Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  A room opened off the lobby, and I glimpsed the long mahogany bar with the picture of a reclining and scantily dressed lady above it, and a brass spittoon at each end. Small tables were set about the room, and a few patrons from among the workers in the town had wandered in, to be served by a florid gentleman in shirt sleeves, vest, and flowing mustache, who moved with assurance against a background of mirrors and bottle-filled shelves. This, too, was authentic. And at the same time synthetic and only make-believe. Was this the way to recover the past? I didn’t know.

  At the far end of the room was a small stage, empty now, with its crimson curtains looped back in folds at either side. All was ready for the performance that would begin whenever a tourist audience appeared. Or a movie company with attendant crews and actors.

  Behind me Jon Maddocks set down Hillary’s bags and as I turned I caught his sardonic look and sensed that he liked the refurbishing no better than I did. But when I gave him an uncertain smile, he merely looked past me and followed Caleb and Hillary toward the handsome black walnut desk in the lobby. There a middle-aged woman with unlikely red hair greeted us, nodded to Jon, and then regarded me with frank interest as I moved to join the men.

  She, at least, had not yet been renovated to match the period furnishings. Her well-worn jeans made no attempt to hide generous proportions, and a red sweater with snagged sleeves fitted her snugly.

  “Mr. Lange,” Caleb said, “this is Mrs. Durant. Belle, Mr. Lange is here from New York. He may move over to Mrs. Morgan’s later, but he will stay here for tonight Miss Morgan, this is Mrs. Durant.”

  “Belle,” she corrected, giving me the full regard of warm brown eyes that seemed naturally cheerful. “Nobody calls me anything but Belle.”

  Her voice was oddly harsh and unmusical, a little hoarse, as though she might be more accustomed to shouting across a field than to speaking decorously indoors.

  “So you’re the long-lost granddaughter?” she added.

  Since women usually forgot me once they’d seen Hillary, I knew it was only burning curiosity that made her look at me so intently.

  “I didn’t know I was lost, but I’m Laurie Morgan,” I said.

  “Morgan used to be a big name around here. How do you feel about coming back after all this time?”

  “Morgan is still an important name,” Caleb corrected, saving me the need of answering. “Miss Morgan was a small child when she left, so she doesn’t remember Jasper very well.”

  Belle Durant smiled at him—a rather knowing smile, as though she didn’t especially care for him. Then she turned to Hillary.

  “You want to look at the room before you move in, Mr. Lange? There’s only one other guest right now, so you can have your pick. Mr. Ingram hasn’t got things going yet.”

  “Whatever you have will be fine,” Hillary said, and turned upon her the same look of smiling interest that he gave everyone he met. I could almost see her melt.

  “Come along,” she said. “I’ll take you up.”

  Jon Maddocks had moved to the door, his back to us indifferently, though I had again the curious sense that he missed nothing.

  For a moment I clung to Hillary’s arm, suddenly aware that I was losing an anchor. He kissed me warmly and unselfconsciously. “You’ll be all right, honey. Don’t forget that you’re the one who is doing your grandmother a favor by coming here. I’ll see if I can storm the palace early tomorrow.”

  “Early” might not be before noon, I knew, since Hillary had the actor’s habit of rising late. A long stretch of hours without him lay ahead of me, but I managed to smile with make-believe confidence. I had to learn to lean on myself and no one else. I’d better get on with it.

  Hillary carried his bags toward the stairs at the rear of the lobby and went up them in Belle’s wake. When they’d gone, I followed Caleb out to the jeep. Jon was already in the driver’s seat, and Caleb and I got in back again. Once more overjoyed that I had reappeared, Red waited for me.

  “Do you remember anything at all about the town?” Caleb asked as we bumped along the narrow street, slowing to let a man with a ladder cross ahead of us.

  I shook my head. “Some of the fronts seem familiar.”

