Ryan stood staring at her as if he could not endure any of this a moment longer. And then he moved towards her and took her in his arms and crushed her to his chest. There was an awful silence and then the more awful sound of his crying--the deep, choked, repressed sob of a man, full of shame as well as misery, a sound a woman seldom made, almost unnatural.
Pierce put his arm around his father's shoulder. Ryan pulled Mona back, gave her a fierce kiss on the cheek, and then, squeezing her shoulder, let her go. She had gone all soft towards him, and squeezed him, and kissed his cheek, too.
He followed Pierce out of the library.
As the door opened and closed, Michael heard a chorus of voices from the hall--the hushed voice of Beatrice, and the deeper voice of Randall, and others he could not distinguish in the hubbub that followed.
He realized he was alone with Aaron and with Mona. And Aaron had not moved. Aaron had about him that listless look. Aaron seemed gravely disabled as Michael himself had been only days ago.
Mona had slunk into the corner, glowing like a little candle with her flaming hair, arms folded, not about to leave, obviously.
"Tell me your thoughts," said Michael to Aaron. "This is the first time I've really asked you since...it happened. What do you think? Talk to me."
"You mean you want my scholarly opinion," said Aaron, with that same touch of sourness, his eyes veering off.
"I want your unbiased opinion," said Michael. "Ryan's refusal to believe in this whole thing is almost a religious stance. What is there you've been keeping from me?"
He should ask Mona to go, he should escort her out, turn her over to Bea, take care of her. But he didn't do these things. He simply looked at Aaron.
Aaron's face had tightened, then relaxed again. "I haven't been deliberately keeping back anything," he said, but the voice was not typical of him. "I'm embarrassed," he said, looking Michael in the eye. "I was heading this investigation until Rowan left. I thought I was heading it even afterwards. But there are strong indications now that the Elders themselves are in charge, that the investigation has broadened without my knowledge. I don't know who took Gifford's clothing. That's not the Talamasca style. You know it's not. After Rowan's disappearance, we asked Ryan's permission to come to this house, to take specimens from the bloodstained rug, the wallpaper. We would have asked you, but you were not..."
"I know, I know..."
"That's our manner. To go in the wake of disaster, to proceed with care, to observe, not to conclude."
"You don't owe me any explanations. We're friends, you and me. You know that. But I think I can tell what's happened. This must be a momentous investigation to your Elders. We don't have a ghost now; we have a mutant being." Michael laughed bitterly. "And the being is holding my wife prisoner."
"I could have told you that," said Mona.
Aaron's utter lack of response was startling. Aaron was staring off, and deeply distressed and unable to confide about it because it was the business of the Order. Finally he looked again at Michael.
"You're all right, you're very well indeed. Dr. Rhodes calls you his miracle. You're going to be all right. We'll meet tomorrow. You and I, even if I am not admitted to the meeting with Ryan."
"This file they're sending over," Michael said.
"I've seen it," Aaron said. "We were cooperating with each other. My reports are in the file. You'll see. I don't know what's happened now. But Beatrice and Vivian are waiting for me. Beatrice is greatly concerned about you, Mona. And then there is Dr. Larkin. He wants to talk to you, Michael. I've asked him to wait until tomorrow. He's waiting for me now."
"Yes, OK. I want to read the report. Don't let Larkin get away, however."
"Oh, he's happy. He's hitting every good restaurant in town and has been partying all night with some young female surgeon from Tulane. He's not going to slip through our fingers."
Mona volunteered nothing. She merely watched as Michael followed Aaron into the hallway. She remained in the door, and he was painfully conscious of her presence suddenly, of her perfume, of her red hair glowing in the shadows, of the rumpled white satin ribbon, of all of her and everything that had happened, and that people were leaving the house, and he might soon again be alone with her.
Ryan and Pierce were just getting out the front door. Mayfair farewells took so long. Beatrice was crying again, and assuring Ryan that everything would be all right. Randall sat in the living room, beside the first fireplace, looking like a great dark gray toad in the chair, his face baffled and pondering.
