Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances

by Dorothy Fletcher

  “Like a mermaid. Well, that is a stunning suit. What did John say about your coming here tonight?”

  “John? I didn’t see him. He went off, in his car, to the Tap Room of the hotel.”

  “And Pompey?”

  “Why, in bed before I left. He has a long day’s work; he goes to bed with the chickens.”

  “Poor soul. All right, shall we go, then? It won’t take me a minute to change into a bathing suit. Be out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Finish your drink while waiting.”

  But the drink was too strong. On an impulse, Margo upturned it into a plant on a window sill. She had had quite enough, and longed for the fresh air to clear her head. Thankfully, Norma didn’t take too long. She came out in a crimson-red tank suit, showing off her lovely figure to full advantage. “It may be cool,” she said. “I see you brought a sweater, and I’m taking along this mohair shawl.”

  “How lovely, it looks like gossamer,” Margo said, and Norma told her it had been bought on her vacation in Canada.

  “We’ll go in your car,” Norma said, “then you can drop me off afterwards, and I promise you it won’t be late. I have to get my beauty sleep. But it’s a divine night, isn’t it?”

  It was. Warm and mellow, and the cicadas sang, a bullfrog in some lily pond harrumphed hoarsely. Cities seemed very far away, the night was a country night, the moon was a country moon. I do feel I belong here, Margo thought, as they climbed into her car, and now she had come into a fortune, would probably live here. She was almost certain that her aunt had known about the stamps, that she had meant them as insurance … and again the uneasy feeling. Why hadn’t she lived to tell about them? That strong voice … “I shall expect you tomorrow …”

  Norma’s shawl billowed out. Pale aqua, soft and scented, wrapped around the slender shoulders. “Oh, sorry,” Norma said, and gathered it around her again. For a moment there was a feeling of having seen that shawl before, soft and enveloping and lightly scented …

  As if she had worn it herself, or had it wrapped around her. “What is it?” Norma asked, her great, jewel eyes looking sideways.

  “Nothing. Remember when we used to say, ‘Last one to the raft’s a rotten egg?’”

  “I remember everything,” Norma said. “That’s the way I am. It sticks with me. Yes, I remember, Margo. Things even you may have forgotten.”

  “I have a pretty good recall,” Margo commented, and drove ahead, under the orange-colored moon, and the smells of the summer night in her nostrils. She thought, I love country roads at night, just the headlamps of the car and that great, dark distance ahead. There was a fragrance to a country night that was more potent than the most expensive perfume. And almost contiguous to her thoughts, Norma asked abruptly, “What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

  “I’m not sure. I just dabbed something on before dinner.”

  “It’s heady. Forty dollars an ounce, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It smells the way it should if you can afford to pay forty dollars an ounce for it.”

  It was a little distasteful, Margo thought, the emphasis on money. And for the first time she thought, This girl might have learned many things, but underneath there’s a certain vulgarity.

  And then she scolded herself. Norma had pulled herself up by her bootstraps. No one to help or guide her. And she had, in the main, done very well. Her voice was nicely modulated, her skin clear, eyes bright, and her manner almost without fault.

  Don’t judge, she told herself, and saw the sign up ahead.

  Lake Aladdin.

  Always, she had loved the name for the lake. Not one of those American Indian names that abounded in these parts … Lake Minnewaska, Lake Amantaska …

  Her lake had a more romantic sound.

  “How come they named it that?” she asked, as she parked the car.

  “Named it what?”

  “I mean the lake. Lake Aladdin.”

  Norma sat quietly.

  “It’s such a pretty, unexpected name. I always wondered about it.”

  “I didn’t,” Norma said, and opened the door on her side. “Shall we go?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  Both doors banged shut. They stood on the brow of the woody hill that led down to the water. Margo looked up. “Hot day tomorrow,” she said. “Moon’s red as fire.”

  “Like a watermelon.”

  “Oh, I wish you hadn’t said that. Suddenly I yearn for a slice of watermelon.”

  “Remember when we used to bury our faces in it?”

