The Stone Bull

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  My steps slowed as the music changed. That was the pas de deux now—where Odette-Odile danced with the prince. Once I had seen Ariel dance to that very music with Nureyev, and not even his vibrant and dramatic personality had overshadowed her own passion. What an Odile she had made—stronger in the evil role than when she danced the innocent Odette.

  Resolutely, I walked through the open doors and stood looking toward an upright piano set at a right angle to the wall. Naomi McClain sat on the bench, playing, her expression rapt, her fingers light on the keys, and as she played tears rolled down her face. Again there was that sense of a fist punching into the pit of my stomach.

  Perhaps I would have retreated, but from the corner of her eye she saw me and the music stopped with a crash as she turned her head and looked at me directly.

  “You knew her, didn’t you?” I said. “You knew my sister Ariel?”

  One brown hand made an angry gesture of brushing away tears and she stared at me with fury in her eyes.

  “Why did you come here? Why couldn’t you have stayed away and let her memory be? We don’t want you here. None of us wants you here!”

  “You know that isn’t true,” I said as quietly as I could manage. “Though I’ve been aware of your hostility ever since I came. I’m sorry you feel that way. Believe me, I didn’t know that Ariel had ever been in this place.”

  “You look like her. You’re the image of her—but you’re not Ariel. You’re nothing like her! You can never touch what she was in your whole life.”

  I recognized suffering when I saw it, and I could only be gentle with her in spite of the pain and fright that waited for me.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m different. I’ve never wanted to be like her. I suppose you’ve seen her dance?”

  “Of course I’ve seen her dance! Once on a stage in New York when she sent me a ticket and invited me to come. The ballet she danced in was Antony Tudor’s Lilac Garden. She was Caroline, and Maurice Kiov was the Lover. But mostly I’ve seen her dance here. Here in this very room. Look around you!”

  She gestured and I followed the movement with my eyes. On one side of the room a large mirror had been hung against the wall—a dancer’s mirror, and across from it was a ballet barre attached to the opposite wall. Here at Laurel Mountain House a practice room had been arranged—for my sister Ariel.

  “She had to practice, of course, even when she rested,” Naomi rushed on. “So we had this room fixed for her, and I used to play when she danced. It’s the only use I’ve ever really found for playing a piano. I knew all her music by heart. She could say, ‘Play this, or play that,’ and I knew every solo number she danced. And practically all of Swan Lake.”

  “You must have been a wonderful friend. She must have needed you.”

  “Of course she needed me! I was the one she came to with her secrets. I was the one she trusted. Not even her mother could ever have done for her all I did. That last time she was here she cried in my arms—before she went back to New York.”

  “When was she last here?” I asked carefully.

  “In May. Because she loved the mountain then. That’s when the laurel and dogwood and rhododendrons are all in bloom. And the azaleas are on fire. I only saw her once more after that. Though I went to her funeral. You were there. I saw you and hated you—because you were alive and she wasn’t. She was everything and you are nothing—but you are alive. Look there, behind the piano!”

  The hatred in her words slashed across nerves that had gone raw with shock and pain, but I had to obey and I walked around the piano where it was set out from the wall. A folding chair stood close beside it and on the seat was something that made my breath catch in my throat.

  A pair of pink satin toe shoes rested there, the toes slightly soiled, the ribbons my mother’s loving fingers had sewed to them spilling from the shoes. Ballet slippers that had belonged to my sister. At any performance she would use several pairs, and she might bring six or eight to the theater, so that she could wear what felt best for each dance. I could remember how she used to bang fresh toe shoes on the floor to soften them up a bit before she broke them in. Yes—those were slippers that would have fitted her long, slender, dancer’s feet.

  Naomi had stood up from the piano to watch me, to savor my agony.

  “You were to blame,” she said. “She phoned you because she needed you, and you didn’t come. I know. Because she phoned me too and told me so. I said I’d get there as soon as I could. But it was already too late, and there was nothing I could do. You could have saved her if you’d told her you’d come at once!”

