“What did you say?” he asked her.
This was not the way she had meant to tell him, but she must have been beyond caring.
“I’m not your mother,” she repeated. “I was going to tell you the truth tomorrow, but I’ve told you now instead. And I’ll tell you something else you may not like—”
If he had stayed to listen, perhaps she would have blurted out the truth about me. But Richard had heard enough. He bolted from the room—out the French door and around the veranda to the wide portico at the front of the house. There he climbed into the first hiding place that offered—the low, strong branch of the live oak that overhung the balustrade.
Hadley came looking for him, and walked up and down the veranda calling to the boy. Richard kept very still in his hidden shelter. Elise did not look for him at all. Perhaps she was still beyond caring about what she had done. Perhaps she was already thinking of what she would say to Giles when she confronted him on the beach. Perhaps she even meant to tell him the truth about Richard that night.
Beside me now, my son huddled on the grass, rocking himself back and forth with his arms clasped about his knees. Before us, stretching endlessly along the river, the marshes lay dreaming in the sun, and a heron waded where the water was shallow.
Richard went on again, his voice low, with no longer any hurry in it. “She wasn’t my mother at all. She only pretended to be my mother. Ever since I was a baby she pretended.”
I spoke softly. “And because of that, for a little while you hated her?”
He nodded, ducking his head. “I wished she was dead. I wished she could be punished for fooling me.”
“Feeling like that is understandable,” I said. “But now you don’t have to go on hating her. And you have to realize that whatever you thought you were wishing at the time, your thoughts couldn’t hurt her. She fell because she tripped on her dress. Or because a stone was loose in the wall. Only because of something like that.”
He looked at me with bleak hope, and I knew I must give him whatever I could.
“You have to remember that when she told you this, she was angry too. Like you, she said and thought things she didn’t mean. But she raised you from the time when you were a baby. She loved you and you loved her. Which is what being a mother and son really means. Now that you’re not angry any more, you can go on loving her.”
There was a film of tears in his eyes, but he blinked it away before they could fall. “If she wasn’t really my mother, then he isn’t my father either. He—”
“That’s not true,” I said quickly. “That’s not true at all. You have only to look at your own face in the mirror to know that you are Giles Severn’s son. You’ve got his eyes—the very same green color. And you look alike around the mouth. Even your hair grows back in the same way, though yours is a different color.”
This time the tears spilled over, and I let him cry. He sat looking away from me across the marsh, with tears streaming down his face, and now and then a small sob punctuating his weeping. After a time, I found a clean handkerchief in my slacks pocket and handed it to him.
He took it with a strange politeness. “Thank you, Cousin Lacey.”
I wished that I could tell him to stop being grown up and brave. I wished I could hold out my arms to him, so that he would come into them and cry himself out. But he did not know me well enough. It had to be sufficient for me that I had offered him comfort, that I had been able to break through that cold, deadly guard he had held against the world to conceal not only his terrible hurt, but what he regarded as his own blame.
When there were only a few tears left, I stood up. “You must talk to your grandmother about this,” I said. “She will help you to understand.”
Once more he shook his head. “She isn’t my grandmother. She is her mother—so she’s not my grandmother at all.”
“You mustn’t look at it that way,” I told him firmly. “My Aunt Amalie is as much your grandmother as a real grandmother could be. You know how much she loves you. You mustn’t hurt her by saying things like that.”
Again he seemed to take comfort from my words. He stood up beside me, the tear streaks drying on his cheeks, and we began to walk slowly back toward the burying ground. Under our feet the sandy soil was brown with puffy seed balls from the sweet gums, and the loblolly pines whispered high over our heads.
When we neared the old tombs, Richard seemed to come to himself, and to make an effort. “I haven’t looked for the pirate brooch for a long time. Wait for me, Cousin Lacey, and I’ll go down there now.”
I waited in a place where sunlight fell through the trees and warmed me. My nerves felt as though they had been pulled as tight as racket strings. I didn’t know how I would ever loosen them again. But at least I had given my son what little I could. I seemed to have stopped wanting so much so greedily. What I wanted now was Richard’s well-being. What I wanted was to see him grow up without the strains that Elise had put upon him.
“Cousin Lacey! Cousin Lacey!” Richard came running up into sunlight from the black cave of the big tomb. In his hands he held the box that had once harbored the brooch. “Cousin Lacey, the pirate brooch is here! Someone has put it back!”
He opened the box for me to see, and there upon crumbling, yellowed tissue lay a great winking green gem. Sunlight splintered in its faceted sides and shone from the gleaming gold in which it was set. All around the central stone smaller diamonds glittered, but the emerald held sway.
“Someone put it back,” Richard repeated: “I must show Grandfather Charles right away. Come with me, Cousin Lacey.”
I could have blessed the stone and whoever had slipped it back into its hiding place. This was the final touch to make Richard himself again. He would not be free from the pain of losing Elise, but now he could permit himself to be distracted from pain, as a child should be.
