Poinciana

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Remember,” Vasily said, “you didn’t see me. It wouldn’t do for Gretchen to know that I came down here.” He faded away into the darkness of the grounds, out of which he’d come.

  All the lovely evening had been spoiled, and I felt hopeless again as I walked beside Jarrett toward the house.

  He put an arm around me as we came near. “There’s nothing to worry about. Gretchen can’t back up her wild claims. People in the media will see through her, and I’ll call a conference of my own if necessary. Though news of conflict at Poinciana won’t do us any good.”

  “Why would Brett urge her into this?”

  “Because she is a vindictive woman. Because she’s still trying to punish Ross for all he did to her. She has some grounds for feeling the way she does, you know. But she has always managed to keep her influence with Gretchen. Love can be a very strange and mixed-up thing between mother and daughter, as well as can all the other kinds.”

  How well I knew that. “I doubt that Brett ever loved Gretchen.”

  “That’s probably true. It’s Gretchen, unfortunately, who grew up wanting Brett’s affection and approval as she never wanted anything else, especially since she wasn’t her natural child. She didn’t have to work so hard with her father.”

  “In spite of everything, I feel sorry for Gretchen,” I said. “She has so much going for her, and she doesn’t use it.”

  When we reached a side door, Jarrett put his hand on my arm. “Take it easy, Sharon. Things will work out. Don’t try to solve everything inside your head all at once. I’ll phone you later, after I’ve talked to Gretchen. Will you be in your room?”

  I said I would wait for his call, and went upstairs. Even when I was away from him, I could still feel the touch of his hand and see the kindness in his eyes.

  The corridor that led to my room seemed emptier than ever as I hurried along, and I closed my door quickly, locking it. I wondered now why I had been willing to spend one more night in this room.

  Chapter 17

  When I was ready for bed, I sat propped against my pillows, reading one of the many books about early Palm Beach that I’d found in the library. Mainly, however, I was waiting for my phone to ring.

  Nearly two hours passed and I’d dropped my book and fallen into a doze when the shrilling woke me.

  Jarrett’s voice sounded calm and reassuring. “I’ve done what I could. Fortunately, I caught Gretchen alone, without Brett, and in her way she’s been fond of me since she was a little girl. So at least she listened. Part of the time she argued furiously, but I don’t think she believes a word of her own accusations. She wants to make trouble for you. Brett has managed to instill that purpose in her, though I think something else is operating too. It’s almost as though she may be covering something up with this outburst. Something that frightens her. I’m not sure what.”

  “But if it’s me she wants to hurt, why is she accusing you too?”

  “I’m tarred by the same brush, apparently. We were both in the office soon after Ross died. So she wants to claim that we were there before he died.”

  “Will she really call that news conference?”

  “I’m not sure. She can change so fast. Are you all right, Sharon? If you’re worried about staying at the house, Mrs. Simmons’s room is empty and you can spend the night here at the cottage, if you’d be more comfortable.”

  For an instant, I wanted to accept his invitation joyfully. Instead, I held back. It would not be wise. There would be gossip and there were dangers at the cottage too. I mustn’t move into that until I was sure. I had moved too soon with Ross, and I couldn’t entirely trust myself. Besides, my own fears of this house were something I needed to overcome. I would be safe enough in this room for one more night. It had been Ross I had been afraid of here.

  When I’d thanked Jarrett and hung up, I went to check the locks again, both in my own room and in Ross’s. I hated to go in there and when I went through the door I didn’t turn on the light. I didn’t want Ysobel to watch me from her place on the wall. Moonlight showed me my way, and I made certain that the door to the hallway was locked.

  Then I took a mild sleeping pill and went to bed.

  Somewhere around midnight the music began in my dreams. The music and the singing. I could hear the words clearly:“… purple shadows and blue champagne …”

  I threw aside the covers and sat up in bed with cold sweat breaking out all over my body. My throat felt constricted by fear. In the remaining moonlight I could see that the door between my room and Ross’s was open, and Ysobel’s disembodied voice drifted through with a clarity that sent shivering fingers down my spine. The room beyond the doorway was as dark as my own, and shadowy—but the voice sang on and I didn’t know what hand had set the tape running.

