Spindrift

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Behind me now, Joel spoke in a flat voice. “This won’t do. Mother promised us separate rooms. Christy has been ill, and she needs a place for herself.”

  “You have your own room.” Ferris’s tone was courteous but faintly disapproving. “Right through that adjoining door.”

  The flush had come into Joel’s fair skin again and a stab of guilt went through me because of what I was doing to him. There had been happier times for us in this house, even though Theo had always made attempts to drive us apart. But there was nothing I could say or do now, and Joel thanked Ferris and went through the unlocked door.

  The moment he was gone I faced Ferris. “When will I see Peter?”

  He regarded me more kindly. “He’s here. I’m sure you’ll see him soon. He has been told you were coming.”

  “How did he react?”

  “I don’t know much about children,” Ferris said evasively. “I should think he was pleased.”

  But he hadn’t said that Peter was pleased.

  A tap on the door and the arrival of my bags gave him an excuse to escape.

  “Theodora will be waiting for you when it’s convenient,” he said. “She has her old rooms upstairs in the opposite wing.”

  “I’ll come soon,” I said.

  He went off and I busied myself unlocking my bags, shaking out my clothes and hanging them up in the closet that was the size of a small room. At least Theo didn’t bother with the folderol of personal maids, except for herself. As I worked I tried to take in the room that had been assigned to me. I knew it well enough, though I had never been permitted to stay in it before.

  The walls were of gold damask, faded to a softer hue than they must have known originally. Most of the damask-covered walls throughout the house were the original, tenderly restored. There was a gold and cream canopy over the painted Italian bed, with a cream satin Empire sofa at its foot. The carpet was a pale buff, deeply piled, and most of the furniture was creamy white with touches of pale gold. It was not a room in which I could toss books around on the floor, or put my feet on the sofa. It made me distinctly uncomfortable.

  But all this unpacking and examining of my surroundings was simply a marking of time. Theodora Moreland was waiting for me and her temper never improved when she waited very long. Yet still I postponed, changing to white slacks and a blouse printed with blue cornflowers, brushing my short mop of hair and restoring my lipstick.

  When Joel knocked, I was ready. He came in, his quiet look guardedly approving me. Theo liked those around her to dress smartly.

  “We’d better go up,” he said. “She must be in a good mood or she wouldn’t have given you all this splendor. Can you live with it?”

  He knew me and I found myself smiling. “I’ll manage. I’ll move the chairs around and spill powder on the dressing table, rumple the counterpane. I can’t live in a museum, but I don’t think it necessarily means an amiable intent to put me here.”

  “Come along then.” He moved toward the door and waited for me.

  I followed, suddenly hesitant and uncertain. I had forgotten how to love him, but I had not forgotten the old rituals. Whenever we were away from home—in a hotel, or wherever—he had always paused before he opened the door of our room for me and pulled me into his arms. His kiss was somehow a promise that we faced the world together—that I needn’t be alone. But I couldn’t bear it if he kissed me now.

  He didn’t, and I couldn’t tell if he even remembered as he opened the door and we stepped into the lavishly red-carpeted hall, warm and alive after the cold, classic splendor of my bedroom.

  “Be careful with her, Christy,” Joel said as we followed the miles of corridor back to the stairs and the left wing on the third floor.

  “Careful in what way?”

  “Perhaps I mean patient. She’s a very loving grandmother, you know. It’s going to be hard to share Peter with us again.”

  “She’s a damaging grandmother,” I said. “Peter is ours and I don’t mean to share him with anyone.”

  “That’s what I mean. You’ve always worn a chip on your shoulder with her. She is his grandmother, so take it easy.”

  “And you’ve always been on her side.”

  “I still am,” he said, and the cool note in his voice warned me.

  We did not speak again, and I found that as I walked the corridor and climbed the stairs, I was holding off the house. When houses lived long enough, they developed character, just as people did, and I had the curious feeling that this house had turned inimical to me. I had not been in it since the days just after my father’s death and I had the feeling now that it did not want me here.

