Yet a frightening thing happened. At the very moment I was sinking into exhausted sleep I came suddenly awake with a trembling start. A weird idea had crept into my mind, seemingly from nowhere, that the man lying at my side was not Jeffrey. I was so shocked by the monstrous thought that it was a moment or two before I could clear my senses and investigate the cause of the idea. It was then fairly easy to understand.
Actually, I had spent considerably more time with John, since my arrival, than with my husband. He had really become more prominent in my mind. So, for a split second, I had thought the man at my side was John.
It was an easy explanation, yet, somehow, I was not quite satisfied with it. The feeling persisted that I was in bed with the wrong man. I told myself that I was being a ridiculous fool, but the powerful awareness of strangeness was still there. I became more terrified than ever and had to get out of bed. I drank a glass of water and stood at a window looking out over the dark ocean while trying to rid myself of the odd idea.
It took a long time, but I was finally able to convince myself that, after all, I had experienced physical intimacy with my husband for but one short week and that had been some months before. It was only natural, therefore, that there would be some feeling of strangeness. Even that was not entirely satisfactory — it failed to explain why I should have been terrified — but I managed to accept it.
I went back to bed, but that time amused at my schoolgirl hysteria, and fell asleep at once.
When I awakened in the morning the weird feeling returned again the moment I opened my eyes, but in the clear light of day it vanished instantly. Besides, I was startled to find Jeffrey already getting dressed, apparently in a hurry to leave. I wanted him to stay and suggested breakfast in my rooms, but he shook his head. He had a golf date at the country club. I sat up and stared at him, more than a little astounded.
He laughed at my expression, sat on the edge of the bed, and nudged his nose into the hollow of my shoulder. “Business,” he explained. “Otherwise, wild horses couldn’t drag me away from here.”
“But, Jeff, even business — after we’ve been apart so long — the things we have to discuss — ”
“I know, and I’m damned sorry, but I have to keep this engagement. The other three men in the foursome are important in the produce game. John made this date for me a week ago. So — well, I simply can’t break it or there’ll be hell to pay.”
But he practically broke my heart when he walked out of the room. No business engagement, particularly one that could be transacted during a golf game, was that important. I got out of bed in an angry frame of mind, took a shower, and lazily got dressed. After my temper had cooled a bit I went downstairs.
John was having breakfast in the solarium when I put in an appearance. He was wearing a business suit and a brief case was on the floor at his feet. He nodded a pleasant good morning and pulled out a chair for me. Well, I thought, if I couldn’t have one, I could at least enjoy the company of a more than reasonable facsimile.
I had coffee and some toast and marmalade while he tried to amuse me by sketching in the background of the Pebble Beach citizenry. According to him, there were three social levels: the older, retired people, who were simply coasting to the most expensive graves in the cemetery; another stratum well off, but nevertheless working for a living, or otherwise keeping business hours; and the play group, composed of all ages, but with time and money on their hands and nothing whatever to do except seek excitement, at which they were uniquely talented. Personal integrity in the latter group was almost wholly unknown. John advised me to keep away from them as much as possible but doubted that I would be successful.
“It’s Jeff’s crowd,” he explained. “And, besides, you’re a famous woman, so they’re going to like that. You’ll find them dropping in or out at any time of the day or night. Frankly, I can’t stand them. Every woman is a bitch, a man is either a heel or a wolf or both, and no one, definitely no one, is to be trusted. It’s strictly keep your eye on your husband, sharpen your nails and your tongue, and allow no one above the first floor.” He grinned. “The law of the jungle.”
“They don’t sound very pretty.”
“They aren’t. But Jeff is a tolerant person and they amuse him. Besides, that crowd is wild about him. They look to him for leadership.”
I put my coffee aside and fixed my eyes on John. “You know, it’s very odd, your appraisal of Jeff’s character.”
“Really?”
“The person you talk about is not at all the person I know. I wonder what that is.”
