Genevieve Smith
The Thereminist Takes Requests

<< continued from Part 1

"You look most lovely, today." He broke the resumed silence without turning his head or averting his eyes from the road ahead.

"That." Caelia began. "That is very kind of you to say."

She turned to him. He remained expressionless.

"Do you typically engage strangers for lunch?"

"I do not."

"Well, then," Caelia shifted in her seat. "This is even more inexplicable. You live alone?"

"I have a butler."

"English?"

"Yes."

Their eyes held a brief council before Caelia withdrew hers and returned to watching the road ahead. Her grip tightened on the pan of pineapple upside down cake that resided on her lap. His eyes slit though her as if their gray hue was a crude-cut steel-as if they were intent upon looking straight inside her thoughts and reading the very fine print on her soul.

"You smell lovely," he began.

"Gramercy."

"Gramercy. That's new."

"Old, actually," Caelia responded. "Quite old."

"New to the present decade, though. I dare say, century."

"You know your words."

"So do you."

"Yes, well, it comes and it goes." she looked out the window. "You should use them more often."

"You said that you like music?"

"Yes," This repetition uneased her. She turned and asked skeptically, "Do you?"

"A bit."

Southall Road maundered through the margins of Pointe Abbaye. Caelia had never ventured into these parts of the town before, or even known of their existence. They were led past snow-dusted pines and crystalline ponds-pretty to look at, perhaps beautiful in the summer, but not beautiful in a usual bewitching way. The curious breed of beauty which makes you look closely. It was all greys and greens and mystery. If the outer world could have had inner beauty, this was the place, and Caelia took it all in as they motored along its frosty roads.

The first thing to greet them at the Hollcopple estate was an imperious iron gate. A cherub stood atop the monstrosity with a bouquet of flowers (or what remained of a bouquet), and appeared to have been engaged in the act of dispersing his efflorescent armload across the gate's expanse until left with but a single rose for himself in its center.

Not the most intimidating of watchman, Caelia concluded.

Wesley pushed a button from within the car and the gates opened up with arthritic creaks. In any other setting, it might have brought to mind like the stridulations of crickets, but here . here it connoted the more melancholic cries of crows.

The driveway was a swath of rose-colored bricks that made a gentle, sinuous sweep across the grounds like a large unfurled ribbon leading up to the front door (doors, there were two) of the abode.

"Here we are."

Caelia looked out her window to the laid-brick bower that stood beside the car. Tall, imposing-it would have provided some peaceful shade had the sun been out that day. The whole thing looked like a cake ready for cutting, built with buttercream and filled with lemon curd. The exterior was a broad canvas of intricate carvings-flowers, festoons, rosettes, and fleur-de-lis adorned its surface. A bounty of balconies gracefully obtruded from the walls, fine as eyelashes, and into every edge of the entire edificial confection there had been carved a braided border as though to soften the sharpness.

Gracious.

Wesley parked the car and walked around to her side to help her out.

"This." Caelia said, taking in the grandeur. "Is where you live?"

"Yes. Bought 1927. Formerly owned by the silent film star Clare Stavello."

"Why did she leave?"

"She died."

A sound grounds for eviction, Caelia thought. She wanted to ask why he had come here of all places to live alone, but she feared the honesty that might be found in his response.

They walked up the marble steps, flanked by golden lions, while Wesley produced a large, almost medieval looking key from his pocket.

"I . I hear she was quite an eccentric," he said.

"Who?"

"Miss Stavello."

"Oh." Caelia pondered what exactly this threshold for eccentricity could be from a man who locked himself away in a house-nay, mansion-on a hill for years of isolation.

The turning of the lock made a wearied, metallic clangor that echoed through the entirety of the house's hollowness like a pebble dislodged into the depths of a cave. With a somber chivalry, Wesley held open the door and bowed his head slightly as he ushered Caelia inside.

It was chilly and the light was subdued by the absence of the sun in the many windows. The floor was a chessboard of black and white marble and the ceiling above rose all the way to the second floor. Not far from their position at the door was a staircase that made a graceful pirouette up to the proceeding level, while a stained glass skylight lazed above.

"May I take your coat?" Wesley asked.

"Oh. Yes, of course."

"Mascarpone!"

She stopped and looked curiously at Wesley's nonchalance following this interjection as he removed his gloves.

