I went back to my chair and waited for her to go on. There was a flush in her cheeks and her breath was coming quickly.
“I don’t know whether I could ever do what you ask,” she told me. “It would have to seem to me a clear-cut advantage to Richard, and right now I don’t see that it would be. All the things that you agreed to when he was born still hold true. He leads a far better life here on the island than you could ever give him alone.”
“I wouldn’t be taking him alone,” I said.
Her fingers clasped the carved arms of her chair, but she still spoke quietly. Her poise did not waver.
“We’re back full circle again! I don’t think Elise will ever give Giles a divorce.”
“Then he will divorce her. He feels sure that he can get real proof of cause.”
“At what cost to Richard?” she asked me.
“That’s where you come in,” I said. “That’s what I’ve come to plead with you for. I suppose you know that Elise has threatened to turn him against his father. You’re the only one who can prevent that from happening.”
“She could do it,” Aunt Amalie said. “The boy worships her. He has a good friendship with his father. But Elise knows how to charm him and keep him longing for her company and her approval.”
“You could counteract whatever efforts she made to prejudice him,” I pointed out. “You could prevent her success in what she threatens to do. It isn’t as though she loves him deeply. I can’t believe that, Aunt Amalie. You know as well as I do that Elise has never loved anyone but herself.”
Pain came into her eyes, but she did not let her gaze waver from mine. “You ask too much of me. I don’t know … I don’t know.”
“You’ll help me because you know it’s right,” I told her. “And because, no matter how much you love Elise, you know that what she wants is wrong.”
Only then did she drop her gaze and cover her eyes with her hand again. Emotion was breaking through her poise and she was not a woman who liked to betray raw feelings to anyone who watched her.
“There are still such enormous questions,” she said at last. “Elise has made Sea Oaks hers. But Giles would never give it up. Where would she go?”
“She could return to The Bitterns,” I said. “The island is still hers. Though if it wasn’t for Giles, I’d leave her Sea Oaks and Hampton Island gladly.”
“Floria will continue to live at The Bitterns when she marries,” Amalie said.
“But she needn’t live there. You know how Floria feels about the island. She could get Paul to live in Malvern, if the circumstances were such that Elise must move into The Bitterns.”
“You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?” Aunt Amalie said a little bitterly.
“Don’t be angry with me. I’ve thought of little else. If it hadn’t been for Elise in the first place, Giles and I might have married and none of this would have come about.”
She put her hand down almost angrily. “Don’t let yourself off so easily, Lacey. You behaved like a little fool. If you’d been wiser, perhaps you’d have held him. You flew off in a jealous pique and left him to Elise. He was young, and you hurt him badly. Elise was there to comfort him.”
“I flew off because I didn’t want to hold the threat of having a baby over his head. How could I take him under such terms as that? I thought that if he loved me enough he’d come after me. When he didn’t—”
“More foolish pride,” Aunt Amalie said. “But of course that was where you were doubly foolish in the first place. Getting yourself into such a predicament.”
“I’ve paid for it since,” I said.
I jumped up and took a quick, desperate turn about the room, pausing before a shelf of books to make myself read the titles. I had no answers I could give Aunt Amalie. I wasn’t a young girl any more, but I had not forgotten how it had been with Giles and me. I would always remember how fiercely and splendidly the flame had come upon us. And how little we were schooled, in self-discipline.
She watched me for a few moments and then spoke more gently. “Come back and sit down. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Lacey. All that was done wrong lies in the past, and there’s nothing there we can mend now. It’s the present that matters.”
“There’s no one but you to help me,” I said, and returned to my chair. “Giles doesn’t understand why I had to see you. He doesn’t know about Richard.”
“And I hope you will never tell him,” Aunt Amalie said.
I shook my head. “I would have to tell him before I married him. It’s not a secret I could keep forever. Even if he could never forgive me, he has the right to know.”
She was silent, her face grave and thoughtful. “At least you must not tell him yet. You must not tell him until after we’ve decided upon some course of action.”
“Then you’ll help me?” I cried.
“I haven’t said that. I’ve made no promises, and I don’t intend to. Not yet. Nothing must be plunged into hastily. You must stay here for the remainder of your vacation and see what we may be able to work out. Elise is unpredictable. Who knows—if you are here where she must see you every day, it may bring home to her the hopelessness of trying to hold Giles in her own way. And as I wrote you, it will stop people from gossiping. No one is likely to believe that Elise would invite her husband’s mistress into her own house.”
I spoke sharply. “There’s nothing between Giles and me now. Not because I wouldn’t be willing, but because he has some notion about protecting me. We’ve met only to dine out in public. After the first two times he saw me in New York, we haven’t even been together in my apartment.”
“I see,” she said, and her expression softened. “Of course I believe you. It’s just the sort of chivalric gesture our King Arthur would make. But while I believe you, I don’t think Elise will. She’s more apt to judge others by her own behavior. The frightful thing about it is that she doesn’t care. If you wanted to have an affair with Giles it would probably be all right with her. Just so you didn’t try to take away anything she regards as hers.”
