Poinciana

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “But—but that’s childish,” I protested. “Ross was a great man.”

  “Deep-seated motives often go back to the child in us. Any psychiatrist can tell you that. A great many of the world’s problems come straight from the childish self-delusions of men in power. You’ve only to look at history. You’ve only to listen to the screaming of today’s headlines. The madness, the ferocity, the crying out for vengeance. By men. This is the way that wars are started. The child in such men can be enormously dangerous.”

  “What will happen now?”

  “None of this will come out, if we choose to keep it quiet. It hasn’t gone far enough yet. Yakata and his pals must be told that the deal is off. They have no legitimate hold on Meridian, and I can take care of this myself. It’s not something that’s been brought up before the board. Ross was acting in a completely clandestine way. By the time anyone could have tried to stop him, the whole thing would have been too far along to be halted without an even bigger scandal. That’s why he was trying to keep it from me. That’s why he was working late hours to accomplish what he needed to do before I could take any action to oppose him.”

  “He was trying to prove something to you, too.” I didn’t put it as a question. I was beginning to understand just a little the love-hate relationship that must have existed on both sides between Ross Logan and Jarrett Nichols. Ross would have needed him desperately in all sorts of ways, yet how bitterly he must have resented such a needing. Jarrett was no ordinary aide-de-camp. All too often he must have been the brain behind whatever was accomplished, and that was the weight Ross had been trying so recklessly to escape. His growing compulsion to prove himself—evident in his life with me too—had begun to verge on the unbalanced.

  “Perhaps he was stopped just in time,” I said, and felt chilled by the sound of my own words. As though Ross had been deliberately stopped. I went on quickly, veering away from implications I didn’t want to make. “I mean for his own sake, as well as everyone else’s. What might have happened if he’d lived could have been worse than anything he dreamed of. Or are we being callous? About Ross’s death, and about something called truth?”

  Jarrett shook his head. “Only realistic. It’s tragic to have to recognize how many people will be saved by what has happened to Ross.”

  Myself among them, I thought, and winced at the silent admission. There was a great deal I was going to have to examine inside myself in the coming weeks.

  “You can count on me,” I said at last, and my voice was empty of emotion.

  Jarrett didn’t leave at once. Instead, he sat staring at me with so searching a look that I closed my eyes. I didn’t want him to see all those things that I wasn’t yet ready to face in myself.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said with strange conviction, and started for the door.

  The ringing of the telephone stopped him. I got up to answer it, and found that my legs were no longer shaky.

  It was the nurse, Miss Cox, on the line. “I’ve been trying to reach Mr. Nichols. But no one seems to know where he is, so I’m calling you. Mrs. Logan is awake and she’s listening to the radio, as she sometimes does at night when she can’t sleep. News programs. I’m afraid …”

  I broke in. “Mr. Nichols is here now. We’ll come right down and talk to her. I don’t think we should disturb Mrs. Karl. Try to distract her until we get there.”

  “Allegra?” Jarrett asked as I hung up.

  “Yes. She’s awake, and Coxie is afraid of what she may hear on the radio.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Jarrett said. “You needn’t come.”

  I was already getting a coat from the closet, flinging it on over my robe and gown, thrusting my feet into shoes. “I can’t sleep anyway, and perhaps I can help.”

  Some of the tension seemed to leave him and he smiled wryly as he held out a hand. “Thank God Ross married you,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure whether I could agree to this sentiment, but I took his hand, accepting his strength, and let him pull me along as we hurried through the house. Outside, the golf cart stood beside the door, and I climbed into the seat beside Jarrett. The sound of its starting seemed to shatter the night, and a guard came running toward us. Jarrett waved to the man, and we went off toward Coral Cottage, shortcutting across the lawn. The cart had been equipped with head lamps, and there was no difficulty about finding our way in the dark.

  Coxie came to the cottage door, a vast relief on her face. “You’re just in time! I couldn’t keep her away from the radio any longer.”

