Free Julia by Peter Straub Page B

Mr. Piggot still gazed at him with affronted blue eyes, spaced rather too closely together.
    “Hullo, all.” A compact little gentleman in a frayed gray gabardine suit bounced into the room a few paces ahead of Lily. He, too, had a mustache and a bald head, but his mustache was larger than Mr. Piggot’s, and his cranium seemed almost aggressively solid. Julia noticed a medal pinned to his jacket before she saw that one of his sleeves was pinned up. “Am I the last?” He looked around briskly, paused at Mark, and then made for Julia. “See the West Hampstead ladies aren’t here yet. You must be Julia Lofting. Pleased to meet you. The name’s Arkwright. Nigel Arkwright. And you have sherry, how thoughtful. Lovely house you have here, eh? My cousin Penny Grimes-Bragg took a house in this neighborhood many years ago, over in Allen Street. Not far from here, is it?”
    “No, not at all,” Julia said, wondering if Mr. Arkwright got out of the house much. But she had decided that he was an “ally” against the unpredictable Mrs. Fludd and the as yet unknown West Hampstead ladies.
    “No more than a brisk walk,” he was saying. “Driving my old bus down here, I was just thinking of the old days when Penny and I—”
    “Do join me, Mr. Arkwright,” Lily broke in. Her innate sociability had apparently overcome her resentment of her brother’s presence, for she smiled at Julia once Mr. Arkwright turned his back.
    “With pleasure, Miss L.,” he chirped. “Ah, Mrs. Fludd, two new ones tonight. That’ll limit the old bag of tricks, won’t it?”
    “Drink your sherry, Nigel,” said Mrs. Fludd amicably. She had moved some inches away from Mark, who was now slumped far down on the couch so that his bottom seemed in danger of slipping to the floor. He looked profoundly bored, but Julia sensed some area of tension—unreleased, concealed—in him. Mrs. Fludd, too, appeared to have been accumulating psychic power, for she glanced toward the door a second before the bell rang again.
    Julia went into the hall and opened the door. Two women, both thin and elderly and dressed in long, threadbare black coats, stood on the doorstep. Behind them Julia glimpsed an ancient black bicycle propped against the curb, and an even older-looking, rusty Morris Minor behind it which must have been Mr. Arkwright’s “bus.” The West Hampstead ladies had presumably taken a combination of buses. If Magnus were lurking outside, watching the various arrivals, the effect would not be what she had intended. In fact, she saw, the effect would be the reverse of her intention: Magnus would suppose her to have slipped over the edge into total incompetence. Still, she found a smile for the two women.
    “I’m Julia Lofting. You must be Miss Pinner and Miss Tooth.”
    “Such a long way.”
    “But not as far as Shepherd’s Bush.”
    Miss Pinner and Miss Tooth entered Julia’s house, remarking upon its niceness. When they reached the living room, they darted in tandem across to Mrs. Fludd, spoke a few words to her, and then turned around to smile at the others of their group. When Miss Pinner finally saw Mark, her smile disappeared. Miss Tooth, however, cast him a glance full of vague benevolence.
    “Who is this young man?” asked Miss Pinner.
    “Now, Norah,” said Miss Tooth.
    “Who is he?”
    “Mrs. Lofting’s brother, Mark. Very dark in the aura, he is.
Your
aura’s very strong tonight, Miss Pinner. Bright orange, the color of powerful movements in the fourth house. Perhaps we shall have luck tonight.” Saying this, Mrs. Fludd looked about the room, her attention visibly distracted from Miss Pinner; she had grown, since Julia had last looked at her, slightly apprehensive.
    “There will be no question of the higher states with two new ones,” said Miss Pinner.
    Lily said from Mr. Arkwright’s side, “Mrs. Fludd has very graciously agreed to limit herself to the elementals.”
    As Julia looked at the two old women their faces, which