Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
Alban frowned. “It—it all worked out for the best, I think. But I don’t like to dwell on it, if that’s okay.”
Elizabeth felt a twinge of sympathy. She was impressed that anyone would be upset over a broken romance that was over years ago! Why, Austin had only been gone a matter of months, and already she was beginning to forget he had ever existed. She looked at Alban with more than polite interest. He was talking about the paneling in the hallway. The architect had bought it from the owners of a French château that had been damaged in World War II. The murals, depicting scenes from Wagnerian operas, were painted by an art student who copied them from photos of the originals.
Finally they sat down on a black velvet sofa in front of a marble fireplace.
“Well, Cousin Elizabeth, what do you think of it?”
Elizabeth sighed. “Well … oh, Alban! It’s beautiful and—and opulent and everything, but I keep thinking: ‘Oh, shit! Alban’s built a castle in the pony meadow.’ A mansion, okay—but a
castle?”
“I say be gaudy and to hell with it,” he said lightly. “Would I be less crazy if I had sliding glass doors, Plexiglas
coffee tables, and macramé plant holders? Because if I am hearing you correctly, you are not objecting to my spending money on a large house; you are merely complaining that I am being showy in an unfashionable way. But if I had a swimming pool and a television with an eight-foot screen, I’d be a sensible fellow, right?”
“I am losing this argument,” said Elizabeth sadly.
“I am winning this argument because of practice.” Alban smiled reassuringly. “Don’t you think I’ve had this argument with my relatives, my architect, and the lady at the grocery store? I ought to be good at it by now! But it’s true. I like antiques; I like medieval history. I studied it at William and Mary, when I wasn’t having to take business courses to satisfy my father. Why shouldn’t I have the house the way I want it?”
She nodded. “Captain Grandfather was telling me that just before I came over here.”
“He’s a wonderful old man, the Governor is. Very easy to explain things to.”
“But, Alban, if everybody around here is so tolerant, why did they send Eileen away to Cherry Hill?”
Alban looked thoughtful, but he made no attempt to answer her question. He’s trying to decide how much he can tell me, Elizabeth thought.
“I have heard one side of it,” she said quickly. “I just wanted your opinion.” That ought to do it. People never mind discussing secrets if they think you already know them.
“Eileen was really sick,” Alban said at last. “I don’t mean eccentric or nonconformist. Really sick. Nobody ever tried harder than Eileen to conform. She wanted to be just like everybody else, when none of the rest of us gave a damn for it.
“She
worked
at things that you do without even thinking—like wearing the right clothes, making the proper small talk, laughing at the current jokes. But she never managed to pull it off. Her clothes are always just a little bit wrong, and her hair is either too long or too short. But she’s not an eccentric like the rest of us. Just a failure at conformity.”
“Couldn’t Aunt Amanda have set her straight on clothes?”
“Oh, I think she tried for a while, but it didn’t seem to work. Making a social success of Eileen would have taken more time than Aunt Amanda was willing to devote.”
Elizabeth traced the pattern on the Oriental rug with her foot. “I didn’t realize you were so close to Eileen,” she murmured uneasily.
“We’re not at all close emotionally,” Alban replied. “But I am not unobservant. An unhappiness of that magnitude would be hard to miss.”
“Isn’t she happy about getting married?”
“I hope so,” sighed Alban. “She’s certainly trying hard enough to be.”
“I know what you mean. The groom is not exactly an unmixed blessing, is he? But you still haven’t told me what her symptoms were. I mean, they would hardly have sent her away for being unfashionable and gauche.”
“Okay. If you must have details … About six years ago, Eileen began to get very depressed. Wouldn’t talk; wouldn’t eat. Finally she started to ‘see things,’ and Uncle Robert took her to Nancy Kimble. I think there were a few violent episodes when I was in Europe. Anyway, I know that she was put in Cherry Hill shortly after that, and since then she has improved greatly, enough to get her high school diploma and to get accepted at the university. And now she’s back—with a fiancé.”
“You said ‘episodes of violence.’ Is Eileen—dangerous?”
“I think she could be extremely dangerous,” said Alban softly.
He wouldn’t say anthing else about Eileen after that, but insisted that they go on with the tour. The rooms became a blur of silver and velvet and polished wood. Elizabeth’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“—and this is the last one,” Alban was saying, as he opened double doors at the end of a hallway. “My study. I wanted you to see these murals.”