  We went into the bedroom together, to find that Allegra was sitting up, dwarfed by the huge pillows around her, her face looking almost young and eager in the softened light. She greeted us with lucidity, and I sighed in relief. It would be too hard to get through to her if she were living in the past again.

  She reached out with a thin, still graceful hand and switched off the radio. “You’ve taken your time about getting here,” she said. “Ross is dead, and I’ve been waiting for someone to come and tell me what happened.”

  I could hear the catch in Jarrett’s breath. “We didn’t want you to hear it that way. We hoped you’d sleep straight through the night. The moment we knew you were awake, we came.”

  “Thank you. Though I thought it might be Gretchen. But I expect she’s having a bad time right now. His dying will make everything easier for her, but she loved him a great deal. I suppose I loved him too. Once. At least, I loved the little boy and young man he used to be. I haven’t loved the man he became for a long while.”

  For just an instant I felt an unfamiliar sympathy for Ross. Then I remembered what he’d been doing to Allegra, and I pulled a chair close to her bed.

  Surprisingly, she reached out to pat my hand and then looked up at Jarrett.

  “I wish you had been my son. You’d have been worthy of Charlie. Tell me whatever you can.”

  Jarrett explained that Ross had had a heart attack, and that there were police formalities, which would soon be over. Then the funeral could be arranged for.

  “Keep it private,” Allegra said.

  Jarrett agreed. “Of course. As far as we can. That will suit you, won’t it, Sharon?”

  I could only nod, remembering that it had been Ross who had taken the details of that other terrible funeral out of my hands. Now others would help me again, but I would be expected to make decisions. Or would I? Gretchen must be consulted tomorrow. Today. It was really her wishes and Allegra’s that must be considered. I didn’t even know if I had any wishes.

  We stayed with her for a little while until she grew weary and let us go. Then we returned to the cart.

  “She’s a marvel,” Jarrett said. “That was a lot easier than I ever expected. I might have known that she can still come to grips with reality when she has to. And when she’s not being drugged.”

  We rode back toward the house, where lights still burned aplenty. As we passed the spreading shadow of the great banyan tree, a slimmer shadow detached itself and came toward us. Jarrett braked the car, and in its lights Brett Inness emerged. She wore slacks and a jacket, and for once her hair was not wound in a knot on top of her head, but hung to her shoulders, caught back by a clasp.

  Jarrett switched off the motor. “Hello, Brett. You’ve heard what has happened?”

  “Yes.” In the bright shock of intense light all color seemed to have been washed from her face. “There was a news broadcast that I heard because I couldn’t sleep.”

  How few of us seemed to have slept through this night.

  “How did you get in?” Jarrett asked.

  She seemed to draw herself up with a touch of that hauteur she could assume so well, and she ignored me completely. “Why shouldn’t I come? He was my husband once, and Gretchen’s father. It’s possible that she may need me now.”

  “I merely asked how you got in,” Jarrett said. “Guards have been placed at every entrance—even the beach tunnel.”

  “Of course. But I do have a key,
and the guards were given orders by Gretchen long ago to let me in whenever I pleased to come. You know I’ve visited Allegra often.”

  Jarrett nodded, but I sensed his suspicion toward this woman and her motives. “Why tonight? Gretchen will have been sedated by now. What can you do?”

  She seemed suddenly forlorn and lonely, standing there, and I remembered that all this had belonged to her, as Ross’s wife. And she was still, as she’d said, Gretchen’s mother.

  I spoke for the first time. “You may want to be with Gretchen in the morning. You’re welcome to spend the rest of the night at Poinciana. Can we take you up to the house?”

  “Thank you,” she said with dignity. “I’ll walk. I can certainly find my way.”

  Jarrett gave me a long look, but he had nothing more to say, and we went on toward the house. I was aware of a lightening of the sky out over the Atlantic. Dawn was not far away. When we stopped, Jarrett came around to help me down from the cart, and he still looked quizzical and a little surprised.

