A few moments later Catherine joined us on the gallery, sleek in her tight-fitting green pants, with much of the upper part of her revealing smooth, tanned skin. She gave Edith a look of mockery, and bent to drop a kiss on her mother’s cheek.
“Don’t scold, Maudie old dear. I didn’t have time to change.” Then she turned to me. “So you’re still here?” she said, and I felt once more the almost abrasive quality of her look. This woman wanted to hurt me, wanted intensely to have me gone.
“Of course Jessica is here,” Maud said. “And here she is going to stay.”
Leila broke in impatiently. “How do I look, Cathy?” she demanded, looking as glowing and beautiful as it was possible to look in a dress that was so wrong for her sweetness and youth. Though of course they were the last qualities in the world she wanted to be guilty of possessing.
Catherine regarded her daughter and for an instant it seemed to me that she felt surprise. “You look stunning, darling,” she said. “We’ll be perfect as twins. Give me mine and I’ll try it on.”
Catherine did not make the mistake of putting the dress on over other clothes. She unzipped herself from the tight trousers, untied the piqué band, and stood unself-consciously in briefs and strapless bra while Leila helped her with the dress.
I knew what was coming. I knew it before it happened. I was prepared for it in my very bones. I had been there so many times myself that I could hardly bear to look at Catherine as she pulled the dress over her head and sleeked it down about her hips. This time it was Leila who joyfully did the zipping, and was as foolishly unprepared for what was about to happen as anyone could be.
Catherine did no whirling and flouncing. She stood perfectly still so that we could admire her and there was not one of us on that gallery who did not recognize that the dress was made for her. Her blond hair danced above the flame that enveloped her and she was a figure of such loveliness in her red and gold that I ached a little as I looked at her. The aching was not wholly for Leila; some of it was for myself. Not that Helen had been anything like Catherine. She had been more innocent than Catherine in all that she did, yet somehow the effect had been the same—the result as devastating to me. I wanted to turn away so that I need not see Leila’s hurt, but I could not escape the moment.
An air of painful self-consciousness had come over the girl. The natural, touching grace of youth gave way under our eyes to awkwardness. Even her expression of wounded puzzlement made her cease to be pretty. Catherine knew very well what she was doing. I thought of Kingdon Drew married to her. I understood his frustration and anger with an anger of my own.
Yet the damage to Leila was immediate and there was nothing any of us could do to lessen it. Edith probably did not understand or care, but when I looked at Maud I found her eyes fixed upon me in sorrowful awareness. Maud Hampden understood very well and she knew not only what Leila was feeling, but how I felt as well. I turned quickly from her look, lest I make her a promise. I wanted to promise nothing, but only to escape my own too immediate hurt. I had been through all this before—I could not bear to live it again through Leila. The parallel was even more hurtful than I had expected, so that I felt a little ill from the experience.
Catherine did not leave the matter there. “Do come here a minute,” she said to her daughter. “Something’s wrong with the way that skirt hangs on you. Of course the Bermudas don’t help, but there’s more that’s wrong. Can you tuck your tummy in at least? I suppose you’ll lose some of that baby fat eventually, but it makes you look ungainly around the middle. I wonder what we can do?”
She plucked idly at the goods, pinching it up here and there, all charming amiability, all practical, sympathetic suggestions—now that Leila was no longer a vision; a young vision and perhaps to be feared.
Once more Edith surprised me. “Leila looked all right until you started fixing things,” she said bitterly.
Catherine glanced at her over Leila’s shoulder, her greenish eyes narrowing. “Can I help it if you don’t see what’s wrong? What would you know about a dress like this?”—and she went back to plucking at folds of cloth.
Edith too had been through this before, I thought—when she was younger, perhaps, with a sister who eclipsed her at every turn. So she was not wholly insensitive now, though I felt she did not truly care about Leila. Quite suddenly I was warned, watching her. If I did not take care, there went I, soured and disgruntled, old before my time, hating and resenting, not only because of what one woman had done to me, but because of what I had not done for myself. I had to be free of this haunting. I had to get away and start anew. Regardless of my sympathy for Leila—and for her father—I could not bear any more. I must make my own way in a different world.
