Feather on the Moon, page 15
I knew that sounded feeble, and she regarded me with a pitying look. “I’m sorry, Jenny, but I’m afraid you must stop hoping. It will only hurt you more in the long run. Nothing that happened on that expedition can matter to me now. Except that Nellie-Peony became pregnant. She has told me about the birth of her baby.”
“A baby was born,” I said quietly. “And she was named Alice. But what if that baby died? By that time perhaps Farley had married Peony, and what if he never gave up hope that you would recognize your great-granddaughter? Without a baby, his plot couldn’t succeed. They didn’t come near you for quite a while. Years.”
“They wanted to, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“They might have been watching for a child they could substitute. Farley seems able to make Peony do anything he wants. I think—”
She interrupted me. “That’s enough! This is all pure fabrication. You are making up what you would like to believe. But you’ve had your chance to be with Alice, Jenny, and you must surely recognize by now that she isn’t your child.”
Nothing I’d said had swayed her, but something in me still wouldn’t give up. “There’s a feeling I have—there are little touches now and then that I almost recognize. If I could have just a little more time—”
“Naturally you feel this. But it’s only wishful thinking, Jenny. As for Farley’s influence over Peony—it’s about to come to an end. She has agreed to separate from him in order to remain with her child. I would never allow him to stay here, and I wanted to test her. Only a mother could feel as strongly as she does. Her willingness to stay convinces me more than anything else.”
“An adoptive mother can love every bit as strongly as a natural mother.”
“Even if the child were kidnapped? No, you’re going down the wrong road. I do understand how you feel. I blame myself for rousing your hopes and then being forced to dash them. But this is the way it really is, Jenny. You don’t want Alice, when she’s not your child.”
“What has convinced you?” I asked. “What made you suddenly sure?”
She considered my question for a moment and then came to a decision. She picked up an envelope from the table beside her chair and handed it to me. “I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t read this. It’s a page torn from a notebook. This sheet was apparently overlooked among Edward’s belongings that were returned to me after his death. Dillow was going through those articles again yesterday, and he found what must be a page torn from a record that Edward kept while he was on the Karsten expedition. You might as well read it. The handwriting is Edward’s—I remember it very well.”
I took the envelope and drew out the single sheet, knowing exactly how Dillow had happened to “find” it after all these years. This would be a page torn from the journal Kirk McKaye had mentioned to me. I unfolded the sheet and read the handwritten words. The brief passage made no mention of the “accident” Edward feared might happen, though there was a hint that he might not come through. In only a few lines he had written about the child Nellie was carrying.
I don’t know whether I will come through this adventure safely, but I hope my child will live. I hope Nellie will take the baby to my grandmother. I have told her that is what I want her to do—if anything happens to me.
More than anything else I regret the lies and misunderstandings that parted me from my grandmother when I left Victoria. She was wrong and I was wrong. She condemned me for something I didn’t do. I needed the money to get away, and Uncle Tim got it for me.
If ever I come out of this safely, I’ll take the baby home to my grandmother myself and tell her all of this. I’ll stand up to her and protect Uncle Tim.
That was all, but it was enough. I could see how thoroughly such words would sway Corinthea Arles. Yet something in me remained unconvinced, though these words had probably swayed Kirk too, since he had wanted to put them into her hands. I only wished there had been more here about Farley Corwin and his possible betrayal.
I put the page back in its envelope and returned it to her. “This doesn’t change any of what I’ve said about Alice. Edward didn’t live, and you still don’t know that this child is your great-granddaughter.”
“I know,” Mrs. Arles said quietly, and I was startled to see tears in her eyes. “I am sure now. Edward has given her to me. Of course I shall have to have this out with Timothy and learn what role he played. He is to blame for whatever happened. I shall send him away to where he can do no more harm.”
“That’s not fair!” I cried. “I want to talk to you about Timothy. I’ve lived and worked with deaf people and—”
“You know nothing about anything,” she said sharply. “I am really losing my patience with you.”
