The Love Talker Part 2

"Well?" he demanded. "What were you going to say?"

"Isn't it a little peculiar that Aunt Lizzie hasn't talked about her latest kick? Usually when she has a new hobby she can't think about anything else. And if Ida is right, this one has really grabbed her."

"Hmmm." Doug rubbed his chin. "You're right. I remember the time she went in for spiritualism. I had barely walked in the front door before she had me at the dining-room table with a Ouija board spread out in front of us. She wanted to find out if I was psychic."

"Were you?"

Doug grinned. "She got a couple of fascinating messages."

"Doug, you are really the most-"

"Don't leap to conclusions. The spirit of George Was.h.i.+ngton told her not to have any truck with spiritualism. I-sorry, George-said he was sick and tired of being dragged away from his game of pool to pa.s.s on idiotic messages about birds and flowers and love."

"Pool?"

"Well, they had billiards in the eighteenth century," Doug said. "George always struck me as the sporting type. Lizzie didn't bat an eye; she agreed that he had a point." .

"Watch out," Laurie said. "Here she comes."

Thanks to her size and her habit of voicing her thoughts aloud, Lizzie's approach was never inaudible. Doug and Laurie were busily at work when she billowed into the kitchen, asking, in somewhat pointed tones, if there was something she could do to help.

The rest of the evening was spent watching television. Ida mentioned that there was an excellent cla.s.sical-music concert on public TV, but Lizzie refused to miss her favorite s.e.x-and-violence crime show. She squeaked with delighted horror every time one of the "cops" hit one of the bad guys, and although Ida pretended to knit, her aristocratic nose in the air, she watched too, out of the corner of her eye. Ned, his hands folded across his flat stomach, seemed to doze.

Promptly at ten o'clock Ida rolled up her knitting and rose stiffly to her feet.

"Bedtime," she announced. "You two young things may sit up if you like, but we old folks need our sleep."

"Me too." Doug rose, yawning and stretching. "Uncle Ned and I are going out at the crack of dawn to look for beavers or something. I'm bushed. Must be the country air."

"Sleep will be good for you," Ida said fondly. "Laura?"

"You go on," Laurie said. "I'll lock up."

She had hoped her eldest aunt might take this excuse to linger and tell her of the family trouble. But Ida went out with the others, and after a short interval the old house settled drowsily for the night.

Laurie sat staring at the TV screen without hearing a word of the talk show going on. She was conscious of the same warmth and sense of homecoming the house always gave her. But tonight something was different. Under her feeling of drowsy content, an awareness of something obscurely wrong stirred and s.h.i.+fted through the currents of her thought.

Finally she switched off the TV set, checked the doors and the thermostats, and went upstairs. The broad, shallow steps, worn by generations of Morton feet, squeaked faintly as she ascended. The bedroom doors were closed, but when she stopped on the landing she could hear Uncle Ned's l.u.s.ty snores and a weaker, younger echo from behind the door of Doug's room.

She was about to go on up to the next floor when something soft brushed her ankle, and such was her state of mind that she let out a m.u.f.fled yelp. Looking down she saw a tawny, sinuous form winding around her feet. Ida's Siamese cat was sixteen years old, and still going strong.

"Sabrina," she whispered. "Why aren't you in bed?"

Sabrina's aristocratic jaws parted. She let out a strident Siamese yowl.

"Sss.h.!.+" Laurie cautioned. "Do you want to come upstairs with me? Do you want to go to Aunt Ida?" Sabrina made it clear that she preferred the latter alternative. Carefully Laurie turned the doork.n.o.b. As soon as the door was open a few inches Sabrina slid through the gap without so much as a thank you.

Laurie went on up the stairs. Her room was on the third floor. Formerly an attic, it had been remodeled, when she became a regular visitor, into a young girl's dream room. The slope of the roof was so steep that only a very small person could make the most of the s.p.a.ce, and even in adolescence it had been necessary for Laurie to roll out of bed instead of sitting up first. She hoped old habits would rea.s.sert themselves, so that she wouldn't brain herself in the morning.

