I went back to the balcony. The white petticoat hung limp, and there was no one on the beach.
4
Uncle Hoadley remarked on my tenseness during dinner (“You seem a little on edge tonight, child. Heat bothering you?”) but made no comment when I left the veranda without touching my coffee. I could sense Finbarr following me as I walked down the ramp, and then he was beside me. I put my hand on the comforting roughness of his head. I listened for the twins, but heard nothing but the usual Illyrian night noises: mosquitoes, locusts, crickets; the long, low breathing in and out of the sea; the soft swish of the little waves lacing the sand; and a splash as a predatory bird swooped into the water after a fish.
Out of the darkness the twins materialized beside me.
“Mr. James gone, gone.”
“He gone. Mr. James gone.”
It took me a while to understand that Cousin James had not vanished into the blue, but that he had gone into Jefferson for the day.
“Did he come back on the evening train?”
The twins could not get words out. I thought that they were trying to tell me that he would not be back this night, but would return tomorrow. They sang the rhyme about ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross but I could make no sense out of it. Willy took my hand reassuringly. “Boys told Docdoc. Docdoc tell Mr. James.”
I left them and started up the beach. For my own peace of mind I had to get to Little Nyssa. If Cousin James were not there, I could find out something from Saintie.
Ahead of me up the beach was a speck, a horse and rider. Cousin James!
No. It was Ron, on Thales. As he neared me he dismounted and came walking along the edge of the water. The red horse bent down to Finbarr, and dog and horse nuzzled in greeting.
The tide was low, and the dock high out of water. Ron helped me up. “Miss Stella, the twins came to me this afternoon. What’s up?”
I hesitated. “Oh, Ron, I don’t know. I wanted to talk to Cousin James.”
“But he’s away.”
I looked at the dark shadow of Ron’s face and wanted to tell him everything. I trusted him without question. But Cousin James had specified that I was to tell no one at Illyria. “Ronnie—the twins are afraid about something—something about Honoria and Clive being taken away. Have they said anything to you?”
“They’ve tried.”
“What are they afraid of?”
“I don’t know. They can’t put their fears into ordinary words. They sing veiled warnings and I don’t understand them. Why I think I can protect my grandparents or the twins I don’t know. Or you.”
“You can. I know you can.”
Suddenly he held up his hand in warning. “Finbarr, sit. Stay. Hold his collar, Miss Stella. Don’t move. Just sit here on the dock as though nothing—” He leaped down to the sand and ducked out of sight under the dark and rotting boards of the dock.
I had not been listening to the sound of hoofs pounding towards us like the breakers. A mass of white swept past the dock. Finbarr, growling, pressed protectively against me. I clutched his collar. I turned my face from the White Riders and looked out over the ocean. The Riders came so close that I could smell the hot sweat of the horses. I closed my eyes. Held my breath. The horses swept on down the beach. They did not slow down.
I opened my eyes, turned.
One hooded horseman veered away from the swirling white mass to splash through the water and then up on the sand, close to me. He circled about the dock, but he did not stop. The horse gave a whinny, and the rider galloped him down the beach after the others.
“Ron—” I whispered. “Ronnie—”
He did not come out until the Riders were out of sight. Then he emerged from the shadows. “Miss Stella, it is not good for us to be seen together.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. Please go home now. Please take care of yourself.”
“All right. And—”
“Yes?”
“Take care of yourself, too, Ronnie.”
He helped me down from the dock. A wave crept in and lapped at the toes of my shoes, dampened my skirts. Ron raised his hand in farewell, then mounted Thales and rode up the beach towards the twins’ house.
The veranda was empty when I got home. I heard Mozart coming from the piano in the front room. Finbarr whined and scratched at the screen door. We went into an incongruously calm scene of domestic peace. Aunt Olivia was at the piano, straining forward to see the music. Aunt Des and Aunt Irene were at their backgammon board. I did not see Uncle Hoadley. Finbarr flopped, panting heavily, beside the piano.
“Hurry up, Auntie.” The dice rattled impatiently. Aunt Irene was always trying to speed up the old aunt.
