Katherine wished she could derail this most recent line of the conversation and get back to more pleasant topics. She had noticed, all through the evening, that Alex Boland tended to look upon the gloomy side of things, tempering his mother's bright and cheerful outlook on nearly every subject. His put-down of Michael Harrison, whom Katherine had liked a good deal, was like a black cherry on the top of his vaguely unpleasant fault-finding.
Lydia looked at her wristwatch for the first time that evening and said, somewhat surprised, “Goodness, it's going on eleven o'clock!” She smiled at Katherine and said, “I guess that's s certain proof that we are going to get along well together — I didn't notice a dull, dragging moment all evening long.” She stood up, dusting her hands together. “And I'm afraid that I have not been at all thoughtful. You haven't even been shown your quarters yet — or given a chance to rest. You must be enormously weary after a day of driving in this weather.”
“I do feel ready for bed,” Katherine admitted.
“I'd imagine the covers are turned down,” Lydia said. “Your private bath contains extra linen and towels, but Yuri can show you all of that.”
“One thing,” Katherine said.
“Yes?”
“I'd like to know what time I'm expected to be up and around in the morning and if—”
Lydia said, “No trouble there. I rise at eight-thirty or nine o'clock in the morning — neither country-early nor rich-late.” She chuckled, a sixty-four-year-old woman who looked fifty and acted thirty-five. “I'm usually ready to dictate a few letters or clear up some other business by ten-thirty or so. If you're available then, that's fine.”
“Marvelous!” Katherine said, unable to contain her enthusiasm for the relaxed schedule.
In the orphanage, the morning began promptly at seven o'clock, rain or shine, no matter what the season, except for Saturday when there was no school, no crafts and no church services. Then, you could sleep until nine or nine-thirty before the maids wanted in the rooms. In college, she had worked part time, odd hours. The job and her regular classes had precluded any lazy mornings. This position, then, was going to turn her into an idler if she were not careful — but a happy idler, anyway.
“Well, Yuri will show you to your room. He has already placed your bags there.”
When Katherine turned toward the arch, she discovered that the squat servant was waiting for her, framed by the arch as he had been framed by the massive front doors when she had first seen him earlier in the evening. He was smiling, all of his fine, white, pointed teeth showing. She had not heard his approach, and she barely heard his invitation as he said, “If you will come this way, Miss Sellers, I'll show you to your quarters.”
“Goodnight,” Katherine said.
They replied in kind as she passed through the arch in Yuri's wake, and Alex wished her a special “good sleep.”
She followed Yuri up the dimly lighted main staircase which was entirely of polished teak, so dark that it was almost black, so expensive that she did not want to consider the cost. Lydia's father had certainly been a show-off with his fortune. It was clear why Lydia, even as a child, had looked upon Owlsden as a monstrosity.
Her room was at the end of the corridor on the north wing, second floor. It was nearly as spacious as the drawing room in which they had spent most of the evening. The bed was a massive four-poster without a canopy. The ancient headboard contained twelve cleverly concealed drawers and storage slots which Yuri pointed out to her, one by one, smiling as she murmured her approval of the ancient craftsman's fine work. A crimson bedspread lay across the sheets, and two goose-feather pillows were plumped beneath it at the base of the headboard.
The furniture on both sides of the bed — a hutch, triple chest, a large easy chair with a matching footstool, a full-length mirror on a stand that permitted it to be spun about or tilted at nearly any angle, a vanity and matching bench, two nightstands each with a lamp— was equally dark and massive and lasting in appearance, but it was comfortable furniture that she would soon feel at home with.
The bath which adjoined her bedroom contained a shower stall and a sunken tub and was quite as elaborate as the bath beneath the stairs on the first floor. The beauty cabinet contained a wide variety of oils, scents and powders, plus clean, plastic-wrapped combs and brushes. The wall closet held extra sheets and towels, though Yuri made it plain that her bed would be made for her every morning and that the linen and towels would be changed regularly.
One of the three closets which lead off the bedroom contained a waist-high refrigerator which had already been stocked with fruit juices, sodas, cheeses and a few other snacks. He informed her that she had only to tell Patricia Keene what she would like to have supplied her, and the refrigerator would be re-filled twice a week or as often as was required.
She loved it. It was perfect, or as close to perfection as anything she had had before.
“May I please also make a suggestion that might concern your safety and happiness in Owlsden?” Yuri asked.
The tone of the question, the strained expression on his broad face were at odds with the good-humored tour guide he had been only a moment earlier. “Certainly,” she said, apprehensively.
“Lock your door when you retire each night,” he said. “The iron bolt is ancient but sound.”
“Why should I lock it?” she asked, curious about the secretive manner in which Yuri had broached the subject. She was certain that he did not want Lydia and Alex to know what advice he was giving her.
Obviously, he did not want to explain the suggestion, and he looked down at the carpet, as if she would forget that she had asked. He said, “And if you are wise, you will not leave Owlsden for a stroll around the grounds — not once the hour of midnight has passed and not before dawn.”
“Yuri—” she began, not a little exasperated by this sudden, mysterious turn in the conversation.
“Come here,” he said abruptly, walking toward the largest window in her room. He was confident again, sure of himself. It was clear that he had decided to tell her everything, the reasoning behind these odd bits of advice.
She went to the window and looked out.
The snow was still falling, more like a horizontal avalanche than a snowstorm as the wind drove it from left to right across the window. The view looked out from the back of the house on a lawn that was not clearly defined in the blizzard, toward an endless stretch of scraggly darkness which she took to be the forest.
“It must be a beautiful view by daylight.”
“Quite,” Yuri said. “But in darkness, at midnight and after, it is something else again.”
“Are you trying to tell me its haunted or something?” she asked.
“Something,” Yuri said, “but not exactly haunted.” He wiped a thick hand across the sweat-dotted expanse of his broad forehead, then continued, “Twice in the last several months, I have stood at the second floor windows and watched strange lights and stranger figures cavorting down by the pines, at the very edge of the forest, not more than seven hundred yards from this window.”
Katherine felt chilled, though her room was adequately heated. She said, “What are you trying to tell me?”
He sighed. “Miss Sellers, my home is Romania, a dark but beautiful land in Europe. I was born there and grew up there and did not leave until 1942 when I fled the influence of the Nazis. In Romania, indeed in much of Europe, the people do not scoff at many of the things that you in America find so amusing. A belief in evil spirits, possession and exorcism, werewolves and vampires is as common a part of their lives as the knowledge that they must one day die in the natural cycle of things. I am an educated man, as I hope is evident, and yet I can see the wisdom in many of these beliefs and accept the knowledge of generations even if science laughs at it.”