Though the room was never used except by her, it was fresh and neat and warm as toast. The house was heated by radiators, which had never been extended to this attic, but registers set in the floor let the heat from below rise, to be trapped under the insulated ceiling. The only windows were at the end, on either side of the huge stone chimney. Their deep sills were piled with cus.h.i.+ons. The frilly bedspread, the fluffy rug, and the Peter Rabbit prints had been selected by Aunt Lizzie, years ago. Laurie's tastes had altered, but she would not have removed a single rabbit.

After getting into her nightgown she looked for a book on the shelves that had been set under the eaves. Like the prints, the books were treasures of her childhood, and they suited her nostalgic mood; but she had not realized that so many of them were fairy tales. The Oz books, all twenty-six of them, and the other Baum t.i.tles; the Lang fairy books, all the way through the spectrum, from blue to yellow; j.a.panese fairy tales, African fairy tales, Swedish fairy tales; Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, George MacDonald's Goblin books; Peter Pan, of course, and Pinocchio. She had always hated Pinocchio. What a little horror he was, sniveling and whining, lying and cheating-a fine hero for a child's book. Monstrous, in fact.. ..

Wind rattled the window frame. Laurie glanced uneasily over her shoulder. Except for the reading lamp by the bed, which she had not yet switched on, the lighting was dim, m.u.f.fled by ruffly shades and painted globes. One shadow looked like a face with an elongated nose. As she watched it, another strong draft set the curtains to swaying, and the shadow moved.

Why was it that as a child she had never been conscious of the dark, sinister side of the familiar fairy tales? The Grimm stories were retellings of dismal old Teutonic legends. Even the more innocuous stories had terrifying pa.s.sages-dragons, witches, trolls. Doug was right; elves and ghouls were second cousins, citizens of a world beyond the boundaries of the reasonable universe.

And dear sweet old Aunt Lizzie had fed her on those horrors. Lizzie had selected most of the books, except for a few moral tales contributed by Ida, and if there was a fairy tale Lizzie had missed, her niece couldn't find it. The old lady had kept abreast of the modern contributions to the field too-Lloyd Alexander, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien.

Yes, the collection seemed complete. There were occasional gaps on the shelves, though, and Laurie wondered whether Aunt Lizzie selected her bedtime reading from these books. She wouldn't be surprised. She certainly could not picture the Mortons reading Updike or Saul Bellow. They knew the names of the various parts of the human body, but they were not accustomed to seeing some of those words in print.

Laurie decided she was not in the mood for fairy tales. She s.h.i.+fted position to another section of bookshelves. Here were books of another type-old-fas.h.i.+oned and, in their way, just as unrealistic as the fairy tales; but at least they were not replete with goblins. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm rubbed shoulders with Daddy Long Legs and the masterpieces of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Laurie selected Little Lord Fauntleroy, wondering if that angelic small boy was really as revolting as she remembered.

Little Ceddie was that revolting. Dearest, his mama, was even worse. Skimming rapidly, and grimacing, Laurie finished the book in record time. Contemptuous as she was of the saintly Cedric, she could understand the appeal of books like this. Virtue was so seldom rewarded in real life that it was nice to read a book in which it not only triumphed, but was endowed with immense wealth, ducal coronets, and the fatuous adoration of everybody in the neighborhood.

She put the book on her bedside table and switched off the light.

Young Cedric's adventures should have been soporific, but Laurie found herself wide awake. For a time she lay staring up at the ceiling, only a few feet above her face. As her pupils expanded, the room seemed to fill with pearly light-reflected moonlight, surely. The snow must have stopped. Sleep continued to elude her, so she got out of bed and went to the window. The view was so lovely that she wrapped her robe around her and climbed up on the window seat.

