by Hannah Ross
She nodded. "I know. We tried our best, but it was never going to work. There was always just too much in the way, and…and we have to be reasonable. But I don't regret a single moment, Ben, not a single moment."
"Nor do I." He sighed. "So I guess that's it. I've never broken up with anyone before. I don't know what to do."
"Me neither."
"I guess we should shake hands or something."
She smiled and said, "Or something" as she stepped forward. Her arms wrapped around him and she hugged him like she never had before. His arms pulled her closer and they remained like that for long, quiet minutes, remembering all they experienced together, until Ben softly kissed the top of her head and gently disentangled himself, knowing it was time to let go.
* * *
When he stepped outside, he blinked several times. The brightness of the morning seemed overwhelming after the dim light of the tent. Not far away, he saw Taylor Black standing with his feet slightly spread apart, splitting logs. Despite the chill, his sleeves were rolled up, and as Ben watched, he paused for a moment and took a deep breath, shaking his shaggy blonde hair out of his face.
A growl from his stomach served as an acute reminder of breakfast time, but he didn't feel like going back to Raven's tent. A short search enabled him to find Tom and Jimmy sitting next to Dan Crow's outdoor fire, breakfasting off sheep cheese and smoked salmon.
"Hey, Dan. Mind if I join you?"
"Take a seat, Ben. Plenty of grub for everyone."
As Dan disappeared inside the tent to talk to his woman, Ben settled down next to Tom. "Did you sleep here?"
"Yeah. Dan invited us. He's really nice that way."
"You think he'll have room for me as well?"
Tom and Jimmy exchanged a puzzled glance, which Ben steadfastly ignored. It was common knowledge he stayed at Raven's tent whenever he visited.
"Well… I think so," Jimmy said. "You'd have to ask him, of course."
"No. Never mind. I'll be going home. You guys can stay if you want."
His friends looked at each other, uncertain, before Tom asked, "Is everything alright, mate?"
Ben forced a smile. "Sure. It's just that I see things aren't as bad as I feared here. We'll be a lot more useful at home."
The next two hours were awkward. Raven made no comment about him leaving her tent, and they treated each other as very good friends, but everyone could see things had changed.
"You could stay longer, if you want to," Tom said as they were preparing to leave. "Jimmy and I can do some hunting and get home ourselves."
Ben shook his head. "No, I'm going with you. We can visit again some other time. Not very soon, though, I think."
Raven's parting wave was cheerful, but there was a sense of finality about it. The pain in Ben's heart was mirrored in his eyes as they rode away. "It's for the best," he muttered under his breath. "She'll be fine. I'll be fine. It's just how things are."
5
________________________
Wednesday, March 19
"Alexander!"
Eleanor Dahl had a gentle voice, but now she raised it a notch, enough to get through the frowning, formidable façade of her husband's face as he sat poring over the report in front of him.
"Hmm?" His eyes lifted from the paper. A shadow of annoyance passed over his face, but was quickly stifled, to be replaced by an expression of mild politeness. "Sorry, dear, I didn't attend. I was too absorbed in…" He gestured toward the crisp white pages in distaste. "This is Pearson's first report. Five thousand words that can be all summed up in one line. No trace of her anywhere."
Eleanor shook her head. "I still cannot believe it. I wonder how long she was planning it."
"You think it was planned, then?" Alexander Dahl asked, his tone one of suppressed anger. This isn't fair! This isn't supposed to be happening now, of all times! He wanted to shake a fist at somebody.
"It must have been, Alexander. Some of her things are gone. And one of the waiters saw her, without realizing it was her at the time, heading for the highway with a traveling bag. It appears she packed thoroughly. Took all her money, too. No, it was not the work of a moment."
"Damn it!" Dahl hissed through clenched teeth. "How could she do this? How could she do this to me now? We're all expected at the charity play tomorrow. There's a photo session the day after, and a press conference. It's only a matter of days before reporters begin sniffing around. We must think of some plausible explanation."
Eleanor Dahl normally stood very much in awe of her husband, but now something in her eyes hardened as she looked at him. "Don't you think we should be more concerned about what actually happened to Priscilla?"
