Blackwood Farm Part 5

Jasmine gave me a little wave, and then went back to straightening small items on the bedside table, and as Aunt Queen looked up and greeted me, crying "Quinn!" with a little touch of ecstasy, Jasmine stopped her work and came forward, slipping right past us out of the room.

I wanted to hug Jasmine. It had been nights since I'd seen her. But I was afraid. Then I thought, no, I'm going to do it for as long as I can do it, and I've fed and I'm warm. A greedy sense of goodness overcame me, that I wasn't d.a.m.ned. I felt too much love. I stepped back and caught Jasmine in my arms.

She was beautifully built, and her skin was a lovely color of milk chocolate and her eyes were hazel and her hair extremely woolly, and always beautifully bleached yellow and close-cropped to her very round head.

"Ah, that's my Little Boss," she said as she hugged me in return. We were in the shadows of the hallway. "My mysterious Little Boss," she went on, pressing me tight against her bosom so that her head was against my chest. "My wandering Little Boy, whom I scarcely ever see at all."

"You're my girlfriend forever," I whispered, kissing the top of her head. In this close company, the blood of the dead was serving me well. And besides, I was hopeful and slightly crazy.

"You come in here, Quinn," called out Aunt Queen, and Jasmine softly let me go and she went towards the rear door.

"Ah, you have a friend with you," said Aunt Queen as I obeyed her, Lestat at my side. The room was warmer than the rest of the house.

Aunt Queen's voice was ageless, if not actually youthful, and she spoke with a clear commanding diction.

"I'm so pleased you have company," she said. "And what a fine strapling of a youth you are," she said to Lestat, satirizing herself ever so delightfully. "Come here so I can see you. Ah, but you are handsome. Come into the light."

"And you, my dear lady, are a vision," Lestat said, his French accent thickening just a tiny bit as if for emphasis, and, leaning over the marble table with its random cameos, he bent to kiss her hand.

She was a vision, there was no doubt of it, her face warm and pretty for all its years. It wasn't gaunt so much as naturally angular, and her thinning lips were neatly brightened with rose lipstick, and her eyes, in spite of the fine wrinkles around them, were still vividly blue. The diamonds and pearls on her breast were stunning, and she wore several rich diamond rings on her long hands.

The jewels as always seemed part of her power and dignity, as if age had given her strong advantage, and a sweet femininity seemed to characterize her as well.

"Over here, Little Boy," she said to me.

I went to her side and bent down to receive her kiss on my cheek. That had been my custom ever since I'd grown to the staggering height of six foot four, and she often took hold of my head and teasingly refused to let me go. This time, she didn't do it. She was too distracted by the alluring creature standing before her table, with his cordial smile.

"And look at your coat," she said to Lestat, "how marvelous. Why, it's a wide-skirted frock coat.

27.Wherever did you get it, and the cameo b.u.t.tons, how perfect. Will you come here this very minute and let me see them? You can see that I've a positive mania for cameos. And now as the years have gone by, I think of little else."

Lestat came round the table as I moved away. I was frightened suddenly, very frightened, that she would sense something about him, but no sooner had this thought gripped me than I realized he had the situation entirely under his command.

Hadn't another Blood Drinker, my Maker, charmed Aunt Queen in the same manner? Why the h.e.l.l should I be so afraid?

As she examined the b.u.t.tons, remarking that each was a different muse of the Grecian Nine Muses, Lestat was beaming down on her as if he were genuinely smitten, and I loved him for it. Because Aunt Queen was the person I loved most in all the world. Having the two of them together was a little more than I could bear.

"Yes, a real true frock coat," she said.

"Well, I'm a musician, Madam," Lestat said to her. "You know in this day and age a rock musician can wear a frock coat if he wishes, and so I indulge myself. I'm theatrical and incorrigible. A regular beast when it comes to the exaggerated and the eccentric. I like to clear all obstacles when I enter a room, and I have a perfect mania for antique things."

"Yes, you're so right to have it," she said, exulting in him obviously, as he stepped back and joined me where I stood before the table. "My two handsome boys," she remarked. "You do know that Quinn's mother is a singer, though what kind of a singer I'm not quite prepared to say."

Lestat didn't know, and he gave me a curious glance and a slight teasing smile.

"Country music," I said quickly. "Patsy Blackwood is her name. She's got a powerful voice."

"Very much diluted country music," said Aunt Queen with a vague tone of disapproval. "I think she calls it country pop, and that can account for a lot. She has a good voice, however, and she writes occasional lyrics that aren't too bad. She's good at a sort of mournful ballad, almost Celtic, though she doesn't know it --but you know, a little minor-key bluegra.s.s sound is what she really likes to do, and if she did what she likes to do rather than what she thinks she ought to do she might have the very fame she so desires." Aunt Queen sighed.

