Bright Young Things (24 page)

Once she began to sing, she knew that everything was going to be all right. She had the confidence of her voice, and she felt herself lifted by the rhythm of the music. As the song ended, she threw her arms even higher and closed her eyes. She listened to the applause—it wasn‧t really as enthusiastic as she‧d hoped, but it was nice nonetheless, and she knew she‧d win them over with the next one.

“Thank you,” she purred.

She was just deciding which tune to follow with when the drummer, and then the rest of the band, began to play again. It was slower and more sultry than the previous number. Spinning around, she glanced at each of the men, hoping they might give a clue what she should do, but none of them would meet her gaze. She stood there, her feet wide apart, her back to the audience, her heart thumping. To her surprise, someone behind her whistled.

Slowly, she turned back around. There was a smattering of applause. A few more whistles followed, and then the man sitting beside Amory, whose dark hair was just as slick and whose eyes were glazed, called out, “Show us what you‧ve got under that dress, baby!”

Her chest seized with indignation. Clearly, Amory‧s friend had had too much to drink, and now he was acting like a boor. She waited for Amory to defend her. But when he didn‧t, it began to dawn on her that the friend was not the only boor in the room, and not the only man who wanted her to take her clothes off. They were all clapping and whistling.

Letty‧s eyelids sank shut as she realized what those thirty-five dollars were really for. What a fool she was. Meanwhile, the band played on, the beat growing louder and more ominous behind her.

“Show us!” the man next to Amory yelled again.

She took a breath and wondered what a real professional would do.
The show must go on,
Mother always said—that‧s what professionals did. Since she was small, she‧d wanted nothing but to be on stage, and now she was, with an audience of show-business men who, after all, might remember her kindly if only she could bring herself to give them what they were calling out for.

Obediently, she put her thumb under the strap of her dress and tugged it down from her shoulder. She was shaking now, but not to the music—in fact, she could not bring herself to do anything remotely like a dance. Her lips had begun to tremble, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that most of the audience was standing up, staring at her like wolves. Ever since she was a young girl, she had been trained to do as she was told, and so the idea of rushing from the stage—however much she wanted to be far, far from those awful leers—seemed wrong. But she knew if she stayed another moment, she would begin to bawl. She let go of the strap and ran.

By some grace of God her tears held until she was offstage, but then they came in a hot, salty torrent. She threw herself down in the chair, draping her body forward over the vanity table, shaking and gasping for air. She cried for the way those men had looked at her, and she cried for the beautiful illusion she had lost. She would have gone on crying—but her solitude was short-lived.

“What‧s wrong with you?” Amory screamed as he came rushing through the door. His face was redder now, and his eyes had become narrow and mean. “Edmund Laurel, the actor, is getting married tomorrow. This is his bachelor party. This is his last chance to see another woman‧s natural form before he is tied down forever. Now you‧ve ruined it.”

“I thought …,” she sobbed. “I thought—”

“That I was going to pay you thirty-five dollars to
sing?”
he spat.

Amory raised his hand and brought it down hard against her face. The line of her left cheekbone, the delicate curve of her eye socket, throbbed. There would be no more tears; the impact of Amory‧s palm had knocked them out of her. A cold, hard shock stilled her, and she braced for more.

But he had stepped away. She could hear the seething of his breath, but she did not dare look up at him.

“Leave,” he ordered with barely contained fury. “Leave now, and don‧t think you‧re going to get a single penny for that pathetic tease of a show. You‧ll never make it in this business!”

Keeping her head down and her eyes averted, she grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair and crept back through that unremarkable hall. If any of the bellhops or guests noticed her flight through the lobby, she was not aware of them. She felt her smallness as she hurried down the darkened avenue, and would have counted it a wonder if anyone had been able to see her at all.

But Astrid did notice Letty, however briefly, as she made her way through the lobby to the subdued, elegant bar, and she wondered why the petite girl with the beaded dress was crying.

“Where‧s Luke?” she asked, as she took the stool next to her mother. There was a low sepia light in the room, and bouquets of peacock feathers placed strategically here and there, to give some patrons privacy and enable the sightlines of others. Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh‧s slender legs were crossed under her apricot chiffon, and in the dimness it was difficult to make out the wear on her face. She looked up from her cocktail without a hint of surprise in her eyes, and then scanned her daughter from head to toe.

“Whatever are you wearing?” she replied dryly.

Before coming into the hotel, Astrid had opened the glove compartment and found the black scarf that Billie wore around her neck when she was behind the wheel, as well as her brown driving moccasins; the robe was now tied with the scarf, and her wounded toe was hidden by the moccasins. Her hair had dried, but it was still carelessly pushed straight back from her forehead.

“Darling, don‧t be ridiculous, it‧s the latest fad.”

