Maria Rowan smiled mechanically as she left Simeon at the restaurant door. She felt, walking out into the sunlight, as though she were clothed lightly in ice.
It wasn’t only outrage at the suggestion that Louise had tried to kill Gerald Mallow; it wasn’t the unspoken corollary that he had altered his will in self-defense. There was something even deeper than that, a bewildering sense of shock.
She found that she had been thinking of Gerald as careless and roving and a trifle sly, of Louise as a shy but courageous woman, lonely at times in spite of her marriage—and she couldn’t have been more wrong.
During that long lunch with Simeon, Gerald had emerged as a big man, blond, fresh-complexioned, a successful broker and a fond husband. Oh, there had been peccadilloes in the course of twelve years, Simeon said, shrugging; women found him attractive and he was almost boyishly susceptible to admiration. But they were flirtations and fleeting, because he loved his wife.
And Louise? Not the faintly pathetic creation of Maria’s mind but a poised and self-assured woman, dark-haired and slender, with a skin still creamy and the slight unknowing arrogance that comes from being cherished. Allowing for Simeon’s cool and unconcealed dislike of her, the Mallows had not been people whom you pitied or puzzled over or tried to understand. They had been attractive, successful, sure of themselves and each other.
But not at the end, after they came to Chauncy. Louise hadn’t been sure of herself when she wrote that oddly fumbling letter to Maria; she had been tentative and disturbed, reaching out instinctively to someone in her own background. Had she also been a little frightened?
That wasn’t hindsight, because the letter had been a reproach even at the time. And Annabelle Blair had thought it so significant that it had to be destroyed at once.
Maria did her shopping preoccupiedly: toothpaste, something to read, cigarettes, eggs—she would begin to crow if she ate many more dinners contrived of eggs. The afternoon was turning faintly blue and there was a knifing cold on the air when she got back to the apartment on Vanguard Street.
A can of Vichyssoise was working its way out of the bottom of her grocery bag, to be followed shortly by eggs. Maria, intent on that, was as startled by the voice from the opposite lawn as though a tree had spoken.
Annabelle Blair said, “Miss Rowan? I wonder if you’d mind coming over, when you get rid of your things?”
She had turned on lamps in the dark stiff living room, but the light on the curling green-brown pattern of the walls only made it look, Maria thought, like seaweed warmed over. She had an instant’s pity for Annabelle Blair, shut up alone in this house of shadows. Remembering why the woman was alone, she hardened again.
Annabelle said pleasantly, “Is everything all right in the apartment, Miss Rowan?”
“It’s very comfortable.”
“Mr. Pym called me—I understand you had some trouble about the key.”
And Mr. Pym, Maria thought bitterly, had seemed so nice. She said, “I lost it, I’m sorry to say. As I’d brought Mr. Pym all the way out here, it seemed simpler to start all over again with new locks.”
“What a pity I wasn’t home. I might,” said Annabelle blandly, “have been able to find you another key. Not that it matters. I’ve been thinking about your—about Mrs. Mallow’s will, Miss Rowan. It must have been made years ago. From something your cousin said,” the strong white fingers began to move slidingly against folds of black wool, “I understand that she had begun to think about you during the last few months. I believe you said there was a letter?”
“Yes,” Maria said, deliberately repeating the past tense, “there was a letter.”
The other woman ignored the faint emphasis of that. “I’m sure that only the confusion of coming here, and getting the house in shape, kept your cousin from making some sort of small provision. I thought,” said Annabelle Blair, her voice going suddenly level and businesslike, “perhaps a thousand dollars?”
CHAPTER 9
MARIA KNEW LATER what she should have done. She should have taken the offer at face value and appeared dissatisfied with it; she might have found out then how important it was to Annabelle Blair, in terms of cold cash, that she be bought off and dismissed. Above all, she should not have shown her own hand.
But she was still stinging from the frightening suggestion that Simeon had made in that beautiful voice, and she said instantly, “Oh, no. Thank you for thinking of it, but—no.” Annabelle’s face stayed composed. She went on looking at Maria, who had stood up impetuously, and said, “You mustn’t run off. Won’t you have tea? The kettle’s just boiling . . .”
As though they had been talking about the weather, and there had been no bribe offered and refused. Annabelle went out of the room like any busy hostess, and Maria was startled to find herself still standing there rigid, holding her bag and one glove. She had left the other with the bag of groceries beside the sink in the apartment, or dropped it during her struggle with the escaping soup—it had been, she thought, suddenly tired, a one-glove land of day.
“Cream?” said Annabelle affably, returning with a small tray. “Sugar?”
She looked positively hospitable now, handing across the steaming cup in response to Maria’s “Neither, thanks,” and smiling anxiously. She said, “This may taste a little new to you, it’s a Japanese blend. Mrs. Mallow was quite fond of it, and it’s spoiled me for ordinary tea.”
She waited expectantly. Maria reached for her cup and stopped instinctively as the door knocker sounded. Annabelle looked briefly annoyed; she murmured, “Who . . . ?” and after a moment’s hesitation went to answer it.
It was Torrant. Maria felt sharply
