Unwept (10 page)

They reached Merrick's automobile without further discussion. It was a four-door hardtop Cadillac: a Type 55 Touring Model. Merrick turned to help each of the ladies into the vehicle, but Jenny charged past him. She opened the door and, stepping onto the running board and into the car, seated herself on the passenger's side. Merrick said nothing but simply helped Ellis and Alicia into the backseat before taking his place behind the wheel. He inserted a key into the ignition, switched it to on, set the choke on the dash panel and pressed down on the starter. The engine sputtered and chugged to life, smoothing out as Merrick adjusted the spark to adjust the engine timing.

“As you can see, Ellis,” Merrick commented, “I've a few toys of my own.”

Merrick adjusted the spark and advanced the throttle in the center of the steering wheel as he released the clutch. The automobile lurched slightly into gear and then accelerated smoothly as it turned onto High Street.

“Alicia,” Merrick said, turning his head back slightly to address his passengers in the backseat. “What were you telling me about that scrapbook page you were working on earlier?”

Alicia stiffened next to Ellis. “I'm sure Miss Harkington doesn't want to hear about—”

“I wanted to hear more about it,” Merrick prodded. “I'm sure it will be perfectly all right so far as Ellis is concerned.”

“Well, it's … it's really going to be wonderful,” Alicia said, her voice growing more wistful as she spoke. “There will be a carousel with white horses, each one with eyes of brilliant jewels. I've put a lion tamer on the page and dozens of stalls and wagons on a wide midway. Each one will be filled with games and freaks and curiosities. There's a fat lady and a strongman and a clown tent. There's even a fortune-teller. Oh, and all kinds of thrilling rides.”

“It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it,” Merrick commented.

“It will all be put in a sunset park,” Alicia said with quiet longing. “I've used felt pieces for the most part, but some of the sky is out of satin. Everyone will be there—I've even put Ellis on the page.”

“How very nice,” Merrick said casually. “And what about you, Ellis? How is your scrapbook coming along?”

“My scrapbook?” Ellis was puzzled.

“Yes,” Merrick said. “Have you made any changes to it?”

“Oh, I don't have a scrapbook,” Ellis said.

Jenny kept her eyes fixed sullenly on the dashboard in front of her, but Alicia turned her head sharply toward Ellis in surprise. “You don't? Then how did you ever manage to—”

“Alicia, I think we've shared quiet enough,” Merrick said in a firm voice. “We've put Ellis through a great deal today. I think we've shared quite enough.”

Alicia stopped speaking at once. She turned away from Ellis, staring silently out the side window of the car.

Ellis felt tired and heartsick. She reasoned with herself that she should not feel she had spoiled the afternoon. She had been reasonable. She surmised from the attitude of her companions that she was the only one here who thought so. Ellis gazed at the lush pink and blue sunset that surrounded them, wishing she could have forced her feet into the little boat and that she was sailing carefreely around the bay with the other Nightbirds. She swallowed hard. It wasn't just her past she knew nothing about. Her knowledge of the present felt like a game of blindman's bluff that she was playing with eyes wide-open. Her mind filled with more questions than ever, she found a longing for the privacy of her room at Summersend.

 

 

When they arrived home Jenny slipped from the car and ran inside without even thanking Merrick. Merrick set the hand brake and stepped around the car to open Ellis's door.

“Thank you for the luncheon, Alicia. I feel very welcomed by everyone,” Ellis said, turning back to Alicia. Ellis felt the awkwardness of Jenny's rudeness and paused a few heartbeats before adding, “I'm sorry, I just don't understand anything, you know.”

Alicia's look softened. “Jenny was considering being Merrick's intended before … well, before the accident. They were good together back then. It only seems fitting that he should watch over her during the troubles.”

Ellis permitted Merrick to help her out of the car. He followed her up the steps of Summersend to the door. Pausing a moment on the porch, he suddenly snatched up Ellis's hand, kissing it.

“Good night, sweet Ellie,” he said quietly. “Do you dream?”

