The Dark of Summer Page 2

  As she stepped out of the car she saw a thin wiry man walking toward her. He was sixty years old perhaps, with a leathery face that might have done well for the captain of an ancient sailing ship: all creases and lines, darkly tanned, grizzled. He was wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and dark tie and looked not unlike a funeral director.

  “Miss Keller?” he asked rounding the front of her car, his gait swift but stiff-legged.

  “Yes?”

  “Fritz Helman,” he said, introducing himself with an incomplete bow in her direction. She thought that she detected the slightest trace of an accent in his precise voice, though he had obviously made English his native language decades ago. He said, “I'm the family's houseman. I serve as butler, official greeter, secretary to Mr. Barnaby — and in half a dozen other capacities. Welcome to the manor.”

  He smiled at her warmly, though he seemed to be holding something back, keeping some other expression locked behind that smile. It was not quite that the smile was insincere, just that it did not completely show what he was feeling.

  She said, 'Thank you, Mr. Helman.”

  “Please call me Fritz.”

  “Fritz, then. And you call me Gwyn.”

  He nodded, still smiling, still withholding part of himself from her. “Your luggage?” he asked.

  “Two suitcases in the trunk, and two on the back seat.”

  “I'll have Ben get them shortly,” he said.

  “Ben?”

  “The handyman and chauffeur.” He took her arm in a very courtly manner and escorted her to the open doors, through them into a marble-floored entrance foyer where the walls were starkly white and hung with two flaring oil paintings by an artist she felt she should recognize but could not.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby were hoping that you might arrive in time for lunch,” Fritz said. “They delayed as long as they reasonably could, and they've both only just finished.”

  “I'm sorry if I held things up with—”

  “Not at all,” he said quickly. “But would you like me to see about putting together a plate of leftovers for you?”

  “I stopped for something on the way,” she said. “But thank you just the same, Fritz.”

  She had taken two days for the drive, and she had enjoyed stopping at restaurants along the way — even those that had a decidedly plastic atmosphere and served food that she found barely passable and not always digestible. No matter what the quality of the meal, she was at least out among other people once more, away from the familiar academic background which had been the only place she had been able to function for quite some time. Now, free from school for a few months, no longer bothered by a need for excessive sleep, with some excitement for the summer ahead, she felt as if she were a jigsaw puzzle that had finally been put together. All of the missing pieces were in place, and she was again a complete woman.

  While her thoughts were wandering, Fritz had led her down a darkly paneled corridor laid with a deep wine-colored carpet. Other original oil paintings hung on both sides. He stopped before a heavy, handcarved door decorated with wooden fruit and leaves, and told her: “Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby are in the library having a bit of brandy to help settle their lunch.”

  He rapped once, shortly and sharply.

  A man's voice, strong, even, and resonant, said, “Come in, please.”

  Fritz opened the door and ushered Gwyn in before him.

  He said, “Miss Keller has arrived, sir.” He sounded genuinely pleased to bring the news.

  In the same instant he turned, rather abruptly, and left the room, closing the fruit bedecked door behind him and leaving her alone with the Barnabys.

  The library was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and all of them were filled with hardbound volumes tooled in expensive leather or in good, sturdy cloth. A mammoth desk rested at one end of the room, and three large easy chairs at the other. In between was open carpet, a sort of no-man's land into which Fritz had led her and abandoned her. Though she had been feeling quite secure and competent moments earlier, she now felt full of doubts, uneasy, waiting for some indefinable disaster…

  In two of the reading chairs, beneath the antique floor lamps, sat William and Elaine Barnaby. He was a large man, though lean, dressed in gray slacks, a burgundy blazer and a blue shirt with a dark blue ascot at his neck. His hair was gray and combed full at the sides in British fashion, and he had about him a look of near nobility. His face was somewhat soft, but not so little lined as to appear weak. His wife, Elaine, was younger than he, no more than forty, and quite beautiful in a cold, high-fashion way. She was dressed in a floor-length skirt and a ruffled blouse, holding a brandy snifter in her hand with the casual elegance that bespoke good breeding and the finest preparatory schools. She was brunette, with a dark complexion and huge, dark eyes that seemed to penetrate straight through Gwyn like twin knives.

  No one spoke.

  It was as if time had stopped flowing.

  Gwyn felt awkward and clumsy as she compared herself to the older woman, though she knew she was neither of these things. Her bright blonde hair now seemed brassy and cheap next to Elaine's dark locks, and she felt that her pale complexion — from so many months as a recluse — made her look sickly and unattractive. She was certain that, if she took but a single step toward them, she would stumble and fall, making a complete fool of herself.

  Putting his brandy snifter down on the table beside his chair, William Barnaby stood; he was well over six feet tall and even more impressive than he had been sitting down.

  Gwyn waited.

  She knew she should say something, but she could not. She was sure anything she could say would seem childish and frivolous.

  He took a step toward her.

  Behind him, Elaine stood too.

  “Gwyn?”

  Somehow, she managed to find her voice. “Hello, Uncle William.”

  They were only half a dozen steps apart now, but neither of them moved to close the gap. The reunion was not going to be so easy as she had anticipated, for they both had too much past to reject to manage intimacy in the first few minutes.

