Second Sight

by David Williams

  When they reached the hotel, he halted the buggy across the street from the row of cabs and came around to help her dismount. She slid down into his arms and clung to him, fighting back tears, unwilling to believe that this moment had actually arrived.

  Light from the nearest streetlamp flickered through the leaves of the trees overhead; across the street a restless cabhorse stirred and stamped. For one sudden instant everything she could seethe cabmen silhouetted on their boxes against the light from the hotel, the horses waiting patiently in the traces, the soaring spires and gables of the hotel itself—seemed props in a set, a scene from a drama as fleeting and ephemeral as that on any stage, which would cease to exist as soon as she exited into her own time. It was as if she were already withdrawing, already preparing for the possibility she might never return, so that even as she looked everything began to assume the quality of a distant and longed-for memory.

  “I don’t want you worrying,” he said. “By midnight everything will be over. Rachel will be on the train and gone. My responsibilities here will be ended. Can you come tomorrow?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, thinking numbly that tomorrow was a concept she could not envision, that until she knew he was safe the future would not exist for her at all.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go to your husband,” he said. “Together. We’ll tell him the truth. After tomorrow I don’t want you ever to go away from me again.”

  She didn’t want to think of that now; talk of the future seemed a jinx on the present. “Be careful, David. Please. This is much more dangerous than you believe.”

  “Don’t think about it. Think about tomorrow.”

  “I love you, David.” She pulled him down into one long last kiss, then forced herself to release him and step away, as if finally committing him to the forces she had set in motion.

  He mounted to the buggy seat and unwound the reins from the whipstock. Then he clucked to the horse and swung the buggy in a wide circle back the way they had come, lifting his hand in a farewell salute.

  She stood at the curb, the streetlamp throwing eerie shadows through the leaves, and watched him recede away, the clip-clop of those hooves she had first heard that day on the road growing ever fainter along the street. She had done everything possible. She had arranged for someone else to steal Rachel away; she had convinced David to take the valise home so that he would not be in town when it happened; she had directed him to a spot at least a mile from the band concert, nearly two hours after Rachel would be gone; she had removed herself from the scene. But as she watched the buggy disappear beyond the farthest street corner, she could not help thinking that if she was wrong, if she had made some mistake, the man she loved had at most three hours to live.

  23

  * * *

  HE HAD NOT BEEN to Fire Island for several years, but little that he could see seemed to have changed. The sun was low in the sky when the boat docked at Fair Harbor, and Michael stepped off with the handful of passengers who for reasons of their own were arriving late on a weekday. He searched the scattering of faces on the dock for sign of Jennie but didn’t find her, hadn’t really expected to, as she’d said she would take the last ferry home, which didn’t leave for more than an hour. The railing along the pier was lined with people, most still in beach garb. He turned left in front of the liquor store, passed the market and the tiny firehouse, and turned up along Holly Walk.

  The house seemed deserted. Here, away from the bay, the sun was obscured behind trees; he crossed the cool front deck to the door, which stood open behind the screen. There was no answer to his knock. He looked through the screen and saw into the darkened living room and on through the kitchen and back porch to the rear deck beyond the screened back door. He heard someone moving back there and went around the side deck toward the rear of the house.

  A woman he didn’t recognize was hanging a blue bikini and a large damp towel over the deck railing when he rounded the corner. She was dressed in a loose terrycloth robe which came to her knees. The deck was still wet around the outside shower.

  “Hi,” she said. “Looking for Beverly?”

  “Actually, I was looking for Jennie. I’m Michael. Michael Logan.”

  “I’m Norma Levine.” She tucked a strand of hair up behind the band around her head and smiled. “Who did you say you were looking for?”

  “Jennie Logan. Is she around?”

  “Not around here anyway. You sure you got the right house?”

  “I think so. Beverly Mott’s house?”

  “Right house. Wrong person.”

  “Well, do you know where I can find her?”

  “Beverly? She’s still on the beach.”

  “No, I mean Jennie. She’s Beverly’s houseguest.”

  The woman laughed. “I’m confused. Either that or you are. I’m Beverly’s houseguest.”

  “You mean Jennie’s not here?”

  She mimed a kind of amiable helplessness. “I don’t even know any Jennie. Maybe you’d better ask Beverly.”

  His mind went suddenly blank. “How long have you been out here?”

  “Beverly’s been out here all week. It’s her vacation. I came out last night.”

  “And nobody named Jennie’s been here today at all?”

  “I’m afraid not. Look, I think you’d better talk to Beverly. You know how to find the beach, don’t you?”

  “Yes, thanks,” he said, and went back out to the walk. It was possible there had been a mix-up in guests, that Jennie had got the date of her invitation wrong and had had to stay with someone else, with Janice Gales, maybe. But surely this woman would have known about it, would at least have known who Jennie was. So where was Jennie? And then it occurred to him: what if she had finally gone off the deep end? What if she was wandering somewhere in the city, half mad, or locked up somewhere with nobody knowing where he was or how to reach him? He mounted the wooden ladderway on the small bluff overlooking the ocean and took the steps two at a time down onto the sand.

