Maud turned slightly to look at Alex Stair as he stood beside the wall of draperies that closed off the terrace. The man had lost his suavity.
“King was outside,” he muttered. “Besides, I didn’t care for the idea of this meeting with her. I didn’t know what Catherine was up to. I never went near the clearing that night.”
Maud nodded gravely and went on.
“Catherine met King on the terrace and they had a heated argument before she reached the woods. I could hear the angry sound of their voices while I waited for her under the mango tree. When she found me there she was furious. She was playing her dangerous high-wire game—risking a fall because danger always fascinated her. She’d brought the murex shell with her—to show Alex proof of the operation she directed. But when she found me there, she showed it to me instead. She gave it to me defiantly to examine. I told her I knew what was going on and that the whole thing must stop at once or I would not hesitate to turn her over to the police. She laughed at me. All her life she had been treated too leniently, protected when she should have been made to answer for the consequences of her action. Perhaps I have been most of all to blame for that.”
Maud Hampden’s voice faltered and her hands clasped each other so tightly that blue ridges of vein stood out upon them. Leila left her chair and started toward her grandmother, but Maud stopped her with a glance, as autocratic as ever.
“Sit down, dear. I haven’t finished. When I heard someone coming along the woods path I thought it might be Alex, after all. I stepped back into the trees out of sight, though Catherine stayed to meet him. It was not Alex, however, but Kling—and this time he wasted no words. He took her by the shoulders and shook her angrily, flung her away from him so that she fell against the barrier above the catchment. I could have touched him as he brushed past me when he rushed away, out the other side of the woods, but he didn’t see me at all. I went back to confront Catherine and finish what I had to say to her. She had torn off the burnoose she was wearing in order to examine her bruised shoulders for the hurt King had done her. Pain could make her lose her head and when she saw me she tried to punish me for what King had done, for what her own folly had driven her into. She sprang at me like a wild thing in an attack I didn’t expect and tried to fasten her fingers about my throat. That was when I struck out at her with the shell I held in my hands.”
For the first time Maud’s voice broke completely. Her fine clear eyes—the feature I had first noted about her—searched the faces around the room, almost as though she asked for mercy. Edith moaned and Leila made a fumbling gesture of hand to mouth. No one else moved or uttered a sound. Captain Osborn stared at the toes of his shoes.
Recovering herself, Maud went on. “When I struck her she went backward through the rotting rail and rolled down the catchment.”
Still no one spoke. We could not think, for shock and pain. Then Leila jumped up and rushed to her grandmother, dropping to her knees beside the old woman, flinging her arms about Maud’s thin body.
“Oh, Gran, Gran!” she wailed. “You couldn’t have—you couldn’t!”
Almost absently Maud smoothed Leila’s fine soft hair. “I’m sorry, darling. I was the one who most wanted not to injure you.”
Leila sobbed and at the sound her grandmother stiffened, as if resistant to the one thing that could weaken her utterly.
“I was left there with the shell in my hands and the burnoose on the ground, stunned by what had happened. I called down the catchment and there was no answer. I had to think about the living and I flung the murex shell away from me, hoping it would never be found. I didn’t know that the gold chain about Catherine’s neck had snapped as we struggled and the columbella had rolled away into the brush. I picked up the burnoose and wrapped it around me, pulling the hood over my head. I had a vague notion that anyone who saw me returning to the house might take me for Catherine. The one thought in my mind was to get away from that place and let everyone think Catherine’s fall had been an accident. Because of the dreadful scandal that would result, with its damage to everyone, and especially to Leila, I felt I had to keep silent.”
Leila hid her face against her grandmother’s breast. “You couldn’t hurt anyone! You’re good and brave and wise!”
Maud soothed her quietly. She bent her head and kissed her granddaughter lightly on the cheek.
“I am neither good nor wise and I have managed to build up a pattern of harm to others through most of the years of my life. Not maliciously, but foolishly, because I took pride in too many of the wrong things—among them what I considered my own superior judgment.” Her eyes seemed to plead with King. “I didn’t see Leila when she came upon her mother and father in the clearing and ran away. Things happened in such quick sequence that I must have gone back to the house almost upon Leila’s heels. Noreen was the only one who saw me, and she thought I was Catherine. I hung the damp burnoose on the rack, and later I had Edith remove it to a cabinet in her workroom, so it might be forgotten. But when I hung it there that night, I went upstairs to my room to collect myself and think of a way to raise the alarm. There was no need. Catherine was discovered almost immediately.”
Kneeling beside her, Leila pulled away from her grandmother and looked up into her face. All the love and loyalty she felt were revealed in her own.
“It wasn’t your fault, Gran. You were fighting for your life. You wouldn’t have harmed her deliberately. I know you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
Maud put a hand against Leila’s cheek and held it there. “I don’t know what I meant,” she said. “I don’t really know.”
