"Phyllis A. Whitney - Spindrift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whitney Phyllis A)

As I wandered back into the living room, Joel came out of his study with a sheaf of manuscript pages in his hands. His hair that was as red as his mother's was rumpled and there was a pencil smudge above his lip. His clothes, as always, were casual and a little untidy, and his gray eyes had that faraway look they could take on when he was deep in work on someone else's story. Lately I'd sometimes had the feeling that he wasn't living in a real world, but could only exist through the words of others. But perhaps that feeling was only more of my tendency to see him without the old veiling of love. Perhaps I wasn't being fair.
"Who was that at the door?" he asked, brought back to earth by the intrusion of voices that had roused him from his work.
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"It was Fiona," I said. "She wanted to warn me to stay away from Spindrift."
He looked mildly surprised. "Why should she do that? She knows Mother wants you there."
"Perhaps Fiona sometimes thinks for herself," I said, and hated my own sharpness. Once I had been a more gentle girl.
He didn't miss the inference and I hated the flush that came into his cheeks. A man shouldn't blush like a girl when someone cuts at him.
"We needn't go if you're against it," he said.
"But we are going. You knew I'd agree, didn't you? You knew that nothing would keep me from being with Peter."
He sighed and threw up his hands. "Then I'll go and phone Theo. She asked me to call her to get the day and time when we'd drive up with her."
I found myself being sharp again. "No! We'll fly or go by train. And a day later than Theo."
He stood looking at me helplessly for a moment longer and I could remember when that helpless look was dear to me. It only irritated me now.
"I'll call and tell her," he said, and went back to his study.
I could hear him on the phone a moment later, the dutiful son reporting that what his mother wished would be accomplished. Once I had thought this sort of thing indicated consideration. Now I judged more harshly and believed it only meant he was under his mother's thumb.
I found myself gritting my teeth as I'd done sometimes in the hospital and I made myself stop immediately. There must be no more of that. If Fiona could slip on a mask of calm so could I.
What was it she had said so angrily? That I'd never loved a man the way she had loved Adam? But what difference did her words make? I knew how full of love I was. For Peter, for my father. And I would go to Spindrift because of them. I would find strength and courage because of them. Nothing else mattered.
II
Spindrift had always seemed to me a whimsical name for a place that was too solid with marble and tile to be anything so wispy and foamlike. A palatially wide expanse of shallow marble steps led up from the driveway, interrupted at intervals with marble urns
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in which well-nurtured greenery flaunted itself at the visitor. Six stately Corinthian columns crowned with acanthus leaves marched across the top of the steps, supporting the white roof and contrasting with the black of wrought iron that graced five inner balconies at second-floor level. Beneath these were windows rounded by fanlights, and in the center a great double door with grilled ironwork.
The door had been opened in welcome for our coming. The Moreland chauffeur who met us at the airport on Aquidneck Island, to which we'd flown from Providence, was busy with our baggage, while others of Theo's staff of servants rushed out to help and to welcome us. If the old days of Newport were gone and this was October instead of July, one would never know it j
here. '
I watched anxiously for a small boy to come hurtling down those marble steps and fling himself into my arms, but no one but Ferris Thornton came to greet us. He shook hands with Joel and complimented me on how well I was looking. Then we went into the enormous Marble Hall with its vast expanse that was large enough for a balkoom, its ornate ceiling, nymph-painted, its chairs oversized, its tables elaborately carved. A tall vase caught my eye. As a little girl I had stood beside that six-foot blue and green vase from China and woven stories about it. I had ridden on the magic carpets of these Persian rugs and tried to enter the world of the portraits on the walls. Yet now it had little appeal for me. There was beauty, yes, but in a too pretentious sense as Theodora used it.
Ferris came with us toward the stairs while a porter scurried to the rear with a load of luggage. I had always liked Ferris, and I was grateful for his presence. He was more than six feet tall and he had been cadaverously thin as long as I'd known him. ^
His hair seemed more gray at the temples than I remembered, i t,
but that only added to the air of dignity that so became him. He I!
belonged to a practically lost generation of polished gentlemen-a 11
category to which neither Hal Moreland nor Adam Keene had ever held any pretensions.
"I'm glad you've come," he told us, a hand beneath my elbow as I mounted the stairs. "Theodora is looking forward to this occasion and it wouldn't be complete without Peter's parents."
He believed what he was saying, I was sure. He had always seen Theo in a far different light than Adam and I had, and he was the only person who called her "Theodora."
Joel said, "I've brought a suitcase full of manuscripts so I can
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get in some work at least. I'd have thought it might have been better simply to start using Spindrift again without fanfare."
Ferris's smile was austere, but he had never regarded Theo blindly, despite his long admiration for her. "When did your mother ever avoid fanfare? I gather that's the whole idea. The press will be here in full force, and not only from the Moreland Leader."
We'd reached the second floor, where the grand, central staircase divided on either hand. I wondered which wing Theo had put us in. Not, I hoped, near that Tower Room on the third floor. To my relief, Ferris was leading the way into the right whig on the second floor. We turned down a cross corridor into the wing that was farthest from Theo's own suite on the upper floor, and I knew she had given us the magnificent corner room-the Gold Room-looking out toward the Atlantic on one hand and off in the direction of exclusive Bailey's Beach on the other. Spindrift occupied a spot with a commanding view and I went at once to fling louvered doors outward upon a marble balcony.
The scene of sloping lawn down to the Cliff Walk, with the drop to the rocks beyond was as it had always been. There was a boathouse down there hi a small cove just out of sight. The October sky shone bright blue over its own reflection hi the sea. There was no hint of the quick squalls that could blow up and darken the sky, no hint of a cool October wind. And there was no fog. It was out there that a small sailboat had gone aground on rocks off Lands End on a foggy day and had capsized seventeen years ago, when Joel was seventeen. His older brother and sister had drowned and he had been the only one rescued. It had been a tragedy that would have destroyed some parents, but it had only made Theo fiercely strong, focusing her attention on her remaining son, Joel.
Behind me now, Joel spoke in a flat voice. "This won't do. Mother promised us separate rooms. Christy has been ill, and she needs a place for herself."
"You have your own room." Ferris's tone was courteous but faintly disapproving. "Right through that adjoining door."
The flush had come into Joel's fair skin again and a stab of guilt went through me because of what I was doing to him. There had been happier times for us in this house, even though Theo had always made attempts to drive us apart. But there was nothing I could say or do now, and Joel thanked Ferris and went through the unlocked door.
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The moment he was gone I faced Ferris. "When will I see Peter?"
He regarded me more kindly. "He's here. I'm sure you'll see him soon. He has been told you were coming."
"How did he react?"
"I don't know much about children," Ferris said evasively. "I should think he was pleased."
But he hadn't said that Peter was pleased.
A tap on the door and the arrival of my bags gave him an excuse to escape.
"Theodora will be waiting for you when it's convenient," he said. "She has her old rooms upstairs in the opposite wing."
"I'll come soon," I said.
He went off and I busied myself unlocking my bags, shaking out my clothes and hanging them up in the closet that was the size of a small room. At least Theo didn't bother with the folderol of personal maids, except for herself. As I worked I tried to take in the room that had been assigned to me. I knew it well enough, though I had never been permitted to stay in it before.