  The beach was nearly empty. The sea was a pale pink and lavender from the late sun, but the sand was in shadow. One couple lay on a blanket down near the volleyball posts. Beverly stood alone in the surf, in a black tank suit, her back to him, running her feet back and forth in the water. She turned and came back up the slope toward a blanket just above the waterline. He was almost to the blanket when she looked up and saw him.

  “Michael,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I was going to come out and get Jennie.”

  She seemed surprised for an instant, then bent nonchalantly to pick up the blanket and shake the sand out of it. “You just missed her. She left a little while ago, took the four-ten ferry, I think it was.” She was not looking at him, holding the blanket by two corners and shaking it out downwind.

  “She spent the day with you then?” he said.

  “She was here ever since—whenever it was she came out.”

  “Yesterday. Yesterday morning.”

  “Yes, that’s right. She was here yesterday and today.”

  “Just you and her?”

  “And a friend of mine, Norma. She came out last night.” She finished shaking out the blanket and began folding it into squares.

  “Why are you lying to me, Beverly?”

  She glanced coolly at him, stepped into a pair of beach sandals. “Why would I lie to you?”

  “You’re lying to me, and I want to know why. I saw your friend Norma. She’s never heard of Jennie. She says she and you were out here alone all day. So what are you lying about? What are you covering up?”

  A small grin curled the corners of her mouth. “So you found out, huh? I didn’t think Jennie could keep that kind of secret.”

  “What secret? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You stop lying to me, and I’ll stop lying to you. You didn’t come out here at the end of the day, barely an hour till the last ferry, to lie in the sun with your
pretty little wife. Sweet little Jennie. Ha. I didn’t think she had it in her, but it serves you right.”

  “Are you trying to tell me—?”

  “You’re so stupid, Michael. Jennie hasn’t been out here all summer. Sure, she’s been waltzing around under your nose with some man she met after you two moved to the country, but not out here. This whole thing was a set-up, to cover for her. And it worked, too, didn’t it? All this time you thought your sweet little Jennie was out here nursing her problems.”

  He went suddenly blind with anger, reached out to seize her arm, and recoiled with the sting of her slap still ringing in his ear.

  “Keep your goddamn hands off me,” she said.

  He found he was trembling, lungs working to bring in air. “Who is it? Tell me who it is, or I’ll break your neck.”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. And that’s the truth. She just said I should cover for her, say she was coming out here if you asked. She wouldn’t tell me who he is or where she met him or anything, but I hope she leaves you flat for him.”

  “You malicious bitch.”

  “Hurts, doesn’t it? Just remember you did the same to her.”

  He turned to sprint for the steps leading up off the beach.

  All the way back along the boardwalk, her taunt still ringing in his ears, he could see nothing but the image of Jennie coolly, deliberately arranging this deception with Beverly. She had been lying to him, she had been lying to him all this time. It had all been a scheme to cover a real affair, going on in his own time, with a man from his own time. And as he rounded the corner leading to the ferry dock, he could feel flaring up in him all the jealousy and anger he had been suppressing for weeks.

  24

  * * *

  BACK AT THE HOUSE, in Chesapequa, Jennie stood in the darkened living room, gazing down across the black void of the lake. It was only thirty minutes since she had returned to her own time and changed out of the dress in the Miller house, but every one of those minutes had seemed endless. On the other side of the lake, through the trees, glittered the lights of town. In the dark, she could imagine it was the Chesapequa of 1899, could imagine what was occurring there right now. She turned away from the windows and went back into the kitchen to look at the clock, a trip that in the last five minutes she had made half a dozen times.

  It was 9:45. At this very moment, in 1899, Rachel should be slipping away from the band concert, stealing through the dark to the rear of the band building, where Arthur O’Donnelly was waiting with horse and cab. Where, without her intervention, David would have been. She paused in the middle of the kitchen, as if she could actually sense him here, in the house, in his own century. Please God he was here. He had said he would leave the house at 10:30, to be sure of arriving in time at the hotel; please God he hadn’t gone early to check that the Hubbards had made it to the concert. She checked the clock again and started back through the dining room. Anxious, frustrated, her mind alive with all the things that might be going wrong in 1899, she could not stay still, could not stop pacing.

  Through the dining-room windows she saw the headlights of a car sweep into the drive. Michael? Only now did it occur to her: she should have stayed and waited in the Miller house. She was in no condition to pretend with Michael. She turned on the light above the front steps, opened the door, and was surprised to see that it was Mrs. Bates, coming up the walk from her ancient Dodge.

  “Did you want something important, Mrs. Bates? I really haven’t any time right now.”

  “Well, I don’t want to interrupt, but I thought you’d want to know. You see, it’s Aunt Betty. She—”

  “Is something wrong?” Jennie felt a flicker of guilt. “She hasn’t—?”

  “No, no, Aunt Betty’s as well as can be expected.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about yesterday.”

  “Well, dear, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, it turns out your visit wasn’t a failure after all.”

  “You mean—you’ve found out something more? About the story?”

  “Oh, my, yes, I’ve made the most exciting find.” Mrs. Bates ambled in her awkward gait into the kitchen and took a chair at the table. “I knew you’d want to see it, so I came right over.”

