Shadow of Reality (6 page)

And perhaps, in a strange way, Nan’s precepts had been the underpinning reason she was able to give herself so totally to her teaching position that she had been promoted to department head at the startling young age of thirty-four. Ann’s “Don’t worry about the future; the future will take care of itself” creed had meant that  when a seemingly promising romance with the college business manager went nowhere she remained secure in the timing of a benign, if vague, Providence and left questions such as marriage and family in his hands. Although lately, she had been aware of the fact that her biological clock was running. She couldn’t wait forever if she were to have the children she had always dreamed of having. And now…

She settled back in the cushions with a sigh and closed her eyes. In her euphoric state she could imagine herself anywhere—but she didn’t want to be anywhere else, only where Gavin was.

And then her prince was before her, handing her a cup of tea with a plate of cakes and tiny finger sandwiches. As he relaxed his long form on the couch beside her, Elizabeth wondered just how closely life repeated art. “Where did you go to college—or, I guess you’d say university?”

“Oxford,” he replied around the outside of a tea sandwich.

“Wimsey’s Balliol?”

“Absolutely—what else?”

If she hadn’t been holding a teacup she would have applauded. “Perfect! I don’t suppose you collect rare manuscripts, too?”

“I collect books, period. Nothing in Latin quattrocento, I’m afraid. Just books, anything that takes my fancy.”

“Cricket?” She was fascinated to learn how far the parallels to her fictional heroes extended.

“What you would call ‘sandlot baseball’ we call ‘country house cricket.’ I’ve done a bit, but nothing in the style of Raffles’ All-England Bowling, I’m afraid.”

“Raffles?”

“Oh, haven’t you read him? An Edwardian rogue that steals from the rich and gives to the poor—except he’s the poor he gives to.”

Elizabeth stared. “You mean, he’s the hero?”

Gavin nodded. “Clever fellow. Fun reading.”

Elizabeth did not want to start an argument by going into her strongly held opinions regarding stories upholding the notion that crime did pay, so she turned her attention to the refreshments. “Mmm, aren’t these cream cheese and walnut sandwiches good!”

They continued chatting, chiefly about their families: Her younger twin brother and sister—“Ryan’s working on a ranch, and Trudy will graduate from college this spring”; his older sister who was married to a London chemist and had two children—“  It must be handy for a thriller writer to have a pharmacologist in the family, ready reference to anything you need to know about poisons or drugs?”

“Absolutely, I call on George’s expertise frequently. Finished?” He took the empty cup from her hand. “Would you care to walk around the lake a bit, if it isn’t too cold?”

“Some fresh air would be great. I haven’t been outside since we arrived. I hope we’re all through with that storm business. But then, early spring in the Rockies, you never know.”

He held the door for her, and they went out onto the wooden verandah that ran around two sides of the Lake Lounge where they had been having tea, then led to a narrow footpath encircling the water. The lake was actually the quarry that had supplied the pink and gray stone for the original castle, the quarry having since been filled with water. On the castle side, the path was a gentle trail through small trees—but across the lake, the way led high above the sheer face of the rock wall.

Sir Gavin took her hand and slipped it through his arm as they walked close together on the narrow path. At frequent intervals along the many footpaths that jig-sawed over the mountain, tiny wooden gazebos were provided for the hikers’ rest or the photographers’ interest. Gavin led her into one of these that sat right by the edge of the still lake. The sun was bright but cold, and the craggy chunks of the granite cliff reflecting on the surface of the lake made even the water seem hard. Elizabeth shivered.

Gavin slipped his arm around her, providing a warm haven in contrast to the hard, cold environment around them. His wool gabardine jacket was smooth and soft, and the man inside it was warm as he pulled Elizabeth to him.

She held her breath, wanting the moment to last forever. That first kiss provided all the assurance she needed that she was right. They were Gavin and Elizabeth, at once more and less than all her dreams.

