The Quicksilver Pool

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  And a week later:

  Today a terrible thing happened. Adam was up in the woods howling like a banshee. I was reading about banshees yesterday and I’m sure they must howl like that. Virginia was on the big rock in the pool trying to catch a turtle, and I was helping her, while Morgan sulked on the shore. Virginia and I were very quiet, waiting for a turtle to come out of the water onto the rocks. When one finally did and I was just reaching for it, Morgan got up and threw a stone in the water and of course the turtle plopped back out of sight. I was so angry that I stood up and shouted at Morgan. I told her I’d smack her good if she didn’t stop that. I don’t suppose I really would because I don’t want to be that sort of boy. But she jumped right up and came out on the rock to give me a chance.

  Virginia started to cry because fighting frightens her and then …

  Here Lora found that the page had been torn in half. The record of whatever had happened on that long-ago day must have been destroyed by the writer.

  There were only a few pages left in the copybook and they contained nothing of any significance, did not mention Morgan at all. Lora picked up the last of the four books, but here again were only school exercises, with little of the personal revealed. The torn page tantalized her with its unfinished story. What could have happened that day which was so terrible in Wade’s eyes that he had torn up all evidence of it? Had he really turned on Morgan at last, as she seemed to desire him to in her perverse way?

  The sudden sound of a foot on the stone steps of the old house made her sit up with a start and look across the expanse of grass and clover toward the crumbling wall and doorway. Adam Hume stood in the entrance. His rusty head was bare and he wore his usual jaunty grin that seemed intended to show the world how little he cared for its opinion.

  “So this is where you disappeared to?” he said. “I saw you on the road some time ago and kept waiting for you to appear near the path. When you didn’t I decided to investigate. Do you mind if I come into your parlor, Mrs. Tyler?”

  He waited for no invitation, but jumped down into the space that had once been the interior of a residence and sauntered toward her, his hands in his pockets.

  There was no one she wanted less to see, but there was nothing to do about his presence unless she wanted to leave. She knew that a haughty departure would only amuse him, perhaps make him call her a rabbit again. So she stayed where she was, waiting, but his very presence made her uneasy.

  He found a sunny spot for himself some distance from her and stretched himself on his stomach in the clover, resting his weight on his arms.

  “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?” he asked, smiling at her lazily.

  “You wish to apologize?” she said.

  “For my improper behavior, or for yours? No indeed. I enjoyed it a great deal. And I suppose it makes very little difference whether you are angry with me or not. Since in any event I am planning to go away before long.”

  She was surprised, and in the same moment strangely relieved, but she gave no sign. “You are going to rejoin your company?”

  “To my regret, they will have none of me. No, I’m going west where I can at least get into an active life part of the time. I’ve a friend who owns a defunct gold mine in Colorado. Between us, who knows what we may stir up? But I wanted to tell you what I planned.”

  “I wish you good fortune,” she said politely.

  His grin had a wry quirk. “Thank you, ma’am. I suppose, in order to fulfill the romantic tradition, I should first lay my heart at your feet and announce that I am departing forever because I know you are lost to me.”

  “You are being ridiculous.”

  “The other choice would be to beseech you to fly with me. To leave husband, child, home and mother—to sacrifice all in the name of love.”

  Lora made an impatient sound. “Why are you speaking such nonsense?”

  “Because it annoys you. Perhaps this is the one trait I share with Morgan Channing—I like to annoy people.” He got up and crossed the patch of clover quickly to drop onto a corner of the shawl beside her. “Don’t wriggle away like that. I shan’t touch you.”

  “I have no reason to trust you,” she told him, and began to pick up books and pillow, preparing to leave him the field after all.

  He reached out and caught her hands to stop her, and now there was no mockery in his eyes. “You have every reason to trust me, though you don’t realize it. Because I like you, Dora. Like and admire and respect you. And these are things I have given to few women in my life. Perhaps I could even have fallen in love with you if you had been heartfree. As it is, I will neither ask you to fly with me in the romantic fashion, or promise you my brokenhearted loyalty forever. It is my curious custom to prefer a woman who will love me back. You, in an unaccountable feminine way, are dedicated to loving Wade.”

  The start she gave was involuntary, as was her manner of denial. She stilled her hands at once and drew them from his grasp. There was no need to deny anything to Adam. What he thought did not matter.

  But he had noted with his quick, keen gaze. “You haven’t accepted the facts yet, have you? That you are in love with him, I mean. The response you gave me the other day might have led me to a further trial if I hadn’t recognized that it was made of the same flimsy stuff as Wade’s response to Morgan. But perhaps you didn’t understand that yourself?”

  She stopped struggling to collect her possessions and looked at him.

  “No,” he said, “you didn’t understand, but now I’ve put knowledge in your hands. My gift to you in parting. I suppose it will always be a puzzle to my kind of man—what it is a woman sees in Wade’s kind. Virginia, Morgan—and now you. Is it the mother in the feminine nature, the need to protect and build up and succor?”

