“What if she needs to see a doctor?”
“Then the doctor comes to her,” Mrs. Baker says.
“But what if she needs to be taken to the hospital?”
“That will never happen.”
“But what if—”
There’s an emergency. That’s what I try to say. I can’t get the words out because Mrs. Baker stops once more, this time at the landing.
“Miss Hope was born in this house, and this is where she will die,” she says. “Until then, she is to always remain indoors. Those are her wishes, and my job is to enact them. If you take issue with that, then you may leave right now. Am I understood?”
I lower my eyes, fully aware that after less than five minutes on the job I’m this close to being fired. The only thing keeping me from being forced to return to my old bedroom and my father’s silence is what I say next.
“Yes,” I reply. “I apologize for questioning Miss Hope’s wishes.”
“Good.” Mrs. Baker gives me a red-lipped smile that’s as brief and cutting as a razor slash. “Let’s continue.”
We start off down a long corridor. Like the downstairs hallways, it runs from one side of the mansion to the other, with the top of the Grand Stairs positioned in the middle. Unlike those wider, better-lit corridors, this one is as narrow as a tunnel and just as dim. The carpet is red. The wallpaper is peacock blue damask. A dozen doors line each side, all of them shut.
Moving through the corridor, I feel a strange sensation. Not dizziness. Nothing as strong as that.
Instability.
That’s what I feel.
Like I’ve just had a few very strong drinks.
I touch the wall for support, my palm skimming across the blue wallpaper. It’s overwhelming. The color is too dark and the print too florid for such a confined space. All those ornate petals bursting open and intertwining give the impression of a garden that’s grown wild and vicious and is now overtaking the house. My hand recoils from the wall at the thought, which sends me listing ever so slightly in the other direction.
“What you’re feeling is the house,” Mrs. Baker says without looking back. “It tilts slightly toward the ocean. It’s not very noticeable on the first floor. You can only feel it on the upper levels.”
“Why is it tilted?”
“The cliff, dear. The ground here at the top has shifted over time as the cliff has eroded.”
What Mrs. Baker doesn’t say, but what’s abundantly clear from the slanted floor, is that Hope’s End has been eroding with it. Someday—maybe soon, maybe a century from now—both cliff and mansion will break apart and slide into the ocean.
“Doesn’t that worry you?”
“Oh, we’ve all become quite accustomed to it,” Mrs. Baker says. “It just takes some time. Like getting your sea legs.”
I wouldn’t know. My sailing experience is limited to a whale-watching field trip I took in the sixth grade. But I can’t imagine ever getting used to this. When Mrs. Baker stops at one of the tightly closed doors on the left, I lean against the wall, relieved.
“These are your quarters,” she says, turning the knob but not opening the door. It does that on its own, creaking ajar thanks to the mansion’s pernicious tilt. “After you’re done changing, I’ll introduce you to Miss Hope.”
“Change?” I push off the wall into a standing position. “Into what?”
“Your uniform, of course.”
Mrs. Baker steps away from the door, allowing me to peek inside. The room is small but tidy. Butter yellow walls, a dresser, a reading chair, a large bookshelf blessedly filled with books. There’s even a view of the ocean, which under different circumstances would make my heart sing. But I’m too focused on the bed and the white nurse’s uniform sitting on top of it, folded as neatly as a napkin in a fancy restaurant.
“If it doesn’t fit properly, I can find a seamstress who’ll be able to do some alterations,” Mrs. Baker says.
I eye the uniform like it’s a ticking time bomb. “You seriously want me to wear this?”
“No, dear,” Mrs. Baker says. “I require that you wear it.”
“But I’m not a nurse.”
“You are here.”
I should have known this was coming. I’d seen Jessica in her ridiculous maid’s outfit and Archie in his chef’s gear.
“I know you think it’s silly,” Mrs. Baker says. “The nurses before you did as well. Even Mary. But we abide by the old ways here. And those ways involve a strict dress code. Besides, it’s what Miss Hope is accustomed to. To deviate now would likely confuse and upset her.”