The paintings, turbulent with colors, filled three walls
of the small study, which otherwise contained a claw-footed oak desk and a casement window curtained in damask.
“How can you possibly concentrate in here?” asked Elizabeth.
“I don’t. I relax here. Listen.” He pushed a button on the wall, and heavy strains of music issued forth from unseen speakers. “Recognize it?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“It’s from
Das Rheingold.”
She looked blank.
“I like Wagner very much,” said Alban. “Not only the music, but the stories in the operas. Are you familiar with him?”
Elizabeth sighed. “No, Alban. Am I about to be?”
He smiled. “Ludwig virtually discovered Wagner, you know. He had the foresight to appreciate his music and to finance his work. He even built Wagner an opera house—Bayreuth. An architectural marvel. For Wagner alone the world should be eternally grateful to Ludwig!”
Elizabeth was thinking: I am going to have to read up on King Ludwig. There must be something he’s not telling me—something unpleasant, I hope. Elizabeth wasn’t sure that she would argue with Alban about his hero, but his lectures would be easier to bear if she could hug some secret knowledge to herself.
Alban, at first puzzled by her silence, suddenly began to chuckle. “Poor Lillibet! You’ve had lectures on proton decay from Charles and English literature from Satisky, and now I’m boring you with my hobbyhorse. Do forgive me. I’ll shut up about Ludwig at once.”
“Oh, I’m used to it,” said Elizabeth sweetly. “When you go out with a man, first he asks you where you’re from and what you’re majoring in, and then for the rest of the evening he talks about his job, his hobby, or the story of his life. I stopped listening ages ago, but no one has ever noticed.”
Alban grinned. “Would you like to stay for lunch? I could go in and tell Mrs. Murphy—”
“No, thank you, Alban. They’re expecting me back at the Chandlers’. Are you coming over?”
“No. I have some errands to do in town.”
When they were back in the sunlight outside the front door, Elizabeth thanked him gravely. “It really is very impressive,” she said. “Very individualistic.”
“Yes, I’m very happy with it,” said Alban. “Except, of course, for the fact that it’s haunted.”
“Haunted?” echoed Elizabeth. “But—who haunts it?”
Alban bowed. “Why, madam—you do,” he said, and gently closed the door.
June 10
Dear Bill,
Please note the return address printed carefully on the outside of this envelope. It is an indication that I expect a reply to this. You owe me several letters. Anyway, I need to hear from someone sane so that I can keep my sense of perspective. I have developed an alarming tendency to ramble on about Clan MacPherson and the Rising of 1745. The prospect of that habit continuing after my return home should frighten you into writing. Or would you like another tartan tie for Christmas? I thought not.
I have news. You’d better sit down for this one.
Did you know that Captain Grandfather’s sister (Great-Aunt Augusta) made a will leaving two hundred thousand dollars to whichever one of us gets married first?
Now
they tell us—when I’ve
pushed Austin into the duck pond and Eileen is inches away from the altar! I’ll bet Mother knew about this, don’t you? She probably didn’t want to tempt us into being rash, which was certainly prudent of her in
your
case. You would have married Lassie for two hundred thousand dollars. Well, maybe not Lassie, but at least Peggy Lynn Bateman, which is just as bad. (I never liked her.)
Actually, the contest was almost over five years ago. Alban was supposed to marry some girl who was a secretary in Uncle Walter’s company, which is another piece of family gossip we either ignored or were left out of. Aunt Amanda told me the whole story “now that I’m old enough to hear it.” There’s not much to it, though. Apparently, the girl just changed her mind a few days before the wedding and left town. Now, I know you’re expecting me to say something snide about that girl taking a good look at Alban and coming to her senses, but I’m not. More likely it was the rest of the family she couldn’t take. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past them to have paid her off to keep her out of the family tree. Anyway, Alban is not so bad after all. Around here he seems positively wholesome and normal. He wears tennis outfits instead of lederhosen, and he’s quite nice. (He says I’m his favorite cousin, which just proves how sensible he is.)
