Star Flight

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Finella accepted my notion quietly, but Gordon shrugged this idea aside. “You sensed someone’s presence, and now we have to find out who was there. Someone wants you gone because you’re coming too close—just as Jim may have done. You’ve got to go home, Lauren. Get away from here and let it all go.”

  I shook my head weakly, warming my hands around the hot cup. “If I’m that close, then I’m close enough to find out the rest.”

  He gave me a worried look and went back to the dock to see whether he could find any traces of an intruder.

  “You haven’t any idea who called to you?” Finella asked when we were alone.

  “Not the faintest. But there are only four people left from Victoria’s generation—Gretchen, Ty, Roger, and Camilla. Not counting Betsey, who is helpless and who loved Victoria most of all.”

  “We shouldn’t limit the search to that group,” Finella said. “It could have been someone younger who wants to protect an older member of the family.”

  “You mean Justyn or Natalie?” This was possible, but it didn’t lead me anywhere. Natalie would never have harmed Jim—and his death was an important part of this whole dreadful puzzle. Of course, I had no clear idea of where Justyn’s loyalties lay or how he felt about anything—except that he disliked Ty Frazer and didn’t approve of me. Just as he hadn’t approved of Jim.

  Gordon came back to report that he’d found nothing. Whoever it was hadn’t come by boat, since a boat with a motor would have been heard and a rowboat, while fairly silent, would not have been a fast, efficient means of getting away. It would be easy enough to leave a car up near the road and come across the bridge to watch the goings-on at Finella’s house. Or perhaps the person had some other reason and I had simply offered an opportunity that was too good to pass up when I appeared on the steps.

  Finella went to get my clothes from the dryer, and Gordon sat next to me, drinking a mug of coffee, looking a bit disoriented himself. I remembered how tenderly he’d carried me, how worried he had been, and I touched his hand lightly. “I won’t do anything foolish or risky, I promise.”

  “You might not even know it was foolish or risky.” He did his best to glower, but I knew now how he felt about me.

  When I’d dressed, I thanked Finella and was grateful for her warm hug and kiss on the cheek. Gordon drove me to the lodge and insisted on coming up to my room to check it out. I promised I would lock myself in, and when he stood outside my door, looking more uncertain than I’d ever seen him look before, I kissed him quickly and closed the door before he could react. If he was still fighting against the past, that was going to end.

  When I was ready for bed, I settled myself against the pillows with Dennis Ramsay’s book, still curious about what it was that Roger had not wanted me to read.

  Ramsay’s infatuation with Camilla was more evident as the book progressed and it prejudiced me against what he had to say. He saw Victoria only through Camilla’s eyes.

  In my haste to find answers, I stopped reading carefully and began to search, scanning the pages for the answer I sought. One passage must have upset several people when it appeared in print. Camilla, Ramsay wrote, had possessed a spectacular Spanish temper. When the love affair between Roger and Victoria became too obvious and was more than she could take, she’d proceeded to indulge in a petty revenge. Petty was my word, not Ramsay’s, and perhaps it was no small thing to Roger Brandt that Camilla had taken a pair of shears and cut up her husband’s favorite Stetson hat. He had come upon her in the act, and the fight between them had nearly blown off the roof. Ramsay wrote:

  I was outside on a balcony at the higher level of the house at the time, and I heard the whole thing. The violence in their voices alarmed me, and I tried to go to Camilla’s aid—I thought he might injure her.

  But both she and Roger turned on me, and I backed out quickly. At least the heat between them subsided at my interruption.

  Roger took the shears away from Camilla before she could stab him with them, and he swept the remains of the Stetson into a wastebasket. For the rest of the film, he had to wear a newer hat, without the well-worn marks of the one that had appeared in the earlier scenes of the picture.

  I put aside the book and thought about what I’d read. In spite of the ugly violence that had flared between them, Roger had never left his wife. Had he, in the end, wanted only to protect her? Or was she in some way protecting him? Certainly, they seemed locked together in some love-hate relationship that perhaps still existed. I wondered if this was the scene he didn’t want me to read.

