I sat long over Floria’s letter. I read it several times, devastated by what it told me. Something must be done, and perhaps only I could do it. Perhaps the time had finally come to take Richard out of Elise’s damaging hands. How, or if, it could be managed, I didn’t know. But there was still Aunt Amalie to turn to. To some degree she might have an influence upon her younger daughter. Too, there was the possibility that if I could tell the truth about Richard, no matter what the cost to me in turning Giles against me, if I could prove that he was my son and not Elise’s, then if there was a divorce the boy might at least be put into the hands of his real father.
I wrote to Aunt Amalie. I knew she did not think it wise for me to come to Hampton Island, I said, but I had to see her, talk to her. It was urgent for me to do so. She wrote back at once and her letter was a little surprising. Things were not well on the island, and it might be a good time for me to come—a good time for us to talk, she wrote me. She would like to see me, too. Why not take my vacation during the spring, if I could, and stay at Sea Oaks? She had consulted Elise, and my cousin was willing to have me come. Besides, this would be a good way to quiet any talk that might be going around.
The entire letter was enigmatic. Elise was “willing” to have me come. And there was talk to be quieted. Things were not “well” on the island.
The reference to talk told me it must be known that Giles had seen me in New York, that in spite of our circumspect and innocent meetings, there had been Malvern gossip which had reached Hampton Island. I still felt rebellious, and I did not want to care about secrecy. If it had not been for Elise, I would have been willing to have it commonly known how Giles and I felt about each other. But Elise would turn such knowledge to her own use and Amalie’s hint that there was gossip worried me more than a little.
Sometimes I thought of the sand dollar in my napkin, and of the incident at the freezing plant when that door had been closed upon me maliciously. But I must not worry about such tricks. They had done me no harm, and I was not a child to be terrified by hidden threats. If Elise wanted warfare, then let her bring it into the open. I would not let such happenings stop me.
I accepted Aunt Amalie’s invitation and arranged for my vacation. When the time came I took a plane for Malvern. Since I feared his objection, I waited till the last minute to drop Giles a note and tell him my plans. He would know anyway, of course, since I would be staying at Sea Oaks, but I wanted him to hear it from me. I had no response from him, and I had a feeling that he would not approve of my coming.
This time it was Floria who met my late afternoon plane at the airport. Her red hair had been moderately tamed into a pony tail, and she wore brown, tapestry-printed slacks and a yellow blouse. She did not appear particularly glad to see me. When my bag had been stored in the back seat and we were on our way to the island, she blurted out what was on her mind.
“So you’ve been seeing Giles in New York?”
I kept my temper. “I would have lunch with anyone from Hampton who visited New York.”
Floria kept her strong hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road ahead. “A friend of Paul’s saw you together in a restaurant. It was the way you were looking at each other that gave you away. Mother was upset about it. Though I tried to tell her that you’d always had a crush on Giles, and this was probably nothing new or serious.”
“Would it be so terrible if it was?” I asked her bluntly.
She threw me a quick look. “I suppose I’m thinking of Elise.”
“—who cares very little for Giles,” I said. “Why are you concerned about your sister? The last time we talked you told me that you hated her.”
“Sometimes I do.” She tossed her pony tail impatiently. “But we all want the status quo to continue. Elise’s concern is for herself and her hold on what belongs to her. Mother’s concern is for Charles and Richard. And mine is for me.”
I didn’t know what she meant, or how she could be affected by anything I chose to do.
“You sounded outraged by the incidents concerning Richard when you wrote to me,” I said. “You didn’t sound as though you liked the status quo at all. It’s because of your letter I’ve come.”
“I was upset. And I don’t mean that things are ideal as they are. But it’s none of your affair, and any changes, might make things even worse.”
It was my affair, but I could not tell her how much.
“What about you, Floria?” I asked. “Has the date for your marriage to Paul been set as yet?”
“We’ll set it when we’re ready,” she said shortly, and I understood that this topic was taboo.
The island was in view now and I was silent for a time. Floria and I were irritating each other thoroughly, and I did not push her any further. I was concerned once more with my own thoughts, my own anticipation. In a little while I would see Giles again. I would see Richard.
We were across the bridge now, and onto island soil. The live oaks and the pines and sweet gums welcomed me. So did the sight of the tall white lighthouse.
“Are you staying at The Bitterns alone now?” I asked Floria.
“Yes. I’m not very gregarious. I don’t mind being alone.”
“How is everyone at Sea Oaks?”
“Richard’s better, but he still hasn’t gone back to school. He loves to run wild and Elise is indulging him. There’s time enough for school in the fall, and he has been doing lessons at home.”
“And your mother?”
“She has what she’s always wanted,” Floria said. “And Charles is happy to have someone to look after him again. Mother has fitted into Sea Oaks as though she always belonged there. Perhaps she really has.”
“In that case, where would you be?” I asked lightly.
