The Golden Unicorn

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I was beginning to dislike Stacia Faulkner and take sides with Nan, even though family skeletons were exactly what I wanted to know more about.

  “We’ll talk again,” Stacia said, turning to me. “In the meantime, can I take you up to the house?”

  “Evan will be here any minute,” Nan told her. “I’ve already phoned for him to come and fetch Miss Marsh.”

  “Courtney,” I corrected, “—please.”

  “If Evan’s coming, I’ll get out of the way—fast!” Stacia caught up a jacket from a chair, waved a hand at both of us, and started for the door with a lithe, swift movement that reminded me of some jungle cat. But she was already too late.

  The door opened just before she reached it, jangling the bell, and Evan Faulkner walked into the room. I found myself staring at this man whom I was prepared to dislike, since he was the author of the bruise on Stacia’s cheek.

  He was probably around thirty-five—a tall, strongly built man, though rather on the lean side, with tanned skin and dark hair, and eyes the color of gray ice as he looked at his wife. With a hand clapped to her cheek, as if to conceal the bruise, she ducked past him and out the door without a word.

  “What’s the matter with her?” he asked directly of Nan.

  “That isn’t hard to figure, is it?” Clearly, Nan had a temper that could surface easily. “I don’t think you needed to play that rough.” She turned apologetically to me. “The skeletons seem to be falling out of all our closets today, Courtney. I’m sorry, Evan. It’s none of my business.”

  A dark flush had swept up lean cheeks to stain his forehead, but the stain was one of anger, not embarrassment, and I saw that those cold eyes could spark hotly. But he kept whatever he was thinking and feeling well under control and came across the shop to me, holding out his hand.

  “Miss Marsh?” he said formally. “I’m Evan Faulkner. Would you like to go up to the house now? I expect you’ve had a long drive, so you’ll probably like to rest.”

  Formal words, ordinary words, with a wild rage seething beneath them and held in check by that iron grip he kept upon himself. He was a man I would not want to make angry.

  I stood up, feeling thoroughly uncomfortable and not in the least relishing this plunge into the middle of a family quarrel.

  “Thank you,” I said stiffly. “My car is outside.”

  “We’ll go up in mine,” he told me. “Asher can come for your car and bags later. Thanks, Nan, for taking care of Miss Marsh until I could get here.”

  Nan put out her hand to me. “Come and see me again. I owe you some quieter hospitality.”

  “I’d like to come,” I said. “I’d love to see your shop when there’s more time.”

  Evan Faulkner held the door and I went out to his battered gray station wagon and got into the passenger’s seat. When the engine purred, belying the rough exterior, we started along the driveway, winding between thick undergrowth on either side, crowding the trees of what must once have been a lovely park. The present-day Rhodeses apparently liked wilderness and seclusion.

  My sense of being thoroughly uncomfortable continued, and my dark-browed companion offered no small talk, driving in silence. At least the flush of rage faded, leaving his skin normally tan, though when I stole a look at him, I saw streaks of white about his tightened mouth. I tried to think of something to say that might ease the tension, ease my own discomfort, but my mind was a blank.

  As we came around a curve in the gravel drive, he broke the silence for the first time, braking the car and startling me.

  “This is the best spot from which to catch your first glimpse of The Shingles,” he said.

  His words prepared me to be impressed—so that I expected beauty, soaring architecture—some vista of loveliness. The house that lifted three stories into the air atop its high dune was anything but beautiful. Impressive, yes, with a great and brooding dignity as it raised shingled walls and tall brick chimneys against the blue sky, but its color was a dark umber, shading into ebony in the shadows, somehow heavy and oppressive. It had stood there since the last century, braving the storms that had burst over its head, riding like a ship into the very teeth of the gales and high seas that must have hurled themselves upon it. “The Shingles” seemed a modest name for so overpowering a structure.

  There was a faint prickling at the back of my neck. Had I been born in that house? Had I belonged to it in those early months before I was adopted?

