Captains and the Kings

  "It depends," said Courtney. "If it is bad news, yes. Good news, no." He watched her intently from under his yellow lashes. "I don't know," said Elizabeth, in a subdued voice, "whether or not the news is 'bad,' or not. It may be-for you, my dear. I don't know. You are young, and the young can rebound." She helped him to creamed eggs and hot toast and poured coffee for him, and he saw how translucent her fine hands were. He also noticed, for the first time, that she was not wearing her wedding ring. There was no line indicating that it had ever been there. When had she removed it? Then he breathed deeply, with passionate relief. She was going to be married! He smiled. Dear Mama. He was happy for her, knowing her loneliness. He only hoped the man was worthy, and not some mountebank or blackguard looking for her money. He ate a hearty breakfast, and urged his mother to eat also. She attempted to, and failed. She kept watching her son, and he saw this, and smiled to himself again. She was hesitating to speak. She said, "I miss you so much this summer, dear, since you decided to rush through law school with Rory." Ah, thought Courtney, she is delicately leading up to the revelation, and paving the way. "I can't leave him there alone in Boston," said Courtney. "God knows what he'd be up to without my supervision. The girls are mad for him, and Boston is full of unmarried girls, and he would most likely get into mischief." "Rory may seem impulsive," said Elizabeth, "but he really isn't. He's a very calculating young man. I don't mean that unkindly, for I am very fond of Rory, and he amuses me. I mean that whatever he does is well thought out beforehand. He studies all the advantages, all the risks, before he makes a move, and never speaks of it first. That is what makes people think he is impetuous-it just seems sudden to them, though it is not." Courtney thought of Marjorie Chisholm. Rory rarely spoke of her lately, and then only casually: "Who? Oh, Maggie. I think I'm going to see her this afternoon, if I can get this tort out of the way first. Yes, she's very well." That was all. Courtney knew a great deal about Rory, but there was also much he did not know. He was beginning to wonder if Rory was losing interest in Marjorie, and abandoning the thought of marrying her. He often went off for hours two or three times a week and blandly never mentioned where he had been, and Courtney suspected another girl had taken his interest. Poor Maggie Chisholm. "You make him sound cold-blooded," said Courtney to his mother. "Or mistrustful." "I think Rory is two persons, all in one," said Elizabeth, trying to smile. "Yes, he is cold-blooded, but he is also warm and generous. Yes, he is mistrustful, but he is also as confiding as a puppy. Rory keeps his own counsel. He will show the face he wants to show, but not the others. Yes, others. I have the feeling, and always did, that he has both rectitude and ruthlessness, that he will stop at nothing to gain his ends, and yet at times something will make him stop. He always courteously listens, rarely disagrees, though I suspect that at times he is full of disagreement. He is a very complex young man, full of paradoxes. A rascal, if you will, one hour, and an upright and immovable man the next." Courtney was surprised at his mother's subtlety and perceptiveness. He said, "Yes, Rory is all that. Argus-eyed, and every eye watching, aware. He sometimes looks like a candid English schoolboy, years younger than he is, and all naivet6 and innocence, and that isn't really put on. It is one of his ways. He is feeling like that--at the moment. There is no resemblance between him and his twin sister, Ann Marie. In fact, I feel Rory is twins, all in himself" They both thought of Ann Marie. Courtney drank a little coffee. His heart had begun to beat fast. It was time that he should again speak to his mother, and when Elizabeth saw his face she became weak and frightened. But, at least he would be the one to open the subject and not herself, and perhaps she could avert the final revelation. "Mother," he said, putting down his cup and turning his face resolutely to her, "I talked to you about Ann Marie quite a long time ago, but you became so agitated and repeated so often that it was 'impossible,' that 1 let the matter drop temporarily. After all, I was still in school. And I was afraid that I would make you ill, you were so disturbed. Mother, what have you against Ann Marie?" Elizabeth clenched her hands together in her lap and her green eyes fixed themselves bravely on her son. "Courtney, I do have a reason--to object. I told you it was a most important reason. My dear, you are the only child I have. I would not have you make a mistake. There is bad blood in the Hennesseys." "You married one," said Courtney. "He wasn't so bad. In fact, he was a kind old codger, treated me like a son. Couldn't have been a better father, and I only adopted. I think he cared more about me than he did about his real child, Bernadette. If you felt that way about the Hennesseys--and you once told me you had known the senator for a long time before you