  “What will happen to me now?” I asked, the momentary authority I’d assumed with Brett already dissolving. “Where will I go? I don’t know where I belong any more.”

  “That will be up to you, won’t it?” Jarrett said. “You took charge quite capably just now. So of course that’s what you’ll continue to do.”

  I shook my head wearily as we went in through a side door. “I’m not in charge of anything.”

  “Of course you are. You’re mistress of Poinciana now. Ross left it all to you. I’ve seen his will.”

  Once more, my knees betrayed me, and Jarrett steadied me with his arm. His words had shocked me, and I couldn’t absorb their full meaning at once. This was something I’d never thought about at all. Ross was Poinciana.

  Jarrett helped me up the stairs to my room and came in for a moment to make sure I’d be all right. The sometimes hard, life-weathered look was gone from his face, and his eyes were kind.

  “When you came here,” he said, “I took it for granted that you’d married what Ross Logan stood for, and all that he could give you. I know I was hard on you in my judgment. Now I can understand better that you were frightened and needed to be looked after.”

  I let Jarrett help me off with my coat. “I know what you thought. You never troubled to hide it.”

  “I’m sorry. But I think you’ll manage now, though it won’t be easy. Get to bed, Sharon. You’re tired enough to sleep. I’m almost that tired myself. Don’t think about anything. It can all wait until much later today.”

  He let himself out the door, and I felt grateful to him, as I’d never felt before. Grateful for his talking to me so honestly. Grateful because he had let me glimpse his own torment and moments of not being sure. He would help me if he could. And I would need all the help I could get. There were those in this house who had hated me—and now that might be even worse.

  Soon the sun would be up, but I must sleep now and do as Jarrett had said—think about nothing.

  At once as my head touched the pillow, I thought of Ross, and felt a pang of loss for something I’d never really had. And something of sorrow for him, too, because all that he’d been, the good and the bad, had come so suddenly to an end.

  I thought curiously as well of Brett Inness. How long had she been on Poinciana grounds? Had she come here, perhaps, before Ross had died? And I thought of Gretchen’s note. For the first time, I questioned it. Had she really written it? Was it even possible that someone else had copied her simple method of note writing? Perhaps someone who wanted to hide behind Gretchen might have done that very thing. But such suppositions were beyond me now.

  When sleep caught me, I went out completely, and I heard nothing at all for a good many hours into the new day.

  Chapter 12

  It was all over. The ceremonies, the eulogy, the funeral, the visiting relatives—a few of them still in the house. Ross’s “close” friends had been there—though I think he had been close to very few. For a “private” affair, it had seemed distastefully large to me. The press members who had been allowed to attend had been issued only the most carefully worded statements.

  This hardly stopped the media from clamoring for more details concerning Ross’s death, and as often happens in such cases, unpleasant rumors and speculation began to circulate, appearing in the sleazier journals. Everything was brought to me, on Jarrett’s orders, though I read little of what was printed.

  Allegra had appeared for some of the ritual, a proud and fragile lady, who could not be wholly grief-stricken over the death of her son, yet put up a very good front. Coxie hovered in attendance, watching her charge, but Allegra, free of “pills,” performed admirably and with great self-possession. Whenever she was present, Jarrett kept watchfully close.

  There had been a lavish buffet luncheon afterwards, which had been a strain for me to endure. It all seemed a sham to me, a ritual to be observed, though the signs of true grief, of deep regret for Ross’s passing were few. I resented this more for Gretchen’s sake than for my own. Of those who thronged the house, her mourning was the most genuine, even though in her, too, it must have been laced with relief.

  Vasily stayed by her side every moment, making an effort to be properly solemn for the occasion, but now and then allowing elation to break through to the surface and gleam in his eyes.

  Jarrett kept his distance where I was concerned. Those early-morning hours of revelation between us had slipped into a hazy past, and we’d spoken impersonally whenever we met. I had no idea what he was thinking and I wasn’t sure now of what his function was, or mine, or exactly what our relationship should be. There was an unspoken understanding that he would go on as before for the time being, and that at the appropriate moment we would talk and sort a few things out.