It was Leila who stopped what Catherine was doing. She snatched her ruffles from her mother’s hands and stepped out of reach. “Never mind!” she said crossly. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t make me look the way you do anyway. Leave me alone.”
Catherine smiled and shrugged, turning herself about so that she could be unzipped. Then she let Leila help her pull the dress over her head. But as it came off, Catherine gave a sharp cry of pain and clapped a hand to her face. When she brought it away there was blood on her fingers from a long pin scratch across her chin. She closed her eyes and thick dark lashes lay upon her cheeks as though they had been painted there. Her bright mouth was pinched with pain and she seemed to shiver all over her exposed body.
Leila sprang to support her with a strong young arm, all contrition and sympathy. “Oh, Cathy—I’ve scratched you! I’m sorry. Don’t worry, darling. It’s not a bad scratch, really—come along and I’ll put something on it.”
Catherine went with her almost meekly, not stopping to put on her clothes, and I could only look after them in astonishment.
“I wonder how much of that is an act?” Edith said dryly.
“You know it’s not an act.” Maud leaned back in her chair and reached for her palm-leaf fan. “It’s that threshold-of-pain thing. Dr. Prentice says it’s Catherine’s misfortune to suffer more than the rest of us when it comes to pain. You know she nearly died when Leila was born—simply because she can’t stand pain. She said she’d never have another child.”
“A promise she’s managed to keep,” Edith said. “I’d better go and see that Leila doesn’t kill her with iodine.”
With Edith gone, Maud Hampden lay in her chair, her eyes closed, fanning herself listlessly. I thought she had forgotten my presence, but as I moved away she tapped the fan on her chair arm.
“Come, sit where I can see you, Jessica. There are a number of facts you need to know about us before you make up your mind.”
I had already made up my mind—I must get away. Everything about this situation was wrong for me. Nevertheless, I could not refuse to listen, and I drew up one of the cane chairs and sat down again.
Edith is right in feeling that I must forget about pride and give you more of the picture,” Maud Hampden said. “Except that she believes telling you will frighten you off. Somehow I don’t think you’re made of such flimsy stuff.”
She could hardly be more wrong about me, but it seemed pointless to confess to my fearfulness. I too was afraid of pain, but of a different sort.
“My son Roger was everything I could have hoped for in a boy,” Maud went on. “He was sound clear through. I believe there are such things as good and evil in human beings, even if that concept seems old-fashioned today—like my notions about pride. I can’t accept all this excusing of the wrongdoer because of something he couldn’t help in the past. We all have pasts that are less than perfect, but sooner or later we must become responsible for our own acts. There isn’t any other way.”
She grimaced and made a slight gesture with her fan. “King and Roger were in Korea together and they became good friends. King was with my son in the hospital when he died. Later, when he was free, King came to St. Thom
as to see me and tell me all he could about Roger.”
The old lady opened her eyes and I saw in them the shine of tears. She blinked a few times before she found her voice again.
“I liked King and he liked me. He had suffered a loss too, since he was devoted to Roger. I invited him to stay with us. Perhaps I even aided and abetted when it came to what followed. Catherine could be enormously beguiling, and he thought of her as Roger’s sister, expecting her to be like him. I might have warned him, though I’m not sure he’d have listened. But I saw in him possible salvation for Catherine if she really fell in love. I kept hoping she would change if only she loved someone enough.”
The old lady was silent again, her eyes closed.
“There’s something I should tell you,” I said. “A little while ago I had a talk with Mr. Stair. Like everyone else he thinks there’s nothing I can do for Leila in this situation. He—he told me a little about the past.”
She opened her eyes at once. “Such as?”
Again I held back the information Aunt Janet had given me, since it seemed purposeless to pain her further.
