Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  She closed her eyes, and for a moment I thought it was a gesture of dismissal. I hated to see how old she looked with animation wiped from her face—old and withered and nearly finished with life. I liked her better when she was coquettish, or even domineering. I couldn’t let Hillary push her too hard.

  “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t wish to, Grandmother,” I said. “You’re tired now. We’d better go, so you can rest.”

  That brought her eyes wide open and angry, and her words snapped. “All I do is rest! Your young man is right. I can’t expect you to help me merely on trust. I can’t tell you the whole story either, but I’ll tell you this much. A long time ago Mark Ingram was the friend of my very worst enemy. Perhaps that abominable man is behind him now. Ingram hasn’t come here merely to open a new resort. He could go anywhere for that. He has come to punish me, destroy me. And he knows he can do it. He has only to force me out of this house, make me give up the valley—and I am finished with living. But I’m not ready to die. Not yet. Not while there’s an ounce of fight left in me. Not while I have a granddaughter who may be persuaded to stand by me.”

  Hillary spoke softly, as though he didn’t want to dispel her mood of anger. “This—enemy—can you give us his name?”

  For a moment she hesitated. Then she looked straight at me as though she expected some special response. “His name was Noah. Noah Armand.”

  Once more the familiar tremor ran through me, as though some deep, sensitive nerve responded with a quiver of dread.

  “Your husband?” There was a change in Hillary’s voice, though he spoke in the same low tone.

  She raised a warning finger at him, her eyes upon me. “Hush. Laurie, you do remember something?”

  I could only shake my head. “It’s not really a remembering. I have an unpleasant association with that name. But I don’t know why.” I did not tell her that Noah had been the name I cried out in my nightmares.

  “If there’s something to tell, why don’t you tell her, Mrs. Morgan?” Hillary asked, that new intensity in his voice, as though he might enjoy stirring everything up. His theatricality was in force again, but I couldn’t forgive him if he played his stage games now.

  “Don’t,” I said to him. “Please don’t.”

  He touched my shoulder lightly. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I feel it’s way past time for you to find out the truth—whatever it is.”

  Grandmother Persis was shaking her head. “No, it’s better not. If Laurie doesn’t remember, I’d rather leave it alone. It’s only what is happening now that matters, anyway. Young man, if you stay at the Timberline, if you can manage to find out what Ingram means to do, you can be of service to me, and perhaps you’ll help Laurie too.”

  “It’s possible,” Hillary said. “I am interested in that theater of his, and that makes a contact between us. Besides, Laurie has already agreed to stay on for a little while longer.”

  “A little while longer!” She gave the words an indignant ring. “Laurie has come home. She is living here with me.”

  I had to answer her honestly. “I haven’t promised that I can’t agree to stay indefinitely.”

  She snorted her complete disregard for my words, my wishes, and once more I felt myself bristling toward her. To her I was an instrument to an end, and that was all. I had been trying—a little—to understand her, to sympathize. But she was entirely unwilling to understand and know me.

  For a moment we stared at each other in rising antagonism while Hillary watched, not altogether amused. “How much alike you two are,” he said. “I’d never have suspected it if I hadn’t seen Laurie in this setting.”

  Persis Morgan surprised me by laughing. The sound was full and deep, making no concession to age.

  “No,” she countered. “Not when she looks like that—we’re not. When you put on that face, Laurie, you’re your father all over again.”

  “If I resemble my father, I’m glad,” I told her. “I’d like to know a great deal more about him before I leave.”

  “I can tell you about him.” She spoke more quietly now, her indignation drained away as quickly as it had risen. “Richard was a gentle man. My son preferred classrooms to the ranch any day. But when he got his back up—the way yours is up now—he could dig in his heels and I could never shake him. He would even fight, if he had to, for what he believed in. I loved him dearly, but I never fooled myself. He was a rather dull young man, really. That was part of the trouble.”