  Behind the buildings on our left the next parallel street dropped to a lower level, and beyond that the mountain pitched off into the steep cliffs of the canyon. I seemed aware of the general topography without any clear view out the windows. Above on the right the mountain rose a thousand feet, with only two more parallel streets carved along its side. The town was stretched thinly along this narrow ledge between mountain height and the drop-off to the stream below, which undoubtedly accounted for the fact that it hadn’t sprawled out like other boom towns.

  We drove slowly over ruts in broken pavement. At least the road had been paved at one time and wasn’t covered by the original mud. I tried to still a rising sense of anxiety as we neared my grandmother’s house, reminding myself that I was no longer the child who had left here twenty years ago and there was no reason to be engulfed by fears I should long since have outgrown. There was nothing real to worry about—yet I went right on worrying.

  “There’s Morgan House ahead,” Caleb said. “People around here used to call it the Silver Castle. In honor of the mines, of course. But after her father died, your grandmother took over, and she would allow no other name but Morgan House. It’s still pretty impressive.”

  It didn’t look quite as overwhelming to me as it had when I was small, yet I was immediately and irrationally terrified of every inch of it.

  “Please stop,” I called to Jon Maddocks. “Could we wait just a moment before we go on? I want to—to get used to this again.”

  He braked the jeep on a street that had emptied of activity at this end.

  Caleb glanced at me uneasily. “Are you all right?”

  I wasn’t all right, but I couldn’t explain. I sat staring at that intimidating house rising ahead of us out of long mountain shadows. This was no frame house, but a mansion built solidly of red brick. Wooden posts ran around a wide porch that surrounded two sides and the front of the house, holding up the extended roof of the porch. Above, set back from the porch, all the windows of the two upper stories were arched with brick horseshoe frames. Wide brick steps rose to the porch, and an arched glass door stood closed and unrevealing at the top. The house sat at right angles to the street, arrogantly blocking any access from the town to whatever land lay beyond. From four round windows its central tower looked commandingly out upon Jasper and the mountains. Across the front of the property, and disappearing around the sides, ran a chain link fence, astonishing in this setting, and obviously intended to repulse intruders.

  By today’s standards perhaps it was an ordinary house, four-square and without much grace or beauty, yet it demanded respect. Occupying a place where the land narrowed, it dominated Jasper to a greater degree than the larger Timberline or Opera House, and to me it gave no welcome. Its staring windows seemed to focus upon me, rejecting, blaming. Blaming for what?

  “You can see Ingram’s problem,” Caleb said.

  That wasn’t what I’d been considering, and I gave myself an inward shake back into reality.

  “Yes,” I said. “I begin to understand.”

  “As things are now, the town can’t grow an inch,” he went on. “It never could because of the Morgans. It has gone up and down as far as possible, while all the remaining desirable land lies beyond your grandmother’s house—thousands of acres, owned by her. Ingram wants to commercialize Jasper, turn it into a tourist attraction, and only your grandmother stands in his way. She’s rich enough to fight him. But too old. Right now he’s trying to scare her out—and maybe he’ll succeed.”

  “I don’t see why she wants to fight,” I pondered. “Why would anyone want to stay in a place like this?”

  In the front seat Jon Maddocks made a sound of disagreement, a derisive sound. I seemed to be endearing myself to him less and less.

  “Let’s go on,�
� Caleb said curtly. “You’ll have to ask your grandmother yourself, Miss Morgan. I’ve done my best to persuade her to move out. It’s pointless to stay.”

  “Why should she move out if she wants to stay?” Jon Maddocks demanded, and I wondered again about him. Who was he? What role did he play in the Morgan scheme of things? A hired ranch hand who told off the family attorney?

  Caleb gave me a thoughtful look. “Ingram’s not a man to cross swords with. He’s enormously powerful, wealthy, and he does what he sets out to do. One sick old woman isn’t going to stand in his way for long. I’m sure he could be vindictive if she gives him cause. Sometimes it’s better not to fight, and I’ve so advised her.”

