The Ebony Swan

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “She’s not there. I even went into that old shed where your papa used to work on stuff he liked to make. Of course we called and called, but nobody answered.”

  “What about Juan Gabriel’s study?” Peter asked.

  “George looked in there and shouted fit to wake the dead. But she’s nowhere close by. I’m getting scared, Mr. Peter.”

  Pete evoked his bedside manner. “Don’t worry, Gracie. We’ll all look again.”

  Susan sensed concern under his quiet manner. The meeting at The Mulberry Tree with Priscilla Bates had not been reassuring.

  “I’ll look again in Juan Gabriel’s study,” she offered. “Alex mentioned a book of his she wanted me to read.”

  Gracie looked doubtful, but they separated to go in different directions.

  Susan ran down to the boathouse and opened the door to the study. The interior was dim and quiet. She spoke her grand- mother’s name tentatively, hesitating to raise echoes in this place. A lamp burned near the big desk, but the rest of the long room was filled with shadows.

  For a moment she was held by a sense of awe. Juan Gabriel Montoro was a name she had heard since she was very young—a name that had never seemed related to her. Even her father, who had admired his writing, and used his books in his literature classes, never referred to him as her grandfather. So for her this room was a place where a legendary figure had written his distinguished novels. Alex had been famous for a time too, but now she was a living, fascinating woman to whom Susan had begun to feel close. Juan Gabriel was still remote.

  She turned on more lamps, so that the shadows retreated to the far corners of the room. As she looked around the big room for some sign of her grandmother’s presence, she saw the blue plate on the mahogany desk, with the sandwich Alex had not eaten. At least, she had come here. But why had she set down her food and gone away?

  The stillness, with only the lapping sound of the creek beyond the far wall, seemed almost eerie—as though some presence lurked in the shadows. A sudden urge to escape from this place was strong, but she refused the first prompting of panic and moved on to explore the room.

  A great bank of books covered most of one wall. If Alex had come here for a copy of The Black Swan, she would have found it there. Susan moved toward the wall of books, and as she did so, a faint scent reached her. That was surely the Worth perfume her grandmother always wore. But if she had gone out of the room, would perfume have lingered so clearly on the air?

  A long refectory table of heavy Spanish design stretched before the wall of books. Suddenly fearful of what she might find beyond the table, Susan walked around one end. Alex lay stretched on the floor. Her head rested on one crooked arm, as though she’d gone to sleep. But she was not asleep. One leg stretched out to its full length, while the other twisted out of sight between splintered boards in the floor, where she had fallen. Avoiding the broken board, Susan knelt to feel her grandmother’s thready pulse, and saw the way her darkened lashes contrasted with her pallor.

  When Alex did not respond to her name, or to Susan’s touch, she ran outside, shouting for help. Gracie and Peter came from different directions, running down toward the boathouse. Susan led them to where Alex lay, and Peter worked gently to remove the sharp boards that held her leg in their vise. George was summoned, and he and Peter carried Alex into the house. As she was laid upon her bed, she moaned slightly and her eyelids fluttered open.

  7

  She could hear voices and knew that she lay on something soft. Her own bed? A distant pain throbbed somewhere in her body, but she couldn’t identify it. She seemed to have been drifting in and out of consciousness ever since they’d found her and carried her into the house.

  Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to come back to the real world, preferring John Gower’s arms. Of course that was only a dream. Reality seemed unutterably depressing. It would be easy enough to let her heart stop beating and just slip away. She knew that something terrible awaited her if she returned to full realization. Perhaps it was safer to release her hold on life, since nothing really mattered anymore. Where was that welcoming tunnel of light they talked about?

  “Come back, Alex. You’re all right now. You’re not badly hurt. Come back.”

  She could feel Peter’s fingers on her pulse, and suddenly her heartbeat steadied, and she opened her eyes to see him bending over her.

  “That’s better,” he told her. “I want you to rest now. I’ll give you something that will help.”

  She lacked the energy to respond, but he seemed to understand that she’d heard.

  On the other side of the bed a voice spoke softly. “I’ll be right here, Grandmother. Tell me if you want anything.”

  That was Susan—Dolores’s daughter. Perhaps there was something to come back for, after all. She almost opened her eyes, but she’d felt the prick of the injection Peter had given her, and her lids felt too heavy to lift.

  Another, harsher voice broke through to her. “You should never have gone into that place alone, Alex! All those rotten wooden floors! You could have hurt yourself much more seriously.”

  She opened her eyes and stared at Theresa, standing at the foot of her bed. This was what she had no wish to return to—the truth of that broken board. Even though she lacked the strength, that must be faced. Carefully, she tried out her voice. The sound was faint, rather tremulous—a voice she didn’t know. Nevertheless, the room hushed, as everyone around her listened. Even Gracie, who was clearing away the bandages and syringe Peter had used, stopped near the door to listen.

  “There were no rotten boards in Juan Gabriel’s study. There was no reason for that board to break.”

  It took all her strength to say the words, and now there was just one more matter she must deal with before she could obey Peter and rest. She spoke the name that had come into her mind. “Tangier.”

