Listen for the Whisperer

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  We must have worked for an hour and a half, by which time she was letter perfect and did not need the book. We had rehearsed the short scene with the maid, and two other scenes in which Helen and Robert Bradley faced each other before his death. When she would have continued into another scene, I slapped the book shut. It was better to shake her belief in herself now, before she carried this through.

  “That’s enough. This is completely futile. You haven’t anything to support you—no actors, no Victorian house, no stairway—nothing! You will make them think you ridiculous and you’ll wind up crying yourself to sleep.”

  “In that case, I shall keep you awake all night, since you’re to stay here in my room. But I’ll let you rest now. At the very least, I’ve given you a marvelous scene for your book. Now you’ve watched Laura Worth at rehearsal.”

  I snorted in a thoroughly unpleasant way, and she smiled at me as she went to her bedroom telephone and called Gunnar. He was out, but she conducted an animated conversation with his mother and was apparently assured that Gunnar would wish to be at Laura’s house tonight. I sulked while she talked and gave her my darkest look when she set down the telephone.

  “I understand you very well,” she said, still keyed up and swishing about the room in her sand-colored robe. “You’d like to see me return to Hollywood and meet with disaster. Of course that’s obvious. Oh, I realize that wasn’t your first intent when you told me I ought to go back. You were sincere then. The other thought came later. Now it’s predominant. What a lovely way to get even with me for everything I’ve done to you—done to Victor! That’s the general idea, isn’t it?”

  I glowered at her. Let her think what she pleased.

  “And I will prove you wrong,” she told me. “I will prove all my doubting Thomases wrong.”

  I’d had enough. To attack along a side road that had served me once before was my only resource.

  “Why did Miles’s wife commit suicide?” I demanded.

  She seemed to stop in full flight, ceasing her performance as Laura Worth, the star, shedding it like a garment she put aside. She crossed the room and flung herself at full length upon the chaise longue.

  “So you want to talk? Is that it? You want to ask more questions.”

  “I’d like a few answers,” I countered.

  “Very well! Kate Fletcher was hopelessly neurotic. Miles had taken her to the best psychiatrists for years, and it had done no good. She imagined that she had a fatal illness, though nothing was seriously wrong. She killed herself because she could not face dying of a sickness she didn’t have.”

  “Is that what Miles told you?” I said.

  “Of course it’s what he told me. And it was common knowledge as well. He’d endured a miserable marriage for years.”

  “Apparently Donia was imposed upon his first wife too? Since she was in the house and was the one to find Mrs. Fletcher’s body on the stone patio.”

  “I doubt if Donia added to Kate’s mental well-being,” Laura agreed. “But Miles has promised me that Donia will be sent away from Bergen before long. Not that she’s likely to drive me to suicide.”

  I considered that. “You’ve said that a few days ago you had given up—you no longer wanted to live.”

  “I was frightened of a good many things. I’d lost my courage. Now I have it back. I know I must rely only on myself to save me.”

  We were back to the old question. “Save you from what?”

  “From someone who wants to pay me back, who wants to punish me for what has happened in the past. But it won’t be possible now. You’ll stay with me. And I’ll go to Hollywood alone.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “Since he doesn’t want me to do this, it’s better if I go alone and prove myself. Once I’ve done that—” She lifted her hands in an expressive gesture and let them fall.

  My road of attack had led nowhere, and I chose another path. “I’ve been reading through some of your old scrapbooks downstairs. I was surprised to find the connection between Cass Alroy and Donia Jaffe.”

  Laura did not seem particularly taken aback. “That is rather surprising, isn’t it? But of course you didn’t know her when she was young. That lively, little-girl air of hers was more fitting then—and quite appealing. Her face hadn’t become so thin and wrinkled. In fact, she was a plump little thing—very pretty, really. But too dependent on her brother, too devoted to him, even then. And with no judgment at all. Any woman of judgment would have stayed far away from Cass Alroy. I should never have touched him as a director. My whole life would have been changed if I hadn’t been prevailed upon to use him for The Whisperer.” She was silent, remembering, regretting.

  I prodded her more gently. “Under the circumstances, it was a good thing that Miles’s sister was at the theater that night. Otherwise, she—or he—might have made a prime suspect.”

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” Laura roused herself. “But she was at the theater. Any more inquisition?”

  “Just one other thing,” I said. “In one of your scrapbooks there are whole pages where small deletions have been made. Irene says you cut them out recently. Which means there is something about the aftermath of Cass Alroy’s death that you don’t want me to know.”

  She lay quite still in the chaise longue and nothing about her expression or her manner changed. Nevertheless, I knew instinctively that she was on guard again and that I had come close to that key to whatever it was she continued to conceal.

  “What persistent curiosity you have!” she said lightly. “All public figures have areas in their lives which they don’t choose to reveal to the journalist. There are, of course, certain matters I don’t want you to write about. I told you in the beginning that you were not to open Pandora’s box.”