  I couldn’t bear to hear any more. I didn’t want to know any more. If I stayed she might tell me other things—things I didn’t want to hear. I ran out of that all-too-empty room and down the hall, leaving a dreadful silence behind me. I could imagine Naomi sitting there, staring blankly at keys that would never again play for the dancing of Ariel Vaughn. Now I knew who had thrust that note beneath my door—and why. “Let no guilty man escape.” There seemed a threat in the words, and she might very well know that punishment would come from within me.

  My fingers were shaking so that I could hardly open the door to our room. When it was closed behind me and the bolt shot—as though I could shut out the terrors that beset me—I went to the balcony and stood outside, watching rain slant in gusts across the gray lake. No one moved out there now and the trees were a wet, dark green. I could hear the sound of their dripping and I thought of the stone bull up in the woods, standing there alone with rain glancing off his back as all his muscles gathered in the force of his charge. I thought of Magnus shouting at me to get off his back, and I knew why he had reacted like that.

  Once Ariel had danced in that very clearing. I knew her so well. Knew what would charm and entrance her. She would have leapt gracefully to the back of the stone bull and stood there in all her triumphant beauty. Magnus had hated to see me there, clumsy and unlike her. I had heard fury in his voice when he’d roared at me. Because I wasn’t Ariel and I had no right to be where she could not be.

  And there was Brendon. But I was afraid to think of him. I slammed a door in my mind and went into the bedroom to fling myself on the bed. Emotional exhaustion struck me and gave me release. I fell sound asleep and slept the afternoon away—because I couldn’t bear to be awake.

  It was nearly dinnertime when I sat up suddenly to look about the darkening room. Brendon had not yet come home. For that, at least, I was glad. Because I still didn’t know what I would say to him. He would have known Ariel when she stayed here. Yet he had not told me this. He had looked at me in the Opera lobby and assured me that he didn’t care for ballet. A lie? How well had he known her?

  If only I could go back to the time before that silly woman had walked into the library and recognized my face. It was better not to know. Not to know anything. Could I go on and pretend that I was still ignorant of the fact that they all had known my sister? But Naomi would tell them now. She would enjoy telling them.

  Dinnertime went by and Irene phoned my room. I told her I had a headache and wouldn’t be down—just to let me sleep. Of course she didn’t. In a half hour she was upstairs, bringing one of the boys from the dining room to carry a tray. When he had set it down on a table near the bed, Irene closed the door after him and drew up a chair.

  “Something has upset you, hasn’t it? Has Naomi done something, said something?”

  So Naomi hadn’t told her yet. I shook my head. “I’ll be all right. I just need to be quiet.”

  “You’ve been up here all afternoon, haven’t you?”

  “I was tired. I slept.”

  She sat looking at me a little sadly. “You mustn’t let the things Naomi said at lunch today disturb you. She has a vivid imagination and she has never quite recovered from Floris’ death.”

  Floris—Magnus’ wife—and Ariel up there in the woods. Ariel, who had always taken what she wanted, and never minded if it belonged to someone else.

  �
�What was Floris like?” I asked, a little surprised to note that my voice sounded natural.

  “Difficult. I can’t say I was fond of her. None of us were. She hated Laurel—it was only a prison to her and the last few months before she died she tried in every way she could think of to get Magnus to leave. Of course he wouldn’t. He believes that he can only work in a place like this, and it’s probably true. His art would die if he had to live in a city. It would destroy him.”

  It was better to think about Floris than about Ariel—and me.

  “Do you think someone was to blame for her death?” I asked.

  Irene’s gentle calm fell away and she answered almost shrilly, astonishing me with the swift change, “Of course not! You mustn’t think things like that. It was only an accident—that stone falling. You mustn’t question it.”

  I remembered Keir saying that everything might blow up in my face like a volcano if I persisted in questioning. But I couldn’t stop now.

  “I’m beginning to question more and more. Because everyone shies away from the idea as though it burned them. No one will tell me the truth.”

