Columbella

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “I wanted to catch you alone,” she told me, picking up my bathrobe and slipping it onto a hanger. “I wanted to see what my new keeper is like. Gran says if I behave myself and am nice to you, you’ll help me stay where I want to be—right in St. Thomas. Dad wants to send me off to Colorado with an aunt I don’t even know. Though of course Cathy says Gran is being foolish to bring you here. Cathy thinks you’ll make everything worse.”

  This was moving faster than I was ready to go. I returned her smile and put a question of my own. “What do you think?”

  She went to the bureau and picked up the big spiky shell, ignoring my question. “Isn’t this an ugly monster? Isn’t it wicked?”

  “ ‘Monster’ is a good word for it,” I said. “But I’m not sure things can be wicked. Only people.”

  She considered that seriously for a moment, as though I had said something profound. Then she came to sit on the end of the bed, swinging her crossed legs, the shell cupped in her hands. A slight frown puckered her forehead and her smile faded.

  “Don’t you think it’s possible for people to leave wickedness around sometimes—so that things soak it up?”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” I admitted, intrigued by her imaginative flight, wondering if this was what I felt about the house itself.

  “Cathy thinks there’s a sort of wickedness about this shell,” she went on. “That’s why she asked Uncle Alex to give it to her. I think if she’d lived a long time ago Cathy would have been a witch. Or an obeah woman at least.” Then, without transition, “That’s papaya you’re eating. Have you ever eaten papaya before?”

  I said I had not, and scooped another spoonful of fruit. Leila turned to examining her face frankly and critically in the mirror. She did not seem to like what she saw.

  “Cathy’s hair is naturally curly. It does anything she wants. That’s why she can wear it long and put it up in all sorts of styles. But this is all I’ve found to do with mine, and even this way it doesn’t stay put very long. It’s wispy and it blows.”

  “The way you wear your hair is one of the first things I noticed this morning,” I said. “I like it. It suits you.”

  She turned from the mirror, pleased. “And I like yours. That shiny dark brown bob sort of thing that comes just to the line of your jaw and swings against your cheek when you move.”

  “Thank you,” I said, as pleased as she. “But in case you’re interested, I’m not sure I like papaya.”

  “That’s all right. You have to get used to it. Lemon helps, but I forgot the lemon.”

  In her next round of the room she went to the closet and pulled open the door to peer inside. At once she reached into a corner and brought out the green negligee that Edith had found there last night. She held the folds to her face as if it were her mother she touched, and I sensed a dangerous devotion in her as I watched. Even love could be extreme.

  “Don’t you adore her perfume?” she asked, sniffing approvingly. “It’s water lily. She never wears anything else. Uncle Alex orders it for her especially from abroad. Cathy loves things to be different and special.”

  “I noticed a gold locket in the shape of a shell in the pocket of that gown last night.” I said. “It seemed rather special.”

  Leila looked up from nuzzling the robe. “That must have been the columbella. It’s a dove shell, if you want the easier name. Cathy used to pick them up on beaches when she was little and she even started calling herself Columbella. She’s never liked the name Catherine. That’s why I have to call her Cathy.”

  As I, in my own time, had been taught to call my mother Helen. Because there were women who did not want to be called by the name of Mother. I could remember envying girls I knew who could use that wonderfully affectionate American word, “Mommy.” A word that was never permitted to me.

  Experimentally, Leila slipped her arms into the sleeves of the gown and pulled it around her. At once she began to clown a little, as if she made fun of herself. Her natural young grace fell away and all last night’s awkwardness was back, so that she tripped over the hem and kicked it away with a clumsy gesture.

  “I’ll never be able to wear clothes the way Cathy wears them!” she mourned as she snatched off the negligee and hung it back in the closet.

  “Why should you want to?” I asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” She returned to her comfortable perch at the foot of the bed. “Did you see Steve O’Neill last night? Did you see the way he looks at her?”

  I had seen. I had also seen the way Leila looked at Steve.

  “Isn’t he good-looking?” she went on. “And he has so much fun. He’s not gloomy and spoilsport like his brother Mike.”

  “It was Mike I liked best,” I admitted.

  She threw me a look that dismissed such lack of discernment. “Of course Cathy can do anything she likes with Steve. He’s devoted to her. I’ll never be anything but a silly kid to him. I know that.” She sighed deeply, woefully.

  “I expect you’ll recover,” I said.

  She flung me a look of denial and clasped her hands about her knees, studying me as I poured more coffee. “Why are you here anyway? If you came to St. Thomas on vacation from your schoolwork, why should you take on a summer tutoring job—or whatever it is you’re supposed to do for me?”

  I answered her as honestly as I could. “I didn’t come to this house just for you. I came for myself as well. Because I need to find something to keep me busy, fill my time. My mother died two months ago. She was an invalid due to a fall she had years ago, and she couldn’t get around very well. I’ve taken care of her and taught in a school besides. When she died I felt a letdown. This is something to pick me up—providing you like me and I like you.”

  Leila’s brown eyes—so much like her father’s with that wide-set space between strongly marked brows—regarded me with a sympathy I had not expected.

