Poinciana

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I wasn’t content with that. A whole person had a last name. “What is the rest of it?”

  She hesitated, eyes downcast. “It is Broderick.”

  “Mrs. Broderick’s daughter?” Somehow I was surprised.

  She agreed and was silent, waiting for dismissal.

  “Do you like working here?” I asked.

  “Of course, madam. It’s a beautiful house.”

  “But what else are you going to do with your life?”

  She relaxed a little, and suddenly her brown eyes were faintly impish and the polite smile turned into a grin. “I’m only here part-time—to help out with extras for college. I’m interested in archaeology.”

  “You play the role of maid very well.” I smiled at her. “Can’t you sit down and talk to me?”

  “My mother would kill me. But thanks, just the same, Mrs. Logan. Madam.” She ducked me a slightly exaggerated curtsy and slipped out of the room.

  Surprise, surprise, I thought, and wondered how Mrs. Broderick felt about her Susan going into archaeology. I hadn’t imagined Mrs. Broderick in the role of mother.

  My supper was delectable. A mushroom omelette, delicately brown, corn muffins with sweet butter, a tossed salad and a choice of dressings, with a slice of papaya for dessert. The coffee steamed hot in a silver container, the china wore a scattering of pink buds, and the heavy silverware was cool to my touch. Across the linen napkin lay a red hibiscus blossom. I tucked the flower into my hair and proceeded to enjoy every mouthful of food. From outdoors, the distant sound of waves rushing upon a beach was endless and soothing. I was beginning to feel a great deal better. And more hopeful. A foolish optimism.

  When I was through, I rang for the tray to be taken away, but this time a more stolid young woman appeared and I didn’t try to talk to her. Determinedly, I thrust all problems away and sat at an elegant drop-leaf desk to write a letter to an acquaintance in London. Stationery and pens had been provided and I saw that the paper wore the tiny emblem of a flowering poinciana tree. I gave myself to a rapturous description of the house and my new life that was just beginning here. It wasn’t hard to whip up enthusiasm when I thought only of pleasant things.

  By the time the letter was finished—written as much to me as to my casual friend—the moon had risen. It would be pleasant to walk outdoors again. Alone.

  I drew a light stole around my shoulders and left by the loggia stairs that took me directly outside. The moon was still low and huge, its reflection glimmering in the lake as I turned away from the ocean to walk among leaning palm trees. No one was about. There were lights in Gretchen’s apartment, but no sounds, so perhaps she and her husband had gone out. Some of the cottages were lighted, but I could see no glow at the windows of Coral Cottage, so perhaps Allegra and Coxie retired early. Palmetto Cottage was a magnet, drawing me toward its bright windows, but I turned away. There was nothing for me there. Jarrett’s abrasive qualities would only destroy the healing peace that I was seeking.

  Once I thought I saw something move a little distance away, but when I stopped to watch, all the shadows cast by house and trees were still. The staff of Poinciana continued to guard its invisibility by night, though I could hear muted voices from the servants’ quarters.

  In the mild evening, my thoughts were quiet as I wandered about the grounds. I had found my way back to my own quiet inner enclosure, and I didn’t want to come out again. I had no sense that these would be my last peaceful moments for a long while.

  When I had walked long enough, I returned to the house and used a door I hadn’t come upon before. It opened into the ballroom, where only moonlight filtered through arched windows, illumining the vast expanse. I crossed the floor lightly, as though I danced to some ghostly whisper of music, and found my way to the same curving stairs I had explored yesterday, and which led to the loggia outside my room.

  The narrow tiled steps were dark and I couldn’t find the switch at the bottom. It didn’t matter. There was a faint patch of light where they turned upward at the top, which meant that the door must be open around the curve. I knew my way and started up, my hand on the rail.

  There was no time for me to be startled, no time to draw back against the wall. The rush down the stairs came so rapidly, the hands that reached out were upon me so unexpectedly, that I had no chance to tighten my grasp on the rail. Ugly whispered words carried the same vicious intent as the push against my chest. My hand was torn from the rail and I went pitching backward into space. I turned as I fell and struck my shoulder and the side of my head, stunning myself.

