Poinciana

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

“Where on earth did he go?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Never mind. That wall is a trompe l’oeil touch that hides a real door. Keith grew up at Poinciana and he knows every trick that Allegra built into it. She used to show him her secrets herself.”

  “What an imagination she had,” I said. “I’m glad Keith can enjoy it while he’s young.” I listened to my own words and felt far removed from them. Only that portrait of Ysobel was real, and must eventually be confronted.

  “I don’t want him to have the run of the house unsupervised,” Ross went on. “But most of all I don’t want you to become obsessed with Allegra. Don’t build her into some romantic conception in your mind. This house and most of what is in it was her vocation. She was very good at what she really cared about. But the extravagances she indulged are done and gone. Her reign is over. This is another day. Your day. Remember that.”

  My day—or Ysobel’s?

  Again we followed a shabby upper corridor into a wing that jutted out at the opposite end from Gretchen’s suite. Ross opened the double doors with a key.

  “This was my mother’s favorite room in her later years,” Ross said. “It’s a bit different from what you’ve seen downstairs.”

  It was indeed. I found myself on the threshold of an airy, uncrowded space, with wide windows that looked out toward the ocean. The muted reds of a Turkish rug contrasted with pale walls, and a long couch of plump cushions was oyster gray. Over a chaste, uncarved mantel of white marble hung a painting of angular design in shades of blue.

  “Picasso!” I cried. “A marvelous one too.”

  An open door opposite the sea window led us into a wide room with more windows on the far side. Allegra’s bedroom casements offered a view of the lake, while at the end glass doors opened on a balcony overlooking walks and flower beds that led in the direction of the cottages.

  The room itself surprised me, even more than her quiet sitting room. That Allegra Logan’s bedroom should have been as austere as a cell was unexpected. The walls and ceiling were a soft, cool white, and there was a rug of palest pewter. The only color to be found blossomed in tiny yellow buds on the borders of two bedspreads. The beds were of brass and quite narrow. This was a time when Allegra would have slept alone. On a bed table were a few books, as she might have left them, but no pictures hung upon the plain white walls. It was a room in which you could close your eyes and rest.

  “It’s astonishing,” I said. “With everything so elaborate downstairs, that she would want her own rooms—”

  “She was nearly eighty when she moved in here. She’d begun to reject her old life. She began to retreat. There are two beds only because she would sometimes invite Gretchen to stay with her for the night. Something Gretchen always loved.”

  I could easily understand why. A lonely little girl with a fabulous grandmother might very well come visiting here whenever she was permitted.

  “Did she die in this room?” I asked. “I hope she did, and not in a hospital.”

  Ross made a queer, choking sound, and then cleared his throat. “Come here,” he said, and there was a rough note in his voice, as though I had somehow angered him.

  He took my arm and walked me firmly to the French doors, opened them and stepped through to the balcony, drawing me with him.

  “I haven’t wanted to tell you,” he said. “I wanted you to get used to the house first, and learn to be happy here before we brought in tragedy. But now, with this infatuation for Allegra developing, I think you’ll have to be told. Look out there. That farthest cottage—do you see it?”

  I followed his pointing finger and saw that the cottage he indicated was the pink one that young Keith had called “Coral.” It was the cottage from which Brett Inness had emerged this morning.

  “Yes,” I said. “I see it.” Dread had started somewhere inside me. I wanted to keep my fantasy of Allegra Logan secure, and I sensed that it was about to be destroyed forever.

  “I never told you that she was dead,” Ross said. “You leaped to that conclusion yourself. Unfortunately, my mother is still alive. She lives in that cottage with her nurse, Miss Cox. She is ninety-two and has to be taken care of and watched constantly.”

  “Is she ill?” I asked sadly.

  “She’s mad,” Ross told me. “Mad as any hatter. Before long I’m going to send her away to a good place where she will be cared for properly. I’ve avoided this because of the publicity it’ll bring. But I’m afraid the time has come. We lack the facilities to care for her here. I’m only sorry this wasn’t done before you came. But now you have it—the skeleton in my closet.”

