ON SATURDAY she was very restless. As soon as breakfast was over, she retreated to the second-floor bedroom, deliberately avoiding Michael—presenting a normal front was too difficult. She heard him go into the bathroom downstairs, the sound of water being turned on at the sink. The habits of marriage—she could follow his actions without even seeing them: reaching for the toothbrush, squeezing paste from the tube, taking that one quick glance at himself in the mirror before bending to apply the brush to his teeth. She wished he would leave. If he were gone, she would be able to go back.
She opened the closet door and looked at the dress hanging white and beautiful inside, her passport back into 1899. Today was the day David had said he would try to contact Rachel. Would that fatal chain of events be set in motion today, while she was not there to prevent it? Perhaps Hubbard would overhear him talking to Rachel, discover what he was planning to do. Perhaps Elizabeth would return, fan to flame that relationship she so obviously wanted, which could lead her, for whatever as-yet-unknown reasons, to eventually kill him. She had to stop thinking like this. She closed the closet, returned down the stairs, went outside.
It was a calm and sunny day. The lake glittered bright and blue beneath a cloudless sky. This was what she had left the city for, but it meant nothing to her now. She walked along in front of the house, stopping just beyond the brick steps at the front door. Here, where she was standing, was the porch in his time, where they had sat together only yesterday, drinking wine. There, where the driveway circled the big round flower bed, had stood the Hartleys’ buggy, where she had seen Elizabeth bend down to give him that suggestive and very unsisterly kiss. Beyond the driveway would be the carriage house and his own buggy and the box she had sat on while he told her of that long chain which linked Stickney to Rachel to Pamela and to himself, and which might at this very moment be drawing him toward his inevitable death.
Slowly, she went along the yard toward the patio at the other end of the house. Beyond that corner of the patio would be the barn, the corncrib, the chicken run. She remembered the feel of his hand against hers, the intensity of his eyes. You are a very beautiful woman. Was he here, right now, somewhere in this yard? He might be there, going through the gate to the chicken run, another bucket of corn and grain in his hand; or there, where the carriage house would be, hitching the horse to the buggy. He might be standing here looking about the yard, trying to conjure her image before him, unaware that she was only speaking distance away, beyond that barrier of time.
Restlessness stirred within her again. She went back into the house and climbed the stairs to the attic room. This was his studio; he had built it. He might be here even now, preparing to leave for the Hubbard place, setting in motion the events that would lead to his being murdered. On the small table beside the daybed was the extension phone she had had installed. Softly she closed the door and got out the telephone book.
Mrs. Bates seemed pleased to hear from her. “You’ll have to drop by the Society again, dear, and we’ll chat.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Mrs. Bates.” She cupped the receiver, keeping her voice low. “You remember I told you I have a friend who’s a magazine editor? I mentioned to her what you told me—about the man who lived here? David Reynolds? She said there might be an interesting article there, if I could find out more about the story.”
“Oh, isn’t that exciting? Why, that would put Chesapequa on the map again.”
“So I wondered if there was more to the story you hadn’t told me. Any hints about what led to his death, or who did it.”
“Oh, I’m afraid not, dear. I told you everything I know. As I said, it’s been an unsolved crime to this very day.”
“You remember you told me about his wife’s sister eloping?”
“Well, yes, I seem to—”
“Did that play any part?”
“Oh, yes, you see, some thought he was involved in that and his father-in-law found it out. And as I say, some thought it was the woman he took up with. But nothing was ever proved.”
“What was the woman’s name, do you know?”
“No, no, it was a very clandestine thing, I believe.”
“You said you learned the story from your aunt. I know you said she’s, well, very old and her mind wanders and everything, but I wonder if she would know more. Do you see her often?”
“Oh, Aunt Betty lives with me. I took her in when Mr. Bates died. But I really think I know as much about the story as she does. I’ve heard it so many times.”
“Do you think I could come talk to her about it?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, dear. She’s really quite senile now. I doubt it would do you any good. And she’s really not at all well. I have a private nurse for her, and I’m afraid Nurse Jenkins strongly disapproves of her being disturbed by visitors.”
“I see. Well, thanks anyway. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“Why, it’s no bother—I do love talking to someone interested in the past. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. Does this mean there won’t be an article?”
“I—I’m not sure. I’ll keep in touch about it.”
“Please do. Maybe we can find some other story your editor friend would like.”
Jennie replaced the receiver and lay back on the bed. One cottony cloud drifted in the expanse of sky visible through the skylight. David put that skylight there. The thought brought her up and off the daybed, across the room to the skylight. Wistfully, she touched the cool sloping glass. Outside, she saw a breeze ripple through her flower garden, sunlight flashing from a car on Summer House Road. This wasn’t what she wanted to see. She wanted to see the grape arbor, the barn; she wanted to be there again. Then she thought: I know. I know something that has felt his touch as recently as a month ago. Here, in this house, in this time. A part of him she could have, to keep with the sketches he had made, to look at and hold when she was not with him.
Eagerly now, she left the room and went down the stairs.
• • •
When Michael heard her on the stairs, he got up from his chair and crept quietly to the living-room entranceway. At the sound of the back door’s closing, he started through the dining room after her. He had seen her earlier wandering the yard and, worried, had moved stealthily from window to window, watching. She had walked as if in a trance, pausing for long minutes to stare out across the yard as if watching something he could not see. Watching her, he wondered if this was what she looked like while having an hallucination. But except for her strange, aimless wandering and the vacant stare, she seemed normal. Now he reached the kitchen door just in time to see her disappearing behind the garage.
