Spindrift

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “It’s not like you!” I was almost pleading now. “You’ve never compromised your standards. You’re letting Theo change you!”

  Ice was beginning to close in and his look told me this was none of my business and I had no right to be heard.

  Fiona broke in quickly, with an effort to soothe. “I think this is a good idea all around. It’s what Theo wants, and Pemberton is pleased about it.”

  “He’s not known for being agreeably modest,” I said. “Joel is likely to have as much influence on him as—as any one of us has on Theodora.”

  “Someone is having an influence on Theodora,” Bruce said from the doorway, and we all looked around as he came into the room. “Do any of you know what’s upsetting her?”

  No one answered and there was an odd quiet at the table, with no one looking at anyone else. Except for me. I looked at each one of them in turn and none of their faces told me anything.

  “What’s up?” Joel asked.

  Bruce helped himself at the buffet and brought his plate to the table. “I wish I knew. She has suddenly developed the idea that someone is out to do her physical injury.”

  Ferris looked relieved. “This isn’t anything new. She’s often had recurring nightmares that set her off along this line. Probably anyone in a powerful position is apt to think himself threatened at times. Hal had this idea more than once. She’ll get over it.”

  Bruce looked at him with no particular liking. “I don’t think we’d better shrug it off too lightly. I couldn’t get much out of her, but perhaps you can, Fiona.”

  Fiona shook her head. “Not me. Not today. I’ve just been banished from the presence.”

  “I think we’d better leave her alone,” Joel said. “Someone to argue with always sends her further in any disturbing direction. Ferris is right. She’ll get over it.”

  I think Bruce did not agree with them, but he said nothing more, and gave himself to eating his lunch with a good appetite. I watched him covertly, wondering about him. And about myself. He had given me a single swift look as he came into the room—a look in which there was a question I couldn’t answer. I had fled from him rather precipitately earlier and there was no explanation I could give him that would not amuse him further. I did manage a direct question of my own, however, to Bruce.

  “How did Theo feel about getting her ivory lady back?”

  “She was pleased, of course,” he said, “but she was still pretty hard on Adam for taking it in the first place.”

  The others wanted to know what we were talking about, and Bruce told them about my finding the ivory figure in Zenia’s sitting, room. How it came to be there puzzled them all, and while they were talking my thoughts turned to my own speculations.

  What was disturbing Theodora Moreland? Why should she suddenly develop this notion that someone was making a threat against her? This was a matter I wanted to know more about, and as soon as I’d finished my lunch, I left the table and hurried upstairs. Theo’s sitting room was empty, but a door stood ajar to an adjoining room and I went into it to find that Mrs. Polter, the dressmaker, had already been set up there with a sewing machine and all the accouterments of her trade. As I came in, she stood at a table—a small woman with bright blue eyes and a cheerful smile. She was cutting material from a pattern and her hands moved with accustomed skill.

  When I introduced myself, she reached without delay for a tape measure and advanced upon me with authority.

  “I’ve been anxious to see you, Mrs. Moreland. Mrs. Keene has shown me the painting you’re going to portray at the ball and I think the gown will be perfect for you. Will you let me take your measurements now?”

  “I’m really looking for Mrs. Theodora Moreland,” I told her. “Do you know where she is?”

  “She was here just a few moments ago. She wasn’t feeling well and she said she might lie down for a while. Come now, raise your arms—let me get these figures down.”

  I gave in to her persistence. This might be the wrong moment to seek out Theo, and a little postponement wouldn’t matter.

  Mrs. Polter chattered brightly while she measured and wrote down entries in her notebook. Apparently she had never visited Spindrift before and she was entranced by all she had seen. Theo had sent Fiona to take her down to the ballroom, so she could better visualize the background for the costumes she was to create. Fiona had supplied her with color reproductions of the gowns she and Theo would wear, and she was particularly taken by Sargent’s portrait of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. She had the enthusiasm of an artist herself and I knew her dresses would be perfection, but I couldn’t really care.

  When she was through with me I went down the hall to Theo’s room and tapped on the door. Probably she would snap at me and send me away, but I had to make the attempt to see her while she was in this disturbed state and might be willing to talk to me. No one answered, and I rapped again. She wouldn’t be pleased with me for waking her, but as I raised my hand to knock again, I heard a faint sound from the other side of the door—as though someone had moaned. I tried the door. For once Theo hadn’t locked it, and I went in quickly.