I marveled, not only at the wisdom of what she'd said, but at the curious disloyalty, because Aunt Queen was never one to criticize her own flesh and blood. But something seemed to have been stirred inside her by Lestat's gaze. Perhaps he had worked a vague charm, and she was giving forth her deepest thoughts.

"But you, young man," she said, "I'm your Aunt Queen from now on and forever, certainly; but what is your name?"

"Lestat, Madam," he answered, p.r.o.nouncing it "Les- dot dot," with the accent on the second syllable. "I'm not really very famous either. And I don't sing anymore at all actually, except to myself when I'm driving my black Porsche madly or riding my motorcycle at a raging speed on the roads. Then I'm a regular Pavarotti --."

"Oh, but you mustn't go speeding!" Aunt Queen declared with a sudden attack of pure seriousness. "That's how I lost my husband, John McQueen. It was a new Bugatti, you know what a Bugatti is" (Lestat nodded), "and he was so proud of it, his fine European sports car, and we were racing down the Pacific Coast Highway One, and on an unclouded summer day, screeching around the turns, down to Big Sur, and he lost control of the wheel and went right through the winds.h.i.+eld. Dead like that. And I came to my senses with a crowd around me, only inches from a cliff that went sheer down into the sea."

"Appalling," said Lestat earnestly. "Was it very long ago?"

"Of course, decades ago, when I was foolish enough to do such things," said Aunt Queen, "and I never remarried; we Blackwoods, we don't remarry. And John McQueen left me a fortune, some 28.consolation, I've never found another like him, with so much pa.s.sion and so many happy delusions, but then I never much looked." She shook her head at the pity of it. "But that's a dreary subject, all that, he's buried in the Blackwood tomb in the Metairie Cemetery; we have a large tomb there, an inspiring little chapel of a tomb, and I'll soon be in it too."

"Oh, my G.o.d, no," I whispered, with a little too much fear.

"You hush now," she said, glancing up at me. "And Lestat, my darling Lestat, tell me about your clothes, your odd and bold taste. I love it. I must confess that to picture you in that frock coat, rus.h.i.+ng along on a motorcycle, is quite amusing, to be sure."

"Well Madam," he said, laughing softly, "my longing for the stage and the microphone is gone, but I won't give up the fancy clothes. I can't give them up. I'm the prisoner of capricious fas.h.i.+on and am actually quite plain tonight. I think nothing of piling on the lace and the diamond cuff links, and I envy Quinn that snappy leather coat he's wearing. You could call me a Goth, I think." He glanced at me very naturally, as though we were both simple humans. "Don't they call us snappy antique dressers Goth now, Quinn?"

"I think they do," I said, trying to catch up.

This little speech of his made Aunt Queen laugh and laugh. She had forgotten John McQueen, who had in fact died a long time ago into stories. "What an unusual name, Lestat," she returned. "Does it have a meaning?"

"None whatsoever, Madam," Lestat answered. "If memory serves me right, and it does less and less, the name's compounded of the first letter of each of my six older brothers' names, all of whom --the brothers and their names --I grew up to cheerfully and vigorously despise."

Again, Aunt Queen laughed, plainly surprised and utterly seduced. "Seventh son," she said.

"Now that confers a certain power and I'm deeply respecting of it. And you speak with a ready eloquence. You seem a fine and invigorating friend for Quinn."

"That's my ambition, to be his fine friend," said Lestat immediately and sincerely, "but don't let me intrude."

"Never even think of it," Aunt Queen offered. "You're welcome under my roof. I like you. I know I do. And you, Quinn, where have you been of late?"

"Round and about, Aunt Queen," I answered. "Bad as Patsy in my roamings, round and about --I don't know."

"And have you brought me a cameo?" she asked. "This is our custom, Lestat," she explained, and then: "It's been a week since you have been in this room, Tarquin Blackwood. I want my cameo. You must have one. I won't let you off the hook."

"Oh, yes, you know I almost forgot about it," I said. (And with reason!) I felt in my right-hand coat pocket for a little tissue-covered package that I'd put there nights ago. "It's from New York, this one, a lovely sh.e.l.l cameo."

I unwrapped the paper and put it before her in all its glory, one of the largest sh.e.l.l cameos that she would own. The image was from the white strata of the sh.e.l.l, naturally, and the background a dark pink. The cameo was a perfect oval with a particularly exquisite scalloped frame of heavy 24-carat gold.

"Medusa," she said, with obvious satisfaction, identifying the woman's profile at once by her winged head and the wild snakes for hair. "And so large and so sharply carved."

"Fearsome," I said. "The best Medusa I've ever seen. Note the height of the wing, and a bit of the orange strata on the wing tip. I meant to bring it sooner. I wish that I had."