“He said you were afraid history might repeat itself.”
“Did he give you the details?”
I shook my head and she relaxed a little. “Good! We needn’t go back to that unhappy affair. But Alex is more right about history repeating itself than he knows. That’s why I feel so strongly about this—because I’ve been through it before. Oh, Leila isn’t her mother and she would never do what Catherine did. But the fault was mine in sending Catherine out of my reach and care. And now Catherine is trying to use Leila against King in just the way her own father used Catherine against me.”
I wanted to stop her from telling me more. Since I had no intention of staying, it was not right to permit her this humiliation.
“Please don’t go on,” I begged. “There’s no way in which I can help you here. I’ll stay out my week, if you wish, but Mrs. Stair is right—I’m too weak a straw for anyone to grasp right now.”
Maud’s fine eyes flashed me a look of reproach. “Nonsense! Do you think I can’t read through the story Janet gave me? Do you think I can’t see what Janet has missed? You had a job on your hands and you did it in the only way possible. Perhaps you had to compromise, as we all must do, but you made a more sensible choice than many people would, and you didn’t go under, you didn’t lose your courage.”
In a sudden gesture she held out her hand to me, and when I gave her my own we smiled at each other in liking.
“Listen to me, my dear,” she said. “Just listen.”
“I’ll listen,” I agreed, “but I can’t make any promises about the future.”
She went on at once. “I haven’t told you all this because I am a garrulous old woman. If you’re to help Leila you must understand what has gone into her making, and what is being done to her now. My own marriage was an unhappy one. From the moment she was born, Catherine was Roger’s favorite child and he saw very quickly that he could use her against me whenever he chose. When I would have disciplined and restrained her, he undermined me and gave her whatever she wanted. Because that was the best way in which to hurt me. The worst of it was that Catherine knew very well—and early—what he was doing, and she played his game. In fact, she carried it further than he intended. I had other things to interest me, and a good part of the time I closed my eyes and let them go their own way. Now I’m paying the penalty for my own mistakes because Catherine is now using Leila to revenge herself upon King.”
“Revenge herself?”
“She always wants whatever is denied her,” Maud Hampden said. “She wanted King from the first, and men newly home from war have been fooled by attractive women before this. Only she couldn’t fool him forever and that’s the thing that irks and goads her now. It’s wickedly wrong for a child like Leila to be used as a pawn in her game.”
“Then why don’t you do what Mr. Drew wants and send her to Colorado?” I said. “Isn’t that the best way out?”
She sighed heavily. “What do you think will happen if I send her away now? Perhaps I see what King doesn’t. The child would hate being sent off—banished. She won’t understand why it’s being done. If she goes now she’ll leave idealizing her mother, and hating her father as she is being taught to hate him. A wholly wrong judgment. That’s the heritage she’ll grow up with. It will affect her all her life.”
I looked at Maud Hampden with increasing respect. I could see very well what she meant, and I knew that she might have put her finger on a basic truth. Perhaps King was too deeply involved to recognize the more deadly, permanent harm that might be done Leila if what Maud claimed was true.
“This is a crucial time,” she continued. “Something must break the pattern and free the child from her mother here and now—at home where the damage is being done.” She smiled ruefully. “Alex says you can’t break the spell of witchcraft by running away. You stay and destroy it with counter magic. But how are we to find counter magic? Unless perhaps you hold it in your hands?”
I could only shake my head futilely. I needed counter magic of my own.
Maud Hampden leaned toward me, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. “I’ve been ill. I’m getting old. I’m living out the mistakes of the past, and I haven’t the strength to fight this battle much longer. That’s why I’ve snatched at you as a last chance. You know young people, you like them. I can see the small ways in which you’re already drawing Leila to you. She needs a new idol. Someone unconnected with either her mother or her father. Crushes are easy at her age, and sometimes they’re a good thing.”
