"Phyllis_A._Whitney_-_Feather_On_The_Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whitney Phyllis A)

FEATHER ON THE MOON
The front grounds were lighted, and there were lights in several tall windows. At first the house seemed narrow and cramped, but as I left the car and Kirk brought my bags around to steps that mounted from the side, I saw that it widened and ran back a considerable distance. There were two main stories, and a smaller addition that added a third floor at the top.
"Do you like gardens, Mrs. Thorne?" Kirk asked as we mounted the steps. "I expect you know that Victoria's a city of gardens, but Mrs. Aries's private garden is something special. It drops down a level or so at the back, and runs along the hill. Mr. Dillow says her parents planted it earl}- in the century."
I did indeed like gardens, thanks to my father, but now the front door of the house had opened upon the entry porch, and my attention was held.
A man who could only be Elbert Dillow stood in the lighted doorway-a small man, dressed in black, probably in his late fifties, with a straggle of graying hair around his otherwise bald head. His bright dark eyes examined me sharply, and I had an immediate sense of dignity, as well as an air of competence and authority that would compensate for his slight size.
"Good evening, Mrs. Thorne," he said. "Please come in. I am Dillow." Apparently I was to dispense with the "mister." He nodded to Kirk. "Just take Mrs. Thome's bags up to her room. You know which one?"
The chauffeur's manner was properly restrained again as he picked up my bags and went into the house.
"Perhaps you would like to go to your room first, Mrs. Thorne?" Dillow asked. "Then Mrs. Aries wishes to greet you. She would like you to dine with her tonight.''
This seemed fine, and I stepped into a lighted foyer, where a lower hall reached back behind the stairs, with doors opening down its length. Ahead, a staircase, carpeted in dark red, rose to a landing. Polished golden oak banisters
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ran upward, wide to my hand, with wings curving right and left. When I took the right-hand stairs at Billow's direction, I could look down toward the entryway to see two long stained glass windows on either side of the front door, gleaming blue and ruby red under electric lights.
"Your room is at the front, Mrs. Thorne," Dillow said behind me.
The upper hallway was dimly lighted, but a door stood open and lamplight welcomed me. Kirk placed my largest bag on a luggage rack at the foot of a double bed and bowed slightly as he passed me and went quickly away. At another time I would have been very curious about that young man.
The butler cast a critical eye about the room and seemed to find everything in order. The bathroom across the hall would be mine, he said, and moved toward the door.
"I won't be long," I told him. "Where will I find Mrs. Aries?"
"Just come down the stairs, Mrs. Thorne. Since Mrs. Aries's illness she prefers to stay in a first-floor room that overlooks the garden at the rear and is more convenient. The door will be open."
When he'd gone I stood staring around the spacious, turnof-the-century room. The walls, which had probably been papered when the house was built, were painted a pleasing blue-gray that reached to an oak picture rail. Above that, the strip of wall blended into the ceiling-a pale fawn color.
Patterned red Turkestan rugs lay scattered upon the dark parquet floor, at the foot of the bed and at the sides. A fireplace with an oak mantel, again dark and golden, had been set with wood, though no fire was needed as yet. Long windows on each side of a french door were framed with flowered blue draperies. I opened the door to step outside, where carved wooden railings enclosed the small private porch. Beyond, the view was tremendous. I could look toward city lights and follow the shining, spangled water of
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the harbor where it cut into a right angle before the Empress Hotel and the Parliament Buildings.
Immediately below was the driveway, curving down from the house. I could look out upon one side to the steps by which I'd entered, and on the other to a rock garden that ran along the outside of the house. Daylight was nearly gone, and the evening was cool, so I went back inside.
When I stepped into the hall to look for the indicated bathroom, I heard a sound at the far end and saw that a man stood under a dim overhead light, leaning on a banister of the back stairs. I couldn't make him out clearly, but he seemed to be watching me.
'ХHello," I called.
He didn't answer but hurried away up the stairs. Was this Mrs. Aries's younger brother, who had been referred to as "daft"?
