“I’m sorry,” she said, one hand smoothing long strands of hair back from her face. “I didn’t know you were out here, or I’d never have let Tudor come onto the terrace.”
I realized that introductions weren’t necessary, and that she would not bother with them. She knew who I was, and I knew she was Judith Rhodes, and no naming of names seemed to matter. Yet introductions were ordinarily a method of crossing the bridge between strangers, and I found myself oddly shy and self-conscious, not knowing what to say—and I was still trembling.
Her voice had a low resonance as she began to talk, trying to reassure me.
“You needn’t be afraid of him. He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he? A Harlequin Dane they call his breed because of the mottling. A few years ago John Rhodes, my brother-in-law, brought him home from Germany for Stacia, but somehow he attached himself to me. We couldn’t give him a German name—something royal, like Tudor, seemed right.”
I found nothing to say, and her calm green gaze studied me thoughtfully, seeming to come to some conclusion.
“You aren’t like the girl I saw on television last night,” she stated. “You’re not like her in the least. I think you’ll be all right—so tomorrow morning we’ll begin.”
And that was all. With her hand still resting on the dog’s collar, guiding him, she moved along the terrace, a straight, tall figure. I had no need to seek for resemblance here. There was no fairness of coloring about Judith Rhodes, no slightness of bone structure. Though tall, she was not a big woman, and her bones were good, but far more prominent than mine or Stacia’s. Which meant nothing, of course. I had spoken not a single word, and she was already gone, out of sight around the far end of the house, leaving me gaping after her, and far more shaken than I could have believed. No wonder she had said I wasn’t like the Courtney Marsh she had seen on television —I was a shaking lump of terrified, distraught flesh, without poise, without a voice.
In rueful response I began to laugh a little. Thank God for the grace of being able to laugh at oneself—if only in nervous reaction. It was something I’d forgotten lately in New York. But my mirth did me no good with Asher, who came rather peevishly out of the house, apparently having noted my encounter with the dog and with Judith Rhodes from a window.
“We didn’t know you were coming out here, Miss Marsh,” he chided me, clearly disapproving of laughter he could not understand. “I would have warned you about the dog. He doesn’t like strangers wandering around.”
“Then I was lucky,” I said, sobering to accept my chastisement.
“Mr. Herndon is waiting for you in the living room,” he went on with reproachful dignity. “If you will come in, please.”
“Of course,” I said. Laughing at myself had helped me to recovery, and my knees were no longer quaking as I walked through the door Asher held open for me and into the living room.
It was strange, but though I had played at times with the thought of Judith Rhodes being my mother, I’d had no fantasies about her husband. With a baby that had been given away, anyone could be the father. He was standing near a fire he had just lighted in the grate of a big brick fireplace when I came in, and he set the poker aside and came toward me, hand outstretched.
Herndon Rhodes’ hair was completely gray and the face beneath seemed worn and faintly sad. He was a big man, though not as tall as Evan Faulkner, and he looked older than the older brother I’d seen jogging on the beach.
“I’m glad you’ve come, Courtney Marsh,” he said as I gave him my hand.
“I’m happy that you were willing to let me come,” I said. “I’ve just met your wife on the terrace—and I think I’ve been accepted.”
He looked a little surprised and I hastened to add that Mrs. Rhodes had suggested that we could begin tomorrow morning.
“That was quick,” he said. “I really haven’t been sure what would happen when you arrived. Judith is doing this to please me, you know, and it’s not something she really wants. Last night when she saw you on the program, she decided she wasn’t going to like you. I think I’d better be frank and tell you that.”
I smiled at him. “I don’t blame her. I saw some of the program myself, and I didn’t like that girl either. Perhaps I redeemed myself with Mrs. Rhodes just now by being practically eaten by her dog. I was so scared I couldn’t even open my mouth, and that may have reassured her.”
He smiled with a certain restraint. “I’m sorry about Tudor, but delighted if you got past Judith’s guard.”