"Of course, dear. Of course. That is the most important thing. However, while we're at it, the elections cannot be postponed. If her disappearance leaks out, it will be a scandal. It might cost me my seat at the White Tower."
"But if we announce her disappearance to the press, the public will be put on alert. It might help us find her."
"Don't you understand?" Dahl snapped. "I cannot lose the elections. And this is surely what will happen once the press has a field day over my daughter's disappearance. We will find her," he promised in the face of his wife's mutinous silence. "You have nothing to worry about."
But Eleanor didn't look convinced as she slipped out and left her husband alone in his home office.
In the corridor, she almost collided with Tilly. As usual, the maid wore a snowy white apron over a crisply ironed uniform, but her mop and dust rag hung down from her hands rather limply.
"Beg your pardon, Mrs. Dahl," Tilly mumbled with her customary quiet deference.
"Never mind, Tilly." Eleanor waved a careless hand. "Is dinner ready?"
"It will be ready in about fifteen minutes, ma'am."
Eleanor nodded and meant to resume her brisk walk down the corridor, but was detained by Tilly's next words. "I've been waiting for a chance to have a word with you, ma'am."
"Oh?" Eleanor's eyebrows traveled slightly upward. In all the years of working for the Dahls, Tilly hardly ever entered into voluntary discourse with her employers. "Go on, then."
Tilly cleared her throat and opened her mouth as if to speak, but for a moment was silent. Eleanor felt her impatience rising. She didn't have the time or attention for domestic matters at the moment. "Well, what is it?"
Tilly seemed to give up on her rehearsed phrase. Instead, she reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a neatly folded rectangle of paper. This she gave to Mrs. Dahl with a trembling hand. Eleanor took the letter, unfolded it, and her eyes ran over the few brisk lines. Then she raised her eyes from the paper and gazed at the maid with reproachful incredulity.
"Tilly! This can't be true!"
"I'm afraid it is, ma'am." Now that she had made her communication, she looked and spoke with unhappy assurance.
"You can't mean…you are actually going to leave us. No. It would be too much on top of everything that's going on." Her expression turned to disbelief as she pleaded, "You won't resign, will you, Tilly? I'm sure I don't know how to do without you."
Tilly shook her head. "I don't want to add to your cares, ma'am, and I'll do my best to look for someone to replace me, if you want me to. But…well, there's no use talking. I'm resigning, ma'am, just as I put in the letter." She pointed at the rectangle of paper in Eleanor's fingers.
Vexed at having to deal with this new frustration, she said, "But why? Why do you want to quit, Tilly? You've been with us so long, and I assumed…well, that you were pleased with your place. You've had excellent wages, and…and we've always treated you well, haven't we?"
"Oh yes, ma'am," Tilly hastened to assure her. "Nobody could hope for a more comfortable place than I've had with you. So steady and well-paying."
"Why, then? You're not old enough to retire, and any other place you can get won't be as good. Perhaps… perhaps we can discuss a pay raise?"
Tilly looked shocked. "Oh no, ma'am! Sure you don't think I would do thi
s to make you increase my wages! Why, I hope I never gave you reason to think me so greedy."
"No, Tilly, of course not." Eleanor felt a little ashamed of herself for suggesting it. "But there must be a reason. Come. You owe me this one little bit of honesty after having worked for us all these years."
"Well, ma'am, I'm getting on in years. And you're right, I can't retire just yet. But managing Silver Oaks is getting hard for me. It's a big place, and I'm not as energetic as I used to be."
"That's nonsense, Tilly." Eleanor's voice was soft and warm. "No one could ever run Silver Oaks as well as you."
But Tilly, for the first time bold enough to openly contradict her employer, shook her head. "I do the things because they have to be done, ma'am, and because I've been doing them for years. But I'm tired. I'll look for someplace small and quiet, where I can get on with a bit of work and be nearer to my children. My girl Lou now has little ones of her own, you know. I'd like to spend more time with them."
"But a few years ago you used to work much harder, Tilly," Eleanor said, unwilling to give up. "You didn't have a girl working under you then, and Stephanie and Priscilla were little and demanded so much attention."
