Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

  For one long moment Terry had stood completely still. Then, without warning, he lunged toward Ivor, his chair spilling back behind him.

  Elaine jumped up and sprang between the two men, her face white as the white satin of her gown. She clutched Terry’s arm.

  “Don’t, Terry! Don’t be a fool!”

  “A fool!” The boy’s savage gaze shifted to his sister. “I suppose I’m meant to say: ‘Thank you, Mr. Drake.’ I suppose I’m meant to be like you and the rest of them, licking his boots, fawning on him like a bunch of lap dogs, just because he’s rich and you’re scared silly he won’t marry you and redeem the family fortunes.” He swung away, completely ignoring Ivor, glaring down the table at his father and mother. “You’re my parents. I’m supposed to look up to you and respect you. Respect you! I’d rather be dead than be the way you are.”

  He turned back to Elaine, shaking her hand roughly from his arm.

  “You!” he said. “You cheap little money-grabbing floosy! Here’s what I think of you.”

  Jerkily he lifted his hand and brought the flat of his palm stingingly down on his sister’s cheek.

  While the others stared in deep, stunned silence, he gave a little sob and, half running, half stumbling, hurried to the yellow patio door, tugged it open, and disappeared through it.

  Slowly, as in a daze, Elaine’s fingers moved to the reddening weal on her cheek. Her eyes, green and flat, stared blindly in front of her.

  “I— Excuse me. I think I’ll go upstairs.”

  She ran into the house. Maud started to follow and then stopped. Ivor, serene and entirely unruffled, had sat down again at the table. He said: “Maud, dear, you really should eat your crêpes suzettes before they get cold. They are very good.”

  His contemptuous composure was unendurable to Kay. Hardly conscious of the others, she moved away and hurried out through the patio door.

  In spite of that incredible scene, she felt a strong flood of triumph. Terry had stood up to Ivor. He had had the courage to speak the truth about the whole setup. Ahead, in the rapidly thickening dusk, she could just make out her nephew’s figure moving across the lawn to the dock. She must go to him, tell him the whole truth, let him know how right he had been.

  When she reached the wooden wharf, she saw the cruiser lying off the diving raft, saw the speedboat moored to the dock with the aquaplane board, tossed in the stern, still attached to the gunwhale by long, tangled ropes. Hanging on the dock rail, like pale limp ghosts, were the family swimming suits and towels, stretched to dry. Maud’s dark, shadowy; Elaine’s gleaming silver white with the small platinum-silver cap perched grotesquely on a posthead at its side.

  The rhythmic splash of oars drew her attention to Terry. He was in a punt rowing toward a sailboat which stood out as a white blur against the dark of the island beyond.

  “Terry. It’s Kay. Come back.”

  But the boy rowed doggedly on. It was obvious he wanted to be alone. Poor Terry! She understood so well. It was not only Ivor’s cruel jibes at Simon. Terry’s tempestuous flash of anger had shown her into the deepest recesses of his young heart, had shown her a glimpse of the hell of shame and disgust he was enduring at seeing his mother and father and his beloved sister acting out what to him was a cheap, dishonorable sham.

  Terry had reached the sailboat now. Kay moved away from the dock, starting along the cliffs which, massed with century plants and white-plumed yuccas, dropped to the swimming beach below.

  Without the slightest warning, a voice sounded behind her.

  “Thank God, you’ve come.”

  She spun round. A man, shadowy and unidentifiable in the dusk, stood straight in front of her. Before she could speak, his arms, bare to the elbow, had slipped around her waist and were pulling her toward him. His lips, warm and brutally insistent, found hers, pressing them in a long, passionate kiss.

  Kay was too startled even to think, let along to cry out or to struggle free.

  The man’s mouth slid away from her. His voice, hoarse and urgent, was whispering: “I’ve been through hell waiting, wondering if you’d come.”

  She recognized him then, recognized the husky voice, the blunt, strong face of Ivor Drake’s boatman. And, as she did so, she felt his body go rigid, felt his arms release her. Now that the first flurry of emotion was gone, she realized the staggering truth.