He had seated me near the fire as he spoke, and as he moved about I had a further opportunity to study him. For a seemingly quiet, self-controlled man, there were surprising touches to his dress. A vest of red plaid and a tie only a shade less bright, gave him a certain flamboyance that hardly matched his rather subdued manner. In this man they seemed almost like costume touches.
But the place interested me even more than the man, and I took the opportunity to look about the big, high-ceilinged room. It was windowed along the water side, letting in a rippling sea light from the ocean, as well as brightness from the sky. The original dark woodwork had been replaced with creamy-pale paint, and unlike the exterior of the house, which seemed gloomy with age, this room shone with a bright aura of wealth, luxury, elegance. It was not a room through which one would run with wet bathing suits and sandy feet, and it was large enough to dwarf the grand piano that stood beside rear windows. Two great Chinese rugs covered the floor, their oblong beige centers bordered in blue and decorated with tiny pink flowers at each corner. On the mantel handsome porcelain, also Chinese, gleamed in blue and white. The sofas were Empire, and the rest a mixture of antique and richly comfortable modern pieces.
But the most arresting feature of the room was the large oil painting I had seen before in its newspaper reproduction. A golden moon with its unicorn shadow shed an ambience over the beach scene that made the picture glow with an unearthly light. In the foreground an ancient figurehead—perhaps from a clipper ship—sat atilt in the sand, turning the sad, weathered face of a woman to the room.
The picture drew me and I left my chair to stand before it. Its mood was sadly haunting, as had been that of the other beach scene hanging in Nan’s shop, the glow of moonlight lending a chill to the scene that seemed colder than the lapping waves of a gray ocean. Judith’s work had indeed a quality of make-believe about it, a dreaming emptiness which the imagination could easily people with wraiths.
“I do believe that Judith Rhodes must be one of the fine painters in this country,” I said. “That scene is real, and yet it’s surreal at the same time, and it conveys a mood I won’t easily shake off.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly the mood of this house,” Herndon said softly, coming to stand behind me. “The Rhodeses are a haunted lot, I’m afraid. You’ll sense this if you’re here awhile, so I might as well warn you of it. Perhaps that is the very thing that has complemented something rare in Judith’s talent. I’d like her to be recognized to a far greater extent than she is, you see. I have an ambition for her that she lacks for herself. Especially since—” He paused, then went on. “Especially since we may not have The Shingles in our possession too much longer—and then I don’t know what will happen to Judith’s painting. She has put down roots here.”
His words startled me. “But the house has always belonged to your family, hasn’t it?”
“Even so.” He shrugged unhappily, and I knew that whatever might be bringing about a change, he was not instigating it. I wanted to question him directly, but I knew he would not tell me now.
“I’d like to know a little more about the family,” I said.
“I’ll see if I can telescope to some extent. I won’t go back into ancient history, but we can start with Ethan Rhodes, who built this house. He was a whaler—more than a whaler, since he had a fleet of ships, though he captained only one. He lived originally in Sag Harbor, which was a gre
at whaling center in the old days. When he retired he came here and built this house on the dunes, before any of the summer places went up. He built of wood because that’s what could be had at the time. There was no stone around in this sandy soil, except what came in as ballast in ships.”
“How are you related to Ethan Rhodes?”
“He was my great-grandfather. He had sons who scattered round the country. Only the eldest, Brian, stayed in this house. He was a sailor too. His son Lawrence was my father, but he turned to the law for his career.”
“What about the women in the family?”
“Ethan’s wife Hesther was of pretty stalwart stock. All the women stood by their husbands when they went off on long voyages. If you like, I’ll write a few names down for you, so that you can keep relationships straight. If you’re interested.”
“Yes, please. For my own guidance. All this won’t go into what I write, since your wife is only related by marriage. Are Lawrence and his wife dead—your father and mother?”
