by Miley, Mary
Uncle Oliver had told me that everyone first suspected Jessie had run away, until a search of her room revealed she had taken nothing with her. With her horse safe in its stall, a riding accident was ruled out. A dozen people combed the grounds and seaside to no avail. Only then did they notify the police on the chance that she had been kidnapped. When no ransom note came and no body was found, she was listed as a runaway. Some huge number of Pinkertons worked the case for years with no results. Jessie had vanished.
It was, of course, impossible to investigate Jessie’s disappearance when I was impersonating Jessie. But I could look into the Indian girl’s death on the chance that they were somehow related.
And there was another possibility. Maybe, just maybe, Jessie was still alive and on her way home at this moment, in time for her twenty-first birthday.
22
Being onstage fourteen or fifteen hours a day makes for a tough gig. The daily routine kept me in full view of my audience for long periods without any breaks between acts, and I found myself heading for the privacy of the Great Outdoors at every opportunity.
“Oh, checkmate! I win! I win!” Caroline exulted from the game table while Valerie glowered. Aunt Victoria looked up from the latest Time weekly and made a gentle remark about being gracious in victory.
We were a feminine group that afternoon. Grandmother sat in her favorite chair by the fire, her nose buried in the Reader’s Digest and so quiet that it was easy to forget she was in the room. Ross passed his days in the study hovering over the hired typist—a little blond looker—as she pounded out the final draft of his thesis, though Aunt Victoria assured me Ross was only interested in dark-haired intellectuals. Henry had left for political activities. I soon realized that he was seldom in residence at Cliff House, preferring his apartment in Portland or his yacht in Dexter’s harbor.
I recalled the day I’d arrived and first met Henry and Ross. Henry’s fear and Ross’s belligerence had vanished, replaced by a cautious tolerance that could only mean they were waiting for the trustees’ report to demolish my story. Although their behavior now was civil, it was far from friendly, and I did not believe either one had accepted Jessie’s return and the loss of all that money. I just didn’t know when the next attack would come.
“How about a card game?” I said, bored to desperation. “What do you like to play besides Hearts?”
“Slap Jack … umm…”
“Do you play poker?”
The twins shook their heads.
“I can teach you. It’s easy.”
At the word “poker,” Aunt Victoria’s nose came out of her magazine. “Perhaps you know another game, Jessie dear. One more suitable for young ladies.”
The twins grimaced. “Oh, Mother!”
“Certainly,” I said. “Let’s see now…”
“What about Go Fish?” Aunt Victoria suggested. “That’s always been a family favorite.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “Remind me of the rules, Valerie?”
Half a game of Go Fish and I was watching a housefly crawl across the windowpane for excitement. As I looked about the room for inspiration, my eyes came to rest on the coffee table where a crystal bowl of saltwater taffy called to me.
Mother used to say that if squash were called something nicer—a pretty word like “sassafras” or “calliope”—children would eat it up without complaint.
“Look, I’ve thought of a good game. It’s easy to learn. It’s called Give and Take.” A spark of interest lit the girls’ eyes, so I continued. “We’ll start with the basic form. Valerie, you shuffle the deck and deal seven cards to each of us, facedown. Caroline, you take this taffy and divide it into three equal piles.” I took a sheet of paper and a pencil and started making an ordered list: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, and on down.
“Now,” I said, setting the empty crystal dish in the center of the table, “here is the pot, and these are the rules.”
In no time I had created two little bluffers whose guileless expressions could have cleaned out Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickok without those gentlemen ever seeing beyond their angelic innocence. Gradually I introduced more rules and strategies, and soon we were shrieking with laughter as the taffy traveled back and forth across the table.
Finally, Aunt Victoria could resist no longer. “Can four play?”
“The more the merrier!” I said. “Grandmother?” She shook her head and sent me a look that told me she knew exactly what I was doing. The girls briefed their mother on the rules and we had a gay time before they started squabbling over whose turn it was to deal.
