The Stone Bull Read online

  “It’s so beautiful it hurts,” I whispered.

  Brendon was beside me. “Yes. And it’s never static. The sky is always changing and the mountains can look different in every new shading of light.”

  “Everything here seems so—so far away from the world,” I said. “Unearthly. No television. No radios or newspapers crying doom.”

  He laughed. “Oh, there are newspapers, and they still cry doom. We do have a shop on the lobby floor. But those who choose can escape from the world for a little while. It’s not Eden, though—never think that. There’s no Shangri-la anywhere. Only surcease, rest, a little forgetfulness—that’s what we have to offer. And it’s good for those who come here. That’s why they return repeatedly. Just as I will always come back, no matter where I might wander.”

  There was no reason for his words to make me slightly uneasy again. I would never want to take my husband away from this beautiful place—would I? Surely I would always be content to be bound to it, as he was bound.

  We continued down the corridor, looking into more little parlors, all furnished with lovely antiques, and offering intimate settings for guests to use, unlike any hotel I’d ever seen.

  “Most of these things were collected in my grandmother’s day,” Brendon said. “Now this floor belongs to Naomi. She’s become very knowledgeable, not only in charge of the gardens, but also as our Victorian expert as well.”

  In the jog of a corridor we came upon the piano player and he looked up to smile at Brendon. There was no music on the rack and he slipped effortlessly from Cole Porter to Berlin to Rodgers and Hart.

  “No hard rock here,” I whispered to Brendon and he nodded.

  “We do have younger guests coming, but we feed them nostalgia and they seem to love it. Nostalgia inside, nature outside—the combination is irresistible. That’s why I’m not about to let Loring spoil it.”

  Guests were gathering in some of the rooms, chatting, visiting with each other, comparing small adventures of the day. Many seemed well acquainted. Yet this was more a visiting ritual than the cocktail hour of New York, and no drinks-in-hand were to be seen.

  “They’re not drinking,” I murmured in surprise.

  “There is no bar,” Brendon said. “But if you’d like a drink before dinner—”

  I shook my head. “I prefer it this way.”

  Sometimes when Ariel wasn’t dancing she had drunk too much, and since I was forever flinging myself in opposite directions from my sister, I drank very little.

  An elderly, white-haired lady in long black lace saw us in the doorway and left a horsehair sofa to come toward Brendon with outstretched hands.

  “My dear boy. How good to see you. I’ve been here all summer, and not a glimpse of you. But I understand.” She turned a friendly look upon me. “I want to meet the new bride.”

  Brendon introduced me and she took my hand, her pale blue eyes a little speculative. “Well—you are a surprise. I knew your husband as a small boy running about these very hallways. I’ve been coming here all my life, you know. My parents brought me when I was hardly more than three, and then my husband and I often took our vacations at Laurel. Now that I’m alone—I still come. So I’m happy to see that the McClain dynasty will be carried on. There aren’t enough children anymore. Not belonging to those who live here.”

  Brendon got me away from her a bit hurriedly and I wondered why, since she was only being kind. We went on, and now and then we were greeted, though nearly always by the middle-aged or older. The younger guests hadn’t been coming long enough to know Brendon that well as yet.

  “We’ll find Naomi in the family parlor,” Brendon said. “It’s where guests come when they want to see the McClains. Another tradition. We’re full of those.”

  “It’s lovely to have traditions,” I told him. “Who stands still long enough these days to do the same thing twice?”

  The family parlor wore red velvet and no horsehair, and rich garnet draperies looped in gold were pulled back from the windows for a full view of the sky and faraway mountains. Irene sat with a certain gentle regality in a tapestried chair—the queen mother reigning. Yet there was no sense of make-believe to the scene. All this belonged to Laurel, and had always belonged. The outside world hadn’t yet crushed in to destroy it. Or had it? Unbidden, I thought again of the woman named Floris who had died here last May, and in whose death the police were still apparently interested. “It’s not Eden,” Brendon had said.

