Read Online Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel - Free Book Online Page A

receiver, a pale anger tightening her face. Gradually, it drained away, to be replaced by bewilderment. Accustomed as she was to her father’s erratic behavior, this level of impetuosity appeared extreme. “I detect Ms. Redmond’s Machiavellian hand behind the whole business,” she declared over lunch, putting Will and Mrs. Wicklow in the picture. “What I don’t understand, is what she’s after.”
    “Happen she’s looking for a husband,” said Mrs. Wicklow sapiently. Her dourness had long been revealed as purely external and she had evidently ranged herself on the side of the young Capels.
    “Well, naturally,” said Fern. “That was what I assumed from the start. I’ve never had any problems dealing with that kind of thing.”
    “Cunning little lass, isn’t she?” Mrs. Wicklow almost grinned.
    “But,”
Fern persisted, “if it’s Daddy she wants, why send him to America? It’s almost as if—” She stopped, closing her mouth on the unspoken words.
It’s almost as if she were interested in this house.
It was not cold in the kitchen but Fern felt a sudden chill.
    “What’s she like?” Will asked. “I haven’t met her, have I?”
    Fern shook her head. “She’s clever,” she said. “I think. I don’t really know. She has a lean and hungry look, like Cassius in
Julius Caesar
. But . . . there’s something there you can’t catch hold of, something fluid. She can look all bright and glittering and slippery, like water, and yet you always feel there’s a hardness underneath. I can’t explain it very well. See for yourself.”
    “Is she pretty?”
    “Sometimes,” Fern admitted dubiously. “She can exude a kind of shimmering fascination one moment, and the next she’s just a thin ugly woman with a big mouth. It’s not looks: it’s all in her manner.”
    “Those are t’ ones you have to watch out for,” said Mrs. Wicklow.
    “You’ll take care of it,” said Will. “You always do.”
    In the afternoon Fern, annoyed with herself for not having thought of it earlier, rang the solicitors to inquire if they had the rest of Mr. Capel’s keys. Her brainwave, however, failed to bring results; a man with an elderly voice suggested that she search in drawers, cupboards, and so on. “I already have,” said Fern.
    “He’ll have put them in a safe place, then,” said the solicitor comfortably.
    “I’ve been afraid of that,” said Fern.
    She tried vainly to stop herself looking out of the window every few minutes; Ragginbone’s continued absence might be irrelevant, but it provided an extra irritant. At tea, Will startled her by remarking: “That rock’s gone again.”
    “Which rock?” The question was a reflex.
    “The one that looks like a man. It’s been gone for several days now.”
    “You’re imagining things,” said Fern. “Forget it.” She was still reluctant to talk about the Watcher.
    Will studied his sister with limpid detachment. “This woman who’s coming here,” he said, “do you suppose she could be part of it?”
    “How could she?” said Fern, without pretending to misunderstand.
    “I don’t know,” said Will, “but I can see you thinking.”
    Alison Redmond arrived later that day, driving a Range Rover loaded with paintings, samples of carpet and furnishing fabrics, several cardboard boxes taped shut, and three or four items of Gucci luggage. She was wearing her point-edged smile and a passing flicker of sunshine found a few strands of color in her dim hair. She greeted the Capels with a diffidence designed to undermine hostility, apologized to Mrs. Wicklow for any possible inconvenience, and demanded instantly to be taken over the house, praising its atmosphere and period discomforts. She did not say “I do so hope we’re all going to be friends,” nor scatter kisses in their vicinity: her gestures were airy, tenuous, almost filmy, her fingertips would flutter along an arm, her hair brush against a neighboring body, and Fern knew it was paranoia that