Spindrift

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  The room was really a hallway connecting one section of this wing with another. The ceiling was vaulted and Theo had had it painted with oriental scenes to fit the purpose for which she meant to use it. A pine tree protruded from the vertical rocks of a cliff, and a heron waded in the stylized ripples of a stream below. Down the length of the gallery ran a row of delicate vitrines, with their tall, spindly legs, their glass sides and shelves shining in the lights she turned on. Theo herself had arranged her collection of jade and carved ivory in these cases. No one else was allowed to touch these pieces, except by Theo’s express wish.

  While she went to a small locked desk at the far end of the gallery, I paused before one of the vitrines and looked at a lovely horse of gray-green jade in the center of a glass shelf. It was curled into a resting position, its legs bent beneath its body, graceful head turned back on its flank. Its ears were pricked forward alertly and its mane had been carved in flowing strands over the smooth neck of mottled green jade.

  Theo came to stand beside me, Adam’s wrist watch in her hand. She noted the direction of my attention.

  “It’s amazing the lifelike qualities they could capture—those ancient jade carvers. That piece is very old. It probably belongs to the Han dynasty. The carver tries to see a picture in the round in his stone, and the idea is to abrade away as little of the jade as possible to bring the creature or thing that hides in the stone to life. Look at the delicacy of that little blue water buffalo on the shelf above. That translucent blue is very rare, and the shape of the stone must have suggested the result.”

  Theo’s voice was warm with feeling, and I wondered if she ever showed as much warmth toward human beings.

  She opened the case and drew out a piece about six inches high—a pitcher made of yellow jade.

  “Of course part of the charm of jade is to touch it with one’s fingers. Do you see what I mean, Christy?”

  She gave me the small pitcher and closed my fingers about it, so that I could feel the smoothness of the stone as it warmed in my hands.

  “Tranquillity, purity, wisdom,” she said. “Those are the qualities the Chinese claim for jade. I have a small pebble of apple green that I keep in my desk to play with when I’m disturbed. Like the worry beads of the Middle East. It’s quieting to hold it in your hands.”

  She took back the pitcher and replaced it on its shelf, closed the cabinet and moved on to the next, where small carvings of ivory were displayed.

  “Here is something I found one time in Kyoto. Adam was fond of it.”

  She reached among the pieces in the second cabinet and drew out a delicately carved ivory figure of a Japanese lady—a tiny geisha about two inches high. One tiny hand held up the folds of her kimono at the front, while against the other rested a fan. The small face was exquisite, the hair above piled in intricate traditional arrangement.

  I took her into my hands admiringly.

  “Turn her over,” Theo said.

  Upside down, the lower folds of the kimono were carved in ripples, and among them were revealed the bottoms of two small feet, in properly pigeon-toed position, wearing the two-toed Japanese sock.

  “She’s lovely,” I said and gave her back to Theo.

  Theo sighed as she replaced her on the glass shelf among other carvings. “She had a twin sister whom Adam liked even better. The second lady held her fan more coquettishly, and she was barely smiling. For some reason Adam said she was a lucky piece. He nicknamed her Tyche—Lady Luck.”

  My attention was suddenly arrested. Tyche! That had been one of the words on that slip of paper I had found in the pocket in Adam’s plaid jacket.

  “Could I see the second lady?” I asked.

  Theo shook her head regretfully. “She disappeared some time ago from my New York house. I’ve always wondered if Adam took her. Once he wanted to borrow her from me for some special occasion when he thought she might bring him good fortune. But I didn’t trust him. He might have sold her for money he could gamble with.”

  I answered her sharply. “My father would never have done that!”

  “Yet she disappeared,” Theo said blandly. “Of course Adam would only have called it borrowing. But I never saw her again.”

  The inference made me angry and I held out my hand for my father’s watch. “Thank you for letting me have this,” I said, though I felt she’d no right to it in the first place. I wondered what she would say if I asked her what she had meant by Adam’s “treachery” in that note she had written him. But I wasn’t willing to bring that into the open yet.

