The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong

Author:Charlotte Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd

CHAPTER 12.

SUNDAY WAS A WEARY DAY. T OBIAS was haggard. He had not slept for three nights now. Yet, pushed by abnormal energy, he insisted that Mandy pose. So she sat, in light of day and last night’s finery. It felt queer. She, too, was tired. She had not slept well.

All day there was no signal, no private whisper from Thone. They had no real meeting. She realized that they couldn’t have. They must not appear to conspire. But she had to take it on faith that he conspired at all. He was polite to her. Ione could guess whether he were jealous, annoyed, or bored by it all. Guess—but not know.

Tobias could only guess, also. Tobias was aware of his son’s aloofness.

Perhaps it was the artist’s tension that set them all on edge. Mandy kept suppressing the need to sigh off some of the weight of it. It was a dreadful day!

She thought of Kate, who had, she knew, gone to Catalina with Andrew Callahan and assorted friends. She thought of them in full sunlight, free in the light and the air. For to her, the cool studio was beginning to feel like a corner of hell, in which she was chained by ice-green satin. Also, her heart ached with pity and anxiety for this dear man who worked and talked on, as if unseen devils drove him.

A terrible day!

By nightfall, Tobias was desperately weary. Yet he couldn’t rest. And Ione, who had put herself oddly aside all day, moved her hand.

“I do think,” she said in her crooning way, “a little of your medicine, Toby, dear. A few nights of rest …”

“I suppose so.”

“There,” she said. “Of course. It will help, dear. It always does.” A weary gratitude rolled over the artist’s face. He touched her firm little hand and smiled.

“Yes. Please, Ione.”

He took the chloral in a glass of milk. No one was anything but casual about it. Ione prepared the dose. The drug was kept, Amanda noticed with surprise, very handy. It was kept on the shelf back of the convenient little serving bar and liquor cabinet in the studio corner.

Had it always been kept there? Oh, but, if so, she thought, then no one but Belle could have touched it six years ago. She thought, I must be all wrong. Ione doesn’t like me. But that’s all. Nothing’s going to happen.

She was not offered anything to drink.

Monday was a little better. They’d shaken down into a routine. Mandy posed in the morning and again in the afternoon. Tobias worked and lectured at the same time. It was very illuminating. Thone answered the phone, ducked invitations. He sun-bathed on the terrace. Or lazed in a fat chair in the studio sometimes, half listening. He was not—not really—interested in painting.

He was a strangely aloof and self-contained creature.

But when he was there, Mandy leaned away to stay upright, as one leans on the west when a west wind is blowing.

Dinner was a peaceful family affair. Thone polite, Ione presiding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.