He came to sit beside me. His arm around my shoulders steadied me, though I turned rigid at his touch. I wasn’t going to be comforted and persuaded and have my mind changed. He’d done this sort of thing to me before, and this time I would be on guard. He could be altogether too compelling, and I didn’t trust him—or myself.
“Does Fern know about this?” I demanded.
“Not yet. Cliff has only told Iris. He hopes that you’ll have made friends with Fern by the time she knows. In fact, I think he also hopes that you may eventually support Fern against Iris, since he doesn’t think Fern can manage this by herself. God knows, we all hope he’ll live for a good many years and that everything may resolve itself gracefully long before he dies.”
I pulled away from Marcus’s arm because of my own treacherous desire to lean into it and walked to the door that opened on the rear porch. Bougainvillea burgeoned over the rail, and I experienced a sudden longing for orderly shrubbery that wouldn’t fight flamboyantly to take over all outdoor space.
When I turned back I was under better control. “Why am I here, Marcus? Please tell me.”
“All right. I wanted you to get the picture first. Otherwise you might turn and run. As you may think you want to do now. You’re here because of the way Poppy died. Because of that jammed door, and what happened earlier that same day.”
I returned to my place on the couch and sat down, clasping my fingers around my knees tightly, so my hands wouldn’t shake. “You’d better explain,” I said.
“Just by chance, I was in on the whole beastly scene that morning. I’d stopped at Derek’s Place before the bar was open. He knew I was coming and had promised to answer a few questions for a piece I was going to write. So I was sitting at the far end of the bar making notes when Poppy came in. There was no bartender on duty yet, and Derek was alone on a stool behind the counter, talking to me. We could both see how excited she was, how angry. She was wearing one of those colorful caftan affairs she used to affect, so she looked like a violet cloud.”
I could visualize the picture he was painting, and I was already afraid of the outcome.
Marcus went on. “She paid no attention to me but came straight to the bar and confronted Derek. She said, ‘You’re not going to marry Iris. I won’t have it!’ He didn’t turn a hair, but he picked up the phone and called Cliff. He told him he’d better come right over and get his wife.
“I’d never seen Poppy in such a frantic state, but as she listened to Derek on the phone, she turned icy—like snow poured over fire. She set her hands on the bar and spread her fingers, and I can still remember the sparkle of the rings she liked to wear—that big sapphire Cliff had given her and that Iris sometimes wears now. When she spoke again, her words sounded as brittle as though they might splinter in the air. She said, ‘If you try to marry Iris I’ll kill you.’ Both Derek and I knew she meant it, and he didn’t even try to bluff. He just poured himself some Scotch and drank it down straight. And nobody said anything more until Cliff walked in. Then Poppy went right over to him and said, ‘I’ve just told Derek I’ll kill him before I’ll let him marry Iris.’
“Cliff always liked Derek a lot better than I do, and he really does care about how Iris feels. But he knew better than anyone how emotional Poppy could be, and he just held her and soothed her and didn’t argue. Over her shoulder he nodded at Derek and told him he would take his wife home. While he was worried about Poppy, I don’t think he was taking any of this seriously then. She went with him meekly enough, and just before Cliff went out the door he asked Derek a question.
“He said, ‘Do you mind telling me why my wife doesn’t want you to marry Iris?’
“‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ Derek told him. ‘It might spoil a beautiful friendship.’
“Cliff didn’t say another word. He just walked out with Poppy leaning on his arm and looking as though she was ready to fall apart. When they’d gone, Derek had nothing more to say to me. He just got busy on some ledgers. I knew I’d better hold any further questions, so I went home. Poppy had a bang-up fight with Iris later that same morning, and I took Iris off to the Garden Club and left her there. I guess Poppy shut herself in the orchid house after that. She always used the orchids to calm herself down when she was upset. That’s where she died the same afternoon.”
“Someone put a wedge in the door so Poppy couldn’t get out,” I said softly.
