House Of Storm (7 page)

She reached the long, wide hall above, dim, like the lower hall with its dark maroon wallpaper, stretching back past unused bedrooms, hung here and there with portraits or with heavy gilt-framed mirrors (faintly misty, faintly blurred by long years of tropical dampness and heat), with its occasional dark walnut, stiff little chairs and red-plush settees, and turned into her own room.

And again she was struck with a sharp sense of incredulity. How could so much have happened that was so important during the short space of time since she had left it? And had left the letter to Aunt Annie, unfinished, on her desk. She would not look at it, now; the wedding next Wednesday, all the plans made, the wedding dress hanging now in Aurelia’s great wardrobe, and she, Nonie, had to say the words to stop it.

She went into the great, old-fashioned bathroom, with its marble washbasin, its great tub encased in teakwood, its shuttered, long window. She ran the tub, got out of her slacks and shirt. She set out red sandals and selected underclothing from the silk and sacheted stacks that lay neatly in the drawers of the mahogany chest. Doing so, she thought briefly of Lydia’s edged words about emerald tiaras and diamond necklaces. It was no credit certainly to Nonie or to anyone who was born the only child of a rich father; neither was it anything but accidental, and it rightfully deserved neither censure nor praise. And actually, she almost had no jewelry, she thought with a little smile. Actually, at that moment, as a matter of fact, she had exactly twelve hundred dollars in cash. She could draw more, pending the formalities of settlement of the estate following her father’s death. She had only to cable. And then she thought suddenly and swiftly, with a feeling of imminence, with, indeed, her first feeling of reality, she would use that twelve hundred dollars, or part of it when she left Beadon Island, when she had her understanding with Roy—when she went to New York, to Jim.

Soon, she told herself, soon.

And later, choosing a dress, she saw the white dress she’d worn the night she met Jim and, on an impulse, wore it. A white, thin, cotton dress, with a bit of Irish lace at the low, curved shoulders and a red soft belt. She put on the high-heeled red slippers, she touched her lips with scarlet, and looked suddenly in the gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table like an old-fashioned portrait herself, with her bare shoulders, with the loops of lace framing them, with her full white skirt and her narrow, slim waist.

Before she went down to dinner, on an impulse again, like touching wood, like making the future safe, she went to look at her little horde of money, her twelve hundred dollars.

And it was gone!

It could not be gone, and it was! She explored the billfold in the big alligator bag which she had carried under her arm from New York with incredulous fingers. The change purse was still full, with silver and some five-dollar bills, and some one-dollar bills tucked into it, but the billfold with its twelve hundred dollars had been neatly and completely emptied.

It was simply not possible. In Roy’s house, in Aurelia’s house, with servants they must have known, on a tiny island where everybody was known—and it happened. She looked through the bag with its beige suede compartments, its initials; she looked through the drawer, but she knew that she had not removed the bills and put them anywhere else, so it was a mere gesture of confirmation. Finally, she put down the bag and closed the drawer and stood for a moment looking at it. She’d have to tell Roy and she’d have to tell Aurelia. They would be deeply apologetic, a guest in their house; they would insist on replacing it. They would question the servants; she ought not, of course, to have left enough money to be a temptation to anybody carelessly in a drawer like that; it was her fault, and her responsibility.

Well, that would wait; it would have to wait. The important thing came first. She went slowly downstairs.

They were on the veranda and she joined them. Roy had changed, too, and with his white coat and black tie, his black trousers and crimson cummerbund, looked, as always, handsome and imposing. They prolonged their drinks, talking in a desultory way as tropical twilight drew its shadowy curtains over the sea. A dark bank of clouds finally swept up from the south and blotted out the lingering lights on the sea and Jebe announced dinner.

By that time, Nonie thought, sitting opposite Roy at one end of the long table, with the tall flickering candles making graceful barricades between, by that time Jim was in Cienfuegos; by that time, perhaps, he was in another plane headed for New York. How fantastic it was that so short a time could encompass so much change! The mere thought induced a sense of strangeness that tinged the whole scene around her, as if the candles, the table, the faces around it (and not Jim on a plane, moving steadily through the night sky toward home) made the dream, the fantasy. And indeed as a rising wind rattled the palms near the house, and banged the shutters, and flickered the candles, the sense of moving through a dream became stronger.

