Dream of Orchids

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Come outside for a minute, Fern,” I said.

  Below us on the terrace Eddie Burch was talking to Marcus, and I put a hand on Fern’s arm to keep her from running down to speak with them.

  “You’ll need to watch Alida now,” I said. “The sea is all around, waiting for her. Be careful.”

  “I know,” Fern said. “That’s one reason why I’m staying. Besides, Derek will be coming over soon …” Her eyes sparkled, and I turned away from her open, defenseless yearning. How foolishly we all bound ourselves into the very chains that could destroy us.

  I walked toward Marcus, knowing very well that I was bound, and that perhaps he was too, when it came to Iris.

  Eddie looked solemn, conspiratorial, and he glanced at me impatiently, not welcoming my approach.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But no promises. I got a stake in this too, don’t forget.”

  He walked off, and Marcus waited for me. I told him that Fern had decided to stay on Doubloon Key.

  “Then we’d better get back,” he said. “It’s clouding up, and weather reports promise a blow coming out of the gulf. This isn’t the season for a real window rattler, but even in Key West it can rain.”

  When we’d cast off from the dock, I helped with the sails, and when we were on our way, Marcus talked impersonally about hurricanes. I watched him sail the boat skillfully across a new choppiness in the water, taking advantage of the wind, and I knew that he talked to keep me from asking more questions than he cared to answer. The air never did seem to stay cleared between us.

  “Huracan,” he said, “—that was the name the Arawak Indians gave what’s called a typhoon across the Pacific. And that Far East word came from tai-fung, Chinese for a great wind. Down here we have waterspouts too—nasty for boats, if one comes along.”

  “All very informative,” I said, “but not what I really want to know. Why didn’t you want to see Alida?”

  “I’d just upset her more, because of what Eddie’s getting into with Derek. She’s begun to get scared.”

  I had to be satisfied with that.

  I watched the gray, lace-trimmed waves and the whipping palm branches as we neared land. The pelicans, for once, had gone elsewhere.

  By the time we reached the car it had begun to rain. Big drops at first, and then the downpour of a tropical shower. At Cliff’s house, we stayed in the car for a few moments, hoping for a break.

  “You’ll keep an eye on your father now, won’t you, Laurel?” Marcus said. “Tomorrow will be the worst day for him to get through. I wish you could get him away for a few days until he’s beyond this bad stretch of time. He might listen to you. Perhaps a quick run to the Virgin Islands would do it. Though you’d need to hurry.”

  “I don’t think he’d go. Derek’s party’s tomorrow, and he’s counting on that as a distraction.”

  “It’s the wrong kind of distraction.”

  “I think so too.” I sprang my question while Marcus was off guard. “Has Eddie found out anything useful?”

  His eyes could remind me more of winter sometimes than of warm gulf waters. I’d never known a man who could freeze up so quickly. I should have been warned earlier—I should have kept still. But when did I ever?

  It was hopeless to stay out here in the car, so I said good-bye and dashed through the rain. When I reached the porch I didn’t look back, and after a moment I heard his car drive away.

  Someone had been busy shuttering the house, but storm sounds came through from everywhere. Tree branches thrashed in the garden, and rain clattered at every window. Behind the rain sounds the wind whooped, and the house shuddered under its impact. Nevertheless, when I reached the hall, brushing wetness from my shoulders and hair, the inner vacuum of the house held me for a moment in its unnatural stillness. It was like the instant before a storm breaks—this time a human storm.

  Into the stillness that was only the holding of a breath came the sound of voices from the living room, strained and off-pitch. Iris sounded angry, and Cliff’s voice was sharper than I’d ever heard.

  I stepped to the doorway to look in.

  “The same thing’s happening that happened before!” Cliff cried. “It’s the same struggle. I can feel it boiling up all around me, just as it did before Poppy died. She was afraid of something. If you know what it was, tell me!”

