Laura’s timing of the scenes was perfect. There was no attempt to give too much. Only one or two quieter sequences, only a single long dramatic scene was attempted. Then it was over. Laura slipped away to her dressing room, and I crossed to the table and quietly blew out the candle. There was no applause. I saw Donia raise her hands to clap, and then think better of it, and let them fall. Not one of them had seen what he’d hoped to see—Laura’s failure and humiliation. They had witnessed the performance of a star and they knew it and did not like it.
It was I who broke the silence. “She’s even better than she used to be,” I said, and heard my own words in mild surprise.
Miles began to grumble aloud. “There’s no pressure here. None of the exacting circumstances of filming a picture. None of the tension of a Hollywood studio. Even Miss Hollins can read lines creditably in this atmosphere.”
Donia took it upon herself to contradict. “I think Laura was splendid under any circumstances. Why not let her go back to Hollywood and see what happens?”
Gunnar shook his head sadly. “She has lost nothing of her talent in the years. But over there she still has everything to lose and very little to gain. Her reputation stands at the top. There is no point in pulling it down as circumstances might do.”
Irene said nothing at all. She had recovered from her moment of emotion. Perhaps she, of us all, knew best the extraordinary will Laura Worth could exert if she chose. Perhaps she, of us all, realized that nothing any of us said or did really mattered. Laura would do what it pleased her to do. By tonight’s effort, she had sought to convince, to perhaps cajole us over to her side. But if no one stood by her, she would nevertheless do as she intended.
After a few moments Irene rose and went to the door. “If you’d like to come downstairs in a little while, I’ll have coffee and cake for you in the dining room.”
While the others began to talk a bit stiffly among themselves, I left them and went to the dressing room. Laura had painstakingly unzipped herself from the red gown and slipped into the caftan again. She was still alive with excitement—an excitement totally suppressed during her performance—and she pounced on me at once.
“How was it, Leigh? How did it go? What are they saying out there?”
“They’re not saying anything,” I told her. “I think they’re stunned.”
“Then I succeeded? I really proved what I wanted to prove?”
“For a pocket-sized performance, I think you were terrific. Perhaps better than you’ve ever been.” Whether I wanted to or not, I had to give her that.
Her eyes were alight with triumph and she was completely confident. “I know! An actress does know when she’s giving her best. You can feel what comes across from those who are watching. Sometimes in the studio the entire crew would applaud me after a scene. It isn’t necessary to have a theater audience to know when you’re good. But I always want to hear. We can never get enough of praise. We are the most insecure people alive. And I know that you, of all of them, would tell me the truth. Perhaps you even wanted me to fail—the way Miles and Gunnar did. But you’d have to admit the truth.”
I spoke without emotion. “Yes, I have to admit the truth.”
“Now I’ve let them know,” she went on. “They’ve seen that I’m not frightened any more. They can realize that no threats are going to shake me. They can do their worst, and it won’t matter. That’s even more important than the performance.”
“They?” I repeated.
She would not answer me. She leaned toward the mirror, fluffing out her bangs, tucking in a tendril of hair. Idly I picked up the red gown from the chair where she’d tossed it, and was aware of her watching me in the mirror.
“Put it on,” she said. “The Whisperer costume—put it on. You wanted to.”
I shook my head. “Not any more. Not after seeing you wear it again.”
She came to me and unpinned the small silver masks she had loaned me, dropped them into her jewel case. “Please—because I’d like to see you in it.”
Because she’d like to make fun of me, I wondered. I had no wish to put that gown on now—the contrast between us would be too great. But she was already plucking at the back zipper of my beige wool, and I gave in to her reluctantly. She dropped the Venetian red gown over my head and I slipped my arms into the tight sleeves. With no difficulty she pulled up the zipper—since I did not fit the gown as snugly as she did. It had been a little tight for her—it was slightly loose on me, yet the difference between us in size was very little.
