Chapter 2

A woman stood framed in the open doorway. She was tall and rather heavily built, and wore a trim gray skirt topped by a white blouse. Her hair was even blonder than my own and had been coiffed into a complex of coils pinned neatly and securely on top of her head.

This, of course, was Mrs. Broderick. Helga Broderick, who had come here from Norway as a young girl in Allegra’s day, later marrying an American, Tom Broderick. Tom had once been in charge of everything outside the house, but he had died a few years ago, and Mrs. Broderick was a widow. All this I knew from Ross’s previous briefing. He had also warned me that she was never to be considered a servant, even if I’d been likely to use that term. She was an administrator, and one spoke of the “staff” in referring to employees. Allegra Logan had been nothing if not democratic, for all that she lived like an aristocrat.

Ross shook hands with Mrs. Broderick warmly and introduced me.

“Welcome to Poinciana, Mrs. Logan,” Mrs. Broderick said, but her handclasp offered no warmth and her pale blue eyes dismissed me quickly. Obviously I wasn’t up to exclusive Palm Beach standards, and for a moment I felt subtly diminished. I could never live up to Allegra’s measurements, I was sure, but something in me stiffened. I mustn’t think like that. Perhaps Mrs. Broderick would need to live up to mine.

“Mr. Nichols will be right down,” she said to Ross, stepping back from the doorway. “He is with Miss Gretchen. There has been an unfortunate accident—though nothing serious.”

“Albert told me,” Ross said. “I’ll go up at once. I want to know what happened.”

Mrs. Broderick bowed her head in compliance, “Miss Gretchen—that is, Mrs. Karl—and her husband have moved into the south wing,” she added.

Ross nodded, his mouth tightening, and motioned me in ahead of him. Albert had already vanished around to the rear with an armload of bags. I stepped into the entry hall and forgot everything else as its stunning impact struck me.

It was an utterly beautiful and formal room done entirely in red and white, and not as large as might have been expected in such a house.

The walls were covered with tapestried silk the color of Chinese lacquer, the square of floor was white marble, lightly veined, and a suspended white stairway rose on the left, carried upward by wrought-iron balusters and rail. The lacy iron curved across the back of the hall at half-level, without visible support, and then turned toward the front, the treads vanishing as they reached the upper floor. The underside of the stairs gleamed white as they performed their act of magical balance.

Straight ahead at the half-level, white columns framed the red of a wall that held portraits, except for one conspicuously blank in the center. Beneath the floating stairs, more columns framed a door at the back, guarded on each side by marble busts on tall pedestals. Where the stairs began, a pot of Sèvres porcelain held a glowing rhododendron.

I must have been standing open-mouthed, for Ross put an arm about me, laughing. “Allegra used to watch for just that reaction the first time any guest stepped into her house. That stairway is still famous in architectural circles.”

“It’s so beautiful,” I said. “It takes my breath away. Yet for all its formality the room seems almost modern. Perhaps a classic modern.”

Ross approved my words. “My mother could do things like that. She had the imagination to fly ahead into new worlds at times. She didn’t want marble staircases and the ballroom-sized entry hall that Flagler chose for his home, so she created this out of clouds and made someone build it for her.”

“I already admire her tremendously,” I said.

In some strange way, he seemed to withdraw a little from the warmth in my words, and went on more coolly. “The empty space up there above the stairs used to hold a portrait that Sargent painted of Allegra. It’s at the Metropolitan in New York now. Perhaps we’ll replace it with one of you.”

“Oh, no!” I said too hastily, and he laughed again. I hadn’t earned the right to be up there, and I wondered uncomfortably if other wives had hung there too, and been in turn removed. But that wasn’t fair. I tried to cover my haste. “I’m going to love everything about this house.”

“Don’t be too sure yet,” he said in the same cool tone. “It’s a difficult house to know. But come along. I want you to meet Gretchen before we settle into our rooms.”

I wasn’t sure this was wise, under the circumstances, but I knew better by now than to object to anything that Ross proposed. We mounted the beautiful white stairs and I touched wrought iron lightly. The handsome foyer hardly prepared me for the drab and rather shabby hallway that stretched across the wide front of the house. Once its carpet had been rich with glowing color, but now it was faded and threadbare. Here and there a Louis Quinze chair or console interrupted the emptiness, and the flowered wallpaper was peeling in one corner.