A reminiscent smile passed over Tilly's lips. "Oh, those were busy times, to be sure. Busy and happy. I felt those girls were my own. No offence, ma'am. I sure did spend more hours in a day with them than with my own kids. But now it's different." Her smile faltered. "Miss Stephy and Miss Prissy are grown, and… and things just aren't the same with Miss Prissy gone."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed into slits as a sudden suspicion darted into her mind. "Tilly. Do you have any idea where Priscilla's gone?"
Tilly met her stare with a steadfast, blank look. "None at all, ma'am."
"She never spoke to you about plans of going away? Never mentioned any friends whom she might have gone to?"
Even as she asked, Eleanor knew it was no good. Her daughters had no friends except those she knew of and approved. And Priscilla, not as sociable as her sister, was not apt to confide in anyone outside the family, so she was not surprised when Tilly shook her head and said, "No, ma'am."
Eleanor sighed. "Well, then, Tilly. I don't need to tell you to be discreet about this, I suppose? Mr. Dahl would be extremely upset if the matter were to be made public. With any luck we'll find Priscilla in a day or two and no one need be any the wiser."
"Yes, ma'am."
Eleanor continued to ramble through the house, feeling more dejected than ever. Tilly's right. It is a great big house, a house of consequence. I never stopped enjoying being mistress of Silver Oaks, not one day since I came here as a young bride. But now the place feels too vast, too empty. Driven by an odd sense of loneliness, Eleanor found herself walking up to Stephanie's room.
She heard the soft cadence of her eldest daughter's voice rising and falling. Stephanie's on the phone with a friend. But she doesn't sound as free and happy as before. Like everyone else in the house, she was given strict instructions about what to say regarding Priscilla's absence.
Eleanor tapped the door, half prepared to remain unheard, but Stephanie promptly hung up the phone and opened it. "Hey, Mom."
Everything in Stephanie's room was done in matching shades of tea rose, peach, and apricot; the wallpaper, the silky bedspread, the gauzy curtains, the shaggy carpet covering most of the floor, even her freshly-painted toenails, which she kept carefully separated by small balls of cotton wool. She returned to her seat on the bed, where she had been absently flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine. Nobody but her mother would have known anything was at all amiss. Stephanie was always good at showing a pretty, rosy face to the world, but the strain of the last couple of days following her sister's disappearance was beginning to show.
"What's wrong, Mom?" she asked in sudden alarm, catching the expression upon her mother's face. "Did you find out anything about Prissy?"
"No, no. For better or worse, we know nothing of your sister just yet. It's only…well…" Not knowing how to soften this bit of news, nor how to diminish the weight of this unexpected blow, she blurted out, "Tilly is quitting on us!"
Stephanie looked aghast. "Tilly's leaving us? I can't believe it!" She burst into tears, giving free reign to the pent up emotions of the last days.
Eleanor, alarmed, sat down by her side on the silky quilt. "There, Stephy." She patted the girl's back. "You shouldn't take it this way. Of course, it's a disappointment."
"Disappointment!" Stephanie gave a shrill, bitter laugh. "Tilly's been with us forever. And now, of all times! How can she do this to us? This is so unfair!"
"Yes, it's very unfortunate. But then, Tilly is not our property. You can't deny she has the right to leave if she wishes. Not that I understand why she'd want to leave such a respectable, well-paying place. I'm sure a woman of her class can hope for no better."
"It's because of Prissy!" Stephanie gave an audible sniff and reached for a box of tissues on her bedside table. "Tilly always adored her. Well, she's always loved us both, of course. But with Prissy it was different. They'd have moments together when they'd whisper and giggle, and when anybody'd come close, even me, they'd put on straight faces and try to look like it was nothing. It even made me jealous sometimes when we were little. And now… now Tilly probably thinks Prissy isn't coming back."
"Why should she think so?" Eleanor asked, her voice sharp. Then her expression softened. "Steph, I must ask you if there's anything you would like to tell me. Anything at all."
Stephanie gave her a blank look. "Like what?"
