The Purgatorium

Chapter Eight

After a sleepless night alone—Cam had answered none of her calls and had seemed to vanish from the island—Daphne received a phone call from the girl at the courtesy desk asking her to come in a half hour to Dr. Gray's office on the second floor of the main building, room 200. Daphne hadn't planned on going to breakfast—there were still plenty of fruit and things in her room—but now she quickly showered and dressed, wondering what this was all about. She supposed she could refuse to go, but she had to admit she was curious to know why the doctor wanted to see her.

She slipped on another one of the sundresses her mother bought her for the trip, put on her sandals, and headed over to the main building. The pool was full of swimmers and sunbathers, including Gregory Gray and others from yesterday's sunset cruise—all but Cam. She avoided making eye contact with any of them as she shuffled by, quickly, hoping they wouldn't notice. She wasn't in the mood to be around people.

She climbed the stairs to room 200. She lifted her hand to knock, but hesitated when she heard opera music coming from the other side of the door. In a low vibrato, and in a language that sounded like Latin, Hortense Gray's voice rang out, and it was not good. Daphne covered her smile with her hand and listened until the music stopped, and then she raised her hand and rapped on the door.

"Enter."

Daphne gasped before she had even crossed the threshold, because the doctor's office wasn't anything like what she had expected. Every square inch of wall space was covered with either book cases overflowing with books or with paintings from many different eras and styles, looking gaudy and crammed together. In the middle of the room were sculptures—three free-standing, life-sized ones and two smaller busts on pedestals. A loom sat in one corner with threads and a half-woven tapestry, and stuffed in another corner was an upright piano, covered in sheet music, some of which had fallen to the floor.

The doctor stood behind her desk wearing a large purple hat and purple velvet suit, which looked ridiculous. She lifted the needle from an old-fashioned record player, plunked on one corner of her messy desk, and removed a record and slipped it into a paper sleeve as she said, "Well, don't just stand there. Come in and have a seat."

Daphne had to weave around the many pieces of art to reach the green chenille chair in front to Dr. Gray's desk, and before she could sit on it, she had to remove a painting.

"Oh, just put that over there on the piano bench. I haven't decided where I'm going to hang that one. Do you like it? It's a Pre-Raphaelite imitation. A recent gift from a patient."

The painting was of a woman in a beautiful dress lying in a stream on her back with flowers all around her. She only had to lay her head back to be completely submerged.

"Is the woman going to drown herself?" Daphne asked as she carefully sat the painting on the piano bench.

"I guess we'll never know. That's the thing about paintings. They're frozen." After Daphne had taken her seat, the doctor asked, "Do you like my costume?"

Daphne was relieved that it was a costume. She hadn't been sure how to take the purple hat and suit and white bowtie. "Yes."

"I'm the mad hatter; can you tell? We're having a costume party in the ballroom next week, and I've been trying to decide how to dress. I think this one suits me."

"Yes," Daphne agreed. "It does."

Hortense Gray removed the purple hat from her head and tossed it on the floor behind her desk. "Well, now." She sat down and opened a manila folder on the top of a heap of folders. "Thank you for meeting with me. I wanted to discuss a few things with you. First of all, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what happened yesterday evening during the cruise. Gregory told me. You must have been terrified."