“So much neglect, as you can see,” Ross said. “Some of the house has been kept up, but Allegra would hate what has happened to the rest. Poinciana needs you, Sharon.”

That pleased me more than anything. I wanted to be needed, and I meant to live up to what was expected of me. Somehow.

The curious architecture of the house became evident as we followed the hall. Other corridors turned off at odd angles, and unexpected flights of steps led up or down. At the end of the hall, double doors of mahogany had been closed across the far apartment. Near the doors a tall, red-haired man in jeans and a blue pullover stood beside a table talking on a telephone. He gave Ross a salute of finger to temple, glanced at me with appraising gray eyes, and went on speaking in a low, assured voice.

Ross didn’t knock, but opened the far doors that gave upon a formal parlor, and crossed it to a door that stood ajar upon a darkened bedroom. Here he tapped a warning of our presence.

“Gretchen?” he said. “Gretchen, I’m home. I missed you at the airport. What’s all this about a fall downstairs?”

“Go away!” said Ross’s daughter.

The words made no impression on her father. He pushed the door wide and drew me with him into the bedroom. It was high-ceilinged, with two tall windows across the front. Draperies of some light, neutral material had been drawn across to shut out sunlight and leave the room in shadow. I could barely make out the double bed with its rumpled covering, and a dark head just visible on the pillow. Bits of clothing had been strewn around the room and I stepped over a scuffed sneaker.

Ross advanced upon the bed, leaving me to stand hesitantly near the door. “None of that now! Sit up and let me have a look at you. I want you to meet Sharon.”

The girl under the covers groaned deeply and flung a sheet over her head.

“Open the draperies, please,” Ross said to me. I wanted to escape, but there seemed nothing to do but obey, permitting bright Florida sunlight to flood the room.

Gretchen bounced indignantly and tried to burrow further under the covers. To my astonishment her father reached out and grasped the bedclothes, pulling them down, and when Gretchen would have turned over to hide her face in a pillow, he pinned her shoulders with both hands so that she had to look up at him.

Gretchen Karl was developing a very colorful black eye.

“So!” he said, as she went limp under his hands. “That creep hit you, didn’t he? No fall downstairs did that.”

“Oh, Daddy!” Gretchen wailed, and held out her arms. Ross sat on the side of the bed and enveloped her in an angry hug.

I slipped quietly back to the hall, postponing any introduction, and found the man at the telephone just hanging up.

“Hello,” he said, and held out his hand. “I’m Jarrett Nichols, Mrs. Logan. It’s too bad this had to happen right when Ross was coming home.”

When I’d shaken his hand and murmured some agreement, I could find nothing more to say, and I stood in uncomfortable silence, waiting for someone to tell me what to do next. What had happened to that poise I was so noted for?

“Anyway,” he went on, “it’s a good thing you’re here, both of you. I don’t believe in feuds.”

“I didn’t know there was one,” I said hesitantly.

He seemed to concentrate on me for the first time since that initial cool look in my direction, and I stood my ground and studied him back, starting at the top of his tousled red head. Somehow, I had expected that the man in whom Ross put so much trust would be older—and different. More polished in appearance perhaps, and not so informally dressed. The gray eyes I’d already noted were emphasized by scraggly red brows, his nose had a slight bend in it that was not unattractive, and his chin had a fighter’s look. Above it, the mouth was unexpectedly tender in a face so strong—though I had a feeling that this man smiled very little. I felt wary with him at once. Like Mrs. Broderick, he was ready to weigh me and find me wanting.

“Mm,” he said, finishing his own appraisal. “You don’t look much like Ysobel Hollis.”

“Did you know my mother?” I asked directly.

“Not really. I met her a few times. And of course I saw her on stage. What happened in Belfast has hit everyone who admired her. I’m sorry about all that horror you’ve had to go through.”

He sounded sorry enough, but my distrust remained, and I was glad of that glass case I could close around me, concealing what I felt. I had always backed away from talk about my mother, however admiring. And now I did so more than ever. Ysobel was in the past and it was safer for me if she stayed that way.

“You’ve come as a surprise to this house,” he went on bluntly. “You might as well be aware of that.”

“Marrying Ross was a surprise to me, too,” I admitted.

His look continued to measure, but told me nothing of his conclusions. “Never mind. It’s done and you’re here. I suppose we’ll all get used to one another.”

