Columbella

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Do you really think so? Do you really like it?”

  “Very much,” I said matter-of-factly and went on turning the sheets.

  Her attention was given wholeheartedly now, and the very fact told me how much this talent meant to Leila Drew. Here was something I could use to move toward friendship with her, perhaps toward her greater confidence in me. Now and then I commented appreciatively on a drawing, but without flattery, and she hung on my words with touching attention.

  “This is a talent you must go on developing,” I told her, when we had looked at every picture in the stack. “You’ll need to be ready for a university with a good art department when the time comes.”

  Perhaps I had gone too far, for she drew back from me, a question in her eyes. “How do you know? What subject do you teach, Miss Abbott? No one has told me that.”

  “It’s a good question,” I agreed. “Art certainly isn’t my subject. I teach what they call social studies—ancient history, historical geography, current events—the whole tie-in between history past and history in the making today.”

  Again she challenged me. “How can any one person know all that? How can you possibly teach such a huge subject?”

  I laughed. “How right you are! Most of the time ancient history stays put—though I suppose we’re always finding new interpretations for what has happened a long time ago. But when it comes to what’s happening right now, my students are often a jump ahead of me, and that’s fine. If I can get them to think for themselves and discuss these things intelligently, listen to all sides and not try for pat solutions, or ape the opinions of others, that’s my purpose. Often I learn from them.”

  Leila considered this for several moments. When she spoke she did not look at me. “Cathy thinks my drawing is a silly waste of time.”

  Without warning I was stricken again, pierced by the old hurt that could spring at me suddenly out of ambush. I was remembering something I’d nearly forgotten because I wanted to forget. I could hear Helen saying, “Why should you sit at a desk writing those silly stories, Jessie? You’ll never do anything with them. Come and talk to me.” And I had put aside the stories she ridiculed and talked to her. This must not happen to Leila.

  “You have a gift,” I said, “but that’s only the beginning. Now you have to do something with it for yourself, and you never will if you accept the words of anyone who tries to discourage you. Criticism can be useful to you, but not discouragement. You asked me a sensible question a few minutes ago. It’s true that I know nothing about art as an artist. But I love to visit art galleries and museums and we have some very good ones in Chicago. Art is part of history—modern as well as ancient—so I have to know a little about it, even though I’m only a spectator.”

  Something of her tension had lessened and so had the resemblance to Catherine. She made a quick gesture, drawing the two sheets of paper from her lap, placing one of them away from her, face down on the table. The other she turned upward before me.

  “You can look if you like,” she said almost shyly.

  Once more she had turned to caricature. In a sense this was a sister sketch to the one she had done of Alex. The face in this picture was, however, more than an exaggeration of Catherine’s features—it mocked a little as well. The hair was black, instead of fair, and Leila had drawn it witch-straight. The eyes were atilt, the cat face even more feline than reality in its small triangle. Catherine’s daughter had created a picture of a rather disturbing young witch—not an altogether pretty witch.

  “Cathy hasn’t seen it yet,” Leila said, biting her lower lip critically as she studied her work. “I’m not sure how she’ll take it.”

  I was more than pleased. Here again was evidence that the girl did not always regard her mother with blind adoration, but was capable of an objective look now and then.

  “I think I drew it to be mean,” she confessed. “I—I don’t like some of the things Cathy says and does. And I suppose I hate the way she brushes my drawings aside as if they didn’t matter. Though I know that isn’t fair of me. Cathy happens to like action things—swimming, boating, dancing. Doing things. She doesn’t understand how anyone can sit still and make silly marks on paper. She can’t help that and I really ought to forgive her, since there are so many other things she does for me.”

  I loved the child for her generosity and intelligence, but I had seen little evidence that Catherine Drew gave anything selflessly away.

  “Like helping you choose your clothes?” I asked, a little sly myself.

  Leila did not miss my meaning and she would allow no one else to criticize Catherine.

