Hallow House - Part Two (11 page)

"Stop that!" Sal warned.

Samara struggled to control herself so she wouldn't collapse into hysteria.

"If I find Mark I'll kill him," Sal said grimly.

Oh, no!" The words burst from Samara. "No more killing. Not like Sergei, please, Sal, no more."

"You could've died. He's a monster."

I didn't die, thanks to you." Samara breathed deeply of the night air scented with orange blossoms as they neared the house, realizing how lucky she was to be alive.

She'd done it again, she realized, allowed herself to be manipulated. First by Sergei, then by Mark. As though she had no will of her own.

As Sal pulled up to the stables she made a vow never to trust another man, never allow one to influence her. Not even her father.

Samara was kept wrapped in a cocoon of solicitousness for two days. She stayed in bed much of the time, Frances and Vera taking turns looking after her. Meals were brought on trays, the children kept from her room. By the afternoon of the second day, she rebelled.

"I'll go downstairs for dinner," she told Vera.

"If you're certain you feel up to it." Vera eyed her dubiously.

Samara dreaded having to face everyone, but at the same time she'd had enough of her own company and the dark circling of her thoughts.

"I blame myself," Vera said. "If Sal hadn't known where to look for you..." Tears shone in her eyes. "I love you very much, Samara. We're too close in age for me to pretend I could be your mother, but in my heart I am." She bent to hug Samara.

Samara hugged her back. "There's no one at fault except me. You mustn't blame yourself."

"I've always thought I might have saved Sergei if I'd been more observant," Vera said. "And now I feel I've failed you."

"You did warn me. I didn't listen--not to you or to anyone. Please don't brood about it."

Vera sighed. "At least Mark's gone."

"They--the police haven't found him?"

"Not only the police are involved. An Army Air Corps colonel from the base up near Merced, plus the FBI have visited us. The radio equipment has been confiscated. Do you really want to hear all this? We haven't discussed it with you because we weren't sure how you felt."

Samara wasn't about to tell anyone how her stomach knotted every time she heard Mark's name. "I need to know what's happening," she said.

"I seems he was part of an espionage network operating out of Mexico--that's apparently where he received the radio messages from. They think he was supposed he pass along information about the army installation at Merced."

Samara remembered how Mark vanished every weekend. To Merced? "Uncle Vince was right," she said. "He never trusted Mark." Talking about him made her sick to her stomach, but she knew she had to face the worst.

"Your father is terribly upset. He was as taken in...." Vera broke off abruptly.

"As I was?" Samara asked bitterly.

"As the rest of us. The FBI agent told us there's more espionage than people in this country realize. It's frightening--we're not even at war."

A vision of Mark saying, "Always a German first," flashed across Samara's mind. Well, she was an American first. She took a deep breath, vowing to somehow make up to her country for what Mark had done.

In September she returned to Stanford University because she'd learned she had to wait until she was twenty-one to enlist in any branch of the Armed Services. Though she begrudged the year of waiting, she involved herself with speech therapy, helping those with problems more acute than her own. She totally ignored the young men who tried to attract her attention and made no real friends among the women.

"They call you the Ice Princess--did you know?" Shirley, one of her casual female acquaintances, told her one day over lunch.

A thrill of pain shot through Samara as she remembered Mark had called her Princess.

"Don't you like men?" Shirley went on.

"I don't trust men," Samara said. "And I don't need them. I don't need anyone."

One of her professors found her a summer job as a speech therapy assistant in a Palo Alto clinic so Samara didn't go back to Hallow House at all, despite Vera's pleas. The Christmas holidays she'd spent there had been almost more than she could bear.

In the fall, she was offered an extension of her job and stayed on to work and attend Stanford part time.

On Saturday, December 6, Samara sat in her apartment rereading Vera's last letter: "We miss you so. I do hope you'll be able to come to us for Christmas. You know your father doesn't say much, but he was disappointed not to see you last summer. He still talks of the visit you had when he stopped by Palo Alto two months ago. He says you're prettier than ever. Yes, really--from your father!"

Samara sighed. Her father had also told her why Vera hadn't come with him. She'd had a miscarriage and been quite ill. Just like Vera to keep that from her, not wanting her to worry. Then there'd been Johanna's note, printed in large letters: "Why don't you like me anymore. I still like you." Going to Hallow House for Christmas seemed inevitable. She couldn't bear to disappoint those she loved, even though she was convinced the only way she could keep the past behind barriers was to stay away.

1941 was almost gone. She'd been twenty-one since August--what about her plan to enlist in the service? Was it her fear of leaving the safe, the familiar?

Sunday she rose late, turned on the radio to listen to music while she ate and was confused to hear a news announcer gabbling hysterically about Pearl Harbor. She switched to another station only to hear the same thing, more coherently said. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. American ships had been sunk, airfields bombed. War? she thought incredulously.

By the time Samara returned home for Christmas she'd enlisted in the Navy.

Vera, thinner, but enthusiastic as ever, hugged her, tears in her eyes. Her father kissed her, the twins clung to her, but Johanna stood a little apart, watching.

When she could, Samara went to her sister. "I still love you, Johanna," she said. "I always will. "I'm sorry I let my own problems prevent me from coming home more often."

Johanna only stared at her with wide gray eyes.

Samara, suddenly seeing the tiny baby she'd once been, helpless and unwanted, began to cry. She hugged the little girl, saying. "Jo-Jo, I did miss you--I'm sorry I made you feel bad."

