Mexican Gothic(35)
10
In the mornings Florence or one of the maids came by to deliver Noemí’s breakfast tray. She had tried to converse with the maids, but they did not offer anything but curt yeses and nos to Noemí. In fact, when she encountered any of the staff of High Place—Lizzie or Charles or the eldest of the three servants, Mary—they inclined their head and kept walking, as if they were pretending Noemí did not exist.
The house, so quiet, with its curtains drawn, was like a dress lined with lead. Everything was heavy, even the air, and a musty scent lingered along the hallways. It felt almost as if it were a temple, a church, where one must speak in low voices and genuflect, and she supposed the servants had acclimatized to this environment and therefore tiptoed along the staircase, unwilling nuns who had made vows of silence.
That morning, however, the quiet routine of Mary or Florence knocking a single time, walking in, and setting her tray on a table was interrupted. There were three knocks, three soft rapping noises.
No one walked in, and when the knocks were repeated Noemí opened the door to find Francis there, bearing her tray.
“Good morning,” he said.
He quite surprised her. She smiled. “Hello. Are you short staffed today?”
“I offered to help my mother deliver this, since she’s busy seeing about Great Uncle Howard. He’s had pain in his leg last night, and when he does he’s in a foul mood. Where should I set it down?”
“Over there,” Noemí said, stepping aside and pointing at the table.
Francis carefully set the tray down. Afterward he slid his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat.
“I was wondering if you’d be interested in looking at those spore prints today. If you have nothing better to do, that is.”
This was a great chance for Noemí to ask him for a ride, she thought. A bit of socializing and he was sure to do as she said. She needed to go into town.
“Let me talk to my secretary. I have a very full social agenda,”
Noemí replied cheekily.
He smiled. “Should we meet in the library? In, say, an hour?”
“Very well.”
—
It was close to a social outing, this trek to the library, and it invigorated her, for she was an eager social creature. Noemí changed into a polka-dot day dress with a square neck. She had misplaced the matching bolero jacket and really she ought to have been wearing white gloves with it, but their location being what it was, it was not as if a little faux pas like that would be noticed and make it into the society pages.
As she brushed her hair she wondered what everyone was up to back in the city. No doubt her brother was still behaving like a baby with that broken foot of his, Roberta was probably trying to psychoanalyze their whole circle of friends as she always did, and she was sure by now Hugo Duarte had found a new girl to take to recitals and parties. The thought needled her for a second. Hugo was, truth be told, a good dancer and decent company during social functions.
As she descended the stairs she was amused by the thought of a party at High Place. No music, of course. The dancing would have to take place in silence, and everyone would be dressed in gray and black, as if attending a funeral.
The hallway that led to the library was profusely decorated with photographs of the Doyles rather than paintings, as was the case on the second floor. It was hard, however, to look at them because the hallway was kept in semi-darkness. She’d need to hold a flashlight or candle to them to see anything properly. Noemí had an idea. She walked into the library and the office and pulled the curtains aside.
The light filtering out through the open doors of these rooms lit up a stretch of wall, providing her a chance to examine the images.
She looked at all those strange faces that seemed nevertheless familiar, echoes of Florence and Virgil and Francis. She recognized Alice, in a pose very similar to the one she sported in the portrait above Howard Doyle’s fireplace, and Howard himself, rendered young, his face devoid of wrinkles.
There was a woman, her hands tightly held in her lap, her light hair pinned up, who regarded Noemí with large eyes from her picture frame. She looked about Noemí’s age, and perhaps it was that, or the way her mouth was set so hard, somewhat between aggrieved and doleful, that made Noemí lean closer to the photograph, her fingers hovering above it.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” Francis said as he approached her, a wooden box under one arm and a book under the other.
“No, not at all,” Noemí said. “Do you know who this is here?”
Francis looked at the picture she was examining. He cleared his throat. “That is…that was my cousin Ruth.”
“I’ve heard about her.”
Noemí had never seen the face of a killer; she wasn’t in the habit of perusing the newspapers for stories about criminals. She recalled what Virgil had said, about people being bound to their vices and how their faces reflected their nature. But the woman in the photograph seemed merely discontent, not murderous.
“What have you heard?” Francis asked.
“She killed several people, and herself.”
Noemí straightened herself up and turned to him. He placed the box on the floor, and his expression was distant.
“Her cousin, Michael.”
Francis pointed at a picture of a young man standing ramrod straight, the chain of a pocket watch glinting against his chest, his hair neatly parted, a pair of gloves in his left hand, his eyes rendered almost colorless in the sepia photograph.