“I think,” Dorcas was saying slowly, “I’ve been working all these years for Keith’s sake. They haven’t been altogether pleasant years, John. When my parents died and left three young daughters in a world of bankruptcy and creditors, the responsibility fell on my shoulders. Poor Maggie would have survived on charity. Ivy might have drunk herself to a bitter, self-pitying end. I picked up the scanty remains, John. I planned, I badgered loans from creditors and bankers who saw the chance of recouping their losses to my parents, I worked eighteen hours a day. And I rebuilt it, John, I rebuilt it.
“Now — I know what drove me to do it. Given the chance, Keith will mature. He’ll pick up where I leave off.”
As Dorcas spoke, cold purpose came into her eyes. Without knowing it, Vallancourt thought, in declaring herself she has warned me. The shadow of this boy Keith has fallen across us.
He felt a touch of sadness; he knew the shadow had already darkened the relationship between him and this admirable woman. She would struggle in Keith’s behalf. And Vallancourt would fight for his daughter.
“As always, Dorcas, I’m glad things are open and aboveboard between us.”
“I knew you would make inquiries about Keith. After all, she’s your only child. I wanted you to hear the truth about Keith.”
He rose. She remained on the edge of her chair, looking up at him.
“I wish I could read your face, John,” she said quietly.
“I’m not given to snap judgments.”
“Will you take Nancy away?”
“And lend the enticement of forbidding the fruit?” he asked wryly. “I don’t think that would be the answer.”
“John, if she finds her only satisfactory answer in Keith...”
“She’s twenty-one years old, Dorcas.”
“Then you won’t stand in their way?”
“Did you expect me to?”
“Frankly, yes.”
“I could think of no better way to defeat my own purposes.”
“You’re not yielding so easily.” She moistened her lips. “Right now, you frighten me. You’ve always awed me a little. Many men born to wealth and an old name are plagued with uncertainty about their identities and personal worth. Not you. You’ve never needed ego-satisfactions; you’ve taken full advantage of your heritage. But if you were marooned naked in the world’s worst jungle, you’d walk out alive — and probably bring a valuable assessment of the area with you.”
“I hope none of us has to yield, Dorcas.”
“What can I do, John? What must Keith do?”
“What all of us must do. Be patient. Take time to be sure about the answers, all the answers.”
“Thank you for coming, John.”
“Goodbye.”
He heard the faint sound of weeping from the living room as Mildred Morgan showed him out the front door.
Vallancourt had lunch at an inexpensive place on the south side of town where he was not likely to run into anyone he knew.
He needed some time to himself.
Rape-murder...
He ate without much notice of the food. The boy had defenders — Dorcas, Ralph Hibbs. Even Howard Conway had exhibited yesterday the tolerant friendliness of an older man unbending for a companion from the next generation. Howard’s grouchy remark about Keith’s driving habits had been on a plane of general prejudice, words Howard would have spoken about any male driver of Keith’s age.
So far, Ivy was the boy’s only detractor. But Vallancourt didn’t believe she really sensed Keith’s potential. Ivy would feel the same way if there was illness in the house requiring her to put a halt to a gay party.
Ivy, Vallancourt thought, resents the boy for personal reasons — for the care and attention Dorcas lavishes on him, care and attention of which Ivy had always been the beneficiary.
A brief recollection came to Vallancourt of the desperate time when there had been guerrilla warfare in Greece. In all Athens, it had seemed, only he, an American diplomat, had suspected the treachery of Koutsourais — until the night Koutsourais had arranged, impeccably, the details of a regrettable accident. Everything had gone beautifully for Koutsourais, up to the final detail when he had discovered that his intended prey, too, had shark’s teeth.
Vallancourt left the restaurant and drove without haste past the country club where he had golfed with Keith the day before.
As the Continental swept into the privacy of Canterbury Boulevard, the uniformed guard in the gatehouse waved a brief greeting. The first of the meticulously landscaped estates flowed past. The greenery gave the air a heady freshness; it was cooler here, the giant shade trees throwing a mantel of shadows over the boulevard.
Vallancourt turned in between the ivy-grown stone columns that marked his own driveway.
When the Continental purred around the sweeping curve of the driveway, the house came in view. It was a multi-storied mansion of antique brick and leaded windows. The house reposed quietly in its bed of lawns and gardens.
Vallancourt entered the house, his steps quick and restless on the parquet. He rang for Charles, and when the lean, grave houseman appeared, Vallancourt left word that he wanted to see his daughter when she got home. Then he went into his study.
Vallancourt relaxed a little as he stood at the tall windows and lit a cigarette. He moved noiselessly to the mammoth desk that had been created for this large, wood-paneled room with its high arched ceiling and hand-rubbed beams. Beyond the desk was a solid wall of books, for each of which Vallancourt felt a particular regard. Not all the volumes personally inscribed to him, memoirs of world leaders and works of famous writers, were included here.
Seated at the desk, he forced himself to go through the morning mail. But his thoughts kept circling around to his forthcoming talk with Nancy. He thought of Keith Rollins embracing Nancy, kissing her, caressing her. And the hellish phrase wrote itself again in burning letters across his brain: Rape-murder...
He attacked the mail. He knew it had already been weeded out by Mrs. Ledbetter, Charles’s wife. The couple had been in Vallancourt’s employ for many years as secretary and houseman.
He sorted the mail quickly into two piles. The letters in franked envelopes he dropped on the further pile.
He attacked the nearer pile. In several minutes he had created a third pile, for which he would dictate on tape the earliest replies. Mrs. Ledbetter would transcribe from tape and clear the decks before nightfall.
The whispered sigh and click of the door caused him to raise his head.
Nancy had slipped in quietly. She gave him a smile, and it brought light to the room.
“Hi, daddy.”
She hasn’t had time to step out of the sun yet, Vallancourt thought, his heart wrenched. She would soon enough find the ugliness lurking at the boundaries of her world.
He got up, went around his desk grinning at her. She was lovely — rather tall, well made, full of spring. So much like her mother. Just a trace of angularity about her, but no awkwardness. A wide, barely lopsided mouth that smiled even in sleep. A slightly pugged nose given to peeling from sunburn. Wide-spaced, clear eyes with an oriental slant. Hair to match the sunlight streaming through the windows.
He opened his cigarette case and offered it to her. She hesitated. He knew she had started smoking a very short time ago; she was still not completely at ease about it.
Nancy chose a cigarette almost carefully. Vallancourt struck a light for each of them, eased himself to a half-sitting position on the edge of the desk.
“Well, are you going to be a senior next fall?”