Spindrift
Page 21
“It’s all right to cry if it hurts,” I said. “You have a right to feel frightened and upset. But it’s over now.”
He turned his head against my arm, wanting my comfort, and my sense of self-blame increased. If I’d been able to be a better mother none of this would have happened.
Theo stood beside me, her fury growing. “It’s your fault that he was down there,” she accused. “You’ve been encouraging his interest in Redstones, so of course he’d have to run away and go over there.”
I was silent. She couldn’t blame me more than I blamed myself.
Joel put an arm about his mother. “Don’t get any more distressed over this. Peter will be all right now. There’s no use blaming and accusing.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you think Christina is a proper mother to Peter, or that she has behaved like one?” she cried.
“I’m afraid she hasn’t,” Joel said and his look condemned my actions. “You could have at least let us know, Christy. You haven’t been acting with good judgment lately.”
There was nothing to say. They were all against me, and this time with justification. Ferris came back from the phone, and Joel picked Peter up and turned toward the stairs.
Theo spoke to me sharply. “Don’t come with us. We don’t need you and you’d only weaken Peter with your emotionalism.”
I started to answer her heatedly, but she turned her back on me and followed Joel up the stairs. I heard Peter’s faint cry, “Mother, come with me!” as they bore him away. But when I would have run after them, Ferris held my arm.
“Let them go, Christy. Peter really doesn’t need you now. His father is there. And you can’t go on upsetting everyone like this.”
He turned from me too, as the others had, and I stayed behind, helpless and useless, trembling with frustration. I wanted to cry out against them all, but I knew no one would listen, and in a moment I might go thoroughly to pieces in weak anger. I didn’t want that and I ran to the nearest door and let myself out of the house. There was release in running down toward the ocean and I was out of breath by the time I reached the wall and went over it.
I climbed onto the rocks above the water and sat where the spray would touch me as it broke, where I could feel a part of that green energy that rolled in so fiercely from the ocean deeps. Somehow I could take strength from the elements, and feel myself growing calmer in the face of forces so much greater and so much more eternal than myself. I tried not to think of what had occurred, or what was happening back at the house. Eventually, of course, I would go to Peter. They couldn’t keep me from him. But not now. Last night and now this! Nevertheless, I somehow managed to let go, to let anger and fear and the terrible sense of helplessness drain out of me as I listened to the rushing of the waves.
I don’t know how long I sat there with the sun warm on my hair and the wind from the sea cold against my face. Once I put my head against my drawn-up knees and dozed for a moment or two because I’d had very little sleep last night. Then I awakened and thought of Bruce. He had held me and kissed me down here at sunrise, a long time ago. And he had said that he hadn’t meant to love me. How much did that mean? For now I wanted only to have his arms about me comfortingly. I wanted a friend who would stand beside me against those who would take my son away and put me back in the hospital. Yet if I went to the comfort of his arms I would give Theo the power to move against me and take Peter away.
It seemed natural, and almost expected, when I heard a step on the rocks behind me and turned my head to see Bruce standing there. He was like the man of last night’s dream, with a gentleness and affection in him, a consideration that no one had given me for a very long time. Not since my father had died. Yet Theo had in a sense hired this man to break up my marriage, and he had not altogether refused to do her bidding. What was I to believe?
He sat down on the rocks, making no move to touch me. “I thought you might like to know that the doctor has come and he has set Peter’s leg. It’s a simple fracture, though he’ll be in a cast for a while. His spirits are good. He’s beginning to look on the whole thing as an exciting adventure.”
“Thank you for coming to tell me,” I said. “Is everyone still angry with me?”
He looked for a moment as though he did not want to answer that. Then he shrugged. “You might as well know that Theo is busy whipping up criticism and prejudice against you. It’s to be expected.”
“And Joel goes along with it?”
He didn’t answer that, but looked off toward the waves that rolled endlessly in upon the shore of the island. Perhaps he was wondering why I had ever married Joel, though he would never ask me that question. I answered it, unasked.
“Joel was in love with me in the beginning,” I said, and sounded unintentionally defensive.
“That isn’t hard to believe.”
“I was having a difficult time at home. Fiona and I didn’t always get along, and my father was gambling heavily and making us both miserable.”
“I remember,” Bruce said. “I don’t mean I remember that particular time, but I knew about his compulsion to gamble. I’m not a gambler in the same way, but I think I can understand what Adam felt. There’s a fascination about insecurity and danger. Life can seem very flat when there is nothing to be risked.”
I glanced up at him. “You are a little like him.”
“But Joel never was?” he said.
“Not at all. And I knew that. But at the time it seemed wonderfully safe to find a man who didn’t want to take risks. I was angry and disgusted with Adam. I had quarreled with him. Running off with Joel was a way of flinging all my hurt and resentment in my father’s face. So that’s what I did. Though it wasn’t as coldblooded as all that. I loved Joel. I think I loved him.”
“I don’t think you’d found out what love is,” Bruce said. “Perhaps you will someday.”
Was I finding out now? I wondered. And did I dare to find out?