  “It’s all right,” Theresa told her quickly. “I’ve phoned the island and they won’t expect you. Emily sends her love.”

  John had known, Alex thought dreamily. John had come because she had needed him. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  A soft stirring sounded in the room—an exodus, though Alex didn’t hear. When Theresa followed Gracie out to the kitchen, Peter beckoned Susan and she came into the hall with him.

  “Her heart is fine,” he assured her. “The blackout probably came from a drop in blood sugar. That can happen with a fright. When she wakes up, give her something to eat. Perhaps toast and herb tea with a little honey. I’ve given her a very light sedative, so she won’t be knocked out completely.”

  “I’ll stay with her and be there when she wakes up.”

  “Good. I feel better with you here, Susan. You won’t upset your grandmother as Theresa sometimes does. Theresa doesn’t realize how abrasive she can be.”

  Susan suspected that Theresa realized very well. “Do you think that board Alex fell through could have been deliberately damaged?”

  Peter looked so weary that Susan wished she could withdraw the question. He was already carrying a load he couldn’t put down, and his meeting with his wife’s friend hadn’t helped.

  She put her hand on his arm, longing to offer comfort. “Never mind, Peter. We can deal with all that later.”

  He touched her hand in quick thanks and went away.

  When she turned to go back to Alex, she found Theresa blocking the hall door, her eyes dark with familiar malice.

  “Wouldn’t you like to remember what happened when your mother fell?” Theresa asked.

  Susan stared at her uncertainly. Whatever was coming was sure to be unpleasant.

  “Your grandmother doesn’t want you to know, but I think you should be told the truth. You pushed Dolores down the stairs, Susan. You were to blame for her death.”

  Her defenses rose instantly. “I don’t believe that! One thing I do remember is how much I loved my mother
.”

  “Of course you did. That’s what made it so terrible. You were too small to understand the result of the tantrum you threw.”

  Susan walked to the door and Theresa saw something in her face that made her step out of the way. Without speaking, Susan returned to her grandmother’s room and sat down beside the bed, shaking. Theresa was making this up, of course. She had to be. Now, somehow, she must quiet the chatter of her own mind.

  The copy of The Black Swan that had been found in the boathouse under Alex’s hand, had been brought in and placed on Alex’s bed table. Susan picked it up—the perfect distraction. This was an English translation, of course, since Juan Gabriel had written all his books in his native Spanish. His novels usually ran five hundred pages or more. Later perhaps she would read the entire book, but right now she wanted that special passage her grandmother had mentioned. She riffled through the pages, watching for a ballet sequence.

  When she came to the place where the white swan danced, the words brought the scene vividly to life. The viewpoint was that of a man who watched from the wings as the dancer moved in the golden aura of the spotlight that followed her. In the background, the young swans of the corps de ballet held their motionless pose.

  As she read, Susan could visualize the scene clearly. The dancer in the story had another name, of course—Tamara—and the man was apparently her lover. But it was Drina’s dancing Juan Gabriel described. For this shining, immortalized scene in print, Drina danced again.

  The words brought to life the long-limbed grace of the dancer, her marvelous control, the perfection of every classic step—yet all the while conveying to her audience a sense that every movement was the spontaneous embodiment of natural grace. The man who watched understood the emotion of the dancer and the love she felt for her human prince. For the prince, but not for the watcher? There seemed to be anger as well as love in the intensity of his watching.

  Susan glanced toward the bed, and was startled to find Alex’s eyes open. If Alexandrina Montoro chose not to succumb to a sedative, of course she would not. Her look was wide and very bright.

  “You’ve seen Drina dance as Odette, haven’t you? Juan Gabriel wrote of her so beautifully. Perhaps he understood her dancing in a way that Rudy never could. He knew the passion a dancer must bring to such a role. Once the technique is mastered, feeling is all that matters.”

  Susan sat very still, waiting for her to go on.

  “Of course the music was my inspiration, guiding me. And I had wonderful partners who supported me and helped me to bring everything I could give to my white swan.”

  Alex had slipped from the third-person “Drina” into speaking of herself.

  “Did you feel the same about dancing the black swan?” Susan asked.

  A smile touched Alex’s mouth—a small, wicked smile. “Oh, even more! Rudy always used the word ‘evil’ when he told me what he wanted from me, and I had a marvelous time in the pas de deux when Odile dances with the prince she is stealing from Odette. Black swan and white swan—evil against good. All embodied in Drina. And yet—” She paused as though she might have said more about the black swan.

  Susan spoke softly. “How I wish I could have seen you.”

  “There are the photographs. But of course photographs stand still, while I was all movement on a stage. I could do those thirty-two fouettés to perfection—while now I have trouble crossing a street.”

  Susan marked the passage in the book so as not to lose it, as she listened. “Tell me more about that time.”

  “How Rudy used to torment me in rehearsals! He always wanted more of me than I could manage—or so I thought. He drew from me what I never believed I could give. It was his belief that filled me every time I danced. Only Juan Gabriel understood my lack of confidence—understood why I stopped dancing. At the time, I sometimes hated Rudy for his tyranny and wanted to escape—until it was all over and I was really free of him. Only then did I realize that a portion of myself disappeared when he died.”

