Waiting for Willa

by Dorothy Eden

  “What are all these questions about? Was Fröken Bedford wearing her glasses and so on? You have her glasses in your hand.”

  “I only wanted to know if she had two pairs,” Grace said. “I found these,” she added offhandedly and knew her explanation must sound lame. “Thank you, Fru Lindstrom. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

  “But it isn’t trouble. I enjoy a conversation. You are always welcome. This is a quiet house. Herr Polsen is always busy, and the old ladies are too hard of hearing to make conversing a pleasure.”

  “Then I expect you enjoy it when their nephew comes home.”

  “Captain Morgensson? Ja. He is a charming man. He has a wife in every port, I expect. And stays free. You must meet him. But take him with a grain of salt, eh? That’s what Fröken Bedford did.”

  Did she? Or did she call him Gustav and run off with him because he had made her pregnant and she would not have an abortion? The diary said that he was too boring for words. But that might have been a deliberately misleading statement.

  The midday sky was clear and cold, the sunlight like yellow glass across the arm of the lake. The little boats tilted in the wind. Grace watered the plants in Willa’s window boxes, wondering if Willa had really meant to leave them to die. Then she sat at the little writing desk (where Willa had written her curious hysterical diary?) and wrote postcards to a few friends: “Having a fascinating holiday. Stockholm interesting, the Swedes also, in varying degrees.” This completely ordinary task soothed her jangled nerves and almost made her believe that she was having a normal holiday.

  She wrote at greater length to her father. He lived (with an ailing heart that made him a semi-invalid) in a cottage in Wiltshire, cultivating dahlias, going for short, unexhausting walks with his elderly spaniel and two Siamese cats, and keeping his daily woman, who had designs on him, at bay. He enjoyed Grace’s visits and wanted to hear everything of her life that she was prepared to tell him. His marriage hadn’t been particularly happy, and he was glad that his daughter didn’t take after her mother or her aunt. That relationship had been too much for him. Perhaps it was for that reason that he had never liked Willa. She was too trendy, too phony. Grace might make a mess, occasionally, of her emotional life (what sensitive person didn’t?), but she could be depended on to behave with good sense. Willa would follow disastrous paths, like that abortion tragedy, and drag other people with her. Grace had no right to fly off to Sweden because she imagined Willa had some serious problem.

  But he understood she had to go, being the person of integrity that she was. He and his spaniel and the cats would be there whenever she liked to come down.

  The thought of that peaceful environment was as soothing to Grace as writing the innocuous postcards had been. It was out of the question that she could tell that gentle, delicate man melodramatic things like queens shut in attics or bloody elk hunts or the presumed suicide of a minor embassy official—or of the discovery of Willa’s glasses half buried in mud on the lakeshore. He would ask her if she were out of her mind. But it would worry him. So she wrote, “I promise that as soon as Willa comes back with this husband whom I can’t wait to meet, I’ll be back in England and down for a few days. I must start a new book. I need some quiet country rambles. The Swedish countryside is too gloomy at this time of year, soggy and dark, and there’s a perpetual threat of snow…”

  There, she was herself again, Grace Asherton, that intelligent, promising novelist with her serious face, wispy dark hair, slightly forlorn mouth. Unsexy, sensible, dedicated, emotions in control… And forgetting the spurious excitement of Willa’s pants suit, and scent, and dyed hair, and butterfly-shaped glasses that turned the world as mysterious as her own face.

  By the time she had finished her letters it was time to get lunch, a cold snack of lettuce and tomatoes and a hard-boiled egg and coffee. Then the man to put the new lock on the door arrived. He was a solemn young fellow who seemed to think the work unnecessary. There was a perfectly good lock already. When Grace explained about the duplicate key, he nodded understandingly and said, ja, ja, there was a great deal of crime in the city. He saw the evidence of it in his job.

  “I suppose you know the city very well,” Grace said.

  He agreed that he did and suggested that if she wanted directions to any street or house, she had only to ask him.

  “The house in the old town with the carved dragon on the door,” she said glibly, testing him. “Who does that belong to? Someone important?”

