Columbella

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  There was no way in which to oppose this woman, or so I believed. She would not accept the no I wanted to give. Whatever objection I might find, she would simply raise another argument that would put still greater pressure upon me, and I lacked the strength to resist her. After all, what could a week matter? Perhaps, if the thing worked out, I would have found an answer to my own necessity to make a living, and with very little effort on my part. Besides, I knew very well that I must snap out of this senseless lying on the sand and stupefying my brain with heat before I found myself unable to take action of any kind. I did not want to act—but I must.

  “When do you wish me to come?” I asked.

  Mrs. Hampden stood up as briskly and confidently as though the outcome had never for a moment been in doubt. “This evening after dinner will be fine. I’ll go home at once and have a room prepared for you. You can settle yourself in the house tonight and begin with Leila tomorrow morning. Do thank Janet for me, and tell her I’ve run along.”

  I had a feeling that she meant to make a precipitous escape before I could change my mind. A little out of breath, and with a sense of being rushed headlong into something I knew nothing about, I went with her to the steps. She held out her hand and I felt again her dry, autocratic clasp.

  “At least I should identify my household for you,” she said. “So you’ll know who they are when you meet them. My two daughters, Edith and Catherine, live with me at present. Edith is the elder and has no children of her own. She is married to Alex Stair, who owns a fine little import shop downtown—and an older shop in St. Croix, where they used to live near Christiansted. I was ill for a time last year and they moved here so that Edith could take charge of this house and look after me. Catherine—my youngest child—is Leila’s mother. There was a boy in between—Roger. He died in Korea.” Underlying pain touched her voice.

  “And Leila’s father?” I asked.

  “King builds houses here in the Islands. Often he designs them too. Kingdon Drew. I’ll send him for you this evening. Of course you must understand that he won’t want you to come. In fact, none of them will like anything about this idea of mine. Not at first. But I’m counting on you to convince them that this is the best possible plan, for Leila’s sake.”

  I found her highhanded conclusions about my ability alarming.

  “What if I feel that your plan for your granddaughter is wrong? What if I side with the rest of the family?”

  “Then you’ll tell me so. Perhaps I’ll listen and perhaps I won’t. But we’ll face that when the time comes. I expect, naturally, that you’ll agree with me. Good-by for now, my dear. And don’t look so stricken. I know even more about you than you think. And I’ve seen you for myself. I’m inclined to have confidence, not only in your capability, but in your natural instinct for kindness as well.”

  That I had shown any such instinct, I doubted, and found myself wondering if she was a woman who saw only what she wanted to see.

  When she had shaken hands with me I watched her go down the steps toward town, and all the questions that lay in wait rushed upon me, tearing through the self-protective walls that Maud Hampden had breeched. Not questions about the household at the top of the mountain, but about myself—all those questions I had for so long been afraid to face.

  2

  Aunt Janet had kept out of sight while Maud Hampden was there, but she appeared with such alacrity the moment Maud was gone that I felt sure she had not missed much of the interview.

  Dropping into one of the fan chairs with no thought of the fact that it did not flatter her to be so framed, she folded plump arms and surveyed me in a proprietary manner. Her hair was naturally curly, and its damp, graying tendrils coiled childishly about a face that was anything but childish. Aunt Janet’s eyes were like my father’s—but a great deal wiser. It had taken a certain innocence on my father’s part to remain in love with Helen.

  “I’m glad you’ve accepted Maud’s offer,” she said. “This is a way to get yourself into the swim of things again. But at the same time I have a few . . . qualms.”

  I smiled at her wryly. “I gather that Mrs. Hampden has too. But since she wouldn’t tell me what they are, perhaps you’d better. Are they qualms about me, or guilt about what the two of you are plotting?”

  “It’s that woman—Catherine,” Aunt Janet admitted. “Leila’s mother. It’s a good thing you’re not the sort to antagonize people, because she can be nasty. She’s a good example of what can happen when a girl is allowed to grow up without sensible restraint.”

  Having met Maud, I felt a little surprised. “Mrs. Hampden looks like a woman who would run her family as she wished.”

  My aunt shook her head. “Everything went out of hand because of the first Roger—her husband. By the time he got himself drowned in a sailboat, Catherine, their daughter, was almost uncontrollable. Goodness knows, there was a scandal or two when Catherine’s father was alive and she was still a young girl, no older than Leila. Now she seems to be running hell-bent for disaster, and I don’t like it one bit.”

  “What sort of scandals?” I asked.

  Aunt Janet pursed her lips. “Oh, there was a time when they sent her away to a school in the States. She lasted long enough to snitch a sapphire bracelet from her roommate, who should never have brought such a thing to school in the first place. Maud flew over to bring Catherine home and the whole thing was hushed up. Roger thought it an hilarious prank. He didn’t want his darling off at school anyway, and he bought her diamond earrings to make up for the whole thing when she got home.”

  “This doesn’t sound very appealing,” I said, “but while a bracelet might be a temptation to a schoolgirl, I suppose she has grown up by now.”