  “If you mean the red dress, I’ll probably keep it. Cathy knows much more than I do about clothes, and she thinks it will be fun if we look alike for the party.”

  I said nothing, and perhaps my very silence implied criticism, for Leila took back the witch picture and hid it in the center of the pile of drawings. Then she reached for the second sketch and turned it face up on the table.

  “Look at this,” she said. “This is one of the things Cathy is doing for me.”

  The new sketch was very different from the others I had seen. It was a pencil drawing done with a delicacy and pictorial grace that seemed less modern than her shell drawings, though it suited her subject perfectly. The drawing was of a house built in the gracious architectural style of an older day—an English manor house, built in the form of a bracket, with a spacious, recessed entrance and long, shuttered windows on either side. This was a different view of the same house King had shown me in a photograph.

  “Lovely,” I said, wondering why she had hesitated to show it to me earlier. “This is Caprice, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?” she asked in astonishment.

  “Your father showed me a photograph of it yesterday. But I like your drawing better. What a beautiful house it must be.”

  Leila leaned so close beside me that her soft breath touched my cheek. “Yes—it is beautiful. It will be mine someday. Cathy says she’ll see to that. She’s going to restore it—make it just the way it was in my grandfather’s time.”

  I thought of what King and Maud had said about preserving this house, and knew that we ventured upon uneasy ground. This time it was I who withdrew a little, though I tried not to let her see.

  “Won’t that take an enormous amount of money?” I asked. “More than is reasonable to spend for a private home that no one lives in any more?”

  “Sometimes Cathy lives there,” Leila said. “Sometimes she goes over and stays for days at a time. I wish she would take me with her, but there’s no use coaxing with Cathy. She hates me if I beg.”

  I noted the pronoun Leila used. She had not said that her mother hated it if she begged, but that she hated her.

  “Perhaps what your grandmother and your father want most for the house is to preserve it for the future,” I said gently. “These old houses are sometimes safer in public hands. That way generations to come can enjoy them.”

  “What do Cathy and I care about generations to come?” She snatched the picture away from me impatiently. “You sound exactly like Dad and Gran. I’m sorry I showed you. Cathy has gone to Caprice today, and I wish I’d gone with her. Steve took her to St. Croix in his boat, and if Dad knew he’d be wild.”

  A certain wariness must have shown in my face, for when I made no comment Leila drew abruptly away.

  “I knew it!” she cried. “I never should have trusted you. You’re on Dad’s side, of course, and you’re against Cathy—just as she said you would be. No one understands how cruel he has been to her, or the way he treats her. Oh, the things she has told me about him!”

  Her attack had come so suddenly that I was unprepared. Almost anything I might say could be wrong, and as I sought for some answer she rushed on.

  “There’s no use in your denying anything. Cathy told me you’d defend Dad
right down the line—because silly females like you can never resist him!”

  The look of her mother was upon her again, frighteningly. It was almost as if, for this instant, she had become her mother. And Catherine was someone with whom I did not know how to deal.

  “Perhaps we can talk about this when you’re not so upset,” I said.

  But she would not listen. She wanted only to repudiate and reject, and she stayed for no more, but picked up her drawing of the house and ran toward the door. Alex stood in the opening, barring her way.

  “They went to Caprice, didn’t they?” he said and I felt again the malevolence that could drive this man.

  Leila looked suddenly frightened. “I don’t know. I don’t know for sure!”

  “Your father told her she wasn’t to go there again with Steve,” Alex said. “Don’t you think he’d better be told what she’s up to?”

  “No—no, please, Uncle Alex! If he finds them there, Dad might—he might—”

  “He might hurt someone badly—is that what you mean?” Her uncle’s tone was caustic, the note of spite all the more evident.

  The girl nodded, her eyes like those of a young animal—driven.

  “Which might be a very good thing for—someone.” Alex spoke gently, but there was no gentleness in his intent. “As it happens, I’m on my way downtown now. I believe I’ll stop in at your father’s office.”