When I would have started toward the house, however, he drew back, suddenly hesitant, as though he had something further on his mind.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked at me almost shyly. “I’m sorry about that time at the house.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I admitted.
“My moth—she wanted me to do it to upset you. So I hid that other brooch in your things. I—I wouldn’t do it now, Cousin Lacey.”
I gave him a quick hug. “I know you wouldn’t. But thank you for telling me, Richard.”
His smile had a certain sweetness in it, and we walked back to the house in comradely fashion. We were friends.
As we hurried up one curving flight of steps and went inside, Floria met us at the foot of the stairs. Her expression was stiff with disapproval, but a lifetime of released emotion had intervened with Richard since his Aunt Floria had shaken him a little while ago. For the moment he had forgotten what had happened.
“Look!” he cried, and held out the box to her. “Someone has put back the pirate brooch.”
She had the intelligence to sense the change in him, and she did not mention his destructive actions of a little while before. She took the box and stared as I had stared at the fabulous green stone in the brooch. Then she gave the box back to him.
“Your grandfather and grandmother will be pleased. Let’s go show it to them right away.”
Aunt Amalie was upstairs, lying down. Her bedroom door was open, and Charles was standing near a window. Richard ran into the room, exclaiming in his excitement as he carried the box to his grandfather.
Charles turned from the window as Floria and I watched, and took the brooch carefully from the box, the smile breaking slowly across his face. He carried the brooch to Amalie and held it out to her.
“Look what Richard has brought us,” he said.
Aunt Amalie turned her head listlessly upon the pillow. She looked at the brooch without interest and closed her eyes.
Charles seemed to understand. “Oh, I know it can’t matter a great deal to you now, my dear. But it matters to me. Not merely because of its val
ue, but because it is a symbol of the island and both our families. Besides, finding it clears the air. It doesn’t matter who put it back, so long as it has been returned.”
“I haven’t looked out there for several days,” Richard put in eagerly. “I just remembered this afternoon—and there it was.”
Aunt Amalie was more interested in the boy than in the brooch. She held out her hand to him. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you, darling?”
He threw me a quick look. “I—I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
I understood his look. There was a pleading in it. He did not want to face the emotional strain of telling his grandmother what he had told me. She would make over him, undoubtedly, and perhaps she would weaken his hard-won courage. The hurt and strain of readjustment still lay ahead of him, and he would need all the help he could get. I would talk to her myself. I would try to pave the way for the understanding and love that must now be given him by those he loved. It must not be an overwhelming, smothering affection, but a warmth that would both enfold him and leave him free. What was more, before I left the island tomorrow I must tell Giles what I had gone to the beach to tell him the night of the ball. I must tell him soon. I would tell him tonight. The things Richard had said had released me, as well.
Aunt Amalie accepted Richard’s words without argument. Now that all the things which had been required of her were done, she had fallen into apathy. She, too, must be given time to recover.
Floria spoke from the doorway behind me, her interest still upon the emerald brooch. “Who could have put it back in that box? Who could have taken it in the first place—and why?”
“As I say, it doesn’t matter so long as we’ve recovered it,” Charles told her with a slight impatience in his tone.
“Elise put it back,” Aunt Amalie said wearily from the bed.
We turned to stare at her, and she went on, her eyes closed again, as though she could barely summon strength to tell us what she knew.
“It was Elise who found the brooch in the first place,” she went on in the same dry-as-dust voice. “She was keeping it for the night of the ball, though I didn’t know she had it until she was in her costume. She wore it beneath the bodice of her gown. I saw it when she showed it to me. She told me that she would wear it for an hour and then put it back in the tomb and leave it for Richard to find. That’s what she must have done. It wasn’t on her later, and I haven’t thought about it again till now.”
“But—but why—?” Charles said blankly.
It was Floria who answered. “It’s easy to guess that. She wanted it because of the legend. She always laughed at the story, but underneath she was superstitious enough. Don’t you remember, Charles? Whoever wears that brooch secretly at the Camelot ball is supposed to be assured forever of her true love’s love. Goodness knows who Elise wanted. Giles? Hadley? Someone else?”
“Please, Floria!” Aunt Amalie roused herself. “Remember the boy.”
Richard had been listening and watching in silence, his eyes wide with too avid an interest.
“She didn’t want my father,” he told them in a voice as dry as his grandmother’s, and I knew remembrance was upon him. He was thinking of Hadley Rikers holding Elise in his arms. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Charles put in smoothly. “What I don’t understand is how Elise could have found the brooch in the first place, without some clue. Richard might find such a spot by accident, but it’s unlikely—”
Aunt Amalie broke in on his words and for once there was a note of impatience in her voice as she spoke to her husband.
“You’ve forgotten, Charles. You can be such an innocent. You told me where it might be hidden.”
For an instant something like resentment flashed in Charles’s eyes. Then he was his benign self again.
“I remember very well that I told only you what Lacey had said about the mailing place where Kitty might have left the brooch. I told only you that it was in the tomb and that Lacey and I meant to search for it the next morning.”
