Active consciousness came and went like waves on a beach. At one instant she was gazing at the drawer-pulls on the bureau across from her bed; in the next, with the drawer-pulls still half there, Cornelia was at the bottom of a tremendously long ladder, trying strengthlessly to climb up it to safety.
Reality, when her eyelids jerked wide again, was worse. Cornelia was not alone, she was with Philip, lulled, unsuspecting; possibly—because that was the way things worked—even happier than she had been before her brief black doubt.
Mrs. Foale slipped wispily between Margaret and the bureau; Mrs. Foale, who had trusted Philip so little that she had secreted small evidences of his connection with her and the house. How furious Philip would be . . . Margaret realized with the dreaminess of fever that she had never seen Philip angry. He seemed to have an automatic pilot that took over when he was crossed and, with a shrug, preserved the sunny surface.
Mrs. Foale had not been part of the marriage pattern; that was why she had gotten away. Everything about her departure spoke of flight, and her request to Elizabeth Honeyman for her address book indicated a desire to stay safely away.
But how very odd, under the circumstances, that she would have rented the house to Philip and his bride. Unless she didn’t know—but she must; the rent checks would be signed by Philip.
Have to get up, thought Margaret in a tangle of dreams and warmth and physical surcease. Have to be alert for a telephone call from Jerome Kincaid, look after Hilary, shake off this dangerous somnolence, almost trance-like, which was holding the beat of fear and immediacy just under the surface. She gathered the coverlet closer about her, warding off an anticipatory chill before she got up, and when her eyelids lifted again the shadows in the room had deepened and Lena was in the doorway, saying shyly and distressedly, “I’m sorry to wake you, ma’am, but the man from the drugstore is here and there’s a lady . . .”
Thirteen
KINCAID hadn’t called; Margaret made sure of that before she washed her flushed face with cold water, combed her sleep-rumpled hair, smoothed the dress she had lain down in and went into the living room. The drugstore delivery was her prescription. The lady, looking austerely aloof while Margaret found her pocketbook and paid, was Elizabeth Honeyman.
She said stiffly as Margaret closed the front door, “I’m terribly sorry; I didn’t realize you were ill”
From her tone and her elevated brows, she might have been saying “tipsy.” Margaret was surprised at the depth of her sudden clear dislike of the slender erectness, the small bitter-bright mouth in the lace-netted face, the eyelids wearied at a lifetime of contemplating inferior things and people. She said as civilly as she could, “Well, yes, I’ve had the doctor. I hope you don’t catch—”
“I never catch anything,” said Miss Honeyman, tipping the comer of her lips a trifle. Her eyes examined Margaret. “I’m hardy, I suppose. Do you get enough Vitamin C?”
“Yes,” said Margaret briefly. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better start this stuff.”
The capsules looked like Cornelia’s except that they were blue and white instead of blue and yellow. Margaret swallowed one, wincingly, and went back to the living room in time to find Miss Honeyman straightening a small curlicued mirror beside the front door. Would she run a gloved finger over the tables, next?
But she didn’t; she said with a tolerant air, “I came because—but I think it had better wait, don’t you, as you aren’t feeling well?”
There were any number of barbs on this. “No, not at all. What is it?”
“As a matter of fact, it’s,” Miss Honeyman tilted her head with a deprecating smile, “the yard.”
Margaret glanced instinctively out a window, but the yard was still there, the new-leafed lilacs quiet and sunlit against the adobe wall.
“Papers,” said Miss Honeyman disturbedly. “Old leaves. The wind, you know. It doesn’t look . . . I don’t imagine your sister had time to engage a yard man. Hadley and Christina always had a yard man, and I thought that perhaps if I gave you his name . . .”
Margaret quelled her instant and fiery rage, because after a small pause Miss Honeyman was saying, “. . . Julio Garcia. One of Hadley’s projects. Hadley always felt that steady work and responsibility would redeem the very worst character. I saw Julio a few days ago, and asked him to come around. Did he?”
Keep very still, very steady; this woman’s eyes were sharp under her tolerating eyelids. “A man came to wind the clock a few days ago. He seemed to know the house, so I imagine it was Mr. Garcia.”
“Oh dear. He didn’t come back again, about the yard?”
This was much more than casual, even for a woman of Miss Honeyman’s insolence; there was a point to it, if only Margaret’s tonsil, pulsing painfully, would allow her to grasp it. She took refuge in a Hilary-like maneuver, saying to Lena as the girl slipped into the hall, “Has a man come here, asking about yard work?”
Lena said no in her soft anxious voice, and Miss Honeyman frowned at her gloves. “How very odd. I don’t suppose you have his address? I know Isabel had him, she must have it jotted down somewhere.”
“I haven’t seen it.” Something rang in Margaret’s mind, an echo, something about the gloves. “In any case, I imagine my sister and her husband would prefer to make any such arrangement themselves.”
She said it with the other woman’s own deprecating smile, and got a small raspberry twitch in return. “Oh, of course, if they . . . We’re generally swamped here, you know, with requests for finding help for newcomers. But possibly your sister knows of someone and simply hasn’t gotten around to having him
