Sisters (18 page)

Sophie acknowledged the
introduction, trying to be polite and pay attention to what Miss
Travers was saying, but finding it difficult. Her main concern was to
get the schoolteacher aside so she could speak to her.

"Helen's Esther, your
niece, is named after Mrs. Morris," Amy Travers was saying.

Sophie murmured a few words
and noticed with some surprise that Mrs. Morris seemed shy. How odd
that such an imposing figure should be so reticent. But Sophie did
not pursue the thought. All her attention was focused on Amy Travers.

Soon the last of the women
had departed, and Sophie stood alone in the doorway of the church
with Amy Travers. The schoolteacher seemed subdued now. She seemed to
realize that something besides her invitation of yesterday accounted
for Sophie's presence.

"I wanted to speak to
you because I was out at the Wilsons' again this morning,"
Sophie began.

Miss Travers looked at her
keenly.

"I went because I
wanted to ask Baby about what she'd said yesterday. About James and
Helen."

Miss Travers nodded.

"She told me James had
raped Helen."

For a moment there was no
expression on Amy Travers' face; then suddenly she turned away. Her
arms were crossed, her shoulders hunched; she clutched at her elbows
with a tight, nervous intensity. Sophie could not understand why the
schoolteacher remained silent. Yesterday she had been so quick to
deny that Baby would know about Helen. "Miss Travers?"

No answer.

Sophie moved closer, edging
around, and she saw with a shock that Amy Travers was weeping. "Miss
Travers? What is it? What's wrong?"

"She did talk to her,"
the schoolteacher said. "She did--and how could she?"

"What are you talking
about? I don't understand."

"It was a fault in
Helen. It truly was." Miss Travers turned to face Sophie fully,
tears running down her cheeks. "She had--how shall I say it?--a
way of giving her confidences too easily." She paused. "But
a woman like that. Why would she trust her? Why would she?"

Miss Travers was jealous,
Sophie realized with a start. Jealous that Helen had confided in
Baby. But that meant... "Then it's true? Are you saying it's
true about James?"

Miss Travers nodded
distractedly.

"He raped her?"

"Yes, yes," the
schoolteacher said. "It was an awful, brutal thing."

"When? When did it
happen?"

"A little over two
years ago. He forced himself upon her. He was drunk, and he forced
her to submit." The flat tone of Miss Travers' voice was a
strange contrast to her expression, but when she spoke again, the
anguish in her face could be heard in her words. "But why did
she tell Baby? Why, why did she have to do that?"

Sophie shut her eyes, and
Miss Travers' words faded into the distance, driven back by a
tangled, violent image of James and Helen. At the same time, a word
began to form in Sophie's thoughts. At the same time, a word began to
form in Sophie's thoughts. The letters were a jumble, had been a
jumble since first she had learned of Helen's death, but now they
were forming themselves, ordering themselves. If James had raped
Helen, what else might he have done? It would have been so easy to
make her fall down the stairs. Just a tiny push, that's all it would
have taken.

With that thought, the last
of the letters fell into place and the word rocketed to the front of
Sophie's mind. Murder. Murder. Could James have murdered Helen?

She waited for him in the
drawing room. All the servants knew she was there, and as soon as he
stepped in the house, he would be alerted and would come to her. Then
she would ask him. She was not certain how she would do it, but she
knew she would. She had to.

It had grown almost dark
when she heard his voice. "Sophie? Sophie?" He came into
the room. "Did something happen? Surely not. I spoke to Paul,
and I'm certain he relayed the message to Huber and Rodman."

A part of her wanted to
respond to the concern in his voice, but she remained silent,
immobile.

"I don't have to leave
in the morning," he said. "i can postpone it if you need
me." He switched on a lamp and moved toward her. She drew back.
"Sophie? What is it?"

She didn't know how to
begin. "James, you and Helen..."

"Yes?"

"I was told something
today about you and Helen."

"Yes, what was it?"

She swallowed hard, looked
at him, and said it. "That you had raped her."

"Amy Travers told you
that!"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it
matters." His voice was cold as a knife blade. "It's quite
obvious you didn't question her story."

