given a sedative. But don’t worry. Either Tyler or I will be with her every minute.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Denis said. “You know Tyler hardly helps her state of mind, Mother.”
Elaine thanked Mrs. Langford and hung up the phone.
Denis had dropped into a chair and he sat for a moment staring blankly at nothing. “Ruth has given up. Just given up altogether. She thinks she has nothing to live for—and God help her, maybe she’s right.”
“That’s another reason why I want Kelsey to see Jody tomorrow,” Elaine told him. “You mustn’t let this get you so far down that you’re ineffective, Denis. Your sister’s hardly responsible for her actions right now. And she needs you desperately.”
Kelsey was begining to feel even more sympathetic toward Ruth, the more she learned about Tyler. She knew exactly what it felt like to be powerless against circumstances one couldn’t control.
“What about that walk on the beach?” she reminded Denis. “I’d still like to go.” Perhaps by this time he needed it even more than she did.
He looked at her gratefully. “I’d forgotten. I’m ready whenever you want to leave.”
Kelsey ran upstairs for a sweater and in a few moments they were walking down Ocean Avenue together. Denis moved fast now, as though he needed to release pent-up energy, and Kelsey matched his stride with her own long legs. Since Carmel had no streetlamps, he’d brought a flashlight, and the beam played ahead as they reached the foot of Ocean Avenue. They climbed down a sandy bluff and went around tide pools to the lower level of the beach.
Everything seemed totally different at night. Moonlight brushed the ocean with rippling silver foil, and the cypresses, never growing far from the water, twisted in black silhouette against the sky. The lights of Carmel shimmered among its many trees, and more lights rimmed the crescent of Carmel Bay, following Scenic Drive, and rising among the pines to Carmel Highlands.
Denis gestured toward the dark point of land that cut into the water across t
he bay. “That’s Point Lobos out there—Punta de los Lobos Marinos. The Spaniards called our sea lions sea wolves. It’s out there that it happened, Kelsey.”
“Tell me,” she said, knowing that he needed to talk.
“The area’s a park, a state reserve now, with trails running through the pine groves. Rangers look after it. The entire shoreline’s rough and rocky, with sharp gashes where the sea rushes in. That’s where they fell—because Jody was teasing his mother.”
The thrust of the point was only a black shape rising above silvery water, and Kelsey felt the tightening inside her. She could so easily become involved with the little boy who lay in a coma up there in his father’s house on the highlands. And that could mean even more pain ahead.
“Point Lobos was Jody’s favorite place for a hike,” Denis continued. “Ruth used to call him a sea boy because the ocean excited him and drew him. She said he was trying to go back to it. The beach is down the hill from Tyler’s house, and it’s always been hard to keep Jody from running down there alone. He can swim like any fish, but he has no caution, and the currents along here are treacherous.”
Denis broke off, recognizing that he’d spoken in the present, and that everything concerning Jody now lay in the past. Kelsey’s private pain stabbed with sharp reminder. Mark, her own small son, had been filled with just such bursting energy. He’d always needed to be restrained. She said nothing, resisting the pain.
When Denis paused, she stopped beside him, looking into his face as he studied her in the shadowy moonlight.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why we should inflict our troubles on you.”
“It’s all right. I’m further along than you are, though I haven’t even begun to reach a quiet shore yet—no calm waters. But I’ve had more time than you have. Once I even wanted what Ruth tried to choose tonight—to make the hurting stop. But I know it’s better to—just wait.”
“You have a lot to live for, Kelsey.”
She knew he was thinking of how little Ruth had left. Kelsey had been lucky, if you wanted to call it that.
“Tell me more about Jody,” she said. “Were you close to him?”
Denis hesitated, then took another course. “Jody idolized his father, but sometimes he was afraid of him, too. Tyler loved his son, but he wasn’t always good with a small boy.”
“I was thinking more in terms of how you might help Jody. Perhaps even more than his father can. Sometimes stricken fathers become almost useless in their grief. They can move in mistaken directions because their pain is so terrible. That’s why I wondered if you were close to your nephew.”
He turned away to hide his own feelings and started walking again. “I can’t even talk about that. My sister’s son!”
In the past, Kelsey had found that the powerful emotions which could swirl around a helpless child were often the hardest problem of all to deal with. Now that she knew how it felt from inside, it became even more difficult to deal with the pain of others. Her sense of sympathy had heightened, but she also knew better now how hard grief could be to deal with.
They walked on again, and after a little while Denis began to talk. It was as though the moonlit night, the rhythmic sound of the sea rushing in, the wind touching their faces, calmed him, and gave him a new freedom to speak.
“Where some kids are scared of heights, or scared of the water, Jody was never afraid of anything physical. He was a brave, bright little boy. I loved him a lot, even when he teased us all.”
In another place, another time, Denis might never have said these words, and Kelsey liked him for speaking out of his own intense feeling. She’d learned something of the need for that in her work with injured and brain-damaged children.
They moved to drier sand away from the water’s edge, and the walking grew harder. For a time they were silent, and Kelsey savored these quiet moments. The sand under their feet added its own whispering sound to the pulsing of the waves. Other walkers were out on the beach tonight, and two or three couples, as well as several lone joggers, passed them going the other way.
