Waiting for Willa Page 4

  Chapter 4

  GRACE CAUGHT POLSEN BEFORE he left for the university. She heard him coming down the stairs and in the manner of Fru Lindstrom waylaid him.

  “Can you spare a minute, Polsen?”

  He looked at her in his serious, thoughtful way.

  “Of course.”

  “I made a discovery last night.”

  “Yes. What was that?”

  His eyes glinted behind the thick glasses.

  “I found Willa’s diary.”

  “A diary! It tells you everything?”

  Was he more interested than he should be, if Willa had been no more than a casual friend?

  “It tells me nothing. It’s practically written in code.”

  “But it’s reassuring? It’s innocent?”

  Grace shook her head miserably. “I hardly slept all night. I might be imagining things again, but I’m sure I’m not. I know Willa too well. She was living in a nightmare, Polsen.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Perhaps she didn’t show it. Perhaps she only gave way to it when she wrote her diary. She has always used her diary as a confessional. But this time she couldn’t even do that because she was too frightened to put things down clearly.”

  “Grace, you must let me see the diary.”

  His voice had enough urgency to make her ask, “Why are you so interested?”

  He took her arm, hurting her with the grip of his large hand.

  “Will you do me the favor of not looking at me with that suspicion? I was Willa’s friend. If she’s in trouble, I want to help, just as much as you do. If you want to reject my help, then good-bye! Good-bye!”

  He began to go down the stairs, and it was Grace’s turn to seize his arm. She couldn’t bear to be alone, she found. And it was ridiculous to suspect this nice bearlike man with his ponderous speech and quickly hurt eyes.

  “You wouldn’t have time to read it now. You have to go to work.”

  “Let me take it with me.”

  Grace only hesitated for a moment. A decision now, and Polsen was her friend. He had been Willa’s friend, and Willa had disappeared.

  She dismissed the disquieting thought immediately.

  “All right. When will you be back?”

  “Not until this evening, I’m sorry.”

  “I have to go to a party at the Sinclairs.”

  “Then don’t stay too long. Come home and we’ll talk.”

  Grace nodded, feeling more lighthearted. The night had been awful, endless and full of half dreams and the fancy that she could hear wolves howling. The miraculously radiant pink, windless dawn over a still city had only made her shiver at the window. That warm, glowing pink in the sky was false. In reality, it was as cold as ice.

  “And, Grace. Listen, but don’t talk too much at the party.”

  “You’re not going to warn me about embassy scandals?”

  “Have you been warned already?”

  She nodded again. “I suppose Peter Sinclair had to do that. It is important. But everyone is sure to be talking about Willa when they know I’m her cousin.”

  “Then just listen to what they say.”

  The room seemed to be very full of people when Grace arrived. Peter Sinclair saw her and came toward her, giving her the quick attractive smile that made his otherwise ordinary face unexpectedly appealing. “Hello, Grace. I’m glad you made it. Come meet some people.”

  He performed introductions swiftly and efficiently. Grace noticed that he laid emphasis on her success as a novelist and failed completely to mention that she was Willa’s cousin.

  “We’ll have to find her a Swedish publisher,” he said blithely. “Good for British exports.”

  The names in Willa’s diary. Grace had learned them off by heart. Sven, Jacob, Axel, Gustav. Those were Swedish names, and most of the people here were English or American. They all were talking the conversation of exiles.

  “You here on a visit, Miss Asherton? Getting copy? You won’t want to linger once the winter starts.”

  “Why not?” Grace asked.

  “Well, it’s so bloody dark, for one thing. I don’t go for perpetual night.”

  “Are you going to study the Swedish temperament?” someone else asked. “All that Strindberg gloom?”

  “In the summer we can get out to our lakeside cottages, but in winter we absolutely die of boredom.”

  “Where are you staying, Miss Asherton?”

  “In an apartment on Strandvägen.”

  “You’re lucky. Did someone lend it to you?”

  “Yes, my cousin, Willa Bedford.”

  “Willa!”