Ellis smiled. It was a lovely and odd question.

“Please consider my offer,” he whispered. “I gather it seems extraordinary to you. But considering what you have been through, it may be necessary for all our sakes.” His demeanor was earnest and kind. She felt he meant her no disrespect or harm in his offer.

“Thank you. I promise that Jenny and I will discuss it.” Ellis returned the gentle pressure of his hand before turning to go into the house.

Ellis was not the only one longing for her room. Jenny was nowhere to be found on the ground floor of the house. After a cursory walk through the garden, Ellis guessed Jenny had done what Ellis also wished to do: taken refuge in her own room. They would speak later.

Ellis climbed the stairs to her room. She was surprised to find everything neatly organized. No clothes or shoes were strewn about as she'd left them. The room had been aired and dusted, the mirror polished. The curtains were drawn back from the French doors and the light from the sun now low on the horizon gleamed like red liquid fire on the waters of the bay. She started to question the “who and how” of her room being rearranged in her absence, but weariness wrapped its sleepy arms about her and for a moment she quit questioning and chose to simply feel grateful. She lay down on her bed and gave way to the relief of weeping.

When she had cried herself out she pushed her curls away from her face and stood up, brushing her crumpled dress with her hands.

During the torrent of tears a thought had broken like a lightning storm in her mind:
What if I don't really belong here at all? What if someone out there, beyond Gamin, is looking for me?

Alarm spread to her limbs. Rummaging through her closet, she found an overnight case. She opened a dresser drawer and savagely stuffed the little case with clothing. She began forming a plan, a plan to leave. She'd been brought to this place, but she didn't have to stay. It occurred to her that if she could just get to the train station she could leave. She pinched her fingers trying to close the too-full case as she realized she would need a train ticket. She grabbed her little purse and emptied it. No money. She looked through the dresser drawers, the pockets of her green traveling suit and then her traveling trunk. The search yielded no paper money, nor any coins. Her legs weakened and she sat down on the bed, shoving at the overnight case that obligingly slid to the floor with a satisfying thud. Her hands shook.

She felt physically ill as fatigue swept over her body.
If I left this place which way should I go? And how would I explain who I am when I got there?
She was homesick for a place and people she couldn't remember.

The doctor hasn't said it, nor the nurse or Jenny or Merrick, but it is in their eyes; they all think I'm not quite right—that I am frail in body and spirit

The world no longer makes sense and I am too weak to leave this place.
She was filled with a mountain of unanswered questions that felt unscalable. She closed her eyes against the pink light of sunset as a few tears of defeat fell and then dried upon her cheeks. She chose not to sleep.

She realized she disliked napping at sunset. She plucked up this thought and held it like a small, precious diamond.

At least that's one more thing I know about myself. I'll gather all my pieces together yet,
she thought.

She heard a door open down the hallway and footsteps on the stairs. She sat up and slipped on her shoes. She knew that she and her cousin needed to discuss Merrick's rather scandalous offer from this afternoon and they had avoided it long enough.

Ellis slipped back downstairs. She could not see where Jenny had gone, but her eye caught something new resting behind the bell jar on the table down the hall.

It was a sheet of music.

Ellis was drawn to it. She picked it up and smiled as she read the title.
Jenny must have put this here for me,
she thought.
A peace offering.

With relief, Ellis moved quickly into the music room. She settled onto the piano bench, placed the sheet music before her, set her hands to the keys and began to play.

The keys responded to her hands. Music flowed from the instrument and into the house. Ellis felt the ecstasy of the motion and the sound, peace flowing into her like cool water quenching a desert thirst.

“It's beautiful,” Jenny said quietly from behind Ellis.

“Yes, it is.” Ellis smiled as she played. “And I am most grateful for it. Thank you, Jenny.”

“Oh, but it isn't from me,” Jenny said, her voice at once guarded.

Ellis faltered through a measure.
If it isn't from Jenny, then where did it come from?
Ellis concentrated on the notes before her, the music spinning perfection into the room once more. It had brought them both to talking again, which was the important thing at the moment. “Never mind. I'm talking nonsense.”