  Still she looked at him, saying nothing. Perhaps she could have told him, explained the comparison she was only now beginning to understand. Always Adam would snatch at what he wanted, quickly and without heed, storming towers, flouing conventions. To be loved by him might be briefly exciting and it was even possible that under different circum stances she might have been foolish enough to play moth to his flame. But now—by some whim of kindness—he had indeed put the truth in her hands and she knew well that he would never be what she wanted. There was a richer, gentler love in which a more fulfilling consummation might be possible.

  “When are you going away?” she asked, turning uncomfortably from her own strange thoughts.

  “In a few weeks. Probably by mid-July.”

  The copybook in her hands fell open to the torn page and she turned to him suddenly. Adam, at least, had always been one of whom she could ask a direct question.

  “Can you remember a time when you were all children,” she began, “playing up near the pool? I mean some one occasion when Virginia was out on the big rock trying to get a turtle and Morgan behaved badly?”

  “Virginia was always after turtles and Morgan was always behaving badly. What do you mean?”

  She went on hurriedly. “This must have been a time when something awful happened. Wade was there too, and you were in the woods nearby. Think back. I need to know.”

  “Well … there was the time when Morgan pushed Virginia into the pool. Could that be what you mean?”

  “How terrible!”

  “I didn’t reach them till it was about over, but I heard Virginia scream and I got most of the story later. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was a push. But Morgan had gone out on the rocks to see if Wade would really slap her as he had apparently threatened to do. And Virginia, who was little and couldn’t swim, fell in. So Morgan jumped up and down and screeched for Wade to jump in and save her. Only Wade bad always been babied by his mother, and he couldn’t swim either. So Morgan, who could do everything, jumped in herself and pulled her sister out. I got there after it was all over and Morgan was blistering the air with her denunciation of Wade. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “I think so,” Lora said. She could understand no
w why Wade had destroyed his own account of what had happened that day. Rereading it later, he must have been deeply ashamed of his inability to help Virginia, and of Morgan’s harsh accusations.

  “Morgan was always a fool when it came to Wade,” Adam Said. “Even while he represented to her the sum total of everything she wanted, she always had to speak her mind rudely. She was forever in conflict with herself over him. I expect she still is. I’d watch her if I were you.”

  She tugged at the shawl on which he was sitting. “Thank you for telling me, but now please get up so I can pick up my things. I really must be getting home.”

  He removed books and pillow from her hands and laid them on the grass. Then he took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

  “Believe me, more than anything I can remember, I want your happiness. Can you understand that? Just this once can you believe, much as you dislike me?”

  She looked into his eyes and found honesty there and good will. The impatience went out of her.

  “I believe you,” she told him. “Thank you, Adam.”

  He let her hands go. “Now I’ll help you back to the house with your load.”

  “No, please,” she said quickly. “I—I’d rather go alone.”

  The old look returned to his eyes. “Ah? We must avoid the appearance of evil, must we not? Very well, I’ll stay here while you go. I can cut up through the woods and come down another way. And thus our dread secret will be safe.”

  But she would not be riled by him now. She accepted his arrangement gravely, said good-by, and went out the broken doorway and down the steps.

  She walked the short distance home slowly. The thing Adam had said—that she loved Wade—would not leave her mind. It hovered, challenging, waiting to be accepted. Was it possible for love to come like this, stealing in unaware, while you went on believing that all was as it had been before and your concern for a man was no more personal than it had been in the beginning? If true, this might be something to fear and regret. She did not want to be hurt any more. She had had enough of pain.

  “You look like you’re sleep-walking, Lorie,” came Jemmy’s voice from the veranda.

  She looked up and saw that unknowingly she had reached the house. Jemmy put his finger to his lips and ran down the stairs toward her.

  “Morgan Le Fay’s in there with Grandmother,” he whispered. “They’ve shut the door and won’t let me in, though Le Fay has brought down my mother’s picture.”

  “Your mother’s picture?” Lora repeated.

  “The one that was part of the big painting. She cut it all the way down with a knife, just leaving her own picture in the frame. I suppose that green curtain covers the cut.”

  So Morgan had done what she had threatened. Well, no matter. It was right that Virginia’s picture should be kept for Jemmy. Nevertheless, Morgan’s unusual presence in this house was a disturbing thing. Where Morgan came, trouble followed.

  Lora started upstairs, having no wish to see the visitor. But before she reached the upper floor, Wade came out of the library and saw her there on the stairs, saw the copybooks and the clown in her hands.

  “Where on earth have you been with those things?” he asked, not altogether pleased.

  She could feel the betraying warmth rise in her cheeks. With Adam’s words in her mind she felt suddenly shy and self-conscious. She could not answer easily and openly as she might have done earlier.

  “I’ve just been sunning myself and thinking in the Hume place,” she said. And she ran on up the stairs before he could question her further.

  Jemmy was still in the upper hall. “Your birthday’s soon, isn’t it, Lorie? Don’t forget—we’re going to have a party.”

  She smiled absently and went into her own room to put the books away in a drawer. She stood for a moment with the little clown in her hands, then put her cheek against the soft yellow pompons, somehow finding comfort in the gesture. Uneasiness still gripped her, however, and she left the door ajar, listening for Morgan’s departure.

