Authors: Mignon G. Eberhart
Sutton said, rather abruptly, “We’d better have some wine. We’ve got some grand California wines now. Sissy, you’ll like them.” Amanda looked calmly and quietly at Alice, her dark eyes heavy-lidded and unfathomable. Jem said, “Sissy’s not been here long enough to get caught up on all of us yet. By the way, Dave, do you know when you’re going to leave?”
“Next week,” replied Dave Seabrooke. And immediately Sutton asked him a question about his house which, it appeared, Jem was about to take over as a tenant. The discomfort Serena had felt at perceiving suddenly warring yet masked elements gradually disappeared.
But it was to return.
Twice, in fact. Once when the talk veered to Serena’s return and her vacation and what she intended to do with it and someone mentioned her own house, Casa Madrone.
“Why don’t you sell the place?” asked Alice Lanier.
And when Serena said it was home and she liked it and, besides, she probably couldn’t get a buyer in war time, even if she wanted to sell it, Alice said: “Let me try to sell it. I’ve nothing to do. I’ve been thinking of getting started in some business—real estate or something. Give me the key. I’ll try to sell it.”
“Oh, you don’t need a key,” said Leda, her cheeks flushed. “The back door is open. Isn’t it, Amanda?”
“Why, Leda,” cried Alice. “How could you know that?” And Johnny said quickly, “You’d better get a different caretaker if he’s leaving the doors unlocked. Did you hear the seven o’clock news, anybody? I missed it.”
Sutton began to tell him the news; Amanda said nothing; Leda lifted the glass she’d brought to the table with her, her eyes defiant and her cheeks definitely too flushed. The sense of discomfort passed, but came again before they left the table; it was as they were drinking coffee, in fact, that an odd thing happened. Amanda had reached for a cigarette and Dave Seabrooke lighted it and the wide beautiful bracelet on Amanda’s wrist glittered and shone, and Alice said: “Why, Amanda, what a marvelous bracelet! It’s new, isn’t it?”
Everyone looked at the bracelet. Everyone, that is, but Amanda. Amanda took a long breath which made the cigarette glow red and strong, blew smoke out softly, and said, “Not at all. I’ve had it ages. Well, dears, shall we move? It’s early but …”
“Why, Amanda Condit! That’s a new bracelet and you know it!” cried Leda suddenly.
“Leda,
darling!”
Amanda’s voice, amused and indulgent, stopped Leda in full flight; Amanda laughed. “You’re having a brainstorm, pet! You’ve seen me wear this hundreds of times.”
“Amanda, you know perfectly well …” Leda was flushed and suddenly angry. The little flame touched Dave’s fingers and he put the burned match down with a jerk, and Johnny said abruptly: “Leda, you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Johnny, I’ve not! Amanda knows perfectly well where she …” began Leda angrily again, her face puffy and swollen. Amanda interrupted: “Darling, Johnny must be right if you don’t remember this piece of junk! If it were only real!” She smiled in a frank and friendly way at Sutton and said, “Sutton, dear, shall we move? It does seem early, but Sissy must be tired. And, besides, I want to get her alone and talk to her. I haven’t seen her for far too long …”
One of the things Serena had always liked about her sister was Amanda’s decisiveness. At once they were on their feet and strolling toward the door, talking. Leda, still flushed and angry, had her arm through Johnny’s, or rather, Serena saw suddenly, he had taken her hand and was holding it rather tightly. Johnny’s round, cheerful face, however, was still merely round and cheerful. But just as they passed the door to the bar, Leda detached herself quietly from Johnny, took Serena’s hand and drew her inside the bar. Johnny apparently went on with the others; Leda held Serena’s hand tightly. There were several groups around the low tables and among the palms; the radio in one corner was going softly; no one glanced at them.
“You see?” said Leda. ‘Thank Heaven, you’ve come.”
“Nonsense, Leda. I told you it was nonsense.”
“But it isn’t. Johnny’s perfectly crazy about Amanda and she won’t let him go. She doesn’t want him; she’s just a—like a vampire. She won’t ever give up anything—or anybody. Especially a man.”