Her mother smiled wanly at the joke. “He went back to White Cove,” she said slowly. “Seems he was rather nervous about losing his job and didn‧t want to be involved in a big messy divorce story, after all.”

“Oh.” Astrid caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was surprised by how like a child she looked without any makeup on. “Are you getting a divorce?”

“I don‧t know.” The older woman picked up her cocktail and downed the rest of it. Eyes glazed, she went on in a quiet voice, “But I think I‧m going to be staying here awhile. How did you get here anyway? What made you change your mind?”

“I was worried about you,” Astrid lied. “I realized I was being selfish, and that you shouldn‧t have to be alone just now,” she continued, elaborating her yarn.

At that, her mother smiled again, in the same sad way, and reached for her daughter‧s hand. Blue veins emerged just below her knuckles. “I‧m so glad you‧re here,” she said, with a touch of melodrama.

“Would you like something, mademoiselle?” the bartender asked, placing a napkin in front of the younger lady.

“Yes,” the former Mrs. Donal said. “One for her and one for me. Only …” She turned on her stool to look at Astrid. “Go change into a dress, will you, darling? I have the old suite we used to stay in, and the maid put all my clothes in the closet. Choose any one you like. We‧ll make a night of it.”

I don‧t care what we do,
Astrid wanted to say. But that would have brought attention to the darkness lurking inside her, and anyway, she wanted right then to feel very pretty, and to have men look at her and ask her to dance. Most important, she wanted not to hear the name
Charlie
or to do anything that might conjure that disgusting image of him in bed, bearing down on Gracie Northrup. So she went upstairs, put on a lavender dress with one shoulder and a skirt that swung out in flounces midcalf, and darkened her lips and eyelids. When she came back down, a handsome British fellow who was probably twice her age was chatting with her mother, but Astrid sat down between them, and winked and flirted until the gentleman‧s attention was fully devoted to her. She didn‧t like herself for the way she spent her evening, but soon enough the room was spinning, and after that she couldn‧t remember very much.

24

IF IN THE LATE AFTERNOON CORDELIA HAD ASSUMED that her wide-brimmed black hat would make her less noticeable, she knew by sundown that this had been a ridiculous assumption. The shadows were long on the country road by then, and she could see, in her exaggerated silhouette, how the wide brim obscured her face while bringing attention to the rest of her. Especially now that it served no practical purpose. The guardhouse was curiously deserted, and anyway by then she had stopped worrying about being spotted. Every time she heard even the most distant noise that might possibly have been created by a car, her hopes bloomed, and every time it proved nothing, she sank further into a state of confused agitation.

For a while she told herself that Thom was not on the road because he was making arrangements for a very special evening. She was still wearing the same blue-and-white-striped shift she‧d worn to the croquet party that morning, because she didn‧t want to appear to be going anywhere particular. Until half an hour ago, she hadn‧t even made up her mind whether she would meet him or not. She did not consider the possibility that he might have changed his mind.

Her happy thoughts of his impending arrival carried her for a while, but then a black sedan with the top up came hurtling by, seeming briefly to be heading straight toward her before swerving off in the direction of the city. For a few seconds her chest had lifted, thinking it might be Thom. But then the careless speed with which the sedan whooshed by unsettled her, and after that she couldn‧t help her sense of foreboding.

Thom was never late; it was always he who waited for her. And then she began to wonder if she wasn‧t the only one who had been warned by her family to stay away. She really had no idea what kind of man Duluth Hale was, except that his son didn‧t talk of him much and that Darius Grey didn‧t trust him. After that, her worries morphed—what if she had remembered wrong, and Thom had wanted her to meet on the pier, and when she hadn‧t shown, he‧d walked through to the house? What if Charlie and Darius had him now? Her father had told her he wasn‧t a violent man—but he
was
an awfully good shot.

Once that thought occurred to her, she found it difficult to shake. She began pacing and eventually found herself back near the main entrance. There was no point in hiding anymore, she thought; something had gone wrong, and one way or another she had to find out what. She walked toward the gate, waiting for some invisible guard to step forth and either chastise her or deliver bad news. None did. She turned back toward the road and the pine forest across the way, cursing under her breath.

That was when she heard the gunshots.

She wheeled around and saw that she was not the only one who‧d heard. Six or seven men darted from different points on the property toward the house. She watched, frightened, her hands clinging to the gate. There was shouting, and though her eyes grew wide and her breath short, no one noticed her there. She pictured Thom, who always appeared with not a single hair out of place, who moved with that subtle confidence that suggested he‧d never known embarrassment or pain. To think that he might now be hurt—or worse—caused a riot inside her. She had just determined that she must return to the house, whatever the consequences, when she heard wheels on the road.