  A middle-aged woman with a plump, over-made-up, too-vivacious face stood in front of Grace.

  “Did you say you were Willa’s cousin? Why ever didn’t Peter tell us? Then you can solve the mystery about her.”

  “What mystery?” Grace asked coolly.

  “Isn’t there one, after all?” The woman made a moue. “How disappointing! I know Peter said there was none, but we all thought he was covering up. You know, avoiding a scandal. Typist missing from British Embassy sort of thing. Are you telling me she really has been married?”

  “I didn’t say so,” Grace said cautiously. “I’ve only just arrived, and I don’t know much more than you do. But Willa always was impulsive and unpredictable. I don’t really find a situation like this surprising.”

  “She didn’t leave you a note of explanation?”

  “She didn’t know I was coming.”

  “Oh!” The woman was really disappointed. The avid light of gossip went out of her eyes. “I’m Winifred Wright,” she said. “Passport section. Willa shared mine and Nancy Price’s flat when she first came. Then she moved into her own. To tell the truth we were relieved. She was too gay for us old fogies.”

  “Too many boyfriends?” Grace asked casually.

  “Too many late nights. We got tired of lights being switched on in the small hours.”

  “Sounds like Willa.”

  “Not that we didn’t like her. And I think she liked us, too, because I must say she never looked particularly happy after she started living on her own. Always seemed anxious.”

  “As if she couldn’t pay the rent?”

  “Oh, no, not that sort of worry. Boyfriend trouble, Nancy thought. Personally I thought she was involved with a married man and that’s why she wanted a flat of her own.”

  “Did you know who this man was?”

  “No.” Again Miss Wright looked regretful, deprived of a salacious talking point. “There were some rumors that he belonged to an old Swedish family. But now she’s got herself married—if she has—we’ll soon know all about it, won’t we?”

  “Now, Winifred! What gossip are you telling Grace?” said Kate Sinclair behind them. “Grace, you must take Winifred’s stories with several grains of salt. She has the greatest gift for embroidering dull facts. Haven’t you, dear?”

  Winifred gave a perfunctory smile. She couldn’t be rude to her hostess.

  “These aren’t exactly dull facts, Kate. We were talking about Willa.”

  “Oh, that girl again.”

  “Her worried look was because, apparently, she was pregnant,” Grace said deliberately. “But now, as you say, she’s sorted all that out, so what are we worrying about?”

  “What, indeed?” Kate said with such intensity that Grace looked at her in surprise.

  She quickly collected herself.

  “It’s only that I’m sick and tired of the subject of your cousin, Grace. She’s not very popular around here. She upset the children and left Peter in the lurch, going off like that. Winifred, do help me with the drinks. Peter, as usual, is forgetting he isn’t supposed to be enjoying his own party. Will you excuse us, Grace?”

  A hot small hand slid into Grace’s and held it hard.

  “Miss Asherton, my brother and I know where Willa is.”

  Grace looked down at the upturned, earnest, freckled visage of Georgy Sinclair. The
child was dressed in a pale-blue party dress that didn’t do much for her plainness. Her ginger hair hung lankly to her shoulders. Her eyes were full of deadly seriousness, dismissing any idea that she might have been joking.

  “Where? “Grace asked.

  “In the forest.”

  “What forest?”

  “Where the elks are. Will you come upstairs and talk to us?”

  “Where’s Alexander?”

  “Upstairs. He’s too young for grown-up parties. And I’m not supposed to be here unless I make intelligent conversation.”

  “Then let’s go,” Grace said.

  Alexander was dressed in brilliantly striped pajamas. His sandy hair (both children had unfortunate coloring) fell in his eyes. All the bedroom windows were closed, and the room was in a warm fug. Grace sat on the edge of one of the beds and said, “Well, then. What did Willa used to do? Read you stories?”

  “No, she made them up,” Georgy said.

  “She told us about shooting elks,” Alexander added. “I was scared.”

  “Because you’re a baby,” his sister said scathingly. “It was only made up. They don’t scream like that. Daddy said so. Willa was pretending. She was always pretending.”