  When I opened my eyes, my head was throbbing, and the tiles were cold under my body. As I lay there, the frightening whispered words that had come with the attack seemed to buzz in my ears. “Go! Go away or you’ll be sorry!” Had I heard them or dreamed them in my daze?

  No guard seemed to be about to help me, and I had a feeling that no scream would be heard in other parts of this enormous house. Gradually I pushed myself to a sitting position, and then stood up. At once dizziness assailed me, but my head cleared a little as I leaned against the wall, trying to collect myself.

  These stairs were still the quickest way up to my room, and my assailant had rushed past me, running the other way. I pulled my body up one careful step at a time, until I could breathe fresh air on the loggia outside my room. I had left a lamp burning, and the French doors were open. Quickly I went inside and closed them, sliding the bolt.

  Someone had to be told what had happened, but first I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. A gingerly exploration of my head showed a rising lump, but no bleeding. I went out into the hall.

  Standing there, still feeling dizzy, was like looking down a hotel corridor, except that in a hotel I would know there were people behind the closed doors. Here there was no one. At least I knew the way to Mrs. Broderick’s room, but when I went to tap on her door, there was no answer. Since I was ignorant of the workings of the house, I had no idea where to find her.

  As long as I was able to act, I could hold off the fright that waited to engulf me. So now I would try Gretchen. Perhaps she and her husband had come home by this time. Again I followed what seemed an endless corridor to Gretchen’s suite. Before I reached it, however, the doors opened and Myra Ritter came through.

  She saw at once that something was wrong. “You look faint. What has happened?” she asked.

  “I—I had a fall.”

  For all her skittishness, Myra could take charge capably when she had to. “Come down to the office, where I can telephone. When you’ve collected yourself, you can tell me what happened, and if you need a doctor. Mrs. Karl has gone out. I’ve just checked. Why didn’t you ring for help?”

  “I never thought of it,” I confessed wryly.

  “I know. All these conveniences take some getting used to.”

  I was feeling shakier by the moment, and willing enough to give myself into comforting hands. We went downstairs to the section of offices, which I hadn’t seen before. Myra’s desk occupied a pleasant space with an outside window. The two main offices opened on either hand, and she led me into Ross’s elegant room, with its Chinese rug of sapphire blue, its great mahogany desk and black leather chairs. There was a leather sofa as well, and she helped me to it.

  “Now then, tell me what happened.”

  I told her of the thrusting hands that had come so suddenly out of the dark, and of my fall backwards. I said nothing about that whisper I thought I’d heard.

  “Luckily, it was only a few steps, but I banged my head on the tiles, and it’s still throbbing.”

  She felt the scalp under my hair. “There’s a good-sized lump rising. Would you like to see a doctor?”

  “No. I’ll be all right. But the guards should be alerted, shouldn’t they? Someone should be searching. Though I’m afraid it’s already too late.”

  “I’ll call Mr. Nichols.” She went to the phone on Ross’s desk and spoke to Jarrett, then hung up and rang the gate
house.

  It was all out of my hands now, and I stretched out on the leather couch and closed my eyes.

  “It’s lucky I was here,” Myra said as she came back to me. “Mr. Nichols had some urgent letters, so they sent in some dinner and I worked right through. He was coming back this evening, anyway. I took a letter for Mrs. Karl too, but when I went to her room with it just now, her husband said she was out.”

  I closed my eyes again and waited for Jarrett to come. He brought one of the guards with him, and I answered questions as best I could. No, I hadn’t seen anyone clearly. Just a dark shape rushing down the stairs to push me. Yes, I thought the push had been deliberate. But I didn’t say why. I wasn’t ready to face that yet.

  A call was put through to Ross in town, and I could hear the crackle of his anger over the line as Jarrett held the receiver. He would come home at once, Jarrett told us.

