Columbella

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  My reaction was so quick and indignant that it took me unaware and I did not try to suppress my immediate upsurge of impatience. Leila was showing the common insensitivity of the young, with not the least notion of what she meant to her father, or what he might be suffering because of her. I couldn’t see Kingdon Drew throwing his own life aside simply because Leila was young.

  “Do you suppose it’s possible that you haven’t given much time to appreciating either your father or his position?” I asked her coolly.

  I saw the sudden change in her face, caught her stricken look, but I did not soften. Let her be stricken. It was time for her to do a little soul-searching that would lead her outside the charmed circle of herself and her mother. This, too, was a basic part of education—and since I had come here as a teacher, I could leave her with this at least.

  “Think about that,” I said, and walked across the terrace and into the house without another glance in her direction. At that moment I had no idea what I meant to do. When I went toward King’s office I believed I was thinking only of Leila’s heartlessness toward her father. But whoever I really was, that inner woman whose acquaintance I was trying to make must have taken a firm hold as I walked briskly into the room. The callous brutality of Leila’s words were an echo of Catherine and they forced me to the action I had been so reluctant to take.

  I sailed into the room where King awaited me, a bit breathless, yet somehow eager for this confrontation.

  7

  Kingdon Drew sat at his big steel-gray desk with plans and blueprints scattered before him. Though he held a pencil in his hand, he did not seem to be working. The suddenness of my arrival brought him to his feet.

  “Something has upset you?”

  “Something has upset me,” I agreed.

  He misunderstood. “I don’t blame you. We all behaved atrociously at dinner. Certainly I shouldn’t have left the table as I did. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry that had to happen while you were here. We might have waited till we were alone to indulge our antagonisms. I’m sorry too for anything I said earlier that may have hurt your feelings. I had no business speaking to you like that. Perhaps it will be easier for you if you pack your things now and let me take you back to your aunt’s this evening. There’s no need for you to endure us for another night.”

  His face still seemed drawn and tight, as if he held himself sternly in check. Yet there was kindness in his eyes when he looked at me. He truly did not want me embroiled in the troubles of this house. I tried to order the impulses that drove me, tried to find reasonable words to explain my stand. Instead, I spoke tersely, hiding all feeling.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I told him. “I’ve decided to stay.”

  At once there was withdrawal in him. Where he had seemed ready to be kind a moment before, he regarded me coolly now.

  “May I ask why you’ve done this sudden turnabout?”

  There were waves of unfamiliar emotion surging up in me, striving for release. I wanted to say, I’m on your side, even if you don’t want me there! I think your daughter can be a brat at times and someone ought to take hold and counteract her mother’s influence! I said nothing of the sort. I held back this alarming tendency to let my emotions go—I who had been so quiet and controlled for so many years!—and spoke with restraint. I told him that Leila had come to me, asking for my help, and I felt I could not let her down. If she could make this gesture in my direction, then I had to stay. Even if I failed, I had to try.

  “Perhaps you were right and it will be good for me to stay and fight for something,” I told him. “Perhaps I’ve never tried what you would regard as fighting. Not when I was as young as Leila. Or even when I was older. Not for myself. I suppose I can’t just keep on running.”

  His look softened in the way I was coming to know and dread a little because it weakened my resistance to him.

  “By fighting, I meant for yourself—and not here. You’d be doomed to defeat here, as we all are.” He sounded fatalistic, a man without hope, but before I could protest, he went on: “In the past you let that young man of yours go because you weren’t tough enough to stand up to your mother. Do you think you can possibly be tough enough for the far worse situation you’d have to face here?”

  So Aunt Janet had betrayed me by talking about Paul too! And she was wrong—they were all wrong!

  “That’s Aunt Janet’s sentimental notion,” I told him hotly. “I suppose you got it from her, via Mrs. Hampden. I suppose it’s what a lot of people who knew me thought at the time. But it isn’t the truth.”

  He stood behind his desk, waiting. I caught my breath and went on more quietly.

  “I let Paul go because I didn’t want him any more. I couldn’t bear to marry someone who was more in love with my mother than he was with me.”

  Kingdon Drew reached out to the model of a small house on his desk—part of a miniature neighborhood with yards, sidewalks, trees. Absently he followed the path to a front door with one finger.

  “Do you suppose that idea might have been jealousy on your part? The young don’t always see things clearly.”

  Perhaps he was remembering his own young marriage to Catherine, I thought, though I could not believe he had ever been as young as I, or as young as Leila. I did not need to defend myself, however, or explain about my mother. He had only to look at Catherine. After a moment the straight, grim line of his mouth softened and he glanced up from the model.

  “There must have been other men coming along to interest you,” he said more gently. “There must have been someone worth fighting for.”

  Suddenly it seemed terribly important to make him understand what I had never tried to explain to anyone else. “After Paul, I was careful. I watched myself. You see, it had happened before, when I didn’t care as much. I couldn’t blame Helen—my mother. She could be very dear and charming, and she never admitted to herself what she was doing.”

