The Mistress of Trevelyan

by Jennifer St Giles

  “Which is?”

  “I need you to come and talk to Katherine about the lecture this afternoon. She has some questions, and I think you are the one to answer them. Will you come now?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose. I am to meet Miss Ortega to go shopping, but that is not for a quarter hour yet.”

  “So Connie’s decided to be nice. Good for you, Miss Ann. I do believe you could ease the fangs off a rattler and he would never know he had been changed. Connie’s always late, so don’t hurry. I will notify Dobbs that you will be in Katherine’s rooms.”

  My interest grew as I followed Stephen. Katherine’s rooms were in the wing opposite mine, above her mother’s. I’d never been in that section of the house and was curious about Katherine’s quarters. Rather than a lone window at the end of the hallway, there appeared to be a sunny sitting area, lending the entire hall a feeling of light and warmth instead of the chill darkness in the corridor to my room. I commented about this to Stephen and learned that this wing of the house faced south and therefore received the most light.

  Stephen stopped just outside Katherine’s rooms.“I must warn you, Miss Ann. Katherine paints. She used to paint beautiful scenes, happy scenes, full of light and love. Now she paints pain. Please don’t let it disturb you. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  Had Stephen not warned me, I might have gone running from Katherine’s rooms. The pictures hung on her wall were beautiful vignettes of life—a wedding, a christening, a sun-drenched garden as the setting for a ladies’ tea. But in every picture, one person among all of the people painted stood alone, his face contorted with pain, his body wrapped in chains. It was shockingly disturbing. And in all of the pictures, not a single person painted was looking at the person tied in a living hell.

  Other than the pictures, Katherine’s rooms were as light and breezy as her mother’s rooms were heavy and oppressive. Lots of white and sunshine dominated the touches of pastel colors and cream furniture leafed with gold. It was the room of a princess or an angel. Or maybe not, I thought, looking at another one of her pictures—a family at Christmas, wife singing, children playing, husband bound in agony.

  I resisted the need to shake the vision from my mind and greeted Katherine as she stood. She invited me to sit down. I did, thankfully noting a tablet and pencil upon the table before me. I pointed to them.“May I use these?” I asked.

  She gestured for me to. And I wrote.

  “Your work is beautiful and provokes deep emotions when you contrast the beauty and the pain. It is not easy to understand.” I didn’t know what else to write, but I didn’t want to ignore her art. It would take a great deal to get used to. Most people would not want to see life painted so realistically.

  All of my life, I’d known people who were trapped in the drudgery of being poor. Some were in pain, some had been content, but all had looked upon the rich as being free of pain. I knew, for I’d done the same. It wasn’t until I’d come here that I’d realized the life of the rich wasn’t necessarily any better. Sometimes they were even more trapped than the poor.

  I also wondered if the person in pain in the pictures wasn’t Katherine herself—part of the world around her, yet so isolated and alone.

  Katherine read my note and answered. “You are more understanding than most. And more forgiving. Stephen tells me that you alone went to the Institute for the Deaf and Blind and engaged Anthony to come here and teach Justin and Robert.”

  I smiled and nodded. “Yes. And me too. We all wanted to know your special language. Mr. Simons is a very good teacher.”

  Katherine only nodded when she read the note. She didn’t smile. “Stephen says Anthony was not upset by the suggestion I attend the lecture. That he did not appear to be troubled over the possibility of seeing me. It this true? I must know. I have caused him great pain, and I cannot add to it.”

  I bit my lip as I read her note. To tell her Mr. Simons was completely unmoved by her existence or lack of appearance would be wrong. But to give her the impression that he outwardly was in agony would be wrong too.

  Looking up again at one of her pictures, an idea struck me. “Your art,” I wrote, “holds beauty and light, things that I see live inside Mr. Simons. Your art also holds pain. Something that lives inside Mr. Simons as well. But unlike your pictures, he is not frozen in his pain. He has moved past that. His mission in life drives him, frees him.

  “Who is in pain? Who do you paint?”