She turned me about before her big mirror, looking over my shoulder while I regarded myself doubtfully.
“The gown calls for a brunette—like you,” I said. “A blond bob is all wrong. Helen Bradley would never look like this.”
Quickly she caught up hairpins from the container on her dressing table and began to wind and pin my hair on top of my head. So rapt Was she in her play, that she might have snipped bangs across my forehead if I’d let her.
“You’re playing with dolls,” I said. “And I’m not a doll. Remember that.”
She laughed and thrust in the last pin. “There! You do look a little like me after all. Run down stairs and show them! Quickly—run!”
I pulled myself out of her hands. “Don’t be absurd. This is your idea, not mine. I don’t want to resemble you. I want to be myself!”
“You’re getting excited, Leigh. Look—I’ll put your dress on, and you’ll wear mine, and we’ll go downstairs for Irene’s coffee. You look beautiful, really. You should wear rich, strong colors. Go down and let Gunnar see you. He’ll never have another chance to see how dashing you look in red.”
She was the most impossible woman I had ever known. Until I’d come here, I’d thought of myself as strong-minded, but Laura Worth could tear down on one like a torrent in flood, with all the overpowering force of a natural element behind her. It was easier to consent to her absurd wishes than to oppose her.
“If you’ll stop pushing, I’ll go quietly,” I said. “But you’re to come down at once and tell them what this is all about. Or at least what you think it’s all about.”
“I’ll be there in seconds,” she promised, and I went reluctantly out the door.
The hall was dim and there was no one there. Feeling unutterably foolish, I caught up the skirt of the red gown with both hands and started down the narrow, turning stairs. Someone came out of a room above and crossed the hall behind me, but I did not turn. I was busy picking my way down the steps, making an effort not to be tripped by the long skirt of the gown.
There was only an instant in which I felt a presence behind me. There was no time to turn, to save myself—only that instant of awareness, and a whispering voice.
The thrust from behind came full and strong in the center of my back. I pitched straight over and down the steep stairs. I must have struck the wall of the narrow turning with my shoulder, and then slid the rest of the way to the lower hall.
I could not have lain stunned for more than seconds before I came to myself and struggled to sit up. The tableau which had formed in those seconds was frozen around me. Gunnar stood in the living room door. Miles had come out of the dining room. Irene was at the rear in the kitchen door, while Donia and Laura stood above me on the stairs. At once the tableau broke up, and Gunnar reached me first.
Laura called to him from above. “She must have tripped on that long skirt. She’s had a dreadful fall. Bring her up to my bed.”
I felt dizzy with shock, and I couldn’t speak, let alone think. Gunnar gathered me up in his arms and I was aware only of his strength and the lovely safety of being held by him. While he climbed the stairs, carrying me, Laura ran ahead and flung back the spread on her bed. Gently he lowered me to the softness of eiderdown, and drew a pillow beneath my head. I looked up into his face and wanted him to stay like that—considerate, not angry with me, gentle.
“Why is she wearing this dress she would trip over?” Gunnar asked Laura.
; “That was a whim of mine. A foolish one. I should have known she wasn’t accustomed to a skirt that reaches the floor.”
My trembling had lessened a little, and I could lie quietly. Except for Irene, the others had followed us into the room, and my eyes sought Donia’s face—and found her hovering at her brother’s elbow, watching me with a lively, unpitying interest. Now I was able to speak.
“I didn’t trip over the gown,” I said. “Someone pushed me from behind.”
There was an intense silence in the room. Then Irene came in to bring me a cup of hot tea, and while I sat up to sip it, Miles grumbled under his breath about women with neurotic imaginings. Donia regarded me in uneasy alarm, and sidled out of sight behind Laura.
“Besides Laura—who wouldn’t have pushed me—there was only one person on the stairs,” I said.
The other four stared at Donia with varying expressions.
“This is nonsense—” Miles began, but Laura interrupted him.
