I looked at her questioningly.
“By this time you’ve been told more about the book he’s working on, haven’t you? Its subject, that is?”
I answered her evenly. “If you mean has my grandfather told me about my mother’s death—he’s given me the bare facts. I know what’s supposed to have happened, and that your stepbrother died. I don’t think I can accept his account.”
“Not accept it?” Sylvia was clearly startled.
I tried to explain. “I can’t accept it—emotionally. My grandmother Katy wrote a rather strange letter to my father before she died, and said that he’d misjudged my mother. What do you suppose she meant by that?”
Sylvia walked off a few steps, her back to me. My words had somehow disturbed her.
“Before she died, Aunt Katy left me something for you,” she said. “She told me if you ever came here I was to give it to you.”
Eagerness alerted me, but I felt impatient with Sylvia.
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you give it to me yesterday? Perhaps she’s left me some message that will clear up her letter.”
Sylvia came slowly back to me, her expression faintly pitying. It was the same look I had seen in Gavin’s eyes at the dinner table last night, and I resisted it, waiting for an answer to my questions.
“I had the package with me when I met you,” Sylvia said. “But you knew nothing about your mother’s death, and I didn’t want to throw everything at you at once. It was better to wait a little. Now you’re going down a blind alley, Amanda. Don’t deceive yourself with fantasies. What happened, happened. I never liked your mother, but all that has nothing to do with you. I’m trying to be fair about that and not let old emotions mix in because it was my stepbrother who died. I suppose they’ve told you that Clarita saw the whole thing?”
I nodded, waiting.
“There’s no getting around that. Once Clarita fancied herself in love with Kirk, you know. That was when we were all around twelve and thirteen, and used to go out to the rancho for holidays and weekends.”
“The rancho?”
“Yes—the Rancho de Cordova. It belonged to Juan’s father—your great-grandfather. He raised horses and we used to love to go there. It’s a ghost place now. Juan doesn’t keep it up, though he employs a married couple who stay at the hacienda. Of course Clarita got over that childhood infatuation. By the time Kirk died she was in love with—someone else. She didn’t even like him by that time.”
I thought with a feeling of shock of Clarita, who had seemed to me eternally middle-aged. It was hard to imagine her a love-sick girl. Now, because of my mother, Clarita too might hold old prejudices against me.
“Of course Doro was in love with Kirk too in those rancho days,” Sylvia went on. “I grew up with them. I saw the whole thing from the beginning.”
I didn’t want to think of my mother in connection with any man but my father.
“I don’t believe I’m making up fantasies,” I said. “But perhaps all the truth hasn’t come out. That’s what I want to know.”
“Then come and see Paul. He knew her too, though he was outside the family then. I’ll have to be running along soon. My bookshop usually opens at nine o’clock, but I’m late today.”
Juan Cordova had told me not to trouble myself by talking to Paul, but of course I would pay no attention. I hadn’t felt strong enough to face Sylvia’s husband last night, but I could manage it now. There was nothing in the way of memories I could give him, though there might be something he could tell me. Besides, I wanted whatever it was Katy had left for me with Sylvia.
She moved to the gate in the wall as I packed up my painting gear.
“You might as well know that I hate what Paul is doing,” she said over her shoulder. “I agree with Juan that all of this should be left alone. But my husband is a strongly determined man, and he seems to have a bit between his teeth about this. I blame Eleanor. She likes to stir up trouble and annoy Juan, and she’s convinced Paul that he’ll be doing history a favor with this book. I’ve heard her tell him that he mustn’t pay any attention to Clarita or Juan’s feelings. Or mine, for that matter. Of course it’s not really to anyone’s interest for him to write it. Not even Paul’s. But he likes to play with fire.”
She had grown oddly excited as she spoke, and only quieted herself when she saw I was staring at her.
I left my painting things beside the stone I’d perched upon and joined Sylvia at the gate. Before we went through, she put a hand on my arm, halting me.
