The Love Talker, page 2
So Laurie was not surprised that her aunt 14 / Elizabeth Peters
should be pursuing fairies. She had tried everything else, and “the little people” were in fashion. The bookstores had several new books on the subject—not, as one might expect, in the juvenile section. Gnomes and fairies and the fantastic worlds of Tolkien and Richard Adams were quite respectable hobbies for intelligent adults.
No, the alarming thing was not the subject itself, or Lizzie’s interest in it. It was Ida’s reaction. She had never been other than scornfully contemptuous of Lizzie’s fantasies; neither had she ever been particularly worried by them. She was worried now. Her concern was implicit in every guarded word, in the very handwriting of her letter. The fact that it had been sent special delivery was a cry of alarm in itself. The Mortons didn’t have to worry about money, but they did not waste pennies. They were still Scots at heart.
Laurie switched on a lamp. It was only four o’clock, but the sky outside was night-dark with winter. Two more hours until the telephone rates changed. She had her own share of Scottish blood, but in her case frugality was necessary; she was supporting herself, and a graduate student’s stipend left no cash for extras.
Anyway, Aunt Ida would have a fit if she wasted the money.
As she sat staring at the telephone, it began to The Love Talker / 15
ring. The strident shrilling sounded abnormally loud in the silent room. Laurie reached for the phone, and then hesitated. Once before, after a quarrel, Bob had called her and made extravagant promises, which she had been stupid enough to believe. She didn’t want to go through that again. The phone insisted. Reluctantly, Laurie picked it up.
Her heart jumped at the sound of a masculine voice, but even before she had said, “Yes,” in reply to the questioning, “Laurie?” she knew it wasn’t Bob.
“You sound funny,” the voice said. “Didn’t you ever have those adenoids taken out? Or is it just your cornfed Midwest accent?”
Laurie removed the telephone from her ear and stared at the mouthpiece. Then she replaced it.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“Break, my heart,” the unfamiliar voice moaned. “She has forgotten. And I had hoped I had left an indelible impression. Dear sibling, don’t you know your one and only brother?”
“Doug?”
“Have you other brothers? I didn’t think so, but with Mother you can never be entirely—”
“Really, Doug!”
“Prissy as ever. How long has it been, sister mine?
Five years?”
“Longer than that,” Laurie said.
16 / Elizabeth Peters
She remembered only too well. The summer she was sixteen, when she and Ida had celebrated their July birthdays with high revelry.
Doug had been seventeen, going on ten; preparing for college in the fall, and insufferably superior as only a boy that age can be. He wasn’t her brother, he was her half-brother, a souvenir of Anna’s first marriage.
After Laurie was born her mother had decided that the joys of motherhood were overrated; she had not had other children. Which was a good thing, Laurie thought, if Doug was a specimen of what Anna produced. His father had received custody of him after the divorce, and he was supposed to spend his summers with Anna; which meant, as in Laurie’s case, that he spent them at Idlewood with the Mortons. For six or seven summers she had seen a good deal of him, and had hated every moment of the time they spent together. After he started college he managed to visit Idlewood for a week or so every year, but somehow these visits had never coincided with Laurie’s increasingly infrequent trips east. Normal sibling rivalry had been intensified by other factors, quite obvious to her now.
She had no memories of Doug except unpleasant ones.
Doug stuffing himself with cookies so there would be none left for her (and he never even got sick, which added insult to injury); Doug The Love Talker / 17
beating her at Scrabble, Parcheesi, and Monopoly every time they played, and jeering at her for being stupid; Doug teaching her to play football, and tackling her every time she got her hands on the ball. It was many years later before she discovered that kicker and passer were supposed to be exempt from late hits.
“How did you get my number?” she demanded.
“Ida.”
“Why did you….? Oh.” Her mind, usually so quick at putting the pieces together, was slow today. “You got a letter from her too?”
“Right. She sounded so worried I thought I’d better call her.”
“I was about to telephone her myself,” Laurie admitted. “Though I can’t figure out why she’s so upset.”