“Let’s take a break and go outside for a while,” I said. “Grandmother?”
She accepted the invitation and reached for her shawl. The twins opted for a game of tennis and ran upstairs to change clothes.
As soon as we were out of range, Grandmother began, “I hope that when you come into your fortune, Jessie, you can do something for those girls. They live boring lives in this isolated house. Young people need more activity—school, parties, friends.”
I was ashamed I hadn’t given it much thought. “I suppose when the governess is here, they spend a good deal of the day with their studies.”
“No doubt. But what a lonely existence. Their mother means well, but she sees only what she wants to see. I’m afraid she is the sort who would do anything for her children except let them grow up.”
We found Chen squatting in the flower bed, shaded by his grass hat, wearing grass shoes and mud-stained trousers, weeding vigorously. I gave him a perfunctory “Good afternoon” with no expectation of a response.
He stood, stretched his back, and smiled at us warily. “Good afternoon, miss, madam,” he said with an accent so slight most people would not notice it at all.
“Oh! I didn’t realize … You speak English?”
“Yes, miss. I was born in this country. My name is Chen Xingen but in English I am John Chen.”
“Oh, excuse my mistake. I thought … well, the other day…”
“It’s a natural mistake. Most Chinese immigrants speak very little English. But those born here, like me, grew up speaking English as well as Cantonese.”
I tried to guess his age. It was impossible. His skin was leathery from a lifetime of hard work out-of-doors and his face, lined with deep wrinkles that fanned out from his eyes and cut around his mouth, looked old, yet when he straightened up, there was nothing crooked or frail about him. He had the strong hands and powerful shoulders one expected in a common laborer and the sharp, intelligent eyes one did not.
“Well, I am delighted to know you do—now you can tell me something about all this. I’m afraid city girls like me know very little about gardening.” Grandmother perched on the nearest bench where she could soak up the sunshine.
“I will be happy to teach you. Most flowers have finished blooming for the year and will not come again until next spring. These”—he gestured to where he had been kneeling—“are hydrangea. They are great favorites in China and in America because they bloom from spring until fall.”
Of course I knew at some level that all flowers had names, but the idea suddenly intrigued me, and I looked about with new interest, like a stranger curious as to the identity of the guests at the party. Within moments Chen had introduced me to the prolific pink hydrangeas and rows of tall, happy-faced zinnias of every color in the crayon box.
“These roses are native to China,” he said, pointing to some bushes thick with small white roses. “Over there are traditional European roses, larger and more fragrant, but China roses bloom longer, as you can see. They will continue to bloom in this sheltered garden until early winter. America has welcomed many Chinese plants.” Chen pointed to a bed of bright flowers planted against the far wall. “Those have Chinese origins as well.”
“Daisies!”
“I regret to say they are not, although their petals do resemble those of the daisy. They are a type of chrysanthemum.”
“They a
re very pretty, aren’t they?” I threw my arms wide. “Do you take care of all this by yourself?”
“Now, it is not so much work and I am alone. In the beginning, about six years ago, Mrs. Carr hired four to build the wall and lay out the garden. And plant the red alder trees.”
“Oh, is that what they are? Why ever did she want them there, do you know? Most people pay money for an ocean view, and she has blocked it with trees.”
He nodded his understanding. “Erosion is a problem all along the coast. Little by little, the cliffs crumble into the sea. Some believe tree roots will help prevent that.”
So that was it!
“What do you think?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The earth is weak; the ocean is powerful. The outcome is not in doubt, but perhaps the trees will delay it a short while.” He must have seen the look on my face, for he hastened to reassure me, “The house is in no danger, miss, not for many, many years. Maybe never. You mustn’t worry. The weak part of the cliff is south of here where the rock is softer. A large chunk broke off and fell into the sea just last month.”
I had walked north along the coast a few days ago. Chen was pointing in the opposite direction.
