“Yes. I asked him to. You were behaving strangely, running about aimlessly. When I saw you running down the hall toward the stairs I asked him to go after you.”
Someone spoke behind her and I tilted my head to see that Brendon had joined his mother.
“You went up on the roof in the rain and the dark?” he asked.
“The rain had stopped.” I felt a sudden eagerness to explain to him, to make him understand. “It wasn’t dark. There’s a full moon tonight. But I was—afraid when Loring came. I hid from him. I didn’t know why he’d followed me up there.”
Gently Brendon removed his mother from my side and took her place. “Did Loring speak to you at all?”
“Yes. He called my name. He said it was dangerous for me to be up there alone and I should come downstairs with him.”
“And then?”
“I didn’t trust him. I didn’t answer and I stayed hidden.”
“Where?” Brendon asked.
“I climbed over the parapet onto the next roof where there’s a catwalk.”
“And no protection!”
“It’s not very steep, and I had no choice. I clung to one of those chimneys that could hide me.”
“How did he come to fall? Answer me carefully, Jenny. Loring was muttering some sort of accusation when they carried him to the ambulance. But it made no sense.”
I closed my eyes again, seeing that terrible moment when he had gone over the wall, slipping and flailing his arms, until he slid over the edge.
“Maybe he was pushed,” I said.
Beyond Brendon, Irene cried out, and Brendon bent toward me. “Easy now, Jenny. Be careful how you answer. Who pushed him?”
“I don’t know,” I said wearily. “I didn’t see. I heard someone else come out on the roof and I saw a long pole like a broomstick being shoved at Loring. He tried to escape onto the other roof, but he slipped and fell.”
Irene moved in beside her son. “The girl is out of her mind. She’s making it all up—or imagining it.”
“I know what those door hinges sound like,” I said stubbornly. “And I heard steps that weren’t Loring’s. He wasn’t walking about by that time. And I saw the stick that was thrust at him.”
“Listen to me.” Brendon’s tone was low and firm. “The police have to be called in when there’s an accident of this sort, and they will be here soon. If you tell them you think he was pushed, they may believe you pushed him. There’s no need to let yourself in for that. It could be very uncomfortable for you—though of course we know it isn’t true.”
I closed my eyes again. Somehow, somewhere, we had stopped loving each other, and it no longer mattered to me what he thought. I didn’t care what anyone thought. My life had been smashed as surely as Ariel’s had, even though I could live and breathe.
“Perhaps someone was trying to punish Loring for Floris’ death,” I said, hearing my own strange, rather conversational tones.
Both Irene and Brendon stared at me, then looked at each other. I knew Irene must by now have said to Brendon the things she had said earlier to Naomi and me—the accusations she had made against Loring. Again I wondered if they had been true at all.
Once more, Brendon bent over me. “How are you feeling? Can you sit up, Jenny? Perhaps your mind will clear a bit if you start moving around.”
“I’m not out of my head,” I assured him, but I allowed him to pull me to a sitting position. There was nothing wrong with me except an enervating despair. “Could it be,” I went on, “that Loring had nothing to do with Floris’ death, but that he knew something that pointed to whoever caused that boulder to roll?”
Brendon’s patience with me ended. He shook me again—hard, so that my head fell back, and I jerked away from him.
“Don’t do that!” I cried. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“Then listen to me. None of these wild ideas of yours are to be told to the police. I would hope they’d consider your state of confusion and make allowances, but I don’t want to see the past resurrected at this late date to make trouble for us.”
It was Laurel again. All he cared about was Laurel. He had even sacrificed Ariel to Laurel.
I rose and began to walk about the room with Brendon watching me darkly, and Irene’s attention cool upon me.
“Don’t you think Irene had better start looking like a grieving wife?” I asked, facing them abruptly.
Before either could answer, there was a tap on the door and one of the clerks from the desk looked in.
“Lieutenant Blair is here from Kings Landing,” he said.