  “You’ve opened it yourself,” I reminded her. “You’ve told me you killed Cass Alroy.”

  A faint shudder seemed to run through her. “I haven’t let myself forget, and now you won’t let me forget. But you’ll tell no one. You’ll certainly not write this in your chapter.”

  “You trust me too much,” I said.

  With a swiftness that took me by surprise, she left the chaise longue and came toward me across the room. When she was very close she put her hands lightly on my shoulders and looked directly into my face. There was unexpected entreaty in her dark eyes, and her lips trembled.

  “Who else can I trust?” She was pleading now—as I’d never seen her plead. “You are my daughter.”

  It was the first time she had called me that directly and I was shocked by the flood of emotion that poured through me. Shocked—and saved. Because I remembered something. I remembered a film of hers that I had completely put out of my mind for years; that I’d forgotten because it was necessary to forget. Now the memory came rushing back.

  I had been in my early teens when I saw the picture. It had been called Long Year’s Turning, and in it Laura Worth had played a young mother. The child who was her daughter had been about eight years old. There had been a divorce situation, and the little girl was about to be parted from her mother. I could remember vividly how the child had perched upon the edge of a sofa, resisting her mother, while Laura knelt before her, with her hands resting upon the child’s shoulders, peering into that rejecting young face. She had spoken heartbreakingly of her love for her daughter and her wish for her to grow up in the love and safety of her father’s home—even though it might mean never seeing her again.

  I had wept bitterly through most of the picture, though I was old enough by that time to know that it was all playacting, and had nothing to do with me. Now Laura stood with her fingers on my shoulders in that very same gesture, with the very same look upon her face. A sick, bitter anger tightened my throat so that I could hardly speak.

  With a roughness that must have hurt her, I struck her hands away and pulled back.

  “Don’t try that!” I choked. “Do you think I didn’t see that picture you made when you played a mother for the
only time in your life? Don’t you think I can recognize an old scene when you play it again?”

  Her face began to crumple—like that of a child who has been rudely hurt. She put one hand to her throat and her eyes were wide and staring, as if she held back her tears.

  I ran toward the door. But before I went out, I turned back for an instant.

  “I’ve done one thing for you, at least. I’ve marked an O in that game downstairs. I’ve blocked the game for X,” I told her—and flung myself out of the room, down the stairs and out of the house.

  The front garden was empty and I went to sit in a wooden chair in the sunshine and the open air. I put my arms about myself and rocked my body back and forth, back and forth, though this was something I had not done since long ago when I was a child and had longed so desperately for my real mother.

  Chapter 11

  I couldn’t eat my dinner that night, though Irene brought a tray to my room to tempt me. I know she was curious as to what had happened, but she did not prod me to talk. She reported that Laura had plans for this evening, and that Dr. Fletcher and Mrs. Jaffe both seemed upset about what Miss Worth intended to do. Irene said nothing about the role I was expected to play, and I wondered if I should throw the whole thing off by simply refusing to take part.

  Around eight o’clock Laura sent Irene to fetch me upstairs, and I went, however reluctantly. I had steeled myself thoroughly against her, but I had also recovered my own equilibrium to some extent—as Laura must have recovered hers. She would realize by now that the one role she could never use to sway me was that of mother. She had been right in the beginning when she had said there need be no sentimental mother-daughter relationship between us. In her devious way she had tried eventually to use that very relationship to get what she wanted. My own reaction had informed her sharply of the foolishness of such a pose. I didn’t think she would try again.

  Her room was empty when I stepped into it, and I found there had been more rearranging of furniture. At one end, chairs had been drawn up for the audience of four people whom Laura expected. The other end had been given over to the effect of a bare stage—so that Laura could use it to represent whatever scene she wished. The only props were the dragon candlestick set on a small table, and the china cat placed where it might presumably hold open a door. No effort to achieve spot or footlights had been made; indeed, the lights had been turned low, undoubtedly for the sake of flattery.

  As I stood looking about, Laura came in from the adjacent dressing room, and even though I was prepared, I caught my breath. The gown of Venetian red suited her perfectly. Her hair had been dressed in the Victorian style Helen Bradley had worn, puffed high above the ears, and drawn into a soft coil on top of her head. She had even cut a fringe of short bangs across her forehead for the occasion. Her cheeks were pale, as Helen’s had been, but she had powdered carefully, and used lipstick and eye makeup to gain the effect she wanted. Her own beauty had been subdued to the role of the character she meant to play.

  When she saw me waiting near the door, she did not, as I half expected, pretend that nothing had happened between us. She simply stood where she was and studied me coolly, critically.

  “I like that beige wool. It becomes you. You could do with a little more weight, but your bones are good. Like mine. The dress needs a touch more. Let me see.”

  She went to her dressing table in the small room and opened her jewel box. In a moment she was back with the two silver pins she’d worn that day on Ulriken—the tiny masks of tragedy and comedy. She pinned them impersonally to my dress, and stepped back to appraise the effect.

