Ghosts by Edith Wharton
Author:Edith Wharton [Wharton, Edith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2021-10-26T06:00:00+00:00
III
âI wonder how I blundered into the wrong room just now; I thought you told me to take the second door to the left,â Faxon said to Frank Rainer as they followed the older men down the gallery.
âSo I did; but I probably forgot to tell you which staircase to take. Coming from your bedroom, I ought to have said the fourth door to the right. Itâs a puzzling house, because my uncle keeps adding to it from year to year. He built this room last summer for his modern pictures.â
Young Rainer, pausing to open another door, touched an electric button which sent a circle of light about the walls of a long room hung with canvases of the French impressionist school.
Faxon advanced, attracted by a shimmering Monet, but Rainer laid a hand on his arm.
âHe bought that last week. But come alongâIâll show you all this after dinner. Or he will, ratherâhe loves it.â
âDoes he really love things?â
Rainer stared, clearly perplexed at the question. âRather! Flowers and pictures especially! Havenât you noticed the flowers? I suppose you think his mannerâs cold; it seems so at first; but heâs really awfully keen about things.â
Faxon looked quickly at the speaker. âHas your uncle a brother?â
âBrother? Noânever had. He and my mother were the only ones.â
âOr any relation whoâwho looks like him? Who might be mistaken for him?â
âNot that I ever heard of. Does he remind you of some one?â
âYes.â
âThatâs queer. Weâll ask him if heâs got a double. Come on!â
But another picture had arrested Faxon, and some minutes elapsed before he and his young host reached the dining-room. It was a large room, with the same conventionally handsome furniture and delicately grouped flowers; and Faxonâs first glance showed him that only three men were seated about the dining-table. The man who had stood behind Mr. Lavingtonâs chair was not present, and no seat awaited him.
When the young men entered, Mr. Grisben was speaking, and his host, who faced the door, sat looking down at his untouched soup-plate and turning the spoon about in his small dry hand.
âItâs pretty late to call them rumoursâthey were devilish close to facts when we left town this morning,â Mr. Grisben was saying, with an unexpected incisiveness of tone.
Mr. Lavington laid down his spoon and smiled interrogatively. âOh, factsâwhat are facts? Just the way a thing happens to look at a given minute . . .â
âYou havenât heard anything from town?â Mr. Grisben persisted.
âNot a syllable. So you see . . . Balch, a little more of that petite marmite. Mr. Faxon . . . between Frank and Mr. Grisben, please.â
The dinner progressed through a series of complicated courses, ceremoniously dispensed by a prelatical butler attended by three tall footmen, and it was evident that Mr. Lavington took a certain satisfaction in the pageant. That, Faxon reflected, was probably the joint in his armourâthat and the flowers. He had changed the subjectânot abruptly but firmlyâwhen the young men entered, but Faxon perceived that it still possessed the thoughts of the two elderly visitors, and Mr.
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