  I didn’t want to think of my father as dull. He had always cut a romantic figure in my imaginings, and I would accept nothing less. The fact that ranches and guns and riding had never interested him didn’t mean that he had been dull—except perhaps to those who knew nothing else. But before I could protest, she went on.

  “Unfortunately, he began to bore your mother. Marybeth was part of the trouble too.”

  I was ready to spring to the defense of both my parents, but I didn’t know how. I lacked any real knowledge of my father, and Persis’ words threatened old beliefs I didn’t want to lose. As for my mother—she had given her life to being loyal to his memory.

  “At least you can tell me how he died,” I said. “I’ve always believed that it was from pneumonia when I was only two. But Gail Cullen says she’s been told that it happened in the back parlor downstairs—when I was eight years old. I’d like to know the truth.”

  “Very well.” Persis looked straight at me, her words as direct and merciless as she could make them. “Your father—my son—was shot to death. He was killed right here in this house with a single bullet.”

  I found myself fumbling for the chair behind me. As I sat down, Hillary bent toward me, but I drew away. It was coming now—everything. I couldn’t hold it off any longer. I didn’t want to.

  Persis went on, staring at me without blinking. “An intruder broke into the house, and Richard discovered him. So my son was shot senselessly, and he died almost at once. The police never found out who killed him, though theft seemed to be the motive. Several valuable pieces of jewelry were missing.” Her voice was low, the words dry, and I knew they were uttered out of old, long-suppressed pain.

  Red, who had been quiet until now, whined uneasily.

  “I have to know,” I said, and heard the tremor in my voice. “I was there in the room, wasn’t I? I must have seen what happened. Is this what I’ve shut away for so long? Is this the thing I could never bear to remember?”

  Her eyes closed again, and I saw a tear start down one cheek. “You were ill afterward. Your mother took you away. I was furious with her, yet I was shattered myself for a long while. So I put you out of my life. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore.”

  Strangely, the sense of revelation had faded. I felt empty, bereft. To come so close and yet have the truth withheld—as I knew she was withholding it—left me limp with the reaction of defeat.

  “You haven’t told it all,” I said. “Not nearly all!”

  She didn’t answer. Her hand drew away from my touch and was hidden under the quilt.

  I spoke again, urgently. “If you won’t tell me, then I think I must go away soon. It’s too late for anything but the truth.”

  In a flash her hand came out from beneath the covers and grasped mine, her grip surprisingly strong. “No! You can’t go yet. You do owe me something—as I owe you. We can’t help that, either of us. In a way you owe me life. Stay and pay your debt—as I’ll try to pay mine.”

  I remembered walking the dusty street in Domino and thinking that if that place had never existed, I would never have existed. Yet I couldn’t accept the debt she wanted to thrust upon me.

  “I’ll stay only a little while,” I told her. “A week, perhaps. But there’s one other thing I’d like of you. I want to see pictures of my father.”

  She turned her head away. “There are albums. Look at them if you like. If you can bear to.”

  I recognized dismissal, and Red seemed to sense it as well. He drew away from the b
ed with a faint whimper, and Hillary went without protest to open the door. I walked out feeling dazed and empty of all emotion.

  In the hallway Caleb still sat on the bench waiting for us, and he stood up impatiently.

  “Is she all right? I hope you haven’t upset her.”

  I wondered at his concern, not really trusting him. In any case I had nothing to say, and after a glance at my face he went past us into her room.

  Hillary put an arm about my shoulders. “There—you see! It’s over now. You know what really happened and you’re perfectly able to face it. You’ll be fine now. You’ll never have to blank out again to protect yourself from the truth.”

  I stiffened against his arm, knowing that for once his reassurance was of no use to me. It was facilely given—without strong reason.

  “I don’t think I know anything yet,” I told him. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to my room for a little while. Will you take Red outside for me, please?” I knew I sounded abrupt, ungracious, but I could manage nothing more.

