Dream of Orchids

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Marcus told me this morning. You mustn’t do this, Cliff! It would be awful for Fern and Iris if you gave me the greenhouse.”

  “You’re not in a position to judge,” he said curtly.

  Once more, the topic had been sharply closed. He was a stubborn man, my father, but sometimes I could be stubborn too. I wouldn’t give up meekly on this, even if I had to drop it again for now.

  Having been sharp with me, he now chose to exert himself to be entertaining and charming. As we ate our green turtle soup and tossed salads, he told me enchanting stories—funny stories about Key West, about his searches for book backgrounds, about some of the local characters he knew so well. There were even “characters” among the cats that abounded in Key West.

  None of this touched on the personal, however, until the waiter brought the swordfish we’d both ordered. As he picked up his fork, Cliff began to talk about Poppy. Tonight his memories must seem so close that he had to put them into words.

  “I never eat fish without thinking of her. Not that I don’t think of her all the time. But I remember how strange it always seemed that she could be a Key West girl and dislike fish. She loathed it. Somehow, she was a land child, perhaps even a mountain child, born in the wrong place. Whenever we traveled to mountain country she was happy, and she wanted nothing to do with the sea. Whereas I love the sea. Fern is practically a mermaid, of course, and that used to upset Poppy.”

  The swordfish was perfectly broiled, and I was quiet as I ate, wanting him to go on with whatever he chose to tell me, pleased with his confidences and valuing this rare time alone with him.

  Unexpectedly, he began to talk about the love between a man and a woman.

  “It’s a subject I write about often in my books. How my characters feel is as important as what they do. But love can’t be written about in general terms. Granted the affinity that can grow between two people, it’s still the small details that fill it in. Perhaps the way a lock of hair falls across a woman’s cheek, or a breathless break that comes into her voice. Even a scattering of freckles across a nose can break your heart. Or the way a woman looks at a child, and the different way she looks at a man. Always the endearing detail that adds up to make a whole. Sometimes it can become an annoying detail when you’re falling out of love. A tapping foot that seemed attractive in the beginning turns to maddening monotony.”

  I wondered how many times this stranger who was my father had fallen out of love, and what details had maddened him about my own mother. Though of course he’d never stopped loving Poppy.

  He went on, talking half to himself. “It’s always the bits and pieces that add up inexplicably to the state of loving someone. When that person vanishes from your life, you go right on remembering details, hundreds of those details you were still adding up to make the whole person you loved.”

  He was doing this now with Poppy, but he’d also struck a chord of recognition in me. Just such an adding up of details had begun for me—Marcus’s red hair that I sometimes wanted to touch, his eyes that were like a changing sea, sometimes with storms in them and an excitement that stirred a response in me. The sense of his physical presence—always that. And behind all the details my eagerness to find out all about him.

  “Are you in love?” my father asked.

  I looked past lighted candles into his eyes. “I’m not sure I want to be.” That wasn’t true. If I were honest, I wanted to love with all my heart—and was still afraid.

  “That sounds like your mother’s caution,” he said. “In her purposeful way, Janet could be a destructive woman. But you’re my daughter too, and you won’t let your head influence your heart too much. Is it someone back home?”

  I gave up. “It’s Marcus O’Neill,” I said bluntly.

  He looked troubled, and suddenly I felt irritated. “Oh, I know it’s too soon. And more than one person has told me that Marcus is in love with Iris. So maybe it’s time he got over that!”

  For a moment my father stared at me. Then he laughed. I had never heard him laugh before—a ringing laughter that held nothing back and that made a head or two turn at other tables. I liked him all the more for not being decorous.

  “I’ll bet on you, Laurel,” he said.

  I wasn’t so sure I could bet on myself. I had no idea whether Marcus had begun to add up any endearing details about me—or even what they might be. It was so easy to put on a bold face of confidence when inside one was nothing but a quivering uncertainty.

