The Ebony Swan

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Peter seemed to have relaxed as he talked, and he smiled at Alex. “There’s no Virginian more patriotic than a come here who stays, like you, Alex. Will you excuse me if I run? There’s someone I need to meet. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Alex gave him her hand, and old woman and young man looked at each other with trust and affection. The apparent bond was somehow reassuring to Susan.

  As Theresa walked Peter out to the porch, Alex’s eyes followed him thoughtfully.

  “Is Peter in some sort of trouble?” Susan asked. “Why has he closed his office?”

  Her grandmother was silent for a moment. “He is in very serious trouble. But I’d rather not talk about it, since it’s his affair. I’ll just say that it concerns his wife, who died under mysterious circumstances nearly a year ago. I’m sure Peter will choose to tell you all about it, at the right time.”

  This sounded alarming, but Susan let it go.

  “There are a great many things we need to talk about,” Alex added. “Some may be off limits to start with—we need to get to know each other first—but tomorrow we must begin.”

  By now, Alex Montoro seemed a little less austere and forbidding, and Susan was willing enough to wait.

  “We’ll have a late supper tonight, so, if you’d like to rest for awhile, you certainly have time.”

  Susan accepted the suggestion and thanked Alex for the refreshing tea. Out in the hall she found Theresa waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. As Susan approached she began to speak softly, with a hint of malice in her words.

  “That’s where she fell—from right up there at the top of the stairs. Your mother, Susan. Do you remember?”

  The shock of something like terror flashed through her and frightened Susan badly. “I don’t remember anything about that time,” she told Theresa quickly.

  The dark, young woman seemed oddly intent as she went on. “You were home alone with your mother, and too young and frightened to understand what happened. At least, everyone said you were too young when you couldn’t tell them anything. They decided that Dolores must have tripped on the top step, tumbled all the way down and struck her head at the bottom. She was dead by the time they found her, and you were sitting beside her crying.

  “Alex came home before I did, and by the time I arrived, she was taking hold with her usual strength, even though your mother’s death shattered her. It was a double tragedy, of course, because your grandfather was found lying in the hall up there, near the top of the stairs. He’d had a stroke earlier, so it was a wonder that he managed to get out of his wheelchair. When they found him he was in a coma and could never tell anyone what had happened. Since you couldn’t tell them anything either, how Dolores met her death has always remained a puzzle. Alex believes there was more to what happened than a mere fall, although the police called it an accident and made nothing of it.”

  Susan couldn’t bear to hear any more. Her trembling made it difficult to speak. “All I remember is a feeling that something terrible happened.”

  “Your father didn’t tell you anything about it? That seems pretty odd.”

  She couldn’t deal with Theresa or any of this now. “I’m very tired; I’m going upstairs to rest for a while.”

  She hurried past Theresa and up the stairs, wanting only to be alone. The whole atmosphere of this house was wrong. The answers she’d wanted might be too frightening to bear. Perhaps she should leave as soon as she could.

  When she reached the tower room, she kicked off her shoes and flung herself full length on the bed. All she wanted was for this shock of pain and fear to stop. She didn’t know why she was afraid, but only that a deep sense of loss that belonged to the time when she’d lived here as a small child filled her. Her memory of Peter seemed clearer in her mind than anything about her mother and grandmother. It was as though all that was most important had been blanked out. She tried to tell herself that it was only the present that mattered. It might be necessary to let everything else go.

  She was still curious about her grandfather, however. He had hardly been mentioned since she had come, but her father had admired his books, even though he’d seemed to disapprove of the man. There’d been English translations of his novels at home, and she’d read them in high school. She’d always tried, unsuccessfully, to find some connection to herself in his writing.

  Though she had no wish to, she began to think of Colin Cheney again. Perhaps the very fact that her father—with whom she’d disagreed on most points—had liked Colin should have warned her that she had made a mistake. She knew now that she’d trusted Colin too soon; perhaps even fallen in love with her own idea of what a doctor should be.

  She tried not to think about this now. She needed to rest and let emptiness take over. Deep breathing sometimes helped. She lost track of counting her breaths and fell asleep.

  When she opened her eyes the tower windows reflected the dramatic beauty of a sunset sky. Feeling refreshed and more alive, she slipped on her shoes and went out on the balcony. The rear of the house faced west, and the creek waters shone like crumpled gold. Tremendous folds of color washed across the sky making it look like a great canopy.

  Angel wings, she thought—like some vast Michelangelo painting. Streaming color swept outward, with bits of blue shadow showing through, forming the convolutions that reminded her of wings.

  Below the tower the lawn had brightened in the glow of light, and across the creek a few lamps had come to life in windows. Within her closer range of vision something moved, and looking down she saw that a woman stood near the water, her face lifted toward Susan’s balcony. She wore dark jeans, and a shirt washed colorless by the brilliance of the sky. When she realized that Susan had seen her, she waved a hand, then, mysteriously, put a finger to her lips and gestured that she was coming up.

  Susan watched as she disappeared around the house. Perhaps there were outside stairs? She walked around the circling gallery to where the steps began, and waited. The woman came up too fast, and paused near the top, breathless, a hand pressed to her heart. Again she put a cautioning finger to her lips as she came up the remaining steps.

