Poinciana
Page 18
“I can’t think of larger issues,” I told him. “I can only think about getting away.”
“Gretchen is frightened too. And so is Allegra. So think about yourself, but think about them too.”
I didn’t want to listen to any more. I jumped down from the cart without waiting for Jarrett’s help, and ran toward the nearest door.
Susan Broderick stood in the doorway, waiting for me. She was in uniform again, and playing the proper maid.
“Mrs. Logan, Mr. Logan would like you to come to the library as soon as possible, please.”
Alarm ran through me, but I managed to thank her and went into the shadowy coolness of the house. By this time I knew my way to the library, and I moved reluctantly down the hall, feeling totally unprepared for an immediate interview with my husband.
At the doorway I hesitated, looking into the big, slightly gloomy room. Ross sat at a long refectory table at the far end. The only light came from a Tiffany lamp on the table. Behind him a Coromandel screen of lacquered black and gold formed a luminous backdrop. When he saw me he left his chair to come toward me quickly, and it was clear that all the earlier rage had gone out of him. But my own emotions couldn’t shift so quickly, and though my immediate alarm lessened, I moved toward him stiffly.
“Sharon darling, we must talk,” he said. “We haven’t understood each other at all, have we?”
“I understood that you wanted me out of your sight. I was just going upstairs to pack and move into town. Perhaps I can stay at the Breakers for a while.”
He put an arm around me and walked me to the leather couch, where he sat beside me. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. You’ll have to get used to that at times. When I’m angry, everything pours out and I may say things I’m sorry for later. Listen to me, darling. The portrait of your mother will be taken down. And I’ll put away that recording. Ysobel Hollis has nothing to do with us.”
“I think she has everything to do with us. I realize now that I’m only here because I’m her daughter.”
He put a hand against my face in the tender way I’d loved, and drew me close to him. “You’re wrong to think that. Perhaps I did have my own foolish fantasy of revenge, but it’s been played out now. It’s over with—done. You are my young love, who has brought me more happiness than I’ve ever known. And I think you’ve loved me too.”
All the old charm and tenderness were working and I felt his appeal. Yet a part of my mind stood away, distrusting and unaffected. I didn’t believe anything he was saying, and I moved so that I could sit apart, so that his hands couldn’t weave their caressing spell.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You don’t know what?”
I faltered in my uncertainty. “I mean I’m not sure of anything right now. Cruelty frightens me.”
“Cruelty? Oh, come now, Sharon. I’m hardly a cruel man. Am I being cruel now?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “I really don’t know. Not only because of what has happened between us, but also because of what you’re doing to your mother and to Gretchen.”
He stood up against the rich golds of the Coromandel screen, impatient with me again. “Don’t you think that I must be allowed to judge what is best for my mother?”
“I can’t help feeling the way I do,” I said. “I believe your judgment is wrong on this. I had a chance to talk with Allegra today. She can be perfectly normal and sensible. Quite wise, really. What happened that one time shouldn’t be held against her. If she came back to live in her own rooms, she might improve.”
I sensed a sudden wariness in him. “She might also improve if she were placed in the care of a resident expert in mental illness.”
“She would only be put on drugs and she could become really senile then. Why not give her a chance here first? You could always send her away later. Is this too much to ask?”
I knew we were playing a game. If Ross had reason to fear the knowledge Allegra possessed, the issue was not where he sent her, but how he stopped her from talking. As with Brett, in that mention in the letters. I wondered if Brett knew the same thing Allegra claimed to know.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “But now let’s talk about Gretchen and Vasily. There is a great deal about her husband that she doesn’t know. For instance, that he was married for a couple of years to an actress named Elberta Sheldon. In London. Oh, they were divorced, all right. The records show that, but it’s a little matter he hasn’t told Gretchen about. I know, because I asked her this afternoon. He’s an adventurer of the worst sort. He was still married to this woman when he met Gretchen, but he got out of his marriage pretty quickly when better prospects came into view.”