When I'd washed in the old-fashioned bathroom that still displayed a tub on claw feet, I returned to my room to change from slacks to a gray skirt. A blouse came reasonably unwrinkled from my suitcase and the citron color cheered me a little.
It seemed to me that the reflection in the mirror as I combed my short brown hair bore little resemblance to the way I'd looked seven years ago, when Debbie was taken. I'd been heavier then, and my hair had hung below my shoulders. Now my eyes looked wide and shadowed in the glass and my expression had an anxious cast. I turned away, not liking what I saw.
Too much that was important hung on this meeting with Mrs. Aries, and a sense of panic was ready to stir in me at the very thought of meeting the child who lived in this house. So far I'd seen no one except the man on the stairs, and I wanted no sudden chance encounter until I had talked with Corinthea Aries.
On the first floor I walked past a spacious dining room, where the table was unset. At the rear of the hall I caught
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the flicker of firelight through an open door. Mrs. Aries heard me and called to me to come in.
The big room I stepped into was a library, now adapted to a different purpose because of need. Books still lined two walls, and walnut paneling around the rest of the room made it dark in spite of lamps and spears of flame in the grate. An old-fashioned bed had replaced other furniture, its headboard high and carved with grape clusters and leaves. A dressing table and bureau had further changed the room from a library. Near the fire that made the room seem overly warm to me sat a woman in a wheelchair. As I hesitated in the doorway, she turned her head to greet me.
"Thank you for coming, Mrs. Thorne. I am Corinthea Aries. Please come and sit down. No one else is home just now to interrupt us. I've seen to that."
Apparently the man I'd glimpsed on the stairs didn't count, any more than Dillow did.
Even in a wheelchair Mrs. Aries looked thoroughly in charge. Light from the fire played over her thin nose with its delicate aristocratic nostrils, and upon rouge-touched lips that might have been full, if the habit of suppressing all smiles hadn't long ago been imprinted. Her gray hair shone like dark silver and was waved high and pinned with amber combs. Cut in an ageless princess style, her garnet-red robe had been embroidered with touches of gold at the collar and in the looped frog closings. I had an immediate impression of pride that would probably govern this woman in all things.
As I took her outstretched hand, feeling its sculptured bones in my own, I was aware of a light scent of violetssweet but faint. None of this perfection of grooming was for me, I was sure. I suspected that when Corinthea Aries was entirely alone she would give just such attention to personal details for her own satisfaction.
At her invitation I sat down in an armless slipper chair on the other side of the hearth and waited for whatever pleasantries about my trip would begin our conversation. I was to
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learn quickly that Mrs. Aries never bothered with such conventions. She studied me for a moment, her expression neither approving nor disapproving. She must have been in her early seventies, but her face was so surprisingly unlined that I was reminded of a mask. Only her dark eyes flashed with a light she couldn't altogether conceal.
This very lack of expression was unsettling, but I was to learn later that Mrs. Aries had long ago decided that animation could result only in lines and wrinkles, and she had banished all such aging outward emotions from her face. Her impassivity and fixed look made me uncomfortable, even though I suspected they were deceptive. Her voice, and sometimes the movements of her hands, gave her away.
When satisfied about me-though she betrayed no inkling of her conclusions-she plunged at once into the matter at hand. "I've sent the Corwins and the child away for the evening. I wanted to talk with you before you meet any of them. They know I have a visitor coming, but of course they have no suspicion of who you are or why you've come. The situation, as I've told you, is much too complicated to be explained on the telephone. I don't like or trust this pair and, as I also told you, I had an odd feeling about the child when I saw your little girl's picture in a magazine. It's because of the Corwins that I've asked you not to use your married name."
Because they might be the kidnappers who had taken Debbie? Questions seethed in me, but I held them back and waited, knowing she would tell me the story in her own way.
One thin hand moved to touch a comb in her hair, making sure every strand was in place, and the firelight caught the red of her garnet ring. Then she turned her head and addressed the shadowy room beyond the bed, where light hardly reached.
"Crampton, you may leave us alone now."
A large woman in a white uniform-of whose presence I'd been totally unaware-rose and went into the hall, moving lightly and quickly, in spite of her size.
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