Hunter's Green

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Since I had closed the windows, an odor had begun to make itself known in the room. I sniffed the air uneasily. There was no mistaking the smell of cigarette smoke. Not old, dead smoke that might cling to bed and window hangings, but a fresh, distinct odor that floated gently about the room, as if someone unseen stood near me smoking. For an instant fear touched me, but I flung it off and looked about for the source of the smell. The counterpart of my own tower entrance in the blue room bulged into this room as well. Beyond, I would find stone steps circling to the roof. Could someone be on the stairway smoking?

  But the smell did not seem to come from that direction. Across from me was another doorway which had no duplicate in my own room in the opposite wing. I went to it quickly and turned the knob. The cigarette odor grew strong and I saw that I had opened the door of a small dressing room. Draperies were drawn across the single window and the room was so dim that I stood blinking for a moment, trying to accustom my eyes to the gloom.

  “So you finally found me?” Marc said, and reached out a hand to switch on a table lamp. “I heard you come in some minutes ago.”

  The room sprang to view, and I saw that he lay upon a chaise longue, lazily smoking and watching me.

  “What are you doing, Eve—reliving history?” he asked.

  My first impulse was to flight. I had a dreadful feeling that history might indeed repeat itself and that Justin could walk in upon us at any moment. But this was no time for repeated cowardice. Sooner or later Marc had to be confronted.

  “So you are Nellie’s ghost?” I said, and went to the window where I flung back the draperies and let in air and daylight. From the window I could look out upon the side lawns of Athmore, with woods rimming the far side. Maggie was down there, walking in her garden. “Perhaps I can ask you the same question you’ve asked me,” I went on. “What are you doing here? Besides frightening Nellie, that is?”

  Marc stood up and ground out his cigarette in an ashtray. Then he sauntered to the window and stood beside me, too close for comfort. I could never again be near Marc without uneasiness rising.

  “Perhaps I’m watching for Nellie’s ghost,” he said. “Isn’t that as good a reason as any? But I’m more interested in how it happens you haven’t left early this morning, as you planned. Dacia reports that you’re staying on, in spite of Justin telling you straight off that he doesn’t want you here.”

  “There are things to be said and things to be done before I go,” I told him, moving away from the window, away from him. “There’s a lot I want to know. I never learned what happened in the room next door, for example—after I left that night. How did you save yourself? What lies did you tell Justin about me?”

  Marc’s smile was as sweet as I remembered, and as dangerous. “It took a little doing, I must say, but I managed. After all, is any man ever as much to blame as the woman who flings herself at his head?”

  “You told him that?”

  “Not then. Not in so many words. I just let Maggie know how it was so she could stand up to Justin for me. He wouldn’t listen to me at first. I couldn’t talk to him until later.”

  I had known about Maggie’s efforts to keep Marc from being sent from Athmore peremptorily. She had written me about that, seeming to believe that I might worry about her poor darling Marc.

  “Do you really think yourself so innocent?” Marc asked, very close to me again.

  I drew sharply back before he touched me, and he laughed in the old, mocking way I remembered so well.

  “That caught you on the quick, didn’t it?”

  “Stop being theatrical!” I cried. “Of course I blame myself. I was stupid not to see how you were feeding my jealousy in order to be rid of me. Though I never fully understood, until Maggie explained it to me yesterday, how you wanted Athmore one day for yourself, rather than have it wasted on Justin’s heirs.”

  He laughed as though I delighted him. “Naturally that was part of my feeling toward you. Why wouldn’t it be? Fortunately, Alicia Daven doesn’t care for children. She’ll never give him an heir. So if I marry Dacia, who is mad for children, everything will eventually come to my side of the family. That’s probably the one reason she might marry me. Providing, of course, that Alicia first takes care of a few little debts that are hanging fire. You know, Eve, it’s an odd thing, but Dacia seems to have taken to you. I believe she really likes you.”

  “I like her,” I said. “She’s much too good for you, but she’s tougher than I was. She can look out for herself.”

  He nodded. “And for me, too, if she decides to make a go of it. But what’s all this Dacia reports about a picture you took of Old Daniel yesterday? The police think he must have been dead since afternoon, so you could have snapped him shortly before that wall fell over.”

  I had not thought of the old man since I’d parted from Justin, but now I found myself wishing Dacia were less prone to gossiping about all she knew. I did not want to discuss anything with Marc, but at least I could ask him the question Justin had not answered.

  “What would Daniel have been likely to wear on his head when he was there yesterday?”

  Marc regarded me thoughtfully. “This morning when I went out early to look around, I found his cap. Why? What made you think of such a thing?”

  I shrugged and let it go. There was something more important I must ask of Marc before I went away. Futile though it might be, I had to try.

  “Now that it no longer matters to you, won’t you at least tell Justin the truth about what happened here that night?”

  Unexpectedly Marc reached out to touch a lock of my hair where it fell against my cheek, and when I would have drawn back, he caught it tightly and I held my head still against the hurt of the pull.

  “The truth, Eve? But did you ever know the truth? Did you ever stop to think how I might have felt about you?”