  “Of course, Laurie. Gail has invited me to stay for lunch, so I’ll see you then.”

  When we reached my door, he kissed me tenderly and went off, with Red at his heels. I had the feeling that I had once more disappointed him. Strangely, I didn’t seem to care.

  For a moment I stood before my door, where only last night a funeral wreath had waited for me. Was that what the card on the wreath had meant—that those who died violently do not sleep in peace? Who had been trying to tell me that, and why should it matter now? If the wreath had anything to do with Noah Armand, anything to do with the room downstairs, then there was reason for me to be frightened. Yet I seemed now to be only a little numb.

  I went into my room and sat in the rocking chair, tipping back and forth gently, soothingly.

  Why could I feel nothing at all about what I had learned? Pandora’s box had been opened at last, and some of the horrors had flown out, yet far from feeling destroyed, I didn’t feel anything. My very young ears must have heard the shot that killed my father. My eyes must have looked upon something truly terrible. Perhaps I had watched my father die. Yet I could feel only empty and stupefied.

  Had I been shocked into this numbness? When I grew used to the idea, would sensation return? Then might I remember fully? For the first time I looked upon remembering with less of a sense of dread. Surely it would be better to feel pain, to suffer, to feel something, than to experience this emptiness of all emotion.

  Or was my “emptiness” due only to the fact that I didn’t believe the things that Persis Morgan had told me? When I thought of that “intruder” and the tale of stolen jewels, I reacted as if to a remote fiction, and about all this I felt nothing.

  But there was something else to undermine me, and suddenly a new and terrible grief surged up in me. Grief for my father’s dying, for a loss that would hurt me forever—and this I could weep for. Tears were a release, washing away tension, even though I didn’t know exactly why I wept. Was it only for old loss?

  A sense of time passing brought my tears to an end. I hurried to wash my stained face and comb my hair. When I went down, Hillary was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. His searching look could hardly miss the evidence of swollen eyelids.

  “I’m all right,” I told him quickly, before he could question me.

  Gail came to meet us at the dining room door, looking trim and self-confident, having changed from her Levi’s to green jumper and blouse instead of her uniform.

  When she greeted me, I looked at her with no expression at all, and Hillary touched my arm. “Are you really all right, Laurie? You’re entitled to fall apart a bit, you know. Don’t try to be too controlled. Let go, Laurie.”

  “Is that what I am—controlled?”

  “You do look a bit frazzled,” Gail said. “Perhaps hot food will help and something to drink. Lunch—dinner, really—seems to be ready, so let’s sit down.” She slipped her hand easily through my arm and drew me into the dining room as though we were good friends.

  Caleb was already there, looking as displeased as ever, though he pulled out my chair courteously. Hillary took the place next to me and gazed about the room in enjoyment.

  “What a good stage setting this would make,” he said. “I must remember that old fellow up there over the mantel. Laughing Boy. I’ll bet he could tell a few stories if we got him to talk.”

  His light note didn’t relieve my mood. For me the elk’s head over the mantel seemed a thoroughly melancholy touch, and not anything I could laugh about.

  While plates of thick roast beef, browned potatoes, and homegrown butter beans were passed down the table, Gail spoke again.

  “It’s very odd about your memory, Laurie. It seems to be so selective. Don’t you remember anything about this room?”

  I made an effort to behave normally. “Very little. There’s a lot I can’t remember. But there is something I’ve wanted to ask you. When I went into the back parlor today and turned on the lights, I saw something strange. Mostly the cobwebs and dust hadn’t been disturbed in years. But someone had been in that room recently. There were other footprints besides mine, and I could see where a few things had been moved, as though someone had been searching. Was it you, Gail?”

  Her surprise seemed genuine. “I’ve been in that room only once, and hardly any farther than the door. I was curious, but it gives me the creeps and I didn’t stay.”

  “Someone searching for something, Laurie?” Caleb repeated. “How extraordinary! Mrs. Morgan closed that room off years ago, and I’ve looked into it rarely.”