I stood watching for a moment, then went out to the kitchen.
Honoria and Clive and Uncle Hoadley were sitting at the kitchen table. “Honoria,” Uncle Hoadley said, “I grieve.”
“Rest yourself, Mr. Hoadley.”
Uncle Hoadley looked into his tea cup. If he had been Aunt Irene I would have thought he was trying to see the future in the tea leaves. “This is no time for rest. There is work to be done, reparations to be made. To you. To Jimmy.”
Honoria said, “Maybe that not up to you, Mr. Hoadley.”
“Why not up to me? Me, of all people? After all that happened with your boy?”
They turned to look at me, standing in the doorway, starting to back out. “Come in, my dear,” Uncle Hoadley said. “What I want to say to Honoria is something you ought to hear.”
Honoria drew up a chair for me, went to the dresser for a cup and saucer.
“Honoria,” Uncle Hoadley said softly, “wouldn’t you like to be a princess again?”
“No again, Mr. Hoadley. What I is, I is.”
“Are you? In Illyria? Not the way you were in Africa.” Uncle Hoadley’s voice was more Southern than I had ever heard it; his consonants were slightly blurred.
Clive spoke. “Mr. Hoadley, leave Honoria be. You not feeling well.”
“Clive, all I want is to help. You know me well enough to know that.” He reached across the table and with the tips of his long fingers touched Honoria’s hand. “But I must have money.”
Honoria’s face was its most inscrutable. “Speak to Miss Irene. She give you some.”
Uncle Hoadley shook his head. “No. It would be fitting if it came from you.”
Clive warned, “Miss Stella—”
“It’s time we stopped protecting Miss Stella. Honoria, listen to me. What I want, I want to use for you. You and Clive. Ronnie and Tron. For all your peop—”
Honoria cut in. “You and Tron got something between you. I known that for a long time. Whatever it be, I don’t want no part of it.”
“How do you know? You don’t know my plans. I do.”
“Mr. Hoadley, you and Tron don’t belong to work together.” Honoria withdrew her hands from the table, folded them in her lap. “No, Mr. Hoadley. I know what you after. But you not going to get it. Nor Tron, neither. He after me, too. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be party to letting you do something wrong. Forget the treasure, Mr. Hoadley. Don’t go looking for it. Gone. Gone long since.”
“I don’t believe you. When you took Ronnie from Belle—”
“They be no point in hindsight, Mr. Hoadley. Maybe we done wrong. But we done what his father ask us to do. It be time for bed, now. Finish your posset, Miss Stella.”
I had not noticed when she filled my cup. The shadows seemed to crouch heavily in the kitchen, barely pushed back by the lamp on the table.
Uncle Hoadley put his hands down on the table and leaned. “It isn’t right for Illyria to withdraw from the world.”
“Can’t get out of it, Mr. Hoadley,” Honoria said.
“But you’re trying to.”
“No, sir,” Clive said. “We wait and we pray. That be all.”
“It’s not enough. There isn’t time to wait. You don’t understand that the things which are going on in the wor
ld today are so impossible that nothing Tron or I could plan is strange or out of place. You read the Bible, Clive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then think about this: The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth.”
“I done thought about it,” Clive said.
I finished my posset. “Good night.”
I followed Uncle Hoadley into the front room, bade my good nights there. Uncle Hoadley stood at the foot of the stairs, holding a candle. “Good night, child. I am extraordinarily tired.” Indeed he looked it. His face was as pale as his hair, his eyes dark shadows. He looked as though he were in physical pain.
“Good night,” I said again, and went upstairs.
In my room someone had lit my lamp. I thought I saw something on the floor beside my bed and went over to see what it was.
It was Willy’s little lizard, and it was dead. Someone had stepped on its head.
Tron. There was no doubt in my mind that it was Tron.
I felt violently sick.
I knelt on the floor by the little creature, fighting nausea and tears. When I could move, I went to the mahogany highboy, opened one of the top drawers and took out one of my best handkerchiefs. I wrapped the lizard in it. There was a small bloodstain left on the floor. Again a wave of nausea enveloped me. I swallowed, swallowed, was finally able to move from my room, holding the lizard in its lacy shroud.