  In my muddled, still half-conscious state, I thought first of Ross. If he could come back, this was just the sort of trick he would relish. I shook myself awake and slipped out of bed. That singing had to be stopped. If it went on, I might lose all self-control. I might cower here in terror forever if I didn’t stop it. I might even start to scream.

  Again I found my way, stumbling. I couldn’t remember where the light switch was—probably by the door to the hall, so I eased around the edge of the bed, discovered a floor lamp, and turned it on. The room was empty. I fumbled my way to the record player and flipped the switch. Ysobel’s voice slurred in the middle of a phrase, and I dropped onto the side of the bed and covered my face with my hands.

  A cool breeze touched my shoulders, chilling me further, and I looked around to see that the door to the loggia was ajar. That door I must have forgotten to lock, and someone was out there in the darkness, watching me. I felt sure of it.

  Shivering, I stood up, meaning to pull the spread from the bed and wrap it about me. But when I grasped a corner to turn it back, something rattled in the center of the spread. I paused to stare at the two tiny objects nestled there, clicking against each other. The Daruma and the carp with the turtle in its mouth—the two missing netsuke.

  Moving automatically, I picked them up and placed them on a corner of the bed table. Then I went back to pull the spread free, and wrapped it about me. That felt a little better. When I’d picked up the netsuke again, I moved toward the open door to the loggia. I knew very well who was out there, and now I’d begun to tremble with rage as well as with the cold.

  “You’d better come in,” I said.

  A small, square hand appeared to push the glass doors wider, and Gretchen slipped through the opening. She was dressed in a long blue robe, with the collar turned up, and she was grinning her monkey grin that had little mirth in it.

  “I’ve been watching you,” she said. “I really frightened you, didn’t I?”

  My anger rose. “How could you possibly do a thing so cruel?” I demanded.

  “It wasn’t hard. I’ve grown up with two very good teachers—my father and Brett. I’m a prize, graduate pupil.”

  “Where did you get these?” I held out the netsuke.

  “I have my ways,” she said, and I knew she would never tell me.

  My own urge to do violence surprised me. I wanted to slap her, shake her, punish her, but I knew that my control was the one thing I must not lose.

  She was watching my face almost gleefully, as though she knew very well the emotions she aroused in me. “After all, I brought the netsuke back to you, didn’t I? Why not give me credit for that?”

  There was no possible answer. Not when she had deliberately turned on the recording of Ysobel’s song, and waited outside in the dark to see what I would do. In spite of myself, my eyes were drawn to the portrait, and my mother’s gaze seemed directed at me. In the shadowy room, where only one lamp burned, the generous warmth that she’d always given her audiences flowed out to me. If only she could have looked at me like that in life.

  I turned again to Gretchen. “You’d better go now. You’ve done enough.”

  But she too was staring at the portrait. �
��Did you love her very much?” she asked softly.

  The words surprised me. Even Gretchen’s sudden changes of mood spoke of her unbalanced state. It was not for the first time that I wondered if everything that was unpleasant which had happened to me since I came to Poinciana had stemmed from just two sources—Ross and his daughter.

  “I don’t think this is the time for philosophical discussion,” I said. “I’m going back to bed.” I held up the netsuke. “I’ll sleep with these under my pillow for the rest of the night.”

  She paid no attention, and her voice stopped me as I reached the door. “Just tell me the answer. Did you love your mother very much?”

  “You’ve asked the wrong question,” I said.

  “I suppose I have.” Her eyes didn’t move from Ysobel’s face. “I should have asked whether she loved you. Do you dare to tell me the answer to that, Sharon?”

  I was very still as anger slipped away, leaving a strange pity behind it. I knew why she had asked me such a question. She had asked it because for all her life she had longed to be loved by Brett, just as I had longed to be loved by Ysobel Hollis. In this one thing we were sisters, Ross’s daughter and I.

