I tried to speak in an ordinary voice, though my teeth had begun to chatter with the cold. “He’s gone to Flagstaff. Alice and Marilla and I are staying in the guesthouse. Come in with us and get dry.”
He pulled away roughly, and I think he would have gone off and left me there alone if Vermilion hadn’t prompted me again. I spoke the words she put into my mouth.
“Brian, come inside and tell us about Celia.”
Her name cut through to wherever he had gone, and he really looked at me for the first time. The deepened lines of his face relaxed a little, and his more familiar jaunty air returned with a hint of bravado.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m wet through and frozen, so I’ll accept.”
This time I clung to him as we crossed the bridge, and the wind let us pass without trying to fling us down the cliff. Only when we were close to the guesthouse did I see that Alice and Marilla stood together in the doorway, watching us. The moment we reached them, Alice took charge.
“Give me your wet jacket, Brian. Come here by the fire. Marilla, will you put a kettle on, so we can fix hot coffee?”
Brian gave himself meekly into her hands. He wasn’t trying to be jaunty and confident now but seemed only a wet young man who wanted to get warm again. He sat crossed-legged on the hearth, with a blanket around his shoulders, and reached out his hands to the fire. I ran to get a bath towel so he could rub his head and face dry and brush off some of the wetness. I wasn’t as soaked as he was, except for my feet, and I kicked off my shoes and put on slippers.
When instant coffee had been made, Brian sat before the fire, warming his hands around a mug, drinking the brew black and strong. If only Rick could have been here, I thought. Rick would know how to handle Brian.
The voice in my head said, You can handle him. He likes you. Ask him about Celia.
Now that he’d relaxed a little, his expression had grown dreamy as he stared into the flames. In some strange way, it was as though he heard Vermilion before I could speak. He glanced at Alice, who had drawn an easy chair close to the fire, while Marilla and I sat on the other side on the sofa.
“You remember—I drove Celia out to San Francisco before Jed came into the picture,” he said to Alice. “I was there in the city when she died in Jed’s car.”
“Can you tell us about it?”
“We had our best time together when we made that trip. Celia was more alive and vital than anyone I’ve ever known. It was as though she had to gulp down every kind of experience—as though she knew she hadn’t much time. Those first weeks in San Francisco were great. Except for one thing that made me uncomfortable. There was someone else out there—a friend she didn’t want to tell me about. And I started to worry.”
Brian was silent again, staring as though the figure of Celia were there before him, moving through the flames. After a moment, in which the wind seemed to lessen its attack, he went on without prompting.
“I don’t know whether this friend was a man or a woman. She said it was someone who could tell her more about her mother. She’d always been terribly alone, with no one to talk to about the past. I knew she had a grandmother somewhere, but I never even knew her name or that she lived in Jerome.” He broke off, considering. “I wonder how Sybil knew about Mrs. Jessup? Anyway, it made me uneasy that Celia kept putting off telling me about this friend. She said she’d tell me later, when she was sure about something.
“Then Jed appeared. Celia said he was going to open doors for her, introduce her to people who might help her. She had some idea of going on the stage, though I tried to discourage that. She wasn’t physically strong enough for that sort of life, for all her vitality. Yet I couldn’t stop her from seeing Jed and trying to go ahead with her plans.
“I wish—” Alice began and then broke off, perhaps hearing the futility in her own words.
Brian went on, his voice hardening. “Then the day came when she went away in Jed’s car. We’d planned to have dinner together, but she didn’t meet me. I didn’t know what had happened until Jed got word to me from his bed in the hospital, and I went straightaway to see him.”
Strain had deepened the lines in Brian’s face, so that he no longer seemed so engagingly young. No one spoke, and he went on as though he were talking only to himself.