  On the third floor corridor a balcony door had been opened upon the mid-October afternoon and I wanted to delay again by running to look outside, raising my face to the gentle breeze. But Joel was moving toward his mother’s suite and I had to go with him. He seemed to know where she would receive us and he opened the door of the Green Sitting Room.

  She wasn’t there and the moment of our meeting was postponed a little longer. Of all her rooms I liked this one best. No austere, socially elite ancestors looked down from the walls as they did in much of the house. Not Theo’s ancestors, but those who went with the house and whom she had never removed, adopting them as her own.

  The pale green carpet had a woven design of yellow leaves, muted into the background. The sofa and one armchair wore slipcovers of a narrow green and rose stripe and the wallpaper was more broadly striped in gold and green. But this was a lived-in room. Here the marble mantel boasted a row of small framed pictures of Theo’s family. I was not among them, but Joel’s face and Peter’s looked out at me, and there were old snapshots of Cabot and Iris, the two who had drowned. There were also ornaments of glowing jade and carved ivory that I knew were priceless objects from the time when Theo’s ambassador father had once lived with his family in Shanghai. She was given, as a consequence, to a devotion for things Chinese. She took her treasures with her when she moved from one house to another, and I suppose they gave her a sense of being at home. A copy of The Leader lay waiting on a glass-topped table and Theo’s green-rimmed glasses rested upon it.

  There was a faint odor of smoke in the air, and I saw that a fire had been lighted on the hearth, though the day hardly required it. The wood had been allowed to burn down to glowing coals and gave off little heat. I dropped into an armchair and Joel went to stand before the fire with his back to me. I wondered what he saw in the coals, what he felt, what he thought. But something in me slammed a door hurriedly upon such thoughts because I wanted to face no self-reproaches of my conscience. I must be wholly occupied with the purposes before me. Joel was Theo’s son before he was anything else. I must remember that.

  Bruce Parry appeared and as he came to greet me and then went to stand beside Joel, I was aware once more of the contrast between the two men. It was not in Joel’s favor. Bruce was only a little older, but he always seemed infinitely more mature. He was dark-browed with heavy, winged eyebrows, a strong, forceful mouth and carved nose. But his dynamic intensity came through most of all in eyes that were almost jet in their lack of color. His appraisal of me seemed sharply alert, and I wondered what he saw.

  “She’ll be here any minute,” he said. “You’re looking well, Christy.”

  “I’m fine,” I acknowledged. “Where is Peter?”

  There seemed an unexpected flash of sympathy in those dark eyes. “He had some sort of upset yesterday. Perhaps the excitement of coming here. I’m sure she’ll take you to him shortly.”

  I was Peter’s mother. I ought to have the right to go to him at once if he had been ill, but I caught the warning glance Joel threw me. It said, “Wait, wait. Be patient.”

  Without patience I plucked at the crease in my white slacks and would not look at either of them. I wanted neither to be pitied nor to be warned. I would deal with Theodora Moreland in my own way.

  As always, she made an entrance, sweeping into the room on a cloud
of sandalwood incense because Fiona followed her bearing a brass incense burner in the form of a writhing dragon.

  Theo waved her small hands as she advanced, brushing away imaginary wood smoke, jade and diamonds gleaming on her fingers.

  “Whoever started the fire forgot to open the draft until after it was lit, the fool!” she cried. “I cannot stand fools. I cannot bear them. Clear out the smell, Fiona.”

  We all stood silent while Fiona twirled incense aloft until I felt ready to choke on sandalwood. Theo took the center of the room and seemed to be studying every inch of it—except the part occupied by us. She seemed not to notice any presence except Fiona’s, busying herself in directing her secretary’s spreading of blue incense smoke about the room. I was glad that her immediate focus was not upon me, and I had a chance to study this woman who was once more going to be my adversary—only now more than ever.

