Read At Death's Door for Free Online Page B

rather,” said Roderick unhesitatingly. “Revenge is never a pretty thing.”
    â€œBut sometimes it’s necessary. You can’t imagine what Cordelia was like when we first met. A nervous, listless wreck, unsure of herself, unable to relate to other people. Myra did that. Deliberately, over the years, Myra did it. Since Cordelia was an adolescent, Myra has made it her great mission to demolish any confidence she might feel in herself and her own abilities. Anything she tried to do was ridiculed, any qualities she has were rubbished. That’s why this book is necessary. Cordelia has got to write it and then get on with a life, a career of her own. She’s got to write Myra out of her life.”
    Pat had become most eloquent. Roderick sat thinking.
    â€œI suppose that makes a sort of sense,” he said at last with a sigh. “We all have to get our parents out of our systems somehow. My father was a sexual pirate who made occasional visits to the family circle. I’m an obsessively faithful husband, a devoted family man. Caroline’s father was a bit of a crook; he had a multitude of business enterprises, and he sailed all of them on to the windy side of the law. Caroline is a slave to duty, endlessly sifting the moral implications of what she does. I suppose some such process is operating with Myra and Cordelia. Not knowingMyra well, I can’t precisely puzzle it out, but I take your word for it that she’s given Cordelia good cause. You know her, and you’ve seen the consequences in Cordelia.”
    â€œActually I don’t know her,” said Pat.
    â€œDon’t know her? Then you don’t think—?”
    â€œThat Cordelia may be exaggerating? No. Everything I’ve heard in the village, everything I’ve heard when Cordelia is talking to Myra’s fellow actors, bears out what she says. She must be one of the most hated people in the theater, and that’s saying something. I may say the reason I haven’t met Myra is that she made it clear to Cordelia and anyone else who would listen that she had no intention of bestowing any notice on some scrubby little down-at-heel schoolteacher that her daughter had the bad taste to take up with.”
    â€œDid she actually say that to Cordelia?”
    â€œShe did. And remember, Cordelia may have grown up a bit twisted—with that upbringing that was inevitable. But she is totally truthful. If she says a thing has happened, it has happened. She knows her mother as no one else does, because she knows what she’s done. She’s had it done to her .”
    Pat had been unusually communicative, even eloquent. Now he lapsed into his characteristic silence. By common consent they got up and began the walk back to the Old Rectory.
    Roderick and Caroline agreed it was time to let the topic of the biography be. There was nothing they could do, certainly not for the moment. Soon Cordelia would be finished with the material at the Rectory, and she and Pat would move on. Roderick and Caroline relaxed and enjoyed having the young people around. As they got closer, Roderick seemed to regard Cordelia more as a daughter than as a sister—a daughter for whom he no longer needed to feel any responsibility. One evening they went, all three,down to the tent and sat around on the lawn eating a supper of sausages and beans (they had no positive evidence that Cordelia and Pat ever ate anything else) and drinking red wine. There was lots of laughter. Pat played the mouth organ, which enchanted Becky. Cordelia told some backstage stories, and since she chose them carefully and they reflected no discredit on her mother, they could be enjoyed without embarrassment. Becky was so in love with the fading light, the two young people, and the uproarious cheerfulness that she was allowed to stay up well beyond her normal bedtime. It was nearly ten o’clock when they made for the house, and Caroline went straight up to check