  “Nobody told me that,” she said. “Were you very close—you and your mother? Did you love her very much?”

  I gave her look for look. “Sometimes I did,” I said dryly.

  A flicker of something I could not read crossed Leila’s face and she looked away from me.

  “I think no one ever loves another person all the time,” I said gently. “We can’t expect that of ourselves, or from anyone else.”

  I was playing this by ear, but I sensed a response in the girl, though she said nothing. If there was response, then her seeming adulation for Catherine Drew was not without its moments of questioning, of wondering—perhaps of seeing her mother more clearly than she wanted to see her. Leila had in her a warmth that was generous and appealing—a quality that seemed lacking in her mother, but which might well exist behind those banked fires I had sensed in her father. I found myself increasingly drawn to her.

  Someone knocked on the door and she sprang off the bed to open it. Catherine Drew stepped past her daughter into the room, looking about with an air of distaste. She wore pale green capris that stretched tightly over her girlishly flat stomach, rounded her hips, and hugged her thighs neatly with scarcely a wrinkle. A bit of sleeveless white piqué tied in a bow between her breasts left her tanned midriff bare. Her hair was held in place by that open bandeau that let it flow to her shoulders, and her bare feet were thrust into brown leather sandals. She looked as long-legged as her daughter, and more supple and slender. Still—in the morning light that poured in from the gallery she did not look so strikingly young as she had last night by torchlight. The sun had etched faint lines about her eyes, and her skin had a dry, taut look, as though she had begun to weather a little, like her mother, Maud Hampden.

  When she had given the room a look of repudiation, as though it had been spoiled for her by my presence, she allowed her greenish gaze to focus on me. I had never before met a grown person so openly hostile toward me as this woman seemed, and her first words shocked me.

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p; “How did King happen to find you, Miss Abbott? How did you manage to get yourself this job, if you can call it that?”

  It was as if she meant to follow the threat of her look last night with more direct action. She intended to have me gone at all costs.

  Leila saved me from the blank silence that was all I had to offer.

  “Oh, Cathy!” she cried. “You know it was Gran who found her. We all know Miss Abbott is here to counteract your dreadful influence on me.”

  The two looked at each other and laughed softly in mutual amusement. They were clearly in complete rapport, yet while I sensed that there was love on one side, I was not at all sure what lay on the other.

  “Dad doesn’t even want her here,” Leila added. “It’s all going to be very uncomfortable for Miss Abbott, I’m sure, so we might as well be kind for the few days she’ll be here. I brought up her breakfast tray because no one else remembered.”

  It was uncomfortable to be talked about in this open manner, as though I were not present, and I tried to get back into the scene.

  “That was thoughtful of you,” I said to Leila, but she broke in as though she had not heard me, her attention upon her mother.

  “Aunt Edith has a headache this morning, so she stayed in bed for a while. What did you do to her last night, Cathy?”

  Catherine grimaced and shrugged. Remembering the meeting I had seen on the stairs, I could imagine the effect it might have had on Edith, whatever its import had been.

  “I think Aunt Edith’s being sneaky about something,” Leila said. “Maybe you’d better watch out, Cathy. Maybe if you—if you wouldn’t—I mean about Steve—”

  “That is none of your business, darling,” said Catherine coolly. “Don’t try to mother me!”

  Leila’s fair skin flushed miserably, but Catherine went lightly on, ignoring her discomfort.

  “I’m driving downtown in a little while. Alex has a new shipment of dresses in and I thought we might pick out something to wear for the buffet party next week. Would you like to come along?”

  This time I gave Leila no time to answer. Catherine Drew’s highhanded intention to whisk my pupil out from under my nose must be dealt with quickly.

  “I don’t suppose your mother will mind if we get to some of that schoolwork first,” I said to Leila. “Your grandmother suggested that we make a start this morning and I think that is what we must do.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Leila could be as rude as her mother. “Of course I’ll come with you, Cathy. Wait till I go and change from shorts.”

  Catherine’s eyes flicked a triumphant look in my direction and then returned to her daughter. “Why bother?” she asked.

  Leila glanced down at herself and then at Catherine in her tight-fitting capris. “You mean you’re going downtown dressed like that? But Gran said—”

  Her mother shrugged. “Gran, Gran, Gran! And Edith, and Alex, and King! And now Miss Abbott! If you want to come with me, then come!” She turned to me. “You’ll find we’re very old-fashioned in St. Thomas. Virgin Islanders don’t do this, and they don’t do that. Downtown we wear dresses—all that sort of thing. But I’m a rebel—even if they do mix me up with the tourists. I’m a rebel about these lessons too. They can wait.”

  I made a last attempt to stand my ground. “Why not go shopping this afternoon? If I’m to be of any help to your daughter, Mrs. Drew—”

  I knew I sounded stiff, but the woman had that effect on me. In any event she would not listen, interrupting my words at once.

  “You can’t be of use! Not at all. We all know that, really. Leila doesn’t need lessons, or coaching. We know you’re here so Maudie can block what King wants to do. But perhaps I have some plans of my own.” As she looked about the room her glance fell upon the spiked black shell lying on the bed where Leila had dropped it. She picked it up and placed it beside my breakfast tray. “Sorry to deprive you of our company, Miss Jessica Abbott. But My Lady Murex can stay and keep an eye on you, Jessica. I’ve never known anyone with that name before. It fits you somehow. Don’t you think so Leila?”