  At first glance the room seemed empty and I was aware of a green carpet and pale green walls, of a gold coverlet rumpled on the bed, and of gold-topped bottles and jars on the glass of the dressing-table top. Then the moan came again and I ran around the end of the bed in alarm.

  Theodora Moreland lay on her back on the green carpet beyond the bed, her legs sprawled beneath the hem of her citron-yellow robe, and blood seeping from a wound on her forehead. I dropped to my knees beside her and she opened her eyes and looked at me dazedly.

  “I’ll get someone,” I told her. “Don’t move, Theo. Lie very still.”

  A phone call to the dining room got no answer. Luncheon was over and the diners had gone their various ways. I called the housekeeper, told her to find anyone at all and send them here to Mrs. Moreland’s room—and then to call a doctor.

  With linen handkerchiefs from a drawer I stanched the wound on Theo’s forehead, murmuring to her that someone was coming, that it would be all right. She endured that for only a moment and then pushed my hand aside and sat up.

  “Don’t make such a fuss. It’s nothing. I was dizzy. I slipped and fell. I struck my head on the bedpost.”

  She tried to get up, but she was weaker than she thought, and she accepted my arm reluctantly as I helped her up from the floor and over to the bed. The broken skin on her forehead had stopped bleeding, and the bruised flesh was already swelling and showing angry color.

  Fiona was the first to rush into the room, with Joel following. Theo pushed Fiona away and scowled at Joel. “I was dizzy. I fainted. Don’t make such a fuss.”

  Joel stood quietly beside her bed, while Fiona rushed into the bathroom for cold cloths to place on the bruise.

  “You’re not usually given to fainting,” Joel said. “Suppose you tell me what happened.”

  Their two red heads were close together as he bent over her, but she pouted at him, her green eyes flashing resentment that anyone should catch her in a moment of weakness.

  “I’ll faint if I please. I was worried, upset. I wanted to get away by myself.”

  “With your door unlocked?” I said, “You always lock your door.”

  The green malice enveloped me as well. “Get someone sensible in here!” she cried faintly. “You three are no good to me at all. Get Ferris.”

  “When did you come back to your room?” Joel asked.

  She lacked the strength for the moment to fight us all and gave up with a rebellious sigh. “I left Mrs. Polter at one-fifteen. I know because I looked at my watch.”

  I glanced at mine and saw that scarcely fifteen minutes had passed. Whatever had happened had occurred while I was talking to Mrs. Polter.

  “Did you see who struck you?” Joel asked.

  She answered grumpily. “I didn’t see anything or anyone. I was just walking around the end of the bed when I became dizzy and went down. Whe
n I opened my eyes there was no one there, but Christy was rapping on the door.”

  I wondered if she was telling the truth—it was hard to know. If someone had been in the room with her, there must have been a lapse of consciousness in which he had gotten away.

  “I’ve sent for a doctor,” I told Joel.

  He nodded and moved aside while Fiona pressed cool cloths on Theo’s bruised forehead. I bent toward her and whispered a question.

  “Is it because of Adam this happened, Theo? Is it because you know something about how Adam died?”

  Fiona cried out indignantly and Joel pushed me away from the bed.

  “Leave her alone,” he said. “Don’t torment her now.”

  “You were asking her questions,” I protested, but he paid no further attention to me, taking the cold cloth from Fiona’s hand.

  Fiona turned to a chair and sat down abruptly as though her knees had given way.

  “I’ll stay here with her,” she told Joel. “She shouldn’t have a roomful of people hovering about.”

  “I’ll stay myself,” he said. “You and Christy go along. I want to talk to my mother.”

  Fiona got up as though still uncertain of her legs and moved toward the door. When she spoke there was a note of hysteria in her voice.

  “I think someone did strike her down. Someone who waited for her here in her room.”

  “Who?” Joel said. “Did you see anyone, Christy?”

  I shook my head and Fiona went on. “Your mother asks for trouble. She asks for trouble constantly. Now it’s caught up with her.”

  “Go away,” Joel said, with more heat in his voice than was usual.