  I reached up to release the strand of hair from his fingers and saw that his eyes were dancing in the old wicked way.

  “What an innocent you were! Fresh from college and sure you knew all there was to know. Such a pretty young thing—a lamb, really, with all that eagerness to experience, and all that trusting belief! And your notions about making over the world. Of course here at Athmore the world was a bit out of your reach, but you could work on us. And God knows you tried. Justin couldn’t take it, but if you had been my girl I’d have given you something to sink your teeth into. I’d have taken you away from this mausoleum and given you London to work on—and me!”

  I walked away from him into the other room. He meant to start trouble all over again, and this time I had no intention of listening.

  He followed me at once. “I used to wonder what you’d be like when you grew up. There’s a touch of the lemon now that was missing before. It’s an improvement, I’d say. I like a hint of sour with the sweet.”

  He crossed the room so that he stood between me and the corridor door. The feeling that I’d had yesterday in Maggie’s sitting room came surging back—an almost frightening distrust of Marc North.

  “Do you remember the way you kissed me, here in this very room?” He was mocking me again.

  “You’d better remember Dacia now,” I snapped.

  His laughter carried assurance. “Dacia knows well enough what I’m like. While I may struggle to change her speech, I don’t try to change her. We leave each other free.”

  I had to pass him to make my escape through the door, and I moved toward him slowly, ready for whatever he might do. When he reached toward me, I stepped back quickly.

  “Let me by,” I said.

  Instead he pinioned my arms to my sides, laughing down at me, his face close to mine. Behind us a door opened—and was held ajar, as if someone behind me stood in waiting silence. I broke Marc’s clasp and sprang away from him. If it was Justin again—! But it was not. Nigel Barrow came through the tower door carrying an empty wine bottle, and a handful of twisted cigarette packets. We must have surprised him, but except for that moment of h
esitation, he hardly blinked. He came into the room and held up the bottle for Marc to see.

  “I had an idea there’d been somebody up on the roof. I’ve just had a look and collected these things. I suspect he’s been hiding out in the blue room, until Mrs. North moved in. Or perhaps he’s even been serving as the house ghost by smoking in this room. I think he’s not been down my tower stairs, and Dacia has seen no evidence. I’ve checked with her. It’s the empty rooms he’d pick, of course. But where is our intruder now? That is what we need to know.”

  Marc was quickly alert, watchful. “If this is the answer to what’s been happening, then it ought to be easy to stop,” he told Nigel. “All we need do is post someone on the roof for a few nights. But I must say he’s a bold one. Give me that lot and I’ll speak to Justin about it right away.”

  Nigel hesitated for a moment, almost as though he mistrusted Marc’s word. Then he turned bottle and packets over and Marc went off, with only a sidelong glance of mockery for me. I read it well. “Let’s see you get out of this!” his eyes were saying. I could not help my long sigh. Once more I was faced with the impossibility of explaining what could not be explained.

  Nigel’s mustache twitched into a faint smile, but his gray eyes seemed chill and a bit disapproving.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. North,” he assured me stiffly, “I’ll not say anything about this.”

  I made a gesture of impatience. “There’s nothing to be secretive about! I can only tell you that I detest Marc utterly.”

  He considered this as though it might be a new idea. I supposed that Maggie must have given him Marc’s story of what had happened before I left Athmore that other time.

  “At least that’s an understandable reaction,” he said. “I don’t always like Marc myself, though I’ve known him since we were boys. Come now, you mustn’t be upset and on the defensive. Let me take you downstairs to Maggie’s sitting room where you can pull yourself together. All this haunted velvet can give one the tremors.”

  “I don’t want to talk to Maggie,” I said. “No one can talk to her about Marc.”

  “Do you think she doesn’t know exactly what Marc is like?”

  “Then how can she love him so much?”

  He smiled ruefully. “Does love—whatever it may be—have very much to do with reason? Or haven’t you discovered that yet?”

  “I’ve discovered it,” I said.

  He held the door for me and I went through ahead of him. I would never be wholly comfortable with Nigel Barrow because I could never forget that time during my last month at Athmore when he had thoroughly embarrassed me. I thought of it uncomfortably as we walked along the corridor. He had come here from the Bahamas on an extended visit, though no one had seen him in England for years. He had gone to the islands as a young man and he’d made a sizable fortune there. But during his years away he had rather cut his ties with Athmore, as he had with England. Only Justin, returning from a trip to New York by way of Nassau had seen him a few times during that period, and then only at Maggie’s urging, since Justin felt that Nigel wanted to be left to go his own way alone. Not until long after his success was assured did he return to England. Then he had written Maggie, asking if he might come on a visit. Maggie had welcomed him warmly and forgiven his long absence, perhaps understanding Nigel’s innate pride and the need he had to make his own way without further dependence on Athmore and Justin.

  “As a boy,” Maggie once told me, “all Nigel could give us was gratitude, and he was too young to suffer that without offering anything in return. Now everything is changed and he is his own man. But a lonely man, I think. I want to make him welcome.”

