“But, Dad, I don’t—”
“Come on, I say! Are you my son?” He had turned at the far end of the room. “Thank you for the refreshment, Calida, let me know if there is anything I can do. Lew, damn it, come on! Helen, my dear, you are a fool, I’ve always said so. Lew!”
Llewellyn stopped to murmur something to Helen, nodded to his aunt, ignored Gebert, and hurried after his father to assist in the defense of their castle. There were rumblings from the entrance hall, and then the door opening and closing.
Mrs. Frost stood up and looked down at her daughter. She spoke to her quietly: “This is frightful, Helen. That this should come... and just now, just when you will soon be a woman and ready for your life as you want it. I know what Boyd was to you, and he was a great deal to me, too. Just now you’re holding things against me that time will make you forget... you’re remembering that I thought it wise to temper the affection you had for him. I thought it best; you were a girl, and girls should look to youth. Helen, my dear child...”
She bent down and touched her daughter’s shoulder, touched her hair and straightened up again. “You have strong impulses, like your father, and sometimes you don’t quite manage them. I don’t agree with Perren when he sneers at you for trying to buy vengeance. Perren loves to sneer; it’s his favorite pose; he would call it being sardonic... but you know him. I think the impulse that led you to hire this detective was a generous one. Certainly I have every reason to know that you are generous.” Her voice stayed low, but it got more of a ring in it, a music of metal. “I’m your mother, and I don’t believe you really want to bring people here who tell me that I refuse to discuss... this matter... because I don’t intend to get involved. I’m sorry I was brusque with you today on the telephone, but my nerves were on edge. Policemen were here, and you were away, just making more trouble for us to no good purpose. Really... really, don’t you see that? Cheap insults and bullying for your own family won’t help any. I think you’ve learned, in twenty-one years, that you can depend on me, and I’d like to feel that I can depend on you too...”
Helen Frost stood up. Seeing her face, with no color in it and her mouth twisted, it looked shaky to me, and I considered butting in, but decided to keep my trap shut. She stood straight, with her hands, fists, hanging at her sides, and her eyes were dark with trouble but held level at Mrs. Frost, which was why I didn’t speak. Gebert took a couple of steps toward her and stopped.
She said, “You can depend on me, Mother. But so can Uncle Boyd. That’s all right, isn’t it? Oh, isn’t it?” She looked at me and said in a funny tone like a child, “Don’t insult my mother, Mr. Goodwin.” Then she turned abruptly and ran out on us, skipped the shebang. She left by a door on the right, not toward the hall, and closed it behind her.
Perren Gebert shrugged his shoulders and thrust his hands into his pockets, then pulled one out to rub the side of his thin nose with his forefinger. Mrs. Frost, with a couple of teeth clamped on her lower lip, looked at him and then back at the door where her daughter had gone.
I said brightly, “I don’t think she fired me. I didn’t understand it that way. What do you think?”
Gebert showed me a thin smile. “You leave now. No?”