The cruel dark, p.14
The Cruel Dark, page 14
“And the second?” I asked pointedly.
When he raised his eyes to mine, I didn’t look away. It was a challenge, and we both knew it. Another slight rise at the corners of his mouth, amused, pleased, both. I had no idea if I was playing into his hand or beating him at his own game.
“My manners prohibit me from replying,” he said.
“You have manners? A true surprise.”
Eager for the last word and unused to sparring this way, I stepped closer to the dining room, no longer caring if I was the first to enter.
Yet there again, the hand at my waist, fingers digging gently against my lower ribs to stop me in my tracks. He leaned into me, the warmth of his chest against my back, his voice a warning in my ear.
“Don’t attempt to start a war with me. You won’t win.”
Despite the heat in my cheeks, which in a brighter light might have given me away in a snap, I turned my face toward his, lifting my chin as though offering my mouth. There was a mere whisper between us, and his half-lidded eyes suggested he was waiting for me to close it.
“I think you’ll find you’ve underestimated me,” I said, breaking away and entering the dining room with a friendly smile and a belly full of butterflies.
The throaty chuckle behind me didn’t inspire my confidence.
Chapter 15
The dining room was no less extravagant than the entrance hall, candles alive in every corner, their light twinkling from crystals that hung suspended from the ceiling on long metallic threads like raindrops. The hellebore had been replaced in the table arrangements by white iris and complemented the blushing English roses that lay scattered between the fine china and crystal glasses. A phonograph played the music, pouring it from the brass horn that opened like the petal of a trumpet flower. No one had been seated yet, all guests still milling near the side tables set with old bottles of champagne and a full array of hors d’oeuvres: canapes, oysters Rockefeller, cheese, fruit, stuffed olives, and deviled eggs. Regardless of my nerves, my mouth watered.
“You’ve outdone yourself again, Callum. The decorations are extraordinary. I’m only sorry Ms. Dillard was not the one in charge of the meal this time. I’m sure it will still be delightful, but she is a true miracle in the kitchen.” A woman in her forties, her beauty enhanced by the fine lines around her eyes, spoke first upon our arrival. She was draped in gold, the satin sheath dress pooling on the floor in liquid splendor, cowl neckline dipping modestly in the front. The umber skin of her exposed shoulders glittered with a reflective powder that had been dusted there, and as she turned to place her empty glass on the table, the splendorous line of her back was visible, the dress plummeting to her hips where a large bow, lined with embroidered crystals, sparkled in the candlelight. Her hair was fashioned in delicate finger waves, the same crystals from the bow shining in each precisely positioned turn.
A giant man with a tawny complexion, tidy salt-and-pepper beard, and bald head thundered up to me, taking my hands in his, squeezing with such honest goodwill and welcome that the knots in my stomach eased. He was dressed in a similar black tuxedo as Callum, but his waistcoat and pocket square mirrored the gold of the woman’s dress.
“Burt Terrance,” he boomed by way of introduction. “It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Foxboro. I’ve been dying to see what type of woman could stand working with Callum for more than a week without setting him on fire.”
His wife was at his elbow, guiding him away in a gentle fashion, and when he released my hands, she offered hers.
“Burt forgets he isn’t the size of a teddy bear, but he’s got the heart of one, don’t worry. Lottie Terrance, it’s so nice to meet you.” Her handshake was firm, her smile open and honest. I found the Terrances remarkably endearing. “What an exquisite dress. Pink is your color.”
“It really is.” Another of the women present came forward, her hair copper and shining. She’d curled it tightly at the nape of her neck, held in place by a black sequined band and a spray of matching feathers fanning like a peacock’s tail. She was full-figured and rosy, her onyx gown simple to the waist before erupting into a riot of gossamer pleats, secured at the hip by a mother-of-pearl pin, its iridescent pink nacre drawing the eye. Not possibly more or less than a year from my age, she seemed so painfully familiar that my mind cartwheeled through memory to find her face.