It had been one of her favorite retreats in childhood. Coc.o.o.ned in cus.h.i.+ons, she had sat there for hours, reading or dreaming. The window looked out over the trees, across the wide gardens toward the woods. Sure enough, the snow had ended. The wind hurried the last straggling clouds along. A remote sliver of moon rode high above the treetops, silvering the blanket of snow on the lawn. The boxwood hedges and sweeping fir boughs were frosted with white, glittering with faint crystalline sparkles. Beyond, like a dark enclosing wall, the trees sheltered the old house as they had done for centuries. There were no other houses visible; no man-made light broke the serenity of the night.

At last Laurie began to feel sleepy. She was about to get into bed when she saw something strange.

It was only a small point of light; but it shone where no light should be, deep among the dark pines. The land was posted. Surely no local hunter would dare to trespa.s.s; Uncle Ned's sentiments about hunting were well known, and his influence with local judges was considerable.

As Laurie stared, the light changed color. From a clear white, it burned rosy red, then flared with blue and emerald green, before turning to a soft ethereal lavender. With each s.h.i.+ft of color the light moved, rising and falling like a firefly. But no firefly changed color or position, with such quick, dartling motions. Occasionally the spark of light was momentarily obscured, as if it pa.s.sed behind a bough or a tree trunk. Finally it soared high and went out.

Laurie continued to look for several minutes, but the light did not reappear. She wrapped the robe closer around her shoulders. The room felt very cold.

She fell asleep immediately, and dreamed that the Tin Woodman, no longer smiling and gentle, but a steel-bodied robot with flailing clublike arms, was chasing her down the Yellow Brick Road. The bricks were crumbling. Gra.s.s grew between them. Each green tendril was alive and edged with sharp sawteeth; they lashed at her ankles, uttering tiny wordless screams of mad rage as she fled.

She woke sweating and panting, and lay staring up at the rafters until the reality of waking removed the horror of the dream. She had no trouble falling asleep again; this time she dreamed she had pushed Little Lord Fauntleroy into a mud puddle. His black velvet suit was all nasty and dirty, and his weeping face was that of her brother.

Smiling, Laurie rolled over and sank into profound, satisfying slumber.

CHAPTER 3.

The view from her window next morning was even more beautiful than it had been the night before. Fence posts, twigs, and branches were sheathed in a crystal coating of ice that scintillated like diamonds as the sun struck it. Laurie knelt on the window seat, enjoying not only the winter scene but the thought of Doug tramping through the cold in the darkness before dawn. He had not been a nature lover even as a child; the leather jacket and the sports car and a few other unmistakable signs of decadence a.s.sured Laurie that he would not find Uncle Ned's frigid vigils any more to his taste now. Leisurely she dressed and went downstairs.

The aunts were in the kitchen. Once the keeping room of the manor house, it retained the stone walls and ma.s.sive fireplace of its original design. The mantel was a single walnut beam, several feet thick. Lizzie had placed pewter plates and rough pottery along the shelf, and had mounted a musket below.

The musket was not a family heirloom. Lizzie had bought it at an antique shop, to the consternation of Uncle Ned, who saw nothing ornamental, as he put it, about weapons of killing. He had been even madder when he found out the musket was loaded, with ball and black powder. It had not occurred to Lizzie that a spark from the fire below might set the gun off. It was pointed straight at a window-one of those that retained some panes of the precious original gla.s.s. But, as Ned sarcastically remarked, chances were that the gun would have exploded first, mangling everyone in the immediate neighborhood. The ball and powder had been removed, but the musket was still in place; a compromise which indicated with some accuracy the relations.h.i.+p between Ned and his younger sister.

Ida was seated at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. She gave Laurie a wintry smile and a stiff "Good morning." Lizzie was puttering around the room, wiping an already immaculate counter. She flung herself at Laurie with a greeting as emotional as if she had not seen her for years, and asked her what she wanted for breakfast. Laurie turned down pancakes; a mushroom omelette, and eggs Benedict; then, as Lizzie's lip began to vibrate ominously, she hastily agreed that baked eggs in cream would be fine, along with toast and jam. The bread would be homemade, she knew, and so would the jam.

