All my senses were alert, eager to register anything that would help me, leaving me once more sure that her serenity was a pose and no more than skin deep. This was a woman more disturbed than she wanted us to know, and my confidence rose a little.
She gave me a brief glance in the mirror and then turned cordially to Dacia, letting me know how little I mattered to her.
“It’s good to see you, my dear,” she said to Dacia. “What a charming dress. It suits you.”
Divested of her orange coat, Dacia turned pertly about to display a frock which was half plain, half printed in a wild design of shocking pink triangles appliquéd against violent green. “Charming” was, I thought, a doubtful word, yet it was true that Dacia could carry off such a dress.
Alicia smiled and nodded to Marc. “Thank you,” she said, and waved a graceful hand on which a great topaz gleamed, matching her gown. “Do sit down, won’t you?”
I remembered that she had always been reluctant to call me by name. To her I was neither Mrs. North nor Eve—and now she merely included me in her general greeting and invitation.
I remembered the room and now, because I felt anything but at ease, I tried to look about me with as casual an air as I could manage. If Alicia could bluff, so could I. I observed the handsome ceiling, with its Adam design of garlands and festoons in low-relief carving, the surfaces delicately touched with color. I studied the rug from China, the satinwood furniture that was typically Adam, and recited to myself the lessons I had been given in such matters by Maggie when I had first come to Athmore, young and ignorant of such things as authentic furniture and architecture.
And while I looked and pretended I was entirely at ease, Marc spoke his mind to Alicia.
“What is Leo up to?” he demanded. “He’s been hanging around Athmore a few times lately and Justin is about ready to jump him and put him off the premises for good. Why do you keep him on at the club and stand for his cheekiness?”
Alicia’s self-possession did not waver. “If he is useful to me, I shall use him. If he’s running about Athmore, perhaps you’ve some girl there who appeals to him.”
Marc stared at her uncertainly, then shrugged. I had a feeling that there had been some meeting of forces between them and that Marc had been faced down and was in retreat. I stole a look at Dacia and saw that she was listening, warily alert, her cropped head atilt, her long legs crossed casually, the better to exhibit them beneath a skirt that came halfway up her thighs. There was something engaging and unself-conscious about slim girls who never tugged at their skirts as our mothers had done.
“Will you have something to drink?” Alicia asked. “Marc, you know where—”
For the first time I found my voice. “Let’s not take up your time, Alicia. After all, this isn’t a social call. You wanted to see me for some particular reason?”
She considered me remotely, and the faintly pitying manner was there again, though managed so subtly that only I knew what she was about. I had seen her treat me this way before.
“Perhaps this is a difficult matter for an American to understand,” she began, “but an old man like Daniel, who has been with one family all his life, may come to hold the deep affection of those he serves.”
I said nothing. However frequently she had visited Athmore, Alicia had not lived there, and Old Daniel had never served her or her family, even though he might have wished to see her as Justin’s wife instead of me.
“I was deeply shocked to hear what had happened,” she went on; “The old man came to see me day before yesterday and brought me flowers from Athmore’s gardens. We had quite a chat while he was here,”
“About what?” Marc put in abruptly.
Alicia shrugged, but I had a feeling that she was on guard. “About whatever subjects an old man likes to discuss, of course.”
Her words implied consideration, yet her eyes watched me without echoing the sympathy in her tone. I did not think she cared at all about Old Daniel. When I still did not speak, she came to the point.
“I understand you took a picture of Daniel yesterday. I’d like very much to have it. You’ve brought it with you?”
“No,” I said, “I haven’t brought it.”
Marc gave me a quick look and Dacia swiveled her head to stare in my direction.
“I asked Marc to request that you bring the picture with you tonight,” Alicia said.
Dacia wriggled in her chair and spoke for the first time. “Why didn’t you just have him bring the picture? Why’d you want Evie to bring it?”
Alicia glanced at the girl with a look less approving than before.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I couldn’t bring it because someone went into my room while I was out and removed the snapshot from my handbag. I’ve searched, but I’ve not been able to find it.”
Alicia looked as if she did not believe a word of my story, while Dacia said, “Gosh!” with an astonishment that seemed real enough. Marc was staring at his hands.
I opened my bag, took out my billfold, unzipping it to remove the negative.
“There’s been no time to have another print made,” I said, “but at least I’ve brought the film for you to see.”
Marc intercepted it and held it up to the light. “This won’t give you much,” he said and turned it over to Alicia.
She moved closer to a lamp and held the negative to the light as Marc had done. Then she tipped it back and forth so that light struck across the dull side, exhibiting the picture quite well.
I watched intently, wondering what she saw. The lines of her classic face told me nothing, and long lashes veiled her eyes. Finally she looked meaningfully at Marc.
He seemed to understand. “Come along, Dacia,” he said. “Alicia wants our Eve to herself. We can wait in the dining room.”
Dacia was less than willing to go, but Marc took her by the elbow, insisting. She flashed me a look that said, “You’ll tell me later,” and went reluctantly with him from the room.