“I’m Florence Hannigan,” she said, offering her satin-gloved hand and kissing my cheek. She smelled of powder and oranges. Though she seemed a sunny person, when she stepped away from me her lips were tight, her smile strained.
“Oh!” That explained the sense of familiarity. “Are you—”
“My niece!” The doctor appeared with a plate of olives and eggs, and I smiled at him with all the sunshine in me. “Visiting all the way from Chicago.”
“Terrible weather,” Florence forced, trying to be lighthearted. It didn’t seem as though she was too excited to be here. “Not as bad as here. I don’t know how Callum stands it, or anyone. You’re made of some strong stuff.”
“Your hair!” Dr. Hannigan exclaimed. “How perfect, it suits you exactly. It’s a good sign when a woman is open to change.”
He glanced at Professor Hughes, who was busying himself with a glass of wine, with a bemused expression.
“I hear women change their hair when they’re mad at a lover.” The smoky voice settled over the little crowd and smiles faltered. A tall, slender woman entered the dining room on the arm of no companion, dressed in a silver gown that hugged her waifish figure like a second skin, coin-shaped tokens sewn in rows from top to bottom to form a fringe. Her pale sun-spun hair was bobbed, though longer than mine, and she wore a beaded flapper cap whose lengths of silver beads framed her heart-shaped face. The color of the dress didn’t flatter her sun-kissed skin and clashed with the pinks and golds surrounding us. I didn’t need any introduction, because of the people invited, there was only one couple I hadn’t met.
“Margaret,” Professor Hughes greeted with some impatience, taking a sip of wine to disguise it. “Where have you left Jack?”
“The poor dear’s in a dreadful state,” she said dramatically, pulling off her gloves and tossing them onto the back of one of the dining room chairs. “A cold, I’m sure, but you know how men are. I had him stay home and came to pay my respects to Willowfield.”
She examined my outfit with explicit scrutiny.
“You look a doll, you must be the new girl.”
Her tone nettled me.
“This is Miss Millicent Foxboro,” the professor said, offering her a glass of wine, distracting her eyes from me. “The woman who’s taken the post as my assistant.”
“Oh yes,” Mr. Terrance interrupted, not offering Margaret a chance to speak. “How is your research on all the otherworld nonsense going?”
“All still nonsense,” Professor Hughes replied with humor, “but interesting nonetheless.”
“So, you’re a scholar, Miss Foxboro. You read old Irish?” Florence asked, taking two olives from her uncle’s plate.
“Rudimentarily,” I offered. “Latin and Greek as well, and some old English. Nothing to brag about. It was required studies at my secondary school. Mostly I used it to expand my reading material.”
“Lots of fairy tales, I bet. You seem the type who’d enjoy fairy tales,” Mr. Terrance said jovially, casting a glance at his wife as he reached for a glass of wine. She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. Still, he retrieved two glasses and offered one to me. I took it with no intention of drinking.
“Oh, I do. I like stories with an element of thrill, even a bit of horror. Fairy tales have plenty of both usually. It’s easy to enjoy things like that when you can just close the cover anytime and be safe.”
“Not always,” Margaret singsonged.
The professor’s eyes were daggers. I ignored her comment, realizing the trouble she had caused Mrs. Hughes with the ill-fated seance had not been forgiven.
“It’s fascinating to read some of the stories in their original state and compare them with similar ones from different regions. They all have their unique take, but it’s been a trial to figure out Professor Hughes’s…um…filing system,” I said, catching my stride.
There was silence, and I wondered if I’d said something wrong, but then the laughter poured through the room, lighting every shadowy corner.
“She’s trying to save you the embarrassment, Callum. A kind soul, a kind soul.”
“We’re all aware the man is a hopeless mess. Imagine what it’s like for us at the factory.”
“You should’ve seen our dormitory at university. An utter fire hazard.”