His anger caused her a
moment of gladness, a lifting of the heavy weight she had been
carrying. If he were angry, it must not be true, and she so much
wanted it not to be. Then she had a sinking feeling. It was over with
him. One question, and she knew from his voice that it was over. And
why had she asked the question? Why had she listened to Baby and Miss
Travers? But what else could she have done? "James, what do you
expect?" she asked, trying to counter his anger. "To be
told this had been done, and by someone I've loved--"

"Have loved? Or are
you just trying to say we've been lovers. I suppose Amy Travers knows
that too."

"Of course not."

"What is that woman
trying to do? Why does she want to turn you against me?"

"James..." Should
she tell him that Miss Travers had not been the source of the story,
that at first she had even denied it?

"She has no right to
speak of these things," he said. "Helen... thought that I
had raped her."

What was he saying? Sophie
couldn't understand. Was he joking? Was this a tasteless joke?

But when he turned back
around, there was no humor in his face. "I'm sure that sounds
peculiar, but I know no other way to put it." He smiled a
mocking, half-smile. "Having never spoken of it before, I'm
decidedly unpracticed." Then his expression became serious
again. "And I would not speak of it to anyone but you. I want
you to understand."

He began walking back and
forth across the room, his hands behind his back. "Well, where
should I start? With our marriage, I suppose. You should know that it
wasn't always bad between us. At least not very bad. In the
beginning, Helen seemed to find a certain... contentment in my
embrace--ah, how can I say these things?" He broke off and
rubbed his temples, still pacing across the room. "She wasn't an
ardent woman," he resumed after a moment. "That was
apparent on our wedding night. But in the beginning, my embrace was
at least not something she hated. I'm not certain when it began to
change, but it wasn't very long after we were married, not more than
a year or two. And I'm not sure why it was... why she didn't want me
to touch her. I came to think it was children, that she didn't want
more children, but I don't know. All I know is that she would freeze
when I approached her. If I simply put my hand on her shoulder, I
could feel her go rigid. I could hold her if I wanted, caress her...
but she made it exceedingly clear that she... could barely tolerate
me.

"Anyway, that night,
the night it happened, perhaps she was more hesitant than usual. I
say 'perhaps' because I'm not certain. I didn't sense that her
demurrers were any different, but I confess I had been drinking. I'd
had quite a bit to drink, and she tried to hold me at arm's length
and said what she always said. She'd 'rather not.' Those were her
words exactly. 'James, I'd rather not.' To me that was expected, like
part of a ritual. It had no meaning for me apart from that.

"But for her, it was
obviously otherwise. Afterward, she was hysterical, crying, shouting,
saying I had raped her. I was astounded. I could hardly believe what
I was hearing. She kept shouting over and over that I had to right to
her without her consent. I was no better than an animal--I can still
see her clench her teeth and spit that out at me." He shook his
head at the memory. "When she had finally worn herself out, she
went to Esther's room, and the next day she moved into the middle
bedroom. It wasn't even finished yet, but she moved in there, and she
never came back to my bed again. We were never together again as man
and wife.

"I think of that night
often. Particularly since Helen's death, it's been in my mind. I've
gone over and over it, and I don't see any way I could have known
that night was different. But I should have. How could I not have
realized, when her desire to have me stay away from her was so
intense?"

For a moment he seemed
tired and despondent. Then his jaws clenched and anger glinted in his
eyes. "But however grievously I erred, she was wrong to tell
that woman. As soon as she did, I knew it. I would come upon the two
of them together, and they would look at me as though I were beneath
contempt, as though I were an animal, a disgusting animal. It was
none of Amy Travers' affair!"

"James, why did you
marry Helen? What made you choose her?"

He shook his head. "I
was full of dreams about the West, and then I met Helen, and she was
born here. That seemed a kind of miracle to me, and I fell in love
immediately. In love with an idea, I suppose. It wasn't Helen's
fault. It was mine entirely. I saw her as something she wasn't, and
when I realized, I tried to adjust my expectations, but I never...
ah, well, whatever. It's clear I never did understand."

