Lucy took a quick sip from her cup of bitter coffee and shuddered slightly. “But I insist,” she cried, her voice sharp under its tone of badinage.
“What is it?” Honor put down her cigarette and turned from Timothy and Susan. “What are you going on about, Lucy?”
Honor saw her sister’s face freed suddenly from its mask of almost contemptuous impersonality and was now filled with apprehension. Was someone hurting Sara? Had something frightened her?
“What is it?” Honor’s voice was alarmed.
Everyone stopped talking.
Sara dropped her hands. She smiled in a wry way.
“Nothing,” she said.
“But it was!” Lucy cried. Her eyes were sparkling. “Darling Sara admired this silly little necklace of mine and so I have insisted that she accept it. I insist! That is all. Is that a crime?”
She laughed again and looked defiantly all around the table while her fingers pulled with controlled fury at the chain of Florentine gold that hung tightly around her ample neck.
Honor and Daniel each felt their blood freeze and dared not look at one another. All their old horror from their childhood rushed into them, remembering as they now did that Sara hated to have anything around her throat. Each was panic-stricken at the scene this might cause, almost to think of Lucy’s—or anyone’s—trying to put a necklace around their sister’s neck. What would Sara do? Would she cry out, or faint? Would she suffer as they were suffering, those who knew her silent phobia, and were themselves now feeling choked and suffocated?
“It is a lovely necklace, but lovely!” Susan said brightly. She leaned across Dan, who was twirling his glass, his eyes downcast in his face masked by remoteness.
Lucy laughed shortly. “Well, I do think so!” she announced, before turning again toward Sara who sat calmly, her face now very much resembling her brother’s.
“I do insist,” Lucy said again. “This chain will be perfectly beautiful on you, Sara dear, and I’ve been wondering all summer what to give you as a little memento of all our gay good times here. You can wear it with anything. You’ll wear it always.”
Sara looked about the table then at Lucy. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Lucy.”
Timothy saw that she was looking at him. He stood up.
“You’re a generous darling, Lucy,” he said. “It’s a lovely gift. And now let’s have some brandy on the terrace.” He walked quickly around the table. These Tennants under all their flat-faced calm really were too damned finicky, he thought. He put his hand lightly on Lucy’s arm.
“Are you sure you won’t have a little nip with me?” he asked her softly. “You look very tired tonight, my dear Lucy. You are too sensitive . . .”
Lucy felt herself being drawn toward the terrace. Damn Timothy Garten, she thought. Then she laughed. He was sly. He was fascinating. But she was the one who really knew the power of love. She would keep Nan from him if it was the last action of her own tortured body.
“No brandy,” she cried gaily. “Old as I am, I don’t need that to get myself a good time. Come on, all you young people.”
She felt for the chain that lay at her throat. What was it that she’d stirred by her overly generous offer to that Sara? She shrugged then pulled furiously at the cigarette as Timothy held the candle to light it for her.