Poinciana

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “What did he say?” Gretchen seemed surprised.

  “He doesn’t want her in the house. Because of what happened. I’ve been told about her attack on your father. He feels she’s not responsible.”

  “She only did what a lot of people might like to do,” Brett said with quiet venom. “I still think we should consider Jarrett. Ross is a little afraid of him. You know that, Gretchen. So what happened to Pamela might still be useful now. After all, she was Jarrett’s wife.”

  “What are you proposing to do?” Gretchen demanded.

  “Oh, you would have to do it. Just drop a hint or two, raise some doubts in Ross’s mind. Hint at something you might want to talk to Jarrett about if your father doesn’t see things your way about Allegra. Nothing too heavy.”

  “You really can be poisonous,” Gretchen said. “How could I possibly do that? He would wind up hating me.”

  “Of course, that’s your biggest problem,” Brett said. “You brag about not caring, but you do. You’ve always wanted to be loved, and you never knew how to be lovable.”

  I hated what Brett was doing. Hated her mockery and her willingness to hurt her daughter. I could forgive Gretchen’s attempts to be outrageous better than I could her mother’s deliberate cruelty. I had to say something—anything.

  “Don’t put yourself down,” I told Brett, and was pleased to see her startled look. “You’ve raised a very talented and clever daughter. I can’t blame her for the way she feels about me—an outsider coming in without warning. I hope I can live that down in time. If there’s anything I can do to help your grandmother, Gretchen, I’d like to. But I don’t have any other ideas.”

  Gretchen was watching me as though I puzzled her, for all that she’d been so quick to judge my character.

  “Perhaps you’ll be the one to find the way,” she admitted grudgingly. “This isn’t only the matter of keeping Gran at Poinciana, you know. It’s your freedom too that’s involved, and mine. Our happiness. If there is such a thing as happiness. Gran can help us as well as herself. Power against power.”

  Before I could pursue this, she looked toward the glass doors, and her face brightened. When I glanced around, I saw Vasily Karl coming up the steps of the pavilion.

  “Here comes more support,” Gretchen said. “I asked him to join us.”

  He moved with a graceful, jaunty air, and I realized for the first time that he was a rather small man. His slenderness, the high sweep of blond hair, and his erect carriage gave an illusion of height that I recognized now as only an illusion.

  He greeted Gretchen with a kiss on the cheek, bent over Brett’s hand, and gave me his most charming smile. “How fortunate to be meeting three such lovely ladies,” he said.

  “No games,” Gretchen told him. “We’re into a serious discussion about my grandmother, Vasily. Will you sit down and have lunch?”

  Someone pulled out the fourth chair for him, but he waved the menu aside. “When you’re ready for dessert I’ll join you. The library exhibit is going well, dear. I’ve been consulting about the hanging of your photos.”

  I hadn’t realized that Gretchen’s proposed exhibit was this far along.

  “Vasily used to have his own art gallery in London,” she explained. “That’s where I met him.”

  I had wondered what Vasily Karl had done in the past, and I suspected that he’d held a few other jobs as well. Once more I found myself staring at the little scar that raised one eyebrow. It hypnotized me with that sense of having seen it before. Perhaps in London?

  Despite his smiles and compliments, and the looks he cast upon each of us in turn, I sensed that all was not entirely well with Gretchen’s husband. He was not lazily at ease, as I’d seen him before.

  “What’s wrong, Vasily?” Gretchen asked. “Something has upset you.”

  He shrugged eloquently. “It’s nothing, darling. One of your father’s whims. He’s having me investigated. A full-scale detective job. It was to be expected, of course.”

  Gretchen flushed angrily, her face mottling, the bruise about her eye becoming more vivid. “Brussels?”

  “No, no, of course not. All that was cleared up long ago. There is nothing he can do. It just upsets me to know that I am so little trusted.”

  I had a feeling that Vasily Karl was quite accustomed to being little trusted, but Gretchen said, “Don’t worry—I’ll talk to him.”

  “That will help a lot,” Brett said.