“Me—an idol! Oh, no!” I cried, thoroughly startled. “That would be the blind leading the blind!”
“Who knows better the problems of the blind than another blind person?” Maud demanded. “Can’t you see how foolish it is that Leila should be damaged in her self-confidence, in her young pride—when she has so much more of value in her character than her mother has?”
“Of course I can see,” I acknowledged.
“Yet you’re still living with the same sort of damage in yourself! I never knew your mother, but Janet has told me what she was like, and how superior you are to her in every way.”
Without warning the old flare of anger sprang up in me—anger against anyone who attacked Helen. “Aunt Janet never liked her. She never understood her, or knew how much Helen did for my father. It’s not fair for you to take her word when—”
Maud Hampden’s look, her very stillness stopped me. I let my words fade into shamefaced silence. I was reacting exactly as Leila would react if Catherine were attacked.
“You may not be able to change,” the old lady said dryly, “but at least you’ve enough native good sense to recognize what you’re still doing to yourself. For that very reason you may be the right person to stop its happening to Leila. Catherine is growing more reckless every day. Now there’s this boy to whom she has attached herself over the last year—in order to use him against King, of course. Not that I worry about Steve. He’s dazzled at the moment, but he has a hard streak in him that will look after Steve O’Neill. Now, however, the two of them have taken to running over to Caprice when the whim moves Catherine. That’s my husband’s home in St Croix.”
My attention quickened. Here again was the name that had been used with special meaning between Edith and Catherine on the stairs last night. Indeed, it had been used by Catherine almost as if in threat.
“I suppose you know that she has just returned from a trip around the Caribbean spending money she can’t afford,” Maud said. “And before we can turn around she’ll be off again to San Juan, or somewhere else.”
I nodded. Aunt Janet had brought up the matter of Catherine’s spending, and so had King.
Maud’s feelings were running away with her and she hurried on. “The moment she got home this time she headed for Caprice, a
nd Steve went after her. He was in and out of the place as a sort of errand boy—and goodness knows what else—for the two days she stayed there. The caretaker is my friend, so I get reports from time to time. Ostensibly they’re busy finding shells for Alex. This time Catherine came home furious because King has been going over her head in an effort to preserve that beautiful old place by getting it into government hands. We can’t afford to keep it up, and this is the only way to save it from the ruin that overtakes so many of these lovely old houses.”
“Why should Catherine be against that?” I asked.
Maud drew a deep breath in an effort to quiet her own indignation. “Sometimes I think she’s driven solely by her own uncontrolled emotions—except that she can also be shrewdly scheming when she pleases. Caprice belongs entirely to her own emotional world. To her it stands for her father and for a past that would have suited her. Roger—my husband—should have been a plantation owner in St. Croix’s early days. Slave days. The life would have suited him—and suited Catherine too. In any event, she has thrown herself into complete opposition to King’s plans and keeps talking about restoring Caprice herself. With what I wouldn’t know. When she got there this time and found inspectors from the government checking over the place, she nearly went out of her mind. Now she’s even more determined to punish King than before. I’m afraid she has a penchant for high places—the cliffs edge, the reckless moment of high speed. She’s afraid of pain, but not of danger, and if I’m any judge she’s running full speed ahead toward disaster, meaning to bring King down with her.”
Exhausted by her flood of words, Maud lay back and once more closed her eyes. The fan hung limply from one hand, and her breathing was quick, her color high.
I felt as weary as Maud looked—as weary as I had felt when I first came to the island. I’d had enough of women who reached out and took what they wanted without regard to the rights of others, without concern for the pain they might inflict. In me there was left only the urge to find a quiet place and loneliness, so that I could be myself—learn how to be myself. All these years, it seemed to me, I had never been alone. I had never been away from the demands of young people, sometimes a little cruel in their urgency because youth is often unable to see anything but its own center of gravity. Nor had I been out of reach of the summons of my mother’s voice, making its own demands upon me quite as blindly, quite as self-centeredly.
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