Someone in the House (32 page)

“I’ve almost decided not to go back to teaching this fall, Anne.”

“But you’ve got a contract.”

“It’s not very ethical to notify them at this late date,” Kevin admitted. “But you know as well as I do that there are fifty applicants for every academic job these days; they won’t have any trouble filling my slot. I have responsibilities here too, and this slot isn’t so easily filled. Mother and Dad aren’t getting any younger. I want them to have the things they deserve, while they can enjoy them—peace of mind, leisure, the companionship of the people they love.”

“It’s a noble sentiment.”

Kevin laughed. “There you go again,” he said affectionately. “You can’t insult me, darling; I know my decision is partly selfish. Why the hell should I kill myself when I don’t have to? Slogging through the mud and sleet to class, grading papers for a bunch of low-grade morons who don’t know how to write their own language. I’d have time to do the kind of research I’ve always wanted to do, without the pressure of schedules and academic demands. It’s the best of all possible worlds for everyone concerned, and I’d be a fool to throw it away.”

In the silence that followed there was no sound except the musical rustle of leaves overhead. The warm breeze, heavy with the scent of roses, caressed my skin. The stone walls of the house were golden in the sunlight. Leaving this place would be like tearing out part of my body.

“I can’t disagree with you,” I said at last. “You would be a fool to go back.”

“And so would you.” Kevin turned and took my hands in his. “You love this place, and you’ve given me the impression that your feelings for me—”

“I have for you certain sentiments of the most profound respect and approbation.”

Kevin’s eyes danced. “You’re a panic. We’d have to get married, I suppose. Mother is a little sticky about things like that—”

“Wait. Don’t.” I pulled my hands from his grasp and blundered to my feet, putting one hand on the tree trunk to steady myself. The wood was warm and textured under my fingers.

“Don’t pull a Jane Eyre on me,” said Kevin. “You can’t be altogether taken by surprise.”

“Nobody ever proposedmarriage to me before,” I blurted.

As always, Kevin understood. “It scares me too, Anne. I don’t believe in all that claptrap about marriage being made in heaven—”

“But divorce is messy and very expensive.”

This time Kevin’s laugh held a jarring note. He had a right to expect his honorable offer to be received, if not with a cry of rapture, at least without sarcasm. I don’t know what held me back. I still don’t know. Instead of turning, instead of going into his arms, instead of saying any of the right things—I stood still, my back stubbornly turned.

“I don’t feel I can quit without giving them some notice.”

“If you told them now, you could quit after one semester without feeling guilty, couldn’t you?”

I loved him for accepting what I said, for not trying to talk me out of it. I almost turned and shouted, “Take me, I’m yours!” The same indefinable, illogical reluctance stopped me.

“If I do decide to teach another semester—what will you do?”

“Is that a test question, Anne?”

“‘Not love, quoth she, but vanity, Sets love a task like that.’ I hope I’m not that cheap, Kevin. I just wondered.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Kevin said. “I would rather not be separated from you, even for a short time.”

Then I turned. He sat relaxed and quiet, his clasped hands dangling, smiling up at me. There had been more conviction in his calm statement than in an embrace or passionate protestation.

“I would rather not be separated from you,” I said, just as quietly.

“Then…”

“Let me think about it. My God,” I added in disgust. “I’ve got to stop reading the Victorians. Not only am I talking like them, I’m starting to think that way.”

We left it at that, but it wasn’t satisfactory, and I knew it. Over and over during the day I asked myself what the hell was the matter with me. If I wasn’t in love with Kevin my feelings were so close to love that only a pedant would have quibbled over definitions. I thought he would probably wear well, which was even more important. Passion passes into fondness, even indifference, but congeniality endures. Compared to Joe, for instance…

Naturally I thought of Joe, if only to make invidious comparisons. Arrogant, boorish, chauvinist, and he hadn’t even pretended to care about my work. Since he was on my mind, I was not surprised to recognize his handwriting on a letter that came that afternoon. Things work that way sometimes.

Arrogant Joe might be, but he could take a hint. I suppose the fact that I had not written for six weeks might be considered a hint.

He assumed—he wrote—that since he had heard nothing from me, even in response to his last letter, any arrangements we might have had for fall were canceled. That was okay by him. I was a free agent, there were no strings, et cetera. (The “et cetera” represented two pages of griping.) However, he did feel that I owed him a statement of intent, since he had to find someplace to live. As I well knew, housing in that part of the city wasn’t easy to find. If I was planning to give up my apartment, he would like to take it. What was the name of the rental agent?

Up to that point my only emotion was one of amusement at Joe’s attempt to sound stiffly detached. But the letter ended with a comment about Kevin that was so hateful I threw it on the floor and stepped on it, as I would have crushed a poisonous insect.

After I had calmed down, by inventing all the names I would have called Joe if he had been there to hear them, I became aware that under my anger ran a tiny current of remorse. Joe must be feeling very hurt to descend to such malice. I ought to have written him weeks ago, as soon as I knew I didn’t want him to move in with me again. I ought to write the university, immediately, if I decided not to go back.

That night I was not listening for strange noises. If there was a quality of desperation in my caresses Kevin didn’t recognize it as such, but welcomed it as a demonstration of ultimate commitment.

I was in a deep, dreamless sleep when something woke me. I sat up in bed, fully awake and abnormally alert, like someone who expects an urgent call. But there had been no sound.

Moonlight filled the room like silvery water. I heard nothing except Kevin’s deep, regular breathing. He slept neatly, lying on his side with his knees slightly flexed and his arms folded.

