Meet a Dark Stranger

by Jennifer Wilde

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I interrupted, hoping to avoid one of his enthusiastic monologues.

  “I got it in Italy,” he continued. “Bought it on my last trip and had it shipped over. The kids love it.”

  “They would, naturally.”

  Hands thrust in jacket pockets, head tilted to one side, my brother stood back and admired the car with a rapt expression. Ian was still capable of taking a childlike pleasure in things, an ability I found enviable. For all his brilliance, for all his temperamental outbursts and impatience and furious energy, he had a fresh, simple outlook that was totally endearing. He turned to me and took both my hands in his, squeezing them tightly.

  “It is good to see you, Janie. I miss you, you know.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t just come and live with us for good. We’d love it.”

  “I imagine you would, pet. I could spend all my time taking care of the children and typing up your notes and looking for books you’d misplaced and seeing that you kept all your appointments and, in the process, lose my identity entirely.”

  “You’d love it.”

  “I know I would. That’s why I took off for London as soon as I got out of college. I adore being an aunt and a sister, but I want to be a person, too.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so unreasonable.”

  “I’m merely sensible.”

  “And stubborn as hell.”

  “That, too,” I admitted.

  He grinned his boyish grin. “You look delicious,” he said.

  “How nice of you to notice. Do you like my dress?”

  He tilted his head again, examining it. “Rather a bit too much bosom showing,” he finally decreed, frowning.

  “Sisters are allowed to have bosoms, too.”

  “When I think of what a skinny, scrawny kid you were—”

  “I try not to think of it.”

  Ian laughed, gave me another hug and led me around to the side of the car. As he opened the door, Stephen Brent came strolling across the parking lot in a long, easy stride, carrying a large tan suitcase. Seeing me, he stopped, made a mock bow, smiled, and then climbed into a nondescript black car another man had just driven up.

  Ian stared disapprovingly.

  “Who’s that?” he demanded.

  “Just someone I met on the train.”

  “Cheeky fellow. I don’t like his looks.”

  “Oh stop making brotherly noises,” I said. “Come on, let’s get to the house. I’m dying to see the children.”

  3

  Abbotstown was a quaint, arcadian place with many trees, many fine homes, a small, centuries-old university and, in the town proper, several narrow, cobblestone streets with rows of fifteenth-century buildings, now converted into shops and pubs wildly popular with the tourists. Whenever I thought of the town, I visualized sunlight on leafy green treetops, dusty old bookshops, towering spires and an atmosphere of old-world charm. Abbotstown combined the best features of Cambridge and York, on a much smaller scale, and it was nice to be coming back again.

  “What kind of trip are you making this time?” I asked Ian. We were driving past the university, a jumble of courtyards and walled gardens, the Inigo Jones cathedral rearing up in its midst.

  “Special conference,” he said cryptically.

  “Hush-hush?”

  “Very.”

  “I suppose it has something to do with chemical warfare,” I said casually.

  “Could be,” he replied.

  Although Ian never discussed his work, conducting all his experiments in total secrecy in a special laboratory in the basement of the gray stone, ivy-festooned university building, I knew that he had been working on an antidote to some recently developed lethal nerve gas. He was extremely active in his efforts to prevent all chemical warfare, serving on committees, giving speeches, writing papers that were published all over the world. Passionately humane, extremely patriotic, my brother was committed to a cause and doing important work. Though much of it was secret and all of it far too scientific and confusing for me to comprehend, I was proud of him. It was good to know there were still dedicated, unsung heroes who were working for the betterment of mankind, good to know Ian was one of them.

  Leaving the university and the shady walks aswarm with laughing, loitering students, we drove past the playing field and turned down a quiet, treelined street with gracious, charming old houses set back behind low stone walls enclosing front gardens. Ian’s flashy sports car struck an incongruous note, but the neighbors had long since grown accustomed to his eccentricities. Executing a sharp, flashy turn, he drove through a pair of crumbling pink brick portals and stopped the car in the drive. I got out and looked up at the old Queen Anne house I loved so well.

