3

The encounter was too sudden, too unexpected. My hands shook as I drew the child into the lamp’s soft light. She was wiry thin. I could feel the bones of her arm in my hand, where my Debbie’s arms had been soft, rounded flesh. Her face, tilted up to me with an air of defiance, had pointy features—a short nose and chin, and a straight mouth that wouldn’t curve easily into smiles. Her hair was much fairer than Debbie’s light brown, and it was short and curly, where Debbie’s had been straight. Though hair, of course, could be changed, and very well might be if concealment were necessary. Her eyes were wide and very blue—but so were the eyes of thousands of other little girls.

Her whole body had tensed defensively, as though she expected nothing from me but anger. I knew with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t my darling Debbie, but she was a child who had probably been mistreated by dreadful parents.

“Hello,” I said, releasing her arm. “I’ve heard about you—you must be Alice Arles.”

She’d started away as though she meant to run out the door, but now she turned and stood her ground suspiciously. “I bet the old lady told you. The one they say is my great-grandmother.”

“Come and sit down so we can talk,” I said. “Dr. Radburn thinks you might be lonely in this house, where there aren’t any other children.”

“Doc’s okay. But I don’t like kids much and they don’t like me. Anyway, I don’t care. I don’t have to go to school right now because I guess we’ll go away pretty soon. The old lady doesn’t want me, so she won’t give Farley any money for me.”

She was a mass of defensiveness, suspicion, and disturbing information that should have been kept from her. Waiting for my reaction, she stared at me without blinking.

“I don’t know if any of that is true,” I said.

“What do you know? You just came.”

This was true, but at least she had decided not to run off right away. Perhaps the trait she’d best cultivated was curiosity, and for the moment she was curious about me. She seated herself on the edge of a chair, thin bare knees protruding beneath a too frilly skirt. One knee had scabbed over from a fall, and that bruised knee seemed the only familiar thing about her. I’d been used to skinned knees, both with Debbie and with the children I taught. I wondered how Mrs. Arles could ever have connected this child with the picture of Debbie.

“I thought you’d gone out with your parents to a movie and dinner,” I said.

She shrugged elaborately, copying a grown-up manner. “That’s boring. They never pick a movie I like, and at dinner they don’t talk to me. Mostly they don’t talk. Or when they do it’s about me, and I hate that. Don’t you want to know why I was hiding in your room?”

“Let me guess. I could be somebody interesting, and you wanted to learn about me. Am I right?”

“Maybe. Everybody’s buzzing about you. The old lady doesn’t have visitors since she’s been sick. She doesn’t want anybody to see her the way she is now. She can walk a little, but she won’t try much, so her legs get weak. That’s what Doc says. She gets Crampton to dress her up every day as if she was, going to a party. Of course Dr. Joel wants her to be quiet and not see many people—so you’re a—a—”

“A mystery?” I wondered who was buzzing—her awful parents, probably.

She could stare almost as impassively as Mrs. Arles, but some of her defensive anger had lessened.

“Do you like mysteries?” I went on.

“I like to read them. But mostly not the books in the old lady’s library. Anyway, I’m not supposed to go in there unless she invites me. Even when she goes out for a drive, Dillow watches to see I don’t go in. But sometimes I get even with him. It’s easy to do.”

Weariness struck through me again. Mrs. Arles had been right about the child not being attractive. Her unfortunate upbringing wasn’t my problem. The answer I’d feared had been given me and all I wanted now was to go to bed and sleep—just to shut out the disappointment and letdown that had hit me like a body blow. Even though I’d told myself I was prepared, I had hoped, and the reaction left me limp—almost ill with the old despair.

Alice scratched her left arm absently, and my heart did a flop. Debbie had scratched her arm in just that way because of a rash that had resisted treatment for a long time. I went quickly to push up the left sleeve of the child’s sweater. There was nothing there but a red mark from scratching.

“Do you always do that?” I asked.

She looked at me blankly. “Do what?”

I let it go. An itching arm was hardly identification.

“I’d like to go to bed now,” I told her. “I’ve come a long way and I’m tired.”

She took the hint and moved indifferently toward the door.

“Perhaps we can talk some more tomorrow,” I said, disturbed by her quick acceptance of dismissal.