“Adam used to say that all life was a gamble,” I went on. “Marriage, the work one went into, how one invested money. Even painting a picture or writing a book was a gamble. This was always his defense—that he was no different from anyone else—only more honest about his gambling.”
“The catch is that his sort of gambler produces nothing,” Bruce said. “That’s the difference.”
“But he produced too!” I cried. “He was good at his job. The gambling wasn’t his whole life as it is with some men. He could even let it alone for months at a stretch when something important was brewing on the paper.”
“That’s right,” Bruce agreed. “He couldn’t be beaten at his job.”
We were silent for a while after that, and then, slowly at first, and more quickly as the words began to pour out, I told him the whole story of what had just happened over at Redstones. And I asked for no mercy over my own misjudgment. I told him about finding Peter and getting help, about going down to join him in the vault. And of opening that visor at Peter’s bidding and seeing the horror that was inside.
“I know,” Bruce said. “They were talking about that too. Theo has phoned the police.”
“Have you any idea who it could be?” I asked. “Has anyone been reported missing around here?”
Bruce smiled at me a bit grimly. “Not lately that I know of. But I might have a theory. Whoever put that body down there must have known about the armor—and about the underground vault. I suppose it depends on how old those bones prove to be. Eventually, this may answer a few questions.”
“What questions?”
The grim smile was still there. “When a man dies—or it may be a woman—and the body is hidden, there must be questions somewhere on the part of someone.”
I supposed they would be answered eventually, as Bruce said, but it was all long in the past and my attention returned to my own unhappy moment.
Bruce took my hand in his and I felt his strong fingers around my own. “Don’t let anyone make you believe you’re not the right mother for Peter, Christy. You’ve
been under more pressure than most women ever have to face, and you’re standing up to it with courage. Don’t lose confidence in yourself. Don’t let them break you down.”
I warmed to his sympathy. It had been so long since anyone had believed in me.
“One thing at a time,” he said, and let my hand go. He was not relinquishing me. He was only making a postponement of what might lie between us, and I was grateful that he would not press me. I suspected that he was not a patient man, but I wasn’t ready yet for an enormous decision. A decision that would not only separate Joel and me, but which would take Peter away from the father who loved him. I felt a little sick when I thought about that. Yet it might come to this. If I had to make a choice, I would never leave Peter in Theo’s destructive hands.
“You’d better go back to the house,” he said. “You’ve had your respite and the war is still ahead of you.”
I braced myself. “Yes. I’m ready for it now. Thank you.”
His look told me the things that could not be said. I wanted to hear them—but later. I dared not listen now. Being with him had helped strengthen me. I could face Theo, face Joel, and whoever else tried to stand between me and my son. He let me go and I returned to Spindrift alone.
13
When I reached the house I realized for the first time that I had had no breakfast, nothing but a cup of coffee at dawn. It was long past the breakfast hour and nothing was left on the buffet in the small dining room, but I found someone to get me orange juice and toast and coffee. Since there were confrontations ahead of me, I needed my strength.
When I had eaten I went upstairs still buoyed by Bruce’s words and his belief in me, still warmed by the knowledge that I was coming to life again, that it was possible to feel an emotion. Just what that emotion was, I was not yet ready to face.
First I would go to Peter’s room, and then to talk with Theo.
Peter’s door was ajar and as I stepped to the opening I could see him asleep in his bed. Miss Crawford was not in her usual chair and for a moment I thought he was alone. Then I pushed the door wider and discovered Joel sitting by the bed with his back to me. He too was asleep, his head against a wing of his chair. The chill and disapproval I had last seen had been washed away, and he looked young and unguarded, the way I remembered him in the beginning when I had first known him. I still carried the memory of love, even though I had lost the ability to love Joel as I once had. A sense of my presence must have penetrated his sleep for he opened his eyes and saw me there. At once the chill was back, and he was again his mother’s son.
“Don’t waken him, Christy,” he whispered. “You’ve done enough damage for today.”
I turned and walked out the door, fighting the familiar sense of helplessness. I couldn’t afford to be helpless, and I wouldn’t let Joel and his mother do this to me. I must hold to the courage Bruce had given me. Determinedly I turned down the hall toward Theo’s sitting room.
Here the door was open and I heard voices inside. A uniformed officer stood near Theo’s desk, and a man in plain clothes who was obviously a detective sat in the chair opposite her. Theo, rather pert in green trousers that matched the room, looked around at me.
“Come in, Christina. Don’t stand there staring. Lieutenant Jimson will want to talk to you.”
When I had been introduced as Peter’s mother and Joel’s wife, I took my place on the sofa across the room. Fiona was nowhere in sight and I wondered if she had begun her drinking early this morning.
The officer in uniform was young and blond, with blue eyes not wholly schooled to concealing his curiosity as his glance moved from Theo to me and on about the room. Lieutenant Jimson had a square, rather rugged face, with a nose that bore the indentation of a long-ago break, and his look gave nothing away.
“I understand you made the discovery of the—uh—body,” he said to me.
