The Quicksilver Pool

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  All the way home she pondered Morgan’s words and motives. Was this a simple matter of politics as she professed, or was there in this woman a purpose which concerned Wade far more personally than she claimed?

  XVI

  By the end of January Lora had still said nothing to Wade of the request Morgan had made of her. She did not mention her recent visit, though she had told him of her first trip up the hill and that she had obtained the puppy from Morgan. He’d been distressed at first, but had eventually forgiven her.

  She had not, however, been able to dismiss her talk with Morgan from her mind. It was just possible that Morgan was right and Wade ought to have something like this to fling himself into If Morgan’s cause was honest and just, the chance at least should be given Wade. But how could she be sure? And how was she to broach the subject to him without incurring his displeasure and gaining only an angry refusal?

  Matters in the Tyler household were no worse, though little better than they had been. Mother Tyler had decided not to die after all, but merely to remain in bed as an invalid. However, she consented now to sit up, demanded constant waiting on from Ellie, and wanted Wade at her side too much of the time.

  True, she was not as yet winning the fight in which Jemmy’s puppy was a mere symbol, but she was winning in other ways and Lora could only watch in distress. Wade had done little more on his book because he could never be permitted uninterrupted time to himself. No sooner would he shut himself in the library to work, than the silver bell would ring demandingly and Ellie would come tapping at the library door with some request from his mother. Once Lora had quietly given orders that Ellie was not to disturb her master on any account, let the bell ring as it might. Whereupon Mrs. Tyler had had a relapse and been ill for several days.

  More than anyone else these days Lora missed her father. He would have had the wisdom and experience to deal with these problems. And he would have had the patience. Lora found her own patience wearing thinner by the day, until she was afraid that she might throw caution to the winds and stride into the sickroom to take matters impulsively into her own hands. This, she well knew, might be disastrous because the battle was one she was helpless to win. She could only stand beside Wade and offer what comfort she could.

  These days Jemmy was the one happy member of the household. He and Hamlin—whose full name had not been disclosed to Wade—even stole away from the house sometimes on Sundays because Adam was full of dog knowledge and was aiding Jemmy in the development of Hamlin’s personality and everyday good manners. Sunday rules had relaxed a bit for them all, now that Mrs. Tyler was bedridden. At Lora’s suggestion they had taken to going out to church, instead of conducting gloomy prayers in the parlor. This, for the moment, was their only contact with social life.

  Whether Jemmy sensed the tension among his elders, and the cause of his grandmother’s self-imposed illness, there was no telling. It was enough for him that he had been able to keep the puppy. When, on the rare occasions of a visit to his grandmother, she would emphasize to the boy that the pain of her headaches was brought on by the noise of the dog scampering through the halls, or barking at night, Jemmy would turn a bright, blank look upon her and announce that Ham was sorry and didn’t mean to hurt her, and was really trying very hard to learn.

  Lora had an account of these sessions from Ellie and knew that neither old woman nor small boy ever won or was defeated. But the tension in the household increased and Lora dreaded the possibility of a real explosion.

  Mother Tyler’s constitution was probably ironclad. She could make herself ill if she tried, but she would probably never will herself to go down in complete defeat. It was Wade who would be more likely to give in under the strain. Lora felt increasingly that she ought to find someone from whom she might gain advice. Her thoughts turned often to Serena Lord.

  One bleak morning when it was snowing again, she bundled herself up and walked along Dogwood Lane toward the Lord house. Edgar’s leave had ended and he had rejoined his company, so she would not be intruding on Serena’s brief hours with her husband. The maid showed her into the dining room, where a fire blazed and where Serena, her red hair hidden beneath a house cap, her plump person encased in a voluminous apron, sorted piles of linen heaped on table and sideboard. Adam was helping her, having been pressed into such female service somewhat against his will.

  Lora almost bumped into him as he came through the dining-room door bearing a pile of sheets as high as his head. He grinned at her around the mound in his arms.

  “Good morning, Lora Tyler. You’re a welcome sight. Do intercede for me and obtain my release from bondage.”