He toyed with a fork, scratching designs in the tablecloth, then looked across at me and said wearily, “I don’t think you know Jeff.”
“Perhaps you’re right. I thought I knew him, but it seems now that I don’t.”
John turned his head to look out the windows to the ocean. “There is a great deal you don’t know. I’m not trying to be mysterious, Carol — it’s just that certain matters can’t be explained. I mean that I’m not the one to explain them to you.”
“I know, John.”
He turned from the windows to face me and asked flatly, “Are you in love with him?”
“Yes, I am.”
He nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Then you’ll work it out, Carol. You’ve arrived here with a lot of vague misapprehensions, but I think you’ll come to the conclusion that your marriage is as sound as ever. I, for one, am going to be happy to see you as the mistress of Lynecrest.”
He reached across the table to pat my hand and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
He chuckled. “I’m the grind of the family. Heavy day ahead.”
“Jeff got an even earlier start.”
He frowned at me, puzzled, then his eyebrows shot up. “Oh, for God’s sake! Don’t tell me he left to keep that golf appointment.”
I nodded and said dully, “Yes.”
“But on your first morning together — ” He paused, realizing that he was blundering, then said brightly, “I guess he can get through in a hurry. ‘By, Carol.”
“I’ll see you later?”
“When I walk through that door,” he laughed, “and not before. As far as I know, I’ll be home for dinner, but I’m just as likely to wind up hundreds of miles away. You never know in this game.”
I walked with him out to the porch and leaned on the door of his convertible as he got into the car. He mentioned that the Chandlers had returned to their home the day before and that, in all probability, Vivien would call on me.
“Even though she doesn’t like me?”
“All the more reason.”
“You know, that ghostlike beauty of hers does rather fascinate me. I wonder if there’s any substance under it.”
“Or claws?” He grinned.
“Which reminds me, John, you weren’t being very bright when you allowed her to hire a personal maid for me.”
John started the engine, then turned to me with a puzzled frown. “I did what?”
“My maid. She hired my maid for me.”
“I don’t know anything about a maid. Never knew you had one.”
“But Ann, the maid, said that Mrs. Chandler had hired her for my service the day before I arrived. She did help you with the rest of the staff, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but nothing was ever said about a personal maid.” His eyes opened suddenly and he had the answer as quickly as I. “On the other hand, now that I think about it — ”
I said dully, “Don’t lie, John. If you didn’t ask her to get a maid for me, then it was Jeff who did. He must have called her from El Centro. Furthermore, she knew I was arriving and must have known that you were meeting me and where we’d be staying. It all adds up.”
“I’m sorry, Carol.”
I forced a smile and stepped back from the car. “I’m keeping you from your business. See you later?”
“You bet.”
I watched his car disappear around a bend of the drive an
d into the pines and, in spite of the household staff busily engaged inside, felt completely alone. I remained on the porch for a while, thinking of the discovery I had made. John, too, must have known the Chandlers would be stopping at the Mark. That meeting in the bar had not been an accident, or rather, as John had made it appear, the simple coincidence of close neighbors stopping at the same hotel. He had wanted me to meet them and had gone out of his way to arrange it. For what reason? Evidently he had relied on a woman’s sense of intuition to tell her that her husband was having an affair with another woman.
I no longer had any doubts about that.
It was a cold day, with a dense bank of fog lying just offshore, but I had no desire to go inside. It would have been difficult for me to talk to anyone just then. I walked into the gardens and followed a path around the side of the house. Between the south wing and the lip of the cliff was a rock ledge about ten feet wide. At the entrance to the ledge was a sign reading, “Danger.” But there was no apparent danger in walking on that ledge, unless one happened to be drunk or feeling reckless.
I walked out on the ledge and around to a point directly below the glass wall of the solarium, about twenty feet above my head. That happened to be the very point of the cliff jutting into the sea. The ocean was two hundred feet below, straight down, but it was dashing with such force against the cliff that I could feel the mist in the air. At that point, too, the ledge was a bit wider, perhaps twenty feet or so.