Again, a strange welcome. I wished Ross would come and rescue me from this outspoken man.

“What do you think of the house?” he asked when the silence grew between us.

“I haven’t seen much of it yet. The foyer downstairs took my breath away. I’m eager to learn more about Allegra Logan. Did you know her?”

“A remarkable lady,” he said, but there seemed an odd inflection in his voice, as though he held back when it came to any discussion of Ross’s mother.

Again there was silence, and Jarrett Nichols went a bit impatiently to the door of Gretchen’s suite and looked in. Ross beckoned to him from the bedroom, and he left me with apparent relief. It was obvious that he did not approve of Ross’s marriage and that all he could offer me was cool courtesy. Never mind—I could play that game, too!

Just talking to him, I had begun to feel geared for resistance. How often in the past I had lived in a state of quiet combat. Even inside a glass case, one could be quietly stubborn. This wasn’t what I wanted now, but I had to find my own way to acceptance and respect, and I’d had more practice at this sort of resistance than Ross dreamed. I mustn’t bristle, but I wouldn’t be put down either.

At that moment Mrs. Broderick reappeared around a far corner and came toward me. “Would you like me to show you to your room, Mrs. Logan?”

I glanced toward the open door of Gretchen’s suite and saw that Ross and Jarrett were already deep in discussion. It occurred to me wryly that I hadn’t been formally dismissed by Ross as yet, but it was time to make a choice.

“Thank you,” I told the housekeeper, and followed her down the hall.

She led the way along a secondary corridor past a flight of circular steps that ran upward.

“That’s the way to the rooms in the belvedere,” she told me. “Mr. Logan’s mother had a sitting room up there at the top, and her nap room, as she called it, was just below. We’ve prepared a room for you next to Mr. Logan’s, down this corridor, though of course you may want to make changes if you are going to live here.”

I knew very well the customs of the rich. In Ross’s case there was a house in East Hampton and in Virginia, and the apartments in New York and London, but he had spoken as though he might not make the usual seasonal exodus. He never minded hot weather, he’d told me, and had thrived on it as a boy, just as his mother did.

The wing we were now in seemed to extend at a right angle from the back of the house toward the lake. At the end of the corridor were two open doors, and Mrs. Broderick gestured toward the one on the left.

“This is the Ivory Room. Mr. Logan’s room is on the right, with a connecting door between.” She stepped back to let me enter ahead of her.

The room was indeed ivory. Pale and beautifully elegant—a silken room with hardly a touch of color except for light yellow draperies and a golden pillow on the chaise longue. A perfect room for a woman who lived in a glass case, I thought, and wondered why I felt depressed.

“Your bath is over there,” Mrs. Broderick said, her feet whispering across the champagne carpet. “The dressing room adjoins it and I see that Albert has brought up your bags. I’ll send one of the maids to unpack for you, Mrs. Logan.”

I told her that I preferred to unpack for myself, and she indicated the bell, in case I wanted to summon assistance.

“Or you can always reach me on the house connection,” she added. “Just dial three.”

I looked into the bathroom and found it enormous, with mirrors and gilded fixtures, and a great deal of old marble, including the huge sunken tub. The gold rug would be furry and soft, shielding one’s feet from the marble floor.

In this suite there was no shabbiness and I wondered if Brett, Ross’s second wife, had done it over for herself.

“How large is the staff at Poinciana?” I asked, moving back to the bedroom.

“We’re somewhat shorthanded these days. There are only eight of the indoor help at present. Not including kitchen and laundry, of course. I want to consult with Mr. Logan about hiring more when he has time. Though help is difficult to find these days, and in any case Mr. Logan doesn’t like a house cluttered with people. The maids are supposed to keep out of his sight as much as possible. So you’ll need to ring if you want anyone. Of course, old Mrs. Logan had at least seventeen servants in the house when she was in residence here.” Apparently Mrs. Broderick didn’t mind the word “servant” if it wasn’t applied to her.

The fact that she hadn’t considered consulting with me about the hiring didn’t disturb me. I had no feeling that I was in any way mistress of Poinciana as yet, but merely a stranger, visiting.

Looking about at all this ivory perfection, however, I felt an urge to muss up the pillows, rumple the well-dressed bed, set the furniture askew.

“This wasn’t Allegra Logan’s bedroom, was it?” I asked.

