Jack Vance - Ecce and Old Earth

Arles licked his lips. “She might have picked it up, in order to take care of it."

"And she read it in front of you!"

“I did not say that. Anyway, I wouldn't remember. I don’t keep a watch on my mother. Is that all you wanted to say?"

“Not quite, but it will do until I find what happened to my letters." Glawen broke the connection. For a moment he stood in the center of the room brooding. Then he changed into his official Bureau B jacket and cap and took himself down the corridor to Spanchetta’s apartments.

A maid responded to the bell and conducted him into the reception parlor an octagonal chamber furnished with a central octagonal settee upholstered in green silk. In four alcoves four cinnabar urns displayed tall bouquets of purple lilies. Spanchetta stepped into the room. Tonight she had elected to dramatize her majestic big-bosomed torso in a gown of lusterless black, unadorned by so much as a silver button. The hem brushed the floor; long sleeves draped her arms; her hair lofted above her scalp in an amazing pyramidal pile of black curls almost a foot high, and she had toned her skin stark white. For five seconds she stood in the doorway, staring at Glawen with eyes glinting like slivers of black glass, then advanced into the room. “What is your business here, that you come dressed in your toy uniform?”

“The uniform is official and I am here on an official investigation.”

Spanchetta gave a mocking laugh. “And of what am I accused on this occasion?"

“I wish to question you, in regard to the purloining and wrongful sequestration of mail — namely, the mail which arrived for me during my absence.”

Spanchetta made a scornful gesture. “What should I know of your mail?”

“I have been in communication with Arles. Unless you produce the mail at once, I shall order an instant search of the premises. In this case you will be subject to criminal charges whether the mail is found or whether it is not found, since the testimony of Arles has established that the mail was given into your custody."

Spanchetta reflected a moment, then turned away and started from the room. Glawen followed on her heels. Spanchetta stopped short, and snapped over her shoulder: you are invading a private domicile. That is a notable offense.

“Not under circumstances such as this. I want to see where you have been keeping the letters. Also I don’t care to cool my heels an hour or so in the reception parlor while you go about your affairs.”

Spanchetta managed a grim-smile and turned away. In the corridor she stopped by a tall armoire. From one of the drawers she took a packet of letters secured with string. “This is what you are looking for. I forgot about them; it is as simple as that.”

Glawen leafed through the letters which numbered four. All had been opened. Spanchetta watched without comment.

Glawen could think of nothing to say which could adequately express his outrage. He heaved a deep sigh. “You may be hearing more from me in this matter.”

Spanchetta’s silence was insulting. Glawen turned on his heel and departed, that he might not say or do anything to compromise his dignity. The maid politely opened the door Glawen stalked through and out into the corridor.

Glawen returned to his own chambers, and stood in the middle of the siting room, seething with fury. Spanchetta’s conduct was worse than intolerable; it was indescribable. As always, after Spanchetta had performed one of her characteristic offenses, there seemed no reasonable or dignified recourse. Time and time again the rueful remark had been made: “Spanchetta is Spanchetta! She is like a natural force; there is no coping with her just leave her be; that is the only way."

Glawen looked down at the letters he clutched in his hand. All had been opened and carelessly resealed, with no regard for his sensibilities; it was as if they had been violated and befouled. There was nothing he could do about it, since he could not throw the letters away. He must accept the humiliation.

“I must be practical,” said Glawen. He went to the couch and flung himself down. One by one he examined the letters.

The first had been posted from Andromeda 6011 IV the junction where Wayness would transfer to an Explorer Route packet for the remainder of her voyage to old Earth. The second and third letters had been mailed from Yssinges, a village near Shillaway on Earth; the fourth from Mirky Porod in Draczeny.

Glawen read the letters quickly, one after the other, then read them more slowly a second time. In the first letter she wrote of her journey along the Wisp to Port Blue Lamp on Andromeda 6011 IV. The second letter announced her arrival upon Old Earth. She spoke of Pirie Tamm and his quaint old house near Yssinges. Little had changed since her last visit, and she felt almost as if she were coming home. Pirie Tamm had been saddened to hear of Milo's death and had expressed deep concern over the state of affairs existent upon Cadwal. "Uncle Pirie is Secretary of the Society somewhat against his will. He is not interested in talking Society business with me, and perhaps thinks me too curious, even something of a nuisance. Why, he seems to wonder, should I, at my age, be so concerned with old documents and their whereabouts? At times he has been almost sharp and I must move carefully. It seems to me he wants to sweep the whole problem under the rug, on the theory that if he pretends the problem does not exist it will go away. Uncle Pirie, so I fear, is not aging gracefully."

Wayness wrote guardedly of her 'researches' and the obstacles and barriers she constantly found in her way. Other circumstances she found not only puzzling but also somewhat frightening — the more so that she could not identify them or convince herself of their reality. Old Earth, wrote Wayness somberly, was in many ways as sweet and fresh and innocent as it might have been during the archaic ages, but sometimes it seemed dank and dark and steeped in mystery. Wayness would very much have welcomed Glawen’s company, for a number of reasons.

“Don’t worry,” said Glawen to the letter. “As soon as soon can be, I'll be on my way!”

In the third letter Wayness expressed concern over the lack of news from Glawen. She spoke even more cautiously than before of her ’researches’, which, so she hinted, might well take her into far parts of the world. “The odd events I mentioned still occur” wrote Wayness. “I am almost certain that — but no, I won’t write it; I won’t even think it.”

Glawen grimaced. “What can be happening? Why is she not more careful? At least until I arrive?”

The fourth letter was short and the most despairing of all, and only the postmark, at Draczeny in the Moholc indicated her activity. “I won’t write again until I hear from you! Either my letters or yours have gone astray, or something awful has happened to you!” She included no return address, writing only: “I am leaving here tomorrow, though as of this instant I am not quite sure where I will go. As soon as I know something definite, I will communicate with my father, and he will let you know. I do not dare tell you anything more specific for fear that these letters might fall into the wrong hands.”

Spanchetta’s hands were certainly wrong enough, thought Glawen. The letters made no specific references which might compromise Wayness’ 'researches’, although many of her guarded allusions might well intrigue a person of Spanchetta's cast of mind.

Wayness made a single reference to the Charter, but in connection with the moribund Naturalist Society. A harmless reference, thought Glawen. She wrote sadly of Pirie Tamm’s disillusionment with the entire Conservationist concept, whose time, so he felt, had come and gone — at least in the case of Cadwal, where generations of over flexible Naturalists, in the name of expediency, had allowed circumstances to reach their present difficult stage.