Those Harper Women (35 page)

“No,” she would say to Gordon. “No, I didn't know that.”

Then he would ask her if there was anything he could do, if there was anything she needed. Or he would take her to dinner and a play.

When Leona started to miscarry the baby no one knew she was pregnant with, she went to the hospital by herself. When she came out, four days later, no one knew she had gone. Then, one night when Jimmy appeared at the apartment—oh, a little drunk, probably—she had said to him, “Gordon Paine wants me to marry him. He's been terribly kind to me—helpful and thoughtful and generous.”

He had stood looking at her for a moment or two, a small, dry smile on his lips, and she had thought he was going to say something cutting and offensive to her. But he said, “You're looking for a state of grace, I suppose. Well, so am I, Leona.”

Then he put his face in his hands and began to cry.

That was nine years ago. As Leona lies in Arch Purdy's hotel room now, dry-eyed, remembering those other tears, while the first gray light of another tropical morning filters in through the up-slanted Venetian blinds, she has the first glimmerings of that wild and implausible idea—to call the two of them, Jimmy and Gordon, to ask them to come here, to meet with her. It will be like that meeting she dreamed about, but with a different Leona as its focus.

It is Monday, and two quite unwelcome chores have presented themselves to Edith Harper Blakewell. The first, quite obviously, is to get off a reply to a singular letter which has arrived from her brother Harold in the morning mail. She had opened the letter expecting a check to tumble out, and found, instead, a lot of evasive nonsense dictated by Harold and signed by his secretary. Whether Leona is to have her gallery money or not, Edith is certainly not going to be put off by Harold like this. She carries the letter to her desk, sits down, seizes a pen and a sheet of her stationery and writes furiously:

Dear Harold:

I find your response to my telegram completely preposterous and totally intolerable. To begin with, what business is it of
yours
what I want the money for? You say you “guess” it is for Leona. Well, guess away!

She pauses, pleased with the force of her prose, then continues:

You are not my keeper, though you clearly think you are. And it is
my
Harper stock which I wish sold, not yours. I know a few facts about the business which might surprise you, e.g., I know the difference between what you hold in
trust
for me and the Harper stock which Papa gave me years ago, and which I own outright, no strings attached. You are, to be sure, “custodian” of the latter
—
but only because I let you be. And this letter will serve as my notice to you that your custodianship has just ended, Harold. Please mail the certificates to me via registered Air Mail at once, and I shall take up all business matters with my friends at the West Indies National Bank
.

She starts to add, “Love to Barbara and the children,” but decides against it. She signs the letter, “Sincerely, Edith.”

Then she adds a postscript:

P.S. What do you
mean
by saying “Your Harper stock is not available at the moment for the purposes you have in mind?” It had better damn well be available. Pronto!

“I'm within my rights here,” she mutters to herself. “My, legal rights.” The amusing thought occurs to her of having the great Harold B. Harper arrested, if he still refuses to deliver her stock to her—arrested for stealing, which is what it would amount to. She smiles at the vision of Harold in a prison uniform, behind bars, begging her for mercy.

Like all letters written at white heat, this one must be quickly folded, sealed in an envelope, stamped and posted. She does these things, slamming the stamp on the envelope with a bang of her fist, and rings for one of her maids to take the letter to the post office immediately.

The second chore cannot be handled with as much dispatch. Leona has been gone now, without word, for something over thirty hours, and certainly the time has come for serious action. The usual horrible possibilities have all passed through her mind: rape, kidnaping, murder. In a way, on those scores, no news is good news. Still, some strange things have been known to happen in St. Thomas. A woman was found, six days later, strangled and adrift in a chartered fishing boat, naked of the thirty thousand dollars' worth of emeralds she had been last seen wearing. (Deserves it, Edith had thought at the time, for going fishing in emeralds.) But for Leona's sake Edith hesitates to notify the police, not even her friends on the force. After all, one of the first problems to be faced, in any action Edith takes, will be Leona's anger at being sent out after and fetched back—assuming, that is, that she is alive and safe. If she is with the short-necked man, that is no help to Edith because, to her the man is nameless. It will do no good sending a private detective around St. Thomas looking for a short-necked man. She has, in fact, only one remotely feasible idea. This involves telephoning Mr. Winslow at the Virgin Isle Hotel.