  Washed with pale morning sunlight, the walls traced with delicate shadows from the lime trees, it was as lovely, as graceful as I had remembered. Weathered with age, sadly in need of repairs, it was nevertheless a thing of harmonious style and glowing charm. It had been in our family for over a hundred years, purchased by a prosperous, mid-Victorian Martin who had had a feeling for mellowed beauty. The front garden, I noticed, was shockingly ragged—bluebells and pink daisies spilling out of their beds, purple hollyhocks running amuck along the walls. The shrubs needed trimming, and a swing made from an old discarded tire dangled disgracefully from a branch of one of the lime trees.

  As Ian took the luggage out of the trunk, the front door opened and a tall, slender youth in tan denim trousers and a soft white crew neck sweater came down the steps. His handsome face was a younger version of his father’s, though far more sober. The features were grave, the blue eyes calm. His hair was medium-long, curling about neck and ears, falling across his forehead in short, flattering bangs. Keith was sixteen, quiet-spoken, mannerly, unusually poised for one so young. He was a serious lad, extremely intelligent, keeping to himself much of the time and maintaining his calm when the rest of the household was in chaos.

  “How you’ve grown!” I exclaimed. “You’re taller than I am.”

  “Hello, Janie,” he said gravely. “I’m glad you could come.”

  I almost expected him to shake my hand. He didn’t. He took me in his arms and gave me a hug even more exuberant than Ian’s had been. I pulled back and examined that fresh young face. Keith smiled, his full pink mouth turning up at the corners and causing his nose to crinkle.

  “You might give me a hand,” his father grumbled. “Your aunt seems to have brought enough luggage for a whole battalion.”

  Without a word, Keith picked up both suitcases and, smiling at me again, carried them into the house.

  “He’s glorious,” I said.

  “Yeah. A mite too serious, though. Doesn’t talk much. He needs to be with chaps his own age, loosen up a bit. I’m hoping Ron’s program will help some.”

  “Ron?”

  “Ron Hunter. The Petersons moved, and Ron has taken the house next door. He’s been hired to conduct athletics at the university next term, and this summer he’s organized a fitness program for some of the neighborhood lads—takes them out on the playing field at an ungodly hour in the morning, has them run laps, puts them through a regular routine. Likable chap. You’ll probably meet him.”

  “Athletic instructors are hardly my cup of tea,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, Ron’s not like that. None of that gung ho, bully-bully stuff. He’s got charm. Nice-looking bloke, too.”

  “Married?”

  “Free as a bird,” Ian replied as he led me up the steps and into the spacious front hall.

  The house, with its large airy rooms, held an amazing clutter of beautiful, battered antique furniture, books, Victorian silver chafing dishes, tea sets, magazines, toys, educational journals, exquisite china and plastic mustard pots—all the flotsam and jetsam of an active family with assorted interests, and all somehow blending together in a warm, welcoming atmosphere. People lived here. People sat on the Chippendale ch
airs, tromped on the faded Aubusson carpets, ate from the Royal Worcester dishes and dropped grass-stained sneakers on the polished refectory table. It was a cozy, comfortable place, with none of the chill of those so-carefully-preserved houses that were more like museums than actual homes. As I stood in the hall, with its white wainscotting, pale blue paper and the shamefully dusty crystal chandelier, I could feel the house casting its spell over me, just as it always did.

  “It’s good to be back,” I said quietly.

  “The place gets to you,” Ian agreed. “Keith’s taken your bags up to your old room. God knows where the others are. Becky scooted out around seven, and Liz wasn’t even up when I left for the station.”

  “Janie?”

  The voice was deep and mournful, studiedly dramatic, and I looked up to see a painfully thin creature moving slowly down the white spiral staircase. Liz? I couldn’t be sure. She wore lilac stockings, a purple sheath dress, and enough eye makeup to satisfy Cleopatra in her prime. Her blue-black hair was pulled back severely from her face and fastened in a tight bun at the back of her neck, and her wide lips were a bright shade of scarlet. She paused at the foot of the stairs, placed one hand over her heart and repeated my name in what could only be called a throaty growl.

