The Golden Unicorn

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  She seemed to shake herself in a visible effort to return to the present, and she stared at me for a moment before she dipped into the past again.

  “The baby’s cold got worse, and Judith, who wasn’t used to babies, panicked. She felt she had to get her quickly to a doctor. My mother’s doctor was just across the cove from our cottage and Judith felt she could get Anabel to him more quickly by boat than the long way around by road. All the Rhodes used to take to boats as easily as to their cars, and she thought nothing of wrapping the baby well and taking her across that small stretch of water. The doctor said nothing much was wrong, gave Judith a prescription, and sent her home. On the way back a sudden squall blew up and the boat capsized. Eventually the Coast Guard rescued her, but the baby was lost.” Nan’s voice broke on the last words. “I’ll never forgive Judith—never! First my sister—and then Anabel.”

  I could have told her that somehow it was all a lie. Anabel—if I was Anabel—had never been lost from a capsized boat.

  “What happened after that?”

  She swallowed hard and steadied her voice. “Old Lawrence was wild, of course. I don’t know what he’d have done to Judith if she hadn’t been able to tell him that she too was pregnant, and there would still be that Rhodes heir he wanted more than life itself. Herndon returned to Montauk to bring Judith home, and from that day to this she’s never gone out in a boat again. She seldom even walks on the beach. She only paints it—endlessly. The beach and the sea. Obviously she’s ridden by guilt. And sometimes—sometimes I’m glad. But you’ve asked enough questions, Courtney. I haven’t talked about these things for years, and I hadn’t meant to talk about them now. Though it is true that these tragedies have indeed molded Judith.”

  Nevertheless, there was still one more question I had to ask. “Did your sister really want her baby?”

  “More than anything in the world,” Nan said flatly. “After all, it would have given Alice the status she needed in the family. No more about any of this for now, Courtney. And I mean that. None of this can be useful if you write a piece about Judith.”

  “Not directly, of course,” I said. “But at least I can see her more clearly now.”

  “You’d better not see too clearly.” Nan rose from the table, picked up my bowl, and went to the stove.

  “No more soup,” I said. “It was delicious, but filling.”

  She brought cheese and fruit and English whole-meal biscuits to the table and we finished eating, though not without strain. The easiness between us had been lost, but while I regretted that, my quest for answers had been furthered to some extent.

  When the meal was over, Nan showed me about the shop, speaking with affectionate pride of her treasures, though I suspected that her intent was to hold me off and stem any further questions.

  She was particularly pleased with her recent find of a sea chest with a painting on the under side of the lid, and carving on the outside, and she introduced me to her collection of whale-oil lamps and ships’ lanterns.

  “Though you can’t always tell for sure that a lantern came from a ship,” she ran on. “There were so many varieties and they were used on land as well as at sea. But this small pair here were a ship’s running lights. I’m sure of that.”

  At the scrimshaw case she took out a whale’s tooth, handsomely carved, and handed it to me. It was a small tooth, about four inches long, cone-shaped, thick at the base and curved slightly backward to a point. Around it were etched tiny land scenes—of trees and houses and a church, all enclosed by geometric designs. Probably these were the scenes a sailor had yearned for when he was at sea.

  “I’d like you to have it,” Nan said. “Just as thanks for all the reading pleasure you’ve brought me. And as a souvenir of your visit here.”

  The gift was too easily given, and I felt uncomfortable. When she went on, I knew why.

  “Courtney, I hope you won’t mention any of the things we’ve talked about. Not up at the house. It’s all a sensitive area still. It’s better not to open it up. I never intended to say so much.”

  So she was coaxing me. “Isn’t it already open?” I asked. “Isn’t that why Judith was searching for your sister’s diary?”

  Nan shrugged. “Those anonymous letters have her worried. Perhaps she’s afraid someone is trying to bring up all those things she’s kept buried for years. But that doesn’t mean you have to open it up too.”

  “If Judith has nothing to hide, why should she be concerned?”

  “Who says she has nothing to hide?” Nan’s voice had once more taken on a harsh note that disturbed me. Nan Kemble still blamed Judith for the death of her sister and the supposed death of Alice’s baby.

  “There’s one thing you ought to know,” I told her. “Stacia was lying when she indicated that Evan struck her. He didn’t. It was Judith. She told me so herself.”

  Nan considered this gravely. “I see. Yes—it fits the pattern. I’m glad to know it wasn’t Evan.”

  “Pattern?” I said.

  But she turned away and began to examine a stoneware jug. Clearly she was through talking to me, and I moved toward the door with her gift of scrimshaw in my hand—as a bribe for my silence? I didn’t like to have such a thought occur to me, but I couldn’t help wondering.

  At the door I paused, prompted to try one more question. “Do you know anyone named Olive?”

  This time she was plainly startled. “Don’t tell me she has surfaced after all these years?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Someone who was there at the time everything happened. What do you know about her?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “She phoned Evan this morning and he didn’t seem too pleased.”

  There was a new wariness in the look Nan turned upon me. “Have you any idea where this woman is? Has she come back to town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nan was lost in her own thoughts, and I knew she would explain nothing further.