  “You must have grieved for your lost ability to dance.”

  “Not as much as I might have expected, and only at intervals. When I stopped dancing I began to live. Drina disappeared when Juan Gabriel came into my life and turned me into someone new.”

  Susan puzzled aloud: “You sound as though you only became what someone else believed you to be. You sound as though there was no you.”

  “I suppose it was like that. For a time. Perhaps it takes us all a good many years to find out the real person we want to become. In the meantime we may even become a person we no longer care much about knowing.”

  “So which are you, Grandmother?”

  Alex closed her eyes. “Sometimes I’m not sure. White swan? Black swan? Or neither?”

  “Neither, I think. You are special—your own person. You are someone I want to know. And of course I don’t know you at all yet.”

  Alex smiled sadly, and once more seemed to drowse off . . . Susan sat quietly, listening to the sound of her grandmother’s even breathing, so that when Alex spoke suddenly, Susan started.

  “En pointe I was nearly five feet, eight inches tall. It was hard to find partners for me, though Rudy said my height didn’t matter. He said any dancer who partnered me would be raised to whatever height was required. I wonder what would have become of me if he had lived. But I must stop this and rest, Susan. I need to regain my strength. Tomorrow I will get up and try this damaged leg. Because soon, very soon, we must go to Tangier Island.”

  “Why?” Susan asked. “Why do you want to take me there so badly?”

  “I think you’ll see when we go. Be quiet now, my dear. Let me sleep.”

  She seemed to drop off instantly, as though still in command of her body, as she had been when she danced.

  Susan noted the page numbers of the Swan Queen’s solo, so that she could find them again, and turned ahead, searching for that other passage she knew would be there.

  The black swan’s pas de deux with the prince came late in the novel, and again the man who loved the dancer stood in the wings, watching. Reading Juan Gabriel’s passionate words, Susan sensed a difference in the writing. The description of the dancer in her black tutu, with black feathers crowning her dark hair, seemed to stir some new emotion in the writer. Anger, perhaps, at the betrayal of the prince by the black swan? That betrayal that would result in the swan queen’s death. The man in the wings no longer watched with mixed feelings. He clearly hated the dancer, and Susan had a frightening feeling that when she came off the stage, he would treat her in some violent way.

  Could this possibly be how the author of these words had felt about his wife—resenting, even hating the ambivalence of white swan—black swan in her character?

  Suddenly Susan didn’t want to know how the novel ended. Dark questions seemed to lie beneath words that almost sprang from the page in the angry power of the writing. Yet Peter had spoken of the devotion Juan Gabriel always felt for his wife. Perhaps this was the way he had kept himself sane—the therapy of writing out some hidden rage on paper?

  A sound at the door made her look around, and she saw Theresa watching her. Susan went into the hall, drawing Theresa after her.

  “Alex is sleeping—though only because she’s chosen to sleep.” Susan held up the book she’d been reading. “Have you read this, Theresa?”

  “Of course. I have read all of Juan Gabriel’s work.”

  Susan drew her still farther away from the bedroom door. “Tell me about the day when you came home and learned my mother was dead. I don’t mean what you’d like to believe happened—but what you really know.”

  Theresa looked startled by her intensity. “What does it matter—since you don’t believe me?”

  “Because I was there. I must have seen her fall. Perhaps I know who really pushed her—if that’s what happened. Perhaps something is imprinted on my memory som
ewhere. So tell me exactly what it was like when you came home that day, Theresa.”

  The other woman glanced toward the bedroom door and then crossed the hall to the living room. They sat together at each end of the wide sofa, and Susan could sense Theresa’s tension as she spoke.

  “That time was hard for me too. I was only twelve, and I’d never seen death before. I came home a little while after Alex found her, and it was terrible. Since she struck her head there was a scalp wound, and of course a great deal of blood. Alex was on the phone, and you were sitting there beside your mother’s body. You were screaming hysterically and I think I slapped you, just to make you be still. You stopped right away, and then I could hear a soft moaning from up near the top of the stairs. I ran up to the second floor and found Juan Gabriel lying face down outside his bedroom door. He’d had a stroke awhile before, but he’d still managed to get out of his wheelchair. Perhaps he heard Dolores fall and tried to reach her. But he was unconscious when I found him—in a coma, so he couldn’t tell anyone what happened. There—now you know everything I know.”

  “So you made up the part about my pushing my mother?”

  “It’s what I believe. It’s what I think happened.”

  Susan stared at her, challenging, and Theresa looked away first. “Where was my father at that time?”

  “He was out in his workshed, and Gilbert was with him. They were good friends, and Gilbert was interested in Lawrence’s furniture-­making. Because Lawrence was running a lathe, neither of them heard a sound from the house.”

  “Then what?”

  “Your grandmother took charge of everything. Even in her shock and grief, she was the strong one. There isn’t anything else to tell.” Suddenly Theresa’s manner softened. “Don’t torment yourself trying to remember. I shouldn’t have urged you. I was just curious to find out what you knew about that time. Let it go—there’s no use trying to relive it again.”