Marcus looked startled. “Who told you that?”
“Alida Burch. Just a little while ago. She made a point of telling me. She said she told me so that I would go away and leave them all alone. It was as though she was threatening me, trying to frighten me.”
“Alida was Poppy’s friend, and she’s like an aunt to Poppy’s daughters. You’re the outsider who might diminish her influence on both girls, and even more on Cliff.”
Beyond the porch, the morning seemed to be growing warmer, and Marcus turned a switch so the ceiling fan came on. I was no longer cold, and I raised my face to the breeze and tried to quiet my confused thoughts.
“I still don’t understand how I can have any part to play now. Everything happened without me, and it will go on happening when I leave.”
“Only you won’t leave for a while.” He sounded convinced, though he had no right to be.
“Is that what you’re counting on?”
“Maybe.”
“But why?”
For the first time since I’d met Marcus O’Neill, he seemed at a loss. He slapped across the Indian rug in his zori and threw himself disjointedly into a big armchair.
“Snatching at straws, I suppose. Any straws I could find. Laurel, I care a lot about Cliff and what happens to him. In a way, he’s my family, and so are Iris and Fern. Look at this for a minute from where I sit. First, Poppy dead under unexplained circumstances. Cliff giving up, not caring about life. The marriage to Derek still set for Iris, with her father making no attempt to stop it. And Fern in love with the man her sister is going to marry. Yet apparently nothing at all is to be done. I’m really on the outside—a helpless friend. Helpless unless I could inject a whole new element into what is happening—you. Cliff’s eldest daughter—with a right to be in his house, if he chose to have you there. A right to watch over him as no one else is doing right now, except maybe Alida—who isn’t much help. Iris and Fern are centered on themselves, and Derek is going to get what he wants, because Cliff has given up and doesn’t care. He’s never shown in his treatment of Derek that he has any memory of what was said in the bar that morning. And maybe he hasn’t. With Poppy dead, maybe he had to forget what Derek said—whatever it meant. Now that you’re here, Cliff’s coming to life and even taking some steps of his own. Just the idea of your coming made him start thinking about life again. You’ve already managed that.”
“Enough to be frightened about something. He is afraid.”
“Maybe of the truth—whatever it is.”
“There was the wedge in the door. Alida said only she and Cliff know about that.”
“Cliff only told me that it was jammed. One thing that worries me is that he’s not a fearful man. He’s always had plenty of courage—so why should he become afraid now? Maybe it’s not really himself he’s worried about.”
“Then what?”
“That’s something you can discover. Try to find out.”
“I doubt if he’ll talk to me, but I’ll try. Thanks for seeing me, Marcus.” I stood up, still feeling confused. Now I had two assignments to snoop!
He came with me to the door. “Our trip’s still on for this afternoon, isn’t it? I’ll pick you up at one o’clock, and I’ll bring some lunch along that we can eat later on the boat.”
He waited in the doorway of his room, watching as I went down the stairs.
I found my way blindly back to Cliff’s house, taking a few wrong turns. The front door stood open, but except for Angela in the kitchen, no one seemed to be about. I stopped to tell her I wouldn’t be in for lunch and went outside to
the orchid house. The sun was higher now, and the air felt humid and warm—the jungle climate tropical orchids liked best.
The door opened easily, and when I closed it behind me, it showed no signs of sticking. Probably it had been planed down since that fatal “jamming.” The existence of the wedge had been kept from police and reporters.
The orchid house had become a shivery place for me, and I wasn’t sure why I’d felt an urge to come here now. Perhaps it was to find Poppy—something of her spirit. I remembered Fern’s tales about seeing her mother, but I wasn’t looking for visions—just some sort of understanding.
I walked slowly down the central aisle to the place where she’d been found and stared around at the dozens of bright blooms, growing in sprays or individually in all their pots. One orchid near where I stood looked as though drops of blood had been scattered across its face, but this was, I assured myself, only a natural coloration.