married him in Washington--why did you marry him. "I loved him," said Elizabeth and bent her head. "Did I hear past tense? Don't you still care about him, even if he is dead?" "No. I see now it was only infatuation. Courtney, he was indeed kind and loving to you, better than most--real--fathers. But he was a bad man, Courtney, and I must confess that to you. A very bad man. In fact, he was really---criminal. It is too long a story to tell you. Bernadette is no better than her father was. She is even an evil woman, in many respects. Yes, the Hennesseys have bad blood. I don't want you even to think-" O God, would this be enough, please? "In short," said Courtney, after a moment or two, "you are telling me that it would be too much for you if I married Ann Marie." "Yes," she whispered. She looked up at him and saw the determined pallor on his face. "There is also the impediment." "Mother," he said, holding to patience, "there is no consanguinity, and that you know. I have discussed this matter with priests. One was doubtful. The other was sure it would be perfectly all right. Bernadette and I have no blood relationship. I am not really Ann Marie's 'uncle.' I am the son of Everett Wickersham, and though I am grateful that the senator thought enough of me to adopt me and give me his name I now wish to God that you had let it be, and let me retain my real name." Elizabeth squeezed her white, paper-thin eyelids together in extreme pain. "Even if there is a technical impediment, and the Church objected, I should still marry Ann Marie," said Courtney, with firm gentleness. "But would Ann Marie?" asked his mother, opening her exhausted eyes again. "I've discussed it with her. Mother, we are very much in love. She says she will marry me. And nothing is going to stop us. I don't care if her parents throw her out. I doubt Uncle Joseph would, though. Still, it doesn't matter. You can throw me out, too, if you want to. I have money of my own, which the senator was kind enough to leave me. But, I am going to marry that girl and as soon as possible, even if the sky falls in." "Have you thought of the legal side of it?" asked Elizabeth, feeling that it was no use at all, and there would be no last minute mercy for her. "Of course, Mother! I am studying law, you know, and am taught by lawyers, and I asked about it, and they thought even the question was absurd. There is no legal impediment to our marriage." Elizabeth pushed herself to her feet and moved feebly to one of the windows and looked out. She said, "You can't marry Ann Marie, Courtney. I can't bear- The very thought-" "I thought you loved her," said Courtney, with bitterness. "I do," said Elizabeth, so faintly that he hardly could hear her. She put her hand against the side of the window to support her, for she felt she would fall. "But; there is her mother-the Hennesseys." "She also has another inheritance," said Courtney. "You once told me that her grandmother was a lady, a beautiful person, though you only saw her once." Elizabeth remembered that disastrous day, twenty-three years ago. "So she was, Katherine," she said. "A very wronged woman, who was destroyed by her husband. But all the Hennessey blood has come out in Bernadette, and it is in her children, too. Rory has much of it. Would you care for children like Bernadette, Courtney?" "No. But there is the Wickersham side, too, have you forgotten? And your side, Mother. I think we will be too much for the 'Hennessey blood.' " His mother was silent. Was she really so thin and he had not noticed before, and so delicate in appearance? She still had not turned to him. She was clutching the side of the window. Then she was speaking again. "Joseph Armagh would not permit it. I know." Courtney stood up. "You are mistaken, Mother. Rory and I have discussed all this. He knows his
father has some affection for me. He believes there will be no objection from that quarter. And even if there is, it doesn't matter. Mother, I am soon leaving to meet Ann Marie, and we are going at once to her mother and tell her." Elizabeth turned so swiftly from the window that she tottered, and had to catch a curtain to support her, and her face and eyes were so filled with horror and fear that Gourtney was shocked. She cried, "You must stop her! She mustn't tell Bernadette! I know Bernadette! I know what she will say to that poor girl, and it will kill her!" She pressed her hands to her breast like one pleading for her own life. "Courtney, in God's Name, just tell Ann Marie that for several reasons--reasons--you cannot marry her. Tell her as gently as possible, and then leave her and never see her again. You are both young. You will both forget." Her eyes were stretched and full of agonized tears. He stood and looked at her in silence, and now the dread premonition he had felt months ago returned to him, confusing and torturing him. But he also saw his mother's frantic despair, her overwhelming suffering, her fear. He said, "Is that what you wanted to tell me, Mother, that I can't marry Ann Marie? Is that why you called me home?" She nodded, unable to speak, but her eyes were imploring, begging him to