“Be careful, Amanda. I have a feeling that all those heated emotions Doro stirred around her like a whirlwind have never quite died down. The repercussions can still damage those who are living. You among them.”
It was a strange warning, though I’d felt something of the same thing myself. I didn’t try to answer her as I went through the gate between the two gardens. How could I be careful when I didn’t know what it was that I must guard against?
We crossed a patio that was smaller than that of the Cordovas’ and stepped into the Stewarts’ living room, with its brilliant Indian rugs and rows of Kachina dolls. At the far end a door stood open on Paul’s study. He was pacing about his desk restlessly and he looked around when he saw me, his face, with its wide cheekbones and cleft chin, brightening as though I were a gift Sylvia had brought him. For the first time I noticed that his eyes were the pale yellow-green of chrysolite, with an intensity in them, a probing quality in their gaze, as though he sought to draw out some inner significance that might be hidden from him. My instinct to resist such probing was strong now. I wasn’t sure what I must defend, but I was on guard against him.
“Hello, Amanda,” he said, and came toward me with a step that was buoyant for so big a man. “How are you settling in with the Cordovas?”
“I’ve met them all,” I said carefully, avoiding the demand upon my will that seemed to light his strange eyes.
“As I’ve told you, Amanda doesn’t remember anything,” Sylvia said quickly. “It’s as though everything is being told her for the first time.”
“Come and sit down,” he said, drawing me toward a living-room chair with a blue-and-brown rug flung across it.
Sylvia made a futile gesture toward delay. “Do look at that chair covering before you sit down, Amanda. Juan gave it to us one Christmas years ago. The things he finds for the store are superb. That indigo color is hard to come by, and the brown isn’t dyed. It’s the natural color of the sheep.”
I duly examined this treasure before I sat down. Sylvia’s slight flutter seemed uncharacteristic, but I hadn’t seen her in the presence of her husband for long before. In any case, my main attention was given to Paul.
“They’ve told me about your book,” I said bluntly. “I don’t like what you plan to do. In any case, I can’t be of help to you. There’s nothing at all I can remember of that time.”
“I didn’t expect it to be so easy,” Paul said. “Such memories are apt to be deeply buried. You’d instinctively try to protect them from view, forget them—wouldn’t you? But perhaps they can be coaxed to emerge.”
My sense of wariness increased. There had already been small flashes, an edge of memory, though I wouldn’t tell him that. And my dream had come again last night, brought on, undoubtedly, by the impact of these once known surroundings. Nevertheless, if I were to remember something terrible, I wanted to share it with no one, least of all with this man who seemed avid for such knowledge.
“I don’t want to remember, that’s true,” I told him. “Nothing has come back. I have no recollections of my grandfather’s house, of the patio garden—nothing. And no one I’ve seen has brought back any feeling of recognition. My cousin Eleanor, Aunt Clarita, my grandfather are all strangers to me.”
“You see, Paul?” Sylvia said, almost pleading with him.
He turned his head with its sandy-gray hair to look at his wife, and thus presented me with his profile. Strangely, it did not seem to match the rathe
r engaging look he displayed full face. Seen from the side, he wore the profile of a faun—sharp-featured, playful, hinting of dangerous delights. I could well see that he might hold a fascination for women.
The look reproached Sylvia now, though he went on calmly, losing nothing of that deeper intensity I’d glimpsed in him.
“The surfacing of memory is a fascinating phenomenon. I’ve seen the forgotten emerge from hiding bit by bit until a picture became clear that was not clear in the first place. I’d like to try this with you, Amanda.”
Underlying the calm assurance of his manner, I sensed excitement—some quality that courted danger. As Sylvia had suggested, this was a man who would play with fire for the fun of it. I sensed in him a tendency to enjoy the macabre, and I knew that whatever happened, he must not be allowed to write about my mother. Why Sylvia should be so concerned about Paul’s project, I didn’t know, but I could understand why my grandfather did not trust this man.
