Chocolate Cobweb Page 2

  Near the Beverly Hills Hotel she turned down toward Wilshire. The Peck Galleries were rather new and very smart. The doors were translucent glass with a chaste and frosty design. The anteroom was the last word in quiet elegance.

  Amanda got herself a catalogue. The rooms were in line and so presented a long, long vista. They were not crowded. Still, rather a surprising number of people stood about, some alone and lost in looking, some whispering to each other.

  Tobias Garrison. His date was on the catalogue. He was sixty-five. So old? A life’s work, then. Amanda started down the rooms.

  Ah, yes, first came the Oriental things. Not Oriental in the sense of the Asiatic mainland. Not Chinese. These pictures came out of the islands. There was nothing radical about the work, or exciting, she thought. Canvases were warm, happy, exuberant, drenched in light and color … color … color.… Yummy, thought Amanda. The man’s a colorist. She nodded sagely and admired the things he could do that she could not. The colors splashed and sang. Amanda felt that the artist had been playing … playing happily, joyously. But it was not—no, she thought, dissatisfied—not what Miss Alice Anderson had taught her to call Fine Painting.

  She passed along to the next room. According to the catalogue, these canvases were of an earlier date. Ah, she thought, feeling very wise, this is the stuff he had to learn first, and then forget, in order to be able to do those others. Here was more form, more care, more sobriety, more conscious control. More mind, less feeling. Color, still, but gentler color. Yes, some of these things were good, really good. Amanda smiled, realizing full well that by this inner comment she meant she liked them. She admired the skill, recognizing it with despair for her own lack. She went all around the room, absorbed, delighted, and then, suddenly, woke up to the fact that she wasn’t sure any more. No, no, she was wrong. The first room was better. This was the artist at work, seriously. But those other things, those paintings that almost laughed aloud …

  Amanda said to herself severely, You don’t know a darned thing about it; that’s what’s the matter.

  She drifted into the last room. A group of people had collected, halfway down, all gazing toward the end wall. Amanda didn’t push to see what they were looking at. She took the side walls first. Yes, these were the most recent. California, America spoke in the backgrounds. A blend and 15a summation. Rich color, but not rioting. No laughter. Gentleness, instead. Delicacy. Sometimes sadness.

  People moved, murmuring, past her. Now she turned for a free look at the end wall.

  Five portraits hung there. But she saw only the one in the center. And down her nerves tingled a shock of pleasure so strong that she turned away to hide it. She swayed, rocking with the impact. She felt no one must know. It was something so intimately touching that it must not be betrayed to a stranger’s eye.

  Then she focused her eyes and looked carefully at the portraits that flanked the center, two on a side. All four were of a woman, the same woman. A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with a round face, a gentle, almost sentimentally sweet curve to her chin. These were “good work,” all of them. They varied as if the artist had been experimenting. They were “studies.” They were dull.

  The painting in the center was “Belle in the Doorway.” Amanda turned her head and caught it, sidewise, and caught her breath again. No wonder it was famous! It was a bitter thought, she mused, to have to concede that crowds of other people must receive, as she did, so deep and personal an impression. Mandy shook herself and turned straight toward it.

  “Belle” meant no classification of females, as she had half imagined. It was a woman’s name, and this woman’s name. And this was she. “The drawing’s terrible,” Mandy had said. But oh, the color! Drawing didn’t matter. The woman was alive. “The light’s unnatural,” Mandy had said. Of course it was unnatural. It radiated from the woman, from the rosy color of her clothes. She was the supernatural source of light. She stood in the doorway and behind her there was a sunny garden. Before her, the dim room, with a few pieces of furniture, one chair, a little shelf, a carpet. And she brought in the light, and the glow of her self, as if she were the sun.

  The woman was medium tall and slim, with chestnut hair and brownish eyes, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t her body. It was her radiance. “The subject’s sentimental,” Mandy had said. Now, seeing it before her, she wanted to weep. All right. It’s sentimental. It’s terrific. It’s the dangedest picture I ever saw! She stood with tears stinging her eyelids. A thought walked into her mind, uninvited, unannounced. I’ve never been in love in all my life! thought Amanda Garth.

