Nellie rubbed the bar of resin along her cello bow as she walked up to Sanguineus. He stood leaning against the doorframe of the music chamber, contemplating the room's acoustical design. His drink glass was empty. When Nellie noticed this she set the bow and resin bar on one of the audience chairs and came purposefully up to him. He smiled at the sudden change in her demeanor.
"It was a rum and cola?" she asked.
"Yes. Very kind of you."
"You were very patient listening to my poor efforts," she said with a faint smile. She stood holding his glass in both hands, searching his face.
"I have a fondness for bass instruments," he said and stepped into the room. He was careful not to come closer to her, and he intended for her to realize it. It made her smile widen and warm up.
"You like the lower registers," she remarked in a tone of approval. "Me too. There's something insincere about the high notes."
"I know what you mean. They should be played sparingly, and then they have an honesty about them, a cry from the deep emotion of the bass."
"And your favorite instrument?"
"The piano."
"Do you play?"
"Clumsily. But it's relaxing."
Nellie stood still a moment longer, gazing down at the glass. Then she strode to the drink cabinet. She dropped two cubes of ice into the glass, added a jigger of rum, and topped it off with a dark soda that she thought was cola. "Oh my, I poured in root beer instead!"
"Let's try it," Sanguineus said. Now he walked up to her and stood close enough to feel her warmth, and she his. Their fingers touched when he took hold of the glass in her hand. Slowly she let go of it.
He took a sip. She watched him with bright eyes.
"Interesting," he said.
"May I?"
He handed her the glass. She took a lingering sip, her eyes narrowed, her brows lowered. "Hmm," she said. "This just might catch on. What should we call it?"
"Nellie," he said, "on the rocks."
"Oh, I am!" She laughed in a low voice, a laugh like a sustained note on the cello. "I feel like I should be living on the beach, in the tidal pools, not up here in a blood-red house."
Nellie handed him back the glass. He took it as slowly as she had let go of it.
"Why is that?" he asked.
His question intrigued her, he could tell. It was quite forthright for a guest whom she did not know well at all to ask her such a personal question. But upon reflection she realized that her comment could not help but elicit an intimate response. He could see that she was scrambling in her mind for an answer, something true but not too revealing.
"Life... shouldn't be comfortable," she said, and reached over to take up her bow and resin bar. "There is no excitement, no inspiration, no challenges, in being comfortable. One just ends up going to sleep."
Sanguineus recalled what Penny had said about her sister. 'It's Nellie who likes things easy.'
"But you describe yourself as being on the rocks," he said.
"I meant stuck. Stranded. Marooned. Music is the only thing I'm good at. But until I get a place in a philharmonic orchestra I'm... on the rocks. Here. Too comfortably stuck. I should just up and leave. Go somewhere challenging. Difficult. Somewhere that gets my blood moving."
Sanguineus smiled. "What's stopping you? It wouldn't be a financial hardship for you to go out on your own, would it?"
The look on her lovely face changed from a light airy expression to a very serious one. She was staring at the hard cold line of his smile. "If I go, it won't be wrapped in velvet," she said as though angry at herself. "I would leave with just enough money to get settled somewhere in a cheap apartment. I'd have to get a job, you know, like waitressing. To support myself while I continue my cello practice."
"But you have friends and contacts who would want to look after you," Sanguineus said in the same serious manner.
Nellie put on her lips his own stony smile. "Probably, yes," she said. "Maybe I'd change my identity. Then I'd truly be on my own."
"You'd be cutting yourself off from your loved ones."
"Oh, I think they'd understand. And those who don't understand aren't worth my time anyway."
Penny came in and said to Sanguineus, "There you are! Ross is spending the night at the Huffins house. Our lawyer. What do you think of him?"
"Who?"
"John Huffins." She went to the drink cabinet, paying no attention to her sister. Nellie eyed her narrowly.
"I like his dry sense of humor," Sanguineus replied. "Try a rum and root beer."
