The Stone Bull

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Tell me what she was like on a stage,” Magnus said.

  This was something I could talk about easily, and I closed my eyes, seeing her again beyond the footlights, filling a stage with her luminous presence.

  “She was nothing but raw nerves when she stood in the wings,” I told him. “Yet onstage her technique could hardly be surpassed. She had much more than an ability to conquer the mechanics of dancing, however. She was a romantic ballerina, I suppose, and she could make your breath catch with those wind-swept movements. Yet she had something else—perhaps a vulnerability that was terribly appealing. Just the way she held her head, or bent her neck, could break your heart. She could make a fairy-tale role come true, so that you believed in her lovely Swan Queen. But she could make you believe again when Odile took Odette’s place and Ariel danced with that cold, wicked brilliance that was hers in the other role. There was no one like her—no one!”

  I opened my eyes and saw that Magnus’ goggles were off, his hands quiet. He was watching me with an unexpected sympathy.

  “You loved her, after all, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Only on the stage!” I cried. “Only there!”

  “Yet I think Ariel wanted to escape the stage. She wanted sometimes to escape from her own prison of dancing. She told me what a dancer’s life could be like. She felt ignorant of so much because she never had time to learn anything but ballet. Life was a mystery to her, and she could be lost and frightened when it touched her. She told me once that dancing was a twenty-four-hour thing. Something a ballerina couldn’t put aside when she left the stage or the rehearsal studio. But there were times when she wanted to escape from it. That’s why she came here and tried to pretend she was a real woman in a real world.”

  I had never heard him speak so gently, or with such tenderness. Nevertheless, I tried to discredit his words.

  “You’re wrong! The real world for her was always her dancing. Nothing else mattered. Oh, she had depressions sometimes. But they came because she could never feel that her best was good enough. She always wanted to reach new pinnacles, though there were hardly any left for her to top. I don’t think she fully understood how good she was. She had to hear more and more applause to make her believe that anything she did was worth doing. She had to be built up all the time.”

  For once, he agreed with me. “Yes, I know that was true. She used to come here to Laurel to try to find out who she was. But at the end she was afraid to know. Floris’ death shook her badly.”

  I snatched at a straw. “Of course it would. Because she was innocent of any intent.”

  “I don’t think she was sure of that. I had only a little time alone with her before she was sent back to New York, and she told me she didn’t know whether or not she was guilty.”

  “Exactly!” I pounced again. “If she’d had anything deliberate to do with what happened, she could hardly have doubted.”

  “Maybe,” he said, and returned his full attention to the work beneath his hands, cutting off our talk.

  I drowsed again, trying to empty my mind, trying to thrust away the quandary of what I must do—if there was anything I could do. Perhaps I was half asleep when Magnus spoke again.

  “Oh-oh. I think we may need to take a coffee break.”

  I looked at him, puzzled, saw the direction of his gaze and turned my head. At the place where the path opened upon the ring of grass, Brendon stood watching us. How well I knew the language of his body, knew by the very carriage of his head and shoulders how furious he was. I didn’t move, and both Magnus and I waited for whatever explosion might be coming.

  There was none. Brendon was good at holding himself in check when he chose, and he came across the grass and stood beside the stone bull, regarding me coldly.

  “When will you be through here?” he asked.

  His presence was as disturbing as always, but the anger that drove me today revived at the sight of him, and I returned his cold look.

  “That’s up to Magnus,” I said.

  “We can stop for a while, if you like,” Magnus told him obligingly.

  Brendon reached out a hand to me. “Get down, please. I’d like to talk to you.”

  I ignored his offered hand, slid down from the bull’s back, blanket and all, and stood before Brendon, waiting. Whatever he wanted, I didn’t mean to help.

  “Let’s go up this way,” my husband said, mockingly polite. “I don’t believe you’ve seen Rainbow Point?”

  I wrapped the blanket about my shoulders again and looked around at Magnus. “I’ll be back,” I told him, and followed Brendon up a rocky path that led toward the Point.

  He strode ahead of me without speaking until we came out shortly upon a plateau that overlooked the eastern side of the mountain. In the distance, between hills, I could glimpse the Hudson, shining in the sun. It was easy to see why Loring had the idea of building cottages here. There was a great, flat indentation on the mountainside that would hold as many as he cared to build. Above the space of level land, overgrown with brush, a prominence of rock raised its head. Brendon climbed ahead of me and in moments we stood together in that high place where the Hudson Valley lay spread out in the distance and the Catskills rolled away behind us.

  The beauty of the view left me sick at heart. Only a little while ago Brendon’s arm would have been about me, and we’d have shared what lay before us. Now there was no sharing. We were separate and far apart.

  When he spoke there was no change in his chill manner, and I had never before seen his eyes turn to blue ice. “Sit down, Jenny. We won’t be overheard here.”

  He waited until I had chosen a step in the rocky outcropping that served as a bench, and when I was seated, he took the other end of it.

  “You might as well understand,” he said, “that as long as you remain at Laurel Mountain, you are my wife. You carry my name, and I expect certain rules of conduct from you. I don’t want you posing for Magnus Devin, and you will not visit him here on the mountain again.”