“Maybe.” She turned and stared at me again. “What do you do?”

“Do? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Grown-up ladies do something. Peony—sometimes I call her Peony to upset her, but she’s my mother—Peony is a magician’s assistant.” She spoke almost proudly.

“I see. Does she get sawed in half?”

“That’s old stuff. Farley—he’s not my father—likes to invent new tricks. Though sometimes they don’t work—and then I laugh at him.”

“What does he do then?”

“He hits me.” She spoke matter-of-factly—not liking to be hit but accepting reality. “You still didn’t tell me what you do.”

“I’m a teacher. I teach boys and girls around your age.”

Something about her gentled just a little. “Teachers aren’t so bad. Except that we always move, and when I make friends with a teacher we go away.”

In all my fantasies of finding my daughter I had clung to the dream of something that might identify her: one faint hope that she might remember how she had “talked” on her hands so happily to her grandparents when she was three.

“I teach deaf children,” I said.

Her face brightened, and for the first time she looked interested. “What do you teach them?”

“All the usual lessons. And I teach them signing as well.”

“What’s signing?”

“It’s a language the deaf can use with their hands and fingers—sign language. So deaf children can talk to each other, and to me.”

“Show me.”

I held back. This was the card I kept up my sleeve. If she could remember anything about signing, that might be a real test. But I hesitated to take this step, even though I’d told myself that I’d given up. Her reaction might be too final.

“Why are you interested?” I asked.

“Because of Uncle Tim—that’s what everybody calls him. He can’t hear and he talks funny—though I can understand him pretty well. I write him notes when he can’t read my lips, and he loans me books. Better books than the old lady has downstairs. Uncle Tim likes mysteries too.”

This was an unexpected development. I’d been given the idea that the man hidden away upstairs was a little backward.

“Show me something in that sign language,” Alice persisted.

I took a deep breath and risked it, moving my hands. She watched with interest but no recognition.

“What did you say?”

It really wasn’t a test, I told myself. After all, Debbie had been three years old—only three. Of course she wouldn’t remember.

“I said, ‘I would like to meet Uncle Tim.’”

Her look was solemn, still suspicious.

“What do they call those signs?”

“They’re part of a special language called Ameslan. You understand Ameslan by seeing everything in signs instead of hearing it in words.”

“Anyway, I don’t know if Uncle Tim would want to meet you.”

“You could find out. Tell him I work with the deaf.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

“Does he try to speechread? Read lips?”

“I guess he tries to. He gets mixed up a lot.”

“That’s because so many words seem alike when you speak them. Look in a mirror sometime and say ‘bury’ and ‘marry’ Or try ‘grouch’ and ‘ouch’—though there’s a little difference there.”

Alice snickered—not a real laugh. “That might look like ‘He’s a terrible ouch.’ Maybe you could teach him some signs.”

“I could try. But who would he talk to around here?”

“Me. You could teach me too.”

“I’m afraid there won’t be time. I’m going away soon. But perhaps I can ask Mrs. Arles about this. If you stay here, perhaps you could both learn a few things that might help him. Has he been deaf all his life?”

“I asked Dillow that, and he said it happened when Uncle Tim was around fifteen.”

“That’s an advantage. It means that he remembers the sound of words so he’s not like those who have never heard anything or learned how to talk. Both my parents are deaf, and my father was born that way. Because of that, I had to learn to sign when I was little.”

I’d caught her interest now, but probably only because I was someone different.

“Uncle Tim may not need signing,” I went on. “Though fingerspelling might help if there was anyone around to understand. That’s easier. It’s spelling words on one hand. It’s good for when there are names, or words that are hard. People who live with the deaf really ought to learn these things.”

“The old lady never would. She just thinks her brother is dumb. Once she sent him away to a bad place. Show me how to say my name.”

I spelled “Alice” for her on my fingers and she imitated me quickly. Then she sighed. “Anyway, she won’t help him—the old lady. And she hates me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I’ve heard her. One time when Dillow didn’t catch me listening she told him I wasn’t a lovable child.” When I didn’t react, Alice continued slyly. “Maybe she’s right. I do mean things. I spilled your hand stuff in the bathroom, and I meant to.”

“You mean so you could prove that you aren’t lovable?”