I fell in love with the spot at once. Two stone benches had been placed against the foundations of the house and there was also a white-painted iron table with a glass top.
Everything was well worn, indicating use, but covered with dust and salt. I sat down to rest. I could see up and down the rugged coast in either direction and, if it had not been foggy, could have seen far out to sea. It was quiet and secluded, a perfect place for repose, or to escape.
When I crossed my ankles I felt my heels bump against something and looked under the bench. I pulled out a large box somewhat like a tool chest and opened it. Inside was a typewriter and paper, carbon paper, Roget’s Thesaurus, a book of rhymes, a dictionary, and a mass of typed pages.
Curiosity overcame my respect for personal property. I picked up some of the pages. I had to smile and then glanced quickly through the other papers. It was all poetry. I could just picture the poet sitting there on a warm day and rhyming poetry in tune with the beat of the surf. Then I noticed the initials J. H. below each title and my amusement gave way to bewilderment. Jeffrey or John?
I started to read and was more bewildered than ever. The poetry was not simply good, it was beautiful. I am no critic of that sort of thing, but ordinary common sense told me that I was reading something decidedly unusual. The changes of pace and mood were amazing. A stanza would be so sensuous as to make me tingle and the next moment I would tense and freeze at a bitterness that was almost acid. And yet it all blended into a delicious whole as exquisite as an Escoffier banquet.
It must have been hours later when I put the pages away, closed the box, and returned it under the bench. I walked back along the ledge and wandered into the gardens in a mental fog. One of the brothers had written that poetry. John? He was a businessman, shrewd, hard, and calculating. Every matter, to the smallest detail, had to be neatly filed and catalogued in his mind. It was very unlikely that John possessed such a genius. Still, he did possess some amazing depths. But Jeffrey was more likely. Of the two, he was more the dreamer, in spite of his extroverted activities.
I made up my mind to do a little subtle probing. Whoever was the poet, he probably did not want it known. Yet, for me, the discovery of that poetry altered the entire character of Lynecrest and gave it color and human warmth. If work of that sort could come out of its massive walls, then possibly I, too, could gain something.
I saw a gardener working on a trellis and approached him to solve the mystery at once. But when I questioned him he did not know which of the brothers made a habit of using that ledge as his private sanctuary.
“I never seen anybody out there,” he said. “But I’ve only been here a short while, ma’am.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right.”
He closed one eye and squinted at me with the other. “You been out there, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmmmmm. Somebody’ll get fired. Luke Dodd give orders to put barbed wire up so no one could walk out there. It’s dangerous. A person could fall off and git kilt.”
I smiled and told him, “You tell Mr. Dodd that I’ve said not to put up barbed wire. I like it out there and want it left as it is.”
“Yes’m. Anything you say, ma’am.”
I went in the house, hoping that Jeffrey had returned, but Brannen said that he had telephoned and left word that he would be at the Peninsula Country Club most of the day. Even Brannen could not hide the curious look in his eyes as he delivered the message.
I was angry enough to pack my luggage and leave the house at once, but I knew that if I did that, the break would be final. I would never know what had come between us and the tag ends of unanswered questions would muddle my life for years. My pride, too, was involved. The picture of Vivien, “the other woman,” was haunting me. At that moment I was being adolescent, but I simply could not see myself leaving her a clear field.
I wondered if I could learn anything by talking with her and decided there was nothing to lose. I got her on the telephone, before I could change my mind, and she said that she would l-o-o-ve to see me, so I promised to drive by.
I took my time in the shower and changing clothes, then went downstairs. Brannen had a station wagon waiting for me on the driveway. I got behind the wheel and started out of the drive. As I turned the far curve of the driveway I put on the brakes and looked toward the ledge. Two men were stringing barbed wire across the entrance and a third was standing off a bit, giving directions. I got out of the car feeling furious and approached the man who seemed to be the overseer.