agree and not ask anything else. Finally she could say in a broken voice, "I--I felt--that you hadn't given up, that you were still determined to marry that child. So, I sent for you. I knew it had to be stopped at once--" "Give me one sound reason why I should not marry her, and what I should tell her. That is all I ask, Mother. A sound reason, and not an emotional or superstitious one. If I consider it sound, then I promise you I will give it full consideration, and perhaps act on it. But if it is not sound, then--" He spread out his hands eloquently. "Believe me, dear Courtney, it is sound." "Then, tell me!" he cried, overcome with wild impatience. "I am not a child! I am a manl" "I can't tell you," she said, and her lips twisted in suffering. "If I could, I would. But you must believe me." He shook his head in an equal despair. "Mother, you aren't making sense. There is no 'sound' reason. The only one would be if I were really Ann Marie's uncle."**» Elizabeth fumbled for her chair, blindly, and fell into it. She leaned her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. Courtney stood and looked down at her. He felt suddenly paralyzed. The paralysis was making his lips thick and without feeling, his throat dry and parched. He could hardly breathe. He tried to move his head, to throw off this choking, this vomitous feeling in his stomach, this melting of his body. He could not look away from his mother. He heard her weeping. It seemed the most desolate sound he had ever heard, and yet he was filled with a madness of anger and torment. Gardeners were mowing the lawn outside and the breeze brought in the fragrance of fresh-cut grass, and a boy was whistling, and the trees were rustling, and a distant dog barked and someone called, laughing, outside. But in this room was a deadly silence, the silence that follows a murder, an ugly pent silence, and it was enhanced by the light and the scent from beyond the windows. "You should have told me, long ago," he said, and thought he would vomit right there. "You shouldn't have let it go so long. You should have told me, before it reached this point." His mother groaned from behind her sheltering hands, "How was I to know it would come to this? I hoped you would forget, after I spoke to you before." "So the senator was really my father?" "Yes." He could hardly hear her. "And I was born before he married you?" She could only bow her head. He hated her now, yet he both loved and pitied her as he had never done before. He wanted to denounce her, and he wanted to comfort her. He strangled a little and coughed, and the black desolation rose to his face, his lips and his eyes like deathly water, and he was drowning. "And Bernadette is really my sister? God, if that isn't a frightful joke! Odious Bernadette! Mother, she knows, too?" "Yes," Elizabeth murmured. "She does." "Who else?" "Joseph Armagh." "They are the only ones?" She nodded again, her face still covered. She could speak a little more clearly, though her voice was still muffled and faint. "Bernadette was told- what everyone else believes-but she knew right from the first that you are the son of her father. She has denied this to me, repeatedly, trying to humiliate me. But, she knows the truth. And she would like to throw it into Ann Marie's face, that poor child, to hurt her, and us." "You should have told me, years ago." Elizabeth dropped her hands and he saw the red marks on her wet white face and her deepening agony. She said, "Why should I have? To brand you, to make you feel ashamed, as a child? To make you despise your mother? What purpose would that have served? If you had not wanted to marry Ann Marie you should never have known, Courtney. Can you tell me one reason why I should have told you 'years ago'?" A dim astonishment stood in her eyes. "No," he said after a moment, "there was no reason to tell me, until now." He looked at his watch. "I must go soon to meet Ann Marie. Somehow, I must tell her-something. I can't tell her the truth." He now looked as broken and exhausted as his mother. Elizabeth came to distraught life. "You must tell Ann Marie not to speak to her mother-about any of this! For the girl's sake. I know Bernadette!" "Yes," he said. He began to turn away, but compassion took him, and he went to his mother and bent and kissed her wet cheek. She clung to him and groaned. "I wish I had never been born," she said. "I wish I were dead. I would have died to save you from this, my son." Ann Marie had been blissful when she received Courtney's letter that he would arrive on a certain day and that he would speak to his mother, but that he would accompany her when Ann Marie "spoke" to hers. Before that, he would meet Ann Marie in the woods and they would "take our usual ride" in the open country. The "usual ride" consisted of a bridle path some half mile distant from Willoughby Road, away from low-hanging limbs and up and down a moderate hill. The time of meeting was to be half-past ten. Bernadette only knew that when Courtney was at home her daughter occasionally met him for an excursion on horseback. That had begun when the girl had been only eight