“I think Gretchen looks at him realistically, whatever he’s done,” I said, feeling that nothing I learned about Vasily would surprise me.
“She’s a baby! He got out of Brussels just ahead of the law and changed his name. If he’s sent back there he’ll be arrested and tried, and probably put in prison. So I have him where I want him. I talked to him an hour ago and gave him a choice. He will either leave Gretchen at once, or I will have him sent back to Belgium. Gretchen will have to accept this and let him go.”
For a moment I could only stare at Ross in dismay. “She’ll hate you forever if you do this. Can’t you see the effect on Gretchen? She knows about Brussels. Vasily has told her everything.”
“He’s an expert liar. I won’t have you defending him.”
“I’m only trying to keep you from injuring your daughter. And yourself, too, because I think you do love her. Ross, if Vasily is really no good, then let her find it out for herself. If you give her time, perhaps she’ll be ready to leave him on her own. But if you do what you’re planning, you’ll lose her for good.”
“I must be the judge of that.”
There was nothing more to be said. “I’ll go and pack,” I told him. “I don’t want to spend another night in this house.”
At once he dropped to the couch beside me. “Now you’re the one who is acting hastily. Most of the time you are a very mature young woman, and you try to think things through sensibly. So don’t rush off in haste and regret it later.”
He didn’t understand anything about me, I thought. He had no idea of the way I’d been shattered, damaged as a woman, from the moment I had realized that it was Ysobel he was making love to, not me. He really believed that a few denials and apologies would now make everything all right. If I hadn’t been so thoroughly spent by my own emotions, I might have stood my ground and opposed him further. But I couldn’t fight him any longer right now.
“I’ll stay for tonight,” I said. “Perhaps I can think more clearly in the morning.”
“Good.” He was pleased over what he must regard as the winning of a disagreement. He seemed to have no idea of how deep this went with me.
I stood up and he rose to hold me for a moment and kiss me warmly. “That’s my girl. Let me take you out for dinner tonight. Let’s get away from Poinciana and recapture what we had in Kyoto. It’s still there, you know. Let it surface again.”
I was already shaking my head before he had finished. “No, Ross, please. I want to spend some time alone. Let me have that before we talk again.”
He let me go reluctantly and I went upstairs to my room. Susan Broderick was there, turning down my bed for the night. I told her I had a slight headache and would have supper here—something light. She was at once concerned and kind.
“I’ll bring a tray up for you myself,” she promised.
I undressed and drew on a long robe. Then I went out on the loggia to look at a sky that was taking on hints of sunset vermilion. As I stood there a flock of flamingos sailed past and as I watched the flight of exotic birds some of the tension went out of me.
Ross had been right, and so had Jarrett, even though I’d resented his words. I couldn’t dismiss everything lightly, but I would wait and think about it, allow what had happened to fall into some sort of perspective.
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p; When I heard sounds in my room, I returned, to find that not Susan, but her mother, had brought up my tray.
“Mr. Logan asked me to look in on you and see if there is anything you wish,” Mrs. Broderick told me. “He’s concerned that you aren’t feeling well, Mrs. Logan.”
I sensed a disapproval behind her words that she couldn’t entirely hide.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Thank you for bringing me a tray.”
She sat it upon a table she pulled near the loggia doors, where I could sit and watch the sunset.
When I’d finished my light meal I went outside by the loggia steps and crossed the lawn to sit on the wall beside the lake. My thoughts had quieted to some extent, but I was only holding away the time of decision, of taking a stand. Nothing could ever be the same again between Ross and me. The simple element of trust was gone, and no matter what he claimed, I would doubt him from now on.
What Jarrett had said about my usefulness here seemed unreal. Even if there was anything I could do for Gretchen or Allegra, I would be of little use to anyone until I could mend myself.
As I sat there on the wall, Brewster, Keith’s dog, came trotting over to examine my presence. Jarrett’s son followed him and sat beside me, his legs dangling toward the water. They were undemanding company. The boy told me that Brewster had been named for a gardener at Poinciana, whom Keith had liked.
