Lost Island

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  On the far side of the river the sun was low in the sky, staining the air with a pale yellow and rose that would deepen as it set into the soft green of the horizon. I sat down on the battlements and was very still. There had been times in the past when I had run to this place for a few moments of utter quiet. Here the sound of the sea was hushed. Only the river lapped gently at stone banks beneath the battlements, and the marsh birds called to one another.

  But this evening there was no peace for me anywhere. Inside me nothing was still. I was swept by longings I could not control, by pain I did not know how to overcome. The island offered me nostalgia and longing and more hurt. As I knew now, there was no surcease for me here.

  A sound of voices broke in upon the outward quiet, startling me. I rose from the wall and walked across the roof. A man and a woman strolled beneath the sweet gums, a little way distant. They were Hadley Rikers and Elise Severn. I stood where I was, openly, but they were engrossed in each other and did not see me. As I watched them cross the clearing the sound of their voices drifted toward me, but I could not hear their words—and did not want to. Then, quite suddenly, they moved together. Elise was caught into the man’s arms and his head came down to meet her lifted face. I stood frozen where I was, not wanting to watch, yet held there in spite of myself.

  The embrace was long and fervent. It was Elise who broke suddenly away, pushing her hands against his chest, running a few steps away from him. He laughed softly and came after her at once, but this time she held him off, shaking her head, joining his laughter with her own, playing her tantalizing game. They went on together after a moment, walking toward Sea Oaks hand-in-hand.

  I turned my back and looked out across marsh and river, tasting the purity of the air, sensing the stillness just before sunset. But I was sickened as though I had drunk some nauseating draught. In that moment I hated my cousin. How could she play at love with other men when she was married to Giles? She had everything I had ever wanted, yet she brushed it all carelessly aside for a man like Hadley Rikers.

  Out beyond the river the marshes were darkening, losing their calm green radiance, their sense of peace. At night the marsh was a place of forbidding mystery. I ran toward the crumbling steps and down from the roof, hurrying toward Sea Oaks.

  Halfway to the house I met Giles Severn. He came striding along the path at a furious pace, his assumed indifference gone, and I sensed that he must be trying to walk out his rage. He had met those two on the way, and there was anger in him, in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. When he saw me he came to a halt and tried to fling off the mood that drove him.

  “Hello, Lacey. Out for a sunset walk?”

  I nodded. “The old fort with its view of the river and the marshes used to calm me when I was upset. But the old spells don’t work any more.”

  “Are you upset, Lacey? Why?”

  I couldn’t tell him, of course. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have come to the island. I had a foolish idea that if I saw it with adult eyes its spell would lessen and I’d be able to rid myself of old ties. But when I see the island again, they only bind me more strongly.”

  “Which of the old ties?” he asked carefully.

  I spoke a little breathlessly. “Ties out of my childhood. Times when I was happy. When my mother was alive and—”

  “Why did you run away from me?” he asked.

  I flung out my hands. “Do you think I couldn’t see what was happening? You were in love with Elise and I wouldn’t stand by and watch.”

  He shook his head. “Not good enough,” he said. “No—you can’t tell me that now. I understood clearly enough at the time. You were very young, and too impulsive and generous. Perhaps it was summer magic for us both. You got frightened, or perhaps a little bored, and you didn’t know how to break things off. It was like that, wasn’t it?”

  There was nothing I could say. I could hardly blurt out the fact that I’d found I was going to have his baby, and I had been too proud and too young to know how to tell him. Too fearful of making a claim he might feel obliged to honor. Too convinced that if he loved me he would come after me.

  I walked beside him in silence and after a moment he touched me lightly on the arm. “I’m sorry, Lacey. I was hurt and angry at the time, but I mustn’t take that young anger out on you now. And there’s Richard. Whatever happened in my marrying Elise, I could never regret Richard.”

  Somehow I was glad he had said that, even though he could not know the true meaning of his words. I would never regret Richard either.

