The Other Eden

by Sarah Bryant

  “Ought I to have walked away?” he asked in a softened tone.

  “Probably, if you felt so strongly.”

  “Should I now?”

  His voice was so low, it was almost lost in the murmuring trees, and there was a plaintive note in it that rebuked my pretended nonchalance. I did not know whether to be put off by his directness or to call him mad and walk away myself. I wanted to do both and could not do either, for I knew that I ought to have turned away from Eden’s Meadow as well, when I had the chance.

  At that moment a voice like a bell drifted out of the trees at the top of the garden, dissolving the impasse. “Dyadya!”

  We both turned to look up. A little girl of six or seven stood in the doorway of the summerhouse at the top of the garden. As we watched she flew down the steps, then along the path toward us. She was dressed all in white, down to the silk band on the hat in her hand. She looked up at Alexander with adoring eyes. His own face had changed entirely at the sight of her, losing all its grim anxiety and taking on an expression of rapt gentleness.

  “Dyadya,” she repeated, the reproach in her voice diffused by her breathlessness and her obvious fondness for him, “Mrs. Mary and I have been looking for you everywhere! It’s time for lunch.” Her accent was less pronounced than Alexander’s. He picked her up and smiled teasingly at her. “Who says so?” he asked.

  She laughed a golden laugh. “I say so!” she cried. “And Mrs. Mary,” she amended quickly. I looked up, and “Mrs. Mary” waved from the summerhouse, where she and Colette were setting a table. I deliberately ignored her, hoping that she noticed; I knew that meeting Alexander here had not been a coincidence.

  The little girl looked at me. Her eyes were blue and mild. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Tasha,” said Alexander, “this is Eleanor Rose. Eleanor, meet my niece, Natalya. Tasha.”

  “Hello, Tasha,” I said, smiling. After an apparent moment of consideration, she smiled back.

  “What was it she called you?” I asked him. “It sounded like ‘Dada.’ ”

  Alexander smiled. “It does, I suppose. But dyadya means ‘uncle’ in Russian.”

  Tasha and her uncle looked nothing alike. Her expression was gentle, her hair reddish brown. She was lovely, but her face was not as striking as Alexander’s was, and besides that, it had the wasted look of a child who had recently been seriously ill.

  “Do you live in the castle?” she asked. She pointed to the corner of the house visible from where we stood.

  “It’s not really a castle, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, yes, it is a castle! A beautiful castle with unicorns in the stable and butterflies in silver cages hanging from the ceiling . . . and you must be the princess. Are your mama and papa the king and queen? Do they dance in the ballroom every night?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s only Mary and me living there now, with some ladies and men who help keep the place running. And my mother and father weren’t queen and king, even when they were alive.”

  “Oh,” Tasha answered, looking mildly disappointed.

  “You speak excellent English for a little girl who hasn’t been in America long,” I told her, hoping to distract her.

  “She had an English nurse from the time she was a baby,” Alexander explained. He put the child down. “Come, Tasha. It looks as though Mrs. Bishop is getting impatient. And perhaps Miss Rose as well?” He smiled again, but underneath it there was a gravity that made me uneasy. It was not unlike the feeling I’d had that night at the symphony six months earlier, when I’d first heard Alexander play.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes . . . yes, I’m fine,” I said, not quite able to meet his eyes.

  I could see that he did not believe me. “Just then you looked as though you saw a ghost. You’re so pale. Are you certain you’re well?”

  I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Really. I just . . . remembered something.”

  He looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged slightly and turned to walk up the hill. The sight of him moving away from me drove the fear home; the subsequent realization of my own irrationality stirred the beginnings of panic. It was to prove to myself that I still had control over both that I called to him to stop. I caught up with him in a moment.

  “Look,” I said, “you can have it. That is, you can take your pick of the cottages, though I’ll tell you now the best is the little Tudor one at the end of this path, just a short way into the woods. It’s quiet, there’s plenty of space for Tasha to play, and the rent will be reasonable.”

