“I loathe night on the water!” she said. “It makes me think of death.”
By the time she came back to the fire she was in better control. She even smiled her old mocking smile when I asked her if there was any emergency back of the idea.
“You could call it that,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I want to marry again, and need some capital for the love nest?”
“Is that the real reason?”
She did not reply at once. She sat looking somberly at the fire, and I thought she shivered.
“No,” she said finally, and let it go at that.
I felt sorry for her that night. She looked frightened, and I wondered if she was being blackmailed. Before we went upstairs I tried to explain things to her.
“I know Arthur would do it if he could, Juliette,” I said. “But you must know how things are. Junior had an appendix operation last spring, and now he has measles. That means nurses and hospital bills. He just manages; no more.”
She had no reply to that, and we went up early to bed; Juliette to the long massaging, the creams and astringents which were her evening ritual; and I to write to Arthur.
“I don’t know what the trouble is,” I wrote, “but there is something. She is worried, Arthur. Do you know what it is? I know the whole thing is impossible, but you will have to tell her yourself.”
I left it in the hall with a special-delivery stamp on it and went to bed. But I could not sleep. I was back with the young Arthur who had married her secretly, and then proudly brought her to Sunset. I was only seventeen at the time, but I remembered it well; William and the second man serving—it was lunchtime—and Arthur leading her into the room by the hand. He looked uneasy, but she was calm; calm and smiling.
“This is my wife,” he said, looking at Father. “I hope you will all be good to her.”
Father got up. He looked stunned. Mother could only gaze at them both, helplessly.
“When did this happen?” said Father.
“Yesterday, sir.”
Then Juliette took a hand. She went directly to Mother and, bending over, kissed her on the cheek.
“Try to forgive me,” she said. “I love him so terribly.”
And mother, who was a gentlewoman first and Father’s wife only secondarily, had put an arm around her and held her for a moment.
“Then be kind to him,” she said gently. “For I love him too.”
Father never fully accepted Juliette. I know that he took a horse out that day and brought it back hours later in a state which set the stableboy to wondering. But the thing was done. We were all helpless.
From the first it was obvious that she was not one of us, if I can say that without being snobbish. She had no family save an aunt, Aunt Delia she called her, somewhere in the Middle West. She had come to New York to study music, and Arthur had met her there. But she was a lovely thing to look at, and if the songs she sang in a sweet husky voice were rather of the music-hall variety, we did our best by her.
She was quick to learn, too; how to dress—her first clothes were pretty terrible, how to ride, even how to talk. And Arthur’s pride in her was touching.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Marcia?”
“Very.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Why should I?” I said lightly. “She’s yours, and you love her.”
But I never really liked or trusted her, and as time went on I found I was not alone. Women did not care for her, but she had a curious effect on men. They clustered about her like flies around honey. It was for men that she sang her throaty little songs, and when the Park Avenue house was too staid for her, it was still men who filled the new apartment. Arthur used to come home and find them there, laughing and drinking.
I lay in my bed that night, remembering all this. But I was seeing her, too, as she had trailed up the stairs ahead of me, her body lithe and effortless as a girl’s and her high heels clicking on the hard wood of the steps. At the top she had turned and looked down at me.
“I’m warning you,” she said. “I’m staying until something is done, Marcia. It has to be done.”
That had been her good night.
CHAPTER IV
JULIETTE HAD ARRIVED ON FRIDAY, and it was a week before that strange disappearance of hers.
It was a nerve-racking week at that. Juliette herself seemed calm enough, although she reverted more than once to the lump sum idea. Part of the time she spent in bed or in what sounded like long discussions with the Jordan woman; and to add to the general confusion the house bells were actually ringing, as Mrs. Curtis had said. There was a perfect bedlam in the pantry where they registered, so that periods when the servants were rushing over the house to answer them were varied by others when no one answered them at all. As when, after three false alarms one morning a day or two after her arrival, Juliette rang at ten o’clock for her breakfast tray, and was finally discovered in the upper hall in a chiffon nightgown, shouting furiously to an embarrassed William in the hall below.
“What the devil’s the matter with you down there?” she called. “I can hear the bell myself.”
“Sorry, madam,” said William, red to his collar. “We thought it was the ghost again.”
Which was against orders, but by that time I suspected my entire household of an attempt to get rid of both Juliette and Jordan. Indeed that day Juliette herself accused us of that very thing. She came out later to where I was sitting on the upper porch, my book in my lap and my eyes on the bay, blue in the morning sunlight. Already the seals had disappeared, and far away a mahogany speedboat was tracing a line of white across the water. I looked up to see her staring down at me.
“What’s this about a ghost?” she demanded.
“Some superstitious nonsense in the kitchen. The bells have been ringing for some reason or other. I’ll have the wiring looked over tomorrow.”
She looked amused.
“No idea of scaring me off, of course,” she said.
“Certainly not.”
She laughed, not pleasantly.
“I’m not easy to scare,” she said. “You might tell the kitchen that. And may I have the car? I’ve ordered a horse. I’m fed up with loafing. No word from Arthur, I suppose?”
