The Opal Legacy Part 12

Her name leaped up at her. "Lesley Campbell," she read, "born in Paisley, Scotland, orphaned at the age of three when her parents, Brian and Margaret Campbell, were killed in a train accident on the Firth of Glasgow bridge. Raised by her maternal grandmother, May Taylor, in Catskill, New York. Entered Catskill Elementary School at the age of five." The story of her life followed, detail by detail, some that Lesley had almost forgotten, some so intimate she wondered how anyone could have known.

She laid the biography to one side and picked up a green notebook labeled "Psychological Profile of Lesley Campbell." She skimmed the closely typed pages. Hurry, she told herself, Jon must be almost ready. "The death of her parents when she was three," Lesley read, "had a profound influence on the subject. She is inclined to be withdrawn, distrustful of others, secretive, a lonely, inner-directed girl, fantasy oriented to such a degree she believes she has the ability to foresee the future.

"Her grandmother, now deceased, provided a stabilizing influence, and this relations.h.i.+p, despite, or perhaps because of the difference in ages, was mutually satisfying. The older woman's interest in the supernatural, specifically Scottish legends and myths, has had, however, an unsettling influence on her granddaughter. The absence of a father figure during childhood and adolescence is significant. This absence has resulted in Miss Campbell being attracted to older men, particularly those offering security. Monetary considerations, while important to her, are secondary to emotional peace of mind. She exhibits a marked need to have someone to trust, to believe in.

"At this point I must interject a warning. From the data made available to me, I conclude that Miss Campbell's emotional health is less than ideal (e.g., she has been known to react hysterically to stress, particularly when the trauma is related to her imagined second sight). While she appears for the most part to be a healthy, normal young woman, at times her grasp on reality is tenuous."

He's not talking about me, Lesley thought, this is someone else, another Lesley Campbell. Someone who resembles me yet, at the same time, is alien to me. What was her husband doing with this dossier? She flipped to the first page of the report. The date was in July of that year, the month before she had met Jon. As the implications of the date became clear, she stared at the papers on the desk, feeling nothing except a great emptiness. As though one moment her future had been before her, the terrain rough and treacherous, shadowed in part, yet there. Now the ground had fallen away leaving a chasm in which she saw nothing to grasp, no one to rely on. She pushed back the chair and stood, leaning forward supported by her hands holding to the desk.

"What are you doing?" Jon's voice, loud and angry.

Stunned, she did not move at first and the silence grew taut. When finally she turned toward the door she did so with great precision, slowly, one hand still on the desk. Jon stood just inside the door with both hands on his hips. He had put on his brown suit, but his s.h.i.+rt was open at the collar. She watched a vein throb on the side of his neck.

"I, I-" She stopped, glancing at the desk top. In two strides he reached her side, his eyes flicking from the scattered papers to the open filing cabinet. Muttering to himself, he shoved the papers into the folder, thrust the folder into the file drawer, and snapped shut the lock. She turned away.

"I have friends at the university in La Jolla," he said from behind her, the tone of his voice now low and a.s.sured. "One works in the data processing center and he happened to mention the report they prepared about you, told me of the predictions you made. I was interested. I wanted to know more about you so I had some other friends do a little research."

A little research, she thought, staring down at the many pages of single-s.p.a.ced typing. She shook her head.

"Don't magnify this out of all proportion," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She did not move. Even when she felt gooseflesh crawl along her arms she did not move.

"Is there anything wrong with that?" he asked. "This was before I even knew you; when there was nothing between us. You were only a name to me. Then I met you, and I'll admit the meeting was no accident. I knew you had an appointment with the parapsychology people, arranged to be at the university and made sure your car wouldn't go far. Yet after I met you, it was different. You weren't at all what I expected. I don't know how to say this, but you were, well, more of a real person that I had expected. I thought you'd be sort of otherworldly, yet you weren't. You were natural. Yourself."

"You lied to me," she said.

"When did I lie?"

"You know when." She spun to face him as the anger rose in her. "First about your birthday." Her words were sharp, each a slap. "You weren't born in March. You aren't an Aries. You admit your meeting me was a lie. Our courts.h.i.+p was another lie; you wanted to use me. Our marriage is a lie; you need money for Iron Ridge. You think you can use my foreseeing to get money."