“Yes. Sara died at least thirty years ago. My father about five years later.”
“You and John Rhodes are their only sons?”
“That’s right. I married Judith, of course, and John married Alice Kemble. She died shortly before our father did.”
I remembered the woman I’d talked to in the dress shop—“all those deaths, so close together . . .” she had said. But “all” would not pertain to only two. So who else had died? Stacia had said later that there were three deaths. And “all” had come about close to the time of my birth.
“Have there been other children in the family besides Stacia?” I asked tentatively.
“No—none.”
Had he replied too quickly? So far everyone I’d met seemed quick to conceal, to turn away from certain questions. If the house had its secrets, so did the people who lived here and were the source. I threw out another tentative hook.
“Miss Kemble mentioned that I had come at a bad time—that something disturbing had happened recently which had upset all of you. I’m sorry if that makes having me here a burden.”
“Let’s sit down,” he said. “The afternoon is getting on—would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” I said, and waited.
He went on, choosing his words carefully, and I had a feeling that here was a man who would have liked to be comfortably open, yet who had been forced by circumstances to play a different, more evasive role. Again I wondered about that bright vest.
“Miss Kemble shouldn’t have worried you with this. What happened was nothing more than a malicious trick played by some irresponsible person. We shall simply ignore it.”
“I understand,” I said. “It’s just that everything around Judith Rhodes interests me and I can’t tell what may help me to know and understand her better.”
A slight smile touched his mouth. “I doubt if you will ever know and understand her. I’ve been married to her for a good many years, and I’ve never achieved that felicitous state. Perhaps that’s why she remains forever fascinating.”
His words were slightly pedantic, yet there was a note of affection in his voice that seemed genuine, and seemed as well to hint at some sorrow. Perhaps Herndon Rhodes, the prosaic banker, had a greater complexity to his character than easily met the eye.
We were sitting once more and I gave my attention again to the painting over the mantel. “Can you tell me about the unicorn on the moon?”
He seemed glad to turn to history. “Ethan’s wife, my great-grandmother Hesther, had a superstition about unicorns. She was given a little gold one by a visiting potentate and that started it off. Unicorns are supposed to bring good luck, but Hesther had a whimsical streak and she devised her own legend when she claimed to have seen a shadow like a unicorn drift across the moon. That was the night Ethan’s father died, and after that she always said that a unicorn on the moon could mean either disaster or great good fortune for a Rhodes. It’s all written down in her diary, and has been passed along in the family. Hesther’s gold unicorn became a sort of talisman against any possible threat.”
“And have other Rhodes seen the ghost unicorn? On the moon?”
He moved restlessly in his chair, as though my questions had begun to weary him. “I’m afraid I don’t believe in that sort of thing, Miss Marsh.”
I ventured a more pertinent approach. “What happened to Hesther Rhodes’ golden unicorn?” I asked, and held my breath.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know. Trinkets have a way of disappearing over the years. I asked Judith to look for it once, because I thought it should be given to Stacia, but she couldn’t find it.”
Involuntarily, my hand sought the throat of my blouse, but before I could find anything to say, Evan Faulkner appeared in the doorway.
“Have you seen Stacia?” he asked of Herndon.
The other man shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I looked for her myself when I came in. Come join us, Evan—I’m about to order drinks.”
“I want to find Stacia,” Evan said.
He went off without a glance at me, and I sensed that he too was a troubled and preoccupied man. As would certainly be likely with that bruised cheek he had given Stacia.
Herndon looked after him thoughtfully. “Evan has been a great help to us. Lately he’s been cataloguing the Rhodes’ collection of books and papers and whaling captains’ logs. Nearly everything has been preserved since Ethan’s time, but it has never been properly inventoried and classified. Perhaps now, when Evan pulls it all together, it will be given to some museum, where it will prove of real value. He’s taken time off from his work out at the Ocean Science Laboratory in Montauk, where he’s a marine biologist, to take care of this. We’re all grateful to him. It may be necessary to move fast.”
