Smiling, Aunt Sabrina led Kate to a green damask settee. 'Bernice and I are delighted that you have come.'
Hardly, Kate thought, seeing the twist of Aunt Jaggers's narrow, thinly compressed lips. From the look of it, the woman bitterly resented either Kate or her sister's inviting their niece to Bishop's Keep-or life in general. Apprehensively wondering which it was and how her attitude would color their relations, Kate sat down.
Aunt Sabrina seated herself in one of the damask armchairs and leaned back in a comfortably casual pose, one that would not have been possible, Kate knew, if the sitter were stiffly corseted. 'Now, my dear, tell us about your journey. I hope
you found enough of interest to distract you from its tribulations.'
After a brief sketch of her railway travel and sea voyage (omitting the fertile intrigue that had enlarged the notebooks of Beryl Bardwell), Kate concluded by relating her encounter of Miss Marsden and her trip from Colchester with the Mars-dens and Sir Charles Sheridan.
'So you have made the acquaintance of some of our neighborhood aristocracy,' Aunt Sabrina remarked, smiling. 'Well, you will meet the rest of the family this evening. Only this morning, we received an invitation from Lady Henrietta to dinner tonight. I am certain she will wish you to join us.'
Aunt Jaggers moved to a straight chair and sat on its edge, arranging her voluminous black skirts. She cast a steely-eyed gaze at Kate, then turned her attention to Aunt Sabrina.
'Please recall, sister,' she said stiffly, 'that Miss Ardleigh has not come to Bishop's Keep to participate in society. She is here to serve as your secretary and assist you with your…' She gave a loud sniff, as if she were rejecting a piece of spoiled fish. 'Writings.'
'Be that as it may,' Aunt Sabrina said firmly. 'If she is not too tired, I am sure she will be welcome at tonight's dinner.'
'Thank you,' Kate said sincerely. 'I enjoyed meeting Miss Marsden and her brother. I should like to come.' She glanced from Aunt Jaggers to Aunt Sabrina. Sisters they might be, but they did not look it. Aunt Sabrina, who bore some resemblance to the faded photograph of Kate's father, was at this moment toying with an escaping tendril of feathery hair. Her graceful posture, her tilted head and loose hair, her mobile and generous expression-to Kate these were the attributes of a woman who enjoyed an enviable ease of movement and freedom of mind. Aunt Jaggers, on the other hand, was straitly corseted and as tart as the lemons piled in the Delft bowl. In the look she darted at Aunt Sabrina was enough malice to make Kate shift uneasily in her chair.
Kate cleared her throat. Other thoughts pressed into her mind, and she had to speak them, the sooner and the more frankly, the better. 'I am very grateful to you for asking me
to come to Bishop's Keep,' she said to Aunt Sabrina. 'Your invitation was a great surprise, as was the fact-if you will pardon me-of your existence. I had not known that any members of my father's family survived him.'
Aunt Sabrina's eyes went to Kate's father's photograph, then back to Kate. Her face was somber, as if the thought of him were a long sadness. ' 'When my brother went to America, he expressed the wish to permanently dissociate himself from the family. Your grandfather, George Ardleigh, was quite willing to concur in his son's decision. He imposed his concurrence upon the rest of the family, including your grandmother Madeline, who was deeply grieved by Thomas's absence. No doubt both father and son had good reasons for wishing a permanent separation. But they took those reasons to their graves. When I made belated inquiries last year about your mother and discovered that she had borne a daughter, I felt it was not fair to impute to you your father's perhaps impulsive estrangement from his family.' She fell silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, Kate felt the melancholy weight of her sadness. 'I am sorry for your loss of both your parents, Kathryn. And I have come to view our estrangement as a great loss. I hope to remedy it.'
Aunt Jaggers straightened her shoulders, her mouth pinched and parsimonious. 'I must speak frankly, Niece Kathryn,' she said. 'My sister's sentiments are in no way to be attributed to me. It was my sad duty to counsel her against inviting into this house a young Irishwoman whose character is not directly known to us, who has been brought up in America.' Her tone sharpened. ' 'It has frequently fallen to me to counsel my sister against various ill-conceived schemes, to no avail. It was no different this time. My counsel was ignored.' Her dark eyes glittered like bits of chipped glass. 'But I insist upon making my position clear.'
