“Elizabeth?”
For an instant, staring at the closed door that led into the lavatory, Elizabeth didn’t breathe. Then someone said her name again, behind her, and Steven Brent’s head appeared in the open doorway. “No editors allowed, I know, but I brought back some books of yours and saw your note. Thought I’d drop by and ask whether we laid you low last night.”
What inspiredly unhappy phrasing, thought Elizabeth, and made the appropriate denials. “Come on in—or don’t, it’s freezing. Come back to the house and have some sherry.”
“Thanks, but I can’t stay.”
Nevertheless, he didn’t go at once. He said he would like to have Elizabeth meet the president of Homham’s, his publishing house, for lunch one day soon; could he go ahead and arrange it? Elizabeth said yes, vaguely. She had an odd notion, probably groundless, that this wasn’t what Steven had come to say at all, that something had changed his mind.
They talked for the space of a cigarette, and because he was the person with whom Elizabeth felt easiest now her mind could free itself and go off on a path of its own. Books to return—why didn’t Lucy come herself? Because she doesn’t want to face you just now, of course, which means exactly what you think it means. . . .
Steven was standing and smiling down at her. His face had lost its preoccupation; he looked tired and a little shy again. “Better go on back yourself before you catch pneumonia. I don’t want Oliver on my neck for—”
“You’ve got him,” said Oliver in the doorway. “Getting the place in shape, Elizabeth?”
His voice was easy and unsurprised; for an instant his eyes were not. Silently, her head high, Elizabeth led the way down the hill.
If the house had been empty before it was suddenly overflowing. Maire and Jeep, over-excited by their first long day in the snow, were exchanging tears of fury; Noreen, her face distressed, was wheedling and putting away snowsuits and setting eggs to boil all at once. Constance, unwrapping groceries in the kitchen, began a measured denunciation of the butcher. Steven, who had walked, was persuaded to have a drink while he called Lucy to drive over for him.
Elizabeth remembered later the tiny oasis of peace when Oliver drew her forcibly into the dining-room and nodded at a silver pitcher on the buffet. “Roses,” he said shortly.
And roses they were, a warm, just-unfurling dozen of them jammed uncompromisingly into the pitcher. On second thought Oliver had apparently given them a rearranging pull; there was one standing on its head on cherrywood. Roses, and an early arrival home—good omen, or bad? Elizabeth didn’t care just then. The sight of Oliver’s face, so like Jeep’s when he had tried to help and ruined everything—half-defiant, half-sad—made her throat go rigid. She said sedately, “Thank you,” and met Oliver’s eyes. “You should see what happened to the last man who brought me roses.”
“I know, terrible things,” said Oliver in a different voice. “Go comb your hair, it’s full of snow.”
She didn’t immediately go. She crossed to the roses and touched a satin petal and listened, and was lulled by what she heard. Oliver coming back to the doorway, his eyebrows up, saying, “Old-fashioned? The mice have been at the gin again.” Constance commenting on the vagaries of the oven. Noreen saying pleadingly, “Oh, Maire, darling, don’t—you’re much too nice a girl to—” And a crash, proving that Maire was not. Bellows from Jeep. Steven’s voice, surmounting Jeep’s with an effort: “That sounds like our car.”
It was all noisy, normal, safe . . . wasn’t it?
This is nonsense, Elizabeth thought lucidly, I’ll look back at it and wonder how I could ever have been such an idiot . . . damn. Her fingers had moved too suddenly among the roses, and a trio of petals went flaring soundlessly down.
And later she did look back, and knew that she would never come closer to a lightning glimpse into someone else’s brain.
Later, too, she clocked herself with lipstick and powderpuff and comb, and knew that not quite seven minutes elapsed between the time she went upstairs and the moment when she reached the lower hall again and that odd awkward hush.
Into it Lucy Brent said, “Oh, what a shame—” and Constance, “It’s a wonder the whole thing didn’t go.” Oliver, sounding like a stranger, said grimly, “I’ll take it,” and Noreen answered distantly, “Oh, no, Mr. March, I have everything right here.”
Elizabeth walked through the living-room without glancing at any of them. She stopped short at the entrance to the dining-room—seeing, for a foolish second not believing, the vivid storm of petals that turned the floor red, the headless rose stems, formal and frightening, still arching serenely in the silver pitcher.
Three
“LOOK,” said Oliver wearily at six o’clock. “It’s too bad, but it’s not like losing a leg. The kids—”
“They wouldn’t do that. Jeep couldn’t reach, to begin with, and Maire wouldn’t.”
“All right—would Lucy or Steven? Or Constance or I? Would you?”
I didn’t, thought Elizabeth desperately. Three petals, that was all; I counted them. If I’m not sure of that, then I’m not sure of anything. I did go right upstairs after that, I did . . . didn’t I?
Oliver left his chair and walked restlessly to a window; his voice came muffledly over his shoulder. “Mysteries We Never Solved, No. 2000. What does it matter anyway?”
“I think,” said Elizabeth stonily, “that it matters a great deal when someone pulls the heads off a dozen roses or a dozen anything. If you think about it, it’s quite an odd thing to do.”
Into the silence after that Constance said vaguely and hopefully, “Accidents . . .” and it was as though she hadn’t spoken at all.
Oliver swung around and gave Elizabeth a long direct look. “All
