“Hello, Elizabeth, I haven’t seen much of you lately,” said Alban, taking a seat beside her.
“Well, Carlsen and I went to church yesterday, and then we visited a museum.” She was surprised to feel herself blushing.
“I see,” said Alban quietly. Without another word he began to eat his salad.
Elizabeth looked down at her plate and tried to think of something to say. Her mind was not blank-that was just the problem. It abounded with possible topics of conversation. “Are you jealous that I was out with Dr. Shepherd?” “When is the inquest?” “Do we have to attend?” “Do you think one of us is a murderer?” Since none of those subjects seemed likely to produce peaceful dinner conversation, she was trying to clear her mind of them and find something more neutral to talk about. She was worried about Geoffrey. Despite his breezy repartee in the hall, he had been unusually quiet since they sat down to dinner. This might be a sign of tactfulness-perhaps he had foresworn a natural urge to torment certain of his table partners-but she thought the odds were against Geoffrey doing anything from altruistic motives. At the moment, his face was a courteous blank; she wished she knew the state of the mind behind it.
Charles looked up suddenly from his squash and rice casserole and remarked to no one in particular, “Actually, I find it comforting to think of death as the great benefactor of mankind. Death has made possible natural selection, which allowed for genetic improvement. Reproduction by mitosis merely duplicates the existing organism.”
Geoffrey sent his fork clattering into the center of his plate and ran from the room.
“Don’t go after him!” said Shepherd, as Elizabeth rose from her chair. “He works so hard at that brittle façade of his. He won’t thank you for seeing him without it.”
“He’s been so quiet. I wondered what he was thinking.”
“I think he feels it very much,” Shepherd told her. “Just from casual observation, I’d say that like most defensively witty people, Geoffrey is awed by real-how shall I put it-innocence. He seemed very protective of his sister.”
“Did she ever say anything about him?” asked Elizabeth.
Shepherd smiled. “You really mustn’t ask.”
“He’s right, though,” said Alban. “Geoffrey was always quite human with Eileen.”
“Which is more than he is with anyone else,” snapped Satisky.
“He shows his feelings, yes,” offered Shepherd. “I find it commendable that he has any to show.”
Satisky smiled maliciously. “Or else he finds it necessary to put on a show-for other reasons!”
Alban set down his coffee cup with a clatter. “Enough! Just stop all this talk about the murder! If you just let it alone, time will fix it-”
“Time-is-relative!” chanted Charles, pointing a fork at Alban.
Alban seemed about to roar back across the table, but suddenly he checked himself. “I’m very sorry,” he mumbled. “All of this is getting on my nerves, I’m afraid. I don’t like scenes, you know. Never have. I think people ought to be well-bred about things. I hate it when people go raking things up.”
Elizabeth stared. Raking things up? So Alban’s attitude about Eileen’s death had come down to “least said, soonest mended.” She wondered if he would be so forgiving if one of his precious antiques had been smashed-but then Eileen hadn’t been worth much, had she? Just a colorless young woman, not even pretty enough to interest the crime magazines.
Setting her napkin beside her plate, Elizabeth stood up. “Excuse me, please.”
It took her half an hour to find Geoffrey. She had checked his room, Eileen’s room, and the fields near the house before she thought of the attic that used to serve as a playroom when they were children. She remembered it as she was walking back to the house from the apple orchard, when she caught sight of the round window beneath the eaves. They used to pretend it was the porthole of the Nautilus. The other end of the attic had been converted into a kitchen-sized laboratory for Charles, although he rarely used it anymore, but the part of the attic that had been the Nautilus (and Richmond and Valhalla) had not been changed. She wondered if Geoffrey had thought of it.
Elizabeth hurried up the narrow stairs which led to the eaves. The door was unlocked. Afternoon light filtering in through the circular windows enabled her to see the dressing-up trunks and cast-off toys which furnished the attic. When her eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness, she saw Geoffrey, hunched up against the far wall with his arm clasping his knees. He did not look up.
Elizabeth hesitated for a moment. Comforting did not come easily to her, particularly when it was a grief whose magnitude she could not share. At such times there was an awkwardness to her conversation, and she could make no move without consciously planning it. I may be worse than nothing, she thought. Somehow, though, it was better here than in the dining room. Geoffrey’s grief made her uneasy, but the attitude of the others had disgusted her. If there had been anyone else to comfort Geoffrey, she would have left them to it, but there was not.
Brushing aside an old bride doll, she sat down on the floor beside him. “I thought you might come to Valhalla,” she murmured.
“I was Frey and you were Brunhilda, the Valkyrie. Did we get that from Alban, do you suppose? We should have played Greek gods, Elizabeth. There was no death on Olympus.”
“I’m sorry about what they said downstairs. I left, too.”
“Well, you won’t find me very good company this evening. My supply of wit to fling in the face of adversity is depleted. I should be back in form soon, never fear, but… not… just… now.” His voice had a brittle lightness, and Elizabeth was terrified that he would cry.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked finally.
Geoffrey sighed. “Nothing. Everything at once. I find it helps to think of a lot of different things at the same time, so as not to dwell on any one long enough to feel it.” He fingered the yellow bride doll lying facedown on the floor. “That was Princess Grace. Eileen used to play royal wedding by the hour. Once she caught Hans, the old tomcat, and dressed him up in doll clothes to be the prince. He escaped, of course. We chased him all around the house, but we never caught him. I wonder if Eileen was afraid that her prince would escape.”
“I think so,” said Elizabeth, wondering if she should say more.
“I think so, too. And I think she blamed us for it.”
“You? Why?”
“Oh, because… It wasn’t until he came here that he began to have doubts about it, I guess, and-”
“You weren’t very kind to him, you know.”
“I’m not very kind to anybody. But he alternately cringed and fawned. Eileen wanted St. Michael the Archangel to slay her dragon, and he was afraid of his own shadow. St. Michael, indeed!”
“Do you think he killed her? Oh, I guess you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No to both. It isn’t murder I’m trying to come to terms with yet. It’s death. And the fact that nobody seems to mind.”