“Just the same,” I said, “I had to think of it seriously. Perhaps I still do. I wish terribly that I could do something to help.”
“You can,” Aunt Amalie said with a touch of her former asperity. “You can cut your ties with the island. With Sea Oaks. With all of us here. That’s painful drastic treatment. I hope you have the strength for it. It’s the only way I can see that will do any good.”
I knew she was giving me her best advice, but I didn’t know whether I could take it. “I’m not sure I can,” I said. “I truly don’t know if I can.”
“We live with what we have to live with,” Aunt Amalie said, and I knew suddenly that her own life lay spoken in those few words.
I slipped my arm about her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here to dump my troubles in your lap. I know I have to work this out myself. And I haven’t taken the time to tell you how glad I am that everything is turning out well for you.”
She embraced me warmly and then drew away. “In a little while it will be time to start for Malvern. You’d better run back to Sea Oaks and get ready.”
“I will,” I said. “And thank you, Aunt Amalie. I’m not sure I can see things your way, but I’ll try.”
She came to the door with me, and I hurried across the garden and out the white gate between the tall hedges. Beyond the gate Floria waited for me. She wore the same flowered dress she had put on yesterday, and her legs were bare, with thonged sandals on her feet. She greeted me with no particular pleasure and fell into step beside me.
“I’ll walk you back to Sea Oaks,” she said. “What was all that with my mother? What was so important that I had to be banished from the house?”
“It was nothing much,” I said evasively. “I wanted to have a visit with her before I leave. There’ll be no more time today.”
She glanced at me suspiciously, with her reddish brows drawn down. “Paul says you’re still in love with Giles,” she blurted out.
“Oh, come now!” I looked up at her as she strode along, tall at my side. “Paul is taking something upon himself.”
“He’s more sensitive to such things than I am,” Floria told me. “And he hasn’t forgotten about you and Giles when you were young. All that had gone out of my mind.”
“As it should,” I said. “What on earth’s the matter with you, Floria? You can’t put spells on me now.”
“I’d have liked to that time when I thought you might marry Giles,” she said. “If I hadn’t been too grown up I’d have done some of my own sort of island voodoo.”
I could only look at her in astonishment. “I didn’t know you had anything against me to that extent, Floria.”
“Oh, I hadn’t anything against you. It was just that I wanted to see Giles marry Elise.”
“Because you loved your sister so much?” I asked in some astonishment.
“Because I hated her,” Floria said.
There was such passion in her words that I glanced at her again in surprise. Her thick eyebrows were drawn down in a scowl, and her red hair was wildly massed on her shoulders as she tossed her head.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” I told her.
“I’ll say what I please! And this afternoon when you get aboard that plane out of Malvern, I hope you never come back.”
She wheeled on the path beside me and strode toward The Bitterns, leaving me shaken and not a little shocked. What on earth had gotten into Floria? What was disturbing her so much that she should pour this tumult of emotion into words directed at me?
There seemed no easy answer to that question as I hurried back to Sea Oaks. The others were nearly ready to leave, and I ran up to my room to change for the trip to Malvern.
While I was dressing I tried to plan. This would be my last opportunity to be with them all together. It would be my last opportunity for observation. My talk with Aunt Amalie had left me frustrated. I could see how she must feel—because of Elise. Yet she was trying to be fair to me too, and advise me for my own good. For the most part, I had failed in my reason for returning to the island. Now I was to be given another chance, and I must be ready for it.
When I went downstairs I found that Hadley Rikers had left the island. So at least he would not be present any longer, and Elise could not goad and torment Giles with her flirtation. The fact that Aunt Amalie felt she meant little by it did not improve the situation.
Floria and Charles were driving with Amalie over to Malvern, and the rest of us were going with Giles in the station wagon. Paul was already at the plant.
When we got into the car, I did a little quick maneuvering that placed me in the back seat with Richard. The boy was not altogether pleased, but Elise gave him a mischievous look as she took her place next to Giles, and he subsided rather glumly beside me. On the way I tried to get him to talk, but he was plainly bored with me this morning, and I realized that I was hampered by Elise’s listening presence in the front seat. I could not be myself with the boy, and I suspected that he could not be himself with me. Elise would undoubtedly influence him against me.
We drove down the asphalt road and across bridge and causeway into the broad, palm-lined streets of Malvern. The Sea Oaks plant was a little way outside of town, and though we were early, people were already arriving, and Paul was in charge. I saw Aunt Amalie’s gray car parked outside as we went in.
The freezing plant was already in operation, and Giles turned at once to his duties as host. Visitors were filing in, their lines controlled, with guides assigned to each group.
Elise and Richard and I went to join Floria, Aunt Amalie and Charles, as they moved about, watching what was going on, greeting those of the visitors whom they knew. The plant consisted of several high-ceilinged oblong rooms built of concrete, all opening into one another at angles. There were electric lights overhead everywhere, and high glass windows as well, along all the walls. I was aware at once of the clang and hammer of machinery, of the movement of conveyor belts, of women with white caps over their hair working at the cleaning of shrimp and other seafood, of men unloading the deliveries of shrimp and lobster, clams and scallops, bringing them by carton-loads into the plant. White and Negro men and women worked together throughout, and I knew this was Giles’s successful policy.
