They played bridge until after eleven and, in the company of the old general, the count and Mrs. Enderby, it was a stifling evening. When Moses and Melissa excused themselves on the next night Justina was ready. “The pool lights aren’t fixed yet,” she said, “and I feel like some more bridge.” Playing bridge that night and the night after, Moses felt restless, and it appeared to him to be significant that he was the only one who left Clear Haven; that since his wedding he had not seen a strange or a new face in the house and that, so far as he knew, not even Giacomo ever left the grounds. He complained to Melissa and she said that she would ask some people for drinks on Saturday and she asked Justina’s permission on the next night at dinner. “Of course, of course,” Justina said, “of course you want to have some young people in, but I can’t let you entertain guests until I’ve had the rugs cleaned. I’m having estimates made and they ought to be cleaned in a week or two and you can have your little party.” On Saturday morning Justina announced through Mrs. Enderby that she was tired and would spend the week end in her room, and Melissa, encouraged by Moses, telephoned three couples who lived in the neighborhood and asked them for drinks on Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon Moses laid a fire in the hall and brought the bottles out of their hiding place. Melissa made something to eat and they sat on the only comfortable sofa in the room and waited for their guests.
It was a rainy afternoon and the rain played on the complicated roofs of the old monument a pleasant air. Melissa turned on a lamp when she heard a car come up the drive and she went down the hall and through the rotunda. Moses heard her voice in the distance, greeting the Trenholmes, and he gave the fire a poke and stood as a couple, who were made by their youthfulness and their pleasant manners to seem innocuous, came into the room. Melissa passed the crackers and when the Howes and the Van Bibbers joined them the vapid music of their voices mingled pleasantly with the sounds of the rain. Then Moses heard from the doorway the horse, strong notes of Justina’s voice.
“What is the meaning of this, Melissa?”
“Oh, Justina,” Melissa said gallantly. “I think you know all these people.”
“I may know them,” Justina said, “but what are they doing here?”
“I’ve asked them for cocktails,” Melissa said.
“Well, that’s very inconvenient,” Justina said. “This day of all days. I told Giacomo he could take up the rugs and clean them.”
“We can go into the winter garden,” Melissa said timidly.
“How many times have I told you, Melissa, that I don’t want you to take guests into the winter garden?”
“I’ll call Giacomo,” Moses said to Justina. “Here, let me get you some whisky.”
Moses gave Justina her whisky and she sat on the sofa and regarded the dumb-struck company with a charming smile. “If you insist on inviting people here, Melissa,” she said, “I wish you ask my advice. If we’re not careful the house will be full of pickpockets and hoboes.” The guests retreated toward the door and Melissa walked them out to the rotunda. When she returned to the hall she sat down in a chair, not beside Moses, but opposite her guardian. Moses had never seen her face so dark.
The rain had let up. Close to the horizon the heavy clouds had split as if they had been lanced and a liquid brilliance gorged through the cut, spread up the lawn and came through the glass doors, lighting the hall and the old woman’s face. The hundred windows of the house would glitter for miles. Ursuline nuns, bird watchers, motorists and fishermen would admire the illusion of a house bathed in flame. Feeling the light on her face and feeling that it became her, Justina smiled her most narcissistic smile—that patrician gaze that made it seem as if all the world were hung with minors. “I only do this because I love you so, Melissa,” she said, and she worked her fingers loaded with diamonds, emeralds and glass in the light that was fading.
Then the stillness of a trout pool seemed to settle over the room. Justina seemed to make a lure of false promises and Melissa to watch her shadow as it fell through the water to the sand, trying to find in her guardian’s larcenous words some truth. Justina’s face gleamed with rouge and her eyebrows shone with black dye and it seemed to Moses that somewhere in the
“This house is a great burden,” Justina said, “and I have no one to help me bear it. I would love to give it all to you, Melissa, but I know that if you should predecease Moses he would sell it to the first bidder.”
“I promise not to,” Moses said cheerfully.