The tinkling, good-natured jabs saved the mood and encouraged an atmosphere of friendship. It was obvious why the professor and his wife had hosted so many dinner parties.
“Yes,” Margaret drawled. She’d taken a cigarette from her purse and was lighting it, looking pleased as a cat before it catches a mouse. “If your employment ends only when this man is in sorts, it’s safe to say you’ve got a pretty permanent job.”
“At the rate we’re moving, we’ll be finished in a fortnight,” I said breezily, casting off her comment. It was untrue. There were still at least two months of work with what remained of the filing and the annotations, but there was no need to make anyone believe I had plans of staying that long, especially not the professor.
“Ambitious,” Professor Hughes said, eying me with some suspicion.
A man dressed in a catering uniform entered from the kitchen and announced dinner, leading everyone to take their seats. It was strange to see other people in Willowfield’s intimate spaces. The professor sat at the head of the table, and I was seated with Mr. Terrance on my left and Florence on my right. The doctor sat across from his niece, and I assumed Mrs. Terrance would sit across from her husband, leaving Margaret as my table partner. But Mrs. Terrance took the chair hurriedly, leaving the silver-clad woman to sit in the remaining seat, farthest from me. I glanced around, gauging everyone’s reaction to Mrs. Terrance’s ouster of Margaret to the edges of the group. A few tight smiles, a laugh, then Dr. Hannigan was boisterously telling one of his old stories that had everyone roaring in moments.
The meal was dreamy and the conversation lively. Margaret was suspiciously quiet except to make a droll remark between cigarettes. I sipped wine from my glass, only to find the professor’s eyes on me. I took another spiteful drink, much bigger than I wanted, and winked at him. His expression altered, turning severe and reproving. I’d rankled him, but I didn’t care. There was no insubordination I wouldn’t consider tonight. If he wished to terminate our agreement for it, then I’d kindly remind him of his offer to let me leave, ask for my wages, and run away like the sensible woman I was.
Despite my earlier stunt, I didn’t touch the wine again. It was too heavy in my stomach.
The conversation continued to flow when dinner had passed and desserts were eaten. There were so many questions, and I answered them all with as much honesty as I thought prudent. They were simple enough. Where had I gone to school, where had I grown up, more curiosity about my interest in the professor’s work. The discussion moved fluidly on to each of their lives. They all had so much history with one another and I basked in their comfortable familiarity.
I pointedly ignored Professor Hughes unless it was required to keep the conversation moving and avoid any suspicion of our conflict.
Eventually, the table became restless, and Florence suggested a game of the Minister’s Cat, leading Professor Hughes to recommend moving to the sitting room. This piqued my interest.
In the hall, one of the locked doors had been opened to a gentleman’s parlor, all brown leather and dark green fabrics, though even this room had not escaped the Willowfield touch and the large mahogany mantel of the fireplace had been carved with the face of a man made of leaves and brambles, blossoms tucked in his wooded beard. There was a phonograph in here too, already playing, sending a crooner’s dulcet voice curling through the air. The furniture had been arranged in a way conducive to group games, circling a low coffee table, and a sideboard had been set with coffee. As the others entered, I excused myself back to the dining room on the grounds that I’d left something behind. I needed a moment to arrange my thoughts. The hour was late, and though the company was mostly charming, I was becoming increasingly bitter. This life was not mine. While these shining people would always be a central point in my own story, I was merely a guest in theirs.
I requested a glass of water from one of the caterers cleaning the table. When it was in hand, I drank it down in three gulps.
“So, Millie,” Margaret said, having trailed my escape and appeared in the dining room, sidling to me and reaching for a chocolate roll that hadn’t been cleared away. She took a bite and grinned, friendly as a snake. “How does it feel to be in Willowfield?”
I assumed she was asking how it felt to be a girl like me in Willowfield, and I considered exploiting my upbringing in a wealthy New York neighborhood but couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“What do you mean?”
“The house. Doesn’t it give you the creeps?”
