The Spook Lights Affair (2 page)

“Look, you,” she said in a harsh, low tone, grabbing Sabina’s forearm, “must you watch me every single minute?”

Sabina removed her hand and responded quietly and courteously, even though she would have preferred to shake or slap some manners into the post-deb. “You know that’s what your parents hired me to do.”

“Well, it’s gone on long enough! I can’t go anywhere or do anything without your eyes all over me. You haven’t the right to even be at this party, you … you common old chaperone!”

The words smarted, mainly because Sabina
did
feel a bit like an old chaperone in her borrowed gown. She swallowed a sharp retort, answered in the same even tones, “Such displays of temper are not becoming, young lady. You should learn to respect your elders.”

The bud’s mouth tightened. “I see no reason to respect anyone who keeps harassing me.”

“You’re not being harassed, Miss St. Ives. Merely looked after for your own good, as per your father’s wishes.”

“My father’s wishes! I haven’t seen or communicated with Lucas Whiffing in … I don’t even remember the last time.”

“You had a rendezvous with him only a few days ago. That and your two poorly explained absences in the past two weeks are the reasons I was employed.”

“Well … what if I did see him just once? A
public
rendezvous at a respectable restaurant. What’s wrong with that?”

“You know how your parents feel about Mr. Whiffing—”

“I don’t care how they feel!” Her voice had risen; a couple nearby turned to look at her. “They don’t trust me. They think I’ll toss my bonnet over the windmill if I haven’t already!”

Sabina was surprised. Of course Virginia would know the euphemism for having premarital relations—all young women of whatever station did—but for her to speak the words in such surroundings as these, and within hearing of others …

The post-deb’s eyes were welling with tears. She put a hand to her brow and said in a loud, dramatic voice, “Now see what you’ve done? You’ve made me cry!”

“Hush. People are staring.”

“Let them stare. I don’t care, I don’t care about
anything
anymore! You’ll see! You and my parents and everybody else!” And with that she whirled and rushed away.

Several of the guests cast disapproving looks at Sabina, who ignored them as she set out after the girl. But the swirl of dancers impeded her progress; Virginia had passed through the door from the salon into the front part of the house before she could catch her.

The hallway beyond the door was deserted. The ladies’ room was close by and Sabina thought the deb must have gone in there. But when she quickly checked, there was no sign of Virginia inside. From there Sabina hastened into the front vestibule—just in time to see her charge moving toward the main entrance doors.

“Virginia!”

The girl gave no indication that she’d heard. She yanked one of the doors open and plunged through into the torchlit darkness beyond.

Sabina ran to the door and stopped it from closing, but not before an edge of it caught the hem of her cumbersome skirt. She pulled free, tearing the fabric, and looked out. Through the cold, billowing fog that swirled across the grounds, she spied Virginia hurrying at an angle away from the main carriageway where the row of parked coaches that had brought the guests waited.

Hurrying where? And why had the silly girl fled without taking either wrap or coat?

2

SABINA

The house’s heavy front door banged shut behind her as she stepped outside. Virginia St. Ives was not quite running through the side gardens toward a tree-bordered pathway that branched off toward the sea, her white skirts drawn up at the waist and billowing around her slender legs. She glanced back once, then cast her eyes to the uneven ground ahead of her and kept them there.

Sabina had no choice but to follow. The night’s chill penetrated the thin fabric of her gown, started her shivering. The girl must be mad to have come out here dressed as she was. Yes, and she herself must be mad as well to be pursuing her in the same coatless state. But there was no turning back now, not until she found out where Virginia was bound in such a hurry. Some sort of rendezvous with Lucas Whiffing, possibly, but why hadn’t she taken the time to bundle up before leaving the house?

Fog-laden wind rushed at Sabina as she crossed the front terrace, and one of her hairpins was blown loose and brushed her cheek as it was flung away. Brine and eucalyptus scents filled her nostrils. In the distance she could hear the roar of the sea as it crashed on the rocks below the Cliff House construction site.