  “Near the square?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Grace said, making a guess.

  “That’s Dr. Backe.”

  The Backes in their Strindberg house. Sven and Ulrika. So Sven was a doctor!

  The man began talking about the statue of St. George killing the dragon on the foreshore. It was very old. Most foreigners went to look at that. It was a particularly fine and fearsome dragon, much more spectacular than only a door knocker.

  Grace nodded absently, making her plan about visiting Dr. Backe. Forewarned was forearmed. Polsen would admire her acumen. He would also have to cooperate. If he refused, she supposed she would have to go alone. She was sure there was nothing to be frightened about. But she preferred to have his company.

  “So you are having my baby and I ask you to kill it!” She had never heard him speak with such outrage. “What sort of man do you take me for?”

  Impulsively she threw her arms round him, liking him for his indignation, even though it was for a hypothetical reason.

  “Polsen, don’t take it so seriously. We’re only pretending. It’s only a ploy.”

  “But not one I will associate myself with. I’m sorry, Grace. I live here. I’m known.”

  “Do you know this Dr. Backe?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then why should he know you?”

  “He may not, but he may, and it isn’t only that. I would never ask my girl to lose my baby.”

  “I’m not your girl,” Grace pointed out. “And anyway this doctor wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t dare to. It’s only that I want to see his reaction when I ask for an abortion. To see if that’s why Willa went to him.”

  “You told me she would never do that again.”

  “I know, but I have to realize that she might have been under some pressure.”

  Polsen began to pace up and down the room, his head bent, glowering.

  “No, I can’t do it, Grace. Not even for you. But I’ll sit in the square and wait for you. If you don’t come out of the house in a reasonable time, I’ll ring the bell and ask for you.”

  “As who?”

  “As my wife, of course.”

  “You’ll do that, Polsen?”

  “Reluctantly.”

  “Thank you. That’ll be just fine. It was silly of me to be scared to do this alone.”

  “As if I could play a part like that convincingly,” he grumbled, “when I would have liked to be the father of ten children.” He added, “What about the spectacles?”

  “No luck. They’re English. Or French. Or maybe American.”

  “So Willa had two pairs.”

  “I expect so.”

  She must have had, or otherwise she might just possibly be at the bottom of that octopus arm of Lake Mälaren. But that was an inadmissible fancy, belonging to the nightmare category.

  A girl who didn’t look more than sixteen, although she must have been more because she wore a nurse’s uniform, opened the door of the house in the narrow dark street. Grace had enjoyed rapping the door knocker, the small golden dragon with a splendid curly tail. She had done so firmly, telling herself that she wasn’t in the least nervous.

  She had given a backward glance at Polsen, sitting in the distance on a bench in the cobbled square, his coat collar hunched around his ears. It was reassuring to see him there. She had finally agreed that it was wiser to play this act in this absurd Willa-type farce alone.

  She asked if she could see Dr. Backe. She hadn’t an appointment. She spok
e in a low, urgent voice, pretending anxiety, and was thankful when the girl understood her and answered in good English.

  The doctor was out on a call, but if Grace cared to come in and wait, she was welcome. The girl led the way, her thin figure slightly stooped, her hair twisted in a lank ponytail. She was unattractive and aware of it, poor kid, for she was quite without poise. She sat at a desk in the corner of the room, her head bent over some work.

  “I was recommended to come here by my cousin,” Grace said, when the silence had become too oppressive.

  The girl looked up. “Yes?”

  “My cousin, Willa Bedford. She worked at the British Embassy.”

  The sudden movement of the girl’s hand to her mouth, her startled eyes.

  “Yes?” she said again.

  “You remember her? When was she here?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. A few weeks ago. But she wasn’t sick. At least, the doctor didn’t prescribe for her.” The girl was mumbling, her head down. “Hasn’t she told you that herself?”

  “I haven’t seen her. She had gone off on her wedding trip, or whatever it is, before I arrived in Stockholm. I’m awfully anxious to find out where she’s gone.”

