Death by Association

by Frances Lockridge

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Mrs. Sibley said, and now her voice was too loud for the circle, was almost loud enough for the whole of the lounge. She stood as she spoke, and in standing knocked over the glass in front of her.

  By that time, Judge Sibley was beside her, had a firm hand on her arm. His touch seemed to sober her; she looked around at the others with a strange, unbelieving expression on her face.

  “Time we had some dinner, Florence,” Sibley said. “Time we both had some dinner.”

  And he did not, either by word or the expression on his face, apologize to anyone for his wife’s behavior. He did look for a long moment at Bronson Wells, and for a moment Mary thought he was about to say something to him. But he said nothing, and led his wife from the circle. In the aisle between the chairs and tables she walked erectly, with dignity. After a few steps, he released her arm.

  That was the third incident. It broke up the cocktail hour. It broke the group into its components. And Mary Wister was surprised, walking between the long thin doctor and the solid policeman from New York, to discover that the three of them had, somehow, managed to become one of the components. It seemed entirely natural that she should join them at their table when they reached the dining room although, as far as location went, it was not so desirable a table as the one she had had the evening before.

  It was not, indeed, at all a desirable table. It was near no window; it was near the front of the big room, where it amounted to a promontory, jutting forward toward the entrance and the rail which enclosed, but did not diminish, the musicians. Sitting so that she faced the entrance, Mary had an admirable view of the wiry headwaiter, tonight in even a greater frenzy than the night before—tonight gesturing with anger toward remiss waiters, slapping a hand sharply against a sheaf of menus to call wandering attentions to the business at hand, shaking his head in hopelessness. But he was deft and quick in finding tables for newcomers; in making those realignments which, even in a resort hotel where seating is theoretically stabilized, so often become necessary as guests shift alliances among themselves—as Mary had, in abandoning her table by the window to join the long drink of water and the solid Heimrich in this advanced outpost.

  The three of them had gone directly to the dining room from the lounge; the rest of the group apparently had not. They were midway of jumbo shrimps in Coral Isles Sauce when the first of the others who had congregated in the lounge—around, was it, the nucleus of Bronson Wells?—entered the dining room.

  Paul Shepard had taken time to change; perhaps the gaudiness of his earlier raiment had, in the end, frightened him. He had made the change complete; the neat blond man was now neater than ever in black trousers and white dinner jacket. He was also, Mary thought, somewhat more in character. He and his reasonably beautiful wife, graceful in her summery evening frock, did not hesitate at the entrance. They nodded to the headwaiter’s bow and went down the center of the room toward, it was evident, an assigned table. Penny Shepard was smiling, carefree. Paul Shepard did not smile.

  Oslen and the vivid Rachel Jones came next and presented a problem to the headwaiter, who looked around anxiously, slapped his sheaf of menus imploringly, finally brightened and led them the length of the dining room. Passing, Oslen and then the girl nodded and smiled at Mary and MacDonald, at Heimrich, who regarded them with blue eyes quite widely open.

  “Now that—” he began, and then stopped when the others turned to him and waited. “Nothing,” he said. “Quite probably I’m mistaken.”

  They waited longer, but he shook his head. He concentrated on vichysoisse.

  The Sibleys came next, dignity wrapped about them. It was quite impossible, looking at the tall, gray-haired woman beside the taller, gray-haired man, to believe that, less than half an hour before, she had giggled outrageously, told Bronson Wells that he was a funny, funny, funny man. Like the Shepards before them, the Sibleys accepted the bow of the headwaiter and went their own way.

  When Bronson Wells came he came alone. He gestured aside the headwaiter and looked around the room, saw Mary and nodded but did not smile, continued what appeared to be a search. Then he found what he sought and, after a word to the headwaiter, moved toward it—toward, as it turned out, them. Halfway down the room, at the side, he stopped beside the table at which the Sibleys sat. He said something and, after a moment, joined them at their table.

