The Resurrection Man Read Online Free PDF

slightly embarrassed by her strange way of knowing things without being told. “I merely assumed she would be. Lydia’s a survivor. What’s she doing these days?”
    “Guilding the lily.”
    Max passed on Lydia’s description of the Arbalest setup. Theonia’s large, dark eyes widened in surprise.
    “And you say she actually lives there in that— cloister almost seems the appropriate word, doesn’t it? How very interesting. One might have thought so effervescent a person as the dear countess would find such a life somewhat too confining.”
    “I suppose one might,” Sarah replied, “but when one’s down to the nubbins, there’s a good deal to be said for a warm bed and three meals a day. Lydia certainly didn’t show any reluctance about going back.”
    Sarah gave the others a brief rundown of her own part in the encounter, such as it had been. Conversation had progressed rapidly from how much Davy resembled his father to that marvelous outfit Lydia had been wearing, thence to vintage clothing in general. Sarah knew quite a lot about outmoded styles, partly because she’d inherited so many of her mother’s. The Kellings and their circle had always believed in getting full value out of their garments; it took a long time to wear out a Mainbocher or a custom-tailored British tweed.
    “Maybe Arbalest has her hypnotized.” Brooks didn’t mean it, he was merely offering the hypothesis as a mild joke.
    Theonia, however, took him seriously. “I should think, dear, that Lydia Ouspenska would be awfully hard to hypnotize. Getting her to stop talking and concentrate would be the main problem. Unless of course the hypnotist was an unusually attractive man. You could manage her, Max.”
    “Why not me?” Brooks asked rather petulantly.
    “Because, my darling, Lydia wouldn’t dare let you try. She’d know she’d have me to contend with if she did.” Theonia was the unlikely result of an encounter between an Ivy League anthropology student and a young Gypsy girl; the Romany did tend to work its way to the fore now and then, notwithstanding the Wasp half’s penchant for fin-de-siècle tea gowns and the high standards of etiquette promulgated by the late Emily Post. “Sarah would find the situation mildly amusing.”
    “Only mildly,” said Sarah. “Perhaps I’d better just slip up and see if Davy’s all right.”
    “No, I’ll go,” said Max. “I promised him a bedtime story. Don’t wait dinner for me.”
    “It’s quite all right, take your time. Nobody’s in a hurry tonight.”
    It wasn’t every evening that the family had a chance to dawdle. The three in the library lingered over their drinks, talking shop until Max came back downstairs. Then Charles announced dinner, Theonia said “Shall we?” and they did.
    They lingered over their meal, they lingered longer over dessert, they drifted back to the library still talking shop. As Sarah poured coffee into her first husband’s great-grandmother’s demitasse cups, it occurred to her that she and her loved ones were a guild too, though not always a commune. It was pleasant, in a way, being back in the old house she’d moved into as a bride not yet out of her teens and left ten years later as a widow about to marry again. Still, she’d be glad when she and Max and Davy could get back to the all-new house at Ireson’s Landing.
    It wouldn’t be long, now that Max was walking so well. They might go home for the weekend and see how it worked. Max’s nephew and his girl friend were house-sitting; they’d have to be warned in advance, though the place couldn’t be in that much of a mess with Mr. Lomax taking care of the grounds, his niece coming in twice a week to clean as usual, and Max’s sister Miriam just down the road a piece. Sarah was making mental lists of things to buy and do for their homecoming, when the doorbell rang.
    Three quick, efficient rings; Brooks bounded off the sofa. “I’ll get it. No sense in bothering Charles.”
    Answering