  Not like Catherine, I thought, feeling again the contrary pang of missing Helen. Surely she had never been like Catherine.

  I went on, trying to make clear what was not wholly clear to me. “After Paul I didn’t want to find myself involved. It’s true that I didn’t want to be hurt again. So I’ve been a teacher and a daughter. For a good many women such substitutes have to be enough, and what I’ve done has counted for something, I think—self-respect, if nothing else. That matters to me.”

  The room was quiet. When King tossed his pencil down it made a clatter in the silence. “You really didn’t fight, did you?” he said.

  My mind felt suddenly clear of a great deal of rubbish. It was as if by taking a stand I had opened a door that led through to a place of clear, truthful light.

  “Perhaps you don’t know me very well,” I told him. “Perhaps there’s a different kind of fighting—a woman’s kind. It’s true that I’ve been running away ever since I came to St. Thomas. But I don’t believe I’ve always been the coward you think. I had to work this out my own way. Anyway, there’s a job to be done here. Not only for Leila, but for me as well. Because otherwise I can’t live with myself ever again.”

  In a way, I would be taking a stand for King, too, I thought, though I couldn’t tell him that. He could not possibly guess how I had been lining myself up on his side, a single faltering step at a time, ever since I had come to this house. Now I had taken a longer, more irrevocable step. Oh, I knew I would be unsure of myself again. I would be seized with qualms and doubts and fears—what woman wouldn’t be in a situation so grave? But now I would run for no warren like the rabbit I thought I’d become.

  He studied me with a thoughtful air, almost an air of discovery. “When we talked earlier I didn’t really believe what you were telling me. I didn’t believe that you’d walk out on Leila. I was right. I’ve sensed something in you from the first—a quality that I haven’t seen much of lately. Call it decency, honesty, if you like.
Old-fashioned terms, perhaps, but you’ve brought a rush of fresh air into this house.”

  His words warmed me, drew me to him more than ever in liking and loyalty. Yet I wasn’t convinced that I deserved them.

  “I’m not sure I succeed in being honest,” I said.

  He smiled, his eyes lighting. “Whoever does when it comes to judging himself? But it’s something to try. Don’t belittle yourself, Jessica Abbott. Maybe you’re a bigger person than you think.”

  An unfamiliar wave of sensation washed through me—a mingling of relief and gratitude, even a new sense of courage, all because Kingdon Drew did not think me wholly a coward. If we could fight this battle together—but he dashed any such feeling at once.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he warned. “Personally, I’m applauding your determination. But I still mean to send Leila away as soon as it can be managed without upsetting Maud and the child herself too badly. Unless you can convince me that keeping Leila here will be wiser than sending her away, I’ll oppose you at every turn. I respect your decision, but I won’t let that stop me.”

  I swallowed hard to down the dismay which so quickly replaced that brief sense of well-being I’d felt. I should have expected this. He was fair—he would give credit where it was due, but he had not swerved an inch from his original stand.

  “I’ll do my best to make you change your mind,” I said.

  “I’m afraid it’s not so much what you may do that determines my stand. Here—look at this!” He picked up a newspaper, folded to an inner page, and handed it to me.

  These were no longer headline stories, I saw. One was of a much hashed-over crime of passion that had occurred some weeks before in St. Croix. Another the continued account of jewel thieves preying on wealthy women in luxury hotels around the Caribbean. And then the story he meant me to see.

  The column was one of faintly malicious gossip and it asked rather pointed questions about a married woman of good family who chose to cavort about island beaches after dark in the company of a man much younger than herself. Did the lady’s husband have no care for her reputation, even if she had none for herself?

  Sickened, I gave the paper back to him. There was nothing to say.

  “You’d better go tell Maud of your decision,” he suggested grimly. “She’ll be grateful. But tell her what I’ve said too—that I mean to play the heavy-handed father at the first misstep and send Leila off to Denver.”

  I turned away and as I did so I saw again the framed photograph of high, snow-capped peaks where it hung upon the wall.

  “Do you ever miss the cold in your sunny islands?” I asked. “Do you ever get tired of the tropics?”

  He answered readily. “Sometimes. I’m an exile here, just as you will be if you stay—even though it’s by choice. There are days when I’d give anything to head into a good stinging blizzard and feel snow crunching under my feet.”

  This was something we shared that the island-bred would never understand, I thought a bit wistfully—and laughed at myself at once.

  “I’d rather not fight you,” he told me more gently. “I’d rather have you on my side.”

  I turned away from the picture. “I am on your side,” I said, and went quickly out of the room.

  Upstairs Maud was lying on her bed, and Edith was with her, putting cold cloths on her head. I think Edith did not want me to intrude, but Maud saw me in a mirror and gestured her elder daughter aside. I went to stand at the foot of the handsome pineapple fourposter bed and looked down at the old woman.

  “I’ve come to tell you that I’ll stay as long as you want me to,” I said. “I’ve just said as much to Mr. Drew. He doesn’t approve and he promises that he’ll oppose us both.”

  Maud sat up and tossed the wet cloth from her head. “Good girl! I knew you had it in you the first minute I laid eyes on you. Run along, Edith. And put that ice pack on your own head.”

