The Dark Return of Time by R.B. Russell

Author:R.B. Russell [R.B. Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Esoteric, Weird Fiction, Tartarus Press, Novella
Goodreads: 21895934
Publisher: Swan River Press
Published: 2014-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

VII

My father and I were among a dozen guests at Hopper’s house. In the elegantly appointed drawing-room we were served champagne, and voices were low in deference to the woman playing the Gnossiennes of Satie on the piano in the corner.

Hopper greeted us warmly; he was enjoying playing the generous and genial host. He introduced us to a junior minister from the French Department of Education and suggested, knowingly, that we would have a great deal in common. The man was eager to talk with us in English, but soon found himself forced to discuss, pointlessly, the current French curriculum compared to that which my father had been taught at Grammar School in England thirty years before. The junior minister was unfailingly polite and feigned great interest, and I entertained myself by looking at the modern artwork around the walls, trying to decide whether it was interesting or just pretentious. It should have contrasted with the furniture, which attempted to look antique, but failed to do so because each item was an expensive, modern reproduction.

A second glass of champagne convinced me to try to find the evening amusing. A man in an immaculate artist’s smock introduced himself to me as the artist responsible for some of the paintings on the walls, and I asked him a number of deliberately philistine questions, which he answered with good humour. I was certain that Hopper had surrounded himself with people who he thought would be impressed by the company he kept.

When the time came, it was in a relaxed mood that I made my way with the others down towards the dining room. As I passed the library, however, Hopper contrived, very discreetly, to make me step inside.

With the door not quite closed behind us, he said with the blandest of expressions, ‘I’ll only ask this once, and then the subject need not arise again. Did you tell Candy Smith that we were going to Saint-Quentin to bid on my book?’

‘No.’

‘Then the subject is closed,’ he smiled and handed me a cheque. ‘I rounded-up your commission,’ he said.

I was sure that he didn’t believe me. Why should he? Standing in close proximity to the man, alone, I knew that I shouldn’t make an enemy of him.

My concerns were soon forgotten, though. When I sat down at the large table I quickly drank the wine served with the first course, and very soon I was talking to the young woman on my left. Hortense had recently begun a ‘doctorat’ in English Literature and was really very pretty. We were soon arguing, good-naturedly, the merits of certain authors. My father had also found himself next to a congenial neighbour and was discussing shop rents in Paris.

Because the party was quite a large one, inevitably there were several simultaneous conversations. On a number of occasions, though, Hopper insisted on breaking off discussion at his end of the table and asking the opinion of me or my father on literary matters. Hopper had been discussing with the junior minister which books should be read in French schools.

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