Lizzie was wearing jeans that morning-custom-made, no doubt, for no store-bought Levi's would have swathed her ample hips so neatly. They were topped by a garment almost as incredible as the one she had worn the night before. It was bright mustard yellow, embroidered from neck to s.h.i.+rttail with violently colored flowers and birds. A belt of heavy silver links studded with cabochon amethysts more or less confined it around the region of what should have been Lizzie's waist. She looked like a giant improbable tropical bird as she trotted from refrigerator to counter to stove, emitting breathless little bursts of chirping song.

Knowing Lizzie would be preoccupied for a while, Laurie sat down at the table and started on the chilled fruit cup her aunt had had waiting. Ida sipped her coffee. She didn't smoke or drink, but coffee was her vice; she often had ten cups a day. Laurie noticed that her aunt's hand trembled slightly as she lifted the cup; the shadows under her sunken eyes were even more p.r.o.nounced in the morning light. Too much coffee? Laurie resolved to speak to Ida about it-but not now, with Lizzie listening. The elderly relatives guarded their weaknesses jealously, and resented criticism.

"Are Doug and Uncle Ned still out?" she asked.

"Yes. Heaven knows when they will return. Ned has no sense of time when he is out of doors. Did you sleep well, my dear?"

"Beautifully." Laurie remembered her nightmare, but decided it was not a fit subject for conversation. "Oh, Auntie"-as Lizzie placed a heaped plate before her-"that looks divine, but I can't eat so much!"

"Oh, honey, of course you can. You're pitifully thin! No more than skin and bones!"

"You'll want coffee," Ida said gruffly, and rose to get a cup.

"I'm going to need exercise if I go on eating this way," Laurie said, "Maybe I'll take a walk later. By the way, I saw the strangest light in the woods last night. All colors of the rainbow, moving around-"

A crash interrupted her. Turning, she saw her eldest aunt, gray-faced and rigid, standing over the fragments of one of the cherished Spode cups which had been in the family for six generations.

"How careless of you, Ida," said Lizzie. A frown ruffled her brow briefly, then was replaced by a beaming smile. "I'm so glad you saw them, Laurie. I felt sure you would sooner or later, because you are sensitive to such things, just as I am; but I did not hope they would come for you so soon."

"They? Who? What? No, Aunt, don't do that-let me-"

Laurie started to rise. Ida, gathering crisp sh.e.l.l-like fragments, waved her back into her chair.

"My carelessness, my task," she said, quoting an adage Laurie had heard often in her youth.

Humming, Lizzie went to the cupboard for another cup and saucer.

"Tell me about the light," Laurie said.

"Light? Oh, yes. It must have been Queen Mab herself; her aura is particularly brilliant and colorful. I have not yet been privileged to see her, but several of her lesser ladies-in-waiting have consented to be photographed."

Laurie now had occasion to bless her youthful interest in fairy tales. The speech would have made even less sense than it did without that background.

"The queen of the . . . fairies," she said, gulping over the last word.

"She is sometimes called t.i.tania, but that is erroneous," Lizzie said blithely. She poured coffee with a steady hand. "Her consort, of course, is-"

"Oberon," Laurie said automatically. "Auntie, stop talking for a minute, will you? Did you say photographed? You don't mean you actually have-"

"Oh, dear me, yes. Haven't I mentioned them?"

"No, you have not." Laurie's tone was sharper than she had intended. Her aunt's vague, dithering statements, many of them prefixed by that characteristic, long-drawn-out, meaningless "oooh," had never irritated her more. The sight of Ida, grim and speechless as one of Notre Dame's lesser gargoyles, did not improve her temper.

Lizzie's pink mouth quivered.

"You sound so hard, darling," she murmured.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm just very-very -interested." Laurie knew it would not be politic to confess that she had already heard about the fairies. "Do tell me more, Aunt Lizzie."

"Oh, there isn't much to tell," Lizzie said, turning back to the stove. "I do wish those men would return. Poor Douglas will be starved. Ned is so inconsiderate when he-"

"Auntie. You're teasing me. Tell me about-uh- Queen Mab. And the photographs."