“He’s barely had time to get my letter.”
She was in full riding kit that day, breeches, boots and a well-tailored coat. One of her curious developments had been that she had become a good horsewoman, first here at Sunset when we still kept our own horses, and later after her divorce, when she had cultivated the hunting set of Long Island.
“I suppose Ed Smith still has some horses fit to ride,” she said.
“I ride them,” I told her coolly. But that seemed to amuse her.
“How hath the mighty fallen!” she said, and laughed.
I had meant to go out myself, but with the car gone I was helpless. Ed Smith’s riding academy is on the other side of town, not far from the golf course, and too far to walk in boots. Anyway I didn’t want to ride with Juliette. But I was rather resentful when I heard her driving away. I took a swim instead, and although the water was like ice, felt the better for it.
I had just finished dressing afterwards when Arthur called me from New York, and his voice sounded tired and strained.
“Is she there, Marcia?”
“She’s out riding.”
“What’s it all about, anyhow? I can’t raise that money. She knows damned well I can’t.”
“I’ve told her that, but she’s pretty insistent, Arthur. She wants me to sell Sunset.”
“I’ll see her in hell first.”
He was quieter after that. He had no idea what trouble she was in, if any. He would be glad to get the damned alimony out of the way, of course. It was bleeding him white. But the whole proposition was absurd. He couldn’t touch the trust fund, and he wouldn’t if he could.
“That’s for Mary Lou and the boy,” he said with finality.
He was furious about her presence
at Sunset too. It had spoiled Mary Lou’s visit, and Junior’s too, and before he rang off he said that they were taking a cottage at Millbank, a small town on the mainland shore about twenty miles from us, and that as soon as Juliette had gone Mary Lou would come to Sunset.
“When is she going?” he asked.
“I haven’t any idea. She looks settled for life.”
“Well, don’t be a fool” were his parting words. “Get her out of there as soon as you can. She’s poison.”
He hung up, and I was certain that I heard another receiver stealthily replaced somewhere in the house. In the pantry, however, William in his shirt sleeves was reading the newspaper, and Lizzie was working at the range. Maggie and Ellen were in the laundry.
It was then that I remembered Jordan and went upstairs. There was a telephone on my bedside table, but she was not there; and I finally found her in her own room, pressing a dress of Juliette’s with what was obviously a cold iron. She gave me a frigid glance.
“Did you want me for something, miss?” she asked, with a mock humility not unlike Juliette’s at times.
“I wondered where you were,” I said dryly. “And now I think of it, I want to ask you something. Were you by any chance in the hospital suite the day you came?”
“The hospital suite, miss? Where is it?”
“Up the staircase at the end of the hall.”
She pursed her lips primly.
“Then I haven’t seen it,” she said. “I don’t go where I don’t belong.”
I felt beaten. Not only beaten but dismissed. I went to the porch and lay back in my steamer chair, but peace had gone out of the world and even out of the bay. There were other boats there now, a sloop, a yawl with a black hull and spreading sails, a speed boat, a small cabin cruiser. The summer colony was arriving at last, and well I knew how fast the news would spread.
“Juliette at Marcia’s? Juliette!”
“So I hear. What do you suppose she’s after?”
Knowing Juliette, they would know quite well that she was after something.
It was lunchtime that day when Juliette returned from her ride. I heard the car, followed by her voice in her room and later by the shower in her bathroom. She had never had any sense of time, and I went down nervously to postpone the meal until she appeared. To my surprise, Jordan was already in the kitchen.
“Madam is tired,” she was saying. “She will have some tea and toast in her room.”
Lizzie turned a red and angry face to her.
“All right,” she said. “I heard you. And you can tell madam that this is my afternoon out and she’ll get a cold supper. I cook no other meals this day.”
But it seemed to me that Jordan looked disturbed, and when later on I met her carrying down Juliette’s tray, it was apparently untouched. I thought at the time that the woman had reported Arthur’s conversation over the telephone, and that it had upset her; but I know now that something had happened on that ride. Juliette had seen someone, and she was frightened.
I had a number of elderly callers that afternoon. Evidently the news had got about. Old Mrs. Pendexter was the first, her Queen Mary hat higher and more trimmed than ever in deference to the occasion, more than the usual chains around her neck, and her black eyes snapping with curiosity.
“Well, Marcia,” she said. “Where’s that hussy?”
“Juliette? She’s resting. She took a ride this morning.”
“What on earth is she doing here?” she demanded. “Has she no decency?”
“Well,” I said, smiling as best I could, “you know her. She seems to be settled for a few days anyhow. But she came on business.”
“Business! More alimony, I suppose. And that wretched Arthur paying her with blood and sweat. See here, Marcia, you’re a lady, whatever that means nowadays. She isn’t. She never was, for all her fine feathers. Why don’t you kick her out?”
I suppose I was tired and worried. My eyes filled, and she leaned over and patted me on the arm.