  The phone was busy after that, with reports from various parts of the house and grounds. Apparently nothing unusual had been noted by guards or staff. They were still talking on the phones when Ross arrived in a black fury. He considered the attack upon me to be an attack upon him, and he spoke to those around him with a barely controlled anger. Myra skittered back to her outer desk to escape the storm, while Jarrett heard him out implacably. No answers were to be found tonight, but the grounds would be thoroughly searched again by daylight for any clue to an intruder.

  I wished that Ross would stop giving orders and just come to sit beside me and hold me. I wanted to be protected, comforted, told that I couldn’t possibly have been so viciously threatened.

  During the discussion, Vasily was summoned from his rooms and came to lounge in the doorway of Ross’s office, watching us all with his usual air of sardonic amusement. It was a look that further infuriated Ross. But being angry with Vasily was like fighting with fog. He never stayed quite where one expected him to, always moving away from any direct confrontation. He was, I was beginning to realize, on everyone’s side—and on no one’s. He’d been reading a spy novel, he said, and hadn’t stirred out of his room all evening. So he had heard and seen nothing. Gretchen was off visiting friends, and he hadn’t cared to go. But she would know nothing either.

  “All right—go back to your damn book,” Ross told him.

  Vasily said gently, “Perhaps someone should pay attention to the young lady and her hurts.”

  Jarrett threw me a startled look that carried a certain guilt, but it wasn’t for him to apologize.

  “I will take care of my wife,” Ross told Vasily.

  When he had gone, Ross came and sat beside me solicitously. “I’m sorry that this should have happened. Tomorrow we will get you to a doctor if you wish, but now I’ll take you to your room, darling.”

  I thanked Myra, and went with him a little stiffly, feeling sorry for myself. Vasily was right. Everyone had been so concerned with capturing the enemy within the walls that very little attention had been paid to me, the victim. My injury and fright seemed of little importance to anyone but me. “Sniff-sniff,” I thought, and halted this course of self-pity.

  In my room, I told Ross that I could get to bed by myself, and to my relief he made no effort to help me.

  “I’ll come back when you’re in bed,” he told me. “I’ve a couple more phone calls I want to make.”

  Through the closed door I could hear him on the telephone, his voice still grim. I undressed quickly, and when he returned in response to my call, he sat on the side of the bed and held my hands.

  “What if it wasn’t an outsider?” I asked. “What if it was someone inside this house?”

  “That’s nonsense. We’ve had break-ins once or twice before, in spite of security. We can’t live in a fortress. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I bristled a little. “There’s something you ought to know. I’m sure that what happened was deliberate and intended for me, because whoever pushed me whispered something like ‘Go away, or you’ll be sorry.’”

  “Why haven’t you told me this before?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure why I had held back. Perhaps because I’d feared his disbelief. “It all happened so quickly. I’m not certain—”

  “Of course you aren’t, darling. All sorts of frightening thoughts must have gone through your head. But don’t you think you’re imagining this whisper?”

  There had been some uncertainty in me, but now I began to feel stubbornly sure. I had heard those words, and they’d been intended for me. But I knew that no matter what I said, I wouldn’t be able to convince Ross.

  “Go to sleep now, darling,” he told me. “We’ll talk again in the morning.”

  He kissed me lightly on the cheek and went away, and I watched him disappear into his room, feeling a strange mixture of relief and resentment. I wanted to be believed. But for one more night at least, all the problems that tormented me could be postponed. I needn’t tell him about my visit to Coral Cottage. And I needn’t listen in dread for the sound of Ysobel’s voice in that recording of “Blue Champagne.” At the moment I was too tired and sore—and frightened—to be anything but a coward.

  It wasn’t very late and with the lamp off I could see the moonlit sky over the lake. Ross had checked the loggia doors that I’d locked, and opened only the windows at the side of my room. I could hear the sound of the ocean—a pleasant lullaby. With Ross in the next room, I was not afraid. My picture of him as strong and invincible persisted, and I could at least trust him with my physical safety. If, otherwise, it proved that I had fallen in love with a man who lived only in my imagination, I wasn’t sure what I would do about that.