  She heard Mother Tyler’s door open, heard Morgan in the hall speaking to Wade. Five minutes after she had left, Ellie came scuttling upstairs to summon Lora to Mrs. Tyler’s sitting room. Uneasiness gave place to certainty of trouble to come.

  Mrs. Tyler awaited her alone, so at least Wade was not to be included in this audience.

  “Close the door and sit there,” said the old lady, pointing. “I want you where you’ll be facing the light. I want the truth from you and no subterfuges.”

  “I believe I have always told you the truth,” said Lora with dignity. Morgan had talked. Plainly she had talked about Adam that day of the fire.

  She started toward the chair Mrs. Tyler indicated, and then paused, almost stepping upon a strip of canvas which lay spread upon the floor. It was Virginia’s picture, one side rudely gashed, where the canvas had been cut in two.

  “The woman must be demented to cut up a fine painting,” Mrs. Tyler said. “But now I shall have it framed and hung in the house. Perhaps in the front parlor.”

  Lora sat down, waiting for her to come to the point. The picture, she was sure, was the least of this summons.

  Mrs. Tyler went on at once. “Truly, Lora, I am shocked by the facts which have been presented to me today. You have already disappointed me in many ways, but I had not expected betrayal from you. Not betrayal of my son.”

  “There has been no betrayal,” said Lora gently.

  “You were seen kissing Adam Hume on the day of the fire. Not only by Morgan, but by the Frenchwoman, Clothilde. Probably by others too. Do you deny it?”

  “Of course I do,” Lora said spiritedly. “I did not kiss Adam. He kissed me. There is a difference.”

  “Nonsense. You submitted in any case. And now there is worse. An assignation—one of many, perhaps? In the ruins of the Hume house. Morgan herself saw you there today, holding hands with Adam, speaking of love.”

  Lora gasped at the unexpectedness of the attack. The mingling of truth with this lie left her helpless for a moment.

  “It is plain that you are overcome with guilt,” Mrs. Tyler said.

  “I am guilty of nothing in the least wrong!” Lora cried.

  “But you do not deny that you were there with Adam. Morgan heard voices as she came down the road on her way to bring me this picture. You were so lost in your love-making that you did not hear her, either of you. The moment she understood what was happening she came to me. And for once, I must say, she did the right thing. My son knows nothing of this as yet. I am giving you a chance first.”

  “Mother, please listen to me,” Lora begged. “I went there for an hour or so alone, with books to read. Adam found me and talked to me for a few minutes. It was not what you term an assignation. Nor has it ever happened before.”

  “A woman in love always lies,” said Mrs. Tyler curtly.

  “Then it is Morgan who is lying.”

  “You mean you deny the hand-holding, the talk of love?”

  “He held my hands when I wanted to leave. And he told me that I—that I was in love with Wade. Is that what you want to know?”

  Mrs. Tyler stared at her a moment. Then she flicked her fingers in a gesture of dismissal, and there was the familiar flash of jewels in the sunlight.

  “Go away. Leave me. I can see there is no truth in you. You have brought still greater unhappiness and disgrace upon this house. I must decide now what I shall do.”

  Lora stood up and the old trembling that had tormented her when first she came to this house ran through her body.

  “I have disgraced no one. If unhappiness results from this malicious act of Morgan’s, then it will be her fault—and yours.” She bent toward the old lady suddenly, looked into the deep-set eyes. “Is this what you have been waiting for all along? Something which would make your son wholly yours again? Or perhaps you want to give him back to Virginia and will have him miserably lost to the world, though once more dependent upon you? Perhaps this is why you want to
hang Virginia’s picture in the parlor. If these are the things you want, then you have grown old and wicked, Mother Tyler.”

  For a moment longer she faced the old woman while the trembling ran through her.

  Mrs. Tyler sat immobile. She blinked once. That was all. Lora turned and went out of the room. She went straight to the door of the library and rapped on the dark panel. When Wade opened it, she stepped past him into the room, let him close the door behind her.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, twining her fingers together to still their trembling. “Morgan has been here talking to your mother.”

  “I know,” Wade said. “She mentioned the picture.”

  “She mentioned other matters too.”

  Wade drew a chair near an open window where a breeze stirred the draperies. “You’re disturbed about her visit. Sit down, Lora.”

  She did not take the chair. Somehow she felt stronger, more sure of herself standing, facing him squarely. Her voice did not break or her words falter as she told him of that day at the fire. He leaned against the library table, resting his leg, watching her as she spoke. When she had finished, he glanced away.

  “But I already knew this, Lora. Morgan would never have waited this long to be spiteful when she had the opportunity that very day.”

  “You—knew?” She thought back in confusion. He had waited for her that same day on the steps of Morgan’s house—to protect her from the “dragons” in the woods, he had said. And later there had been that little while in the kitchen late at night, when they had seemed close for a time—closer than ever before. Yet he had known of Adam’s behavior even then.