How many times more, now, even in a dream would she sit at that table—where she had thought to sit at dinner, presiding, opposite Roy, so many, many times!

But in a dream nobody took twelve hundred dollars. She would have to report it to Roy. She looked at Jebe and thought of him, and of the two giggling little maids in their bright skirts and beads and white blouses, and of the dark old cook with her rheumatism and dignity and of Archie, the fourteen-year-old kitchen boy with his angelic face and voice warbling out old, completely unintelligible and indescribably musical Caribbean songs as he cleaned shoes or scrubbed vegetables—and shrank from the thought of the inevitable inquiry among them.

Aurelia did not come down to dinner; she had a headache, Jebe reported.

“It’s going to storm,” Roy said. “The barometer is dropping. Aurelia gets neuralgia before a storm.”

Lydia sat on Roy’s right, her copper-colored hair framing her narrow face, with its full, rather broad red mouth, its high, lovely cheekbones, its animation, as she laughed and talked, mainly to Roy. Her green eyes sparkled in the candle lights; she finished another long amber-colored drink slowly.

Dick might as well not have been present; he sat staring at the lace cloth, eating nothing, speaking not at all, turning his empty glass around and around in his fine, slender hand. Jebe, fresh and clean in the white duck coat and white duck trousers which Roy insisted upon, and the slapping straw slippers and bare ankles that Jebe insisted upon, slid in and out of the shadows beyond the light of the candles. Roy talked, by some impulse, harking back to the old days on the island, to people he and Lydia had known, to tales of the island, gossip, humor, feuds, old jokes.

Lydia kept him company, reminding him of this, reminding him of that; laughing, her eyes alight, sharing memories with him. Once she glanced at Nonie. “Do forgive us, Nonie,” she said, smiling, and let her brilliant shining eyes linger on Nonie’s face for a moment before she turned back to Roy.

So Nonie found herself in a little quiet pool of seclusion. It was indeed so complete that for the moment none of the things around her seemed really to have anything to do with her. It was as if, already, that armchair opposite Roy’s were empty; as if already she had gone from the place she’d meant to occupy all her life. What would Roy say? What would he do? Her cheeks felt hot; she was both relieved and tense when at last Roy rang for coffee.

The wind by then was rattling the French windows. The candle lights wavered and smoked. Jebe came with the silver coffee tray and they left the table and followed him out again onto the broad comfortable veranda, where candles, protected by hurricane glasses, wavered and smoked.

Nonie, at Roy’s smile and nod, poured the coffee. Her hands trembled among the fragile, lovely cups. He’d meant by that smile and that unspoken request to emphasize her place in his house—his wife so soon, his hostess. He was still troubled, though, she thought, about Jim, lapsing into a frowning, troubled silence when Lydia’s fund of anecdotes seemed to have exhausted itself so she too was silent and thoughtful, staring out into the blackness beyond the railing where the sea, invisible in the darkness, seemed louder and more menacing as if to remind them of its power all around them. Hermione Shaw came unexpectedly. They heard the spatter of the shells in the driveway and Roy pulled himself together with an exclamation and rose to meet her.

But this time she had come for Dick.

She had not changed and even the click of the heels of her lizard-skin pumps sounded composed and yet incisive as she came along the veranda with Roy. She refused coffee; the smoking flickering candle lights softened her face, restoring something of its beauty. She was indeed composed, smiling and certain, as if she had accepted her defeat of the afternoon with grace.

Nonie could not have been more mistaken than in that first moment. Hermione’s gray eyes reflected the candle flames like molten bits of steel. She had seen Dick, she had seen his car in the driveway. She ignored him and said to Roy, smiling with those dark red lips, “I thought I’d find Dick here. I’ll take him home for you.” And Nonie thought with a kind of horror: she’s pleased! She knew Dick was on the edge; she wanted it to happen, she wanted to be forced to come for him, to show her own indomitable strength and his lack of it!

Dick leaned forward, grasping the arm of his chair, looking at her. Roy said: “Sit down, won’t you, Hermy? I’m glad to see you … ”

Her composure was like a bright and dazzling shield of glass. She looked at Roy for a deliberate instant before she said, smiling, clearly, “Are you glad to see me, Roy? I shouldn’t be, if I were you; not under the circumstances.”