“It’s not nonsense. It’s more of the pattern that’s been plaguing us. If Leigh says she was pushed, I’m sure she was.”
Donia looked more than a little frightened. “But I was in my room! I only rushed out when I heard a crash.”
“You were there on the stairs when I came out of my room,” Laura pointed out. “I was putting on Leigh’s dress, so I was delayed. But you were there, Donia, when I came out to see what had happened.”
“But why would I push her? Why would I—”
“Because you saw the dress and in the dim light you thought it was me?” Laura said, questioning.
Donia made a small squealing sound, and Gunnar spoke to her gently.
“Did you perhaps hear anything when you came to the stairs? If someone pushed Leigh and then rushed past her to the floor below, you might have heard the running.”
Donia snatched at this lifeline. “Yes—yes, I think I did hear something. But I was looking down at Leigh, and—and I didn’t notice whether anyone crossed the lower hall.”
Was she making it up or not, I wondered. Or had she seen and did not mean to tell?
Miles was watching his sister doubtfully. “We can’t afford to make mistakes about this, or to guess wildly. We’re dealing with a very grave situation.”
“That’s what I’ve said all along,” Laura agreed bitterly.
Irene was more concerned with me. “You’re rubbing your shoulder. Have you hurt it?”
“Not badly,” I said. I’d struck it during the fall, but it was no more than slightly bruised.
She looked about at the others quietly, calmly. “What we are dealing with is a murderer,” she said.
Donia gasped, and Miles caught Laura as she swayed against the bed.
“That’s enough,” he said curtly to Irene.
She paid no attention to him. “It’s time someone spoke out and told the truth. During the last two months these miserable little tricks have been played upon Miss Worth again and again. Someone is trying to injure her. Someone who carries the memory of a terrible crime.”
“No, Irene—no!” Laura cried. “Don’t say anything more. Let it alone. Please—for my sake!”
Irene went on implacably. “Now it’s getting worse. Miss Hollins is lucky. She might have been more seriously hurt People have been killed by falls like that. But since Miss Worth doesn’t wish me to say anything more, I won’t.”
She turned stiffly away and walked out of the room. Her words of accusation seemed to hang heavily in the air. Laura began to weep softly with her hands covering her face. I saw the strange look exchanged between Donia and Miles. Perhaps it was distrust and suspicion that grew between them. Perhaps it was something else. One of them knew about the other, yet for some reason neither would speak out. I was sure there was no longer any liking between them—only a deep and growing distrust.
Gunnar stood a little apart, and he, at least, was concerned for me. As Miles bent to comfort Laura, he came to the side of the bed where he could speak to me softly.
“Perhaps it would be better for you to go home to New York as soon as you can, Leigh. In the meantime, our invitation is to you, as well as to Laura. If you care to come to our home tonight, leave this house—”
“No,” I said. “But thank you, Gunnar. Tonight I’ll stay with Laura. We’ll be together in this room.”
“That will be a good thing,” he said gravely. “Good for you both. You are becoming friends, I think.”
I contradicted that at once. “Not friends. Only reluctant allies. Because I mean to help her to get to Hollywood, if that’s where she wants to go.”
I could sense his stiffening against me. I’d finished the tea, and I lay back on the pillow so I didn’t have to look at him and watch the accusation growing in his eyes. There was nothing at all I could do about Gunnar and that gave me an empty, lost feeling. In a moment I was afraid I might be weeping like Laura.
He leaned toward me again, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Be careful, Leigh. There is madness in this house. You and Laura must be out of it soon. You will feel well enough to come to us with Laura tomorrow?”
“I’ll try to come,” I said, and kept my face turned from him.
Astonishingly, he bent and kissed me on the cheek. I turned to him in surprise, and he laughed softly at my expression.
“You see—we Bergensere are not as reserved as you think! But of course you are my ward—put into my hands by Victor Hollins. And it is permitted to kiss one’s ward.”