“Leda …”
“No, don’t try to defend her. You did that in New York and now you see I was right and you were wrong. I know she’s your sister but …”
“Leda, please. Somebody will hear you. I tell you Amanda doesn’t mean anything. Johnny …”
Leda leaned close to her, her fingers pressing hard into Serena’s hand. “It’s just as I told you. You’ve got to do something, Sissy. That’s why I begged you to come home. I knew you’d come, Sissy …”
“That’s not why I came. I had a—well, an unexpected vacation. I didn’t come because I was worried about Amanda and Johnny. You’re mistaken …”
“Mistaken!” Leda gave a short laugh. “Haven’t you any eyes, Sissy? Can’t you see that Johnny, yes, and Jem too, are just eating their hearts out?”
“
Jem
!”
“Oh, Jem’s been in love with her for years. He can’t stay away. Sissy, that’s not important—Jem, I mean. It’s Johnny and …” She glanced swiftly around the room with something surreptitious and sidelong in her look that was not pleasant.
But Leda was wrong, thought Serena quickly; Leda exaggerated; Leda was hysterical. And then Leda leaned so near to Serena that she could hear her whisper below the sounds of music from the radio and the low talk and laughter in the room, so near that a warm wave of Leda’s perfume struck her face. “I told you. In New York. There in the Plaza bar. It’s just as I told you. Something’s going to happen. And it won’t be nice. You see …”
Johnny appeared in the doorway. His rosy, round face shone good-naturedly; his eyes were bright and very friendly—and observant. He said, “Come on, you two. Everybody’s waiting. No more drinks tonight.”
Leda’s hand dug into Serena’s arm meaningly as they walked with Johnny to join the others. It was a curious relief to extract herself from that clutching hand, and from Leda.
Leda couldn’t have been right about Jem. He wasn’t in love with Amanda, his friend’s wife. Jem was—well, Jem.
But suppose Leda was right.
They were gathered in the lobby; everybody was talking; all at once the party was breaking up. She tried to talk and smile as if nothing had happened, and not to watch Jem—and Amanda.
Johnny and Leda would drop Alice at her home; Jem was going home with Dave Seabrooke and (it had developed from the talk) was already living there, pending Dave’s departure. Dave got Amanda’s stone marten cape and put it around her and he and Jem walked across the parking space to Sutton’s long, enclosed car, parked beside Dave’s station wagon. They waved good-bye again as Johnny’s coupe pulled away from the lighted area in front of the Lodge, shielded from the sea by the Lodge itself so no betraying lights showed even upon the enclosure of the bay. “Good night, Amanda, and thanks for the party,” said Dave. “I don’t think really I deserve it.”
Amanda smiled. Sutton said, “Good night, old fellow. It’s not every day one of us leaves for war.”
“You’ll all be gone before it’s over,” said Dave rather dourly, and Jem said, “Good night, Amanda. Good night, Sissy. See you tomorrow.”
“Of course,” said Amanda. “Come to lunch, Jem. I’ll expect you. Good night, dear.”
Jem closed the door upon Amanda and Serena in the back seat. Sutton started the car. Serena looked out in time to see Jem’s tall figure crossing the lighted area and getting into the station wagon with Dave Seabrooke. Then Sutton pulled away from the Lodge and they were in complete gloom with only the tiny glow from the parking lights ahead and Amanda’s perfume in the thick blackness.
“Do be careful,” said Amanda presently, out of the scented darkness.
They stopped at the Carmel gate and were let out by the gatekeeper. Amanda yawned and settled herself more closely in her furs. No one spoke for a long time; they had, in fact, passed the turn to the mission and started along the valley, from whence presently a twisting road climbed up to the Condit ranch, before Sutton spoke. Then he said, his voice drifting backward in a disembodied way from the dim black outline of his shoulders and head, “Amanda, why did you tell them you’d had your bracelet a long time? I never saw it before tonight.”
Serena had been thinking of Jem; the way he’d looked, what he’d said; there wasn’t much to think of, of course, except the fact that he was there and she had seen him again. And that Leda must be, again, wrong. She must convince herself of that. Sutton’s inquiry roused her so she felt the instant’s pause before Amanda spoke. Then Amanda laughed a little. “To tease Leda and Alice.”
“Oh,” said Sutton presently.
There was another silence; then Amanda said in a lower voice to Serena, “It’s only junk jewelry, of course; but they didn’t get a close enough look at it to be sure. I adore Leda and Alice, too, but they do amuse me. How anybody can be as dull as Leda, I don’t know! But I love her dearly.” She yawned. “We’re nearly home, thank Heaven. I hope you weren’t too bored, Sissy dear. I’ve put you in the guest room wing; you’ll be quiet there; it’s across the patio from us and not a soul near you.” The car lurched and she said sharply: “Sutton,
do
be careful.”