  By the time I could escape from the social part of the day, it was nearly evening, and I had come here to the gloom of the library, where sunset light touched the windows. I had come here to try to put some sense into the confusion and disorder of my thoughts.

  Beside me, the tape recorder played “Blue Champagne,” and Ysobel’s voice filled the empty cavern of the room. I played this song of hers deliberately, allowing my emotions free rein. I had gone back every step of the way, trying to understand, trying to find answers. My life had lost its simplicity even before Ross’s death, and with the making of his will he had plunged me into complications that I had no idea how to handle.

  If only he had left Poinciana to Gretchen, instead of to me. Perhaps he would have done so, if she hadn’t married Vasily. This was her punishment—Ross still reaching out to hurt her from his grave. He had left Gretchen even more wealthy than she was, Jarrett told me—something she cared little about—but he had not given her what she wanted most: Poinciana. Nor had he left her his shares in Meridian Oil. Those, as well as a sizable fortune, came into my hands. Everything, of course, wisely invested, giving me an income that was big enough to support the estate, and do anything I wished besides—even after the enormous inheritance taxes. It all seemed completely unreal and beyond my comprehension.

  There was only one stipulation. Poinciana was to be mine for as long as I chose to live here and care for it. Otherwise, it would go to Gretchen. Or it would go to her if she outlived me. My first impulse was to walk away from the burden, and I told Jarrett so. He had said, “Wait. Don’t do anything hasty. If it goes to Gretchen now, it also goes to Vasily Karl. Her will leaves everything to him—in defiance of her father, of course. I see no reason why she might change this, now that Ross is gone. Vasily will see to that.”

  Other reasons were developing to keep me from walking away. There was still the question of the note, purportedly from Gretchen, but which anyone could have forged—and which had surely been the cause of Ross’s heart attack. I had not yet confronted Gretchen with the existence of that note, but I must do so soon. It would be difficult to talk to her, because she was blaming me quite vocally for Ross’s death. Though not to the police. I was the o
ne who had so wickedly shocked and upset her father, she kept pointing out. By this time, she was brushing past the earlier quarrel with Jarrett that she’d included in her first accusations. I was the one, and she was ready to tell this to all who would listen. I’d felt a little sorry for bewildered friends and distant relatives, who were not yet sure of my position in the house, and reluctant to offend Gretchen by befriending me.

  The sound of Ysobel’s voice on the tape broke into my thoughts insistently, and I knew that one unhappy problem, at least, had been ended. I would never again be made love to because I was Ysobel Hollis’s daughter. The need to leave Ross was gone. He had escaped from us all, and from his own torments that he had tried to conceal.

  Already Brett Inness came and went about the house as she pleased, and I could only regret my earlier generosity. Gretchen had told her about the will, and she too resented the leaving of Poinciana to Ross’s present wife. She and Gretchen had clearly allied themselves against me.

  The gossip columns were not ignoring us. The hint had appeared of some serious quarrel between Ross and me shortly before his death, and I could guess that Brett was its possible source. Such columns would be only too ready to pounce upon anything connected with Ross Logan. Fortunately, there were those in powerful places who had stepped in to play down rumors that might affect the stability of Meridian Oil, though no one cared very much what I might be feeling.

  Except for Jarrett. He saw what was happening. “You can put Gretchen and Vasily out of the house, if you like,” he told me curtly. “It’s up to you. There’s nothing that says Gretchen and her husband are entitled to live here. And you don’t have to take Brett’s presence at all.”

  Put Gretchen out of her own home? Forbid her the comfort of seeing her mother in her own surroundings? I wasn’t tough enough for that, but I must certainly have a talk with Gretchen as soon as she could be persuaded to listen to me. I wanted to know whether she had really written the note Jarrett had found in Ross’s possession at the time of his death. If she had, it might account for her desperate effort at self-delusion by placing the blame elsewhere.