“I don't possess much of anything,” I said. “I had to leave most of my things behind in Ireland.”
I didn't mention the reason I'd had to leave in a hurry. Nobody knew that but me. Nobody was going to know it.
“I'll have my housekeeper see if there is anything suitable for you in the servant's closet,” she said.
“I understood that you wanted a companion, not a servant.” Again I matched stares with her. With that hooked nose and those black little eyes she reminded me of some kind of bird. A bird of prey, definitely. “I don't get out much anymore,” she said. “I like to be surrounded by things that are pleasing to the eye.” My gaze followed hers around the room. It was indeed pleasing to the eye— not cluttered with too many knickknacks like other wellto-do rooms I had seen, it managed to be austere and elegant at the same time. The furniture was well-polished mahogany, with lots of silk cushions; a mahogany bookcase filled with rich leather tomes took up most of one wall. There was a lamp with a shade like a miniature stained-glass window and a couple of good, if somber, paintings hung on the walls. Not what one would call a woman's room, but a room of definite good taste.
“The lamp is from Mr. Tiffany,” she said, noticing my eyes falling on it. “My one concession to the latest fads. And the painting over the fireplace—”
“Looks as if it's of the Flemish School,” I said, studying the dark and rather too real-looking still life of a dead pheasant and some fruit. “Is it a copy of a Vermeer?”
She snorted. I couldn't tell if the sound was pleased or contemptuous. “It is a Vermeer,” she said. “Arid how do you come to know about painting? Are they hanging Vermeers in Irish cottages these days?”
“I'm not uneducated, even though I may not be fashionably dressed. Our governess was a great devotee of art. She had visited all the fine galleries of Europe.”
“You had a governess?” She looked at me incredulously.
“I was educated with the land-owner's daughters,” I answered, hoping she wouldn't interrogate further on this topic.
She stared at me in a way that could be considered rude among equals, obviously deciding whether I was lying to her or too impudent to keep. “You have a nice enough face,” she said at last, “and you carry yourself well, but that outfit has definitely seen better days. I'll have my dressmaker come in and measure you up. Maybe not gray. Doesn't do justice to the hair, which would be quite striking if properly arranged.” In deference to my companion's position I had managed to twist my unruly red curls into a severe bun. Not too successfully, I might add. Trying to tame my hair was like trying to hold back the ocean.
“So if you know about art, and you were educated by a governess, you presumably know how to read more than penny dreadfuls.”
“There's nothing I like better.” I let my eyes wander to the bookcase on the back wall. “I love to read whenever I can.”
“In which case maybe you'll turn out to be satisfactory after all, in spite of appearances. You can start by reading to me now. What do you like to read?”
“Oh, the novels of Charles Dickens—”
“Popular sentimental drivel, written for the masses,” she said. “Why does one need to read about squalor when there is already too much on one's doorstep?”
“Jane Austen, then.”
“Feminine frippery. You won't find many novels in this house, Miss Murphy. I believe that reading should be for two purposes only—to educate and to uplift. Now if you will pick up that slim volume lying on the sofa, you may read to me from it. It is a newly published account of last year's atrocities in China, written by the sister of a missionary who was beheaded. I am very much afraid there are some races that we shall never succeed in civilizing or Christianizing.”
“The Chinese have a very old civilization and they might not have wanted to be Christianized,” I pointed out.
“What rubbish you talk, girl. It is our duty to spread the Gospel. But then I suppose you are another of those Holy Romans. You've never learned the lessons of Martin Luther or John Calvin, more's the pity. And now my goddaughter is thinking of marrying one. 4 You'd better bring the boy in line before the wedding,’ I told her, because I'll not attend any service where they swing incense and pray to idols.”
I decided this was a time to keep my mouth shut and went to get the book.
“But Arabella is a headstrong girl and probably doesn't care a fig for anyone's opinion, even mine, though she knows she'll inherit everything from me,” she added as I crossed the room.
I realized I was gritting my teeth with a forced smile on my face. I hoped Daniel realized what I was doing for him, because I wasn't sure who was going to break first, I or Miss Van Woekem. A white fur rug was lying behind the sofa. As I went to step on it, it leaped up, yowling, and clawed at me. So there were to be cats, after all.