“I know this road,” said Sutton. “I could drive it with my eyes shut.”
“Well, don’t try it,” said Amanda with a shudder. “It’s really a dreadful road, Sissy. It’s as well you can’t see it. There are places where we could roll straight down for two hundred feet.”
But nothing happened. They climbed and climbed, presently came into a straight and level road, climbed some more, and all at once a high white wall showed up dimly at their side, and the car stopped.
Someone had transferred her bags from Dave’s station wagon to the Condit car. Sutton carried them in and across the patio. Not a light showed anywhere; the house was only a deep shadow surrounding them, yet, as she walked into the patio, the sense of being enclosed by the house with all its black windows and verandas gave Serena an additional and rather odd sense of being under covert, hidden observation. It was a momentary feeling which she dismissed at once, sensibly, for besides its patent absurdity the night was so dark that only a cat, or somebody with the eyes of a cat, could have seen them. The lovely scent of pines and sage floated pungently upon the night air. She followed Amanda across the patio and up the steep flight of wooden stairs at the left and on to a narrow, covered, second-floor veranda; the room she was to have was dimly lighted and the curtains pulled. “You have to pull them every night at sunset,” explained Amanda. “It’s the dimout and we are so high here that we are visible from the bay and out to sea.” She glanced around the bedroom. “I’ll unpack for you. Just your night things, of course; we’ll have your other things unpacked and pressed tomorrow. I couldn’t ask Modeste to wait up.” Sutton said, “Good night; glad you’re here,” patted her shoulder briefly and went away.
But Serena unpacked herself while Amanda sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette and talked a little about the war and Serena’s job. Presently she got up. “Well, my dear, sleep well. Are you sure you’ll be comfortable?”
Serena said yes. Amanda kissed her and went, closing the door to the veranda soundly.
Two hours later Serena pulled on the little bedlight again, looked at her watch, remembered Amanda’s warning about the curtains and turned out the light again. She wasn’t comfortable at all.
Which was, on the whole, rather odd. Everything in the room was conducive to comfort in the last luxurious detail. And in her own sister’s house certainly she ought to feel no sense of uneasiness.
But after a while it began to seem to Serena that something was happening in the house.
She didn’t know, she had no way of knowing, that Luisa Condit, over twelve hours ago, had had almost exactly the same unexpected and singularly disturbing impression.
I
T WAS SO DARK
she could see nothing.
She was in a strange house, of course, which could account for her extraordinary sense of uneasiness; yet it was her own sister’s house. Serena wasn’t nervous and she wasn’t given to unexpected and subtly frightening imaginings. Frightening? But that was nonsense.
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out everything and sleep. She wouldn’t think of the rather unpleasant dinner party; she wouldn’t think of Dave or Johnny; or Alice Lanier and her red hair; or Amanda and the bracelet; she wouldn’t, above everything, think of Jem. Or of what Leda had said of him and Amanda. And she wouldn’t let her fancy dwell upon the strangeness of that house.
Where something was happening!
Suddenly she sat up in bed and listened. The house and the darkness and silence surrounded her. But if something was happening there must be some sound; it had to be a noise somewhere in the night that had reached through her thoughts and tugged at her subconscious until her conscious mind began, willy-nilly, to explore it. One didn’t just have feelings like that; one had to have a reason for them; they had to be implanted in one’s consciousness and given a little growth and impetus.
Yes, it had to be a noise. She was suddenly widely, sharply awake and knew she was going to stay awake. And besides—besides there was a sound! A series of little sounds, as a matter of fact, very light and soft, like footsteps.
So that was it.
She lay back, half-amused, still half-uneasy. Merely somebody walking along the veranda or across the patio; probably it had been only that which had reached through her thoughts and roused her.
After awhile though she began to wonder who it was. Not that it was any concern of hers.
She had barely told herself that when she was perfectly sure that someone brushed against the door that led from her bedroom directly upon the veranda. There was a rustle like clothing against it and the faint rattle of the latch. She jerked upward, as if her heart had leaped into her throat and the leap carried her upward. She was absurdly startled, and again she thought of the word frightened.
There wasn’t any other sound. But she wasn’t going to sit there, cowering in bed, frightened. Was she?