  “About what other things?”

  “When she said if she didn’t come back one day, we was to tell the police,” Alexander burst out, wriggling on his pillow.

  “No, it wasn’t the police; it was the ambassador,” Georgy contradicted.

  “It was not, Georgy. You don’t tell the truf. It was the police. Except that we can’t speak Swedish,” Alexander added uncertainly.

  “Well, there you are, silly.”

  “And did you tell the police or the ambassador?” Grace asked in a still voice.

  Two startled pairs of eyes looked at her.

  “I mean, Willa hasn’t come back, has she?”

  “No, but it’s all right ’cause she’s got married,” Georgy declared triumphantly. “That’s not being stamped on by an old elk. That’s not being lost in the forest.”

  “Is it?” Alexander said appealingly.

  The door opened, and Peter Sinclair came into the room. He looked annoyed.

  “Grace, have these rascals got you under their thumb already? Georgy! Alexander! You ought to know better.”

  “I liked it,” said Grace. “I like children.”

  “That’s all very well, but at a party—”

  “Peter!”

  That was Kate’s voice. It came nearer, urgently. “Peter, Ebba is here. You must come down.”

  For the briefest moment an unguarded harassed look showed in Peter’s eyes. Then he said, “Good gracious! Yes! I didn’t think she was coming. Grace, you must come down and meet the Baroness von Sturpe.”

  A few moments later Grace listened to him saying, “Ebba, may I present Grace Asherton, just arrived from London.”

  Grace looked at the long pale face made longer by the high coronet of palest blond hair. She let her hand be taken by the thin, cool one. So this was what the Swedish aristocracy looked like, cool, remote, decidedly anemic with that colorless skin and shining pale-blue eyes. But impressive in the simple black dress, with that elongated neck and straight, slim body. A little intimidating…

  “Are you a new embassy secretary, Miss Asherton?”

  There was no use in trying out her shock tactics of announcing that she was Willa’s cousin. This woman was too poised to show unguarded reactions.

  “No, I’m a writer.”

  “But how interesting. Are you going to show her about, Peter? She must see the country properly. Perhaps my husband and I can do something. Would you like to see our house, Miss Asherton? It isn’t very large or very grand, but it’s quite old, and typically Swedish.”

  “How kind,” Grace murmured.

  “Ebba is the kindest person in Sweden,” Peter said enthusiastically. “Aren’t you, Ebba? I’m so sorry Jacob couldn’t come. Now let me get you two girls drinks.”

  Kate moved in the background, a small eclipsed figure in her dark dress. When she lifted her eyes, Grace caught a look of strain, almost of panic.

  Those dull embassy parties, she had said. But this one, surely, wasn’t dull if it could bring that look to her eyes…

  “Jacob,” Grace said to Polsen later that evening. “One of the names in Willa’s diary. I know who he is. The Baron von Sturpe. He wasn’t at the party, but his wife was. She was very grand. Threw the Sinclairs into a bit of a tizzy. She wasn’t the sort of friend you would imagine them having. The ambassador might have known her, but not a junior diplomat. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “Certainly it does. A slightly impoverished but very old Swedish family.”

  “Have you met him or the baroness?”

  “What would a poor professor be doing in those circles?”

  Was that an evasion?

  Polsen was making a note in a little book.

  “What are you writing down?”

  “Jacob—Baron von Sturpe. We must be systematic. But I think we can decide he has had nothing to do with Willa’s marriage plans. He is very completely married, I believe, to his beautiful wife. What about the others? Did you meet a Sven or an Axel?” Grace shook her head.

  “Not even a Gustav?”

  “How could I meet Gustav if he’s Willa’s bridegroom?” But Grace went on to relate Winifred Wright’s theory about Willa’s being involved with a married man and the children’s fantasy about her being lost in the forest. Polsen made more notes.

  “One will have to be as fanciful as the children if one is to understand this extraordinarily fascinating document of Willa’s. The forest with the rain dripping down. I wonder if the children do know something?”