So this was why Elise could look at me in cool amusement—as though I were an insect she turned cruelly about on a pin.
Aunt Amalie stood up and held out her hands to me. “Shall we leave it at that for now, dear? You’re to stay as long as you can. And in the meantime I will try to be honest with myself and see whether I have the courage to do even a little of what you ask of me.”
I took her hands and kissed her cheek. She was my mother’s sister, and I held her to me for a moment. “Thank you,” I whispered.
She went ahead of me out the door, and climbed the stairs. I knew she did not want to face the others in the parlor just then. And neither did I. I could not meet Giles’s questioning look tonight.
7
Shortly after breakfast the next morning Charles and I set out for our walk. We wandered, as if idly, toward the burying ground, and no one questioned us, or offered to come with us.
The morning was gray and the place seemed more gloomy than usual. The great live oaks dripped their veils of moss and the sweet gums stood tall, struggling with their clambering vines of fox grapes. Underfoot little brown seed balls lay scattered on the grass, pressing into the earth as we stepped upon them. Here and there the three or four tombs that were left in the place made shadowy patches of gloom.
“You’ll remember this particular spot,” Charles said. “You used to play here as a child.”
He led the way toward the largest of the tombs. It was a structure made of tabby and brick, set half below ground and half above. It was large enough to have held a number of caskets, and the roof was a shallow arch, meeting the ground on either side. The front end was open and steps led down into the shadowy interior. I had always found the place eerie as a child, and the same spell lay upon it now.
Charles went down the steps ahead of me, and I followed more hesitantly. Below ground the air was dank and smelled of musty dampness. The walls of the tomb rose around us and th
e roof arched blackly overhead. The rough tabby of the walls seemed scabrous and crumbling, revealing its layers of lime-embedded shells.
“There used to be a loose brick,” Charles said, and began to feel along the foundation wall at one side. “It will not have been moved for years and I may need a chisel to get it out. Let me see now.”
His fingers touched and prodded, felt sensitively from one brick to the next. In the dim light that fell through the front of the tomb I saw something move under his hands.
“That’s it!” Charles said. “It’s loose, after all.”
He worked at the brick until it came out, and set it down on the floor. Then he reached inside the space it had left. Apparently there was a hollow behind the spot where the brick had been, for he was able to reach in to some depth.
“There’s something there,” he whispered to me.
A moment later he had drawn out a small object like a box, wrapped in a scrap of gunny sacking. But before he could unwrap it, we heard voices out in the burying ground. The man’s voice was loud enough to identify, though we could not hear the words. The woman’s tones were softer, hushed to hardly a whisper.
Charles put a hand on my arm. “Be quiet,” he said softly. “That’s Paul Courtney. I don’t know who the woman is. We’ll be still until they go away. I don’t want questions now.”
It seemed more eerie than ever to be hiding in the tomb with Charles, waiting in secret so that we would not be discovered here. I tried to see his face in the faint light and was surprised to find it alive with eagerness, as though he played some game he remembered from long ago when he had hidden notes addressed to my mother in this place.
The voices moved away, and once more the gray morning hung dull and empty beyond the entrance to the tomb.
“They’ve gone,” Charles said. “Come along, Lacey. We’ll go out where there’s a better light and have a look at what we’ve found. I don’t think there’s much doubt about what it is.”
I followed him gladly from that dank, gloomy place, and we stood under the trees while Charles unwrapped the bit of sacking from about a small metal box which passing years had corroded. Charles’s eyes were still alight with excitement, and he looked younger and more vital than I had ever seen him.
“So she left it for you, after all,” I said.
He nodded eagerly, his finger on the catch of the box. It opened readily upon crumbling tissue inside. He pulled the paper out, but there was nothing else there, nothing hidden in its folds. The box was empty.
Charles held it out in one hand, turned it upside down and shook it, as if to wrest the treasure from it. Then he turned it over and closed the top.
“Nothing,” he said. “The brooch has been taken from it. Taken goodness knows how long ago. Or by whom.”
This was a stunning blow. I could only stare at the rusted metal container, which must certainly have held the brooch at one time. This was the place my mother must have put it when she left the island, though it seemed strange that Charles had never had any word from her as to where she had hidden it. She had spoken of a letter in those last words she had uttered to me, but if it was to Charles he had never received it.
“Back in those days when you used the mailing place, did anyone else know about it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No one. I’m sure of that. Kitty and I both regarded the secret as privately ours. I knew her well enough to be sure she would never talk about it, any more than I would.”
“Then someone must have found the place accidentally, just as you found it. Someone who took the brooch. It was very valuable, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—priceless. But it’s not only the value that matters. I suppose I’ve always had the pin on my conscience, and I’ve held it against your mother that she left me and kept the brooch. To recover it would wipe out something of that old guilt and resentment.”
We had started to walk back along the path to Sea Oaks, Charles carrying the small box with him.
“I think there’s just one thing to do,” he said as we neared the house. “I’m going to tell the others about this, and see if there is anyone who possesses the slightest knowledge.”