"Oh, I thought I had told you. Dear me, I am becoming forgetful. Old age, perhaps."

"You'll never be old, Auntie," Laurie said. A m.u.f.fled snort from Ida echoed the sentiment, but Laurie thought her aunt didn't mean it in quite the same way.

Lizzie's sunny smile reappeared.

"You're sweet to say so, darling. I feel that age is in the heart, not in the body, don't you? I did wonder if perhaps this blouse might not be just a teeny bit too youthful. I found it in a little shop in Georgetown; the Indians of Guatemala-or is it Honduras? -they embroider so beautifully, poor souls, and are so poorly paid that one feels guilty, really, in only paying-"

Laurie gave up, but only for the moment. Perhaps Lizzie had changed her mind about talking because of Ida; the older sister's silence fairly vibrated with hostility, and Laurie felt sure she had already expressed herself forcibly on the folly of Lizzie's latest fancy. She would have to try another approach, when she and Lizzie were alone. Toward that end she said slyly, "I adore the blouse, Auntie. It suits you perfectly. I'll bet you've got lots of pretty new clothes. When can I see them?"

Twice a year, spring and fall, Lizzie made a pilgrimage to Was.h.i.+ngton, stayed overnight in a hotel, and spent two days shopping at Saks, Neiman-Marcus, Garfinckel's, and the boutiques of Georgetown. On those occasions she went berserk, buying anything that caught her eye, whether it suited her age and figure or not. It usually didn't. Yet there was some truth in Laurie's kindly flattery. Lizzie didn't look as frightful in the youthful garments as one might have expected. She enjoyed them so much that her very joie de vivre made them seem appropriate.

Lizzie's eyes brightened. "I've been dying to show off my new wardrobe, darling. Ida is no fun at all. She has such dull tastes."

"Great. And," Laurie added guilelessly, "you can show me the photographs of ... the photographs. Did you take them?"

Lizzie looked as if she regretted her moment of candor, but it was too late for her to deny her statement. "Oh, no," she said, with a giggle. "You know how I am about machinery, sweetie."

"Who did take them?" Laurie persisted.

"Not I," said Ida grimly.

"I didn't think so. Who?"

"Ooooh!" Lizzie pounced, her full sleeves flaring; Laurie was reminded of an overweight parrot settling onto its perch. From under the table Lizzie took a limp ball of fluff. Its colors were a gorgeous sable-and-silver blend; its fur was long and soft. It dangled limply from Lizzie's pudgy hands, its green eyes half closed.

"Here's mama's Angel Baby," Lizzie said fondly. "You haven't said h.e.l.lo to Angel Baby, Laura dear."

"I haven't met Angel Baby." Laurie took the cat. It felt as if it had no bones at all. Opening its eyes a trifle wider, it looked at her and began to purr. Laurie was not flattered. The bland contempt in the cat's expression belied the purr. "I thought you had a white cat."

"Sweetums." Lizzie's eyes welled with tears, all in an instant, as if twin spigots had been turned on in her head. "Dear Sweetums pa.s.sed on last year, Laura. This is her great-granddaughter."

"How is Mrs. Potter?" Mrs. Potter's prize Persians were famous. Lizzie had always gotten her cats from that source.

Before Lizzie could answer, Angel Baby turned suddenly from a hanging, miniature boa to a length of fur-covered muscle. With the agility of a flying squirrel she soared from Laurie's lap to the window-sill, leaving a long bleeding scratch on Laurie's arm.

"Angel Baby always knows when the dog is approaching," Lizzie explained calmly. "She does not get on at all with d.u.c.h.ess."

The door opening onto the stone-floored entryway banged, and after a few moments the men appeared, accompanied by d.u.c.h.ess.

"Get that wet dog out of here," Ida exclaimed, as a friendly but undeniably damp tail swished her calves.

"I dried her," Ned said. "Lie down, d.u.c.h.ess. Lie down, I say!"