Aunt Jaggers's ill will was so extraordinarily plain that it momentarily robbed Kate of speech. But Aunt Sabrina spoke for her, in an odd tone that was at once a rebuke and a conciliation.
'You have indeed made yourself clear, sister. But I trust that your opinions are not entirely fixed, and that you will
allow our brother's daughter to demonstrate her own character and abilities.' The words were reasonable enough, but beneath them there was an undertone of anger held back, as if Aunt Sabrina wished to say more, but was reluctant, perhaps even fearful. What lay between the two sisters? Whatever it was, it made one angry, the other apprehensive, and each nettled with the other.
Kate felt it was time to ask the other questions that pressed on her mind. 'I would like to know about my duties,' she said to Aunt Sabrina, ' 'and why it was I whom you chose to be your secretary. You no doubt could have hired someone nearby and saved yourself the considerable expense of my travel, not to speak of the uncertainty of hiring someone sight unseen.'
With a quick glance at her sister, Aunt Sabrina began to speak carefully, as if she were picking her way along a thorny path through a subject that had been the cause of considerable disharmony between them. But beneath the restrained words, Kate heard a note of unrestrained excitement and guessed that Aunt Sabrina was talking about something in which she had a passionate interest.
'I have recently been appointed historian of a particular… society. My responsibilities involve the writing of a history of the society and the keeping of a detailed and confidential record of… certain activities peculiar to the association.'
Kate could have wished for greater specificity, especially where the curious 'confidential record' and the tantalizing 'certain activities' were concerned. But she contented herself for the moment with Aunt Sabrina's answer.
Aunt Jaggers, however, was not content. 'You should tell this young woman that it is your intention to drag her into that spiritualist taradiddle of yours,' she said snappishly. 'That Order of whatever-it-is.'
'The Order of the Golden Dawn,' Aunt Sabrina said distinctly. Her fingers went, unconsciously, Kate thought, to the scarab pendant at her throat.
'Yes.' Aunt Jaggers sniffed. 'I am sure that when Niece Ardleigh is informed of your real purpose for hiring her, no
doubt she will refuse to be associated with your deviltry. Egyptian magic-blasphemy!'
Kate shifted, her interest suddenly heightened by these unexplained hints. In what sort of spiritualist taradiddle was Aunt Sabrina engaged? How had she become interested in Egyptian magic?
Aunt Sabrina ignored the intrusion and continued calmly. 'This work, which I will explain in detail at a later time, is not especially onerous, nor will it encompass all your hours. But it does require intelligence, attention to detail, and a clear facility in writing, as well as a mature, judicious discretion.' She smiled gravely. 'These are virtues, Kathryn, in which I am told you excel.'
Kate felt that she could meet Aunt Sabrina's qualifications without difficulty. But she had been given only part of an answer.
'Thank you for your confidence,' she said. 'But surely you might have discovered these virtues in any number of young women close at hand.'
'Perhaps.' Aunt Sabrina returned her direct look. 'But you can operate a typewriter, and you read and write German. This combination would have proved most difficult to find, even in Colchester. Furthermore, I have begun to feel that it is important to become acquainted with you, Kathryn. While the work you will do is certainly important to me, it is your person in which I have the greater interest.'
'I see,' Kate said, more softly. Aunt Sabrina's eyes had saddened and her gaze had gone to her brother's photograph. For a moment there was silence, as Kate reflected on the fact that the sins of the fathers could often be visited upon the daughters as well. Perhaps Aunt Sabrina hoped to make up to her niece and herself what George and Thomas Ardleigh had denied them both. Watching the older woman, something in her warmed and she was glad she had come-not for the sake of Beryl BardwelFs grand adventure, but because, in some way Kate did not quite understand, she felt that Aunt Sabrina had called her home.
Aunt Jaggers broke the silence. 'Your emphasis, Sabrina, may be upon the…' She coughed. 'Familial