  “Making guesses is all very well,” Grace said impatiently. “But can’t we do something? If Willa is in some forest cottage, can’t we find it?”

  “Do you know how many thousands of kilometers of forest there are in Sweden?”

  “No, but narrowing that down to the clues in the diary—”

  “Such as?”

  “I suppose the forest ones aren’t very clear,” Grace said unhappily.

  “No. It rains over a wide area. You must make an opportunity to ask the Sinclair children more questions.”

  Grace nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  “And in the meantime, tomorrow, since it is Saturday and I don’t require to work, we’ll drive to Gripsholm to see the portrait of Gustav the Fourth.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea.”

  “I thought so myself.”

  “You intend to follow all the obvious clues in the diary?”

  “We do, together.”

  “Do you think this will lead us to Gustav?”

  “I hope so. Eventually. At least tomorrow we will see what he looks like. I have only an old Volvo, I’m afraid. But we might take a picnic. It’s pretty by the lake.”

  “What fun.”

  The room was cozy, Polsen’s large, calm figure reassuring. It was much nicer here than at the Sinclairs’ party. Grace said so and saw a look of pleasure on Polsen’s face.

  “Then would you take off that little Knightsbridge dress and put on something less elegant. You make me feel extremely shabby.”

  Grace went into Willa’s bedroom, laughing.

  “What do you know about little Knightsbridge dresses?”

  “I’ve been to London. I’m quite a traveled old fellow.”

  “If you want to talk about someone elegant, you should have seen the baroness.”

  “I have no wish to see her. She doesn’t sound my kind of woman.”

  “What is your kind of woman, Polsen?”

  “You’re laughing at me. What did you have to drink at the party? Snaps?”

  “No, ordinary English gin.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Polsen, “we will take champagne.”

  Grace put her head around the door.

  “What are we celebrating?”

  “Wi
lla’s marriage, let us hope.”

  The brief gaiety died.

  “But you don’t believe in it, do you, Polsen?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “A baby, yes. A marriage, no.”

  “But if she wanted to go somewhere quietly to wait for her baby, she would have come to England.”

  “You mustn’t forget Willa’s romantic nature, Grace. I think probably she couldn’t leave her lover.”

  “Oh, my God! But you think he’s going to leave her? Then surely she would come back here.”

  “We will see.”

  “I wonder why the baby isn’t mentioned in the diary.”

  “Perhaps it is, and we’ve missed it. She hasn’t exactly expressed anything very clearly, has she?”

  “Not the ring,” Grace mused. “She was supposed to be wearing a lapis lazuli ring with a crest. She’d love a present like that, but she doesn’t mention it. Do you know, Polsen, I think there’s a lot more to all this than a lover and a baby.”

  She waited for Polsen to disagree, wishing that he would. But he didn’t. He said nothing, and the chilly outside air seemed to have invaded the room again.

  Chapter 5

  THE FASCINATINGLY STRANGE RED-BRICK castle with its round towers and steep, narrow winding stairs pleased Grace enormously. She felt less happy when she stood in front of the portrait of Gustav IV.

  Those prominent pale-blue eyes, the pink cheeks, the sensuous petulant mouth, the powdered wig, and the slight effeminate figure—Grace was surprised and repelled and full of uneasiness. Did Willa’s lover really look like that? If he had, how could she have been foolish enough to trust him, much less have loved him!

  “But he’s not even handsome! He doesn’t look Willa’s type at all.”

  Polsen studied the portrait from every angle.

  “Here you have a bad painting,” he pronounced. “It’s flat and dead. You must imagine the eyes alive and sparkling and a smile on the lips. It’s a feminine mouth, isn’t it? It could look pretty, smiling. It could be a quite persuasive face. Personality is always more arresting than good looks.” He waved his hand at the painted figure. “You must add the magnetism of warm blood and vitality.

  Grace was still doubtful and puzzled. She didn’t think that a mouth which looked pretty when smiling was an attribute in a man to be particularly admired.