Mrs. Broderick permitted herself a faint smile, and the intricate coils of her blond hair dipped slightly in my direction. “No, this wasn’t one of Mrs. Logan’s rooms. She preferred richer colors. That is, in the old days. Her rooms have been shut off for a long time. We don’t use them any more. There’s no need, with so many other rooms available and empty. Mr. Logan has done very little entertaining here for many years.” She hesitated. “Though of course that may change now.”

If there was a question in her voice, I didn’t know the answer, and I remained silent.

“Old Mrs. Logan designed and furnished the entire house originally,” Mrs. Broderick went on, a hint of pride coming into her voice. “Though I worked for her only in her later years, I know what wonderful taste she had. She knew all about the antiques and fine paintings her husband had collected, and often she brought in experts to advise her. Until—” She broke off and I had the same sense of something suppressed that I’d had with Jarrett Nichols.

“What happened to her?” I asked, trying to sound casual. I was beginning to feel increasingly interested in the woman who had built this house. In some ways she seemed more alive to me than those I had met within its walls.

Mrs. Broderick’s expression reproved me for my question. “Perhaps Mr. Logan will be better able to tell you about that. If there is nothing else you wish, Mrs. Logan, will you excuse me? Word that you were coming was rather sudden, and there has been much to do to get ready. Dinner will be served at eight, but Mr. Logan usually likes cocktails downstairs around seven-thirty.”

When she’d gone, I stood for a moment lost in thoughts of Allegra. There always seemed to be a sense of hesitation when her name came up, as though something of importance was being held back. I had been ready to admire her as the creator of Poinciana. In her role as mother, I wasn’t so sure. Talented and dramatic mothers could often leave something lacking where their children were concerned, but this had not seemed to be the case with Ross’s mother. After all, she had done a spectacularly good job with him. Hadn’t she? Anyway, I had other things to think about now.

I stopped pretending to be sure and in command of all I surveyed.

Across the room were arched doors that opened to the outside. I stepped through them eagerly and found myself on a wide upper loggia floored in terra cotta tiles. Moorish arches framed the view of the lake and ran along past a series of rooms, mine being one of them. Tiled steps led down to a pebbled courtyard, where tropical trees grew against the walls of the house, and bougainvillea clambered to the roof. Beyond, a wide lawn sloped toward the lake, its lush green dotted with coconut and royal palms. Strange to think that in the beginning there had been no palm trees in Palm Beach. They had all been imported when the island was built up from its sandbar state.

In the distance, from the other side of the house, I could hear the ocean murmuring, rushing up on a beach, but on this side the lake lay calm and blue-gold in warming sunlight. Out on its waters a sailboat moved under power toward one of the bridges, and on the far side rose the buildings of that busy commercial city that was West Palm Beach.

As I knew, Palm Beach itself had been the invention of Henry Flagler, Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil. He had seen the possibilities for an exclusive resort, and had run a railroad down to make the island accessible. It had been reclaimed from its wilderness of sand and shell and scrub growth into very much what it was now. Then he had built West Palm Beach across Lake Worth, to house, as he said, those who would serve the wealthy on the island of Palm Beach. West Palm Beach had thrived and spread and continued to marvel at the fantasies of the rich islanders whom it often served.

I turned against the rail of the balcony and looked about at what I could see of the house. It rambled away in all directions without apparent plan—which made it all the more interesting, though, as Ross had said, Allegra must have driven her architects mad in its building. Dominating all else, rose the tower that I’d heard referred to as the belvedere. There were windows and a balcony up there beneath the curiously domed roof that would command a splendid view in all directions. I liked to think of that room as belonging to Allegra, and I was already calling it Allegra’s Tower in my mind.

At the far end of this pleasant arched loggia, with its long chairs intended for sunning, a small door of carved cypress had been set into a rounded bulge of wall—obviously not the door to a bedroom. I went to it and turned the brass knob. Circular walls closed around me as I stepped inside, and I felt along the edge of the door for a light switch. When I touched it a ship’s lantern that hung from the ceiling came on, lighting a narrow flight of stairs curving away at my feet.

I smiled, remembering a secret staircase in a castle I had visited with Ysobel and Ian in Portugal. Clearly Allegra had loved her little surprises. Holding to the rail, I descended the flight and tried the knob of another closed door. Nothing seemed to be locked, and it opened easily. Once again I caught my breath in astonishment, as I’d done when I first entered Poinciana.