  “What you’re doing is foolish,” Iris said. “I hate to listen to it. There wasn’t any struggle. Poppy made that all up because she didn’t want me to marry Derek. She wanted him for herself! That’s what you’ve never been willing to face. She wanted to punish him because he wouldn’t look at her. She even threatened to have him sent to prison. As if that would have stopped me! The last time I saw her I told her that if he went to jail I’d marry him anyway. No matter what he’s done, I’ll marry him. You know what a fight Poppy and I had that last morning. It’s time for you to face what really happened!”

  Neither of them had looked at me, and I listened, fearful of the effect of Iris’s words on Cliff. Yet at the same instant I had a strong sense that she was holding something back. In this pouring out of the “truth,” there was still more that she concealed—perhaps even lied about.

  But I couldn’t bother with Iris now. Cliff had reached for a chair and lowered himself into it as though his bones had turned fragile, and I ran to his side.

  Iris’s rage dissolved as quickly as it had risen. “Cliff, I didn’t mean that! I’m worse than Fern when I get angry. I just pop off with words.”

  She was worse than her sister, I thought, and her words were far more damaging.

  Cliff didn’t answer, and Iris looked at me, beseeching and guilty. “Stay with him, Laurel. See what you can do.”

  I spoke to her as she passed me. “Marcus and I have been out to Doubloon Key with Fern. Why didn’t you tell me you’d persuaded Eddie Burch to take Alida to Derek’s island?”

  She paused long enough to answer. “I wasn’t sure she’d go. And if she wouldn’t, I still thought you might persuade her not to come back here with Fern.”

  There was nothing to say to that. She went toward the door, and I turned to Cliff again. The moment I saw him, everything else ceased to matter.

  “You’d better call a doctor,” I shouted to Iris, and she ran back into the room.

  Cliff’s head was bent into his hands, but he’d heard me. “No doctor. I’ll be all right.” He looked up at Iris. “I’ve forgiven a lot, but not lies like this. You were always jealous of your mother because you could never be half the woman she was.”

  “In your eyes no one ever could,” Iris said, and this time she went out of the room and up the stairs.

  “If I’d ever believed that Derek would make a move in Poppy’s direction, I’d have killed him,” Cliff said, not really speaking to me. “And I never had any doubts about Poppy. She belonged to me.”

  Iris was still on the stairs, and she had heard. Her words drifted back to us. “You needn’t worry. Nobody needs to look very far to see that Derek is mine, and has been for a long time.”

  I heard her climbing the stairs, and the moment she’d gone, Cliff pulled himself together and sat up. Was he a play actor in real life, as well as a manipulator of characters in a story? I knew him so little. In fact I didn’t know him or any of his family well enough to read behind their emotional words and actions. Sometimes I seemed to be caught up in the pattern myself—the make-believe, if that’s what it was.

  “How is Alida?” Cliff asked. “Is she willing to stay on the island?”

  He seemed to have a faculty for shutting out what he didn’t want to hear, and after his first outburst he had done it again.

  I tried to follow his abrupt transition. “Alida needs to be by herself in quiet surroundings for a while. Derek’s house is very beautiful.” I remembered that it was a house Poppy had helped to design, and stepped away from dangerous ground. “I wish I knew what’s really troubling Alida.”

  “Probably nothing more than u
sual,” Cliff said. “It doesn’t take much to worry her.” He made a helpless gesture and dropped his hands limply, his brief show of assurance gone. “I’d better get back to work.” That, as always, was the thing that would save him.

  I followed him into the hall and saw Iris still at the top of the stairs. She must have stayed there to listen, and I wondered what we’d said that might interest her. Only then did I remember that I had a message for her.

  “Fern is staying on the island with Alida,” I told her. “Alida asked her to stay, and Fern said you could bring her a bag the next time you go out.”

  Iris looked down at me grimly for a moment and then went off toward her room. Cliff and I climbed the top flight to his study together, and I saw that he leaned heavily on the banister.

  Once more at his desk, he sat down and began to reread the last pages he had written. I marveled at his ability to immerse himself so quickly in a world that existed only in his imagination. There would be no point at all in suggesting a trip to St. Thomas now.