In the living room they all turned to look at me. “Someone has killed Willy’s lizard. I am going out in the garden to bury it.”
Aunt Olivia flung down her book and rose, wincing as she tried to move too quickly. “Stella, who—”
“Bring a candle, please.”
“Child,” Uncle Hoadley said. “You must be mistaken.”
“I am not mistaken. Someone stepped on his head.”
Aunt Des put her hand to her mouth. “No, oh no—”
Uncle Hoadley asked, “Would it not be wise to wait until morning?”
The tiny stiff body seemed extraordinarily heavy in my hand. “No.”
He stood. “I will come with you.”
Not responding, not waiting, I went through the dining room, through the kitchen, pausing to get one of Honoria’s heavy stirring spoons to dig with. Aunt Olivia followed me with a lighted candle, limping, making a small cry of pain as she tried to keep up with me. I slowed my pace to hers, and we moved down the pink brick path in the moonlight to the fig tree. The wind shifted the leaf patterns. When I bent down to dig a small grave under the fig tree, Uncle Hoadley leaned over me. He had stopped for a small spade, and without speaking he put his foot on it and dug up a clod of earth. I knelt beside the hole and laid the lizard in it. Still without speaking, Uncle Hoadley replaced the earth and tamped it down.
I stood up. “Thank you. I’m going to bed now.”
Aunt Olivia reached out and touched my skirts but did not attempt to hold me. In the light of the candle which she held, I could see that her eyes were filled with tears.
I ran up to my room. The kitten was lying in the middle of the bed in his favorite Sphinx pose. He looked at me with wide, unblinking eyes. “Minou,” I whispered. “Oh, Minou.”
He jumped down from the bed and left the room, tail erect and twitching. I undressed and got ready for bed. As I was pulling my nightgown over my head I heard sounds approaching my door. I froze.
It was Finbarr. He stood in the doorway, looking at me, wagging his tail comfortingly. Then he lay down across the doorsill.
I went onto the balcony and waited for the lightship. Its steady finger swept across the ocean. Darkness again. I waited. The light came again. Then, down below, I saw another moving light, smaller, more erratic. Uncle Hoadley. Uncle Hoadley pacing on the promenade.
I returned to my room. Finbarr was still stretched across the doorway. I could not possibly sleep. Underneath the mosquito net I felt stifled. I moved restlessly on my pillow. My hair was damp with heat. So I turned to the journals.
Mado wrote, “Honoria came to me today, saying, ‘I know that you are grieving because you are so merry. When your laugh is most free, then you are hurting most.’ I have not wanted Honoria to know that now I understand all that she has kept from me about Jimmy’s death. Perhaps for the sake of our friendship it is best that she think she had protected me from this knowledge. If I die before her, I will tell her then.” I did not want to know. Or, rather, I refused to accept what I already knew. I turned back in the journal. “Therro came to me the morning before he died and said, ‘Mother, I want you to know that the only good thing that has ever happened to me is that you have always loved me with open hands.’ He held his hands out towards me, but instead of touching me, as he had seemed about to do, he returned his hands to himself and buried his face in them. Through his fingers I heard him say, ‘The others have clutched, and I can’t bear it any longer.’ Then he looked at me and gave me his warmest, brightest smile, and said, ‘I think I’ll go for a small sail,’ and went, and Kitty with him.”
I put the journal down and slid into sleep, sleep which came with the suddenness of the Illyrian night, and with a dream. I was sitting on our dock with Ron. In my lap was a small bowl of insect-repelling oil. Its fire burned brightly. I turned it in my lap, playing with it, watching the flames dance. Somebody, somewhere, a long time ago, had warned me not to play with fire, but I did not understand why. The flames were blue and gold and beautiful. A firefly flew across the ocean towards Ron, and he held out his hands to catch it. It turned into a star, and he threw it back up into the sky. The fire in the bowl licked over my fingers. The little snakes’ tongues on my ring flickered out to meet it. My hands were circled with flame. Another star came down and glowed on Ron’s outstretched palm. He threw it into the sea. It went out with a hiss which wakened me.