  But I forgot the small cloud quickly because Brendon was taking me about the room, introducing me to men and women who could still be gracious and unhurried here, no matter what happened to them in their distant homes.

  Naomi was not immediately in evidence, but even as I looked about for her she flitted in, no longer grubby as when I had seen her in the gardens, the bandanna gone from her head, her gray hair fluffed and curly, but not wildly windblown. To my surprise she seemed to be in costume—in an India silk dress, snug of bodice, with a slight train and just the hint of a bustle. She must have seen me staring because she came toward us, flouncing a little.

  “How do you like me, Brendon? Grannie’s trunks are bottomless. I don’t think I’ve worn this gown before.”

  Brendon smiled his affection. “The dress is fine, but you don’t quite make the transition into Victorian lady. There’s a difference in the walk when you run around in pants all day.”

  “I’ll mince from now on,” she promised and went off wriggling her train a little, and using a step that was more bounce than mince. She hadn’t looked at me once. I might have been invisible as far as Naomi McClain was concerned. I watched her greeting guests, inviting admiration for her gown, still flouncing a little.

  “I wonder what she would have done if they’d ever let her out in the world,” Brendon said. “She’s only fifty now—she was the baby of the family, and Grandfather had a curious notion about protecting her from the ‘outside.’ She’s still lively—and I suppose she’s happy enough here. There was a man once, but he died in the Second World War, and she’s never found anyone since to care about as she does about Laurel. But I think if she had escaped when she was young she might have been successful at a job, even a career.”

  “Why can’t you think of Laurel as her career?” I asked.

  “It’s too limiting. A small kingdom can also be a prison, unless you get out once in a while, as the rest of us do. But now she’ll never leave, and perhaps it’s her touch that keeps a lot of the old traditions working. The guests—the older ones—are devoted to her, and she’s devoted to Laurel.”

  “Why does she think I’ve come here to hurt her favorite place?” I asked Brendon under cover of nearby laughter.

  He was as evasive as before. “It’s not that. Sometime I’ll explain. Let it go now, Jenny. Smile, I want everyone to admire my beautiful wife.”

  There was no dinner gong. At the end of the corridor outside the parlor, big double doors opened silently, and there were already guests—mostly the young hungry ones—lined up to go in. We waited until the parlor had emptied and Irene came to take her son’s arm. Her smile for me was as warmly friendly as Naomi’s pretense that I didn’t exist was chilling. Loring appeared just as we went through the door, and he seemed to be in a rush, as was usual for him.

  As he spoke to Brendon, his words carried a ring of triumph. “I’ve got it sewed up, finally. A conference of oil company executives from all over the world is meeting here next spring. Not only our people, but perhaps a sheik or two as well. It’s the biggest thing I’ve been able to land so far. They’ll spend plenty.”

  I saw Irene turn her head quickly to look at Brendon. Naomi was striding ahead, forgetting to mince, and hadn’t heard.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Brendon said coolly to his stepfather. “How definite are the arrangements?”

  “Definite enough.” Triumph was still bright in Loring’s eyes.

  The head waiter disposed of the group ahead and then turned to greet us,
giving me a special bow as Brendon introduced me. Naomi bounced on ahead down the vast room, and we followed more slowly, so that I had a chance to look around.

  I had been in Europe only once—when Ariel and Mother had insisted that I go along in order to see my sister dance in Paris, and this dining room was larger than any I had seen there. A strange mingling of the elegant and the rustic made it individual. Overhead, great dark beams rose to the peaked ceiling, and while the wood-paneled walls were dark, white tablecloths gave light to the room and there was an abundance of rosy lamps on the tables and bowls of autumn flowers everywhere. Crystal and silver shone from much buffing. Opposite the door a roaring fire sent flames leaping high in a giant fireplace. Again, however, it was the windows that gave the room its special, dramatic character. The end of the room we approached was built out upon the hillside in a great semicircle, with huge glass windows making a solid wall, dramatizing the splendor of sky and valley and mountains.

