CHAPTER   4.

“Mr. Garrison?”

The old woman who opened the door had a dour and unresponsive face. “I’ll see. What is the name?”

“Amanda Garth.”

“Will you wait, please?” It was perfectly mechanical. The woman, a housekeeper, Mandy guessed, went off to the right, stepped down one step through a wide opening.

Amanda looked around the almost square hall in which she stood. At the very center, steps went down. The hole in the floor through which they descended was round and railed with wrought iron. To her left a screen half hid a room that she guessed to be the kitchen, since it had a linoleum floor covering. There were other doors, all closed. Off to the right was lamplight and the murmur of voices.

Amanda stood still. Then up through the flat archway swung the young man, Thone, and behind him the old servant crossed the hall to the kitchen.

“I am Mr. Garrison’s son. Can you tell me what it’s about?” He was cool and polite.

“No. I’m afraid I can’t,” said Amanda, as cool as he. “If Mr. Garrison is busy will you ask him when I may see him?”

He looked down at her with a faint smile, a remote, impersonal, patient smile. Then with a little shrug he turned and was gone through the arch. She could hear what he said, in there. It seemed to her that he meant her to hear. His voice was not loud but it had a carrying ring to it, as if he sent it back to her deliberately.

“It’s the short-haired girl who was watching us down at the galleries today,” Thone told his father. “Probably an art student. Do you want to bother, Dad?”

She didn’t get the murmured reply. She fought off emotions that swarmed like bees. Anger, embarrassment, a little surprise that she had been noticed at all. The short-haired girl? Ah, so?

He came back, beckoning with a slow sweep of his arm. She walked past him with her chin up and he caught her arm quickly. “Whoops, the step!”

“Thank you,” said Amanda. The place where he touched her was too vivid a mark. Amanda cut off her arm with a quick slash of inattention, and looked about her.

This big room was the artist’s workroom. But around a fireplace there was a nookish arrangement of sofas and chairs. These were modern pieces with a built-in look. Mrs. Garrison, still in her gray, was knitting on something blue. She was at home in a corner of the sofa, cozy and passive. She wouldn’t help. Her eyes, over her spectacles, were merely calm.

Tobias Garrison, one thin thigh over the other, dangled a foot to the fire. He did not rise. His sad eyes wavered nervously across his caller’s face. “Yes?”

Thone, behind her, was silent. Amanda opened her lips and nothing happened. It was perfectly awful!

“Speak your lines, child,” said Fanny Austin briskly. Next to Tobias, her ugly little face was bright and interested and not unkind.

Amanda felt the paralysis leaving her. She smiled at Fanny, threw “Thank you” with an eyebrow. She said, “I am an art student, Mr. Garrison. And I haven’t quite as much n-nerve as I thought I had. I came because we’ve met before.”

“Is that so?” Tobias’ voice was smoother than she would have expected it to be. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you. Perhaps you’ll remind me?”

Something touched the backs of her legs. Thone had brought her an armless chair. Amanda sat down with quite successful steadiness. She kept her back straight and leaned forward- “It was a long time ago, sir.”

His head cocked politely.

She said, “Isn’t it true, Mr. Garrison, that when your son was born, they showed you the wrong child?”

He straightened, where he sat, with shock. “That’s so,” he said. His eyes held hers now and she was aware of nothing else.

“I am the wrong child,” said Mandy. “So you see, we have met, although I don’t remember you, either.”

“Well, mercy on us!” crowed Fanny, at last. “Please tell us more.” Some tension of shock collapsed with her frank display of curiosity.

“Hence all that interest this afternoon,” said Thone lightly. He moved in, near Fanny, and sat at the other side of a small round-topped table.

Amanda didn’t look at him. “Of course I was interested,” she admitted readily. “I only heard about it this morning. I went right down and stared as hard as I could.”

Tobias gave her a rather shaky smile.

“Because you think perhaps we were swapped in the cradle?” Thone’s voice was still light. Whether he was angry or amused, she couldn’t tell.