  “Never mind.” Vasily patted his wife’s arm. “Let’s not discuss unpleasant matters now. What will Sharon think of her new family?”

  At times he watched me and I saw that he had a curious way of stroking the scarred eyebrow as though to erase the mark. My feeling of recognition became stronger. Yet I be couldn’t be sure. It was too dim a memory—if it was even that. Something to do with my mother?

  “Of course it’s typical of Ross to take such action,” Brett said. “He will get rid of you if he can, Vasily, and he’ll stop at nothing. So I hope you have a spotless past.”

  Gretchen spoke grimly. “My father has to be stopped. Sharon, you’re the only one who has his ear right now. Maybe he’ll listen to you. You’ve got to persuade him not to send Gran away, and to cut out this nonsense over Vasily.”

  Brett was shaking her head. “Don’t put any heavier load on Sharon than she’s able to carry. She has her own problems. You’re the one, Gretchen. You or Jarrett. You’re the only ones he’s ever been afraid of.”

  What did she know of my problems? I wondered. What could she know—and how?

  Gretchen’s expressive mouth had twisted in anguish. “I don’t want any of this! I don’t want to struggle and fight and throw tantrums. I only want to be left in peace!”

  “Then why did you move back into Poinciana?” Brett asked. “Never mind—don’t try to think up an answer. Peace would bore you as quickly as it bores Ross. You started out a fighter back in your playpen, and you’re still one. Thank God I’m on the outside now, and I prefer to stay there. I’ve told you what you can do to help, but I expect you’ll play everything by ear as you always do, Gretchen. Now let’s order dessert and end this impossible luncheon.”

  Menus were brought and the other three ordered. I wanted nothing but coffee, and a chance to escape as quickly as possible.

  Nevertheless, having all three of them here together was more of a temptation than I could resist. I wanted to watch their reactions, and I told them quietly about finding a rotting coconut on my dressing table last night.

  There was a moment’s silence while they all stared at me.

  Vasily spoke first. “How very shocking! And how extremely vindictive!”

  “Disgusting,” Brett said, wrinkling her sharp nose. “Sharon, have you been getting up on the wrong side of the servants?”

  “I’ve hardly spoken to any of them,” I told her.

  I was watching Gretchen, who had picked up her napkin and was creasing it thoughtfully.

  “Have you any ideas?” I asked her.

  My question broke through her concentration and she shook her head vigorously, setting her short hair aswirl. “No, of course not. What a silly trick!”

  I let the matter go, and Vasily, with his usual skill, turned the talk to safer subjects. The hanging of Gretchen’s best photographs interested him, and she listened to his words, his suggestions, in almost pitiful agreement. What a strange, prickly girl she was—wanting so much the very things she seemed to have little talent for winning. Puzzling too. I had a feeling that she knew something about that coconut. She was even capable of playing such a trick herself. It would be futile, however, to press her, and I found myself thinking of Brett’s odd references to Jarrett’s late wife, Pamela Nichols.

  Direct questions, I was sure, would never provide the answers I wanted, but this was something I must pursue when I had the chance. Perhaps with Gretchen—who had torn up Pam’s picture so angrily.

  When Gretchen and I returned to Poinciana, Vasily came with us, fi
lled with good spirits that I suspected were artificial. His presence kept me from asking any more questions then, and I left them at the door.

  When I reached my room, I went out on the loggia, where I could refresh myself with a view of the lake, and try to recover from what had been a disturbing experience. On a blanket, down near the edge of the water, Susan Broderick, my part-time maid, was seated cross-legged, her books around her. I ran down the outside steps and across the lawn.

  “May I join you?” I asked as she looked up.

  She shook her head despairingly. “If you sit down, I’ll have to stand up. In fact, I suppose I should stand up anyway. Mother is a great one for the proper behavior of her housemaids. We’re not supposed to fraternize.”

  “You’re off duty,” I said, and dropped down on a corner of the blanket, my hand out to keep her from rising. “I’ll talk to her. I just want to relax for a few minutes. I’ve been doing Worth Avenue with Gretchen and having lunch with her husband and her mother, and I’m feeling a bit limp.”

