Moon Garden. V. J. Banis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the inspection was, “You have good bones.”

      The fresh tea arrived. Aunt Minna poured it with graceful ease, and offered some surprisingly fresh chocolate cookies from the silver box.

      “Now,” she said, “tell me about your mother. “She seemed most anxious to have you away somewhere. I don’t suppose she is conducting a romance?” She smiled to show Ellen this was meant to be preposterous, and Ellen smiled in return.

      “I think she was frightened to have me in the house.”

      “You don’t look particularly frightening.” Aunt Minna studied her niece again. “You were in an insane asylum?”

      “I was in a private hospital.”

      “For the insane.”

      “For the mentally disturbed.”

      Aunt Minna looked at her sharply. She wondered if her niece we’re trying to quarrel with her. She decided it was quite possible.

      “Is that what you were, mentally disturbed?”

      “No, I was insane.” Ellen smiled to show this was meant to be preposterous.

      Aunt Minna gave a deep appreciative chuckle and took a bite out of a chocolate cookie. “How do you know you’re sane now?”

      Ellen shrugged. She was enjoying herself. She liked this peculiar old woman who, from some chance of birth, was her aunt. “How do you know you are?”

      “You’ve got a point there. A great many people would say I’m not. You may say that yourself when you have been here a time.” She reached for the tea to pour some more. Which was when Ellen said, “Tell me about the moon garden.”

      “So you remember that, do you?”

      “Only that there was something called that. Mother said it was haunted, but she declined to tell me much more than that.”

      “She would.” Aunt Minna made a little sniffing sound. “Your mother has always been timid.” She made of that word a scornful dismissal. Ellen could not imagine anything more removed from Aunt Minna’s own character than timidity.

      There was a discreet clearing of a throat from the door. Ellen’s back was to it, so that she could not see who had come into the room. Whoever it was had apparently paused just inside the door, uncertain whether to come in or to go away. Perhaps they were surprised by her presence.

      Since they did not come forward, and she could hardly turn on her seat to see who it was, she went on with her conversation as if they were not there.

      “How did it get such an odd name? The moon garden. Surely it’s pre-astronaut, isn’t it?”

      A man’s voice said, “No one uses the moon garden now, it’s been shut up for ages.”

      Aunt Minna rose, saying, “Come in, Dawson, come in, don’t hover. I want you to meet my niece, Ellen Miles. Ellen, this is Dawson Elliott.”

      Ellen remained where she was, a pink and gilt china cup in her hand. She had a strange, fleeting sense of herself, as if she had floated upward and could look down upon that nervous creature sitting on the hard settee in that high, paneled room which even the overcrowding of the furniture did not diminish to moderate proportions.

      It passed. The man had come into the room, about the settee, and greeted her. Her first impression was of a man too good looking to be true. They shook hands and some bit of insight told her he was not really so sure of himself as he would like to appear, nor quite so young as she had thought at first glimpse. Although it was an old fashioned word, mountebank came to mind. He was a little more pleased to make her acquaintance then ought to be possible at such short notice and his face crinkled too quickly into those pre-arranged lines of charm that good looking people assume so easily.

      “Mr. Elliott is a writer,” Aunt Minna said. “He’s doing a book on old homes of the south, and naturally he wanted to include this one.”

      “It’s quite a treasure,” he said.

      Ellen had placed him. Small time writer of large books. Old ladies darling. Star of the tea party circuit. His young face was etched over with lines caused by expressing too often thoughts that were not his own. But he had charm, and he looked genuinely happy to see Ellen. She thought he probably welcomed having someone of roughly his own generation to talk to.

      “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” he said.

      “She said in her letter she was coming the nineteenth,” Aunt Minna said. “Look, it’s right here.”

      She went to one of the rosewood writing tables and rummaging through some papers on its surface, picked up a sheet of paper. From where she sat, Ellen could see at once that it was her letter, but Aunt Minna’s eyes scanned it quickly and she put it aside.

      “Now I can’t find the letter,” she said, turning away from the desk. “Dawson, ring for Bondage and tell her you want some tea.”

      “No need for her to run up and down the steps,” he said. “I’ll slip down and tell her. Excuse me, ladies.”

      He was gone, literally seeming to slip out of the room.

      “Mr. Eliot is staying in the house,” Aunt Minna said, as if she thought some explanation was needed.

      “I see, “Ellen said. She did not know what to think of that. She thought finally it was probably none of her business, and she had better refrain from commenting upon it.

      Dawson Elliott was back in a moment, followed by Mrs. Bondage with a second teapot. Dawson himself carried a China plate of petit-fours which he started to set on the table before Ellen. Aunt Minna countered with a magniloquent, “These are the best,” and whipping the lid off her silver box, planted it down before Ellen with such sudden recklessness that Dawson had to snatch his own offering to safety.

      They had more tea, although Ellen was feeling saturated by now. Finally, Aunt Minna rose and put out her hand toward her niece. “Come along, my dear, and see your room. Did you bring your luggage?”

      “It’s at the airport,” Ellen said, remembering it for the first time.

      “Never mind, Pomfret can get it later. Come along now.”

      “I feel like I’m imposing. If I had known you already had company....”

      “Nonsense.” Minna threw open the door. “I shall like to have you. And Dawson isn’t company, he’s only a writer.” There was the faintest twinkle in her eye as she said this, as though she were up to some mischief, the nature of which eluded Ellen.

      They went up the wide stairway to the third floor and arrived at the room that was to be hers. It had a canopied four-poster, garlanded ivory walls, with a lovely view from the window of the river and some green trees, spread out like a tapestry.

      The room was not quite ready, the bedclothes in a stack on the bare mattress. Minna was furious. “Ring for Mrs. Bondage,” she said, indicating the bell pull, “and tell her to get this in order at once. We were expecting you tomorrow of course, but still....”

      “There’s СКАЧАТЬ