I couldn’t imagine my mother being that young and impulsive. The man before me had no connection with the imaginary father I’d made up to fit the pictures on the book jackets—sometimes more villain than hero, but always exciting, always part of an enchanted world. Now all these bits and pieces of make-believe that I’d patched together since childhood were flying around and settling into new patterns like a kaleidoscope—patterns not recognizable to me.
He mused aloud, half to himself. “It’s strange—one of the strangest things about life. I mean the way reverberations go on and on. I’ve been thinking about this in the book I’m writing now. We take some casual step, almost on the spur of the moment, and destiny’s changed forever—down into future generations. If I hadn’t met your mother on a train, my life might have been very different.”
“And I wouldn’t be here at all,” I said.
His smile was warmer, and for the first time I glimpsed the man on the jackets. “So destiny isn’t all bad? The problem of the catalyst always fascinated me. I mean the person whose fate is so carelessly established, and who in turn changes everything all around. Are you a catalyst, Laurel?”
“I haven’t come here to change anything,” I said. “Besides, a catalyst doesn’t change himself, and perhaps I’m already changing.” That might even be true in ways I wouldn’t invite.
“Right. You are the one who may be most changed by taking this step.”
“Perhaps that’s something I don’t want.”
“I’m afraid events don’t wait for us or give us much choice.” He sounded sad, lost, and when he went on there was a tightening in his voice, a tension. “Laurel, have you felt the undercurrents in this house? Perhaps threatening undercurrents?”
His words startled me. “How can I tell? I’ve just come, and I don’t know yet what’s normal or what isn’t.”
I thought of the orchid photograph that had been moved, but I wouldn’t worry him about that now.
“Of course you don’t,” he said. “Never mind. Forget what I said.”
Something worried him, but he wasn’t ready to tell me what it was, and he changed the subject abruptly again.
“I understand you own a bookstore.”
That gave me an opening. “I know the truth now, though I didn’t before. I know that you helped buy my store. Mother left me a letter that explained things she’d never told me. If I’d known where the money came from at the time, I wouldn’t have taken it.”
“Then I’m glad she didn’t tell you.” He spoke dryly. “Do you enjoy the work?”
“I like to be involved with books—yes. Yours sell very well, you know.” I was beginning to hate this chitchat. Nothing was going as I’d imagined or hoped.
“So you do allow them in your shop?” He was mocking me now.
“We’re fencing, aren’t we?” I said impatiently.
“So you can cut through the superficial? I like that. If we’re going to duel, let’s take the buttons off the foils.”
He had come to life as he hadn’t done before, and I saw how he could use those dramatic eyebrows to good effect.
“Must we duel?” I asked.
“What else can we do until each finds out if the other can be trusted?”
Trusted with what? I began to wish I hadn’t come. Better to leave dreams alone than to have them destroyed in the space of moments.
“Have you met your half sisters yet?” he asked.
“Iris welcomed me when I arrived.” “Welcomed” wasn’t the word, but it would have to do. “And I met Fern when I went downstairs to see the orchid house.”
At the mention of orchids, he closed his eyes. When he opened them I glimpsed the grief he tried to hold away. Not the sort of sorrow I felt over my mother’s death, but something infinitely more destructive and desolate. But then Janet hadn’t died in some shocking way. Her death had been a release, while Poppy’s had cut off a life in full course.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked. “I mean, do you know how my wife died?”
“No one has told me.”
“If you are to visit here, you’d better know. How she died has placed a burden on all of us.” He spoke with quiet tension, and the momentary light that had sparked him was gone. “Poppy was an expert in raising hybrid orchids from seeds. It’s a special process. The method is to plant seeds in nutrient agar placed in a sterile flask. When the seedlings grow large enough to fill the flask, it’s broken and the plants are moved to something larger.”
He paused, making an effort to control his pain. After a moment he went on.
“Somehow, when she broke the flask that last time, glass cut her wrist—an artery. She must have tried to get help, but there’s only one wire-screened door to the greenhouse—heavy chicken wire. The plastic windows are small, and they’re protected with the same heavy wire. Without cutting through, there’s no way to get out except through the door. But sometimes that door jams, and in her fright she couldn’t open it. We know she must have screamed, called, pounded. But Alida and I were up here and we never heard her. I was playing the piano and Alida was at her typewriter. Poppy couldn’t stop the bleeding, or break through solid wire, and no one else was at home. She bled to death there among her orchids. So they were more beautiful with color than ever, and still alive—when she was gone.”
His words poured out, stark and terrible in themselves. Yet it seemed a release for him to talk about these things. He must look into a deep and dreadful horror and self-reproach that would live with him forever.
I wanted to touch him, to offer some gesture of human feeling. But I didn’t dare. We were strangers, and I could only blink back the tears that came into my eyes.
He saw and spoke to me more gently. “Sometime we’ll talk about this again, Laurel. And about other things. For now we’ll let it go. Where have they put you?”
I hesitated. “Iris has given me her mother’s room.”
He seemed to stiffen, but he also seemed to have no more emotion to spend, and he moved a hand in dismissal. “If you don’t mind, perhaps it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters to me very much right now.”