“I stood by his bed, and I wanted to kill him. Even though I knew it had been an accident, he was the instrument, and I wanted to pay him back for what he’d done. He was badly broken up—especially his leg. That black cane with the ivory head was leaning against the wall in a corner, and I thought how easy it would be to pick it up and kill him right where he lay. He was too weak to talk to me for long, and the nurse had told me I couldn’t have more than five minutes with him. But five minutes are a lot more than it takes to end a life.
“I suppose it was the look in his eyes that stopped me. They were the only part of him that moved. They were staring at me with such awful pain and pleading. He knew what was in my mind, and he wasn’t asking for his life—he was asking me to end it. That’s why I couldn’t do it. When I walked out of his room without touching the cane, I told myself that later on would do as well. When he’d had time to pay for causing Celia’s death. If he could ever pay enough.”
As Brian’s voice died away, I put my face against my raised knees and tried vainly to shut out the vivid pictures he’d painted in my mind. Beside me, Marilla’s hand found its way to my arm and pressed hard, as if in reassurance. Then she stood up, indignant, facing Brian where he sat before the fire.
“Grandpa Jed wasn’t bad, like you say!” she cried. “He was better to me than anybody else, ever—except maybe my father. He never meant to hurt anyone.”
We stared at her—a small, angry defender, confronting Brian.
“Besides,” she spoke more quietly now, “I don’t think you ever went to the hospital to see Grandpa Jed. I don’t think you ever stood by his bed and thought about killing him. You made it all up!”
Brian sat staring at her as though her words had stunned him into silence. Then, slowly, he seemed to relax, as he gave her his open, appealing smile.
“How did you know, Marilla?” he asked.
“I know because lots of times you’ve told me about not wanting to kill anything. Not ever. And because of the cane. Grandpa Jed never had that cane until after he came out of the hospital with a limp. That’s when he needed it to help him walk. That’s when he bought it in a San Francisco store and took it everywhere with him after that. He told me so. But he didn’t have it before.”
Brian’s laughter came easily, and without embarrassment. “How right you are! You’re smarter than any of us, Marilla.”
“No, I’m not,” she said earnestly. “It’s just that Lindsay and Alice are thinking about other things.”
She returned to the sofa and sat beside me again.
“So now what?” I said. “Why did you give us that rigmarole, Brian?”
He swiveled around with his back to the fire, regarding me gloomily.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “and this is the truth. That whole scene was something I thought about over and over again. It was what I wanted to do. Wished I’d done. I’m sorry, Marilla. I do believe in the things I’ve told you—they weren’t lies. But, I guess after Celia died, Jed wasn’t the only one to change. And maybe it helped me to play that game in my mind and keep on adding details long after Jed was out of the hospital and I’d come home. That’s how the cane got in—because it seemed such a good idea to have it there, in case I wanted to use it.”
“You never did use it,” Alice said. “Isn’t that right, Brian?”
“I don’t think I could ever have used it,” he said. “I know that sort of imagining can be dangerous—if it takes over. One of the queer things about that time was the way Celia’s mysterious friend never turned up. Not when you came, Alice, and took care of everything. Not even to see Jed at the hospital. Whoever it was just disappeared.”
“If there ever was anyone,”
Alice mused. “Sometimes I think Celia lived in a dream world of her own.”
The sudden ringing of the phone brought me to my feet with just one thought in mind—Rick!
It was only Orva’s voice, asking for her son. “He said he might go over there. I rang the house, but got no answer, so I tried you. Is Brian there?”
“Just a minute,” I said, and held out the phone. “It’s your mother, Brian.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Can I take a message for him?” I asked.
“He is there, isn’t he? Well, tell him I want him to come home right away. We have trouble on our hands. Clara’s here and she’s scared. Parker got drunk tonight—for the first time since she’s known him—and he knocked her across the room. She came straight here, and she’s afraid he may follow her. So I want Brian home.”
“Hold on,” I said, and transmitted all this to her son.
He got up from the hearth wearily. “Okay. Tell her I’ll be there right away.”