 They were all lovers of all times sharing the sweetness and intensity of the first meeting of lips. At the same time they were the most personal and essential parts of their own being, meeting and sharing as only they could. They were all universal love standing strong against all universal hatred, and yet they were their most individual selves meeting as only they could meet in the absolute privacy of the moment. Cinderella and her prince, Romeo and Juliet, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Gavin Kendall and Elizabeth Allerton…a continuum of the symbolic essence of love…a beacon to prove that fairy tales could come true.

The rest of the evening Elizabeth hardly touched ground. The uneven spots in the old corridors put her in no danger of tripping; she merely floated over them. For dinner she wore the black silk skirt her sister, a home Ec major, had designed for her, its six gores fitting slimly to below the knees, then flaring gracefully to just above her ankles. Her white draped blouse was made of alternate rows of satin ribbon and lace and the long black feather that curved away from her smooth cap of hair looked like something out of an Edward Gorey illustration.

Sir Gavin assured all the enthusiastic diners at the Blithe Spirit table that the veal and mushroom pie in pastry crust, accompanied by an assortment of vegetables, was typical English fare—especially the deliciously tart gooseberry fool that arrived for dessert. Elizabeth ate portions of everything the waiter placed before her, smiled and nodded at all the theories being propounded by the amateur sleuths around the table, and even chatted briefly with Richard, whom she hadn’t seen since before tea. But all the time she was moving in a dream—a dream within a dream—as the romance of a mystery week had turned into the romance of her life.

She and Gavin sat long over their after-dinner tea. It wasn’t until the dining room was almost empty and the fire had burned low on the grate that they rose to walk slowly to the parlor where old mystery movies, set in the thirties, were shown in the evenings. Tonight’s choice was a romantic mystery set in the Mediterranean with a sunny sky and bright blue sea as backdrop for a honeymooning couple whose love was almost torn apart by murder, suspicions, and accusations.

But Elizabeth didn’t see the actress on the screen; she saw herself. When the heroine held her new husband in her arms on the balcony of their honeymoon suite and said, “Oh, Randolph…all my life I’ve been groping—homeless—but now I’ve found you. I am home,” silent tears made little splotches on Elizabeth’s silk skirt, and she ached to take the man beside her into her arms.

Black clouds roiled across the Mediterranean sky, covering the gold, but she ran on up the beach. She must find him, find him and warn him.…

A loud crash brought Elizabeth sitting upright in bed. As her breathing slowed and her ragged nerves calmed, she realized her dreams had been a continuation of the movie. Her sleep-clouded brain was still trying to figure out whether the explosion that woke her was the dream’s gathering storm or the villain’s gun when she realized it was the rumble of a real thunderstorm. The smoke she was smelling was not from a fantasy revolver, either, but was coming from the fireplace in the parlor. She got up, slipped into her clothes and went out to see what in the world Richard was up to at this hour.

“Richard! you look awful!” She stood in the doorway, unable to believe that the man who at dinner had been such a perfection of sleek polish in his tuxedo and starched wing-tipped shirt was now such a rumple of tousled hair, wrinkled cords and sweater, and dark-circled, haunted-looking eyes.

He ran his fingers through his hair, disheveling it even more, if possible. “Elizabeth, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to waken you—”

“You didn’t, it was the thunder. It shook the whole place and jarred me upright in bed. What are you doing? Are you sick?”

“No. That is, I couldn’t sleep. Things on my mind, I guess.” He slumped back on the sofa, the flickering fireplace making weird shadows dance across his gaunt face.

Elizabeth crossed the room and curled up on the opposite end of the sofa. “Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been much into the touchy-feely small group sharing thing…but maybe…”

Elizabeth waited quietly. He could make up his own mind, and whatever he decided was all right with her. If he wanted to talk, though, she was available.

“I guess it’s all the talk about death, and then the honeymoon movie tonight…even the actress who played Gloria last night had an uncanny resemblance to Mary.”

Elizabeth caught her breath. Mary…Richard’s wife. “Richard, you’ve never talked about her. I didn’t even have any idea what she looked like.”

“No.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands, shoulders slumped. “At first it hurt too much. After a while, I’d worked through it, and there wasn’t any need, or anyone I really wanted to talk to. Then you came into my life—”

Ignoring his last words, Elizabeth said quickly, “What did Mary die of?”