  For a time we both stayed away from thin ice. It had been skated on just long enough, and I think neither of us wanted to break through into deeper water. Yet it was a reassuring time for me. The beginning of new feeling had sprung up between my father and me—a seed from which some stronger emotion might grow. I could never recapture the trust and adoration I’d had for him as a child—that I knew I’d had, even though I couldn’t remember. Everything between us was tentative now, and tenuous. The wrong word might set it back forever. We were still strangers reaching out just a little—father to daughter, and daughter to father. For the moment, I told myself, this was enough.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  I longed to put more of my new feeling about him into words—before it was too late. Always the ominous knowledge of his mortality hung over me. Though I hated to think about it, I knew I could lose him at any time.

  Without really expecting to, I reached my hand out to him across the table. He took it so quickly that I knew he’d been waiting too. We needed no words. In that moment he was truly my father, and I would remember this always.

  We were finishing our cherries jubilee when the headwaiter brought Iris and Derek to our table. Iris looked distraught as she dropped into the chair pulled out for her. Derek stood by, clearly impatient over whatever was happening.

  “What is it?” Cliff asked. “Has anything happened to Fern?”

  Iris tried to speak, choked, and began to cry, so that Derek took over bluntly.

  “It’s Alida. That idiot woman’s swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills—tried to kill herself. Iris found her upstairs in your study, Cliff, and called me. She’s been taken to the hospital, and Iris thinks you’d better be there when she comes around. If she comes around.”

  Cliff rose at once. “I’ll drive over right away. I’m sorry, Laurel. Derek, can you and Iris take Laurel home?”

  “I’ll go with you to the hospital, Cliff,” Iris said quickly. “Laurel, when Derek drives you home will you look in on Fern? She was upset when I left, and she shouldn’t be alone.”

  Outside, I went with Derek to his gunmetal sports car, while Iris and Cliff drove off together.

  “What do you suppose got into that fool woman?” Derek said impatiently when we were on our way.

  I liked neither his tone nor his words. I didn’t like him.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I saw her late this afternoon, and she seemed awfully depressed.” I wondered if the orchid photograph that had been destroyed could have proved the last straw.

  Derek drove too fast, and with considerable skill. “Funny thing,” he said, “the way events turn out. It was Alida who introduced Poppy to Cliff way back when. Alida was probably carrying a torch for him even then, though she didn’t come to work for him until much later. But she’s never had the real gumption to go out after anything in her life. She’d rather run away.”

  His words told me that he would never run away from anything. Yet I couldn’t admire the sort of “courage” that would be likely to mow down anything in its path.

  “Of course Alida was never Cliff’s type anyway,” he added.

  “She doesn’t seem like Eddie Burch’s type either.”

  Derek threw me a quick look. “What do you know about Eddie Burch?”

  I told him of my underwater encounter, and he scowled. “I don’t like that—I’ll look into it. How did you like diving down to the wreck this afternoon?”

  “It was wonderful. Though all I really saw was a cannon half bur
ied in sand. I did make a beginner’s luck find—a gold medal.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. I’m glad you didn’t start bringing up gold bars.”

  I wondered why he’d say that, but my real attention was still on Eddie Burch and Alida.

  “It’s a wonder Eddie’s willing to work for you,” I said. “Marcus told me how he got that scar on his shoulder.”

  “He had that coming.” Derek sounded grim. “He tried to kill me. But there’s more than one way to tame a guy like Eddie. He’ll listen to me now if I talk to him. So don’t worry. Alida may have put him up to something with you. She’s always scheming.”

  “I don’t think so. He sounded as though he hates her.”

  “Here we are,” Derek said, pulling up to the curb. “Want me to come in with you?”

  “Thanks, no,” I told him, and he went off, glad to be away. Iris had given me a key, and I let myself in without ringing the bell. The house was fragrant with some sweet night-blooming flower—jasmine, probably. I went straight upstairs to Fern’s room and knocked on the door.