  She noted my suppressed anger with amusement and perhaps a little pleasure. I had often thought that Theodora Moreland enjoyed upsetting people, making them furious. The anger of others gave her power over them. I took the watch from her and went down the gallery toward her sitting room. She let me go, to stay behind and further savor her jade collection.

  Fiona glanced up from her address file as I came in. “You look ruffled. What did she do to you?”

  “It’s something she said about Father. She accused him of taking some little piece of carved ivory that she said he used to call ‘Tyche.’ Do you know anything about it?”

  “Oh, that. Yes. He brought it home for fun one time—mainly to annoy Theo. He said she was too careless about her collection and he wanted to teach her a lesson. But he meant to give it back to her, of course.”

  “You didn’t find it among his things?”

  “No, of course not. Adam wouldn’t have kept it.”

  And where was Tyche now? I wondered, and did the name he had set down have anything to do with the little ivory figure that was missing?

  “At least,” I said, “I wasn’t dreaming when I told them I’d seen a light in the window of that old house last night.”

  There was uneasiness in Fiona’s eyes. “Who could have left that candle there? Apparently your light was real enough.”

  “Yes. And I’m beginning to think something else was real, though part of the time I’ve tried to convince myself that it might be a dream. Fiona, last night someone came into my room while I was sleeping.”

  Uneasiness gave way to barely concealed alarm. Something was disturbing Fiona deeply. But she managed to answer me with a question.

  “What do you mean—someone came into your room?”

  “Just what I said. I woke up because whoever it was touched my face ever so lightly. And a voice told me that I must go away.”

  I had never seen Fiona so distraught. She stared at me wide-eyed and when she tried to speak her lips trembled. “Oh, Christy—that’s what you must do. Go away. Just go away!”

  I had slipped the metal bracelet of my father’s watch over my fingers and the cool links had warmed in my clasp, as if I held his hand. I bent above Fiona.

  “What do you know? Tell me, Fiona!”

  She turned away from me, reaching for her cigarette case, opening it. Her hand steadied as she lighted a cigarette.

  “Stop it, Christy. I don’t know anything in the sense you mean. But I’m sure you can do no good by staying here, and you may do a great deal of harm.”

  “To whom?”

  “Yourself. Perhaps to others.”

  “You mean I’m to give up my son, leave him behind, run away from Theo?”

  She had recovered herself, though her old serenity was still lacking. “If you stay here and prove you aren’t stable—as you’re already doing—how will it serve you? There’s trouble, Christy. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think if you stay here you’re likely to get hurt.”

  I wondered if I had heard a veiled threat behind her words.

  “I’m not going to run away just because someone is trying to frighten me,” I told her.

  I would have said more, but Theo came back into the room at that moment and looked at me with displeasure, as though she had expected me to be gone. She ignored me after the first glance and spoke to Fiona.

  “I’ve thought of a woman in Providence who used to be good at
whipping up costumes. We’ll get her down here to make our dresses for the ball. What are you going to wear, Fiona?”

  “I haven’t decided. Perhaps Sargent’s Ellen Terry.”

  “Lady Macbeth? Lovely! You’ll look the part, dear. We’ll make you a copy of the royal crown of Duncan to carry around with you.”

  Fiona gave her a rather curious look and bent her head over her address file again. Theo turned reluctantly to me.

  “Bruce seems to have settled the matter for you. That blue dress in the Patton-Stuyvesant portrait? We’ll see what we can do. If you’re here that long.”

  “I’ll be here,” I said, “if Joel and Peter stay. But I don’t feel like partying these days.”

  “Nonsense. If you’re still here you’ll come to my ball, of course. I can’t have you sulking in a room upstairs. Everyone would wonder where you were. Fiona, look up Mrs. Polter’s number and get her on the phone for me. We’ll need to get the dresses started.”