  As I stared at that massive structure, I became aware that at my side Evan Faulkner was studying me as I studied the house. I turned my head to meet his look and felt an odd sense of disquiet go through me. Until now he had been too thoroughly lost in his own anger to see me as a person, but now he was aware of me, weighing and measuring me—so that I sensed dismissal as clearly as though he had spoken, and I thought I knew why. My smile was forced and slightly wry.

  “I suppose you saw that dreadful television program last night?”

  “Dreadful? I thought you were in control every minute,” he said coolly.

  I wanted to say, “That girl may have been, but she isn’t me,” though I could hardly say anything so absurd to this stranger, and when I spoke I knew my helpless resentment was showing.

  “You sound as though you don’t approve of women being in control.”

  He didn’t rise to the foolish bait, but touched the gas pedal so that the car speeded up, climbing the slope of overgrown dune that led to the house. I felt as disgruntled as a child and resentful of him as a man. This was what men had been doing to women for centuries, only I wasn’t used to being put down—if that was what had happened.

  I tried to give my attention to the road the car followed, and I could understand now why everyone spoke of going “up” to the house. We were climbing the line of dunes that ridged the southern shore along the ocean. In the vicinity of The Shingles some order had been brought out of the wild tangle of beach vegetation, and the gravel drive rose to end at a brick parking area before a long garage.

  Again Evan Faulkner braked the car. “Let’s go up,” he said shortly, discouraging any further conversation between us.

  A herringbone brick walk mounted toward the foot of steps that rose steeply, ending in a sheltered alcove into which was set the massive front door. Just as we reached its double panels and huge brass knocker, one side opened and an old man stood peering out at us in the dim light of the recess.

  “This is William Asher, who has looked after the Rhodes for many years,” Evan Faulkner said. “Asher, will you take Miss Marsh to her room and then see that her bags and car are brought up from the gatehouse?”

  The old man bowed and mumbled some greeting for me, regarding me with a look that seemed to measure and automatically find me wanting. My earlier annoyance evaporated and I suppressed an inclination to laugh at myself. New York had spoiled me. There I was accustomed to being treated not only as an equal but as someone rather special by the men I knew. Now two men who knew nothing about me seemed to have weighed my worth and found me wanting—and I had reacted with the same childish resentment and wish to stamp my feet that I’d thought nonsense in other women.

  “Thank you,” I said, being very gracious to Evan Faulkner, giving him my best smile. He nodded and went off down a long hallway. He wasn’t going to bother about me further, now that he could pass the burden along.

  The thin, bony figure of William Asher mounted the stairs ahead of me, leading the way, and when we reached the second floor I could discern the layout of the house. A long, rather narrow hall ran its width, with all the bedrooms facing the ocean, and a series of closets and storage rooms on the land side. Asher paused before the third door and opened it for me.

  “In here, Miss Marsh. I’ll be back soon with your bags. You can tell Mrs. Asher if there’s anything you want. My wife takes charge of this part of the house, and there’s a bell by the door that
will call her.”

  I thanked him and he went off, leaving me to step into a room that shimmered with sea light. Two white-curtained windows looked out upon a tremendous view, and I went to stand at one of them. Below me the barrier dune humped itself down in a steep pitch from house to beach, and I saw that wooden steps descended over it. White sand stretched in either direction as far as I could see and the lacy surf of Judith’s painting scalloped its edge, flowing up the sand, and then receding with that breathless sound of the ocean breathing. There was apparently little wind at the moment and the sea made a flat, endless plain clear to the horizon. Far out on the water the white wings of a sailboat hung limp, and I heard the throb of motor power in the distance.

  Both windows were open on the sunny day and I breathed deeply of salt air, feeling an unexpected joy move through me—as though I had come to a place where I belonged and where I could find happiness and contentment. I smiled at the illusion, at my own imaginings. The dark, massive house still lay behind me, and I already knew there was something far from reassuring about it that I must eventually reckon with. But at least I could escape it and walk the beach whenever I pleased— as someone else was already doing.

