Feather on the Moon, page 3
This very lack of expression was unsettling, but I was to learn later that Mrs. Arles had long ago decided that animation could result only in lines and wrinkles, and she had banished all such aging outward emotions from her face. Her impassivity and fixed look made me uncomfortable, even though I suspected they were deceptive. Her voice, and sometimes the movements of her hands, gave her away.
When satisfied about me—though she betrayed no inkling of her conclusions—she plunged at once into the matter at hand. “I’ve sent the Corwins and the child away for the evening. I wanted to talk with you before you meet any of them. They know I have a visitor coming, but of course they have no suspicion of who you are or why you’ve come. The situation, as I’ve told you, is much too complicated to be explained on the telephone. I don’t like or trust this pair and, as I also told you, I had an odd feeling about the child when I saw your little girl’s picture in a magazine. It’s because of the Corwins that I’ve asked you not to use your married name.”
Because they might be the kidnappers who had taken Debbie? Questions seethed in me, but I held them back and waited, knowing she would tell me the story in her own way.
One thin hand moved to touch a comb in her hair, making sure every strand was in place, and the firelight caught the red of her garnet ring. Then she turned her head and addressed the shadowy room beyond the bed, where light hardly reached.
“Crampton, you may leave us alone now.”
A large woman in a white uniform—of whose presence I’d been totally unaware—rose and went into the hall, moving lightly and quickly, in spite of her size.
“Crampton knows everything,” Mrs. Arles assured me. “Just as Dillow does. She’s been my personal maid and companion for twenty years. Lately, she’s been my nurse as well. But I feel that you would prefer privacy in our first conversation.”
“Thank you,” I said, and again I waited, trying to control my impatience.
“I must warn you,” Mrs. Arles went on, “that the little girl, Alice, is not an attractive child. Most of the time she seems sullen and unfriendly.”
I found it difficult to swallow. Debbie had been a happy little girl. Even her tempers were only summer storms.
“Please tell me all of it,” I said. “Why did you say you hoped this child wouldn’t prove to be mine?”
“Because she is supposed to be my great-granddaughter,” Mrs. Arles said impassively. “More than anything in the world I would like to be convinced that she’s of my family’s blood. Even if Alice Arles isn’t the most pleasing child in the world, that might change if she were taken out of the hands of the people who claim to be her mother and stepfather.”
“Claim to be?”
“It’s undoubtedly true that this dreadful woman was married to my grandson. All her papers seem in order. Her present husband is a professional magician. He does tricks—magic!” Scorn cut through her voice, though her face remained still as a sculpture. “Their story is that they were working together in Brazil when they met my grandson. Farley Corwin had lived in that country when he was young and he spoke Portuguese. The woman performed as an assistant in his act and traveled with him, though they weren’t married to each other then.”
Mrs. Arles’s hands moved in angry dismissal, as though she could hardly bear to speak of this couple who now visited her home.
“Edward, my grandson, had joined an expedition that was studying medicinal plants in the jungles along the Amazon. He met those two in some small city where Corwin was performing. It is my conviction that they pursued him with a plot in mind. Of course Edward should never have gone out there at all. I raised him in this house from the time when his parents died in a boating accident, and I sent him away to good schools. He could have stepped into the family printing business and done brilliantly—he was capable and intelligent.”
She paused to breathe deeply, quieting inner emotion. I felt a twinge of sympathy for her grandson, who might have been driven to escape.
“We quarreled, Edward and I. He did something unforgivable and I disinherited him. I told him I never wanted to see him again. Anyone who betrays a trust …” Ivory knuckles showed as she clenched her hands, and I watched her relax them deliberately.
“This is upsetting for you,” I said. “Would you like to wait until tomorrow for the rest?” I didn’t want to wait, but Mrs. Arles had been ill, and all this suppressed emotion worried me.
“I don’t permit myself to be upset,” she said quietly. “What I am telling you is long in the past. Edward went away nearly fifteen years ago. Eventually, he went to Brazil, where he married this dreadful woman, and she accompanied him on the expedition. There must have been some sort of plot between this magician and the woman, because Corwin signed on with the expedition as an assistant cook and went along too. My grandson”—for just an instant her voice quavered—“my grandson drowned in an accident on the river. It must have been a horrible death. There were alligators and piranhas in those waters. By that time Edward’s wife was pregnant, or so she claims, and she sent Edward’s things to me, and wrote me about the child she was to have.”
Mrs. Arles was suddenly still, and a log fell in the grate, startling me.
“You saw the baby when it was born?” I asked softly.
“Indeed I did not. I didn’t care to because I didn’t want to believe this woman was carrying my grandson’s child. It could just as easily have been the child of the magician. I guessed from the first that these people wanted money, and a child might be a means of getting it from me. After Edward’s death the woman married Farley Corwin. Except for the pictures they kept sending me, I never saw the child until she was four years old. The mother had been writing to me all along, asking to bring her here.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “Do you have those pictures?”
“Unfortunately, no. I threw them away. I’d wanted nothing to do with my grandson, and I wanted no child he might have had by this woman. I saw the little girl only once, as I say, when she was four years old, and then only because they brought her deliberately to my house and I let them in so I could see her. I felt no more than idle curiosity.”