  Trying to keep her voice steady, she said: “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong girl, Mr. Baird.”

  “The white dress,” he blurted. “She has a white dress too. I …”

  “You thought I was Elaine.” Kay’s mind was swirling at the implications of this utterly undreamed-of thing. “You—you and Elaine!”

  “I told you I was going to stop that wedding.” He gave a short laugh. “Maybe now you see why.”

  “She was planning to meet you here. She … You’ve got to tell me. Is she in love with you?”

  “In love with me!” In the starlight his eyes were very bright and wild. “She damn well better be if she knows what’s good for her.”

  “But why—why is she marrying Ivor?”

  “Do you think I know that? Do you think I can tell what goes on in that muddled head of hers? He’s rich, isn’t he? He’s glamorous. She’s young and a fool and frightened of being poor. She doesn’t know what it’s all about. That’s why I told her to meet me tonight—to get wise to herself.” The words came thickly, incoherently. “This afternoon I made her talk, made her try and face an issue for a change. I told her she was going to cut free from this filthy racket and go away with me. Oh, I haven’t a red cent. It’d mean arriving flat broke in New York until I could land a job. It’d mean bingo to my plans for studying law. It’d be hell to offer any girl—but it’s worth it; it’s a thousand times worth it to save her from marrying that …”

  His voice suddenly stopped and he gripped her arm.

  About twenty feet away up the path to the house, the red tip of a cigarette was glowing. Behind it, a tall, lean shadow in the starlight, stood the white-coated figure of Ivor Drake.

  In a second he was with them, moving with that strange, supple grace. “I’m sleeping on the island tonight, Don. I want you to take sheets and things over and make up the bed.” He felt in his pocket and brought out a bunch of keys. “While you’re about it, you can take my bags over and unpack.” His dark eyes, bright and steady in the light from his cigarette, shifted to Kay. “Incidentally, I hope you enjoyed your little conversation with Miss Winyard … because it will almost certainly be your last. You’re paid by me to work, not to—entertain my guests.”

  For a second Don stood staring at him, his jaw aggressively tilted. Then, very quietly, he said: “O.K.,” and strode away.

  As he melted into the shadows, Ivor tossed away his cigarette and moved closer to Kay.

  Every nerve in her was jarringly alive from her scene with the boatman. And for the first time she felt a queer sting of fear—fear not of what Ivor might say, but of his physical nearness and the sudden, responsive quiver of her own body.

  “You’re more beautiful than ever, Kay.”

  His hands moved to her arms. She wanted to pull herself away. But she couldn’t. Memories, rushing back with the familiar touch of those fingers, held her motionless in a spell that had fascination as well as repulsion.

  “More beautiful. But just as unsophisticated.” His fingers moved over her bare arms. “I was too much fun, wasn’t I? I excited you instead of revering your maidenly modesty. So you put me in the monster class—a wicked, wicked ogre who eats young girls. And now you’ve come to save your niece from a fate worse than death.” She could see his white teeth as he smiled. “If I were you, darling, I’d relax and enjoy the sunshine because you’re not going to succeed.”

  She stared at him challengingly. “What makes you so sure I won’t succeed?”

  “Because I think Elaine’s one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. I want to marry her. And I’m going to marry her.”

  “And
she wants to marry you?”

  “That, my dear, is a very interesting question. But then Elaine’s a very interesting and complex person. She’s fascinated by money; and she’s rather fascinated by me.”

  “And she loves you?”

  “Loves me!” He gave a queer laugh. “Do you think I’d marry anyone again who loved me—after Rosemary?”

  The moon, a gleaming yellow disk, was hanging now above the still waters of the bay. In its soft radiance, Kay could see his face clearly—see the ironic eyes and the mouth with its half-derisive smile.

  “Poor Kay, you good women are so pathetically naïve. You think I hounded Rosemary to her death for the fiendish delight of watching her suffer. You’d never understand that she was the one who hounded me. That appalling, suffocating, female love! She tried to swallow me whole into her ghastly world of cheap romance where cupids shower roses on the bridal couch and wives are Little Women. It’s a miracle I wasn’t the one who jumped out of that window!”