  “Yes, and plant the seeds in the earth. We were always so sure we’d have our own watermelon garden.”

  “But nothing ever happened,” Norma said. “That’s the way of things.”

  The shawl flew in Margo’s face again. This time it nettled her, displeased her. She pushed it back, away from her. There was that faint, strangely familiar scent again. Like musk, like —

  “Well, let’s make our way down and wet our feet,” Norma said, and threw the shawl off, folding it in her hands. They clambered down the woodsy trail and then stood at the edge of the water. Margo dropped her sweater and looked at Norma, who stood, straight as an arrow, her lovely body perfect in every detail, an Aphrodite. “All right, let’s take the plunge,” she said, and walked into the water.

  Margo followed, in a kind of transport. The water was cold, almost as cold as ice, and bracing, and wonderful. She threw back her head. “And to think I won’t ever go away,” she said. “Imagine it, I won’t ever go away.”

  “You’re going to stay, then?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “And live in that house?”

  “Why yes, of course. I’m able to now.”

  A night bird, perhaps an owl, or even, God forbid, a bat, flew across their faces. “Uhg,” Margo cried, and splashed shoulder deep into the water. “What was that?”

  “I think a gull,” Norma said. “They come here because people fish. I’ve heard they’ve wounded several persons. They go for the eyes.”

  “My God …”

  “They’re not as nice as they look, all silver and pretty. Lots of things aren’t as nice as they look.” She put an arm around Margo’s shoulder. “So you’re going to stay, after all.”

  “Apparently.” She heard her own deep-throated laugh, a laugh of pure joy and wonderment, and then stood tense. There was a quick glimpse, and an expression in the eyes, and the quiet, intent posture. Yes. And something she had tried to pin down a few nights ago came to her.

  Something from the long ago.

  Two small girls and two boys five or six years older:

  Doug: “Margo’s the fairest of them all. Mirror mirror on the wall, Margo’s the fairest of them all.”

  And John: “That’s not very nice, Doug.”

  “Oh, can it, you dog.”

  “Don’t call me a dog.”

  “Margo’s the fairest of them all,” Doug chanted again. “Mirror, mirror on the wall …”

  John: “It isn’t polite; Norma’s pretty too”

  “Not at all, she’s just fair to middling.”

  “That’s a kind of rotten thing to say.”

  A fist fight.

  Margo: “Let’s leave them. Come on, Norma, they’re not being … they’re not being …”

  “Not being nice? They’re just saying the truth. You are prettier than I am. I’m nothing, nothing.”

  The dark-haired girl, racked with sobs, plunging into the water. Margo following. “Please … don’t listen to them, Norma …”

  “It’s because of you … why don’t you go away!”

  “Norma, don’t do that … don’t … don’t …” Ducking, wheeling, she backed away. “Norma, you don’t know what you’re doing …”

  But the branch had come down over her head, and the waters closed around her, gushing into her eyes and nose and throat. And later, in bed, the realization … Norma had tried to hurt her. Aunt Vicky had fed her soup and toast f
ingers. “Forget it,” she said, commandingly. “Never think of it again.”

  And she hadn’t.

  But it had been stored in her brain cells, and was alive again tonight. There was that beautiful, implacable face, the strange, intent, determined look on the lovely face of Norma Calvet.

  She suddenly knew. History was repeating itself. On this humid night in mid-summer, history was repeating itself. Once again Norma Calvet wanted her, Margo, to disappear, to go out of her life, out of the lives of all of them. And her uplifted arm, holding a heavy pine branch, underwrote her deadly intention.

  But …

  They were no longer children. Women, both of them, and as the past came surging back, the adrenalin flooded through Margo’s veins. Now I know, she told herself, now I know. And she threw herself down in the water, plunging beneath the surface. Behind her, the branch was lowered with a harsh swish, whistling in the dark. It hit the water, making a great splash.

  It was a silent battle, eerie and ghostly. When she had to surface, she saw that Norma was only yards away from her. The grim, determined face was not beautiful now, but hard and stern and almost ugly. There was a triumphant gasp and then the branch smashed down again, sending spray into Margo’s eyes as it hit the water.