“Is this why you recognized the picture of my Debbie? Because you’d seen this little girl when she was four?”
“It’s possible. I don’t know. I was so angry with the effrontery of those people, and so suspicious of them, that I didn’t allow them to stay for more than a few hours. I still couldn’t believe that Alice was my grandson’s child.”
I thought about all this unhappily. If there had never been a baby, the early pictures the Corwins sent could have been of any baby at all. Later, still hoping to get through to Mrs. Arles, they could have needed to produce a real child of the right age—to be ready. They could have kept the child for a year or so—long enough to make her forget me, forget her grandparents. It was all unlikely, yet with a thread of possibility that made me uncertain.
“Where did their letters come from?” I asked.
“They’d returned from Brazil, so some came from the States. Sometimes from Canada. Or from St. Petersburg, Chicago, Los Angeles.”
They wouldn’t, of course, have written from the town, or even from the state from which Debbie had been taken.
“Why did you change your mind about seeing them?”
“A few months ago I came near to dying. That made a difference in the way I felt toward a child of Edward’s, no matter who the mother was. There are no descendants left to me. My younger brother, Timothy, is unable to manage anything. He has never married and never will. I thought if I could find some way to be sure about this child—that she really was Edward’s—then something might be done. They arrived as a family about two months ago, and hard as it is for me to have them here, I took them into the house where I could watch them, listen, perhaps learn something significant that would make me sure one way or the other. The child resembles my grandson to some small degree. Though she has fair hair, where his was dark. She has blue eyes like his, and her face is even shaped somewhat like Edward’s. But who knows? If she was stolen, she might have been chosen for the resemblance.”
“Debbie had blue eyes,” I said softly.
Mrs. Arles turned her head away. “Recently, when I saw the picture of your little girl, as I told you on the phone, there was a moment when I believed that Alice Arles might be your child. That sort of quick recognition, however sharp, doesn’t last when one begins to examine features, but it was a strong impression. I thought if you could be certain, then I would know all this was exactly the plot I’ve always suspected, and you might recover your child. If not, then I may be forced to accept their claim and do for this child what I could never do for my grandson.”
“You’ve checked blood types, of course?”
“Yes. She could be my grandson’s child. Her blood type also fits the records you sent. Which again proves nothing.”
“What about the child’s birth certificate?”
“She was born in Brazil, supposedly in some small place where record-keeping wasn’t of the best. There are papers and they seem to be in order. My attorneys have investigated, but I’m not sure that bribery couldn’t have managed the whole thing.”
“When will I see the little girl?”
“Not until tomorrow. I knew you’d be tired and anxious tonight, and I didn’t want any chance meeting. You must be prepared when it happens. So I sent them all off to dinner and a movie, and they won’t be home for hours.”
I’d wanted to talk with Mrs. Arles first, but now further postponement didn’t help my state of mind.
“If these are the people who kidnapped Debbie, then they may recognize me,” I suggested. “They must have been watching me in the store that day, though my hair is short now, and I’m a lot thinner than I was then.”
“That should help. Besides, you’re out of context here. They aren’t likely to expect the child’s mother to turn up in Victoria in the same house. Not after all these years. I doubt if they saw the magazine article. I’ve kept it away from them.”
“If they recognize me, they may run.”
“Should that happen, they’d probably leave the girl behind, which could be proof of a sort. But I doubt that they’d give up their scheme so easily. The burden of proof would be on you, and they might brazen it out. The man strikes me as an adventurer—a risk-taker. So they might hold to their story. Unless you are absolutely sure, we can’t even bring in the police. On the other hand—if you could recognize them …”
I no longer knew how sure I could be about anything. I might never have seen the man, and the woman had hidden her hair and eyes and been deliberately nondescript.
“Let’s have supper now,” Mrs. Arles decided. “This talk is tiring us both, and you must be hungry.” She raised her voice slightly. “Crampton?”
The woman appeared from the hall instantly, and I wondered how much privacy we’d really had.
“Please tell Dillow we are ready to eat,” Mrs. Arles said.
The meal arrived with such dispatch that he must have been hovering nearby as well. He set a small drop-leaf table with linen and silver, pulled up a chair for me, and pushed Mrs. Arles’s wheelchair into place. A cart with silver-covered dishes was wheeled in, and we were served poached salmon with dill sauce, green peas perfectly undercooked, a leafy salad and hot rolls, whisked from an oven. Then Dillow stood back and waited.
That was the moment when I sensed that something was wrong between the butler-manager and his mistress. A clear disapproval seemed to emanate from Dillow. Not so much toward me as toward Mrs. Arles. Her look rested on him sharply, and he stared directly back for just an instant, so that I was aware of tension between them.
Then Mrs. Arles nodded. “Thank you, Dillow. Tell Grace everything is fine. And you might phone Dr. Radburn, since he is expecting a call. If he is here in an hour, everything should work out nicely. Crampton, I’ll ring when I need you, so have your own supper.”
The shadowy Crampton murmured something respectful and disappeared again.