“Did you know about it?” Amanda turned and looked straight at him.

“Oh, yes.”

“Know what?” said Ione. Her hands had let the knitting fall. It lay tangled. “I don’t understand.…”

“Oh, Mrs. Garrison,” said Mandy, with a swift turn toward her, “I don’t mean to come in here and pretend to think you’re my mother. I don’t think that at all. I—”

“I am no one’s mother,” said Ione shortly. Her eyes were very dark and had a rather blind and hostile look.

“Wait, wait,” cried Fanny. “Tobias, tell us!”

“It was nothing,” said Tobias. “But we have met before, true enough.”

“That’s right,” said Amanda. “That’s all.”

Tobias smiled. “I must say I wouldn’t have known you, my dear. I saw you this afternoon, of course. You made a nice bit of color.” He was very kind. “But I do remember. It was a stupid mistake at the hospital, Fanny. I thought for a little while that I had a daughter. I take it this is she, grown up.”

“You had a son,” said Ione with some intensity.

“Of course, my dear.”

“But how …?” Her small hands looped the yarn furiously.

“It’s nothing to be upset about,” said Thone lazily. His head lay back on the chair. He was looking down his handsome nose. His forefinger played with the tabletop. It was on a swivel, somehow. It moved as he touched it.

Amanda was furious. “Of course it’s nothing to be upset about. I … My father and mother are very … dear to me. I’m sorry I came. I thought,” she spoke to Tobias, “if you remembered, perhaps you’d tell me some things I need to know about my work.”

“For auld lang syne,” said Fanny, nodding.

Amanda’s anger died. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said, in distress. “I never thought you’d think I thought … Yes, for auld lang syne, of course. That’s all I meant.”

“How is your father, my dear?” asked Tobias blandly. “He struck me as a very fine man indeed. John Garth. That’s right?”

“He … isn’t living. Not for twelve years.”

“Ah, too bad. I never met your mother.”

“Mother’s fine,” said Amanda. An expression of bewilderment possessed her face. “Was it your first wife, then?” she blurted.

“I am Mr. Garrison’s first wife,” said Ione, with odd finality.

And the silence rang.

“Oh, mercy on us, Ione!” cried Fanny. “Don’t let the poor child imagine …” She bent to Mandy. “This Mrs. Garrison is both the first and the third, my dear. Your mother—I mean the wife who might have been your mother—was Belle. Belle Thone.”

“‘Belle in the Doorway’?” Amanda gasped. “Oh, I can’t tell you … how that painting … struck me. It almost made me cry!” She was giving herself away, somehow. But she couldn’t help it. It seemed important to tell the artist.

There was another awful silence.

“Belle herself never cared for that picture,” said Thone, rather dryly and steadily, “did she, Dad?” Perhaps he was inviting his father to ride out emotion with chatter. Tobias didn’t answer. His eyes were sunken. His face was drawn.

Amanda looked desperately about her. “Yes. She’s dead,” snapped Fanny. And Thone stirred in his chair. For a moment, wildly, Mandy saw herself being picked up and thrown out of this house. She started to get up. She was frightened.

But Ione said, pleasantly. “Perhaps you’d be interested in another portrait of Belle, Miss … Garth, is it? Would you mind, Thone, if I took her down to see it?”

“No, no,” said Thone with a sharp movement of his hand. His eyes were on his father. “Show her. Go ahead. Take her down.”

Take her away, thought Amanda. She followed the plump little lady up the step, then to the descending stairs that went down the middle of the house. Followed numbly, grateful to escape from something she’d caused and regretted and didn’t understand.

Fanny thought it was rather decent of Ione to get the girl out of the room for a minute. “Toby, darling,” she said aloud, “I’m sorry. Somebody had to tell her.”

“Dad, if she’s going to make you feel bad, let me ease her out. You needn’t see her again, you know.”