"The cheese?" she asked.

She was contemplating whether a response of "brie" or "cheddar" was in order when out of the corner hall came a small, stout man, scurrying with the dignity of a dachshund and disposition of a basset hound-breathless, beaming, and bedizened in a white apron.

"Miss Wayelin!" this little figure called, a voice so British it could take two lumps of sugar on a doily with a layer of biscuits.

"Who-?"

"I'm Mascarpone."

"No need to run, Mascarpone," said Wesley.

"-the butter," little man continued, intermittent gasps punctuating his speech. "The butler, I mean. And you must be the celebrated Miss Wayelin. I have heard scores about you."

"Disconcert raised Caelia's eyebrows. "Scores? Well, I suppose that's very kind." "Caelia, this is my butler, Mascarpone," said Mr. Hollcopple.

"Like the cheese," the man held out his hand grandly. "And it is a pleasure to see you. To see anyone this side of the threshold, for that matter. It's not often we're graced with company here. Although, I'm sure you've heard the rumors."

He turned to Wesley.

"Lunch is served in the dining room, sir."

He took her coat and Wesley's.

"Where shall I-" Caelia held out the pineapple upside down cake.

"Oh, allow me," said Mascarpone.

"Serve it up with dessert, if you please, Mascarpone." Wesley turned to Caelia. "Right this way." He offered his arm, and she accepted gingerly. She was unsurprised by the thinness she felt beneath his coat-it matched his external frailty. He led her down the windowed hall to the dining room, and as he did so, just for a fleeting flick of a minute moment, his fingertips touched her hand.

Only two places were made at the end of the long table, while the rest sat in silent regard as if to call to mind and commemorate the passing of some regular guest. There were also flowers. A copious amount. A big bouquet on the table, clusters and sprays set on stands about the room. Enough for three small weddings, a funeral, and the dressing room of a b-level singer after a moderately successful performance.

"Holy Hockmeyer," Caelia whispered as they entered the room.

On the table were sandwiches. An abundance of parsley-sprigged sandwiches-crab, salmon, egg, tomato, bacon and avocado-all type of sandwich arrayed on three-tiered trays. Likewise there were three salads, a cucumber soup, pieces of pastel melons enswathed in prosciutto, and a further bouquet of carrots, radishes, and zucchini-all carved and fashioned into delicate florals-with many options of French dressing, one representing each of France's respective regions.

"You did all of this?" Caelia asked.

"No," Wesley said. He pulled out a chair for her. "That would be Mascarpone. I just planned the menu."

They sat, Wesley at the head of the table and Caelia to his right. Across from her place were huge windows-frosted ones-suffusing the room with a lambent wintry light.

"You said you liked music," Wesley said.

Caelia felt there was no need to bother with disconcert anymore. She simply answered the question for this, the third time: "Yes, I do."

Wesley rang a little bell that was beside his place. Off in the distance, a door slammed, its echo clamoring down the hallway toward the diners. There was an uneven creaking and laboring of wheels-wheels that didn't seem to have served in their capacity of "wheels" for sometime.

In a moment the same bumbling butler who had met them at the door emerged from the corridor, this time, changed into a tuxedo, wearing white gloves, and pushing a bronze cart that was the cause for the aural agony. There was a diminuendo in the caterwaul as he stopped in a corner opposite where she and Wesley were seated. He turned to face them.

On top of the cart was a lavish length of plum-tinted velvet concealing an indecipherable shape.

Caelia watched with uncertainty.

"Is it time, sir?"

Wesley raised his hand in the direction of their new companion.

"Mascarpone will see to music."

With a flourish, the curtain covering was removed, revealing a large, ebony box that resided on a secondary swath of velvet. The anonymous contraption looked like the tilted top of a writer's desk, or a drafting table-perhaps a podium. All of these observations might have had value, if, of course, they had excluded the presence of a large antenna protruding itself from the right side of the whole ordeal, which presumably served some sort of useful purpose.

Surely, he's not going to sing.

"Sandwich?"

Caelia turned to Wesley, who was holding out one of the many trays of sandwiches.

"Umm . yes. Please." She made a careless selection of two, forgoing any thanks before resuming the spectacle in the corner. Mascarpone was now dusting off his knees after having plugged something into a nearby outlet.

>> click to read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

>> Back to Issue 23, 2020