I closed my eyes and listened with an inner ear. Perhaps if I concentrated, I might hear the orchids whispering among themselves, as Fern claimed they did. If only I knew how to listen, perhaps they would tell me the answers I sought. But the only sounds I heard were of the fan and the watering system.
Then someone came through the door at the far end of the greenhouse, and I looked around to see Cliff walking toward me down the center aisle.
My father was a tall man, but now his shoulders rounded, making him seem shorter. When he saw me there, he stopped in surprise, and his dramatic eyebrows questioned my presence.
“I’m communing,” I told him lightly. “Fern says the orchids whisper to her, and I wondered if I could hear them too.”
“Do you like orchids?”
I thought of his ominous will. “Not very much. Of course I don’t know anything about them, and I’m not especially interested. I like the company of books better.”
He looked about with a vague air of bewilderment and pain that touched me. I’d never expected to find Clifton York so vulnerable. This was not the moment to express my feelings about the changes he planned in his will. I’d have to speak to him, but not now. I wondered if he came here sometimes to try to find the wife he’d lost.
He moved past me among the flowers, stopping now and then to study individual orchids, almost as though he’d never seen them before.
“She used to spend so much time here,” he mused. “Hours of painstaking care. It must have been far more creative work than I ever realized. I wasn’t interested in orchids either—and I didn’t share this with her as I might have. I suppose I treated the orchid house like a pleasant hobby. I indulged her, but I didn’t take any part.”
When it was too late we always blamed ourselves for what we hadn’t done. If I wasn’t careful now, I might make the same mistake with my father.
He went on, still half to himself. “I remember how excited Poppy always was when she developed some new species that turned out to be as beautiful as she’d hoped. And she always took an interest in my writing and read my manuscripts—while I didn’t bother enough about her orchids. Lately I’ve been listening to Fern, and I’m just beginning to understand the wonder of a newly created variety that can surprise and delight everyone. But it was Poppy I should have listened to in the first place.”
“Can’t you let her go?” I asked gently. “Isn’t it time?”
He bent his head, and I saw his grief again. “I don’t want to let her go. As long as I can feel pain, she’ll stay alive for me.”
The old, old paradox. When the hurting stops, death becomes final, so we cling to pain.
He stood close enough for me to touch him, and I wanted to put my hand on his arm—to comfort him in some way. My ambivalence toward him was dying, and all my old resentments with it. In some strange way, my new, reluctant feeling toward Marcus had made me more aware of my own emotions. Who had been fair or unfair in the past, or even who was being so now, didn’t matter as much as it had. It was time for this man, who was my father, and me—his eldest daughter—to begin something new between us, no matter how tentative and fragile. And the time to begin was now.
“Cliff,” I said, “would you let me take you to dinner tonight?”
That startled him into an awareness of me, and his look softened. “No, Laurel, but I would like to take you to dinner, if you’ll let me.”
“I’d love that,” I said, and heard a new warmth in my voice. “This afternoon I’m going out to Derek’s wreck with Marcus, and I hope to do some diving. So I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”
“You’re going down yourself?”
“Marcus said he could arrange it, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic about having me dive.”
“I think you’ll prevail. I haven’t been out to this new site yet myself.”
I wondered how much he knew about Derek’s plans for a party, and how he felt about them.
“We’ll go to Casa Marina,” he decided. “It’s a marvelous old hotel—practically prehistoric and still thriving. Let’s say seven-thirty, if you’re back in time.”
I thanked him and slipped away, knowing that he wanted to be alone with Poppy’s orchids. I could feel better now about leaving him there. Tonight I would see him away from this house and all its undercurrents, and perhaps we could begin to find each other. Perhaps he might even tell me what was troubling him.
As I crossed the garden I remembered again the handyman whom I’d seen early this morning. Alida hadn’t been disturbed about his presence, but I still didn’t like the way the fellow had spoken to me. If I saw him again, I’d ask him a few questions.
