Merrick - Anne Rice [112]
The magnolia trees which I scarcely remembered had grown hugely in the past decade, and they now composed a group of impressive sentinels for the front porch.
Louis stood patiently, staring at the leaded glass of the front doors as though he was madly excited. The house was entirely dark except for the front parlor, the room in which Great Nananne’s coffin had been set so long ago. I could detect the flicker of candles in the front bedroom, but I doubt a mortal eye could have seen it through the drawn drapes.
Quickly we went in the gate, rattling the ominous shrubbery, and up the steps and rang the bell. I heard Merrick’s soft voice from the interior:
“David, come in.”
We found ourselves in the shadowy front hall. A great shiny Chinese rug covered the polished floor in flashy modern splendor, and the large new crystal chandelier above was dark, and looked as if it were made of so much intricate ice.
I escorted Louis into the parlor, and there sat Merrick clothed in a shirtwaist dress of white silk, quite relaxed, in one of Great Nananne’s old mahogany chairs.
The dim light of a stand-up lamp fell wonderfully upon her. At once we locked eyes, and I felt a rush of love for her. I wanted her to know somehow that I’d revisited all our memories, that I’d chosen the prerogative of confiding them in one whom I trusted completely, and that I loved her as much as I did.
I also wanted her to know that I disliked intensely the visions she’d so recently sent after me, and if she had had any doings with the pesty black cat, that I was not amused!
I think she knew it. I saw her smile faintly at me as we moved further into the room.
I was about to take up the subject of her evil magic. But something stopped me.
It was, very simply, the expression on her face when her eyes fell upon Louis as he stepped into the light.
Though she was as poised and clever as always, there came about a complete change in her face.
She rose to her feet to meet him, which surprised me, and her countenance was smooth and open with utter shock.
It was then that I realized how skillfully Louis had attired himself in a finely tailored suit of thin black wool. He wore a shirt of a cream-colored silk with a small gold pin beneath his rose-colored tie. Even his shoes were deliberately perfect, buffed to a high luster, and his rich black curly hair was combed neatly and entirely. But the glory of his appearance was, of course, his keen features and his lustrous eyes.
I need not repeat that they are a dark-green color, because it was not the color of his eyes which mattered so much. Rather, it was the expression with which he gazed at Merrick, the seeming awe that settled over him, and the way that his well-shaped mouth slowly relaxed.
He had seen her before, yes, but he was not prepared to find her so very interesting and comely at the same time.
And she, with her long hair brushed straight back to the leather barrette, looked utterly inviting in her sharp-shouldered white silk dress, with its small fabric belt and its loose shimmering skirt.
Around her neck, over the fabric of the dress, she wore pearls, in fact, the triple strand of pearls that I myself had long ago given her, and in her ears were pearls, and on the ring finger of her right hand she wore a stunning pearl as well.
I recite these details because I sought to find some sanity in them, but what I was experiencing, what humbled me and made me livid was that the two of them were so impressed with each other, that, for the moment, I was not there.
It was undeniable, the fascination with which she stared at Louis. And there was not the slightest question about the overwhelming awe in which he held her.
“Merrick, my darling,” I said softly, “let me present Louis.” But I might as well have been babbling. She never heard a single syllable I uttered. She was