  All that night my dreaming was uneasy, and I woke up early, ready for the next step I meant to make. When I telephoned Betsey to ask if I might come out to see her, she sounded pleased and not at all surprised. I could come any time I liked, she told me.

  I had no difficulty following the route to the valley where apple signs abounded and was able to locate Betsey’s farmhouse easily. She was out on the porch in her wheelchair, waiting for me when I drove into the yard, and her eyes were bright with an anticipation that made me suddenly uneasy. I thought about turning my car around and just driving away. But, of course, that would have been too sensible.

  13

  Betsey was in a lively mood when she greeted me. She had dressed in a multicolored gown that completely enveloped her small person—a gypsy sort of dress that belonged to the past—plus a pair of cowboy boots that were clearly hand-tooled. She had wound a turban of white silk crepe around her head. I recognized at once that it was the same turban Victoria had worn in Blue Ridge Cowboy.

  As I came up the steps, she held out both hands to greet me warmly. “I was waiting for your call. I knew you’d be coming today.”

  By this time, I could accept that Betsey had talents of her own that one didn’t question.

  Her thin, sweet-faced granddaughter came out of the house to hover anxiously, but Betsey waved her away. “Lauren will look after me, dear. I’ll call if I need you.”

  I held the screen door as Betsey wheeled herself inside. Her legs might not carry her anymore, but her arms were strong and helped her to move vigorously.

  In her own bright room, she added a further colorful touch that reminded me of paintings I’d seen by Matisse.

  “Sit down, Lauren.” She gestured toward the chair where I’d sat before. “I hope you like my costume. It really is a costume from a movie. Victoria arranged a bit part for me in Roger Brandt’s movie that he made at Lake Lure after Blue Ridge Cowboy. I played a gypsy who could tell the future. When my bit part was done, she bought this dress for me to keep.”

  “I recognize the turban,” I said.

  She nodded dreamily. “It hasn’t been worn since I wound it around Victoria’s head in preparation for that ballroom scene. The one where Roger Brandt rode in on his horse. They filmed that at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, you know. Ever since Victoria died, I’ve kept the turban with the dress I showed you. You’ve come for that gown, haven’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “No wonder they cast you to predict the future in that movie. What else do you see?”

  The brightness went out of her face for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure. “Let’s just talk about the costume party they are holding. Of course you must wear Victoria’s dress—it will keep her from being forgotten. Bring it out of the closet now and try it on. You’re about her size, though perhaps a little taller. That won’t matter, since it doesn’t need to drag on the floor. I’ve mended the place where Roger tore it.”

  I went to the closet and drew out the garment bag that protected the treasured gown.

  “You can dress in my bathroom. There’s a full-length mirror out here, when you’re ready. Hurry, so I can see how you look.”

  I hooked the bag over the shower rail and took off my slacks and blouse. A full white satin slip hung in the bag with the dress and I put that on. Its thin straps sat perfectly on my shoulders and I pulled the gow
n over my head carefully. There’d been no zippers in common use in those days, and tiny pearl buttons ran down the back. I went to work fastening those I could reach. Clearly, no one had ever put this dress on without help, and I returned to Betsey and knelt before her chair.

  Though her knuckles were bumpy with arthritis, she managed to fasten each tiny pearl to its loop. There was no décolletage to this gown; Victoria’s perfect face had been enough to show it off. Even before I looked in the mirror, I knew my own shortcomings.

  When I stood up, I saw tears on Betsey’s cheeks as she looked at me. “The last time I fastened those buttons, Victoria was wearing that dress. She looked so beautiful.”

  “I know,” I said humbly. “I saw her in the film when Roger Brandt showed it to me. Imagine—he has kept a print for all these years. He seemed deeply moved when we watched it together.”

  Betsey shook her head impatiently. “He wasn’t moved because of my beautiful lady, but only because he played that silly cowboy role. Narcissistic—that’s what he always was.” She broke off, flicking her fingers as though brushing him away. “You look well in that dress.”