  Some time later a stir, far behind her, broke the spell. Even before the rushing whispers that ran down the rooms like foam on an incoming wave had reached her ears, Amanda knew that Tobias Garrison himself had just entered the galleries. She clutched at her catalogue and drew away, turning from the experience of this painting, putting it aside to watch, with the rest, the man and woman who were walking slowly down the long way toward her. “Mr. and Mrs. Garrison,” somebody said aloud.

  It wasn’t the woman who interested Amanda. This man, this Tobias, she saw, was rather tall, rather thin, white-haired. He had a weary elegance, a tired distinction. He came slowly along, listening, with politely tilted head, to a young man beside him, and his eyes ran nervously away from the gaze of the spectators. He was not one who listened for inaudible fanfares. He seemed, indeed, to wince away from them.

  As he came nearer, Amanda looked at his hands. Oh, good hands, she thought, strong working hands. The thin fingers were restless and nervous on the rolled-up catalogue.

  Their group came to a standstill in the center of this third room. Amanda, hovering along the wall, was sorry that Garrison turned his back squarely on the wall of the portraits, so she couldn’t study his face. She sidled a little to her right. But it was no use. She could not walk deliberately around to gawk at him, even if others were doing exactly that, and the Garrisons pretended not to mind.

  But Mrs. Garrison, she realized, didn’t mind. Not at all. Mandy looked at her now. The woman, the mother, hadn’t been conspicuous in her imaginings. But after all, this man had to have a wife. The baby in the hospital, twenty-three years ago, had to have a mother.

  Mrs. Tobias Garrison was a little woman. She was getting along. She was probably close to sixty, herself. She was plump, not fat, but filled and rounded. Her hair was abundant and pure white and done up on top of her head in a style that, like her funny little hat, was either very new or very old-fashioned. On this small, smiling, round-cheeked little person, it was definitely quaint.

  Amanda watched her put down her purse and catalogue on the cold stone bench, to lift her small, soft, rosy hands to the fastenings of her wrap. Why, she’s cute! thought Mandy. Cute as a button! With those bright button eyes, dark eyes, missing nothing. Puffed up like a little pigeon, she was, proud and pleased. She heard the trumpets blowing, clear enough. She preened herself in the glory, this beaming Mrs. Santa Claus in modern dress. In a neat gray frock, a soft gray jacket, white frill at the throat. And then that bonnet, trimmed with violets.

  The earnest young man was talking to her. Mandy heard him say, “Must send a catalogue to Leonard. He’ll be so in-tristed!” He looked about him, and reached down.

  “That’s mine,” said Mrs. Garrison.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon.”

  Her catalogue, on the bench. Just a catalogue, like all the rest. Heaps of them in the foyer. The Garrisons must have others. They must have come often. Mandy blinked.

  Tobias, turning, said, “Take this one, Dave. Wait, I’ll put a note on it. Have you a pen, my dear?”

  Small hands worked on the clasp of her gray cloth purse. It opened gingerly. “Don’t press, now, Toby.”

  Tobias took the pen from her and poised to write. His gaze came up into space, as he stood, composing phrases. Amanda now saw his eyes, blue and yet dark, deep-set and sad. Loss, she thought. He’s lost something.

  She pivoted to look away. No use denyi
ng it. She was excited. Curiosity about these people burned like a flame in her mind. The little woman in gray with those dark eyes and that soft round chin was the woman of the portraits. All four other portraits. But she was not Belle. No, not Belle.

  “Ione!” said a female voice. “My dear, how nice! Tobias, how are you?”

  It was Fanny Austin. That’s who it was! Amanda was startled by her own instant recognition. Every line on that aging pug face under the flagrant false brilliance of her auburn hair was deeply and dearly familiar. Fanny Austin could play any but the merely glamorous female and her presence in the cast of a motion picture guaranteed it serious critical attention, gave it A for Art, as it were. This was Fanny Austin, whose bone-deep experience of the stage she’d left behind her, and whose sheer intelligence and skill had made her the dowager queen of Hollywood.

  “My pen, please, Toby,” said Mrs. Garrison. “How are you, Fanny?”

