Sick Of Shadows

“After you, my dear,” he said, with a mock-gallant bow.

Elizabeth stepped into the well-lit foyer and looked about. “Just don’t tell me I’m here to do the floors,” she said at last.

The foyer, two stories high, was tiled in blue and white squares of marble; it stretched away to an archway at the far end of the room. Two staircases branched to the right and left. Above the staircases, gold-leaf columns separated murals of nymphs and shepherds from marble niches containing life-sized statues of the Greek gods. Above it all sparkled a pair of crystal chandeliers.

“It’s my hobby,” Alban was saying. “I started out to be a medievalist and because I got so fascinated with Ludwig I ended up building this. Actually, it wasn’t as exorbitant as it looks. I was able to pick up a lot of this stuff in Greece and Italy for much less than it would cost to duplicate today. What do you think?”

Elizabeth nodded slowly.

“Well, the original was built in 1869 by King Ludwig II-”

“Who was crazy. Yes, I know. Geoffrey told me.”

“Who was not crazy!” snapped Alban. “Ludwig was a genius. I’d back him against your precious Bonnie Prince Charlie any day!”

“Then why do people say that?”

“Oh, because his people thought he spent too much money on castles. But I’ll tell you something about that: his personal debt for all three of his castles was less than eight million marks, and Bavaria paid four times that much to Prussia when they lost the Seven Weeks’ War-”

“They lost a war in seven weeks?” interrupted Elizabeth. “Bonnie Prince Charlie certainly lasted longer than that. In fact, his army got within 130 miles of London; if they had kept going-”

“Well, they didn’t. As I was saying, the people thought he was crazy then, but today Bavaria makes millions of marks a year using Ludwig’s castles as tourist attractions. Verlaine called Ludwig ‘the only king of the century.’ ”

“Well… maybe I’ll read up on him sometime,” said Elizabeth, who was still smarting from Alban’s remark about Charles Stuart.

“Yes, do. He was quite an idealist. Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Elizabeth stopped walking and stared up at him. “Now, Alban,” she said. “Don’t flip out on me. There are enough eccentrics around here!”

He laughed. “Aren’t you ever serious, Cousin Elizabeth?”

“Not to strangers,” said Elizabeth promptly. She blushed. “I mean… I know we’re first cousins, but… I didn’t really know you very well back then…”

“The age difference.” He nodded, considering this. “Children tend to regard anyone much older than themselves as part of the woodwork.” He looked thoughtful. “You’ve changed a lot in the last six years. You used to be almost as shy as Eileen. No more ponytails over the ears and Girl Scout tee shirts?”

“Only when I wash the car.”

“Am I the way you remember me?”

“No, Alban. Much less blurry.”

“Well, that eight-year age difference is a big gap when you’re kids.”

“Oh, sure. To us you were just another grown-up. And before that you were off at school so we didn’t hear much about you. I didn’t even know you had been engaged until Aunt Amanda mentioned it yesterday.”

Alban frowned. “It-it all worked out for the best, I think. But I don’t like to dwell on it, if that’s okay.”

Elizabeth felt a twinge of sympathy. She was impressed that anyone would be upset over a broken romance that was over years ago! Why, Austin had only been gone a matter of months, and already she was beginning to forget he had ever existed. She looked at Alban with more than polite interest. He was talking about the paneling in the hallway. The architect had bought it from the owners of a French chateau that had been damaged in World War II. The murals, depicting scenes from Wagnerian operas, were painted by an art student who copied them from photos of the originals.

Finally they sat down on a black velvet sofa in front of a marble fireplace.

“Well, Cousin Elizabeth, what do you think of it?”

Elizabeth sighed. “Well… oh, Alban! It’s beautiful and-and opulent and everything, but I keep thinking: ‘Oh, shit! Alban’s built a castle in the pony meadow.’ A mansion, okay-but a castle?”

“I say be gaudy and to hell with it,” he said lightly. “Would I be less crazy if I had sliding glass doors, Plexiglas coffee tables, and macrame plant holders? Because if I am hearing you correctly, you are not objecting to my spending money on a large house; you are merely complaining that I am being showy in an unfashionable way. But if I had a swimming pool and a television with an eight-foot screen, I’d be a sensible fellow, right?”

“I am losing this argument,” said Elizabeth sadly.

“I am winning this argument because of practice.” Alban smiled reassuringly. “Don’t you think I’ve had this argument with my relatives, my architect, and the lady at the grocery store? I ought to be good at it by now! But it’s true. I like antiques; I like medieval history. I studied it at William and Mary, when I wasn’t having to take business courses to satisfy my father. Why shouldn’t I have the house the way I want it?”

She nodded. “Captain Grandfather was telling me that just before I came over here.”

“He’s a wonderful old man, the Governor is. Very easy to explain things to.”

“But, Alban, if everybody around here is so tolerant, why did they send Eileen away to Cherry Hill?”

Alban looked thoughtful, but he made no attempt to answer her question. He’s trying to decide how much he can tell me, Elizabeth thought.

“I have heard one side of it,” she said quickly. “I just wanted your opinion.” That ought to do it. People never mind discussing secrets if they think you already know them.

“Eileen was really sick,” Alban said at last. “I don’t mean eccentric or nonconformist. Really sick. Nobody ever tried harder than Eileen to conform. She wanted to be just like everybody else, when none of the rest of us gave a damn for it.

“She worked at things that you do without even thinking-like wearing the right clothes, making the proper small talk, laughing at the current jokes. But she never managed to pull it off. Her clothes are always just a little bit wrong, and her hair is either too long or too short. But she’s not an eccentric like the rest of us. Just a failure at conformity.”

“Couldn’t Aunt Amanda have set her straight on clothes?”

“Oh, I think she tried for a while, but it didn’t seem to work. Making a social success of Eileen would have taken more time than Aunt Amanda was willing to devote.”

Elizabeth traced the pattern on the Oriental rug with her foot. “I didn’t realize you were so close to Eileen,” she murmured uneasily.

“We’re not at all close emotionally,” Alban replied. “But I am not unobservant. An unhappiness of that magnitude would be hard to miss.”

“Isn’t she happy about getting married?”

“I hope so,” sighed Alban. “She’s certainly trying hard enough to be.”

“I know what you mean. The groom is not exactly an unmixed blessing, is he? But you still haven’t told me what her symptoms were. I mean, they would hardly have sent her away for being unfashionable and gauche.”

“Okay. If you must have details… About six years ago, Eileen began to get very depressed. Wouldn’t talk; wouldn’t eat. Finally she started to ‘see things,’ and Uncle Robert took her to Nancy Kimble. I think there were a few violent episodes when I was in Europe. Anyway, I know that she was put in Cherry Hill shortly after that, and since then she has improved greatly, enough to get her high school diploma and to get accepted at the university. And now she’s back-with a fiance.”

“You said ‘episodes of violence.’ Is Eileen-dangerous?”

“I think she could be extremely dangerous,” said Alban softly.

He wouldn’t say anthing else about Eileen after that, but insisted that they go on with the tour. The rooms became a blur of silver and velvet and polished wood. Elizabeth’s thoughts were elsewhere.

“-and this is the last one,” Alban was saying, as he opened double doors at the end of a hallway. “My study. I wanted you to see these murals.”

The paintings, turbulent with colors, filled three walls of the small study, which otherwise contained a claw- footed oak desk and a casement window curtained in damask.