  And again Margo plunged, swooping down once more. It was her heart, thudding wildly, that frightened her. She hadn’t been able to take a deep enough breath … this time she had to surface before she had swum very far. She came up, drew air into her lungs, and saw, with horror, that Norma was only a foot or so away.

  It was no longer a silent struggle. Norma, in her triumph, raised the branch, her arm arcing, power behind those young muscles. “Come and take your medicine,” she cried, her voice rising hysterically. “You come here and change all our lives … I hate you, I’ve always hated you …”

  “You must be crazy,” Margo shouted. “What do you think you’re doing? If you harm me, they’ll know … what do you hope to accomplish? They’ll know it was you … I didn’t think you were that stupid!”

  “No, they won’t know it was me,” Norma said contemptuously. “They’ll think you came here for a swim and … damn it, Margo, you were never at your shining best in the water. All of us, we grew up here, water rats. Many’s the time you had to be carried ashore out of breath …”

  “That was because you tried to drown me … oh, yes, I remember now!”

  The branch hit the water again, this time so near Margo that she stumbled backwards, and the water swirled around her, not help but hindrance. And now she knew, irrevocably. Norma had made certain that John didn’t know of her whereabouts, that Pompey didn’t know … and those drinks had been potent … too potent. Yes, and try now as she would, she couldn’t recall Norma sipping her own drink.

  Then the madness of it brought some of her reason back. It was not possible that Norma meant to do this. People did all sorts of shabby things, but not casual murder: Norma was only trying to scare her away, show her she wasn’t wanted here. The girl knew her family was rich … then let the rich girl leave the premises and leave it to those who belonged there.

  “Norma, let’s go back,” she said, angered at the trembling of her voice, angered and fighting for control.

  “Go back? Only one of us will go back,” Norma said. “I haven’t gone this far for nothing.”

  And now the meaning of the shawl, in a blinding insight, came to her. Like a caul … the soft, Shetland strands cast over her face … Norma’s shawl, smothering her …

  “It was you,” she said, stunned. “It was you, in my room that night. With that shawl … you tried to — ”

  “Prove it,” Norma said viciously. “Prove it.”

  “But why, but why?”

  “Because you came here again. Wasn’t it enough all those years ago? And now you came here again. You dare ask me why? Everything for you and nothing for me. You don’t think I’ll take that lying down?”

  “What … in what way does it affect you?”

  There was a cry of jubilation. Norma, rising in the lake like Venus from the sea, was suddenly beside her. “There you are,” she shrieked, and the inexorable arm was raised. Margo ducked, feinted, but the branch came down across the base of her skull, sending her into a tailspin, with stars and stripes and colored circles whirling, whirling, whirling …

  “Ugh,” she said thickly, and then the water into which she was plunged pulled her back, a little back, the cold of it reviving her, enough so that she started struggling, weakly, flailing her arms about, and heard her own hoarse voice.

  And another hoarse voice, rapid and impassioned, wild and infuriated. “Affect me! Affect me! Where am I going to live? Brand House is mine! If it weren’t for you it would be mine! It — ”

  Water trickling from her mouth, her nose streaming. Breathing like an engine. Voice weak, strained. “If it weren’t for me,” Margo said, wheezing, “it would belong to the Historical Society.”

  “No! If it weren’t for you she would have left it to John, it belongs to John. How could she dare leave it to you … and then, as if that weren’t enough, you find something that was there all the time, and we never knew it at all. Sixty thousand dollars … those damned, rotten stamps that were there all the time, just waiting for you, for you.” There was a kind of sob. “It’s just too much to be believed, the way everything falls into your lap.”

  She was crying now, tears were streaming down her face. “Some people don’t deserve to live,” she said, raggedly.

  “Norma, but Norma … if you do anything to me, how do you expect to get back? How are you going to get home again?”

  “A friend is coming for me,” Norma said, dashing a hand across her eyes. “A friend. And if I need help, he’ll help. You’re trapped, Margo. Ambushed. Your luck has run out.”