  Some feeling I didn’t understand seemed to motivate this rather unemotional man. It showed in the sudden movement of one hand—a spasmodic, dismissing gesture. It showed in the tightening of his straight mouth, and seemed to etch more deeply the long creases in his cheeks. He really did want my grandmother out of her house, and I wondered if he had stated his true reason.

  “Is that why she sent for me?” I asked. “Because nobody else will stand by her?”

  “We all want what is best for your grandmother.”

  “Of course,” I said smoothly. “But I can’t help her either. It seems obvious that she should pack up and leave.”

  He nodded his agreement and I went on to another question. “What kind of staff can she find to help her with such a house, up here in the mountains?”

  “Jon takes care of the outdoors, with the aid of a boy from town. Years ago Jon’s mother used to keep house for Mrs. Morgan. After she died, the blacksmith’s daughter, Edna, came in to do the housework, and she still manages, with some part-time help when it’s possible to get it. The cook, Bitsy, is growing old and cranky, but she, too, has been in the house for years. Since Mrs. Morgan’s strength has failed, Dr. Burton has sent in a nurse from Denver—Gail Cullen. She seems capable enough.” His voice chilled slightly.

  “You don’t like her?” I said.

  Caleb hesitated. “She has made herself useful. The house is better run since she’s come.”

  His doubts about the nurse were clear, but it wasn’t for me to persist in questioning at this point.

  Jon braked the jeep as we reached a gate in the uncompromising fence that cut rudely across the end of Jasper’s main street. A link fence in good repair that had been painted a glossy green.

  “We’ll let you out here,” Caleb said. “Jon can drive the jeep around the house, and we’ll bring your bags in the back way. What do you want to do about the dog?”

  “He can come with me for now,” I said firmly.

  Caleb opened the door to help me out with stiff courtesy, while Red leaped and thrashed until I snapped on his leash and quieted him.

  After he had opened the double gates. Jon Maddocks returned silently to the wheel. Again I felt that he missed nothing, and I wondered why he seemed to listen so intently.

  “I’ll close the gates after you go through,” I said, and he nodded.

  “Be with you in a few minutes,” Caleb told me. “I need to talk to Jon. Just go up and ring the bell. She’s seen us anyway.”

  He was looking up at the tall central façade of the house and I followed the direction of his eyes. Someone was sitting in a chair drawn before a window on the top floor, just under the tower. A woman in a dark robe, half lost in shadows.

  I stood frozen, staring up at the window. It wasn’t possible to see her face, or for her to see mine clearly at this distance, yet it was as though our eyes locked in challenge. Intuitively I sensed power in that seated figure, and my own determination faltered. She wouldn’t be easy to deal with, that old woman in the window, even though she had asked me to come.

  “She’ll send Gail down,” Caleb assured me, and Jon started the jeep.

  When they’d driven through to follow a road around the house, I pulled the gates shut and latched them in place. These iron gates came from an older time, and didn’t match the expensive modern fence. Cold metal curlicues seemed familiar to my fingers. Strange that hands could remember what the brain had lost. With Red at my side I walked slowly toward the house, not looking up. Not for anything would I raise my eyes again to the old woman who watched me from high above. There was pride in my ignoring her, and I held to it, though I knew my own uncertainty as well.

  A cement path led toward the steps, with brown grass on either side. No shrubbery hid the bare brick of the foundation, though a few pine trees and hemlocks grew here and there in desultory’ fashion. More than ever it seemed a bleak and arrogant house, with few graces but great authority. I slowed still more as I approached, still reluctant to mount the steps.

  I had come here for a purpose, and I must not let apprehension defeat me. Once I had stepped inside this house that purpose would be set and my determination must not falter. Yet something in me that was still craven seemed to whisper, “Let it not come too soon! Let it not be too sudden!”

  As I hesitated, the glass-topped door opened and a young woman of about my own age came to stand above me, waiting. She wore a well-cut white nylon uniform, but no cap. Her long brown hair had a shine to it and was drawn back loosely and caught with a black ribbon at the nape of her neck. She was perhaps more striking than pretty, but obviously a vibrant, attractive woman, and one with that cheerful self-assurance the nursing profession often conveyed.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Morgan,” she said. “I’m Gail Cullen.”