Aunt Amalie sighed wearily. “And I told Elise. Later I suspected that she must have the brooch, but she only laughed at me when I asked her, and I didn’t know for sure until the night of the ball.”
“I see,” Charles said. “Not that it wasn’t your right to tell whom you pleased, since the brooch belongs to both our families. But I would have hoped—”
“I’m sorry,” Amalie said. “It’s too late, but I’m sorry.”
“Much good it did her—wearing the brooch!” said Floria with scorn in her voice.
Charles looked at Richard. “Will you come and help me? I’m going to put the brooch back in its place of honor downstairs.”
Again Richard was able to accept distraction, and he went willingly out the door with his grandfather.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mother?” Floria said to the woman on the bed.
Aunt Amalie smiled at her half-heartedly. “No, dear. If you’ll leave us alone, I’d like to talk with Lacey for a few moments.”
Floria gave me a look that was faintly suspicious and went out of the room. I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down in it. Aunt Amalie’s eyes were open now, and when Floria had gone, she spoke to me.
“What has happened to Richard?”
I told her the full story. I began with the scene Floria had made when he was cutting up Elise’s pictures. I told her how Richard and I had gone outside together and had our talk. She listened quietly, and only gasped softly when I related how Richard had attacked Hadley Rikers when Elise went into his arms.
“Elise lost her temper and told him he was not her son,” I finished. “She pulled everything down in an emotional crash, so that he ran away and hid. The next thing he knew she was dead, and he blamed himself because he had been wishing that something terrible would happen to her.”
Aunt Amalie sat up on the bed. “How dreadful! I must go and have a talk with him at once. He’ll need to be comforted, and—”
“No!” I said. “Not right away. Let him be, for now. I’ve already talked to him as well as I could.”
“I suppose you told him that you—”
“Of course I didn’t tell him. He needs to recover Elise right now, not have someone else thrust upon him.”
She lay back on the bed. “Thank you, Lacey. You’ve done the right thing.”
“Eventually he may ask about his real mother,” I said. “But perhaps not for a long time. He may not want to know. He may be afraid to know. It’s better to let him remember his happier times with Elise for the present. He needs time to grow strong by himself. Perhaps if you could lean on him a little, let him comfort you—?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Lacey. I’ll try. You’re being wiser than I ever thought you could be. Now tell me about your plans.”
“I’m going home tomorrow. I’ve stayed long enough.”
“I suppose you must do that. What about Giles?”
“He seems a long way off,” I confessed. “We can’t run to each other with Elise only just—gone.”
“Yes, it will be best if you leave as soon as you can. It isn’t safe for you here any more.”
I already knew that, but I was surprised that she would admit it.
“Can you accept my word now?” I asked. “Accept my word against Floria’s?”
She closed her eyes briefly, as if in pain, and then looked directly at me. “I think I always have accepted the truth, Lacey. I fought against you because Floria is my daughter. But I know her tendency toward exaggeration. And Paul was there at the time to tell what he had seen. I’ll be glad when they are married. Perhaps it will be soon now, with Elise no longer—” She broke off.
I was still for a few moments. I think she wanted me to leave her alone. I think my presence caused her to be restless and uneasy. But in a little while I would be gone, and I would not know any of the answers. Whether that would be for the best or not, I didn’t know.<
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“I don’t think anyone meant Elise’s death,” I told her. “No matter what anyone found the next day, there was a stone in the wall that was loose the night of the ball. It was loosened because I was going down to the beach that way. It was loosened because someone—”
Aunt Amalie came out of her apathy in a flash. All her normal energy flowed back into her body and she pulled herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Hush, Lacey! Don’t say anything more. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I only want the island to be peaceful and safe—the way it used to be. When you’re gone from it, it will be quiet again. I know that now. I should never have let you come in the first place.”
“Then you must feel sure that what happened to Elise was intended for me,” I said mercilessly.
“I don’t feel sure of anything!” Her denial was vehement. “But you mustn’t stay any longer. You must get away before anything else happens. And you must never come back to the island.”
I sat watching her quietly, appraising and measuring her. Of course it would be a mistake to appeal to Aunt Amalie. While Elise was alive she had been torn between the anguished love she felt for her unpredictable daughter, and her old affection for me, her sister’s child. Now Elise had died because of something that had been intended for me—and it would be more than could be humanly expected to ask her to endure the sight of me any longer. Every time she looked at me she must suffer and remember. But there was more to it than that. Aunt Amalie belonged to the island. She belonged to those who lived here. And she would protect any one of them from the outsider who might come in to destroy. I could not bear to think who had loosened that stone, and perhaps she could not either. Or perhaps she knew very well, and would live in silence with that knowledge to the day of her death. She would know only that I must not be allowed to threaten those who remained.
I left my chair and put a light hand on her shoulder, bent to kiss her cheek. “Don’t worry, dear. I won’t come back. And I’ll not ask any more questions.”
She made an effort then. She touched my hand where it rested on her shoulder and looked up at me, her eyes tear-filled. But she could not speak. She could not find anything to say to me.
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