Read Online My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Kinsale
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stepdaughter at the foot of the stairs. Melinda stopped with her hand on the carved head of the creature that coiled its way down the banister. She was staring at the ruckus in the staircase hall, where the butler and a strapping footman were bodily ejecting what appeared to be a bundle of rags with arms and legs.
For just an instant, the intruder’s face was visible, unshaven and wild, a long strand of white hair hanging between his eyes. He glared toward the stairs and screamed, a garbled pleading that sent chill fingernails down Folie’s spine. He screeched again, and this time she heard a name in the sound; she heard “Robert!’’ in his drawn-out howl, or she thought she did. The men were shoving his face against the door frame; he clawed for a hold and lost it as they pushed him out. The butler hauled on the big door. It boomed shut again, closing out the sounds of the commotion, leaving only dying reverberations in the hall.
“It was him!” Melinda whispered. “Mama—that man in the woods!”
“A poacher, perhaps,” Folie said bravely. “The men will deal with it. Let us go up to our rooms. It’s almost time to change for dinner.”
“A poacher?” Melinda’s fingers were white as she pinched one hand inside the other. “Breaking into the house?”
Folie mounted the stairs, taking her arm. “Come, what will you wear tonight? The apple green?” Clothing could always be depended upon to divert Melinda’s attention.
It worked. Melinda gave the door a dubious glance and turned with a shaky sigh. “What difference can it make what I wear?” she asked fretfully. “There is no one to see me.”
“Thank you so much! I am someone!”
“Well, but you are my mother.”
Folie gathered her skirt as she paused at the landing. “Humpf!” she said, and bounced ahead with a great show of indignation, hiding a little burst of pleasure at being so unequivocally installed in that category.
FOUR
Robert paced his room with a ferocious drive, pressing his fists to the walls when he met them as if he could shove through them and escape. The sound of the beggar’s howl would not leave his brain.
“You’re dead,” he muttered. “Damn you. God damn you, don’t come back!”
Phillippa’s harrying was horrible enough—he could not endure more. If his father had returned from hell to pursue him, Robert thought he must kill himself. But there was no release there either. Perhaps being alive was all that kept the precarious barrier between, kept them from consuming him now, dragging him down into their black, strangling inferno.
And there was Folie to hold him here—his Folly—he heard her voice, too. Soft and bright and unafraid; he wanted her so much that he froze, body and soul, when he saw her. All he heard coming from his mouth were biting replies to her common courtesy. He knew she was puzzled. She must think him utterly demented.
He laughed at the ceiling. Of course he was demented— dead people haunted him, confusion followed him, he could not go out into the open day. But he did not want her to know. He had reclaimed his reason once; his mind had slowly cleared on the passage from India, mired in tropical doldrums, a leisurely drift around Africa that had taken ten months. It was there that he had begun to remember. To realize that Phillippa was dead. She was truly dead; only a demon that haunted him and not a living nightmare at his side. And as he grasped that, he began to recall other things, to recollect his roving in the bazaars and his haphazard inquiries, his notes and diaries. Small things—ashore in Zanzibar, some flutter of silk, some particular way the lamplight fell on a stranger’s turban would bring to him the memory of a Delhi shoe-stall, drinking chai in the back. He thought that was the night he had gone mad.
The more lucid his mind became on the ship, the more he could recall of his derangement: There had been visits from guuruus, some that Robert
For just an instant, the intruder’s face was visible, unshaven and wild, a long strand of white hair hanging between his eyes. He glared toward the stairs and screamed, a garbled pleading that sent chill fingernails down Folie’s spine. He screeched again, and this time she heard a name in the sound; she heard “Robert!’’ in his drawn-out howl, or she thought she did. The men were shoving his face against the door frame; he clawed for a hold and lost it as they pushed him out. The butler hauled on the big door. It boomed shut again, closing out the sounds of the commotion, leaving only dying reverberations in the hall.
“It was him!” Melinda whispered. “Mama—that man in the woods!”
“A poacher, perhaps,” Folie said bravely. “The men will deal with it. Let us go up to our rooms. It’s almost time to change for dinner.”
“A poacher?” Melinda’s fingers were white as she pinched one hand inside the other. “Breaking into the house?”
Folie mounted the stairs, taking her arm. “Come, what will you wear tonight? The apple green?” Clothing could always be depended upon to divert Melinda’s attention.
It worked. Melinda gave the door a dubious glance and turned with a shaky sigh. “What difference can it make what I wear?” she asked fretfully. “There is no one to see me.”
“Thank you so much! I am someone!”
“Well, but you are my mother.”
Folie gathered her skirt as she paused at the landing. “Humpf!” she said, and bounced ahead with a great show of indignation, hiding a little burst of pleasure at being so unequivocally installed in that category.
FOUR
Robert paced his room with a ferocious drive, pressing his fists to the walls when he met them as if he could shove through them and escape. The sound of the beggar’s howl would not leave his brain.
“You’re dead,” he muttered. “Damn you. God damn you, don’t come back!”
Phillippa’s harrying was horrible enough—he could not endure more. If his father had returned from hell to pursue him, Robert thought he must kill himself. But there was no release there either. Perhaps being alive was all that kept the precarious barrier between, kept them from consuming him now, dragging him down into their black, strangling inferno.
And there was Folie to hold him here—his Folly—he heard her voice, too. Soft and bright and unafraid; he wanted her so much that he froze, body and soul, when he saw her. All he heard coming from his mouth were biting replies to her common courtesy. He knew she was puzzled. She must think him utterly demented.
He laughed at the ceiling. Of course he was demented— dead people haunted him, confusion followed him, he could not go out into the open day. But he did not want her to know. He had reclaimed his reason once; his mind had slowly cleared on the passage from India, mired in tropical doldrums, a leisurely drift around Africa that had taken ten months. It was there that he had begun to remember. To realize that Phillippa was dead. She was truly dead; only a demon that haunted him and not a living nightmare at his side. And as he grasped that, he began to recall other things, to recollect his roving in the bazaars and his haphazard inquiries, his notes and diaries. Small things—ashore in Zanzibar, some flutter of silk, some particular way the lamplight fell on a stranger’s turban would bring to him the memory of a Delhi shoe-stall, drinking chai in the back. He thought that was the night he had gone mad.
The more lucid his mind became on the ship, the more he could recall of his derangement: There had been visits from guuruus, some that Robert
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