  The family table was near one of these windows, and a smiling young waitress attended us. While Loring seated his wife, Brendon pulled out chairs for Naomi and me. I was determined to savor, to enjoy, every new experience I had at Laurel Mountain. Too soon everything would become familiar—perhaps commonplace. So now I sat looking out the windows, watching the gathering of color in the west as clouds were tinted to chrome yellow and chartreuse and deep rose.

  Brendon had told me that it was Irene who kept the hotel cuisine to a level of excellence that was known around the country. While there was no elaborate choice at meals, the cooking was imaginative, sophisticated, delicious.

  I enjoyed my smoked oysters, lentil soup, succulent duckling, and the salad of greens and tiny tomatoes grown in the hotel gardens. For dessert I let every mouthful of French cheese cake melt in my mouth. During the course of the meal there was desultory conversation, but it was not as pleasant as the food, as I became quickly aware.

  Brendon’s mood had darkened and I suspected that he was brooding over the fait accompli of Loring’s plans. Irene was clearly worried about them both, torn between husband and son, while Naomi had ceased to bounce and ate gloomily as though what was set before her might be her last meal. I had been placed next to her at the round table, and once I tried to engage her in conversation by telling her how much I liked everything I had seen of Laurel Mountain.

  I didn’t get very far because she set down her fork with an air of impatience, as though I had interrupted important concentration, and looked at me briefly. Her glance was no more than that. A flicking of her eyes to my face and then away, but I saw again the evidence of antipathy and felt shocked and troubled. This was not the place to try to draw out the reason for her hostility, or attempt to diminish it, but I knew there would eventually have to be a meeting between Naomi McClain and me if we were both to live where we would see each other constantly. She said nothing in response to my remarks, but simply gave me that quick look and then turned to speak to Loring on her other side.

  At that moment I happened to look at Irene and caught her eyes upon me, knew that she had seen, that she was aware. She tried to smile at me—in reassurance, I think—but her lips quivered before she tightened them, suppressing evidence of whatever she was feeling. There was no suppressing the look in her eyes, however, and I sensed that something had frightened her, or at least worried her extremely, and that it had to do with me. I was beginning to feel like Bluebeard’s bride. What had happened in this place to make Brendon’s bringing me here as a new wife something to cause concern in one woman and decided aversion in another?

  At least I could rely on the fact that everything was perfect between Brendon and me, and I enjoyed my meal determinedly. When we were leaving the dining room I put a hand on my husband’s arm.

  “Will you walk with me outside? Perhaps there’ll be an early moon tonight, and I’d love to see Laurel by moonlight.”

  He covered my hand with his. “We’ll do that, darling. But on another night. Loring and I have business to attend to that can’t wait. It will probably take a while, so I may be late coming upstairs. I’m sorry, but I’m sure Mother will welcome your company for the evening.”

  I shook my head, thrusting back my disappointment. “I understand. But if I can’t be with you this evening, I’m tired enough to want to be alone. I’ll go up to our rooms and read for a while and then get to bed early. This has been a long day.”

  “Yes. Long for me too. But I’ve had my reward. You are going to feel about Laurel the way I do. And that’s all I can ask.”

  Brendon and Loring went downstairs to the lobby floor for their conference. Naomi had disappeared, and I stood for a moment in the hall with Irene, thanking her for the lovely rooms and the welcome she had made me feel. She reached for my hand and held it gently.

  “You are welcome here, my dear. I couldn’t ask for anyone lovelier as my son’s wife. Not just because you’re so pretty, but because of all he has told me about you. Besides, I make up my own mind very quickly.” Something flickered in her eyes as though she might have said something else, but she looked away. “I know everything is going to be all right. Just give Brendon time to stop being a bachelor.”

  Her choice of phrasing seemed to hint that she’d harbored a fear of its not being “all right.”