Then the sound came. I have never heard anything like it. Hollow, reverberant; a remote brazen clanging; its vibrations seemed to strike into the core of the walls and go on echoing. Muffled as it was, it had a piercing quality that was loud enough to wake Kevin. He sat up, shaking his head.

“Anne?”

“Yes, I heard it.” I got out of bed and slipped into my robe, and reached for my glasses.

“Hold on,” Kevin said, as I headed for the door. “I didn’t hire you to catch burglars. Wait for me. Where are my clothes?”

“Probably on the floor, where you always throw them. Did you set the burglar alarm?”

“I think so. What the hellwas that?”

“It sounded like a big bronze gong.”

“We don’t have one.”

“We’d better check. Hurry up.”

Bea’s door opened as we approached it. Her eyebrows lifted slightly when she saw us together, but she only said, “Did I hear something?”

“Burglars banging a gong to announce their arrival,” Kevin said. “Stand back, ladies, and let me be the first to rush headlong into danger.”

At the top of the stairs we were greeted by Amy, who was delighted to have company. She could never understand why we wasted eight hours a day sleeping. She threw herself at Kevin, who staggered.

“What we need around here is a watchdog,” he said. “It can’t be a burglar; Amy would be with him, showing him where we keep the silver.”

The dog continued to make playful rushes at him as he descended the stairs. A quick tour of the first floor showed nothing amiss. The rusting shields and weapons adorning the walls of the Great Hall, any one of which falling from a loosened peg might have caused such a sound, were all in place. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed, and when Kevin checked the alarm, it was fully functional.

“I might as well have a look at the cellar while I’m at it,” he said, yawning. “You girls go back to bed, why don’t you?”

Bea’s eyes sought mine. The nightmare had been half forgotten; but, like her, I knew we should not let Kevin go into the cellar alone.

Armed with flashlights, we made a thorough search and again found nothing out of place until we reached the small chamber that had been part of the old crypt. By that time we had all decided the whole business had been a false alarm. Kevin didn’t enter the room, he just stood in the doorway and flashed his light around. There was nowhere anyone could have hidden, only the bare floor with its uneven stones. Only that, and…something more.

We almost missed it. We were looking for something the size of a man, not a small object less than a foot square. It sat on four little carved feet near the bottom of the brass which, I reminded myself, was not that of a Lady Ethelfleda.

“How did that get here?” Kevin asked in a puzzled voice. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”

I picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy—or maybe not so surprising, for it was made of stone, a translucent marblelike substance that had once been white. Stains of lichen and rust streaked its sides.

Kevin didn’t expect an answer, so I did not give him one; but as we inspected the remaining rooms of the substructure I swore at myself for not thinking of the obvious cause of the disturbance. I also swore at Roger. If I had not had so many other things on my mind, I would have figured the clumsy oaf had sneaked into the house again. Had I but known, I would have tried to persuade Kevin to go back to sleep, and avoided what might be a bloody confrontation. However, Roger had probably escaped by now; we had taken a long time to get this far.

It wasn’t hard to spot his means of entry. The others didn’t notice anything; they didn’t know what I knew. I remembered Roger’s mentioning the tower door. I should have realized at the time that he had protested too much about its rusty, dusty appearance. The bare little room into which it opened was empty. Kevin gave it no more than a quick flash of light before turning away. I was the only one who noticed the dangling wire beside the door. It had been cut.

Kevin was ready for bed by that time, if not for sleep, but Bea insisted we have a little snack of something first. She was always trying to feed people, but that night I knew she had something else on her mind. I was carrying the box we had found. When I put it down on the kitchen table Bea was the first to examine it.

“I could swear that wasn’t there the last time I was in that room,” Kevin muttered.

“Roger…” Bea swallowed something that had caught in her throat before she went on. “Roger would say it was Greek or Roman, wouldn’t he?”

I would have said so too. The fabric was alabaster, carved with garlands and flowers. In the center of one of the long sides was a shape that looked like a shallow bowl or saucer, with two handles.

Kevin picked the box up and shook it. Something inside responded with a bony rattle.

“Ha,” Kevin said. “Treasure? The moldy ribs of a saint?” He selected a knife from the rack over the sink.

Bea took a quick step away from the table as Kevin inserted the tip of the knife into the crack that separated the casket from its lid. I stood still. Something was nibbling at the back of my mind. Something seen, something heard, something vaguely remembered. Something wrong.

“Feels like glue,” Kevin grumbled, scraping and jabbing.

“Be careful,” I said absently. “Don’t cut yourself.”

Something seen. A shadow, in the wrong place. Where?

Kevin let out a grunt of satisfaction as the lid gave way. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I was right the second time.”

Two of the objects in the box did appear to be bones, brown with extreme age and so hard they were virtually petrified. Kevin lifted them out, and as the light bathed them I saw that my appraisal had been incorrect.

“Not bones.” Kevin was equally as quick. “Horns. Sorry, Aunt Bea, no saint. Unless he…What does that make me think of?”

“The Minotaur,” I said. “Half man, half bull. They aren’t very big. Is that gold around the base of each?”

“Looks like it. Let’s see what else is in here.”

There wasn’t much. Fragments of broken pottery that fit together into a shape resembling the shallow bowl carved on the outside of the casket, and a thick layer of brittle fragments that fell to dust when Kevin touched them. Once they might have been flowers. That was all. But it was enough for me, and for Kevin, who was now deeply interested and using his considerable intelligence.