  “I loved her a great deal,” I said gently. “At least I did when I was small. And I wanted more than anything else to have her love me.”

  “I know,” Gretchen said. “I understand that very-well.”

  As had happened between us at odd moments in the past, enmity fell away, and we were kin. I reached out from under the spread I’d wrapped around me and took her hand.

  “Come in here,” I said, and led her into the room that was still mine, away from Ysobel’s watchful eyes and Ross’s invisible presence. I pushed her down upon the chaise longue and pulled the throw over her. Then I stretched out on my bed, propping myself on one elbow.

  “Have you ever tried to find your real mother?” I asked.

  Her eyes were closed, and I saw a tear coursing down her cheek. “No! I’ve never wanted to. Not when she sold me to my father. I don’t really care who she is. I’ve never gotten over wanting Brett to love me as if I were really her daughter. Fathers are important. But it’s mothers we’re closest to in the beginning. Or want to be closest to. Until we find someone outside to love us. I have that now in Vasily. And Brett and I are friends, in a way. I still want to please her, make her like me. Though I can see her more clearly now.”

  “Is that why you’re planning a press conference tomorrow? Because she wants you to?”

  She opened her eyes wide and stared at me. “How did you know that?”

  I repeated her own words, faintly mocking. “I have my ways.”

  “Vasily,” she said. “Of course.”

  I didn’t give him away. “No—it was Jarrett. He phoned me tonight after he’d talked to you.”

  “Oh?” I heard the note of relief in her voice. “I suppose I thought it was Vasily because he can never be trusted any farther than I can see him. Yet I know he loves me. I do know that!”

  I said nothing, hoping this wasn’t a whistling in the dark for her.

  “I wish I could tell you something,” she went on, “but I can’t trust you either.”

  Again I was silent. Later, I would wish I had urged her to confide in me, but I missed the chance with my silence.

  “Just the same,” she mused, “I’m lucky to have Vasily. I’m luckier than you are, Sharon. Because my father never really cared about you, did he? He only cared about Ysobel Hollis.”

  The cruel intent was back, and I lay silent on the bed, already regretting the impulse that had caused me to bring her into this room.

  “There!” she said. “You see—I’ve done it again! Vasily says I use my tongue like a sword. But it’s only because I speak my mind. I don’t pussyfoot. I don’t really mean—”

  “You didn’t mean to open the door to my room and set that recorder playing? You didn’t wait deliberately for me to come?”

  She sat up, somehow looking young and defenseless—which she certainly was not.

  “Nobody’s ever stopped me from doing the first thing that came into my head. Except maybe Grandmother Allegra. Everybody else let me go my own way. I guess my father was disciplined a lot by his parents when he was a boy, so he wouldn’t do that to me. And Brett never cared, unless I bothered her. At least you’ve learned something about self-control, haven’t you, Sharon? You’ve behaved admirably.”

  “I don’t know if that’s what you’d call it. In the end I suppose we all have ourselves to blame, whatever we do.”

  “I know. Take responsibility for our own acts! That’s what Gran is always preaching. But she never does it herself. None of us looks at ourselves as we really are, do we? Never mind. I’ll go now.” She walked to the door and stood for a moment, hesitating. “I can’t tell you I’m sorry, because I’m not. I enjoyed what I was doing. I really did. And that’s pretty sick, isn’t it?”

  I said nothing and she scowled at me.

  “My father should never have left you Poinciana,” she said, and went out the door, pulling it shut after her.

  I got up to lock it again. Then I went into Ross’s room, where the lamp still burned, and this time I locked both doors. But I didn’t turn off the light. I didn’t want to think of darkness pulsing in that empty room. Back in my own bed, I thrust the two netsuke under my pillow and lay on my back with my eyes closed, all emotion draining from me, all sleep hopelessly far away. Limbo.

