She flew down the room and I heard her clatter on the stairs. Judith raised her head, seeming to listen for a moment before she picked up the sheet that had fluttered to the floor and reached calmly for a packet of matches on the coffee table. While I watched, she lit a match, touched it to the corner of the paper, and held it while the small blaze flared up. When it burned close to her fingers she dropped it into a tray and watched it blacken into ash. Only then did she look at me.
“There was no letter,” she said.
Her look held my own, and though I gave her no verbal promise, she must have read something in my eyes that reassured her. When she settled back in her chair, she seemed to have fully recovered her poise and her air of being a degree or two removed from everything that went on around her.
“You might as well know the truth,” she said. “It wasn’t Evan who struck my daughter. I did. She drove me too far, and I slapped her.”
The hint of a melancholy smile touched her mouth, while it was my turn to sit frozen, staring at her.
She raised her right hand and regarded it as though she examined something objectively that belonged to someone else. “I’m really very strong, I slapped her quite hard. Does that shock you, Courtney Marsh? Will you write that into your article?”
It was she, now, who was baiting me, and I found myself wondering what might really lie seething under all this calm she turned toward the world.
“I can’t say I blame you,” I told her. “Stacia seems to ask for it.”
“An eldritch child, born of a witch,” Judith said lightly, and suddenly her laughter floated through the great echoing room beneath that high ceiling—a shocking outburst. I had never heard her laugh until now. It was a silvery sound quite different from the low resonance of her speaking voice, and somehow it sent a chill down my spine. All the sympathy I had been ready to bestow on Judith Rhodes was checked in its outpouring.
“Stacia thinks she has learned something that she is trying to use,” Judith went on. “Something completely false, of course, but I think she’s frightened. She’s afraid she may not be able to turn me out of her house, after all, so she’s brought other weapons to bear.”
I stood up and started for the door. There was nothing I could say, and all I wanted at the moment was to escape this strange, beautiful, talented woman who seemed to occupy some plane of existence removed from the rest of us. But before I could escape her presence, I heard footsteps on the stairs and Evan Faulkner came into the room.
“What is it? What’s happened?” he asked as he went directly to Judith.
She looked up at him, smiling, and held out her hands for him to take. “Another letter—that’s all. Stacia was upset about it. Let’s not tell Herndon and John. I’ve already burned it. I think we know who is writing them.”
“I had another call this morning,” he said. “I suppose we’ll have to take some action.”
She sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. Nothing matters any more.”
Evan let her hands go. “You know that isn’t true.”
“Sometimes I think you’re my one friend in this house.”
“That’s not true either, as you know very well.”
They had both ignored me during this exchange, as though they had nothing to conceal, but now Judith glanced in my direction.
“Please send this child from New York away for now,” she pleaded. “She can be very persistent and I can’t endure any more questioning.”
Evan gave me a dark look of reproach. I started to speak indignantly, only to recognize that it would be no use. I kept my chin high as I walked the length of the studio, past Tudor, who raised his head watchfully, past the waiting easel with its scene of a boat in a storm, and went downstairs to the second floor. I felt thoroughly shaken, assaulted in all my senses and emotions, so that a quivering had begun inside me. If I had been unsure of my identity before I came to this house, I was totally torn and confused about it now.
What sort of “action” did Evan Faulkner intend, and why did Judith feel he was her only friend? More especially, who on earth was the Olive to whom he’d talked on the phone? Was she the source of these anonymous letters?
At the second-floor landing I hesitated, and then went quickly downstairs and into the dining room. There, over the great dark sideboard, hung the portrait of Alice Kemble Rhodes, and I leaned against that black walnut solidity and stared up at the mirthful face in the picture. A face that looked as though the young woman who had posed might burst into laughter at any moment. There had been disagreement as to whether it was a true portrait or not, but now I studied it with longing, trying to find a responsive emotion in myself. The large, beautiful eyes looked familiar and I realized they were like her sister Nan’s eyes. Perhaps the two had resembled each other when they were young.
Was she my mother?
There had been no other child mentioned since I had come to this house—but only that reference to the baby who had died. Alice’s baby—by drowning. If she had been my mother, what was Judith’s involvement? What had happened to enable me to escape that death, and be given for adoption in New York?
I found myself standing on my toes, the better to study every detail of the painting. There seemed to be something Alice Rhodes had worn about her neck when she had posed in that summery blue dress. Yes!—there was a gold chain showing, and against the hollow of her throat lay a tiny pendant, painted vaguely in the shape of a unicorn. So now I knew. This girl had surely been my mother. Something terrible had happened—a drowning she could not have sought at that young age—and she had left a baby that others must have given away. My mother would have wanted me, since I had stayed with her for at least two months after my birth. But now, if I had found her, I had also lost her, for she had died a long time ago—leaving John as my father.
All my life I had been warned: “Don’t try to find out who you are, Courtney. You may uncover horrors that you’re better off not knowing. Be satisfied with the loving parents who raised you. Let the door stay closed.”