  Katherine read the note. She nodded. Then she wrote a name upon the paper. She watched me as I read it.

  “Benedict.”

  My breath caught. But she wasn’t through.

  “Stephen.

  “Francesca.

  “My mother.

  “Anthony.

  “Constance.

  “Myself.

  “Justin.

  “You, eventually.

  “We are all cursed. You will be, too.”

  Cursed? My stomach clenching, I met her gaze, expecting to see the hostility that had dogged me since coming to Trevelyan Manor. I only saw great sadness in her silent tears. She’d been crying, and I’d been so absorbed in the names that I hadn’t even realized it.

  Katherine left, dashing to her bedroom and shutting the door. I went back down to await Constance, wondering if Katherine would come to the institute this afternoon.

  Sometimes events and people influence you. In a moment all of life changes, as it says in the Bible, in a twinkling of an eye, and you’re never the same again. I’d had moments like this since I’d come to Trevelyan Manor. Seeing the full effect of the stained glass windows. Benedict’s kiss. Justin’s hands, bloody from the thorns. Katherine’s art, but even more than that, the pain in her golden eyes. She honestly believed the Trevelyans and all those drawn into the web of their lives were cursed.

  Two hours in Constance’s company, and I wondered if Katherine hadn’t been right about being cursed. I wasn’t sure how Constance managed it, but we’d been to two dressmakers and a milliner’s. She conversed incessantly about fashion, quoting Godey’s Lady’s Book and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper —her definitive judges for what comprised a lady.

  In each store, she inquired without fail about everything on display. She also bought two hats, three pairs of gloves, and a shawl imported from Paisley, Scotland, the cost of which nearly made me swoon. I wondered who paid for such extravagances.

  All in all, I had the makings of a most unusual headache, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that no matter how much I reveled in my new things, I would never be in danger of allowing fashion to consume my life. After we quit the last store, I couldn’t contain myself a moment longer.

  “Miss Ortega, however do you find the energy for this? I do not believe you have missed examining a single item in any of the shops. I am amazed.” It was the most polite way I could express my overwhelmed state.

  “You are not a woman who finds joy in beautiful things, no?” She ran her hand lightly over the box next to her that held her new shawl. The rest of the things she’d purchased would be delivered to Trevelyan Manor.

  “Certainly I do, but I suppose my joy is found in other things as well as fashion. Books. Art. Nature. People. I have not had the occasions nor desire to make fashion a focus in my life.”

  “You are like Katherine, then. She contents herself and does not allow herself to hunger for new things. Someday she will wake up and wish she had lived differently, for she will have missed so much. Francesca was different. I am different, especially now that she is gone. I do not let life escape me. When I look at new things, buy new things, I do not do so for myself alone. I do so for Francesca, too. She loved them.” Constance’s voice thickened on her last sentence but didn’t lower as if with sorrow. I almost thought she sounded angry.

  “You must miss your sister,” I said softly. Constance looked out the carriage window, and I did too. San Francisco life on a bustling summer Saturday passed in a lazy blur, just slow enough that you co
uld see, but too fast to note any details.

  “She was the only family I had left in the world,” she finally said.

  I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat. “I know how you feel. I lost my mother recently. She was my only family. When did your parents pass away?”

  “Before…before I came to Trevelyan Hill. It was shortly after Francesca married.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a fire, a horrible fire. I was saved. They were not.”

  I gasped.“How awful. I am so sorry.”

  Constance remained silent. She brushed her hand repeatedly over the box. And I began to understand that there were many ways to deal with grief.

  “I have learned that life goes on no matter what horrors befall one, Miss Lovell.”

  “Please, call me Ann.”

  She nodded.“And you must call me Constance. It would seem we have some things in common after all, no?”

  I nodded.“Yes.”

  “The mood to shop more escapes me. Do you wish to attend your errands now?”

  I had lost heart for anything other than seeing Mr. McGuire, and we headed directly there. I decided that asking Constance more about her sister or even mentioning the morning I’d seen her slap Mr. Henderson would break the tenuous bridge we were forming. So I kept silent.

