The Ebony Swan

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “It can also be pretty dull at times,” John told her, taking her hand.

  Young hand in old hand, Alex thought. Blood speaking to blood. He held it for a moment and only friendship was offered.

  The walk to the Chesapeake House was a short one, and they all went together under hot sun on this almost treeless island. The long dining room, with windows along both sides, was almost empty. Only a pair of flyers, father and son, had dropped in from the skies for lunch. When tourists were ashore these tables would be packed, and there would be an uproar of laughter and voices. John sat next to Susan, with his wife on his other side. Alex, next to Emily, felt grateful for the quiet room. Nothing was required of her now. She could listen to the talk and not even think. Susan and John seemed to hit it off well together, and she blessed him for the effort he was making. Even Emily seemed more relaxed now, reassured that nothing threatening would come of this visit, and that it would soon be over.

  The service was family-style. Run now by her daughter, Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House was famous throughout the bay. Alex found her plate heaped with potato salad, cole slaw, crab cakes, Tangier Island’s corn pudding, and pickled beets. They had all the coffee they cared to drink. The homemade rolls with preserves and butter were delicious. For dessert they were served pound cake and apple sauce—an island favorite.

  Alex managed to eat a little, but refused second helpings. She was happy to see Susan hungry. John seemed more at ease now, amusing them all with stories of the bay. Emily had little to say, and Alex could find no way to get past the barrier her onetime friend had put up between them. This hardly mattered, since Alex would never return to Tangier again, and probably Emily would never again visit her. A halt was clearly being placed on their relationship, and Alex knew sadly that it would suit them both.

  She was ready to leave as soon as they’d walked back to the Gower house. A golf cart would be called and they would be on their way. No need for John or Emily to see them back to the plane. John, however, sprang his own small surprise.

  “I’d like to walk Susan down to the dock and show her the waterfront,” he said. “Alex, I know you’ll want some time with Emily, so why don’t you wait for us at the house. I promise we won’t take long.”

  So much for sensitivity! Alex suspected that Emily was no happier than she that they were to be left together. Though it would have been cooler inside, Emily sat down in one of the wicker rockers on the porch, while Alex chose the swing.

  She tried vainly to think of some safe topic of conversation, but in the end there was only one thing she wanted to say. “I know we can’t ever be friends again, the way we were when we were young, Emily. But perhaps we can clear the air a little. John hardly knew you at the time when I fell in love with him. So I never let you down. And of course John and I realized soon enough how foolish we were to think of any future between us. We broke off long before you and he came together.”

  Emily stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “I know that, but there’s still Susan. Of course I know, Alex. How could I not guess? Women have instincts about such things, and this girl is Dolores’s daughter. As she was John’s. So what now? What is he telling her at this very moment?”

  “He’s not telling her anything, Emily. We’ve agreed on that. She need never learn about the past. We can let him have this time with her, so he can get to know her a little.”

  At least she had said the right thing. The relaxing of anxiety in Emily was evident.

  “Thank you for talking to me, Alex,” she said. “John has never given me any cause to worry about you. But Susan’s coming brought everything I’d suppressed to the surface, and I could hardly stand having you come here. I didn’t want to visit you when you were hurt, but John sent me.”

  If not everything of old pain could be mended, perhaps at least a better feeling between them would be possible.

  “However—” Emily began and hesitated.

  That could be one of the most ominous words in Alex’s adopted language, and she stiffened, knowing something unpleasant was about to be said.

  Emily collected herself and went on. “There is still something you don’t know, Alex. John felt that you should never be told. But now I think you must be, whether he agrees or not. I feel that this is information long due you.”

  As Emily went on, Alex could feel all her defenses, her security—her very life—crumbling around her.

  13

  John and Susan turned onto a wider lane of rough gravel and weedy grass that followed a slight slope down toward the water. She hurried to keep up with John’s long, vigorous stride that gave no quarter to the noon heat.

  She’d liked this man from their first meeting. In some ways he seemed younger than her grandmother. Not younger in appearance, perhaps, but in youthful vigor. She suspected that he had lived exactly the right life for him, and she admired that, even though to her it seemed so restricted a life—though Alex’s life was restricted too. Sometimes she felt that her grandmother was surrounded by high fences over which she could never climb. It would be good to know that she had kicked over the traces just once since she’d stopped dancing—instead of settling for the safety of marriage to a much older man. If only she could glimpse the young woman Alex had once been.

  “Penny for your deep thoughts,” John said.

  “I was thinking about my grandmother. She’s the most remarkable woman I’ve ever known, but she frightens me a little. I don’t know how to get close to her.”

  He let that go without comment, gesturing toward the link fence that ran along beside them—a very long fence that reached from the water up to the cross lane they’d just left. Bits of paper seemed to be clipped to it, fluttering in the slight breeze.

  “This is where people come in from the boats,” he said. “So it’s an old custom for Tangier women to clip their favorite recipes along this fence. There’s an envelope attached for donations, if anyone wants to buy a recipe.”