Crampton coughed softly, and Mrs. Arles glanced in her direction. “The door chimes,” Crampton said.
This would be Letha arriving, and I wondered what possible spell she could cast on Corinthea Arles in order to get Alice away in my company. From now on, undoubtedly, Mrs. Arles would never want me to be alone with Alice.
Dillow came down the hall, with Letha Radburn close behind. She was taking no chance of refusal. At the doorway she rushed past him into the room, afloat in color.
Today she was exotically dressed again, in a swirling lavender skirt appliquéd with sphinx heads. An amethyst necklace along with amber beads dangled against a pale pink blouse, tinkling musically as she moved. I wondered why on earth she’d gotten herself up in this gypsy fashion, when she must know it would offend Mrs. Arles. Only her makeup was subdued, and her rose-tinged lips smiled tremulously as she came into the room holding out both hands.
Mrs. Arles recoiled, reluctantly allowing her hands to be taken in Letha’s warm clasp.
Letha seemed not to notice. “It was so good of you to send the jade piece back, Corinthea. And good of you to write the note you did. I wanted to thank you myself. May I sit down for a moment?”
She took an opposite chair quickly, her entire performance probably intended to overwhelm and confuse—which was exactly what it was doing. There was no opportunity for Corinthea to freeze her out, or even to resist.
“I enjoyed meeting Mrs. Thorne yesterday,” Letha ran on. “And Alice is a darling. A very bright child.”
Mrs. Arles managed to speak for the first time. “A child who you don’t believe is Edward’s daughter.”
“It will all sort itself out, I’m sure.” Letha sounded breezily confident. “Just so there can now be peace and forgiveness between us two, my dear.”
Nothing about Corinthea Arles suggested peace or forgiveness, and she had put on her most distant manner.
“There’s another reason why I’ve come,” Letha went on, ignoring the wall. “You know that I sometimes receive—shall we say—messages? You’ve never believed or approved, but whether you do or not isn’t important. I really must tell you something—in fact, warn you.”
She paused, and Mrs. Arles recovered herself a little. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Letha. Do come to the point.”
“I mean to.” Letha spoke emphatically. “What I have to say concerns the man you’ve hired as chauffeur. The moment I saw him I knew something was wrong. Something that might affect you. These impressions I receive are often sound and true, as Joel will tell you. What do you know about this man, Corinthea?”
“All that’s necessary to know is that he’s a good driver. I’ve observed that. And Dillow never hired anyone without checking that person out carefully. I really haven’t paid much attention to him, and I’m afraid I’m not as impressionable as you seem to be.”
“Get rid of him, Corinthea. Get rid of him before he does some irreparable damage. He’s an angry man. I could feel it even more strongly when I passed him on the driveway just now.”
“Really, Letha!”
Letha Radburn raised her hands in a dramatic gesture and let them fall. “Well, I’ve done what I can. If you won’t listen—”
“I will listen when you have something besides these vague notions to give me.”
“Would you allow me another chance to see him—observe him? Perhaps I can learn something more convincing.”
“How would you manage that?”
Letha left her chair, beads and gold bracelets chiming, and walked to a window overlooking the garden. There she stood quietly, her forehead with its black wings of hair pressed against cool glass. I felt as though I were watching a play, except that it was a great deal more than that. Whatever evolved out of this odd confrontation could affect me, Alice, all of us.
When she turned around, however, Letha was smiling. “I had planned to invite Alice and your guest, Mrs. Thorne, to come for a drive with me this morning. Mrs. Thorne shouldn’t leave Victoria without seeing the Butchart Gardens, and perhaps the little girl hasn’t seen them either. I would enjoy taking them out there. So why don’t I leave my car here for now and have your chauffeur drive us? This would give me a real opportunity to observe him and see if something more comes through to me. You remember, Corinthea, that Lewis always had a great respect for my gifts. And I know that you respected him.”
For an instant Mrs. Arles’s deep-set eyes blazed with a light I hadn’t seen before. Letha was really pushing it.