  Alexander turned to Tasha. “What do you think, love?”

  She looked up from the wildflowers she was gathering, her head tilting delicately, like an inquisitive bird’s. “Think of what?” she asked.

  “Would you like to live here?”

  Tasha nodded solemnly. “I think so.”

  Alexander looked back at me. “Natalya’s happiness is my primary objective.”

  “Then you’ll take it?” I tried to conceal my own excitement.

  He paused for a long moment. Then he said, “It will be nice to have another musician nearby. Few other places could offer that.”

  Then he smiled an opaque smile, and we shook hands.

  AFTER lunch we all walked over to look at the cottage. It was set in a small clearing, among trees hanging with ivy, honeysuckle, and the ubiquitous Spanish moss. The style of the cottage was out of keeping with the rest of the plantation. It looked like a house from a fairy tale, with classic cream walls and dark wood trim, a steep roof and diamond-paned windows.

  “It’s not very old,” I told them. “My grandmother had it built as a guesthouse. It’s been shut up for years, though, along with the rest of the plantation.”

  “Look, Dyadya,” cried Tasha. “Roses!”

  And there were, everywhere. Eden’s pale, pink-veined tea roses clambered over the front of the house, along the dilapidated post-and-rail fence, even over some of the trees.

  “Aren’t they lovely?” said Mary.

  I unlocked the door. “The place comes furnished,” I told Alexander. “I hope that won’t be a problem. We can move out any furniture that you don’t want.”

  He took the dustcover off the rosewood table in the front hall. It was neither ornate nor plain, and it matched the hardwood floor and cream-colored walls perfectly. “No,” he said simply, “it’s finer than anything we have now, and probably suits the house better.”

  We walked through all of the rooms, opening windows, uncovering furniture and swatting at cobwebs. There were four rooms on the first floor: a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and, at the back of the house, a study. The kitchen was long and high-ceilinged, with white walls, bay windows, and pegs for hanging pots and pans. A few bunches of dried lavender still hung from the rafters.

  The dining room was small, with silvery-white wallpaper patterned like pine needles. The living room was dark green and cream, with the same golden wood. In the study an oblong, cloth-covered object rested against one wall. Beneath the cloth was a spinet piano. Alexander turned back the cover and played an arpeggio. It was badly out of tune.

  “They lose their edge quickly in this humidity,” I said doubtfully.

  “Still, it has a good tone,” he answered. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have it tuned and store the one I have in New York.”

  “Of course. I didn’t even know it was here. My tuner comes next Tuesday, and I’ll ask him to work on this one, too. You’re welcome to play our piano as well. It’s a concert grand.”

  Upstairs there were three small bedrooms and a bath with all of the modern fixtures. We’d had several of the cottages fitted with them when we arrived, having had thoughts of entertaining that never materialized.

  “This is my room!” Tasha called from beyond one of the doors she had opened. We followed her into a room papered in tiny roses, with a mahogany four-poster and a cushioned window seat. The room faced south, over the water.

  “It�
�s a lovely room for a little girl,” Mary said to her.

  “We’ll have to find one of the nice bedspreads from the big house for you,” I added, which won a smile.

  We looked into the other two bedrooms. The one facing east was tiny, blue, and spare; the one facing west—toward the house on the hill, I could not help but think—was done in green again, with a queen-size maple four-poster.

  “What do you think?” asked Mary when we returned to the garden.

  “What do you think?” Alexander asked Tasha.

  “I think it’s the loveliest house I’ve ever seen,” Tasha replied, and Mary and I smiled at each other.

  “I couldn’t have put it better,” Alexander said.

  “So you’ll have it for certain?” Mary asked anxiously.

  Alexander laughed a golden laugh, like his niece’s but more resonant. “We wouldn’t have anything else. Would we, Tasha?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing else.”

