The Hellfire Club

by this image, Nora took the last spoonful of soup, crunched the final inch of toast, and stood up to rinse the dishes.

The telephone went off. Nora abandoned the dishes and hastened to pick it up before it awakened Davey. She said 'Hello?' What followed froze her stomach before it reached her mind. A man ice cold with rage said something about an unimaginable breach of trust, something about an unspeakable intrusion, something else about devastation. At last she recognized the ranting voice as Alden Chancel's.

'And what I will never understand,' he was saying now, 'besides the unbelievable pretension of imagining that you could offer advice about writing, is your persistence in following a course you knew to be dangerous. Didn't it ever occur to you that your recklessness might have consequences?'

'Alden, stop yelling at me,' Nora said.

'You refuse to listen to people who know better than you, you pick up an axe and start swinging. You burrow in like a termite and eat away at other people's lives. You are an outrage.'

'Alden, I know you're upset, but-'

'I am not upset! I am furious! The person who is going to be upset is you!'

'Alden, Daisy wanted me to read her manuscript. She insisted on bringing it here, she wouldn't have let me say no.'

'She has been laboring over this god-awful thing for decades, but until you came sidling up to her, did it ever occur to her to show it to anyone else? Daisy doesn't solicit comments on unfinished work. You weaseled into her like you weaseled into this family, and you planted a virus inside her. You might as well have killed her outright.'

'Alden, I was trying to help her.'

'Help? You picked up a knife and stuck it in her heart.'

'Alden!' Nora shouted. 'None of that is true. When Daisy called me to see how I was getting on with her book, I said it was a wonderful book. She kept twisting everything I said into an insult.'

'This surprised you? You must be feebleminded. Daisy knows her book is a chaotic mess. It can't be anything else.'

'I don't know if it's a chaotic mess or not, and neither do you, Alden.'

'You're a destructive jackass, and you should be horsewhipped.'

'Alden!' she shouted again. 'Unless you calm down and try to understand what really happened, you're going to -'

Hair flattened on one side, clothes crisscrossed with wrinkles, Davey came into the kitchen and stared at her openmouthed.

'That's Dad? You re talking to my father?'

Nora held the telephone away from her ear. 'I have to explain this to you,' she said to Davey. 'Your mother misunderstood something, and now your father's going crazy.'

'Misunderstood what?'

Alden's voice bellowed from the receiver.

'You have to stick with me on this,' Nora said. 'They're both flipping out.'

Alden tinnily bawled Nora's name.

She put the receiver to her ear again. 'Alden, I'm going to say one thing, and then I'm going to hang up.'

'Let me talk to him,' Davey said.

'No!' Nora told him. 'Alden, I want you to calm down and think about what I said to you. I would never deliberately hurt Daisy. Let things quiet down, please. I'm not going to talk to you until you're willing to listen to my side of the story.'

'Nora, I want to talk to him.'

'I hear my son's voice,' Alden said. 'Put him on.'

Davey put his hand on the receiver, and Nora reluctantly surrendered it.

'He called me a termite. He called me a jackass.'

Davey waved for silence. 'What?' He clutched his hair and fell against the counter. His fingers burrowed further into his hair, and he gave Nora an agonized look of disbelief. 'I know that, how couldn't I know that?' He closed his eyes. Though he had clamped the receiver to his ear, Nora could still hear the clamor of Alden's voice. 'Well, she says she wanted to help Mom… I know, I know… Well, sure, but… Yeah. Okay, fifteen minutes.' He hung up the receiver. 'Oh, God.'

He looked around the kitchen as if to reassure himself that the cabinets, refrigerator, and sink were all still in place. 'We're going over there. I have to wash my face and brush my teeth. I can't show up like I am now.'

'Call him back and tell him we'll come tomorrow night. We can't go over there now.'

'If we don't show up in fifteen minutes, he'll come over here.'

'That'd be better,' Nora said.

'If you want to piss him off even more.' Davey came across the kitchen and glowered at her. 'Where is that blasted manuscript, anyhow?'

'Under the bed.'

'Oh, God.' Davey hurried into the hallway.39

By the time they reached the Post Road, Nora had described the conversations she had had with Daisy before and during her reading of the book, and by the time the barred iron fence in front of the Poplars came into view, she had finished telling him about the telephone call which had led to the present difficulty. What she had not described was the book itself. She also left out one other detail. Emitting noxious fumes, the suitcase sat in the trunk.

'She forced it on you,' Davey said.

'If I hadn't agreed, she would have started screaming at me then.'

'It doesn't sound like she gave you any way to say no.'

'She didn't.'

Davey turned into his parents' drive. Looking at the gray stone facade of the house, Nora experienced even more tension than the sight of the Poplars usually aroused in her.

'We ought to be able to make Dad understand that,' Davey said.

'You're going to have to do most of the talking.'

When they got out of the car, Davey looked up at the house and rubbed his hands on his trousers. For a couple of seconds, neither of them moved.

'Was the book any good, anyhow?'

'I have no idea,' Nora said. 'It's mostly a furious attack on Alden. His name in the book is Adelbert Poison.'

Davey closed his eyes. 'What's her name in the book?'

'Clementine.'

'Clementine Poison? Am I in there, too?'

'Afraid so.'

'What's my name?'

'Egbert. You almost never get out of bed.'

'I want to get this over with and go home.' He went to the back of the car and, grunting, lifted out the suitcase. It must be one elephant of a manuscript.'

'You have no idea,' Nora said. 'Davey, I was serious about what I said before. You're going to have to speak up, because if I say anything, Alden is going to yell at me.'

'He'll yell at me. too.' Davey closed the trunk and lugged the case toward the steps. 'No matter what you think you want, Nora, you can't stay out here.'

She and Davey slowly ascended the steps. He pushed the brass-mounted button beside the huge walnut door.

Maria opened the door before Davey's hand left the button. Evidently she had been posted at the entry. 'Mr

Davey, Mrs Nora, Mr Chancel say you go to library.' She gave the suitcase an uneasy glance.