The Golden Unicorn

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Remembering Alice’s composition book that Stacia had given me, I took it from its drawer and sat down in an armchair to look through it. I expected no startling discoveries, and I found none. The stories were all for children, handwritten in a flowing script, which had a distinct character of its own, and most of them were fantasy. She had written gracefully, with an ear for rhythm and the right word, and she had not forgotten to entertain. It was too bad if she had never been published.

  At the beginning of the book they were directed toward children of eight or nine, but as I turned the pages, not reading carefully, but scanning to get an idea of what her writing was like, I found that the tales became younger, with simple words, and a simple idea. Indeed, she had drawn in tiny illustrations in pencil here and there that showed talent in themselves, and were directed toward a very young child.

  The inference seemed clear. Alice had been looking toward the arrival of her baby and she had begun writing for younger children, perhaps thinking of the time when her own child would be old enough to hear her mother’s stories read aloud.

  For the first time, I felt a pang of hurt as I thought of Alice. Reading these words she had written, I could no longer see her entirely as a woman driven by greed. She had, indeed, been looking forward with anticipation and love to being a mother. Her words told me that, at least. If I was the child she had held in her arms, she had known me—and I her—for so very short a time. The thought was saddening but it brought me something I could feel at last with my own emotions, so that I knew I still had love to give, even though this woman had been gone so long. If I tried, if I waited, I would yet find her.

  However, if this was the book that Judith had been seeking in Nan’s shop, there seemed no apparent reason why she had wanted it. The stories were make-believe, rather than reality—stories of sprites and elves and kings and princesses, of extraordinarily handsome princes—all stories of enchantment that told me little about the writer. Judith had spoken of a diary, while Nan had assured her that her sister had never kept a diary, and this, certainly, was no journal of daily affairs. When I came to the end of her stories, there were no more blank pages—she had filled the book completely.

  I was about to set it aside when I noticed something I hadn’t immediately observed. Still, clinging to the spine of the book at the back were snips of paper, as though pages had been torn away. I could see now that there had been more pages in the book, but that someone had taken the trouble to tear out those final sheets. Stacia must have done her work before giving me the book—knowing there would be nothing informative in it. Unless someone else had torn out those pages—perhaps Alice herself?

  I went to the window to look out at John and Stacia following wet sand at the water’s edge. They walked close together, though not touching each other, and though they had wandered some distance east along the beach, their figures were clear in the sunlight. John’s head bent toward her, since he was the taller, and now and then she looked up at him with an eager raising of her own head. What was she plotting now? I wondered.

  It didn’t matter. Except that I had no way in which to turn. More threads had raveled into view, but only to make me feel that, it was all too tantalizing to be tossed aside when my work with Judith came to an end. There must be some way of learning more before I left this house.

  When a tap came on my door, I went to open it and found Mrs. Asher standing there.

  “If you please, ma’am, Mrs. Rhodes would like to see you in her studio. She said to come now, if you have the time, please.”

  “I have time, of course,” I told her. “I’ll go right upstairs.”

  She hesitated a moment, as though she wanted to say something more, but though I waited, indicating inquiry, she seemed to change her mind and scurried off down the hall, always a little furtive in her behavior, and entirely unlike her assured older husband.

  I went upstairs to Judith’s studio, and found the door closed. When I knocked, she came to open it, shutting it after me and shooting the bolt.

  “There,” she said, “now no one can disturb us by walking in. I’m glad you could come, Courtney. This is a good time to talk.”

  For just an instant an unreasonable uneasiness seized me. It was nonsense, of course, to feel in any way uncomfortable about being shut away up here at the top of the house alone with Judith Rhodes. This was what I had wanted, so I must take full advantage of the opportunity, and forget about the unknown driver of a car that had borne down upon me yesterday.

  As I followed her across the attic, I realized that something had changed in her since our earlier meeting in the studio, changed since I had seen her in Nan’s shop. Some new mood had quickened her to a greater liveliness than I had noted in her before. As she walked ahead of me toward the center of the attic, her long patchwork skirt moving gracefully with her movements, she seemed less a woman who wore serenity as a cloak of protection. She was completely poised, but more truly so, as though some occurrence I did not know about had given her a new confidence.

  “Come,” she said, “sit down,” and we found places for ourselves in the small living oasis in the middle of the vast room. “Now then,” she went on when we were comfortable, “ask me anything you wish about my work.”

  Such openness, so unexpected a welcome, took me aback. I had been ready to press, to push, to struggle, and it was as though a door I had thrown my weight against had suddenly opened, so that I stumbled, trying to catch my balance. Had John or Stacia told her about me? I wondered. But I really didn’t think so. The change in her didn’t seem to suggest that.

  Fortunately, I had my notebook to fall back on, and before I had left New York, I’d jotted down questions to ask her.

  “Why do you always have a preference for sea and beach scenes?” I managed to ask, though I knew the answer was obvious.