He was laughing at me gently, even though he had not forgotten the gravity of the situation in this house, nor my encouragement of Laura, which he disapproved. I had to smile in return, and felt the trembling of my lips.
“There,” he said, “—that is better. I will see you tomorrow, Leigh. Take care of yourself tonight. And of Laura. Tomorrow we will plan. This cannot go on.”
He said good night to Laura and Miles, and I saw that Donia had escaped from the room. When Gunnar was gone, Miles returned to regard me impersonally as a doctor. He seemed to think I was little the worse for what had happened. I did not trust him at all, and I was glad when he went away.
When they were all gone, Laura sat in a chair and stared at me. My beige wool, which she had struggled into, did not particularly become her, any more than I felt the Venetian red became me.
“We’d better get back to being ourselves,” she told me. “I’ll slip out of this dress and then help you out of the costume. I wish now I hadn’t asked you to put it on.”
“Which one of them pushed me?”
She was struggling with the back zipper of her borrowed dress, her face flushed with the effort. “Don’t you know?”
“Of course I don’t know! If I knew, I’d speak out. I wouldn’t sit silently by and allow this to go on.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said, and disappeared in the direction of her dressing room.
I lay looking around the room which had so recently played the role of theater. The partly burned candle stood in the dragon holder. The pink china doorstop still held open an imaginary door. And the dress Laura Worth had worn in The Whisperer clothed me as I lay upon the bed. But everything had changed. I could still feel that vindictive thrust of two hands in the center of my back. I could feel myself falling forward into nothingness.
She came back into the room wearing her caftan. “Are you able to turn over so I can manage the zipper?”
I lay still, staring at her. “Do you really know which one it was?”
“Of course I know. I’ve know all along where the threat to me lies.”
“Then why can’t you tell me, so we can deal with it?”
She touched the ruffle of bangs across her forehead, and I saw the hesitant, half-frightened gesture that was purely Helen Bradley.
“Because I’m not as brave as all that. Not yet. Though I’m trying to be. I’m trying to face whatever has to be faced. There’s the slim chance that everything will be all right if I don’t speak out. If I can
run away to Hollywood alone. Not that being alone means any real safeguard or escape. It can all crash around my head at any moment. But I have to take that chance. Irene was right. We’re dealing with a murderer. Someone whose heart is full of hatred. You’re in danger now, as well as I. Because you’ve decided to stand by me.”
“How do you know I’ll stand by you? Don’t forget what you said earlier today about our stabbing each other.”
She shook her head at me. “That is a private war. As mother and daughter we’re sure to strike out—to stab. Neither of us accepts this unfortunate tie. But you can’t help the other thing—your admiration for Laura Worth, the actress. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow you grew up with that. And tonight it was confirmed—for me. I saw it in your face. You don’t want to send me back to films because you think I’ll fail. Now you believe I can succeed, and you want that for me. As I want it for myself.”
How much better she understood me than Gunnar did. Perhaps better than I did myself. But I said nothing and she went on.
“Because you’ll now back me and help me, you’re in danger too.”
I had the memory of those hands at my back, and I knew what she said could very well be true. But for tonight we would be together. I sat up and slid my feet to the floor. When I stood up I felt dizzy for an instant. When I’d steadied, I turned my back and Laura ran the zipper down.
“I’m sure Helen Bradley never had it so easy,” I said. “In her day there would have been dozens of hooks to undo.”
I put on the negligee Laura gave me, and she rang for Irene. When she came, Laura asked her to bring my night things from downstairs, and then help to make up the sofa for Laura to sleep on tonight.
I tried to protest that I could sleep on the sofa, but Laura would have none of that.
“Dr. Fletcher will not be pleased,” Irene said dryly, but Laura only smiled enigmatically.
Miles himself came in again when Irene had gone out for the last time. He looked soberly about at our preparations for the night.
“The girls’ domitory, I see.”
Listen for the Whisperer Page 23