For a few seconds she allowed herself to hope again, but then she saw that it wasn‧t him. The car was a hunter green Packard roadster with the cream convertible top down. She knew that car—she had ridden in it before. The man behind the wheel was Charlie. He pulled in the drive and turned the engine off. For a moment, they both regarded each other.

“I hadn‧t realized you‧d left,” she said after a pause. The shock of seeing him quieted her frightful imagination, however briefly.

“I had to drive one of our guests from the afternoon home.” He blinked at her, his face contorted, though from suspicion or guardedness, she couldn‧t be sure. It was late for any of the guests to have still been at Dogwood, but she decided not to mention this. “What are you doing here?”

She took off her hat and let her eyes drift toward the house. “There were shots,” she said. It seemed the only fact that mattered.

The expression in Charlie‧s face changed, and he jerked forward. “What kind of shots?”

“I don‧t know …” The desperate feeling had returned to her. “There was shouting after that, and then everything was quiet.”

“Where‧s Danny?” Charlie said as he stepped out of the car and began glancing around frantically. “He was gone when I left. He‧s not supposed to leave, even for a second.”

“I don‧t know … I haven‧t seen him.”

Charlie‧s big head swung back and forth, his eyes moving between the house and his sister. “Well, come on, help me!”

Following his lead, she stepped forward, and together they pushed back the heavy iron gate.

He had accelerated up the hill before she managed to get the door closed behind her. There were no words between them as he sped toward the house, and seeing how unsettled Charlie was, Cordelia felt her pulse become fast and loud.

“What do you think it was?” she ventured as they came to a halt on the gravel drive in front of the grand steps that led to the house.

By then her brother‧s face had grown pale, and he only gritted his teeth and shook his head. Without meeting her eyes, he got out of the car, and then they were both running inside. The hall was empty, but they could hear men‧s voices coming from the enclosed porch. Charlie set off in that direction, and Cordelia followed closely behind him. Perhaps the shots had only been to scare Thom, she told herself. Perhaps he was all in one piece, and once she showed her father that she was still there, and promised never to speak to a Hale again, they would let him go …

Twenty or so men were standing on the porch, huddling around one of the floral sofas. Though no one was speaking, the atmosphere was distinctly grim. Many of them were wearing dark suits, and the backs of their jackets formed a wall, which Charlie and Cordelia had to push through to see what they were all looking at.

“Charlie,” Elias Jones said, when he saw him. He stepped away from the others and put his arms forward to stop the younger man in his tracks. “Everyone out.”

As the wall of men began to break apart, Cordelia noticed the blood on the floor, spreading under the soles of their shoes.

“No!” That was Charlie‧s voice, but it wasn‧t like any human utterance she had ever heard. It was the kind of wail of fear and rage that one hears late at night, in very desolate parts of the country, when an animal has lost one of its young.

Then she realized that it wasn‧t Thom but her father whose blood was spilled all over the white and turquoise tile.

“Oh, no,” she heard herself say, as her eyes fell shut and the muscles in the back of her neck grew rigid.

Meanwhile, the men shuffled backward, but they did not leave the room completely. Charlie was pushing against Jones. “Where is the doctor?” he was yelling. “Why hasn‧t anyone gone for the doctor?”

“He said he didn‧t want ‘im,” said Len, the cook. The big fellow‧s complexion was ashen, and his eyes were rimmed with red. “Said it would be too late when he got here, and a man oughta know when his number‧s up.”

Finally Charlie overpowered Jones and sank down at his father‧s side. To her surprise, Charlie called out for her. “Cordelia?” he said, without turning to meet her eyes. “Cordelia, come here.”

Those thick-bodied men blocking the door watched as she stepped forward and went down on her knees next to Charlie. She had not shaken that sense that he hated her, and was surprised when she felt her brother‧s arm around her shoulder. He was trying, she realized, to comfort her. For a moment she couldn‧t tell whether or not her father was still alive. The collared ivory shirt he had been wearing was soaked with dark red blood. But then he opened his eyes, and though they were murky, she knew he saw them, because he said, through labored breathing, “My children.”

Charlie took one of Darius‧s hands, and she took the other. His blood was slick and warm, on his hands and everywhere, and soon theirs were covered in blood, too.

“You are both my heirs,” he said. Then his eyes closed, and they did not open again.

For a long time they knelt like that, while the light in the room faded from the burnt oranges and reds of sunset to crepuscular blues. No one switched on the lamps, and the shadows under their burning eyes became pronounced. Once, when she was a girl, she had seen a man pulled under his tractor who later bled to death. This was nothing like that. She could sense that her father was in pain, but he bore it stoically, with none of the wild screaming she remembered on the farm. Both she and Charlie watched him, until she heard Jones say, “He‧s gone.” By then her face was wet with silent tears.