  Susan had no interest in recipes at the moment. She walked at this tall man’s side and listened while he talked about the island he loved. This was something she found difficult to understand. She hadn’t been entirely truthful when she said she found the island fascinating. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live out here on this bare, sunbaked spot of earth set barely above sea level. Nor could she understand why she had received a vision of what she would see when she visited the church. That was frightening to think about—dipping into realms she had no knowledge of.

  “Who settled the island in the beginning?” she asked.

  “There are various stories. Cornishmen? Or Londoners, whose speech from Elizabethan times you can still hear spoken? Or were there pirates, who mated with Indian women? Probably sailors jumped ship when Captain John Smith sailed up the bay. We have a colorful history. Francis Scott Key was imprisoned here during the War of 1812. When he was taken aboard ship as a prisoner in the attack on Baltimore, he wrote about those bombs bursting in air that he saw from the deck of a ship out of Tangier.”

  Interesting, but far too distant, Susan thought. “Tell me about my grandmother. You knew her when she was young.”

  He waited so long that she wasn’t sure he would answer. They had reached the place where the boats came in, and when he gestured she went with him to sit at the end of the empty dock, their legs dangling above the water. Susan breathed the salty, slightly fishy air and listened to the lapping of waves among the pilings beneath the dock. Out on a post in the harbor an osprey watched for fish.

  After a time the man beside her began to talk, his voice low in its remembering. “Alex and her husband came to the island a few times. He was planning to write about what he saw here, though whether he ever did I don’t know.”

  “I don’t recall reading about Tangier in any of my grandfather’s books. What do you remember about him. No one talks about him as a man—onl
y as a famous author.”

  “He was a good deal older than Alex. I thought him distinguished-­looking, and a strong personality.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I didn’t know him, really. I was in awe of him—he seemed very stern and remote. Mostly off in some intellectual country of his own creation. No, I didn’t like him.”

  For the first time Susan sensed that she might have stepped into deep waters. If John Gower had fallen in love with her young grandmother—which seemed possible—he would certainly have disliked Juan Gabriel. She moved to safer ground.

  “I’ve seen pictures of him, of course. There were always photographs on his book jackets. I used to think he looked like an eagle with that beaked nose and strong chin.”

  “I’m sure he could be like that. A man to reckon with. But when I saw them together he was always very gentle with your grandmother.” John Gower paused, and when he went on something in his voice had changed—as though he smiled inwardly at some private joke. “I’m sure your—your grandfather was someone she loved very much.”

  “He has never seemed like a real person to me. Just a writer whose books I admire. I suppose that’s why I keep asking questions. So I can find some connection between us.”

  “Perhaps you should tell your grandmother what you’ve just told me.”

  She’d said nothing of special significance, Susan thought, and decided to risk the real question in her mind.

  “Were you in love with my grandmother in those days?”

  He answered lightly. “Everybody loved her. But she was married, Susan.”

  She knew she’d been put off. “At least you can tell me what she was like when she was young. I can only see her as old.”

  He relented, smiling at her eagerness—a warm, almost affectionate smile.

  “She’s probably several times the woman now that she was as a girl. But I can remember that she was filled with more vitality than anyone I’d ever known. She almost crackled with life—like a firewheel about to spin off into space. Or she could turn as cool as an ice queen and freeze whatever she touched.”

  As she had frozen him?

  He went on, half-musing to himself. “Perhaps she’s more human now—less like the swan queen who was out of the reach of mere mortals.”

  If he had loved her, how could he have married Emily, who seemed so much older than Alex, and rather dull? But of course Alex Montoro—Drina!—would never have looked at an impecunious young fisherman. He might have loved her, but he had been sensible enough to marry a woman who would make him a suitable wife. A woman willing to bury herself on Tangier Island. At the same time, some romantic part of Susan wished that Alex Montoro had defied society and run off with John Gower. And never mind that old eagle, Juan Gabriel!

  John seemed to sense that she played a wistful game. He could be a thoughtful, perceptive man.

  “Don’t build fantasies around your grandmother, Susan. Perhaps sometime she’ll tell you more about the days when she was young. She has become a private, rather secret person, so you’ll need to wait until she can trust you.”

  “She can trust me now!”

  “She doesn’t know that. Give her time.”

  In a strange way time seemed to be rushing past. It wasn’t a matter of waiting, but of reaching out to stop the flight of minutes.

  “If she’d just talk to me! She’s told me a little about her dancing, but not much else. There’s so much I want to know.”

  He stood up from the dock, pulling her to her feet. He would never really discuss her grandmother—he was as bad as Alex was when it came to talking about the past.

  “It’s time to go back,” he said. “I wanted to show you our harbor. There’s so much you miss by coming in on a plane. Way out to your right on the bay is an old Liberty ship that floats above water in two broken pieces. It’s been used as a target for bombing practice, though not with live ammunition.”

  Susan had the feeling that he held her there talking because he was reluctant to go back to the house.

  “Perhaps I’ll come again sometime,” she told him. “If I stay.”

  Her words seemed to surprise him. “If you stay?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Sometimes I think that Alex just wants me to go away.”