He saw me coming and turned partly about to face me. Usually I am cautious about judging people, but I disliked him on sight. He was a small man, no taller than I, with a slight but steel-wired frame and the stance of a born horseman. His face was sallow and his small eyes and pursy mouth were insolent and challenging. His ears were rather overlarge and stuck out from his head at right angles. They seemed to support his hat, bending over a bit from its weight. He was in riding clothes and carried a crop, which he slapped continuously against a boot.
His beady eyes appraised me with an insolent smile as I came toward him. There was something definitely salacions in that glance, as if he were undressing me with his eyes. I had encountered that before and knew the expression. I no longer disliked him, I despised him.
He doffed his hat and bobbed his head when I stopped before him and drawled, “Mrs. Hamlyne?”
“Yes.”
“Glad to meet you, ma’am. I’m Luke Dodd, manager of the estate.”
Common sense was telling me that the man must be capable to manage the Lynecrest estates, even remarkably so, as he was the only one who had been retained of the former staff. But my sudden judgment of him could not be lessened.
I said coolly, “Sorry I hadn’t met you before, Mr. Dodd.”
He grinned impishly. “Always plenty of time for that. You’d be up to the ranch riding sooner or later. Do you like horses, ma’am?”
“When they like me, yes. However, that isn’t what I came to discuss with you.” I nodded toward the two workmen, who had paused to listen, and asked, though the answer was obvious, “Are they stringing barbed wire?”
Dodd’s eyes narrowed an almost imperceptible degree, but his grin remained. “Yes, ma’am. That’s a dangerous ledge. We’ve been intending to close it off for a long time. You just can’t let people go walking out there willy-nilly.”
“Mr. Dodd, did the gardener inform you that I wished the ledge left undisturbed?”
He glanced at the workmen and winked and spread his
hands in a gesture that implied, What can you do with a woman? He shrugged and said, “The gardener don’t know anything about the danger here.”
“It was not the gardener’s request, Mr. Dodd. He was simply conveying mine.”
“Well, ma’am,” he chuckled, “you don’t know much about it either. If a person got too close to the edge — ”
By that time I was seething. I said, “Mr. Dodd, I wish to use that ledge myself. Before countermanding any request of mine you should have consulted me. See that you do that in the future. Tell those men to take down that barbed wire.”
His grin disappeared and his expression bordered on viciousness. “I was told — ”
“You are being told right now, Mr. Dodd. That ledge is to be left alone.”
For a brief moment I thought he was going to slash me across the face with his riding crop. He glanced at the men. They were making no attempt to hide their smiles, and that didn’t help matters. His vicious expression was pure undiluted hatred.
And then (it struck me as being odd even at the time) a thoughtful shadow passed through his eyes, an apparent balancing of all factors involved. His grin returned, as insolent as ever. “Naturally, ma’am. You’re the boss. Whatever you say goes. Mr. Jeffrey has already told me that, though I haven’t heard from Mr. John as yet.”
“Do you need a quorum?”
He slapped his leg with the whip and roared with laughter. “You’re a one, ma’am.”
“Yes, aren’t I? Good-by, Mr. Dodd.”
“Be seeing you.”
The men were pulling down the barbed wire as I left, but somehow I felt that I had been defeated. I was still shaking and clashed the car gears as I pulled away. But by the time I reached the Chandler home I had calmed down considerably. I shook my shoulders to settle the dress I was wearing, touched my hair, and walked to the front door.
Vivien met me at the door in a floating, wispy, buffy, diaphanously risqué negligee that would have been ridiculous on anyone else but was fitting and proper on her. The expression on her face of mingled suspicion and curiosity was so amusing that I felt more at ease than I should have been. Neither of us had the slightest liking for the other, but that, of course, simply added flavor to my visit.
Marriage Bed Page 7