  “When will you move in?” I asked.

  Alexander shrugged. “As soon as I can take care of my business in New York. The end of the month, maybe? But before this goes further, I must ask about the rent.”

  I looked helplessly at Mary. “Having a boarder was my idea,” she told Alexander. “I think Eleanor’s leaving the decision up to me. Well, then, does ten dollars a month sound reasonable?”

  “Mrs. Bishop,” he began, “I have not been long in your country, but I can see that you could ask ten times that amount and have it easily.”

  Mary folded her arms stubbornly. “Perhaps, but we’re not renting it for the money. We’re sorely in need of good company in Eden, and I should say that it would be fairest of us to pay you for providing it.”

  “Honestly, Mrs. Bishop—”

  “Ten dollars a month, for as long as you want to stay.”

  “Well,” said Alexander, still looking uncomfortable, “we’ll certainly be here through the summer. After that, we’ll see.”

  Mary smiled serenely again. “Then it’s settled.”

  “It’s settled,” said Alexander. To make it formal, we all shook hands. Even Tasha.

  “WELL? Are you pleased?” Mary asked as we sat out in the summerhouse that afternoon. She was winding wool for knitting, a ridiculous occupation, I thought, considering the climate.

  I was flipping through concerto scores and shook my head without looking up. “You’re a terrible meddler. Much worse than I ever thought.”

  “But are you pleased?” she persisted.

  “All right, I’m pleased! They seem lovely. In fact, we could rent the rest of the cottages to eligible bachelors, and then you’d never lack for amusement.”

  “Am I that bad?”

  “Yes!” I looked at her imperturbable smile, and sighed. “Mary, tell me honestly—did you know it was him?”

  “Who?”

  I tossed the music aside in exasperation. “Alexander Trevozhov. The one we saw last December, the night . . .”

  “Your grandfather died.”

  “You must have known that I admired him. But really, asking him to live here is a bit much!”

  Mary put her own work aside. “I admit, the name sounded familiar when Mrs. Kelly wrote, but we’ve seen so many musicians perform, I never would have singled him out. I didn’t make the connection even when he appeared here, because that night at the symphony I couldn’t see well enough to make out his face. I didn’t put it all together until he had gone to find you.”

  “Then it’s purely a coincidence,” I said, more to myself than to Mary.

  “How could it be anything else?”

  The question hung in the silence between us. Mary picked up another skein and began fumbling with the knot. After a moment I took it from her, freed it, and handed it back.

  “I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t mean to accuse you. It’s just so strange.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe it was meant to be. Only time will tell.”

  We lapsed into silence again, and then I remembered a question that had been nagging me all day. “What was Tasha’s illness?”

  “Consumption. I suppose she picked it up on the boat from Europe. Apparently she wasn’t expected to live.”

  “Do you know why they left Russia?”

  “Only rumors. According to those, their family was executed for supporting the White Army. Alexander was spared as a well-known musician; he and Tasha were away from home when it happened.

  “She’s his brother’s child. It must have been terrible for Alexander, but that poor child—she’s lost everything.”

  “She still has Alexander.”

  “Thank God for that.” Mary stifled a yawn, then smiled self-consciously. “I think I’ll lie down for a while, Eleanor, if you don’t mind. My head aches a bit.”

  “It’s your eyes. Why won’t you have them checked?”

  “What use is it to have them checked? They’ll only tell me I’m going blind, and I already know that.”

  “You don’t know that! If you don’t know what’s causing the problem, you don’t know that it can’t be cured.”

  Mary sighed. “All right, Eleanor. I’ll go to a doctor. But for now I’ll rest. Will you wake me an hour before dinner if I’m not up?”

  I sighed. “All right. I think I’ll go back over to the cottage and take off the rest of the covers. Maybe clean up a little.”

  Mary scrutinized me. “We pay people to do that, you know.”

  I met her eyes squarely. “I know.”