“She’s upset, all right.” Doug’s voice deepened portentously. “My letter was sent special delivery.”
Laurie couldn’t help laughing.
“Mine, too. So being richer or not as cheap as I am, you called her. What did she say?”
“Not much. You know how she is about long-distance calls. I had a hard time convincing her I wasn’t on the verge of death, and when she found out I was okay I had an even harder time keeping her from hanging up on me. I couldn’t 18 / Elizabeth Peters
get much out of her. But I’ve decided to take her up on her invitation. I don’t like the sound of things, and I want to see for myself.”
“You really think the situation is that serious?”
“Yes, I do. All the more so since you tell me she sent you the same distress signals. I won’t go into laborious detail about why I think so; you know the old girl as well as I do. You and I are the only ones who care about them. The only ones Ida would call on for help.”
“I know.”
“So,” Doug went on rapidly, “I figured I had better call you. There’s no point in both of us going if you’re tied up with work. I mean, if it’s hard for you to get away…No point in both—”
“Tom Sawyer,” Laurie interrupted.
“Huh?”
“The old ‘don’t help me whitewash the fence’ technique,” Laurie muttered. “Never mind. I don’t suppose you are aware of your own foul subconscious motives.
How is it you can take time off to go chasing little green elves? I thought you were working for a firm of architects in Atlanta.”
“No, no, nothing so plebeian. I’m my own boss. Left Banks, Biddle, and Burton to start my own show.”
Laurie grinned fiendishly.
“Aha. You’ve got no clients.”
The ensuing silence vibrated with unex The Love Talker / 19
pressed emotions. Then Laurie heard a muffled sound that might have been, and in fact was, a laugh.
“Got it in one,” Doug said. “I’m starving. If I don’t accomplish anything else, at least I can fatten up on Lizzie’s cooking. You coming or not?”
Laurie glanced at the window. It was frosted over, but the hiss of sleety snow was clearly audible.
“I’m coming.”
“I could pick you up at the Baltimore airport…when?”
“I’ll call you back after I’ve made a reservation.”
“Good. If I’m not in,” Doug said grandly, “just leave a message with my secretary.”
He hung up before she could ask the obvious question: if he was broke, how could he afford a secretary?
The following afternoon, when Laurie’s plane took off from O’Hare, it was snowing again. She was glad she hadn’t waited any longer; a little more of this, and by nighttime the airport might be closed. She settled back in her seat, beamed at the stewardess, and ordered a drink. The pilot announced that it was raining in Baltimore, and that the temperature was forty-three. Rain!
Forty-three! Practically tropical, by Chicago 20 / Elizabeth Peters
standards. A further source of satisfaction was the fact that her phone had been ringing as she locked the door of her apartment, and some psychic sense told her that the caller was Bob. She hoped it had been, and that he would continue to call an empty apartment and wonder where she was.
However, as the plane descended for its landing at Baltimore, Laurie was conscious of a mounting discomfort. She knew its source. She hadn’t seen Doug for years, and she had detested him. Modern psychology had relieved her of any old-fashioned need to love her brother; all the same, she was nervous about seeing him again. She wondered if she would recognize him.
Nor did she. Her eyes passed over the tall, sandy-haired man in the leather jacket, though her basic instincts registered his appearance with approval. He knew her, though. Before she had time to look further, she was enveloped in a leathery embrace, her nose mashed against a shirt front smelling of tobacco, after-shave, and…Chanel Number Five? As he held her at arms’ length, caroling joyful greetings, she saw the smudge of lipstick on his collar and understood the perfume. She also understood how Doug could afford a secretary.
“Dearest sister,” Doug murmured, and pulled her toward him again. This time, prepared, she The Love Talker / 21
fended him off with a hard hand against his chest.
“You’ll never see any of these people again,” she said coldly, indicating the passing throngs. “Why put on a show for them?”