Penny looked over at him. "Are we experimenting tonight?"
"Some of the best discoveries were accidental. Plastic, for example."
"Plastic was an accident?"
"More or less. And look how it has taken over the world."
"Is that a good thing?" She picked up the root beer bottle and smiled crookedly at him.
"It has replaced wood in many things," he said. "Think of the trees that have been saved."
"Trees can be a nuisance. They shed. They block the sun. They look like skeletons when their leaves fall. Are you serious about root beer in the rum? Never mind, I don't like rum. I'm having a gin and tonic. Then I'm going to bed. Aren't you ever going to leave that bow alone, Nellie?"
"I spend less time with my bow than you spend with your golf clubs."
The two sisters looked at each other as if each were a stray dog encountered on the street. There was a gleam of interest marred by distrust, but not, Sanguineus thought, by dislike.
Penny shrugged. "I heard you saying something about going away on your own," she said to Nellie while glancing at Sanguineus. "Living the hard life. I don't think the hard life would appeal to you very long. The good life is better."
"What's good about everything being brought to you by a servant? You should try carrying your clubs yourself, instead of having a caddy carry them."
"And put a poor man out of work? You're being selfish, Nellie. You think only of yourself. Now, what would a gin and root beer taste like?"
"The hard life," Sanguineus said.
"And how so?" Penny asked, pleased to switch the conversation from her sister to him.
"The hard life doesn't have what you're used to having," he explained.
She raised her glass and rattled the ice in it. "Sounds like the hard life is a series of accidents," she said, turning to smile at Nellie, who looked back at her disapprovingly. "Deliberate accidents, wouldn't you say?"
"No I wouldn't, Penny. And it's time for you to go to bed. It's midnight."
Penny feigned a look of alarm. "My God it is! What would El--"
"Penny!" Nellie raised her bow threateningly. "Try going to bed at a decent hour and maybe you won't sleep all morning."
"Didn't I say I was going to bed after my nightcap? What are you so hussied up about?"
Nellie looked at Sanguineus apologetically. He had walked over to a diptych painting on the back wall: two trees, each with a Sleeping Beauty lying on the ground beneath the laden boughs. He felt her eyes on him. He turned around with the glass to his lips. "Interesting," he said. "I like a good mystery."
Penny walked up to him with every sign of wanting to kiss him. But she did not. She stood with a hand on her hip, her glass held to one side of her face.
"Are you really a golf course designer?" she asked in a sultry voice, acting as if an affirmative reply would sorely disappoint her.
"It's more a hobby than a career," he said, sipping his drink.
"Ah," said Penny in a noncommittal tone. Then a sudden change came over her and she asked brightly, "Do you know our cousin Liam?"
Sanguineus was prepared for the question. "I met him at the Saratoga tournament, back in April. What do you think of his wife Lucy?"
"I don't like her. She thinks she's some sort of brainiac."
"She's an intelligent woman."
"Aren't all women intelligent?"
"I've met a few who didn't quite qualify for that category."
"Like me?" Penny smiled in a daring manner.
"No, like Eleanor."
Sanguineus noticed how Nellie began to vigorously rub resin on the string of her bow, and how Penny simply stared up at him without a trace of emotion.
"Because she laughs too much," Penny said matter of factly. "She laughs at everything. But she's pretty, so John puts up with her."
"Penny," Nellie said, "finish your nightcap and go to bed." She leaned the bow against her cello, which stood near the drink cabinet on its mahogany stand.
Penny looked back at her. "I'm socializing, do you mind? It's what one does in the good life."
Nellie smiled sarcastically. "I wouldn't get too enamored of the good life if I were you. It could all end so abruptly. Good night, Mr Cruor."
"Good night, Miss Arden," he said and watched her go out the door into the hall.
Penny put a hand lightly on his arm. "That's a first. She's left me alone with a man."
Sanguineus looked at her moist, finely sculpted lips. "For how long?" he asked with a hint of meaning.
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