“Well, their best friends, the Mitchells, have a summer place there—you must have met them, nobody in the family can get married or buried without them. He’s a sailing nut, I think he sleeps in his blazer, and . . .”
Was Jenny being purposely maddening? As though aware of a certain irritation above her, she went on hastily, “They open up their house in Wellfleet around now, but they never get around to having the telephone connected until everything else is done because otherwise people descend on them in droves, so if I were you,” she was either matter-of-fact or slightly amused, “I’d just stop worrying about it.”
So much for obtaining a description of Brian Beardsley, who, although it couldn’t be true, summoned up a vision of brown hair, old tweeds, a calm way with a pipe. Mary left the pool area, marvelling that neither she nor Henrietta had thought of this in the course of that alarmed and alarming telephone call. But the weather-permitting Cape visit had been projected before her aunt learned of the new turn of events; would they still have gone ahead with it? Very probably. With the feeling of a problem solved and danger averted, people tended to heave a sigh of relief and proceed as planned.
There was a different clerk at the desk. He was not much of an improvement on the old. He said disbelievingly, “Books?” as if there could be no possible use for such objects at the charming, diverting Casa de Flores, and after that he implied that the motel could scarcely be responsible for Mary’s carelessness, but he wrote something on a memo pad. “I will send Alfredo to you,” he promised.
Like that first consignment of ice, Mary thought disenchantedly.
The Casa de Flores came to life in the evening; from two cavelike, lantern-lit bars issued muted sounds of revelry and mariachi music, chopped into almost-silence by the closing of the heavy glass doors of the lobby. The lawns and flowers, floodlit, looked vivid and unreal, something to be rolled up and stored for the night when everybody had gone to bed. Mary walked to the proper arch and mounted the steps, hearing an echo in the encroaching cold.
It wasn’t an echo, it was someone behind her, and this was no time to think about the recessed alcoves spaced along the corridor, holding huge urns of sand and their own darkness. She turned casually as she took her room key from her bag, and—something about the way he moved? The shape of his face in that quick flare of match-light?—knew that this was the man from the pool.
His features were not obscured now, and she half-caught her breath and almost spoke.
6
BUT the message that had flashed through her senses was wrong. This was not, by one of the wild coincidences the world was full of, the man she had mentioned to Jenny so lightly at dinner, the man she sometimes missed astonishingly. Apart from a certain angularity of cheekbone, and the way his hair grew at his temples, he didn’t resemble Spence at all.
In spite of this instant realization, Mary was still a little off-balance when he said pleasantly, producing his own key, “Your young friend is a remarkable swimmer. Competition material, if she’d work on her turns.”
Friend. Not surprisingly, at her age and in her circumstances, Jenny hadn’t wanted to be labelled as in the company of any relative, even a cousin, and in fact Mary, out of some intuition, had merely said to Daniel Brennan, “This is Jenny Acton.” And this man had heard the trace of alarm in her voice as she neared the pool, and was politely explaining himself and his attentions away.
“She is, isn’t she?” said Mary, polite in turn, and was about to use her key when she became aware that he was studying her face intently, as though making up his mind whether to add something else.
He did. He said, “I’m afraid this will sound intrusive, but Jenny seems like a very nice girl and I wondered—she told me this afternoon that she lives in the East—if her parents had ever heard of Dr. Bechstein, in Denver? The reason I ask is because I have good friends with a daughter in pretty much her condition, and he’s been able to do a lot for her.”
Mary, growing instinctively stiff, knew that this approach from a stranger was not really astonishing. A great many people came to New Mexico for the relief of physical ills—arthritis, or asthma or other respiratory problems—and concerned sympathy, particularly from those who had encountered successful treatment, crossed lines usually drawn. Too, in spite of her flashes of irony, Jenny often showed the vulnerability of a child. But although Mary had been disowned to a degree she was still not going to discuss Jenny’s problems with someone encountered sixty seconds ago.
She said a little aloofly, “I’m sure her parents—” and broke off and turned instinctively, following his sharpened gaze over her shoulder. At the end of the corridor, motion so fast that she had just missed it indicated the withdrawal of a watcher there.
“They’ve Got a Secret,” observed the man in audible quotes. He weighed his key tentatively, took a step backward, patted his pockets, said, “Left my cigarettes behind,” and smiled at Mary. “Good night.”
Mary responded mechanically, watched him disappear around the turn for the stairs, let herself into her room. A peculiar tingly feeling remained from that first shock; she had to remind herself that it was not Spence uttering Jenny’s name so warmly.
Five minutes later, at a signalling tap, she opened the door to her cousin, who looked flushed and bright-eyed if a bit shivery in her terry robe, and wanted to know if Mary was contemplating a bath right away, because otherwise she was going to wash her hair.
“Go ahead,” said Mary, now accustomed to this frequent process, and watched with interest while the contents of a