  Amanda moved down the wall, farther away. One couldn’t eavesdrop. She sat down, at last, on another of the stone benches that dotted the rooms. She was near the wide arch now and could look back on them. She chose not to look, for a little while, and riffled the pages of her catalogue. She turned sideways, gazing into the middle room.

  She saw him come in. She thought, first, What a beautiful head!

  Amanda had heard, in her day, a full quota of wolf calls. She was not a young woman the male eye skipped over too lightly. She reacted, now, as what young person can help reacting to a contemporary, especially an attractive contemporary, of the other sex. She expected to be seen. But although the young man who came striding through saw her clearly enough, sitting there in her cream-yellow and brown, looking very smart and pretty too, profile raised, eyes calm, all innocent beauty, his glance crossed hers coolly. He looked, saw, dismissed, and went on.

  Amanda turned her head sharply to look after him, and caught in the corner of her eye the unmistakable identical reaction. Another girl, across the way, had stood in innocent beauty, and had been ignored and knew it. Amanda bit her lip. So, she thought. Mows them down, does he? Who is he? Who is that?

  She turned squarely around to stare and abandoned all poses. Her lips parted. One might almost say that her pretty mouth fell open.

  Tobias Garrison’s deep, sad eyes were lit with pure joy. He stepped to the meeting. Hands met. The group opened like a flower. It was father and son! Of course, it was father and son! Tall, wide-shouldered son, dark beautiful head bent …

  Amanda got up and walked nearer, forgetting all about manners. She saw and felt it. Father and son! The look on the faces. The faint tan on Tobias’ thin face seemed to deepen as if the flesh came alive. And the son’s face! Her heart turned over. The light, the sweetness of that smile!

  “Thone!” cried Fanny Austin, her rich warm voice vibrating with greeting.

  “Well, Thone,” said the little Mrs. Garrison more sedately.

  He put an arm across Fanny’s shoulders. He gave Ione his left hand, drew her near with it, and kissed her cheek lightly. And looked again at his father.

  Amanda thought, I will go home. She moved back, softly, against the wall. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. But she couldn’t go. She saw this Thone swing slowly, looking over the show of pictures on the walls. Saw Tobias step and stand shoulder to shoulder, to swing with him. She saw the two of them turn, at last, to the end wall.

  She held her breath. She could see his profile, then his three-quarter face as he turned to the artist. Her thoughts were chaotic. If he felt toward that picture anything like she did, there would be some meaning.… But he did not! She read the rueful shake of his head, the puzzled drawing together of those fine brows, as he said, without words, but plain to see, to his father, “No. No, I don’t get it.” And Tobias was not hurt or disappointed, but rather pleased, for he clapped his hand on the high shoulder and seemed to stand straighter in some secret understanding.

  To herself, Amanda Garth said, I will know them. Her blood tingled with the resolution. Not now. Not here. But I will know them. I want very much to know them. She walked slowly back through the galleries. It was a tearing feeling. But I will know them, she thought again. Her chin was up.

  She thought, He’s twenty-three. His birthday is mine. All her life, so far, Amanda had automatically subscribed to the universal convention that a girl of, say, twenty-three needs a man who is at least twenty-five, and better, twenty-seven. Or even thirty. She was now, suddenly, enlightened. What superstitious nonsense! she thought.

  She came out of the glass doors to the street. She didn’t seem able to move very fast. She dawdled toward the car.

  They were coming out! Her heart jumped.

  Smack in front of the door, arrogantly, stood a Lincoln Continental convertible, a handsome thing, a car for young and beautiful people that young and beautiful people almost never could afford. It was for them, of course, that car.

  But it was odd. It was really very odd. She watched them get into it. Fanny Austin in the back. Mr. and Mrs. Garrison in the front. Then Thone got into the back with red-haired Fanny. And when the car moved off, softly, sleekly, surely, carrying them away, the hands on the wheel were the little plump hands of the little lady, Ione.

  CHAPTER 3.

  TOBIAS GARRISON SAID, OFTEN, THAT this canyonside house he lived in was Old-fashioned Modern, which was to say a weird and uncomfortable concoction of half-baked ideas. He said it wasn’t pretty and it didn’t make sense. But Ione liked it.

