The Stone Bull

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Yet Brendon had known her, and he had not told me. And now it was growing late.

  That was why I was running down the trail, hurrying away from Panther Rock and its tremendous views, hurrying as well from my own pursuing thoughts, my own fear of something unknown and terrifying that I couldn’t escape and must rush toward as though carried by a wind, like the falcon.

  In me there was a yearning and an urgency to be with Brendon. I knew I must reach him now and beseech him to answer all my questions. I could put this off no longer. Just to be with him, to be close to him, would reassure me. I could bear no more postponement.

  7

  But “now” was not possible because he was gone again. More business had taken him elsewhere. Always away from me. This time it was some new contract for repairing an old wing of the hotel. I understood only vaguely what Irene told me. I knew only that I had seen my husband all too little since I’d come to Mountain House. At mealtimes, perhaps, and at night when he returned to my arms, and words were hushed between us. Just twice had he walked with me on the mountain. Because it was too painful for him to remember walking with her? Too painful to be always avoiding my questions?

  Listlessly I put on a dress of celery green with a drifting skirt, and a gold necklace that dressed it up for evening. It was a dress Brendon liked.

  But he didn’t come to our rooms, and he did not appear at the gathering before dinner. In fact, he didn’t come to the table at all. Irene seemed troubled and evasive, Naomi had turned sorrowful—but her sorrow had nothing to do with me. I knew for whom she grieved. Loring, to give him credit, tried to cheer us all, tried to instigate conversational gambits, but he had little co-operation, and I still had the sense of his being an amused spectator.

  After dinner I got away from them as quickly as I could, yet the thought of sitting again in my room, waiting endlessly for my husband, didn’t appeal to me. It might be better tonight if he could return to an empty room, in which, for once, I shouldn’t be waiting for him. But where could I go?

  I walked beside the lake for a time, but the air had turned cold and the sky overcast, so there was no moon or stars. The water lay like black glass, reflecting only the dark sky, and at one end the multiple lights of the hotel. Currents lapped in deep caverns along the shore and the whispering voices seemed more ominous than ever. Had they whispered to Ariel? I wondered. Had they warned her of coming disaster, as they seemed to warn me? Or would she have heard them? And hearing, would she have laughed?

  I could almost hear her laughter echoing over the lake, as once it must have done. Surprisingly husky, her laughter had been, a little like her speaking voice, which never matched the light airiness of dancing feet.

  When I left the lake, I walked around the near end of the hotel, and went on past dark tennis courts until I came to steps that led uphill. I was wandering idly, so when I saw lights above, I climbed the steps, merely killing time. In the clearing beyond the steps a house shone white in shadowy artificial light, and there were more steps that mounted to a broad, old-fashioned veranda. One end of it had been screened, and rattan furniture still lingered there for summer lounging. A nameplate gleamed beside the door, and in the overhead light on the veranda I could read it: McClain.

  So this was where Irene and Loring and Naomi lived. Where Brendon had lived as well, until I came and we’d been given our own private suite in the hotel. My first impulse was to turn quickly away, to avoid any further contact with a family that held so many secrets against me.

  And yet …? I remembered Irene’s increasingly nervous manner tonight, her obvious concern lest I open up some subject she feared to broach. Perhaps because she didn’t trust herself, if that should happen? So why—since Brendon was avoiding me—should I not talk to his mother?

  With new resolution I went up the steps and put my finger to the bell. No one came to the door, but I could hear someone inside playing a piano. That would be Naomi again, probably. Yes—Stravinsky. The music from Firebird. How she was haunted by Ariel!

  In an unwanted flash of memory, I could see my sister’s face with its special Firebird make-up, the eyebrows winging upward and bright feathers crowning her hair. No—I wanted none of Stravinsky tonight, and I was beginning to think Naomi a little deranged. Yet I must still try to see Irene, and I pressed the bell again.