“Perhaps I’ll walk that way and have a look.”
“Take care, miss. There are many cracks in the ground.”
“I certainly shall.”
“You must go now, if you like, Jessie,” said Grandmother, adding that she was perfectly satisfied to sit in the sun while I went to see the landslide.
As happened before, King appeared at my heels the moment I stepped outside the garden walls. Together we threaded our way through the red alders and turned south. Almost at once the ground began its downward slope out of sight of the house. A five-minute walk brought me to a point of land where I could see that the cliffs ahead of me were only half the height of the ones beside the house. Lawrence Carr had situated his summer house at the highest point in the area. To the north of the house, the ground descended to Dexter and the bay; to the south, it sloped more gently to a vulnerable, crumbling coast that was uninhabited and uninhabitable.
My progress was slowed by several large cracks in the earth—like miniature fault lines running parallel to the coastline. All at once I came to a macadam road which was, I realized, the continuation of the one from Dexter that brought us to Cliff House and then snaked south, linking Oregon’s remote coastal towns to the outside world. Few cars came this way, and I saw none today. I did see a discarded wooden A-frame lying on its side with an old pulley, a wooden handbarrow, and some other junk that looked like it had been left behind after the construction of the coastal road a dozen years ago. King and I followed the pavement until it veered away from the ocean.
It didn’t take a geologist to spot the recent avalanche. The new face of the cliff was freshly exposed where a slab of weak rock had collapsed into rubble on the shore, revealing an artist’s palette of earthen colors striped horizontally across the exposed area. As beautiful as it was, nothing could erase the sense that the earth was holding its breath, waiting to release the next landslide.
With King leading the way, I took a slightly different route back. Rounding a large boulder, I spotted him poised at the edge of the largest crevice I had yet seen, sniffing suspiciously. This one must have been three feet wide and a good deal longer; like the rest, it ran parallel to the cliff edge a hundred feet away. I wondered when this chunk of high land was destined to meet the sea. In a hundred years? A thousand? Next week? I peered cautiously into the dark hole and saw nothing but black. Cool, fresh-smelling air drifted into my face. It would be very easy to fall here, and no one would be the wiser. Someone could trip in the dark, or the earth at the edge could collapse. Could Jessie have stumbled that day she disappeared seven years ago? The fall would probably prove fatal. Had they searched these crevices when she went missing? Oliver would know. But then I remembered that Jessie had vanished during the day, not at night, so toppling into a crevice wasn’t a likely theory.
Being pushed, however, did not depend upon daylight or darkness.
“Don’t get too close, King,” I warned, looking around nervously. “Come!” I snapped my fingers and motioned to him to follow.
Chen was where I had left him weeding the flower beds, with Grandmother nearby. Briefly I told him about the large crevice and my idea to rope it off. “There are many such in that low ground,” he said over his shoulder. “No one can put fences around them all. No one goes there.”
“You’re probably right. Do you have some scissors? I think I’ll cut some of these pretty things for my room. Chrysanthemums, did you say?”
He looked around at the other flowers. “Why not pick some roses?”
“My room is full of roses. They are beautiful and quite fragrant, but these chrysanthemums are so cheerful, I think I’ll put some in a vase by my bed.”
I thought I saw him scowl as he bent over his basket. “There are black-eyed Susans over there.” He stood and pointed to a bed of exuberant yellow blossoms several feet away. “See? They are very nice, with tall stems. Rather like daisies. Some call them brown-eyed Susans. You can decide, brown-eyed or black-eyed.”
“Perhaps I should get permission from Aunt Victoria first, is that what you mean?”
“No, no. She would be delighted for you to pick whatever you like. Here.” He handed me some clippers. The sun slipped behind a cloud, and the drop in temperature sent Grandmother back into the house. I snipped a couple dozen chrysanthemum blossoms, choosing the tallest stems. To please Chen, I picked a few of the black-eyed Susans as well and left him to his weeding. In the kitchen, Marie gave me a vase and I arranged them carelessly.
