The Golden Unicorn

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Outside, I hurried down to the garage, where my Volvo had been left in the parking area. I had no taste at the moment for walking alone down any green lane, and I backed the car around and followed the driveway to Nan’s gatehouse shop. There I left it and went into The Ditty Box, accompanied by the tinkling peal of the brass bell.

  7

  Lamps burned pleasantly around the main room of the shop, and there was a delicious odor of savory cooking somewhere at the back. Nan was nowhere in view and in spite of the ringing of the bell no one appeared from upstairs. Davy Crockett regarded me in ghostly fashion from his corner, and all the collection of things which had once led stormy lives at sea stood about in unwonted calm, seemingly aware of my presence and watchful of me. This was sheer whimsy, yet I felt strangely observed in this crowded room.

  On a nearby glass case a sheet of paper had been placed conspicuously and I picked it up to read the words written in Nan’s strong, assertive hand.

  I’ve had to go to town—will be back shortly. Make yourself at home. That’s minestrone cooking on the stove—you’re welcome to stay to lunch, whoever you are.

  Nan Kemble

  I smiled at this informal greeting to any customer who might wander into her unlocked shop, and decided to await her return. My nose led me to the small living area that opened through an arched partition at the rear—a room that held a tiny kitchen, complete with stove, sink, and cupboards, plus a crock pot of soup cooking slowly with that marvelous smell of aromatic herbs and vegetables. At the other end of the partitioned area I found a comfortable, well-worn couch, and a large bookcase which contained a catholic assortment of mystery novels, old classics, and volumes of modern nonfiction. Opposite a comfortable armchair, its probable shabbiness hidden by bright slipcovers, stood a television set on which had been placed a bowl of bronze and yellow chrysanthemums and a photograph in a silver frame.

  A woman’s face looked out from the picture and I recognized it as an older version of the young woman whose portrait watched from the dining-room wall. Alice Rhodes. I picked up the framed glass and carried it to a window where I could see the face in full daylight.

  There was no mischief in these grave eyes and the lips did not smile. It was an intelligent face, but not a particularly warm one, and once more I tried to summon from my inner self some emotion, some feeling of relationship. Nothing came. I felt only pity for one who had died so young that she had not been able to watch her child develop and grow. She had never had a chance to be a mother, as I had never had the opportunity to be her daughter.

  From the shop beyond came another tinkle of the doorbell and I went to the archway in the partition to greet Nan—and perhaps invite myself to lunch. But the moment I saw the woman who had come into the shop and stood reading Nan’s note, I stepped back, just out of sight. It was Judith Rhodes, and I didn’t want to face her. Perhaps she would leave before she discovered I was here.

  She had changed into yellow corduroy slacks and a handsome brown suede jacket with brass buttons. Her long silky hair had been released from its velvet ribbon and cascaded down her back in a fall of black satin. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, I thought again, and then found myself hedging my own appraisal. No—perhaps not technically beautiful, but somehow giving an effect of beauty, which can be in itself enough.

  Her serenity appeared to have been fully restored, if it had ever been shaken by the arrival of that anonymous letter in her studio, and she moved about Nan’s shop with assurance. I must let her know I was here, I thought, but then she did so curious a thing that I halted in the very act of stepping through the arch.

  Having read Nan’s note she went directly to a row of built-in cupboards and knelt to open a lower drawer. From it she quickly drew a large carton that she carried to a nearby table. Hurrying now, she began to scrabble through the contents as though she must accomplish something before Nan’s return.

  Apparently a set of notebooks interested her most, and she picked up one notebook after another and riffled through the pages. I took less care now to hide myself. If she turned her head and saw me watching, never mind. From where I stood I could see that the pages she searched contained lines of handwriting, but she paused to read little of the content. Each time, after a brief examination, she set the book aside, reaching into the box for another and treating it the same way, until she had a pile of them on the table beside her. Her full lower lip was caught between her teeth as she concentrated—the only sign I could catch of possible anxiety.

  When the bell sounded again, she paused with a notebook in her hands and looked without alarm at the door. Nan walked into the shop with a brown grocery bag in her arms, and saw her immediately. There was a moment of silence and I could almost sense a crackling of antipathy while each waited for the other to speak. Nan seemed vital and alive beside Judith’s quiet that might have seemed apathy if I hadn’t glimpsed the avidity with which she’d searched that box only moments before.

  It was Nan who gave in first to whatever challenge had been raised between them. She set the bag down on a counter, ran fingers through the iron-gray bangs of her straight bob, and walked briskly toward the other woman.

  “Hello, Judith. Are you looking for something?”

  The answer came without confusion or effort at concealment. “Yes—I want to see those old diaries Alice used to keep. I don’t find them here.”

  Nan’s gray eyes appraised without liking, but she answered calmly enough. “Possibly because she never kept a diary that I know of. Exactly what is it you’re looking for?”

  Again there was a brief, silent exchange between them, with Judith’s green eyes holding, but not quite dominating, Nan. I stood unconcealed at the back of the shop, while neither woman noticed me, so intent was each upon the other.