“Lewis went off to India and turned addlepated,” Mrs. Arles snapped.
Letha’s smile, in contrast, was serene. “I believe he gained a wisdom that you never recognized, and I’m sorry about that. Nevertheless, please allow me another chance with this man who drives your car, Corinthea. It really is important. It may even have some bearing on your relationship with the child.”
Somehow, in her theatrical yet indirect weaving, Letha had managed to wear her adversary down. Corinthea closed her eyes, leaning her head against the chair rest, showing no further interest in Letha or me. “Oh, what does it matter?”
We had been dismissed to do whatever Letha pleased.
Letha said good-bye quickly, and the old woman barely formed the word in response. I followed Letha out and, as we went down the hall, I saw Alice sitting on a lower step of the stairs. She had put on her denim outfit and combed her too curly hair. Clasped in her hands was Amarillo, the frog.
Letha stopped at once. “Hello, Alice. Would you like to come for a drive? We’re going out to Butchart Gardens, and we’d enjoy having you along.”
Alice agreed eagerly, happy for any sort of action. When Dillow appeared at the front door to see us out, Letha told him that Mrs. Arles had said Kirk might drive us this morning in her car. So would Dillow please let the chauffeur know.
Everything was happening too quickly for me, but I wasn’t sure that was the direction I’d expected. There had been something Letha wanted to try with Alice, and that plan seemed to be getting lost in this talk about Kirk McKaye. I didn’t care any more about how suspicious he might be, or whether he continued in Mrs. Arles’s employ. Alice was my one concern, and there was so little time left.
As it happened, Kirk was waiting in the front driveway, already in uniform and polishing the Mercedes to an even finer gleam. Dillow went to speak to him, while Letha hurried to her car to take out a large tapestry bag.
Kirk opened the car door for us, looking directly at me—a look that seemed to challenge, and left me even more unsettled. Since he’d had Dillow put that journal page of Edward’s into Mrs. Arles’s hands, I knew he was in opposition to everything I wanted. It struck me that he looked somewhat different this morning, and I saw that he had trimmed his drooping mustache, so that it no longer reminded me quite so much of a pirate. I could see his mouth a little better, and I didn’t like the sly grin he wore.
This time Alice sat happily between Letha and me in the car, the frog mitt on one hand, letting it make faces at her. She was clearly intrigued with Letha’s gypsy aspects, and now and then glanced at her beads and color admiringly.
Letha caught my eye over her head and her look seemed to say, Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten. She spoke to Kirk as he turned the car down the driveway.
“I’d like to make a stop before we go out to Butchart Gardens. We’ll go first to my son’s apartment. Have you ever been there, Alice? It’s a beautiful, quiet spot that will be just right for something I want to do.”
She gave directions to Kirk and then spoke again to Alice.
“I hope you’ll help me.”
“Sure,” Alice said. “Doing what?”
“It’s a sort of magic thing. If it succeeds, you might be able to remember more about when you were little. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?”
Alice wriggled between us. “I don’t want to remember! Sometimes I dream, and Ma has to come into my room and hold me. She gets scared when I dream—and Farley gets mad.”
“Do you remember the dreams?” Letha asked.
“Only that there’s a bad feeling. If you do a spell, will that come back?”
“It might,” Letha admitted. “But if it does I think it would be for the last time. Then you wouldn’t have the bad dreams any more. That’s worth trying for, isn’t it?”
Alice listened to her doubtfully, and so did I—not at all sure how much of this I accepted, or wanted to accept. But I had to try something.
10
I always lost my sense of direction when we drove through the outskirts of Victoria. Streets wound, and water cut in unexpectedly as the road crossed bridges and curled around inlets. The view often took in glimpses of the sea, with puffs of green islands floating on the surface. Whenever the clouds thinned, the long ranges of mountains on the mainland of the United States and Canada were visible.
I was beginning to discover that people in British Columbia thought in terms of north and south, rather than east and west. Ottawa was far away and hardly considered, while California and even Hawaii seemed close at hand.