Dillow said, “Yes, madam,” stiffly and also went away. His behavior was again impeccable, and there was no further hint of stress between the man who ran this house and the woman he worked for.
While we ate, Mrs. Arles explained about Dr. Radburn. “Joel is a cousin, as you might guess from his name. Though distant. He’s not in private practice as a doctor any more, since he has gone into research—quite important research. In a sense, he inherited me as a patient from his father, who died last year, and who was my doctor and friend for much of my adult life. Joel keeps a careful eye on me. He knows everything about you that I know, and he approves of my bringing you here. He agrees with my doubts about the child. He’s also been looking after my brother whenever it was necessary. Joel is in his late thirties and is the son of his father’s second marriage. He has been observing the child, Alice, and he can answer some of the questions about her you may have.”
I couldn’t think of any questions, except for the one that possessed me entirely—would I recognize her? Already I was steeling myself for failure.
“You may need to stay here for a few days.” Mrs. Arles spoke quietly, perhaps aware of the anxiety that must have shown in my face. “When you talk with the child, some memory may emerge—though it might not come at once. You must sleep tonight, so try to relax now. Perhaps you’d like to take a book upstairs with you. We’ve a fine library here.”
I’d noticed a thick volume on a table near her wheelchair. A bookmark showed her place, and reading glasses rested on the green jacket.
She saw the direction of my glance. “That book might interest you. I ordered it as soon as I knew it was published, since it’s an account by Frank Karsten of the expedition he led into Amazon jungles all those years ago. The expedition on which my grandson died. Unfortunately, since my illness I’ve had trouble with my eyes, and I’ve only been able to read a few pages at a time. Karsten has died since the book was published.”
“I wonder if the Corwins are mentioned?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get very far. If you’d like to read it, take the book along to your room. Then you can tell me if you find anything interesting.”
It wasn’t Edward Arles’s life or death that concerned me now and I was already thinking of something else. Mrs. Arles seemed to call Mrs. Corwin “the woman” when she spoke of her—a label of denigration. Now I asked her first name.
“It’s such a ridiculous name that I can’t bear to use it,” she told me. “Though perhaps it suits her well enough. She’s called Peony.”
Peony. Yes, rather a silly name, except for a flower. I tried to remember the nondescript woman in dark glasses—an uncertain, nervous woman—but the dim memory would neither accept nor dismiss the name.
When the front doorbell sounded, I heard Dillow go to answer it. A deep voice greeted him cheerfully, and Dr. Radburn came quickly back to the library. Dillow had already removed our dishes and brought in small plates with Camembert cheese and wheat wafers. He busied himself pouring coffee, while Dr. Radburn bent to kiss Mrs. Arles’s cheek. Dillow, I suspected, wanted to miss nothing.
The doctor was tall and rather slender, with dark brown hair conventionally cut. A slight line creased vertically between gray eyes that regarded me in friendly appraisal. The line, I thought, was probably not a frown but more likely grew from hours of concentration. His smile seemed warm in a pleasantly homely face that one might grow used to comfortably. No one had really smiled at me since my arrival, except for the impudent chauffeur.
“I’m glad you’ve come, Mrs. Thorne,” he said as he took my hand. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but we hope you can settle one part of the dilemma. Perhaps to your advantage, if you recognize the little girl.”
Dillow brought another chair and Dr. Radburn sat down, accepting a cup of coffee.
“I have told Mrs. Thorne what I know about the Corwins,” Mrs. Arles said. “At least I’ve prepared her for their unusual background, which has undoubtedly affected the child.”
Dr. Radburn glanced at Dillow in a questioning way, and Mrs. Arles dismissed the butler with a casual “You may go, Dillow.” When he’d left the room, she spoke to the doctor. “It will be done my way, Joel.”
“I’ve no doubt,” Dr. Radburn said dryly, and spoke to me. “You haven’t seen Alice yet?”
I shook my head. “Will you tell me about her, please?”
His eyes were deep set and there was no smile in them as he seemed to study me. “She’s lonely, I think. Neither of the Corwins seems to have much imagination as far as Alice is concerned. Though the child is all imagination—maybe too much so. She and her mother have a sometimes affectionate, sometimes angry relationship, but Peony is under the domination of her husband, and Alice resents that and clearly dislikes her stepfather. For her sake, I hope that she can be taken out of the Corwins’ hands, one way or another.”
I looked at Mrs. Arles. “You mean they would give her up to you?”
Dr. Radburn answered for her. “I’m sure that Farley Corwin would accept a sum of money that he might regard as suitable, if the mother were to give the child up to her great-grandmother.”
“What about this loss for the—the mother?”
“She’ll do as she’s told, as Dr. Radburn suggests,” Mrs. Arles assured me.
I must have shivered, for the doctor spoke quickly. “You look tired, Mrs. Thorne. All this is distressing on top of your long flight. Would you like something to help you sleep?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather not. But you’re right—I am very tired.” I’d had all I could take. I wanted to get away before I found myself in tears.
“Of course,” Mrs. Arles said. “I’ve kept you up far too long, considering the difference in time zones. So run along now, and sleep as long as you like in the morning. Breakfast will be on the buffet in the dining room, and you can go in when you like.”