  I couldn’t have felt more outraged. “I’ll use your name only as long as it takes me to drop it legally. I am not your wife any longer, and I shan’t take autocratic orders from you. If you wish me to move out of the hotel, I’ll do so. Perhaps Magnus will give me a room.”

  Nothing I could have said would have infuriated him more, and I knew I was astonishing him too. He had known me as a pliable young wife, wholly in love, and willing to comply with all her husband’s wishes. There had been no conflict, because what Brendon wanted, I wanted. Now it was different, and even though a weak trembling had started inside me, I knew I had to face him down and refuse to be dominated.

  “Don’t be absurd. Keir won’t stand for that,” Brendon said. “It’s his cabin too.”

  Obviously, I had no intention of staying with Keir and Magnus. I was merely trying to goad and infuriate Brendon—all because I was shattered and desperate, and had stopped caring about my life.

  “Then that’s up to Keir,” I told Brendon. “Not you.”

  He looked out over the mountain toward the distant river. “Keir will do as I ask.”

  “Why? What difference does it make to you what I do now?”

  “I have some concern for the name of McClain. And I don’t want to see history repeat itself.”

  “Because Ariel threw you over and turned to Magnus?” I challenged.

  “You know very little about anything,” he told me more quietly. “I want you to leave Laurel Mountain before you start something you can’t stop. If you haven’t already started it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. I’ve been told that yesterday rocks were thrown down on you while you were climbing through the Lair—where you had no business to be in the first place. Deliberately thrown.”

  “Who told you?” I demanded.

  “Keir, of course. He thought I should know. I don’t want you hurt, Jenny. Tomorrow I’ll have a limousine drive you to New York.
”

  There was bitterness in me as I answered. “And then everything will be as quiet on the surface as it was before? And whoever caused Floris Devin’s death will continue to be safe? Is that what you intend?”

  He turned his head to look at me, and though his expression was grave, the chill was gone and there seemed a real concern in his eyes. “If you will go away—far enough away so you’ll be quite safe, I’ll see what I can do here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll try to find the answers to the questions that are troubling you. I’m in a better position to do that than you are.”

  “Except that you don’t believe there’s anything to find out.”

  “I’ve changed my mind about that. Perhaps there is. Perhaps we both owe something to Ariel.”

  Now the thrust of pain was savage and once more caught me unprepared. For a brief moment I had imagined that his concern was for me—but once more I must share it with Ariel. I stood up on the rock beside him.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “But now I’m going back to pose for Magnus.”

  I’d angered him again, but this time he must have known that he was helpless to order me. Without a backward glance, he strode off along the mountain’s spine, leaving me alone.

  By making an effort I managed to erase all feeling from my expression as I went down the steep path to rejoin Magnus. He was gone from the little glen, however, and only the stone bull awaited me in his endless charge. The table with the marble block upon it was still there, but a plastic covering had been placed over the work, and Magnus’ tools were gathered into a box. Work had obviously been discontinued for the time being. My jacket lay on the grass where I had dropped it, and I traded the plaid blanket for it, slipping my arms into the sleeves, buttoning it high because I was so cold in the brilliant sunlight.

  Now I was undecided. Should I follow Magnus to his cabin and find out when he would next need me? I didn’t think he would accept Brendon’s indignation over using me as his model. Undoubtedly, he would want me to come back. Yet somehow I couldn’t face Magnus now—not in my present hurt and unsettled state.

  When I turned down the mountain, I chose a different road that I hadn’t followed before and walked through deep woods until I came out above the bright carpeting of Naomi’s gardens. I could see her there, kneeling beside a crescent flower bed planted in yellow chrysanthemums. Perhaps I could talk to her again. There was still a great deal that she hadn’t told me, and she of them all had been most in Ariel’s confidence.

  I bothered with no path, but went straight down over steep green lawns that winter’s fingers hadn’t yet turned to brown. She heard me coming and looked up to watch my descent. Once more a bright red bandanna tied back her shock of gray hair, and she wore a sweater and jeans. Her stare did not waver as she watched me come down the hill and pick my way through the narrow walks of the gardens. There seemed something almost avid about her look as she gazed up at me when I was close at hand.

  “How are you doing?” she asked. “What astonishing things have you ferreted out this morning?”

  “I’ve been posing for Magnus,” I told her. “He wants to do a small figure of the stone bull—with Europa on his back.”

  “Ariel’s bull!” she countered. “It’s not you who should be posing.”

  I tried to be gentle with her. “I know that. But it seems a small thing to do for him.”

  She dropped her weeding tool and sat back on her heels. “There is one thing I’d like to know. When all those stories about her death spilled into the papers, how did you manage to keep it quiet about the baby?”

  The power of words deserted me and I stood staring down at her blankly.

  “You didn’t know?” she marveled, pleased with my shock. “You really didn’t know?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ariel’s baby. And Brendon’s. That’s what I’m talking about. She was carrying his child when she left Laurel that last time.”

