Green Darkness by Anya Seton Page B

Mother, never felt better.”
    Below these actions she was empty. “Celia” had gone off somewhere, far away, into a cramped little space. Cold, damp, far away. Someone else was using “Celia’s” body. Someone else who could laugh and talk, who could think how ridiculous that Edna Simpson was, squatting on the gold sofa, her thighs spread wide under their covering of polka dots, the pale eyes looking blank as shutters behind the reflection of the bifocals.
    As soon as the men joined them in the drawing room Celia jumped up crying, “Let’s
do
something! It’s Saturday night, and we’ve got to be gay! I know, let’s dance! We’ll go to Richard’s music room.”
    “Splendid!” cried Igor, twirling gracefully on his toes and waving his beautiful white hands. Harry laughed, while eyeing Celia with the new startled admiration. Been so taken up with Myra I hardly noticed this gal before. Looks like a gypsy suddenly, and she most certainly leaned hard against me at dinner. Astonishing little beasts—women.
    Pam Bent-Warner cried, “Ooh, what fun! I didn’t know you had a music room at Medfield Place, Richard! But then, there were never any parties in Sir Charles’s time.”
    Everyone looked at Richard, who removed his unfathomable gaze from his wife and said, “‘Music room’ is a bit grand for the old schoolroom on the second story. I do happen to have a stereo there, and a collection of records which appeal to
me.
Nothing modern.”
    His decisive tone piqued Myra, who cried, “Let’s go invade the schoolroom, see what Richard
has
got! He so obviously doesn’t want us to, I believe the records are naughty. Are they, Celia?”
    “I don’t know,” answered Celia, in a voice as light and brittle as Myra’s. “Nothing about my husband would surprise me. I called it the music room because Nanny did once. Actually, I’ve never been in there. Richard keeps it locked.”
    “Thrilling,” said Myra. Her long mocking green eyes turned from Richard’s stormy face to Celia’s flushed one, and she perceived that the girl was under great tension behind that flamboyant mask. She felt for Celia a sudden flicker of feminine alliance. “How thrilling,” she repeated. “Bluebeard’s closet with a gaggle of slaughtered wives? Or perchance a den of iniquity, psychedelic curtains, clouds of marijuana smoke, erotic statues! We’ll suspect the worst, darling. Unlock the ancient schoolroom door!”
    Richard reddened. A furious refusal nearly burst out, but he encountered Akananda’s gaze. The anxious look of a distressed parent.
    Richard controlled himself, and raising his eyebrows said, with a shrug, “Your lurid hopes will be disappointed, Myra. But, by all means let’s inspect the schoolroom. I lock it simply to keep out officious housemaids who disturb everything.”
    This was not quite true. Richard locked the door because he had locked it since he was twelve, and the abandoned schoolroom represented the only privacy from his stepmother. It was situated in a remote part of the house next to the servants’ quarters. He had gone there seldom since his marriage, and then only when Celia had been shopping in Lewes, or up to London for the day. He had not known that she knew the room existed, and he resented her idiotic wish to expose it to all these people as much as he resented her extraordinary behavior since the return from Ightham Mote. Yet, he was aware of her as he had not been in months. Aware that she was alluring, desirable, that deep within him she was arousing a crude lust like the rare and repulsive seizures which had driven him to whorehouses in his university days.
    Richard silently led the party upstairs into the south wing. He unlocked a cheap wooden door, dulled by neglected varnish.
    “The Chamber of Horrors,” he said, “and, if you consider it either sinister or festive I shall be most interested.” He switched on the one electric light, which dangled from a massive old gas chandelier.
    The