  When there was no answer, I opened it and looked in. It was the first time I’d seen past her door. The whole room was as flowery a place as the orchid house—with bright blooms painted in great sprays across the walls. Poppy’s work? I wondered. They were flowers of the imagination, rather than replicas of anything real. Some had faces peering eerily from between leaves, while others reached out with thin fingers like the tendrils of a vine. It was not a room I’d have liked to sleep in.

  In any case, Fern wasn’t here, and I crossed to my room to change from high-heeled sandals before I went looking for her. However, I needed to search no further.

  Every lamp in my room had been turned on, so that it glowed with light. Windows and porch door stood open, and a breeze blew through the screens, carrying the sweet night scent from the garden. Pillows had been piled high at the head of the bed, and Fern sat curled up against them on top of the poppy-bordered spread. I saw with a sense of dismay that she was wearing the same long blue gown sprinkled with white blossoms that Poppy had worn for the portrait downstairs.

  She had been crying, for there were stains on her cheeks, and she’d fallen asleep sitting up, her lips parted with the puffing of her breath, her tawny hair spread across the pillows, and gold eyelashes touching her cheeks.

  Almost at once, she opened her eyes, sensing me there. “Alida? How is she?”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know yet. Iris and Cliff have gone to see her. Your sister asked me to come home to stay with you. We can call the hospital, if you like.”

  “Everyone dies!” Fern wailed, covering her face with her hands. “I can’t stand it any more. Poppy—and now Alida. Even my orchids die!”

  “I don’t think Alida is going to die. They must have taken her to the hospital very quickly. Fern, have you any idea why she did this?”

  Fern’s eyes widened, more amber than brown. “Maybe Poppy wanted her to. Wherever Poppy is, she must be very lonesome. And Alida was her friend.”

  She sounded like a child, with a child’s simplicity. But Fern was neither a child nor simple.

  When she saw that I didn’t mean to follow her down that road, she sat up, crossing her knees beneath the blue gown. “Alida left a letter for you. It’s over there on the dressing table. I saw it when I came in, and it wasn’t sealed, so I read it. I thought there might be something we ought to know quickly. Maybe it will make you feel better about what’s been happening.”

  I snatched up the envelope and took out the single sheet. Though my name was on the outside, the handwritten note began without salutation.

  I’ve been wrong about you, and I’m sorry. I wanted you to feel so uncomfortable that you would leave quickly. I didn’t want you to fit in and take Cliff’s affection away from Fern and Iris. So I’m the one who has been moving the orchid photographs. I pasted the black tape over the eyes, and I destroyed the one you brought me. I always hated that orchid mask.

  However, you don’t frighten as easily as I hoped, and you don’t give up. As I must give up now. I can’t do any more, and I can’t carry the burden that’s been placed on me. All I want is to go to sleep and have everything stop hurting.

  So now you are the one who must take this over and save them all. If you can. Be careful when you go to Derek’s party.

  Alida

  I read the words through twice in bewilderment. It was a relief to have an answer when it came to the photographs. There had been malice and an intention to upset me enough to make me leave. Perhaps because of my father’s plan for changing his will. But I still understood nothing of what had driven Alida to this point of desperation.

  “She doesn’t really tell us anything,” I said.

  Fern shook her head forlornly. “I don’t understand why she wrote to you. There was no letter for me, and no letter for my father. I looked in his room, and on his desk upstairs. Why did she write to you?”

  “I wish I knew. Have you any idea what she’s talking about? What’s this burden she refers to?”

  Fern went on shaking her head. “What will you do with the letter?”

  “I’ll give it to Cliff when he comes home. Perhaps he can figure it out. Shall we call the hospital now and see if he’s there and if there’s any word about Alida?”

  “Yes—let’s.” She rolled herself off the bed and tripped over the long gown. Poppy must have been considerably taller. Hiking the skirt up from her ankles, she led the way to the telephone in her own room. I sat down in the chair she indicated, feeling that I no longer liked reproductions of flowers. They were so all-pervasive around Fern, as they must have been about her mother. And for me they had begun to seem eerie. I especially disliked a pair of elfin eyes that peered at me from the heart of a monster daisy painted in acrylic on the wall near my chair.

