Dream of Orchids
Page 28
Iris turned unhappily away, and Marcus answered me. “Alida’s with her now. After Derek was arrested, I came straight back here and found Fern outside in the street babbling about all the people she’d killed. I took her upstairs to your father’s study, and Alida’s calming her down. When she said you were in the orchid house and dying, I dashed right down and met Iris on the way. Laurel, is anything of what Fern was saying true?”
“I’m afraid it is,” I told him.
Iris said, “I’ll go upstairs and see if I can help Alida. Now that you’re all right, Laurel—” Unexpectedly, she touched my arm, smiled at me warmly, and went away. My sister.
“We’ll get you to a hospital now,” Marcus said briskly. “You need to get that wrist taken care of properly.”
I sat down on the stool again and hooked my heels over a rung. I didn’t feel like being sensible. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I don’t know what he read in my face, but he came to me and put his hand under my chin.
“Honey,” he said, “I don’t want anything more to happen to you. I need you in my life. You know that, don’t you?”
This was what I wanted from him—something tender and gentle, something loving. I tilted my head and saw in his eyes what I’d wanted to see. Now I could slip down from the stool and accept the support of his arm as we went out to his car and drove to the hospital.
It is March again—nearly April—and once more the anniversary of Poppy’s death is approaching. But this time the date has no dread for us. Perhaps she really is at rest now. There’s sadness when I think of Cliff, but I have the memory of our time together at Casa Marina to comfort me. I can even think of my mother more quietly now.
All our lives have changed. Iris seems to have come through as a stronger person. For the first time, she’s making her own decisions with confidence. She still lives in Cliff’s house, but now she has opened it to the social life they used to enjoy when her mother was alive. She has interested herself in the problems of restoration in Key West and is helping to preserve its remarkable history. There are several men she sees, though she hasn’t settled for any one. I know that shadows lie across her life, as they do with all of us, but she’s learning to live with them. We are becoming more like affectionate sisters these days.
The treasure from the Santa Beatriz has nearly all been recovered, and historians have been gathering valuable information from its many pieces. Later it will be put on display for visitors to enjoy.
The process of law moves slowly while Derek is held for trial. Sometimes I wonder what his thoughts are and whether he has ever stopped scheming.
Fern exists mainly in her own world. She was too far removed from reality to stand trial, and she lives away from Key West in a private place where doctors care for her. Alida goes often to visit her. There is even a small solar greenhouse available, where Fern can grow a few orchids. The moments when she is lucid must be the hardest for her to endure. Alida tells me that during those times she knows what she has done, and special care must be given her. It’s probably best when she is like one of her own orchids—unthinking, but no longer “murderous.”
Marcus and I are still in Key West, though we’ve taken a house outside of Old Town. We know now that we have what we both want—the all-out commitment that marriage brings. I’ve let my bookstore in Bellport go to Stan Neese with hardly a qualm. I want a different life now.
Strangely enough, I am helping Marcus as he helped my father. I know books, I know how to find information, and I love on-the-spot research. Books—nonfiction books—are what Marcus wants to write, and I can help, not only with research, but also as a critic. He tells me I’m the best critic he’s found so far, and whether it’s true or not, I love to hear him say it. I’m even trying my skill at some short stories of my own—after all, I come by a splendid heritage.
Sometimes when I’m visiting Iris she gives me a beautiful blossom from the greenhouse that she’s expanding into a business. I take it and thank her. Afterwards, I give it away as quickly as possible. I don’t really like orchids, but at least I don’t dream about them any more.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My special thanks to Joan and Wright Langley for their books on Key West, and for their advice. I am grateful to Joan for her careful reading of my manuscript.
The Monroe County Public Library was hospitable and helpful during my visit to Key West, and later in sending me material. Betty Bruce and Sylvia Knight of the research department answered endless questions, and assisted with introductions to those who might help me.
Several residents generously opened their homes to me so that I could “build” my own house authentically in the story. I want to thank Joan and Edward Knight, Rita Sawyer, Marcia Herndon, and Richard Lischer for allowing me “back of the scenes.”
I am grateful as well to my friend Don Reed, of Marine World, in California, for helping with my scuba-diving scenes.
A BIOGRAPHY OF PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.
Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.
In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).
After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.
In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.
Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commerc
ial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.
Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961) and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.
Whitney continued writing throughout the rest of her life, still traveling to the locations for each of her novels until she was ninety-four years old. She released her final novel, the touching and thrilling Amethyst Dreams, in 1997. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104. She left behind a vibrant catalog of seventy-six titles that continue to inspire, setting an unparalleled precedent for mystery writing.
A young Whitney playing with her doll in Japan.
Whitney with her family in Japan, where they lived for approximately six years. From left: Lillian (Lilly) Whitney, Charles (Charlie) Whitney, Phyllis Whitney, and Philip (Whitney’s half-brother).
Thirteen-year-old Whitney dancing in the Philippines.
Twenty-one-year-old Whitney at her graduation from McKinley High School in 1924.
Whitney worked at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. She was pregnant with her daughter, Georgia, at the time.
Frederick Nelson Litten, Whitney’s mentor in writing and teaching, in Chicago, 1935.
Whitney’s first publicity photo for A Place for Ann, 1941.
Whitney, forty-eight, in her first study in Fort Hill Circle at her Staten Island house, where she lived with second husband Lovell Jahnke, 1951.
Whitney at sixty-nine years old with Jahnke in their home in Hope, New Jersey, 1972. Behind them hangs a Japanese embroidery made by Whitney’s mother.
Whitney at seventy-one years of age with Pat Myer, her long time editor, and Mable Houvenagle, her sister-in-law, at her house on Chapel Ave in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York, 1974. After her husband died in 1973, she lived close to her daughter, Georgia, on Long Island.
Whitney at eighty-one years old on a helicopter ride over Maui, Hawaii, to research the backdrop for her novel Silversword, 1984.
Whitney giving her acceptance speech for her Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985.
Whitney rode in a hot-air balloon in 1988 to use the experience for her novel Rainbow in the Mist.
Whitney ascending in the hot-air balloon, 1988.
Whitney in her study in Virginia in 1996 at ninety-three years old, looking over her “Awards Corner,” which included three Edgars, the Agatha, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.
Whitney at ninety-six years old with her family in her house in Virgina, 1999. From left: Michael Jahnke (grandson), Georgia Pearson (daughter), Matthew Celentano (great-grandson), Whitney, and Danny Celentano (great-grandson).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1985 by Phyllis A. Whitney
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4585-8
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
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