"Darlings, how are you both?" Bea asked, rushing to take Michael's hand and Mona's hand as well. She kissed Mona's cheek.
Aaron slipped past her.
"I'm OK now," said Mona. "What about Mom?"
"She's sedated. They're feeding her intravenously. She'll sleep the night. Don't you worry about her another moment. Your father is all right. He's keeping company with Ancient Evelyn. I believe Cecilia is there now. Anne Marie is with your mother."
"That's what I figured," said Mona disgustedly.
"What do you want to do, my darling? Shall I take you home? Will you come and stay with me for a while? What can I do? You can bunk in with me for the night, or sleep in the room with the rose wallpaper."
Mona shook her head. "I'm fine." She gave a careless disrespectful shrug. "I'm really just fine. I'll walk up home in a little while."
"And you!" Bea said to Michael. "Just look at you. There's color in your cheeks! You're a new man."
"Yeah, seems so. Listen. I gotta think about things. They're sending over the file on Rowan."
"Oh, don't read all those reports. It's too depressing." She turned to search out Aaron, who stood far away against the wall. "Aaron, don't let him."
"He should read them, my dear," Aaron said. "And now I must go back to the hotel. Dr. Larkin is waiting for me."
"Oh, you and that doctor." She took Aaron's arm and kissed him on the cheek as they proceeded to the door. "I'll wait for you."
Randall had risen to go. Two young Mayfairs in the dining room drifted into the hall. The good-byes were protracted, full of heartfelt words, and sudden sobs of grief, and confessions of love for Gifford, poor beautiful Gifford, kind and generous Gifford. Bea turned back, and rushed to embrace Michael and Mona with both arms, kissed them both, and then went down the hall, tearing herself away obviously. There was an intimacy in the way she took Aaron's arm, in the way he guided her down the steps. Randall went out the gate before them.
Then they were all gone. Mona stood waving in the keyhole door, looking thoroughly incongruous now in the childish dress with its sash, though the white ribbon in her hair seemed an essential part of her.
She turned around, and looked at Michael. She banged the door shut behind her.
"Where's my Aunt Viv?" Michael asked.
"She can't save you, big boy," Mona said. "She's out in Metairie comforting Gifford's other kids, with Aunt Bernadette."
"Where's Eugenia?"
"Would you believe I poisoned her?" Mona walked past him back down the hall, and into the library.
He followed her, adamant and full of righteous speeches and declarations. "This is not going to happen again," he began, but she shut the library door as soon as he was inside, and she threw her arms around him.
He began to kiss her, his hands sliding over her breasts, and down suddenly to lift the cotton skirt. "This cannot happen!" he said. "I'm not going to let you. You're not even giving me a fifty-fifty--"
Her soft sweet young limbs overwhelmed him--the ripe, firm feel of her arms, of her back, of her hips beneath the cotton. She was fiercely aroused, aroused as any grown woman he'd ever made love to. He heard a small sound. She had reached over and snapped the lock of the library door.
"Comfort me, big man," she said. "My beloved aunt just died. I'm really a wreck. No kidding." She stepped back. There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. She sniffled, and looked as if she might break down.
She undid the bu
ttons of the cotton dress, and then let it slip down around her. She stepped out of the circle of glowing fabric. And he saw her snow-white brassiere with its full cups of expensive lace, and the soft pale skin of midriff above the waistband of her half-slip. The tears spilt down again as they had before, her soundless crying. Then she rushed at him, and locked her arms around his neck, kissing him, and slipping her hand down between his legs.
It was a fait accompli, as they say. And then there was her faint whisper as they snuggled together on the carpet.
"Don't worry about it."
He was sleepy; he listed; he didn't fall deep; he couldn't; there was too much right there before his mind's eye. He started humming. How could he not worry about everything? He could not close his eyes. He hummed and softly sang.
"Violetta's waltz," she said. "Just hold on to me for a little while, will you?"
