Read Online Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Stephen Graham Jones, Robert Marasco - Free Book Online Page B

by looking thoughtfully over their heads, at the far corners of the room. He tried to ask himself why – what was behind the vague uneasiness he was feeling? Not the nine hundred necessarily; and if their enthusiasm was a little disconcerting, well, they were eccentric to begin with. Was it the splendor of the house that he found intimidating, the fact that something so clearly beyond their reach seemed to be theirs merely for the asking? It was all happening too fast, and something, he couldn’t help feeling, was being left unspoken.
    “Mr. Rolfe doesn’t seem to be sold,” Brother said to Marian.
    “But he can be,” Marian said, and the threat, Ben was sure, was either playful or imaginary. “Can’t he, Mr. Rolfe?”
    “I’m waiting for the catch,” Ben said, smiling.
    Miss Allardyce looked puzzled. “Catch?”
    “You mean there’s nothing more?” Ben asked. “Nine hundred and it’s ours?”
    She nodded. “Half now, half at the end of the summer. Or whatever arrangement you and Brother decide on.”
    “Fine with me,” Brother said. “Agreed?”
    There had been a look between them, very quick, which Ben caught. “There is a catch, isn’t there?” he said, lightening it with a grin and a wave of his finger. Brother was fidgeting and Miss Allardyce colored slightly. Ben pursued it, saying, “Uh-hunh, I thought there had to be something.”
    “Well,” Brother said, red-faced, “there is . . . one other thing.”
    Here it comes, Ben thought – the graceful exit; just, please, make it impossible enough to satisfy Marian.
    Miss Allardyce pulled back her shoulders and dropped the sheepish look. “Hardly a catch,” she said.
    “Hardly,” Brother repeated. He sat absolutely still, his white hands resting on the arms of what might have been a chair of state or an episcopal throne. The rattle was no longer in his voice when he announced it: “It’s our mother.”
    “Your mother?” Ben said, and Marian put out her hand to quiet him.
    “Our mother,” Miss Allardyce repeated, drawing herself up even more.
    “What about her?” Marian asked quietly. From what Miss Allardyce had been saying earlier, Marian assumed their mother was dead.
    Brother smiled and shook his head, lost in admiration. “An eighty-five year old gal,” he said, “who could pass for sixty.”
    “Fifty,” Miss Allardyce corrected him.
    “God bless her, yes! She’ll outlive all of us.”
    “A woman solid as – ” She searched for something to express it.
    “ – this rock of a house!” Brother said, rapping an end-table which wobbled slightly.
    “Our darling!” Her voice filled the room.
    Miss Allardyce fell into position behind Brother’s chair and rested her hands on his shoulders, her face directly above his.
    “What Roz and me mean to say,” Brother explained, watching their reactions very closely, “is our mother – well, she never leaves the house. Never leaves her room, even, isn’t that so, Roz?”
    Roz nodded. “This house is just about all the world she knows. It’s her life.”
    “And vice versa,” Brother said. “The whole thing would just come down without her.”
    “And so would we, Brother,” Roz said, “so would we.” She patted his shoulders, comforting.
    That settled it, of course, as far as Ben was concerned; surely even for Marian. There was no surprise though that he could see, no reaction at all; only rapt attention.
    “Believe me,” Miss Allardyce continued, to Ben especially, “you’ll never even know she’s around.”
    “Never even see her probably,” Brother added. “That’s how quiet she is, that’s how much she keeps to herself.” He looked toward the ceiling and shook his head again, with wonder and affection. “Our mother . . .”
    “Our darling,” Miss Allardyce said.
    Marian was following their gaze up to the coved ceiling, trying to visualize the room somewhere beyond the plaster rosettes and the fan traceries that were speckled with gilt. And as she