Alice brought his wet jacket. He threw it about his shoulders as he went out. She locked the door behind him, and we listened until we heard his car start up and move down the hill.
“I’ll fix some cocoa,” Alice said as she came back to us, “then perhaps we can turn in early.”
A good idea. I was beginning to feel shaky again, and remembered that I’d spent yesterday in a hospital. Marilla hurried to fetch milk from the refrigerator, and I set out cups. Movement helped—once more doing something. We didn’t talk about Parker and Clara or even about Brian, or any of the things that troubled us. We needed a respite—needed to do small ordinary things. The lump on my head felt hard to the touch, and very tender, and I was tired and ready to lie down.
When Marilla fell asleep over her cup, Alice took her off to bed. I was ready to follow but the night’s surprises weren’t over yet. We had just carried our cups into the living room, when someone knocked on the door. Alice opened it a crack, and when I heard Parker’s voice, I tensed again.
“Please let me come in,” he said. “I thought you might be here, Miss Spencer. I need to talk with you.”
I held my breath while she hesitated.
“I’m not drunk,” he told her. “I expect you’ve heard what happened. I’ve been out walking around for a while, and it’s cold enough to clear my head.”
When she unfastened the chain and let him in, he headed straight for the fire, giving me a look of no great pleasure as he went past.
For a few moments we waited for him to explain. When he didn’t speak, I said, “Would you like to talk to Alice alone, Parker?”
He didn’t look at me, directing his words to Alice. “Though I don’t know you very well, Miss Spencer, I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from other people. I need someone with real sense to talk to.” He glanced at me without much hope. “You’d better hear this too, Lindsay—because of Rick.”
“We’ll listen,” Alice said. “Orva phoned a little while ago and said you’d hurt Clara. Is that what you want to talk about?”
Long and lanky, he dropped into a chair, his knees jackknifing. “I never meant to hurt her. She’s only a little thing. I just couldn’t take it anymore—about her and Rick.”
“That was over years ago,” Alice told him.
“No! It’s not over. I can tell from the way she looks at him and listens to him. And then after—after what happened to Sybil, I think she began to want him back. I tell you, I know what’s happening, though I don’t know what to do about it. So tonight, when the storm started to get to me, I got as drunk as I could—and I told her off. She went a little crazy. She came at me with her fists, pounding me. Me! And I got mad and hit her. I didn’t hit her as hard as I could have, but I slapped her and she fell. Then she got up and ran out of the house. After a while, I just went out and walked in the rain. All my life I’ve messed things up, and now I’ve done it again.”
I could only wonder what Clara had seen in him in the first place—why she had married him. Perhaps because he was vulnerable, and she had thought she could help. And because she was vulnerable too?
“I think you have things wrong, Parker.” Once more Alice spoke with her own quiet authority. “You came into Clara’s life when she needed someone badly. Rick’s only her partner now, and her friend. That’s all. Clara loves you, and you shouldn’t doubt that. Besides, Rick is in love with my sister, Lindsay. You’ve mixed things up in your own mind, Parker.”
He stared at her for a moment. “What do you think I should do?”
“Let me call Clara at Orva’s. Let me tell her that you’re perfectly sober, and then you can let her know how sorry you are.”
He seemed to recoil from her words. “I can’t do that! It’s too soon. You don’t know Clara. She never forgets and she never forgives.”
“I think she will this time,” Alice said. “She’ll want to forgive you.”
Parker pulled himself up, looking only a little less distraught than when he’d come in. “Thanks, Miss Spencer. I needed to talk to somebody. Go ahead and tell Clara for me—I won’t try to talk to her now.”
He still looked so miserable that I suggested coffee, and asked him to sit by the fire for a while, but he only shook his head and got up. When Alice let him out, I went to a window and watched him cross the bridge. On the lighted terrace he stopped for a moment, staring at the main house as though he expected someone to come out of it. Sybil, perhaps? Then he walked around toward the driveway and disappeared. The wet terrace with its overturned chair had a lonely look, as though no one would ever sit out there again.