But a door which has begun to open has a certain momentum of its own, and it does not swing itself shut of its own accord. I knew very well that I must walk through, that I wanted to walk through, no matter what it cost me, or how shocking the result might be.
So absorbed was I in my own thoughts that I didn’t hear Asher come into the room until he stood at my elbow. Then I turned to see that he carried a tray of silver flatware which he apparently wanted to store in the sideboard. I stepped out of his way, wondering about this old man who ran the house for Judith and Herndon.
The question I asked him was the same one I’d asked his wife. “Have you been with the family for a long time?”
He answered me guardedly but proudly, not trusting me, yet wanting to admit to his own lineage with the family.
“I came here when I was a young man to work for Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Rhodes,” he said.
“That’s a long time. The present family is fortunate to have you. I suppose you remember Alice Rhodes?” I looked up at the portrait again.
“Yes, of course, Miss Marsh. I was able to attend her wedding to Mr. John.”
I asked my next question without warning. “How did she die?”
He started visibly and dropped his tray of silver on the sideboard so that the pieces rang against each other. But in a moment he had recovered and he answered me quietly.
“She died out near Montauk, where the Kemble family has a cottage. I believe she went swimming alone one morning and was drowned. Mrs. Judith found her where waves had rolled her upon the beach—but it was too late.”
“And the baby—what happened to her after her mother died?”
“She was lost in an accident at sea only a few days later. It was very sad—especially for Mr. John, who had a double loss, and for Mr. Lawrence, who had been so pleased and happy over having an heir.”
The old man began to sort the silver carefully into its flannel containers, and I thanked him and went away, only a little more informed than before.
An urge to escape this house, with all its secrets and its alarming deaths, had seized me. One death hadn’t happened, if I had been that baby, Anabel. But the deception that had been perpetrated was disturbing in itself. Why—why? Why had someone gone to so much trouble to cover up?
When I’d run upstairs to fetch a jacket, I came down and let myself out the front door, with no word to anyone. Fog was beginning to blow in from the sea and I walked down into the mist gratefully, not wanting my car now, but only to walk into thick fog and let it close about me. Perhaps then I could be alone and free from that dark, shingled-house that towered behind me and held so many ominous secrets.
6
My way lay downhill from the house, and mist cut off the tops of the old trees that had once made this area a park. I found myself hurrying, wanting not only to put The Shingles behind me but to put behind me all those who lived there, and who seemed inimical to me.
When the gatehouse with its steeply tilted roof emerged from fog, I could see warm lamplight glowing at the window, and for a moment I was tempted to stop and talk to Nan Kemble. She was a degree removed from those who lived in the house, and I had liked her at our first meeting. Perhaps she was even my aunt. But I really didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. I only wanted to be alone so I could try to think.
The old iron gates stood open between crumbling stone posts, and I slipped through into Ethan Lane, myself a ghost in the enveloping mist. This part of the lane was a wilderness, with no houses, and a tangle of scrubby growth that I could glimpse on either side of me. For the moment my solitude was assured and I was grateful for this seclusion.
Yet as I walked on to where high hedges began—hedges grown so wild that untamed privet became impenetrable with intertwined branches thick as my arm—I began to experience a sense of detachment, of eerie isolation in this dream world where rank vegetation ruled. It was as though I walked through one of Judith’s strange landscapes, and I would hardly have been surprised to see a doll’s face peering at me from within thick privet, or to have a unicorn come prancing along the lane. The smell of the sea had become heavy with wet earth, and there was an odor of decay all about me.
In my light jacket, I began to feel chilled, yet I didn’t want to turn back. Now there were houses beyond the hedges, but they seemed to belong to another world, and only when I came to a driveway did I have a glimpse of habitation through the mist. The road had widened and I realized that I had left Ethan Lane for one of those town lanes that were less private, though still rimmed with high hedges on either hand. No sidewalks offered me a footing here, but neither were there cars, and I walked without fear down the middle of the road.
My sense of direction was already lost, but I didn’t care. It was enough to be moving away from the Rhodes and everything connected with them. Yet my thoughts were still tied to what little I had learned.
If my mother, Alice, were alive, would I feel differently toward her than I did toward the others? I wondered. In her picture frame she had seemed so far removed from me that I’d had no feeling that she was my mother. Perhaps when I knew more about her, emotion would come. Of them all in that house, only Judith and John had won me to some extent, and she had only aroused my interest. But in those last moments in her studio even she had turned slyly against me for her own purpose and asked Evan to send me away. As though I would have opposed her!
I knew what was happening. I was slipping in spite of myself into the trap of trying to establish kinship with those at the house, and this was the last thing I must do. As a reporter I ought to stand removed from them all emotionally, so that I might retain objectivity. Yet in that I was not succeeding. What was worse, all my reactions were negative and that in itself seemed a disturbing and destructive thing. Best to finish my task with Judith—if she would permit me—and get away, even if I left my golden pendant behind. This was not a family I wanted for my own. Perhaps I could close that opening door, after all.
