Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [28]
“A pity, as I thought to have a study made of the gardens while you were here.” She pauses to see if he will offer his services, but he does not, a fact which surprises me, as most would have been more obliging.
Her smile fades and she bids us follow her inside her chamber. Once inside she lowers herself with some difficulty into a chair and nods for him to be seated.
“I trust your journey was not overtiring,” she says in measured tones.
“It was uneventful,” he replies. His English is fluent but not without an accent. According to my mistress’s cousin, he is from Flanders, having come across to England some years earlier to escape religious persecution in his own land.
“You travel unaccompanied?” she inquires.
“I have no need of servants,” he says simply.
“You do not fear our highways then.”
“I have no cause to.”
At this she raises an eyebrow. There has been much talk of danger on the highways of late, of vagabonds and thieves who for a loaf of bread will slit your throat as easily as beg. My mistress canceled a visit to London only last month for fear of such outlaws. She continues after a moment.
“My cousin speaks very highly of your talents.”
“He is a generous patron,” says the painter. They eye each other for a moment, and I can sense a tension in the air already, as if by his brevity he is somehow taunting her. She clears her throat and smiles a little artfully.
“And your rooms. I hope they are satisfactory?”
“Yes,” he says. “The light will be useful for my work,” he adds. It is the first comment he has volunteered, and it pleases my mistress.
“You have my lady-in-waiting to thank for that. The tower room was her idea. She thought the aspect would be beneficial.”
He turns to me and for the first time acknowledges my presence with a small nod. I am instantly reminded of my mother’s belief that men are only interested in that which furthers their vocation.
“I am grateful,” he says, turning his eyes full upon me. My mistress looks from me to him, then back at me.
“You may go now,” she says somewhat pointedly to me.
And, thankfully, I do.
Chapter Eight
We did not have a looking glass when I was young, as my mother did not countenance their use. But some others in the village did. Dora had one hanging on her wall, and to a child it was a marvelous object to behold, not large but framed in richly dark wood that was carved with leaves and ornamental scrolls all around. The first time she let me gaze upon it I was fearful of my own reflection. Though I had seen my face shimmering in still water, the clarity of my features took my breath away. But in that instant I also felt a sense of disappointment and curtailed possibility, for I was forced to admit the limits of my being. Even as a child I knew immediately that my face could hold only so much in its future, and nothing more: it instantly defined me in a way my own imagination did not.
Dora stood behind me that day and read the disappointment in my face. At once I laid the mirror facedown upon my lap, and we both stared at its carved wooden back.
“What is it?” she asked gently.
“I do not wish to see,” I said. She reached across and laid her large, warm hand upon my own, and then grasping the handle of the mirror, slowly turned it round to face me once again.
“What is it you do not wish to see?” she said. Once again I stared at the girl in the mirror. Her eyes were hurtful.
“That I am plain,” I blurted out. I looked away again, could not bear the sight in front of me. And then she brought her face right next to mine, and lifted my chin to join me in the frame of glass. And simply by her presence my own face improved, as if she’d cast a sympathetic light upon me. She smiled at me in the mirror.
“What part of you is plain?” she asked.
I looked again. My features were small and unremarkable. The things I so admired about her—her walnut-sized eyes and fleshy full lips—I did not find in my own reflection. This seemed to me an indictment of some sort—an outward sign of my inner shortcomings. I had not her spirit nor her courage