The room was enormous, its shadowy length cut into by long beams of sunlight from the tall windows at one end, turning it into a golden room, bathed in yellow light. Truly a golden room, I thought, for unless I was mistaken, the coffered ceiling was done in gold leaf, and so were panels along the end wall. No furniture occupied the center of the great room with its gleaming parquet floor, but there was a recessed dais for an orchestra, and little French chairs of tarnished gilt and frayed satin stood in place all the way around the walls, like guests waiting for the music to begin.

I wished I could have seen Allegra dancing here! What beautiful gowns she must have worn. Perhaps some of them were still hanging in the closets of her unused rooms. She must have been a great beauty in her time, and in that vanished era such parties must have been given regularly here as were never seen today.

Feeling like Cinderella wandering in a deserted palace, I walked across the room, peopling it in my mind with waltzing couples. No—not the waltz! Those were the Scott Fitzgerald days, so they’d have been dancing the fox-trot, and perhaps those who were young and daring would have Charlestoned madly across the parquet floor. More than ever, I wanted to see a picture of Allegra, wanted to know more about what she had been like.

A sound surprised me into turning and I saw that a door nearby had opened and a man stood staring at me. I recognized the uniform and cap of a guard, and after an instant of startled exchange, he touched a finger to his cap.

“Sorry, Mrs. Logan,” he said, and the door closed quietly as he disappeared.

Ross hadn’t mentioned guards, but I supposed they would be necessary at Poinciana, where several valuable collections were housed. For the first time, I had a sense of walls, not only holding out the world, but imprisoning those who lived here as well.

I shook off the fancy impatiently. Certainly I could come and go as I pleased and the walls had nothing to do with me. But now I had better find my way back to the other part of the house. Across the ballroom were wide double doors, arched and gilded, but I would explore where they went another time. I ran up the stairs and through the cypress door to stand at the loggia rail again. Someone shouted below me, and as I watched, a boy of about ten came running into sight, with a small nondescript brown dog at his heels. He slid to a halt on the grass as he saw me, while the dog leaped around him.

“Hello,” I called down. “My name is Sharon Logan. What’s yours?”

He didn’t answer me directly, though his curly red hair hinted at his identity. He simply stared at me for a long, unblinking moment before he spoke.

“So you’re the new one?” he said.

He was like his father, blunt. “And you must be Jarrett Nichols’s son? Do you have a name?”

“Sure. It’s Keith,” he informed me. “Keith Nichols. Gretchen said you were coming.”

And she hadn’t said it flatteringly, I suspected. “Do you live here?” I asked.

“Of course. All the time. My father stays here when he’s not in New York or Washington or someplace. We live over there in Palmetto Cottage. That’s the one closest to the lake.” He waved an arm, but from my balcony the cottage was out of sight around the next wing of the house.

“What a wonderful place to grow up in,” I said.

He nodded, and as his look moved to the right and left of me, I sensed in this boy a certain proprietorship about the house.

“Anything you want to know about Poinciana, you can just ask me,” he said. “I know things they don’t know. Things she told me.”

“You mean Mrs. Logan?”

“Of course.” Gray eyes that were like his father’s seemed suddenly bright with mystery. “Come on, Brewster!” he shouted, and boy and dog went racing toward the lake.

Brewster? Whose whimsy was that? He had spoken of his father and himself living at the cottage, with no word about a mother. And what was all that about some mysterious knowledge concerning the house? Well, the Nichols family was not my affair. There was too much else to occupy me now.

I turned back to my ivory room and began to unpack, while water ran in the marble tub. I hadn’t recovered from jet lag, and a hot soaking would be pleasant. But first I went to the door of the adjoining bedroom and tapped on the panel. There was no answer and I opened it, feeling almost surreptitious.

The room matched my own for size, but there was nothing of feminine elegance here. The big bed was covered by a woven hemp-colored spread, and the window draperies were of the same natural weave—suitable for warm weather. An easy chair of red leather sat near the inevitable fireplace—that could also be needed in Florida—and above the mantel hung a colorful hunting scene, with red coats on horses that were dashing for a fence. An open cabinet revealed a record player and stereo set, making me wonder what Ross’s tastes were in music. There was still so much to learn about my husband, but now, with an oddly guilty sense of spying, I closed the door and went to take my bath.