  Ian seemed totally unperturbed by this bizarre apparition. His hands jammed into trouser pockets, he wore a perfectly bland expression, not at all alarmed.

  “Liz?” I said.

  “Drama lessons,” Ian explained. “I should never have let her sign up for that course.”

  “Don’t be silly, Daddy,” she protested in a more normal voice. “Besides, I’ve given up the drama. I’m going to be a Spanish dancer. Janie, I want the truth now, be frank, what do you think of the new me?”

  “I—uh—I’m not sure.”

  “Do you think I look Spanish?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “I’m reading the most fascinating biography of Lola Montez. She wasn’t really Spanish, either, but it didn’t actually matter. She had charisma, and men fell at her feet. Did you know she slept with Alexander Dumas?”

  “Really?” I asked, fascinated.

  “Franz Liszt, too. Dozens and dozens of men. Poor dear, her life was so tragic, being deserted by her husband and all. She had to express herself somehow. Daddy, Becky ran off with my castanets. I know she took them. She’s always taking my things.”

  Keith came downstairs, gave his sister a passing glance and picked up my briefcase and the overnight case.

  “Bathroom sink’s stopped up,” he announced. “You’ll have to fix it before you leave, Dad.”

  “Damn!”

  “I’m taking dancing lessons now, not drama,” Liz told me, ignoring the others. “Daddy forgets these things. I have a class at nine this morning. Must be off, darling. We’ll chat later.”

  “No you don’t,” Ian said.

  “Did you say something, Daddy?”

  “Upstairs. Off with the paint. I don’t want the neighbors to think I run a brothel.”

  “Daddy!” she squealed.

  “I mean it. You’re not stepping one foot out that door until you wash all that paint off your face. Lola Montez indeed! I don’t know where they find these books!”

  Keith and Liz exchanged glances and, as he took the cases up, she turned to me with woeful blue eyes.

  “He treats me like a child,” she complained. “I’m thirteen and frightfully mature for my age. After all, Juliet was only fourteen. Daddy has no understanding about these things, none whatsoever. But you’re different, Janie. You’re creative, too, even if you do just write those tacky books for children.”

  “Upstairs!” Ian rumbled.

  Resigned, Liz scampered off like a young colt, heels clattering as she took the stairs two at a time. I smiled. My oldest niece had a distressing habit of reading chatty biographies of famous women, regaling everyone she encountered with pertinent facts about their lives and, as long as her current enthusiasm lasted, doing her best to emulate the latest woman she had read about. Ian raised his eyes heavenwards, seeing himself as a modern-day Job.

  “I don’t need this aggravation,” he said miserably.

  “It was Florence Nightingale last time I was here,” I remarked. “She was going around in a white cap, taking everyone’s temperature and diagnosing rheumatic fever. I believe her ambition then was to sail to Molokai and spend the rest of her life nursing the lepers. Let’s hope she doesn’t pick up a biography of Bonnie Parker.”

  “Heaven forbid,” he grumbled. “Look, Janie, I have a thousand things to do. I’ve got to get my papers in order. I still haven’t packed. I’m due at the airport at eleven, which means we’ll have to leave at ten at the latest. You’ll have to drive me there.”

  “In that car? I’ll feel like a fool.”

  “Don’t you start bugging me, too. I’ve had about all I can take for one morning. I wonder where Rebecca is? Oh well, she’s bound to turn up. She always does. I’ll be in the library if you need me, luv.”

  He sauntered off with a preoccupied look in his eyes, muttering to himself in a disgruntled voice. I went upstairs. The bathroom door was open and Liz was standing in front of the medicine-cabinet mirror, examining her reflection with soulful eyes while the sink made a disturbing gurgle. As I moved on down the hall, Keith stepped out of his room.

  “It’s still the same madhouse,” he said quietly. “I think it’s grand of you to give up your work and come down to stay with us like this. We’re really old enough to take care of ourselves, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Most unreasonable of him.”

