Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [79]
After several moments, I tear my eyes from hers, and turn back to the table. I lift the drawing in my fingers, only to discover another one below it. This too is me, but it is an earlier version, one I recognize more easily: the dress I wore the first day I sat with him in my master’s library, the day I spoke for hours while he listened and sketched idly. This time I am not angry, but nervous and intent. And while the portrait is not unflattering, it does not hold the beauty of the first.
Slowly I lift the sheet to reveal a third, and this one takes my breath away, for in it I lay sleeping. My hair is fanned across the bed cushion, and one arm curls idly round my head in a gesture that is almost wanton. My lips are parted slightly and my eyes appear just closed, as if any second I will wake. My heart races as I stare at the sketch, for it is obvious that it was not imagined. He must have been there in my room, watching while I slept. And once again, the woman he has drawn is both starkly beautiful, and strikingly feminine. I feel my mouth grow dry and my face grow hot, but while I should feel anger at what is obviously a transgression on his part, I feel only confusion, as if the world around me has suddenly been shaken by an unseen hand.
There are two more sketches in the pile: both roughly rendered, as if they had been done hurriedly. One is of me in the alehouse, drawn from across the room from his place by the fire: a hasty sketch of my profile as I stand at the bar. The other is more difficult to place, for I am outside and it has been drawn at a greater distance than the others. There are trees behind me and I stand staring down at the earth. In a flash it comes to me, for I am at her graveside, the night her body was taken. He has drawn no one else that was present on that occasion, neither Long Boy, Samuell, nor Mary. It is only me, standing in the moonlight by her grave.
I replace the pictures and let myself out of his room, leaving the door ajar just as I had found it. I am stunned by the sketches: feel as if there is another part of me that has dwelled somewhere within him. Who is this woman that he sees? Now that I have seen her I cannot put her from my mind. And as I descend the tower stairs, Cook’s words float across my memory like embers in the breeze: take care he does not steal your soul.
Chapter Eighteen
My mistress lies awake when I enter, her eyes disconcertingly wide, as if her body seeks to salvage what remains of her failing vision. She turns her head in small, trembling movements to face me, manages to nod a sort of greeting. Once again I am shocked at the speed with which her strength and vitality have ebbed, for the tide of health has indeed turned against her.
“You were here earlier?” she asks. Her tone is half-demanding, half-fearful.
“Yes,” I say. “While you slept.”
She nods again, relieved.
“Would you take some food?” I ask. She waves a hand in disgust.
“I sent for Edward,” she says. “He has been much . . . distracted of late. This business of the painter, I suppose. My own fault really.” She looks down, appears to forget herself. After a minute, her head snaps up.
“I asked him to intervene on her behalf,” she says. “Your mother’s behalf.” I stare at her. “He was not unwilling,” she continues. “So you see he is not without feelings, or regard, for your person,” she