Dominion, Fred Saberhagen [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

clearer instead of clouding them. Problems to be solved were not blurred but sharply delineated. Hildy was no longer hysterical. She was not even much afraid now, in any physical, immediate sense. And now while she was alone with her husband she meant to get some explanations from him.

   Emily Wallis had had to be helped away, her husband going with her. No one else was left at table. The dinner had never been cleared away; the remaining servants, so efficient earlier, had obviously been ordered to tasks judged more important.

   Saul was smiling faintly at his wife. But then, as if bothered by her close, silent scrutiny, he turned away from the table and moved a few steps to stand near the fireplace. The flames, though unattended for some time now, were prospering cheerfully.

   “Where are all the servants, Saul?”

   He turned from gazing at the fire to regard her mildly. “I don’t really know, m’dear.”

   “The truth is that they’re not really our servants at all, are they? They don’t really work for us.”

   “Afraid I don’t quite…”

   “I mean they belong to Vivian. Don’t they?” Hildy paused. Her husband was waiting. She pressed on: “Like everything else here, no matter what it says on the legal papers about who owns this place.” Saul considered that in his calm way. “Vivian is the leader of the family, yes.”

   “Why does that have to be? You’re older than she is.”

   Saul was going to answer, then decided against it. He waited calmly.

   “Saul, you’ve been lying to me about a lot of things, right from the start. Haven’t you?”

   He turned away again, picking up a long poker, stabbing experimentally with it at one of the burning logs. “I’m sorry you look at it in that way, Hil. I’ve been meaning to sit down with you sometime, and try to explain it all.”

   What was really chilling was that he wasn’t even trying to deny her accusation. Hildy discovered that perhaps her hysteria wasn’t as thoroughly exorcised as she had thought. She definitely wanted to scream again. But she was still able to hold her voice calm. “I’d like to hear the explanation now.”

   “To begin with, you’re quite right, of course. We’re not an ordinary family.”

   “Is that how you describe this… what’s going on? Are you trying to be funny?”

   “I’m sorry. No, I’m not trying to be funny at all.” Saul put down the poker, but continued to stare into the flames. Hildy rose from her seat at the table and gradually moved toward him, as he went on: “Let me try again. To begin with, as you’ve noticed by now, I’m sure, there are a number of interrelated families living here in the area of Frenchman’s Bend. There are other members of those families living in other places around the country, around the world, but this locale is a sort of—focal point. The Littlewoods, of course. The Wedderburns, Collines, Picards. They have a continuous connection that not only extends back over generations, but maintains and renews itself.”

   “Go on.”

   “There’s a certain—well, purpose, that unites these families, as well as ties of blood and marriage. There are connections that don’t appear on the surface. That go much deeper than outsiders realize.”

   Hildy was standing close beside her husband now, looking up at him, confronting him. “All right. Go on. Tell me all about it.”

   “Well, I will.” The look Saul gave her was judicial, but there was something else in it too, something that Hildy could still hope was love. “I just can’t explain the whole thing all at once.”

   “Then you should have started explaining it before now. Long before. You would have, if you really loved me.”

   Saul’s eyes were wistful. Was there anything left of him now, Hildy wondered, but this sad observer, who puttered around keeping himself occupied with his airplane and with business that didn’t really matter? It struck Hildy that the man she’d married had been going downhill pretty steadily ever since that first wonderful day when she had met him. Very slowly, but steadily. It wasn’t something that she wanted to let herself realize, but she no longer had any choice.

   Saul said: “I do love you, Hil. At least as I understand the term. I love you the only way I can. The word means different things to different people, you know.”

   “It means a lot to me.”

   “And I can’t always be eloquent, or whatever, as I was on that first day. I’d like to be that way always, for you, Hildy. But I can’t.”

   She could feel how close she was to breaking down again. “I understand.”

   “No, I don’t think you do understand. Not yet. You can’t. But you will in time. I want to tell you everything as gently as I can, so you’ll see it isn’t so bad.”

   “Tell me what, Saul? What isn’t so bad?”

   “I’ve grown up with this. But when people marry into it, as you have—well, it’s just not something that you’re able to grasp fully all at once.”

   Hildy couldn’t speak. She was afraid that if she tried, nothing but screams would come from her throat, ever again.

   Saul went on: “I do love you, Hil, as I’ve said so often. But the truth is that our marriage was in part arranged.”

   “Arranged? How? What does that mean?”

   “Vivian always has an interest in bringing new people into the family. Selected people, with something to contribute, like special abilities. It generally works to the person’s advantage, of course, very much to their advantage in fact. But it’s not something that can be explained to them ahead of time.”

   Hildy was shaking her head, unable to find words. A horrible truth was right in front of her but she couldn’t see its whole shape yet. Dimly she was aware that on the other side of the great hall the elevator was returning from upstairs, its door was opening.