  “I’d like to find the last book she wrote in before she died,” Judith said quietly.

  Nan took off the denim jacket she wore over jeans and green shirt. “Because you think there might be an answer in it to these letters you’ve begun to receive?”

  “Yes. There’s an answer somewhere, and it may lie in your sister’s diaries.”

  “Except that, as I’ve told you, Alice never kept a diary. She used to write those stories constantly as you know—often stories for children. That’s what fills most of those books. I used to read them when we were young. But there never was a diary.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Judith said with quiet authority.

  It was time for me to betray my presence before this turned into an open quarrel, and I coughed gently, apologetically, so that both women turned to stare at me.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to return,” I said to Nan.

  She smiled her welcome stiffly. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Courtney.”

  Judith ignored me, her attention held by the cardboard box she had been so busily emptying. If it disturbed her to find that I had been in the shop all along, she didn’t show it.

  “You were saying that you don’t believe me.” Nan was less calm than Judith, and I heard the hint of anger suppressed.

  “Only because there must have been something of the sort,” Judith said.

  “There wasn’t. I remember asking Alice once why she didn’t keep a journal, since many writers do. But she said all her words had to go into her stories and she wasn’t interested in setting down daily happenings.”

  Judith began piling papers and books back into the box and when it was full she slid it into place in the lower cupboard. At no time had she asked permission, or made the slightest apology for what she was doing. As I had already observed, Judith seemed to cut through to the heart of any encounter with the least possible subterfuge and with no concern for conventions.

  “Thanks, Nan,” she said, as graciously as though she hadn’t been brazenly helping herself. Then she turned to look at me down the room, surprising me once more with her love
ly, breath-taking smile.

  “I’m glad you weren’t hurt by that car, Courtney. And I’m sorry I had to put you in the wrong light with Evan this morning. Please come back and we’ll talk when we can be alone. Stacia was no help to us today.”

  She waved a casual hand, which seemed to include both Nan and me, and walked unhurriedly to the door and out of the shop.

  Nan watched her go, her own face far more expressive than Judith’s—of astonishment and annoyance. “Would you believe,” she said, “that I haven’t seen Judith Rhodes for three months? And then she just walks in and out like that, as though we’d met yesterday.”

  “As you warned me, she’s going to be hard to interview,” I said. “That’s why I came down to see you. And also because I needed to talk to someone who isn’t a Rhodes.”

  “I know how you feel. Alice and I used to have attacks like that. Especially when Lawrence was alive. We never really belonged to the clan. Why don’t you stay to lunch?”

  I nodded toward the note she had left near the door. “I’ve already accepted your invitation,” I said, smiling.

  “Fine. I’ll give Asher a ring and let him know you won’t be having lunch at the house. Would you mind taking this bag back to the fridge while I phone?”

  I carried the bag out to the kitchen area, already reassured and feeling a little less strange than I did in the atmosphere of The Shingles. When apples and oranges and a carton of eggs had been placed in the refrigerator, Nan rejoined me, observing my awkwardness as I moved about the kitchen.

  “You’re limping. What happened to you? What did Judith mean about your not being hurt by a car?”

  “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Someone tried to run me down when I went for a walk in the fog this morning.”

  “Tried to?”

  “Yes. It was deliberate. Whoever it was turned around and came back to try again after the first miss. Someone in a dark blue Mercedes. John Rhodes drove by in his car just in time and the Mercedes speeded off. If he hadn’t rescued me—” Having blurted everything out with no preparation, I faltered to a stop.

  Nan was staring at me open-mouthed. After a moment she said, “Sit down, Courtney,” and pushed me toward the comfortable, armchair. When I’d dropped into it, she lifted the cover of the crock pot, sniffed, and stirred the contents with a spoon. “We can eat any minute now. I hope you’re hungry—I’ve made a lot. I never know who may drop in.”

  “It really happened,” I told her. “I can show you the bruise on my leg.”

  “I believe you. I suppose you’ve discovered that there’s a Mercedes at the house?”

  “Yes. John and I went into the garage and found the hood warm. It was the same car that struck me. I’m sure of it.”

  With neat, economic moves, she opened a gate-legged table, spread it with a cloth the color of green celery, and began to set out soup bowls and a round of dark brown bread with pats of butter.

  “Have you any notion of who might have been driving the car?” she asked.

  “No. None at all. I couldn’t see the person at the wheel. I can’t think of any good motive that would cause someone to try to injure me.”

  She drew two chairs to the table, and motioned me to my place as she began to ladle steaming soup into bright yellow bowls. I found that I was hungrier than I’d been since my arrival, and the soup was thick with vegetables and delicious, the bread crusty and filling. Nan made no speculations about what had happened to me. She did not even remind me that she had advised my going back to New York, and I let the whole matter of the car go. I didn’t think she was wholly convinced, and there were other things I wanted to know.

  I began hesitantly. “Several people have mentioned Alice’s and John’s baby—the child who died in an accident. Can you tell me anything about that?”