She freed herself gently from Leila’s restraining arms and stood up to face Captain Osborn.
“There will be certain formalities you will be responsible for, Captain. As soon as the storm lessens I will go with you and do whatever you wish.”
King went to her quickly and put a supporting arm about her shoulders. His face was working and he could not speak.
Captain Osborn did a strangely touching thing. He rose in almost military fashion and made a slight bow, a bending of his body that was somehow a salute.
“Madam,” he said, “I am very sorry to find myself in this position. I must say, Madam, that I find you a most gallant lady.”
She held out her hand to him and he took it.
“There are extenuating circumstances, Mrs. Hampden,” he went on. “This matter will undoubtedly work itself out, though I am afraid unpleasantness cannot be avoided.”
“There are no extenuating circumstances,” Maud told him with calm dignity. “Nevertheless, perhaps certain unpleasantnesses may be avoided.”
He looked doubtful and she smiled at him.
“You will see what I mean, Captain. Now there are a few things I would like to do. If you will permit me—before the storm ends?”
“Of course,” he said and stood aside to let her pass.
King held her close to him for a moment, and I saw Maud’s shoulders droop, saw a quiver touch them before she pulled away from him.
“You have always been a wonderful son to me,” she said so softly that I barely caught the words. “I couldn’t foresee that you were going to take this blame upon yourself. Will you forgive me for not telling the truth sooner? I’m not so brave as Leila thinks.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Maud dear,” King said, and kissed her tenderly.
My throat was tight as I watched, my vision blurred with tears. Leila had fled to the door, where she stood looking out a little wildly upon the storm. Beyond, the rain swept horizontally past across the drive, with the fury of the wind still behind it. Maud started toward her down the length of the room and I followed, more than a little worried now about Leila and how she would react to this new set of circumstances. Matters were moving too fast for our emotions to catch up with us.
“A breath of air—” Maud said and went to stand beside t
he girl.
I paused, not wanting to intrude upon this necessary time between Maud and her granddaughter. When I glanced back at the room I saw that King was speaking to Captain Osborn, while Alex stared coldly at his weeping wife. Edith had known. Edith had known about her mother’s action all along. For the first time I felt real pity for her. All her life she had been the weak victim of her sister’s scheming.
When I turned hesitantly toward the door again I found Leila gone and Maud nowhere in sight. The entryway stood empty—alarmingly so—and outside there was only that wildly blowing, stormy gray murk. Shock held me motionless for a moment. Then I shouted a warning to the others and acted purely on instinct. Leila had gone out into the storm—and perhaps Maud had too. They must be found and brought back at once.
The moment I stepped outside, the blast struck me, drenching me, hurling me halfway across the drive. I fought my way back to the wall of the house and was in time to see the white flash of Leila’s dress from the direction of the terrace. The wall offered some protection against the wind, but I was already wet to the skin, and water streamed from my hair so that I had to shake limp strands from before my face.
Given the strength of desperation, I was moving faster than I had ever moved in my life. By the time I reached the exposed terrace, the will-o’-the-wisp of Leila’s dress had disappeared into the grove of storm-tossed trees, and I ran into the woods after her. There was no sign of Maud.
Behind me I heard someone shout, but I was ahead and I ran on. The trees offered scant protection from wind and rain. The air was filled with debris—wet leaves and flying twigs, even branches that sailed past my head to crash somewhere behind me. I fought my way, while on ahead the white dress flickered, vanished, and reappeared as the pathway twisted and turned.
Then, somehow, I had reached the edge of the clearing. Leila was there—but she was not alone. Two figures struggled together, as if joined in some dreadful dance. One appeared to be straining toward the catchment, while the other strove to hold her back. But with all the noise and movement and confusion I could not tell which of the two was in danger.
Before I could move to stop this appalling struggle, I heard a sudden tremendous cracking sound overhead. In horror I looked up—and saw what was happening.
The storm had split the great mango tree. With an air of slow motion the huge trunk with all its heavy, fruit-laden branches had begun to descend from the heights. I screamed out to the two clasped together in the full path of the tree, but the sound of my voice was wrenched away on the wind as if I had not uttered a sound.
Nevertheless, something must have warned Maud. She looked up at the toppling branches still high overhead, and with a desperate strength she thrust the girl away from her. Leila stumbled backward and I caught her in my arms and pulled her from the path of descending death.
“Run!” I screamed to Maud. “Run!”—and it was as if I spoke in a whisper.
She did not run. She stood looking upward at the ancient tree, its branches tortured by the wind and spilling a torrent of water as they descended. The whole thing took no more than seconds, yet the tree seemed to come down with the slow dignity of a giant felled—first staggering, hesitant, then with its speed increasing on the great descent King and Mike reached me as the tree crashed down with a boom far louder than the noises of the storm, thundering to the ground across the clearing—crushing the marble bench, smashing through the new railing King had built at the lookout point, settling at last with a trembling that made the earth shudder and left the head of the giant extending into the air far out over the catchment. Rain and wind tossed the great branches, beat at them wildly, and Leila ceased to struggle in my arms.
