BONE HOUSE

by Betsy Tobin

  “The two of you must marry quickly if I am to be present,” she says through a choked voice. Just then I hear a stirring in the hallway and when I turn, Edward is there in the shadows of the doorway. He clears his throat and enters, glances at me, and crosses directly to her bedside.

  “I’ve returned, Mother,” he says, taking her hand. “I’ve done what you asked, but you must stop all this talk of death, for you shall be as right as rain by spring.” My mistress looks up at him and smiles.

  “She is here,” she says. “She is waiting for you.” She waves a hand in my direction. My master reddens and clears his throat.

  “You must rest now,” he says.

  “It is time now, Edward,” she continues, pressing his hand fervently.

  “Please, Mother,” he says urgently, his embarrassment acute.

  “I cannot wait,” she says in desperation.

  He stares at her and words fail him.

  “You must promise me,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

  “I cannot,” he says. There is silence then as the three of us regard each other.

  “Perhaps I should go,” I say tentatively.

  “No,” says Edward quickly. “No. You must stay. For this is a family matter,” he says with emphasis, turning to face me. “And you are family.”

  He tells her then: the entire bloodstained tale, sparing no details. And as he does, a film of resistance seems to settle over her eyes. She does not meet my gaze even once during the telling, but her body seems to collapse upon itself, like a withered rose. My master speaks in even tones at first, but as she draws away, his voice takes on a greater urgency. When he finishes there is a suffocating silence, and the air is heavy with her enmity. Her disbelief is almost palpable.

  “She is lying.” Her voice rolls across the room to where I stand by the window, and it is thick with rancor. “I do not know her motive,” she continues in steely tones, “but he would not have been capable, with his weakened heart, of such an act.”

  “I was there,” interjects my master. “And I saw it. And he was not struck dead.”

  “You were but a child,” she retorts.

  “I saw the knife in his hand, and the blood upon the stable floor,” he says. “I heard her screams,” he adds. My mistress eyes him for a long moment, purses her withered lips.

  “So I am to believe that he sired a bastard child without my knowledge?” she says finally.

  “You can believe what you wish,” he replies wearily. “We speak the truth.”

  My mistress turns away then. “I am tired,” she says. “And there is pain behind my eyes. I wish to sleep.” And with that, she closes her eyes, shutting out the past and its secrets, and the offspring of her husband.

  My master slowly turns to face me, his eyes dark and his cheeks flushed with anger. The color ebbs from his face, and with it goes something else, perhaps his pride. He bends to retrieve his walking stick and shuffles from the room without another word. I turn back to my mistress and her face is like granite, though her spindly chest rises and falls almost imperceptibly. It seems that sleep has already taken her, eased her passage from the truth.

  I go below to the kitchen, seek solace from the fire in the hearth. Little George is there alone turning spitted capon, his cheeks aflame from the heat. His eyes dart toward me with their usual mixture of curiosity and alarm. It is clear that he trusts no one on this earth, and there is little reason that he should. I look at him: his hands and brow are blackened with soot, his clothes are barely more than rags. At once I turn and walk down the passage to the larder, where I remove a handful of figs and sugared dates from a wooden barrel. I return to the kitchen, hold them out to Little George, and he stares in disbelief at my open palm. His eyes widen, then just as suddenly, they narrow as he gazes up at me suspiciously. I hold my palm out closer to him with the ghost of a nod, challenge him to take the offering. He glances round the room, then quickly takes the fruit, cramming half into his mouth and stowing the rest beneath his tunic. I retreat to the other side of the table, draw up a stool, and begin to peel a pile of onions Cook has left lying there. Little George sits watching me covertly, his mouth still full of dates, the turnspit momentarily forgotten. I do not know what has prompted this act of charity on my part—whether it is guilt over the wedge I have driven between my mistress and her only son, or anger over her denial of the sins committed by her husband. For though he is dead and buried, he is still the master of this house: I can feel his presence all around us, built into its very timbers.

  Cook enters carrying water from the yard, and casts an unsuspecting eye over Little George, nodding approvingly at the nicely browned capon. She sets the pail of water down and crosses over to where I sit.

  “Anne Wycombe is without,” she says quietly, nodding toward the yard. “She has some business with you.” I rise at once, wiping the acrid juice of onions on a rag, and hurry out into the yard where Anne Wycombe waits, anxiously twisting her leather apron in her hands.

  “What has happened?” I demand.

  “He is gone,” she says. “The Long Boy.”

  “When?”

  “I left him sleeping late this morning. His fever had returned, and I went to fetch water. It was not the first time I had left him,” she adds defensively. I place a hand upon her arm in reassurance. “When I returned, he was gone. I looked for him around the village, even asked at the alehouse, but he has not been seen.”

  “It may be nothing. He said he wanted to go out,” I say. She shakes her head doubtfully.

  “He has taken things from the cottage. Bedclothes, and some bread and other food. I do not think he will return before nightfall.”

  “You are not to blame,” I say. “Go home and rest. I will go to the cottage and await him. If he does not return by dark, we will notify the magistrate.”