  “Of course I’ll give him time,” I said quickly. “We’ll both need time to get used to marriage. What I’ve never understood is how I was lucky enough to find him. Lucky enough not to have had some other woman snap him up long before this.”

  She smiled and released my hand. “Oh, there have been girls. That’s no secret, and you mustn’t suppose otherwise. Not with a man like Brendon. But he never wanted to settle down with only one before. I’m glad it was you, my dear. Now—if you haven’t any plans for the evening—would you like to come over to our house for a while? It’s close by—the house my father built, so he could get away from the hotel some of the time. Naomi lives there with us, though she has her own little office on the main floor of the hotel as well.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’d like to come another time.”

  “Of course. Run along and have a good rest. Laurel will be waiting for you tomorrow.”

  Her words had warmed me, and when we’d said good night, I walked toward the elevator with a lighter step. From the beginning I had told myself that I would not be curious about Brendon’s past. He asked no questions about men I might have known, and I would never ask him questions about women. Our lives together had begun with us. And that was enough. What problems I might have to work out at Laurel Mountain would not be because of my husband.

  The walk from the elevator toward what they called the Stone Section seemed endlessly long. The additions that had been built on to the hotel over the years had taken a curious zigzag pattern, so that each new section was set a little back from the old—perhaps to follow the line of the lake, about which nothing could be done. At least I was glad of cheerful red carpets and good lighting, until the corridor narrowed and the overhead lights grew dimmer. I hadn’t been aware of emptiness up here before. With Brendon beside me I hadn’t listened to the utter quiet, but I was aware of it now. A hangover from city living, undoubtedly. Though I hadn’t been afraid out in the New Jersey countryside, and the Mountain House was even safer. It was just that I wasn’t accustomed to a totally empty hotel corridor where no one else occupied the rooms on either side.

  It was a relief to reach our door. I slipped my key into the lock, let myself through, and closed the door behind me, shot the extra bolt. Eerie, that feeling I’d had in the hallway. And very silly.

  Across the room the balcony beckoned me and I went through the open doors and stepped outside. The entire face of the hotel on the lake side was made up of just such balconies—long verandas, really, all broken into separate enclosures by decorative wrought-iron railings of the sort one seldom sees today. On either hand the fourth-floor balconies stretched empty, though here and there a lighted room threw patches of yello
w across the darkness. The night was completely dark now and I gave myself over to its enjoyment.

  Stars bloomed across the deep blue sky, and far below, the reflecting lake lay quiet—like black glass in the shadows, twinkling with star points out in the middle. Lights of the hotel made paths across the water, and on the opposite shore where that labyrinth of rocks called the Wolf’s Lair tumbled down the hillsides, I could see a small, thatched-roof summerhouse—a little gazebo—with a light standard near it. Other lights flickered through tree branches here and there about the grounds, while high on the rock of the mountain opposite, the High Tower light was brightest of all—sending its gleam across the Hudson Valley and beyond, the dark arm of the tower holding its beacon high.

  A warm response to all that was beautiful and peaceful about Laurel Mountain rose in me. That this was to be my home from now on delighted me increasingly. Where others had to leave after a short visit, I could stay on and see it in every season and under every weather change. In that moment of intense feeling I was doubly grateful to Brendon, who had given me this and who would be forever a part of its perfection.

  From the room behind me came a faint, unaccountable rustle. Perhaps Brendon had opened the door without my hearing him. But of course he couldn’t have because it was bolted. I walked back into the room, wondering what could have made the sound. The answer was quickly evident.

  Someone had slipped a sheet of hotel stationery beneath the door, and I glimpsed the proud and watchful panther of the logo again. A message from the desk, perhaps? I picked it up and carried it to the glow of the Chinese lamp, to find that a few words had been typed across its surface. Words enclosed in quotation marks:

  “Let no guilty man escape.”

  That was all, and it sent a stabbing of alarm through me. Because I was guilty. Ariel had called me; I had not gone to her in time, and my sister was dead.