“Don’t mind me, child,” she said. “I’m a bitter old woman. But I’ve seen you fighting to keep going, with four servants in a house that used to have ten and needs a dozen, and I’m no fool. You’re helping Arthur, of course.”
She changed the subject then. It looked like a good season. The Burtons were in Europe but had rented their house to a family named Dean; some Lake Forest people, she’d heard. Her own daughter Marjorie was on the way, and the Hutchinsons were due at any time at The Lodge, the next estate to Sunset.
She was followed by others, and sitting where Mother had always sat in the drawing room, pouring China tea and watching William passing English muffins and cake, I was aware of a certain tension.
I finally realized what it was. They were waiting for Juliette. They did not like her. They never had liked her. But she represented a new, defiant, reckless and probably immoral social order about which they were curious. When she did not appear they were disappointed.
“I understood Mrs.—er—Ransom is staying with you.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. She’s resting just now.”
There was a silence. Then someone said that there was a story about a ghost in the house, and I tried to tell them that it was a matter only of crossed wires. But one of the shades, due to some defect in the catch, chose that moment to shoot to the top of the window, and Mrs. Pendexter spilled her tea in her lap!
I was thoroughly shaken and annoyed when they all finally left. Juliette was still shut in her room, and so I had a tray supper in bed that night. And it was that night that I got the first glimpse of the mystery which later on was to puzzle the whole country, and drive me almost to despair. It was a warm evening, and I slipped on a dressing gown and went out onto the porch.
There was a man below, on the beach. He had been looking up at the house, but when he saw me he pulled his soft hat down over his eyes and moved away.
I was puzzled as well as uneasy, but he did not come back.
The next day was fairly normal. Juliette appeared after breakfast in a sports outfit and topcoat, and asked me if I would walk around the pond with her. Whatever had happened she had got herself in hand, and she had lost much of the mocking contempt of her arrival. When we were out of earshot of the house she asked if I had heard from Arthur.
“I have,” I said. “He called up yesterday while you were out. It’s just as I told you. He can’t manage it, Juliette.”
She was silent. We walked down the path, with Chu-Chu ahead of us, and I saw that she was pale under her rouge.
“See here, Juliette,” I said, “if you are in trouble, why not tell me about it? We can’t help you with money, but after all Arthur is a lawyer. He may be able to do something. Nobody wants you to suffer.”
“Why not?” she said. “You both hate me. I suppose there are plenty of reasons, but you do.”
“You’ve cost us a good deal—not only in money. There’s no reason for hatred, however. If I can help—”
“Help how?”
I was tired of fencing. I stopped in the path and faced her.
“Stop it,” I said. “What is the matter, anyhow? Do you want to get married again, and is this money your price? Or are you in a real jam, as you put it?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “That’s the hell of it, Marcia. I don’t know.”
I remember that she said very little after that. For a time she stood idly throwing pebbles into the pond and watching the circles widen and spread.
“Like life,” she said. “A little pebble and look what it starts. The damned things go on and on.”
Then she turned abruptly and went back to the house, alone.
I don’t know why she stayed on after that. We know now that she had had her warning the day before. Perhaps she had convinced herself that there was nothing in it. Perhaps, too,” she still hoped to hear from Arthur or was sure that she could protect herself. Also, there was a certain recklessness in her character. She had weathered too many storms to fear t
his one.
I think now that she merely conformed to her pattern, and that it was a normal one for her. Probably all of us conformed to a normal pattern, even those of us who were later to be involved. There was no criminal type among us. Desperation and despair in plenty, but with reason behind them; even if that reason was distorted. There was murder, irrational as is all murder, but it resorted to no mysterious poisons or strange weapons; it planted no misleading clues. It arose inevitably, out of an inevitable chain of events.
And so she stayed on, to her death.
Two or three days later Mary Lou and Junior arrived at Millbank, and I drove over to see them.
Mary Lou was unpacking, and she looked hot and resentful.
“Of all things, Marcia!” she said. “To be kept away by that woman! How dare she do such a thing?”
“You don’t know her or you would know she dares to do anything she wants to do.”
“And you put up with it!”
“What am I to do?” I inquired, taking off my gloves. “This looks comfortable, Mary Lou. You can manage for a week or two. Where’s Junior?”
“On the beach with the nurse.”
I finally induced her to sit down and take a cigarette, but she was still like an angry child. She is almost my own age, but in many ways she has never grown up.
“I don’t trust her, Marcia,” she said. “And Arthur is in a terrible state. I hated to leave him. She’s always wanted him back,” she added inconsequentially.
“Nonsense. He bored her to tears.”
“I’m not so sure of that; and I’d like to bet she never bored him.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of her,” I said lightly. “Don’t join the army, Mary Lou.”
“What army?” she asked suspiciously.
“The army of wives who are afraid of her.”
She did not smile, however.
“I wish something would happen to her,” she said somberly. “I suppose that’s dreadful, but it’s true. What good is she to anybody? She’s a pure parasite. She takes all she can and gives nothing; and that ridiculous alimony—”
Fortunately the nurse brought Junior then, and we played with a toy cannon until it was time for me to go.
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