  “A friend … what friend?”

  “Never you mind.”

  John.

  It was the last punishment. Whatever else she might have thought about John, she could never have imagined this. John, her aunt’s protege. John …

  There was something evil about this upstate country, with its hexes, its inbreeding, and its burned witches all those years ago, its crooked crosses atop barns, and a girl with a beautiful face who had a stone for a heart …

  Then, as if at a signal, there was the sound of a car in the night, the revving motor, and then the dying of it. “All right,” Norma said, her voice sounding tired now. “Now he’s here, now I’m not alone. Ben’s here and you can forget about going home again. He’ll come and help me. Better say a prayer, Margo, you’re going to die.”

  “Ben?” Margo repeated, wonderingly. “Ben?”

  “Of course Ben,” Norma said quietly. “Of course Ben. Ben would die for me; I’m surprised you didn’t catch on to that.”

  “You mean not John?”

  There was a contemptuous laugh. “John? John, for Christ’s sake. John wouldn’t have the guts to — ” She was babbling now, her words running into each other. “You, Margo, you. Coming here and wanting to take everything away from me. I knew right away that I’d have to get rid of you, and when you found those damned, infernal stamps … all that money … why, you’re a witch, you should be binned on the Common, everything going your way all your life. You never did an honest day’s work …”

  With heroic strength Margo tried to beat off the hands that held her head under the lake water. She gasped, couldn’t see, struggled wildly, felt flesh against her hands, beat against that flesh, using her nails.

  “Forget it,” Norma said, her voice thin and spent. “You’re going to die, you’ve got to die. He was like a son, John was like a son. Where were you? I sat there, hour after hour, holding that horrible old hand. Where were you? We earned it, we earned it! Where were you? It’s our future … you think I want to be a secretary all my life? He’ll stay there, and I with him … and you’ll be dead. Who are you, Golden Princess? Spoiled, rotten spoiled … we’ve put it off year after year … that terrible
old woman … she hated me, did you know that? I wasn’t good enough for her. And meanwhile, where were you? I heard about you, wonderful Margo, until it came out of my ears, and nose and throat, and gut. And you come here and want to take it all away. Die, you parasite, die …”

  The branch came down again, like Aaron’s rod. The water broke its impetus, but it was just about enough; it sent her reeling, almost senseless, into the beautiful rippling lake, and the moon was like a golden eye. Choking, sinking, she implored, “Let me live.” But the water drowned her, drowned out her words, and the hands held her face under.

  “I’ll take over,” a voice said, from somewhere very far away, and it was Ben Blough’s voice, quiet and deadly. “I’ll finish her off.”

  “No, me,” the hysterical voice cried. “Let me do it, I want her to suffer, I insist on doing it … get away you fool, I want to — ”

  How could it be, Margo thought, floundering, knowing she was half dead, knowing it was the end, and tired unto death. Yet … how could it be that she heard Doug’s voice?

  And then other voices, muttered oaths, someone running, crashing through trees, cursing, shouting …

  Bedlam …

  Bedlam … crawling like some prehistoric monster, sea-creature, she heard the shouts and the cries, the quiet night no longer quiet … horror, unimaginable horror …

  And then the sound of bone against bone, a sickening thing, and another curse and then once more the thud of a blow …

  And the eerie, long-drawn sigh of a man in agony …

  “Out like a light,” Douglas said, from somewhere far away, and there was nothing else, just blackness. Dead, I’m dead, Margo thought, and then thought nothing more.

  • • •

  She opened her eyes, on dry land, to the blinding light of the moon. Retching, she heard Pompey’s voice. “Get that damned water out of her. Get it out, get it out …”

  A scream sounded through the night. A terrible, despairing scream.

  “Let it go, let it go,” Doug said harshly. “We don’t have time for it. Pompey, help me. she looks so white, Pomp.”

  “No,” Margo said, belching water. “No, Doug. I just have to get some lake water out of myself. I’m all right.”