I went on a tour of his house today, and it really is beautiful. Of course I asked him why he built a castle, and he says because he likes them. “If I had a swimming pool and an 8 ft. TV screen, would that make me an acceptable person?” He has a point. Captain Grandfather was telling me pretty much the same thing—that our batty cousins are eccentric because they can afford to do as they please. If we had tons of money, do you think we’d become strange? I’d be willing to risk it.
Anyway, Alban is at least interesting, if strange. He puts up with a lot of sniping from Geoffrey about the house, but he seems to take it
all good-naturedly. He does drone on about King Ludwig, though. Along with the tour, I got the full lecture of what a genius Ludwig was, and how he was the patron of Richard Wagner, the composer. He even asked me if I believed in reincarnation—which is not a joke I appreciated with so many eccentrics around.
Plans for the wedding occupy Aunt Amanda’s every waking moment. It’s like watching Eisenhower plan D-Day. I hope everything goes off all right. I am worried about Eileen. I mean, she seems normal enough to me—the typical bridal airhead, in fact—but Alban seems to think she might be dangerous. He says there were “episodes of violence”—he won’t say what—and that Uncle Robert took her to Dr. Nancy Kimble for treatment. Dr. Kimble won’t be coming to the wedding, because she’s in Vienna right now, but Eileen did invite the therapist she’s been seeing at school. Do you think that means anything?
Now, do not worry Mother and Daddy with this, but I am getting nervous. I feel like a heroine in a Gothic novel. The organ will play “Here Comes the Bride,” and Eileen will come running down the aisle with an ax. Everybody is being peculiar about this wedding. Of course, with the Chandlers it’s hard to tell. With them, peculiar may be normal.
Would you like to hear about the groom?
He seems like a rabbity sort of intellectual, if you ask me. About what you’d expect Eileen to end up with, poor girl. I haven’t talked to him very much, except to listen to him expound on English literature at the table last night. Geoffrey tossed and gored him, which was rather fun. He does seem pompous, but that may be because he’s nervous. Do you suppose he knows about the inheritance? I wonder why he’s so jumpy—probably the prospect of Aunt Amanda as a mother-in-law.
On the off-chance that he disappears at the last minute like What’s-Her Name, Alban’s fiancée,
look around the apartment complex for a suitable husband for me. I might even settle for Milo for that amount of money. I promise to give you an allowance.
The wedding is now nine days away. I’ll probably write you again then and let you know how it went. I’ve decided that Michael looks too timid to run away from it. Aunt Amanda would probably track him through the swamps, baying.
I wish you would get a telephone in your apartment. Surely you and Milo could divert some of your beer money toward acquiring a telephone. Writing is tiring and takes up more of my time than you deserve. It is now nearly time for lunch, so I will close. I expect an answer to this, Bill!
Love,
Elizabeth
Someone tapped on the door of the library.
Elizabeth slid the letter to Bill into its envelope, and sealed it. “Come in!” she called.
Eileen peeped around the door. “Elizabeth? I thought you must be in here. Are you ready for lunch?”
“I guess so. Let me just put this letter out for the postman. Am I late?”
“Oh, no! Not for lunch or anything. I just came to see if you wanted any. I mean, we’re the only ones home.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Michael wanted to go to the library in town and Captain Grandfather offered to go with him, because he wanted to look up something about sailing ships.”
In the kitchen, Elizabeth sat while Eileen rummaged about in the refrigerator, occasionally singing out “Tomatoes!” or “Olives!” and setting a container on the countertop. Elizabeth tried to think of cheerful lunch-time conversation.
“How is your painting coming along?” she said.
“Oh, all right, I guess. I did a lot of work on the shadowing this morning. I wish I could paint this afternoon, but I have that appointment. What kind of dressing do you want?”
“French.” Elizabeth took the cutting board from the counter and began to chop vegetables while they talked.
“I suppose we should be having a wedding rehearsal in a day or two,” Eileen murmured.
“Fine!” said Elizabeth, much more cheerfully than she felt. “Are you nervous about the wedding?”
Eileen looked wary. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, stage fright, I guess. Most girls get the jitters a few days before the ceremony.”
“Stage fright,” Eileen repeated. “That’s a good word for it. I guess that is what I feel. I’m not afraid of marrying Michael, of course, but the idea of walking down the aisle in front of all those people, and afterwards, talking to strangers—”