Though there was a smell of fish, it was surprisingly mild, and not at all offensive. A great deal of water was used in the operation, and some of it inevitably spilled off on the brown tile floor, so that one had to move about with caution.
Richard came out of his bored mood and took it upon himself to act as my guide, perhaps because I made him a satisfactory audience. He showed me the women who were butterflying the shrimp with sharp knives and swiftly skillful hands. He showed me where the sauces were being mixed, where the finished dishes were being sent through the cooking units, and then put into trays for quick freezing. I saw where blocks of frozen foods were sent along a conveyor belt, to be sliced by machinery and quickly, neatly packaged, only to be stored instantly again in the great freezers.
The freezers themselves fascinated me, but Richard was reluctant to go near them.
“I don’t like them, but you can go inside if you want,” he said. “I’ll see you later.” He summoned a foreman to open a door for me.
The man raised one of the great doors and I watched it go sliding upward out of sight. Then someone called to him and he went off, leaving me to my devices.
There were lights inside the big room, and I stepped wonderingly into a world where frost vapors made a thin fog. At once the noisy clatter of the outer room faded, and I was in the deep, quiet cold of a northern night. Stacked in high, solid rows were racks of shelves on wheels, holding trays of food that were being frozen. I walked into the bone-chilling cold, meaning to stay only a few seconds, letting the big gray cavern draw me into its vast depths.
As I took a few steps along a wide main aisle, I heard a sound behind me that made me whirl about. I was in time to see the door sliding inexorably down into its locked p
osition. Without warning, I had been shut into the freezer.
Someone had made a mistake, of course. Someone had carelessly closed the door, leaving me inside. I hurried to the great wood and metal expanse and banged on it with both hands, calling for someone to open it and let me out. Nothing happened. I remembered the loud roar of machinery beyond that must drown out any pounding or shouting of mine.
It had all happened so suddenly that I did not panic at once. I was more annoyed than anything else. But as the cold penetrated my flesh and set me shivering as nothing happened to the door, I grew frightened. The situation was ridiculous—and utterly menacing. Oh, where was Richard that he didn’t see what had happened to me?
Frantically I began to search the door for buttons or knobs or bolts that might be manipulated from within to let me out. Surely there must be a way out of the freezers from inside. But if there was a way, I could not find it, and the cold was growing worse—a little numbing now.
Then, quite suddenly, the door moved beneath my hands. It slid upward with a clang and freed me to the warm outer world. I found myself staring into the faces of Paul Courtney and Giles Severn.
“S-s-someone closed the d-d-door,” I said between chattering teeth.
Paul gestured. “There’s an overhead chain you can pull to open it. See it there, hanging from the ceiling, right above where you were standing.”
I could see the chain, but I hadn’t known what it was for, and I might never have guessed. I clasped my arms about my shivering body and stared at them both, shocked and helpless.
Giles put an arm about me. “Come along,” he said. “I’ll get you into the warm sun.”
As he led me toward the outer door, I saw Richard and tried to smile at him. “I wish you hadn’t gone away,” I said. “Someone shut me into the freezer by mistake.”
He gave me a dark look, such as I had never seen on his face before. “I hate you!” he cried a little wildly. “Why did you come here when we don’t want you here? I hate you!”
Giles reached out and grasped his son’s collar, gave him a quick shake, but the boy squirmed out of his grasp and ran away across the wet tile floor.
“What was that all about?” Giles said. “Richard couldn’t have shut you into the freezer. He couldn’t reach the chain.”
“He—he was all right just a few moments ago,” I said. “He was being very nice to me.”
“Never mind. It was lucky that one of the foremen told us where you must be, and we came to look for you.” Giles opened a door and I stepped into the warm sunshine of late morning.
He led me around to the side where there was a long tulip bed and a stone bench. I sat down and lifted my face to the sun. The shivering had left me now, and the heat felt wonderful on my face and arms.
“I’m sorry I got in trouble,” I said. “Go back to your guests, Giles. I’ll sit here for a little while.”
His eyes were concerned, his look grave. “I can’t imagine what could have happened. Anyone who works at the plant would look inside as a matter of routine before he closed the door.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll be all right now.”
“I’ll drive you in to catch your plane this afternoon,” he told me. “Don’t worry about anything till then.”
He touched me lightly on the shoulder in a gesture of affection, and went back inside the plant. I sat very still in the sun, letting it seep into my pores and wipe out the last traces of that bone-chilling cold.
The truth was coming clear in my mind. It had not been an employee of the plant who had closed the door of the freezer. Another prank had been played on me, though a more serious one this time than that of the sand dollar. Someone was determined to frighten me. Not, I thought, to injure me dangerously—surely I would have been let out in time—but just to chill and alarm me. I could not know for sure that it was Elise who had done this, but I had a very good idea. Richard’s behavior told me the truth. He might have seen what had happened, and allied himself on the side of whoever had closed the door.
It was a long half hour that I stayed in the sun. Then I got to my feet and walked back into the plant and sought out Aunt Amalie.