"In love with an idea?
What do you mean? What did you think she'd be like?"

He looked at her directly.
"I imagined someone not bound by conventional notions, someone
who could see through all the damnable hypocrisy that exists about
men and women and human love. He gave a short laugh. "I was
young, Sophie, young and foolish."

"Why did you think
Helen...?" She stopped in mid-question, because she suddenly
thought she understood. "It was the Indian blood, wasn't it? It
was Indian women you had an idea of. They'd be passionate, they'd be
eager lovers. And there was Helen, well enough dressed and educated
to be acceptable to your fine friends, but with the Indian blood
too--just a hint of things dark and passionate."

"Shut up, Sophie! You
have no idea what you're talking about!"

"And was that it with
me, too? Is that why you felt free with me? Do you think of me as a
'squaw' just as Rodman does?"

"Sophie, shut up!"

"Or what, James? Will
you strike me? Is that what you'll do? Or push me down the stairs?"

They stood glaring at each
other, until finally he spoke. "So that's what you think. I
humiliate myself to explain, and you haven't understood a thing. You
think I knocked her insensible? Dragged her into a barn like some
country boy would? I didn't strike her. There were no bruises on her
precious body. All I did was... ignore her refusal, pretend I hadn't
heard it, just like I'd been pretending for years." He was so
angry he was trembling. "Is that rape, Sophie? Is it?"

"Perhaps..."

"You think so, don't
you? And you think a man who would 'rape' his wife might push her
down the stairs too?" He took a step backward toward the door.
"But there's a problem with your theory, quite a major one, I'm
afraid. Amy Travers didn't tell you? She told you so much else, I'm
surprised she neglected this. You see, I have an alibi, Sophie. My
time is accounted for. I couldn't possibly have pushed Helen down the
stairs because I was Ida Hamilton's."

He watched her closely,
watched his words sink in. "If you have any doubts about my
story, you can check with one of Ida's girls. Gaby's her name.
Gabrielle Ross. You can check with her." He whirled on his heel
and started for the door.

She was paralyzed by
contrary impulses. She started to call him back, but anger and
resentment directed her to silenced.. He wanted to hurt her by
telling her he'd been with a whore. He wanted to insult her. That was
as important to him as telling her where he had been.

He paused in the doorway
and turned toward her. "Please understand , I wouldn't want to
discourage you from pursuing the idea that your sister was murdered.
But really, shouldn't you find yourself a new suspect? Have you
considered Miss Travers? If you haven't you ought. I can easily
imagine Helen and Amy having a lovers' quarrel. Quite a violent one,
even."

He was lashing out in every
direction now, Sophie thought. Of course he was. It was
understandable after the accusation she had leveled at him. "James,
wait! Please?"

But even as she spoke, he
was gone.

*

She dreamed it was the
beast in the cave again. His mouth was open, his muzzle twitching
with a growl that bared double fangs. But the animal was subtly
changed. It was the eyes. They were light blue, a startling,
opalescent blue. And the short powerful legs ended not in the splayed
claws she expected, but in plump pink fingers, large and yet
babylike.

She awoke with a start,
feeling feverish and unstrung. And in every part of her was an aching
sadness. James. She had lost him.

She turned her pillow and
tried to empty her mind, but the effort was futile. Her thoughts kept
going back and picking up bits and pieces of the quarrel with James.
Helen's Indian blood--how much had that to do with the misconception
James'd had of her? Perhaps nothing, perhaps a lot. And there was no
way Sophie would ever know. Probably even James didn't know for
certain. And what difference did it make anyway? Was an image of an
Indian woman as warm and freely loving any more harmful than its
opposite, the one most people had of white women--or respectable
white women, at any rate?

Hardly had she thought the
question, when she remembered Rodman's note: "MIND YOUR OWN
BUSINESS, SQUAW!" and with the memory came an answer. Yes, the
image of Indian women was more harmful because in the end it
encouraged violence against them, put them in a class with
prostitutes, made them part of a class which society felt no great
compunction to protect. At least white women gained a measure of
safety from the way they were usually thought of.