  She waved a graceful hand at dormer windows that had been built into the roof. “That’s what is out there—sand and ocean. In this house we live with them and their variety is infinite. The view is never the same from one day to the next. The sky changes, the water changes, things come in from the sea.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Driftwood, fish, all the trash men throw into the water. Not always romantic things. Though we had a dolphin once. That was exciting, although the poor, beautiful creature died before we could return it to the sea. Men from Evan’s lab out in Montauk came and took it away. But I painted it first.”

  She rose and went to a stack of canvases leaning against a wall. When she had sorted through them she brought one back and placed it across the arms of a chair so I could see it.

  The great shining creature lay on the sand in its last moments of life, its one visible eye faintly glazed so that it no longer beheld with joy and clarity the marvelous sea world that had bred it. The tail was slightly raised, as though the dolphin made a last faint struggle toward the life it was leaving. It lay half in the water, and half on the beach, its mouth barely open. Above, a single gull with outspread wings dipped inquisitively, and sky and ocean had a greenish tinge. For once, that was no fantasy—no dolls’ heads, no unicorns.

  “You should have this one on display,” I said. “It’s beautiful and sad and altogether wonderful.”

  “It’s too sad,” she told me and picked it up to return to its place against the wall. “I wept when the dolphin died. Somehow it belonged to life, and it wasn’t fair that careless injury—perhaps from a passing speedboat—had cast it up on the land to end its life.”

  A remembered sadness swept over her and I realized for the first time how expressive her face could be, and how, when she relaxed her guard a little, her every emotion was visible. Emotion I’d hardly believed existed. But an interview must sometimes progress by prodding, by a treading on sensitive areas, because otherwise the real person doesn’t come through.

  “Someone has mentioned that after Alice’s deat
h you seldom walked the beach any more.”

  She raised her head and her calm green gaze regarded me, as though she knew very well what I was doing.

  “Yes, you’re right. The dolphin wasn’t my first meeting with death on a beach.”

  I was silent. Indirectly, that was what I had meant and I felt ashamed of my question.

  “Right now you can ask me anything, and I won’t mind,” she said, smiling at my confusion. “But I might as well admit that Alice’s death didn’t seem as tragic to me as the dolphin’s. There—have I shocked you?”

  “I don’t know anything about your relationship with Alice,” I said.

  “I disliked her intensely. In some ways she was like our father-in-law—Lawrence Rhodes—even though she wasn’t related by blood. She never let go of anything she wanted and she liked nothing better than to bend other people to her will. There were times when she was downright unkind to Nan, who seldom hit back. That trip abroad couldn’t have been all roses. No, I couldn’t be sorry when Alice died, except in a general sort of way, as one must regret any death.”

  The thought of those charming, sensitive little stories I had dipped into came to my mind and did not seem to fit with the picture Judith was giving me of a ruthless and dominating woman. But of course at one time Judith was supposed to have been in love with John, and she might have been prejudiced against his wife.

  “Perhaps you’d better stick to the dolphin in your article,” Judith told me gently. “Alice has nothing to do with what you’re going to write.”

  “Not even if what happened to her kept you from walking the beach?”

  “It wasn’t wholly that. There were many complexities. And of course it didn’t stop me altogether. It was just that I didn’t want to go in the ocean for a while, or walk its shores when there were people around. I took my walks by moonlight, or at dawn. Nan wouldn’t know about that.”

  Nan had not been mentioned in this connection, but Judith had guessed without my speaking her name that she was my informant. Always she was a woman of sensibility, as I was beginning to realize, and not one to be easily fooled. Yet I was here in what was still her house, and I didn’t think she knew as yet about my real identity, or my possible connection with the Rhodeses. I had a strong conviction that Stacia and John were keeping such information strictly to themselves.

  “Don’t you tire of painting the same subjects over and over?” I asked. “Don’t you have any urge to go where there are fresh scenes that might appeal to you?”

  “Natural things are safer. Sometimes dangerous in their own way, but more to be trusted than people. However, I was painting human figures in that boat picture I’ve been working on. Unless a boat is a derelict—and I’ve painted a lot of those—there has to be a man at the tiller.”

  I left my place and went to where the easel stood with her current canvas upon it. Even though the painting was unfinished, perhaps it would tell me more than my previous casual glance had revealed. But when I came close to it, I stopped with a gasp of astonishment and looked back at the woman who sat so serenely in her chair, a light smile touching her lips as she watched me. Then I looked more closely at the canvas to make sure what I’d seen was really true. With some brilliant blue pigment an angry hand had brushed across boat, vague human figures, and stormy sea again and again, so that the painting was covered by defacing slashes of blue.

  “Why?” I said. “Who did this?”