I furrowed my brows, not liking where this line of questioning was headed.
“And how about Callum?” she continued, not allowing me to answer her first query. “How’re you two getting along?”
“The professor?” I refused to use his name, hoping to make it clear our relationship was a professional one. “Well enough. He’s intelligent, a little off-color, but I manage. I enjoy the work.”
“I’m sure.”
That was enough. I set the glass down with a harsh hand, rattling the remaining silverware.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Listen, dove.” She put the pastry down and offered the sad eyes of a friend prepared to deliver hard news. “Just keep your wits. Callum has a way with women like you.”
“Like me?” I grew hot.
“Sure.” She smiled indulgently. “The kind that takes strange secretarial assignments for recluses in practically empty mansions. In a word, mad.”
“Sounds right,” I replied evenly, so angry that white stars began dancing in my periphery. How I managed to keep my voice steady will be a mystery for future scholars to determine. “Now let me read you. You married rich, but it’s not a love match, so you spend your time and your husband’s money dressing yourself up like a fortune teller and going about to make a fool of him in some perverse form of retaliation for the bleak lack of passion.”
I was making mean guesses, not caring if they were correct, only that they were insulting, but the new crimson cast to her cheeks revealed that I’d hit the mark.
“You little…” she sputtered. “You don’t have a clue what you’re dealing with. Callum sucks dames like you dry then spits out their husks. You don’t even know—”
“Margaret, there you are,” the professor rumbled, strolling into the dining room with a sense of casual cordiality. “Your husband mentioned you had a tendency to wander, especially after too much to drink.”
The double entendre was noted. Her nostrils flared.
“I didn’t want you to get lost. If you’ll make your way to the sitting room, there’s coffee, it’ll help you keep your wits. There’s a girl.”
With a huff and a mouthful of venom she was now too afraid to spew, she stormed from the dining room, turning only once to glare at me at the threshold before taking her leave.
“I was worried what Margaret had in mind, but shouldn’t have been. You held your own.” The fact Professor Hughes was surprised was an insult in itself. I was still boiling, and there was no one else to punish.
“She’s a terrible person.”
“She is.”
“You invited her.”
“I invited her husband. She wasn’t supposed to be in town. You look very upset. What did she say to you?”
“Nothing I’m sure I wouldn’t have figured out.”
“Do tell.”
“Perhaps another time,” I retorted. “They’ll be wondering where we are, and I don’t want to give them any reason to use their imaginations.”
I made it out of the dining room and turned toward the light of the parlor, but I’d taken less than two steps when Professor Hughes grabbed my arm, his grip firm but not painful. I was angry that he was so calm when everything inside my head was pure chaos.
“I’m truly sorry Margaret upset you,” he said, “but anything coming from her mouth was either a wild exaggeration or a straight lie.”
“And I should believe you?”
This, at last, made him angry. “You should.”
“Why?” I demanded, digging my fingers into the small opening of his frustration. “Your behavior since the moment I arrived has been suspect at best, threatening me in the hallways in the middle of the night, making your suggestions.”
“Millie, you’re raising your voice.” His tone was an omen I didn’t heed.
“Let them hear!” I yelled, flinging my hand to indicate their general direction, sealing my fate.
He caught that hand in his, much less gentle this time, and I found myself being pulled roughly to the nearest door, which he opened and spirited us into. The party preparations had not made it to this room, and it was unlit save for whatever sad illumination made it in from the stormy night.
“And here you’ve whisked me away to a lonely, dark room, how on pattern.”
My voice had instinctively gone lower, quieter to match the night in the room. The dark shushed me, and in it, I was not as brave. His tall bulk blocked the door, giving me no chance to leave without getting close to him, and that was out of the question. The shadows did something to Professor Hughes, something unholy. In the light he was attractive, captivating in his charming, polished way. But here where no sunbeam or cast of firelight could touch him, he was a being of the underworld, a shapeshifter made treacherous and devastating by the dark.