Aunt Victoria passed me on my way to my room. “There you are, dear,” she said cheerily. “Henry just called saying he was bringing a guest to dinner tonight. Oh, how lovely!”
“I hope you don’t mind, I’ve raided your flower beds.” I held up my vase for her inspection.
“Mind? Gracious no, dear, I’m thrilled to find someone who shares my interest. The girls don’t care a fig for gardening and the boys—well … You must give instructions to Chen whenever you like. Change anything. Variety is the essence of a pleasure garden. Although,” she said, peering closely at the flowers, “I am surprised Chen let you pick those.”
“I thought I imagined his reluctance.”
“Oh, the silly man. He didn’t want them in the garden at all, but I insisted. In China, chrysanthemums are thought to bring bad luck. What a superstitious lot those Orientals are!”
“Bad luck? How can a pretty flower bring bad luck?”
“The Chinese think chrysanthemums symbolize death. They use them for funerals and on graves. To give them to someone would be to wish them dead.”
Vaudeville harbors some peculiar superstitions—peacock feathers bring bad luck and whistling in dressing rooms courts disaster, while touching a humpback’s hump or wearing your undershirt inside out guarantees good fortune—but when she was alive, my mother had no patience for such silliness. Neither did I. Defiantly, I set the lovely daisy-faced flowers square in the center of my dressing table.
23
Continuing my exploring, I decided to see what the rooms above me looked like, and I headed to the door at the end of the hallway. At first I felt like an intruder. Then I remembered it was my house, and I strode up the stairs with all the confidence ownership imparts.
According to Uncle Oliver, the third floor had never been used. Intended for large house parties, it consisted of a ballroom across the front and numerous guest bedrooms in each wing. Had Blanche and Lawrence Carr lived, they would no doubt have hosted weeklong affairs throughout the summer season, where society swells would sail their yachts into Dexter Bay and spend the week hunting, fishing, riding, and gossiping. But the Fates had decreed otherwise. The vast ballroom echoed eerily as I walked through.
I had descended the stairs to the second floor just as Henry and his dinner guest came through the fr
ont door. Hand on the railing that overlooked the entrance hall, I paused to watch the scene unfold from a balcony vantage point.
The two men entered quietly and hung their hats on the hat rack. The guest stood as tall as Henry but lacked Henry’s paunch. They seemed roughly the same age. “I’ll get her,” I heard Henry say and I assumed he meant his mother. Before he could move, Ross entered stage left and shook hands with the newcomer. Hearing voices, the twins poked their heads around the corner. I decided the scene looked harmless and began to descend.
“Ah, here she is,” said Henry as he caught sight of me on the landing, “your prodigal sister home at last! I’ve brought your brother home for dinner tonight, Jessie.”
My legs exhibited a will of their own and continued their slow descent, but the rest of my body tensed with alarm. Relax, keep going, said some part of my brain. It’s just another trick. If Jessie had a brother, Oliver would have told you. If Jessie had a brother, he would have inherited before the Carrs.
“Well … your prodigal half sister, I should say.” Henry smirked. “Hasn’t she grown up grand?”
At that moment Aunt Victoria swept into the foyer. She took one look at Henry’s guest, stifled a gasp, and turned crimson. Henry, clearly put out by his mother’s reaction, nudged his guest forward just as I reached the bottom stair.
“Hello, Jessie,” the stranger stammered. “It’s been a long time. You’re looking very grown-up.” He blushed furiously.
What we had here was another, rather pathetic version of the Fake Grandmother ploy. No doubt if Henry had known that particular trap had already been sprung by the trustees, he would not have set it a second time. Yet something was off. Aunt Victoria did not quickly correct Henry as I expected her to. She knew this person. She was biting her bottom lip with indecision. Henry had somehow ensnared his mother as well as me.