  She was a tall woman—though not as tall as Alex Montoro— and thin to the point of being bony. In her hurried movements her long arms seemed to have an uncontrolled life of their own, swinging away from her body. It was her face, however, that caught Susan’s interest. Triangular in shape, and wide at the cheekbones, it tapered to a pointed, cat-like chin. Her short hair was fluffed around her face in a youthful style, though she must be in her sixties, and her eyes seemed bright with curiosity as they rested on Susan.

  “I had to come and see for myself! I’m Hallie Townsend, an old friend of your parents, and I just can’t believe you’re here,” she cried. She went around toward the door to the tower room, where she stood waiting to be invited in. Once she’d stepped into the room she regarded Susan with an eagerness that was embarrassing.

  “Let’s sit down,” Susan said, feeling awkward and at a loss.

  “Let’s do. I remember you very well as a little tyke, and I liked the way you laughed at my silliness. You knew how to get around your mother, but you met your match when it came to Alex, and you behaved yourself when she was around.”

  Thinking of the handsome, rather intimidating woman she had met downstairs, Susan could easily imagine that to be true. Hallie, at least, might prove a source of some of the things she wanted to know.

  “I have no relatives in Santa Fe,” she said, “and I was so young when I left here. I’ll enjoy hearing your stories.”

  “My brother Gilbert was real fond of your papa. I’m the youngest Townsend, though I’ve looked out for my brother and sister so much that sometimes I feel like I’m older. Gilbert is the middle one, and our sister Emily is a few years older—around Alex’s age.” Hallie looked suddenly sad. “Emily married and moved away—out to an
island in the bay, and I hardly ever see her anymore.” Hallie paused for a moment. “Susan, why have you come back?”

  The question came so suddenly, after all the skipping around, that it seemed startling. Susan offered a simple answer. “My father died, and I know none of my family, so I wondered about my Virginia relatives.”

  “I don’t think your gramma’s too happy about your coming here.”

  Perhaps that was true, but Susan said nothing. Clearly Hallie Townsend would love to gossip, and Susan didn’t want to discuss Alex with anyone. Her questions lay in other directions. If she was unwelcome here, then she wanted to know why, but not from this eagerly curious woman. She countered with a question of her own.

  “Why didn’t you want anyone to know you were coming up here to see me just now?”

  Hallie made a face, answering readily. “Theresa doesn’t approve of me. She thinks I upset Alex. And you’ll find out how much Theresa runs things around here. Your gramma’s too tired to pay enough attention.”

  “Why does Theresa disapprove of you?”

  “Lots of reasons, but, as of this moment, because even though I was older, I was your mother’s friend when we were young. I might tell you more than they’ll want you to know. How much do you remember, anyway? About when you were little.”

  “I don’t remember anything,” Susan said flatly.

  Hallie’s smile showed relief as she stood up, her thin arms reaching out as if to embrace the room. “I haven’t been up here since your mama died. I used to come often to visit her.”

  “This was my mother’s room?”

  “Your mother’s, but not your father’s. He preferred to climb fewer stairs, and he liked the front of the house.” Hallie dropped into a chair again, crossing her sharp knees, “You don’t know much about your mother, do you?”

  Susan had no desire to offer confidences to this rather strange woman, so she merely shook her head.

  Hallie went on. “Your father was a brilliant man. I admired him a lot. He and my brother were good friends. Juan Gabriel used to like him and respect him, but that was before they had a terrible fight. Your gramma never took to him, though. She hated it when Dolores married him. And, of course, he never did care for Alex Montoro. Dolores was a lot more gentle—his kind of woman.” Hallie sighed, her oddly shaped face turning wistful.

  Susan waited for this welling up of disconnected information to continue. As it did.

  “Your gramma would have been very happy when Lawrence went away—except that he took you with him. Maybe now that you’re back, she’s afraid of what tales he may have told you over the years.”

  Her father had told her very little, though his prejudice against her grandmother had always come through.

  The light outside the windows had faded to black, and Susan rose to turn on some lamps. She still waited for Hallie to reveal the real purpose behind her visit.

  Over one arm Hallie carried a straw handbag, which she now opened. “I’ve brought you something you might like to have.” She took out a tissue-wrapped package that she handed to Susan. “Dolores gave me this years ago, but I think you should have it now.”

  Unwrapping the paper, Susan found a color photograph set in a silver frame, and she studied it eagerly. Dark hair swept back from a delicate forehead. Dreamy dark eyes looked away from the camera. Dolores had possessed a gentle beauty quite unlike Alex’s more dramatic quality. In the photograph her mother looked as though she might be listening to some faraway music.

  Gazing at the picture, Susan knew that she had never forgotten her mother’s face. Tears came into her eyes as a feeling of total love and trust filled her. This was a recognition she had not felt with her formidable grandmother. Pain and loss ran deep.

  “What do you remember?” Hallie asked with sudden intensity.

  “Only her face. If you were her friend there’s so much you can tell me about her and about my grandmother.”