  Neither paid any attention to me as I walked out of the room. Adam’s wrist watch was still warm in my hand as I went down the corridor. I was sorry it was too large for me to wear, but holding it gave me a sense of his presence, of his encouragement. He would never want me to run away. He would want me to stay, to face up to them all—to know the truth. And he would want me to rescue Peter from Theo’s appalling influence.

  When I reached Peter’s door I tapped on it and looked in. My son was working earnestly on a math problem, a scowl of concentration ruffling his forehead. I had been away from him for so many months and the old yearning to touch him rose in me. I loved him so intensely, yet I must never smother him with my affection. He needed more than love from me now—he needed a wisdom I wasn’t sure I possessed.

  Miss Crawford was regarding me with her usual lack of welcome.

  “May I see Peter’s schedule, please?” I asked her.

  She handed me a clipboard with time entries made neatly down its length. I examined the afternoon listing.

  “I see he has an hour off for play around three o’clock. I’d like to see my son then, if it can be arranged. Perhaps we can plan something together.”

  Peter looked around at me. Breaking his fixed schedule probably appealed to him, though he gave no sign of eagerness. Since I was his mother, Miss Crawford could do nothing but agree, however much she might have preferred not to. I wished that I could make friends with her, but it was Theo who still set the rules, and I was not in favor with Theo.

  “I’ll see you then,” I told Peter. “I have something for you. Perhaps we can go down to Thames Street and have tea at one of the wharfs.”

  He gave me an unexpectedly winsome smile and I was foolishly pleased to have won that much from him. I must be careful lest I find myself bribing him to return my affection.

  I went downstairs to my room and put Adam’s watch away in my jewel case. Next I considered Joel’s closed door for a moment. I didn’t know whether he was in there or not, or whether I was ready to confront him, and I decided to let the matter of those things of his I had found over at Redstones go for now. I must talk to him about Peter too, but I didn’t feel ready for that. However, there was an immediate plan I could put into motion.

  I reached Theo’s housekeeper on the telephone and asked her if the Red Room down the hall was empty, and when she said it was, I requested that I be moved into it.

  There was a surprised pause at the other end of the line. “I’ll have to check with Mrs. Moreland,” she said. “I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve reached her.”

  The telephone extension was in the hall just outside my room, and I left the door open while I waited for her call. Then I took my clothes from the closet to lay them across the gold counterpane, and packed the things on my dressing table into my suitcase. I was nearly ready by the time the telephone rang.

  This time it was Theo herself. “Why do you want to move, Christy? I’ve given you our very best guest room.”

  “That’s the trouble,” I told her. “Its altogether too splendid for me. I like the Red Room better, if you’ll let me have it.”

  If she could have thought of any good reason to refuse, I think she might have, because that was Theo’s temperament. But there was no reason and she gave her reluctant permission and said she’d let the housekeeper know.

  A few minutes later I was told I might move in, and was offered the help of a maid. An offer I refused. Once more I considered Joel’s closed door. I supposed I should let him know I would no longer share an adjoining room. But I still didn’t want to face him. A sense of indecision and foreboding held me back. I tossed a load of dresses and pants suits over one arm, and went across the hallway. Bruce opened his door as I reached the Red Room, and at once he came out to help me.

  7

  “Moving?” Bruce asked as he took dresses from my arm.

  “Yes. I couldn’t stand all that gold. Besides, that room doesn’t like me.”

  He opened the door of the Red Room and let me go in ahead of him. “And this room does?”

  “At least it doesn’t reject me,” I said, and looked about with satisfaction.

  I had always thought it a beautiful room. The red glowed warmly without being strident and there were buffs and a good deal of beige to complement it. The soft carpet had a red oblong center surrounded by a beige border, and the narrow red and buff stripes of the wallpaper were broken at intervals by the folds of beige colored hangings. The bed was Tudor, with its high carved backboard that echoed the dark wood of the mantelpiece. Two red roses bloomed in a vase of milk glass on the bed table, indicating that someone had hurried to welcome me to the room, and the easy chair wore a muted pattern of green vines and tiny red flowers on a cream background.