"You're a fine one to talk about lying. Who did you meet the other day? Could it have been Craig Ritter by any chance?"

"Craig Ritter?"

"I've surprised you, haven't I? You didn't think I'd find out, did you? You thought you could meet another man here at Iron Ridge without my knowing. What kind of poison has Ritter been feeding you? Did he make out he cared for you, is that why you neglected to tell me about the meeting? He couldn't love you; he has as much feeling in him as his computers do."

"How did you know Craig Ritter was here?"

"I told you I had friends at the university. They wrote me when he came to Michigan. And this morning I talked to the man at the boat rental in Marquette. It's unusual when an out-of-towner rents a boat on Lake Superior in November. And meeting Ritter is only the latest of your lies.

"What do you mean?"

"You wrote him after we first came to Iron Ridge. Yes, I opened your letter. Don't look so shocked, didn't I have reason to? Didn't you secretly write another man after we'd been married less than a month? Then meet him, again in secret? And you stand there and accuse me of lying."

He's twisting what happened, she told herself. Everything he says is true in itself, yet he's changing the way it really was. I didn't lie to him, didn't conceal Craig Ritter's presence. I wasn't interested in Craig in a romantic way. Why must Jon distort everything I say? To keep me from the truth. He wants to confuse me, put me on the defensive so I won't find out the truth. What truth? About Charles Randall?

She walked away from him to the window overlooking the water. The lake was calm in the twilight, the clouds on the horizon tinged with orange. As she looked along the sh.o.r.e to the south where the trees stood outlined in black against the sky, she folded her arms across her chest feeling cold. I don't know what to do, she thought. I don't know where to turn.

"I want to be by myself," she told Jon. "We'll talk later."

"We'll talk now. Come back to the house with me."

"The caterers are there. Besides, I can't talk now. I'm too upset."

Lights flashed on a window behind her, but when she turned the light was gone. Jon stared at her, his face tense, his eyes narrowed. Another light crossed the window.

"Cars," he said. "Our first guests have arrived."

The housewarming. "I can't face anyone feeling like this," she said.

"You'll have to. You have no choice."

Lesley waited for the anger to flare in her, waited to hear herself lash out at him. Instead she felt nothing. A deadness swelled inside her like a cancer destroying all feeling, all emotion.

"You're right," she said. "I have no choice. You finish getting dressed, put on a tie. The gold-and-brown striped one will go best with your brown suit. I'll see who's here."

When she saw him stare warily at her she smiled to herself. He doesn't know this Lesley, she thought. I'm not going to be the Lesley Campbell he married nor the Lesley Hollister he brought to Iron Ridge. Who am I then? She didn't know; she could only sense the chill bitterness within her.

"All right," Jon said. He walked to the door where he hesitated and looked back at her, about to speak, then shrugged his shoulders and went out into the night.

He could have had so much, she thought, looking after him. You've lied to me and deceived me and now we have nothing. She held the pendant in her hand, caressing the opal with her fingers as the fire, almost as though alive, flashed inside the stone. Less than nothing, she told herself. I hate him. Shocked, she pushed the thought away, shut it from her mind, yet she knew the idea lurked just outside the borders of her consciousness.

"First I'll get through the housewarming," she said to herself, "and then, and then-" For a moment she faltered, not wanting to think of the future. She glanced at the desk where the papers had lain, to the file cabinet, to the house. More headlights slanted onto the trunks and lower branches of the trees.

The warmth of the opal in her hand comforted her. "And then we'll see," she promised herself as she crossed the lawn to the house and went inside to greet her guests.

Chapter Sixteen.

To Lesley the party seemed a series of disconnected incidents, like a dream fragmented by wakefulness, at times almost surreal, and ending not with an awakening but in nightmare.

The first guests were outside waiting on the steps when she opened the front door. "I'm Mrs. Hollister," she said, "Lesley Hollister."

"I've heard so much about you." An older woman, short and heavy. "I'm Loretta Hornsby, this is Frank, my husband, and this..." she moved to one side and Lesley found herself staring at one of the most attractive women she had ever seen "...this is JoAnn La.r.s.en."

JoAnn smiled as she shook Lesley's hand, her deep-set brown eyes glancing over Lesley in a quick reconnaissance. "A lovely dress," she murmured, "so right with your opal."