  She nods then, a little hesitantly, as if she is uncertain whether to leave the matter in my hands.

  “Go now,” I say a little more forcefully, and with a sudden sigh of relief, she nods obediently and hurries from the yard. I watch her go, her barren frame fleeing down the lane. When I turn back toward the kitchen, Cook is standing in the doorway.

  “There is trouble?” she asks when I enter.

  “The boy has run away,” I say. She frowns and I walk past her into the kitchen, take some rolls down from the ceiling basket, and stuff them in the pocket of my kirtle.

  “Where would he go?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “Perhaps to find his mother,” I say.

  I check the alehouse first. When I tell Samuell and Mary to keep a close eye upon the stables, Samuell frowns. “He may wish to see her,” I explain. Mary nods and lays a hand upon Samuell’s arm.

  “We will watch for him,” she says.

  “What news have you heard of the magistrate?” I ask.

  “None this day. Your master was here this morning. They remained within for some time,” she says.

  “Is the magistrate there now?” I ask.

  She shakes her head no. “He asked for his horse to be brought round, and said he would return by nightfall.”

  I nod, relieved that he has other matters elsewhere to attend to. With him away, I need not worry about my mother.

  I go to Long Boy’s cottage, now deserted. Even the embers in the fire have grown cold. Anne Wycombe was right, for it is instantly apparent that the boy has taken things: the quilted cover from his trundle is missing, and when I open the larger of the trunks, I see that the woolen blankets are also gone. He has not touched his mother’s bedclothes, however, and I wonder at this. Perhaps he has not gone to find her after all.

  I set about building a fire, piling kindling as high as it will go, for the house is deathly cold. Anne Wycombe has indeed been conscientious in her duties, for the tiny cottage is spotless. I consider going in search for the boy, but know not where to look, so I decide that there is little else to do but wait. I have not told my mother of his disappearance, believing s
he has plenty enough to worry her at the moment, and I am hopeful that he will return of his own accord. If nothing else, the cold or hunger may drive him home before the night is through. The fire blazes quickly and I draw a chair up to the hearth and take a roll out of my pocket, for I have eaten nothing since yesterday. A jug of ale lies on the table and I pour myself a mug. Next to it is the painter’s sketch of Long Boy and now that I am not consumed with anger, I can see that the boy was right, for the painter has caught his very essence. It is the eyes which define him: remote, uneasy, disturbed.

  I do not know what motivates the painter—whether it is curiosity or some form of opportunism. Or perhaps he is in search of something different altogether, for it occurs to me that he is a man without a place. Like Dora he has left behind his people and his homeland and now surrounds himself with strangers, defined only by his talent. As I stare into the fire I hear footsteps on the threshold. The door pushes open slowly to reveal the painter standing there. He steps inside, and stands silently regarding me. There is a look of melancholy in his eyes which I have never seen before. He removes his hat and takes a few steps into the room, glancing toward the bare trundle in the corner.

  “Where is the boy?” he asks.

  “He has disappeared,” I answer.

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  His eyes drift downward to the sketch on the table.

  “It is a good likeness,” I tell him.

  “At least I have accomplished this much,” he says with a wan smile. I think of the others in his room, the ones of me. Are these also his accomplishments? The painter stares down at the sketch again.

  “The boy was restless,” he says, looking up at me. “He told me that his mother ran away.”

  “Maybe that is how he sees her death.”

  “He said that she no longer wanted him,” says the painter.

  “Perhaps all children feel this when their parents die,” he adds, turning away. I look at him: remember that he too was left an orphan at the same age.

  “Did you?” I ask.

  He considers this for a moment. “I felt my place was with them,” he says finally.

  “And where is it now?” I ask.

  “I do not know,” he says slowly, and for the first time I catch a glimpse of his uncertainty. He has done this deliberately, allowed me to see this, but I do not know why.

  “Why did you come here?” I ask finally.

  “To return these.” He removes the diary and the miniature from his pouch and holds them out to me, as if they are an offering of peace. I hesitate before accepting them, for suddenly I do not want the responsibility that they bring. The burden of it all seems too great: the boy’s disappearance, my mother’s incarceration, the desecration of Dora’s corpse. I finger the crimson diary.

  “Did you read it?” I ask.

  He nods. “I had to know if it was hers,” he says, his tone embarrassed.

  “And?”

  He shakes his head no. “It was written by her mother.”

  I feel a stab of disappointment, as she slips once again from our grasp.

  “What did you hope to find?” I ask.

  “She left me with so many questions. I thought perhaps there’d be some explanation . . . but it was foolish of me.”

  I open the book: examine its brittle yellowed pages and the sloping scrawl of a woman now long dead. We were both foolish to think that Dora’s secrets could be so easily laid bare. And yet she’d kept the diary with her all this time.

  “She must have loved her mother very much,” I say.

  “They could not have been more different,” the painter murmurs. “The woman who wrote this was consumed by fear.”

  I think of my mother’s words: Dora, too, had met with fear and in the end it killed her. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.

  “What did she fear?” I ask.

