The Dark Closet by Beall Miranda

Author:Beall, Miranda [Beall, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-12-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

“You’ll be interested to see this,” Twynne smiled as he handed the newspaper to Crossett who was stepping back to let Anne enter first. The flickering twinkle in Twynne’s eyes did not escape Crossett as Twynne raised the folded newspaper to hail a friend walking up the icy path to his door.

“You’re mighty brave to go through with this anyway, despite the weather,” laughed the newcomer.

Twynne waved a hand. “No trouble a ‘tall,” he replied smiling broadly.

“But how does Maragret feel about it? Someone further back in the line of new arrivals called.

“You know Maragret. She loves a party!”

The statement was not entirely true. While she loved a party as much as anyone, she was not partial to holding one in the dead of winter after the second worse snowstorm of the century. It posed all kinds of problems. Where the guests would park was a monumental one. Usually a section of the post-and-rail fence of the nearest fallow field was taken down to admit cars, and the rolling hills undulated with reflective chrome and questing antennas. In the snow there was no problem with removing a section of fence, but while the cars might get in, there was no guarantee that they could get out. So the cars were parked all up and down the half-mile driveway, their antennas tentatively examining the icy nodules frozen to the brittle needles of the elephantine pines lining the drive.

“Someone’s going to get stuck, Twynne,” another jovially said as he stamped the snow from his heavy, black rubber boots before stepping over the wooden threshold onto the Oriental runner.

Maragret had fled to the kitchen to seek solace among the boiling pots and smoking hors d’oeuvres of the caterer. His hustle and bustle was a comfort. The chattering and intermittent impatient orders of first this one and then that among the corps of caterers were more soothing to her nerves than the deep drone of conversation swelling up in the library, hall, and parlors. Twynne’s insistence on having the party—regardless of whether they had regained their current only two weeks before and whether all the party food purchased prior had spoiled—had kept her in a state of anxiety since he had decreed that the fete would be held as planned. One of the caterer’s trucks had gotten mired in the driveway on its way up, and they had spent the afternoon shoveling gravel beneath its enormous rear wheels in an attempt to free it. Finally, a tow from the tractor pulled it loose enough to send its rubber wheels whining along the slick, packed snow of the drive. After that, one of the caterers slipped on a gelid patch along the walk to the kitchen, along which the procession marched with large aluminum trays of prepared foods, their metal so whitely silver on so lactescent a cloudy day they could scarcely be distinguished from the snow when set down upon it. The injured caterer had to be carried inside and laid to rest

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