Groves of trees—mainly wind-sculpted cypress interspersed with eucalyptus and palms—covered the vast property. The gardens and other open spaces were dotted with statuary. She dodged past one of the statues, a Greek goddess with stone tresses and draped gown like a figure frozen in time. Adolph Sutro was said to have a fascination with these lifeless creations; in addition to mythological figures, two huge stone lions stood beside the arched gate to the grounds and the main carriageway was lined with stags, does, fawns, and other wild creatures. Sabina didn’t understand it. To her, such statues were cold as the grave, particularly on nights like this. Memento mori—reminders of the fate that awaits all.

The grounds were lit by flickering torches that had been spaced at intervals along the carriageway and close to the large fountain in its center loop; others illuminated some of the larger statues. Servants must have filled the torches with kerosene for the party, for their flames flickered high—yellow, orange, blue, green. Their light created an eerie, glowing effect on the tendrils of mist that swirled among the trees, and allowed Sabina to keep Virginia in sight as she gave chase. The young ninny was now almost into the shadows cast by the copse of eucalyptus.

Someone called out—one of the coach drivers, three of whom were standing together at the edge of the carriageway. Neither Virginia nor Sabina paid any attention to the call. The damp, uneven ground caused Sabina to slip and stumble, once to nearly lose her balance. She considered kicking off her—Callie’s—little formal slippers, but that would do more harm than good. Running in her stockings might make her footing more sure, but it would also send fresh chills and shivers through her body and allow wind-strewn eucalyptus pods and pine cones to bite into the soles of her feet. Barely in time, she saw and sidestepped a gopher hole. Even Adolph Sutro’s gardeners couldn’t defeat the ubiquitous California gophers.

Ahead, Virginia cast another look over her shoulder just before vanishing among the eucalyptus, but she was out of sight only for as long as it took Sabina to reach the trees. Then she saw the girl on the cinder pathway, passing a fog-draped structure she recognized as the gazebo with peaked roof, ornate posts, and fancywork that Sutro had reportedly imported from France. Virginia’s destination now seemed clear: the broad, semicircular sea-view overlook that rose high behind the house, on which summer parties were held and which contained a water tower, observation platform, and enclosed photograph gallery. Where Lucas Whiffing waited? There didn’t seem to be any other reason why the girl would have taken such a circuitous route to the overlook, instead of going there directly across the rear terrace.

The fog was thicker here, great moist coils of it that obscured the treetops and the upper edges of the parapet, and the distant pounding of the sea louder. The Potato Patch foghorn off Point Lobos bellowed mournfully. The hard cinders bit into Sabina’s chilled feet; the slippers and her stockings were no doubt damaged beyond repair. Callie’s gown, too, probably. She was so cold and wet now that a fear of pneumonia tugged at her mind. The fear made her furious. When she caught up with Miss St. Ives, she’d give the girl a tongue-lashing she’d never forget.

Virginia had reached and started up the seaward stairs to the overlook. Sabina called out for her to stop and wait, but the shouted words had no effect; typically defiant, the girl didn’t seem to care that she was being pursued. She ran up the steps two at a time, a wraithlike figure in the sinuous vapor. By the time Sabina reached the foot of the stairs, her charge had vanished onto the flagstone floor above.

Sabina made the climb as quickly as she was able, enduring little shoots of pain at every step. When she reached the top, she could see no sign of Virginia in the thick gray swirls. She paused with ears straining, heard the faint slap of the girl’s hurrying steps. Moments later those sounds ceased and others took their place—scramblings and scrapings that Sabina couldn’t identify.

She moved ahead cautiously, swiping her hands through the fog in an effort to clear it so she could determine where Virginia had gone. After a few steps, a vague, ghostlike luminosity appeared ahead to her left—the deb’s white gown. The figure seemed poised a couple of feet above floor level, as if Virginia had climbed up onto the parapet at the overlook’s outer edge. But surely she wouldn’t have done anything that foolish—

Yes, she would. And had. The fog curls parted just enough ahead to reveal the spectral shape of the girl some thirty yards distant, standing between two of the statues mounted on the parapet, facing toward the sea with her arms bent away from her body. She was alone atop the wall; if anyone else lurked nearby, he was hidden by the mist.

