Household (54 page)

He said earnestly, “Are you still with him?”

“We live in the same house, if that’s what you mean.” Looking up into eyes which, she suddenly realized, were just a little darker than her own, she had to add, “But that’s all aver. I’m leaving as soon as I can get another place.”

“You should,” he said, frowning. “You need to get away from him, especially after what happened. You could’ve been killed.”

“I wasn’t though,” she said softly.

“Would you have lunch with me?”

“I’d be delighted.”

“How would you like to drive out to the beach...” He paused and stared at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. I guess you’ve had your fill of the ocean.”

“I could never have my fill of the ocean. I love the sea, especially at the this time of day with the sun so bright on the waves. Let’s go!”

“I’m parked just inside the main gates.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “You’re really a wonderful dancer,” he said as they walked toward his car. “I’ve only known one other woman whose steps went so well with mine.”

“And who was she?”

“Her name was Juliet,” he said.

“Was?” she repeated. “Is she dead?”

There was a pain mirrored in his dark eyes, but as he looked down at her, it faded. “No, of course she’s not dead. I only meant that I haven’t seen her lately. That’s Hollywood for you. People come and they go. It’s too damned easy to lose touch. I’m glad the test pleased Arno. I’d hate to think of you leaving town so soon.” He paused and then said, “But you must excuse me, Helena. I’m forgetting you’re pretty well established.”

Juliet said, “I keep forgetting that, too. But I am, aren’t I?”

“Yes, thank God.” His arm tightened around her waist. “I’ll bet you’re hungry or... maybe you’d like a drink.”

“If it’s water or tea or coffee. But I think I’d prefer something to eat.”

“Come on, then.” He bent to kiss her on the cheek. Straightening up, he added, “I know a great place. Right on the edge of the sea.”

The following morning while letting herself into the house, Juliet was just about to close the front door when a cab drew up and her brother got out. She waved and went inside, waiting for him in the front hall. As he came in, she looked at him lovingly.

“I’m moving out,” she told him ecstatically.

“Gareth?” he asked.

She nodded.

“May I bring Morna here?” he asked.

“Of course, but first... isn’t it time...”

“Past time,” he agreed.

❖

They came into The Castle’s front hall, and turning toward the living room, they saw Livia throwing dust covers over the furniture and Septimus closing the windows. A whistle from on high signaled Richard’s presence in one or another of the bedrooms. They stood where they were until Livia turned and gazed at them blankly. Brushing a hand over a strand of hair that was hanging over face, she said crossly, “He hasn’t sent anyone to view the house already, has he? I certainly should have had more warning.”

Septimus’s hand fell from the window he was closing. In two strides he had reached the hall, and to his wife’s amazement he embraced the female half of the duo, a lovely young woman who returned his embrace with fervor. Then, he embraced the man.

“Ohhhh,” Livia whispered, staring at Septimus. “To think that you knew before I did.”

“That’s what grandfather meant!” Kathie ran down the stairs followed by Richard.

“Hi.” Mark came from the dining room. “Great to see you.”

“Great to see you,” Colin said warmly.

They were silent then, staring at each other lovingly and yet with a touch of regret.

“But of course,” Livia said briskly, “we’ll see each other from time to time. After all, none of us is going very far.”

“No,” Juliet said. “We couldn’t tempt fate.”

“Oh, I think we could,” Mark contradicted, “but we wouldn’t want to.”

They all laughed and agreed.

“Where’s grandfather?” Kathie asked. “He should be here to bid any of us goodbye.”

“I don’t think he is.” Juliet looked uncertainly at Colin. “I don’t feel him at all,” he said.

“Perhaps he’s already gone somewhere,” Mark mused. “Where would he go?” Septimus asked reasonably.

“He’s somewhere around,” Livia said positively. “He’ll join us at our hotel. Or maybe he’s waiting until we find a house.”

“That’s probably it,” Juliet said.

“I hope so,” Kathie said. “But of course, he has to stay with one of us.”

“Of course,” Livia agreed. “He’ll come when he’s ready.”

