The Secret History - Donna Tartt [165]
“Goodness,” he said, when she had finished talking, drawing back in mock surprise. “Where did you come from? Do you know Mrs. O’Rourke?”
Mrs. O’Rourke smiled shyly. “I seen all of you before,” she said. “The kids think the maids don’t notice them, but I know you all by sight.”
“Well, I should hope so,” said Charles. “You haven’t forgotten me, have you? Bishop House, number ten?”
He said this so warmly that she flushed with pleasure.
“Sure,” she said. “I remember you. You was the one was always running off with my broom.”
During this exchange Henry and Julian were talking softly. “You should have told me before now,” I heard Julian say.
“We did tell you.”
“Well, you did, but still. Edmund’s missed class before,” said Julian, looking distressed. “I thought he was playing sick. People are saying that he’s been kidnapped but I think that’s rather silly, don’t you?”
“I’d rather one of mine be kidnapped than out in this snow for six days,” said Mrs. O’Rourke.
“Well, I certainly hope that nothing has happened to him. You know, don’t you, that his family is here? Have you seen them?”
“Not today,” said Henry.
“Of course, of course,” said Julian hastily. He disliked the Corcorans. “I haven’t been to see them either, it’s really not the time to intrude.… This morning I did run into the father quite by accident, and one of the brothers as well. He had a baby with him. Riding it on his shoulders as if they were on their way to a picnic.”
“Little one like him had no business being out in this weather,” said Mrs. O’Rourke. “Hardly three years old.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I agree. I can’t imagine why anyone would have a baby along on something like this.”
“I certainly wouldn’t have let one of mine yell and carry on like that.”
“Perhaps it was cold,” murmured Julian. The tone he used was a delicate cue that he had tired of the subject and wished to stop talking about it.
Henry cleared his throat. “Did you talk to Bunny’s father?” he said.
“Only for a moment. He—well, I suppose we all have different ways of handling these things.… Edmund looks a great deal like him, doesn’t he?”
“All the brothers do,” said Camilla.
Julian smiled. “Yes! And so many of them! Like something from a fairy story.…” He glanced at his watch. “Goodness,” he said, “it’s late.”
Francis started from his morose silence. “Are you leaving now?” he asked Julian anxiously. “Do you want me to drive you?”
This was a blatant attempt at escape. Henry’s nostrils flared, not so much in anger as in a kind of exasperated amusement: he gave Francis a dirty look, but then Julian, who was gazing into the distance and quite unaware of the drama which hinged on his reply, shook his head.
“No, thank you,” he said. “Poor Edmund. I’m really quite worried, you know.”
“Just think how his parents must feel,” said Mrs. O’Rourke.
“Yes,” said Julian, in a tone of voice which managed to convey at once both sympathy with and distaste for the Corcorans.
“I’d be wild if it was me.”
Unexpectedly, Julian shuddered and turned up the collar of his coat. “Last night I was so upset I could hardly sleep,” he said. “He’s such a sweet boy, so silly; I’m really very fond of him. If anything should have happened to him I don’t know if I could bear it.”
He was looking over the hills, at all that grand cinematic expanse of men and wilderness and snow that lay beneath us; and though his voice was anxious there was a strange dreamy look on his face. The business had upset him, that I knew, but I also knew that there was something about the operatic sweep of the search which could not fail to appeal to him and that he was pleased, however obscurely, with the aesthetics of the thing.
Henry saw it, too. “Like something from Tolstoy, isn’t it?” he remarked.
Julian looked over his shoulder, and I was startled to see that there was real delight on his face.
“Yes,” he said. “Isn’t it, though?”
At about two in the afternoon, two men in dark overcoats walked up to us from nowhere.
“Charles Macaulay?” said