  “I’d better go now,” I told her. “Thank you for the scrimshaw and for a lovely lunch. I was glad to get away from the house for a while.”

  She came with me to the door, but she didn’t ask me to visit her again. “When will you be leaving East Hampton?”

  “I’m not sure. I really haven’t accomplished much in my one talk with Judith. I’m going to try again this afternoon, since she seems more amiable toward me now.”

  “Good luck,” Nan said dryly. “But don’t stay around too long. Or take any more walks by yourself.”

  So perhaps she did believe me, after all.

  I went back to my car and got into the driver’s seat. Someone had been there ahead of me. On the passenger’s side lay the head of a doll with long black hair, its eyes peacefully closed, a slight smirk on parted lips that barely showed a space of pearly china teeth. The sight was ghoulish, and as I picked it up reluctantly the eyelids clicked open to reveal emptiness behind. The hollows where eyes should have looked out seemed more horrid than staring blue glass.

  Stacia again? What did this mean—this infantile tormenting? Because she wasn’t an infant. I’d had glimpses that had shown me the woman—sometimes desperate, sometimes angry, but anything but immature, for all her affectation of childish ways.

  Then I saw that something had slipped off the seat when I had picked up the head. An envelope lay on the floor, and I wondered if I too was to receive an anonymous letter. But when I picked it up and took out the single sheet of notepaper, I saw that it bore The Shingles imprint at the head, and a name was signed at the bottom of the few handwritten lines—Stacia’s name. I read the words.

  I thought you might like this one, Courtney. Judith had the wig especially made for it. She cut the hair from her own head because she was foolish enough to think I might have fun combing it in different styles—the way she used to comb hers. Imagine!

  That was all
, except for her name. Silky black hair clung insinuatingly to my fingers, as though it still carried living electricity. I set the thing down on the seat and started the car. It was going to be necessary to have a talk with Stacia Faulkner. A very private talk in which the air might be cleared and certain rules laid down, if I was to be able to stay on in the house even a few days longer. One of those rules being that I would not stand for this sort of torment any longer. If she had anything to say to me, she could say it straight out, with no necessity for these vicious tricks. They were vicious—I knew that now. Not the pranks of a girl who had never grown up, but an intent to drive me up the wall if it could be managed—and I wanted to know why. Among other things, I wanted to know if she had been the driver of the Mercedes that had struck me down.

  8

  Inside the house I wandered around downstairs, with the doll’s head bulging a pocket of my slacks. The living room was empty, and only the portrait of the woman who could be my mother dominated the dining room. I stood before it again, wonderingly, looking up into that mischievous face that was so different from the graver one in Nan’s photograph.

  Whatever had happened on that beach in Montauk and in the cottage that belonged to the Kembles, it was all having its repercussions now, and from the beginning it had concerned me. Through the pendant on the chain about my neck, the same pendant Alice had worn in the portrait, I knew how dangerously I was tied to whatever was happening. Someone here knew who I was—wanted me dead. How could I doubt my identity any longer?

  I wandered on through the lower part of the house, to find the library door open, and Evan at work again on his task of pulling order out of the accumulation of years. He did not look around as I came to stand in the door, and I didn’t go in. When I saw Asher at the far end of the hall I went toward him. The old man had apparently been taking Tudor for a walk and when he saw me he shortened his grip on the dog’s chain and waited for me to pass. I stayed my distance.

  “Can you tell me which room is Mrs. Faulkner’s?” I asked.

  He gestured toward the upper floor. “Mr. and Mrs. Herndon have the room at the south end of the floor. Mrs. Faulkner’s room is at the opposite end.”

  I thanked him and went upstairs. At the north end of the corridor the door stood closed, but I could hear a radio beyond, and I tapped on the panel. The sound was switched off and Stacia called to me to come in.

  She was sitting near a window when I opened the door, one hand on a thin notebook in her lap, and she looked around at me with a smile too winning to be true. Her fair hair hung over her eyes and she brushed it back as she looked up.

  “Hello, Courtney. Do come in. I’m glad of company. Have you heard the news on the radio? The weather report says that our hurricane has started in toward the mainland and may hit Florida.”

  With the door firmly closed behind me because I wanted this to be private, I stood looking about the big, cheerful room, taking stock and not in the least caring about hurricanes. Storms of an outdoor nature had no interest for me at the moment, but only the inner storms that filled this house.

  The room was large, and a bit more fussy than I’d have expected. A flowered satin flounce decorated the top of the four-poster bed, with a satin quilt to match flung over what looked like a puffy feather mattress. Stacia, still wearing her shorts and pullover, lay in a flowered chaise longue, with a small armchair covered in strawberry gingham opposite. Narrow bookshelves had been set against the wall on either side of a white fireplace, and on the floor were fringed cotton rugs woven in multicolored stripes.

  It was hardly a man’s room, and though it was moderately untidy, with a few clothes strewn about, I saw nothing that might have belonged to Evan.

  “Sit down, do.” Stacia gestured toward the gingham chair, but I made no move toward it. As in every room in this house, the side overlooking sand and ocean dominated, and I went to an open window, where the eternally restless sound of the ocean reached me.