  She held out a hand in greeting, and I went up the steps to take it.

  “Mr. Hawes has gone around with the jeep,” I said.

  “Of course. They’ll bring in your bags shortly. You must be tired after a long trip, and over that awful road. We’ll all be pleased when Mr. Ingram manages to get it paved.” She smiled. “All except Mrs. Morgan.”

  I remained noncommittal. “I’m glad to be out of the car.”

  “Of course you are. What a beautiful dog!” She bent to Red and he gave her his immediate love, as he was likely to do with anyone who so much as looked at him. Sometimes I wished that I’d been blessed with a one-woman dog.

  “Do come in,” she invited. “I expect you remember the house? You visited here as a little girl, I understand.”

  Was there something faintly sly in her words, or was I becoming overly sensitive? Why should I have the feeling that this ostensibly cheerful young woman was ready to dislike me, that she didn’t want me here?

  I followed her through the open front door and saw that a long hall carpeted in Turkey red stretched ahead of me, with narrow stairs rising on my left. There was a prickling at the back of my neck, as though my senses recognized what my eyes did not remember.

  “No, I don’t recall much about the house,” I said quickly.

  The words came out sounding more defiant than I intended, and Gail Cullen turned about at the parlor door and stared at me, her dark eyes widening. “How very strange. I can remember a great many things from when I was a small girl. Especially about visits I made.”

  “I don’t think I’ve wanted to remember,” I told her.

  She was still staring at me, her eyes bright and curious, as that woman’s at the hotel had been. “Perhaps that’s a good thing. I’m sure it’s all best forgotten, and your grandmother will be terribly relieved. She really hasn’t been sure how she was going to face you.”

  So this woman knew also. I felt suddenly closed in and claustrophobic. All about me were those who were aware of the terrible truth—whatever it was—that I had blanked out of my memory. Inevitably one of them would let something slip, would tell me before I was ready to know. I had come here to learn everything—that was true. But first I must get used to the odd terror this house roused in me and that I seemed to feel especially here in this hallway. One step at a time, I reminded myself. Nothing too quick, nothing too soon.

  Gail Cullen had sensed my uneasiness, and she spoke lightly. “You’ll get used to the house. I have, more or less.
It’s a spooky old place. It’s a house where things walk at night—if you let your imagination run away with you. Come in and sit down in the parlor for a moment. You’re looking pale. When they bring in your bags, I’ll take you up to your room. Can I get you something to drink?”

  I shook my head, not liking this woman any better than Caleb did, for all her apparent sympathy.

  A door stood open on our right, and she led the way, waving me into a chair. I was glad not to linger in the hallway. This room, at least, didn’t frighten me. It was as Victorian as the Timberline’s lobby, but these were genuine antiques and they had lived in this house for a long while. I had a relieved feeling that I must have loved this room as a child.

  Patterned in small, faded flowers, the rue picked up the hint of rose in the wallpaper. Wing-backed Queen Anne chairs were drawn before a fireplace with a black marble mantel, on which sat two cut-glass vases, empty of flowers. A tall English case clock stood proudly in one corner, its hands stilled at some long-ago hour. There was a red plush sofa, several Hepplewhite chairs with shield backs, and a table that must have been descended from an Adam design, with its rosettes and delicate acanthus scrolling. On a table lay several magazines, with an ancient copy of Atlantic Monthly half exposed, surprisingly under a more recent issue of Ms. The last would be Gail Cullen’s choice, I suspected. The books between carved bookends were all old. Thomas Mann, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, rubbing elbows with Zane Grey.

  At least it was a warm and reassuring room, for all that it must date back to a day when parlors were kept for special occasions. A room not often in use even now, I judged.

  Only one thing about it seemed disturbing. At the very back were two closed sliding doors of dark mahogany, and I wondered about the room that lay beyond. Perhaps a dining room? But why should I think of a dining room as faintly ominous?