The morning was gone, and I went up to my room to change for the boat trip. Poppy’s two orchid photographs regarded me serenely, and her eyes watched me from the orchid mask in the same eerie way. I’d have felt happier with all those pictures out of my room, though not because of the woman herself. If Poppy’s was a troubled spirit, as Fern believed, I didn’t think she would bother with me. Nevertheless, the words Marcus had heard Derek speak to my father haunted me … you wouldn’t want to know. Words Cliff must have thrust away after her death, since he appeared to hold nothing against Derek and had probably never confronted him with any demand for an explanation. If he could wipe the whole incident out, he was lucky.
I couldn’t. More than ever, I wanted to know what sort of woman Poppy had been. Or even if Derek had been lying in whatever insinuation he might have intended. He was a man who would like to play with fire.
But most of all, I wanted to know my father—to feel more than curiosity and resentment toward him. A sense of warmth stirred in me again—the beginning of affection? Love of one sort for my father, and another, more disturbing feeling toward Marcus O’Neill? At least a melting had begun, a dissolving of protective ice that had held me for much too long. To feel was to be hurt, as my mother had so often warned me—and now I didn’t care. Like my father, I might even welcome pain. At least it would mean that I was alive. That was what mattered. This afternoon perhaps I could let everything else go and simply enjoy being with Marcus.
For a time, that was what happened.
7
The afternoon sun was high and warm, and the sea moved in a gentle swell as Marcus headed Derek’s outboard motor cruiser toward a portion of distant reef. He sat behind the white wheel of the Snapdragon, with me in the opposite seat behind the slanting glass screen.
I watched water sweeping past, lace-trimmed with froth. In places where the depth was greater, the color was a deeper blue, or where it covered sandy patches, blue-green.
“Is the Gulf Stream visible out here?” I asked above the roar of the motor.
Marcus shook his head. “The only way you can really tell where it is is by temperature change.”
“You will take me down, won’t you?”
“I suppose I’ll have to.” He smiled. “I’ve brought gear for us both.” He made a wide gesture with one arm. “The Santa Beatriz would have been sailing somewhere off to the south, following the Carrera de I
ndias, the Highway of the Indies. That was the trade route connecting Spain with the New World. She’d have been sailing home, loaded with treasure, probably hoping she could make it before the hurricane season. She waited too long, and a storm blew her off course and smashed her on a reef. Derek is convinced that he’s found the right stretch of coral rock to locate her. What’s left of her.”
As I listened, feeling comfortably lazy yet warming to the hint of excitement in his voice, I grew more eager than ever to swim down to whatever waited for us on the sea bottom.
I’d worn my shorts and shirt over my bathing suit and had borrowed sneakers for my feet. With my skin well oiled against the sun, I felt comfortable and keenly aware of water, wind, and fresh salt air, and all too sharply aware of Marcus. He was brown enough not to burn, though his billed cap had left a white mark across his forehead. He too seemed relaxed this afternoon, with tension between us eased for once. The feeling of peace—however deceptive—soothed me. Perhaps this was only a sea spell, since I’d felt much less comfortable with him on land.
We were an hour out of Key West when Marcus pointed and swung the wheel to bring the boat about. Our speed lessened, and I saw Derek’s workboat, an oversized, battered tug named Dolphin, which had been anchored close enough for divers to go down to the wreck site. Dolphin seemed an incongruous name for a boat so lacking in grace and elegance, but she moved in the water with her own competence—she was a survivor.
As we neared the site, the sense of excitement in Marcus seemed to increase. I could see why he would be a good writer—he responded with all his senses and emotions to everything around him, and he would later convey his own exhilaration to his readers.
“The cannons Derek has found are near the first reef,” he said. “Reefs can go on and on in rows, and the inner ridges can be hard to reach—dangerous. A single surge in the water can smash a boat into them, so we have to anchor far enough away.”
I was already getting out of my shorts and peeling off my shirt, eager to be underwater.
He watched me doubtfully. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
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