Later, dressed in a silk tunic and trousers of pale coral, I sat at the rosewood dressing table and brushed my hair, wound its coil at the back of my neck, and tucked in a tortoiseshell comb. Then I opened the fawn leather jewel case that had belonged to Ysobel and took out the jade my father had given me. In the padded ring tray were emerald earrings that were Ross’s gift, but for tonight I chose the jade. The golden chain that suspended the dragon pendant held jade beads at intervals along its strand, and when I put it over my head the green glowed with life against the pale coral of my tunic. When I’d fastened the matching earrings in ears that Ysobel had long ago caused me to have pierced, I was ready.

There was an instant, looking in the mirror, when I had the feeling that all this luxury was playacting. Make-believe. Out there somewhere was a real world where women worked for a living, and no one had eight indoor servants, let alone seventeen, or a house with a hundred rooms.

Ah well, I would playact for a while longer. Never in my life had there been enough money to do anything I wished. Ysobel might spend as she pleased, but I had never been permitted more than a small allowance. Everything was bought for me that I might want. So now I might as well enjoy and try to become accustomed. Nevertheless, it still seemed unreal, and sooner or later I would have to come down to earth and find something useful and interesting to do. Goodness only knew what, since apparently I was not expected to run the house or get a job.

Earrings secured, I searched the jewel case for the tissue-wrapped netsuke of frogs that Gentara Sato had given me in Kyoto. Once more I admired the intricate delicacy of the carving, and especially its subtle humor. If a frog mother could wear an expression that spoke for all maternal tolerance, this little frog wore it. Obviously, she was fatuously satisfied to have her heedless child put his foot in her eye.

There were holes for the cord, so perhaps I could have it made into a pendant. I really liked it much better than the ivory figurine Ross had given me, and which was still locked away in a trunk.

A light tap sounded at the door. I set down the frog carving and turned about on the dressing table bench to call, “Come in.”

A curly head of dark hair popped around the edge of the door, and a pair of bright green eyes regarded me speculatively. Then a dimple appeared in one cheek, and a small, rather pert woman pranced in. She was probably thirty-eight or forty, but her manner seemed more youthful.

“Pranced” was the word. She moved rather like a pony, and she skittered around the room without the slightest by-your-leave, looking all around before she came opposite my bench, where she stopped to smile at my astonishment.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Myra Ritter.” The accent was slightly Germanic. “And of course you are the new Mrs. Logan. Ysobel Hollis’s daughter. Mm.”

That considering “Mm” was already familiar to me. “I know I don’t look like her,” I said dryly.

Myra’s smile broadened. “I wasn’t going to say that. I thought you might be feeling a bit oppressed and that a friendly face would help. Do I look friendly?”

I recognized that she wasn’t being impertinent, or rudely familiar. She was clearly an original and it was evident that neither Poinciana nor its occupants impressed her to a point of subservient respect.

I had to smile. “Thank you. You’ve given me a name for yourself, but I still don’t have an identity to go with it.”

“Sorry! The room rather stunned me. Though I should be used to the house by now. I’m Mr. Nichols’s assistant. That sounds better than secretary, doesn’t it? I was just leaving and thought I would look in on you first. There’s been quite a stir about your coming, as you can probably guess. I’ve only worked here a few months myself, so I know what it’s like to spend your first days at Poinciana. At least I can get away at night. I don’t think I’d stay if the pay wasn’t so good!”

By any of the “proper” social standards that I had been quietly resisting most of my life, what she was doing was entirely outrageous. But she was being human, and I immediately liked her for it. Also, Myra Ritter, as I would come to know, had the ability to fly to the heart of a problem, discarding the extraneous. There was a shrewdness in her, seasoned by an enormous curiosity that she hadn’t the slightest interest in stifling.

“Thank you for coming,” I said. “Everything is strange and quite wonderful, but I don’t really believe in any of it yet. Won’t you sit down?”

She dropped into a chair and crossed a pretty pair of legs. She was young enough in years, yet older in intuitive wisdom, and she possessed a rather intense vitality.

“Money is always real,” she observed. “A very practical matter when one doesn’t have much of it. Though I find I can adapt to all this quite easily. But then, as I say, I can go home to my little apartment every night.”