The officer came into the room, greeting Brendon and Irene, whom he knew, looking questioningly at me.
“Is this the young lady who was on the roof?” he asked.
I answered before anyone else could answer for me, and my words came out in a rush. “Yes, I was there. Loring Grant came after me because he thought it might be dangerous for me to be up there alone. Then someone else came up to the roof—someone I didn’t see. Someone who tried to push Loring off.”
Now that the whole uproar has quieted and the worst of it is over, I can look back and almost laugh at the expressions I saw around that room. Brendon’s anger because I had disobeyed him, Irene’s distress. But they had to accept what I had done, and the whole kettle of fish was opened up for the police. My one concession was to let the matter of Floris and Ariel alone. The present affair was complicated enough.”
It was late by the time all the questioning was over and the police had gone. There was no evidence to back up the story I had told—not even a broomstick to be found on the roof—and I don’t think they put much stock in my words.
By the time I was free for the night, I felt horribly tired and shaken, but my nerves were on edge, and I couldn’t bear the thought of turning in right away. I left the hotel and walked around the end of the lake toward one of the gazebos, where I had gone before after dark. It was public enough, safe enough in this lighted area near the hotel, and nothing more was likely to happen tonight. Whoever had been on the roof with Loring would probably lie low for a while.
Not until I set foot on the rocks leading up to the little summerhouse did I realize that someone was there ahead of me. My heart leaped and I would have turned to run back—trusting no one—when Magnus’ voice spoke to me out of the dark shelter.
“Come and talk to me, Jenny. Come and tell me what has happened. My father has been in on some of it, but I’m not particularly welcome around the Mountain House.”
I took Magnus’ hand and let him pull me up on the rocks to sit beside him on the rustic bench. In a few moments I had told him everything that had happened, beginning with that Mad Hatter’s tea in the afternoon. He heard me out with his usual air of attentive listening. When I told him about Brendon and Irene trying to keep me quiet, and of my rush of words to the police, he put an arm about me.
“That’s my girl,” he said. “Listen to your own drummer always.”
He was so big and warm and comforting that I clung to him and cried a little in relief. He asked nothing of me—he just gave. Of himself—his strength and his belief in me and in what I said. It had been hours since anyone had believed in any words I’d spoken. But when at length I began to shiver, he stood me on my feet.
“Let me walk you back to the house now, Jenny. You’re tired and you’re cold. Ask Irene for a sleeping pill and let yourself conk out. You can’t have your mind going in circles all night.”
“But now whoever was up there knows I was there too, Magnus. So I’m afraid—”
“You’ve also made it very clear that you saw no one. Just stay off roofs for a while, will you, honey, and out of lonely woods.”
“What will happen now?” I asked him as we followed the path around the end of the lake.
“There’s no telling. Maybe they’ll ask more questions. Maybe they’ll dig up the fact that I tried to give Loring a beating the other day, and I’ll be next on the mat.”
“Oh, n
o!” I cried.
His arm about me tightened. “It doesn’t matter. I can answer whatever they ask. Unfortunately, I don’t think they have a thing to pin solidly on anyone. Unless you can recall something more definite, they’ll probably drop the whole thing.”
That was exactly what happened. My own vague impressions were apparently unconvincing, and no one was found who might have wanted to injure Loring. Magnus was questioned, but his father vouched for the fact that he had been in his open-air studio back of the cabin working on a piece of granite by the lights he’d rigged up there.
Through it all, Loring said nothing. Even when he recovered consciousness, his memory of what had happened remained hazy and he had less to tell than I had. His injuries were serious and he would be slow in mending. Much of the time his drugged mind wandered.
In the end, the idea that it was an accident seemed to let everyone off the hook, just as it had done in Floris’ case, and it was decided that I wasn’t too clear about what had happened anyway. I was the only one who was convinced that a murderer was still at large, and that it was my responsibility now to unmask whoever it was. A responsibility I didn’t relish. This time, at last, I had sense enough to do no more talking.