  I felt a shock of loss, as though someone I’d known and loved had met with disaster. Yet at the same time I experienced a disturbing chill. In Ross’s words there had been no real mourning for his mother, for the woman she had once been. No pity for what she had become. His concern seemed to be with the avoidance of unfavorable publicity, and with the expediency of removing her from Poinciana. Her Poinciana. If she had lucid moments, what did she feel about that?

  “I would still like to see her,” I said. “Will you take me to her cottage sometime?”

  “No! Absolutely not. Leave her alone. She won’t understand who you are, and it would only upset you. Now, my dear, let’s get back to the netsuke and go to work.”

  I stood for a moment longer looking out toward Coral Cottage, stirred by pity. No matter what Allegra had become, she had been all that I imagined in her youth, and even into old age. There was a new longing in me to reach out to her. A longing I must conceal from Ross. What he didn’t know about me, what I had hardly admitted to myself, was that my life with Ysobel and Ian had taught me to dissemble and move quietly toward goals that were my own. I had one now.

  Something drew me irresistibly to Coral Cottage.

  Chapter 5

  After a quiet lunch, at which I found I wasn’t hungry, we returned to the netsuke room, and I began the task of identifying various items in Ross’s collection. It was difficult to postpone an examination of all the other treasures of lacquer and cloisonné and ivory, to say nothing of the files of Japanese prints. But I must please Ross and work on the netsuke first as he wished. They were certainly fascinating in themselves.

  He gave me a thick folder of vouchers to use as reference, many of them written in awkward Japanese-English. These indicated what Ross had paid for each, and gave dates and other descriptions that would guide me. He also handed me an envelope of glossy prints—the photographs Gretchen had taken as illustrations for his book.

  Those netsuke that were brightly colored had been placed against backgrounds of mossy green, or a soft, hollyhock red, while the black-and-white pictures were done against textureless neutral backgrounds. All had been skillfully lighted and photographed. These would be useful in helping me to identify the pieces, and were also small works of art in themselves.

  “How very good she is,” I said, turning them over one by one.

  Ross shrugged. “Some of them will need to be done over.”

  I felt impatient with his lack of appreciation, but I said nothing. Giving my attention to the vouchers, I began to sort them into piles that represented signed and unsigned netsuke. Then I began the long task of matching each item to its corresponding voucher. Once I had found an item and identified it, I placed it on a shelf I had cleared, and entered it in the journal Ross had given me. After each entry I left a space for Ross to set down those details that I couldn’t know. At his suggestion I used a simple numbering system.

  I was glad to have something painstaking to do with my mind and my hands. Glad to be able to hold off my growing confusion, my fears. I wasn’t always successful. Once I simply stopped what I was doing for a little while and sat with my eyes closed, trying to find a calm place to go to inside me. Instead, there was only a churning of questions. I must find a way to talk to Ross—talk about us. Talk about a marriage in which Ysobel Hollis could play no role. But the thought of such a confrontation frightened m
e. It was the sort of thing I had fled from all my life. It was so much easier to step inside my glass case and close the door upon anything that might shatter me.

  Around three that afternoon, Ross told me he had an appointment in town and would be away for a couple of hours. I needn’t feel that I must be tied to this room if there was anything I wished to do. I was progressing well with the netsuke and they could wait.

  I was in the middle of a search for an ebony carp done by Kiyoshi, and I said I would find it before I stopped. Perhaps then I would do something else. So much awaited me throughout the house. So much to distract me, and keep me from thinking.

  Shortly after Ross left, Myra Ritter came into the room carrying a tray with cups, a steaming pot, and some English tea biscuits. I hadn’t seen her since last evening, and she grinned at me cheerfully, her wide green eyes alive with interest, her dark, curly hair fluffed about her face.

  “I’ve instituted the custom of having tea since I’ve come to work at Poinciana,” she said. “I understand that Mrs. Logan always used to serve tea in the afternoon. I thought you might join me. Here—I’ll find a place.”