  Nan swallowed a mouthful of minestrone. “Why does it matter? It was all so long ago—an unhappy time. I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “I can’t work in the dark,” I said. “Judith seems to be distraught and tied to things that happened in the past. It’s the past that’s made her the way she is now—perhaps made her an artist. But I don’t even know the right questions to ask. Was the child born in East Hampton?”

  “No. Alice ran away to Europe when she knew the baby was coming. Anabel was born in Switzerland.”

  This surprised me. “Ran away? Why? I should have thought old Lawrence Rhodes would have wanted his grandchild born here.”

  “He didn’t know the baby was coming. That was the whole idea. Alice had quarreled with him over the new will he was drawing up, and she wouldn’t stay around to have the baby taken into his hands when it was born. So she and John went abroad. They took me with them to help in any way I could.”

  I suppressed the eagerness that rose in me. “So you were there when—”

  “Yes.” She nodded dully. “Poor little Anabel—to live so short a time.”

  “Please tell me about it.”

  “Before we got to Switzerland old Lawrence sent for John to come home. Of course his father still didn’t know about the baby, and John had to do as he wished. Everyone always did as he wished. I stayed on to help my sister as best I could.”

  “You and Alice must have been very close.”

  “Not always. We had our disagreements. But at least we could stand together against the Rhodes clan when it was necessary. I think our best and happiest time together was at the end of that trip, in Grindelwald. I’ll always remember that little valley, with the great mountains behind—the Jungfrau and the rest. I’m glad we were together peacefully before they both died. But why must you know all this?”

  Switzerland! Had I been born in Switzerland in the shadow of the Jungfrau?

  “All these things seem to be part of Judith’s background,” I said carefully. “How did the baby come to be left with Judith afterwards?”

  “That part was horrible—horrible! We brought Anabel home and Lawrence was told of her birth. But we didn’t go straight to The Shingles. I think Alice had thrown something of a scare into old Lawrence, and when she went home she wanted to be in a better bargaining position than when she’d left. She meant to use her baby to get what she and John deserved from the old man—some real standing in the family. You see, it had always been Herndon he trusted—never John—and that wasn’t fair. Even as an outsider I could see that. So we went first to our mother’s cottage out near Montauk. It’s a comfortable house on the water. Mother wasn’t well, but she welcomed us, and it seemed a safe harbor compared with The Shingles. It wasn’t, of course.”

  Nan’s voice had altered as she spoke, tightening as though she held back emotion.

  “Were you there when Alice died? And when the baby” —I couldn’t help my hesitation over the word—“when the baby died?”

  Emotion surfaced and she answered explosively. “No! No, of course I wasn’t there. Perhaps none of it would have happened if I’d stayed. But I’d had enough of all of them. I’d been with Alice for months, trying to make things easier for her. By that time, however, I couldn’t approve of some of the things she was doing. So I went out to San Francisco for a while. Unfortunately, only Alice had my address, so when she was drowned I had no way of knowing it. It wasn’t until Judith answered a letter I’d written my sister that I learned what had happened. That was the first I knew the baby had died too. So of course I came back—though there wasn’t much to come home to. My mother was more seriously ill and for a while she needed me.” Nan broke off for a moment and then went on, as though she squared her shoulders. “Alice had left me something in her will, and Herndon fixed it with old Lawrence so that I could have this gatehouse to start my shop. Then in a few months Lawrence was dead as well. Tyrants do eventually die!”

  Once the dam had broken, her words had poured forth without restraint, yet somehow I had the feeling that,
in spite of this torrent, she held something back. I didn’t think she was telling me all she knew about Alice’s death, and I put another question.

  “It was Judith who found your sister on the beach that day?”

  Nan pushed her soup bowl away and I knew that I had spoiled her lunch. “Yes—when it was too late. Alice was a very good swimmer—but nevertheless she drowned.”

  “How did Judith happen to be out at Montauk?”

  “John told me about that afterwards. They were all there, except the old man. When Alice and I returned with the baby, Lawrence wasn’t well, and he sent the other three to Montauk to deal with her—Judith and Herndon and John. Lawrence wanted his granddaughter home, and he also wanted them to watch each other. He never trusted anyone, and he always liked to set them against one another whenever he could. At the time Alice died, the baby was sick with a cold. So Judith stayed out there, while Herndon and John brought Alice’s body home.”

  The whole account had made me feel a little ill. There seemed to have been so little loving care for a young baby in what had happened. A picture was emerging in my mind of the old man who had been my grandfather. It was scarcely a picture to match old longings and fantasies, since Lawrence Rhodes must indeed have been a tyrant, and an unloving one. To him, I—if I had really been that baby—had only seemed another pawn in his game of power. Even to Alice, my mother, I had been a counter to use in the play against Lawrence’s tyranny.

  When I spoke there was a tension of resentment in my voice, but Nan was lost in her own thoughts, still tortured by old memories and regrets, and she didn’t notice.

  “What happened to the baby?” I asked.