“Why not? Gives them a warm, happy feeling about the nuclear family which, as we all know, is in serious trouble. I’d know you anywhere, dear. Same plump face, same buckteeth…. Too bad nobody in our family believed in orthodontists.”
“I have been told,” said Laurie, “that the teeth give me a piquant air. I’m so glad your acne didn’t leave bad scars. I mean, in a dim light I can hardly see them.”
“Good, good,” Doug said approvingly. “Hit back.
You’ve toughened up, haven’t you? You used to cry.”
“With rage.” Laurie found her arm tucked chummily in his as they walked toward the baggage area. He was tall; the top of her head only reached his chin. Yet somehow their strides seemed to match quite well.
They left the terminal with Laurie’s bags, and Doug gestured.
“That’s my car.”
It was a low-slung sports car, bright red, adorned with extra strips of chrome and waving antennas.
Standing by it, his hands on his hips, was a uniformed policeman.
22 / Elizabeth Peters
“Yours?” he demanded unnecessarily, as Doug whipped the door open and slung Laurie’s suitcases in the back.
“Shore is, suh,” Doug replied, with a candid smile.
“Part of it, leastways; the bank still owns ever’thing ‘cept the fenders.”
Bemused by his sudden lapse into a corny Southern accent, Laurie let him shove her into the car.
“Mah li’l sister,” he informed the policeman. “Purty as a daisy, ain’t she?”
He closed the car door. Laurie promptly rolled down the window. She didn’t want to miss a syllable.
“Don’t you know you aren’t suppsed to park here?”
the policeman demanded, indicating a very large, very conspicuous sign that read, “No parking. Driver must not leave vehicle.”
Doug’s face drooped like that of a disconsolate hound.
“Oh, gee whillikers. Ah shore didn’t see that there.
Been so long since Ah seen sis, Ah jest run in there….
You go ‘head and give me a ticket, officer. Ah don’t want no special privileges, no, suh.”
The officer looked from Doug’s sad brown eyes to the Georgia license plate.
“Okay,” he said gruffly. “Come on, son, get it out of here.”
“Yes, suh! Ah shore thank you, suh!”
The Love Talker / 23
The car slid sedately along the ramp toward the exit.
“Of all the con artists,” Laurie exclaimed. “You should have been a lawyer instead of an architect.”
“Believe me, dear, an architect has to do a certain amount of conning. Good thing I was the star of my college dramatic society.”
“Must have been a small college. Even Mother isn’t as bad as that.”
Doug chuckled complacently.
“Yes, she is. Anna got where she is—wherever that may be—by means of other talents than dramatic ability. Never mind her. Tell me about yourself. What are you doing these days?”
Laurie had learned to be defensive about her spe-cialty, which was domestic life in the Middle Ages.
People usually reacted with ill-concealed mirth, or with outrage: “You mean my taxes are paying for somebody to study where they put the privies in medieval castles?”
However, Doug accepted her belligerent, one-sentence statement soberly, and asked several almost-intelligent questions. Only one of the questions was critical, and she had to admit it was a reasonable criticism.
“Why Chicago? I don’t know much about your field, but I didn’t think they had one of the great departments in that subject.”
“Oh, I have all the material,” Laurie explained 24 / Elizabeth Peters
rapidly. “And I can always get copies of anything I might have missed. What I needed was a computer, and a central library.”
“Oh. But why—”
“Tell me about yourself,” Laurie suggested.
As she had expected, that subject occupied them for the rest of the drive. The day was overcast, the highway shining with wet; they had passed Frederick before she caught her first glimpse of the mountains, lining the horizon ahead like heavy clouds, mist enshrouding their gently curving flanks. They were soft, low mountains, time-worn and tired, unlike the jagged peaks of the Far West. The spots on the windshield changed from water to small white dots—not the big, threatening snowflakes that had engulfed Chicago, but delicate, secretive. Doug broke a brief silence to say, with obvious satisfaction, “They’re predicting a couple of inches of snow tonight.” Laurie knew he was thinking of the old house surrounded by sweeping, spun-sugar lawns, the dark pines frosted with white.
