Unaware of her uncle's business conference with Edgar Aimes, Gwyn Keller sat in the small, informal dining room, alone, picking at a platter that Grace had piled high with buttermilk pancakes. The genuine blueberry syrup had begun to congeal around the edges of the cakes like purpling blood as she let the food grow cold. Her glass of orange juice had only been half drunk; the chips of ice in it were melted, and it was now too warm to drink.
Her fruit cup had hardly been touched, the frost on its sides having slid off into a slushy puddle at the base of the crystal pedestal, staining the white tablecloth. She had finished two cups of black coffee, though she had not really wanted even that much.
When Grace came to see if she wanted anything more, the older woman was surprised to find so much food untouched.
“Was something wrong with the pancakes?” she asked, rubbing her soft hands together.
“Oh, no,” Gwyn said.
“You won't hurt my feelings if you tell me the truth,” Grace said, looking anxiously at the cold griddlecakes.
“Really, they were fine,” Gwyn said.
“I could whip up another batch, if you—”
“Don't worry, Grace,” Gwyn said. “The trouble's with me, not with your cooking.”
“Would you prefer eggs? I can fix you something else.”
“I'm not really hungry,” Gwyn said.
The older woman studied her carefully for a moment, then said, “You aren't looking too well this morning, dear. Your eyes are all puffy, and you look pale under that tan.” She stepped closer and laid a palm against Gwyn's forehead, searching for a fever.
“I'm not sick at all,” Gwyn said.
“We could have the doctor here in half an hour.”
Gwyn smiled and shook her head, cutting the other woman off. She said, “I was so exhausted from yesterday's sailing, that I couldn't really sleep well, if that makes sense. And after tossing and turning all night, I've pretty much ruined my appetite. I feel gritty and altogether unpleasant, but I haven't any virus.”
“Just the same,” Grace said, “you take a couple of aspirins and lie down a while. It never hurts to take aspirins, if you might be catching a bug of some sort.”
“I'll do that,” Gwyn assured her. “Maybe later today. Right now, I feel like I want to be up and around.”
“You're sure about breakfast?” Grace asked.
“Positive.”
“You take care.”
“I will.”
“You start to feel ill, you tell someone right away.”
“I promise, Grace.”
When the cook had gone away, taking the platter of uneaten pancakes with her, leaving Gwyn alone with the other odds and ends of the meal and with the curiously depressing sunlight which spilled through the window opposite her, she felt as if the exchange between them had been absolutely false — not only on her part, but on Grace's part as well. Gwyn had concealed the real reason for her own loss of appetite — the “ghost,” her fear of total mental collapse and eventual institutionalization — while Grace had hidden something equally important. What…? Gwyn felt that there was something distinctly false about the older woman's professed, motherly concern for Gwyn, though she could not exactly put her finger on it. Grace's entire role as a cook, elderly housekeeper, was quite phoney, one hundred percent pretended. Gwyn was sure of that. It was almost as if Grace were being paid to act the part of a cook in some grandiose real-life play, with the Manor as a complex stage. This was the same tint of unreality, of unexposed illusion, which she had also seen about Fritz, when she had first come here — a maddeningly unspecifiable falsity…
Or was this suspicion only another facet of her own severe mental instability? Was she beginning to see strange conspiracies all around her, hidden faces behind incredibly real masks, plotters lurking in every dark doorway? In short, was she growing paranoid, in addition to all of her other problems?
If so, she was finished.
Abruptly, she stood up, letting her napkin fall to the floor, not noticing it, and she left the house for a stroll around the grounds.
The day was still and warm, the sky high and almost cloudless, incredibly blue and dotted with swiftly darting specks that were birds.
The lawn around Barnaby Manor was so cool, neat and green that Gwyn was persuaded to take off her tennis shoes so that she could feel the slightly dewy grass between her bare toes. She walked, unthinkingly, along the same trail she had first covered with Ben Groves, examining the white statuary, the geometrically arranged flowers, the carefully sculptured shrubbery, her eyes soothed by the complimentary lines that flowed from one object to another.
By the woods, where she sat on the white stone bench, the purple shadows of the forest soothed her, cool and soft, cutting the glare of the morning sun, sheltering and safe.
Yet, in time, she realized that she had not come outside to see or enjoy any of these things — not the lawn, the shrubs, the statuary, the flowers, not the white bench or the shadows of the trees. Instead, she had come out with only one intention, unconscious at first but now quite evident: she wanted to go down to the beach…
The beach and the sea seemed to be the focus for everything that was happening to her. Ginny had died at sea, in the boating accident that had almost claimed Gwyn's life, as well. Now, at this house by the sea, the ghost had appeared to her… And it had made its most bold approach on the beach, by the surge of the waves. Somehow, Gwyn felt, if she were to find an answer to her sickness, she would find it in or by the sea.
She went down the stone steps to the beach, being careful not to trip and fall, running one hand lightly along the rugged wall.
Still carrying her shoes, her feet sliding pleasantly through the warm, dry sand, she started southward, unintentionally moving toward the curve in the beach where, only the day before — running northward with her close behind — the ghost had disappeared. Occasionally, she looked out to sea, not really seeing anything but the color of the roiling water, and sometimes she looked up at the terns which were busy already. Most of the time, however, she kept her eyes on her feet, on the shifting sand which made way for her, letting the lift and fall of her own feet hypnotize her.
She had never felt so tired in her life, so sleepy, as if she had been awake for days…
She had lied to Grace about not having slept the night before. She
All that considered, she had still slept — so why was she so terribly sleepy now?
The sound of the boat engine came to her over the rhythmic crash of the waves, though she did not identify it until it was nearly to shore. Then, looking up, surprised, she saw Jack Younger beach his fishing launch not a dozen steps in front of her.
For the briefest of moments, when she recognized his sun-whitened hair and his lean, brown good looks, she smiled and waved at him, almost called out his name. Then, suddenly, she recalled what he had said about her Uncle Will, the accusations he had made two days ago, and her smile gave way to a grim, tight-lipped frown as she realized that, now, she would have to confront him with his pack of lies. The very last thing she would have thought she needed, this of all days, was an argument with Jack Younger (the younger). However, strangely enough, the prospect of it lightened her spirit considerably, put a much healthier glow on her cheeks, and jerked her out of the creeping malaise that had possessed her ever since she'd gotten out of bed a few disproportionately long hours ago. At least, in the heat of the argument, she ought to be able to put aside all thoughts of the ghost, momentarily forget her worries about her own mental condition. And that was, of course, to be desired.
He approached her, apparently unable to see that she was going to give him a piece of mind, grinning, his teeth bright, his freckles like the specks on a brown hen's egg. Affecting a mask of mock admonishment, he said, “You shouldn't be here, on the beach, you know.”
