The questions were waiting at the back of my mind, but I held them off. I didn’t think there were two murderers. Whoever had killed Adam had killed Fiona, regardless of that gun forced to her hand.
The rest of what happened that night seemed to fade into a blur. Lieutenant Jimson was there again, and others of the staff that appeared on such occasions to take care of their grisly tasks. I could tell Jimson very little. Fiona had been worried about something. I had a feeling that she knew who had killed my father—but that was only guessing.
This time Jimson was not so easily satisfied with the suicide theory, though it would have simplified matters for him. The situation was desperately difficult for the police, with all those people downstairs who must eventually be questioned. To say nothing of the large staff of servants and moonlighting townspeople who were under this roof. But the police had coped with all this before. Names would be recorded and the questioning would go on for days, weeks, even though these people would not be held here.
After what seemed a very long while I was permitted to go off to bed, and unexpectedly it was Jon Pemberton who saw me downstairs and called Miss Crawford from her room to stay with me until I fell asleep. By this time he looked a little incongruous in his tails and stiff shirt, but he had reverted to his easygoing self, undaunted by what had happened—the uninvolved, but interested watcher.
Only as he left my room did he drop back into character once more. He took my hand and bowed over it gallantly, bent to touch it with his lips.
“Good night, Zenia,” he said. “There will be happier times.”
But there had been no happier times for Zenia, and I wondered if there ever would be for me.
I tried to smile at him as he went away. Miss Crawford seemed perturbed as she helped me out of my costume and I think she wanted to talk. But I couldn’t take any more, and I must have discouraged her. She saw me into bed and brought me water for my sleeping pill. She even asked if she should stay in my room.
“No,” I said, “go back to Peter. And don’t tell him when he wakes. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
She went away, and I gave my weary body over to the luxury of a complete letting-go. I had no special fears for myself at the moment. Fiona had not told me what she might have if I had seen her earlier. I was safe enough for now. Even Theo’s old tricks had been stopped and there was nothing to fear any more. So why did I lie here in cold terror instead of going right to sleep? Why must I remember Adam’s dead face, and Fiona’s, and the face of that grinning skull over at Redstones? Everything seemed to be mixing itself up in my mind as the sleeping pill took effect.
If only I could go to Bruce and stay with him. If only he could hold me and protect me. There had been no one to protect Fiona. Once Adam had taken care of her, had looked after her, even when she wandered, and when he died there had been no one. And now there was no one for me. There were only barriers.
Zenia had suffered her era’s terror of public scandal. My terror turned in a different direction. The terror of being put back in the hospital if I allowed myself to be driven to explosive action. The terror of losing my son. Since my talk with Joel, I knew Bruce was already lost. My sore heart had to accept that. I had thought earlier of solving my problems—I had been brave and determined. Or at least I had told myself that was what I would be tomorrow. Now it was already the early morning hours of that tomorrow, and I had no courage at all. I was as lost to love as Zenia, and there was nothing I could ever do to save myself.
The drug took effect eventually and I fell deeply asleep. My dreams were all confused and unhappy, but I could not remember them when I awakened late the next morning, except for the lingering pain they left behind. I opened my eyes to find Theo beside my bed. I remembered now that there had been a ball, and I wondered what she had done about all those people. But she was experienced in breaking off a party, sending everyone away when the police permitted. She had done it before. She looked rather ghastly this morning in a black wool suit, with no make-up on the mask of her white face, and her green eyes unnaturally bright. The crescent of Diana no longer crowned her red hair, but it had not been lately combed and she had forgotten to remove the wilted flower she still wore over one ear, like the lady in the portrait I thought irrelevantly of the pink geranium blossoms I had carried and dropped somewhere without noticing.
“Are you awake, Christy?” Theo’s voice was hoarse, as though from overuse. “Can you talk?”
I made an effort. “I’ll try. Have you found out anything?”
There was a faint hesitation before she answered. “Nothing. Of course the police aren’t committing themselves as yet. But Fiona must have talked to you. What did she tell you that might have led her to this?”
“I think she was about to tell me something, but she didn’t have time. I think she knew who killed my father, and that the same person killed her.”
Theo moved a chair over to my bed and sat down in it heavily. “If you really think she was murdered, Christy, who do you think did it?”
I could answer that easily enough. “I haven’t any idea.”
“That’s just as well,” she said, and I wondered if that was a relaxing of her guard that I saw in her face? Almost imperceptibly, she seemed reassured, though her fingers twined together, betraying inner strain.
“Did you know that Fiona has been meeting Ferris Thornton over at Redstones?” she asked me.
I stared at her. “Why?”
“I thought you might know why.”
“That time I saw candlelight in the windows—was that what was happening?”
It was hard for Theo to give up her habit of putting me down for my delusions. “I suppose so,” she said grudgingly.
I puzzled over this in silence. It was Fiona who had assured me that Ferris no longer harbored any affection for Theodora. But he was years older than Fiona. As old as my father. My fuzzy mind suddenly remembered that Fiona had married my father.
“Was she in love with him?” I asked.