  Kay watched him, hating him. “I suppose you know Rosemary kept a diary of her married life? She sent it to me before she—she killed herself.”

  “I thought I recognized that little green book you were nursing when I came into the room today.”

  “It might interest you to know I’m going to show it to Maud tonight.”

  “So you haven’t shown it to her yet. That’s interesting.” He was smiling again. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, darling, but your bomb isn’t going to explode. Your sister has far too shrewd an instinct for keeping her bread buttered to be affected by the scribblings of a neurotic girl.”

  “That’s a vile thing to say. Just because she’s let Gilbert accept all those things from you, you needn’t …”

  “My dear Kay, I never suggested I’d bought your sister off by my small generosities. I’m merely telling you that neither Maud nor Gilbert Chiltern will ever stand in my way so far as marrying Elaine is concerned—whatever you do. So don’t you think you might be a tactful sister and not—shall we say—embarrass Maud more than necessary?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  He moved closer. “I wouldn’t be inquisitive, darling. You’ll only force me into telling you something not so very nice about your beloved Chilterns. And then you’ll call me a cad.”

  His hands slid around her waist. He drew her toward him. And he kissed her on the mouth.

  Her brief moment of fascination had completely gone. The touch of his lips on hers brought her nothing but a sharp, uncontrollable disgust. She wrenched herself free.

  He stared at her, his shoulders very straight.

  “The rhapsody seems to have ended, doesn’t it?” he said. “I can’t expect to compete with my hired boatman.”

  In a surge of anger, Kay swung away and hurried blindly back to the house. And yet, even though she had left his tall, slender figure there by the swimming beach, the feeling of his nearness was still with her like a toxin in her blood. She reached the moonlit terrace and stepped into the living room.

  Maud was there alone. When she saw Kay, she came straight to her. “Kay, did you find Terry?”

  “No. He’s gone sailing. He’s better off alone.”

  Maud said jerkily: “You despise me, don’t you? You think I’ve been blind or—or worse. How can I explain? How can I make you see I never realized before what Ivor—what all this has done to Terry.”

  She stared straight at Kay. Her face had a strange set quality Kay had never seen before. “I’m sorry, dear, for what I said this afternoon. I’m desperately sorry about everything and I’m beginning to despise myself. That diary, I want to see it. Bring it to my room later tonight—after everyone has gone to bed.”

  In a few moments the door opened and Ivor came in, smiling blandly.

  “Well, well,” he said, “the young folk seem to be out enjoying themselves and the invalid has retired for the night. A very suitable time for the rest of us to play a little middle-aged bridge.”

  And they did. Ivor summoned the nurse, Alice Lumsden, for a fourth. For what seemed like an eternity he kept them there, playing with his usual casual brilliance, watching them derisively, enjoying their steadily increasing nervous tension.

  Once a maid came in and said to Alice: “You won’t be needed any more tonight. Miss Elaine is helping Mr. Chiltern to bed.” That was all that happened. But it was not the only thing Kay noticed. As the interminable game progressed, she became more and more conscious of Ivor’s “distant cousin.” Whenever Ivor spoke to her, Alice Lumsden’s queer homely face lit up so that it was almost pretty and her deep-set eyes followed his every movement with the stubborn devotion of a dog’s. Kay thought: So that’s the way it is. Perhaps that was why the nurse seemed to dislike the Chilterns so thoroughly. Alice Lumsden was another of Ivor’s feminine conquests.

  It was not until eleven-thirty that Ivor suggested stopping and curtly dismissed the nurse. Then, bidding Kay a sardonic good night, he slipped his arm affectionately over Maud’s shoulder.

  “You’re going to be a nice mother-in-law and wave me good night from the dock.”

