Night of the Candles Read Online Free PDF

point of keeping a bed ready for him. What’s he to you?”
    “He is a victim of divine wrath. You remember. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Let us say I have a certain fellow feeling.”
    “Oh come, Jason. Don’t let’s begin in that vein again,” Sophia said in a scathing tone.
    “Why not? It is a perfect night for it. My dear wife has returned to me in the image of her cousin. We have gloom enough for a dozen morbid soliloquies. Let us speak then of love and madness and despair, and, finally, of death. It was not so long ago after all, the night Amelia died. Amanda, lovely Amanda, who is so like our own Amelia, burns with curiosity — a curiosity she is too much the lady to display. Let us remember then the night Amelia died. Drag forward the shuddering memories of flowers and funereal draperies. Put them on display. The coffin on its bier, her marble face, her crossed hands, the golden gleam of her wedding ring in the glow of the candles, her hair, so alive. God, so alive!”
    Theo stirred uncomfortably. “Jason…”
    “Let us remember. Why forget? Why should we try to suppress the memory of the pain and the screams in the night or the terrible pleading in her eyes? There were demons in her head, she said, tiny monsters slowly cutting her mind into slivers with sharp knives. Don’t stare so, Amanda … the end was near, no one could help, no doctor would try. And so the nights and the hot cloudless days of July ran on, and then one midnight that is nothing more than a miasma of cringing horror and fatigue and helplessness — she died. She died at last, and we were glad.”
    It was with an effort that Amanda looked away from the twisted smile on his bronze face and the glitter of his eyes. With a trembling hand she crumpled the napkin in her lap, dropped it beside her plate, and got to her feet. She felt raw, lacerated, by the intensity of the grief Jason had shown her. Vaguely she was aware of a noisy sobbing, coming from the nurse, Marta, and of tears standing in her own eyes. She felt torn between a desire to offer some form of comfort to Jason and a longing to get away from him.
    But as she stood she was brought up short. The hem of her dress was caught beneath the leg of Theo’s chair. Hastily he rose and touched her elbow. “Perhaps you would like to come into the parlor?” he asked. “Proserpine will bring coffee there.”
    “I … no. No coffee. I would just like to go. Please.”
    “You can’t, not in this storm. Try a little coffee.”
    “No, really, all I want is to go.”
    “I insist,” he said, drawing her away from the table.
    For the first time in her life Amanda found herself hating all the polite mouthing that people use to cover their real feelings. What did Theo care whether she went or stayed? It could make no possible difference to him. “I only want my bonnet, my reticule, and my gloves so that I can remove myself from this house!”
    “I’ll get your things,” Sophia said.
    “No,” Theo said, but his sister paid no attention, moving past him toward the door.
    “My … horse … and gig?” Amanda clasped her hands together, trying to appear imperious, determined — wishing her voice would not tremble so when she was upset.
    Without a word Jason rose and left the room. In a moment they heard the slam of the outside door.
    Theo shook his head. “It’s folly, but if nothing can turn you away from it, at least come in and sit down in the parlor while you wait. I hope Jason has the good sense to put my mare on a leading rein and my saddle in the gig. I still mean to come with you, and I will not take no for an answer.”
    Amanda obediently moved beside him, leaving Marta alone, hiccupping at the table and consoling herself with a second piece of pie. In the parlor Amanda seated herself on the green striped settee. There was a crewel-embroidered cushion beside her, and she began to play nervously with the long green fringe that edged it.
    Somewhere in