and Courtney nine, and had continued. Courtney had many influential friends of "family" in Green Hills, and these friends were male and so Bernadette, much as she hated her brother and resented him as part of the "seduction" Elizabeth had practiced on "my poor weak father," Courtney had his social uses. He introduced Ann Marie to his friends, and so the excessively shy girl had a number of suitors who were attracted by her gentle demeanor, her sudden sweet smile which had a certain fascination, her beautiful tawny eyes with their changing lights, and even the awkward youthfulness of her thin body which refused curves and so gave her an air of early nubility. Bernadette might deride her for her "boyish" appearance and bewail the fact that Ann Marie "had no style at all," but young men found this very appearance beguiling as it hinted of perpetual youth and delicate virginity. Ann Marie's light brown hair, fine and shining, refused to curl no matter how hot the irons were which were applied to it, and the curlers. It had a way of falling from pins and rolling down over her shoulders like an amber veil, which the young men also found endearing. She had had many proposals, but had refused them all, and when Bernadette berated her she would answer nothing. She knew her mother disliked her, and she had no real fondness for Bernadette, but she respected her and was terrified of her. Bernadette had slapped her but a few times in her life, and when she was much younger, but had Bernadette used any other weapon in cruelty to her daughter except the cruelty of her tongue, she could not have inspired in the girl any greater fear of her. "But why?" asked Courtney several times. "What can your mother really do to you?" "I don't know," Ann Marie would answer in misery, twisting her thin hands together. "It is as if there is something hidden in Mama, which could explode and destroy if she were pushed far enough, and I am afraid of it." Courtney thought this ridiculous. He knew all about Bernadette and disliked her immensely, but after all she was a woman and a mother and he could not imagine her becoming really violent in a disgusting way, though once or twice he had seen a look on her face which made him understand, in a small measure, why Ann Marie could fear her. It was an elated, almost gleeful, expression, full of hate and malice, and there would be a certain glitter in her eyes which Courtney had felt was not entirely sane. He had the aversion and mysterious apprehension
of the utterly sane for those who could lose control and were not capable, at those times, of any control at all. It was like an elemental force, beyond human reason or harnessing. Understanding, therefore, both Bernadette and the retiring and extremely shy and vulnerable Ann Marie, Courtney had written the girl that she must wait for him to go with her to Bernadette and announce their intention of marrying. Once he had believed that he should not be present, but when he had urged Ann Marie to confront her mother the girl had exhibited so much real terror, such inexplicable terror-to him- that he could only soothe her and advise her to "wait." Ann Marie had awakened early. The depot was more than three miles away but with the keenness of love she was certain that she could hear the howling of the train as it brought Courtney to Winfield. She sat up in bed, and hugged her body with her thin young arms and smiled with joy and anticipation. Then she threw aside the silken sheets and went to the window which faced the house where Courtney lived, and she sat beside it, watching and waiting, sometimes shivering with delight and a real ecstasy of love, sometimes feeling fear at the thought of facing her mother later. But Courtney would be beside her, holding her hand. They would face Mama down. After all, she, Ann Marie, was past twenty-one and so her own mistress, and darling Papa liked Courtney, and it would all be settled today. She would meet him in the woods, as usual, and they would ride a little, then return to this house and confront Mama. After all, as Courtney said, what could Mama really do? But all at once Ann Marie was cold and trembling. I am a mouse, she thought with regret. That is what the boys call me; Rory told me, but he did not intend to be unkind. He wanted me to be less shy. But no one knows that I never wanted anyone, or loved anyone, but Courtney, from the time we were children together. Dear Courtney, with his wonderful green eyes which could be so quietly merry and then so icily stern, and with his air of strength and indomitable courage. With Courtney she would .be safe forever, and no longer afraid of people, no longer shy, no longer frightened, no longer conscious of secret malice and the sly cruelty which lived in everyone-except, of course, Courtney. And, perhaps, Aunt Elizabeth. She adored her twin Rory, but he was too complex for her understanding, too protean, too, she believed, capricious. At one moment he would be affectionate and thoughtful of her, and the next he would be impatient and teasing. He bewildered her and when Rory saw this he would laugh outright at her, but with good