  She was tiny—perhaps an inch shorter than I was—with a tendency to plumpness kept ruthlessly in check, and she could give an impression of height with the dignity of her bearing. At the moment she was wearing a cheong-sam, one of those Hong Kong sheaths that come with a high collar and a slit to the knees. It was of jade green satin and it flattered a figure that had never been allowed to sag or bulge too recklessly. She wore her red hair in a high-swept pile on her head, lending to the illusion of height, and it was to the credit of her hairdresser that the color had muted with her age and was completely believable. Her skin was still fine-grained and it was well cared for. The only thing about her to betray her age was her hands, with their raised veins and liver spots.

  “That’s enough—you’re smothering me!” she cried to Fiona, who glanced wryly at me behind her back and lowered one eyelid. “Set it down—set it down! Now then, Christy—let me have a look at you.”

  She seated herself in a straight chair that allowed for no slumping and beckoned to me commandingly. I knew of old the force of any command she issued, and found it impossible to disobey. I left my chair and went to stand before her, where the rosy glow from the coals tinted my white trousers. She considered me for a tormentingly long time and I tried to stare her down—not very successfully.

  “You don’t look bad,” she said at last. “Better than I expected. And your hair is beginning to grow. The sea air at Spindrift will be good for you. Are you eating well?”

  I’d had enough. “I want to see Peter,” I told her. “I understand he’s been sick.”

  “A small stomach upset. Nothing, nothing. But it’s better not to disturb him till he’s fully recovered.”

  “Seeing his mother shouldn’t disturb him,” I said, and heard Joel make a slight sound behind me—warning me again, I supposed.

  She smiled at me—that dazzlingly beautiful smile that always came as a surprise—because she was rather a plain woman. It lifted the lines of her face, brightened those intense green eyes. Joel too used to smile like that.

  “My dear. Of course it will be good for Peter to have his mother here with him. I’m glad you were willing to come. I’ll take you to him as soon as I feel he’s ready. In the meantime, are you comfortable? Do you like your room?”

  “It’s a bit grand,” I said. “But if it’s close to Peter’s it will be fine.”

  She did not answer that. “I hope the house won’t disturb you, Christy. I hope you’ll be well here.”

  Her green eyes appraised, watching, I was sure, for some chink in the armor I wore against her, and I challenged her words.

  “Why shouldn’t I be well here? The house had nothing to do with what happened.” I had brought it into the open, as had to be done. “Only a person, or persons, was responsible for that.”

  She shook her red head at me as if in sad reproach. “Christy, my dear! I thought you’d got over that notion before you left the hospital.”

  “I will never get over it!” I said hotly. “I still want to know what really happened.” There—I had thrown down my challenge—let her make of it what she would.

  Theo did not pick up the glove. She turned instead to Joel. “You must take care of her. See that she gets lots of rest and is outdoors whenever there’s sunshine.”

  I stared about the room, seeking some support, some sympathy. Fiona had set down the dragon burner that still exuded a thin line of blue aromatic smoke, and she was looking at none of us. She studied the broad-spaced knuckles of her right hand as if they were all that interested her. Joel looked unhappy—with me—but he watched his mother. Only Bruce’s eyes were fixed upon me and when I met his gaze I saw again what might have been a flash of sympathy.

  There was nothing more for me to say and I knew we hadn’t been brought together for idle conversation, so I subsided and said nothing more. The moment I was out of this room I meant to go looking for Peter. But the audience had not yet come to an end.

  “I hope you will all help me with ideas for my party,” Theo went on. “We want it to be a very gay and imaginative affair. I mean to bring people back to Spindrift the way they used to come in the old days.”

  “My father hasn’t been dead a year,” I said, forgetting about subsiding.

  “Mourning periods are old-fashioned,” Theo said with a slight edge to her voice. “Adam would be the first to say, ‘Give a party!’ Come—all of you! Give me some ideas. I’d like fancy dress. But something special.”