  I returned to Alida’s desk to go on with my transcribing. It was difficult to concentrate because my thoughts floundered helplessly. Even the rain blowing in gusts across the roof was a distraction, and so was the wind that hurled itself at shuttered windows. Yet when the storm sounds ceased abruptly, the sudden quiet seemed disturbing—breathless and stifling.

  With my fingers still on the keys, I thought about what Marcus had said—that accidents and coincidences were always happening, that the important thing was how we dealt with whatever might occur. But this left an awesome choice in human hands. Every pebble dropped in a pond caused widening ripples that could intercept other ripples and reach distant shores that were never dreamed of or intended by the hand that dropped the pebble. Perhaps wisdom was always hindsight. What was I doing right now that might affect the future? I wanted to help my father and to help Fern—but what could I do when others were making ripples bigger than mine, widening arcs that I could neither avoid nor stop?

  Cliff spoke to me down the room, and I looked around the screen. He hadn’t lost himself in his writing, after all. “It’s no use, Laurel. I can’t work today. The storm’s blown over, so I’m going for a walk.”

  “I’d like to come with you,” I said quickly.

  He made no objection, and I followed him downstairs to the front door.

  All the green world outdoors dripped and pattered. The wind had carried itself away, and a patch of blue sky was visible. In a little while all the wetness would begin to steam away.

  There was purpose behind Cliff’s movements, and I didn’t ask where he was going but kept up with him as he turned down the sidewalk with long strides. It was time, however, to make a few ripples of my own.

  “Do you know a woman named Connie Corson?” I asked.

  “Sure—what about her?”

  “When Marcus took Fern and me to watch Sunset yesterday, she was on the next pier flying one of those kites she advertises. When we went over to join her and Fern took a turn with the kite, Connie told Marcus there was scuttlebutt going around about Derek and what he’s bringing up from the wreck.”

  “So?” Cliff didn’t slow his steps.

  “Connie told Marcus that there are rumors about Derek’s find being a lot bigger and more important than he’s telling anyone. She seemed to feel there might even be some danger threatening him.”

  We were about to cross the street, but Cliff stared at me for a moment and then changed his direction without warning.

  “I was going to see Derek,” he said. “But maybe we’d better make another stop first. There’s a place you ought to see anyway—the house Ernest Hemingway owned down here for some thirty years.”

  I didn’t know why we were suddenly going sight-seeing. I’d read about Hemingway’s productive years in Key West, but what did that matter now?

  The house on Whitehead Street was Spanish colonial in style, and it occupied a large spread of tropical garden filled with varieties of palms. The original owner had built of local coral rock, instead of the usual wood, and the house was a big square of beige stone amidst all the green. Wide verandas—I liked the word “veranda” much better than “porch”—surrounded the levels above and below, and arched wooden doors and windows opened all around. The public was invited, and tours were going through. Cliff was waved in and I found myself walking slowly down a central hall, looking into the rooms we passed and out across a rear garden.

  In spite of my concern for what Cliff might intend if he looked for Derek now, I was caught by the spell of this house. It was here that Hemingway had lived with Pauline, here that he’d written A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and so many other books. Every room was filled with furnishings, rugs, tiles that he must have brought from Spain and Africa and Cuba.

  Cliff, however, had seen all this, and he had some other purpose in mind. He made a quick circuit of the lower floor, and as he started toward the stairs, a young woman came down, winding up the tour she was leading. It was the woman we’d met on the pier—Connie Corson.

  When the group had thanked her and the last visitor was gone, she came over to us.

  “Hi, Cliff, Miss York. Anything I can do for you?”

  “Any place we can talk for a minute?” Cliff asked.

  “Meet me out in front. I’ll be with you right away.”

  We waited for her on the veranda, and I noticed a slab of coral rock that was part of the house, with tiny sea growth embedded in the stone. Cliff went down the steps into the garden, and when I went with him I began to notice the cats.