  She shook her head at me, laughing softly. “No—it’s not what you think. Stacia hasn’t been up here messing around. I just got upset with what I was doing and vented my own annoyance. It’s all right—I’ve recovered. Do you know—that’s a picture I’ve never finished painting. I’ve tried it again and again. I’ve wanted to paint it—perhaps as a vindication—an answer to what people have whispered about me. Perhaps as a sort of defense.”

  It was disturbing to have this evidence that the serenity that seemed her most assured characteristic could break apart in so destructive a manner. I had to seek the reason.

  “Does this scene you try to paint represent the time when Alice’s baby was—was lost at sea?” I asked carefully.

  “Yes. But as I say, I’ve never been able to finish painting it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a lie,” she said quietly. “Because the baby wasn’t lost at sea and I’ll never try to put up that defense again. It’s perfectly possible that she’s still alive and grown to womanhood by this time.”

  Unable to say anything, I returned to sit opposite her, waiting for her to go on. But apparently she had nothing more to add.

  “Why did you tell me this now?” I asked.

  “Because you’re a reporter, and because the time has nearly come to tell the true story.”

  It was difficult to keep my voice steady and unshaken. “What is the true story?”

  She only shook her head, the light smile curving her lips. “It’s not quite time yet. I’m not sure when it will be.”

  Was I wrong about her not knowing who I was? I wondered. Had Stacia come to her with the truth about me, after all? Yet I didn’t think so. I couldn’t believe that she had any idea of my true identity, and I wondered what would happen if I pulled the little unicorn out and showed it to her. The temptation to do that very thing was strong, but I resisted it. Other moods could strike this woman—I had glimpsed some of them—and I didn’t trust this new, open attitude of coming out to tell me some long-concealed “truth” at this late date. When it came to motivation, I did not understand Judith Rhodes at all, so it was better to hold something back and not play all my cards into her hands.

  Someone rapped at the attic door and Judith turned alertly. “There! That’s Evan now,” she said, and bent toward me. “He’s come for you, Courtney. We’re going to stop Stacia! Between you and me and Evan, we’re going to make it certain that she never tries to sell this house!”

  She left me completely astonished, and flew down the long room to the door. When she had slid back the bolt, Evan came into the room, and looked at once to where I was sitting, his attitude questioning.

  “I’ve told her everything!” Judith cried. “And she’s going with you. I know she’ll help in any way she can. Run along, Courtney. And don’t worry at all—everything will be fine!”

  10

  Judith’s voice commanded me, and there was a pressure of will behind it. As I rose in bewilderment and started slowly down the attic toward the two near the door, I could feel my resistance rising. I had no idea what she was up to, and I suspected that she might be fooling Evan as well as me—certainly the “everything” she was supposed to have told me had little to do with the actual facts.

  Evan waited expectantly, his look still questioning. He too knew better than to accept everything Judith said at face value. She might be known for her open telling of the blunt truth, but she was also a mistress of indirection.

  “In the first place,” I said, “I haven’t the faintest idea what Judith is talking about. She has told me nothing specific, so I’m completely at sea about what you expect of me. Or where we’re going, to accomplish what.”

  Evan’s sigh bespoke exasperation as he shook his head at Judith. “Is this a railroading job you’ve done on Courtney?”

  Judith slipped an arm about me as casually as though we were on terms of old and intimate friendship. “Of course not. You must help us, Courtney. You must help us all save The Shingles. That’s what I’m asking of you. You can do it so easily, and think what a good story it will make. Much more dramatic than anything you could write about Judith Rhodes, the painter. Though of course it does concern me as an artist, since I could never work again if I had to leave here.”

  “We need to start,” Evan said to me. “We have an appointment to make and the time is short. If you’ll come along, you can decide later what you want to do. Judith’s tactics are somet
imes imaginative short cuts, but they can work. Will you come?”

  I could see where Stacia might get some of her own tendency to fantasize, but I was too much the reporter to refuse this opportunity, even if the means had been a bit high-handed. I stepped back from Judith’s touch and met the bright green look she gave me.

  “We’ll talk again,” I promised her dryly, and followed Evan out the door.

  In the garage area, I saw that a kennel had been placed for Tudor, so that he was now secured by a sturdy chain—undoubtedly a concession made for my benefit. The dog stood up when we appeared, but, recognizing Evan, he offered no outburst.

  “It’s not far,” Evan said, when we’d settled into the front seat of his station wagon. “I’m glad you’re willing to come.”

  “I’m thoroughly confused,” I told him as he turned the car onto the driveway. “I don’t understand what this is all about.”

  “I don’t wonder. To put it simply, we don’t want to see Stacia carry out her present plans. This is a possible way of stopping her. And Judith is right in saying that it might make very good material for you to write about. I wish that she had told you the whole story herself, but since she hasn’t, I hope you’ll go along and listen to whatever develops.”

  “But I need some sort of clue,” I protested. “What are you up to?”

  “You might call it blackmail,” he said.

  “Blackmail! You and Judith?”

  “In a way, I suppose we’d like to blackmail a blackmailer.”