"Oh, yes, I know, I,ve spent my time in the libraries of Berkeley and Stanford," he said. "Did he publish? I mean did he publish his finds?"
"Never to my knowledge," she said.
"You think Margon and Felix were together on this last trip?"
She nodded.
"Whatever happened," she said, "it happened to them together. My worst fear is that it happened to them all."
"All six of them?"
"Yes. Because none of them ever called here looking for Felix. At least not that I ever knew. No more letters from any of them ever came. Before there had often been letters. I had a devil of a time finding the letters, and when I did, well, I couldn,t make out the addresses and all turned out to be dead ends. The point is none of them ever contacted anyone here, looking for Uncle Felix, ever. And that,s why I,m afraid whatever it was it happened to them all."
"So you couldn,t find any of them, and they never wrote again to him?"
"That,s it exactly," she said.
"Felix left no itinerary, no written plans?"
"Oh, yes, probably he did, but you see, no one could read his personal writing. He had a language all his own. Well, actually they all used that language, or so it seems from some of the notes and letters I later found. They didn,t always use it. But apparently they all could. Wasn,t in the English alphabet. I,ll show you some of it later. I even hired a computer genius to crack it a few years ago. Couldn,t get to first base."
"Extraordinary. You know all this will fascinate my readers. Marchent, this could become a tourist attraction."
"But you saw the old articles about Uncle Felix. It,s been written about before."
"But the old articles talk only about Felix, not his friends. They don,t really have all these details. I see this as a three-part story already."
"Sounds marvelous," she said. "You do exactly as you please with it. And who knows? Maybe someone out there might know something about what became of them. One never really knows."
Now that was an exciting thought, but he knew not to push it. She,d been living with this tragedy for twenty years.
She led him slowly out of the room.
Reuben glanced back at the agreeable gathering of gentlemen who stared back so placidly from the framed photo. And if I buy this place, he thought, I,ll never take that picture down. That is, if she lets me keep it or make a copy of it. I mean shouldn,t Felix Nideck remain in some form in this house?
"You wouldn,t share that picture with whoever bought the place, would you?"
"Oh, very likely," she said. "I do have smaller copies, after all. You know all this furniture is included." She gestured as they moved across the great room. "Did I say that already? Come, I want to show you the conservatory. It,s almost time for dinner. Felice is deaf and nearly blind but she does everything by a clock in her head."
"I can smell it," he said as they crossed the big room. "Delicious."
"There,s a girl up from the town helping her. Seems these kids will work for almost nothing just to have a little experience here in this house. I,m starving myself."
The western conservatory was filled with dead plants in colorful old Oriental pots. The white metal framework, holding up the high glass dome, reminded Reuben of bleached bones. There was an old dried fountain in the middle of the soiled black granite floor. This Reuben had to see again in the morning, with the light streaming in from three directions. Right now, it was so damp and cold.
"You can see out that way when the weather,s pleasant," Marchent said, pointing to the French doors, "and I remember a party once where people were actually dancing in here, and drifting out there on the terrace. There,s a balustrade right at the cliff,s edge. Felix,s friends were all there. Sergei Gorlagon was singing in Russian, and everyone so loved it. And of course Uncle Felix was having a fabulous time. He adored his friend Sergei. Sergei was a giant of a man. And there was no one quite like Uncle Felix at a large party. Such a vivacious spirit, and how he loved to dance. And my father was skulking about mumbling about the expense." She shrugged. "I,ll try to get the place all cleaned up. Should have done it before you arrived."
"I can see it clearly," said Reuben, "filled with potted orange trees and banana palms, and great towering weeping ficus and maybe orchid trees and flowering vines. I,d read the morning papers in here."
She was delighted, obviously. She laughed.
"No, darling, you would read the morning papers in the library which is the morning room. You,d drift in here in the afternoon when the western sun floods the room. Whatever made you think of orchid trees? Ah, orchid trees. And in summer you,d hang about in the early evening here until the sun sinks into the sea."
"I love orchid trees," Reuben confessed. "I,ve seen them in the Caribbean. I guess all us northern people crave tropic climes. One time we stayed in this small hotel in New Orleans, one of those bed-and-breakfast hotels in the Quarter, and there were orchid trees on either side of the swimming pool, actually dripping purple petals into the water, just a whole sweep of purple petals on the water, and I thought it was the loveliest thing."
"You should have a house like this, you know," she said. A shadow darkened her face, but only for a second. Then she smiled again and squeezed his hand.
They only glanced into the white-paneled music room. The floor there was white-painted wood, and the grand piano, Marchent said, had been long ago ruined by the damp and taken away. "These painted walls in here, all this came right out of some house in France."
"I can believe it," he said admiring the deeply carved borders and faded floral decorations. Now, this was something Celeste would approve of, because Celeste loved music, and often played the piano when she was alone. She didn,t attach much importance to her own playing, but now and then Reuben had awakened to hear her playing the small spinet in her apartment. Yes, this she would like.
The great shadowy dining room was a surprise.
"This isn,t a dining room," he declared. "It,s a banquet room, a mead hall, to say the very least."
"Oh, indeed, it used to be a ballroom in the old days," Marchent said. "The whole country round came to the balls here. There was a ball even when I was a child."
The dark paneling prevailed here as in the great room, as lustrous and beautiful under a high-coffered ceiling of myriad plaster squares scoring a ceiling painted dark blue with bright stars. It was a bold decoration. And it worked.