  “You look wonderful,” he said.

  “Not really,” she said. “I've not been well lately. I need to get a little sun.”

  It all sounded so inane and pointless, this small talk when they should have been making up for all those lost years. And yet… What else was there to do?

  Elaine said, “How was your drive?” Her voice was cool, even, and touched by a faint British accent that amplified her sophistication. Her smile was absolutely dazzling.

  “Very nice,” Gwyn said, her own voice stiff with expectancy. “I didn't mind it at all.”

  Another moment of awkward silence passed.

  Gwyn almost wished she had not come here. This reunion was going to take more out of her than she had to give.

  Then, as if snapping out of a trance, her uncle said, “Gwyn, I'm truly sorry for what's happened.”

  “It's all past,” she said.

  “But that makes me no less sorry.”

  “You mustn't worry about it,” she said.

  “I can't help but worry,” he said. “I only wish that I had come to my senses years ago, before so much bad feeling had been generated — while Louise was still alive…”

  Gwyn bit her lip.

  Tears, unbidden, rose in her eyes.

  She thought that she saw tears, also in William Barnaby's eyes, though she could not be certain.

  Then, as the fat droplets brimmed up and trickled down her cheeks, the spell was broken altogether, and their uncontrollable emotions forced them to accept each other in a way that intellect alone could not have done. Elaine came swiftly forward, graceful and concerned, and she put an arm around the girl's shoulders, consoling her with few but well chosen words. When Gwyn had wiped the worst of the tears away and felt somewhat better, Elaine said, “Come and sit down. We've got so terribly much to talk about, the three of us.”

  Elaine had been righ
t: they couldn't get done talking. At times, all three of them would begin to speak at once, producing a senseless chatter that made them all break off in laughter. Then they would sip their brandy (a snifter had been wetted for Gwyn), take a moment to reorder their thoughts, and begin again. They talked about the past, about the present, about the summer ahead, and they gradually grew more accustomed to each other until, by late in the afternoon, Gwyn felt as if she had not been separated from them for years, but, rather, for a few short weeks.

  She hoped they felt the same way about her, and she was fairly certain that they did, although she now and then sensed a caution, a cool reserve that was not unlike the same air she had noticed about the butler, Fritz Helman. She supposed that this was nothing intentional, but merely the way of those who have been very wealthy all their lives and have insulated themselves from the heat of the real world beyond their preserves.

  Her Uncle William was not a man to indulge in self-pity or in self-recriminations. He was proud and a bit aloof. With others, outside of his circle of family and friends, he would be a bit snobbish, though not unlikable. Once he had convinced her of his sincere contrition for his past behavior — which he did at the outset when she first walked into the library — he never mentioned it again. Indeed, he spoke as if the separation between them had never existed at all, as if they were sitting down for a chat like a thousand others they had had. When he let his mind wander through the past and call forth amusing anecdotes, he laughed both at the stupidities perpetrated by himself and his father, and at the good times from his childhood, before the feuding had begun. He did not apologize repeatedly, and he did not whine over his mistakes; he was a man who was above that sort of behavior.

  The conversation, therefore, was almost uniformly entertaining and contributed to a general lightening of Gwyn's spirits. The only time it grew depressing was when they wanted to know about her sickness.

  “When you came in,” Elaine said, “you mentioned having been ill.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing too serious?”

  “Nothing I could die from,” she said, laughing, trying to get them off the subject.

  But they were both concerned for her. Her uncle said, “Our own doctor's quite good. I could make an appointment for you if—”

  “That's not necessary,” Gwyn said.

  “It's no trouble, and—”

  “It wasn't exactly a physical illness,” she said, looking down at her hands which were folded around the thick stem of her brandy snifter and which were trembling noticably.

  When she looked up, she caught the tail-end of a meaningful glance which the two older people had exchanged over this bit of news. For an instant, she almost thought that she had glimpsed an element of a smile in that glance… But that did not make sense. Mental illness was a misfortune; there was, surely, nothing about it that anyone could find humorous.

  For a while, depressed by her own story, she had to tell them all that she had experienced because of the shock of her parents' death — the long naps, the longer nights in bed, and finally about her battle, with the help of a psychiatrist, to overcome her malaise. It was all very trying to recount, but she decided they had a right to hear about all of it. They were, she hoped, to be her only loved ones, and she did not want to have to keep secrets from them.

  Much later, after the conversation had been channeled back to more pleasant subjects, Elaine stood abruptly, set down her glass and said, “Well, I think we've badgered Gwyn enough for now.” She turned to the girl and said, “You must be exhausted after your drive. I'll show you to your room, so you can rest and freshen up before supper.” She looked at her watch. “It's just six-thirty now. That gives you two hours before dinner.”

  Gwyn's room on the second floor was huge and airy, furnished in genuine colonial antiques including a canopied bed. It had two large windows, both of which looked out on the lawn, the edge of the cliff, and the endless sea beyond. The sky was high and blue, marred only by a few scattered, dark clouds near the horizon — and the ocean threw back this blueness tenfold, like a painter's pot of color.

