“Oh, sure. Sure.”
“You’re probably nervous, too, around all these strangers. Will your family be coming down for the wedding?”
“No.” Satisky never wanted to say anything more than no to questions about his family, but in the silence that always followed, he found himself explaining that his parents had divorced when he was eight and that he had been raised by his grandmother, who had died two years ago. He had lost touch with his father, and his mother, who had remarried and was living on the West Coast, would not be coming to the wedding. He rattled off this explanation to Elizabeth, hoping that she wouldn’t become cloyingly sympathetic and ask him about his childhood. He didn’t like to talk about it, but he had survived it, and things were going well for him now. The only effect that he could determine was a distance between himself and other people, which had come from his years of solitary childhood. He had spent much of his time reading, and that was good; his literary background had served him well as a student of English, but it had made him unsure of how real people wanted to be treated. He never knew what to say to people whose next line he could not anticipate. He was uneasy with anyone who was not confined to the pages of a book, preferably a nineteenth-century edition. Perhaps that was why he had been able to love Eileen; she was not quite real.
Elizabeth was looking at him with interest, but not, he had to admit, with any particular sympathy. “How did you meet Eileen?” she asked.
He told her about the Milton seminar, and Eileen looking as vague and lost as-as Lycidas. She had been so shy and frightened that he had forgotten his own uneasiness around people. Eileen made him confident by comparison, so much so that he no longer worried about mispronouncing a name when he talked of literary matters. Like all people who read more than they conversed, Satisky had had his own way of pronouncing things before he had met anyone to discuss them with. This had led to embarrassing moments as an undergrad when he had spoken of “Frood” or “Go-Eth,” much to the amusement of his classmates. He did not explain all this to Elizabeth, of course. He had not even confided his insecurities to Eileen. How could Eileen depend on him if she knew how uncertain he was?
Satisky began to hit the arm of the chair gently with his fist. “Maybe I rushed her,” he said. “Maybe she isn’t ready-isn’t sure. Maybe she told Dr. Shepherd how she really feels about this marriage, and she’s afraid he’ll say something.”
He told Elizabeth about the sweet clinging girl he had fallen for, and his fantasy of rescuing her from dragons. Then she had turned out to be a very wealthy and complicated article. More than he’d bargained for.
“And even though I
“Have you tried to explain this to Eileen?”
Satisky looked shocked. “Of course not! She would be terribly hurt that I could even think of money instead of just of her. You know her-uh-background. What if she killed herself because of me? Do you expect me to live with that?”
One of the problems of listening to other people’s troubles is the difficulty in finding soothing noises to make. Elizabeth considered saying that everything would be all right, but the chance of that seemed remote. If Satisky really was so unsure of his feelings, he probably shouldn’t go through with the marriage, but she shared his apprehension. Eileen’s nerves were not yet strong enough to see her through a shock of that magnitude. Elizabeth had no intention of offering any advice on the subject, because she wanted no part of the guilt that Satisky seemed to be stuck with either way. She wished he hadn’t chosen to confide in her. One thing was certain: she had better get him off that subject before whoever-it-was-that-just-walked-by-the-door decided to stop and listen. God help her if anyone thought she was encouraging Satisky to have doubts! She would be accused of trying to steal her cousin’s fiance, or trying to improve her chances for the inheritance, or both. She could imagine Aunt Amanda’s reaction to the situation.
“We shouldn’t be talking about this!” she whispered to Satisky. “Don’t even think about it anymore! Just- don’t!”
CHAPTER NINE
AMANDA CHANDLER SURVEYED the breakfast table with the air of a general conducting an inspection. In honor of the houseguests and the forthcoming wedding, this breakfast would be a family occasion, like those on weekends, when she would set aside time for getting together to discuss the plans for the day-usually
“And where is Eileen?” Amanda asked crisply, her eyes on Michael.
He looked away, murmuring something unintelligible.
“Elizabeth, would you please go upstairs and knock on her door? Tell her that we are waiting.”
Elizabeth hurried from the dining room, hoping that Eileen had just overslept. If she had decided to prolong her hysterics for another day, everyone’s nerves would start to go. She reached the upstairs hall. Eileen’s door was closed. Elizabeth tapped gently. “Eileen! Are you awake? It’s breakfast time!”
There was no sound from within.
Elizabeth tried the door. The handle turned easily, and she peeped inside. The bed was neatly made, and its occupant was not in the room. Elizabeth went back to the dining room and reported this to Amanda, who received the news in tight-lipped silence.
“I expect she’s out painting,” said Captain Grandfather. “When I got up at the sensible hour of seven”-he paused to glare at Geoffrey’s rumpled dressing gown-“I found a box of cereal and a used bowl on the table here. I expect she got an early start today.”
“She needs time to work on it,” mumbled Geoffrey sleepily. “Why not just leave her alone?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” snapped Amanda. “This is one of my little girl’s last family breakfasts as a-as a-”
“Chandler,” suggested her husband softly.
“Thank you, Robert. As a Chandler.” She turned to Dr. Shepherd with a careful smile. “Dr. Shepherd, you must think we have shocking manners! But I’m sure you know what a special time like this can do to the nerves of a sensitive girl like Eileen. But I do apologize for her.”
Shepherd murmured that he quite understood and went on eating his eggs.
“Charles,” Amanda continued, “go and fetch your sister, please. Or, perhaps Michael would like to have a few moments-”
Charles stood up quickly. “Now, Mother, you know she especially doesn’t want him to see the painting before it’s finished. I’ll go get her. Save me some toast.”
“Have you talked to her since last night?” Elizabeth whispered to Michael.
He shook his head. “I thought I’d just leave her alone,” he muttered.
Amanda interrupted them at this point to deliver a monologue on wedding rehearsal plans, and Carlsen Shepherd began to talk quietly to Captain Grandfather, moving the silverware around in positions suspiciously resembling the armada of the previous evening’s game.
“Who won?” asked Dr. Chandler, indicating his coffee spoon, which had just been turned into a Turkish fleet.
“Well, I did,” said Shepherd, “but it was probably luck.”
Elizabeth wondered if Eileen had intentionally skipped the family gathering. She found herself staring at the dying stag in the painting, and wondering whose eyes they reminded her of.
“Dad! Captain Grandfather!” Charles appeared in the doorway, panting for breath. “Could you come down to the lake, please?”
The last thing Wesley Rountree wanted in his county was a murder. County sheriffs do not keep their elected positions by brilliantly solving cases the way cops do on TV. They keep them by staying on good terms with the