“The beach is really Carmel’s community center,” Denis said. “It stretches from Pebble Beach to the Frank Lloyd Wright house down on the promontory. On the Fourth of July, bonfires are lighted, and all year round picnic suppers on the beach are a big thing. In the old days there were abalone roasts, before all the abalone went elsewhere. That’s when George Sterling started that great old abalone song that goes on for endless irreverent verses. Tonight’s unusual because there’s no fog. It often rolls in at sundown and people can lose children and dogs on the beach, as well as their sense of direction.”
He was talking to free himself of tension, and when his stride lengthened she kept up with him. Not until they were out of breath from the brisk walk did they slow down and turn back.
“You don’t say much,” Denis remarked. “Not that I’ve given you much chance. I think you really listen.”
“I like to listen. Tell me about you. You haven’t always been an innkeeper, have you?”
“No—I fell into that, I suppose. Elaine’s an old friend of my mother’s and she roped me in. I seem to be doing all right.”
“What would you like best to do?”
“I wish I knew. I suppose I’m moderately good at a few things, so I haven’t run long enough on any one track. I envy Tyler his passionate involvement in film work. Or at least he used to be passionately involved. There’s one thing I like especially about Carmel—the General was never here. So I needn’t feel him breathing down my neck.”
“The General?”
“General Schuyler Bridges Langford—my father.” Denis spoke the name wryly.
“Tell me about him.”
Denis drew a deep breath of sharp, salty air. “He died in Vietnam. Though not in battle—which I’m sure he’d have preferred. Hepatitis got him. He’s buried at Arlington. I didn’t go to the funeral, but Ruth and Mother went, and came home with the flag.”
“You didn’t get along with your father?”
“That’s putting it mildly. I hated him a lot of the time, and I suppose I loved and admired him too. I don’t think he had any feeling for me one way or the other, except maybe anger because I never wanted to go his way. Ruth got off easier than I did. He couldn’t expect to turn her into a soldier. And daughters often wrap their fathers around their little fingers. I owe Ruth a lot for standing by me. She could face up to the General, who would take it from her, and no one else.”
“What about your mother?”
“I suppose Dora was the perfect wife for an army officer. She knew how to take orders and adapt to whatever he wanted. Ruth and I were the usual army brats.”
There was too much pent-up bitterness in Denis Langford, and perhaps he’d denied it too much of the time, suppressed what ought to be let out and aired. The quiet of the beach, empty at this far end, and the pale moonlight that hid sharp reality had perhaps allowed him to lower his guard. With a stab of regret, Kelsey wished she could lower her own.
“What did you want to do that your father opposed?” she asked.
“I tried a lot of things—he didn’t like any of them. I still paint a little, write a little. When we lived in the desert near Palm Springs I tried movie scripts for a while, and Tyler said some weren’t too bad. I even acted in a couple of movies, but that wasn’t for me. For a while I switched to selling real estate, and did all right. The list goes on and on, and it’s pretty boring. I suppose I was mostly trying to grow up, as well as aiming to find something that would make the General accept me without my being a soldier. That wasn’t possible. Enough about me. What’s your spell, Kelsey? I don’t usually go on like this with anyone. At least I was doing pretty well here in Carmel until this—this terrible accident happened to Ruth and Jody.” The words seemed torn out of him. “Now things have fallen apart for all of us. Maybe that’s why I can talk to you—because you know about falling apart.”
She liked his almost matter-of
-fact dismissal of self-pity. “Yes, I do know about that,” she said.
“So now it’s your turn. This physical therapy you do—I should think that would be awfully painful at times. I mean working with other people’s children.”
“It can be. That’s why I wanted to take some weeks off. But it’s satisfying too when there’s any improvement. Sometimes the wiggling of a finger is practically a miracle. And the children are wonderful. Brave against the most shattering odds. They’re ready to laugh at silly jokes, and so often loving and needing love. And of course they’re cranky and difficult sometimes. It breaks my heart in the cases where there’s so little that can be done. Maybe that’s one reason I don’t really want to see Jody Hammond tomorrow. But there’s no standing against Aunt Elaine once she’s determined about something.”
He started to laugh at the thought of opposing Elaine, and then sobered. “I wish you didn’t have to see him either. It won’t matter for Jody—he’s out of it. But what happens may make everything seem that much more hopeless for Ruth. And Tyler will probably be as rude and insensitive as only he knows how to be.”
That small knot of indignation had begun to tighten in her against Jody’s father. More and more, he seemed an impossible man.
“What about Ginnie Soong?” she asked.
“I’m not exactly sure. I’ve known her on and off for years because of the time when she roomed with Ruth in college. She’s bright, and she’s a good nurse. But sometimes—well, you’ll need to make up your own mind eventually.”
“I don’t know if there’ll be an ‘eventually.’ I’ll go up to Mr. Hammond’s house because Aunt Elaine wants me to. But I need to get my own life back in order.”
“You will,” he said gently. “Thanks for listening. I can be a good listener too, if you ever want to try me.”
Now, as they followed the beach, they had most of the long stretch of sand to themselves. Sometimes, Kelsey thought, it was easier, perhaps even more comforting, to talk to strangers than to close friends. With a stranger there were no preconceived attitudes, and much less unwanted advice likely to be given. She wished she could speak about her husband. Carl had not been an especially gentle or sensitive man, and there were still angers against him that she’d never expressed. But she couldn’t talk about this to anyone yet.
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