  'It's a beautiful view,” Gwyn said.

  The waves rolled toward the beach at the base of the cliff, which was not within view from this vantage point, tipped by brilliantly white foam that shimmered like a heat mirage.

  “Do you really think so?” Elaine asked, standing next to her.

  “Don't you?”

  “Of course,” Elaine said. “But Will remembered about Ginny, about the accident… And he thought maybe you wouldn't like a view of the sea, that it would bring back unpleasant memories.”

  “Of course it doesn't,” Gwyn said. But her voice was strained.

  Ginny had died in a boating accident from which Gwyn had escaped with her life. Looking at the sea, Gwyn had not recalled the association — but now she could hardly avoid it. She remembered, with a sudden intensity that surprised her, the empty, hollow pain that had followed her sister's death when they were both twelve.

  “Your life's been so full of death and pain,” Elaine said, touching her cheek. “But it's going to change now. You've only got good things coming to you.”

  “I hope.”

  “I know.”

  Elaine showed her the private bathroom attached to her room, showed her where extra towels and linens were kept if she should need them. When the older woman left, her footsteps were like quickly fading whispers, testimony to her grace, and she closed the heavy door without making a sound.

  Gwyn returned to the window, like an iron filing drawn to a magnet, and she watched the rhythmic pulsing of the great ocean which, in some small way, still harbored Ginny Keller… It held her atoms, sundered one from the other, which it had scattered to the four corners of the world, food for the fishes, no longer a person, no longer anything at all…

  Dr. Recard had warned her that, when she found herself facing a particularly unpleasant chore or memory, that she should not turn from it, but should confront it, should become so familiar with it that it lost its frightfulness. Now, she confronted the ocean, the rolling waves, the low sky which was much like the sky beneath which Ginny had drowned so many years earlier…

  Why had Elaine found it necessary to bring up the subject of Ginny Keller, when she knew that it could have only an adverse affect on Gwyn's mood? Why couldn't she have just let the subject lie undiscussed once she saw that Gwyn was not bothered by the ocean?

  She was only concerned for me, Gwyn thought. She was only trying to be kind.

  She hugged herself.

  She was filled with a confusion of sadness and happiness, and she did not know for sure anymore whether or not this whole endeavor was a good idea. In the library, when they had talked of so many things, she was sure she had made the right decision by coming here; the summer would be full of joy. But now, she realized that the past could be forgiven — but that it could never be entirely forgotten.

  As she stood watching the sea, her thoughts drifted, and in a while the face of Ginny Keller rose up before her, almost as if it were etched on the windowglass… It was a pale face, tongue lolling between purpled lips, eyes bulging obscenely, skin a vaguely bluish color, quite dead and quite hideous…

  THREE

  Gwyn was still standing before the window when the knock came at her door less than ten minutes later. She was watching both the sea and the vision of the long-dead girl, repelled and yet mesmerized by the superimposed spectacle provided by her own over-active imagination. The sound of knuckles meeting wood jerked her out of her unpleasant reverie, brought her back to the reality of Barnaby Manor.

  She crossed the room and opened the door, expecting to see either Fritz Helman or her Uncle William. Instead, she was greeted by a tall, rather well-built young man no more than three or four years her senior, a handsome man with a thick growth of unruly brown hair and eyes as black as chips of polished coal. He was wearing casual slacks and a floppy collared blue shirt, and he carried two of her suitcases
.

  “I'm Ben Groves,” he said. “I didn't realize there were suitcases in the back seat of the car when I took the others out of the trunk. Fritz just told me. I hope I haven't inconvenienced you at all.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Bring them in.”

  She stepped back from the door and ushered him in.

  He placed the suitcases beside the other two, at the foot of the bed, and he said, “I could help you unpack, if you like.”

  “That's okay,” she said. “I don't mind. If I don't do it all myself, I'll not know where everything's been put.”

  He smiled. He had a perfect smile, all full of white, even teeth; his evident good humor was infectious. Gradually, Gwyn began to forget about the sea, about the boating accident, about Ginny…

  He said, “I'm the handyman, as you probably know. If anything needs fixed — and something usually needs to be fixed in a place so old as Barnaby Manor: a dripping faucet, a sticking window, a loose stair tread — just leave word for me with Fritz or with Grace, his wife. I'll take care of it as soon as I know about it.”

  She promised not to be shy about calling him.

  “And I'm also the chauffeur,” he said. “The Barnabys own two cars — a rather ancient but excellently preserved Rolls Royce, and a brand new Thunderbird. I know you've got your own car, but if you should ever want to go into town, and you don't feel like driving yourself, you've just got to let me know.”

  “I wouldn't want to interfere with your duties to Uncle Will,” she told him.

  “He rarely needs a chauffeur. He manages the family estate from here, in the Manor, and he really doesn't go out very much. Except for his meetings with local real estate people, and even then the meetings are generally held here.” He looked around the huge room, nodding approval, and he said, “Do you like the place?”

  “Very much,” she said. “There's more room than I'll need.”

  “Not just your room,” he said. “Do you like the entire house?”

  “I haven't seen much of it yet.”

  “I'll give you a tour after supper,” he said.