  “Nonsense!” cried his sister briskly. “You’ve nothing else to do and you can run up and down stairs better than I. How nice to see you, Lora. Do come in.”

  Lora glanced doubtfully at the heaps of linen, but Serena forestalled any apology or effort to withdraw. She gave Lora’s wraps and bonnet to the maid and waved her to a chair before the fire.

  “There! You shall sit and talk to me. A linen inventory is a tiresome task and Adam doesn’t feel talkative this morning. I’ve been pining for company.”

  The room was doubly cheerful and warm in contrast to the snow blowing against the windows and the piling of white drifts in the garden. The air was fragrant with a scent of lavender and orris root sachet.

  “I would not have waited much longer for you to visit me,” Serena told her cheerfully. “You’ve had more than enough time to settle into your new life. Now you must get out and make friends, my dear, have some outside contacts. We see you only at church. How is the elder Mrs. Tyler?”

  Through Jemmy’s visits to Adam, Serena must know something of the situation at the Tylers’, but Lora could not tell how much Serena read between the lines. She explained briefly that Wade’s mother was somewhat better and then sat silent for a little while, watching the fire, wondering how best to broach the subject of the unhappy struggle for power in which Wade’s mother was engaged. She looked up to see Serena’s understanding gaze upon her.

  “Mrs. Tyler is doing the same thing she tried to do when Wade married Virginia, isn’t she?” Serena said.

  Lora nodded, reassured by the fact that she need make no explanation to Serena Lord. “One thing that puzzles me is the fact that she seems not to have attempted this when her husband was alive. From the little I’ve heard now and then, Jack Tyler must have flouted her wishes and done exactly as he pleased. But she didn’t take to her bed then.”

  Serena counted swiftly down a stack of pillowcases and made a mark on a sheet of paper. “For Amanda to take to her bed would never have worked with Jack Tyler. He’d have been happy to have her out of his way. She knew that, so it was the last thing she’d do. But she can hurt Wade and make him feel guilty. I’m surprised that he hasn’t given in long ago on the matter of the dog. Just for the sake of peace, if nothing else.”

  “I’m afraid he still may,” Lora said. “That’s one reason I wanted to talk to you today. I’d like to help him, and I don’t know how. I’m afraid I don’t even understand him very well.”

  Adam came in empty-handed just then and overheard her last words. “If anybody who knows him can explain Wade to me, I’d like to hear about it. I’d never have expected him to stick up for Jemmy’s dog in the first place.”

  Lora winced at the implied criticism. “I don’t see why everyone underestimates him!” she cried.

  “You like to play the mother, don’t you?” Adam scoffed.

  He might have said more, but his sister made a shooing gesture with her hands. “That will be enough. Off with you to that freedom you’ve been begging for. Lora and I want to talk woman-talk. No—let the towels be. We can’t have you constantly popping in here disturbing us.”

  Adam sighed exaggeratedly. “You can see what a henpecked brother I am, Lora. But since freedom has been offered me, I’ll escape before my sister changes her mind.”

  Serena shook her head as he went out, and a lock of
bright hair slipped from beneath her cap and curled against her cheek. “Don’t mind Adam. I’m worried about him. He needs to be engaged in some furious activity. With these bouts of fever still laying him low, he can’t return to action, or even work for long at any job. But now we’ll be able to talk without being picked on.”

  Lora sensed again the warm sympathy she had felt in this woman that first night when Serena had spoken to her on the ferry.

  “If I knew more about the past perhaps I could understand better how to help Wade,” she mused. “He must have had some quarrel with Mrs. Channing, though she denied it, and no one will tell me what it was about.”

  Serena sorted towels into piles thoughtfully. “If there was a specific quarrel I haven’t heard the details. But there was a time when we all thought Wade would marry Morgan. Did you know that?”

  “Mother Tyler told me,” Lora said.

  “She would! There was always a spark between Morgan and Wade when they were young. Morgan went after him in her headlong way, but it always seemed to me a stormy affair with more quarreling and passion in it than any real liking. Fortunately he came to his senses and turned in what must have been relief to Virginia.”