  He spoke almost sadly. “I have the feeling that your grandmother needs you. She hasn’t anyone else.”

  “She has Theresa Montoro,” Susan said flatly.

  “I’ve never met Theresa, though I think my wife doesn’t care for her. I meant only that you are Alex’s one blood relative, and that counts for a lot.”

  Since Alex was often hard to read, Susan felt uncertain.

  John Gower went on as they walked back up the lane. “I know very little about your grandmother’s life at present. We’ve been out of touch for decades, and Tangier Island is isolated from the mainland in so many ways.”

  “Do you mind the isolation?”

  “It’s been my life—a good life. I’ve done what I most wanted to do.”

  They finished their walk in a silence that was not uncompanionable. In an odd way Susan had the feeling that she and John Gower had become friends, even though they might never see each other again.

  When they reached the house, Alex and Emily sat on the porch waiting—one in a chair, one on the swing—yet they seemed miles apart. Susan sensed in an instant that something had happened to her grandmother—something devastating. The very droop of her shoulders was uncharacteristic, revealing dejection, hopelessness. New lines seemed to have appeared in her face, and her skin, always protected from the sun, looked even paler, as though she’d experienced some terrible shock.

  Noting the signs with an experienced eye, Susan ran up the steps. “This trip has been a bit much for you, Grandmother. I expect we should start back.”

  Emily spoke calmly. “Your grandmother isn’t as rugged as we islanders are, Susan. John, will you phone Chesapeake House? Somebody will send a cart over to take Alex and Susan to the airport.”

  Afterward, Susan remembered their leaving as a time of haste and confusion, with Alex behaving as though she’d removed herself from all reality. John Gower seemed bewildered, while his wife wore an air of complacency. Whatever had happened, Susan was sure, had stemmed from Emily Gower.

  It was a relief when the Gowers decided not to come to the airport to see them off. All Susan wanted was to talk to Peter, who would know what to do. A phone call was made so that he would meet their plane. Susan spoke to him briefly, warning him about the change in Alex.

  Fred Parks waited for them at the little Tangier flying field. This time getting aboard seemed more difficult for Alex. Earlier she had been filled with anticipation and perhaps a little anxiety, both of which gave her energy. Now she had become indifferent, almost inert.

  On the short flight home, Susan sat beside her grandmother on the cross seat, while Alex leaned back with her eyes closed. It would be useless to ask questions, Susan knew. When she and John had left to walk to the waterfront, Alex had seemed younger and happier than before. So sudden a change was frightening. Obviously she needed support, but how could anyone help in the face of this lassitude?

  On the flight from the island Alex never looked out the window beside her, and Susan could only play the watchful nurse. She gave Alex aspirin for her probable headache and poured water from a thermos to help her swallow it. Afterward, unexpectedly, Alex reached for Susan’s hand and held it tightly, as though she needed an anchor. Susan hoped that the pressure of her own fingers showed the love and tenderness she felt. With no understanding of what had happened, Susan was aware that a new bond had grown between them. For the moment her grandmother needed her, and with that Susan was content.

  Peter was waiting when they landed, and he took over at once, accepting Alex’s silence and asking no questions.


  When they’d thanked Fred Parks, Peter led the way to his car. But when he suggested that Alex lie down in the back seat on the drive home across the bridge, she looked at him from a remote distance that dismissed his concern.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” she said, and sat in the front seat beside him, looking weak and stricken. Her turquoise jacket that had seemed flattering and youthful this morning, had wilted, and Alex had turned into the old woman she’d always seemed to deny. What had Emily Gower said or done that had brought Alex to this alarming state?

  There was little for anyone to talk about during the drive. Susan gave Peter a perfunctory account of their visit, and Alex said nothing at all.

  Susan began to feel a new anger toward Emily Gower. If Alex had really had an affair with John Gower in the past, and Emily knew about it, perhaps she could have said something accusatory that had reduced Alex to a state of guilt. But somehow that didn’t seem to be the answer. So ancient a happening could hardly affect either of them now.

  When they reached the house Susan saw with annoyance that Hallie Townsend sat in the porch swing, creaking back and forth, obviously waiting for their return. She had a talent for turning up at inappropriate moments. At once she jumped up and hurried down to the car.

  “Alex,” she wailed, “you went to Tangier Island! You went to see Emily and you didn’t let me know. You could have taken me with you. You know I seldom get to see my sister!”

  “Later, Hallie,” Peter said. “Alex isn’t feeling well just now.”

  He helped Alex from the car, and Susan put a hand beneath her grandmother’s elbow. Alex, however, pushed them both away and faced Hallie.

  “I’m sure you can visit your sister any time you wish, as she can visit you. There are always boats.”

  Hallie became suddenly aware of Alex’s gray and fragile appearance. “What’s happened to her?” she demanded of Peter. “What’s wrong?”

  No one answered, and they started up the steps.

  Susan’s concern was not for Hallie, and as she followed Peter and her grandmother into the house, Gracie came anxiously into the front hall and Peter spoke to her.