Johanna relaxed, hugging her back. "I was afraid. Mama's been sick and Daddy likes the twins best so I didn't have anyone at all if you forgot about me."

"I'll never do that," Samara promised.

Vincent presented his surprise at dinner that night. "I've been accepted into the Army Air Corps," he told them all. "The notice came today. So we have two patriots at the table." He smiled at Samara.

"Oh, Vincent!" Vera exclaimed. "The Air Corps."

"Knowing how to fly got me in. As a captain, no less."

John looked at his brother. "I wish I was younger," he said longingly.

"I'm glad you're not," Vera said. "Two Gregorys off to war is quite enough."

"When I get to be twenty-one, I'm going to join the Navy, too," Johanna announced.

"Let's hope the war is over by then," Vera said.

The twins were not yet permitted to join the adults for dinner and they could hardly stand it that Johanna got to. They were waiting to ambush Samara as soon as dinner was over. She took all three children to her room.

"We got a new teacher," Naomi told her. "A lady."

"She went home for Christmas," Katrina announced.

"Her name's Corinne Olstead," Johanna said. "Only we have to call her Miss Olmstead."

"She's pretty," Naomi said. "She's got red hair."

"But not as pretty as you," Johanna insisted.

Samara was pleased that Johanna seemed to be speaking without a stammer. Vera had told her that when the three girls had been sent to a private day school after Mark's defection, Johanna's speech had regressed so badly, they'd decided a private tutor was a necessity. Apparently Corinne Olmstead was doing a good job.

"I'm glad you like Miss Olmstead," she told the girls. "I liked Mark better," Johanna said. "Even if he did turn out to be a spy."

Would she ever stop reacting to his name? Samara asked herself as she felt the unwelcome knot in her stomach. Forcing enthusiasm into her voice, she said, "Shall we go riding tomorrow morning? Frances told me Naomi and Katrina have ponies now."

The twins agreed, jumping up and down excitedly.

"Sal isn't here anymore," Johanna said. "Rosita isn't, either. She left when Sal did."

"Who helps with the horses now?" Samara asked.

"Pedro. But he's old. I miss Sal. He wrote me a letter, though."

He wrote me a letter, too, Samara thought. One I didn't answer. It'd been a casual account of what he was doing at Davis and at work and he'd asked how she was. But, somehow, Sal was a reminder of Mark and the time she'd rather forget.

When the girls had gone to bed, Samara paced around her room, unable to settle down. Finally she got into her pajamas, robe and slippers and curled on up the bed to read. Vera had sent her a copy of
Kitty Foyle
by Christopher Morley for her birthday, along with a set of cashmere sweaters she had yet to wear.

Samara identified with the heroine immediately, but being back in Hallow House made her too uneasy to get lost in the book. She closed it and stood up, trying to identify what was wrong with her. Hadn't Mark's ghost yet been put to rest?

Not until I go up to the towers, she told herself. She hadn't been there since the last time she was with him and she was none too sure she could make herself climb those stairs now. Still, if she ever wanted to be rid of him, she had no choice.

Chapter 27

In her room, Samara slid off the bed, took a deep breath, then opened her door and headed for the stairs to the third floor. She tried to blank her mind as she climbed to the landing and entered the north tower. It had been cleared of any trace of Mark's paintings, his excuse for frequenting the third floor.

The south tower was empty except for the window seats. Once she'd thought of it as her hideaway but now it didn't feel like a place where she belonged. Last of all she stood before the black door and forced herself to try the knob. Locked, as she expected it to be.

There was nothing up here for her. As she turned away, she saw the door at the bottom of the stairs open and someone start up. Even though she knew it could be neither Sergei nor Mark, a trace of fear trickled through her. The light was still on in south tower and she edged back into the room. After a moment she recognized Marie and chided herself for her foolishness.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to you," Marie said.

The past year hadn't been kind to Marie. Although her hair was neat and she wore makeup, she'd gained enough weight so her clothes didn't fit quite right.

"How have you been?" she asked Marie as they both sat on the window seats.

"I've been here too long. God knows I should have had the gumption to stay away when I left before. Maybe this time I will."

"You're planning to leave?"

"That's why I want to talk to you. You've been working in Palo Alto so you have some idea of what the world is like. Do you think I could get a job?"

Taken aback, Samara tried to think of what to say.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Marie told her. "What can she do?"

"I was just surprised," Samara said.

"If you must know, I can't do much. But I've been reading in the San Francisco papers that there'll be a demand for women to work in all sorts of jobs because of the war and that they'll be trained to do things women have never been hired to do before. I'm not stupid, I could learn."

"I'm sure you could. But why are you leaving?"

Marie turned and stared out the window into the darkness. "You won't be here. And Vincent is going. Maybe it's time I left, too, and tried to do something useful for a change."

Samara remembered that Marie had been in love with Vincent when they both were younger and that Delores had spoiled it for them--or for Marie, at least. Did she still care for Vincent? Is that what had kept her here?

"There's another reason," Marie went on. "I should have been brave enough to acknowledge--" She paused and shook her head, "No, I've said enough. I am what I am." She shrugged.

"Do you need money?" Samara asked.

"Actually, no. I need something to do with myself. I hope to God I can find that."

The Christmas holidays proved to be happy despite Samara's misgivings. The joy of the children spread to the adults and, for this time, at least, the past receded into unimportance.