She turned her stiff young back on me and walked out of the room. I heard her laughing, and the sound had an eerie ring in the empty hall. It was hardly the laughter of a happy child.

As I got ready for bed, all the old despair washed through me. I must go home soon. There was no longer any point in my staying.

Still on Connecticut time, I woke up too early the next morning and couldn’t get to sleep again. Since I’d left my flight arrangements open, I would call later today and make a reservation for home.

Right now I had no inclination to do much of anything. I still felt sore from my encounter with Alice last night, both because of the disappointment that I’d feared and also because of an unwanted tug of sympathy for the child herself. There seemed no point now in meeting her mother or stepfather. Whether or not the Corwins’ story of Alice being Edward Arles’s daughter was true, it still had nothing to do with me, nor was there any way in which I could affect the future for any of them. I could only hope that Mrs. Arles would take the child and remove her from those who had treated her roughly. Though I wasn’t all that sure Corinthea Arles had much love in her to give a child either. There seemed to be a good many reasons for Alice to be unlovable.

Today I must tell Mrs. Arles that the girl was not my lost daughter. This, really, was what she wanted to hear, so that one doubt would be taken care of.

Since I was wide awake by this time I got out of bed and looked into the hall. No one seemed to be about, and I had no idea where Alice’s room was, or that of the Corwins. When I’d showered and dressed in slacks and a cardigan, I went downstairs. Dark red carpeting softened the sound of my steps. The empty hall below was gloomy with the wood paneling that had been prevalent when this house was built, the only light filtering through stained glass windows on each side of the front door.

The lower hall that ran back from the foyer and behind the stairs was narrow and allowed for spacious rooms on either hand. Idly curious, I stepped into an enormous living room that would have been called a parlor, or perhaps a drawing room, in the great days of this house. A discreetly faded Chinese rug, fawn-colored, with a scattering of blue flowers around the border, stretched almost the length of the room, leaving well-polished dark flooring to show around it.

The furniture was old and worn, though not to the point of fraying. It was a room with character but no particular planned style. Chairs and sofas and small tables mingled Chippendale and Queen Anne, with a few pieces of homely Hepplewhite thrown in. Several lamps belonged to the art-deco period of the twenties. Again, stained glass had been set beside and above tall windows. Some of the patterns were geometric, while others presented designs of leaves or flowers or birds. In one corner stood an upright piano of no special distinction, its lid down over the keys, and no music sheets gracing the rack. Once this long, silent room, swimming now in jeweled light, must have known music and dancing and parties. Had Corinthea Arles grown up in this house, danced at such parties—and then forgotten what it was like to be young?

At the far end sliding double doors opened into the dining room I’d glimpsed last night. This morning the long table was laid with four place mats, china, and silverware—set probably for Alice, the Corwins, and me. The sideboard held electric plates for keeping food hot, but no dishes had been placed there yet.

Tall windows looked out upon shrubbery, rosebushes, flower beds, and hedges. Again, panes of stained glass filtered light through amber, peacock green, fiery red, and the special blue of a dark sea.

“Would you like breakfast now, Mrs. Thorne?” Dillow spoke from the doorway behind me.

He looked even smaller than he had last night, as though he’d shrunk in his black suit, though he seemed every bit as dignified and proper as before. His fringe of gray hair had been smoothed down damply around his head, and it was possible that his bald pate had been touched with talcum powder to cut down its shine. I liked the hint of vanity—it made him seem more human.

“Thank you, Dillow,” I said. “I’ll have breakfast later. I thought I might go for a walk first.”

“Very good, madam. The garden out in back is pleasant with the sun coming up, though the grass will be wet from rain during the night. The rear door down the hall will take you out to the terrace.”

He stood back to let me pass, and then followed me. “I’m sorry if the child bothered you last night, madam.”

Clearly, Dillow knew everything that went on about the house. In his dark suit he could flit through prevailing shadows and lose himself discreetly. His ears, a bit large for his small head, were set neatly for listening. Nor was he as meekly servile as he sometimes pretended. The look I had caught last night between him and Mrs. Arles had told me that.

“Alice didn’t bother me,” I said.

“She can be—” He shook his head, not finishing, and I suspected that he would make a perfect target for Alice, who had never been taught to be kind.