  She set the tray down on a corner of Ross’s desk, opened a small folding table, and waved me toward a chair. Her ability to enjoy life was evident again, and so was the faintly sly look that took amusement from everything around her. Today she wore a blue jump suit that suited her small, unbulging person. It also suggested that Jarrett Nichols’s informality of dress spilled over to those who worked for him.

  While she poured tea, I went on with my search for the elusive carp, sounding my frustration aloud.

  “I’ve been over every single netsuke three times, and I can’t find anything that answers to the description,” I said. “Do you know if Mr. Logan keeps any of his collection somewhere else?”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. It’s not my territory.”

  “This is the second netsuke I haven’t been able to find,” I said. “The other is a coiled dragon done in cherry wood. I didn’t want to bother Mr. Logan about this, but now I might as well give up until he gets back.”

  Myra’s brew had a jasmine fragrance, and I hadn’t tasted such frosted biscuits since my last stay in London. It was pleasant to sit with this sprightly little woman and chat about the unimportant. I needed distraction from my own thoughts.

  “My boss is off having a conference somewhere,” she told me. “I’ve finished my work until he gets back, so we can take our time. You’ve been on a Poinciana tour, I understand.”

  I was to learn that almost anything one did in this house was immediately reported on the grapevine.

  “Yes. I’ve been through the downstairs rooms, and to see the gallery of paintings.” I left that subject quickly, lest I find myself talking about Ysobel’s portrait. “The rooms that interested me especially were Allegra Logan’s. They’re such a contrast with what she did in decorating the rest of the house. Almost without color. Comfortable, but utterly plain. Have you seen them?”

  “I’ve hardly been invited on a tour,” Myra said wryly. “About your missing netsuke—one thing occurs to me. Do you suppose the old lady could have taken them?”

  So she knew about Coral Cottage and Allegra Logan’s present state? But then, everyone at Poinciana must know.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Small shoulders moved in an expressive shrug. “I’ve heard that this collection has a special fascination for her.”

  “I thought her fondness was for just one piece,” I said, and went to the shelves I had not yet listed. The Sleeping Mermaid was in the same place it had occupied this morning. “Besides, how could she come to the house? I understand she has a nurse.”

  “Who can’t stay awake all the time, watching her. Mrs. Logan doesn’t always swallow her sleeping pills, and she likes to run away every chance she gets. I understand that Mr. Logan is considering taking her to some more suitable place.”

  I was growing curious about the grapevine: “How do you know all this?”

  “Mr. Nichols was talking with Mr. Logan about it just a little while ago.” She sipped her tea complacently. “Why not go down to Coral Cottage and find out for yourself? Not that you’ll get any answers easily. It’s hard to talk to her. I’ve tried.”

  I was surprised. “You have?”

  “Oh, I probably wasn’t supposed to, but I feel sorry for the poor old thing. Sometimes when I bake at home, I take her coffee cake or raisin bread. I expect the nurse eats them, but Mrs. Logan nibbles, and sometimes she’s glad to see me.”

  My own resolve began to rise. Why shouldn’t I do as Myra suggested, and do it now? Ross wouldn’t like it, and I might be seeding his wrath, but the spirit of rebellion was growing in me. No matter what she had become—perhaps all the more because of it—I admired Allegra and I wanted to see her and tell her so.

  “Perhaps I will go down there,” I said to Myra. “Though I’m sure the two pieces will turn up in some place I don’t know about.”

  We finished our tea, and when I’d thanked her, Myra picked up the tray in her usual quick way, and went to the door, where she paused.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Logan?”

  I stared at her in surprise. “Of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?” But even as I spoke I heard the edge in my voice.

  She lowered long lashes demurely and went away, leaving me even more uneasy than I’d been before. Did what I was feeling show that much?

  I put my cataloguing aside, but before I left the room I ran quickly through Gretchen’s photographs. When I came upon those of the carp and dragon I knew they were nowhere on the shelves. These I hadn’t seen before.