When I came in to get ready for bed, Marilla opened her eyes. “Will my father come home tomorrow, Lindsay?”
“I hope he will. We can’t tell for sure. What we can count on—the big thing that will get him out of this—is that he hasn’t done anything, Marilla. And we all know that.”
“Then who—?”
I touched a forefinger lightly to her lips. “Let’s wait on that. It will come.”
“Maybe you should ask Vermilion.”
“I won’t do that,” I told her. “Vermilion was only a game that your grandfather helped me to make up when I was a little girl. She isn’t someone real outside myself. She’s only a make-believe part of me, and I know that very well. So she hasn’t anything to tell me that I don’t already know.” My words were blocks of defense against something that might begin to terrify me.
“Why are you afraid, Lindsay? You are afraid of Vermilion, aren’t you?”
I bent to kiss her cheek. “You know what I think? Sometimes I think you’re a witch’s child. Do you ride out on a broomstick at night? Or on a unicorn?”
At least that made her laugh, and she rolled over sleepily.
I didn’t ask Vermilion. I only asked myself. Which one of them?
Somewhere I seemed to hear her laughing, though I hadn’t summoned her. I know, she whispered. I could tell you. But you’ll have to ask.
Once more I reminded myself that what Vermilion knew, I knew, and a reassuring memory returned to me. Even in that matter of Brian’s “lost love,” I had known. It was Sybil herself who had said when I’d first arrived that she was glad Brian was over “that girl.” I’d never picked up on the thought again. It must have been lying fallow in my mind—for Vermilion to produce.
I lay awake for a long while, but I still didn’t ask Vermilion.
16
The next day seemed endlessly long. Alice persuaded Marilla to go to school, and she drove her there. I wanted to stay by the phone, waiting for word from Flagstaff.
None came, and in midafternoon Alice urged me to leave the house and do anything at all that would be a change. She would stay by the telephone, so if Rick called someone would be here.
“Perhaps I’ll go to Tlaquepaque and talk with Clara,” I said. “I have a strange feeling right now. As though that drum is beating again in my head. I can almost hear it building toward something fri
ghtful.”
“Vermilion?” Alice asked.
“No! This is my feeling. How can I make it stop?”
“Maybe you can’t. Not deliberately. We can only go on with whatever we need to do.”
“What I must do is get the truth out of Clara. She hasn’t told it all yet.”
“Be careful,” Alice said, and then smiled ruefully. “The two most futile words in the language!”
There was no way to be careful when I had no way even to guess the direction of the threat that might come.
“I’ll use Sybil’s car,” I said, and went to get the keys to the red Spitfire from Consuela.
A little while later I was walking through the central plaza in bright afternoon sunlight. All traces of last night’s storm had vanished. Only the flowers showed evidence of having been beaten by heavy rain.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if Clara had not come in that day, but when I went into the shop I saw her at the back, working at her desk, with Connie taking care of customers.
Once more, Clara was her neat, well-ordered self, with her long braid down her back. That one eye was circled by a stain the color of an eggplant was something she chose to ignore, greeting me guardedly.
“Have you seen Parker since last night?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I haven’t been home, and he hasn’t come here.”
“He really was upset. I think he hates what he did.”
“Of course he does,” Clara said calmly. “He’s like Jed—he’s sorry afterward. It will do him good to suffer a little. He’ll come—I’m all he’s got.”
The bruise about her eye was hers, and so were the decisions she must make.
When the telephone on her desk rang, it was Alice asking for me.
“Good news, Lindsay. Rick just phoned and he’s coming home. He left his car at the sheriff’s office when he went to Flagstaff with the detective. So I’m going there to pick him up. Orva will bring Marilla home from school, and Consuela’s here. You’ll come back soon?”
Was the drum tempo picking up an even more threatening rhythm? Why should I think that anyway? Why did I feel it so strongly?
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