Voice Out of Darkness by Ursula Curtiss Page A

curiously at John Meredith’s cousin as they sat in the familiar long living room in the house on the hill. Pauline Trent was somewhere in her late fifties but her hair, parted in the center and drawn back to abun so smoothly that it might have been painted on, was still dark. So were her eyes. They were so dark under the straight thick eyebrows that it was impossible to read anything at all in them.
    Sitting beside the fire, with hickory logs snapping and hissing against the blackened gray stone, she said suddenly to Katy, “I remember you tumbling about the hill out there. You’ve shot up a few feet since then, of course. I’ve grown a few inches myself—sideways.” She sipped her sherry. The logs settled and sang. She said, “You must have been a great comfort to John and Belinda when the child died.”
    Katy deposited cigarette ash with care. She said that it had been, of course, a shock to everyone. Jeremy stood and said apologetically that if Katy didn’t mind he’d better be getting back to his office, and they all moved toward the door.
    “I daresay it seems odd to you, Katy, staying at the Inn instead of in this house.”
    “Not at all,” Katy said. “It’s quite comfortable, really.”
    “I live alone here,” Pauline said abruptly, “and I’m afraid I’ve gotten out of the habit of being very civil. It’s too wearing after fifty anyway. And then you’ll have the place to yourself when I’m gone, which won’t, happily for both of us, be too long. I’ve no intention of living to be ninety.”
    Katy, confused by the wintry smile and the bright dark eyes, murmured that she hoped not and then, horrified, that she hoped so. Miss Trent, seemingly amused and a little triumphant at the embarrassment she had created, said that she might see Katy later on that evening; she usually dined out on Fridays. Then they were in the car and out of the driveway and Jeremy, the remnants of a smile at his mouth, was saying, “Sorry. I thought you knew. She’s inclined to be—eccentric.”
    “Just a trifle,” Katy said weakly, and then, “But you—this is the long way into town. I thought you were in a hurry.”
    “We’ll miss the bridge traffic this way,” Jeremy said. “It comes out about even.” They were slowing for a corner, he threw her a questioning look. Katy nodded and said nothing. She thought suddenly, this takes us past the cemetery.
    She took out two cigarettes, silently, and handed one to Jeremy and lighted them both. It was around the next curve now. Now. As they came down the hill she said, “Stop a minute, will you?” Jeremy slowed, and looked at her. He said bluntly, “Shall I drive in?” and Katy said carefully, “Yes, please—just for a minute.”
    Snow-cloaked headstones on either side, here and there a white-hatted angel or a wrought-iron railing standing out black and stiff and lacy against the snow. Off at the back, under the towering dark blue spruce, a flutter of pale cool pink on the ground.
    The wreath on Monica’s grave.
    The cemetery was wrapped in a hush of its own, deeper and more solemn than that of the empty fields. Imagination, thought Katy, and then, no, it’s more than that. Distantly, the carnations foamed and glimmered on the snow, the only flowers in sight. Beside her Jeremy was absolutely still. She could feel the warmth of his shoulder through both their coats. If either of them moved a fraction of an inch their arms would touch. It was, suddenly, the movie-house again; the close darkness, the not daring to breathe for fear of breaking or making a contact, the smothering sensation in a twelve-year-old chest.
    Katy turned her head, and looked directly into Jeremy’s eyes. They were quiet, and terribly intent. A long unwinking second pounded by. Jeremy moved, violently. “Ready?” he said, and turned the ignition key sharply. Snow churned under the wheels and they were on the road again and circling back into town. Jeremy was talking, calmly,