Better to Eat You by Charlotte Armstrong Read Free Book Online

hardly businesslike,” said David, “or secretarial.”
    Sarah’s heart jumped into her throat and she wanted to cry out, No, don’t … But of course one never did anything to startle Grandfather. One must do as he wished and move only gently.
    â€œDo you like the muffins?” asked Grandfather, licking butter from his thumb. “Moon does something extraordinary to them. My Chinese cook, Mr. Wakeley. Not one word he says is comprehensible to us. But he understands what we say, although somewhat adventurously.”
    Sarah had heard Grandfather talk about Moon before. She drank tea with rum in it, desperately bewildered, while Grandfather, nodding and dimpling and using his short-fingered plump hands in punctuating gestures, explained about Moon. How he always got a menu almost exactly right. But never quite. Always some little surprise, a twist of his own. “It’s rather fun,” said Grandfather.
    â€œThese are delicious,” David said. “But I asked you a moment ago … I know so little about the work you did sir. I have missed a lot. Is there a film record of your … what would you call it … performances? If so I would …”
    â€œAlas,” said Grandfather, “no film record can catch a thing which exists only at the moment of perfect rapport between the comedian and his audience. Everything we did, Mr. Wakeley, bounced upon our audience and returned to inspire us to send back a little more. It was like tennis. But a film would be as if we hit our ball against a deadening wall. No, we were not on the films. I do not regret it.”
    â€œMy loss, nevertheless,” said David politely.
    â€œYou are quite right, of course,” said Grandfather complacently. “The photographs give nothing.”
    The familiar photographs were lying, Sarah saw, by David’s hand. Two little men, drowned in too much cloth, the clown-masks of their made-up faces, putty noses, charcoaled brows, both solemn, full-face toward the cameras. The photographs of Fox and Lupino had never seemed funny, but old-fashioned and grotesque, and even somewhat pathetic by their stillness as if there must have been some noise and energy about the two quaint little figures not captured in the picture and so lost forever.
    â€œNothing at all,” said Grandfather.
    David stirred. “I must think about going. I can’t stay, I’m afraid.” David looked at Sarah.
    â€œThen we must explain to Sarah.” Grandfather turned and took her hand. His eyes peered earnestly into her face. “Mr. Wakeley, who prefers not to be called Professor … eh, Sarah?…” Sarah had a sense of coming dismay and waited helplessly. “Mr. Wakeley, then, proposes to write a history book. Malvina has taken him to see the studio over the garage and he declares it is perfect. So he will write his book here, at the Nest. And you will be his secretary.”
    â€œBut I can’t …” said Sarah faintly.
    â€œWhy, you can,” Grandfather said, cocking his head with all his dimples playing. “Mr. Wakeley thinks you would like to.” Sarah knew the longing and the pain were in her eyes for Grandfather to see. “It will do you so much good to be occupied, as we all agree. And there is no need to worry at all, dearie. You are safe from this bother of yours … you know that … here, with the family.”
    Sarah brought her trembling hands together.
    â€œMr. Wakeley … although I think I will soon come to call him David …” Somewhere in the blur Sarah knew that David smiled …“David, then,” Grandfather went on, “will stay in the guest house with Edgar, and I shall have the pleasure of presiding over the writing of a book. Now fancy! Here in my Nest, to hatch such a thing! Eh, Sarah?”
    â€œOh, Grandfather, I … don’t know.…”
    â€œBut I have seen to it,” Grandfather said, the