“
Abruptio placentae
. She was eight months pregnant. The placenta pulled away from the uterus. She had terrible cramps, and I rushed her to the hospital. They should have been able to save her or the baby, but the hemorrhaging was too severe, and there was blood poisoning.”

Elizabeth was silent, watching the grotesque shadows from the fire dance before them like the souls of the Wilis—those legendary souls of sad and unfulfilled young girls who died before their wedding.

“It was a little girl.”

Elizabeth opened her arms, and he turned into them. She knew it had happened four years ago, after they had been married three years. But that was all she had known until this moment. She had no idea that all this time Richard carried such an unremitting ache inside him. She had no idea that it had been a double loss, wife and child. A daughter. She would be in kindergarten now. Would she have been blond like her mother or darker like her father? She looked at the head of the man she held in her arms, and it seemed that for the first time, she really saw him. Not the professor, not the academic brain, not the well-organized automaton, but a man—a warm, emotional human being with an agonizing need for another human being.

She wished she could be the one to fill his need. If she hadn’t met Gavin, if she hadn’t experienced the difference in her feelings, perhaps…

Well, if she wasn’t the right person, someone else would be. Someone as absolutely right for Richard as Gavin was for her. Anita, perhaps? She certainly showed every sign of being willing. All right, Elizabeth decided, she would do everything she could to encourage their relationship.

Chapter 5

Wednesday, March 14, 1990/1934

The next morning, ready for breakfast in his camel-hair blazer, ivory slacks, and red-and-gold-paisley ascot, no one would have guessed the well-buried pain Richard had revealed to Elizabeth the night before. He smiled at her as she came into the sitting room. “The college must be overpaying you. That’s your third new outfit in as many days.”

“Fourth, actually.” She twirled around, sending the circular skirt of her winter white dress swirling about her calves, then rearranged the loops of gold chains in the folds of the cowl neckline. “That’s the result of careful reading of those catalogs you’re always giving me such a bad time about. And don’t worry about my being overpaid. They couldn’t possibly pay me what I’m worth.”

Elizabeth enjoyed knowing they looked good together as they descended the stairs. The others seemed to be enjoying them, too. A middle-aged lady from another team greeted them in the dining room. “Your costumes are simply beautiful—both of you. If they gave a prize for best costumes, you’d win.”

Elizabeth gave her a beaming thank-you, and they crossed the wooden floor to their table, where all heads were bent toward Irene, who was explaining her theory identifying Millie as the murderer.

Gavin joined them just as the waiter was serving a large platter of a smoked fish and rice dish. “Oh, good show—kedgeree.”

“So this is kedgeree!” Elizabeth took a heaping spoonful, “I always wondered; Tommy was forever talking about it.”

Gavin picked up a glass of tomato juice. “To Tommy, kedgeree…,” He lowered his voice and looked at Elizabeth, “and to you.”

Elizabeth laughed and raised her glass. Only when she was drinking did the thought occur to her that the last person this man had toasted had been Gloria Glitz.

Before any ironies could take hold, Weldon Stark turned everyone’s attention to the front of the room, where he was holding up a newspaper and a magazine. “Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you good news and greetings from His Majesty’s Royal Mail. The courageous postman has braved the heavy storms still battering the moors and making the roads impassable to all but the most lionhearted to deliver a supply of reading material for your entertainment and edification.” A round of applause interrupted him. “Copies of these enlightening publications have been distributed to all the lounge areas. Happy reading.”

“New clues!” Evan Johnson was on his feet, closely followed by his sister.

“Come on, we can take our coffee with us!” Irene signaled the waiter for a refill.

“What a beautiful jacket, Richard. And that red silk pocket handkerchief is a marvelous touch.” Elizabeth smiled as she watched Anita take charge of Richard. It didn’t appear as if she would need to do much assisting to get a companion for Richard.

The library was well supplied with the mockup material. Half of the team selected copies of the
Times
for March 15, 1933, and the others settled into chairs with similarly dated issues of
Punch
.