Not only had she spilled my hand lotion on the floor, but she’d smeared some of it on the mirror as well, so I’d had to clean up the bathroom this morning. I remembered Debbie’s love of fun and mischief, but this child was older, and her mischief was malicious.

I went out the rear door and down to a flagged terrace, where several mallard ducks were feeding on grain that had been tossed out for them. The birds seemed tame and unafraid of my presence. On a lower level a small pond had been set among rocks, its water shining in early sunlight, with more ducks paddling about on the surface.

From the rear of the house I could look north to where a lone mountain would probably be Mount Tolmie, Victoria’s own nearby mountain that I’d seen on a map.

Now, however, it was the near vista that held my attention. An enchanting garden dropped away from the terrace and ran along below the pond. The hilltop’s granite outcroppings had been tamed and used affectively, so that great lawns were cradled in rock that was itself contoured by plantings. Moss and pink heather, broom and fern crept over hard gray surfaces, blending their soft colors.

I followed winding stone steps down past the pond to a lower level of unbelievably green lawn. Victoria’s climate is moderate and moist, rather like that of England, so that plant life thrives. Wide spreads of green curved around the base of rocky mounds, offering turns that led to continued pleasant surprises. The air had a fresh morning scent that mingled flowers and sea air.

Circling this secret world, and protecting it, rhododendrons grew tall, and other green shrubbery and trees hid lower houses and streets, so that this was a space set apart. Even the sound of the city seemed distant in so secluded a spot, and I thought of how much my father would love this beautiful garden.

The lawn flowed like a green stream, lapping rocks that accommodated its width. Clipped green edges might have been cut with a child’s shears to form interesting patterns around the base of granite mounds, and two tall oak trees cast lacy shadows over lawns and upon cedar stepping blocks. I found that I could follow the rounds of cedar without wetting my feet, though everything around me was moist to the touch. Raindrops still glistened in early sunlight, lending their own jeweled touch, and I heard the gentle sound of dripping everywhere.

All of this must bloom riotously with azaleas and rhododendrons in the spring. Now the dark red of Japanese maple contrasted with borders of winter-blooming heather and the gray-green of mosses. These must seem peaceful colors, after the intensity of earlier seasons. In rocky grottoes maidenhair fern coiled its delicate tendrils, and the whole effect was wild, natural, soothing to my all too troubled spirit.

I walked on around a mass of creeping broom that edged another drainage pond, where phlox and marigolds bloomed. The house, high on its summit, was no more than a ghostly presence, and I could almost forget about its disturbing occupants. Almost.

As I came around a curve of lawn, the sense of peace vanished. The chauffeur—Kirk whatever-his-name-was—sat smoking on a rustic wooden bench. I promptly sneezed, as I often did at any whiff of tobacco smoke. This early in the day, he hadn’t put on his uniform and billed cap, and no longer wore dark glasses, so that for the first time I saw how deep a blue his eyes were—almost a navy blue. Again, I was aware of his interest in me as he stood up and took the cigarette from his mouth. He looked even more muscular and broad-shouldered in a turtleneck sweater and the jeans that fitted his legs snugly. The mustache with the movie-pirate droop was one of the things I disliked about him. It hid his mouth, and mouths were always an indication of what lay behind.

He rose courteously enough to greet me. “Good morning, Mrs. Thorne. You’re up earlier than the rest of the house.”

I sneezed again and he grimaced. “Sorry. Smoking’s a filthy habit, even outdoors. I’ve been promising myself I’d quit. So now I will.”

He didn’t throw the cigarette away but bent to bury it carefully under an azalea bush.

“There,” he said, “no desecration. Would you like to sit down, Mrs. Thorne?”

He was not only out of uniform but out of the role he seemed to play as the Radburn House chauffeur. I sat down uncomfortably, my moments of enjoying the lovely garden gone. This man left me with a feeling of uncertainty that I disliked. I never worried about conventions and what was considered “proper,” but I was a guest of Corinthea Arles, and I didn’t entirely trust her chauffeur’s behavior. Perhaps I would ask Dillow about him later, but for now I’d play this by ear.

“Can you stop smoking just like that?” I asked idly.