  “Poor Tom’s a cold. Et tu, Brute?” Puck squawked, bringing Constance to a sudden halt as we entered the shop. She stared at the bird as if he were possessed.

  Laughing, I brushed his feathers. “He is quite a Shakespeare fan.” I didn’t see Mr. McGuire at his desk. “Mr. McGuire, it’s me, Ann.” Rounding the corner, I saw him on a ladder, reaching for a volume on the top shelf.

  “Ah, lass, did ye see him? He waited for you to stop by, but then had to go.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Levinworth. He was just here.”He lowered his voice. “He said she feared that her mortal—” Mr. McGuire’s head snapped up as Constance came around the corner.

  I cleared my throat. “Mr. McGuire, this is Miss Ortega, Mr. Trevelyan’s sister-in-law. Miss Ortega, this is Mr. McGuire, owner of this marvelous shop of wonders. I think I love books as you do dresses.”

  The loud thump made me jump. I quickly saw that Mr. McGuire had dropped his book. “Are you all right?” I asked, rushing over to him. He wobbled oddly on the ladder, and my heart leapt into my throat. I thought he was about to fall.

  Hands shaking, he climbed down. “Just a bit of a dizzy spell,” he said as he stepped from the ladder. I took his hand and led him to his favorite reading chair.

  “Sit here, and I will fetch you some water. This is not the first time you have had a spell. I am sorry I missed the doctor, but you can tell me what he said about your spells just as easily.” I prayed that Mr. McGuire would take my hint to keep our inquiries into Benedict’s wife’s death private. Not only did Constance not need another reminder of her loss, but also I didn’t want Benedict to know either.

  “It’s just old age,” Mr. McGuire said grumpily.

  “Old age or not, you should not be up on one of those ladders anymore. You need to hire yourself an assistant.” Seeing a pitcher near his desk, I hurried over and poured a glass of water.

  Mr. McGuire thirstily drank it down.“Thank ye, lass.”

  “When will the doctor return? Later today?”

  Mr. McGuire shook his head.“Not until next Saturday.”

  As I felt his forehead, checking for a fever, he sent an assessing glance Constance’s way, probably wondering if she’d connected Dr. Levinworth to her sister. She didn’t appear as if she had.

  “Are ye here for a book today, lass?”

  “Yes, I wanted to know if you had any of John Muir or James Audubon’s publishings. Master Justin is quite interested in their work.” I leaned over and brushed some dust off his coat. “But we will worry about it another time. You are as pale as a ghost and need to rest.”

  “I’ll be fine in just a moment. I may have something in the back room for ye.” He tried to stand, and I gently pushed him back into the chair. The back room was like a complex maze of cartons, the last place he needed to scurry around in.

  “No. You rest, and I will come back next Saturday. Then I will have a good excuse to see if you are taking proper care of yourself. And perhaps I will have a chance to question the doctor about you. Meanwhile you need to stay off the ladders. Promise me you will hire an assistant.”

  “I am fit as a fiddle,” he said, avoiding my gaze.

  Crossing my arms, I tapped my foot. “I have a lecture to attend at the institute this afternoon, which I fear I am going to be quite late for unless you can see fit to give me your promise. You are too important to me.”

  He sighed. “Very well, lass. But you have to promise to take care, as well.”

  “I am,” I said, thinking of the desk I’d pulled in front of the secret passage, and wondering if I was only fooling myself. I know Mr. McGuire meant to guard my safety. Yet I feared for my virtue more. And it wasn’t Benedict who I thought would deliberately compromise me. It was my own feminine urgings that had me worried. Desire was a most intriguing subject, and not one a book could exactly educate me in. However, I had no doubts about Benedict’s capabilities in the matter.

  14

  Stephen slid into the carriage next to me, opposite Constance, and slammed the door behind him, his manner as grim as the set of his mouth. Apparently he’d failed to convince Katherine to attend the lecture.