  “I’m afraid she’s merely graduated into taking more important property. Such as other women’s husbands. And she’s wildly extravagant. Maud and King have been frantic about her spending—trips to Europe and South America and all around the Caribbean. I’m afraid she’s become a devotee of the rich international set—the jet set, I guess they call it. Anyhow, she’s already run through the fortune her father left her.”

  “If her husband stands for all this,” I said, “I suppose there’s no more strength in him than there was in her father?”

  Aunt Janet grinned and gave me a quick appraising look. “I wouldn’t say that King’s made of good stuff, for all his frustrations. If I were as young as you are, and as pretty as you—”

  I returned her look with a frown that was only half pretense. “You’ve been trying to throw me at one man after another ever since I came here. If you’re now going to fling me at a married man—”

  “He’s not so very married,” Aunt Janet mused. “It’s only the child who keeps him there. Maud says he and Catherine haven’t shared the same bedroom for years.”

  I couldn’t help smiling because my aunt was irrepressible. “You are a very immoral woman,” I told her. “You have a one-track mind and I do wish you’d find a more likely subject for your matchmaking than I’m willing to be.”

  She sat silent in the big fan chair, the overt appraisal gone from her eyes, and I knew her thoughts were taking a graver, uneasier turn. When she spoke again the words came abruptly.

  “King has tried more than once to get away. He’s a man of pride and self-respect, and his wife is destroying him.”

  “Then why doesn’t he leave?”

  “I’ve told you—because of the child. Though I think there’s more here than meets the eye.”

  I wanted to hear no more. The personal problems of Leila’s parents were not mine to solve. Their existence simply meant that the girl’s own difficulties—whatever they were—might be all the more troublesome as a result.

  Aunt Janet was studying me rather as Maud Hampden had done—though her thoughts, obviously, took a different course.

  “Catherine is supposed to be a beauty, but I can ne
ver see her kind of looks. You’re the one who could be stunning if you put your mind to it. Gray eyes with all those dark lashes. That cleft in your chin.”

  I laughed deliberately, and was startled by the sound. I had not done much laughing lately. “Do go on,” I urged.

  “If I looked like you I’d have sense enough to know it!” she snapped. “You’ve elegant features and a fine, clear skin. To say nothing of that tall, slim figure that you know how to dress. What you don’t have is any belief in yourself.” She broke off as if she had thought of something that worried her. “Catherine will detest you, of course. She’ll stand for no one around with feminine appeal.”

  I still felt like laughing. “I don’t think she’ll need to worry about my fatal appeal. Tell me about the Hampdens—who are they?”

  “The family goes way back to early days in the Islands,” Aunt Janet said. “As Maud’s family does too. There were big sugar estates on both sides. The Danes were smart about bringing in help from other islands during their ownership—of whatever nationality. That’s how the Hampdens came in, since they were British way back. The Hampden money—what’s left of it—all came from St. Croix sugar and rum, though most of that trade has died out by now. Some of the mills are still standing, as well as the old plantation house the first Hampden built. Roger was born there. Maud went to it as his bride, and all three of her children were born there too. Now it belongs to Catherine, to whom her father left it.”

  My aunt fell silent, suddenly thoughtful and troubled again.

  “You don’t really want me to go to Hampden House, do you?” I said.

  At once she pretended recovery and flashed me an indignant look. “Of course I want you to go. I just want you to be careful while you’re there.”

  “Careful of what?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t really know. Maud tells me very little. But something is going on. There’s something wrong up there that makes me uneasy. I’ve felt it on recent visits. I suppose it’s Catherine I’m fearful about. She’s just come home from another swing around the Caribbean—staying at the best hotels, having herself a time. On what? Whose money is she spending now? I think they’re running scared up there and I don’t like it. So watch yourself, dear. Do what you can for the child, but keep out of Catherine’s way. And don’t go falling for Kingdon Drew—at least not under Catherine’s nose.”

  The about-faces Aunt Janet could manage often confused me, and I could only smile in bewilderment.

  “Just a minute ago you were singing his praises and telling me he wasn’t so very married.”

  “Of course he’s married—whether he likes it or not. But that doesn’t make him any less attractive. It wouldn’t be pleasant to have Catherine down on you. She’s a taker, you know—and what she takes she keeps. Just watch your step and you’ll be all right. Besides, there’s always auntie to run home to if things get too thick for you up there.”

  I did not want to come running back to the safety Aunt Janet offered me. If this effort was to do me any good, it must be a real effort. While my aunt knew a great deal about bedding people down comfortably, feeding them well, keeping them happy, I sometimes suspected that she knew very little about more complex human needs and she often found herself disturbed when food, sleep, and love-making did not solve everything.

  I avoided further discussion by going off to pack. Her talk had left me more than a little uneasy and I wanted to be rid of apprehension. I wanted to be able to make judgments of my own by the time Kingdon Drew came to take me up the hill.

  When my brief packing was done I went for a walk along one of Charlotte Amalie’s narrow, flower-rimmed streets and found a place where I could climb stone steps and stand in the open, to look up at the high green ridge of the mountain where Hampden House rose from amidst its own thick shrubbery. Again I had the strange sense of a house that held itself apart. Square and strong, it ruled its area of hillside, its many windows aglitter with light, but somehow cold on that sunny mountaintop—cold and oddly sinister. My apprehension grew in the face of my own fancies and went with me into the evening.