Theo said, “Don’t be absurd,” and I wondered if she still believed in Ferris’s devotion to herself. Last night he had continued to play the game, but he had never been one to give away what he was thinking or feeling.
“How do you know they’ve been meeting over there?” I asked, realizing in surprise that though she had come to interrogate me, it was I who was asking the questions, and she wasn’t even struggling against what she might once have regarded as impertinence.
“Joel has been keeping an eye on Redstones ever since you saw a light over there. He’s seen them together, though he hasn’t said a word to me until now.”
Joel wouldn’t have, of course. But anything might be pertinent now.
“Have you asked Ferris about this?”
Something strange and unfamiliar seemed to pass over Theo’s face—could it possibly be that she was afraid? Was all that indomitable courage crumbling at last? And if it was, why was she afraid? How much did she know?
“Not yet,” she said. “I don’t know whether I will. Christy, would you ask him?”
“Why are you afraid to?” I challenged.
She rallied her forces at that and frowned me down. “Don’t be stupid, Christina. It’s just that there’s this old legend of his being once in love with me and never getting over it. I even used to believe in it. But not lately. In the last year he’s changed. I lean on him to assist me in business matters, but I don’t altogether trust him any more. You used to be his favorite young person. He might talk to you. Will you try it today, Christy?”
“I’ll talk to him, if you like,” I said doubtfully. “But not now. I still feel a little shaky. I can’t believe last night was real. I can’t believe Fiona is gone.”
“Nor can I,” she said. “Stay in bed for a while. I’ll send breakfast up to you.” She seemed unexpectedly kind, but I was wary. “The police will be back. That Jimson person will be here again. He promised me that when he left this morning. Reporters have alre
ady been here, arriving from everywhere. I’ve arranged to see them later.”
And I knew she would. Theodora Moreland had been bred on newspapers. Repugnant as her duty to the press might be on this occasion, she would talk to reporters.
“Have you had any sleep yourself?” I asked.
“I lay down for a while, but I couldn’t sleep. No one came near me,” she added, marveling—she who was accustomed to dancing attendants. “I had to send for Joel. He’s upset too, of course. But Ferris and Bruce have stayed away, and there’s no Fiona.”
“I’ll help if there are things you need me for,” I found myself offering.
She gave me her old look which dismissed any hint that I might be useful or capable, and stood up.
“We’ll see. I’ll have to hire someone now. To take Fiona’s place. But Fiona was like a daughter. She was my son’s wife.”
This was tardy sentiment. Theo had used Fiona, but she had not used her kindly.
“She was married to my father,” I said.
Familiar antagonism bristled between us, and Theo went through the door without another word. I got out of bed and took a shower to wake myself up. I didn’t intend to get up yet. My head still felt woolly and I couldn’t face the world. I wanted to see Peter, but not in this confused state. I wondered if he had been told, and who had told him. My drugged sleep had made me derelict there and I could only blame myself. But I would go to him soon.
I looked in my closet for a warm robe I could wear in bed. Adam’s plaid sports jacket hung among my dresses and I felt a pang of recognition. I put my hand on the sleeve as I had done so often when I had searched for him among his things. But now I knew they were empty of his presence. I could no longer find him there when I touched his jacket. The sense of loss was in me, but I no longer wanted to press my cheek against his sleeve, pretending that I touched him. Perhaps this was an indication of further healing. I had moved along the path that led away from intense grief. I had begun to accept at last the permanence of loss that I must live with. I would miss him in so many ways, but now I could begin to remember happier, more comforting times.
I slipped into the blue wool robe and tied the sash about my waist. Then I got back into bed. My head felt heavy, my wits dull. What had happened to Fiona still carried a sense of unreality. I had been through this before. Perhaps this was one of nature’s buffers—a protection against the shock of death. For a while everything would move in a dream—unbelieved and unaccepted. Totally unreal. By the time this sense of unreality passed, as it must, the sharpness of pain would be deadened a little. Later I would feel everything deeply, but not with that first agony I might have suffered. I was beginning to realize how fond I had been of Fiona—fonder than I knew.
A knock on the door brought a drowsy maid with my breakfast tray, and in her wake came Joel.
When the lap tray had been set across my legs, and the girl had gone away, Joel stood silently beside my bed. We had barely greeted each other. I could not forget what had been said between us yesterday and I felt no inclination to be friendly. When I had eaten some toast and taken several sips of coffee, ignoring him, he began to ply me with questions. There was a series of them, almost like Theo’s. Exactly what had Fiona talked to me about the last few times I had seen her? Why did I believe that she knew someone had killed Adam? What conclusions had I come to from her words? There was a pressure here that I had seldom felt in Joel before.
I had nothing to tell him because Fiona had told me nothing, and Joel sat staring at me with frost in his eyes.
“Theo tells me you discovered that Fiona and Ferris were meeting over at Redstones,” I said. “Have you any idea why?”
“Ferris is the only one who knows the answer to that,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better ask him.”
“But your mother says you’ve been watching Redstones.”
He was silent, his look veiled, giving nothing away. I went on.
“Fiona did tell me that Ferris’s pose of devotion to your mother has been faked for some time.”