Tobias roused himself. “I’m all right. All right now. She … thrust me back.” He crossed his legs the other way and let his head rest. “Seems a nice girl. Lovely face.” Thone grunted. “You must remember,” said Tobias gently, “that I was a pretty excited father that morning after you were born. You must try to understand this. I’m afraid I was full of high and exalted thoughts and feelings. I’m afraid I looked very hard and very long and greedily at the wrong little face. It robbed you of nothing. Never feel that it did. Yet … don’t you see? That girl … We have met before.”

“Of course I see,” said Thone, just as gently.

The stairs went on down, but Ione led Mandy away from them at the first level they came to. She hadn’t said a word. But at last, as she threw open a door at the end of the rectangular carpeted passage, she spoke. “This is Thone’s room.”

Mandy’s heart thudded heavily. Ione reached within and found the switch. Lamps bloomed. Then Ione said, more a statement than a question, watching the girl’s face in the new light, “You believe, perhaps, there was a real error in that hospital?”

I can be honest, thought Mandy stubbornly, although I’ve sure made a fool of myself. “Not really,” she said, “but I did … play a little bit with the idea. Possibly I’m romantic or something.” Her nervous smile asked for understanding and forgiveness.

“Your own mother told you about this?” said Ione coolly.

“Yes.”

“Does she suppose …?”

“Oh, no, no. We didn’t even discuss it,” said Mandy fiercely. “Because—well, we just know it makes no difference, anyway.”

Ione’s plump little face was closed, somehow. Calm, not angry, perhaps thoughtful. She said no more. She ushered Mandy into the room with a gesture.

The picture was hanging above a small corner mantel. Mandy didn’t want to look at it, particularly. But she did. She drew nearer. It was a head and shoulders. It was Belle, and she was lovely. But there wasn’t the enchantment, Mandy thought, the elusive challenging life. The impression of radiance at which one must snatch, quickly, because it was as slippery as time. It would pierce your heart and go. This was Belle, lovely and beloved, but not so much caught as held.…

Mandy’s thoughts strayed. Thone’s room. As she stood with her back to most of it, her eye sought the wide window glass across which the curtains had not been drawn. It made a mirror against the dark. She could see the bookcases, half empty, the small desk, bare. The single bed, the night table. The dark tile floor whose insane coldness was covered, in part, by a thick fur rug. An uninhabited room. His suitcases …

Then she saw, in the glass, Ione lift her hand and strike out at something that stood on the night table. It fell with a crash to the hard floor. She leaped at the noise, turned.

“Oh, dear!” wailed Ione. “Oh, dear, look what I’ve done! My elbow! How stupid of me!”

But, thought Amanda, in dumb surprise, it wasn’t your elbow. You did it on purpose. I saw you!

She went over to help, instinctively. She knelt, fumbling for an old handkerchief in her pocket somewhere. The stopper had come out of the dainty little thermos jug and liquid seeped forth.

Ione picked it up, as Amanda, head bent, dabbed at the floor.

“I dare say the insides are all in bits,” said Ione worriedly. “He mustn’t drink it, of course. Glass, you know. So dangerous. Oh, isn’t that a pity!” She went trotting to an inner door, a bathroom. Water ran. “Yes, indeed. I’m afraid it is broken,” she called back, rather cheerfully. “Don’t touch that mess, my dear.”

“I don’t think it’s hurt anything.” Amanda looked at her handkerchief. A loathsome old rag, it had already been used to clean up a little oil paint once or twice. Now it was freshly stained with brown. She rolled the dampness inward and put it in her pocket. Her fingers found a clean one there, and she dried her hand on that.

Ione came back with a towel. “Thone’s so fond of hot chocolate,” she puffed, mopping. “Oh, well, it can’t be helped. There. That will do, I think.” Then suddenly, “Please let me have your handkerchief.”

“Oh, no,” said Mandy.

“Please,” said Ione. Her hand, held forth, was steady and demanding. “You’ve soiled it. I will have it washed for you.”

“Oh, please. Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.”

“But I insist.” The jolly little face was smiling. The hand was still held out. It would never move, never retreat.