Lesley thanked her, showing the guests to the room off the hall where they left their coats on the bed. JoAnn, older than Lesley, wore a flowing white chiffon gown with a low scoop neckline, and her face, while not conventionally pretty, was striking with its high cheekbones and skin bronzed from a deep tan. Her dark hair was cut short and tightly curled.

Lesley led the Hornsbys and JoAnn to the lower level of the house and for a few minutes the conversation was desultory-"How do you like the Upper Peninsula?"-"Frank is head cas.h.i.+er at the Northland Bank"-"I love your house, I haven't been to Iron Ridge in years"-and then the door chimes rang and Lesley turned away, smiling, to climb to the front hall.

Try as she might, she couldn't keep questions from her mind.

Why did Jon have me investigated before we met?

She opened the door. "I'm Lesley Hollister, we're so glad you could come."

"Wind's blowing up for another storm," the short, pleasant-faced man said. Lesley looked beyond the couple in the doorway and saw the branches of the trees swaying, heard a faint soughing from the woods. Another car swung around the drive, following the arrows to the parking area.

"Can you find your way downstairs all right?" Lesley asked. I should stay in the upper hallway to meet the guests as they arrive, she thought.

The first trickle of people mounted to a steady flow, became a rush when four cars arrived at once, and then decreased to a trickle once more.

There was old Judge Tanner, tall and surprisingly thin. "You're a fine-looking young lady," he told her.

And Clara Saunders, introduced as the widow of lawyer Saunders, who opened the door to each of the rooms along the upper hall. "When I was a child," she told Lesley, "I used to come here with my father. I'd hate to tell you how many years ago that was." She took one of Lesley's hands in hers. "You're a brave girl," she said, "to live at Iron Ridge." She looked around the redecorated hallway. "I've got to give credit where credit's due. You've done a lot for this old monstrosity."

And Dr. Trask, who was a dentist; Dr. MacReady, a minister; George Hadley, superintendent of schools; Andy Bennett, Jon's lawyer; two professors from the university with their wives; and more and more people until the names jumbled in her mind and she thought of herself as an automaton who smiled and said "I'm Lesley Hollister. We're so glad you could come."

Had Jon married her only to take advantage of her ability to foresee the future?

Lesley paused at the stair railing to listen to the hum of conversation coming from below. Someone played the piano, a lively tune from years before, and she tried in vain to remember the words; then a man began to sing, enthusiastically off key. "I'm looking over a four-leafed clover."

Realizing the chimes had not rung for several minutes, she walked to the front door, opened it, and stood s.h.i.+vering at the top of the stone steps. The wind whispered through the trees and sent leaves skittering across the driveway: To her left the lights of the house reflected from cars parked near the garage.

Despite the wind and the rise and fall of voices she thought she heard the steady slap slap of the lake and for an instant she imagined herself high above Iron Ridge looking down at the tiny glow that marked the location of the house, the light seeming small and lonely in the blackness of the surrounding lake and forest.

She returned to the hall and pulled the door shut behind her. Jon stood at the head of the stairs. "Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?" he asked.

"Yes, you did."

"I'm going to tell you again. Lesley, you look beautiful tonight." He held himself unnaturally erect, almost rigid. His tie was loose and his hair was rumpled.

"Thank you," she said, coming toward him. "And you, you're the best-looking man here. I'm glad you wore the gold tie."

"Don't come too close." He held up his hand like a policeman stopping traffic. "Aren't you afraid I might contaminate you?"

"You've been drinking."

"Can't a man have a drink in his own house? At his own party? At the biggest and best housewarming ever held in the metropolis of Marquette, Michigan? Would you deny a man that?"

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Always the perfect nurse, aren't you? Haven't you figured it out yet? I didn't marry you for your money; I married you because you're a nurse. A reg-is-tered nurse who'll look after me when I'm old."

Lesley put her hand on his arm. "Let's go down to the kitchen. They have the coffee there."

