Moon Garden. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ a little girl playing with a mirror and the sun. This was the same sort of light. She looked around, but there were no children in sight.

      Then she looked up. Above, protruding from a second floor window, was the end of a telescope. The sun had been reflecting from its lens. Someone had been watching her through it. As she looked up, it turned away, and a second or two later, it disappeared inside.

      She went up to the door and rang the bell. It was answered by a square jawed young woman who looked ill at ease. She did not appear to be accustomed to dealing with callers, and asked briskly, “What do you want?”

      “Miss Miles, to see Miss Miles,” Ellen said. The use of the same name seemed to confuse the girl, who only stood, studying her doubtfully. While she was trying to make up her mind what to say in reply, Ellen heard a sound within. She looked past the girl, into the cool, dark interior, and saw what might have been only a vision, although a magnificent one.

      A woman stood at the top of the stairs. Like the stairs, she was old, there was no question of that, but she was quite striking. She was tall and dignified, and she looked like all the Queens of England. At the precise moment she was adjusting on her head a preposterous feather hat. On her fingers gleamed a lavish display of rings.

      Satisfied that the hat was right, she descended the stairs majestically. The hallway, so vast a moment before, seemed actually to shrink in size as she came into it.

      “Why isn’t Mrs. Bondage answering the door?” she demanded of the servant, who seemed to have shrunk somewhat too.

      “She’s in the basement, ma’am,” the young woman said almost in a whisper, she was so frightened, “having her astrology read.”

      The lady of the house...and there could be no doubt that she was...said, “Really?” as if this were the most incredible piece of news she had ever been given. She took a moment to digest it, and then said, “That will do Bertha.”

      Bertha was glad to be dismissed. She threw a last, curious look at Ellen, and scurried away, leaving Ellen to the mercy of her wondrous hostess.

      The old woman threw the massive front door wider, and smiled at her visitor. It was all Ellen could do to keep from dropping a curtsy.

      “Good afternoon,” the older woman said, her voice thick and dark and pungently sweet, like sorghum. “What can I do for you?”

      Ellen took a deep breath and said, “I’m your niece, Ellen Miles. You are my Aunt Minna, aren’t you?”

      The smile faded. The lines smoothed out of the fine parchment skin and left the features impregnable in their patrician austerity.

      “Oh no,” she said, “no indeed, that’s quite impossible. My niece is to arrive tomorrow, by airplane. I’ve made arrangements to have her met.”

      Ellen looked a little disconcerted in the face of this. “But I am here,” she said almost apologetically. “And I am your niece.”

      Minna took a step closer, and leaned forward a little. She had not worn her glasses down, and could not see very well. What she saw was a pretty face, young, frightened looking, but with a nice upward tilt to the chin.

      “Yes,” she said after a minute, sounding oddly disappointed. “You look like your mother. Our side of the family was better looking. You said in your letter you would be arriving tomorrow.”

      “I said today. The eighteenth. This is the eighteenth.”

      “I know the date. I’m not a fool. You said the nineteenth. Never mind, you’re here. You may as well know, I didn’t want you to come.”

      Ellen looked embarrassed. “I got that impression.” She had her hands clasped in front of her again. She looked like a little girl being scolded.

      “I suggested your mother write her family.” Aunt Minna regarded her niece as she might some tropical bird or a peculiar flower that had just been delivered to her door. Although her conversation was rude, however, there was something else that caught Ellen’s attention. Her eyes sparkled with an unmistakable gleam of maliciousness, and something like a toss of the head had set the feathers of her hat dancing in the sunlight.

      “I believe my mother did write them. I don’t know exactly what was said, but since I am here, and not there, it must be a bit obvious, don’t you think?”

      The grin came back to the old face. Minna knew that the others had refused to take child in. When she had learned of this she had changed her mind, and had extended her own somewhat reluctant invitation. She loathed that other branch of the family, so much so that she had an automatic inclination toward anyone they had rejected. It had been as simple as that.

      She was happy now to see that her niece had spunk. She liked that, and warmed to her at once as a result.

      “Your mother’s people are Yankees. They made glue out of fish,” she said, in those two remarks judging them, and condemning them for eternity. She extended her hand in a hospitable gesture. “Come in, come in. We’ll have tea. You must be exhausted after your journey. I traveled to Cincinnati once. I’ve forgotten how many days it took. I couldn’t get grits anywhere.”

      Ellen was not in the habit of tea in the afternoon and in fact, she much preferred coffee to tea, but one was reluctant to decline this woman’s suggestions. She allowed herself to be wafted by sheer force of character up the stairs and into a sitting room, where she was stationed on a gilt settee.

      She was tired, in fact. The trip, the flying, to which she was unaccustomed, the crowds of people...it had all been fun but wearying. She would have liked to sink into a comfortable deep chair, or better still, to lie down somewhere, but she kept her shoulders back and sat solidly on the hard settee. Something about her aunt demanded that she keep her shoulders back. What a contrast to her mother’s softness, sometimes so hard to get hold of.

      Tea was already laid on a lace cloth atop a highly polished table, but it was clear that Aunt Minna had already had hers. She put a finger to the little silver teapot, found it cold, and with a gesture of indignation, yanked at a velvet rope by the door.

      A maid, not Bertha, but another, middle -aged one, appeared quickly. She was sent off with orders to bring a fresh pot of tea. This, Ellen decided, was Mrs. Bondage. She looked flustered and Ellen hoped that her astrologer had foretold a fortune that was good enough to console her for the berating she was certainly going to receive.

      While the tea was being ordered, Ellen had a moment to look about. The room into which she had been ushered was enormous, paneled in dark old wood, and furnished with elaborate period pieces. The wood of the furniture had been polished to a mirror like sheen, but it was crumbling with age. Ellen had an impression of generations of moths rearing their young through childhood, love, and successful parenthood in the threadbare folds of the gold damask draperies at the windows.

      The ceiling was embossed and from it hung a huge cut crystal chandelier. There were countless rosewood writing desks and occasional tables, and upon them stood great leather-bound books and boxes, many of them monogrammed and clasped with brass. The walls were thick with gilt-framed ancestry. Ellen thought she recognized her father in one painting, but she could not be certain.

      While they waited for the tea, Aunt Minna moved about the room. She unlocked a cupboard to remove a silver biscuit box. She was not in fact so tall as she had seemed at Ellen’s first glance, not much taller than her niece. The hat, with its feathers, and her СКАЧАТЬ