nature and renewed teasing. Rory feared no one, except Papa, and why he should fear Papa was not to be understood. She, Ann Marie, had found him the most considerate and loving of fathers, at least for a long time. It was possible, though Ann Marie did not know it, that she was the only one in her father's world who did not fear him and walk cautiously about him. Even Kevin, the "black Irish" as Joseph called him, was wary of Papa, in spite of his dark and bearish appearance and his obvious and explicit strength, his square and pugnacious face which challenged everyone in a gentlemanly way, and his quiet firm manners and rocklike simplicity. Ann Marie had discovered that Kevin ignored Bernadette and her frequent tantrums, and was not disturbed by them in the least and seemed honestly unaware of them. In consequence Bernadette could not intimidate him and could only fume. Ann Marie was glad that Kevin, seventeen years old, was at home just now, and would be for another week when he would leave for Long Island and his "boating friends," as Papa called them with contempt. Kevin, rarely demonstrative, always compact and apparently living in himself, never afraid, seeming even stronger than his splendid brother, Rory, loved his sister and she loved him dearly in return. For the first time Ann Marie thought of Kevin as an ally, after she and Courtney had faced her mother with the news of their engagement. They could even ask him to be present, looming by their side like a dark but invincible presence. Then Ann Marie was ashamed. No wonder Rory teased her, and Courtney smiled at her sometimes with affectionate surprise at her shyness, and no wonder Kevin would shrug as if she were amusing! They all knew she was a cowardly mouse, a really poor thing, always retreating from others, always blushing if a stranger spoke to her, always shivering inside at shadows, always hiding. She was a woman. She behaved like an infant girl. She had no fortitude at all, and none of the calm strength of dear Aunt Elizabeth. Why was she always so frightened, always on the run? No one had ever really hurt her in her twenty-one years. The nuns at her school had been kind and gentle to her. Her brothers and her father loved her and sheltered her. Mama, it is true, had a hard and sometimes alarming manner, and she always knew where to wound, and was always excitedly happy when she found a target for her malice. But Mama was the only one, and Mama, as Courtney had said, was only a woman after all. Ann Marie glanced at her boudoir clock at her bedside. It was nearly half-past seven, this bright July day. Eagerly, she looked through her window. The Hennessey carriage was rolling up the driveway to the portecochere, and there was Courtney, getting out of the carriage. The girl strained at the window, her heart beating with joy and ecstasy at the distant view of her lover, his head shining palely in the sun. She could hardly bear her rapture. She wanted to run from the house, even in her nightgown, and go to Courtney and throw her arms about his neck and kiss him, and let him hold her tightly as he had done before. She closed her eyes, quickening with delight, with longing, with abysmal passion. When she opened her eyes Courtney was no longer there, and the carriage was going back to the stables. She did not deserve Courtney, she, only a mouse. She must have courage. What a disgrace she would be to Courtney in his professional life, and his social meetings, if she shrank from everyone and hid herself as was her custom! He would be mortified forever and come to despise her. He had told her it was not hard to be courageous, and that she must cultivate some assertion or she would suffer lifelong wretchedness. Today, she would not wait for Courtney to be beside her when she told Mama. She would begin to lose her cowardice today. When she met Courtney, as arranged, she would tell him, with superb serenity, that she had already told her mother, and he would be proud of her. She stood up, in her thin silken nightgown and looked at herself resolutely in the mirror, and she thought she saw a certain firmness there, a certain maturity, in spite of the shadowy morning image of a girl seeming much younger than her actual years, with abashed eyes and a way of averting her head, letting her hair veil her from open revelation. There is only Courtney, she thought, as she turned away. Nothing can ever separate us, except death. We love each other. I am going to be worthy of his love. Her mother breakfasted in bed at nine, luxuriously and with petulant sounds. No one ever intruded upon her there, except Papa, who rarely intruded. Ann Marie, with her new resolution, decided to intrude. Let her heart beat furiously as it did now, and her breath become painful, and her flesh weak. It did not matter. She must begin to be brave. She bathed, brushed her long hair carefully, braided it and tied it severely with a ribbon at her nape, then put on her brown riding habit and boots. She knew she looked best in this plain and austere garb, with the jaunty brown derby on her head, and her gloves on her hands. Her awkwardness became elegance, and