  In the first place, it was hers. Toby had put it in her name, alone, a few years back, because he knew how this would please her. It was also, she felt, an unusual house, unlike other people’s. And it was high. It was above. And if it had flaws, they were, by now, such familiar flaws that they pertained and belonged to her like wrinkles on her own face.

  It was a structure of gray stucco and glass with some stone. It crouched like an animal with forepaws on the brink of a precipice, and its body fell off down the chasm. Although it hardly seemed a living thing, with so many cold angles, too much glass. It had not the window eyes, the roof-and-chimney hat, the face of a house at all. If a molten mixture of stucco and glass had spilled there and begun to slide in huge drops over the edge and been arrested and crystallized into cubes, just such a monstrous effect might have resulted.

  Since it poured over to the north, the light within was steady, and from most of its glassed openings one saw, looming far over the opposite canyonside, the high mountains. So it did well enough for Tobias, who lived and worked on the topmost level.

  Ione didn’t mind the stairs. She liked the hanging spaces. She was not sensitive to its ugliness, and anyhow, by now, on the narrow terraces that followed it downhill, the planting and especially the vines had softened and hidden the worst of its bald, preposterous lines.

  It was a fine, big house. Also, it was hers.

  Ione stood in the kitchen, which looked off west into the green head of the canyon. Dinner over, Elsie was moving in and out of the dining room, with dishes. Elsie was old, taciturn, comfortable, and settled. Life here in the canyon house ran smooth in the harness of routine, and Ione’s little hands were firm on the reins.

  Except, she thought with a trace of anger, when Thone was here.

  Still, one needn’t bother with anger. She slipped a teaspoon into the chocolate simmering on the stove to taste and test its temperature. The pills were safe in her left palm with her fingers folded over them.

  Thone! What an idiotic name for a boy! Thone, because it was her name. Belle’s name.

  The chocolate was not yet hot enough. “Did you rinse the thermos, Elsie?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He was an odd boy, Belle’s son, raised in the Far East, outlandishly. She could hint at this. Her thought wheeled and veered. Tobias would be prostrated. His grief would have to be shielded, of course. So it would be Ione who could touch and guide their impressions to the firm conclusion, suicide. Yes, if she hurried! No doubt Thone wanted to see his fa
ther one last time.…

  Suicide, of course. It couldn’t appear to be anything else. They weren’t going to know how she felt, any more than they had known last time. And whatever would happen to Thone’s money—Belle’s money—it could never, never come to Ione. Or even, supposing it came to Tobias, it was silly for anyone to imagine this a motive, because, of course, Toby already had plenty of money, and half of what he had was her by law.

  Suicide, then. It was a matter of conceiving clearly the necessary impression. Why, for instance, would a young and fairly wealthy man desire to die? Mother’s tragic ending? No, she’d better not touch that. The business of the girl would do. Preying on him … sensitive boy.… She still had a letter the girl had written. She’d reveal it, reluctantly.

  It would work out.

  And that, she thought, would be the end of it. Not again would this house, or the knit skein of her memories, the web of her plans, the whole rhythmic fabric be torn and shredded. Not again would she feel the life of the house change and fall from her and disintegrate and form again in a pattern of memories she didn’t share. That were not hers at all. But Belle’s. Oh, that gash—that torn-out piece—that would not heal over or finally disappear, until tomorrow.

  Why, the minute he came, this Thone of hers, Tobias slipped away into another world. And it was a world all Belle’s. Belle, here in this very house. Her ways. Her methods. No doubt her face, in all these doorways.

  Ione thought, I’ll even get Toby to sell the picture, as he sold the rest, once this is over. And the one Thone has! That, too, he’ll sell. That will be all. She will be gone. There will be nothing, no one left, no thing left, to speak of her.

  Except Fanny. Fanny, who could enter either world. Well, Fanny didn’t talk when Thone wasn’t here. Oh, it was unfortunate that Fanny had come home with them today. Yes, thought Ione, she must be quick and accomplish her plan, this long imagined plan, tonight, immediately. Before Fanny could see and hear enough of Thone to contradict.… Because there must be that gently guided suggestion of a suicide motive, a suicide mood, seeping through.