  FOUR

  THE cottage was silent when I arrived, lonely compared with the earlier commotion. I found myself slipping back into my former melancholy, watching the lengthening shadows shift across the floor. I removed the remaining cloths from mirrors and paintings, tables and lamps. Soon I had finished all of the downstairs rooms but the study. There was only one frame there; a large one hanging over the piano.

  As I reached for the dust cloth, a breath of air moved past me with a sound uncannily like a sigh and twitched the fabric out of my hand. My skin prickling unpleasantly, I looked around to see if one of the windows had been left open, but they were all tightly shut. For the first time I was aware of how alone I was. If I were to scream, nobody could possibly hear it. However, such thoughts offered superstition a grip on my imagination I wasn’t willing to indulge. Leaning over the piano again, I took the cloth firmly in my hands, pulled it free—and then, for a moment, I forgot to breathe.

  The frame held a painting. It was the only portrait in a house hung with landscapes, its size and weighty elegance suggesting that it had not originally been intended to hang in the cottage at all. It portrayed two girls in the ornate costumes of the late nineteenth century. One wore white, the other crimson. They smiled from the music room at Eden’s Meadow, the crimson one archly, the white one demurely. The two faces were structurally identical: fair, soft, and rosy-cheeked, with generous mouths, straight little noses, dark eyes with a vaguely foreign tilt. Both girls had long black curls. The crimson one left them loose on her shoulders, and the white one twisted them into a coronet that would have identified her to me even if she hadn’t been wearing the diamond that I had worn religiously since her death.

  Her sister wore an identically cut ruby. These self-conscious monochromes struck me as tawdry, until it occurred to me that a favorite color might well be of special significance to a pair of teenage girls who are otherwise indistinguishable. The plaque on the frame read ‘Eve and Elizabeth Fairfax, May 1898’, but the artist was unacknowledged, and I could not make out the name from the scrawled signature in the corner.

  The portrait’s most basic significance was obvious. However, I could not begin to categorize the host of questions it raised. Why had Eve’s existence been so fastidiously kept from me? To earn denial, she had to have done something dreadful, but what, and where was she now? Dead, possibly; and yet, even that answered nothing, least of all the question I hardly dared consider: how was it that I had been dreaming of Eve all my life, when
I had not known of her existence until this day?

  I sat down in a chair facing the painting, wondering who Elizabeth’s sister had been. Apparently a woman with more fire than Elizabeth had ever possessed, but the mute image offered no other clues to her history. I sighed, folding the dust cover slowly. I could find nothing in the room to elaborate upon Eve’s story. I walked home through the deepening twilight, deep in meditation.

  Back in the big house, I found Mary already up, talking with Colette in the kitchen.

  “Colette, Mary—did either of you know my mother?”

  “I only came to the village when I married,” Colette answered. “I never set foot in this house till you hired me.”

  Mary shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m no more help. I first met your grandfather a year after she died.”

  I drew up a chair by them at the big wooden table, and sat down. “Did he talk about her?”

  “Rarely,” Mary answered, shrugging. “And then only in reference to you. But Eleanor, she’s been dead more than seventeen years. What’s this sudden interest in her?”

  “She had a twin,” I told them, unable to think of a way to preface the revelation.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just found a picture of her.”

  “Where is this picture?”

  “In the cottage. It’s a portrait of them, together, with a title plaque and everything. Her name was Eve.”

  Mary looked at me for a moment, then said, “Would you mind if I had a look?”

  So we walked back to the cottage and through its empty rooms in silence, until we reached the study. Mary looked at the painting for a long time, her face inscrutable. Somehow, the fact that she didn’t exclaim, or even perceptibly react to the shocking image, comforted me. Mary raised her hand toward the painting, her fingers poised as if to touch my mother’s face; then, abruptly, she dropped it again, and turned to me.

  “Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “this certainly explains some things.”

  “Does it?” I asked.