He had two other daughters who ought to matter a great deal, but that wasn’t for me to point out.
I was suddenly aware of Mrs. Burch’s exotic perfume, which seemed to go with her amber beads, and looked up to find her beside me.
“It’s nearly time for dinner,” she said. “Would you like to go downstairs now, Miss York?” I sensed that she wanted him free of my presence and that my being here at all disturbed her. How much she’d heard of our talk I couldn’t tell, but her machine had been quiet for a time.
My father spoke quickly. “Yes, of course you must go down, Laurel. Angela doesn’t like people to be late for meals. We’ll talk again soon.”
He had already returned to his own typewriter, and I followed Alida Burch toward the stairs. When I looked back I saw that he was staring at the sheet of paper in the roller as though it threatened him. A sense of something hidden had been present throughout our meeting. He hadn’t told me everything, any more than Marcus O’Neill had done.
“What is my father frightened of?” I asked Mrs. Burch as we reached the stairs.
A hint of alarm showed in her eyes, before dark lashes came down. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss York. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s just that—that he told me how his wife died—so terribly.”
“He told you that? We all try never to talk to him about what happened.”
“Perhaps he needs to talk about it,” I said.
She rejected this at once. “His heart isn’t strong. He mustn’t put emotional strains upon it. He must not be upset. I’ve been concerned about your coming here, Miss York, and I’m not sure Marcus did the right thing in bringing you to Key West.”
“I’m not sure either,” I told her. “But I’m here now.”
“Then you’ll try not to upset him?”
When we reached the second floor level, I stopped with my hand on the banister. “Mrs. Burch, you know the room I’ve been given—Mrs. York’s room?”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t think it a good idea to put you there, but Iris made the choice.”
“Do you know of any reason why someone would come in while I was out for a few minutes and remove one of those orchid photographs from the wall?”
She stared up at me from the step below. “Remove a photograph? What do you mean?”
“The one in which a mask was shown is gone.”
She shook her head soberly. “It might be a prank. The sort of thing Fern might do, if the whim took her.”
“It happened while I was in the orchid house with Fern. So it must have been someone else.”
“Then you should be careful, Miss York. Be very careful.”
“What do you mean? Careful about what?”
She shook her head, closing the discussion. A warning had been given. To help me, or frighten me away?
So far I’d met three people who obviously held some secret they were unwilling to share with me. Even my mother had written that something was wrong in this house. If there was a role I was intended to play, I needed to know what it was. And whether I wanted to play it.
We’d reached the lower hall, and Alida indicated a wide doorway. “I’ll leave you now. Just go on in.”
I had time to pause on the threshold and note both the attractive living room and the three who waited for me there. The room had been furnished with an eye to hot weather comfort. Pale Turkestan rugs were scattered across the floor spaces, leaving bare, polished wood between. Two small sofas, covered with printed cotton in leaf scrolls and rosy blooms, stood opposite each other, occupied now by the two sisters and the man who had laughed so resoundingly—who must be Derek Phillips.
Small tables here and there bore fascinating objects that Clifton York would have collected in his travels. I glimpsed brass pieces, ivory figurines, bronzes, lacquered boxes, cinnabar carvings. A series of colorful oils decorated the wall between porch doors, all of bright tropical scenes.
The man sitting next to Iris rose—a big man, with a large, well-shaped head of thick white hair and a dark tan. He looked vigorous, healthy, fifty-plus, and the fact that his nose appeared to have been broken at one time only added to his rather fiercely arresting quality. I noticed his eyes particularly because they seemed lighted by an inner brilliance—the sign of someone permanently excited by the possibilities of life and probably confident of his own ability to meet whatever came. I had the immediate sense that winning would be all-important to this man, even in casual encounters. His hard intensity seemed intended to conquer even me.
When I gave him my hand, he smiled and held me away, studying me with disconcerting frankness.
“You do look a lot like Cliff,” he said, as though agreeing with someone. “The same cheekbones and strong chin. Though it’s all pleasantly gentled in you. Deep blue eyes and that black hair—stunning! Marcus was right. Welcome to Key West, Laurel. I’m Derek Phillips.”
I wasn’t used to being summed up to my face, and as he bent with a flourish to kiss my hand, I wondered what on earth Marcus had told him. No one moved while this performance was going on, but now Iris spoke smoothly from her place on the sofa.
“Derek, do stop playing pirate from some old Sabatini movie. You’re not capturing Laurel! Just ask her what she’d like to drink.”
There was amusement in his booming laughter, and though he appeared to take no offense, his wide mouth tightened, giving his face a suddenly harsh look. He didn’t like being put down.
“What would you like, Laurel?”
They were through with their drinks, and I shook my head. “Nothing, thanks.”
“Then we’ll go in,” Iris said.
She had changed to a simply cut frock of pongee silk with a fitted bodice and thin straps over the shoulders that left her arms bare. The skirt swirled to just below her knees, and her bronze legs were beautiful. Fern sat curled up on the opposite sofa, her yellow moth wings folded about her, tawny hair pinned high, eyes bright, as though she watched a play. Now she unwound herself and came to take my arm in a friendly fashion.