“Why is that?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that need concern you.” He looked suddenly weary, as though he carried some inner burden that was almost too great to bear.
“Perhaps I’ll go upstairs and change for dinner,” I said, wanting to let him escape the evident strain of talking to me. “Thank you for telling me something about the family.”
He stood up as I rose and he nodded almost absently, as though his thoughts had already turned elsewhere. His mouth wore a grim look that was disturbing to see in the face of a man I had thought of as kindly and considerate.
As I hurried upstairs and down the hall to my room, I found myself troubled by a rising sense of disquiet. First the house itself had seemed to oppress me, and now the people who lived here were doing the same thing. Nan Kemble, with her secrets and concealments; Stacia, tearful and hurt, and trying to put on a brave front; Evan, driven by some dark anger that had led to a violence whose source I could not guess. And now Herndon, grimly withdrawing from my questions, although it was he who had invited me here to ask such questions. In my one glimpse of him, John Rhodes had seemed to carry about him a certain lighter charm, but he too might seem less open when I knew him better. That left me only Judith, with her calm, her serenity, her great creative force—yet perhaps she would prove to be the greatest enigma of all.
Which of these might be related to me? Any—or all? I remembered very well how sure I had been that if only I could trace my way back to my own roots, so that I could know something of the family that had bred me, I would be satisfied. But after so short a time in this house, I was already sensing complexities. There would be no easy answers, and there might exist in me a need to ask for more and more, until everything had been made clear—however disastrous full knowledge might be. Had that wretched lawyer been right, after all?
In my room I went to stand once more at the window, gazing out toward those ceaseless waves rolling in on the beach. There were waves like that in our lives—ebbing and flowing, urging us along, pulling us back, now threatening, now calming.
Since my encounter w
ith the dog, I had steadied to some extent, yet there was still a surging of uncertainty in me, like those waves on the beach, and it brought with it a restlessness. My own tides were swollen with unanswered questions—with temptations to believe, when there was no proof and I must not believe. Yet there was the unicorn. Now I knew it belonged here. It belonged to the Rhodes’ past and it had been placed about my neck. So did that make me a Rhodes? And if so, to what branch of the family might I belong? There was a hint of likeness between myself and Stacia, none at all to Judith. Nor did I find anything recognizable in Herndon or John. Both brothers had blue eyes, where Judith’s were green, and before their hair had started to gray they had probably been blond. How little I had to go on. Especially since there seemed to be no missing child on the family tree. Though of course, if there were, that might be something to hide from a stranger like me. The important thing was not to become emotionally impatient. I must move slowly and carefully, remembering what Mr. Pierce had said about the certainty of my being unwelcome as a long-lost daughter at this late date.
In the bathroom I ran a hot tub and sprinkled in the fragrant mauve salts I found in a cabinet. When I felt rested and refreshed and some of those throbbing questions had been quieted, I dressed for dinner. I had no idea what was customary in this house, but my St. Laurent print chemise should be suitable, with its red roses scattered to the long hemline, and a decorous ribbon tie at the throat. But I could not wear my unicorn. The chain would show above the neck of the dress and this was not yet the time to flaunt my identity—even if I knew what that identity was.
I folded chain and pendant into tissue and tucked them into the drawer of the lowboy dressing table among my cosmetics. The ruby earrings I clipped on had been a gift one Christmas from Gwen and Leon, and they brought again the sharp pang of my loss. It was a loss I could never replace, didn’t want to replace. Yet I must search on and try to find answers, even if they proved unhappy and disquieting. At least I liked the whaling background of the Rhodes. Old Ethan had made himself a part of history, and it might be satisfying to place myself somewhere within that heritage. When the opportunity arose perhaps I could seek out Evan Faulkner in the library and learn more about this family that might prove to be mine.
The Golden Unicorn Page 5