she was not unaware of this. She took off her hat and gloves and went down to the ornate breakfast room with its tiled floor and center fountain with goldfish swimming in the bubbling bowl, and its rounded ceiling depicting nymphs and satyrs and secret leafy bowers and little pools of water. The big windows were open on the hot gardens, all scarlet and rose and yellow, and long lawns. The heat of the day was rising. To Ann Marie it was all a vivid sight, rapturously vivid, everything outlined with radiance and a shimmer of holiday and joy. How beautiful the world was, how ecstatic, how significant and heavy with love and delight. How marvelous it was to be young and quivering with anticipation and conscious of one's body, even to the feel of a cuff against a thin wrist. Where could sadness be in this world, what dissonance? The maid informed her that Kevin had already had his breakfast and was out riding. Ann Marie, who had given a thought to having Kevin present when she went to her mother, was at first disappointed, and then resolute. Yes, the time had come for her to be brave. She put her hat and gloves on an empty chair. There was a shaking in
her middle but she forced herself to eat and to drink coffee. She glanced very often at the watch pinned to her lapel. Nine o'clock. She would wait until Mama had finished her breakfast. That would be at least half-past nine. The maid said, "Mrs. Armagh had a telegram this morning, Miss Ann Marie. Mr. Armagh will be home tonight at eight." "Oh, how wonderful, Alice," said Ann Marie. She was blissful again. It would be a family gala, in spite of Mama. Fortified by Courtney, Kevin, and her father, what could harm or frighten her? Once one had courage nothing could terrify. In two hours she would be in Courtney's arms, laughing happily and incoherently, her lips against his neck, safe with him, forever rescued and secure. They would ride together in the hot day, talking of their future together as they always did. They would live in a little townhouse in Boston while Courtney completed his studies. Ann Marie closed her eyes, unable to endure the bright gold of her happiness. She said a little prayer of gratitude within herself. When she opened her eyes the morning, the furnishings of the room, the shine at the windows, were almost too much to bear, so brilliant were they, so tender, so promising. Mama, of course, would not suffer a small wedding. After the Nuptial Mass crowds would gather here on the lawns, and there would be lanterns and dancing and music and laughter, and she, Ann Marie, in white silk and lace and with a bridal veil, would dance with Courtney and there would be no one else in the world at all. Perhaps August the tenth. That would give Mama plenty of time. No doubt she would manage a Papal Blessing, too. Ann Marie smiled, and the maid who served her thought, Why, she is really a very pretty young lady! Ann Marie's favorite dog a white setter, stole into the breakfast room, which was forbidden to him, and the girl slyly fed him bits of buttered toast and a strip of bacon, while the maid frowned, disapproving. Ann Marie said, "How did he get into the house, this monstrous creature?" She patted him affectionately and he put a paw on her knee and begged for more tidbits. "Alice, do bring him some more toast." Her voice shook with her joy, and her throat trembled with it. She bent and hugged the dog, and kissed his snowy head and she laughed, and the maid thought, What's come over her this morning? She looks all shiny. Ann Marie said, "Alice, would you ask Mrs. Armagh's maid if I may see my mother? It is very important." While she waited Ann Marie paled and the trembling returned and she sat up rigidly in her chair and told herself over and over that she must be brave, For one cowardly moment she hoped that her mother would refuse to see her "at this hour." Then she castigated herself. There was no time like the present. If her mother did not want to see her now she would go to her anyway, and demand to talk to her. The maid returned and said that Mrs. Armagh would see her daughter, though she felt unwell today. No wonder, thought Ann Marie. She eats too much at dinner. Mama ate enormously, voluptuously, passionately, as if there were some hunger in herself that could not be appeased, and drank quantities of wine so that her face became glazed and her temper vicious. Ann Marie sighed. She did not understand her mother at all. It was time. Ann Marie stood up, put on her hat and gloves and grasped her crop. She said to the maid, "Alice, will you ask the stable boys to put on Missy's saddle for me, as I want to ride in half an hour?" She went into the great white marble hall, trying to control the sudden pounding of her heart, and she ran up the white stairs admonishing herself. When she reached the top to catch her breath she felt a sudden hard chill, a darkening of everything. Then she went firmly down the upper hall to her mother's rooms, and there was a cold sweat on her forehead and between her shoulder blades, and fear had returned to her. It was as if a ghost was walking beside her, whose face was invisible.