Both Grey siblings were covered in blood. Charlie stood up first, and then Cordelia followed.

“How …?” she whispered.

“We don‧t know. There was only one man. No one recognized him, though he must have been one of Hale‧s, and it seems he went out through the—” Jones glanced up at Grey‧s men, lined up and watching, and then shook his head as if to say that nothing really mattered anymore. “Through the tunnel. Eddie and Wilson chased him, but he had a good start and he was fast, and when they came out the other end, he was already in a motorboat and racing away.”

Cordelia buried her face in the crook of her elbow, as she tried to wipe away her tears without getting blood all over her face.

“Both of you go wash up,” Jones said. His tone was as even-keeled as ever, except with a faint hint of sorrow. “There‧s much to decide, but later.”

She nodded and glanced at Charlie. But the spirit with which he had put his arm around her was gone. There was a blackness over his irises now, something seething within him, and the ferocity with which he had sped up the hill was now focused entirely on her. It was only in the ensuing silence that she remembered how few people knew of the tunnel. Her mind raced, but she couldn‧t bring herself to think that Thom could do a thing like this, that she could possibly be in any way to blame. So she passed Charlie, walking out into the hall and toward the stairs.

She took the steps of the first flight slowly, and her weariness and shock briefly crowded out any thought of Thom or Charlie, or how any of it had happened, or why. There was only the stark fact that her father was gone. She thought of him, yesterday afternoon, on the porch, looking somewhat older than usual, telling her that her aim was getting better and what a good shot she‧d soon become. It was after she had rounded the first landing and begun ascending the second flight of stairs that she became aware of feet falling behind her. They sounded menacing against the hard wood, and they exactly matched her pace. Her pulse quickened; Charlie was following her. Fear spread through her veins, and though she tried hard to think what to do, she could not begin to imagine how she could help herself if Charlie brought the full brunt of his anger against her.

When she reached the third-floor hall, she turned around and faced him.

“Where did you think you were going, there on the road?” he demanded as he came up behind her.

She stared at him, her face broken by sorrow and trepidation, but could not think of how to answer that question.

“It was Thom, wasn‧t it?” he continued, circling her. “You‧re still seeing him, aren‧t you?”

“What does it matter?” she replied tiredly. “What does any of it matter now?”

“It matters,” Charlie returned, yelling now. “It matters because someone has to pay. You
told
him, didn‧t you? You told him about the tunnel.”

Cordelia shook her head and covered her face with her hands.

“Charlie!” It was Jones on the first floor, his voice urgent and demanding. “Charlie, come down now. I need you. You can wash up later.”

Though her eyes were still covered, there was no doubt of Charlie‧s presence as it drew nearer to her. When he spoke, his words were quieter, but in their terse precision, they had become more violent. “He used you. He used you like a whore. He used you to get to Dad, and now Dad is dead. You are useless.” His breath by then was hot on her ear. “You are worse than useless. This is your fault.”

“No …,” she wailed, but he was already walking away, his feet hitting against the polished steps so hard, they echoed up to the ceiling. Anyway, she wasn‧t sure what she was saying no to anymore. She wanted none of it to be true, but however much it stabbed at her, she knew that to be impossible.

On the first floor, Charlie and Jones were speaking, but she couldn‧t make out any of their conversation, so she turned and made her leaden feet carry her to her room. When she opened the door, her maid stood up from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting with her hands folded in her lap.

“What is it? What happened?” Milly asked, her terrified eyes darting back and forth.

“They killed him.” Cordelia choked up and brought her fist over her mouth. “Father is … dead.”

“Oh.” Milly shifted, still frightened and now confused, too. “Oh, no.”

Cordelia‧s fist opened, and she spread her palm over her belly. She forced herself to take a long breath and appear somewhat composed. “Don‧t you fall apart now,” she said, and though she had meant to sound kind, she knew that it came out more like a threat. “I need you to draw me a bath.”

The maid nodded and went to do as she was told. Once the sound of water rushing into a porcelain tub could be heard in the next room, she returned and pulled Cordelia‧s dress over her head. She paused, staring at it, as though she were thinking how she would go about cleaning the bloodied garment.

“Just throw the damn dress out,” Cordelia said. Then she walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

At first she yearned to know where Thom was and what he was thinking, and hear his explanation, and then afterward to be comforted by him. But as she stepped into the steaming water, the more she felt like the horrible word Charlie had called her. She was an idiot and a whore, and she had been used, in the most obvious way possible. The water felt as if it would scald her skin, but then she became used to it and was relieved that it was that hot, almost as though it might melt away her whole self and the multitude of things she‧d done wrong.