“I want to be an air pilot when I grow up,” he went on. “I want to go everywhere. Like you. Dad told me you’ve lived in all sorts of countries. What was it like?”
So simple a question, and one so difficult to answer. What would seem strange and different to this young boy had been everyday to me. Alps on the horizon were commonplace, and so was the sight of Big Ben across the Thames. I knew the Paris Métro well, and I had once stayed in a castle on the Rhine.
I tried to tell him a little about all this, tried to make it amusing. As I related a funny story about a concierge in Paris, I heard myself laugh, and realized that it was not only Ross who had lacked a sense of humor lately.
Boy and dog were good for me. Before the afterglow was gone from the sky, they walked me back to the steps and then ran off toward their cottage. I felt more relaxed than I had all day.
Inside, I bolted the loggia doors, locked my hall door, and got ready for bed. All the while, those letters to Ysobel seemed to burn in my consciousness—their physical presence in this room a further threat to me. Not because Ross had written them, but because secret malice had brought them to me.
There was no key to Ross’s room and nothing I could do about that. I was enormously tired, physically and emotionally. In the morning perhaps I could face what had to be faced.
Fortunately, sleep came easily that night, in spite of the early hour, and at first I slept soundly. There were dreams and in the hours after midnight they grew disturbing. But they were gone in a flash when I awoke to a dreadful sound of disaster.
An alarm bell was ringing wildly, clamoring all through the house. I sat up against my pillow, stiff with fright, and listened to that horrible, shattering sound that seemed never to end. A glance at my watch told me that it was two-fifteen in the morning. I rolled out of bed and pulled on my robe, ran through the door into Ross’s room. It was empty and his bed had not been slept in.
Chapter 11
I ran into the empty corridor and rushed toward the nearest stairs. In this vast house a dozen people must be moving about, summoned by the clamor, yet corridors and rooms seemed ominously empty. As though only I could hear that terrible, shrilling alarm.
It was coming, I realized, from the direction of the art gallery at the other end of the house. When I reached the lower hall, I saw light from the offices cutting through an open door, and I ran past Myra’s desk into Ross’s office. He was there, and so was Jarrett Nichols, but if either of them heard that terrible ringing, they gave no sign.
Ross, fully dressed, lay slumped across his desk, while Jarrett, in a terry robe, stood beside him, a sheet of notepaper in his hand. He stared at me as I came into the room, and I had never seen him look so desperately grim.
“I just found him.” As he spoke, Jarrett thrust the sheet of paper beneath an engagement book on Ross’s desk. “Sharon, I’m afraid he’s gone. I’m going to try mouth-to-mouth. Help me get him out of that chair.”
Together we managed to lower Ross to the floor. I was too numb and unbelieving to do anything but what I was told. Jarrett scribbled a number on a pad and handed it to me.
“Call this doctor,” he ordered, and knelt beside Ross’s prostrate body.
I hardly knew what I was doing as I dialed the number. And all the while the hideous clamor of the alarm bell seemed to go on and on. Then, just as a sleepy voice answered on the line, the sound stopped with an abruptness that left the silence ringing.
Since I was using Ross Logan’s name, there was no question but that the doctor would come as soon as he could get here. I set the phone down just as Jarrett looked up at me.
“It’s no use,” he said. “He’s gone.” He rose and went to Ross’s desk, where papers lay scattered.
Still numb with shock, I knelt beside my husband and touched his shoulder, half expecting him to respond to me. His expression was contorted, as though he had died in a moment of great distress. Only a short while ago I had loved this man, depended upon him, and trusted him. Yet during the last days, even the last hours, all that had gone out of me, and kneeling here beside him, I could feel nothing. It was only numbness, of course. Feeling would come later—a sense of loss and sorrow.
Jarrett had begun to gather and stack the papers across which Ross had fallen. “Before the police come,” he said.
I echoed the word dully. “Police?”
