Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [257]
“And so ‘Quinn is going through a phase,’ they said with laughter. But Quinn was around a lot.
“I had my room outfitted as you see it, with heavy velvet draperies, so that the light can be shut out, and there’s a heavy lock on the door; but usually I spend the daylight hours in the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island, where I feel completely safe from prying eyes, since I alone can open the crypt with ease, it having taken some five men to open it on the long-ago exciting day when we examined it.
“In a house where Aunt Queen is accustomed to rising at three p.m. and taking her six a.m. constitutional before going to bed, my habits proved normal, and so everyone has come to assume.
“Now, Aunt Queen has admitted that she’s actually eighty-five years old, not eighty, a nice little secret she kept from us when we stumbled through the ruins of Pompeii with her, but she’s spry and curious and full of the capacity to enjoy life in all its richness, as you saw for yourself, and she holds court in her room every night with Cindy, the nurse, and Jasmine and various other assorted attendants, including me, especially if it’s earlier in the evening, as I usually do not disappear on my nightly errands until the stroke of twelve.
“As far as the bed-and-breakfast is concerned, Jasmine was plum tuckered out, as we say around here, and simply did not want to go on with the running of it. And once we gave Tommy one of the bedrooms upstairs, and set up another one for Brittany when she came to visit, and put Nash in Pops’ old room, that left only one room for a guest, so it seemed pointless to be renting it.
“And then Patsy, who is on the frail side now, took to staying in that last front bedroom. So the bed-and-breakfast was therefore crowded right out.
“But the parish all around couldn’t do without the big Christmas banquet and the Easter buffet and the azalea festival and an occasional wedding, so Jasmine still sees to that with a tremendous amount of pride, though she complains about it as if she were the local saint.
“I was in the background when the carols were sung this last year, not daring to weep, but weeping in my soul as the soprano sang ‘O Holy Night’ twice just for me.
“Being a madman, I also instigated a midnight dinner on Holy Saturday—Easter Sunday morning, just because I couldn’t attend the Easter buffet, and that went splendidly this year, right along with the usual afternoon buffet, drawing a whole different body of after-church guests. And I’ve been conniving to instigate some other late-night charity affairs and fund-raisers, it’s just my brain has been a bit distracted of late.
“Tommy astonished all of us by asking of his own free will to be sent off to boarding school in England, to Eton no less, and Nash took him over and got him established, and when he calls us we all marvel that he is acquiring a British accent, and we are overjoyed. I miss him terribly. He will be coming home for the holidays sometime soon. He’s now fourteen and growing tall. He still wants to lead an expedition to find the lost continent of Atlantis. I clip every article I read on the subject and mail it to him. And Nash does the same.
“Terry Sue and her children are doing well. The nanny and the housekeeper have made all the difference in their lives and things run smoothly there. Brittany and the other children are in good schools, and they will have a real chance in life. Terry Sue herself is happy. As soon as she gets her check every two weeks she goes to Wal-Mart to buy clothes and artificial flowers. Her house is absolutely chock-full of artificial flowers. It’s a virtual rain forest of artificial flowers. You can’t find a spot in her house to put another artificial flower. As soon as you walk in she tries to give you some old artificial flowers so she can get some new artificial flowers. She has had an operation to prevent the birth of any more children. Charlie, her gun-wielding boyfriend, after holding the entire family and the sheriff at bay with a three fifty-seven Magnum, finally