  “See it?”

  “Yes, you see, Aunt Betty kind of came out of her spell tonight. She does that, you know. Sometimes she’ll go days without really knowing where she is. Then, times, she’ll get like you saw her yesterday, really bad. She has these cycles, Nurse Jenkins calls them—a good spell, then a bad spell.”

  “The story, Mrs. Bates. What did you learn about the story?”

  Mrs. Bates had plumped her large handbag down on the table and was rummaging around in it. “Well, you see, seems like she must have understood us yesterday, bad as she was. You can’t tell how much she knows what’s going on around her when she’s like that. Sometimes, you know, we think old people like that are off somewhere else, but it’s just that they can’t talk. They can hear you, you see, even if it doesn’t seem like it. You don’t have something, do you, dear—iced tea, or something? I’ve got myself so heated up about this.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bates. I don’t want to be rude, but I really haven’t time to visit. If you’ll just tell me what you found out. Please.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Bates raised her eyebrows. “Well, I won’t stay long then. As I say, Aunt Betty kind of came out of her spell tonight. Got all worked up about an old trunk of hers in the attic. Fairly demanded we bring it down to her room. You know how old people are. Well, she dug around in there and came up with this old scrapbook.” Mrs. Bates had the scrapbook out of the bag now, a red volume no bigger than a diary, and was leafing through it. “The old dear, she should be ashamed of herself. I can’t imagine why she withheld it from me all these years, knowing how much I enjoy things about the past. It has pictures of the man you’re interested in, David Reynolds, and a newspaper clipping about his death, and everything.”

  Eagerly, Jennie took the scrapbook, opened to the page Mrs. Bates had found. Pasted inside, brittle and yellowing with age, was the old tattered newspaper clipping.

  LOCAL RESIDENT

  IS FOUND SLAIN

  Chesapequa, Friday, Aug. 30. Mr. David Reynolds, local resident, was found shot and killed by person or persons unknown yesterday evening, on Spring Street near the back garden entrance to the Henry Hudson Hotel. Witnesses returning home from the evening’s band concert heard a shot at about 11:30 P.M. and rushing to the scene found Mr. Reynolds lying on the sidewalk dead of a gunshot wound to the chest. Mr. Reynolds’ horse had bolted with the buggy and was recovered several blocks away by a bystander. A Mrs. Logan, reportedly a guest at one of the local hotels and Mr. Reynolds’ constant companion during recent days, has disappeared and is being sought for questioning. A woman in white—presumably the mysterious Mrs. Logan—was seen fleeing the scene of the crime.

  “The pictures are over here,” Mrs. Bates said, reaching over to turn the page.

  Jennie focused blurred eyes on the photograph on the left-hand page. In faded shades of sepia, David stood beside a high-wheeled buggy, facing the camera, as if caught at a moment of leave-taking. His foot was poised on the running board, one hand holding the reins to a horse out of the picture. He wore the familiar dark vest open over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up—tall, striking, and handsome, just as she remembered him.

  But it was the photograph on the opposite page which took her breath away.

  “That’s Aunt Betty as a girl,” Mrs. Bates said. “Wouldn’t they have made a handsome couple? She never told me she knew him, but she must have, don’t you think, she must have been in love with him. She never married, you know, and that must have been the reason—her lover was killed, and she never got over it. Isn’t it just too fascinating?”

  Jennie was stunned. The photograph was as old and faded as the other. In it, standing full-figure on a little dock under a weeping willow, voluptuous and beautiful benea
th a lacy parasol, the expanse of lake in a summer haze behind her, was the Elizabeth she had known in 1899.

  Mrs. Bates was talking on, but Jennie didn’t hear her. She pressed the scrapbook against her lap to keep it from trembling in her hands. Elizabeth. Beth. Betty. That was Elizabeth! That dying old woman was Elizabeth! She remembered the stringy white hair, the emaciated hands, the feverish eyes burning at her from that haggard face, and with a tremor of awe she thought: she recognized me, in the wandering of her mind she must have thought it was 1899 again and she recognized me. And suddenly she knew why Elizabeth had withheld the scrapbook all those years, why she suppressed the fact that she knew David: she was afraid, afraid the truth would come out. Elizabeth did it. Elizabeth killed him. The weeping, the murmuring that she was sorry. Not again, not again. She must have heard from Willis what David said about leaving the hotel for the 11:52 train; she must have thought the valise was mine; she must have believed these were arrangements for my leaving my husband, running away with David. She couldn’t bear the thought of being rejected again for another woman.

  Slowly, Jennie closed the scrapbook and sank back in the chair. She had sent David to his doom. All along she had believed she was altering the events of 1899 in order to save his life; instead, she was creating the very events that had led to his death. All along she had believed she was being sent back to prevent his murder; instead, she was being sent back to cause it. She had been the one ingredient needed to make it happen.

  She opened the scrapbook again, refocused on the article. 11:30 P.M. He had said he would leave the house at 10:30. She looked at the clock on the wall. 10:05. Abruptly, she rose to her feet and thrust the scrapbook back into Mrs. Bates’ hands. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bates, you’ll have to leave. I’m in a very great hurry.”