❖

The Old Lord, who had been Richard Veringer, Sixth Earl of More, did not come back until the shades were drawn in the house and the rooms empty. The roof was empty, too. Its three inhabitants had flown off to the green hills of Ireland. He sat in the garden among the unfamiliar orange and avocado trees and listened to the wind rustling through the eucalyptuses. He thought of a time when a young man had waited outside the door of a theater, impatiently watching for it to open. He had bribed a coachman, he remembered... and there had been a midnight supper in his lodgings waiting... and that was how it had all started.

“Richard.”

He tensed and looked up. She was dressed in a white satin gown with immense panniers. Her hair was powdered and piled up on her shapely little head. She was as slim as a fairy and incredibly beautiful. Her eyes were blue, as blue as the lakes of Kilarney and brimming over with love for him.

“Catlin,” he said incredulously and joyfully. Rising, he held out his arms.

Version History

Version #:
v3.0

Sigil Version Used:
0.7.2

Original format:
ePub

Date created:
May 2, 2015

Last edited:
May 2, 2015

Correction History:

Version History Framework for this book:

v0.0/UC
==> This is a book that that's been scanned, OCR'd and converted into HTML or EPUB. It is completely raw and uncorrected. I do essentially no text editing within the OCR software itself, other than to make sure that every page has captured the appropriate scanning area, and recognized it as the element (text, picture, table, etc.) that it should be.

v1.0
==> All special style and paragraph formatting from the OCR product is removed, except for italics and small-caps (where they are being used materially, and not as first-line-of-a-new-chapter eye-candy). Unstyled, chapter & sub-chapter headings are applied. 40-50 search templates which use Regular Expressions have been applied to correct common transcription errors: faulty character replacement like "die" instead of "the", "comer" instead of "corner", "1" instead of "I"; misplaced punctuation marks; missing quotation marks; rejoining broken lines; breaking run-on dialogue, etc.

v2.0
==> Page-by-page comparison against the original scan/physical book, to format scenebreaks (the blank space between paragraph denoting an in-chapter break), blockquotes, chapter heading, and all other special formatting. This also includes re-breaking some lines (generally from poetry or song lyrics that have been blockquoted in the original book) that were incorrectly joined during the v1 general correction process.

v3.0
==> Spellchecked in Sigil (an epub editor). My basic goal in this version is to catch most non-words, and all indecipherable words (i.e., those that would require the original text in order to properly interpret). Also, I try to add in diacritics whenever appropriate. In other words, I want to get the book in shape so that someone who wants to make full readthrough corrections will be able to do so without access to the original physical book.

v4.0
==> I've done a complete readthrough of the book, and have made any corrections to errors caught in the process. This version level is probably comparable in polish to a physical retail book.

Some additional notes:

vX.1-9
==> within my own framework, these smaller incremental levels are completely unstandardized. What it means is that I—or you!—have made some minor corrections or adjustment that leave me somewhere between "vX" and "vX+1". It's very unlikely that I'll ever use these decimal adjustments on anything less than a "v3".

Correcting my ebooks
— Even at their best, I've yet to read one of my v3.0s that was completely error free. For those of you inclined to make corrections to those books I post (v3, v4, v5, and all points in between), I gratefully welcome the help. However, I would urge you to make those correction in the original EPUB file using Sigil or some other HTML editor, and not in a converted file. The reason is this: when you convert a file, the code—and occasionally the formatting—is altered. If you make corrections in this altered version, in order to use that "corrected" version, I'm going to have to reformat it all over again from scratch, which is at best hugely inefficient and at worst impossible (if, say, I no longer have an original copy available). More likely, I'll just end up doing the full readthrough myself on my file and discarding all of your hard work. Unlike some of the saintly retail posters who contribute books that they have no interest whatsoever in reading, I never create a book that I don't want to read... at least a little. So, having to do a full readthrough on my own books isn't really going to put me out, but it will mean that the original editor's work (i.e. your work )will have been completely wasted, and I'd feel more than slightly crummy about that. So, to re-cap, I am endlessly grateful to those who add further polish to the books I make, but it's only an efficient use of your time if you make corrections in the original EPUB file as you downloaded it.