  “How did he come to his senses?” Lora asked. “What happened to make him turn to Virginia?”

  Serena shrugged. “Again I can’t give you the details—we only heard rumors afterwards. But I believe it was Morgan herself—some frightful thing she did that shocked Wade into seeing what she was.”

  “Mother Tyler hinted that she stopped the affair and broke it up.”

  “I don’t know,” Serena said, “but I do believe he’s still a little afraid of Morgan.”

  “I don’t see why he should be.”

  Serena paused in her sorting. “Even my Edgar admits that she has a decided attraction. More than one man whom she hasn’t particularly wanted has played moth to her candle. The funny thing is I’ve felt a bit sorry for Morgan at times.”

  “Why ever should you?” Lora asked in surprise.

  “Because as a child it couldn’t have been easy to be the homely, unloved one of the family, with Virginia so pretty and sweet and lovable. And able to take so easily what Morgan wanted most.”

  This was a new and startling conception of Morgan which Lora found hard to accept. “Mrs. Channing homely?”

  “Oh, not now. Not since she has learned poise and has gained a position in the world with Nicholas’ wealth behind her. As a woman she has come into her own. But as a strong-willed, disliked little girl, she had a hard time. Virginia and I were the only ones who really stood up for her and we were the wrong sex. She didn’t care whether or not we liked her. Wade was the one she wanted and she was ready to fight for his admiration, even while she antagonized him. But she was such a wild, lonely little thing I had to feel sorry for her.”

  Lora could only listen in silence, finding it difficult to reconcile her recent glimpses of Morgan with the picture Serena remembered.

  “I’ll never forget something that happened on my fifteenth birthday,” Serena went on. “Let me see—Morgan would have been thirteen at the time. Wade and Adam are the same age—a year younger than Morgan, and Virginia would have been eight or nine.”

  Serena left her sorting and came to pull another chair close to the fire.

  “This is as good a time as any to tell you about it,” she said, thrusting the bright lock of hair back under her cap and smoothing out her big white apron. “I need a rest and we can have this time to ourselves. Would you like a cup of coffee, Lora?”

  Lora shook her head. “No, thank you. Please tell me the story. I’m anxious to know something that will give me a better understanding of all these things.”

  “My birthday falls in August, when it can be very hot here on the island. So mother gave me an outdoor party that year. Some of my older friends were there, of course, but by the time this incident occurred they’d gone home, and only the neighbors were left, and a few grownups. Mama always invited the Ambrose children to our parties, even though Mrs. Tyler didn’t approve of such social recognition. At any rate, the five of us were out in the side garden, quite replete from being stuffed with ice cream and cake and candy. Virginia was building a little house of twigs and stones and leaves, while Wade and I were helping her. She was such a good, amiable child that we all loved to please her. Adam was prowling around shooting Indians or something—he always had to be active—and Morgan was swinging in the hammock, looking cross because no one was paying much attention to her. Of course we lived in my father’s house then—the Hume place near you. The house that burned down.”

  She sighed, remembering sadly.

  Lora watched the fire as she listened and as Serena’s quiet voice went on building pictures in her mind, she could almost see the children as they had been on that long-ago day in August. Virginia, small and fair-haired, with a dimple that was forever showing with her ready smile. Serena, older, tolerant and kind. Adam forever restless, ready for any scapegrace adventure. Wade pale because he didn’t eat well and was often kept indoors, but always eager to be liked. And, finally, Morgan, with ragged, dark hair that would never stay within the confines of a braid or ribbon, her nose that was too big, and her stormy, dark eyes and sulky mouth.

  As she listened, Lora could almost hear the words of the careless women on the porch—adults, sure that the children were intent on their own affairs, not listening to grown-up talk.

  It had been one of Mrs. Hume’s guests who had started the whole thing. She had looked at Morgan swinging sullenly in the hammock and had shaken her head at her friends.

  “What a pity the Ambrose girls are so different. The little one is quite charming and appealing. Even without a good family background she will probably do well in her own circles. But the older child is a fright. So bad-tempered. So plain.”