  “Well,” Barclay MacDonald said, “all is forgiven.” He turned back and looked, thoughtfully, at pompano on his plate. “Do you know,” he said, to the pompano, “I find it difficult to like Mr. Wells.” He looked at Heimrich. “Have you any feeling others share my difficulty?”

  “Now doctor,” Heimrich said. “We’re all on vacation, aren’t we? Except Miss Wister, here. We don’t even have to speculate, do we?”

  “Nevertheless,” MacDonald said, “you have, haven’t you? About Oslen and this Miss Jones of his, for example?”

  “Now doctor,” Heimrich said, and closed his eyes. “Now doctor. Do you diagnose the people you meet?”

  “Yes,” MacDonald said. “Certainly. You are in excellent health, incidentally, barring the shoulder. Miss Wister has a sunburned neck and—” He stopped.

  “And?” she said.

  “Yesterday, a chip on the shoulder,” he said. “It’s fallen off, now.” He smiled.

  She hesitated a moment. What business was it—? But then she felt herself smiling in return, and did not hinder the smile.

  “It melted,” she said. “Melted in the sun.”

  “You are a very nice girl,” MacDonald said. “Had I mentioned that? I can’t remember that I had. Will you dance with me this evening?” He looked at the orchestra, busy in its enclosure. “The orchestra is really an outdoor type,” he said.

  “Yes,” Mary said. “I’d like to.”

  “She’s a very nice girl, isn’t she, captain?” Barclay MacDonald said.

  But Heimrich had turned a little in his chair and was looking down the length of the room. Watching him, Mary decided he was looking again at William Oslen and the girl inadequately named Jones. They were at a table for two; they seemed to be talking with animation.

  Heimrich turned back, rejoined them.

  “Miss Wister?” Heimrich said. “Why, naturally, doctor. Naturally.”

  The moon had only just risen, but already the world was white with it. The palm trees threw long black shadows on the grass; the graveled walks were white in moonlight. The sea sparkled peacefully. They walked down one of the paths to the parapet and turned there to look back at the sprawling hotel, at its lights, at the moonlight on its roof. The porch was a composition in black and white, dark shadows and bright tile. Mary Wister and Barclay MacDonald found low chairs on the lawn and lowered themselves into them, MacDonald very carefully, rueful at his care. He was not what he had been, he told Mary. Not at all what he had been.

  “But you will be?” she asked.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I think so, now. Talk about yourself.”

  Oddly enough, she did; unexpectedly enough, she did. She did not talk about Lee. She talked about her work and only half realized how MacDonald’s interest, evident in his face, evident in the little he said to prompt her, led her on. She had never, she thought (but the thought did not stop her) talked so much to anyone about what painting meant to her, or might some day mean to her. He was easy to talk to, quiet in the low chair, in the moonlight. It was after some time that she said he had asked for it, had got her started.

  “No,” he said. “You talk well. And I talked about cations, remember. A much dryer subject.”

  “I didn’t really understand much of it,” Mary said. “Any of it, really.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose you did. It was—” He ended the sentence there. “I had a brother who was an artist,” he said. “Among other things, an artist. He felt as you do, I imagine. He was doing quite good things, I think. But—he died.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Yes
,” he said. “I’m sorry too.” He was silent for a moment. “Very sorry,” he said. He spoke abstractedly, as if from memories, and was silent afterward. Mary said nothing. She lay back in the chair and looked at a palm, its high hanging coconuts sharp and strange in the moonlight. After a little she was conscious that Barclay MacDonald was looking at her. She did not turn, but was aware that she waited for him to come back out of the past—waited contentedly, sure that he would come. It did not seem, any longer, strange that she should have this confidence in, this expectation from, a man she had first met not much more than a day ago.

  “It is a fine night,” he said. “A striking night. It almost looks manmade.”

  “People have got self-conscious about the moon,” she said. She continued to regard the palm tree.

  “Because it rhymes too easily,” he told her. “It is insufficiently esoteric.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “A palm tree is an improbable thing, when you really look at it.”