  So Nigel had stayed for a visit, never seeming entirely content, yet yielding himself to Maggie’s fond efforts to make him feel that he had come home. He must have visited England several times in the years since I had left. That Maggie had finally accomplished her purpose now seemed evident.

  As we went through the long gallery and down the stairs, I thought of these things, prodding my memory, reaching for more generous understanding than I had ever given him before.

  On the occasion when he had upset me, I had somehow stubbed my toe on one of Athmore’s traditions, bringing down upon me Justin’s disapproval. Nigel had found me weeping angrily in a corner of the library and he had been kind, when I did not want his kindness.

  “We’re alike in some ways,” he told me that day. “We’re both outsiders, aren’t we? But we mustn’t let that hurt us. You mustn’t mind being an American, any more than I mind the roots I came from. We make up for these things by what we become. We live them down.”

  I had nearly exploded. “I like being an American!” I cried. “I don’t want to live it down. Athmore traditions are ridiculously stuffy and I won’t bow to notions that belong to the Middle Ages, or pretend that English ways are always better than American!”

  He had been quite gentle and reasonable with me. “Give yourself time and you’ll come to love the house and all its traditions, stuffy or no. I understand how you feel. I had no traditions of my own when I came here, and I suppose I resented having other people’s thrust upon me. Perhaps that’s why I had to make good on my own. I couldn’t come back to Athmore until my perspective was better. Give yourself time, Eve, and you’ll be all right.”

  I had not been willing to allow for time. I had been too young and rebellious, and I had not thanked him for counseling me. Now these several years later, I remembered and was uncomfortable all over again. It was Nigel, I realized, who had brought me back here this time, urging Maggie to write to me, even though I had not treated him very well in the past.

  We found Maggie’s sitting room empty, and Nigel went to a small cabinet for a decanter and glasses.

  “Sherry?” he asked. “You need a bit of something to relax you. I hope you’re not like Dacia, who feels the only thing to drink that’s with it, as she says, is vodka and lime—at whatever hour.”

  I took the glass of sherry and sat in the same chair where I had faced Maggie yesterday.

  There was no fire in the grate this morning, but the pot of pink azaleas still brightened the room, and Maggie’s shabby possessions seemed comfortable and familiar, so that I began to relax in spite of myself.

  Nigel stepped to a window, giving me time to recover. He never moved suddenly, or restlessly, as Justin might. I think he had learned long ago that it was safer not to take the center of the stage. Fewer mistakes were noticed, if one did not call attention to oneself. A sensible course that never occurred to me in time.

  I seized on the subject of Dacia in order to make conversation and show that I no longer resented him.

  “What do you think of Dacia Keane?” I asked him. “What do you think of this swinging set she’s part of in London?”

  He smiled. “I’ll admit they leave me behind. But I admire them, I think. They’re a bit uncertain about a number of things and they overdo the matter of being in, as they say. But most of these youngsters have jobs of one sort or another and they work harder than some of their elders do. Dacia and her sort are breaking down barriers faster than my generation ever did. She already knows pretty much where things fit in. On the other hand, I don’t think she’ll ever appreciate Athmore the way you and I can appreciate it.”

  “Now you’re erasing barriers too,” I said.

  He took no offense. “Yes. It’s an odd do, isn’t it? Me marrying Maggie Graham after all these years.”

  This seemed treacherous ground, lest I say the wrong thing, and I was silent.

  He read me well, as sensitive as ever, and when he spoke again his manner returned to the stiffly formal.

  “I hope you’ll stay for a while, now that you’re here, Mrs. North,” he said.

  I tried to smile at him. “You used to call me Eve. But aren’t you echoing Maggie now?”

  He turned from the window to look at me with that quiet authority which always surprised me when it appeared. Though he never seemed like a man wh
o might take command, I supposed he must have done so in the business field away from Athmore.

  “I never echo anyone,” he said. “I think it would be good for Athmore if you stayed. It might even be good for Justin.”

  “How can it possibly be good for Justin when he wants to marry Alicia Daven?” I cried, falling back with a thud into my own deep unhappiness and forgetting everything else.

  “Drink your sherry,” he said, and came to sit opposite me on the sofa, turning his own glass by the stem, watching the pale amber liquid move from rim to rim.

  When I had taken a sip or two he began to speak again, and I listened in surprise, thinking of how little I really knew Nigel Barrow.

  “Once before you were offended when I allied myself with you,” he reminded me. “And I was wrong that time. I had forgotten how sensitively American an American can be. The English mind criticism of the English less, I think. And—perhaps unfortunately—we accept it less. Feeling more assured, perhaps. But we are still alike in some ways—you and I. You haven’t outgrown the need to have someone tell you constantly who you are. While I’ve never outgrown the need to tell the world constantly who I am. I think mine is the better way to prove myself. It may irritate, but it depends less on others.”

  I smiled wryly at this unexpected picture of Nigel telling the world. “That’s hard to believe about you. I’ve never heard you brag. I’ve never heard you tell the world a thing.”

  With no responsive smile, he set down his glass and held out both hands for me to see. This morning he wore a sleeveless blue sweater over his gray shirt, but at the cuffs of the shirt were the star-sapphire links I had seen him wear so often.