“I suppose I’d be somebody else. Perhaps that would be a good thing.” Her words had a dryly bitter sound.
We turned off the asphalt and onto the shell drive. Moss-hung oaks framed the avenue, framed the way to the house. In the late afternoon sunlight it stood at the end of the way, white and shining—as beautiful as I always remembered it. But except for Aunt Amalie and her marriage to Charles, I knew it held unhappiness now. And my coming would not stir it to joy.
As we followed the drive, Floria spoke again. “You might as well know there’s been an upheaval between Mother and Elise. Things were pretty bad a few days ago. Tread cautiously between them, will you?”
I wondered what this meant to me. How much might it put Aunt Amalie on my side? But I merely indicated to Floria that I would try to make no false moves.
When we reached the house Vinnie came running down the right wing of the steps, with Aunt Amalie descending more slowly behind her. I was greeted as warmly as I could have wished, though there was no Elise in sight to meet me with cousinly affection. My bag was heavy and I would not let Vinnie carry it in this time, but took it myself as Aunt Amalie led the way upstairs.
In my room, where windows had been opened and the curtains drawn back to let in the spring sunshine, Aunt Amalie put her arms about me and kissed me again, clung to me for a moment.
“Dearest Lacey. Even though I’m doubtful about your coming back, I’m glad your exile wasn’t for good.”
“I had to talk to you,” I said.
She nodded at me and the soft wings of rusty-gray hair trembled at her temples. “We’ll have a long talk soon, dear. But now you’ll want to change your clothes and rest before dinner.”
I held her at arm’s length. “You’re happy, aren’t you? This is a wonderful time of life for you?”
“Now that I have Charles,” she said gently. “Even though he doesn’t approve of my daughter. But then—neither do I, always.”
“It may be that I will have to tell Giles the truth about Richard,” I said, blurting out what I had meant to lead up to carefully and slowly.
Aunt Amalie looked startled and a l
ittle shocked. “I think you must do what you have to do. But don’t be precipitate, Lacey dear. Let’s talk about this. At length.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I agreed. “Floria says you know—about Giles and me.”
She closed her eyes. Her lovely, composed face looked older than I remembered—and, for the moment, sadder.
“Yes,” she said. “I know. Or at least I’ve suspected for some time.”
“What does Elise think?” I asked. “About me, that is?”
“Who knows what Elise thinks? Or what she knows, for that matter?” Amalie moved toward the door. “Let’s not discuss this any further now. I—I want to think about it all soberly before we have our talk.”
She let herself out the door and closed it softly behind her, leaving me standing there in the middle of the floor, feeling that I had been foolishly impulsive, that I had accomplished nothing.
While I was getting out of my wrinkled things, Vinnie came tapping on my door, bringing me a cool lemonade, making an excuse for herself to come and talk to me. She did not go away at once, but stood shaking her handsome, graying head at me doubtfully.
“I don’ know if you should be coming back here, Miss Lacey. Everything’s all mixed up at Sea Oaks. I thought when Miss Amalie come here to stay things would be better. But they ain’t. Miss Elise sure got the bit between her teeth these days.”
I suspected there was little Vinnie did not know, and if I had been seen with Giles, she would know that too.
“How is Mr. Giles?” I asked her.
She gave me a quick look that confirmed her knowledge. “It’s a good thing he got his work. This last year been hard on him, what with Richard being sick so much. That lil ol’ boy’s the apple of his daddy’s eye, that’s what he is.” She reached out and patted my hand suddenly. “Don’ you pay all this trouble no mind. Things work out someways. You just get you’self some rest, and eat a heap of good Sea Oaks food.”
I squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Vinnie. If there’s time before dinner, I’ll go out for a little while.”
She nodded at me. “There’s time and that’s a good idea. So you do that. And be nice to Miss Amalie, you heah? She’s got a load to carry in this house.”
“Because of Elise?” I said.
“Miss Elise don’ give a thought for nobody. She just go her own way and laugh at other people. I don’ think she hear too good when somebody criticize her.”
I could believe that very well. Vinnie looked about the room with a proprietary air and then left me. I drank the lemonade, and put on a frock of watermelon pink. Then I went into the hall and toward the stairs. Richard’s door stood open, but there seemed to be no one inside and I did not stop.
There was no one about in the downstairs hall and I went out the front door and down the steps to the driveway. The sky was showing signs of sunset, and the marshes would suit my mood. I wanted to be where I could breathe their scent and let my eyes follow their lonely reaches.
I took the short cut through the burying ground and went on past The Bitterns. I came to the place where higher ground ended, and wild, hardy sea myrtle marked the beginning of the marshes. It was possible to step onto a hummock of dry ground and feel myself a part of the marsh. The best way to be in the marshes was when you were out in a boat. But this would serve me for now.