  “Someone has been in there,” I said. “And not long ago.”

  Caleb and Gail exchanged a look that seemed to carry quick suspicion of each other, but no one said anything more about the back parlor.

  As we started to eat, Gail went on. “Mrs. Morgan must have held up a lot better than she usually does for you to have stayed with her that long, Laurie.”

  I knew how curious she was to learn what had occurred in Persis’ room, but I didn’t mean to satisfy her.

  “I think she can hold up when she wants to,” I said. “I don’t think she has any intention of dying.”

  “Sometimes she talks about a change in her will,” Gail mused.

  Caleb looked at her sharply. “What does she mean by that?”

  “Probably she’s thinking of her granddaughter.”

  Caleb said nothing more, but I found myself watching him again, wondering why he seemed so much of an enigma. He was a man who waited in the background, never seeking the spotlight, but watching rather ominously. And perhaps manipulating more than I had guessed?

  In any case I didn’t care about my grandmother’s will or Gail’s casual gossip. My only regret was that when Persis Morgan was gone, whoever was left would probably sell out quickly to Mark Ingram. Perhaps that didn’t really matter. Times changed, and she couldn’t sit forever across the right-of-way that a man as strong as Mark Ingram coveted. Jon Maddocks’ words came back to me—the thing he had said about the house Malcolm and Sissy had built in Domino. That it ought to belong to me. A curious remark. I wanted neither that house nor this one. Especially not this one. I only wanted to know those things my grandmother had skimmed over, avoided, or distorted. I was ready to open the door wide and walk through it.

  “Grandmother Persis has explained what happened in the back parlor,” I told Gail.

  “Can’t we stop talking about that?” Caleb said.

  Hillary disagreed. “Perhaps now is the best of all possible times,” he said quietly.

  Gail gave in. “All right then. I’m sure this is a subject that is more upsetting to you, Laurie, than to the rest of us. Which of the stories did she tell you?”

  So that was it—an assortment of fabrications? Was that why memory hadn’t stirred in me?

  “She said that my father was shot by an intruder who got away with some family jewels. I think I must have been there in that room when it happened.”


  “I understand that you were,” Gail agreed, and threw a look at Caleb that seemed faintly challenging. “Of course that was the official story,” she went on. “I grew up hearing it since my family lives not too far from Jasper. My brothers are still there. That was the story that got into the papers and was accepted by the police.”

  I hadn’t been aware that she’d lived in these mountains as a child. Now I understood why she had so much gossipy information.

  We managed to go on eating as though this were an ordinary conversation. But then this was all old history for Caleb and Gail, and no longer something that had just occurred to a living man.

  “Where was Noah Armand when this happened?” I asked Caleb.

  He put his fork down carefully, as though I had startled him. “Noah walked out of this house a week before your father—died. And he was never seen again. He had been quarreling with your grandmother for some time, and I think she probably told him to leave.”

  Gail made a small explosive sound of derision, and Caleb looked at her coldly.

  “Take care,” he said.

  I asked another question. “My father was Noah’s stepson. How did my father get along with his mother’s new husband?”

  “What does any of this matter now?” Caleb stared at his plate.

  “Perhaps it does matter.” Hillary spoke so softly that I think we were all startled, having forgotten his presence. “Perhaps it matters if, as Mrs. Morgan says, Mark Ingram was Noah’s friend. So why don’t you tell us, Caleb?”

  “All right—if you must know, it’s true that Richard Morgan, Laurie’s father, never liked his mother’s second choice as husband. Sons hardly ever do. Armand was a great deal younger than your grandmother, Laurie, and your father was protective of his mother and suspicious of Armand’s motives in marrying her.”

  “Then what happened to Noah?” Hillary asked in that same soft tone that seemed somehow persuasive, so that his questions were answered.

  “We don’t know,” Caleb said shortly. “We believe he must be dead.”