  “Victor bought me those in Strǿget in Copenhagen. I still wear them for luck. They were his own award to me for Maggie Thornton.”

  I would not look down at the small pins. It would have pleased me better not to wear them, but I offered no objections. It didn’t really matter.

  “Can you go through with this tonight?” she challenged me.

  If she could, I could, and I told her so.

  She nodded with a certain serenity. “Yes—you have strength when it’s needed. We’ll both be able to pretend that we didn’t try to stab each other this afternoon.”

  I held to a stony silence, following her about, listening as she instructed me. She indicated a straight chair where I was to sit at one side of the “stage,” so that the center would be free for her to move about. Only at the very beginning was I to take any part in the action—when I knelt by the imaginary door and polished the doorstop that should have been made of iron. Otherwise, I would sit in my chair and give her the lines of the other two characters—the maid and Robert Bradley.

  “Irene will bring them upstairs when Gunnar comes,” Laura told me. “I’ll be out of sight—so I can make a proper entrance. You’ll introduce the scene as I’ve suggested, and then we’ll begin.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  Her gaze rested upon the china cat. “I’ve already told you. I’m going to prove something.”

  “About yourself as an actress?”

  “Perhaps even more.” She went to the pink china doorstop and bent to touch it with a hand that was quite steady. “Perhaps I’ll also prove that I can’t be frightened or intimidated any longer.”

  The doorbell rang—which meant that Gunnar had arrived. Laura looked at me with sudden panic that belied her words. Then she laughed at herself ruefully.

  “Stage fright! Even a movie actress can have that, you know. And it’s a good thing. It means I’m keyed up, ready.”

  She stepped into her dressing room, and I waited uneasily while Irene brought the others upstairs.

  Donia came into the room first, giggling in her nervous way—though she fell silent enough when she saw the pink china cat. Miles was obviously in a black and glowering mood. I think he would have stopped Laura if he could, but she had gone beyond his domination, and he knew better than to try. Gunnar greeted me gravely across the room, and he did not seem pleased. Once his eyes met mine with a reproach that I could not face. I wished I could make him understand that what was happening was no longer my fault or doing.

  When the other three were seated, Irene took a chair a little apart, and they all stared at me with mixed expectancy and no approval.

  I told them what I’d been instructed to tell—that Laura meant to try an experiment tonight, that she wanted to find out here in her own home whether she had any ability for acting left. Since we had all seen the film of The Whisperer at one time or another, she had chosen some scenes from that picture to enact. She hoped they would bear with her and be tolerant.

  Donia applauded my words with malicious enthusiasm, and then stopped abruptly as I went to kneel beside the china cat. I bent over it with my polishing cloth, feeling more than a little absurd, and sensing the uncomfortable awareness of my audience. These were grown-ups being asked to take part in a fanciful charade, and I wondered if anyone could command their belief under such circumstances.

  Laura came into the room and I looked up at her as I’d been told to do. In one hand she carried the tall dragon candlestick, with a white candle burning in the socket. The wavering light struck warmth from the red of her gown, and lighted her face mysteriously. If she had any tendency to limp, she controlled it, and her long gown hid the bandaged ankle. One of the four who watched gasped softly. I couldn’t tell which one. I began to read my lines—only a few awkward words to tell her how fearful I was of the master of the house. The sound of my voice fell upon the silence self-consciously, and someone creaked his chair in embarrassment.

  Then Helen Bradley began to speak—and no one moved or gasped or creaked a chair. She had the power still. Perhaps she would have been even more magnificent on a stage than she’d been in pictures. Victor Hollins’s words on Laura Worth’s lips formed once more their old magical combination. She played the scene through with very little help from me. When it was over and she had placed the candlestick upon a table, I left the china cat and went to my ch
air.

  There was no problem about setting the scene or introducing the characters. With her own skill and magic Laura set the stage and peopled it as well. Even though it was I who read Robert Bradley’s words, I could have sworn that she addressed another actor—that the scene was complete. She talked to thin air, and our imaginations summoned the necessary figure as though he had been there in reality.

  Helen Bradley was perhaps thirty years younger than Laura Worth, but the voice that spoke the lines was the voice of a young woman—a particular young woman—and one forgot the lined face, the sagging flesh.

  I recalled that I had seen just this sort of magic evoked on unlikely television talk shows, when some truly great actor took up a book at the m.c.’s urging, and created a mood and a person through his reading of a playwright’s words. It was not so strange, after all, when the gift was there.

  During one long speech, I stole a look at our audience of four. Gunnar watched in mingled wonderment and uneasiness. I’m sure he did not want her to be as good as she was, for fear she would be hurt later. Miles’s pale gray gaze was rapt upon her, and I thought perhaps he saw another, younger, Laura whom he had known long ago. Donia seemed pale and tense. Unexpectedly, there were tears in Irene’s eyes. She had not known Laura in her days of stardom, yet she too was responding to a great performance—remember as she might where this experiment was leading.