  “What have you been doing with yourself this summer?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Still working on your blueprints?” I asked.

  He nodded gravely.

  I found conversation with my nephew a bit difficult. Keith had always been a solemn boy, quiet, reserved, never getting into mischief, never having much to say. It wasn’t a question of unhappiness. It was simply his nature. While other boys his age were cheering at soccer games or trying to become pop singers, Keith was reading frightfully advanced books on aeronautics and engineering. A couple of years ago he had converted the potting shed out back into a workshop, and now he spent much of his time inventing miniature combustion engines and designing rockets. In spite of his basic sobriety, there was a gentleness about the lad that emphasized his youth and made him most endearing.

  “I hear you’re participating in a physical-fitness program,” I said.

  “Oh, that. That’s Ron’s idea. He’s a firm believer in exercise, says a strong body produces a strong mind. I agree with him. It’s a sound theory, however trite. It’s rather a drag, running all those laps, jumping those hurdles, but it gets results, much more so than the isometrics I did before Ron came along. He’s a nice chap. All the fellows think he’s terrific.”

  “He’s a dream,” Liz interjected, stepping out of the bathroom with a damp cloth in her hand. “He’s been living next door for just a month now, and we’re all wild about him. Even Daddy likes him.”

  “I must meet this paragon,” I remarked.

  “You must,” Liz said. “You’ll probably fall madly in love with him,” she added in a matter-of-fact voice. “He absolutely smoulders with sex appeal.”

  “Does he?”

  “Becky doesn’t care for him,” she continued, smearing off a coat of purple eye shadow, “but then Becky doesn’t care for anyone but that hateful old woman next door—she lives on the other side.”

  “Augusta Ward? She must be eighty.”

  “If she’s a day,” Liz announced. “She’s an absolute terror, shouting at the neighborhood children, waving her cane, threatening to call the police if one so much as sets foot in her garden. Everyone else is terrified of the old dragon, but not Becky! Becky has tea with her, plays cards with her. I simply can’t understand it!”

  “You shouldn’t talk that way about Mrs. Ward,” Keith admonished. “She may be a bit dotty in her old age
, but she probably can’t help it. You’ll be old yourself one day.”

  “Not me,” Liz declared. “I’ll live a furiously passionate life, with a multitude of lovers, and then die at an early age, just like Lola Montez. It’s my destiny.”

  Keith sighed and assumed an expression of patient endurance. Liz wiped away another glob of purple and examined the cloth thoughtfully.

  “She died at forty-two. Did you know that, Janie? She was living in New York, abandoned by her lovers, forgotten by the world, totally penniless. I think it’s ever so sad.”

  “Life’s cruel,” I agreed.

  “Wretchedly. Oh dear, I’ve got to hurry or I’ll miss my class. Damn Becky! I suppose I’ll have to borrow a pair of castanets—”

  She dashed back into the bathroom and, shaking his head, Keith moved on down the hall toward the staircase. I proceeded to my old room, experiencing that wonderful sense of belonging the minute I stepped inside. Very little had been changed. The bed with its graceful white Chippendale posts still had the pale blue canopy, a bit mothy now. Matching curtains were at the windows, and the mirror hanging over the dressing table was the same foggy silver. I looked at the ivory walls, the gray rug with its pattern of pink roses and jade green leaves, the massive white wardrobe with the doors that never shut properly. The room was as snug, as cozy as I remembered, and it seemed to welcome me back now as I stowed my briefcase away on the wardrobe shelf and began to unpack my suitcase.

  Hanging up my dresses, putting clothes away in the chest drawers, I smiled, thinking about Liz and Keith and the mischievous little scamp who hadn’t put in an appearance yet. How like young Rebecca to have a friendship with Augusta, I thought. Both were fiercely independent, both testy and defiant and totally outrageous, blithely unconcerned with the world’s opinion of them. My youngest niece, nine now, was something of a terror, the bane of her father’s existence, and Augusta had waged war on everyone in Abbotstown for as long as I could remember. They should be perfect allies, I reflected, folding up the last sweater.