  “Hush,” said Mrs. Hume uneasily. “She may hear you.”

  The other woman shrugged. “Someone should take her in hand. She has been trying to spoil the party for the others all afternoon.”

  Mrs. Hume threw a quick look at the seemingly indifferent Morgan and took her friends into the house. Morgan waited exactly two minutes and then swung herself out of the hammock. She came over and stood glowering at the small house of twigs that Virginia was building.

  The other children had heard and they looked at her uncomfortably.

  “Don’t pay any attention,” Serena told her. “Mrs. Dickson is just an old busybody.”

  Adam scalped his last Indian and joined the group, his eyes alight at the prospect of trouble. “Just the same, what she said was true. You have been trying to spoil things for us all afternoon, Morgan.”

  Wade was about to place a V-shaped twig upon the roof of the house when Morgan swung her foot and kicked the whole thing from beneath his hand. The bits flew in all directions and Virginia cried out in dismay. It was possible that Adam who was no respecter of the feminine person, might have tackled Morgan then and there and given her a good pummeling, but the girl was too quick for him. She sprang away with a derisive laugh and climbed the iron fence that ran along the front of the house.

  “Get down, Morgan!” Serena ordered in her role of the eldest. “If you fall on those spikes you’ll kill yourself.”

  But Morgan only balanced on the narrow ledge that ran on either side of the spikes, pulling her skirts high and laughing at them all.

  “Maybe I’m a fright, but I’m braver than any of you!” she cried. “I can walk this fence all the way to the gate, and I’ll bet the rest of you are scared to try.”

  “No one wants to try,” said Serena reasonably. “And we don’t want to see you hurt.”

  Virginia hid her face in her hands. “Make Morgan come down,” she quavered.

  “Fraidy-cats! Fraidy-cats!” cried Morgan, and started her reckless traversing of the fence, putting one foot almost carelessly before the other, down beside the spikes of the palings.

  Adam said, “Who’s afraid? Anybody
can walk that old fence.” He was after Morgan in a second and up behind her, moving with an easy, sure balance, completely confident and unafraid.

  Morgan reached the gatepost and jumped down, her dark face glowing with triumph. But she was not yet done with her taunting.

  “Wade’s-a-coward, Wade’s-a-coward!” she chanted.

  Wade stood up, staring at Morgan angrily. Virginia caught his hand and clung to it, but he shook her off and went toward the fence. Adam had jumped down by now and even he didn’t want to see Wade attempt the feat.

  “Hey!” he called. “Don’t climb up there. You get dizzy too easy.”

  Serena knew she should run into the house for her mother, should scream, should do something, but she was suddenly helpless, frozen in dreadful fascination, as they all were, watching Wade climb the fence and stand white and shaky on its top, looking down at the spikes beneath him.

  One step after another he took, obviously frightened and fighting his own fear. Serena had begun to think he would make it after all when, three steps from the end, his vertigo won out. He swayed, tried to recover his balance, and put out a hand to save himself as he fell. He screamed just once as the iron spike went through his palm, and then he was on the ground, his hand impaled on the fence.

  Serena recovered her power of voice and screamed wildly for her mother. Little Virginia went into sick hysterics at the sight of blood and Wade’s agonizing pain. It was Adam who tore down the lane shouting for Ambrose at the top of his lungs. Morgan, who had caused the whole thing, only stared in horror.

  There were no men at the party, only frightened women, and it was Ambrose who came running back with Adam to take charge of the crisis. It was he who removed Wade’s hand from the spike and caught the boy when he fainted. It was he who stanched the blood and carried his limp body back to his mother’s house.

  The birthday party broke up in confusion. No one spoke to Morgan. No one told the grownups just what had happened. It was Morgan herself who told her father. She went back to the Tylers’ and sat on the back steps until Ambrose came out, looking grave and a little sick himself. Virginia had been put to bed by her mother by that time in the servants’ quarters. But Morgan could not rest till she had told her father what had happened, had castigated and humbled herself.