“Tell me about yourself,” I said.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I was born in Vienna, but my parents brought me here when I was very young. I’ve been to school in Switzerland. I’ve worked at all sorts of jobs, here and there. Both in America and abroad. There was a marriage that broke up. Not a lot to tell, really.”

We chatted for a moment about schools in Switzerland, though mine were different from hers. I wondered if she might inform me about other members of the household. There was so much I needed to know.

“What is Mr. Nichols like to work for?” I asked.

“Considerate. Most of the time. He works very hard and he suppresses his suffering. Sometimes I think Americans can be as inhibited as the English. And the men of course are worse.”

I had no idea what she meant by the word “suffering.”

She went on without my asking, quite ready to gossip. I suppose I should have stopped her, but I didn’t. “Perhaps you don’t know? His wife died in an auto accident two or three years ago. There was some question about what really happened—whether it was suicide on her part. He’s a very good father to his son but the loss has been hard on both of them.”

I felt both shocked and sorry. “How dreadful,” I said, and wondered why Ross had never mentioned the tragedy. “I’m still ignorant about a great deal,” I went on. “I know some of the things that Mr. Nichols does for my husband, but just what do they encompass?”

She cocked her dark head on one side, grinning impishly. “I might quote one of the Mellons and say that Jarrett Nichols hires presidents of companies. Perhaps that’s not it exactly, but he does keep on eye on all those Logan Foundations, among other things.”

The picture of enormous power was coming clearer, but I turned from it with a conscious effort. “This house is what fascinates me. All the care Allegra Logan must have given to building and furnishing it!”

Myra nodded. “Yes—a fabulous lady. I’ve been reading about her in books from Poinciana’s library. She must have been very dramatic and willful when she was young, and always given to getting her own way with all her husbands. There were three of them, as you probably know. The first two she couldn’t stand and threw out. But I gather she was faithful to Charlie Logan all his life. There are several books in the library downstairs with whole chapters on Allegra Logan. Everything she did was news. And she’s the one who started a lot of the philanthropies Mr. Logan keeps up, and which Mr. Nichols helps to administrate. It’s his job to check new causes they might invest in. Tons of requests come in every year. Of course it’s all wonderful for tax saving, and of course makes Meridian Oil look soundly virtuous.”

Clearly, respect for the Logan empires was not uppermost in Myra Ritter’s mind, and I didn’t especially care.

“This is the first time I’ve met Mr. Logan,” she went on, “though of course I’ve talked to him by long-distance on any number of occasions, taking messages for my boss.”

Apparently, she had sat still long enough, and now she jumped up. I was to learn that Myra never made smooth, easy movements. She jumped and darted nervously, and now she skittered toward the door.

“Just wanted to say hello. I’ll run along now. Don’t let Gretchen put you down.” Again there was that intuitive leap to an understanding not altogether welcome, so that I felt unmasked.

She waved her fingers and disappeared through the door, closing it briskly behind her. For a moment I sat staring at its panel, not entirely comfortable at having been seen through so easily. It was as though with Myra Ritter my protective glass casing didn’t exist. She had seen straight into the uneasy truths that hid at my very core. Uncertainty and self-doubt had seemed visible at a glance to this odd little woman.

I turned back to my mirror and used my lipstick brush. So Gretchen was sure to be a problem. I wished I had asked Myra about Vasily Karl, the “Balkan” husband. It would be more useful to know about him than to study Allegra Logan’s life in the library downstairs—much as the idea appealed to me. Had he really given his wife a black eye? And if he had, what would Ross do—throw him out?

These were questions that would eventually answer themselves. Now that I was dressed, there was still time before cocktails, so I might as well move about the house, learn to find my way through its maze. I stepped into the corridor and met Ross coming from the stairs. He hurried to put his arms around me, then held me away.

“Beautiful, Sharon! That coral silk becomes you. You do have an elegance your mother never had. You make me very proud, you know.”

What my mother had had was love. Love pouring out to her from every audience she faced, love cradling her from her friends, and most of all, Ian’s enveloping love. Mine too. At least I had been eager to give it whenever she had time to accept the giving. But such a thought came close to something I’d never had the courage to face fully, and I moved away from it now, pleased that Ross had compared me with Ysobel and found her wanting. Ross was one man whom Ysobel would never have been able to manage.