  This time the music stopped, and I heard running feet in the hall. The door was pulled open and Naomi stood looking out at me, her eyes alight with something a little frightening in its avidity. Her tiny person was enveloped in the fleece lounging robe of Chinese red that had once belonged to Ariel, and which I had given to Irene.

  “Come in,” she said, and flung the door wide.

  “No—no—” I tried not to falter. “I wanted to see Irene. If she isn’t home—”

  “No one is home but me. Come in.”

  There was something compelling about her tone of voice that I had no will to resist. I stepped over the sill past her and into a wide, gracious hall that bisected the house. She flitted ahead of me, holding up the trailing folds of the robe, lest she trip over them, and stopped to open a door at the rear of the hall.

  “In here,” she said. “Where we can talk. No one will interrupt us here. No one comes here unless I invite them.”

  Still wanting to run away, yet unable to, I stepped into the small, warm sitting room. Wood burned brightly on a hearth graced by a white marble mantelpiece above, and Naomi gestured me to the chintz-covered sofa drawn before it. To my relief, she did not sit beside me, but took a small rocking chair placed to the right of the fire.

  Without looking too closely, I had an impression of red all about the room. Redbuds in the wallpaper, wine red draperies at the windows, a red and gold lacquer box on the coffee table, the red bindings of books, a deep-piled, red figured rug before the fire. And Naomi in red fleece.

  Inevitably, my eyes were drawn to stark black and white above the mantel—the photograph I had been immediately aware of, and was trying not to see. In spite of myself I shivered. How well I knew that picture. The crossed feet en pointe, the despairing gesture of the hands, the intensity of longing in every line of her body in that full, old-fashioned dress, eyes closed, the stamp of agony in the face.

  Naomi rocked in her chair, squeaking a little, unaware of the sound as she watched me.

  “She was the best Hagar since Nora Kaye,” she said softly. “In Kaye’s time no one else dared dance Pillar of Fire. Not until Ariel Vaughn did it.”

  “I thought you only saw her dance once on the stage?”

  “That’s true. But there are books—all those books with their descriptions and photographs. She’s in them, as you know.” She waved her hand toward a low shelf and I knew by sight the titles on some of the book spines—well-known standards on ballet. I could almost pity her for this single-minded worship, this vicarious living she must have done through Ariel. Perhaps I could even understand a little.

  “Did you ever dance yourself?” I asked.

  “Of course. I used to long to be a dancer. I even took lessons as a child. But my parents wouldn’t let me go on. My father forbade it. So I only danced in my head. I knew all the steps, but I could only dance them in my imagination.”

  I could understand that too. I had done it myself—moving so beautifully, so gracefully in my mind, as I never could in life.

  Naomi rocked again. “It was all make-believe until that first time Ariel came here to rest, and I got to know her, became her friend. I gave her this room because she wanted a place of her own. I let her fix it up to suit herself.” Something insidious and sly seemed to come into Naomi’s voice. “Now it can be your room—just as it was your sister’s. You’re welcome to come here any time, Jenny, just as she used to do. You’ll always find her here.”

  She paused as though waiting for some utterance of gratitude from me, but I said nothing and she went on.

  “So much of my life stopped being make-believe when Ariel came. It was all real then.
As real as this robe that Irene was going to throw away because it had belonged to her. How often I’ve seen Ariel wear this very robe. Do you remember how she loved red? That’s why there is so much red in this room. I let her do what she wanted with it. Of course she used to wear this red fleece for Brendon because he bought it for her. No wonder you wanted to be rid of it. It must have been a terrible shock to see you in it. How sickening that must have been for him!”

  It was difficult to get my breath and the heat from the fire seemed to stifle me. Above the mantel the closed eyes of the photograph were the closed eyes of death. But I was not sure who had died—was it Ariel, or was it I?

  Naomi left her rocker and came to sit close to me on the sofa—too close, so that I edged away.