  Leila had the grace to look ashamed at the clear mockery in her mother’s voice. “If we’re going just as we are, then let’s start before Gran stops us,” she said, and went out of the room without a backward glance for me or her mother.

  Catherine Drew laughed—that hushed, almost silvery sound that made my skin creep. Then she gave the black spikes of the shell what was an almost caressing tap, and followed her daughter with a last flick of her fingers in farewell to me.

  When they had gone I sat for a while staring helplessly at the big shell. I had a feeling that it was, indeed, watching me, its incongruous pink nose pointed in my direction. Disliking its eyeing look, I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. By contrast to the spiked exterior, the inner curve was smooth as china, cool to the touch, dead white in color, and speckled here and there with dots of black or brown. It made a smooth, cool white cave in which a sea animal had once lived. But the armor the creature had worn pricked my fingers and I set the shell on the breakfast tray, feeling that I’d had enough of its unfriendly company. I felt, in fact, defeated on every hand.

  There was no further doubt about the need to set myself in opposition to Catherine Drew at every turn if I was to stay in this house. My feeling of being allied on King’s side had only increased during this first encounter with his wife. Yet if the family could not deal with her or block her influence upon Leila, how was I, a stranger and an outsider, to be of any use? I liked the child. She had not been rude to me until her mother appeared. I had been drawn to her—as I had earlier been drawn in sympathy to her father.

  Tread carefully! I warned myself. Following a course that was more emotional than thoughtful could pitch me into a hornets’ nest of trouble—and I wanted none of that. A week, undoubtedly, would be all I could endure in this house.

  Picking up the tray, with the big shell resting beside the sugar bowl, I carried it out my door and down the stairs. Since I had lost my pupil for the time being, I might as well make my presence, and perhaps some of my doubts, known to whomever I could find about the house.

  There was just one person I had in mind.

  4

  I bore the tray to the landing and down to the living area I had seen last night. The big hall was empty, shaded from the morning sun, cool and dim, with the red blossoms of the Chagall print glowing near the foot of the stairs. Even by daylight the room looked a bit unfurnished to my northern eyes, more accustomed to thick rugs and warm upholstery than to the austere sight of bare wood. Yet there was beauty and dignity here, though perhaps too neatly impersonal, as of a room not lived in carelessly and lovingly. Its echoing reaches seemed to reject me. A handsome room—but cold.

  Setting my tray upon a coffee table and wandering toward the terrace, I glimpsed on my right a large dining room, mahogany-dark, while on the left a door stood open upon a smaller room that seemed to be an office. As I glanced in I saw Kingdon Drew standing before a large desk, studying a glossy print he held in his hands. I stepped into the doorway, suddenly expectant.

  He did not see me at once and I could watch him for a moment, as I had done last evening. He seemed dispirited and the creases down his cheeks had deepened gravely so that I felt an odd desire to make him smile.

  “You forgot me completely last night,” I said. “Though since you’re a reluctant host, I suppose I can’t blame you.”

  He glanced at me, unamused. “I’m sorry. I understand Edith brought you in. Has someone seen to your breakfast this morning?”

  “Your daughter took care of that,” I said.

  This at least interested him and he drew up a chair for me. “Now that you’ve met her, how do you feel about her?”

  “I like her very much,” I told him readily. “She’s an attractive girl with a great deal of warmth and quick intelligence.”
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  He nodded sober agreement “There are times when she is all those things. Are you telling me that she means to go along with this game her grandmother is playing?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve lost her for the moment. We were to begin looking over her books and studies this morning, but she has gone shopping with her mother.”

  “And you let her go?” His look challenged me. “Of what use are you as a teacher if you can’t set down rules and hold to them?”

  I sensed again his desire to antagonize me, but I would not be angry with him. I knew more about him today—and more about his wife.

  “This is my first morning here,” I said mildly. “There’s plenty of time to set up ground rules. First I need to make Leila’s acquaintance. I’ve already begun to do this. I think she doesn’t dislike me—so we’ve made a start.”

  He fell to studying the glossy photograph in his hands, as if he waited for me to go, but there was a perverse desire in me to reach him, to let him know that I was on his side whether he wished it or not, and I stayed in my chair, watching him in silence until my look began to nettle him.

  “Well?” he said. “What is it you see?”

  I could not tell him exactly, but I managed an answer of sorts. “I see what I’ve seen a good many other times as a teacher—a troubled father. It makes me want to help.”

  I turned away from the quick awareness in his eyes and left my chair to move about the room. It had been set up as a workroom and equipped with the tools of his trade. Several blueprints lay flat on a desk, while others were rolled and stored on a high shelf. A drawing table stood where the light was best, with plans upon it emerging on transparent vellum. Near at hand were pencils, T squares, ruling triangles, and an architect’s scale. All about the walls hung framed photographs of modern homes set in island backgrounds, and one contrasting picture—a handsome photograph of snow-covered peaks that caught my eye.