  Fiona spoke with the slight drawl she sometimes adopted with Theo, as if she must always drag back a little in the face of the older woman’s dynamic surges.

  “I’ve been thinking and I have a possible idea. But I’d like to show it to you—so why not now? Let’s go down to the ballroom.”

  Theo was always ready for action, and she rose lithely from her straight chair—no pushing up on the arms for her—and moved to the door, the slit in her pale jade satin showing a leg that was still shapely.

  “Come along then! Let’s go look at Fiona’s idea. Where is Ferris? I want him in on this. Bruce, do go look for him.”

  Fiona and Joel had followed Theo to the door, but I still sat where I was, and as he passed me Bruce bent his head for an instant. “Don’t fight her openly. There are better ways.”

  I was surprised, but I left my chair and went with the others into the corridor. Joel was watching me and I felt uneasy. I didn’t trust him and I didn’t trust Bruce, but strangely I wanted to trust Fiona. Yet they were all under Theo’s thumb.

  Bruce had hurried off to find Ferris as Theo marched ahead of us down the stairs and through the marble entrance hall to a door at the rear. There Joel sprang to open it for his mother, and the vast reaches of that room I had not seen since the night of my father’s death spread out before me. I held back at the door as the others stepped through.

  The last time I had seen it, the gold and crystal chandeliers had been ablaze with light, the velvet draperies had glowed a rich and royal crimson and all the gold leaf of the upper walls and ceilings had shone in ornate splendor. There had been dancers out on the polished parquet floor, while viewers in couturier gowns and the men’s black gathered on quilted satin benches around the room. There had been warmth and brilliant sound and the chatter of voices. All that was necessary to hide the crack of a shot fired in a distant Tower Room on the third floor.

  Theo had reached the center of the great floor. “Well?” she demanded of Fiona.

  “Look around.” Fiona gestured. “Look at the ancestors. How many Sargents are there?”

  “Three, of course,” Theo said. “The one of Mrs. Patton-Stuyvesant that I bought with the house, and the two I purchased in Boston and New York.”

  “How fortunate for us that he painted here in Newport for a time,” Fiona said. “And was part of the social life. You could give a John Singer Sargent ball, Theo. The women could come in the styles of Sargent’s paintings, and I think they’d love it. That was a day when fashions were becoming.”

  Theo looked like a small Chinese lady as she went to stand before the Patton-Stuyvesant portrait. “I can’t see me wit
h a pink geranium in my hand.”

  “No,” Fiona said. “You’d have to be Madame X.”

  I had seen the Sargent painting of “Madame X” in the Metropolitan. It was one that had caused something of a furor in its day—damned at the Paris Salon for being eccentric and sex-oriented—though that wasn’t the term used then. But Madame Gautreau who had posed for the picture was a celebrated beauty and Sargent had made her exquisite in a sleek-fitting black gown, her reddish-brown hair drawn severely high, graced by a small red flower above the ear and Diana’s crescent over her forehead. Her face and bare shoulders were that strange bluish pearl color that had been derided in Paris, but which had been due to the lady’s addiction to lavender face powder.

  Theo knew the picture too, of course. Now she raised her head and turned her profile haughtily so that we could view her, for an imaginary instant, as that celebrated figure. Without beauty, she could suggest beauty, and the very lift of her chin and its piquant carving bespoke the portrait. I knew she could carry it off, that Fiona’s suggestion had been accepted because of Madame X.

  “We’ll do it, Fiona. Do see where you can find some good Sargent copies and have them framed in time to hang them around the room. We’ll have nothing but Sargents here that night—with the real ones in the place of honor, of course.”

  Bruce and Ferris had joined us, and Theo burst into an animated description of what she meant to do. I had a sense of unreality listening to her. Much of the time Theodora Moreland lived in a make-believe world. All of Spindrift was part of this make-believe, as would be Fiona’s Sargent ball. But my father’s death had been real and I must not let any of them lose sight of that.