  “You didn’t know, did you? He never told you. What a liar he has always been! I’m not so angry with you now, because I know what he is doing to you. He never loved anyone but her. I used to give them this room sometimes when they wanted to be alone, and there was nowhere else to go. So many things here are hers, because she wanted them here to please him. Sometimes she would tell me what it was like afterward. The sofa was too small for them, of course. But they would lie on that very rug before the fire and make love. It must have been beautiful, beautiful—because everything she did was beautiful.”

  I wanted to run out of the room. I wanted to fly from the sound of her tormenting voice, yet I couldn’t move.

  “Oh, she was careful not to make a scandal, of course. This is a big house and there’s a back door. So no one knew when they were here. No one but me. Or if anyone guessed, they didn’t dare say anything. Not to Brendon. Sometimes I kept watch. He wanted to marry her, but she couldn’t make up her mind. Sometimes she’d say ‘Yes,’ and sometimes ‘No.’ And then she went away and died, and it was too late.”

  Silence lay heavy upon the room, except for the crackle of wood in the fireplace. There were words I must speak, denials I must make—but no words would come. Shock has a numbing effect and while there was a sickness at the pit of my stomach and my hands were trembling, I could find no words.

  “How he has fooled himself!” Naomi ran on. “As soon as he saw you, he tried to make it all come to life again. He tried to bring her to life again—through you.” A whipping of scorn in her words told me what a poor try she thought that had been.

  This time I managed to speak. “But it was Magnus she loved—Magnus she was involved with—”

  “Later.” Naomi smiled as brightly as though she gave me some lovely gift of knowledge. “Because of course she couldn’t stay with one man forever. Magnus is a primitive, and so was Ariel in some ways, for all her sophistication. She grew tired of Brendon’s importunities—how could she marry anyone, when she belonged to the world? So the last time she came here she stayed with Magnus in his cabin.”

  “With Floris there?” I managed.

  “Oh, Ariel was a guest, of course. Floris was too stupid to see what was coming. And when it happened, it was too late. Magnus can be pretty overwhelming. She told me about him, too. She called him her Zeus.”

  Somehow I pushed myself up from the sofa and walked to the door. Naomi went back to her squeaking rocker, still murmuring to herself.

  At the door I turned and stared at her. “At least you have never mixed me up with Ariel,” I said.

  Her head came up, firelight touching frizzled gray, and there was venom in her eyes. “Of course not! Though you were a shock to me at first sight. Even though Brendon had warned us, you were a shock because you look so much like her. He wrote Irene that no one was to tell you about Ariel until he got around to it. Now you can go back to where you came from and stop trying to take her place. Why don’t you just go away tomorrow? He’s already discovered his mistake. Don’t stay until he hates you.”

  I put a hand on the doorjamb to steady myself. “I am not going away. For all I know you may be making up everything you’ve told me.”

  She flew out of the rocker and stood with her back to the fire, staring at me across the room. I didn’t know what her look meant, and I didn’t stay to find out, but ran down the hall and out the front door. In the lighted area outside I gulped great drafts of cold air in an effort to clear away the numbness, the fog that seemed to engulf me.

  I don’t believe her, I told myself as I walked toward the huge, lighted bulk of the hotel. She’s not to be trusted and I don’t believe anything she’s said.

  But I did believe. Conviction lay heavy as a stone upon my spirit. Inside the Mountain House I flitted through the corridors and up the stairs, not waiting for an elevator, where I might see someone, have to speak, have to say “Good evening.” My feet made no sound on the red carpet as I fled down the fourth-floor hall and put my key in the lock. A haven. I wanted a haven. Time alone, so I could fight off my confusion and fright, make some sort of sense out of the things Naomi had said, most of which were undoubtedly lies.

  But they weren’t lies. I know that now as I lie in bed alone, with Brendon gone and my marriage shattered. Where am I to turn? What am I to do? What can I do but think?

  The moment I opened the door, I knew he was back. His jacket lay over a chair, and from the bathroom came the sounds of his showering. Panic struck me and I backed into the hall, closing the door softly. Because how could I stay when I was so little ready to face him? I couldn’t bear to see him now.