I opened my eyes. I was not sitting on a black and barnacled dock. There was no bowl of fire in my lap. The dream fizzled and went out, like the star in the ocean. And I could no longer evade the knowledge that Terry and Ron were brothers.
5
It had not really needed a dream. I had already guessed it. But now I had to accept it.
Finbarr stirred from his place across the sill of my door, growled. I could not see him, but I knew that his hackles had risen. The growl continued, low in his throat.
I listened.
Nothing.
Then my ears caught the sound of feet ascending the stairs, softly, secretly. I pushed through the mosquito netting to light my candle. Only a faint flickering of starlight moved against ceiling and walls. I lit the candle and held it up, and saw a tall shadow, barred by Finbarr, in my doorway.
“Stella.” It was a whisper, urgent, unidentifiable.
Ron—everything in me cried out. Ron. But I could not move my lips to say his name.
“Stella, what is Finbarr doing here?”
“Uncle Hoadley! I—I suppose it’s cool for him across the sill. He gets the breeze …”
“Finbarr.” Uncle Hoadley bent down. Finbarr growled. “If Finbarr is going to get vicious in his old age—”
“Finny,” I said softly. “Come.”
Stiffly Finbarr stalked across the room to me, leaned against the bed.
Uncle Hoadley followed him. “Child, are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I thought perhaps you needed—” He came closer to the bed, pulled up the little chair. I smelled spirits.
“I’m fine, thank you, Uncle Hoadley. I don’t need anything.”
“Perhaps a fuller explanation of the conversation in the kitchen?” The beam from the lightship swung across the room and touched the silver in his hair, accented the ascetic bones of his face, the hollows of his eyes. I wanted no further explanations. I didn’t want to know anything at all.
“All men are pursued by demons. Ask Honoria. She knows. I shared mine with my closest friend. With Therro. Since his death I have fought the demons, but I am beginning to think that he was right: life cannot conquer t
hem. Only death.” He approached my bed and began fumbling with the mosquito netting.
“Uncle Hoadley, Therro was Ronnie’s father, wasn’t he?”
His hand dropped. “Who told you?”
“Nobody told me. But everything—everything points to it.”
Uncle Hoadley took matches from his pocket; his hands were shaking as he slowly lit my lamp and blew out the candle. “Therro was my friend. I loved him. And I loved Kitty. Oh, God, I loved them both. I took the blame for what Therro did, because of what Kitty and I had done. I told Kitty it was I who—but she did not believe me. She had to choose between believing me and believing Belle. But I thought that everybody else—that Ron himself—”
“But why? Why would you do such a thing?”
“Sin has to be paid for. I sinned. It was reparation. And it was to save Therro and Kitty—their marriage. And to save Irene. It was far less humiliating for Irene to think I’d fathered Ron than to think that Kitty and I—” He sat down in the little chair by my bed, his hands dropping loosely between his knees. “To save—to redeem—”
“Uncle Hoadley—you’re not—you’re not Terry’s father, are you?” I did not think I could bear it.
“I doubt it, Stella. As far as I know I have never fathered anyone. But I do not suppose anyone will ever know for certain. I do not suppose that even Kitty knew. I used to try to console myself with the thought that I might be Terry’s father. But I think it unlikely. I could not. I thought I could save Jimmy; I could not do that, either.”
“When Jimmy went out to kill Ron’s father, was he after you or Therro?”
“Therro.” Uncle Hoadley rose, walked towards the balcony, looking out through the dark. “But only I knew that. The others—even Mado—thought he was after me. It would have killed Mado to know that Therro—I tried to save Jimmy. I tried. But I did not belong to the Riders then, I looked on them with contempt; they were beneath me. I should have realized that in a war-tom country no weapon is too lowly. I belong to the Riders now. I am one of their leaders. And they have learned that there are some things I do not tolerate.” He came back towards the bed. In the wavering and smoky light from my lamp his face looked ravaged. “Stella, do you know why I must have Honoria’s treasure? I must have it. It is imperative.”
The Other Side of the Sun Page 31