“He died unattended. The doctor will report this.”
“Then should you touch his desk? Won’t the police want everything left as it was?”
He paid no attention, but took an empty folder from a drawer, thrust the stack of papers into it.
“Remember,” he said, “you know nothing about these.”
I came to life a little. “I don’t understand. Why are you putting Ross’s papers away?”
“It’s only for the time being. I can’t explain everything now, Sharon. It’s too complicated. I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me now. Tell me what happened to Ross.”
Without answering, Jarrett went to the phone, and a moment later he was talking to the police. Next he telephoned the gatehouse and spoke to the guard who was posted there. When he’d questioned him about the alarm, he explained that Mr. Logan had had an accident.
“Why did the alarm go off?” I asked when he hung up.
“They don’t seem to know. Sit down, Sharon—you’re looking shaky.”
He was clearly shaken himself, for all his control, and when I didn’t move he picked up the folder of papers and carried it into his own office.
Almost without thought, I went to the desk and drew out the sheet I’d seen Jarrett slip beneath Ross’s engagement book. Something was wrong here, and I had to know what it was. I could tell as I folded it into the pocket of my robe that the note was on Poinciana note-paper. There was no time to examine it, however, before Jarrett was back.
“Gretchen must be told,” he said. “This shouldn’t be done by phone, but I can’t send you, Sharon.”
“I’ll go,” I said. “I can manage.”
There was no need. Even as I spoke, Gretchen burst into the office, still in pajamas, a gown clutched about her.
“What’s happening?” she demanded. “The alarm woke me and I went down to the gallery. But no one was there, so I turned it off and came along here.”
“It’s your father, Gretchen,” Jarrett said.
She looked at him, and then at me, saw the direction of my eyes, and came around the desk. Her cry was one of true anguish as she dropped to the floor and tried to rouse him, calling to him, pleading for him to answer.
Jarrett raised h
er gently and took her to a chair. “You have to face this, Gretchen. We’ve called Dr. Lorrimer, and the police as well. And I’ve notified the gatehouse. They don’t know who set off the alarm. Guards are searching the grounds now. Shall I phone your rooms for Vasily to come?”
Gretchen stared at him blankly, emotion draining out of her. “Vasily’s not there. He must not have come to bed at all last night.” She broke off, trying to get herself in hand. “Tell me what happened.”
I still wanted to know that myself, and I sat down beside Gretchen.
“Your father called me on the phone just a short time ago and asked me to come here at once,” Jarrett said. “He told me it couldn’t wait until morning. So I came as fast as I could—and found him slumped across his desk. I’d barely stepped into the office when the alarm started. Sharon heard the ringing and came. She called the doctor, while I tried to revive him. I don’t know what happened, Gretchen. He may have felt a heart attack coming on when he phoned me. He was upset about something.”
Gretchen started to speak, and he stopped her.
“Before anyone comes—is there anything you know about this?”
A strange question to ask, I thought, as I saw her bristle.
“What should I know? You’re the one who upset him badly with that row you had. You and—and her. He’s had nothing but pain and disappointment from Sharon!”
That hadn’t been the way she had talked to me about her father in the library. But now she was growing excited.
“He’s had too much from both of you! And I’m going to tell the doctor that. Believe me, I am!”
Jarrett answered her quietly. “You’ll need to get yourself in hand, Gretchen, before anyone comes. You know as well as I do how explosive anything that’s said here now can be. It won’t help if you fly off with wild charges. What we need to know is the truth. If there is something you know about this, you’d better tell us now. About what shocked him and brought on this attack.”
She shrank into her chair, her anger evaporating. “I don’t know anything about it. How should I?”
I wondered uneasily about Jarrett’s insistent probing. Was she trying to protect Vasily in some way by accusing us? Her husband—who had every reason to quarrel with Ross—would be in the clear if we were to blame. Now, at least, the detectives would be called off from their investigation of Vasily, and he would no longer be held to a grim bargain by Ross Logan.