  There seemed no place to go in this vast building, yet my feet led me without will and I found myself following the narrow corridor into the old section, where once Ariel Vaughn had come to do her practicing.

  Along this section of hall there were no lights, and the line of doors was closed upon empty rooms. No one would find me here. I wouldn’t have to face Brendon when he came out of his bath. My hand followed the wall, guiding me past closed doors until I found myself in the empty room at the end. Here the blackness lessened because there were windows over the lake and the night outside was not as black as this room.

  Carefully I felt my way. Piano keys gave a faint plink under my fingers before I found the wall and followed it back to the door until I touched a light switch. Clustered lights in the ceiling came on. She had danced here—Ariel. And she had betrayed me once again.

  No—that wasn’t true. I had to be honest. Brendon and Magnus had both been hers first. I was only trailing along in the path of a shooting star as I’d always done. I had no right to Brendon. I had no right to judge Ariel—but only Brendon. The betrayal was his.

  Behind the piano soiled pink toe shoes were all that remained of the beauty that had danced in this room. Moving with a strange compulsion, I threw off the coat I’d put on over my green dress and sat down on the piano bench. Very carefully I put on her shoes, wrapping the pink ribbons back and forth around foot and ankle, tight and firm. Our feet had been identical in size since we’d grown up. Then I walked flatfooted to the barre where she had exercised and took hold of it with one hand, raising myself on the blocked satin toes. Lamb’s wool that she had packed into the shoes cushioned my toes, and I already knew how it felt to be en pointe. I’d had all those ballet classes when I was young, and I’d tried on her shoes more than once when we were both grown and she was famous. As though they might carry magic in them like the Red Shoes of the movie ballet.

  Not that I understood what I was doing in that blind moment. I attempted a few petits battements, remembering the Swan Queen’s beating of foot against ankle in the second act. I did all the positions of the feet, forcing myself to pain, since my feet and legs were in no way trained to such placement. I went up and out in a simple échappé, not quite so awkward as might be expected, though it hurt a lot. Then I tried vainly to travel out across the floor in little bourrée steps, sur les pointes, the pain exquisite, till I dropped back on the floor.

  Across the room a sudden glimpse of the mirror made me freeze with my arms overhead—freeze in shock. For she was there, dancing in the glass. I moved and Ariel moved, watching me gravely. The skirt of my green dress
floated to half-calf, and tonight my hair was pinned into a low knot at the back—like hers.

  “Are you trying to be your sister?” Brendon’s voice asked from the doorway.

  I whirled about, caught in terrible disarray. He stood in the doorway watching me, dressed in his navy robe and slippers, and I saw the shocked expression on his face.

  “I’ve seen Naomi,” I said. “I know.”

  “Take off those shoes and come back to the room,” he ordered me coldly. “It’s time we talked.”

  I went to the bench and bent over, untying the ribbons, hidding my face from him. Time? It was long past time. The time he should have told me was when we first met in that Opera lobby in New York.

  When I’d slipped into my own shoes again, and raised my head, the doorway was empty. He had gone.

  With slow fingers that hardly knew what they were doing, I pulled the tortoise-shell pins from my hair and let it flow down my back, as though it might remove me further from my sister to let it hang loose. I left her shoes on the floor, pink ribbons trailing out of them, and walked with feet as heavy as lead down the dark hallway toward light at the end.

  He had left the door of our sitting room open, and I walked in and closed it softly behind me. Brendon stood in the tower section of enclosed windows, with his back to me, looking up toward the light on the mountain. The door made a slight sound as it closed, but he did not turn, and a fierce anger that grew out of pain began to rise in me. Was I to be treated as though all the fault were mine, as though I had lied and deceived and cheated?

  “You lied to me from the first, didn’t you?” I challenged and heard my voice uttering words as cold as his. “You told me you didn’t care for ballet.”

  He spoke over his shoulder. “I didn’t lie. I’ve never cared for ballet. Only twice did I ever see her dance. I knew her here on the mountain, not in her ballet world.”