He had returned to me fully, and when he kissed me I felt again the marvelous warmth of his protection. All my uncertainties could go into hiding, and I need only drift with Ross’s arms around me and be forever safe. I thrust back the small inner voice that asked if this was all I wanted of life—just to be safe?

“Where are you off to?” he asked.

“I thought I might wander about the house for a little while. Get acquainted with it. I’ve already found the ballroom. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. It’s your home now. I’ll give you a proper guided tour tomorrow, but you can explore in the meantime. I’ll shower and change, and then join you downstairs. Have fun.”

His second light kiss sent me on my way, and I knew this wasn’t the time to ask about Gretchen.

Much of the upstairs floor, as I discovered in my roaming, was shut off and unused. Allegra had obviously done a great deal of entertaining in her day, and there must have been times when every room was full. But now bedroom after bedroom closed its door upon whatever life remained in the house. All were beautifully, tastefully furnished, though a little frayed and worn. Often they had their own sitting rooms, and fine paintings hung on their walls. Allegra must have liked the French moderns, and it was surprising to find a Cézanne sketch or a Renoir watercolor tucked away casually in a sitting room where no one came any more. The art collection downstairs was undoubtedly fabulous.

Once Mrs. Broderick heard me opening and closing doors, and came out of her own room to ask if she could help me. I thanked her and went on in the face of what I sensed as disapproval. To her I was still an intruder, but she would have to get used to me.

Looking out a window, I discovered for myself the servants’ wing, set on a lower level from the main floor, and apart from the house by a roofed passageway.

Of course the tower drew me. I wanted to see it when I was alone, and not with anyone who would instruct and inform. Information could come later. Right now I wanted to sense Allegra as she must once have been. If old houses were haunted by ghosts, then Allegra’s must surely walk these halls, and perhaps had already begun to haunt me, filling my imagination, leading me in a direction in which I felt compelled to go.

I found my way to the iron treads that circled up to a third-floor level in the tower, and climbed, clinging to the rail. The steps opened from a landing into a room where all the shutters were closed and little light penetrated. There was a musty odor, a slight dampness, and what furniture remained had been shrouded in white covers.

The stairs led me upward, and I climbed to the top level, where window shutters stood open, and a breeze blew in from the sea. At one side a door opened onto a tiny, circling balcony, and I went through it to stand high above the red-tiled roofs of the house. It was like being at the top of a lighthouse, and I loved the mild wind on my face the view of ocean breakers rolling in upon a narrow strip of beach. I could see the swimming pool down there, and the tennis court. But the room itself interested me even more, and I returned to examine it.

Here no shrouding had been done. Comfortable rattan furniture covered with bright chintzes invited one. Across one corner was set a small desk and chair. Allegra had perhaps come to this tower room to free her mind when it was troubled, to feel close to the shaggy tops of the palm trees outside, and to view sky, sea, and lake, as they were visible from every window.

This, however, was not an unused room. An open portfolio of photographs lay on the desk, and tacked on the brief space of wall between windows were double photos in black and white. Both were pictures of Ross, and I went to stand before them, my interest caught.

Each was an action shot in which Ross had been moving toward the camera. In one he was striding free, his arms swinging, athletic and handsome, as I had so often seen him, his head up and eyes alight with characteristic vitality. He seemed to move with force and purpose and that eagerness for life that I loved in him, since it was the force that had brought me back to life.

The other photograph was in startling contrast, and it disturbed me deeply. Again Ross moved toward the camera, but now his arms were bent at the elbow, fists clenched, as if he were running. Late sun threw shadows slanting across his face, giving it a look of dark fury. I had never noticed that faintly diabolic slant of his brows before, or the way deep lines could etch his mouth, giving it a sinister look. Yet in this picture too he was driven by some vital force, so that he charged at the camera angrily, as though he meant to destroy it.

The contrast between the two shots was startling and unsettling. In the one picture, he moved into sunlight with confidence and courage, and you knew he was a man who could do anything he chose. In the other, he charged like a bull and the force that drove him was destructive—an ancient, dangerous force that grew out of some terrible frustration and despair. Only a despairing man could be as angry as that.

“What do you think?” said a light voice behind me. “Which one do you think he is like?”

I whirled about and knew that the small, sturdy young woman in tight jeans and plaid shirt must be Gretchen Karl. If no other clue was given me, the spreading purples of the bruise about one eye would have been enough.