  “I know I don’t resemble my grandmother, Betsey. But perhaps I’ll startle a few people when I wear it.”

  She looked at me critically. “Your hair is too dark. She had hair like a canary’s wing—soft and golden and beautiful. She never did anything to touch it up, the way some of those other actresses did. So now you must wear her turban to cover your hair. The turban was my idea for the picture—to show off the lovely sculpture of her head. I made it myself, and I showed her how to wear the folds tight to her head, crossing gracefully, with no knot at the top. I tucked in the ends at the back so it showed only the shape of her head. Garbo wore a turban just like this a few years later, and I suspect her costume designer got the idea from me.”

  Betsey began to unwind the long white bands from around her own small head and motioned for me to kneel again—this time facing her.

  When I was on her level, I could count every wrinkle in her face. The creases, I suspected, were not marks of sadness, but had been earned by wisdom, by life, and perhaps most of all by laughter. In spite of losing Ty and Victoria and a husband of many years, she had clearly not been a sorrowful woman. Even her present handicap was something she handled with simple courage. Her breath touched my face with a faint odor of mint leaves, and on impulse I leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  “I know why Victoria loved you, Betsey.”

  “We did fine together. You know she stayed with me, hiding away here at the farm until the baby was born? Her studio approved of that. Of course they wanted to hush everything up; an unmarried woman just didn’t have a baby in those days. She did as they instructed, but she couldn’t let Roger off so easily. After the baby arrived, she went back to the lake for a little while to stay with her sister, Gretchen. I suspect she was giving Roger one last chance to leave Camilla and do right by her. I never knew exactly what happened, only that she asked me to take the baby away, because by that time she wanted to be sure that Roger would never get his hands on her. I’m the one who carried your momma out to those good friends in California. She told me to do it right away because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to let her go if she looked into that little baby’s eyes again. She died while I was gone.”

  I held very still, listening to these revelations. She paused in her winding and sat with an end of white crepe in her fingers, her gaze on something far away.

  “You must understand the truth, Lauren, or you can’t wear this dress honestly. Victoria wasn’t always an angel, even though she looked like one.”

  “I can accept that,” I assured her. “I’ve been reading a book by Dennis Ramsay, and even though Ramsay was in love with Camilla and prejudiced against Victoria, some of the things he wrote about her must have been true.”

  “Dennis was a fool! He turned to Camilla only because Victoria wouldn’t give him the time of day. But no matter what nasty things she could do, she was always good to me.”

  “Of course you must have worshiped her, supported her, and perhaps she needed that.”

  “I loved her,” Betsey said, “and there weren’t many people who did. Only Ty and Gretchen. Though Ty came to resent her because she cut off the money that would have sent him to college.”

  “How could she have done anything so cruel to her own brother?”

  “In the long run, it was the right thing to do. Maybe she knew him better than anybody else did. She knew he’d never stick it out through four years of college.”

  “She kept him from marrying you.”

  “Thank God she did! Imagine what my life would have been like if I’d been Mrs. Ty Frazer! First love can be pretty idiotic. Maybe you’ve found that out by this time.”

  It wasn’t always idiotic, I thought. Sometimes it was right—though one might not have the wisdom to recognize that fact when it happened. What I wanted now was a second chance.

  “What about Gretchen?” I asked. “Did she really love Victoria?”

  “Yes, in her way. Trouble was, she wanted her older sister to be more perfect than Victoria could ever be. Even though she was the youngest, Gretchen was the little mother in that family, and maybe she had better sense than the other two. She hated it when Victoria got pregnant, and she hated Roger for what he did to her sister. After Victoria died, disappeared—whatever—she wanted to keep the baby. But Victoria had other ideas and Gretchen couldn’t get it back.”

  “Do you think Victoria drowned herself because she couldn’t live without Roger?”

  Abruptly, Betsey returned to winding the folds of white crepe around my head, and I knew she wouldn’t talk about this anymore. The smooth overlapping folds had to be exactly right and they took all her attention.

