Legacy Of Terror

went abruptly uncommunicative, for he had recognized the tone of disbelief in her voice, no matter how cultivated was her professional good cheer and comradeship.
    She did not know what to say to re-engage him in pleasant conversation. She could not continue to humor him as she might a child, for he was old enough to be her grandfather. Yet she was so rattled by his fantasy of madness and murder that she could not think how to rechannel him into more acceptable topics of conversation.
    A patient who lived in illusions, misinterpreting reality, was not her favorite sort. So closely linked to reality herself, she could not cope with someone who attempted to escape from life through daydreams and night dreams, sleeping and awake. She rarely had dreams herself. Or, if she did, she rarely remembered what they had been about.
    “Well,” she said, “if you won't be needing me for a while, I think I'll go freshen up and unpack.” She nodded to the bell cord attached to the head of the bed. “Is that linked to my room?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Then you can call me if you need me.”
    “Wait a moment, Elaine.”
    She had turned and taken a few steps towards the door, but she stopped now and turned back to him. She cocked her head inquisitively, waiting for him to speak.
    “Do you know about Christmas Eve?” he asked.
    It was the sort of nonsensical question she had feared, and she felt uncomfortable standing here. She said, “What about it?”
    “You don't know anything about what happened in this house on that Christmas Eve?”
    He had risen off his pillows a few inches. His body trembled, his neck was strained so that the veins all bulged and the pulse in the main artery was clearly visible.
    “I'm afraid I don't know,” she said.
    “Until you've heard of it-and you will, soon enough-don't judge me. Don't count me off as a babbling old man… old man with brain damage. Don't count me off like Lee has… not until you know what happened that night before Christmas.”
    “What happened?” she asked, intrigued despite herself.
    But he had spoken more than he wanted to, and he was perturbed by her reluctance to believe him. He would not respond. She left the room and walked down the corridor to her room, listening to the storm scream across the roof of the mansion and wondering, uneasily, what sort of storm was brewing within the lives of these people.
    By the time she had reached the end of the hall, she had shrugged it off. Jacob was only an old man, seriously ill. It was not wise to give credence to his ramblings, even for a moment. There was nothing at all brewing. Inside her purse was a check for four hundred dollars. This was a new life, her first truly independent existence, away from orphanage officials and nursing-college instructors and deans with their rules and regulations. If she faced this squarely and did her job, nothing could go wrong.

Chapter 2
    She wore a sensible blue skirt and a white blouse to dinner, a cool green band through her long hair to hold it away from her face. She had successfully rationalized away the strange conversation which she had had with Jacob Matherly, and she was prepared to enjoy herself,
    Jacob did not come to the table but took his supper in his room. He was somewhat clumsy with eating utensils, Lee explained, and did not like to be seen while trying to manage for himself. At the same time, he rejected any suggestion that someone else feed him. He was a fiercely independent old man and intended to remain that way.
    Without the master of the house, there were six of them at the long table in the dining room: Lee, his sons Dennis and Gordon, Paul Honneker the brother of Lee's deceased wife, Celia Tamlin who was an interior decorator whom Dennis had brought to look at the house, and Elaine herself. The major topic of the evening was the architecture of the mansion and the ways Celia felt its furnishings could be changed to compliment, rather than detract from, that unique flavor.
    Elaine would have called the ornate structure a great many things, but she would never have said it had a “unique flavor". Since everyone else seemed to actually enjoy the way the place was built, she kept her mouth shut except to give them the answers she thought they would most appreciate when they asked for her opinion.
    “Seriously, Elaine,” Dennis Matherly asked, “don't you think that grandfather's taste was much too stuffy for this marvelous house?”
    She said, “I haven't seen most of it. But I do like my