The dining room opened off the far end of the living room, both running along one side of the house, with doors open onto the circling veranda. I had a feeling that Poppy had left her stamp on this room. It flashed with tropical colors that were never strident, and its furnishings were anything but traditional. The dining table was large and round, its top a great cartwheel of shining wood set with woven place mats and silver. The chair backs were of woven cane, right for warm weather, their linen seats a delicate wisteria print. Again the walls were pine, as they were all through the house, and on one side a large, lighted oil portrait dominated the room. The woman was of course Poppy York, and the two small girls were her daughters. I could hardly take my eyes from the portrait as I sat down at the table. Somehow I’d expected Poppy to be dark like Iris, but her golden hair swirled on top of her head in a style that Fern had imitated, and she had the fairness of some north country beauty. Her blue gown, strewn with delicate white flowers, flowed from shoulder to sandaled toe in a graceful line that suggested the sensuous body beneath. Perhaps her face was a little long for true beauty, but one sensed in it a state of arrested excitement that gave it life. The artist had suggested a woman to whom movement was natural. Her pose wasn’t that of someone relaxed and resting, and one almost expected her to laugh or speak or turn her head—perhaps even spring from the chair at any moment. There was that sort of suspended animation about her. The two small girls leaned against their mother, and they were as different then as they were now.
Fern must have been no more than four, and her dress was the lavender color of an orchid, with its ruffles like petals about her. Iris wore a simple pale blue frock, and her dark hair was brushed back severely, even then. Her gaze was not upon her mother, but on her younger sister. Again the artist had touched in character—Fern’s joyousness, her sister’s—what? Jealousy, envy? Misplaced, certainly, for even at that age Iris was the beauty.
It was the woman, however, who drew my eyes all through the meal. I thought sadly of how little defense my mother would have had against her, and old anger against my father stirred in me once more.
A ceiling fan above the table swept air through the room—far more pleasant than air conditioning at this time of year. This was a table without head or foot, and I sat with Derek Phillips on one side, Fern on the other, and Iris across. Angela, the Cuban woman who ruled the kitchen, looked in now and then to see that all went well, while her young assistant—a boy not yet twenty—served us with what seemed more like an engaging performance than the skill of a waiter.
“Pedro wants to be in movies,” Fern whispered to me when he went out of the room.
While we ate a delectable cucumber salad, decorated with sliced banana, green bits of kiwi fruit, and coconut shreds, Fern was the one who chattered. Now that I’d seen Poppy’s portrait, I realized how much Fern looked like her mother, even though her hair was a shade or two darker and she lacked Poppy’s sensual quality. Fern was pretty in her own sparkling way, and the animation the portrait suggested had found an echo in her quick, graceful movements.
“You’ve been upstairs to Cliff’s study, haven’t you, Laurel?” she asked eagerly. “How did it go?”
She seemed to bear me none of the resentment I sensed in her sister. Iris had hardly spoken to me, but I knew she was listening intently.
“We didn’t have much to say to each other,” I admitted, with no intention of talking about what had been said. “We’re strangers and there are years to catch up with.”
Fern looked disappointed, as though she had expected some emotional account, but before she could rush on w
ith more questions, Iris spoke coolly to Derek, changing the subject.
“How is your search going?”
“It’s day-to-day slugging right now. Blowing tons of sand out of the way, and mostly finding nothing underneath. We’ve located the ship’s anchor—the iron part. Of course the wooden crosspiece is long gone. If the wreck is there, it could be scattered for miles and buried under centuries of silt. At least we’ve found cannons and ballast stones.”
“It’s all so exciting!” Fern cried. Her eyes glowed almost as brightly as Derek’s when she talked about sunken treasure. “Those stones must mean a Spanish galleon!”
“Perhaps. When they’re found in one place they can even still retain the shape of a ship, but that’s not the case here. This ship could have hit the reef, which ripped out some of its bottom so that it dropped part of its cargo right there. But that didn’t necessarily release all of it, or empty the cabin of passengers. A ship can go bouncing on and off the reefs for a long stretch, scattering treasure—and people. It may take years to locate where the rest of the ship finally sank.”
I thought of passengers going home to Spain and drowning in those stormy depths, sinking to the seafloor, along with their jewels and rich possessions, to become whitening bones in a sandy grave.
“Will there be gold bars?” Fern asked eagerly.
“There could be, if it’s the Santa Beatriz. Not all these galleons that sailed home from Havana carried gold. There were guard ships as well, loaded with arms—muskets, arquebuses, cannons—and those ships didn’t carry gold. We know the Santa Beatriz was lost somewhere in that vicinity, but other ships went down in the same storm. Spanish archives have told us that. A search for the Santa Beatriz has gone on for years without success. The Spanish even tried to salvage her the same year she went down. There were a couple of survivors, so the general area of the wreck was known. But they lacked the equipment for diving that we have now, and they couldn’t bring up what might have been there. Some of it would be tumbled along the sea bottom in storms, and then buried in sand. We were lucky with our first find of the anchor only because a storm had shifted what lay over it. We’ve claimed the wreck because of what we’ve found—but we aren’t certain what it is.”
Dream of Orchids Page 6