Alicia set the negative near me on a table as if it were of no further consequence to her, and returned to the fireplace, her gown glinting gold in the flame light. There she stood with her hands to the fire as if she were cold, her head bent so that I could not catch her reflection in the mirror.
“You were right,” she said. “The picture is meaningless for me. The focus isn’t clear. The picture was only an excuse to bring you here. I wanted to speak with you on other matters.”
I held to my silence. My heart was thumping uncomfortably and my face had grown hot because this woman made me think of only one thing. Justin had loved her in the past, and why should he not love her now? She wanted him and she would have him if she could, I was braced to resist whatever she said to me.
After a moment she raised her head to look into the mirror above the mantel and I found her eyes meeting mine in the glass. The subtlety, the pretense, had dropped away now that she had no audience but me.
“Why did you return to Athmore?” she challenged me.
It was strange to speak to her like this—as though we two could not meet face to face, but must see each other only by reflection in a glass.
“The answer to that lies between Justin and me,” I said evenly.
Her sculptured face had lost something of its repose and her look grew intent. “Perhaps you’ll hurt yourself more painfully than you did before. Isn’t it time you learned wisdom? Or are you still too young for that?”
I did not think she had brought me here to repeat words so futile. Her reason was still the picture, however carelessly she dismissed it. But in answer there was only one thing I could say, and I said it quietly.
“I am still Justin’s wife.”
Her movement as she turned from the glass was without restraint. I was right, I thought triumphantly. All that lovely serenity was a veneer she had perfected because she knew it pleased Justin. Now it cracked across its surface like shattered glass.
“You’re his wife for only so long as it
will take Justin to be free of you! Do you really think you could keep him permanently? You had your foolish interlude, and you both came to recognize how ridiculous such a marriage was. That will be corrected now. And it will be less painful for you if you return home soon, instead of forcing him to send you away, as he is already anxious to do.”
I stood up, fumbling for my purse. I had none of her poise, her assurance, her skill in such dueling, but I had the desperation born of love. I moved toward the door without giving her the satisfaction of an answer.
“Wait a moment,” she said. “About that picture—if I were you, I would not make another print. It will be better if you let me have the negative before someone takes it from your room. It isn’t wise for you to keep it.”
I swung about. “What do you mean?”
“To how many people have you shown that picture?” she asked.
“I’ve shown it to no one, though apparently several know of its existence.”
“Please give it to me.” Alicia held out her hand, accustomed to command.
“Why should I?” I asked her bluntly. “If the figure is out of focus, how do you know for sure that it is Old Daniel?”
“I wondered if that had occurred to you.” Alicia came toward me across the room. “Are you sure you saw no one there when you snapped the shutter?”
“I saw no one until Old Daniel spoke to me,” I said. “But if the figure can’t be recognized as the old man, neither does it look like anyone else.”
“You’re wrong!” Alicia stepped close to me, dropping her voice to speak softly. “I recognized the person in the picture at once.”
“Who is it, then?”
There was no serenity in her now. She hesitated, playing nervously with the ring on her hand, finally coming to a decision.
“The person in the picture is not a man,” she told me finally. “It is a woman wearing trousers and a jacket and the hunting cap I have seen her wear many times around the stable, when horses were kept at Athmore. The person in your picture is Maggie Graham.”
I stared at her in astonishment. “Maggie wasn’t in the chapel ruins yesterday! Only a little while afterward I saw her in the topiary garden with Justin.”
“And you’re sure she was there all along? You’re positive she was not in the woods earlier?”
Of course I wasn’t positive, but I did not like this fanciful suggestion Alicia had made about Maggie.
“It will be safer if you leave the picture with me,” she repeated.
I shook my head. “If what you say is true, Maggie is the one who should have it.” I retrieved the negative quickly, lest Alicia should pick it up.
“Do you think Justin will thank you for that? Do you think he will be pleased if you upset Maggie and frighten her?”
“Frighten her? Why should she be frightened? Even if she was there and saw Old Daniel, how can it possibly matter?”
Alicia’s smile was tight. “Perhaps you’re really not clever enough to see the implications.”
“There aren’t any complications!” I cried. “If Maggie was there when I met Old Daniel, it can’t possibly mean anything. But if there’s something to be said, Maggie must be given the chance to say it.”
Alicia made a gesture of repudiation and turned her back me, wanting only to be rid of a recalcitrant visitor.
I went into the foyer and called for Marc. He and Dacia joined me at once, looking pleased with each other after their moments alone.
“I’m ready to leave,” I said.
Marc gave me a questioning glance and stepped to the sitting-room door. I heard Alicia say, “You’d better go now,” and he came to help us with our coats. Alicia did not reappear.
The moment we were in the front seat of Marc’s car, Dacia began to prod me.
“What happened? What did she say? Why did she go secretive all at once?”
“She doesn’t think it was Daniel in the picture,” I said. “She wanted me to leave the negative with her.”