What was she doing up there? The stones were slippery, dangerous in the wind and fog; beyond and beneath the wall was a mostly sheer drop of several hundred feet to the Great Highway.

“Virginia!”

The fog muffled Sabina’s cry, and she shouted again. To no avail. Virginia continued to stand, wavering slightly from side to side now, her gown making an audible fluttery sound—

And then, to Sabina’s horrified amazement, the girl flung herself forward and disappeared.

There was a shriek, shrill and long-drawn, then thudding, sliding sounds that carried above the voice of the wind—the sounds of a body tumbling down the cliffside.

It took Sabina several seconds to stumble ahead to the parapet. Just as she reached it, her foot struck something lying on the flagstones. She ignored it for the moment, leaning over the wall between the two statues to peer downward. What she saw brought another shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. A strip of ground some eight feet wide stretched out beneath, the only section of it visible straight ahead where it sloped down to the cliff edge. That part was thinly covered with purple-flowered ice plant, mashed down where Virginia’s body had landed and slid through. Beyond the ice plant, the cliff fell away in a sheer vertical drop.

Sabina drew back, and again her foot brushed against the object on the stones. She bent to pick it up, saw that it was the chatelaine handbag Virginia had carried. Clutching it, she glanced to her left. A winding set of steps chiseled into the bare rock led down to the highway below, she remembered, but the hovering grayness hid their exact location. They weren’t an option in any case. The stone steps would be slick and slippery and the descent treacherous; it would be folly to risk climbing down them in the darkness, even if there were a chance of finding the girl alive at the bottom. And she didn’t see how there could be. It was virtually impossible for anyone to have survived such a long fall.

Why had the mad little fool done this to herself?

Why?

*   *   *

Badly shaken, Sabina took the direct route back to the mansion, down the staircase at the opposite end of the overlook. Fog-laced shadows hid her from the guests behind the lighted ballroom windows as she hurried along the rim of the lower terrace. She made her way to the servant’s entrance, found the door there unlocked. Her sudden entrance and her disheveled appearance brought shocked stares from three members of the kitchen staff.

“There’s been a terrible accident,” she told them. “One of you fetch Mr. Sutro. Quickly!”

Her voice sounded as benumbed as her body felt, but the note of command in it was still strong enough to brook no argument. The male member of the staff nodded and hurried out. One of the two women guided Sabina over near the cookstove, where its pulsing heat soon warmed her blood and sent pins and needles tingling through her chilled flesh.

She realized then that she still held Virginia’s handbag. Impulse led her to unsnap the clasp and reach inside. The usual feminine necessities, and a folded sheet of notepaper that Sabina drew out. She knew what it was even before she spread it open and read the lines written on it in a firm, girlish hand.

I cannot bear to go on living in misery, facing a hopeless future. Everyone will be better off without me. Good-bye.

Virginia

So young, and so foolish!

Portly and bewhiskered Adolph Sutro appeared just then, with a second, liveried servant in tow. Sabina had been introduced to the mayor briefly when she arrived and he remembered her, though he’d had no idea of her profession until she revealed it as part of her terse explanation of what had happened. As taken aback as he was by her words, and by those in the suicide note she handed him, he wasted no time with frivolous questions but took immediate charge.

He sent the liveried servant to quietly summon David St. Ives and a doctor Sabina didn’t know named Bowers to the front terrace. “Tell them only that there is an emergency,” he said. “And bring along a brace of hand lanterns.” Then he instructed one of the kitchen women to fetch Sabina’s beaver coat, which she described, and the other to find shoes to replace the ruined slippers. In less than five minutes she was bundled and reshod and almost warm again, only to have Sutro lead her back out into the cold darkness and around to the front where Virginia’s brother and Dr. Bowers waited.

David St. Ives was grimly incredulous at the news of his sister’s plunge. As Sabina and the three men hurriedly settled into the coach that belonged to the St. Ives family, he said, “Suicide? Virginia? I don’t believe it.”

“The note
is
in her handwriting?” Sabina said.

“Yes, it’s hers. ‘Living in misery … hopeless future … everyone will be better off without me.’ None of that makes any sense. She had everything to live for.”