  I left a lamp burning when I went to sleep.

  It was two-thirty in the morning by my watch when I came suddenly wide awake. Sleep was gone for good, and turning in bed meant once more giving in to the terrors of my own thoughts. I should have brought something to read from the library, but the idea of venturing through a dark house in search of a book was more than I could face.

  Restlessly, I sat up in bed. As my attention drifted idly about the room, I saw something unfamiliar on my dressing table—a lumpish something. I got out of bed and crossed the room to see what it was.

  Resting upon my hand mirror lay the smooth brownish sphere of a coconut, such as the one I’d picked up on the lawn. For an instant I felt pleased. Someone must have noticed my interest in the coconuts and brought me one—my souvenir.

  Then I saw the nastiness. I saw with disgust the oozing mass at one end, aswarm with ants that fed upon it. Ants that crawled across my mirror, over my comb and brush, carrying morsels of decay among my intimate possessions. Sickened, I understood. This was no gift. Nor was it some child’s prank. This was something far more unnerving, more disquieting—faintly obscene. This was to remind me that the whispered warning on the stairway had been real—and intended for me.

  How long this had lain here I didn’t know. I had undressed in the bathroom and I hadn’t sat down at the dressing table before I went to bed. But at some time this infested object had been placed here—clearly to make me uncomfortable, to put further pressure upon me to leave Poinciana. I could almost hear that whisper again: Go away! Well—I wouldn’t go.

  Sudden, absolute fury shook me. I picked up the coconut, catching an odor of decay as I did so. Scattering ants, I carried it to the loggia door, unbolted it, and strode into the wind in my nightgown. With all my strength I hurled the thing from me into the yard, and then slapped crawling ants from my arms. I was so angry I was trembling.

  I had had enough. Enough! Poinciana had given me nothing but pain and fright and humiliation since I’d stepped beneath its roof, but I would take no more.

  This was the moment when I began to fight for my own sanity. I had no idea what I must oppose, or whom. Perhaps all of them. Good enough! I would not be intimidated by malicious tricks. Not even in the matter of getting myself something to read. If I wanted a book, I would go downstairs and get one. Now.

>   I pulled on my robe defiantly, thrust my feet into slippers, taking no care to be quiet. Ross always slept heavily and I could hear his breathing in the next room. At least my head was no longer throbbing as I let myself boldly into the corridor, where wall lights had been left burning.

  I was still too angry to be cautious, but the very hour gave me protection. Who would expect a victim like me to be up and about in these empty corridors? I was through being a victim. From now on, let the enemy beware!

  By the time I reached the lower floor, I was ready for anything, armored by my own outrage. But nothing threatened me. Only when I turned a corner in the lower hall and saw a streak of light that fell through an open door, did I make some effort to get myself in hand.

  That was the door to the Japanese collection room, and clearly someone was up ahead of me. Perhaps the very person who had removed the missing netsuke. Perhaps the same person who had met me on the stairs, and put the coconut in my room. Fine! An open confrontation might do both of us good.

  Nevertheless, I moved more quietly as I edged along the wall. I would look cautiously into the room and see who was there, before I burst in with accusations. Without making a sound, I reached the door and peered around the jamb.

  At the desk that had once been hers, nibbling thoughtfully on a pencil, sat Allegra Logan. She had changed into slacks and a brown pullover, and she was talking to herself in a light whisper.

  “The John Pillsburys, of course. And Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. The Vanderbilts and the Huttons. Mrs. Post, if she’s home at Mar-a-Lago.”

  The white head, with its still regal neck, bent over a sheet of paper on which she was setting down names, a tiny smile of satisfaction curving her lips. This was not my enemy, and some of my anger began to fade. I stepped into the room and she looked up, imperious and questioning.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sharon Logan,” I said gently. “Do you remember meeting me this afternoon at the cottage?”

  “I’ve never seen you before. I don’t know anyone named Sharon. Where is Brett? Where is Gretchen?”