It seems he slept, or sank into some sort of approximate peaceful state, his fingers on her sweaty adorable little neck, and his lips pressed to her forehead. But then the doorbell sounded, and he heard Eugenia in the hall, taking her time to answer, talking aloud as she always did, "On my way, I'm comin'."
The report had been delivered. He had to see it. How to get it without revealing the sleeping child on the rug, he didn't know. But he had to see it. It hadn't taken a half hour for that file to get here. He thought of Rowan and he felt such dread that he couldn't form words about it, or make decisions, or even reflect.
He sat up, trying to regain his strength, to shake off the languor of sex, and not see this naked girl on the carpet asleep, head cradled on a nest of her own red hair, her belly as smooth and perfect as her breasts, all of her luscious and inviting to him. Michael, you pig, that you could do this!
There was the dull vibration of the big front door slamming shut. Eugenia passed again, steady tread, silence.
He put on his clothes, and then combed his hair. He was staring at the phonograph. Yes, that was exactly the one he had seen in the living room, the one which had played for him the ghost waltz. And there sat the black disk on which the ghost waltz had been recorded many decades ago!
He was confounded for a moment. Trying to keep his eyes off the gleaming child, pondering and wondering that for a moment he had gone calm in the midst of all of it. But you did this. You could not stay at top pitch every moment. And so he thought, My wife may be alive; she may be dead; but I have to believe she's alive! And she's with that thing. That thing must need her!
Mona turned over. Her back was flawless and white, her hips for all their smallness proportioned like those of a little woman. Nothing boyish about her in her youth; resolutely female.
Tear your eyes off her, man. Eugenia and Henri are both around somewhere. You are pushing your luck. You are asking to be bricked up in the cellar.
There is no cellar.
I know that. Well, then the attic.
He opened the door slowly. Silence in the big hall. Silence in the double parlor. But there was the envelope on the hall table--where all mail and deliveries were placed. He could see the familiar embossed name of Mayfair and Mayfair. He tiptoed out, took the envelope, fearful that any moment Eugenia or Henri would appear, and then he went into the dining room. He could sit at the head of the table and read the thing, and that way, if anybody went near that library door, he could stop them.
Sooner or later, she would wake up and get dressed. And then? He didn't know. He just hoped she didn't go home, that she didn't leave him here.
Rotten coward, he thought. Rowan, would you understand all this? Funny thing was, Rowan might. Rowan understood men, better than any woman he'd ever known, even Mona.
He switched on the floor lamp by the fireplace, then sat down at the head of the table and removed the packet of Xeroxes from the envelope.
It was pretty much what they'd told him.
The geneticists in New York and Europe had gotten a bit sarcastic about the specimens. "This seems to be a calculated combination of genetic material from more than one primate species."
It was the eyewitness material from Donnelaith that killed him. "The woman was sick. She stayed in her room most of the time. But when he went out, she went with him. It was as if he insisted she go. She looked sick, very sick. I almost suggested that she see a physician."
At one point, in Geneva, Rowan was described by a hotel clerk as being an emaciated woman of perhaps 120 pounds. He found that horrifying.
He stared at the Xeroxes of the forged checks. Forgery! It wasn't even good. It was a great old-fashioned Elizabethan hand, by God, like something out of a parchment document.
Payee: Oscar Aldrich Tamen.
Why had he chosen that name? When Michael looked on the back of the check he realized. Fake passport. The bank clerk had written down all the information.
Surely they were following up that lead. Then he saw the law firm memorandum. Oscar Aldrich Tamen had last been seen in New York on February 13th. Wife reported him missing on February 16th. Whereabouts unknown. Conclusion? Stolen passport.
He slapped shut the manila folder. He put his hands up and leaned on them, and tried not to feel that little twinge in his heart, or to remind himself that it was very small, the pain, no more than a little nag, and he'd had it before, for years, hadn't he?
"Rowan," he said aloud as if it were a prayer. His thoughts went back to Christmas Day, to that last glimpse of her when she had torn the chain off his neck, and the medal had fallen.