To be sure he may not be there any more. And of course, if he is there, she cannot launch right in with, “Where is my granddaughter?” No, her inquiry must be discreet, indirect. Bring up Leona's name, and see whether he mentions having run into her in the last day and a half. But there is the problem of finding an excuse for calling Mr. Winslow.

Then she thinks: Of course. She will call him just to thank him, personally, for his kindness in having agreed not to write about the Harpers, and to apologize for having wasted his time the other afternoon. It would be a graceful gesture. She will tell him that she is sure he understands, and say how much she appreciates Leona having spoken to him, et cetera, et cetera, which will steer the conversation, gracefully, to Leona. She goes to the telephone.

Mr. Winslow picks up the telephone in the middle of the first ring, and begins shouting at her, and it is several seconds before she realizes what he is shouting about. “Listen, will you guys get the hell off my back!” he yells. “I told you I'd have the Harper story as soon as it's ready, so for Christ's sake stop phoning me! How the hell do you expect me to write the f---ing thing with you calling me up every five minutes? I'm onto something hot down here, and you'll get it when it's ready!” He slams down the phone in her ear.

Considerably shaken, she replaces the telephone in its cradle. She sits very still while the meaning of what he has said sinks in. So, she thinks, there is going to be a Harper story after all. This means that Leona never spoke to him at all or, if she did, did not tell Edith the truth about what Mr. Winslow did, or did not, agree to do. An explanation of Leona's curious behavior is becoming clearer as, bit by bit, pieces of the puzzle begin falling unpleasantly into place. But it is a while before Edith can think of what to do next. Then she picks up the telephone again and asks for Alan Osborn's office.

“Don't tell me what you're calling about,” he says in his professional voice. “You're calling to say you can't keep your appointment this afternoon for the pictures. Well, what's the excuse …”

“Oh, I'd forgotten about that, Alan,” she says. “But I can't make it. Alan, Leona's missing. She's been gone since early yesterday morning. I've got to find her right away.”

“I see,” he says.

“We had a row. She left. But she didn't pack—all her things are still here. I think she's with a man, but I don't know his name. If it's the man I'm thinking of, he has a short neck—that's all I know!” She feels her voice rising with a touch of hysteria, and she struggles to control it. “Yes, and he drives a white automobile—a
coupé
, the kind with a collapsible roof. Can you help me, Alan?”

“Well,” he says quietly, “I'll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Alan.”

He is silent for a moment at the other end of the wire. “It seems to be a Harper trait, doesn't it?” he says finally. “Running away.”

“What are you talking about? I've never run away!”

“I was thinking of your husband,” he says. He clicks off.

Then, for a while, Edith roams distractedly through the house, waiting for the telephone to ring. Suddenly she remembers the letter to Harold. She cannot send him a letter like that now—not until this other business is settled. This is the wrong time to get Harold angry at her—legal rights or no legal rights. That letter will have to wait, and Leona's money will have to wait. She hurries to the kitchen to find the girl she gave the letter to. The girl is there, helping fix lunch; the letter has been mailed. She goes to the telephone once again and calls the post office. “This is Edith Blakewell,” she says to the voice that answers, “and one of my maids dropped by this morning with a letter—”

“Yes, Mrs. Blakewell,” the voice says. “It's on the eleven-forty plane.”

She hangs up the phone. Grimly, she thinks: Before there were airplanes, letters were easier to intercept on this island.

Meredith Harper studied the letter his daughter had given him. He read it carefully, his face expressionless. Remembering that face, Edith thinks it is remarkable how little he had aged. He was still the same tall, stern, blank man. Perhaps it was because he had become so obsessive about his health and diet, devoting himself to physical exercise with increasing fury. The years managed to be kind to him right up until very near the end. Putting down the letter finally, he said, “This is very interesting, Edith. How did you get it?”

