House of Storm, page 6
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.
Poor Dick, she thought. The quarrel with Hermione would die down. It always did, according to island gossip. Yet it would lie there, smoldering, unforgotten, ready to flare up again.
How right Jim had been to leave!
Where was Jim by now? Jim who had said: “I’ll always love you.”
She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. Roy would return. What would she say? How was she to say it?
The night was very black beyond the little wavering circle of lights. The stiff Spanish bayonets and bamboos and palms were clattering and clashing in the wind. Presently Jebe pattered out and removed the coffee tray. Sometime later a door banged and she knew that he was closing the French windows against the coming storm.
It was after that that Dick returned to the veranda. She looked up, startled, aware suddenly of his presence. He was looking down at her. “Nonie, I’m going home.”
“Oh, Dick, wait for Roy.”
“Going home now … Night, Nonie.” He smiled feebly and ambled across the veranda and turned toward the drive where his battered small car was waiting for him. At the steps he wavered, caught the railing, and sagged down like a sack of meal.
In the end, Nonie took him home.
There was nothing else to do. He would not wait for Roy’s return. He got himself up and into the car and actually started it. There was nothing to do but coax until he slid over on the seat and let her take the wheel. Once beyond the gates he sagged down, his head on his chest, his eyes closed.
She turned into the white, shell road and hoped he would not remember. And thought, wryly, that Hermione was right again.
The storm was not far off; the sound of the wheezing and skipping engine was almost lost in the clash of wind. It was a winding road and seemed a very long two miles. She thought she must have missed the Middle Road entrance when suddenly the white stone pillars that marked it glimmered faintly at the edge of the path of lights and she carefully turned in. The driveway was bordered on either side with pepper trees, solid clusters of blackness on the fringe of the little car’s lights; another turn and she should reach the square, lovely stone house, with its gracious proportions, its curving double flight of steps, its old, graceful grill work at the porches and windows. A window or two outlined itself and the veranda light was on so it made an area of brightness against the night. She guided the car up to the double flight of steps and stopped and turned off the engine. Dick did not move. She’d have to call Hermione, who would be pleased, vindicated, triumphant.
Down those steps only a few hours ago, Jim had come carrying bags and coat, escaping Hermione.
She got out of the car and started up the nearest flight of curving white steps. She went almost to the landing before she saw that something lay there, tossed in a heap, a green and white dress.
It was a kind of housecoat, long and silk and gayly printed. It was a woman. It was Hermione Shaw with her face turned to the lights and a black wet patch like paint all along where her face lay. It was Hermione and she was dead. Nobody could look like that and be alive.
Every smallest detail showed up with fantastic clarity; every fold of her dress, her outflung crumpled hand, the stark, uncanny way in which her green sandalled feet pointed at rigid, awkward angles. The blood had come from her breast, high up near her throat.
She’s had an accident, Nonie thought. She’s killed herself. No, no, she’s been killed!
But that is murder!
Out of nowhere, out of everywhere, there came a sudden, blinding wave of thankfulness.
Jim was gone. He had quarrelled with her, but he had gone. He was by now in New York. He was safe. No matter what happened, no matter what this thing of terror meant, Jim was safe. Nobody ever could say he had killed her.
Murder!
A wild gust of wind flung the banana trees and the palms whispering and chattering in the darkness beyond that too bright patch of light. Nothing moved there, yet the motion all around in the trees, in the shrubbery, in the violent agitated night, was so strong that Nonie caught at the railing as if she herself might be swept off into the swirling unseen turmoil.
It was exactly then that there was motion within the bright area of light. The door of the house, directly opposite the steps, flung itself open and Jim walked out.
He walked out and stopped, seeing her, and they stared at each other over the flung thing in the green and white silk dress which was no longer a woman, no longer anything.
The wind shook the night and sent shadows flying.
6
“JIM! JIM!” HER LIPS moved and the wind caught up the whispered words and flung them off into the shadows.
Jim said something unintelligible and ran to her, across the wide, lighted veranda, past Hermione, down the steps. He put his arm around Nonie, holding her steady amid a swaying, crashing world. His white face bent close to her, his eyes black as the night. “Nonie, what are you doing here? They ought not to have let you come.”
She leaned against his shoulder, pushing her face into its warm and solid shelter.…
“Did Roy come with you?”
She shook her head. She felt him turn to look at the car. She would not move, she would hold her face in that shelter, against the waving, wild shadows and against the terror that walked among them.
“Is Roy in the car?”
“No—no …”
“Who’s there then?”
“Dick. Oh, Jim, is she dead?”