The sound of a car coming in my direction was deadened by the fog, and I was not clearly aware of its approach until it was very close to me and I saw its fog lights shining through the mist. It was coming faster than it should have with so little visibility, and I realized that the driver would not see me in time to swerve. I sprang aside with nothing to spare, so that fenders scraped by with hardly an inch of space. My escape was narrow and it shocked me out of my dream world into reality and awareness. The prickly intertwined branches of the hedge were against my back and I took long deep breaths to steady myself.
Ahead, the car braked, and I could hear it turning, coming back. The driver must have been frightened too and had turned around to make sure I was not hurt. I stepped out where the fog lights touched me, expecting him to stop and speak to me so that I could reassure him, tell him that it had been my fault for being out in the middle of the road.
Instead, the two orange eyes of the lights were coming straight at me with a sudden spurt of speed as the driver stepped on the gas. This time I didn’t leap aside quite in time. A fender grazed my thigh, and I was thrown clear, crashing into the wall of the hedge, where I lay propped for a moment, feeling stunned and bruised.
I had not been able to see the driver crouched over the wheel, but in the light I had been sharply aware of the circular emblem that stood up on the hood. The car was a Mercedes.
Down the lane it was backing, turning, squealing in haste, and behind me was only the solidity of that wild, impregnable hedge. There was no doubting now the intent of the driver. I ran along beside the privet, stumbling because my leg hurt, trying desperately to find a way through, where there was none. Privet, untended, could grow thick as a jungle, and it was all of fifteen feet high, with no driveways to break its barrier and offer me a way of escape.
The car was coming back, coming more slowly this time, more deliberately—with a fatal deliberation. What was happening was mad, insane, impossible, but there was no time to wonder why a stranger in a passing car should suddenly attempt mayhem with me as the victim. If I were found dead or dreadfully injured in this lane, the authorities could only put it down to a hit-and-run driver and my assailant would never be caught. But where could I turn—how could I escape?
Then I heard the sound of another car coming down the lane from the opposite direction, saw another set of lights bearing upon me. I sprang away from the hedge, waving my arms frantically to flag down this second car.
The driver braked in front of me, and I heard the Mercedes accelerate, swinging away to pass us and disappear up the lane into the fog. Trying to catch my breath, I leaned over the hood of the car that had rescued me, gasping with fright and relief.
A man got out and came around to me. “Courtney!” he cried, and I looked up into John Rhodes’ reassuring face. “What made you jump out like that?” he cried. “My God, if I hadn’t been alert I might have run you down.”
He was safety, he was my rescue, and I pushed myself up from the hood and clung to him, unable to get my voice back immediately. He held me gently, quietly, waiting until I could talk. When I’d caught my breath a little, I let words tumble out indiscriminately.
“There was a car! That other car that drove away. It was a Mercedes.”
“A Mercedes? What about it?”
“It was dark blue, I think. I couldn’t see the driver, but he tried to run me down. He tried to kill me!”
John held me away from him and looked down into my face as the fog swirled around us, shutting us in. “You’re cold, shivering. Come and get into my car and I’ll take you back to the house. You need a drink and bed. You’ve had a shock.”
I let him put me into the front seat, glad of his kindness, his gentleness, glad to have someone stronger than I was to take over. He found a blanket in the ba
ck seat and wrapped it about me, held me for a little with my head against his shoulder, not speaking, not questioning or reproaching, just letting me recover. He was a man who knew what a woman needed in a time of stress. Knew it better than I knew it myself—I who had never turned to any man for reassurance and simple kindness.
Slowly I began to relax, and my shivering quieted. Yet I wanted to lean against his shoulder. I wanted this—from my father? Was it true? Could it be? Had the feeling I so longed for come to me at last? John Rhodes holding his daughter in his arms? But even if that was true, he couldn’t know I was his daughter, and his rescue, the very solace he offered, was kind but impersonal. I was only a stranger in need.
I raised my head and sat up. “I’m all right now. Thank you.”
“I’ll drive you home. You’ve had a nasty fright. But you must realize that it’s very hard to see in a fog like this. Lights do little good. I was almost upon you myself before I saw you. It may have been the same with the other driver.”
I couldn’t accept this. “That hardly explains why he turned around twice and tried to run me down—tried to hit me. It was deliberate. If you hadn’t come along when you did I might have been killed.”
He was silent, and I had a feeling that he thought me hysterical, thought I was exaggerating.
“It’s true!” I insisted a little desperately. “Someone tried to kill me just now. Someone relentless, determined.”
John turned the ignition key and as we drove along the curving lanes I could sense his continued disbelief, though he did not try to argue with me. I could hardly blame him. What had happened was so completely unlikely and unwarranted that I hardly believed it myself—except that there was a throbbing in my thigh which told me I had been struck and thrown.
By the time we reached Ethan Lane, the mists had thinned a little and I could see blue sky. John stepped up our speed, retracing the way I had come such a little while before. We drove through the gateway and past Nan’s shop without slowing and in moments we had climbed the driveway beside the house and come to a halt on the brick apron before the garage.
The Golden Unicorn Page 10