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most of her time, for she used the kitchen and the library, and she liked to keep the parlor nice for the Trustee's visits, as well as the monthly deliveries of the young clerk who brought her supplies. She always served them cookies and tea or coffee there. The second floor was not quite as well kept, and she frequently felt guilty about that. When cleaning there, she always began with Father Clarrington's room, for it still felt like home to her. She had sat there with him every day, after his stroke. She read to him, wrote letters to his old associates, clients, or distant kin, took notes for the guidance of the Trust that was assuming partial control of Clarrington Enterprises. The corporation was too much for Ben, even with her help. She had turned over much of the management of the farm to a young ag-school graduate she had hired soon after taking over, though she still kept the overall planning firmly in her own hands. But the Trust managed the business end of the corporation, leaving Ben free to work with his beloved trees. Days and weeks and months overlapped in that room. Every time she went into it she was assaulted with many images. Father Clarrington sitting in the deep chair, smiling as she brought Benjie in for a morning visit, before Hannibal's death brought the stroke and devastating old age upon the old man. The high bed they had installed to make caring for him easier still sat in its corner. So many things... She'd tapped lightly on the white-painted door. "Come in," he said, his tone thin and light as that of a ghost. "Oh, Daughter, come sit beside me and talk a bit. I've worn out my patience with my book. "Don't let them bring me any more bestsellers, will you? Those idiots can't write! To somebody who cut his teeth on Faulkner and Wolfe this isnothing but drivel. I have no interest in the personal problems of a brainless advertising executive." She laughed as she took the abused book. "I do agree. I'll bring you Watership Down. That's one of your favorites, even if it bears no resemblance whatsoever to Faulkner. Or perhaps it does, in a way." She had a sudden thought. "Would you like to reread Dickens? I think he might suit your mood, for he had such a gritty sense of people and the world they lived in." He reached for her hand and his thin fingers tightened about it. His black eyes, gazing up from a pillow that was only just paler than his face, thanked her for her cheerfulness and apologized wordlessly for his predicament. Neither spoke, but he managed a smile. She had gone away to pick out a stack of books to amuse him; most of those she read aloud to him, when he became too weak to hold them in his trembling hands. She'd been reading aloud on the day Benjie went exploring onto the third floor. The child's light steps hadn't broken into her concentration, but her father-in-law seemed to have preternatural senses when it came to that part of the house. He broke into her reading. "Marri, someone has gone up the stair and down the third floor corridor. I think it must be Benjie. Will you look?" He was paper-white. "I don't want him to come to any harm, and I don't want him troubled by ... anything out of the past. Besides, the floor is getting to be spongy up there. Hildy told me." She dropped her book and hurried up to see. She had no wish for her son to ask any questions about that unused part of the house, any more than her father-in-law had wanted it when she asked for herself. The thought of the horror story he told her still haunted her, at times, though her sound and sturdy child belied any hint of abnormality. Whatever happened in the last generation but one was over and done with, she was certain. But still she wanted no dark memories dredged up from the past. Marise peered down the corridor, which was dark, because the bulbs were out in the tulip lamps that should have lit it and the draperies were closed over the window at the far end past the angle. No small figure was to be seen. That meant Benjie, if it was he, had gone down the cross passage, and she had never been down that way. Hildy's warnings and her own promise had kept her from exploring this part of the house, particularly after she heard the old tales. She dreaded the thought of her bright, sunny natured child poking about in those musty depths. Marise hurried over the dusty carpet without looking at the doors on either side. The cross passage went the depth of a single room to her right, and she checked that before examining the long leg of the passage to the left. At the end of the way she could see movement, almost invisible in the shadows. "Benjie?" she called. She moved toward the small shape in the shadows. "Come to Mama, dear. You shouldn't be up here alone. Hildy says there are spiders." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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