"The old men drink their coffee in cafeterias. Have you seen them? Have you seen the hotels and boarding houses downtown? Have you ever stopped outside on the sidewalk and watched the old men in the lobbies, parceling out their days, their lives? In the morning, because they wake up early and can't get back to sleep, they read the newspapers, all of the papers all the way from the headlines to the cla.s.sifieds, and then those with money walk to the stockbrokers' offices to watch the ticker tape and those that don't have money, do you know what they do? I'll tell you what they do. They go to the stockbrokers and watch the ticker tape." He laughed. "And later they walk to the park because they have nice benches in the park, green benches where you can read the newspaper again, or, in the winter, they go to the library where the restrooms are clean and it's warm and later-"

The chimes rang. Lesley turned from him and walked to the door but, with her hand on the k.n.o.b, she heard a sound like the quick intake of breath behind her, and she looked back to find that Jon had followed her. "That's what I dream," he told her. "I dream I'm in the lobby of a cheap hotel reading the newspapers. Lesley, don't let me end there."

The chimes rang again and she opened the door. "Mrs. Hollister?" Charles Randall! He wore a hat, a gray fedora, the kind of hat she had seen in movies of the 1930s and '40s. When he took off the hat the hall light reflected on the lenses of his black-framed gla.s.ses so she couldn't see his eyes.

Lesley stepped away. "I don't have an invitation," he said, "but I do know your husband." He smiled past her at Jon. There was no warmth in the smile. His left eye, she saw, was partially closed and a scar ran from the eye toward his left ear.

Lesley looked to Jon who had backed away until he stood against the newel post at the top of the stairs. His arms hung loosely at his sides and she saw shadows under his eyes. The look on his face puzzled her. Fear? No, more a resignation, an acceptance. I'm imagining things, Lesley told herself. I'm being overly dramatic.

"I didn't expect you," Jon said. "Mr. Randall," he told Lesley, "Is from the Coast."

"You have a lovely wife," Charles Randall said, bowing in Lesley's direction. "Haven't I met her before?"

"No!" Jon's tone was emphatic.

"I was getting impatient to hear from you again," Randall said. "So on the way back from New York I arranged a few days' stopover in Chicago. You don't mind my coming to Iron Ridge, do you?"

Jon shrugged. "Let's go downstairs. I need another drink."

"Don't bother to entertain me," Charles Randall said, finding a place for his hat and coat on the rack near the door. "I'll just make myself at home." As she watched him go down the stairs by himself, Lesley felt a tremor of foreboding.

Why did Charles Randall come here tonight? What does he want?

Placing her hand on Jon's elbow, Lesley steered him into the kitchen. He slumped into a chair by the table while she poured coffee. "I have to go out and make sure everything's going smoothly," she told him.

"Go ahead, you mustn't worry about me and neglect our guests. I'm sorry; I'm feeling sorry for myself. You don't have to stay with me. I'm okay now." He smiled up at her but when she glanced back from the doorway he had pushed the coffee aside and sat staring at the far wall.

The cl.u.s.ter of men and women around the piano sang and clapped to the beat of a polka, "Hoop-de-do, hoop-de-do." The table in the dining room had been pushed to one side and three couples danced, arms on their partners' shoulders, around and around, their feet thumping on the wood floor.

Lesley retreated to the living room, smiling and nodding. Though her head ached directly behind her right eye, she continued to smile and nod as she talked to guests or guided them through the house, avoiding only the attic.

"You look tired." Judge Tanner stood beside her. "Show me the dock; the air will do you good." She waited in the kitchen while he got a coat to put over her shoulders. Jon was gone, his coffee left untouched on the table.

When they went outside the wind off the lake seemed stronger though not as cold as before. "Snow's coming," the judge said. "Tonight's weather report said the storm has reached Duluth and Green Bay. It's warming up to snow."

He walked ahead of her to stand looking over the dark lake. "In the old days," he said as she joined him, "when I used to come to Iron Ridge for the hunting, the beach was out where the end of the dock is now. We've got to stop this erosion or the houses along the sh.o.r.e won't last another ten years."

"We have an old picture of Iron Ridge taken from the lake before the dock was built."

"I'd like to see it."

"I think the picture's in an alb.u.m in the library."

They went back to the house but in the kitchen a man with flowing white hair took the judge by the arm and they began to talk. Lesley left the kitchen to get the picture, hesitating just outside the library when she heard her name. Two chairs had been pulled close together just inside the door.

"...such a nice young girl." A woman's voice.

"Not at all like the first one," another woman said. "What was her name?"

"Mary. She's the one who killed herself."

"I heard the whole story from Mrs. Stabler who used to work here at Iron Ridge. And to think he'd invite her here tonight after what happened to his first wife."

"Are you sure he invited her?"