  As soon as they moved out through the French windows, Kay hurried upstairs to her room. She was tingling with a sensation, half of excitement, half of dread. Maud had asked to see the diary; she had recanted. That was a victory. But Ivor had hinted that for some reason, by showing Maud Rosemary’s tragic self-story, she could do nothing more than hurt her. Had he been speaking the truth? Or was it just a bluff?

  Hesitantly she pulled open the drawer in the dressing table where she had slipped the little green book before dinner. Her hand went down and then stiffened. With feverish anxiety she started pulling open the other drawers, searching through neatly folded lingerie and stockings. After a few moments she was forced to accept the truth.

  Rosemary Drake’s diary was no longer there.

  She looked up, staring dazedly through the open window. What a fool she had been! What a crazy fool not to have locked the drawer. It was screamingly obvious what must have happened.

  She had told Ivor that she was intending to show Maud the diary; and he had seen the little green book in her hand before dinner when he had come into her room. Just after she had left him at the dock, he must have slipped upstairs and—taken it.

  It was so easy to see everything now. Ivor had pretended not to care about the diary, had made up that story to delay her showing it to Maud. Now he had it.

  Somehow she had to get that little book back. Impulsively she started toward the door. But, as she did so, the soft silence of the night was broken by the roar of the speedboat from the dock. She turned back to the window. Vaguely, a dark moving shape on the silver water, she saw the speedboat bound away, headed toward the island.

  Ivor had gone!

  But that only checked her for a moment. There was a canoe at the dock. She could paddle over to the island. Caught up into a strange, grim efficiency, she changed the white evening gown for a dark-navy playsuit which would not be so conspicuous in the moonlight. She glanced at her watch. Ten of twelve. Cautiously she moved out into the passage.

  As she made her quiet way to the head of the stairs, she passed the closed door of Elaine’s room. She wondered if Elaine had been there all evening, fighting the memory of that humiliating scene at dinner. And Terry. Was he still somewhere out in the bay, sailing?

  The living room was empty. She moved out into the moonlight of the terrace and across the lawn. At the sound of footsteps she slipped behind a hibiscus bush. Emerging from the shaded tamarisk walk which led from the dock was a familiar figure.

  Maud returning to the house. Kay could get to the jetty now without being seen.

  In a few moments Kay had reached the dock rail where the swimming suits hung forlornly. Vaguely they looked different. Then she realized that Elaine’s silver cap which had perched grotesquely on a post was gone. The cruiser still loomed at its moorings. The little canoe nestled against the wharf. But there was no sign of the sailboat.


  So Terry hadn’t come back yet.

  As she dropped silently into the canoe, she glanced back at Hurricane House. Except for the light in the living room, it was plunged in darkness. To the left on the shallow cliffs above the swimming beach, she could make out the small cottage where the boatman lived. A light showed in the window. Don Baird must be still up.

  She pushed off from the dock and started to paddle toward the island which lay straight ahead, a dark silhouette punctuated by the gleaming windows of the playhouse.

  The silence was immense. Somewhere, farther off, a low flop broke the rhythm of the paddle’s soft splash. It sounded again. Could it be a swimmer out in the bay? At this time of night? More probably a fish rising. It did not come again. Very subdued and distant, Kay thought she could hear the hum of a speedboat.

  She paddled more quickly. Soon the canoe was nosing up to the island’s miniature wharf which thrust out from the gray coral rocks at the foot of the playhouse. She tethered the boat and climbed the few cement steps to the little dock. A second canoe was moored at the far side of the jetty.

  But Ivor’s speedboat was not there.

  As she peered around her, there came to her once again that elusive purring of an engine. It sounded distant and yet queerly close too.

  That must be the explanation. That must be Ivor’s boat somewhere off the island. He must have gone for a ride around the bay before turning in.

  The diary would be there with him in the speedboat. She would have to wait. She moved toward the brightly lit playhouse. Opening the blue Dutch door, she stepped inside.

  Then she stopped dead.

  Standing in the middle of the comfortable bachelor room, gorgeous with her chestnut hair falling around smooth bare shoulders which thrust up from a strapless black evening gown, was Simon Morley. The girl stared at Kay with sardonic hostility.