“I usually do what I set out to do. So I’ve stopped—as of now. We can’t have you sneezing like that.”

He was much too readily personal. Once more he’d managed to disturb me, and as usual my face gave me away.

“Of course Mrs. Arles would approve if you got up and went straight back to the house,” he said.

“I’m not Mrs. Arles. I came down here to enjoy the garden, and that’s what I’d like to do.”

It was a clear invitation for him to leave, but he continued to stand beside the bench, looking down at me. When he spoke again he seemed unexpectedly kind.

“Things aren’t going very well for you up at the house, are they?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I told him stiffly.

“And besides, it’s none of my business, is it? I suppose I just enjoy watching the resident comedy wherever I take on a job.”

I didn’t believe him. There was something more here, something that ran deep behind the “character” he’d adopted. I had a curious sense of quagmire under my feet. Better not to answer, not to get caught up in this fiction he was playing out—whatever it was.

He stepped over to a patch of sunlight and stretched luxuriously, reaching toward the sky with long arms. I watched him, listening to the light dripping all around me—moisture not yet sucked up by the sun. When he turned back he smiled at me easily, naturally.

“I’m sorry that I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean to. Whatever it is that brought you here, the answers haven’t been happy for you, have they?”

This was more perceptive than I liked to admit. He could be appealing when he chose, and I wanted none of that.

“Why did you use the word ‘comedy’?” I asked. “Why should you think whatever’s happening at Radburn House is funny? So far, I haven’t found anything up there to make me laugh.”

He came to stand again before my bench, looking down at me a little too intently for my comfort. “As a matter of fact, I expect what may be happening is a lot closer to tragedy. So maybe it’s safer to laugh and not get involved.”

“Why should you be involved at all? Are the dark glasses and the mustache some sort of disguise?”

His laugh was unamused. “Let’s just say I can disappear behind them more easily.”

Whatever intrigue he was engaged with had nothing to do with me. I didn’t like his abundant male arrogance, and I didn’t trust the faint stirring in me of something that had been asleep for a long time—a purely female response that I wouldn’t accept in myself. Not with a man like this! I had always liked gentle men. Larry had been a dreamer, with his eyes on mountaintops, and I’d loved him very much. With Debbie’s loss, there seemed no comfort for me anywhere, and I’d kept my relationships with men friends casual. Only through my work could I really deaden pain. So in a moment I would return to the house—get safely away. The very fact that I could think of leaving in terms of safety was a warning. But I wouldn’t run precipitately and have him laugh to himself.

“What I’m more curious about right now is you,” he went on. “The mysterious guest who appears suddenly, when Mrs. Arles is still recovering from a serious illness and doesn’t see anyone. Yet she’s entertaining those Corwins, and now you. A bit strange, isn’t it?”

“No more strange than your being here.” At least my defenses were up. “The mysterious chauffeur who doesn’t have a last name! Why do they call Dillow and Crampton by their last names but call you Kirk?”

“If you need another name, McKaye will do. But I asked Dillow to use my first name, and no one seemed to mind.”

Will do? I wondered. “Why do you think things aren’t going well for me at the house?”

“That’s easy. Your face gives you away. It’s an interesting face, really. But all the lines turn down, instead of up, and you’re too young for that. Besides, I have my spies who report to me.”

“For someone who’s worked here for such a short time, you’ve settled in pretty well.”

“I can settle in anywhere. I’ve had a lot of practice. Besides, I have a friend up there. Not either of the Corwins, I might add.”

“And certainly not Dillow. Though I still wonder why he was willing to hire you. Uncle Tim, perhaps?”

“Tim’s okay. I’ve played chess with him a couple of times. His deafness is no handicap there.”

How, I wondered, had he managed to meet the elusive Timothy Radburn? How had he managed to get into the house and up to the room on the third floor? Kirk McKaye seemed to attract unanswered questions.

“I mean Alice,” he went on. “The little girl. She’s full of words that nobody listens to. So I’m somebody for her to talk to. Since Mrs. Arles probably wouldn’t approve of her talking to me, that adds to my attraction. She tells me she played a trick on you last night.”

“I see what you mean about spies.”

His laugh was so sudden and so unrestrained that he made me jump.

