Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

111 страница из 119

"That was for me," I said. "Joe Stowe rang me up—from Boston."

The delicate arch of Cousin Clothilde's eyebrows moved.

"Does Bella know it?" she asked. I nodded and the room was still for a minute, so still that I could hear a church bell ringing across the river. "She's going over to the Jaeckels'," I said. "I'm going to see Joe. He's in Boston at the Crofton."

Cousin Clothilde was motionless. She was looking at me hard. In spite of the wrinkles at the corners, her eyes were beautiful, the same violet as Bella's but lighter, softer. I knew what Hugh Brill had seen in them when he first rowed over from the Brill place, now a national shrine, across the river. I knew what Archie Wright had seen in them. He had tried to paint them often enough. I knew what Manet had seen in them at the time she had known him in Paris.

"Give Joe my love," she said.

"It might have worked," I told her, "if you hadn't—" I paused because there was no use going into details which she had never understood.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "I didn't do anything. I know you loved him, but it was all a mistake. It was the war and this and that. Give Joe my love. I wonder why it is I have so many white spots on my fingernails. There must be something wrong with my circulation. I wish you'd look at them, Jim."