by Craig Rice
David dressed quickly and started down the hall toward the staircase. At the corner of the corridor he met Zenobie, her household lists in her hand, her face hard and impassive. She nodded at him without a change of expression.
“It will be warm in the day, Mr. David. You will do well to wear the lightest you have.”
He thanked her, started on to the stairs, then paused and turned to her suddenly. “Zenobie, how long have you been on the Island?”
“Upward of twenty years, sir. I returned here with Mr. Philip”—she hesitated for the barest breath of time—“and his wife.”
She had gone down the corridor and was out of sight before he had time to say another word. He stood staring after her, wondering. Zenobie had come here with Philip Telefair and his wife, twenty years and more ago. Angeline, the wife of whom no one ever spoke, who was not buried on the island. Why had Zenobie remained all these years?
He wondered where that mysterious Angeline was buried, and why not here, with the other Telefairs and wives of Telefairs; with all his heart he wished that he had courage to ask more questions of Zenobie.
He went on down the great curved stair that had been a Well of shadows the night before, its polished wood gleaming now in the early morning sunlight. Philip Telefair and little Doctor von Berger were waiting for him at the breakfast table; Edmund, it appeared, had spent the night on his boat and was not expected at Telefair until evening.
“I trust that you slept well,” said Doctor von Berger gravely. His pale eyes met David’s across the table momentarily, seeming to flash a message to him, a hint that the night’s events should not be mentioned before old Philip Telefair.
David nodded. “I slept very well, thank you.” He felt a strange sense of almost joyous conspiracy as he said it, as though the sharing of even so unimportant a secret with Doctor von Berger built a little wall around them and made them two people apart from the world.
“I am glad that the fog has not made you ill,” Philip Telefair said in his beautiful voice. He smiled across the table at David as he spoke, and instantly the young man felt guilty, disloyal, even a trifle dishonest, for engaging in what was so small and trivial a conspiracy against Great-Uncle Philip, when truly there was no length to which he would not go to please him.
The old man went on smiling across the table at David, his dark, deep-set eyes glowing with friendliness and affection, his delicate, pale, graceful hands playing idly with the silver by his plate. Philip Telefair, who had been so kind to him! David felt his heart swelling with love for his uncle, as warm and golden and clear as the sunlight that covered Telefair Island.
Yet even as his mind dwelt happily on the depth and the immensity of this love and loyalty, he found himself wondering why Doctor von Berger thought it would be unwise to speak of the night’s happenings to Philip Telefair, and what the outcome would be if he did. Not that he cared to try it and find out!
Later in the day, when he went out into the lake of sunlight that enveloped the old house, David chose, for some reason, to walk out on the side away from the gardens and the little fountain. There was a moment of indecision as he stood in the great hall after breakfast, watching the dusty yellow light as it lost itself in the carved patterns of the staircase, though he was not conscious of either decision or indecision, or of any need for determining the direction in which he should turn. He stood there, almost without thought, and then, with what he felt to be an unheralded impulse, turned and walked through the immense double doors that led to the great gallery of Telefair.
The vista ahead of him appeared strange and curiously unfamiliar. During the long nights in his room, he had looked from his window and seen the fountain and the gardens—pale in moonlight, cavernous in darkness, or inscrutable in mist. In his walking about the Island, invariably he had left the house through the door leading to the terrace and, beyond, to the gardens, the fountain, and the ancient burying place of the Telefairs. He knew that aspect of Telefair far better than he knew any of the people who lived in the house. But now, seen from the gallery, Telefair suddenly appeared alien and unknown.
Like many of the great houses of its era, Telefair faced in two directions at once, having, as it were, two fronts and no back at all. David knew, from what old Philip Telefair had told him of the long past days, that there had been a practical reason for this architectural arrangement in the houses built along the tidal rivers that came up from Chesapeake Bay. There was the water side of the house, from which one descended to the boat landing, and the land side of the house, with its driveway leading to the road beyond. The design of Telefair, however, had been prompted, surely, by no such necessity, surrounded by water as it was, and needing no driveway. Still, there it stood, looking at one and the same time toward the gardens and toward the broad, unbroken lawn that reached almost to the water’s edge itself.
Ahead of him the level expanse of tended green stretched like a lake of grass down to the trees, pathless, gardenless, treeless. David stepped down from the gallery and walked a little way across the lawn, stopping at last to look back at the old house.
Seen from that point Telefair appeared magnificently formal, splendidly severe, even forbidding. The immense and graceful columns that rose from the edge of the gallery were placed only along the central and taller portion of the house, a line of white pillars that reached from the ground level of the gallery to the very top of the house, three stories above. On each side the long, two-story wings ran out into the trees surrounding the house.
It had been, David remembered, his first sight of Telefair, that vista seen from the broad, smooth lawn. He had seen it by moonlight then, lambent, seeming to shed its own light, pale as the round moon itself. There was sunlight now, warm and yellow, but Telefair cast its great shadow over the lawn like some obscure emanation of evil, darkening everything it touched, and as. David stood watching it, it seemed to him that he could see the shadow lengthening, reaching out forever to touch the trees beyond the lawn.