  After dinner I sat on the hotel veranda, waiting apart from the guests, my suitcase beside me. Twilight lay softly upon St. Thomas, and though it would not last for long, I could still watch the approach to the hotel. Whenever I saw a man turn up the flight of long stone steps that led from the lower level of town, I stiffened, wondering if it was Kingdon Drew. My aunt’s words had done nothing to allay the doubts I already had about this commitment, and I found myself awaiting his arrival with both concern and curiosity.

  I guessed the man was he the moment he started the climb. Halfway up he paused and let his eyes travel the length of the veranda, to rest upon me and my suitcase. At once he came upward with purpose. As he crossed the street above the steps, approaching the hotel grounds, a brown-skinned man greeted him and he stopped to shake hands and talk for a moment, so that I had an opportunity to study Leila’s father before I came face to face with him,

  He was hatless and wore a light suit with a jacket—a concession to the evening hour, undoubtedly, in a place where men dressed informally by day. He was probably in his late thirties, tall, forceful, rather overwhelming. The sort of man who used to alarm me at first glance. But even though I distrusted this sort of vitality, I recognized that such distrust might grow from the fact that it challenged something in me I did not want aroused. Aunt Janet’s words flashed uncomfortably through my mind and I wished she had not planted this particular awareness in me, preventing me from being entirely casual.

  Not that active, vital men were likely to be interested in me. They quickly put me down as shy and hardly worth the trouble it would take to crack me out of my shell. In fact, Paul had told me that very thing, feeling that he was the perceptive exception. But that was before he met Helen. So I had kept my blinders in place when such men went by, and had almost ceased to know they existed. My mother had doted on them, and had a way with them that wasn’t mine. Now she was gone and something had happened to both my blinders and my protective coloration, so that I began badly with Kingdon Drew, quickly ill at ease and all too sharply aware of him—when what I wanted to be was poised and cool and indifferent.

  He came up the veranda steps and introduced himself without cordiality. I rose to shake hands with him and he gave me a direct look, frank and measuring, apparently finding little about me to approve.

  “You’re very young,” he said curtly. “I suppose I expected someone twice your age. Do you think Leila will pay any attention to you?”

  He meant to antagonize me, and he succeeded. So abrupt a dismissal of my worth stiffened my spine and reminded me that I had, after all, dealt with difficult children and their parents before.

  “I don’t know Leila,” I told him. “I’m not any more sure than you are that I will be right for this position. I’ve been talked into it, I think, but since I’ve promised Mrs. Hampden that I’ll come for a week, I would like to keep my promise.”

  Perhaps my candor surprised him, for a faint smile twitched one corner of his mouth.

  “At least you’re forthright about it,” he said. “Though I doubt that Mrs. Hampden has told you all you may have to deal with when you come to the house.” The timbre of his voice hardened and I suspected he might be given to harshness when he disliked or distrusted.

  At least I answered him with more spirit than I’d been able to summon for some weeks. “Mrs. Hampden feels that I should make up my own mind about Leila’s problem.”

  For an oddly tense moment we studied each other. He was a ruggedly built man, and I had to look up at him, for all that I am fairly tall. His eyes were a very dark brown, with heavy brows slashed above, emphasizing the angular, marked bone structure of his face. His hair was as dark as his eyes and rose in a curious thick ridge over the right temple. The healthy outdoor look of the Islands marked his skin, though there were deep crea
ses running down each cheek—not smile creases, but lines which living had somehow pressed into his face.

  I was the first to break the challenge of the appraisal which passed between us. I was into this now, and consequently less afraid.

  “Mrs. Hampden has already told me that you don’t want me at the house. In fact, she has warned me that everyone in the family may be against my coming.”

  “Yet you’re still willing to come?”

  “To come, yes. Perhaps not to stay. There’s a stake in this for me too. If I can be useful, Mrs. Hampden suggests that the position may become permanent for the next few years. I’d like to stay in St. Thomas for a while if it’s possible.”

  “Years!” The word sounded derisive. With a quick, strong movement that suggested energy suppressed, he leaned to pick up my suitcase. “That’s not likely with my wife opposed to your staying. Catherine will want no interference with her daughter.”

  I sensed his antagonism as he spoke of his wife. Here, as I had been warned, was a broken marriage, and that usually meant an unhappy position for any child involved. I reminded myself that in spite of the hints that had been dropped against Catherine Drew by Mrs. Hampden and Aunt Janet, I must not take sides. If I was to be of any real use to Leila, it could only be from a position of objectivity—not as a partisan interfering with her loyalties, whatever they might be.

  “Come along, if you’re ready,” Kingdon Drew said. “You’ll know the worst about us soon enough, and when you do you’ll run for your life.”

  Like a rabbit? I thought, and found myself stiffening again. His casual assumption that I could neither handle nor endure the situation into which I was being thrust aroused resentment in me, stirred a semblance of long-buried pride.

  “Why are you so determined to frighten me?” I asked.