  I must have slept eventually—heavily, deeply—for it was mid-morning when I opened my eyes to hear rain at all my windows. In the next room the lamp still burned, and memory returned sickly. The two netsuke were still beneath my pillow when I reached for them, but I closed my eyes, listening to the rain, remembering mornings when I’d been eager to rise and start my day because so much that was lovely and exciting awaited me. For a little while Ross had given me that. And I could almost believe that he had enjoyed giving it. If we could have stayed away from Poinciana …

  Better to make plans, I thought. Today I would change my rooms. I would visit Allegra. I would make lists of things that must be done. The thought brought a smile. List-making was something I’d learned in self-defense when I traveled with Ysobel. My mother had been cheerfully heedless, depending on others to see that she arrived where she was supposed to be at the right time, that she didn’t overspend her allowance, that she dressed herself in the right assortment of clothes. She must always be on stage, and others must help to get her there. After which she performed beautifully on her own.

  A flash of memory slanted through my thoughts, to bring back another moment I’d had with Ysobel on that tour that ended in San Francisco. Before we’d flown to Ireland for that last performance. She had come into the wings after taking numerous bows, and the applause was still ringing with all the love her audiences held for her. She pushed through those who waited in the wings, and came to where I stood alone, watching her. I could remember the way she put a finger to her forehead, rubbing as though a headache were starting, and she’d looked at me in a puzzled way.

  “I’m only real when I’m out there,” she said. “What’s going to happen when they don’t want me any more?”

  In that instant I’d felt older than Ysobel, and I’d put a comforting arm about her. “They’ll always want you,” I said.

  At once she had laughed and pushed me away and was herself again. But I had glimpsed again her vulnerability, and love for her had welled up in me, stronger than old resentments.

  Had Gretchen given me something last night, in spite of malicious intent? She’d said, “None of us looks at ourselves as we really are.” It was time now to look, whether I liked it or not. Look and stop blaming.

  Not something easy to do.

  When I’d showered and dressed in slacks and a light pullover, I stood at the loggia door and watched rain slant across the tiles and stream down the drains. The palm trees looked wet, their trunks glistening dark, and the lake was a murky froth. Good! I was
tired of everlasting sunshine. Rain suited my mood.

  Susan brought my breakfast tray, since it was once more a Saturday and she was on duty. I was grateful for her unobtrusive presence as she set the tray down, drew up a chair for me, poured coffee—and waited.

  “What’s happening around the house?” I asked.

  “I don’t know really. Everything is spooky quiet, except that Mr. Nichols is working in his office, and has Miss Ritter in for the day so he can dictate. And my mother’s turning out the rooms you want to move into, though I’m afraid she doesn’t approve.”

  “This room belonged to Brett Inness.”

  “Yes, and Mother was devoted to her. She’s upset because you don’t want to stay in a room she thinks is absolute perfection.”

  I glanced about at pale elegance. “It’s not for me. I like things cozier.”

  “Anyway, you shouldn’t stay here.”

  “I agree. But why do you say that?”

  “It’s just a feeling. As though everyone in this house is plotting against everyone else. It’s creepy.”

  “Including me?”

  “Maybe you’re not plotting enough,” she said, and went quietly away.

  I ate my breakfast in a thoughtful mood, wondering about the hint of warning in her words. Fine! I would plot. I would make lists, I would take action. I sat at my desk and wrote. It was easy enough to make lists. I was an expert.

  When I was done I read through what I had written—all the earnest duties that I could begin to perform about the house—and found it utterly boring. I didn’t want to live my life by the clock any more, or by making lists. And I didn’t want to plot. There were things to be done, and I would do them. I tore up the list.

  First, a visit to Allegra. I must tell her about my move into her wing.

  I found her propped up in bed with her eyes closed, and Brett in a chair beside her, reading aloud about a certain Mrs. Pollifax, who was apparently an adventurous lady after Allegra’s own heart.

  The reading stopped as I appeared in the doorway, and Allegra opened her eyes. “Today I want to go up to my rooms in the tower,” she said to no one in particular.