  He did not take failure well. The jovial shine of his countenance had tarnished like silver left in the rain. I’d seen occasional glimpses of the shadows that lurked behind his smiles, but this was the first time I’d seen his genteel mask stripped away completely. I found the experience disconcerting, as if I’d discovered a beast within a lamb.

  “She has not left the bloody house since my arrival.” He glared at Constance. “Has she gone anywhere at all in the year I have been away?”

  “Once or twice, and only for a short time during the day.”

  “Benedict should be shot.” Stephen spoke with enough force to make me jump. My mind scrambled for a connection between Stephen’s anger at his brother and Katherine’s isolation.“He should not have let her do this to herself.”

  “She is a woman grown. What can he do?” Constance said with a shrug.

  “He can damn well pay more attention to the sorry state of his household than to finances and business.”

  Stephen’s words surprised me. Not because I thought his statement untrue, but because he concisely summed up a general feeling I’d had. Especially when Benedict had left so quickly the day after kissing me. My eyes widened as the realization hit me. The master of Trevelyan Hill, a man large enough to battle any fabled Viking and win, buried himself in work to escape the unpleasant realities of his life.

  Constance crossed her arms.“You are one to talk. At least business produces money. What have you done to help?”

  “I had no choice. I had to do what I did.” Stephen sighed, and his anger disappeared like a breath of smoke stolen by a stiff wind.“You shop as if money was like manna.”

  “Then maybe none of us has a choice either, for I have few joys in life. I have lost everything else.” Constance sounded as if a thousand years of futility underlined her words, and I wondered if she was the same person who’d spent the morning with me frivolously shopping. She looked at me, her dark eyes burning with emotion.“Do you believe in fate, Ann? That no matter what you do you can never change who and what you are? That in the end, it is all you will ever be?”

  My gaze went immediately to my hands. Hands that were now elegantly covered. But no covering could change the reddened stains of lye and labor. “No,” I said quietly. “I believe you can choose.” I wouldn’t allow myself to believe otherwise.

  The rest of the carriage ride to the institute passed in silence, each of us isolated in our thoughts. Mr. Simons met us at the door, his welcoming smile broad until he realized th
at Katherine wasn’t among us.

  “She would not come,” Mr. Simons stated simply.

  “No,” Stephen said. “I have learned she has not left the house but twice in a year’s time.”

  “I…I did not know.” Mr. Simons paled and seemed to falter. Stephen grabbed the man’s shoulder. But Mr. Simons stiffened, and Stephen released him.

  “She is a woman tied to her fate.” Constance boldly looped her arm through Mr. Simons’s. “Come, Anthony. Show us to our seats. You must tell me of your fascinating work here at the institute.” She smiled at him as if she’d just entered a dress shop full of the latest fashions.

  Stephen offered his arm, and we followed. His smile was forced, and not a glimmer of light flickered in his eyes.

  “You are worried about Katherine?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Yes. There is not a doubt in my mind that she loves Anthony and he loves her. Yet neither Anthony nor Katherine will tell us why she ended their engagement. I do know one thing for sure; if Constance sets her cap for Anthony, it will kill Katherine.”

  “But if he loves her, surely he wouldn’t—”

  “A man will only dangle for so long before he will break his own neck to be free, Miss Ann. Believe me, I know.”

  I had no doubt that he did know, and I suspect he had dangled at Francesca’s feet. What I did not know was what he had done to break his own neck. That question cast an ominous shadow over the hallowed experience of my first official lecture within the coveted walls of a learning institution.

  Constance had spoken of the inescapable fate to which we were born. I chose to think of it differently. That fate hinged on what decisions are made in critical moments, like Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Or, even on a smaller scale, when I passed through the demon-carved doors of Trevelyan Manor and found Benedict standing in the colored light of the stained glass. And more recently, when I’d stumbled upon him at his bath. At that crucial moment, I’d chosen to stare at him rather than to turn away. I touched my lips as my blood heated from the memory of his kiss.