Legacy Of Terror

know that I gave up portraits when dad didn't even recognize the one I did of him. My talent doesn't lay in that direction.”
    The jolliness with which the older brother admitted his limitations would ordinarily have pleased Elaine. But now it seemed just another part of his irresponsible nature. He knew that he did not have a broad talent as an artist, and yet he persisted in wasting his time at it. She knew that Gordon was thinking the same thing.
    “You're both excused, then,” Lee said.
    “What about me?” Paul asked.
    Lee grinned. “You won't want to be excused until dessert comes.”
    “True enough.”
    Bess, Jerry's wife, a heavy woman who embodied all the stereotypical virtues of motherhood (good humor, affection, gentleness and a fantastic cooking ability), brought the peach shortcake which she had proudly announced as the final dish before she had ever served the first. It was delicious; everyone told her so. Garlanded with praise, she retired to her kitchen, beaming and content.
    After dinner, Elaine intended to check in on her patient but was side-tracked by Gordon Matherly who met her at the bottom of the stairs.
    “At dinner, you said you'd not seen much of the house. Would you like a tour?”
    “I thought it time I looked in on your grandfather,” she said.
    “The buzzer will sound if he needs you. And he doesn't go to bed as early as the doctor would like. He'll be up, reading or frittering away at something until ten or eleven.”
    “I guess it wouldn't hurt, then,” she said.
    “Good,” he said. He took her arm in a most gallant way which was not at all affected.
    All of the eight downstairs rooms were furnished like the parlor, with heavy mahogany pieces and darkly leafed and flowered wallpaper- except for the study which was richly paneled and for the kitchen which was bright and equipped with all the latest machinery that Bess could desire. Even the game room, with its pool table and sports equipment racks, was like an antique sitting room into which these evidences of modernity had been dropped like bricks through tissue paper.
    “I like the house the way it is,” Gordon said when they leaned against the billiards table to rest a moment.
    “I believe I do too,” Elaine agreed.
    “This modern stuff she's promoting will become obsolete and unstylish in a year. But this furniture we have-it's never dated. It's solid and dependable.”
    “Your father seems to agree with you.”
    “But he'll let Denny have his way. He always lets Denny have his way.” If there was bitterness in his tone, it was none like she had ever heard. He seemed only to be stating a fact.
    “Your brother seems rather taken with Celia,” she said. She said it as a way of finding out whether Gordon was smitten with the blonde as well. She hoped that he was not.
    “Denny is not smitten with anyone, particularly, but himself. All his girls are awed by him. He likes that.”
    “She's very pretty,” Elaine said.
    “Celia?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, I suppose.”
    “All that blonde hair, and that lovely rosy complexion of hers.” Unconsciously, she touched her olive colored skin, drew a circle on her cheek, as if she could feel the hue of herself.
    “She doesn't appeal to me,” he said.
    He was very final about it, but she sensed that there really was a bit of envy in him. Envy for Denny's girl. Denny had probably always gotten the better-looking girls, for so many women, especially the rather silly kind like Celia Tamlin, were more enchanted with a man's looks than with his inner fiber.
    She found Gordon easy to speak to, and she sensed that he was opening to her as he rarely did. Their low-key personalities, their somewhat guarded relations with the rest of the world made them soulmates of a sort. By the time they had explored most of the second floor, including the sun room, she felt on sound enough terms with him to ask him the question that had been bothering her all evening.
    “I understand-or believe I do-that the family experienced a tragedy of some kind last Christmas Eve.”
    His face changed in the instant. His brow wrinkled. His lips tightened until they were bloodless against his teeth.
    He said, “Then the neighbors have already gotten to you.”
    “What?”
    “They can't get done talking about it, though it's fifteen years ago that it happened.”
    “I thought last Christmas Eve was-”
    “Fifteen years ago. And if they've been at you, you know the story in all its awful detail, don't you?” He had grown accusatory, as if she were to blame