"Oh, there's no point to that, my darling," she said. "Don't regret it when you don't come to see me. I think I'm timeless. You're here now and you've remembered me. That's what counts." She looked up to Lestat eagerly. "You know the story of Medusa, don't you?" she asked.

Lestat hesitated, only smiling, obviously wanting her to speak more than he wanted to speak 29.himself. He looked rather radiant in his rapture with her, and she was beaming back.

"Once beautiful, then turned into a monster," said Aunt Queen, clearly enjoying the moment immensely. "With a face that could turn men to stone. Perseus sought her by her reflection in his polished s.h.i.+eld, and once he'd slain her the winged horse Pegasus was born from the drops of blood that fell to earth from her severed head."

"And it was that head," said Lestat confidingly, "that Athena then emblazoned on her s.h.i.+eld."

"You're so very right," said Aunt Queen.

"A charm against harm," said Lestat softly. "That's what she became once beheaded. Another wondrous transformation, I think --beauty to monster, monster to charm."

"Yes, you're right on all counts," said Aunt Queen. "A charm against harm," she repeated.

"Here, come, Quinn, help me take off these heavy diamonds," she said, "and get a gold chain for me. I want to wear Medusa on my neck."

It was a simple matter to do as she asked. I came around directly to the dressing table and removed the diamonds from her, giving her a sly kiss on the cheek, and put the diamond necklace in its customary leather box. This always sat atop her dressing table on the right-hand side. The gold chains were in a box in the top drawer, each in its plastic pouch.

From these I chose a strong chain of bright 24-carat gold, and one that would give her a snug but good fit. I threaded it through the bail attached to the cameo, and then put the chain around her neck for her and snapped the clasp.

After another quick couple of kisses, very powdery and rather like kissing a person made of pure white confectioners' sugar, I came around in front of her again. The cameo was perfectly nested against the full gathered silk of the scarf and looked both imposing and rich.

"I have to admit," I said of my new purchase, "it is really quite a trophy. Medusa is her wicked self in this one, not just a pretty winged girl with snakes, and that's rare."

"Yes," said Lestat agreeably, "and so much stronger is the charm."

"You think so?" Aunt Queen asked him. For all her dignity, the cameo befitted her more than the roaring diamonds. "You're a curious young man," she went on to Lestat. "You speak slowly and reflectively, and the timbre of your voice is deep. I like it. Quinn was a bookworm and swallowed mythology by the mouthful, once he could read, and, mind you, that wasn't until very late. But you, how do you know about mythology, for surely you do? And obviously something about cameos, or so I judge by your coat."

"Knowledge drifts in and out of my mind," said Lestat with a little look of honest distress and a shake of his head. "I devour it and then I lose it and sometimes I can't reach for any knowledge that I ought to possess. I feel desolate, but then knowledge returns or I seek it out in a new source."

How they connected, the two of them, it was amazing to me. And then I felt a stab of bitter memory again, of my Maker, that appalling presence, that d.a.m.nable presence, once connecting with Aunt Queen in this very room and in the very same easy way. The subject had been cameos then too. Cameos. But this was Lestat, not my Maker, this was not that loathsome being. This was my hero under my roof.

"But you love books, then," Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.

"Oh, yes," Lestat said. "Sometimes they're the only thing that keeps me alive."

"What a thing to say at your age," she laughed.

"No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope --that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved."

"Oh, yes, I think so, I really do," Aunt Queen responded, almost gleefully. "It ought to be that way with people and sometimes it is. Imagine --each new person an entire universe. Do you think we can allow that? You're clever and keen."

30."I think we don't want to allow it," Lestat responded. "We're too jealous, and fearful. But we should allow it, and then our existence would be wondrous as we went from soul to soul."

Aunt Queen laughed gaily.

"Oh, but you are a specimen," she said. "Wherever did you come from? Oh, I wish that Quinn's teacher Nash was here. He'd so enjoy you. Or that little Tommy wasn't away at school. Tommy is Quinn's uncle, which is slightly misleading since Tommy is only fourteen, and then there's Jerome. Where's little Jerome? Probably fast asleep. Ah, we'll have to make do with only me --."

"But tell me if you will, Miss Queen," asked Lestat, "why do you love the cameos so much?

These b.u.t.tons, I can't claim to have chosen them with much care, or to have been obsessed with them. I didn't know they were the Nine Muses until you told me, and for that I'm in your debt. But you have here a fine love affair. How did it come about?"

"Can't you see with your own eyes?" she asked. She offered him a sh.e.l.l cameo of the Three Graces and he held it up, inspecting it, and then he laid it down reverently before her again.

"They're works of art," said Aunt Queen, "of a special sort. They're pictures, complete little pictures, that's what matters. Small, intricate and intense. Let's use your metaphor of the entire universe again; that's what you find in many of these."

She was in a rapture.