Night had fallen by the time they turned off the highway onto the twisting, roller-coaster road that led through the tiny hamlet of Thurbridge to Idlewood.
The road was slippery with snow. When they turned into the driveway between the tall stone pillars, Laurie saw the lights
The Love Talker / 25
of the house shining through the pine branches like scattered yellow fireflies.
“Stop,” she said.
“What for?” But he did as she asked. When he switched off the engine the silence was almost deafen-ing—not just the absence of sound, but a quality complete in itself, echoing in ears which had become accustomed to the continual background rumble of a large city. The headlights stabbed into the darkness ahead, but on either side blue-black night pressed against the windows.
It was at this point on the driveway that she had seen the deer, so long ago. Laurie had the feeling that the animals were there now, loitering just beyond the light, in the security of darkness: a ring of unwinking, watching eyes. The thought was not entirely comfortable. She shivered; and Doug, with an uncanny effect of reading her thoughts, said, “Spooky place at night, isn’t it? No wonder the old lady is seeing ghosts and goblins.”
“Fairies and elves,” Laurie corrected. “That’s what I wanted to—”
“Same thing. Spooky.”
“Come on, now. You can’t call elves—”
“Elves are second cousins to ghouls and goblins,”
Doug insisted. “You and Lizzie used to read those yarns…. I remember one night by 26 / Elizabeth Peters
the fire; it was a rainy, dreary night, and she was telling ghost stories. There was one about a severed hand that crawled around on its fingers, like a spider. Scared me into fits.”
“Did it really?” Laurie said, pleased.
“There was another one,” Doug went on. “A poem.
Funny thing…”
“What was funny about it?”
“Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. It was about two girls named Laura and Lizzie. Odd coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“No, I wouldn’t. What poem?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it. ‘We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruit….’”
“‘Who knows upon what soil they fed, Their hungry, thirsty roots.’ Of course I remember it, but I’m surprised you do. It’s called ‘Goblin Market.’ I had forgotten the names of the little girls, that’s all.”
“Hard to explain why some things stick in your mind,” Doug said. “Compared to the other horrors Lizzie fed us, that was relatively innocuous. But it gave me the cold shivers.”
“I don’t see why. The theme is common in folklore; ordinary mortals aren’t supposed to eat fairy food, it destroys them. But that poem had a happy ending, as I remember. Good little Lizzie saved careless little Laura from the ill effects of The Love Talker / 27
the fruit she bought from the goblins. Or was it vice versa?”
“All the same, it gave me the cauld grue,” Doug insisted. “Damned unwholesome things, fairy tales. Let’s get out of here. I’m starting to see things skulking in the shadows.”
“Wait,” Laurie said, as he turned the key in the igni-tion. “I wanted to talk to you about Lizzie.”
“What’s to talk about? The reason we came was because we didn’t know enough about the situation to discuss it.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m starved,” Doug said, and put his foot on the gas.
“Chicken,” Laurie said. Doug pretended not to hear.
They came out of the trees to see the house ahead, looming high on its small hill. Every window was ablaze with welcome; the carriage lamps on either side of the front door showed the exquisite tracery of the fanlight, which was one of the house’s unique features.
They also showed a tall figure in boots and plaid jacket, wielding a broom. Uncle Ned, seventy-eight years old, was making sure they wouldn’t slip and hurt themselves on the steps.
Chapter 2
Doug applied himself to Aunt Lizzie’s cooking as if determined to prove that his claim of imminent starvation was not exaggerated. Lizzie had told him he was too thin, but then she always said that; she had told Laurie the same thing, and Laurie was sadly aware that the sedentary, snowed-in winter months had not improved her figure. Oh, well, she told herself, I can’t start diet-ing now; it would hurt Aunt Lizzie’s feelings. Besides, Lizzie’s chocolate cake, frosted lavishly with whipped cream and decorated with black walnuts and cherries, was too good to resist.