She told him how. For a number of weeks she had been observing, or trying to observe, the pattern of Monique Bertin's life. From the hill behind the house it was possible, with the German binoculars, to see the Grand Hotel, and to watch Monique's comings and goings. Once a week the mail boat called at the island, and mail-boat days were particularly interesting days. That morning Edith had watched Monique leave the hotel with letters in her hand. Monique had hurried down the street to the Customs House, where the post office was.

Mr. Olafsen, the Danish postmaster, smiled at Edith when she entered, and Edith said pleasantly, “My friend Mme. Bertin was in here a few minutes ago and mailed some letters. There was something she forgot to enclose in one of them, and she asked me if I'd fetch the letters for her.”

Mr. Olafsen handed her three letters. Smiling, he said, “Mme. Bertin is lucky to have a friend like you, Mrs. Blakewell, who will always get her letters back for her.”

Edith gave Mr. Olafsen twenty
kroner
. Two of the letters, she could see from the envelopes, were of no consequence, and these she handed back. The third was addressed to a man in Dijon and, leaving the post office, she carefully unsealed it. She had translated no more than the first few sentences when she saw that, at last, she had the weapon she wanted.

Mon cher Etien
—

I write to you at last because at last I know what I must do. It has not been easy for me, these years, but at last my head is clear
.

The man I thought I loved, and I thought he loved me. Now I see that neither is true. I must come home for life here could only be tolerated by a person completely without feeling. So now I turn to you for help. It is a very rich man, it is true, but very greedy and cruel, a pig
[cochon].
He has no sympathy for me and will not give me the money. Now there is only you to ask
.

It was different when there could be trips to New York and to my beloved France, but now with this miserable war I am abandoned on this island. I hear of the troubles, so grave, in my country and I long to return. If you see my mother and father you may tell them of this letter and that I beg their forgiveness. When my heart ruled me I was a fool. Now my head rules me. Send me the money for passage. I will repay it
.

A très bientôt
,

Niki

Edith's father refolded the letter. “Extraordinary,” he said. “I didn't know you had it in you, Edith.” He stood up. “Would you like a glass of whisky?”

He had never offered her a drink before, but she said, “All right.”

He filled two glasses from the crystal decanter. “They say whisky is a man's spirit,” he said, “but I have always felt that a little drink of whisky was something a woman could enjoy as well. This is from a rather special vat which I had shipped from Kentucky.” Handing her her glass, he said, “To our good fortune, Edith.” They touched glasses.

“Now you see what the woman thinks of you, Papa. Get rid of her.”

He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “I'm a lonely man, Edith. I've been lonely all my life. Your mother hasn't been a great help to me. There are two sides to this.”

“I understand. But Mama needs you now.”

“Do you mind if I smoke, Edith?” He opened the humidor and removed a cigar. He was smiling now. “Do you ever wear the pearls I gave you, Edith?”

“Yes, I wear them.”

“I want you always to have nice things.” He was lighting the cigar, and then he lifted the pages of Monique's letter and held the match to them. The letter flamed brightly in his hand for a moment and then he dropped the fire into a bowl. The letter curled and twisted into ash. Watching the dying flames, Edith said, “Then you will get rid of her. Thank you.”

“I'll take care of Monique,” he said. “And I'm grateful for your—interest in your mother. And in me. But—” He stared at her. “What about
you
, Edith? Are you happy? You're a curious person. This is a very curious thing you've just done. What is it they say about a wise child who knows his father? I think it's a wise father who knows his child.”

“I did it for Mama's sake!”

“And Charles—is he happy?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I wonder. I'll be frank with you, Edith—I'm not happy with your young aristocrat. He isn't working out the way I hoped he would. I hired a manager, not a troublemaker. And troublemakers,” he said, glancing at her, “are nuisances. He has not kept up his end of the bargain. After all, he married you because he wanted to get into the sugar business—”