  Hallie answered cheerfully, though Susan sensed evasion in spite of her seeming openness. “The Montoros knew everyone, but they were always a bit exclusive. Juan Gabriel valued his privacy, and your grandmother did as he wished. She involved herself in local affairs but didn’t develop many close friendships. Dolores was shy and reserved. Well, I’m rattling on. We’ll talk sometime, Susan. Maybe it’s just as well you don’t remember much. It might upset your gramma to dig up all those old times. I’d better go now. I left my skiff tied up at your dock. Our house is just a little way down the creek, so it’s easier to come by water. But I want to get home before it’s too dark. I’ll see you again, Susan. Before you leave.” There seemed an emphasis on her last words.

  “Thank you for the picture, Hallie.”

  Susan went with her onto the balcony. At the top of the outside stairs, the older woman paused. “I reckon it might be better for everybody if you don’t stay too long, Susan.”

  With that she hurried down the stairs and ran toward her boat. Feeling a sudden chill in the night air, Susan returned to her room. From the direction of the dock she heard the sound of an outboard motor.

  It must be time to join her grandmother and she hurried down to the long front parlor.

  Alex Montoro sat at the cleared tea table with several glossy photographs spread before her. As Susan approached she saw that they were photos of a ballet dancer.

  Alex looked up gravely. “Come and sit down, Susan. I want to show you something.”

  3

  Alex was not sure exactly why she had brought out this box of old photographs to show Susan. Perhaps, she thought, as she sorted through, picking out a special picture here and there, these might give Susan a glimpse of what Alex Montoro had once been like. Proof that an old woman had once been young? Often the young looked at older people as though they had never been anything but what they were now. Perhaps the photographs would provide a bridge over the years. She wanted to think that it was more than vanity that made her bring these out for her granddaughter to see.

  Back in Peru her own mother had wanted her to place all of these in albums, but after Rudy Folkes’s untimely death, Alex had no heart for that.

  Looking at them brought back memories of sorrow and joy—and the knowledge that this young dancer, posed in frozen moments of time, was a stranger to her now. For all these years, since the last time a spotlight had followed her on a stage, she had been growing into someone else. “Drina” belonged to several lifetimes ago. Still, she wanted Susan to see who her grandmother had once been.

  A step sounded in the hall, and Alex watched as Susan came into the room. She was as slender as a dancer. Not as beautiful as Dolores had been, but with a small, graceful head, and a face that made one look twice. Intelligence could be more arresting than beauty. If only she could forget all the things Gilbert had said in the church. But now that Susan was here, she was afraid to forget.

  “Please come in and sit down, Susan.” Her words sounded formal and without emotion. That was as it should be, and far safer than showing what she might feel. She gestured to the sofa beside her, and Susan sank into soft cushions that Alex disdained, her back as straight as she’d been taught to hold it.

  Her granddaughter glanced at the photographs. “Who is the dancer?”

  Alex experienced an unexpected shock of dismay. So much for fame! “You don’t know? No one ever told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “I was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, when these pictures were taken. But I suppose my dancing meant nothing to your father, so he would never have mentioned it.”

  With new interest Susan picked up a print that showed the black swan of Swan Lake, long of neck, with a sly smile and a glint of wickedness in her eyes. She looked from the photograph to her grandmother’s face and smiled.

  “I believe you could still look like that. I’m sorry I didn’t know that you’d danced. Were you famous?”


  “For a few years. A very great choreographer named Rudolf Folkes created several ballets for me, and I helped to make them known in European and South American capitals.” She couldn’t help boasting a little to her own granddaughter.

  “I’ve heard of Folkes, and I’ve always loved ballet. Why did you stop dancing?”

  Alex began to stack the pictures, returning them to the box. “I stopped dancing when Rudy died. Perhaps I’ll tell you about it one of these days.”

  The device of showing Susan the pictures had caught her interest, at least. Her eyes were shining over what she probably regarded as a romantic discovery.

  “I’d love to know about your life as a dancer. There’s so much I don’t know about you—and about my mother. I know about my grandfather, of course. My father was impressed by his writing. He collected his books in translation, so I’ve read some of them. But he would never talk about Juan Gabriel Montoro the man. Or why he wrote about such disturbing violence.”

  “My husband wrote about the times in which he lived, Susan. But now I’d like to know what made you write to me after such a long silence?”

  “My father always opposed my getting in touch with you. And, of course, I never heard from you in all those years.”

  That wasn’t true, she had written many times and sent gifts on Susan’s birthday and at Christmas, but Alex remained silent. She didn’t dare allow her own anger to surface. How could Lawrence have hated her so much that he would deny his child gifts from her grandmother?

  “My father made it clear that he didn’t like you, but everything he said about you made me curious. So after he was gone and I came to a place in my life where I needed a change, I wrote to you. In fact, my stepmother, who practically raised me, encouraged me to write.”

  “I’m glad she did.” Part of Alex was really glad, but another part remained cautious and not ready to trust. There seemed something muted about Susan at times—as though some damage had been done to her spirit. That was troubling. But Alex was no mender of spirits—she’d suffered enough damage to her own.