  “Is that why you’ve come to the doctor?” the girl asked suspiciously. “Why do you think Sven knows anything about your cousin?”

  But he must know something, for this girl was suddenly too nervous. In her nervousness, she had, surely unintentionally, called the doctor by his Christian name.

  “I only intend to ask him,” Grace said, and got no further, for there were voices in the passage, quite audible through the closed door. A man’s and a woman’s, the woman’s with its confident throaty tone tantalizingly familiar.

  Frustratingly they were speaking in Swedish. Grace heard the name Ulrika, and a little later that of Jacob, and instantly knew who the woman with the purring voice was. The Baroness von Sturpe.

  The nurse had got up and slid to the door. Opening it a crack, she said something rapidly. There was a moment’s silence: then the man’s voice said with professional briskness, “Tack, Ebba. Farväl.”

  “Farväl, Sven.”

  The street door slammed. Grace wondered if Polsen was watching the tall, slender figure of the baroness walking away. Not that there was any particular significance in Dr. Sven Backe and Ebba von Sturpe being friends.

  Or was there? For the door of the small dark waiting room was thrown open and the tall man who stood revealed was giving Grace a highly critical and penetrating stare.

  “Miss Asherton?” he said in excellent English. “You wish to consult me?”

  “Not about my own health.” Grace had made an instant change of plan. “About my cousin’s, Miss Bedford’s. I’m worried about her. I know she came to see you, and I thought you might be able to relieve my mind about her.”

  The man had a taut dark face, dark intense eyes, thinning dark hair. He was a change from all the blond Swedes, at least.

  “Relieve your mind?” He didn’t understand the expression or pretended not to. “Come this way, Miss Asherton.”

  The thin nurse pressed herself against the wall, like a cutout paper doll. Grace followed the doctor past her up a short flight of stairs and into a clean, efficient, well-lighted examining room. A wide desk, a couple of leather-covered chairs, some photographs on the mantelpiece, a hard narrow bed covered with a white sheet along the wall.

  Grace was deeply thankful that she had given up the abortion plan. She might have had to climb onto that bed. She had an instant and unreasonable aversion to this dark, gloomily handsome man touching her, professionally or otherwise.

  “Sit down,” Dr. Backe said. His voice was curt. If he had a bedside manner, he was not using it on her. “Now what is it you want to ask me?”

  “I think Willa must be having some sort of mental illness,” Grace said. “She would never behave like this otherwise. I mean, going off secretly to be married and not telling anyone who she was marrying. It simply isn’t like her, is it?”

  Dr. Backe gave a faint smile. “How do you think I can answer that question?”

  “You knew her, didn’t you?”

  “What makes you think that, Miss Asherton?”

  “Because she wrote about you,” Grace said smoothly. “In letters. Sven and Ulrika, she said. Is Ulrika your wife?”

  “My sister,” he said in a clipped voice. “I suppose your cousin mentioned visiting us. It was one weekend in the summer. We had a house party. I’m afraid I don’t remember her awfully well, all the same.”

  A lie, Grace thought. Men always remembered Willa.

  “Was Gustav there, too?” she asked casually.

  “Gustav?”

  “This man Willa is supposed to have married. Why does nobody know him? Or does everybody know him?”

  A nerve twitched in the man’s cheek. He stood up abruptly.

  “I can’t help you, Miss Asherton. I’m flattered that your cousin should mention me in a letter, but we weren’t close friends, and she didn’t confide in me about her personal life. If you must know why she came here to consult me, it was about her pregnancy… I am not accustomed to giving details about my patients, but as you are a relation and seem unnecessarily anxious, I can tell you that much. She is a healthy girl and should have a healthy child.”

  “We found her sunglasses by the lake,” Grace said, with apparent irrelevancy. “Near the Sinclairs’ house. Would that be near your house, too?”

  The dark, moody eyes looked down at her.

  “We have a house at Sigtuna. At least twenty miles away.” He made no comment about the glasses. Grace was almost certain that he already knew about that discovery. “I’m sorry I can’t help you any more, Miss Asherton. And I shall have to ask you to excuse me. I have an urgent call to make.” His expression was severe. “These are not my office hours. My nurse should have told you so.”