  I saw Edith’s face as she turned away, and was startled by the intensity of resentment it revealed—whether directed against her mother or against me I could not tell. She said nothing, however, and when she had gone sulkily from the room, Maud got off the bed and took my hand.

  “Thank you, my dear,” she said. “The child already likes you. Make her love you. Win her.”

  Her warm approval was something I needed, knowing as I did that I could count on no help from King. I was on Maud’s side too, finding myself increasingly fond of this woman who fought against the odds of age and flagging strength to take a stand for the sake of what she believed was good and right. She and King—and now I—were all engaged in a struggle for the same thing. It was just that our choice of solutions differed. In fact, my solution might not be entirely Maud’s. I was still undecided and feeling my way.

  Mrs. Hampden walked briskly to the door with me, and into the hall, as though, having won me over, she was more than anxious to show affectionate approval.

  As we neared my room I saw that Noreen must have forgotten her housekeeping duties, for a broom stood propped on its handle beside my door, ill balanced with the bristles pointing up. I offered to take it downstairs, but Maud stopped me with surprising vehemence.

  “No—don’t touch it! Let it alone.” She went to the bannister and called down the stairs.

  Noreen answered and came running up. Maud pointed at the broom and the girl halted abruptly, no longer smiling.

  “What it is?” she asked uneasily, using the island transposition of words.

  “It’s a broom, as you can see,” Maud told her. “Did you put it there?”

  “No, missy!” Noreen said emphatically. “I didn’ put it there. Jus’ me and myself be up here today. And I didn’ see no broom.”

  Maud sighed. “Well—never mind. You can take it downstairs now and put it where it belongs. Tell whoever it was not to do that again. You understand, Noreen?”

  For a moment I thought the girl would refuse to touch the broom. But as Maud waited she picked it up in a cautious hand and hurried downstairs, holding it away from her as though it were something alive.

  “What was all that about?” I asked.

  “Nothing—just carelessness,” Maud said.

  I knew something had upset her, but she chose not to explain. She stayed only to thank me again and left me at my door.

  For the rest of the evening I stayed alone in my room. Tomorrow my duties would start in earnest with the almost impossible task ahead of me. I must find my course of action. Not merely that endurance which had seemed necessary in the past, and which, as I’d told King, had been a kind of fighting in itself—but now something far more decisive and challenging than I had ever faced before. I felt a certain exhilaration at the very thought of flinging myself into a real struggle against a woman who meant only to destroy.

  Tomorrow there would be a start in my tutoring efforts with Leila and we must begin to be friends. Perhaps we would exchange the red dress, and that too would serve as a positive step in the campaign I must wage against her mother. Because that was what all this must add up to—preventive measures against Catherine. I would move quietly at first, managing a little at a time. Nothing could be done all at once.

  Yet, in spite of my eagerness to begin, to take action, to prove myself—the penalties for failure never completely left my mind. Failure might mean permanent damage to Leila. It could mean injury and hurt to Maud and King. And for me—disaster, for reasons I did not dare look at too closely. I knew that I could not afford to lose. In a sense, my life hung in the balance.

  When I had faced all this I sat for a time listening idly to the small radio I had brought with me, attending the storm warnings that were common to the area at this time of year. A hurricane was boiling up out in the Atlantic, but its progress seemed northward, so it would miss the Caribbean, and there was nothing to worry about at present. A real hurricane had not struck the Virgin Islands fo
r a good many years, and while everyone battened down for a blow several times a season, there had been no disastrous damage to St. Thomas for a very long while.

  I went to bed earlier than usual. Having made my decision, taken my stand, I would surely sleep tonight. If there were scenes in the hall outside my door, I would not get up to investigate. I must think of Leila now, and of how I might best begin with her.

  I fell asleep thinking of her father.

  Nothing reached me for hours. I must hardly have stirred. When I awakened suddenly I had a sense of the time being well after midnight. It was no sound that had brought me awake, but a scent—the odor of cigarette smoke close at hand.

  At the realization, I came wide awake, holding myself tense in the hushed gloom as I sniffed the acrid odor. Tonight I had been less nervous about going to bed, and I had left the bamboo-decorated draperies open to the air from one of the gallery doors. There was moonlight outside and the mass of the open doorway was lighted from without. Inside the room darkness lay thick, permeated by that eerie odor which told me someone was here, perhaps only a few feet from my bed, smoking a cigarette. As quietly as I could I raised my head from the pillow and caught the gleam and movement of the tip burning in the dark.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?” I demanded.

  “I thought you’d never wake up,” said Catherine Drew softly.

  The glowing tip of the cigarette drew an arc in the air as she rose from her place. A moment later she had switched on a lamp and turned to face me. She wore a mauve-colored nightgown and filmy negligee of the same tint, and her long blond hair lay loose about her shoulders, with a gold ribbon tying it back from her face.

  I sat up in my pajamas, grasping at that teacher’s authority which I’d learned to put around me like a garment when I had to face some difficult situation.