Lost Among the Living(44)



The words had a teasing tone to them, but Martin ignored it. “Let me guess,” he said to his father. “Mother has spotted us out here and doesn’t like what she’s seen.”

Robert shrugged. I hadn’t considered anyone might have seen us from beyond the terrace doors. Now that I wasn’t going to marry her son, Dottie wouldn’t like the idea of my acting too intimate with him. “Your mother has asked me to call you in to supper,” Robert said, “which I have the misfortune to be home for tonight. You’re welcome to our table as well, Mrs. Manders.”

“That’s quite all right.” I stood and brushed off my skirt. “I have a headache. I’ll find something in the kitchen.”

Robert put his hands in his pockets and looked at me. I realized that although the light from behind the terrace doors put him in shadow, it illuminated me perfectly well in his view, and I felt exposed. “Scavenge for scraps in the kitchen? How sad. I don’t think we’ve treated you well since you came here, Mrs. Manders.”

“You don’t need to treat me any way at all,” I retorted. “I am capable of handling myself.”

“Such a fiery temper for a lady!” he said with a patronizing grin. “You have spent too much time with my wife. Still, I suppose you must fend for yourself, now that you’re not marriageable. Does it bother you, I wonder, to still be legally married to a man who’s been dead for three years?”

“Papa.” Martin had risen, though more slowly than me, and he now stood at my shoulder. “Enough.” He sounded tired.

Robert turned his attention to his son. From the aroma wafting from him, I realized he’d been drinking, though he held it well. “Your mother is in a mood tonight,” he said. “Something has excited her. I think perhaps she has her sights on a girl for you, though I haven’t asked.”

“Good,” Martin said. “Let her be excited, then. At least someone will be happy.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t had the doctors check that you’re capable of giving her grandsons,” Robert said. “Though for all I know, perhaps she has.”

“Papa, don’t start.”

Robert gazed closely at his son through the haze of alcohol. “Do you think I didn’t worry about you?” he asked with a suppressed tremor of emotion in his voice. “Your mother isn’t the only one capable of worrying, you know. I did my share these four years, while the doctors took you to pieces. If you would just gather some gumption and get off the morphine—”

Martin winced, so fleetingly I knew I was the only one who saw it. “Yes, I know.”

Swaying faintly, Robert took a step forward, put a hand on the back of Martin’s neck, and looked into his son’s eyes. “She’ll find someone to run over you if you’re not careful,” he said, his voice low. “Someone who will make you as miserable as she’s made me. I thought I didn’t care who I married, either, but I was very bloody wrong. Do you understand?”

Martin returned his father’s gaze, unwavering. “Yes,” he replied. “I understand. But this has nothing to do with Cousin Jo, so please leave her alone.”

“I’m trying to give you advice,” Robert said. He dropped his hand and stepped back, and I could only dimly see his features in the half-light. “Let’s go in and get this over with, shall we?”

Martin watched his father’s retreating back, then turned to me. “I beg your pardon for my father’s behavior,” he said softly. “He can be crude when he’s been drinking.”

“Martin,” I said.

“He’s right,” Martin said. “Mother is expecting us both to dinner for the first time in weeks. I need to go inside and get it over with.”

? ? ?

I took a tray to my room and set it on the small writing desk—bread, cheese, a slice of cold meat, some fruit, and a glass of wine, a treat I didn’t usually partake of. I turned on the bedside lamp—I had long ago put the shade back where it belonged, and it had not been moved again—and stood, looking down at the tray and around at the rest of my room.

I could sit here and eat quietly, reading a book. I had done so for many a night. I could sip the wine, hoping it would help me sleep and keep away the dreams. I could think about what was happening downstairs, what the family was talking about at the dinner table, if they were talking at all. I could be alone with my memories and my questions and my traitorous thoughts.

Instead, I left the room and moved quietly into the corridor.

With the family and the servants busy downstairs, the rest of the house was quiet. I had at least another hour before anyone would come upstairs at all.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, then on upward to the attic floor. This time, I did not open the door to the roof. Instead, I approached Franny’s bedroom door, dark and silent, and turned the knob.

The room wasn’t locked. It was hushed and still inside, and I noticed a dusty, unlived-in smell that I hadn’t registered before. Though kept clean and tidy, a room that isn’t lived in announces itself—the clothes that are tucked away in perfect stacks, the bedspread and pillows that lack a single dent. I moved silently across the thick rug and turned on the lamp Dottie had lit when I’d found her here, sitting in the rocking chair. The circle of light bloomed.

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