Roy flushed and started to speak but Dick forestalled him. Without moving, sitting forward in his chair, his eyes bright too and shining, Dick said: “Roy didn’t do this to me. It’s not his fault!”

She permitted herself then to acknowledge his presence. Her thin eyebrows lifted. “Do you mean that I am the cause of your being”—she made a little gesture of distaste and finished—“not quite yourself? Really Dick, you
are
an adult, you know! Your life is your own … ”

“No,” said Dick, “it isn’t. It hasn’t been. Not since a long time ago when I had the bad luck to fall in love.”

Roy said something under his breath and stared toward Dick and Dick said: “Don’t try to stop me, Roy. I’ve wanted to say this for a long time.”

“If he wants to talk, let him do so by all means,” Hermione said. “Do go on, Dick.”

“But the woman I loved,” Dick said, “couldn’t have loved anybody. She had no heart to love with. She had only vanity, and arrogance and greed.”

Hermione’s smile deepened and Dick added, hunched forward, his too bright eyes on Hermione’s face: “I stopped loving you a long time ago, Hermione.”

Hermione said: “You haven’t stopped hating me.”

Roy gave an inarticulate exclamation. Lydia moved sharply. Dick suddenly put his small, tired face in his hands. And Hermione said with cold contempt: “You are a drunk, Dick, and a bum. I’ve covered your mistakes at Middle Road far too long. I’m tired and bored with it. Find yourself a job somewhere else, if you can. You are through at Middle Road.” She looked at Roy and Lydia. “Will you see to him?” she asked politely, still assured, still certain of herself, still with that smooth head high and arrogant.

Lydia said suddenly: “You really are a devil, Hermione! Jim got away from you so you’ve got your knife into …”

The glass shield of composure wavered as if hands had shaken it. Hermione interrupted icily: “My knife into everyone, were you going to say? How odd of you! How odd of you to be here tonight, as a matter of fact! Who invited you? Aurelia?” Hermione stopped and laughed and, still laughing, she turned to Roy: “You’ll see to Dick, then, won’t you? You are so reliable, Roy. Noblesse oblige; a gentleman of the old school; your word is as good as your bond, all that. Do promise me to see to Dick so I’ll feel quite easy.”

The flush of anger deepened in Roy’s face. “Of course I’ll see to Dick if he needs it, but he doesn’t. He’s all right … ”

“Oh, quite,” Hermione smiled, her certainty and composure restored. “I only was afraid he might want a ride home. I was wrong.”

Dick didn’t move. No one moved. Hermione said pleasantly: “Good night. Tell Aurelia I didn’t expect to see her, but I’m sorry I didn’t.” She went away across the veranda again, her slim, elegant figure deliberate in its motions, triumph in the very leisureliness of her departure.

She started her car, with the same deliberation. They could hear it back and turn, calmly and efficiently, and then the spatter of shells along the driveway. No one spoke until the sound of the engine had ceased. Then Roy said: “Whew,” and sat down heavily. “I’ll have some more coffee, Nonie.”

“You’ll take me home,” Lydia put down her cup. “If you please, Roy, dear. It’s going to storm.”

She rose, tall and lovely in her green dress, with her dark-red hair somber in the shadow. Roy got to his feet, too. “Right you are, Lydia! Never mind the coffee, Nonie. I’d better take her home before it rains. My car’s at the step.”

Lydia put out her strong slender hand to Nonie. “Thank you, dear. Come to see me after the honeymoon. My garden’s at its best. You must learn to like gardens. We have so little here on the island to offer you, Nonie, darling—gardens, bridge, a little tennis—no night clubs, no theatres, nothing gay. Well, I’ll be at the wedding Wednesday. I’m sending flowers to the church. Shall I say now, happy wishes? Or is that bad luck?”

“We’d better get along,” said Roy.

“Of course. Good night, Nonie. Good night, Dick.”

Dick said behind his hands: “But she was right. She’s always right. I’m still tied to her. As long as I hate her I’m tied …”

Lydia said shortly but in a friendly way, too. “Get yourself a drink, Dick. Then go home …”

Dick got to his feet. In order to give him a chance to get himself together Nonie strolled beside Roy and Lydia to the steps and watched them leave. Roy’s figure, tall and white beside Lydia’s swirling green skirt. Roy’s car started and lights glanced against the house and Nonie went slowly back to the lighted area of chairs and tables. Dick had disappeared inside the house.