  I put a hand on Fiona’s arm. It wasn’t like her to criticize Theo, especially in her presence.

  “Come along,” I said. “You need to lie down yourself.” It was hard to tell whether her unsteady movements were due to shock or to the drinks she had had that day.

  Theo stopped us as we reached the door. “You’ll be the next,” she said.

  We both turned back in surprise, and Fiona said, “Oh, God!”

  “Not you,” Theo told her. “Christy. You’ll be next, Christy. If you stay here at Spindrift, you can’t escape.”

  I started back toward the bed, but Joel shook his head at me. As always he was protecting his mother and the look on his face stopped me. He didn’t believe what Theo was saying, and he only wanted me to go away. Fiona plucked at my arm and I went with her into the hall.

  “I feel a little faint,” she said.

  I helped her to her room and when she had flopped down on the bed and flung an arm over her eyes, I pulled off her shoes and drew the coverlet over her. But I couldn’t afford to be merciful. I bent over her and spoke softly.

  “What do you really know, Fiona? Who do you think tried to kill Theo?”

  She rolled away from me on the bed. “No one tried to kill her. If someone had, she’d be dead. It was only a warning. But after the warnings can come the real thing.”

  “A warning of what?” I could imagine Theo being behind any trouble that might develop, but I wouldn’t expect her to be a target.

  “Perhaps she’s found Adam’s log,” Fiona said, her voice muffled beneath the arm that shielded her face from my view.

  “I don’t think she’d need to read anything Adam may have written,” I said. “If there’s something to know, she’s known all along. Just as you have.”

  The arm came away from her face and she stared at me, stricken. “But I don’t know anything, Christy. How can you believe that I do?”

  There was no use talking to her. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her in this pitiable state. “Go to sleep if you can,” I said more gently. “Get some rest.”

  As I went downstairs I heard voices coming from the direction of a room at the rear of the house that had once been used as an office by Hal Moreland. Without hesitation, I walked to the open door and saw that Ferris and Bruce were sitting at a long refectory table with papers strewn between them. This was clearly a business conference and they were so engrossed that they did not see me there in the doorway as I looked about the room.

  It was a brown room, without character. Only a picture over the mantel gave it interest—a portrait of Arthur and Zenia Patton-Stuyvesant, perhaps painted around the time of their marriage. Zenia’s young face looked eager for life, and grimness had not yet touched Arthur. They had been beautiful people in their day—what had happened to them?

  Ferris saw me first and rose to his feet without welcome.

  “Someone struck Theo down in her bedroom,” I said, choosing the more dramatic explanation. “She has a bruise and a cut on her forehead.”

  Both men stared at me in disbelief, and if either had been upstairs in Theo’s room he betrayed nothing. Bruce came toward me.

  “Who would do such a thing? How is she?”

  “Not badly hurt. And who did it is something we’d all like to know. Part of the time she claims she was simply dizzy and fainted. Joel is with her now. Fiona has gone to pieces. I’ve put her to bed.”

  “I’ll go up to Theodora right away,” Ferris said. “This is a terrible thing. I didn’t believe in her suspicion that someone was going to attack her. I should have taken better care.”

  He hurried out of the room and I faced Bruce, still probing. “That leaves you,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t think you like her very well.”

  He stared at me for a quiet moment, his dark-browed face more somber than ever, his deep-set eyes regarding me with a certain intensity.

  “I am still in her employ,” he said, and I knew that meant he would make no criticism against her, whatever he might feel.

  I sat down at the table, though he remained standing. “Anyway,” I said, “it wouldn’t be like you to make a petty attack. If you had reason and wanted to kill someone, you would.”

  A faint, rather grim smile touched his straight mouth. “You are probably right. And now that we have that out of the way, suppose you tell me exactly what happened.”

  It was easy to talk to him, and I stopped trying to hold back my own reactions of alarm and fear.

  “She said I would be next,” I told him when I had described my going to Theo’s room, finding her there on the floor, summoning the others. “She’d already denied being struck, so why would she say a thing like that?”

  “You’ll have to ask her when she’s feeling better,” Bruce said. “Though I suppose she’s unlikely to tell you. I wouldn’t take her words too seriously. You already know that she’d like to frighten you away from Spindrift so that Peter will stay in her hands.”

  “Yes, I know that. But is there another plot against me?” I said.