  Then, from the area beyond the tennis courts, the orchestra started a rhumba. There was no doubt that the orchestra was best in the open spaces.

  “That,” he said, “is laying it on almost too thick. However—”

  She turned her head then, and found he was still watching her. His face was in shadow, and she could only guess at his expression.

  “You want what?” she said. “A note of contrast?”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “I suppose I’m suspicious of—serenity. That we all are. You find you’re waiting for the incongruous irony. Or what they used to call the prat-fall.”

  “You worry it,” she said. “Why, Doctor MacDonald?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve just lost the knack of not worrying things. It’s a jumpy world.”

  But at that moment, she thought, it was not actually a jumpy world, for her or, except in the abstract, for him. It was an improbable world of moonlight and vari-lighted palm trees and music floating across a lawn. He is, she thought, like so many men. He can’t admit now, just as now; see what, at this second, there is to see, before the moon moves and the shadows change or—or the world does a prat-fall.

  “You agreed to dance,” he said, and proved her point. She laughed, very lightly. She felt pleased with both of them, and did not try to decide why she was pleased.

  “Of course,” she said. “We’ll go and dance.”

  They walked across the lawn. As he walked beside her he cast a very long shadow in front of them. He was, certainly, a very long man.

  There were tables grouped around the dance floor, which was partly—and that did seem to lay it on a little—in the shadow of a palm tree. The headwaiter was sharply black and white on the outskirts; he advanced toward them. He led them behind several tables to a table at the far end of the dance floor, close to the high hedge beyond which were the tennis courts. He pulled out their chairs; then he stood and looked anxiously around him. A boy in a white jacket came almost at once, and they ordered drinks.

  There were half a dozen couples on the floor, dancing in more than half a dozen ways. The orchestra was involved now in a samba; one of the couples accepted this with grace. Another couple essayed it; the others did what occurred to them. In the case of Judge and Mrs. Sibley, this was to walk, to turn and circle, with dignity, to music which was, which had to be, playing only for their ears. The orchestra reached the end and flourished and the dancers applauded. The Sibleys walked off together, to a table in the shadows. The other couples remained, waiting. The orchestra began again, this time in simpler rhythm. Barclay MacDonald stood up and held a hand down to her—a long, slender, surprisingly muscular hand.

  He danced well; better, Mary thought, than she did. He moved with unexpected lightness, and assurance, weaving among the others on the floor. William Oslen and the dark Rachel Jones danced near and Oslen smiled at them above his partner’s black hair. “Great night,” Oslen said, as they passed.

  The music stopped and they went back to the table, and found drinks waiting, and sipped. It began again, and this time they did not dance, but sat watching. The Sibleys were on the floor again, and now Grogan, with a woman they had not seen before. Midway of the number, the Shepards came out of the shadows and danced superlatively well together.

  Mary and MacDonald danced again and sat again and, when he indicated her glass enquiringly, she shook her head.

  “I want to start early tomorrow,” she said. “There was a certain light this morning.”

  He nodded, and offered her a cigarette, and took one.

  “One more,” he said, “and I’ll let you go.”

  The orchestra had paused for cigarettes of their own. Waiters in white coats multiplied, more cigarette ends were red in the shadows, and now there were voices. After a time, the orchestra stepped on cigarette butts and arranged itself. The leader advanced in front with a cornet. He was a slender, dark man in a white jacket. He gave a down beat with his cornet and the orchestra began. This time the rhythm was extremely intricate. MacDonald raised eyebrows, but Mary shook her head.

  “It’s beyond me,” she said. He nodded.

  It was beyond a good many, apparently. At first, no one went to the floor. Then a young couple—the couple which had done well by the samba—went out and began to glide. Encouraged, another pair tried it, but their feet were worried. The leader, with the orchestra swinging behind him, raised the cornet. The other instruments quietened and the cornet spoke, high and clear.