“You really shouldn’t be talking to me, you know,” he said. “I’m probably subversive and off limits. But at least they can’t fire you. And my time’s sure to be short. Just so I have enough for something I might want to do. When I make up my mind what it is.” Something in his voice had changed, and he wasn’t laughing now. “In the meantime, I try to please Dillow. Mrs. Arles regards me as part of the scenery and she doesn’t hobnob with the hired help. So I take care to behave myself perfectly when anyone is watching.”

“How do I happen to be in a different category? Why are you talking to me? How do you know I won’t tell Mrs. Arles everything you’ve said?” I glanced up at the house uneasily, wondering if we were being observed. Only the roof and a third-floor room peaked above the trees.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “They can’t see this spot from most of the house. I’ve checked. And if you want to tell them, of course you will. Though what will you tell? That the chauffeur has been fresh and out of line, and you’ve been listening? Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

He could really get under my skin. “What does matter to you?” I asked sharply.

“A lot of things. This garden, for instance. I live up the little hill there in what they call the potting shed. It’s a decent enough building, and since the gardener doesn’t stay in it these days, I have the rooms at one end. So I can come down here whenever I like. I heard about the Radburn garden long before I came to Victoria.”

It seemed surprising that this rather hard, derisive man should be sensitive to the gentle beauty around us. But as I watched him I saw that his feeling toward the garden was different from mine. Something cool had touched his eyes. The thought struck me that this might be a dangerous man—even moving outside the law, if he chose.

“How did you learn about the garden?” I asked.

He considered my question as though I’d handed him a challenge.

“I heard about it years ago, Mrs. Thorne. Edward Arles described it to me. Alice’s father. We were both in our early twenties then.”

This silenced me completely. If he had known Edward Arles, a whole range of possibilities might open up. He was certainly no ordinary chauffeur, and there would be some strong secret purpose in his working here.

He went on more lightly. “I don’t know why I should trust you with this momentous announcement, but I have the feeling we may be in the same boat in some ways. I’m not sure where my voyage is heading, but it may be interesting to find out.”

“Go on,” I said. “What brought you here? Not just idle curiosity about a garden?”

He looked away from me. “I met Edward Arles first when we worked together at a lumber camp in the States—in Washington. That must have been fifteen years ago. He’d just left Victoria, and he wasn’t up to that rugged job at first. We hit it off pretty well, and maybe I helped him to grow out of an adolescence that had lasted too long. We kept in touch after that, and I saw him once in a while. When he went off on that Amazon expedition, he wrote me a letter that reached me after his death.”

Now I listened with growing interest. Anything that touched Edward Arles might be on my main road. If Alice was Edward’s child, that would be that.

“What was in the letter to bring you here?” I asked directly.

He shook his head. “You move too fast, Mrs. Thorne. As you say, I’ve no reason to think that you won’t go right to Mrs. Arles with what I’ve told you.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“That’s up to you.” He was serious now, all trace of pretense gone. “Only it might be better for her if you would wait. I’m not planning anything that will hurt her, and it’s better not to add new shocks until she’s stronger. Later, perhaps it won’t matter.”

“What I don’t understand is why you’ve opened up to me like this. Why?”

“Maybe I do some things on impulse. You’re inside the house. You’ll meet Edward’s wife and her husband. What if those two had something pretty vicious on their minds out there in Brazil?”

I stared at him. “Is that what Edward wrote to you? That he expected trouble?”

Kirk sat down on the bench beside me. “No more now. But you can see why it wouldn’t be kind to blurt out any of this to Mrs. Arles. Not until—well, until I know what needs to be done. In the meantime, Mrs. Thorne, what I said about your being a mystery guest isn’t true. Dillow told me why you’ve come. He told me about the kidnapping of your daughter and why Mrs. Arles invited you to visit her.”

This was even more upsetting. “Why would he tell you?”

“He knows about my connection with Edward. At least, he knows part of it. He’d never have hired me otherwise. Of course Mrs. Arles has no idea of any of this. I’m just a cap and a uniform to her. Her eyes aren’t all that good since her stroke, and she hasn’t spotted that I’m a fake. A pretty good one though—don’t you think?”

“I’ve never been convinced,” I said. Too many revelations were coming too fast, and I wasn’t sure what I thought.