Why did you leave me? How could you!
And then a terrible shame came over him, a shame and a fear. He'd been glad in his selfish little heart when they told him that demon thing had forced her, glad the investigators thought she was coerced! Glad that this had been declared in front of proud Ryan Mayfair. Ah, this meant his wily bride had not cuckolded him with the devil! She loved him!
And what in God's name did this mean for her! For her safety, her fate, her fortune! Lord God, you selfish and despicable man, he thought. But the pain was so great, the pain of her going that day, the pain of the icy water of the pool, and the Mayfair Witches in his dream, and the hospital room, and the pain in his heart when he'd first climbed the stairs--
He folded his arms on the table in front of him, and, weeping silently, laid his head down against it.
He did not know how much time had passed. He knew everything, however. That the library door had not opened, and that Mona must still be asleep, and that his servants knew what he'd done, or else they would have been hovering around him. That twilight had come. That the house was waiting for something, or witnessing something.
Finally he sat back and saw that the light outside was that shining white of spring evenings, making all the leaves distinct, and that the golden light of the lamp gave a little cheer to the vast room with its old paintings.
A tiny voice reached his ears, singing, thin, distant. And gradually as he sat very still, he realized it was Violetta's song, on the gramophone. This meant his nymph had waked; she was about, winding the old toy. He must rouse himself. He must talk to her about these mortal sins.
He stood up and made his way slowly through the shadowy room, and to the library. The music came strongly through the door, the happy song of Violetta from La Traviata. The waltz they'd played when Violetta was strong and gay, before she began to die so wondrously in operatic fashion. Light came from beneath the door, golden and soft.
She sat on the floor, half risen more or less, resting back on her hands, naked as before, her breasts loose but high placed and the color of baby skin. The nipples the pink of baby's nipples.
There was no music. Had it been some trick of noise? She was staring at the window to the cast-iron porch outside. And Michael saw that it was open. It was what they called a pocket window, and the sash had been thrown up all the way to make a doorway out of it. The shutters, which he had kept closed all the time himself, rather liking to see slats of afternoon sun, were open, too. A loud noise sounded in the street, but it was only a
passing car, jetting too fast through the narrow shadowy intersection.
She was startled; her hair was mussed, her face still smooth with lingering sleep.
"What is this?" he said. "Someone came in that window?"
"Tried to come," she said. Her voice was foggy with sleep.
"Do you smell that smell?" She turned and looked at him, and before he could make an answer, she started to dress.
Michael went to the window and cranked shut the green blinds immediately. The corner beyond stood deserted or so dark beneath the oaks that it might as well have been. The mercury street lamp was like a moon face snared in the branches above. Michael brought down the sash, and turned the lock. Should have been locked all the time! He was furious.
"Do you smell it?" she said. She was dressed when he turned around. The room was all shadows now that he had shut out the corner light. She came to him and turned her back for him to tie her cotton sash.
"Goddamnit, who was it?" The stiff starched cotton felt good to his fingers. He tied the sash as best he could, having never done this for a little girl before, trying to make the bow pretty when he was finished with it. She turned around, staring past him at the window.
"You don't catch that scent, do you?" She went past him and peered through the glass, through the slats. Then she shook her head.
"You didn't see who it was, did you?" He had half a mind to go out there, charging through the garden, and around the block, to accost whatever strangers he might find, to search up Chestnut Street and down First until he found some suspicious person. "My hammer, I need it," he said.
"Your hammer?"
"I don't use a gun, honey. My hammer's always been good enough." He went to the hall closet.
"Michael, the person's long gone. He was gone when I woke up. I heard him running away. I don't think...I don't know that he knew there was anyone in here."
He came back. Something white was shining on the dark carpet. Her ribbon. He picked it up and absently she took it from him and fixed it in her hair with no need of a mirror.
"I've got to go," she said. "I gotta go see my mother, CeeCee, I should have gone before now. She's probably scared to death that she's in a hospital."