  He turned from the doorway, and Leila let him go. In a gesture painfully desperate in its appeal, she flung out her hands to me.

  “Please go with him! I—I’m afraid of what Dad may do when he hears. Uncle Alex wants to punish Catherine for—oh, I don’t know for what! He wants to make Dad angry with her. If you’re there, perhaps you can say something to stop my father from doing anything wild. He mustn’t hurt Catherine—or Steve either. But he’d never listen to me.”

  Her alarm had infected me. King was no more likely to listen to me than to anyone else, but I knew I had to go with Alex, if he would take me. I must try, and not only for Leila’s sake. I touched her arm lightly in encouragement and hurried after Alex, catching him as he reached the front door.

  “Will you take me down the hill with you? Let me get my bag and I’ll be right with you.”

  Leila was already running up the stairs with the drawing of Caprice in her hands and Alex looked up at her sardonically.

  “So she’s frightened you, has she?” He shrugged. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  I hurried upstairs for my handbag and as I stepped through the door of my room I felt a gritty substance on the doorsill. I dropped to one knee to touch it with a fingertip—and found that it was salt. Salt!—the old, old magic that had belonged to the Caribbean from the days when the first captives had been brought here from Africa. I suppressed a tendency to shiver. Catherine wanted to terrify me—so I must not be terrified.

  When I went downstairs I found Edith Stair standing in the doorway, watching while her husband got out the car. At my step she turned, her hands plucking at each other, betraying her lack of ease.

  “King mustn’t go to Caprice,” she said at once. “Alex will want him to—but you must stop him if you can.”

  My surprise must have been evident, for she made an impatient sound. “I’ve been in the dining room, polishing silver. And you were all speaking loudly enough. I suppose it’s silly to ask you to help. I suppose there’s nothing you can do.”

  I wondered why she did not try to dissuade her husband from going to King in the first place, but before I could suggest this, she moved away from me down the room. When I looked back from the doorway she was picking up the telephone. Always her actions seemed futile, ineffectual, and I forgot her as I went outdoors.

  Alex was waiting for me in his car and as we started along the hilltop drive I saw no point in mentioning Edith’s words.

  Following the pavement toward the downhill turnoff, we passed a low house built of redwood, set on a level of hillside below the road. It looked like the one King had shown me in a picture.

  Alex gestured as he went by. “That’s one of the Drew houses. King built it for himself and so far he hasn’t sold it to anyone. You must ask him to let you see it sometime.”

  There seemed some hidden mockery in his words, but I had no time to give it thought. My mind was already busy with this situation into which I was so suddenly plunging myself. What was I to do if King threatened angry action once he knew Catherine and Steve had gone to Caprice? Leila’s fear had been very real, born, undoubtedly, of experience with her father’s temper, and Edith had been frightened too. What was I—a stranger, an intruder—doing in this affair? But whether I wanted it or not, King was no stranger to me and I could not be indifferent to what might happen.

  In spite of my fearful concerns, my spirits seemed to rise in reverse order to our descent. In brilliant sunlight I could see more of our way than on my first journey up after dark and the scenes on every side held and entranced me. The zigzag road from the drive slanted beneath that great stone catchment dropping downward from Maud’s tropical forest, and when I looked up I could see the thick growth of trees above, not so great in its spread as it had seemed yesterday when I was within its dark midst.

  With an exhilarating rush of color, red and white and yellow roofs came up to meet us, and before long we were following Charlotte Amalie’s steep, narrow streets. Often there were stone enclosures on one hand surrounding fine old homes, while on the other rose flimsy board shacks in which a family could live, at least without weather discomfort in the tropics. Yet the two seemed to mingle in a not unneighborly fashion, with a friendly enough acceptance of one by the other.

  “You’re quiet this morning,” Alex said.