  The man on the sand was not young, in his fifties perhaps, as I judged by his silver-gray hair, but, dressed in white shorts and a gray pullover sweater, he was jogging along the hard sand at the water’s edge with the vigor of a man much younger. As he came even with the house, he turned toward the steps and ran lightly up to the top of the dune. Beneath my window he came to a halt and stood looking up at me.

  “Hello, Courtney Marsh,” he said. “I’m John Rhodes. Sorry I wasn’t inside to greet you. We’ve been looking forward to your arrival.”

  As I smiled and returned his greeting, I did calculations in my mind. John was Herndon’s older brother, and he had been the husband of Nan Kemble’s sister Alice—the one who had died.

  “I was envying you your run on the sand,” I said. “There have never been enough beaches in my life.”

  “At this time of the year it’s all yours to enjoy.” He gave a generous wave of his hand, and disappeared below me inside the house. So far, I decided, I liked him best of any of the family I’d met.

  A knock on the door signaled Asher with my bags and a message.

  “Mr. Herndon has phoned,” he said as he set down my cases and coat. “He would like to see you downstairs in half an hour, if that is convenient, Miss Marsh.” The words were properly cour­teous, the underlying disapproval was not.

  “I’ll be there,” I assured him, and when he’d gone I unpacked a few things and hung them in the good-sized closet. Now I had time to admire my room.

  It was simply furnished and quite charming. A walnut lowboy with brass pulls served as a dressing table, with a gilt-framed mirror above it. In a corner stood a gold-upholstered chair, and the spool bed wore a handsome quilt in a warm yellow fan design. The rug was a great braided oval of mottled green and yellow, and there were watercolor seascapes on the walls, none of them as arresting as the real view framed by the windows.

  Charming though the room might be, however, I had no desire to sit down and wait out my half hour. John Rhodes had invited me to enjoy the beach—so why not? I would find my way down to it and follow that enticing rush of surf for a little way before my appointment with Herndon Rhodes in the living room.

  At the dressing-table mirror I brushed out my shoulder-length hair that was as blond as Stacia’s, touched up my lipstick, and studied my face for a moment in the glass. Was there any resemblance? No!—I must not follow that path again, lest my own yearning betray me. Just to think was to quicken my pulses, and along that road could lie sure disappointment and disillusionment. I was here as a reporter, an observer—interested, perhaps, in unicorns.

  All the doors were closed along the corridor as I walked toward the stairs, passing framed abstracts that occupied the spaces in between. I couldn’t make out the initials with which they were signed, but I didn’t think they belonged to Judith Rhodes’ brush. As I neared the stairs, a woman came down from the floor above, pausing to smile nervously when she saw me.

  “I’m Mrs. Asher,” she said. “If there is anything you want, Miss Marsh—?” She was years younger than her husband and might have been faintly pretty if she had released the severity of her hair, pulled back in a brown knob. Obviously she was far less sure of herself and her own position than her husband. Asher had an air of owning the house.

  “There’s nothing, thank you, I’m very comfortable,” I said pleasantly and went on down the stairs that ended in a short hallway separating living room from dining room. Another, longer hall opened off it, running the width of the house at the back and paralleling the upstairs corridor. I could see an outside door at the far end, and I started toward it

  On the way, passing an open door, I glanced in upon a dark-paneled library with old books lining the shelves, and a long refectory table in the middle, heaped with boxes and papers, as though some sort of work was in progress. A library collection could be a good source of family information, I thought, and noted the room as a place to visit another time. But now I walked to the far door and went down steps to a grassy terrace that disappeared around the ocean side of the house. Idly, I walked along the terrace to a flagged section above the ocean, where beach furniture had been invitingly set, sheltered by a green-striped awning.

  I decided to look around a little before I went down to the beach. The terrace followed the house, and as I moved into the open, I found that the wind was rising, bringing with it the soft roar of the surf just below me. Out on the water white sails plumped and power was shut off. A sense of the agelessness of sand and ocean possessed me and I knew that even these elderly houses which stretched along the dunes were young beside this vast sky and sea. But out here I felt none of the oppression that I had experienced inside the house.

