Houses of Stone, KATHY [classic literature books TXT] 📗

"I have no conscious recollection of it, but I might have run across it at some time or other. As a child I reveled in fairy tales and ghost stories."

"So did I. I don't remember this one, but we all have a lot of buried memories. The sound we heard ... It could have been a woman's scream, couldn't it?"

"In broad daylight? You were the one who said it, Peggy—the ambience was all wrong."

"Maybe she figured she'd have to risk it, since we weren't likely to wander around the woods after dark." Karen's expression indicated she didn't appreciate the light touch, and Peggy said, "Just kidding. It's a common theme in your feminist criticism, isn't it? Women being silenced, mute—no one listening?"

"Oh, sure. Mary E. Coleridge's poem about the image in the mirror: 'She had no voice to speak her dread.' There are also many references to being deprived of the most powerful 'voice,' that of literature. Even demure little Jane Austen points out that men have succeeded in slandering women because the pen has always been in their hands. She ... Oh, shit!"

"Good gracious. What brought that on?"

"I just remembered. I promised I'd talk to that damned Literary Society tomorrow."

"About Jane Austen, I cleverly deduce."

"She's safe, don't you think?"

"If you don't mention that she was a brilliant social satirist. Stick to Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, as played by Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier."

"Most of them probably haven't even read the book," Karen grumbled.

"It's a good opening for you to quiz Mrs. Fowler about ghosts, though,"

Peggy said. Her voice was quite serious. "Go early, take her book along and ask her to sign it."

"You really think it's important?"

"Could be. Not just the ghost stories. Scandal is what I'm after. I'll bet she knows a lot she hasn't told you." Peggy glanced down at the page she had been reading. " 'So long as that ancient crime is not expiated, so long will the curse, it is said, pursue the descendants of Obadiah Cartright. Despair and failure have marked the fortunes of the family down the centuries. When will the Screaming Lady be avenged? When will the soul of her tormentor find punishment in the eternal flames of damnation?' "

"Spare me," Karen said wryly. "Her literary style is as appalling as her theology."

"You're missing the point," Peggy insisted. "Don't you see the malice in those vague hints of failure and crime? She obviously detests the Cartrights."

"That's because Cameron divorced her niece. Of course Mrs. F. implied it was the other way around—that his cruelty and neglect drove the poor girl to leave him."

"You never told me that."

"It struck me as profoundly uninteresting."

"Gossip is always interesting. So that smirking pimply youth we met at the tea party is Cameron's brother-in-law?"

"I guess so," Karen said, surprised. "That would explain why he was hassling Cameron the other day."

"You never told me that either. What happened?"

"I only heard a few words. Cameron said something like 'I said no and I mean no,' and then I showed up, and Bobby Boy left."

"Probably wanted money," Peggy mused.

"Cameron's personal problems are none of your business," Karen said impatiently. "Or mine."

"How do you know? Gossip and trivialities, so-called, affect people's daily lives far more than the great events of history."

Karen had been about to object. Peggy's final comment struck a nerve; thoughtfully she said, " 'The insignificance of kitchen things.' '

"What?"

"It's from a short story—'A Jury of Her Peers.' There's been a murder. A man has been found lying in bed with a noose around his neck. The chief suspect is his wife. Two women go back to the lonely farmhouse with their husbands—the sheriff and his men—to get clothes and other necessities for the imprisoned wife. While the men are searching for clues that would explain the motive for the murder, the women look around the kitchen. 'The insignificance of kitchen things,' derided and ignored by the men, tells the women why the wife was driven to murder her husband. All the things he did to her were little things: making her cook on a broken stove; keeping her shabby and ill-clothed so that she was ashamed to go out and make friends—another form of imprisonment; and finally destroying, wantonly, the only thing she loved—her canary. The dead bird is the vital clue—and the women suppress it. They understand, as the men cannot, that the killing was justifiable homicide."

"Ha," Peggy said triumphantly. "That's exactly what I was talking about. Vital trivialities. I'll bet Mrs. Fowler knows a lot of useful dirt about the Cartrights, for six generations back, and she'd be delighted to spread it. All she needs is a little encouragement. You might confide to her your growing romantic attachment—"

"That will happen on the same day the eternal flames of damnation freeze over. I'm sorry I ever showed you this stupid book. What luck did you have today?"

"Let's sit on the steps. I want to smoke."

"I told you you could smoke in here—if you insist. Just sit next to the window."

"I want to smoke a lot and I'm a very considerate person. Come on, it's a nice day."

The declining sun cast shadows across the lawn and deepened the green of young leaves and new grass. Around the sundial in the backyard a circle of lavender hyacinths bloomed bravely—except for the ones that had been flattened by the body of a gray-and-white cat, sprawled in a patch of sunlight.

"That's a handsome cat," Peggy said. "Your landlady's?"

"I don't know who it belongs to. I doubt it's Mrs. Fowler's; you've seen that finicky neat house."

"Right. I hope it's not a stray."

"Control yourself. You have enough cats. And I am not adopting one."

"You can take shots for those allergies, you know."

"I could, but I'm not going to. Stop wandering off the subject."

Peggy continued to stare. As if aware of admiration, the cat rolled over and stretched. "It's wearing a collar," Peggy said, relieved. "Okay. My luck ran out today. The title search dead-ended in 1778. There was nothing before that."

"That's far