Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [78]
For she does not believe this, and neither do I.
* * *
I take him bread that she has baked, and when I place it in his hands, he holds it gingerly, staring down into the deep brown crust as if it will contain her likeness. He raises his head and looks at me expectantly.
“Is she still tired?” he asks. I nod.
“She needs to rest,” I say. “But when she has regained her strength, she will return.” He frowns, looks down again at the bread.
“Your friend was here,” he says then. I stare at him blankly. “He left me that,” he says, nodding toward the table. I cross over, see the charcoal sketch upon the table for the first time. It is of the boy, seated up in bed, the same look of turmoil in his eyes. I hold the paper and my hands tremble slightly. I turn to Anne Wycombe.
“He was here?” I ask. She hesitates, then nods.
“Yesterday,” she says.
“But . . . why?” I ask.
“To see the boy,” she answers.
“He asked to draw my picture,” says Long Boy proudly. “It is very like, is it not?” I cross over to his side and together we study the drawing. Long Boy reaches out and fingers it, clearly entranced by his own image.
“Yes,” I say slowly.
“He said he was a friend of yours,” says Long Boy. I look at him, feel the anger rise within me.
“He has been hired by my master,” I reply. This seems to satisfy Long Boy, for he nods, then bites off a hunk of my mother’s bread.
But it does not satisfy me, for I do not trust the painter’s motives. “You must be wary of such gifts,” I say, echoing my mother’s words.
“It was not a gift,” says Long Boy. “He called it an exchange.”
I look at him puzzled, and then it dawns on me. “You gave him the book.”
Long Boy nods and his eyes color anxiously at the tone of my voice. “He said he would return it,” says Long Boy. “He will, won’t he?”
I leave him then, clutching my fury like a tightly wrapped parcel. I have hardly said two words to him these past few days, yet the anger has not lessened over time. His interest in her now seems like an act of trespassing: he has no right to be here and even less claim upon her than the others, for it seems to me that the woman he knew was not the same as the one who lived within our midst. If only he would leave: take his charcoal and his sketches and his disquieting vision with him.
When I reach the Great House, I go at once to the tower, can think of nothing else but the need to retrieve the diary and tell him he must go. My heart races as I climb the stairs and by the time I reach his room, my chest is heaving with rage. I stop sharply at the door, for it stands slightly ajar, and I struggle to regain my composure, for I have no desire to make a fool of myself in front of him. But all is silent within: I hear only the sound of my own breath. Instead of knocking, I raise a hand and ease the door open slightly. At once I see his room is empty, and I enter quietly, like a thief, closing the door behind me.
My first thought is that he has already left the village, and I feel a stab of disappointment until I see that this is not the case, as the room still holds his things. The bed is made up tidily and his few belongings are stowed neatly to one side, almost as if he were expecting someone. His paints and canvasses are stacked upon a table in the corner of the room, together with his papers and sketches. I cross over to them, wonder what, if any, progress he has made these past few days. But what I see atop the pile is not her face, but my own, staring out at me almost accusingly.
I step forward and finger the edge of the paper. It is a charcoal sketch of my upper body, and the look upon my face is one of anger: it is precisely, disconcertingly, the look I must have worn when I climbed the stairs only moments ago. The eyes are dark and opened wide with anger, the mouth is closed, lips pressed tightly together, and the brows are knit together in a furrowed frown. But what strikes me most about the woman in the portrait, much more than her apparent state of high