“Don’t be upset. I told you we might be on the same voyage—of discovery. That is, to find the truth about Alice. Though she’s only part of why I’m here.”

The Corwins, I thought. They were the real reason why he’d come. To pay a debt for his friend.

“Did Edward’s letter talk about the Corwins?” I asked.

“Some. It’s possible we could help each other get to the bottom of this—if you’re willing.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet. What do you feel about Alice? Do you believe she’s your child?”

I shook my head unhappily. “From what I’ve seen, I don’t think she can possibly be Debbie. I’m planning to fly home in a day or two. So none of this really affects me. There won’t be any voyage for me. Do you want her to be Edward’s daughter?”

“I suppose I do. Because of something he wrote, I couldn’t let this pass. I owe him that.”

“After all this time? Why now?”

“The Corwins haven’t been easy to find. They move around a lot. I gave up for a while. Then I saw a Victoria newspaper a couple of months ago that spoke about Mrs. Arles’s great-granddaughter coming to visit Radburn House, along with her mother and stepfather. So I came—and talked Dillow into taking me on. Right now I’m waiting to see what will happen next.”

There was a lot missing in his story. But as I’d told him, none of this mattered to me. I’d be gone soon, with nothing to hold me here.

Kirk looked around. “Here she comes now—probably sent to look for you.”

I saw Alice as she came toward us, hopping from one cedar round to the next. When she discovered us sitting on the bench she came to a halt, staring. Her look defied me to mention hand lotion. This morning she wore jeans and a pullover blue sweater, and her short fair hair had been tied with a yellow ribbon on top of her head.

“Hi,” she said to Kirk, and then spoke to me. “Uncle Tim says he’d like to see you, but I’m not to tell the old lady if I take you up to his room.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

“Couldn’t you call Mrs. Arles something else?” Kirk asked her. “‘Old lady’ sounds so—”

“I know—disrespectful. That’s the way I mean it. I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me. How can I call her Great-grandmother?”

“What do you think, Mrs. Thorne?” he asked solemnly.

“I think Kirk is right,” I told her. “If someone called you ‘child’ at every other breath, you wouldn’t like it either.”

She considered that. “But I am a child, and she’s an old lady. Your name’s Jenny, isn’t it? I think I’ll call you that. Dillow sent me to tell you to come to breakfast. The old … she is having breakfast in her room, like always, but you’re to go to the dining room. Dillow says she wants to see you as soon as you’ve eaten. And, McKaye, Dillow says she’ll need the car this morning.”

“So it’s McKaye now?” Kirk said. “Well, I’d better get going. So long, Mrs. Thorne. See you later, Alice.”

Before he could leave, Alice spoke again. “I know! I can call her Corinthea.” She rolled the name through all its vowels, relishing the sound. “That’s a great name, McKaye. Don’t you think so?”

“I’d like to see you use it to her face,” Kirk said as he walked off.

That struck Alice as funny, and she looked after him, smiling for the first time since I’d seen her. It was a smile that lighted her whole face and showed even teeth. For once, she looked almost friendly.

My heart didn’t do a flop this time. It began to beat hard right up in my throat. For the instant of that smile I saw what Mrs. Arles had seen in the picture of Debbie—the flash of recognition, the clear resemblance to that younger child who had always smiled so readily.

“What’s the matter?” Alice asked. “You look funny-peculiar.”

The flash was already gone, and Alice Arles didn’t in the least resemble the small daughter I remembered. Nevertheless, for an instant I had seen the likeness too, and I was shaken by an uncertainty that was terrifying—because it wouldn’t be easily resolved.

“Are you going to be sick?” Alice asked with interest. “Sometimes I get sick, and I don’t even know when it’s going to happen. Once I threw up all over Farley. But that was when I was little. And after that he didn’t shake me so much any more.”

“I’m not going to be sick,” I said, and stood up.

“Then come along,” Alice ordered. “I haven’t had breakfast yet either, and I’m hungry.” She went skipping off ahead of me.

I followed more slowly, trying to get myself in hand. A smile meant nothing, I told myself—it wasn’t proof. Yet my heart went right on thumping against all reason. A heart was for hoping, and that was what I’d begun to do.