  Then Bronson Wells was on the floor with Penny Shepard in his arms. They danced well, although with this partner Mrs. Shepard was clearly the better. There was a grace, an assurance, in her dancing which was almost professional—which might well be professional. Nevertheless, it was clear that Wells was leading. They circled wide, near the edge of the floor; moved down the length of the floor, then, on the side nearest the orchestra. The cornet was clear and sweet in the night. As he played, the cornettist turned with the rhythm from side to side to side, seeming to play now for one of the dancing couples, now for another.

  He turned toward Wells and Penny Shepard as they danced nearer and the music from the trumpet reached out toward them. But then, as the sound rose it seemed for a second to falter and then, almost crazily, it broke. The note was shattered; the cornet wailed higher-wailed into harsh discord, until finally it seemed to shriek, angry, as if to burlesque the night, to howl down music.

  The sound lasted for only a second, and then the other instruments swelled behind it and the cornet was silent. For a second its player held it still to his lips. Then he lowered it angrily and shook it, as if to shake the discord out of it. As he did this, he looked at Wells and the girl in his arms. They, and the others on the floor, had stopped when the music broke. Wells was facing the cornettist and looked over Penny Shepard’s head at him or, to Mary, seemed to.

  But then, the cornet was raised again, caught the rhythm again, was pure again in the moonlight, in the night’s quiet. The dancers moved again.

  That was the fourth incident.

  “Well,” Mary said across the table. “There’s the prat-fall.”

  Barclay MacDonald nodded, but he was not looking at her. He was looking at Bronson Wells. The muscles were hard in the physician’s thin face.

  IV

  Mary Wister dreamedthat someone was knocking, slowly, heavily, tirelessly. She heard herself saying, “Yes?” before she awoke. Again, almost awake, she said, “Yes? Who is it?” and then realized that the sound did not come from the door of her room, but from outside. She lay a moment trying to identify the slow, irregular thumping. Then she went to the open window.

  Two men were working on the palm trees, harvesting coconuts. One of the men had a long pole with pruning shears at the end of it; he would snip with the shears and the coconut would fall, thump hollowly on the lawn, bounce and roll for a moment. The second man would pick it up. Both men wore singlets and khaki trousers; the man with the pole dodged coconuts as they fell, and the ot
her laughed at him and he laughed in turn. They seemed to consider what they were doing as much a game as labor.

  Mary got a robe and a sketch pad. Standing by the window, she sketched the two men and the tall palm tree, lengthening the men and the tree, trying to catch some of the amusement the two seemed to feel in their harvesting, trying to suggest the crazy rolling of the fallen nuts. The man who was picking them up shook each as he held it and, apparently by sound from within, differentiated among them, putting some in a burlap bag, leaving others in a pile. His face was intent as he listened to whatever sound the nuts made as they were shaken; possibly, Mary thought, a gurgle of stoppered milk.

  She had what she wanted in minutes and left the men to their coconutting and put on a sleeveless white dress. It was, she found, only a little after seven, but she had slept long enough. As on the morning before, she went, carrying pencils and crayons and the drawing pad, through the deserted lounge and out into the morning.

  She walked away from the hotel, looking back at it, considering flattering angles for portraiture. She walked to the railed, awninged enclosure by the tennis courts and then crossed the courts, keeping properly behind the base lines, off the playing surface. Beyond the courts she sat on a bench and sketched the hotel across them, the courts suggested in the foreground. As she sketched, she began to like the result—the pale green of the courts as a foreground, the trees beyond, beyond them the hotel itself, with the bougainvillaea climbing its façade in the slanting rays of the morning sun. This one, she thought, I’ll do tomorrow in water color.

  It was close to nine when she had what she wanted, and began, as she had the morning before, to realize a need of breakfast. The tables on the lawn beyond the dancing floor were in light and shadow as they had been before, and tempting. She could circle the courts, cross the floor beyond the high hedge and so reach orange juice and coffee. She put the completed sketch with others in the case and went in the bright, warm sun toward the end of the tennis courts.