  Everywhere there were cats—dozens of cats! Some moved lazily out of our way, while others examined us haughtily without stirring. One great tawny creature lolled in a decorative wrought-iron chair and dared us to usurp his place.

  Cliff smiled at my surprise. “The cats are supposed to be descended from those the Hemingways owned. That’s probably apocryphal, but they make a nice, legendary touch. They’re fed and pampered, and I’m afraid the tribe increases, in spite of giving kittens away.”

  We followed a pink concrete walk, and I paused to look down, entranced. Tiny paw prints could be seen, daintily embedded in pink cement, and I could imagine ancestors of the present cats treading this walk when it was newly laid and leaving their paw signatures behind.

  Connie came running out a side door, her long brown braid over one shoulder. Today she wore a printed Mother Hubbard that enveloped her lean body.

  “Shoo!” she said to several cats, and we sat down on a bench.

  “I’ve just learned what you told Marcus about rumors concerning Derek,” Cliff said. “Since we’re closely involved because of Iris, perhaps you can tell me what you’ve heard?”

  Connie seemed hesitant. “You know how things get embroidered around here. There’s talk about gold chains and gold bars. Pretty remarkable stuff. Derek says none of this is true—but of course he’d have to say that until he gets it all safely into a vault somewhere. Otherwise, almost anything could happen.”

  “Any other details?”

  “No details at all, really. But it’s a bit scary if all this is getting around.”

  “Thanks,” Cliff said. “We’ll see if we can catch Derek now.”

  We left Connie to her next tour and headed toward Mallory Square and the Banyan bar. Cliff was looking grim again, and I didn’t think it was Derek’s possible treasure that interested him most right now, though he might use what he’d learned from Connie.

  “Are you really going to help matters?” I asked when the Banyan sign came into view just before the square.

  He spoke gently. “Laurel, I need to know. After what Iris said a little while ago, I know I have to find out the truth. It’s not knowing that’s the torment.”

  I put my hand on his arm as we stopped near the entrance. “Will it be enough to know—if the knowing is bad? I hope you didn’t mean what you said to Iris back at the house—about what you’d do to Derek
.”

  He looked tired, yet implacably driven, and he didn’t answer me. He shook off my hand and went inside. Why this should surface now, when he’d chosen to be blind in the past, I didn’t know. Perhaps this was one of the “dangers” Marcus had meant about the anniversary of Poppy’s death. I followed Cliff inside, feeling both alarmed and helpless.

  The bar was downstairs—a long, bare room, high-ceilinged and hung with whirring fans. There were a few tables and a great length of counter, where a number of Key Westers were having convivial drinks. Behind the bar a somewhat lurid mermaid swam across a mirror, her green hair streaming and one eye slyly closed in a wink. On the walls around the room—walls interrupted by several full-length doors—hung old posters of Key West, celebrations long in the past; even one that showed the day the Overseas Railroad had come to the island.

  “Derek’s Place” suited him a lot better than his splendid house on Doubloon Key. Everything seemed in character here, while on the island one had the feeling of a beautiful, rather grand pretense. I wondered if that was the great attraction Poppy’s family held for Derek. They didn’t need to pretend because they could be anything they pleased and had been over the generations.

  Cliff waved me toward the stairs at the rear. “Go on up, Laurel. Find a table and wait for me.”

  I hated to leave him, but there was nothing more I could say, and I climbed the flight of wide pine stairs that curved upward to the room above. The restaurant was cooled with a breeze from a dozen or more ceiling fans, and windows stood open on all sides. Pine beams pitched the roof, and bare wooden tables were set with place mats that were also maps of Key West.

  As a waitress led me toward a center aisle, I saw Iris sitting at a table near a window. She beckoned me over.

  “I’m waiting for Derek,” she said. “Though he’s probably too busy to join me for a while. What are you doing here, Laurel—come and sit down.”

  Once more, she made me uneasy, but I slid into the chair opposite and could hardly keep from staring. She looked far less elegant than usual, her pongee silk wilting and her lipstick smudged.