  With an effort she seemed to collect herself and her tone was lower when she spoke again. “There are some things it is better not to think about, Jenny dear. Not to question.”

  “Is that why the police are interested in opening up the case again?”

  This time she remained unshaken. “I don’t really think they are, dear. Loring told me that somebody phoned in an anonymous call. Some crank, undoubtedly. The police called Loring about it, but they aren’t going to pay any attention. Everything was decided quite clearly at the inquest. So don’t you go imagining things. Come now, Jenny—I’ve brought you some hot broth and a serving of delicious broiled fish. I’m going to stay right here until you eat something.”

  To please her, since she was being kind, I got out of bed and sat in a chair. At least the soup was warming and the fish was delicately broiled with herbs. I even ate half an apple and a wedge of Brie to finish my meal, and had to admit that it made me feel better.

  “I’ll put the tray outside the door so you won’t be disturbed,” Irene said. “Then I’ll let you rest. Brendon phoned a little while ago and he expects to be home tonight. He wanted me to tell you.”

  I nodded, unable to feel any joy. More than anything else at the moment, I dreaded seeing Brendon. Before she left, however, I thought of something and went to the closet where I had thrown Ariel’s dressing gown into the corner and forgotten it. I drew it out and shook it to release some of the wrinkles.

  “Can you give this to someone?” I asked. “It was my sister’s, but Brendon doesn’t like me in red, so I want to be rid of it before he returns.”

  The worry line between her eyes had deepened and I thought she looked a little frightened as she took the gown from me and promised that she would find someone to give it to. Then she dropped a light kiss on my cheek and went quickly away.

  I couldn’t bear to wait for Brendon in that room. The rain had stopped and I put on my coat, went down to the lobby by way of the back stairs, slipped out a side door. For a long while I sat in the summerhouse across the lake, watching the hotel lights, listening to the whispering voices of the water until I finally returned to my room.

  Once inside, I didn’t bother to bolt the door. Now I knew where enmity lay, but I didn’t think Naomi would come to see me tonight, or write any more notes.

  My heavy afternoon sleep made me wide awake now, but I couldn’t settle down with a book. Instead, I sat at the Queen Anne desk and wrote Mother and Aunt Lydia a long letter, filling it with an account of the beauties and delights of Laurel Mountain, with nothing about a stone bull that stood alone in the woods, or about Ariel ever being here. When the letter was done, I went outside to sit in a balcony chair and watch the night.

  I am still here. The air smells fresh-washed and fragrant with pine, and the lake is star-speckled and very still, with only its natural currents running. From here I can hear no sound of whispering voices along the shore, though occasionally there are other voices.

  Couples walk hand-in-hand in the lighted area at this end of the lake—old people as well as young. Older couples who have grown closer than ever with the passing years. As I walk about the hotel I see them and I can sense the affection between them, and I am aware of emotions once young, now grown stronger with the bond of long years together. I feel sad and a little afraid when I see them. Afraid because it may never be like that for Brendon and me. Now, in my youth, when love is young and hot with longing, and never fully appeased, I crave for an assurance that there will be for us a later, quieter time for deeper love than we can know now. Because then we will truly know each other. Sitting here with the calm and peace of the mountain night beyond my balcony, I realize how little I know him, and how little he knows me. Will it be possible for our love to last through that learning-to-know? Or even possible for it to last through tonight?

  I am very cold, yet I sit here waiting. Is his car coming up the valley on the far side of the mountain even now? Can he see the light from High Tower beckoning him home? Home to me? But why me—if Ariel came here in the past? Or is that really the answer? Because I look so much like my sister? Because he can hold me and pretend that it is Ariel he holds in his arms?

  I cross my own arms in front of my body, shivering, holding myself as perhaps he will never hold me again, once I have flung down my challenge. I dread to hear the sound of his key in the door. I’ve left it open so that he can come in at any time. My teeth are chattering. I must go inside to my warm bed. Our bed. Or will he sleep elsewhere tonight?