16
This has been a strange day and not without event—for me, at least. A little more than a week has passed since Loring’s terrible fall, and there is a continuing uneasiness in the air. It seems strange not to see him around the hotel, and rather sad that, like Floris, he is being missed so little. Guests, of course, come and go, and some are not even aware of what has happened.
Strangely, only Irene seems to miss him. There has been an unexpected change in her. Seeing Loring broken and helpless, their roles reversed, appears to have roused some new, protective instinct in her, and she has been behaving like a loving and conscientious wife. Not a day passes that she is not at Loring’s bedside, and she is already making elaborate plans for his convalescence at home. He will not walk easily for some time, and he will need her help and compassion. He is still unable to remember what happened on the roof.
Toward me, Irene has been friendly enough, yet more than a little inquisitive—as though she may believe that I am holding something back concerning that terrible night. I no longer trust her, and I try to avoid her as much as possible.
Until this morning, I hadn’t seen Magnus since the night of the accident, though I know the fault was mine. I had only to climb the mountain to his cabin, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do that until today. Perhaps some uncertainty about myself and my own feelings toward him has held me back. If I went to him, he would welcome me, I knew. But if I chose to leave Laurel without seeing him again, he would let me go without any effort to hold me here.
I like that—and I don’t like it. It suits my own sense of independence as a woman to be left with a choice that is mine. Yet at the same time, when I recall Brendon’s stormy and overwhelming wooing, something of Eve in me enjoys a slight frisson at the memory.
I have told myself that I would never be overpowered in that way again—yet perhaps I was not above a secret fantasy in which Magnus descended from his mountain like his own bull, to bear the not-too-reluctant maiden away. Was that really what I wanted? To have my mind made up for me again? Because if that was the case, I didn’t like myself very well. I didn’t want to follow in Brendon’s footsteps. I mustn’t try to make the pain of loss stop by filling in with any substitute that offered.
This morning Naomi surprised me by appearing at the door of my room with an unfamiliar look of entreaty about her.
“Come for a ride with me, Jenny. I’ve planted bulbs until I’m dizzy. And you haven’t ridden a horse since you’ve come here.”
I hadn’t, but I could hardly think of a less welcome riding companion. She was persistent, however, so I put on my warmest slacks and a turtleneck sweater under my jacket. Naomi wore her usual jeans and sweater and red bandanna. She often seemed impervious to the cooling weather.
We walked down to the stables, where horses were waiting for us, saddled and ready, since she had phoned ahead of time. Her own mount was an ungainly animal with a slightly sway back and the name of Dulcinea. I gathered that she was one of Naomi’s rescued lame ducks. A properly quiet mare called Juniper had been chosen for me and I found myself in the saddle with an unexpected sense of pleasure.
I had been living too much with myself, and it was good to do something physical that would distract me from my own thoughts. Besides, there is something reassuring to the ego about mounting a horse and achieving that sense of command that belongs to a human on horseback.
“Let’s not go far,” I said to Naomi. “It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden, and I don’t want to get miserably stiff.”
She nodded and headed off toward the gardens. It became quickly evident that our ride was not without purpose. Naomi took the lead, following a trail above the formal plantings—one that had become familiar to me. I knew where we were going, but by that time I was curious to learn why she was taking me there. On the way, I savored autumn sunshine and woods that were bright with color. There was no talk between Naomi and me, and it was a pleasure to have a horse moving strongly beneath me, carrying me without effort.
When we reached the gate to the cemetery, she dismounted and tied her reins about a gate post, motioning me to do the same. We walked through together and she led the way to Floris’ grave. I found myself thinking of Loring, who might so easily have been resting here. And of me.
For once, someone had placed a small bouquet of wild flowers upon Floris’ grave. They were already wilting—but at least someone had remembered.