  We walked back to the house without saying anything more. His rage against Elise had died, but there was an unrest in both of us as we followed the path. My cousin was playing a dangerous game. How much did Giles care? How much would he endure of this sort of thing, whether he cared for her or not?

  At the steps of the house we parted, and Giles went around toward the stables. I climbed slowly to the portico, and found Elise waiting for me near the door. She was alone.

  “Did you enjoy your walk with Giles?” she asked, and I knew I was in for a tormenting.

  I returned her look gravely. “It’s always pleasant to walk with an old friend.”

  “Old friend?” Her delicate eyebrows raised a little. “What do you think of him now, Lacey? He was only a boy when you knew him. He’s a man now. What do you think of him as a man?”

  “I would think,” I said steadily, “that he could be worth everything a woman might give to marriage with him.”

  Her laughter had a flippant sound that angered me. “So you’re still carrying a torch for him? I wondered about that. You were always such a loyal little thing. No wonder you came back.”

  “I came back at your invitation,” I reminded her.

  “I would have added mine, too, if I’d had a chance.” Giles had returned to the house, and he spoke as he came up the steps. When he reached the top he held out his hand to me. “Going inside, Lacey?”

  I didn’t know how much he had heard, but I gave him my hand and we went into the house together. I glimpsed Elise’s face as we passed her, and her expression was dark with venom.

  “You’re shaking,” Giles said when we were out of her hearing. “You mustn’t let her get under your skin, Lacey. She plays that game deliberately.”

  I wanted only to escape him. “I know Elise,” I assured him, and ran away from him and up the stairs. A few shreds of pride were left to me, and I did not want him to see how true Elise’s final words had been. I could not feel safe until the door of my room was shut behind me. Then I stood for a few moments with my hands covering my face. These last hours were going to be hard to get through.

  At dinner that night Charles was away, having accepted an invitation from Amalie to The Bitterns. Paul had gone home to Malvern on the mainland. Only Elise and Giles, Hadley Rikers and I, and of course Richard were there. No pranks were played upon anyone, and the meal went smoothly enough on the surface, with Elise and Hadley carrying the burden of the conversation. Giles was the correct host, and that was all.

  “I’ve finished reading the manuscript,” I told Elise, and she insisted upon asking questions. I managed not to commit myself, on the grounds that I was no proper judge of the book, admitting only that it had held my interest. It was as if our interchange on the portico had never been.

  Hadley listened with slightly amused interest, and I had the feeling that he had every confidence in his book’s being published, and thought my hesitance rather silly.

  When dinner was over I sat for a while in the long double parlor with the others, but as soon as I could I went up to get ready for bed. What I wanted most was to be asleep, to be hurrying the time that must pass before my leaving. Richard was beyond my reach, and Giles was deep in his own troubles. Now I had only tomorrow and the affair at the Sea Oaks plant to get through before I could take my plane for home.

  I went to bed as early as I could and listened fitfully to the sound of the ocean rolling onto the beach below the house. Ther
e was a strong wind tonight, and the waves rushed up the sand with an all-enveloping roar, then receded, only to rush in again—over and over, the everlasting, rhythmic voice of the sea.

  I must have slept because the high sound of a human voice startled me, brought me wide awake, sitting up in bed. The sound came from below my window, and I recognized the voice as Elise’s.

  “Try and stop me!” she cried. “I’ll do exactly as I please. I’ll see exactly whom I please. There isn’t anything you can do about it.”

  Lower tones answered her—a man’s voice, Giles’s. I did not hear the words.

  “Oh, I know you’d like me gone!” Elise cried, her tone rising angrily. “Then you could be rid of me. You’d have everything for yourself—the island, Sea Oaks, Richard. But you shan’t have them. The island belongs to me, and so does my son. He loves me first and best, and I mean to see that it goes on that way. I mean to see—”

  Somehow he managed to hush her and get her farther away from the house. The sound of the sea took over and there was nothing else to hear.