  “I see you’ve collected a bit of Nan’s scrimshaw,” Stacia said.

  I held up the ivory tooth. “She was kind enough to give it to me.”

  “Oh, Nan can be very kind. What did she want for it?”

  Her words brought me around from the window. “What do you mean? She made a friendly gesture—that was all.”

  “Sure, sure. I’m very fond of Nan, but she’s good at bargaining. That’s why her shop is such a success.”

  I’d heard enough, even though I’d sensed something of the sort myself, and I took the doll’s head from my pocket.

  “This is your property, I believe?”

  She nodded brightly. “So you found it? I thought it might interest you. Eerie, isn’t it—when you think that black hair came from Judith’s own head?”

  For a moment I said nothing, trying to hold back an impulse to hurl words at her in anger. When I could manage to speak quietly, I went on.

  “What are you trying to do, Stacia? Do you really think I’m a child who can be frightened by pranks?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she told me frankly. “Breaking points are different for everyone. The only way to find out is to test. Isn’t that so?” She laughed, with a touch of hysteria in her voice.

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to break anyone.”

  “Then you’ve missed a lot of fun,” she said lightly.

  “Why should you want to break me—if that’s what you are trying to do?”

  Her eyelids dropped lazily, so that long blond lashes lay upon her cheeks. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

  I decided that I had better sit down after all. The gingham chair was comfortable and there was a matching footstool for my feet.

  “You found the unicorn pendant, didn’t you?” I said. “Why did you take it away?”

  “I wanted to make sure it was the right one.”

  “Who else did you show it to?”

  She smiled at me—a triangular, cat’s smile. “Why did you come here, Courtney?”

  “I had the mistaken idea that I wanted to learn about my forebears. I wanted to know what sort of family I belonged to.”

  “I suppose you’re Alice’s mysteriously lost baby, aren’t you? I always did think there was something fishy about that story.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Odd to think we may be cousins. Have you considered that?”

  “I’m afraid I have.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “Should I be?”

  This was mere dueling and she raised her foil. “It must seem strange to come suddenly into a whole nest of relatives. Nan would be your aunt, and Herndon your uncle, John your father. Even Judith would be an aunt by marriage. What are you going to do about a family like this?”

  I wanted to put an end to such fencing and I attacked in earnest. “Nothing. Nothing serious enough to cause you to run me down in a car.”

  She lay very still, her eyes closed and the tiny smile gone from her lips. She looked frozen in ice—a small and oddly appealing sleeping beauty. When she opened her eyes the illusion was dispelled and I saw venom in her look.

  “What do you expect me to say to an outrageous accusation like that?”

  “I expect you to lie,” I told her calmly. “The way you did about Evan striking you.”

  With a swift movement, she sat up, dislodging the notebook from her knees, so that it fell to the floor. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. On my twenty-fifth birthday, which is only a few weeks off, my grandfather’s will goes into effect. I will inherit most of his fortune—this house and all the family treasures, most of the money—everything that’s been held for me. He was mad at the whole family when he drew up that will—so I profit. And I don’t mean to keep The Shingles for one moment longer than I have to. I’m already making plans to sell it—sell everything in it that isn�
��t personally owned by the others.”

  I recoiled from such extreme venom, finding myself sorry for Judith for the first time.

  “Why can’t you leave the house to your mother and father? Judith works best here, doesn’t she?”

  “What do I care about that? Let her work somewhere else! You sound like Evan.”

  “I suppose I don’t understand deliberate injury. Why do you want to hurt her?”

  She leaned over to pick up the notebook, and I noticed that it matched the ones Judith had been rummaging through out in Nan’s shop. But her movement was only a means of giving her time to think about her answer.

  “Why do I want to hurt her? Because she’s always hurt everyone else. Alice, John, Herndon, Grandfather—maybe even you. Why shouldn’t she have a taste of what it feels like?”

  “Do you really think she hasn’t suffered too? It’s there in her eyes. She hasn’t won that serenity she wears so easily.”

  With an abrupt gesture, Stacia held the notebook out to me. “Here—you can have this, if you like. A heritage from your mother. Alice used to write stories, you know, and Nan gave me this book of them to read. Maybe you’d like it. I really don’t care much for fairy stories.”

  I took the book from her. “Did Alice ever have any of her work published?”

  “I don’t think so. Grandfather Lawrence thought what she wrote was nonsense, or so I’ve been told. He didn’t want his daughter-in-law to have such pursuits. You’d have to ask Nan about that. Anyway, I was telling you what I mean to do when Grandfather’s money comes to me. I hadn’t finished, and I’m sure you must be interested. I’m going to have the most marvelous time in the world. I’m going to buy anything my heart desires. I’ll have a yacht, if I like, and some beautiful foreign cars. Not anything so dreary as a Mercedes. I’ll have clothes. I’ll travel. People will pay attention to me. Important people. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “It certainly sounds like a squandering spree. What do you do when it’s gone?”

  “It won’t be gone. There’s too much for one person like me to spend. Of course there will be investments—all that sort of dull necessity. There are banks and lawyers to handle such matters.”