The Carousel Read Online Free PDF Page B

lighted lanterns revealed a low, elegant French manor.
    Anxiously, Dan repeated, “You were so quiet. Tell me what’s wrong.”
    Her heart subsided as if it had literally sunk into cold fear and died somewhere. But she answered simply, “It was an awful evening. I felt so sorry for Oliver. There was no reason for Ian to spoil his birthday party. He could have waited until tomorrow.”
    To the right of the car there appeared through the trees a sudden glimpse of the city below. Dan slowed down.
    “Look there. Scythia, home of Grey’s Foods. I could wring Ian’s neck. Ten to one, Happy could, too, if she dared say so. Maybe she does dare, for all we know. I can’t figure out what gets into him. He and I have scarcely had an hour’s worth of disagreement all these years. I thought I knew him inside out. I know he loves money, but even so—” Dan broke off, then continued, “If he pushes this thing through, sells the land and quits the business, how are Clive and I supposed to run it without him? Clive’s only good in the office. I can’t do my job and Ian’s, too.”
    “I’m sorry, darling. You don’t deserve this.”
    “My sister’s another story. She’s been a puzzle from the year one. What’s gotten into her? A quarter interest in the business, for Pete’s sake!”
    “You always said she was difficult.”
    “ ‘Difficult’! What does that mean? What do I know? To my sorrow, I can’t really
know
her. How can you know a person with whom you’ve never spent more than a few weeks at a time, an annualvisit in California while I was growing up and now, during these last busy years, sometimes only a few hours? When I’m going west I make a stop in San Francisco or if she happens to come east, we’ll meet in New York. She never comes here, you know that. It’s ridiculous, it’s sad, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
    She had an acute sense of Dan’s pain. She had always, in a way, been a loner, not given to the intense relationships that people found in college and afterward, so she was still amazed at what had happened to her. Now at twenty-nine, after six years of marriage and with no loss of her own proud identity, she could feel sometimes that Dan and she were almost grafted to each other. And right now, knowing that he did not want to talk any more about Amanda, she was silent.
    Then in spite of the darkness, she became aware of his turned head and troubled scrutiny.
    “Sally, it’s Tina, isn’t it? You’ve had a bad day and you don’t want to tell me.”
    “Oh, it was simply more of the same. Thank goodness we have Nanny. Nothing fazes her.”
    That was it. Keep the tone light. Wait till we get home, see what’s happening there, then quiet down and tell him.…
    Nanny was reading the paper when Sally went in, asking at once, “Everything all right?”
    “Everything’s all right, don’t worry. We had a little set- to over her bath. She didn’t want me to undress her. But we got straightened out and she’s sleeping now. Susannah’s a dream, that baby. Hadher bottle and there hasn’t been a peep out of her since you left.”
    Something in Sally’s expression must have touched the older woman because she added kindly, “You young mothers worry too much. I raised four, and they’re all different. Some’s easy, some’s hard, but they all come out right in the end.”
    While Dan was taking his shower, Sally looked in on her children. The baby, smelling sweetly of powder, lay sleeping in her pink crib. At Tina’s door she removed her shoes, not making even the whisper of a sound, for the child had been sleeping so lightly. The pale shine of the lamp in the hall made a stripe across the floor, and in its glow, she could just discern the small mound on the youth bed.
    She made fists. She clenched her teeth. “If anyone has harmed this child, I’ll kill him,” she muttered.
    While she was taking her turn at the shower, Dan came to the door. She had been there ten minutes at