His arms tightened. “Come into the house.” He led her up the steps, holding her so she would not see Hermione. They went through the lighted doorway and into the wide hall. There were lights there, too. It smelled of potpourri and dust, and had an old red Turkish carpet that ran the length of it. Her hair had blown about her face; she pushed it back, staring at Jim, thinking again: he cannot be here!
He said: “Where is Roy? I phoned for him. Didn’t he come with you?”
“Dick. It’s Dick, in the car.”
“Dick! But then why doesn’t he come in …?”
“No, no. He’s—I brought him home.”
He understood at once. “Oh. Oh, I see. Then he’s no help.”
For a moment he stared at her in deep perplexity. His dark hair was tossed by the wind, his face stiff and white. Suddenly the fact of Hermione’s death seemed to clarify, to become something that wasn’t a nightmare. A woman, a flattened, lifeless thing, there in the night! “Jim, are you sure she’s dead?”
“Yes. There’s nothing you can do for her. I looked.…”
“Jim,” she caught at his shoulders with both hands. “You’ve got to tell me—was she murdered?”
He put his hands up, hard and firm over her own. “Yes, she was murdered. She was shot.”
She must not scream—like the night, like the wind, like the rattling, clashing palm trees. She knew that her voice was high and terrified. “Who killed her?”
Jim held her hands tighter. “Darling, listen. There’s nothing we can do now but wait. Believe me, it’s over. She couldn’t have suffered; she couldn’t have known …”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know. He got away. He …”
“Jim, they’ll all say you did it!”
“Hush, Nonie. Nonie, darling, don’t …”
“Oh, Jim, why did you come back?”
“I had to. Listen, Nonie. I’m going to get Dick. Stay here.… I’ll leave the door open. You’ll be safe. The fellow got away. I heard him in the shrubbery; at least I think I heard him. He’s gone, though … I’ll get Dick.”
Her hands dropped away reluctantly and he ran out again across the veranda and down the steps. His black head gleamed in the light for an instant and disappeared. She could see Hermione’s hand flung out. The small white hand that had had in life so relentless a grip, and now had forever released that hold, lay slack and powerless.
She looked away quickly. She looked at the red Turkish rug, at the long wide hall, running the length of the house, the cane chairs with their faded cushions, the curling bamboo screen across the door of Hermione’s bedroom, there at the end of the hall. It was the first floor of the house but, like many tropical houses of the period, it was raised nine or ten feet from the ground to provide a storage space below it.
She remembered coming to dinner with Roy and Aurelia, sitting in that chair, the cane chair by the table, drinking, coffee, talking to Jim—pleasant, impersonal conversation about tennis—both of them realizing perhaps even then that there was a special kind of pleasantness about talking to each other. Hermione had sat at the table, the round table with the green silk flounce, with the coffee tray before her. And now Hermione was dead, merely a huddled, terrible figure in her silk dress. Hermione, who such a short time ago—such a very short time ago, Nonie thought suddenly, scarcely an hour ago, if that—had walked across the veranda at Beadon Gates so securely, so triumphantly. Hermione dead. Her smiling, dark-red lips forever silent; her white small hand forever without strength.
Murdered. Shot, Jim had said. Who killed her?
Jim came back, his footsteps hard and swift across the veranda, his coat blowing, the screened door banging behind him. “I can’t make Dick understand. I left him there.” He pushed his hands over his hair and took a long breath and glanced around the room. “Well, we’ll have to wait. Roy ought to be here soon. And Seabury Jenkins. I phoned for him too. He’s the magistrate. He’ll know what to do.”
“Roy’s not at home. He’s at Lydia’s. He took her home after dinner.”
“Jebe answered the telephone. He didn’t know Roy had gone. He said he’d tell him.” He put his arm around her again. He lead her to a long wicker chair and made her sit there; he sat on the foot of it and reached for cigarettes on one of the tables.
He ought to have been in New York by then.
“Jim, why did you come back? What happened? When did you find her?”
He gave her a cigarette, held a light for her, and answered her last question first. “I heard the shot. I was in Dick’s shack. I ran to the house. Came in the side door; the lights were here. I ran to the porch; that light was on, too. There was Hermione. I thought somebody was out there in the shrubbery. I shouted, of course. I—don’t know what I did, really. If it was anybody, he got away. I knew she was shot. I couldn’t see anybody or hear anybody. I’m not really sure anybody was there; maybe it was only the wind and the noise of the trees.”
“Then what …?”
“I knew it was murder. I’d heard the shot and she wouldn’t have killed herself. I looked for a gun; there wasn’t any. I ran in here and phoned Roy and Seabury. Then I heard your car. It all happened, Nonie, just before you came. She …”