  Without further delay, I found my way out of the house, and as I followed a shell path in the direction of the cottages, I had a sense of windows watching me. The invisible “staff” had lives and curiosities of their own, undoubtedly—like Myra Ritter. And they would be curious about me. Perhaps they would even report my movements to Ross. Well, let them! The time had come to be myself, if I was not to be forever smothered. There were matters to be resolved between Ross and me, and one of them had to be my freedom of movement.

  The afternoon was pleasantly warm, and buds on the poinciana were beginning to open, so that spreading gray branches were dotted with color. Along a wall that hid a service center for the house, a row of ficus trees had been planted—one of the variations of fig. Allowed to grow untrimmed, a species of these could turn into the exotic banyan trees that dripped aerial tendrils to root in the ground and form myriad trunks. Trimmed and shaped as these were, they became beautifully formal.

  Ahead of me, Coral Cottage drowsed in the sun, its shutters open now to receive the light that would be less welcome later in the year. No one moved around the cottage, as I approached from the rear, but I heard voices drifting out through an open window. Probably nurse and patient talking. But then I heard another voice—a man’s tones—and hesitated. I would rather visit the cottage when Allegra and Miss Cox were alone. However, since I had come this far, I would at least walk around it.

  As I turned a corner of the small pink stucco house, I stopped in surprise. A bench had been placed on the side nearest the lake, and Vasily Karl lounged there, staring out at the water, a cigarette in his fingers. He got up with alacrity at my appearance, stamping out the cigarette in the grass. I was aware again of his good looks. His fair hair shone in the sun, and his teeth flashed as he smiled. I was aware too of the small scar that lifted one eyebrow and gave me a sense of familiarity.

  “Good afternoon,” he greeted me. “If you’ve come to call on old Mrs. Logan, this might not be the best time. There is, it seems, a certain controversy.”

  His glance indicated the window behind him, and I could hear voices again. Gretchen’s, for one. And the man sounded like Jarrett Nichols. I hesitated between flight and curiosity, staring openly at Vasily.

  “I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere,” I repeated.

  “I
would remember you,” he said, as he had before. “But if you have really come to call on Mrs. Logan, perhaps I can help you.”

  He put an assured hand on my elbow and turned me in the direction of the cottage’s front door. Somehow, I was certain that he knew very well where we had met, and perhaps eventually I too would remember. I went with him, no longer caring whether I intruded or not. Who could tell but what Allegra might need someone on her side. That I was already there, I knew.

  Vasily pulled open the screen door and waved me ahead. “You have a visitor,” he told the three in the room.

  Jarrett and the nurse stared at me, and Gretchen’s already stormy look turned upon me, the bruise about one eye slightly subdued by makeup. Allegra Logan herself was not present.

  “Go away,” Gretchen said rudely. “You aren’t wanted here.”

  When I would have retreated, Vasily stopped me, and I saw the look in his dark eyes that so contrasted with his fair hair. He was enjoying this, I thought uneasily. It was quite possible that Vasily Karl was a man who liked to stir up fireworks.

  “Now, now, darling,” he said to his wife. “Didn’t they teach you more politeness in all those schools you went to? I would say that Mrs. Logan has every right to be here, if she pleases.”

  I broke in before Gretchen could respond. “I just wanted to meet Allegra. Ross took me around the house this morning, and I—I wanted to tell her—” I hated myself for dissembling.

  Jarrett, who had been silent, seemed to make up his mind. “Come in and sit down, Mrs. Logan. Perhaps it’s just as well if you’re in on this conference.”

  “So she can tattle to my father?” Gretchen snapped. “So she can fight me on his side?”

  “I suspect,” Jarrett said shrewdly, “that Mrs. Logan isn’t one to take sides.”

  The quiet words stung. Why should he think that about me? I had exchanged only a few words with him since my arrival, yet whenever we were in the same room a spark of antagonism seemed to flame between us.

  “Oh, all right!” Gretchen said crossly.