I did not think anyone was likely to admit to such knowledge, but he must do as he thought best.
When we reached the house and went inside, we found Amalie and Elise arranging flowers in the dining room, with Floria, once more in her tapestry pants, sprawled in a chair by a window, watching them.
Charles sounded a little grim as he paused in the doorway. “Will you all come into the living room for a few moments, please?”
Giles was already in the parlor, with Richard beside him as they pored over a book the boy was showing his father. Charles went to the point at once. With all of us gathered around him, he showed the corroded little box with the empty tissue inside. He told of the words my mother had said before her death, and of the secret mailing place that he and Kitty had used to exchange their notes.
“Lacey and I looked behind the loose brick this morning,” Charles said, “and this empty box was all we found. Do any of you have any knowledge of what may have happened to the brooch, if this was where it was hidden?”
“How silly of her to put it there!” Floria said. “She could have told someone so easily. She could have given it to someone else before she left, if Charles wouldn’t take it back at that time.”
“Her head was always filled with romantic notions,” Aunt Amalie said. “This is the typical sort of thing Kitty would do. But she might have told us in later years, at least.”
“There was a letter,” I said. “I believe she wrote Charles a letter about it, but apparently he never received it.”
Richard still sat at the desk with his book open before him, though he paid it no attention. His eyes were alight with interest at this revealing of a mystery. None of us noticed him.
Paul picked up the small box from the table where Charles had laid it, and began to turn it about absently in his hands, though he said nothing.
Charles watched him thoughtfully. “You were out in the burying ground just now, weren’t you?” he questioned.
Paul dropped the box on Giles’s desk as if it burned his fingers, and there was a moment’s hesitation before he spoke.
“Yes—I came across from The Bitterns, where I stopped to look for Floria.”
“I’ve been here in the house with Mother ever since breakfast,” Floria said.
Elise had not spoken. She watched as Richard watched with a bright-eyed interest. Now she laughed softly.
“I know the next question,” she said. “You were going to ask Paul if he was alone, weren’t you, Charles?”
“We know he wasn’t alone.” Charles’s tone was mild. “We could hear him talking to a woman.” He paused, and then went on. “We heard nothing of what was said, and we couldn’t hear the second voice clearly enough to identify it.”
Paul’s rather slender face had taken on a shade of color, but his eyes looked angry as he stared at Elise. Floria was looking at her too, and I sensed a smoldering rage. Giles turned away from the interchange and went back to Richard and his book.
“It doesn’t matter.” Charles seemed to recognize the suddenly explosive atmosphere in the room. “Whoever was near the grove this morning has no relevance to the brooch. It must have been taken from its hiding place long ago.”
It was not in Elise to let well enough alone. “There’s no point in making a secret of it,” she said lightly. “I was talking to Paul out there this morning. Like him, I just happened to be passing through.”
Aunt Amalie put a quieting hand on Floria’s arm and drew our attention back to what might have happened in the past. “I remember the day before Kitty left. She was keyed up and rather desperate. I found her sitting out there by the marshes where she liked to dream, just as Lacey does. Perhaps I hated her a little that day. I think she was on the verge of telling me something, but perhaps my own manner changed her mind. It might have been abou
t the hiding place for the brooch. At any rate, she didn’t speak. Not even I knew that she meant to leave the next day.”
“And now you’re here.” Floria had restrained herself and she did not look at either Paul or Elise, her tone surprisingly gentle. “You’re here and married to Charles. And Kitty is gone forever.”
Amalie’s eyes brimmed with sudden tears, and Elise laughed again, unpleasantly. “How charmingly sentimental! I didn’t know you had it in you, Floria.”
Giles broke in on Elise’s words. “The worst of it is that, as Father says, the pin has probably been gone for years, and there’s no way to tell when it was taken.”
Unexpectedly, Richard left his place at the desk and stood up. “Yes, there is,” he said. “Because it was there yesterday.”
An echo seemed to follow his words. Not one of us spoke for a moment, and we all turned to stare at him. He faced us uncomfortably, a flush rising in his face.
“You’d better explain that,” his father said.
Richard put his hands behind him and set his feet slightly apart, so that there was an air of defiance in his attitude.
“I never meant to tell,” he said. “Or anyway, not for years and years. I found the brooch a long time ago. I was looking for a good hiding place I could use, and that old tomb seemed right. So I started pulling at the bricks where I could reach them, and that one came out. The brooch was in the box, and I left it there. That is, I left it there most of the time. It was so beautiful that once in a while I brought it into the house and kept it in my room. And I never told anybody.” The last words had a triumphant ring. Richard had clearly enjoyed his tremendous secret.
I remembered such an occasion, I thought. When I’d last visited the house and Richard had surprised me in his room, he had carried something concealed in a handkerchief, and put it carefully, secretly away in a drawer.
“Oh, Richard!” Aunt Amalie cried. “Why didn’t you tell us? You knew it was a family treasure and that it had been missing for years.”
He looked at her almost arrogantly. “It will belong to me someday, won’t it? It was mine to tell about, or not to tell about.”
Lost Island Page 13