David turned sharply and walked down toward the little woods that stood between him and the water’s edge, the clipped grass soft and responsive to his tread, as though he walked on some living thing. Even as he came to the trees he did not look back, but went on along the narrow path that led to the landing, retracing the steps he had taken on the night of his arrival at Telefair.
The woods were thick on both sides of the path, so that the tops of the trees met over his head, forming an endless succession of deep green tunnels and caves. Suddenly the perpetual duskiness of the woods, where the sun could not penetrate, began to thin and lighten as he approached the water, then penciled shafts of sunlight began to appear through the tops of the last trees, and at last he went beyond the edge of the woodland and came out upon the shore. He turned back there, pausing to look toward the trees, and discovered then that for all the density of their growth, the great pale bulk of Telefair showed faintly through them like some immense apparition of light. He realized for the first time that there was no place on the Island from which it was impossible to see the old house.
He walked along the shore a little way, in the direction of the landing, until he had come as close to it as he dared. Curled at the base of their post where they were always chained, he could see the huge, savage dogs that guarded the landing, seeming asleep, deceptively quiet. It would, he knew, take only one foot’s approach to wake them to an instant, murderous fury. Beyond them, in the water by the landing, was the boat that was the only link with the country beyond the inlet, chained and padlocked to a great, iron ring.
David stretched himself on a patch of grass at the edge of the sand and stones, suddenly overcome with weariness and lassitude. The vigor and exhilaration he had felt on waking had vanished now; he was conscious that he had slept but little. The warmth of the sun on his body brought him a realization that he felt fairly sore, aching and battered with exhaustion, not only drowsy, but half fainting. Yet he felt no wish for sleep.
Across the inle
t he could see the little house of the Reverend Arthur Stone, its windows glistening in the sunlight, surrounded by its garden; beyond it he could see the mainland stretching toward the sky. He wondered what went on in that country which seemed to be so far away; wondered it as though he had never been there, as though in all his life he had never passed beyond the confines of Telefair Island.
Still, for all that his existence was bounded by the strip of shore that ran around the Island, he knew very little of Telefair itself. Suddenly he realized, though he had never thought of it before, that he had not seen all the interior of the house, indeed had seen only a small portion of it. The old wing, whose second story could not be entered because of the condition of its timbers, he had not seen at all. Of all the second story of Telefair, he knew only the corridor and his own room. He knew that this door led to Edris’ room, that door to Philip Telefair’s, and that one to Edmund’s, but he had never seen those rooms, only his own. Last night he had seen Doctor von Berger’s room for the first time, hidden away in a shadowy corner of the new wing. The great hall he knew, the little parlor and the formal parlor, the dark and fascinating library, the dining room and the dining hall. Of the interior of the house, that was all he had seen. He knew that the little building at the end of the new wing and attached to it by a covered passageway, was the servants’ quarters, but what it might be like inside, he could not imagine.
Indeed, David could imagine nothing of the Telefair servants themselves; he hardly knew who they were. Zenobie, the housekeeper, he knew, though he saw her but rarely, and then for fleeting glimpses. Old Jonas, with his white hair, his unfriendly eyes, and the curious French accent in his speech, he knew. And he knew too, of course, that there were others, though Telefair was so well run a household that he had had no more than brief and casual meetings with them. There were two men who tended the gardens and the lawns, yet he knew them only as obscure figures who were seen occasionally among the rose beds or the trees. There were women who worked in the kitchen, who cared for the great house, yet he never seemed to see any of them, and never had he heard them speak. In the morning when he came downstairs, Telefair was swept and dusted and polished to glistening perfection; it was done so quietly and so early in the morning that David had no knowledge of its doing. Old Jonas attended Philip Telefair and waited on the table. Food came from somewhere, prepared in some mysterious, secret place, but David knew nothing of those who worked to prepare it, nor, indeed, of the place in which they worked or its location. And none of these people, of whom he knew nothing at all, ever left Telefair Island, and as far as he could see, had not left it for many years. Did they have some secret life of their own that they lived apart from the rest of Telefair? He wondered, and began thinking of them, searching the recesses of his memory for what little he did know of them.
It seemed to him that there was, indeed, something singular about those servants of Telefair. In his infrequent contacts with them he had paid little attention, given little notice, being too preoccupied with Telefair itself to be much aware of its people. But now as he began to look back over those occasional meetings, and to remember, he realized that there was something strange, something inexplicable. He had met the gardeners as they went about their duties. Once or twice he had seen maids as they worked about his room. He sought in his memory and found other times when he had seen the Telefair servants as they went about their tasks, alone, or with Zenobie, or old Jonas. The singular thing was that he had never heard any of them speak.
David lay there in the sun for a long time, pondering over his discovery, and when he looked up again he saw the tall, bony figure of Jonas come down to the landing to give fresh water to the dogs. The old Negro noticed him and, as David looked up, nodded and touched his forehead respectfully, yet with that look of intense dislike, resentment, almost hatred, in his sharp little black eyes.
