John Saul: Hellfire

Beth noticed that Abigail Sturgess, once she had turned away from her husband’s grave, never looked back. It was very much like Mrs. Kilpatrick this morning. Beth wasn’t sure why, but for some reason it bothered her.

Carolyn Sturgess stood uncomfortably in the walnut-paneled library doing her best to chat with Elaine Kilpatrick. She was finding it difficult. It wasn’t anything that Elaine said, really; the woman was perfectly polite. It was just that there seemed to be a chasm between them, and Carolyn had no idea of how to bridge that chasm. It wasn’t that she had no interest in the things Elaine talked about; indeed, one of the things that had attracted her to Phillip Sturgess when she’d first met him a year before had been his own interest in all the things Elaine Kilpatrick seemed to know everything about.

And that, of course, was the trouble. Elaine seemed to know everything about everything, and Carolyn was feeling, once again, like an uneducated, provincial fool.

Carolyn Rogers Sturgess was no fool. She’d graduated from Boston University with a degree in art, and even though it wasn’t Smith, and the degree wasn’t cum laude , Carolyn was proud of it.

And she and Alan had done their share of traveling, too. Of course it hadn’t been Paris and London, nor had she seen the museums in Florence, but she had certainly done her share of galleries in New York.

“But of course we don’t really appreciate art in this country, do we?” she heard Elaine asking earnestly, and silently chided herself for wondering if she detected a note of condescension in the other woman’s tone. Certainly if it was there, it wasn’t reflected in Elaine’s luminous brown eyes, which seemed to concentrate on her with undivided attention.

And yet, as she nearly always did when she was with Phillip’s friends, she had a feeling she was being talked down to.

“No,” she said lamely, “I don’t suppose we do.” Then she offered Elaine what she hoped was a radiant smile. “Do excuse me, won’t you?” she asked. “I see Francis Babcock over there, and there’s something I have to talk to her about.”

“Of course,” Elaine said smoothly, immediately turning to Chip Bailey and plunging into another conversation.

As Carolyn started toward Frances Babcock, whom she secretly loathed, she wondered how Elaine did it. And worse, she wondered if she would ever learn the trick of it, or whether these women had simply been born with all the social graces bred into them over the generations. But whatever it was they had, she knew she lacked it. She lacked it, and her daughter lacked it.

She realized then that she hadn’t seen Beth for more than an hour, not since the receiving line had broken up and the family had come into the library to join their guests. Beth, in fact, had not come into the library at all. Veering away from Frances Babcock, Carolyn slipped out of the library, and glanced down the broad corridor that ran through this wing of the house. It was empty.

But coming out of the living room, she saw her stepdaughter.

“Tracy?”

The girl, her blond hair twisted up in a French knot that Carolyn thought was too old for her, paused at the bottom of the broad staircase that swept from the entry hall up to the second floor. She glanced around furtively, then glared at Carolyn when she saw that they were alone. “What do you want?”

Carolyn felt a twinge of anger. If Phillip had been there, Tracy’s reply would have been guardedly polite. But when they were alone, no matter what Tracy said to her, it always contained a note of challenge, as if she were daring Carolyn to try to exercise any form of control over her.

“I was looking for Beth,” Carolyn replied evenly, refusing to let Tracy see her anger. “I thought she was coming into the library with the rest of us.”

“Well, if she’s not there, then obviously she didn’t, did she?” Tracy countered.

“Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“Well, if you do see her, will you tell her I’m looking for her?”

Tracy’s eyes narrowed, and her lips curled in what should have been a smile, but wasn’t. “Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,” she said. Then she started up the stairs, disappearing from Carolyn’s sight.

Ignore it, Carolyn told herself. She’s not used to you yet, and she’s not used to Beth, and you have to give her time. Then, guiltily, she found herself wishing that it were not June, and that Tracy were not home for the summer. It had been bad enough at Christmas, when she and Phillip had gotten married, and Tracy had refused to speak to her at all, and worse during the spring break, when Tracy had furiously demanded that she and Beth leave, telling them they had no place in this house. Tracy had been careful to deliver her ultimatum when her father wasn’t around, and Carolyn had finally decided not to tell Phillip about the incident at all. But now the girl was home for the summer, and though there had been no major scenes yet, Carolyn could feel one building. The only question, she was sure, was when Tracy’s anger at her father’s second marriage would boil over once more. She hoped that when it did, she would bear the brunt of it, not Beth. Beth, she knew, was having a hard enough time of it already. Sighing, she started up the stairs. Perhaps, as she often did, Beth had retreated to her room.

As she reached the second floor, the imperious voice of her mother-in-law stopped her.

“Carolyn? Where are you going?”

Carolyn turned, and fleetingly wondered how Abigail Sturgess had managed to materialize so suddenly. But there she stood, her ebony cane gripped firmly in her right hand, her head tipped back as she surveyed Carolyn with her blue eyes — the same eyes she had passed on to her son and her granddaughter.

Except that Phillip’s eyes were as warm as a tropical sea.

Abigail’s and Tracy’s were chipped from ice.

And now, as they were so often, those eyes were fixed disapprovingly on Carolyn.

“I was just looking for Beth, Abigail,” Carolyn replied.

Abigail offered her a wintry smile. “I’m sure Beth is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And a good hostess doesn’t leave her guests by themselves, does she? Come. There are some people with whom I wish you to speak.”

Carolyn hesitated, then, with a quick glance up the stairs, followed Abigail back to the library.

No one but Abigail seemed to have noticed that she had left.

No one but Phillip, who, spotting her from his position next to the fireplace, offered her a smile.

Suddenly she felt better, felt that perhaps, after all, she did belong here. At least Phillip seemed to think she did.

Alan Rogers leaned back in his desk chair and unconsciously ran his hand through the unruly mop of black hair that never, no matter how hard he tried, seemed to stay under control. He glanced out the window; the rain seemed finally to have stopped, at least for a while. He couldn’t help smiling to himself as he pictured the scene that must have been going on up at the Sturgesses’ an hour ago.

All of them dressed in black, standing in the rain, but regally ignoring it while they finally put the old bastard to rest.

If Conrad Sturgess would ever rest in peace. Alan Rogers sincerely hoped he wouldn’t.

Perhaps, he thought, he should have gone to the burial. No one, after all, would have told him to leave. That wasn’t their way. They would simply have looked down their patrician noses at him, and done their best to let him know, subtly, of course, that he wasn’t wanted there.

And if it hadn’t been for Beth, he might have done just that, and the hell with Carolyn.

She would have been furious with him, naturally, but that wouldn’t really have bothered him at all. After all these years, he was used to Carolyn’s fury. Indeed, sometimes he wasn’t sure he could remember a time when she had not been furious with him.