Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice Page B

me, that not only had I found him but that he was wanting to hear my story; he was at my side.
    We went up the six front steps to the marble porch and I opened the door, which, on account of our being out here in the country, was never locked.
    The broad central hallway stretched out before us, with its diamond-shaped white-and-black marble tiles running to the rear door, which was identical to the door by which we had just entered.
    Partially blocking our view was one of the greatest attributes of Blackwood Manor, the spiral stairway, and this drew from Lestat a look of pure delight.
    The frigid air-conditioning felt good.
    â€œHow gorgeous this is,” he said, gazing at the stairway with its graceful railing and delicate balusters. He stood in the well of it. “Why, it runs all the way to a third floor, doubling back on itself beautifully.”
    â€œThe third floor’s the attic,” I said. “It’s a treasure trove of trunks and old furniture. It’s yielded some of its little secrets to me.”
    His eyes moved to the running mural on the hallway walls, a sunshine Italian pastoral giving way to a deep blue sky whose bright color dominated the entire long space and the hall above.
    â€œAh, now this is lovely,” he said, looking up at the high ceiling. “And look at the plaster moldings. Done by hand, weren’t they?”
    I nodded. “New Orleans craftsmen,” I said. “It was the 1880s, and my great-great-great-grandfather was fiercely romantic and partially insane.”
    â€œAnd this drawing room,” he said, peering through the arched doorway to his right. “It’s full of old furniture, fine furniture. What do you call it, Quinn? Rococo? It fills me with a dreamy sense of the past.”
    Again, I nodded. I had gone rapidly from embarrassment to an embarrassing sense of pride. All my life people had capitulated to Blackwood Manor. They had positively raved about it, and I wondered now that I had been so mortified. But this being, this strangely compelling and handsome individual into whose hands I’d put my very life, had grown up in a castle, and I had feared he would laugh at what he saw.
    On the contrary, he seemed thrilled by the golden harp and the old Pleyel piano. He glanced at the huge somber portrait of Manfred Blackwood, my venerable ancestor. And then slowly he turned enthusiastically to the dining room on the other side of the hall.
    I made a motion for him to enter.
    The antique crystal chandelier was showering a wealth of light on the long table, a table which could seat some thirty people, made especially for the room. The gilded chairs had only recently been re-covered in green satin damask, and the green and gold was repeated in the wall-to-wall carpet, with a gold swirl on a green ground. Gilded sideboards, inset with green malachite, were ranged between the long windows on the far wall.
    A need to apologize stole over me again, perhaps because Lestat seemed lost in his judgment of the place.
    â€œIt’s so unnecessary, Blackwood Manor,” I told him. “And with Aunt Queen and me its only regular inhabitants, I have the feeling that someone will come and make us turn it over for some more sensible use. Of course there are other members of the family—and then there’s the staff, who are so damned rich in their own right that they don’t have to work for anybody.” I broke off, ashamed of rambling.
    â€œAnd what would a more sensible use be?” he asked in the same comfortable manner he had adopted before. “Why should the house not be your gracious home?”
    He was looking at the huge portrait of Aunt Queen when she was young—a smiling girl in a sleeveless white beaded evening gown that might have been made yesterday rather than seventy years ago, as it was; and at another portrait—of Virginia Lee Blackwood, Manfred’s wife, the first lady ever to live in Blackwood Manor.
    It was