At the moment, David was much too engrossed in what he had been thinking to be deterred by any look of hatred. Jonas did speak, that he knew. Jonas could answer a question.
“Jonas!”
The old man put down the pan of water beside the dogs, and straightened up to look questioningly at David.
“Jonas, the servants here at Telefair—besides yourself and Zenobie—can any of them speak?”
Jonas shook his head. “No, Mr. David. They’re all deaf-mutes, every one of them.”
He turned and walked away, as though to avoid the possibility of any further questions.
Jonas’ confirmation of what David had already come to believe seemed not in the least strange, nor out of the ordinary. For some reason, though he could not have told why to save his life, it seemed right and natural that the house servants at Telefair should all be Negroes who could neither hear nor speak.
He must have dozed a little as he lay there in the sunlight on the shore, half dreaming, half waking, for when he lifted his head again, the position of the shadows on the sand and the water had shifted a little. The faintest and lightest of winds had come up, and the surface of the inlet was stirred and riffled ever so slightly, sending out tiny sparkles of reflected light as the sun touched on the continually moving wavelets. Far out on the water a small boat was passing, rowed by the man who was its single occupant, and as David watched curiously, it came nearer, preparing to round the bend in the inlet, and he could see that its oarsman was the Reverend Arthur Stone.
David leaped to his feet and raised an arm to wave; at the same moment the minister appeared to see him there on the shore and he turned his boat in the direction of the Island.
David felt his heart beginning to thump wildly. The sense of mounting excitement was almost unbearable as the little boat came nearer and nearer to the shore and he realized that for the first time since he came he would be speaking to someone from the mainland. Yet as the old minister approached the landing and paused in his rowing to call to him, he felt strangely self-conscious and embarrassed; it seemed to him that he had nothing to say to the Reverend Arthur Stone.
In his heart he wished that Laurel were there in the boat with her father; he felt an unaccountable longing to see her again. Her image now rose up so vividly in his mind that it was a moment before he realized the man in the boat had spoken to him.
“I’m glad to see you,” the minister called, his wrinkled, friendly face rosy from the sun. “How have you been?”
“Well, thank you,” David called back. “Well, and happy.” He felt indescribably foolish as he said it. Not that it wasn’t true—he had been well and he had been happy. But none of the things he really wanted to answer to that question could be shouted across twenty feet of water. Nor could any of the questions he so passionately longed to ask the Reverend Arthur Stone.
They called back and forth a few words regarding the fog of the past day, the condition of the gardens, and the outlook for the weather. He had been fishing, the minister explained, but without much success. David inquired politely after Laurel, and was told that she had been in the best of health and spirits. That seemed to be all that could be said, and with a wave of his hand, the old man began to row away. David stared unhappily after the boat, with a feeling that the brief encounter had been entirely unsatisfactory.
But all at once the minister paused in his rowing, as though he had just remembered something more that he wished to say.
“Why don’t you row over to the mainland some Sunday morning and come to church?”
“I should like to,” David called to him; “I should like it very much.” He paused, and added, “I’ll speak to Great-Uncle Philip about a boat.”
“Do,” the minister called, his voice becoming dim in the distance. “I’d be delighted to welcome you.”
He waved his hand again, returned to his rowing, and in a few minutes his little boat had disappeared around the bend in the inlet.
Yes, he would do it, David told himself. He would speak to Great-Uncle Philip about taking the boat on the coming Sunday, in order to attend the services at the chu
rch of the Reverend Arthur Stone. He resolved firmly, standing there on the shore, watching the last ripples that had been set in motion by the minister’s boat, that his words to the Reverend Arthur Stone had been in the nature of a promise which had to be kept, and that nothing would deter him from speaking to Great-Uncle Philip; he would do it, indeed, that very evening.
Later, when he came downstairs to dinner, David found Philip Telefair in the small parlor, leaning gracefully against a corner of the finely carved mantel, a glass of brownish sherry in his long, delicate hand, the firelight faintly ruddy on the tight, waxy skin of his beautiful face. He turned to greet David with a cordial smile and a remark about the pleasantness of the day’s weather, altogether so amiable and so gently friendly that suddenly the young man found his request an easy one to make.
When it had finally been made, however, when the words had actually been said, he was all at once fearful, apprehensive, unable to add even one more word to the sentence he had just ended. There was no perceptible change in old Philip Telefair’s expression or posture, not the slightest motion of light or shadow in his eyes, certainly no indication of either refusal or disapproval. Yet David had a sudden realization that he had said an unexpected and a terrible thing, and he was paralyzed into silence, watching for some emotion to show on Philip Telefair’s face and listening intently to the silence that seemed to deepen in the room.
“I had no idea you were of a religious turn of mind,” the old man said at last. He put down the sherry glass on the polished surface of the mantel, playing with it in his pale, graceful fingers, moving it about in a series of little turns and circles.
In truth David was not of a particularly religious turn of mind, yet at the moment it seemed the right line to follow. If his request for a boat with which to cross the inlet to attend services at the Reverend Mr. Stone’s church needed reasons, surely devotional needs would be the ones to present.