  As I reached the far end of the terrace, I came upon a sheltered alcove built into the lower floor—a square inner room, open to the ocean on one side, and boasting a fireplace, where one could sit protected from wind and sun, yet be almost outdoors.

  But the house still crouched above me with its dark, weathered brown shingles—a preserver of secrets—and I was forced to look up at that broad façade that raised its three frowning stories into the sky. At a window high above, a curtain moved, and I knew that someone looked down at me—not openly as I had looked down at John Rhodes—but with an air of one who was curious, who wanted to watch without being seen. A hand touched the curtain and I caught the flash of a sapphire ring, remembering that I had seen such a ring on Stacia’s finger. No matter. What did I care if she chose to peer at me from behind a curtain?

  They were all rather strange in this family—even Nan Kemble, who was not blood-related, but whose life had been tied in with the Rhodes, as Evan Faulkner’s life was tied in. Reluctantly, I found myself wondering about Evan. What was his work? And what strains had he been under which drove him into striking his wife so brutally?

  Behind me something snuffled ominously. I whirled about, startled—and froze where I stood. The largest Great Dane I had ever seen watched me from a few feet away, his cropped, pointed ears held high and alert. He was black-masked, and his coat was a mottled white and blue-black, his skull and chest massive, his neck muscular with power. The dark eyes stared at me suspiciously and there was no wagging of his thin tail, which had the curve of a saber.

  “Hello, boy,” I said cautiously, not moving a finger.

  His answer was a growl deep in his throat. Great Danes were bred as work dogs, watchdogs, I knew, and I didn’t want to tangle with this fellow. Neither did I want to take fright and alarm him. Carefully, I took a step back toward the half-enclosed room off the terrace. There must be a door leading into the house—if I could reach it.

  But as I stepped back, the dog drew closer, and I knew that he wasn’t going to let me ent
er the house. I also sensed that he might be getting ready to spring. His sudden bark shook me with fright and I had to call out.

  “Help me, someone! Please call the dog!”

  There were open windows and someone heard. A door to the terrace room was flung open and a woman came running across the flagstones.

  “Tudor!” she called. “Stay, boy. It’s all right—stay!”

  The dog halted his relentless approach and the long tail began to wag at the appearance of his mistress. She flew past me to reach him and knelt to put her arms about his great neck, and soothe him with quiet, loving words.

  It was in this way, with a total lack of formality and without introduction, at a time when I could hardly have been more distraught, or she more in control of the situation—it was in this way that I met Judith Rhodes.

  3

  I stood well back from the Great Dane as she knelt beside him, and I found that I was trembling to my fingertips—partly because of the fright the dog had given me, partly because this was the woman I had come to confront, and I had no idea what she might mean to me, or what place she might have in my life. I could only stand there shivering, staring at her, waiting for her to turn and speak to me.

  She wore a cotton peasant dress, flowing to the ground in bright patchwork squares, belted at her waist with a leather thong, and with a square neck that revealed a tanned space of skin meeting the tan of throat and face. Her hair was black and straight and very long as it fell about her, covering her back where she knelt crooning over the dog, slipping down in long silky strands that touched the terrace stones. I couldn’t see her face until, having quieted the dog, she looked up at me, and I met the brilliant green of her eyes. Her nose was delicately formed, and the mouth that was like pink velvet was untouched by lipstick. She must be as old as Nan Kemble, since she had a daughter nearly my age, yet there was an agelessness about her that allowed no naming of her years. More than anything else, however, she wore a serenity that somehow took me by surprise. If there had been some eccentricity evident, the shyness of a recluse, even a touch of derangement, I would not have been surprised, but when she rose to her sandaled feet, one hand resting on the dog’s brass-studded collar, there was only a lovely calm worn as gracefully as she wore her patchwork gown.