  Grace had left her coat and gloves in the small reception room. She went back to get them, and the thin nurse gave a convulsive start as she entered. She was sitting on the edge of her chair looking as if she would have liked to have listened at the keyhole.

  “It’s all right,” Grace said reassuringly. The girl with those popping eyes was like a startled hare. “My cousin was ill. At least not ill, but pregnant. She really did want to see a doctor.”

  “Oh! Oh, yes!” The girl stared, fascinated, as Grace buttoned her coat and tied a scarf round her head. Poor Polsen sitting outdoors would be frozen. There was little enough to tell him except that Sven Backe was darkly handsome, but bore no resemblance to Gustav IV except, perhaps, in character. And that he was strangely anxious to disclaim friendship with Willa.

  There was a rustle behind her, and the nurse was suddenly saying rapidly, in a whisper, “It was more than that. I shouldn’t tell you. But it’s so much on my mind. Your cousin was upset about the young man who died in the forest. She sat in this room and cried.”

  “But why come here?” Grace found herself also speaking in a whisper.

  “Because Dr. Backe was called to the body. Your cousin wanted to know—she begged him to tell her—if Herr Jordan had been murdered.”

  “Murdered!”

  The girl nodded rapidly.

  “Yes, yes. But your cousin was mistaken, of course. It was an accident. Dr. Backe said so. I heard their conversation.”

  “And she didn’t mention her baby to the doctor that day?” Grace said slowly.

  “Nej. She was not thinking of babies just then. I can tell you that.”

  Grace turned to go. She turned back. “Why have you told me this?”

  “Because your cousin seemed frightened, Miss Asherton. Awfully frightened.”

  “Not like someone going to be married?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all like that. And now you see she’s gone, and the doctor hasn’t told you the truth, and I simply don’t know why.”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Grace heard footsteps in the room over
their heads and spoke in a clear voice, at the door. “Thank you for your directions. It’s awfully kind of you. I always get lost in a strange city.”

  Accident? Suicide? Murder?

  It wasn’t the mystery of Bill Jordan’s death but the mystery of Willa’s disappearance they had to solve.

  Grace hurried across the cobblestones, making sure she was out of sight of the door with the carved dragon before breaking into a run to reach Polsen’s side.

  “It’s Sven, Polsen! Dr. Backe is Sven. Ulrika is his sister. And Ebba was there. All those people seem to know one another.”

  “That’s not surprising. Stockholm isn’t such a large city.” Polsen looked cold. His nose and cheeks were pink. He put one arm around Grace’s shoulders, drawing her against him as if to protect her from the chilly wind.

  “But you don’t know them,” Grace said. She looked up at his wind-bitten face. “Or do you?”

  “I’m not a social fellow. I don’t move in such circles. I don’t move in circles at all. I have my work and my son.” His eyes had their withdrawn look which forbade personal questions or pity. He was pretty thin-skinned, silly old Polsen, for all his detached manner.

  “Before we freeze, let’s find a place to have some food. You can tell me everything then. And do me a favor, as you English say. Stop looking at me as if you don’t trust me.

  “Can I trust anybody?”

  “Ah, now. Don’t you think you are turning all this into a Gothic fairy tale?”

  “Murder?”

  His arm tightened around her sharply.

  “I should have come with you after all. I’m sorry. Is this the murder of Willa’s baby? Or your imaginary one?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to do with abortion. That’s simple compared with this. It refers to Bill Jordan.”

  Polsen made only an irrelevant remark. “Your hand is like a small cold herring. Let’s get indoors as quickly as possible.”

  They sat in a dimly lit cellar with oubliettes set high in thick stone walls. It was a warm and surprisingly cheerful place, in spite of its obviously grim past. Polsen ordered snaps and onion soup.

  “Now we’ll talk in facts,” he said. “Not in wild assumptions. Has someone just given you proof that Bill Jordan was murdered?”