Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [66]
“It was the other way round,” I say. “She held you captive. Just as she did with the others.”
“No,” he says, his voice taking on a sense of urgency. “Until I met her I had not the confidence to pursue my own path. She taught me to have faith in my own vision of the world. She taught me that the hand of God is there to guide us, but that it will not spare us from peril, for in the end each of us must save ourselves.” He speaks with such intensity that the force of his words buffets me like some great wind. I grip the handles of my chair.
“Then why could she not save herself?” I say.
He pauses. “I do not know. Perhaps she did not wish to.”
We sit in silence for a time, for we cannot move beyond this point of ignorance.
“You knew from the beginning it was her?” I ask finally.
He shakes his head no. “Something struck me that night in her cottage, when I first saw the boy. Perhaps a part of me knew then, but it was only a suspicion. Later, when I saw the body, I was certain, even though she was so very changed . . .” The painter’s voice trails off.
“You should have told me,” I say accusingly.
“I never meant to deceive you,” says the painter.
I think of that night in the barn and of our chance embrace. Perhaps it was her he reached for in the darkness. And once this thought occurs to me, I cannot rid myself of it: it lodges somewhere deep within my gut.
“So why have you come to me again for help?” I demand. “You knew her just as well as I.”
He shakes his head slowly no. “I thought I did. But I realize now that it is not her I remember: but how she made me feel.” He does not look at me when he says this, for it reveals too much of him. “That is why I need you,” he continues, his voice barely above a whisper. “Your words help me to remember.”
“But they are only words,” I say, my voice as hard as flint. “They will not raise her from the dead.”
And with that I rise from my chair and push past him out the door, nearly stumbling as I scramble down the stairs. I run along the corridors of the Great House to my room, where I collapse upon the bed. By now I am fully clad in anger: I feel it swirl around me, wash across my limbs, surround me until little else remains. I close my eyes and she is there: luminous, strong, proud, a great-bellied glory. And suddenly I wish to purge myself of her, wipe her from me like the residue of ash left from a fire.
Is it mere envy that I feel? Such a small emotion, for such a deep well of feeling. I lie immobile on my bed for what seems like hours, empty my mind of all thought, concentrate on nothing. Sleep finally arrives. But as I drift into slumber, I know that she will be there in the shadows of my dreams.
Sometime after, I do not know if it is minutes or hours, I wake. A noise reaches into my sleep, pulls me forth unwillingly. When I open my eyes, it is the dead of night, and I see the door to my bedchamber close slowly from without. I hear the trace of footsteps in the hall, but in an instant they are gone. Moonlight streams in through my window, casting an eerie light upon my bed. I know that I should rise and follow, but the weight of sleep is still heavy upon me. I cannot fight it, so I close my eyes and slip away.
The following morning there is no sign of disturbance in my room, nor any indication of a foreign presence, and I wonder whether the event occurred in my dreams. My mistress seems somewhat improved, though she complains at length of shadows in her eyes. I sit with her for most of the morning, reading Scripture of her choosing. Twice she dozes off but as soon as I stop she wakes and urges me to continue. Today the task of reading is onerous. I rarely pay attention to the content—I let the sounds wash over me, and find the rise and fall of my own voice comforting. But now my words sound strange and harsh. I feel as if I must spit them out into the room, where they taunt and mock me with their falsity. For today I have no certainty. My world does not conform to the one contained within these pages.
Finally she sleeps and I am free to