Sylvia broke in again, and I heard strain in her voice. “No, Paul—no. Let her alone. Don’t do this. It could be dangerous.”
He glanced at her with those pale eyes and she seemed to shrink back from his look. “Dangerous to whom, my dear?”
“To—to all of us. I mean emotionally, of course. Please let her be, Paul. You have enough material for your book without the Cordova affair. And I don’t want to upset Juan and Clarita. Or Gavin, for that matter.”
He came to sit in a chair opposite me, leaning toward me with all his intensity turned in my direction. “Someone is always upset in these efforts. Obscure relatives threaten to sue. Indignant letters are written. I’ve been through it before with other books. Since I deal mostly with facts, it all comes to nothing. Besides, the Cordova case is what set me off on the idea of doing this book in the first place. This is one murder I was close to. I knew all the actors personally. I was there at the time. Most of the people involved are still at hand, even though the two main actors are gone.”
“You weren’t close to it—you weren’t!” Sylvia cried.
“If you mean that I wasn’t actually there when it happened, that’s true. But I must have arrived ten minutes later—which is close enough. And I remember everything.”
“Then I don’t think you need to bother about the nonexistent or hazy memories of a five-year-old,” I said.
He looked at me with a certain amusement, as though I had said something funny. “You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then perhaps we ought to tell her. Don’t you think so, Sylvia?”
“No—no, I don’t!” Sylvia cried. “It’s up to them to tell her the whole story.”
“And color it as they please?”
“That’s Juan Cordova’s right.”
He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “I’m willing to wait. There’s plenty of time.”
His quiet certainty that I would talk to him eventually disturbed and angered me. “It doesn’t matter whether you wait or not. Even if I should remember anything, I wouldn’t talk about it. I’ve already told you that.”
“Not even if what you might remember should change the story about your mother? What if it should exonerate her in some way?”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing at all. It’s just a possibility that we can’t overlook.” He made a bland gesture with his hands which was belied by that tantalizing light in his eyes. “As Sylvia has suggested, we’ll wait for the time being. I’m always here if you should want to talk to me. Does that satisfy you, Sylvia?”
Almost imperceptibly she relaxed, though she didn’t answer him, but looked at me instead. Her interest now lay in changing the subject.
“Did you find out yesterday why Eleanor ran away?” she asked.
Since Paul had seen Eleanor last night, it seemed strange that Sylvia had not been told her story. However, there was no reason why I shouldn’t talk about this, and I gave an account of our finding Eleanor in the cave and bringing her home. “She seems to have wanted to get away from her family—”
“And worry them to death,” Sylvia put in.
“Gavin’s a brute,” Paul said.
What had Eleanor told him? I wondered, and felt unexpectedly indignant.
Sylvia contradicted this at once. “He’s not a brute at all. You know him better than that. Eleanor wants a divorce, so I wouldn’t put it past her to try to goad Gavin. There’s a whole nest of hornets being stirred up. Juan is bound that she’s not going to leave Gavin and he’s using every card he can play to keep them together.”
Was I one of the cards? It seemed likely.
“What does Gavin want?” I asked.
“Eleanor, of course,” Paul said. “She means money and the control of the store to him. He’ll never let her go unless she forces his hand. She’s finding herself helpless in a difficult situation, so she takes imprudent courses.”
“She’s about as helpless as a tarantula,” Sylvia snapped, sounding like herself again. “But let’s stop talking about the Cordovas. It’s not pleasant for Amanda. I’ve some coffee perking in the kitchen. I’ll go and get it. Show her a copy of Emanuella, Paul. I’ve always thought it was your best book.”
Paul smiled, and I was not sure I liked the smile. It seemed to take too much for granted—as though he assumed that I would side with him in any controversy, and that if he waited long enough I would come over to his way of thinking.