"One can wear them," she said, "but it doesn't cheapen them to do it. You yourself just spoke of the charm." She touched the Medusa at her breast. "And of course I find something unique in every one I acquire. In fact, there's infinite variety in cameos. Here, look," she said, handing Lestat another example. "You see, it's a mythical scene of Hercules fighting a bull, and there is a G.o.ddess behind him and a graceful female figure in front. I've never seen another like it, though I have hundreds of mythological scenes."

"They are intense, yes," said Lestat. "I see your point completely, and it's truly divine, yes."

She looked about for a moment and then picked up another large sh.e.l.l cameo and offered it to him.

"Now that's Rebecca at the Well," she said. "A common scene depicted on cameos, and coming from the Bible, don't you know, from the book of Genesis, when Abraham sent a messenger to find a wife for his son Isaac, and Rebecca came out to greet this messenger at the village well."

"Yes, I know the story," Lestat said quietly. "And it's an excellent cameo too."

She looked at him eagerly, as much into his eyes as at his hands, with their l.u.s.trous fingernails.

"That was one of the first cameos I ever saw," she said, taking it back from him, "and it was with Rebecca at the Well that my collection began. I was given ten altogether of that exact same theme, Rebecca at the Well, though all were different in their carvings, and I have them all here. There's a story to it, to be sure."

He was obviously curious, and seemed to possess all the time in the world.

"Tell me," he said simply.

"Oh, but how I have behaved!" she suddenly remarked, "allowing you to stand there as if you were bad boys brought before the princ.i.p.al. Forgive me, you must sit down. Oh, but I am witless to be so remiss in my own boudoir! For shame!"

I was about to object, to declare it unnecessary, but I saw that Lestat wanted to know her, and she was having such a wonderful time.

"Quinn," she declared, "you bring those two chairs here. We'll make a cozy circle, Lestat, if I'm to tell a tale."

I knew there was no arguing. Besides, I was painfully stimulated that these two liked each other. I was crazy again.

As to the chairs, I did as I was told, crossing the room, taking up two of the straight-back chairs from Aunt Queen's round writing table between the back windows, and setting the chairs down right 31.where we had stood so that we could face her again.

She took the plunge: "It came about in this very room, my introduction to the pa.s.sion for the cameo," she said, her eyes flitting over both of us and then fixing firmly on Lestat. "I was nine years old then and my grandfather was dying in here, a dreadful old man, Manfred Blackwood, the great monster of our history, the man who built this house, a man of whom everybody was afraid. My father, his only living son, William, tried to keep me away from him, but one day when the old beast was alone he saw me peeping in at that door.

"He ordered me to come inside and I was too afraid not to do it, and curious besides. He was sitting here where I am now, only there was no fancy dressing table here. Just his easy chair, and he sat in it, with a blanket over his lap, and both his hands on his silver-k.n.o.bbed cane. His face was stubbly with his rough beard, and he wore a bib of sorts, and dribbled from the edge of his mouth.

"Oh, what a curse to live to that age to be s...o...b..ring as he was, like a bulldog. I think of a bulldog every time I think of him. And mind you, a sickroom in those days, no matter how well attended, wasn't what a sickroom is today! It reeked, I tell you. If I ever become that old and start to s...o...b..r, Quinn has my express permission to blow my brains out with my own pearl-handled gun, or to sink me with morphine! Remember that, Little Boy."

"Of course," I rejoined, winking at her.

"Oh, you little devil, I'm serious --you can't imagine how revolting it can be, and all I ask is permission to say my Rosary before you execute the sentence, and then I'll be gone." She looked at the cameos and then about herself and back to Lestat.

"The Old Man, yes, the Old Man," she said, "and he was staring blankly into nothing before he saw me, mumbling to himself until he started to mumble to me. There was a little chest of drawers beside him where it was rumored he kept his money, but how I knew this I don't now recall.

"As I was saying, the old reprobate told me to come in, and then he unlocked the top drawer of this chest and he took out a small velvet box and, letting his cane fall over on the floor, he put the box in my hands. 'Open that up and hurry,' he said. 'Because you're my only granddaughter and I want you to have it, and your mother is too foolish to want it. I said hurry up.'

"Well, I did precisely what he told me, and inside were all these cameos, and I thought they were fascinating with all their tiny little people on them and their frames of gold.

" 'Rebecca at the Well,' he said. 'All of them of the same story, Rebecca at the Well.' And then, 'If they tell you I murdered her they're telling you the truth. She couldn't be satisfied with cameos and diamonds and pearls, not that one. I killed her, or more truthfully, and it's time for the truth, I dragged her to her death.'

"Of course I was awestruck by his words," said Aunt Queen, "but instead of being suspicious and horrified, I was impressed that he was addressing these words to me. And he went on talking, the s...o...b..r coming down the side of his mouth to his chin. I should have helped him wipe his face, but I was too young to do anything as compa.s.sionate as that.