  “Do you think she would tell me? You’ve already drawn your own conclusions, haven’t you? You’ve already been victim to her tricks.”

  “And you think this is another one?”

  “I didn’t say that. I haven’t seen her. I don’t know anything about it. But what if she really did fall against that bedpost? It wouldn’t be beyond her to make the most of a dramatic situation. She’s done that plenty of times before, God knows.”

  “It’s possible,” I agreed. “Anyway, I’ve had enough of it all for a while. This afternoon I’m going to take Peter into town for tea at one of the wharfs. He’s been behaving badly, and I’d like to get him into a different atmosphere for a while.”

  He dropped into the chair across the table and began to shuffle the papers together in a pile. Some of the somberness had fallen away and when he spoke again it was with a certain hesitance that surprised me.

  “I envy you,” he said. “I envy you your son and the chance to run away from the Morelands. Once a long time ago I hoped—” He broke off and flipped the stack of papers down on the table.

  “Fiona told me about your marriage,” I said gently. “I’m sorry.”

  He was silent for a moment. “It seems very long ago. Sometimes I can hardly remember her face.” There was a sadness in his
tone that I had never heard before. “That seems a betrayal, doesn’t it? But it happens. With time. And I won’t ever really forget her.”

  I had the unexpected impulse to comfort him—and that was ridiculous. I had never known a man as strong in his own right as Bruce, except perhaps Adam—and I knew how quickly he would reject sympathy from a stranger like me. Yet I wanted to offer him something. When I spoke I made my words light, almost playful.

  “Why don’t you run away with us too? Peter likes you and he’d welcome your company.”

  He smiled and reached across the table to touch my hand. “You’re kind, Christy. That’s a quality that’s hard to find in a woman these days.”

  Kind? I wondered. Perhaps to a few people. Not to everyone. Not lately. It wasn’t a word I could accept deservingly and I shook my head.

  “In any case,” he went on, “I wouldn’t think of intruding when you want this time alone with your son.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to be alone with Peter,” I admitted. “We’re still a little wary of each other because Theo has come between us. It would help me to have you there. You’ll know what to say to a little boy.”

  “You put it well,” he said, and there was warmth in his rare smile. “I’ll come. And thank you. Shall I take you in my car?”

  “That will be fine,” I said and stood up. “Let’s meet at the front door at three o’clock.”

  So it was arranged and I left him and went upstairs to my Red Room. I pulled an armchair over to where October sunshine fell through the opened draperies, brightening the red of the carpet, and curled myself into it, basking in warmth and light. For a little while the sense of darkness had slipped away and I felt curiously content. Yet I dared not analyze why. I had no desire to seek disturbing answers in this quiet moment of suspension.

  It was possible now for my thoughts to follow other roads almost impersonally and without suffering distress. I didn’t feel afraid now. I could live through whatever tricks Theo might play upon me because they would be no real threat. After all, she wasn’t going to harm me physically. And there was no reason why anyone else would try.

  I began to think of Joel, and suddenly, unnervingly, the thing happened that Bruce had said could occur long after someone had died. I had seen him only a little while ago, yet I couldn’t see his face clearly. For a few moments I couldn’t see it in my mind’s eye. It was as though all my past life with him had never been, and I had moved on into a separate world in which he had no part. Lately he had looked at me without liking; he had supported his mother against me and refused to recognize the harm that was being done to Peter. Whatever we might have owed each other in the past had been evened out, and perhaps we would both be better off free. But there was still Peter. As long as I was strong and well balanced and in good health, my son could not be taken away from me. All the more reason why I mustn’t let Theo’s plotting unsettle me. I respected Bruce for not speaking against her while he still worked for the Morelands but I knew that he’d wanted to reassure me, stiffen my spine against whatever Theo might try to do to me. All this I could cope with. Surely I was strong again and in full possession of my senses. What had frightened me was only Theo’s vindictive scheming, and I must never again let this disturb me. She was a tyrannical and rather foolish old woman, but not dangerous if I stood up to her. Foolish because she thought the world must revolve about her wishes and that whatever she wanted must be brought to happen. Well, she was not going to have her way. I would stay at Spindrift. She should not be allowed to confuse and weaken me again. I would stay and fight for Peter.