“We all knew that.”
I set down my coffee cup and leaned back against the piled-up pillows, closing my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch that wintry expression. It was strange enough to try to face the fact that he no longer loved me, but I hated this new merciless quality in him, this new, unrelenting force. Or was it new? Had he been like this all the time—like his mother? Had I been blind in the past to something that was only now surfacing to my clearer vision?
“Perhaps everyone else knew,” I said, “but I didn’t. I always believed the legend.”
“Ferris has wanted Fiona to marry him for some time,” he said.
How ignorant I had been!
“Then why didn’t she?”
“Perhaps she couldn’t be silenced that way,” Joel said.
My eyes flew open. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. I was trying to startle you, and I see I did. You are alive, after all.”
It was my turn to ignore a challenge. “Has anyone told Peter?”
“Theo wanted me to. So I did.”
“How did he take it?”
“I think this is too big for him to understand. I don’t think he has fully taken it in.”
Like the rest of us, I thought.
“I should have been the one to tell him. I might have softened it,” I said.
“Then why didn’t you?”
I had already accepted blame for this in my own mind, and I spoke more humbly. “I’ll go to him this morning. I’ve been rather knocked out myself.”
Joel got up and walked out of the room without answering that.
I knew I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. Bed was an escape from the menace that might now turn against me. Fiona’s death did not leave me safe. Everything she had been afraid of still existed to threaten me—the truth about Adam’s death. If Fiona had told me what she knew, would I be alive this morning? Which one of them was trying so desperately to save his own skin?
I put on a navy blue pants suit and tied a yellow scarf defiantly about my neck. Because I didn’t want to go about looking as Theo had, because I wanted to look brave. I smoothed on my lipstick with a careful touch. Then I went upstairs to Peter’s room.
Miss Crawford was nowhere in sight, but a small table had been drawn beside the window where sunlight poured in, and Peter and Bruce were seated on opposite sides of a chessboard. Peter looked up at me with a smile as I came through the door.
“Mother, I’m beating him! I’m beating him for the first time!”
So much for the tragedy of Fiona’s death. The young could sometimes bounce back more easily than we thought.
Bruce’s smile was weary, and I loved him for coming here to be with Peter. “I’m afraid my mind isn’t thoroughly on the game. But you’re a good player, Peter.”
“That’s because you taught me,” Peter said.
I watched as he studied the board to make his next move.
“Where is Miss Crawford?” I asked.
Bruce nodded toward the next room and I went to find the governess lying on her bed with a cold compress on her head.
“Can I do anything for you?” I asked.
She reached up to push the cloth away. “Thank you. I feel better now. It’s all been so awful. Especially after what Mrs. Keene said to me last night.”
I pounced. “What was that?”
The woman on the bed winced and put a hand to her temple. “I blame myself now. I’m very upset, Mrs. Moreland I should have behaved differently. I know that now.”
I tried to speak more quietly. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“Mrs. Keene came here while Peter was downstairs. She wanted to leave a letter with me. It was to be delivered to you if anything happened to her. I asked what she meant by that, but she wouldn’t explain and she was behaving so strangely that I didn’t want to take the responsibility. She seemed a little—irrational—and I told her that she should give the l
etter directly to you herself. Did she bring it to you?”
“No. When I saw her she said nothing about a letter. And later, when she was looking for me, we didn’t meet.”
Miss Crawford moaned faintly. “I should have done what she asked. I know that now. But her manner frightened me. The way she looked in that costume—like death. Death to come, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “She shouldn’t have troubled you with anything like that.”
“I don’t suppose it’s likely,” Miss Crawford said, “but perhaps she gave the letter to Mr. Parry when I wouldn’t take it.”
“To Mr. Parry?”
“I think she was looking for him, as well as for you.”
“I’ll ask him,” I said.
The governess roused herself and slowly got up from the bed. “My head is better. Thank you, Mrs. Moreland. I can stay with Peter now. Mr. Parry rescued me when I was feeling dreadful. But I took some pills and they’ve begun to work.”
From the next room I heard a shout of triumph. “Checkmate! Checkmate! Will you play me another game, Bruce?”
When I joined them, Bruce was rising from the table. “Not now, Peter. I’d like to talk to your mother for a while.”
Peter looked disappointed, as though he had wanted us both to stay with him. When I held him close for a moment and dropped a kiss on his cheek, he clung to me, but he did not mention Fiona. For now, at least, he had thrust all that dark knowledge away to the back of his mind where it might surface later. When it did, we would have to talk. Then, having made my comfortable deductions, as I went out the door with Bruce, Peter said something that startled me.
“It’s like television, isn’t it?”
I stopped in the doorway, realizing his meaning. I knew Theo indulged him with anything on TV he wanted to see, and because of violence on programs he must have watched, he could accept violence in the real world as something commonplace. Horror lay in such a world and Peter already needed help. While my overreaction to Adam’s death had upset him, it would be far better for Peter to feel grief than to dismiss what had happened as ordinary. But now was not the time to deal in depth with the concept of death. I needed to find wisdom of some sort in myself before I talked to him.
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