Part 12 (2/2)
”You're going to start trespa.s.sing on properties in Founderston looking for clues,” Grace said to Rose, and began to sob. ”Your father has got you thinking that it's all right to break the law if it's for a good cause.”
Rose went to her mother and hugged her. ”Well, I won't, Ma. I'll let Da do it.”
”You all act as though you've been appointed to save the world,” Grace said, still sobbing.
”I was only trying to mend my mistakes-mistakenly,” Tziga said, sadly.
Laura just sat, wearing a dazzled, radiant expression.
”There, there,” Rose said to her mother.
”What's so wrong with our lives anyway?” Grace said, querulous. ”Why do you all have to be such d.a.m.n rebels?”
”I'm not,” said Rose.
”It does,” said Laura. ”The world does need saving. Or, at least, I think it's the world.”
Everyone looked at her. Then Chorley came back into the room, and everyone looked at him instead. He was carrying one of his notebooks and a pen, so vigorously dipped in ink that the fingers of his right hand were tipped brilliant scarlet. He gave the notebook to Grace and said, ”If you will, dear, could you please read aloud the pa.s.sages I have underlined?”
Grace gave him a look of dread but did as she was told. She spoke softly, stammered once or twice, but read: ”Rise up! Rise up! I said to rise! Crush them! Rise up and overturn everything! Find your feet and get up! Shake them all off! I said, Get up! I said, Rise up now!”
Chorley said, ”I found those within only seventy pages of bad messages from the abandoned Founderston-to-Sisters-Beach telegraph line. Sometimes there's just the odd, plaintive 'crush' or 'rise' or 'shake.' 'Plaintive' is the right word. These are complaints, angry complaints.”
”What about the poetry?” Rose said.
”It seems there are two voices,” Chorley said. ”One complains, the other seems to be in an ecstasy of antic.i.p.ation.”
Grace held the notebook out, and her husband took it. ”Dear,” he said, ”I do feel that I'm blundering around in the dark. I do feel like a dim-witted dilettante. But I don't think I'm wasting my time.”
Tziga added, hesitantly, ”What Laura did to you, Grace, and to the rest of the Rainbow Opera's patrons, she did because I told her to when I wasn't in my right mind. I don't trust my judgment anymore, but I do trust Chorley's.”
”It may all really matter, Ma,” Rose said. ”What we choose to do might make a big difference.”
Chorley kept his eyes on his wife's face. ”I promised the Grand Patriarch my time in exchange for his telling me where Tziga was. I'm honoring a promise.”
”Marta knew too, and she chose not to tell you,” Tziga said. ”They thought I might not live. And they thought I knew more about the Body and Doran than I did, that I was in deeper with the Body than I was. And they supposed I knew more about the Place, as though it was a deity and I was its prophet. An evil deity, with an evil prophet,” Tziga added, then put a hand over his face.
Chorley started and hurried to him.
”It's all right, Da,” Laura said.
Chorley said, ”You should be resting, Tziga.” They helped him up and walked him slowly from the room. For a time they could be heard making soothing sounds as they helped him up the stairs.
Rose and Grace looked at each other.
”You do know I'm not siding with Da against you,” Rose said. ”Ma, you're determined we stop snooping only because you're afraid we'll get into trouble. You're just as sure as we are that the Body is up to no good.”
”But why does it have to be our problem?” Grace asked.
”Because we know about it.”
5.
UST THREE DAYS LATER GRACE FOUND HERSELF PRESIDING OVER A VERY DIFFERENT HOUSEHOLD.
Chorley came in with an armload of parcels while the girls were having their breakfast. He turned back the cloth at one end of the table and put the parcels down, and Grace laughed as Rose practically climbed over Mamie to grab one and tear it open. Dress patterns and samples of cloth spilled out onto the tabletop, some of the swatches of silk crepe so light that they seemed to skate on cus.h.i.+ons of air, speeding across the polished table and onto the floor. Mamie and Rose s.n.a.t.c.hed and tussled. Laura gathered up the dropped swatches and started to hand over the pearls, and pure whites, and oysters, and creams.
”I'll look awful in all of these,” Mamie said, with no hint of her usual aloof sarcasm.
”Oh no, let's see, there must be something suitable.” Grace got up to join them.
”I'm going to choose a plain design.” Rose was sorting through the patterns. ”Something only I can wear.” She drew herself up to her full five foot ten. ”And I am not going to show off my bosom.”
”At least you have a choice about that,” said Mamie, and crossed her arms over her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as though hoping to push them back into her body.
Rose shuffled patterns. ”I'm sure we can find something pretty and becoming for you.”
”But am I becoming?” Mamie raised an eyebrow.
Grace and Rose nodded earnestly.
Mamie looked away. ”I'm becoming bored.”
Laura, who had been standing stock-still and staring out the gla.s.s doors of the dining room, spun around and said, ”Excuse me, Mamie. Could I borrow Rose for a moment?”
”She's not mine to lend,” Mamie said.
Laura grabbed her cousin's hand and opened the doors.
”Come into the garden, Maud,” muttered Mamie as the other two went out.
”What is it?” said Rose, then found herself performing a little hop to avoid tripping over some stones-five of them-that had been laid, in a neat row, on the bottom step of the veranda.
Laura let go of Rose to push the stones under the step.
”What?” Rose demanded.
”I'm sure that's a sign,” Laura said. She took hold of Rose, led her to the edge of the lawn, and began stooping to peer under bushes.
”What are we looking for?” Rose said, and began to search too-pausing once to dive into a bush and retrieve a croquet ball.
Laura continued to work her way around the house. Then she started down the track to the lagoon. She said, over her shoulder, ”He won't be too near the water.”
A moment later Laura had to double back for Rose, who had stopped following.
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