Dragonwyck by Anya Seton Page A

little so as to increase that luxurious swish.
    She found Nicholas in the conservatory examining a slipper orchid which he had just had brought in from the greenhouse. He turned and surveyed her as she approached through the dining-room.
    But the girl's really beautiful! he thought, astonished. She has the body of a dancer.
    'Cousin Nicholas—' she said shyly, I don't know how to thank you. All these grand clothes—they—you've made me so happy.'
    'I'm gratified that it takes so little to make you happy, Miranda.'
    Usually she was daunted by his tone of repressive irony, but this evening she had more courage. She smiled, thinking that men never liked to be thanked—at least Pa and Tom didn't; and she moved close beside him and touched the striped green orchid.
    'How queer a little flower it is!' she said. 'Is it doing well here?'
    As she bent her head over the marble urn which held the orchid, a faint perfume floated to him from the massed golden braids at the nape of her white neck. He raised his hand, then let it drop to his side. 'The orchid does well enough. Shall we sit down awhile until Mrs. Van Ryn comes?' He indicated the filigree iron bench against the south wall where there were massed oleanders and hibiscus. Beside the bench, water trickled from a lion's mouth into an alabaster basin, thus evoking in the steamy room the cool fresh sound of the forest.
    It occurred to her that at last she had a moment alone with him in which to ask about Zélie. She had seen nothing of the old woman since the inexplicable midnight interview and time had erased the impression of eeriness, but she was curious.
    She brought out her timid question and Nicholas turned sharply. 'You've seen Zélie? Where?'
    She gave a brief account, suppressing some of Zélie's more fantastic utterances, which now sounded extremely silly.
    'Did she frighten you?' asked Nicholas, frowning.
    'A bit, though I don't know why now. There was a lot about somebody laughing and the Red Room and me bringing—bringing badness. I know it's all nonsense,' she added hastily, hoping he wouldn't laugh at her.
    He was not amused, he was annoyed. 'She's really getting impossible with her claptrap. I'd no idea she'd ever venture upstairs. I shall speak to her.'
    'But who
is
she?' said Miranda, persisting in the face of his evident wish to close the subject.
    Nicholas stood up and she saw with dismay that her insistence had spoiled the rare moment of intimacy.
    'The old hag must be ninety; it's time she died and her stupid tales with her.'
    She was astonished at the venom in his tone, but he went on more quietly with controlled irritation. 'My great-grandfather Pieter Van Ryn married a New Orleans belle in seventeen-fifty-two. Her name was Azilde Marie de la Courbet. He brought her back here, and with her, her body slave, Titine. Zélie is the daughter of the black Titine and a Mohican Indian. She's always lived" here at Dragonwyck.'
    'She talks so queerly—' ventured the girl after a moment, feeling that what she had heard was no explanation at all.
    'She speaks with the Creole patois she learned from her mother, I suppose.'
    'I didn't mean that, I mean the things she says—spooky things. And I remember now. It was Azilde she said would laugh again.'
    Nicholas shrugged. 'There's some ridiculous legend kept alive by Zélie. Azilde was not happy here; after the birth of her son she—' He paused. 'She died, and that's all the basis for the arrant foolishness invented by Zélie involving a ghost and a curse. Now shall we talk of something more sensible? Did you read those Essays by Addison that I suggested?'
    'Not yet,' she confessed, looking up at him contritely. 'I'm still reading "Ivanhoe." Oh, but it's a grand story, Cousin Nicholas!'
    'My dear child, you're an incorrigible romantic, and may I suggest that the English language contains many more appropriate adjectives than "grand," of which you seem to be immoderately fond?'
    The embarrassed color flew to her face,