“It’s just an old rag,” said Mandy honestly. “You mustn’t trouble.”

“Not at all, my dear,” said Ione, rather coldly. “I’ll just take it, please. You shall have it again, once it is fresh.” It was as if Amanda thought she’d steal it!

Amanda’s face flushed. She thought, with a flare of antagonism, All right, you little fuss-buzz. “Very well,” she murmured. But she didn’t fish out the old rag. She put the cleaner bit of cloth—one of her best, she thought with satisfaction, and monogrammed, too—into that insistent hand. “Although it’s hardly even damp, you see,” she said.

“There now,” said Ione, looking about with a sigh. “Have you looked enough?” She herself had not once glanced at the portrait.

“Oh, yes, quite enough, thank you. I’ll go now,” said Mandy. “I’m sorry if I—upset anything.”

Ione laughed merrily. “It would seem that I’ve done the upsetting, now wouldn’t it?” she said, twinkling. “I must tell poor Thone. Ah, well … Come along.”

From the hall they could hear Fanny saying, “Only a week, Thone? Oh, too bad. But you must come and see me. Promise?”

“I’ll be there,” he promised. “Ah, Miss Garth.” He got up.

Amanda took the one step down. She went to the older man. This time he rose. “I’m going now,” she said. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

“Don’t go.” Whatever destroying emotion he had felt, it was gone. “Are you living out here, my dear?”

“Yes, in North Hollywood.”

“Your people were living in the East at that time?”

“Yes, but Mother found a position out here. Mr. Callahan, of Callahan’s Sons, is a friend.”

“And you are studying?”

“Yes, sir, although I have a kind of part-time job, besides.”

“You must come in the daylight,” said he. “You must show me what you have been doing.” Amanda gasped. “We must talk a little about painting. We are old friends,” said Tobias.

Her puzzled heart melted. “I’d love to come again, if you’re sure …”

“How about an afternoon?”

“May I? May I call you?”

“Please.”

She gulped and swallowed. “I must get back. Good night, sir. Thank you.” His hand was warm. “Good night, Miss Austin.”

“Come and see me,” invited Fanny. “I am a lonely old woman.” This was a lie. “I’m at the Allwyn. I do love company.” Fanny could say what she wished to say with that face of hers. It said to Mandy, “Child, I’ll answer questions.”

“You’re very kind,” said Mandy, blurting it. Oh, she did like Fanny Austin, the dear, charming old monkey-faced darling.

“Have you a car?” asked Thone politely.

“Yes, I have.”

“Good night, my dear,” said Ione.

“Good night, Mrs. Garrison.”

“We shall see you again?” She was Mrs. Santa Claus, after all, so cute and jolly. The whole mysterious tension seemed to have vanished. Everyone was being nice.

Amanda said she hoped so, as Ione’s hand touched hers a moment. Amanda walked, then, back to the hall, and Thone’s hand came up to remind her of the step. She veered away from it, stepped up. They went out into cool darkness. She found the door handle of the car.

“Good night, Mr. Garrison.”

There they were, out in the evening air, standing together in the road. He was much taller than she. His shoulder was level with her head. Mandy stiffened her neck, got into the car. He hadn’t said good night. She put her key in the lock.

“Only one thing,” said young Mr. Garrison quietly, and her foot trembled away from the starter. “You mustn’t worry my father.”

“Oh …”

“Only a few of us know how to speak to him of Belle.”

“I won’t,” said Mandy.

Something about him softened. “Just talk about painting,” he suggested lightly.

Her voice trembled. “That’s what I came to do.”

He stood there and said nothing. Mandy’s face burned in the dark. Her toe pushed the button. The car’s racket filled that humiliating silence. She said, as the motor quieted, sounding as light and gay as she could, “I may not see you again, Mr. Garrison. It’s very nice to have met you. Good-by.”

He stepped back, lifted his hand.

She backed down the mountain to the turn-around place with ferocious skill.