  Susan bent her head so that a wing of dark hair fell across her face, hiding her expression.

  “I grew up with Gretchen,” she said after a moment. “There weren’t any restrictions on us as kids. Old Mrs. Logan was very proper on the surface, but she was human, and she was always interested in the problems of those who worked for her. She even set up a trust to put me through college, you know.”

  I picked up one of the books from beside her. “Is archaeology the subject that really interests you most?”

  “Yes, it does. Last summer I went on a dig out in Arizona. It’s what I’d really like to do. When I’m through with school, maybe I can get a job with an expedition. I’d like to go to any of the Middle East countries, where so much history is buried. Though there’s also a lot of it buried right here at home that’s never been dug up.”

  “What does your mother think?”

  Susan wrinkled her nose. “She hates me to get dirty. Dirt is the enemy. And that I should want to go out and dig in it offends her. What about you? What do you want to do?”

  It was a strange question, but from this young woman perhaps a natural one. Unlike the others, she didn’t take it for granted that being Mrs. Ross Logan was the whole of my existence.

  “Right now I’m trying to learn about my husband’s netsuke collection,” I told her. “It’s never been properly catalogued, and I’m trying to correct that.”

  “I heard about the ones that are missing. We’ve all been questioned. Though I can’t imagine any of the staff touching anything at Poinciana. They’ve all been here a long time and they’re quite loyal. This has upset everyone a lot. Mother’s in a real tizzy. But it’s even more important that you were pushed down those stairs last night. I hope you weren’t badly hurt.”

  “Just a few bruises. Susan, is there any talk about who might have done that to me?”

  She looked away, out across the lake. “There’s always talk. Gossip. But it’s only speculation.”

  “Would you be willing to tell me?”

  “If I believed in it, I would. As it happens, I don’t.”

  “Gretchen?”

  There was no answer, and I couldn’t expect one. She had been Gretchen’s friend when they were small. I asked another question.

  “Susan, did you know Pamela Nichols?”

  “Of course.” She relaxed a little, as though this was a safer topic. “I wasn’t working here then, though I lived at Poinciana with my mother. In a way, we were friends. I can still cry when I think of her terrible death.”

  “What happened exactly?”

  “They say her brakes must have failed. She always drove too fast. There was a truck—and she couldn’t stop in time. She must have died at once.”

  I could feel the sickness and hurt along the nerves of my own body. I hadn’t known Pam, but I knew Jarrett, who had lost his wife so terribly.

  “What was she like?” I asked.

  Susan began to stack her books. “My mother would say that it isn’t proper for me to talk about her.” Blue eyes looked up at me ingenuously. “But I will, anyhow. Pam was always happy and laughing. Except that she was a little afraid of her husband. It’s strange, really. She was the one with a good family and inherited money, while Mr. Nichols was someone Allegra Logan had pulled out of the slums. But he was the one who grew and became really important, while she could never keep up with him. I think he loved her, but she didn’t have much confidence in herself, and he was too busy to build her up in the way she needed.” Susan broke off, suddenly aghast. “I’m talking too much! I should never be telling you these things.”

  I had listened in some astonishment. “You’re a psychologist too!”

  The long fall of hair swept across her face again. “Just because I like to dig up shards and bones, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in live people. Growing up at Poinciana was always like living in the first row of a play. Old Mrs. Logan liked to talk to me sometimes. She wanted me to stretch my mind, and she’d make me tell her about the people I saw and listened to. Tell her what I thought of them. She was a great one for figuring out human nature. So some of what I’ve just said about Pamela came from her. Mr. Nichols wanted all those things his wife had stood for naturally. I suppose she was the unreachable that he finally reached for.”

  I was glad that this girl had been one of Allegra’s protégées. But the remarks Brett Inness had made at our lunch table still puzzled me. How could anything about Pamela be used against Ross?

  Susan Broderick gathered up her books and rose to her feet. “I have to go in now. It’s time to get back to work.”