"About your sister. Think, Stephy. Did she ever talk to you about anything that might be connected to her running away? Did you overhear any strange phone calls? Or notice anything suspicious on the night she disappeared? Or in the days before? Is there anything you recall, even a wisp of something that might possibly help us find her?"
Stephanie seldom lied, and when Eleanor saw her strained, honest look, she felt convinced it was not one of those times. "To tell you the truth, Mom, in the past year or so, Prissy and I haven't been that close."
Eleanor tilted her head slightly to the side. "What do you mean?"
"Well…" She mechanically flipped her magazine open and shut and open again. "It's like this. You know what Prissy's like. Stubborn, sometimes. And she has her moods. It wasn't until two years ago that I stopped calling her the most annoying little sister ever. Not that we weren't good friends."
A fleeting smile twitched the corners of her mother's lips. "But?"
"But in the past year or so, things changed. Prissy changed. She became… reserved. Not always. But sometimes it seemed she had something on her mind. And sometimes she came up with these… funny ideas." She shook her head, exasperated.
An uneasy feeling made Eleanor's breath catch. "What do you mean by funny?"
"Well, sometimes she'd just say out of the blue, 'I wonder what it was like to live during the War'. Or, 'We see nothing of the real world here in Silver Oaks. People are still struggling out there while we live like princesses.' It didn't happen all the time. Just enough to make me think, hey, Prissy's acting a little weird."
"It's normal, you know. People grow up and change, and their opinions and thoughts change with them. Sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect."
Stephanie shrugged. "You're right, Mom. I mean, I'm a different person too. Remember that time two years ago when it was my sweet sixteen and my manicure came out all wrong? There was no time to do it over, all my friends were already here, and so I just stomped my foot and cried." She shook her head and laughed with embarrassment.
Eleanor suppressed a smile. "Yes. I guess you've come some way since."
"Yeah. I guess we all have. But with Prissy… it was different. It was like suddenly she was the older sister and me the younger. Like she wasn't just growing up, but was all grown up. I mean, Pris and I were always different. It wasn't that I expected us to get our nails done together or something. She was never into that sort of thing. She was always a
tomboy. But in the past year she steadied down somewhat. Haven't you noticed her reading all those heavy books? Sociology and history and ecology? I never pried too deeply, but I did wonder from time to time how she could read all that and stay awake."
"Yes. Yes, you're right." Eleanor sighed. Now that I think about it, it was unusual for Priscilla to read so much. And her choice of books was strange for a girl her age. Why didn't I think anything of it back then? Was I just glad to have my restless daughter settle down to some pursuit that didn't involve tracking in mud or messing about in the kitchen?
"And you know something else, Mom? Prissy was still okay with you and me most of the time, and with Tilly, but she wasn't the same with Daddy. You remember how when we were little, and every time Daddy could sleep at home during the week instead of staying at the White Tower, it was like a celebration?"
"I do. Your father always wished he could spend more time at home."
"I know. But… But lately, it seemed like Prissy didn't really like to spend time with Dad anymore. Almost as though she was avoiding him."
"She's a teen. Kids are often this way. They go through periods when they don't…" Eleanor trailed off with a shrug, knowing neither she nor Stephanie could be convinced by such reasoning.
Stephanie looked at her for a long moment with big, thoughtful eyes. "Mom, what do you think happened to Prissy?"
"I don't know. But we are going to find out."
* * *
There were two kitchens in Silver Oaks – one for the family, with a gleaming sink, a nice little alcove with a white table and a lightweight chairs, and a shiny large refrigerator full of things like fruit, yogurt, and healthy, high-protein snack bars. It was made for casual meals to be taken whenever anyone couldn't be bothered to eat a meal with all the trimmings in the dining-room.
Then there was the basement kitchen, the windows of which were level with the neat narrow gravel path at the back of the house. It was a vast, cavernous space with two deep sinks, two large refrigerators, several stovetops and ovens and pantry shelves beyond count. It was a working kitchen large enough to accommodate the most numerous dinner engagements and most lavish Sunday brunches ever thrown by the Dahls.