O' Artful Death - By Sarah Stewart Taylor Page 0,46

is it wrong to kill for an artistic ideal?”

“And is it any artistic ideal? Or would you think some more worthy of defense than others?” Ian asked, grinning. “For example, is impressionism justification for homicide, but not Dadaism?”

“Please,” Britta said in a slightly desperate voice, as the hired waitress came in to clear the table. Patch turned the conversation to the weather and how the skiing had been and Sweeney was confused until the woman went out of the room again and Britta said, “I hope she didn’t hear us. She’s friends with Sherry Kimball, you know.”

“I’m sure she didn’t,” Patch said. “She was in the kitchen. You worry too much, Brit.” He looked around at his guests, grinning broadly.

“She’s right, Patch,” Willow said quietly. “We should be careful. You don’t know what people might be saying.” Britta looked away, biting her lip, and Sweeney had a sudden impulse to get up and hug her. Rosemary, who was sitting next to Britta, quickly engaged her in conversation about how good the lamb had been.

Dessert and coffee were brought in. The children were excused from the table and the adults talked happily about other things for nearly a half hour. By the time Sweeney got up to go to the bathroom, she was more than a little drunk. She stumbled as she went out of the room and looked around to find Ian watching her with a concerned look on his face. “Fine, I’m fine,” she said, and escaped to the powder room next to the kitchen.

Her face was flushed in the mirror over the sink and she leaned in, looking at her eyes, which were glittering and feverish. It was all this social activity, she decided. She wasn’t used to it. She freshened her lipstick, then re-fastened her hair up at the back of her head with a barrette.

Out in the hallway, she leaned over to pick a piece of lint off her skirt and looked up to find Trip standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He had changed into a red T-shirt and jeans since he’d gotten up from the table. “Hey,” he said. “Is dinner over?”

“Oh, no. I got up for a minute. Everyone else is still at the table.”

He stepped toward her. His eyes were bluer than she remembered. “I like your hair like that. Up. It looks cool.”

Sweeney’s hand sprang up to her head. “Thanks.” She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or blush. What was he doing? Was he flirting with her? “What are you guys up to?”

“Oh nothing, just watching movies upstairs.” He stared at her for a moment, then brushed past her. When he was directly behind her, he reached up to touch her hand, which was still on her hair. He left it there for a moment, then kept walking. “Bye,” he said without looking over his shoulder.

When she sat down again at the table the conversation had turned back to Toby’s ethical dilemma.

“I still think it’s an interesting question,” he said. “Which works of art would be worth killing for? Is it the most aesthetically pleasing? Or the rarest? Or the most historically interesting? Which books, or symphonies, for that matter?”

Ian took a long sip of his wine. “Personally, I’ve always wished someone would knock off that chap who puts cows in fish tanks.”

“Or Magritte,” Toby nearly shouted, enjoying the exchange. “Why didn’t anybody kill Magritte?” He and Ian laughed.

Rosemary turned to him, her eyes wide and angry. “The only thing worth a life is another life in danger. You can’t say that a human life is worth the defense of an abstract concept, of something inanimate. I won’t accept that.”

“I don’t know. Do you really think that some people’s lives are more worthy of preservation than, say, Guernica?” Sweeney knew that deep down he agreed with Rosemary, but he couldn’t stop himself when he was playing devil’s advocate.

“He’s right,” Willow said. “I think beauty, the legacy of the colony, its history, all these things are more important than some of the things this country has gone to war for. The thing that our grandparents and great-grandparents made here is something special. It’s worth preserving.” She took a long swallow of her wine. “Yes, even if someone had to die. I’m not saying any of us did it, but . . .”

There was a gasp and Britta stood up quickly from the table. “She killed herself,” she almost shouted at them. “She killed herself and I don’t know why you’re