  I heard him in the hall before he reached our rooms. He was running—running all the way down the empty corridor, his feet thudding on the red carpet. Then he opened the door and came into our sitting room, tossing aside jacket and briefcase, hurrying into the next room—calling out to me as he came.

  I had no chance to speak or greet him before he was sitting on the edge of the bed, gathering me exuberantly into his arms, his blue eyes alight, his lips eager.

  “I’ve missed you!” he said against my hair. “I hated to go away all day and be nowhere near you. Darling, how nice you smell. I love that woodsy scent you wear. Do you know how often I think of you in the midst of my work? It keeps me sane to have you here waiting for me. How empty I was before you came.”

  Empty because she had gone away from him? There was no way to tell him what I knew without cutting down his joy and delight in being with me again. I had to cling to him and return his kisses—I had to believe. And when at length he lay beside me sleeping, my eyes felt dry and burning in the dark, and all my thoughts were tumbled and confused. How could I possibly destroy with my own words all that we had between us? Wasn’t it better to be a coward and to believe what I wanted to believe, and not what all my experience of my sister had long ago taught me to know? So I fell asleep at last with my cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder, and my churning thoughts quieted at last.

  When I awoke in the morning he was already up and dressed, and he smiled at me in the mirror as he combed his hair. I awakened groggily, with something heavy and menacing dragging at my thoughts, though I couldn’t remember what threatened me in those first drugged moments of coming to life. When Brendon came with all his confidence and vitality to kiss me awake, I had no heart for unpleasant discussion. I could only play what was happening by ear. Sooner or later it would all come into the open, and in the meantime I would be a coward and pretend that our love was for always.

  That way it was possible to go calmly down to breakfast with him and be glad that we could eat alone every morning. It was possible to postpone my next meeting with Naomi, even to avoid Irene and Loring until later in the day. I didn’t tell him about meeting Magnus in the woods—I didn’t tell him anything. Duplicity had to be my way of life from moment to moment, and I listened instead to his account of his trip to Albany, to his talk of hotel business. I even found that I could
be absorbed by all that interested him, and I could contribute remarks that were not unintelligent. But when I tried to remember later what had been said, I found that very little had penetrated my protective fog.

  Only when breakfast was over and I was left on my own again did my thoughts begin to take form, and once more I began to plan. It wasn’t in my nature to drift for long. My work in the library could wait. I knew what I must do with my morning, knew what plan I must follow. It was Magnus I must talk to. Magnus had known her—I was sure of that. Perhaps he had loved her. There had been pain in that roar he had hurled at me when he’d told me to get down from the bull’s back.

  So now he must talk to me. I would force him to talk to me—as no one else but Naomi had been willing to do since I’d come here. I couldn’t discuss any of this with Brendon yet, but Magnus was another matter, and I must be armed before I faced Brendon.

  It was at least two hours ago that I planned to seek Magnus up in the woods. I wasn’t able to, however, because just as I came down the hotel steps I saw Keir’s truck go by, and Magnus was sitting beside his father in the front seat. The truck disappeared in the direction of the main road and for the moment I had to give up my plan.

  Now I wander about in this huge, mysterious barn—a gloomy place of cobwebs and preserved history, feeling more alarmed than ever, and afraid to go back to the real world, where all my shock and my terror of whatever is to come must show in my face. It is safer to stay here for a while and try to marshal my thoughts into some sort of order, to find out what it is I really feel and believe. The sunny peace of Laurel, the safety of woods and lake have been destroyed for me—destroyed forever. All because my sister came here a few months ago and because of the terrible thing that is being whispered about her.

  As I poke about, exploring idly, I come upon a dilapidated two-seater buggy, and the shadowy seat invites me. I put my foot upon the square step and pull myself up past the carriage lantern into a dusty cave. There is a smell of ancient, cracking leather and neat’s-foot oil. Rising dust makes me sneeze, but overhead the rib-braced top offers shelter and I can feel hidden here.