Joel’s apartment was only a short drive. He lived in a two-floor stretch of condominium that overlooked an inlet at the back. Redwood siding and a gallery, with long boxes of geraniums, offered a pleasant contrast to higher apartment buildings nearby.
When Kirk had parked the car and opened the door for us, I was out first, and Alice followed. Letha sat for a moment talking to Kirk.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” she told him. “I would like you to come inside with us, if you will.”
“Of course, madam,” Kirk said, sounding like Dillow.
She let him help her from the car and then led the way to redwood stairs that mounted to the second level. Doors ran along the stretch of gallery, and she had her key ready when she came to Joel’s apartment.
The door opened into beige-carpeted quiet, and when it had closed behind us, I felt an immediate sense of peace and seclusion. Down the long living room, two picture windows met in a right angle—a V that extended out over greenery at the back. Alice ran directly to look down upon a narrow strip of lawn above the water.
“What a funny-looking tree!” she cried. “All its bark is coming off.”
Letha joined her at the windows. “That’s an arbutus. It grows along the U.S. Pacific coast, but only in a few areas of British Columbia. You can tell it by its reddish, peeling bark with green underneath, and by those glossy evergreen leaves.”
“It’s such a twisted tree,” Alice said. “Like out of a fairy-tale book. Could I have a piece of that bark?”
“Later we’ll get you some,” Letha promised. “Right now we have something to arrange, and you are going to help me.”
She pulled drapery folds across the two windows, dimming the room. Two chairs of light-colored wood, their seats covered with a leafy green print, were set in the triangle made by the windows. Letha sat down in one, crossing her knees so that the lavender skirt flowed into graceful folds, sphinx heads shimmering in silver thread. She fingered her strands of beads thoughtfully, considering the room. I noticed that another chain hung among the amethyst and amber—fine silver links, with a small crystal as a pendant. Somewhere I’d read about the magnetic power of natural crystals, and now Letha seemed lost in some private reverie as she fingered the pendant.
Kirk remained standing near the door, watchful, and perhaps for once uncertain of his role, but I took the opportunity to wander about the room so I could see where Joel Radburn lived. I liked the subdued colors of pale green and beige he had chosen, with only an occasional flash of color in a cushion or painting. He hadn’t allowed his mother’s taste for the exotic to influence the way he lived. I glanced at the title of a book on the coffee table and recognized a current spy novel—what the scientist read for relaxation.
Two of the paintings on the wall were of coastal scenes—a range of snowy mountains, with Mount Baker standing clear against a blue sky. The second painting was of a dense forest of hemlock and Norway pine, with a rustic lodge in the foreground.
Joel’s desk drew me. Letha was there, smiling in a silver frame. Not an open smile, but enigmatic, like the woman. On the desk lay a wooden paper knife, carved at one end with a profile of a Northwest Indian. Beside it stood one of Uncle Tim’s small totem poles, topped again by a thunderbird—except that Uncle Tim had added a whimsical touch. The bird face resembled Corinthea Arles—its nose more beaked than hers, its mouth without expression. The old man had a gift for these miniature portraits that were sometimes caricatures.
Letha had finished her silent communication, and she left her chair. “Kirk, will you move the coffee table for me, please? I’d like to free space in the middle of the floor. That’s where we’re going to set up the crystals.”
She opened her carpetbag and brought out various articles, one by one. First, a floor pad covered in pale green silk that she unrolled for Alice to lie upon. Next came several plump, amber-colored candles set in crystal bowls which she indicated to me.
“Jenny, will you set these on the end tables around the room? The scent will help purify the air when they’re lighted.”
I didn’t look at Kirk, lest I catch some hint of mockery in his eyes, and I placed the candles carefully. I no longer thought of this as a performance, or of Letha’s dress as strange or inappropriate. This was my last chance, and I meant to go along with whatever she wanted. Though I did wonder if Joel knew what his mother was up to here today.