  I helped her fold the blanket and watched her run across the lawn toward the house, dodging palm trees. For a while I sat on the wall beside the lake and stared at rippling water. Everything that had been said at lunch today came indirectly back to Ross—to his influence upon all our lives. A fierce anger began to rise in me against him. I was beginning to see what his mother had meant—about the lives he’d destroyed. I couldn’t know about the past, but I could see what was happening right now. All around him human beings were being used and manipulated. Allegra and Gretchen. Brett, who was still filled with bitterness. Me. Perhaps even Jarrett Nichols, though I wasn’t sure about him. Almost without my being aware of it, I had begun to trust in Jarrett’s strength and good judgment.

  “Mrs. Logan! Mrs. Logan!” The voice had an excited ring. I turned to see the nurse, Coxie, coming from the direction of Coral Cottage, and I left the wall to hurry toward her.

  “Please,” she said as we came together, “will you come inside the cottage with me? I want to show you something. I’ve phoned the house, but I couldn’t reach Mr. Logan.”

  “Is anything wrong?” I asked.

  “No, no! That is, not exactly. I just want to show you.”

  At the door of the cottage she put a finger to her lips. “Mrs. Logan is asleep, and sometimes she sleeps very lightly, so we’ll try not to wake her.”

  She led the way through the small living room and into the bedroom, where Allegra lay on her side, looking tiny and withered beneath the afghan tossed over her. Her eyes were closed and lashes that were still long, but very white, lay upon her cheeks. She looked rather like a child, lying there.

  Coxie went to the dressing table and opened a drawer. “Look!” she whispered. “Just look in there.”

  I looked and saw the two netsuke nestled together beside a box of face powder. The small ebony carp and the cherry-wood dragon! I picked up the carp and examined the intricacy of a carving in which every fish scale was represented in meticulous detail. I was playing for time, dismayed that these should be found in Allegra’s possession. When Ross knew, it would make everything that much worse for her, and I didn’t suppose he could be kept from knowing.

  “How do you suppose they got here?” I asked.

  “Why—she brought them, of course. She’s done that before, you know, with that mermaid she says belongs to her. But she’s n
ever touched anything else until now.”

  I found that my anger hadn’t died away. What if she hadn’t touched these either? With everyone alerted, warned, wouldn’t it be clever of the real thief to place them here, where Allegra would be blamed?

  “Have you been out of the cottage today?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. I always take her for a walk in the early morning. She likes to go down to the lake and watch the boats go by.”

  Like a child, I thought, and winced. “So anyone could have come into the cottage while you were out?”

  “I suppose so, Mrs. Logan. The doors can’t be seen from the water. There’s never been any point in locking up down here in the cottage. But I don’t see—”

  “It’s all right,” I assured her. “It’s not your fault. No one could watch her every minute.”

  She bristled a little, a frown on her broad face. “I do the best I can. Mr. Logan doesn’t want anyone but me to take care of her.”

  Because he paid her well not to talk, no matter what Allegra said to her?

  “I understand.” I pulled some tissue from a box on the dressing table and wrapped each netsuke carefully. “I’ll take these back to the house and explain. I know everyone will be relieved to find them.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Logan.”

  She looked relieved herself over not having to face Ross’s possible ire.

  As I started back, I wondered what I could do under these circumstances to protect Allegra. And myself, if I hid the truth. Perhaps Jarrett Nichols could help us both. Perhaps this was the time when I could talk to him, whether he approved of me or not.

  Chapter 8

  I found Jarrett in his office seated behind a desk equally as large as Ross’s, and a great deal more untidy. When I spoke to Myra, she motioned me into Jarrett’s office, glancing curiously at the small parcels in my hand.

  He rose as I appeared and I went to sit in a green leather chair beside his desk. Today his red hair had been combed into some semblance of order, and he wore tan slacks and a pullover. Gray eyes that always made me uneasy—as though he could see past any dissembling—watched as I unwrapped the carp and the dragon and placed them before him.