Marc said nothing, but Dacia wriggled impatiently. “Who does she think it was? Why should she want it if it wasn’t this great old friend of hers?”
“Let’s not talk about it,” I said shortly. “I’m not sure she’s right in what she believes, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Dacia’s bump of curiosity was too large to allow her to subside readily, and she would have gone on questioning me if Marc hadn’t stopped her abruptly.
“Let it be,” he said. “Eve is right. It can’t possibly matter now.”
In the seat between us Dacia slumped down, pouting a little, and we drove in silence, with the cold wind blowing past and the car’s headlights parting the dark countryside ahead. As we followed the road back to Athmore my mind was busy questioning, probing. Another print of the picture must be made soon from this negative. I still did not believe in Alicia’s identification of Maggie as the figure in the picture, or why she should say it was not Daniel.
By the time we reached Athmore I was cold clear through, and I jumped out first and ran up the steps and through the front door before Dacia could catch me.
Lights burned in the drawing room, and Maggie heard me and came to the door. “Has Marc come in? Alicia Daven just phoned. She wants him to call her at Grovesend.”
“He’s putting the car away,” I said and ran for the stairs.
Maggie came after me, catching me by the arm as I started up. “I know where you’ve been. Marc told me that Alicia wanted to see a snapshot you took in the chapel ruins yesterday. Did you show it to her?”
She grasped me so tightly that her fingers hurt my arm. The urgent need for flight went out of me. I stepped down to her level, trying to read her eyes, her meaning.
“Someone took the picture from my room,” I told her. “But I still have the negative, and that is what I showed Alicia.”
Maggie must have realized the force of her grasp upon my arm, for she dropped her hand abruptly.
“What did Alicia say when she saw it?” Maggie asked.
“That it wasn’t Old Daniel in the picture, after all,” I said, not taking my eyes from her face.
“Who does she think it was?”
I hesitated, unsure of my ground. “She wanted me to leave the negative with her, but I wouldn’t.”
“Who?” Maggie repeated. “Tell me what that woman is up to!”
From outdoors came the sound of Dacia’s laughter, of Marc’s voice. I bent toward her.
“Alicia says it’s you in the picture—because of the cap the figure is wearing.”
Maggie was completely still, her gaze never shifting from my face. “What does she mean? Does she think I went out there and pushed that wall over on poor Old Daniel? What an absurd thing to say!”
Somehow I was relieved. Of course it was absurd. It was ridiculous that I had even mentioned it to Maggie. Alicia was engaged in throwing up some sort of smokescreen. A new possibility struck me. What if she knew very well that it was a woman in the picture because it was Alicia whom I had caught with my camera? This would explain her anxiety to have the negative in her possession.
“Perhaps I can guess who is really in the picture,” I said. “Though I don’t know what to make of it yet.”
Dacia had reached the door, and to escape further questioning I fled up the stairs and down the long corridor to my room. Like Alicia, I wanted to pull my surroundings snugly about me. This need for a cave was something one might feel because of fear, because of dangers that prowled the outside world. I wondered what dangers might threaten Alicia, and why she had been so anxious to impress upon me the fact of her long friendship with Old Daniel. Even if I had caught Alicia in my chance picture, I could not see that it would mean anything in particular. Certainly I would have another print made soon so that I could examine it more carefully. Perhaps an enlargement would give me the answer I wanted.
The evening had laid a dark uneasiness upon me. Too much that was out of key seemed to lie beneath the surface, both here and a
t Grovesend, all adding up to some ominous total that frightened me. If only I could go easily and naturally to Justin and put all the bits and pieces before him, perhaps he would make something of them. But he had no wish to see me, and he would certainly not welcome any questioning of Alicia.
I pulled the draperies tight across my windows, lighted the fire Nellie had laid for me and huddled on the hearthrug before the flames, my woolly blue robe muffled about me and furry slippers on my feet. For a long while I watched the coals lick into flame, burn red and then blacken and fall. I listened to the sound of the wind roaring down my tower.
There seemed just one slight thread of hope in what had happened at Grovesend. If Alicia chose to bother with me to the extent of asking Marc to bring me to Grovesend, she could not be wholly confident of her future with Justin. That was all I could cling to now. And at least I had not crumpled completely in this latest encounter with her. Perhaps I was learning—just a little.
From the direction of the gate I heard a car turn into the drive and wondered who else was out on this dark and windy evening. Turning off my light, I drew the draperies apart a crack at the side window so that I could look out toward workshop and garage. Headlights showed a car turning onto the apron of concrete. The dogs began to bark and then were silent at a command. This was someone who belonged, or the guard would not have let the car past the gate. As I watched, the man who had quieted the dogs stepped from between the beech trees on the embankment and into the beam of light as the car came to a halt. The man was Marc North. I saw him go to the door of the car to speak to the driver, and after a few moments of hushed conversation, he stepped back. The car turned about, flashing white as it caught a ray of light from the garage. The woman at the wheel swung away toward the entrance and sped off.
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