It’s that last bit that makes me concede defeat. While I don’t give a damn about abiding by the old ways—why follow them if no one is ever here to notice?—I can’t argue with not wanting to upset a patient. I have no choice but to suck it up and wear the uniform.
Mrs. Baker waits in the hall as I close the door and strip out of my coat, skirt, and blouse. On goes the uniform, which doesn’t quite fit. It’s loose at the hips, just right at the bust, and tight at the shoulders, making it simultaneously too snug and not snug enough. By the time the winged cap is pinned to my head, I feel positively ridiculous.
In the adjoining bathroom, I check to see how I look.
It’s . . . not bad, actually.
While undeniably formal, the tightness in the uniform’s shoulders makes me stand a little taller. Forced out of my perpetual slump, I appear less like a caregiver and more like a legitimate nurse. For the first time in months, I feel resourceful again. A refreshing change of pace.
Mrs. Baker certainly approves. When I emerge from the bedroom, she lifts her glasses to her eyes and says, “Yes, that’s much better.”
Then she’s off again, to the next door down the hallway.
Lenora Hope’s room.
I suck in a breath when Mrs. Baker opens the door, feeling the need to brace myself. For what, I don’t know. It’s not as if Lenora Hope will be standing just inside, a knife in one hand and a noose in the other. Yet that’s the only thing I can picture as Mrs. Baker gestures for me to step inside.
After another deep breath, I do.
The first thing I notice about the room is the wallpaper. Pink stripes. Exactly like in the portrait downstairs. The white divan is there as well, its fabric darkened by time but clearly the same one Lenora posed on. On the wall behind it is the gilt-edged mirror glimpsed in the portrait. Staring at the entire mirror—and my uniformed reflection in it—makes me feel a bit like Alice going through the looking glass. Instead of Wonderland, though, I’ve ended up inside the portrait of Lenora Hope and now stare at myself from outside the frame.
The next thing to catch my eye are the tall windows that face the Atlantic. The view beyond them is even more stunning than the one in the sunroom. The ocean is visible from here—a vast canvas of churning water that looks like a fun house–mirror version of the sky. Two blues, one scudded with clouds, the other whitecaps. The second floor’s higher vantage point gives me a better idea of how close the house is to the cliff’s edge. Right against it, in fact. There’s no land beyond the terrace railing. Just a straight drop directly into the sea.
Because of the slight tilt of the house, the view seems extra vertiginous. Even though I’m in the middle of the room, I feel like I have my forehead pressed against one of the windows, looking down. Another twinge of instability hits me, and I spend a fraught moment worrying I’m about to tip right over.
But then I finally notice the wheelchair parked in a corner of the room, facing the windows. It’s old-fashioned, constructed of wicker and wood, with two large wheels in front and a small one in the back, like a tricycle. The kind of wheelchair that hasn’t been used in decades.
In it is a woman, silent and still, her head lolled forward, as if she’s asleep.
Lenora Hope.
My vertigo fades in an instant. I’m too spellbound by Lenora’s presence to notice the tilted floor anymore. Or the view out the windows. Or even the presence of Mrs. Baker behind me. All I can focus on is Lenora, seated in that old-timey wheelchair, bathed in sunlight so bright it makes her look pale, almost translucent.
The infamous Lenora Hope, reduced to a ghost.
Everything about her, really, seems sapped of color. Her robe is threadbare and gray, as are the slippers on her feet. Gray socks run to just below her knees, where they bunch and sag. The nightgown under the robe was likely white once upon a time, but too many washings have left it the same ashen shade as her skin. The grayness extends to her hair, which is kept long and straight and cascades down her shoulders.
It isn’t until Lenora lifts her head that I see a single bit of color.
Her eyes.
Their green is almost as bright as her eyes in the portrait downstairs. But what’s fascinating in the painting is downright startling in person, especially when surrounded by all that gray. They remind me of lasers. They burn.
That blazing green draws me in. I find myself wanting to stare into those startlingly bright eyes and see if I can recognize a piece of myself in them. If I can’t, then perhaps it means I’m not as bad as people think.