  I must have given a little sigh of pleasure as Bruce laid my clothes across the bed, because he smiled that rare, rather shining smile of his.

  “It’s possible that rooms and houses too have auras, as well as people,” he said. “For you this could be a friendly aura.”

  “But not for Fiona. She hates this room,” I told him. “She says it keeps her awake. But I know I’ll sleep better here.”

  “Perhaps her human aura doesn’t match the room’s,” Bruce said.

  It surprised me that he could be whimsical. “Do you think mine does?”

  “I haven’t that gift—to see auras. I can only sense them. But I think you’ll be comfortable here.”

  I went to a window and drew aside the draperies. The room had its own small balcony, and I opened the french doors and stepped outside. Like the Gold Room this one looked out toward Redstones, but it was a side, not a corner, room and did not face directly on the ocean. However, from my little balcony I could see the Atlantic rolling in to break over the rocks below the winding Cliff Walk. And I could hear the crash and soughing of the waves. Redstones stood quiet in the morning sunlight, its windows shadowed and empty. Bruce Parry came out to stand behind me.

  “I did see a light last night,” I told him.

  “So you all trooped over there this morning? What did you find?”

  “There was a candle in a room upstairs. But there’s no telling when it was used, as Theo has been emphasizing.”

  “Good,” Bruce said.

  I glanced at him questioningly. He stood very close to me on the small balcony and I was aware of him, as I had not been aware of a man for a long while. For the first time I wondered a little about him. Why had he never married? What would it be like to have those nearly jet black eyes kindle when he looked at a woman?

  My own thoughts startled me, frightened me a little. I wanted to come back to life. But not in this way, not for this man. Infinitesimally I moved away from him on the balcony.

  “Why did you say ‘Good’?” I asked.

  “It’s just that I’m glad there was a light. Though I wonder who was there. What could he be doing? It sounds a bit nefarious. At least Theo can’t make anything now of your seeing a light over there. Not if someone is burning ca
ndles.”

  “Why should she want to make anything of it?”

  “You’ll have to ask her. But I think she probably does. It needn’t matter. Just stand up to her, Christy.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “Then I’m complimented. He’s the only one of us who really went his own way against the Morelands.”

  I looked up into Bruce’s lean face, searching—for what I didn’t know. “I think you’ve gone your own way.”

  “Not as much as I could. I’ve compromised a bit since Hal’s death.”

  “Why?”

  “You like to ask blunt questions, don’t you? The way Adam did. I suppose because—in a strange way—I’m sorry for Theodora Moreland.”

  “Sorry for her!”

  “Is it so surprising? I think she’s the loneliest woman I’ve ever known. She talks to me sometimes. And I listen. It’s the least I can do.”

  “I suppose I have a blind side when it comes to Theo, since anyone can see the way she’s damaging Peter. I want to get away from here and take him with me.”

  “Don’t be too ruthless,” he said. “Take him back gently. She has feelings too.”

  “Sometimes I wonder.” Unwillingly I heard the harsh note in my voice.

  He turned back to the room behind us and I sensed that I might have been rejected, condemned. Unexpectedly, I didn’t want that. Perhaps Bruce Parry was the closest I could come to having a friend in this house, and I didn’t want him to condemn me. Yet I could entertain no kindly thoughts toward Theodora Moreland. Bruce had never known her as the victim she had made me.

  “Anyway,” I said as we returned to the room, “my son is coming out with me this afternoon. We’re going to have tea in town.”

  He nodded coolly, and moved toward the door. “If there’s nothing else to help you with—”

  I didn’t want him to go away. All my feelings were contrary. I wanted him to like me, to continue to be kind to me. I needed something to hold onto.

  “You said you’d show me Zenia’s sitting room sometime,” I said. “Could you do it now?”