  “Her husband. According to the diary she’d inherited a small fortune that by rights was owed to him. But she’d contrived a means of withholding it, so that on her death it would go instead to Dora. He hated her for it and disputed Dora’s birthright: he claimed she was the product of an earlier affair. But Dora greatly resembled him, especially in her size, so it was plain enough to see that she was his, a fact which infuriated him even more. Toward the end he threated to kill them both.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her mother eventually fell ill from the strain. She writes that she would rather surrender herself to the arms of God than remain within her husband’s house. Dora pleaded with her to flee the country, but she refused, saying she had not the strength nor the courage to defy him.”

  “But Dora did,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she kill him?”

  “I do not know. She told me once that her parents never should have come together on this earth, and that the proof of this was lodged somewhere deep inside her.”

  “What did she mean?”

  He shakes his head. “She refused to explain.”

  I think of Dora and her peculiar blend of brawn and grace: almost as if her parents fought to preserve themselves through her very flesh and blood.

  “I felt . . . almost a sense of shame when I read it,” says the painter quietly. “All these years I have struggled to find the truth in people’s faces . . . but here, in these words, there is so much despair. I almost could not bear to read.” He glances up at me self-consciously. “That does not say much for me, I suppose. For my compassion.”

  I open the miniature and stare at the portrait of her mother. For the first time I see the shadow of despair behind her eyes. “He has found it,” I say. “The painter of this miniature.”

  The painter nods. “He was not afraid to paint what he saw. But he loved her in spite of it.”

  “Your teacher.”

  He nods. “She mentions briefly their affair some years before. Her husband learned of it and she was forced to break it off.”

  “Dora must have known,” I say, thinking aloud. “For otherwise she’d not have sought his help when she fled the country. Or yours.”

  The painter looks at me. “She never asked for my help,” he says slowly. “It was I who sought to help her.” His tone is confessional, as if he feels compelled to say this, and the past spreads out between us like a vast ocean.

  I nod toward the diary. “How does it end?”

  “Abruptly. She fell ill from consumption and ceases to write. She must have died soon after. Though whether it was the illness or her husband that finally killed her, it is impossible to know.”

  “Perhaps both were to blame,” I say. I think of Dora, and the money stashed beneath her floorboards: money that she took but would not use. And too, I think of the rumors that followed her across the sea. Perhaps she’d killed him then: her mother’s tormentor. Or perhaps she’d only wanted to.

  The painter takes a step forward in the half-light and I am suddenly aware that we are but two bodies close together in a room. It is as if someone struck a flint within me, and the slow burn that follows banishes all thoughts of that other time. I search his face for those things which still remain hidden, for I am determined to unearth the truth. I think of his words that night on the road—his swift and chilling purposefulness.

  “You lied that night on the road,” I say. “The commission was not your only interest.”

  His expression softens, but he does not offer any defense.

  “I found the sketches in your room,” I continue.

  “I left them there for you to see,” he answers.

  “Why?”

  “So you would know,” he says. “It was not her I wanted.”

  Slowly the breath escapes me. I look down at my hands. It is this he wants: my flesh, my body, my bones. He takes a step forward and I slowly raise my eyes to look at him. And then I feel her presence all around us, for we are in her house, and she is compelling me to finish what we started.

  The painter s
tops in front of me, looks at me intently. “What is it?” he asks. I stare at him, and her unseen presence envelops me like a mist.

  “She is here with us,” I say.

  He shakes his head no. “She is dead.”

  My eyes travel around the room searching for some confirmation of this fact, but my uneasiness persists. “I am afraid.”

  He meets my gaze. “It is not her you fear, but yourself.” Then he extends his hand toward mine, and I place my fingers in his own. It is a simple gesture, but it feels as if we hold the heat of the earth within our hands. He draws me gently toward him, and the fear falls away, leaving only a deep current of desire. I find his lips then: search for their taste and warmth and softness. I feel his hands encircle my waist, glide beneath the fabric of my dress, caress my skin. The muscles deep within me tighten. Our bodies press together and I pull him back onto her bed, burn to feel his weight on mine.

  The painter’s hands move quickly, tearing at the laces and the whalebones and the stays, endeavoring to find an entrance to the bone house that is me. I push myself against him, rub my flesh into his, cannot merge our bodies as tightly as I wish. And despite his words, I feel her there within me, urging me on. For in her bed my transformation is complete: in that moment he possesses both of us, myself and Dora, buried somewhere deep inside me.

  Perhaps in spirit I am not my mother’s child after all, but the daughter of the great-bellied woman, she who follows only rules of her own making.

  * * *

  Afterward, we lay together.

  “What will you do now?” I ask.

  “I do not know.”

  “Will you finish her portrait?”

  “No,” he says. “Your mother was right.” I smile at this: the two of them in unlikely accord. “I have no other commission,” he continues, his voice trailing off. There is an awkward silence, as we both contemplate the meaning of this.

  “I had thought to make a journey when my work here was complete,” he says tentatively.

  “You are fortunate to have such liberty,” I reply. I feel both disappointment and envy at his words, and turn away from him to conceal my dismay. Slowly I rise and begin to pull on my servingwoman’s clothes: the clothes that bind me to the Great House and its secrets.