“Sylvia is prejudiced,” he said when she’d gone. “Against Eleanor, I mean.” He leaned toward me, and I felt again the submerged intensity in this man that filled me with foreboding. “You’re a lot like your mother. You take me back to another time. Before all the trouble. Would you be surprised to hear that I once thought myself in love with Doro? Foolish, of course. She was already married, and Sylvia was the right woman for me.”
Perhaps she heard him as she came back into the room with a tray of coffee cups and set it down on his desk. Perhaps he had intended for her to hear. I did not like or trust Paul Stewart, and I hoped that my mother had ignored him.
“He hasn’t shown you the book,” Sylvia said, and when she had poured our coffee she went to a bookcase and took down a volume in a mustard dust jacket. “Take this along and read it sometime, Amanda. It’s semi-nonfiction. Paul based the story on old Spanish history. We went over to Spain when he was doing the research and stayed awhile in Madrid. As a matter of fact, it’s Cordova history. At least of that branch of the family which stayed in Spain.”
I took the book from her, interested in the family connection. When I flipped open to the copyright page, I saw it had been published a few years after my mother’s death.
I had taken only a few sips of coffee when Eleanor came brightly through the door. Her hair was brushed to a sunny shine this morning, and her tall person looked beautifully trim in a dove-gray trouser suit.
“I’ve been looking for you, Amanda,” she told me. “Grandfather wants to see you at once. So you’d better hurry.”
I took another sip of coffee and stood up. “Thank you, Sylvia. I suppose I’d better go. Did you say you had a package for me?”
Sylvia remembered and jumped up. She ran out of the room and was back in a moment with a lumpy brown envelope.
“Here you are. I almost forgot. Katy was very weak when she gave me this, but she managed to whisper a few words. She said, ‘Tell her to go to the rancho.’”
I took the envelope and moved toward the door. Both Eleanor and Paul had watched this interchange, but neither Sylvia nor I explained.
“Come back soon,” Paul said, and his look seemed to challenge me with that amused assurance, as though he knew I would be back.
Eleanor gestured with a careless hand. “You know the way. I needn’t go with you. I’ll have some of that coffee, Sylvia, if you don’t mind.”
Sylvia turned away to pour the coffee, and in that instant I saw the quick exchange of
looks between Paul and Eleanor. What I saw I did not like. Some pact, some understanding existed between them, and I had a feeling that it had to do with me.
The gate stood open in the adobe wall and I went through to pick up my painting gear and go into the house. Clarita was in the living room, talking to Rosa. When she saw me her eyes went carefully blank, and she made no effort to stop me as I set down my gear and the small package on a table. The book Emanuella I took with me. Perhaps I’d ask Juan about it. Evidently she had received her own orders by now and liked me none the better for them. I wished I could reassure her, but there was no way to do it at the moment.
As I mounted the steps to the balcony, I heard voices and I approached the doorway hesitantly. Gavin was there with my grandfather. Juan Cordova sat behind his desk, white-faced, his eyes closed, his lips thin with tension. Gavin stood above him, and I heard his words as I reached the door.
“This isn’t something you can order as you please,” he said grimly. “We’ve been over this ground before, and I won’t be changed.”
“Grandfather?” I spoke quickly, not wanting to hear what was not intended for my ears.
Gavin turned his cool look upon me and I found myself wishing that he might have been an ally, instead of one more antagonist. There were matters I might have consulted him about, if I were able. But he turned his back, dismissing me, and walked to a window, where the burgundy draperies had been drawn aside to let in New Mexico sunlight.
“Come in, come in, Amanda,” Juan Cordova said testily. “Where have you been that it took so long to find you?”
I went to stand before his desk. “I was next door with Sylvia and Paul.”
He stared me down with his fierce, falcon’s look. “I told you not to talk to Paul Stewart.”
“I know. But I didn’t promise you not to. However, you needn’t worry that I might help him with his book. There isn’t anything I can tell him. He said something strange, though. He wondered if anything I could remember might help to exonerate my mother.”
The Turquoise Mask Page 9