  I was wide awake now, and I did not think I would easily fall asleep again. If only I had something to read. After a little while I put on my robe and slippers and went quietly downstairs.

  I half expected to find Charles home by this time, and reading in the library again, but he was not there. Instead, Giles sat alone by a window, with a glass in his hand. He sloshed the ice about in it and drank, then leaned his head back against his chair. His face was like a mask—something I had never seen before. Not angry now, not wild with rage, but with a stamp of hopelessness upon it. A stormy longing rose in me. I wanted to run to him, fling myself on my knees beside him and put my arms tight about him. I wanted to offer him solace, sympathy, understanding—love.

  Of course I could offer him nothing. I had no right to do so. And I could imagine how surprised he would be at so emotional a gesture. So I stood there in the darkness of the hall a few moments longer. Long enough to witness his lonely, quiet drinking. Then I went back up to bed and lay tossing for most of the night. The picture at Sea Oaks had come clear, and it was the picture of the trap a woman had built about a man. A cruel trap, and perhaps a dangerous one. Because I did not think Giles would live in it forever, and when he made an eventual move to escape, a number of people might be hurt.

  Whether I had the right or not, I wondered if I should help to effect that escape. What would the result be if I went to him and told him the truth—that Richard was my son, and not Elise’s? There seemed little of a bargain to hold me now because of Elise’s own behavior. Yet there was still the matter of my own conscience, and I knew I would do nothing of the kind. The time might come when I would fly in the face of my self-restraint, but that time was not yet. The consequences could be too grave. Grave for Richard himself. The shock of discovering that Elise was not his mother, when he apparently adored her, could be bitter and destructive—and the harm done would be permanent.

  In the morning after breakfast, I phoned Aunt Amalie. “May I come and talk to you? Just to you alone?”

  She told me to come right away. I let Elise know that I was going to The Bitterns, and set off on the walk between the two houses.

  Floria was not about when I arrived, and Amalie met me at the door. We were all going over to the Sea Oaks plant later in the morning, and she was dressed in a simple gray-green linen frock that made her look trim and elegant, even at this time of day.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked as she took me into the parlor of The Bitterns.

  It was a room I had always liked. Aunt Amalie had a fondness for things Victorian, and the red velvet sofa, the occasional chairs with their oval backs, the faded India carpet, and the small pedestal tables, all gave the flavor of Victorian times.

  I sat down on the dark red velvet of the sofa. “Everything is wrong at Sea Oaks,” I said. “You must know that.”

  She moved about the room, not seating herself at once, idly touching books on the piano, a big conch shell on the whatnot shelf.

  “What do you mean exactly?” she asked at last.

  I began at an oblique angle. “Well, it’s a trivial meanness, but who do you think put that sand dollar in my napkin yesterday at lunch?”

  She was equally oblique. “Who do you think put it there?”

  “The only likely person seems to be Elise,” I said. “And that makes no sense.”

  Aunt Amalie seated herself in a small chair opposite me. Light from a window touched the wide, high cheekbones of her face, lighted her dark eyes, showed traces of red in her hair. She looked younger than her fifty-odd years, and a little sad.

  “She’s afraid of you,” Aunt Amalie said.

  “Elise? Of me? But that’s ridiculous. She invited me here.”

  “I warned her not to. I didn’t think you should be brought back to the island and all it holds for you. But Elise takes matters into her own hands when it suits her, and she would see nothing except her wish to help Mr. Rikers.”

  I caught up the name and let the rest go. “What about this Hadley Rikers?”

  She was silent for a moment or two, her sadness reaching out to touch me with the gentleness of an old affection for her sister’s child.

  “You’re thinking about Giles, aren’t you?”

  I heard her but I did not answer.

  After a moment she went on. “I don’t think Elise is serious about Hadley Rikers. Or about anyone else, for that matter. I think she craves admiration and excitement. I think she must punish Giles for not loving her as much as she feels it is her right to be loved.”