  I tried to smile a dismissal of her words, but my lips felt stiff. “That’s isn’t possible. There was no baby. After she died there was an autopsy because of the circumstances. A pregnancy would have been discovered.”

  Naomi dusted earth from her fingers and stood up to face me, shorter than I, but strong and wiry. I could feel her strength when she grasped my wrists in thin brown fingers.

  “Don’t try to tell me lies. A baby was on the way. Ariel confided in me. She didn’t tell Brendon because he would have tried all the harder to make her come back to him. She had a dreadful sick spell after Floris was killed, and she thought she might lose the baby. But she didn’t. I took care of her until they shipped her off to the city so the police wouldn’t question her.”

  “She must have been lying to you,” I said. “There was no baby.”

  Anger lighted Naomi’s dark eyes and for just an instant I thought she might strike me, and I stepped back. But she let fall the hand she had raised.

  “Ariel would never have lied to me. Your mother knew. I was with Ariel when she phoned her from here. So why don’t you check with your mother?”

  I swung away from Naomi and walked toward the hotel, angry at being told such lies. On the way someone spoke to me, but I scarcely heard, and by the time I reached the steps I was running. Straight up to my room I hurried, and put through a call to New York. Aunt Lydia’s voice answered and I asked for my mother.

  In a moment she was on the phone. “Darling, how nice to hear from you! Are you still a happy bride?”

  I couldn’t answer that. Only a surprise attack might give me a truthful answer.

  “I want to know something about Ariel,” I told her. “Was she pregnant before she died?”

  There was a long silence at the other end of the wire, and I could hear my mother’s quickened breathing.

  “How did you find out?” she said at last.

  So it was true. I leaned back in my chair, feeling sick.

  “What happened? Why didn’t the papers …?”

  “We had it—taken care of.”

  “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “Ariel didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want anyone to know. We had to move with great care so it wouldn’t be discovered.”

  “Didn’t she want the baby?”

  “Of course not.” My mother sounded surprised. “She didn’t want anything to interfere with her dancing.”

  “There are ballet dancers who have children.”

  “Not Ariel. She knew she would make a terrible mother, just as she would have made a terrible wife. There was no room for anything but dancing in her life. That was why she was so great. She never divided herself.… Jenny, are you there? Jenny, are you all right?”

  “I’m all right,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll be coming home soon.”

  She sounded more puzzled than alarmed. “For a visit, you mean?”

  “Yes—for a visit.”

  I said good-bye and hung up. Afterward, I sat on in my chair for a long while, trying to cope with the facts I had just learned.

  Brendon’s baby—yet she had never told him. And I don’t think she could have told Magnus either, or he wouldn’t have touched her. Magnus, I thought, would have had a certain sensitivity in a case like that. Even he, who paid little attention to sexual morals, would have balked at a woman who was carrying another man’s child. At least I knew him that well—I thought.

  Brendon’s baby. His flesh and bone and life cells—and she had sacrificed them so easily. Or had it been easily? Since I had come here I had been learning things about my sister that surprised me. Magnus seemed to think that she hadn’t been as single-minded about her dancing as had once been the case. He had seen her as a woman torn between her make-believe life on the stage and a real life she didn’t know how to handle.

  Yet she had gone ahead to destroy that beginning life, with my mother’s willing and never-questioning connivance. Mother would have managed everything capably, o
f course, including keeping the whole thing secret. In New York only Mother had known. And apparently only Naomi McClain here. Until now, Naomi too had kept Ariel’s secret.

  This I would never forgive my sister. The fact that she had taken my husband from me was not her fault. He had belonged to her first. But to have carried Brendon’s child—and then ended its life—this I could never forgive.

  A sudden thought startled me. Had she perhaps not forgiven herself? Was this why she had died? She knew well enough the danger of combining barbiturates and alcohol. So had we overlooked a possible intent there? Had she had qualms of self-guilt, so that a few weeks later she had decided that she could not face her life after all?

  If this was so, would we ever know?

  And how could I bear the truth, whatever it was? Brendon’s lost baby, his lost love. And I—hopelessly caught and turning in my own chains. Floris dead, Magnus alone, and always Ariel spinning her intricate pirouettes at the center of our lives. Even now, when her feet had been stilled for these months, they seemed to dance on, binding us all to her with cobweb strands that had the strength of steel.

  What was I to do? How was I to live? My search for Floris’ killer was real enough, yet it was only a marking of time. Something to keep me from thinking, from facing my life as it must be lived from now on. As it must be lived away from Laurel Mountain and all it stood for. Away from Brendon.

  The knock on my door startled me. I wanted to see no one. Not even the hotel help, so I sat very still in my chair, waiting for whoever it was to go away.

  But I hadn’t bolted the door. A key was slipped into the lock and it was turning. The door was pushing slowly, secretively open.

  11

  An attack has been made on my life. This time it was not a matter of a few warning pebbles flung at me down in the Lair. This attempt was managed with deadly intent, and I believe it was done out of fear, because I am too close on the heels of discovery and it has become necessary to stop me.