  “I’ll teach you how to do this,” she said. “Now go look at yourself in the mirror.”

  The pier glass across the room gave back the reflection of someone I didn’t know. Here was an illusion I hadn’t expected. The full white gown with its high, molded bodice made me look almost glamorous. The turban was the last touch to make Lauren Castle disappear. I wasn’t sure I liked this. If I wasn’t Victoria and I wasn’t Lauren Castle, who was I?

  Betsey uttered a soft humming sound of satisfaction. “You don’t look like her—but there’s something.… Your head is the same shape, and the way you hold it reminds me of her. And your back is as straight as hers was. But that’s about all. Yet there’s something—an essence—that is your grandmother.”

  She paused, suddenly troubled, and then went on, “I hope this won’t worry anyone too much.”

  I intended to answer her, but for an instant an unexpected delight rushed through me, then was as quickly gone. My reflection in the glass frightened me more than it pleased me—I suddenly felt as though Victoria herself might step into my body when I wasn’t looking.

  “I wonder if she’s around—watching,” I said, only half-joking.

  “Of course she is. She can’t let go when there’s so much unfinished business.”

  “You don’t think she drowned herself, do you?”

  “It’s better to leave all that alone, my girl. Let Victoria take care of it in her own way, if that’s what she wants.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t wear these things to the party?”

  “That’s up to you. I don’t think anyone will take you for her, but they’ll recognize what you’re wearing, and you may make quite an impression on more than a few of her contemporaries.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  Quite suddenly, she covered her face with both hands. “I wish I could see what lies ahead. Sometimes I can, but now it’s all misty—the way the lake can get at times.”

  “I know,” I said. “I fell into Lake Lure last evening.” I told her what had happened—all of it.

  She kept her hands over her face as she listened. When she took them away, she’d clearly made up her mind. “Don’t go to the party.
Take those things off and leave them here. Let me unbutton you now.”

  While she worked on the buttons, I unwound the length of crepe from my head and folded it neatly. Then I went into the bathroom and put on my own clothes. I didn’t return Victoria’s clothes to the garment bag because I knew what I meant to do and no one was going to dissuade me.

  “Do you have something I can put these things into, Betsey?” I asked briefly. “If you’ll let me, I’ll take them back to the lodge now.”

  She knew I had made up my mind, and she didn’t oppose me, although she looked unhappy. “There’s a canvas tote bag at the bottom of the closet. Use that.”

  When everything had been folded into the bag, I bent to kiss her cheek again. “Thank you, dear Betsey.”

  She blinked at me, owl-like, and closed her eyes. I doubted that her trick of suddenly falling asleep was real, but it was better to accept it and go away.

  “I’ll let you know what happens,” I told her as I left, though she gave no sign that she heard me.

  I drove back to the lodge on automatic because my mind was busy going over all that had happened. I wanted to tell Gordon about the dress, but since he had been uneasy about my going to the ball, I knew I’d better not. I still didn’t know what he planned to wear that evening.

  I parked my car, picked up the bulging tote bag, and went inside. Mrs. Adrian saw me and beckoned urgently. I stopped at the desk and she handed me a phone message.

  I didn’t look at the slip until I reached my room. It appeared that Finella had been trying to get in touch and wanted me to call her as soon as possible.

  First, I took Victoria’s dress and turban out and hung them in my closet. I’d folded the gown carefully so it wouldn’t wrinkle, and it hung smoothly enough—a slim ghost from the past. Waiting to possess me—to take me over?

  From the moment I had tried it on, I had believed that I would delight in wearing this gown to the costume ball. Anticipation of the stir I might cause had brought a tingle of almost mischievous excitement. I especially wanted to see Roger’s and Camilla’s faces when I walked in. Yet now I felt suddenly reluctant. There had been moments lately when I’d almost sensed some restless spirit hovering close—as though waiting. If I wore this dress, would I open a door to some unknown place, so that she could come in?