“My son found what was there and showed it to me,” I corrected.
“Suppose you tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Once more I explained about going to search for Peter, and of his account of looking through the visor in that suit of armor in the vault.
“Is anyone missing?” Theo asked the detective, who only shook his head.
“We’ll have to check that out, Mrs. Moreland. But maybe she”—he nodded at me—“can come with us now and show us the place.”
“Of course,” Theo said. “Go along, Christina. And then come back and report to me.”
The last thing I wanted was to return to Redstones. I was being moved about like a puppet again, but what the police wanted would have to come first, so I went outdoors with the two men and led the way across the lawn. Ferris had left everything unlocked. They merely needed a guide and they didn’t make me go down into the vault. Both of them had brought flashlights and they let themselves down holding onto the rope Joel had left hanging beside the ladder.
I found a rickety kitchen chair in the basement and sat down to wait for those two to complete their grim investigation. When they came up both men wore carefully blank expressions.
“Get on the phone,” Jimson told the young officer, and when he had gone off to Spindrift, the lieutenant looked at me. “You sure you don’t know anything helpful about this?”
“I don’t know a thing,” I said. “How could I? I’ve never heard of anyone around here being missing. But then, I haven’t been here for quite a while, and I’ve never stayed very long in the past anyway.”
He was eying me dispassionately and I wondered what Theo might have said about me.
“You’ve been having a few troubles of your own lately, haven’t you?” he said.
I could feel myself stiffening in resistance. My troubles had nothing to do with this.
“My father died,” I said. “If that’s what you mean. And I was in the hospital for a time.”
“I remember about your father.”
“I don’t think so,” I said evenly.
He stared at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to ask questions. Then he seemed to reconsider and his shrug let the matter drop, as if my father’s death were unimportant.
“I was ill, but I’ve recovered,” I told him. “I know my father didn’t commit suicide and I think his death should have been investigated more carefully.”
“It was investigated,” he said. “I was on the case. There was no reason to suspect anything else but suicide.”
“Oh, I know,” I said, nettled by his calm assurance. “I know about the gun in his hand and all the rest. But I still think there is more to it than that. Adam Keene wasn’t the sort of man to kill himself.”
“I wanted to talk to you at the time,” he said, “but you weren’t entirely coherent. They had to take you to the hospital. Your father’s wife, Mrs. Fiona Keene, was the one to answer most of our questions, and she hadn’t any quarrel with the findings.”
“Well, I do.” I tried to keep my voice calm, reasonable. “But no one has ever listened to me. No one has ever let me talk. From the beginning I was drugged so that I couldn’t make sense—even to myself.”
He seemed suddenly more alert than before. “What do you have to talk about?”
“Nothing—yet. That’s the trouble. But something is being hidden. Someone is lying. I’ve been sure of that from the first.”
“There were reasons for suicide. Your father was in debt and involved with something pretty bad.”
“I don’t believe it!” I was losing all vestiges of calm. “Theodora Moreland was in a position to make things look any way she chose.”
The alertness died away in the face of my excitement. “You’re a loyal daughter,” he said. “That’s to be expected. But you’ve been pretty sick and upset and maybe you haven’t been able to see things as clearly as you might.”
“Oh, I don’t expect you to believe me! But someday you will. Someday I’ll find the truth. Can I come to you then?”
“Come ahead,” he said. “I’ll listen.”
The young officer had made his contacts and was back in short order. “They’re on their way,” he said to his superior. I knew what that meant Picture-taking and all the rest—an examination of what had been found in that suit of armor.
“How old do you think those bones are?” I asked Jimson.
“We’ll have to have tests made to tell,” he said. “I’m not guessing. You can go now, Mrs. Moreland, if you want to. If you’ve told us everything that might help.”
“I’ve told you what I can,” I said.
I knew my way to the basement stairs by this time. I went up them into the silence of the house and followed the halls toward the main entry. Ferris Thornton was waiting for me there.
“How did it go?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “What could I tell them? I just led them to that room.”
“It’s all very strange,” he said. “A skeleton in armor—shades of Longfellow! Theodora is upset about it.”
“She seemed to be taking it in her stride all right.”
He ignored that. “I’ve come to bring you back to her.”
“That’s where I was going. She told me to report, and I want to see her anyway.”
“She was afraid you might not come back right away. You’ve been a bit headlong lately, Christy.”
I went past him out the front door. What did they expect of me under the circumstances?
He came with me when I crossed the intervening ground between the two houses and I was glad to have him with me. I wanted him to hear what I had to say to Theodora Moreland.
She was waiting for us in her sitting room, and now Fiona was there too, pale, but apparently quite sober, working at her own desk.
“Tell me what happened,” Theo said the moment I entered the room.
I took my place on the sofa opposite her, and Ferris went to stand beside the window.
“There’s nothing much to tell,” I said. “Lieutenant Jimson asked me if I knew anything about what we found down there and I told him that of course I didn’t. He has sent for the usual people to examine what is there. He didn’t need me to stay.”