The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,42
was an unconscious gesture that both Celeste and Jules had long ago learned to recognize as a sign that Madeline was annoyed. Though Celeste threw her father a warning glance, it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
“I ask,” Madeline said in a perfectly controlled voice that made Celeste brace herself for a breaking storm, “because I do not know what is going on. When I asked you last night if something was wrong, you said I would know better than you. Now you are implying that I am in the habit of discussing our bedroom activities with other people, which is something you are well aware that I would never do. If something is wrong, Jules, please tell me what it is.”
Jules’s eyes flicked suspiciously from his wife to his daughter. How much did Celeste know? Probably everything—didn’t mothers always confide in their daughters? “What’s his name, Madeline?” he finally asked. “Or should I ask Celeste?” He turned to his daughter. “Who is it, Celeste? Is it someone I know?”
Celeste glanced uncertainly from one of her parents to the other. What on earth was going on? Last night, when she’d gone up to bed, everything had been perfect. What could have happened? “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she began. “I don’t—”
“Oh, please, Celeste,” Jules said, his voice carrying a knife edge she’d never heard before. “I’m not a fool, you know. I know all about your mother’s affair.”
Now it was Celeste whose coffee splashed across the table as her cup fell from her hand. “Her what?” she asked. But before Jules could say anything more, she’d turned to her mother. “He thinks you’re having an affair?”
Madeline was on her feet, her eyes glittering with anger. “Tell me what this is all about, Jules,” she demanded. “Where on earth did you get such an idea? Did Andrew say something last night to put such a ridiculous idea into your head?”
“Don’t be stupid, Madeline,” Jules cut in. “Andrew didn’t say anything.” His hand, still in his pocket, squeezed the locket so tightly he felt its filigree digging into his flesh. “He’d be the last person to say anything, wouldn’t he?”
Now Celeste was on her feet too. “Stop it, Daddy. How can you even think such a thing? Andrew and Mother? That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard!”
Jules’s eyes, narrowed to little more than slits, darted back and forth between his wife and his daughter. “You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?” he asked. “But I did find out, didn’t I? And I’m damn well going to find out all the rest of it too.” Leaving Madeline and Celeste staring speechlessly after him, Jules Hartwick turned and strode out of the breakfast room.
“It’s the Devil’s work!”
Martha Ward’s words were uttered with such sharpness that they made Rebecca flinch and instinctively wonder what sin she might have committed this time. But then the wave of guilt receded as she realized the words hadn’t been directed toward her at all. Martha was on the telephone, and this time, at least, it was her cousin Andrea who was the recipient of her aunt’s lecture.
“I warned you,” Martha continued, holding the phone in her left hand as she used her right to gesture to Rebecca to pour her another cup of coffee. “When I first met that man, I recognized him for what he was. Didn’t I say, ‘Andrea, that man has the face of Satan’? Of course I did, whether you want to remember it or not.” She fell silent for a moment, then clucked her tongue in a manner not so much sympathetic as disapproving. “You must go to church, Andrea,” she admonished. “You must go and pray for your immortal soul, and beg for forgiveness. And the next time, perhaps you’ll recognize the Devil when you see him!”
Hanging up the phone, Martha Ward scooped three teaspoonsful of sugar into her coffee, added some cream, then sighed as she sipped at the steaming mixture. “I think this time I truly put the fear of the Devil into that child,” she declared. “But it’s true, Rebecca. The first time I saw Gary Fletcher, I warned Andrea about him. I told her never to bring him to this house again. I am a woman of the Church, and I will not countenance evil in my presence.”
“But how can you recognize Satan, Aunt Martha?” Rebecca asked, an image still fresh in her mind of the dark figure she’d seen in the snowstorm last night.