“Magnus,” Naomi said. “He’s the only one of us big enough to do that, even though he was the one Floris injured most.”
“Why have we come here?” I asked.
She gave me a twisted grin. “You know what they say—never speak ill of the dead. Only it’s necessary to speak ill of her, so I wanted to do it openly—right here at her grave. If she’s anywhere listening—then let her listen. Let her strike me down!”
I had a feeling that she half meant her own words, but I waited, saying nothing.
Naomi sat on a patch of grass and poked with a grass stem at a crawling ant. After a moment, I dropped down beside her, still waiting.
“From the time she first came here,” Naomi began, “all Floris wanted was to get away. Wherever she was, that would have been the place to dissatisfy her. Somehow she was always programmed for unhappiness. But since Magnus made this his home, and the place where he wanted to work, she hated it and only wanted to be off to a city. She’d have liked Loring to come in with his bulldozers and drive Magnus and Keir from the cabin. Of course if he was driven away from Laurel, he’d simply move to his land in Pennsylvania, but Floris never accepted that.”
“Didn’t their child help to hold her here?”
“Chris? He was a lovely little boy. I’m not mad about children, but I was fond of him. Magnus doted on him—so Floris was jealous. Of her own son! She was the sort of person who never understood her own motives—never looked at herself. And she acted against Chris to punish Magnus.”
“How do you mean?”
“A small boy shouldn’t be around a lake unwatched. But Floris never watched him. Magnus was to blame too because he was busy with his work and he left Chris in Floris’ hands. It was Brendon who found the little boy’s body when he drowned. He would have been eleven years old by now. Magnus nearly went mad. Floris came through all right, but she wouldn’t have any more children.”
I was silent for a little while, feeling the pain of so great a tragedy.
“It’s a funny thing,” Naomi went on, “but there was a time when Floris and I were friends. Neither of us drew people around us the way Irene does, so I suppose we turned to each other in a sort of prickly loneliness. I don’t think she really liked me, or I her. She used to drive Magnus right up the wall with her deliberate tormenting. Keir could ignore her, but Ma
gnus had to live as her husband. Maybe he’d have strangled her, or done something desperate, except that he had his own way to get rid of his rage. Every once in a while he would carve some dreadfully ugly creature out of rock from the quarry. I’ve seen one of them—something out of a nightmare world—huge and threatening and wicked.”
“Like his stone bull?”
Naomi looked shocked. “Oh, no. The bull is beautiful. He’s pure and primitive and natural. This creature wasn’t natural.”
“I remember seeing a strange, frighteningly tortured head in Magnus’ outdoor studio,” I said.
“I know the one you mean, but that was only a small horror. The one I saw was huge.”
“What did he do with it? Was there a buyer?”
“Perhaps. I don’t really know, and it’s not something one would dare to ask him. I think he was a little ashamed of those outbursts and he never talked about them. Floris said the big one just disappeared one time when she was away for a couple of days, and he’s never done anything like that since. Perhaps Ariel exorcised his demons for him. She could have, you know—she was an angel.”
I had been seeing Naomi in a new role—a more understanding role than I’d ever seen her in before. But now she was back with her own blindness in her adulation of Ariel Vaughn.
“I’m sure we didn’t ride up here so you could tell me all this.”
“Didn’t we? How do you know? You’re following in your sister’s footsteps, aren’t you?”
I thrust back my quickly rising annoyance. “What makes you say that?”
“You and Magnus. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Though he can’t put you in her place, any more than Brendon could.”
Annoyance won out and I sprang to my feet. “Let’s go back. There’s nothing you have to say that I want to hear.”
“Isn’t there?” Naomi clasped her hands about her knees and rocked back and forth beside Floris’ grave.
In spite of myself, I waited. The engraving Magnus had done so carefully on Floris’ headstone stood out clearly in the sunlight—stark, somehow, and without delicacy. He had made this stone out of duty, not love. Yet he had met his duty.
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