Outside, he sprinted cautiously across the grass to a tree, from behind which he could see the far side of the garage. Jennie was rummaging in the trash barrel, her back to him. In a matter of seconds, she had removed everything she could reach and tipped the barrel over on its side to get at the stuff in the bottom. Kneeling, she lifted something from the bottom of the barrel and held it in her lap—too small for him to make out. Then, as he watched, astonished, she pressed it lovingly to her lips. Abruptly, she placed it on the grass and began shoveling the debris back into the barrel. When it was full and returned to its upright stance again, she picked up whatever it was she had placed on the ground and started back toward the house. Keeping a careful distance behind her, he followed her inside. When her footsteps had died away in the attic, he started up the stairs.
He paused in the doorway to the skylighted studio. She was bending over the worktable, her back to him, wrapping something in a soft cloth.
“Jennie?”
He saw her start; she turned, her body shielding the cloth-wrapped package on the table.
“I just thought I’d come up and see how you were.” Casually, he crossed to the table, reached for the package. “What are you doing?”
Her hand flew out and pinned the cloth to the table. For an instant they stood that way, hand to hand. Then she seemed to realize how futile it was and drew her hand away. Feeling foolishly like a detective discovering evidence, he unwrapped the cloth. Inside, among smaller fragments, lay two large shards of glass.
“It’s the glass from the old kitchen cupboard,” she said. “I thought I’d save it, it’s so old.” She fumbled for a piece, held it up. “See, it’s all streaked with age. I thought maybe I’d make a mosaic out of it.”
“Tell me the truth, Jennie.”
“It is the truth. It’s the glass from the cupboard.”
“I believe it’s the glass from the cupboard. Tell me why you took it out of the trash barrel.”
“I told you why, Michael,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“It has something to do with your hallucinations, doesn’t it? The cupboard was in the house when that painter lived here, the man that woman told you about. It has something to do with that, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t answer.
“I saw you at the trash barrel, Jennie. You kissed this glass, Jennie. That’s a very strange thing to do. Do you want me to believe you’re not in your right mind?”
Her eyes flashed. “That’s what you want to believe, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. But I think you’ve had another hallucination, something to do with this glass, and you’re convinced it’s real. Tell me the truth.”
“All right, so I did go back.”
“You mean you had another hallucination. You have to tell me, Jennie, so I can help you.”
“Help me? You’re trying to convince me I’m insane. I’m not.”
He sighed, and went over to sit on the daybed. “All right, it wasn’t a hallucination. What was it?”
“I went back.”
“Okay, you went back. And what happened?”
“I talked to him.”
“You talked to him.”
“Stop trying to humor me. It really happened, I tell you.”
She slumped into the chair behind the worktable, turning her face away. He was struck by how beautifully her back curved down to her waist, how her twisted posture accentuated the curve of one graceful calf. It had always been a pleasant thing, his abrupt awareness, at odd and irrelevant moments like this, of how beautiful she was, but now it only increased his anxiety. This is real, he thought, this is dangerous, this is how it feels when somebody you love begins to go insane. He remembered her pawing through the trash barrel, lifting the glass dreamily to her lips, and tried not to think of the eerie, gesticulating madness of asylum inmates.
He tried to keep his voice gentle. “Tell me what happened, Jennie.”
“Nothing. You wouldn’t believe me. But everything’s true. He’s the man Mrs. Bates told me about. They’re not hallucinations. They’re too long, too detailed.”
“Of course, honey. Of course they’re longer and more detailed. Now you’ve got a ready-made situation, real people—you’re creating it out of what that woman told you.”
“Then how do you explain the fact that he saw me that day on the road? He saw me that day at the lake. He smashed the cupboard the same night we heard it.”
“Jennie, don’t you see? It’s all taking place in your mind. He’s a figment of your imagination—you can make him do whatever will fit the story you’ve been told.” That struck home; he saw her hesitate as the possibility sank in. “What did you talk to him about, Jennie?”
She didn’t answer.
“You think he’s real, and you think you’re in love with him. Don’t you, Jennie? You’re inventing a love affair to get back at me, because of what I did. And because you think I’m not romantic enough.”
“You’re like everybody else. They’re all afraid to feel strong emotion, to really love anybody.”
“Love is just chemistry, Jennie, just nature’s way of propagating the race. That passionate intensity you’re so hungry for is an illusion, an aberration.”
“Everything I do is an aberration, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that.” He was aware that he was breaking one of Salzman’s cardinal rules, not to talk about her sickness with her, but there was no alternative. “Jennie, I think we ought to go away for a while. I’ll take a vacation. We can go to the Caribbean or someplace, give you a complete change of scene.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Maybe you’re right that I need a change of scene, but I couldn’t have that if we went away together.”
“You’re angry at me now—all right, I understand that. But I don’t think you should take a vacation by yourself. Not while you’re still seeing Dr. Salzman.”
“I don’t want a vacation. You’re the one who said I need a change of scene. I’d just like to go away for a couple of days. To think.”
He had to get her away from this house. The fact that that painter had lived here, that his wife’s name was Pamela—all that lent credibility to her hallucinations. Her delusions seemed to feed off the house and everything surrounding it. “Why don’t you go to Fire Island then? You know Beverly said you could use the house any time you wanted it. And you wouldn’t be alone there, you have friends there.”
“You wouldn’t mind if I went to Fire Island by myself?”
“I think it would be good for you. As long as you’re not alone. You did say Janice Gales had the house right across the walk.”
She came over to sit beside him and shyly took his hand. “Forgive me, Michael. You don’t know how difficult this is for me. I’m sorry I got angry. I’m really sorry about everything.”
But later, after they had gone downstairs together, he realized she had retracted nothing. She still believed what was happening to her was real.