“What is it?” Jenny asked.

“The music?”

“Yes.”

“It says its Liszt's Liebestraum number three.” Ellis nodded. “I'm sure I've played this before, but I feel like I'm hearing it for the first time.”

The music flowed around them for a moment, filling the silence.

“We used to play the most beautiful duets together,” Jenny sighed. “You and I.”

Ellis stopped, drawing her hands away from the keyboard. Silence fell between them.

“I'm so sorry, Jenny,” Ellis said. “We should have stayed home, as the doctor asked.”

“No, Ellis,” Jenny said, looking away. “I should have trusted you.”

Jenny held her arms tightly across her chest, her head bowed as she stepped back out of the room. Ellis followed Jenny out onto the back porch and breathed in the early-evening air.

“Jenny?” she said gently, crossing to the girl.

Jenny was leaning against the porch railing gazing out over the water. She turned a tear-streaked face to Ellis and whisked the tears away with the back of her hand. “I'm sorry, too, Ellis. It's all so confusing.”

Ellis nodded and looked at the painted planks of the porch in the gathering dusk. “What Merrick offered this afternoon, it's not right. You understand why I said no, don't you?”

“I don't know. I guess so. Ellis, you know that he is supposed to be mine. Did you see how much attention he pays to Alicia and, now, to you? Everything was different before … before.” She held up her crippled hand and dropped it by her side.

Ellis began to comprehend that Jenny's poor mood was about more than a spoiled sunset cruise. She had noticed Merrick's attentions to Alicia and herself. Ellis had seen a gentle pity in Merrick's eyes when speaking with Jenny today. But it was pity, not the ardent carefulness of a suitor. If he bore Jenny more feeling than that, Ellis had not seen it this afternoon. And she could not remember life beyond it. To her eyes, he behaved like any unattached male. She had no way to advise Jenny. Ellis admitted in her heart she had enjoyed dancing with him today and the way they had moved so easily together. It was a bit of the unremembered but familiar. Ellis wondered briefly if Jenny had made more of Merrick's past courtesies than she should. Ellis brushed this thought aside, realizing that it had sprung to life as a hope.

“I'm sorry Jenny. I'll—”

“You'll what? Make him pay attention to me?” Jenny's words were clipped as she turned back to the railing. “Maybe we—you—should reconsider his offer.”

Ellis exhaled, considering her words. “I won't deny that the stories in the papers are unsettling. I find it … unusual that we are out here in this large house alone. Are there no older people we could stay with or who would come here? Perhaps we could go to my relations in the city until the culprit is caught.”

Jenny reasoned aloud, “You can't go home right now and I can't imagine who in Gamin would welcome us. The Disir sisters, perhaps. But you have already met Finny and the other two are as peculiar as their sister. They are fine company for afternoon tea, but more than that? No. Gamin is suddenly different now that trouble is so close by. It could come here, Ellis. This is the first time I have ever felt unsafe at Summersend. It's my haven, you know. It's all I have, really. I wish you would reconsider Merrick's offer. I'm sure it is kindly meant. And it might just give me a chance.…”

Ellis realized that in her present state she felt alone and vulnerable and would like a champion to lean on. But she had to tread on that thought carefully. Now that she glimpsed Jenny's feelings for Merrick, she was unprepared physically and mentally to engage in this conversation.

“I'll think about it; I promise.” She knew it was a poor answer but breathed out the relief of letting it go.

“If trouble comes to Gamin”—Jenny smiled tentatively and squared her shoulders as she walked to the back door—“then the matter will be out of our hands.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Ellis chided. Jenny's desire seemed childish and a little frightening. For her part, Ellis ardently wished for peace.

The golden beam from the lighthouse on the island in the bay splayed itself across the water in the misty blue evening light. She leaned against the porch railing, one hand reaching out as she steadied herself against it.

Her hand met with a cylindrical object.…

A spyglass.

She picked it up and, extending it out, placed her eye to it.