  His words gave me an opening. “Why were you so unpleasant to Leila? Why must you stir everything up like this?”

  The slight smile he turned upon me had a bitter twist. “What woman ever understands male pride? Do you think a man like Kingdon Drew will stand still forever while the woman who carries his name behaves as Catherine does? Sooner or later she has to be brought to heel, and King is the one to do it.”

  It seemed that Alex’s pride, too, was involved, though Catherine was not his wife.

  “Do you think angry explosions ever solve anything?” I asked.

  His slanted look was sardonic. “Sometimes they do. It depends on what one is trying to solve.”

  My distrust of the man was increasing and I said no more.

  We had slowed to a crawl, since pedestrians on these hills appeared to regard the roads as theirs, and often strolled across the pavement with careless heed for automobiles. Now and then Alex touched the horn lightly, but there seemed no impatience in him to reach our destination. It was as if he moved slowly and confidently toward a sure and expected outcome.

  In the downtown area Alex found a parking place not far from the post office, where Dronningens Gade began. We walked together down the old Danish main street of the town—King Street if one translated. By now I had learned to pronounce it “Gah-da” like everyone else. Here there were narrow sidewalks on either hand, with just enough width between for the one-way stream of motor traffic down the center.

  King’s office was in the old Pissarro house—where the artist had been born—and we wove our way toward it without hurry through the throng of tourists. Visitors to St. Thomas could be easily recognized, looking as they did like exotic tropical birds set down among the more sensibly feathered chickens that were the island residents.

  The house, its upper half painted white, rose flush with the sidewalk. The lower façade boasted a series of stone arches, with long green shutters secured back against the walls. Downstairs there were shops, while from upstairs came a clatter of office typewriters. Alex led the way through a narrow passage to an inner courtyard that reminded me of some New Orleans scene. Here, though there was stone underfoot, I had a
sense of tropical growth, with potted plants everywhere, fringing the courtyard and the curve of stairs that led to the office floor above.

  We climbed to an upper hallway and went through swinging doors set at eye level. The pretty girl who worked at a typewriter had glossy black hair and a skin the shade of pale caramel. She greeted Alex and smiled at me, showing us at once through a second pair of swinging doors into an office less spacious than the one at Hampden House. An old-fashioned electric fan vibrated from the ceiling to keep the air moving, while behind King’s wooden desk double windows opened on the sunny street. Clearly Madison Avenue with its plush decor and air-conditioning had not yet reached St. Thomas to any great degree, and I had a sense of stepping back into the days of a century that seemed to fit this house.

  “Mr. Drew will be back in a moment,” the girl said and waved us into straight-backed chairs. I sat down, but Alex went to the window and stood looking down upon the street. My feeling of freedom over escaping the oppression of Hampden House had faded and the alarm with which Leila had filled me was returning. Something very unpleasant was about to happen, and I had no knowledge of how to meet any dangerous crisis.

  In a few minutes King came through the swinging doors to greet us dubiously, as though he knew we could not bring good news. I found myself once more studying the details of his face, as if to check my own remembrance of him, and oddly enough, he looked at me in very much the same way.

  All too aware of Alex watching us, I began to chatter. “What a fascinating house for your office! I suppose the old rooms have all been partitioned off, but I can still catch something of the flavor—such high old ceilings—”

  I was grateful to Alex for stopping this idiotic outburst. “This isn’t a social visit,” he said. “Catherine left for Caprice with Steve early this morning, King. I thought you’d better know. Miss Abbott wanted to come with me, though I’m not sure why. I’ll leave her to her own explaining. If you’ll excuse me—”

  As abruptly as that he was gone, not caring to stay and watch the effect of the words he had dropped. King stared after him blankly and I saw the dark flush rise in his face, saw the tightening of his jaw. Then, without another look for me, he strode to the window and stood there, his back to the room, though I think he saw nothing of the street below. His hands were clenched behind his back in a gesture of violence barely restrained.