  When Fern had dialed the hospital and asked for Alida’s room, she handed me the phone. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m too scared.”

  It was Cliff who answered. He told me that Alida seemed to be coming along as well as could be expected, and they weren’t keeping her in intensive care. She was asleep now. “How is everything at the house?” he finished.

  “I’m with Fern. She’s terribly concerned about Alida.” I offered Fern the telephone, but she shook her head. “She doesn’t want to talk right now,” I told him. “I’ll stay with her until you and Iris come home.”

  When I’d hung up, Fern burst into words. “You don’t have to stay with me! I’m going to work in the orchid house. Poppy always contributed an orchid display once a year to the Garden Club. It’s time for that soon, and I want to think about it and get ready. Besides, if I’m there, maybe Poppy will tell me what to do.”

  Fern’s preoccupation with Poppy and her supposed presence disturbed me, but there was nothing I could say. At least working with orchids might help to calm her.

  I went downstairs and sat rocking on the dark porch, too tense to stay in my room waiting anxiously—though I wasn’t sure for what. If Alida had, as she thought, left me her “burden,” someone would surely make clear to me what it was. Whatever it might be would concern Cliff and his family—even concern me, who had come to this house so recently. Whatever she intended, I hated Alida’s legacy.

  I rocked for a while, finding the movement quieting, even though the night with its scents and whisperings from the garden was too heavily sweet—oppressive. At least the garden around me was not a thinking world. Only human minds were filled with unrest and plans for evil. Nevertheless, all the outdoors seemed to rustle with secrets.

  When Marcus came through the gate and up the steps, I was enormously pleased to see him.

  “Your father phoned and asked me to come over,” he said. “He told me about Alida. Where is Fern?”

  “She’s working with her orchids and wants to be by herself. All this has her terribly worried and keyed up.”

  Marcus pulled over a chair, and I remembered the time
back home in my bookshop—another lifetime away—when I’d rocked in a more familiar chair, and he had stilled the movement. This time I stopped it myself. I had Alida’s letter with me to show Cliff the moment he came home, and I handed it to Marcus.

  “She left this for me. I don’t know why, or what it means.”

  He took the sheet of paper to a patch of light that fell through the front door from the hall and read it through. Then he came to sit beside me again.

  “I wouldn’t worry about her meaning—if there really is one. Sometimes I think Poppy’s death affected her more than anyone else. She built it out of all proportion in her mind.”

  “You think Alida tried to kill herself for nothing?”

  “I think her own imaginings got the better of her. When she’s well again, Cliff will talk to her. Until then, this burden, as she calls it, isn’t yours to carry. You can’t pick up anything so vague, even if you wanted to.”

  He was making me feel a little better, and it was good to have him here in the darkness near me. I remembered what Cliff had said at dinner—about that summing up of endearing and sometimes maddening details. I had a feeling that I might be adding them up about Marcus for a long time, whether this was wise or not.

  “Haven’t you any idea what she might be hinting at?” I asked after an interval of silence.

  He waited just a moment too long before he agreed that he didn’t know. The pause alerted me.

  “You do know something?”

  “Nothing that would make Alida want to take her own life. And nothing you need worry about.”

  I got up and walked to the far end of the porch, away from the tower that held my father’s room. Bushes grew close to the corner post, and I pulled scented white jasmine toward me and breathed its cloying sweetness before I pushed it away.

  “I wish somebody would trust me,” I said, without turning.

  He didn’t answer, and that meant he wasn’t able to trust me yet.

  “How can I behave sensibly when I don’t know what’s going on?” I cried.

  The gate creaked open as someone came up the walk. I hated the interruption, even though I already knew that Marcus wouldn’t answer me. Keeping his own counsel was his most maddening trait—and not endearing.