For minutes after the settling the earth seemed to shake, and while the branches still quivered from the force of the fall, Leila pulled herself free and thrashed her way through quivering leaves and rolling green fruit to reach the place where Maud lay pinned beneath the wreckage. King and Mike were beside her at once but Leila was closest to her grandmother, bending her head to catch her words.
Maud lay on her back, her body covered by green branches, one hand outflung. I saw its brief convulsive movement as Leila knelt beside her. Then the hand lay quiet on the muddy earth of the clearing.
Around us the storm howled. Rain bruised us with a slanting force, churning up the earth, slashing at still-quivering branches, beating down upon an upturned face. King raised his daughter to her feet and Mike brought her back to me. Laboriously, frantically, King strove to extricate Maud from the wreckage, but even with Mike to help him, there was no way to move the tree. Nothing could be done until the storm was over and we could get help. No further harm could reach Maud Hampden. She was beyond our aid.
The four of us stumbled blindly back to the house with the rain at our backs, the wind beating and thrusting us along. Leila gave herself to Mike’s helping hands. King’s arm was about me, and I leaned on his strength, intent for the moment upon getting back to the house and away from the hurtful, punishing wind.
Captain Osborn met us at the door, with Alex beside him. Across the room Edith still sat weeping, as if she knew very well that only tragic news could be expected. We were all shivering and wet, but we had no wish to hurry off and change our clothes. As King told the captain what had happened. Alex, too, listened without surprise. Leila stood between her father and Mike O’Neill, her wet dress mud-spattered and plastered against her body, her hair slick with water, as though she had been swimming. The wildness and strain were still evident in her face.
Sadly the captain heard King through his account. “It was to be expected,” he said when the story had been told. “She was indeed a gallant lady. I would have disliked very much to arrest her.”
Suddenly I understood why he had not followed us into the storm to help, why he had waited quietly at the house for whatever news we might bring him.
“But why—why?” Leila begun. “Gran wasn’t to blame!”
With all the kindliness he might have shown his own daughter, the captain answered her. “In her heart the lady took the blame. She acted in order to destroy an evil and save others from the result of wickedness. But the woman she killed was also her child, whom she had once loved dearly—whom she could not wholly hate. I think she could not continue living without making reparation of a personal payment which the law might not have asked of her. The storm offered the lady her chance.”
Leila’s gaze did not waver from his face. “Gran said something to me down there just before she died. I didn’t understand—but you’ve helped me to, a little.”
“Perhaps the tree was the better way,” he said gently. “Perhaps it was an act of God. Who is to say what led the lady to the clearing at that fateful moment?”
“Thank you, Captain Osborn,” Leila said and turned toward her father. “Dad—” Her voice broke.
King held out his arms and she went into them, clinging to him, perhaps finding him again truly, for the first time since she had been a little girl. From his arms she turned her head to smile at me warmly, and at Mike, who stood a little apart, wet and woebegone, but cheering faintly at her smile.
We were shivering, the four of us who had gone to the clearing, but before I could move toward the stairs Alex spoke to the captain, his voice flat, devoid of feeling.
“What happens to us now?”
Delicately the captain shrugged. “There will be unpleasantness, I fear. Jewels have been stolen. A thief is abroad in the storm and must be picked up.”
Edith broke in, her hands flung out in frantic pleading. “There’s money in all Catherine’s accounts. Some reparation can be made for the things she took. Won’t that help a little?”
“Many things will be taken into consideration, I am sure,” Captain Osborn said. “The pressures and coercion put upon yourself will not go unnoted—though naturally nothing can be promised.”
“And wha
t else?” Alex demanded. “What other unpleasantness?”
For a long moment the captain’s gentle brown eyes held the challenge of Alex’s pale ones.
“There have been two extremely sad accidents at Hampden House,” he said at last. “Our island will grieve for a bereft family which has lost a mother in a tragic fall, and a grandmother felled by a tree in this storm.”
The sound of the breath Alex released was audible across the room. He went abruptly to sit beside his wife, and I had the instinct that Alex Stair would always land on his feet, that he would overcome his fury and disgust and do whatever now needed to be done for Edith.
I held out my hand to Leila. “Come along,” I said. “If you’re as cold as I am, I think we’d better get into some dry clothes. Perhaps your father can find something for Mike.”
She came to me and we went upstairs together.
The distant center of Hurricane Katy had moved on at last. Surprisingly, it was still afternoon and the sky grew lighter by the moment as clouds rolled away. The telephone was still in order and Captain Osborn had been able to make the necessary calls to town. He was now waiting for help to come up the mountain with the abating of the storm. Already the servants were taking down hurricane barriers all around the house.
Columbella Page 31