5
My plane was aloft. I watched the curving Malvern River far below, and looked beyond it for a brief glimpse of the roofs of Sea Oaks and The Bitterns, a vanishing view of Elephant Beach. Then there were only marshes for a time, and Hampton Island was left behind as we flew up the coastline. We flew over other islands that were equally fair, equally golden, but which meant nothing to me. My island was lost to me. I was flying into exile. I could never go back.
I turned from the window and rested my head against the back of the seat. Giles had kissed me good-bye and I still felt the sudden hard brush of his mouth across my own. For an instant I had responded to him with all the warmth I felt. Then I had pulled away and was out in the open, running toward my plane.
Now Hampton was lost in the haze behind me and even the odor of the marshes was already an elusive scent that I could not recall.
While we were still at the plant, I had told Aunt Amalie and Charles about being shut into the freezer. I had made no accusations, but I had let them know what a fright I’d had. I think Aunt Amalie understood perfectly what I was saying, that she knew very well what I believed. Once while I was telling her under the rattle and clash of machinery, I caught her looking across the huge room to where Elise stood talking to Paul, with Floria standing by, dark-faced and displeased about something.
“It’s a good thing you’re going home,” she told me. “You know how sorry I am to say this, Lacey, but for your own good I think you must not come back.”
Charles, not altogether understanding, tried to soften her words, tried to tell me that I would always be welcome on Hampton Island. And of course I must come back for their wedding.
But I knew I would not.
It was especially hurtful to take with me a remembrance of the look and manner Richard had worn toward me right up to the moment when Giles had driven me away. At the plant the boy had not come near me again, but had stayed with his Aunt Floria, who was his good and usually sympathetic friend.
It was a relief to get back to New York and be caught up in the demands of my work again. Every day I was beset by the problems of the writers whose manuscripts I edited, rewarded with small triumphs. Every day I was distracted and reasonably content. But in the evening when I went home, it became more difficult to shut out the ghosts. I remembered the surly look on the face of my son when I said good-bye to him. I remembered Elise’s light, silvery laugh when she had told me that I must come back often—knowing that I never would.
Particularly did my small apartment begin to be haunted by Giles. I kept imagining how he would look sitting in this chair or that. I could see him walk through the door, or stand beside a window. He was in my thoughts constantly and I seemed unable to banish him. I even began to give in to my fantasies in a whimsical way.
In my walks about the Village, with enticing little shops on every hand, I would buy “gifts” for Giles. Here a bowl from Greece of a graceful design and muted color that might appeal to him; there a handsome piece of English silver in the form of an inkwell. Or I would bring home a book he might care about reading, and try to read it with his eyes. Once I bought a painting for both of us.
The artist had depicted a stretch of sandy beach—it might have been Elephant Beach down to the last detail—and I discovered it with delight. But after I got it home and hung it over the mantel that topped my prized fireplace, I was sorry. I did not want to be reminded so constantly of sand and sea and island. The picture made my sense of exile all the more acute.
There were times when I even tried to be more generous to Elise, times when I questioned my own motives. Hadn’t I always been too greedy for life—for what I wanted from life? I had not given Richard up emotionally as I should have done. I must try to do what Aunt Amalie suggested and allow Elise to be a mother in her own way. T
hen I would remember my cousin in Hadley Riker’s arms, and I could not be kind to her.
Two months went by, and I had a desultory correspondence with the island. Aunt Amalie wrote to say that my visit had made her miss me all the more when I was gone, though she must reaffirm the wisdom of my decision to stay away. Richard wrote a scrawled note that barely thanked me for a book I sent him. And Elise answered my bread-and-butter note with her usual light chatter. My firm was still considering Hadley Riker’s book, but though I did not think the final outcome would be favorable, Elise wrote as though publication were sure.
I was not happy, but I was not entirely unhappy, and I told myself that I was learning how to live my life as it had to be lived—without Giles Severn or Richard, without Hampton Island.
Then, late one summer afternoon, I came out of my office and found Giles waiting for me in the reception room. He had not given his name at the desk, but had simply made sure I was in that day, then sat down to wait for me.
I came through a door that opened into the reception room and saw him before he saw me. Saw him, and was shocked. He was thinner than he had been, and altogether grimmer-looking.
When he saw me his face lighted and for a moment he looked more like himself. He stood up and held out his hand.
“I’ve come to take you to dinner,” he said. “I hope you’re free.”
I made an instant decision, which was surprising, considering the confused leaping of my heart and the unwarranted feeling of joy that flooded through me.
“Come to dinner at my place,” I invited. “I’ve enough in the freezer for a simple meal, if you’re not gourmet-minded.”
He liked that. I said good night to the receptionist and we went out to the elevator bank together, stood among the evening throngs waiting to go down. I asked him about the island, about Richard and Floria, Charles and Aunt Amalie. Not about Elise. I could not so much as mention her name.
We found a rare, rush-hour taxi and rode down to the Village. On the way Giles told me he had come to New York to talk over a contract with a new customer for his Sea Oaks delicacies. So of course he had wanted to see me. Casually, naturally. Of course.
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