  “But what an unhappy way to live!”

  Aunt Amalie nodded. “It would not be my way. But I’ve waited a long while to marry Charles. I will value what I am getting. Perhaps Elise married Giles too easily. Perhaps she doesn’t value him enough. Perhaps your coming here has opened her eyes a little.”

  “I’m glad if it’s done someone some good,” I said dryly.

  “My dear!” Aunt Amalie left her chair and came to sit beside me on the sofa. She took my hands and held them in her own. “I know how hard it’s been for you. I’ve seen the way you look at Richard. I’ve seen the way you look at his father. And you mustn’t, you know. That road can only lead to tragedy. For everyone. Elise knows, basically, what she wants. She wants the island, Sea Oaks—Giles, even. She wants an heir to those things she holds—Richard. She will never give them up, and anyone who crosses her path in opposition will meet with merciless treatment.”

  “What does Giles want?” I asked, not meeting her eyes.

  She patted my hands and then let them go with a slight asperity, as though she grew impatient with me.

  “Giles wants the good of his son above all else. Perhaps that’s what we all want, more than anything—what is right for the boy. I do, and I believe Elise does as well, in her way. She’s very fond of him, you know.”

  “I’ve wondered about that.” My tone was still dry.

  Aunt Amalie sighed. “I suppose I’ve foreseen this moment from the time when you gave up your baby. With another woman the giving up might be complete, but not, I think with you, Lacey dear. You’ve never recovered from the loss. It’s hurt me to watch you these two days. Because this is my fault, too. For your sake I sometimes wonder if I was wise in what I helped you plan. But then I look at Richard, and I know this was the only way.”

  Was it? I wondered. Had it really been? Or had I been too young and unhappy and frightened to do what was ultimately wise and right—and courageous? Sometimes one had to fight—how could I know now?

  “Richard is happy,” Aunt Amalie said gently. “He loves his father deeply. You’ve given him that above all else. And he adores Elise. You should see the way he follows her around at times—”

  “Begging for her love?” I broke in.

  “Richard doesn’t beg for anything, as you’d know if you were here for a while. He’s a very proud little boy. Don’t torment yourself, Lacey dear. The affection Eli
se has to give him is different from what yours would be. Allow her the privilege of that difference. Perhaps it’s not so all-consuming a love as yours would be, but Richard is not neglected in any way. There’s no dearth of affection around him.”

  She was being fair, as perhaps I was not. There was a need for me to stop on occasion and examine my own motivation. Perhaps I was too ready to see Elise in an unfavorable light as Richard’s mother. For all that I told myself I wanted Richard’s well-being, wouldn’t it give me a secret satisfaction to believe that no one could make him as good a mother as I? Aunt Amalie was helping me to see an unhappy truth more clearly than I wanted to.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” I said. “When I watch Richard, sometimes I don’t know what to think.”

  “You must allow him to be himself. He isn’t always an easy child to be near. You’d find that if you were around him much. He can be sunny and radiant, and a joy to us all. And he can be a young demon filled with strange notions of revenge toward the very ones who love him most. You’ve only seen him on his best behavior.”

  I felt that I was still not reaching the heart of what was truly wrong at Sea Oaks. I was not touching on the trouble that lay between Elise and Giles. While I sought for the right words, Aunt Amalie returned to the matter of the sand dollar.

  “You know Elise well enough to realize that she’s given to whimsies. The sand dollar might be a way of warning you that you must say nothing, that you must not be tempted to speak out.”

  “Say nothing?”

  “About Richard’s birth, of course. Have you any conception of the upheaval there would be if you told the truth at this late date? Giles would hate you both. And I don’t know what he would do as far as Elise goes.”

  “Whatever happened would be bad for Richard,” I agreed. “I can see that.”

  She nodded at me briskly. “I’m glad you can. The cup is broken. It’s too late to mend anything that way now.”