All about were the wide stretches of marsh grass, the intervening patches of water—stained with rosy gold in the sunset—the quiet, the peace. And that tangy, elusive scent. When I had come here first as a child the marshes had touched my spirit indelibly. It was a strange magic because there was so little there to put your finger on. Just the wild, empty spaces, the occasional calls of water birds, the stillness.
Once I could have opened myself to this peace and let it heal me. Now I could not. All my feelings were too raw, too lacerated. Suppressing my love, trying to give it up, had been damaging. And now there was harm being done to my son. Floria’s letter had made me sure there must be a change, and I was the only one who could bring it about. I must forget about everything except Richard’s good. I must persuade Aunt Amalie to help me.
From the higher ground behind me a voice cut suddenly into the silence: “What are you looking at?”
I turned around, with water lapping at my feet, and saw Richard a few yards away, watching me.
6
It was a moment or two before I could speak.
“Hello, Richard,” I said. “I’m glad to see you again.”
He did not answer my greeting, but stood staring at me almost balefully, his eyes bright in the sunset glow, his hair touched with reddish gold. He was taller than when I had last seen him, and thinner as well. The old longing to touch, to fondle, was in me again, and I had to thrust the feeling away.
“Why don’t you give it back?” Richard said.
I stared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The brooch,” he said. “Why don’t you give it back?”
“What brooch, Richard? What on earth do you mean?”
He came a few steps closer to me. “The Stede Bonnet pirate brooch that used to be one of the Hampton Island treasures. Mother was talking about it at dinner last night. She said she wouldn’t put it past you to still have it and not want to give it up. Because your mother took it away with her.”
“Oh, Richard!” I cried. “That was all so long ago. And there was no brooch found in her things. My father hunted for it and never found it. Of course I don’t have it.”
“If you were a thief, you wouldn’t admit it, would you?” he said.
I climbed off my hummock of marsh grass and went back to higher ground where I could stand beside him with the sunset glow all around us. I was beginning to see the unhealthy change in the boy.
“Who said I was a thief?” I asked him.
The baleful look was still there, bright and steady. “My mother.”
“And do you believe it’s true? Can you really believe that of me?”
For the first time he looked a little uneasy. “I used to like you,” he admitted. “But now I think I mustn’t. I’m not sure about you any more.”
He began to move away from me, and I put out a hand to coax him back. There was so much that needed to be said, yet I did not know how to talk to him, how to break down this fantastic belief he had about the brooch. If it was a belief. Perhaps it was just something he threw out to torment me with. Though why he wanted to torment me, I didn’t know. Perhaps tormenting had become a pleasure to him, as it was to Elise.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t go away, Richard.”
He hesitated, waiting for what I might say.
“Please believe me—I don’t have the pirate brooch. Or anything else that belongs to the Severns or Hamptons.”
A certain impudence came into his eyes. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he did not. Instead he turned and ran away from me, back toward the burying ground and Sea Oaks. I stood looking after him in dismay, wondering what I could have said or done that might have made a difference between us.
Around me the marshes had turned gloomy and they no longer seemed peaceful in the fading light. Now my son was being turned deliberately against me. Elise was playing some game of her own to hold him at all costs. But before I could start toward the house and escape the darkening marshes, I saw Floria coming toward me from the direction of The Bitterns.
“Mooning over the marshes?” she said. “You always did like them, didn’t you, Lacey? Though I could never see why. I’ve always hated their monotony. I’ve always wanted to escape them, and escape the island.”
I began to walk beside her, back toward the house. “Won’t Paul take you away from the island when you marry?”’
She shook her head and the red pony tail danced. “Mother has put The Bitterns in my name. Paul likes that. He has isla
nd fever too, just the way Elise does. He’s an outsider, but he has always wanted to live here. He wants to fix up The Bitterns, repair and refurbish it, the way Elise has done at Sea Oaks. And this pleases my mother. So what chance is there for me?” She broke off. “What was Richard talking to you about?”
“He accused me of having that old pirate brooch in my possession,” I said. “The famous one with the emerald that was lost so long ago. Who could have given him that idea—Elise?”
“Of course. She hasn’t been very friendly toward you lately, and she won’t want Richard doting on you as his dear Cousin Lacey.”
“But to tell him lies—” I said.
“That’s something Elise does easily. You already know that. You knew her well enough when we were all young. She wasn’t very truthful then.” Floria stopped abruptly on the path beside me. “This is as far as I want to walk. I’ll see you later at dinner. Since Mother has moved over there, I usually have lunch and dinner at Sea Oaks. Saves cooking for me alone.”
She waved a hand at me and went off toward The Bitterns. I followed the short cut thoughtfully toward the house. Elise’s shadow seemed to lie ominously across my path at every turn. But the matter of the brooch ought to be cleared up for Richard’s sake, at least. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to talk to Charles about it. It was because of him the brooch had been lost originally.
Lost Island Page 11
