Even my father.
I take a wobbling step toward Lenora and the tilt returns, more pronounced this time. Then again, maybe it’s not the slanted floor that’s causing it. Maybe it’s simply because I’m in a room with Lenora Hope—a realization as surreal as it is surprising. The chant snakes back into my thoughts.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
I wonder if I should be scared.
Hung her sister with a rope
Because I am.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Even though there’s no reason to be scared.
Took her mother’s happy life
This isn’t the Lenora Hope of that awful rhyme. It’s not even the Lenora of the portrait downstairs—young and ripe and possibly that very moment plotting the murders of her family. This Lenora is old, withered, a wisp. I think of reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in high school. This is like the opposite of the book—the painting in the hall getting fresher by the day as Lenora’s crippled body atones for her sins.
I take a few more steps, no longer bothered by the tilting house. Maybe Mrs. Baker is right. Maybe I am getting used to the place.
“Hello, Lenora,” I say.
“Miss Hope,” Mrs. Baker says from the doorway, correcting me. “The help must never refer to the lady of the house by her Christian name.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Hello, Miss Hope.”
Lenora doesn’t move, let alone acknowledge my presence. I kneel directly in front of the wheelchair, hoping to get a better look at her startling green eyes. My body tenses, bracing for whatever insights might be gleaming within them. About Lenora. About myself.
But Lenora isn’t cooperating. She stares past me, out the window, gaze fixed on the churning sea below.
“I’m Kit,” I say. “Kit McDeere.”
Lenora’s eyes suddenly lock onto my own.
I stare right back.
What I see is unexpected.
Curiosity, of all things, shimmers inside Lenora’s gaze. As if she already knows me. As if she knows everything about me. That I’ve been trapped. And accused. And judged and ostracized and ignored. Gazing into Lenora Hope’s eyes feels like looking into that gilt-framed mirror and seeing my reflection staring back at me.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” I say. “I’m going to take care of you from now on. Would you like that?”
Lenora Hope nods.
Then she begins to smile.
Before we continue, I need to make one thing clear. Don’t try to help me write this. I know what I want to say. You’re simply here to replace the hand I can’t use. Just do what I need you to do, when I need you to do it.
Understand?
Good.
Second, I’m not writing this so you’ll feel sorry for me. I neither want nor need your pity. I’m also not doing it to prove my innocence. That’s for others to decide, if and when I ever finish this.
I’m writing it because when I die, which could be any day now, I want there to be a record of the facts. This is the truth--good and bad.
And the truth is that it all started the day of the portrait. The beginning of the end, although I had no idea then that would be the case. It was eight months before the murders. A lifetime when you’re as young as I was then.
It was also my birthday. The last birthday ever celebrated in this house.
That year, my father decided to have everyone sit for a portrait on their birthday. It was his idea of a gift, which might have been fine for him and my mother, but not so much for my sister and me. No girl our age wanted a portrait as a present, especially when it meant getting dolled up and sitting for hours on end, not being allowed to move. The best thing about it was the artist, who was quite handsome.
Peter was his name.
Peter Ward.
Since my father had commissioned him to paint portraits of every member of the family, it was his fourth time at Hope’s End. By then, I was quite enamored of him. I put on my best dress--a pink satin gown--and made sure I looked as pretty as possible. I very much wanted to catch his eye.
Unfortunately, so did my sister, who hovered over him the whole time, even though Miss Baker was already keeping a close watch on the artist. Because the portrait was being painted in my bedroom, she was worried something inappropriate might happen if Peter and I were left alone. Such behavior was typical for Miss Baker, who had been hired a year earlier to teach us etiquette and elocution. I knew what she really was, though. A governess for girls who didn’t need a governess.
I sat on the divan, trying not to move. Miss Baker stood rigidly in the corner, a disapproving look on her face. My sister, though, mooned about the room behind Peter, checking his canvas and saying things like, “Oh, that’s wonderful. It’s her very likeness.”
Every time she did it, I couldn’t help but laugh, which caused Peter to reprimand me several times.
“Keep still, please,” he’d say in a tone so deathly serious it made me laugh even more. I spent most of the sitting trying not to crack a smile, although it came through anyway in the finished portrait. My sister had been right about that. Peter captured me perfectly.
“But I’m so bored,” I said as the sitting dragged on well into the afternoon. “Can I at least read a book while you paint?”
“You could, but then I wouldn’t be able to see your eyes,” Peter said. “And you have such lovely eyes.”
Now that was a birthday gift any girl my age would want. No one had ever called any part of me lovely before, and hearing it from Peter made my whole body quiver.
Out of the blue, I began to wonder if Peter had ever painted someone nude. Someone more mature and developed than me, someone who was unashamed of her body. I wondered what it would feel like to slide out of my pink dress, lean back on the divan, and have Peter gaze at my naked form. Would he still think I was lovely? Would he feel compelled to leave his easel, join me on the divan, touch my skin, caress my hair?
I began to blush, shocked by the wildness of my thoughts. I looked to Miss Baker, who contemplated me with dark eyes, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
Apparently, my sister did as well. She approached Peter, coming up behind him until she was pressed against his back. She placed a hand on his shoulder, where it remained as she cooed, “Peter, you really are the most talented man I’ve ever met.”
The room suddenly felt hot, and in that moment, all I wanted was to be away from all of them. I longed to be outside, perched at the cliff’s edge with the cool wind in my hair.
“Are we almost finished?” I asked.
“Another hour or two,” Peter said.
“Be patient,” Miss Baker added.
But I no longer had any patience left. I hated her. I hated my sister. I hated my father for bringing Peter into this house. At that moment, the only member of my family I didn’t despise was my mother.
Her I pitied.
Unable to sit still a moment longer, I leapt off the divan and headed for the door.
“I’m not finished yet,” Peter called after me.
“I most certainly am,” I called back.
I hurried down the back steps and into the kitchen, which was a riot of activity as the cooks and maids readied my birthday dinner. My anger surprised me. I knew my sister had no real interest in Peter, and that Peter had no interest in me. Honestly, I had no interest in him, either. But I did so desperately want someone to notice me, to see me, to understand me.
Also, I was sick and tired of being at Hope’s End. The name fit, for it felt like we were at the end of the world, cut off from any hope of being anywhere but here.
My father built Hope’s End as a tribute to himself. He claimed otherwise, of course. A peculiar trait among most self-important men is the need to try to hide their self-importance. My father did this by claiming Hope’s End was constructed for his beloved wife and the baby girl she had just given birth to.
Not true.
He built it because he wanted to show everyone just how rich he was.
It worked. For one cannot get a glimpse of Hope’s End without thinking, “This is the home of a very wealthy man.”
Wealthy we were. Happy? Not so much. And the house, though opulent, reflected that. It’s a cold place. An unwelcoming place. I know you can feel it. There’s little comfort to be found here.
And all I wanted to do was meet people, go places, experience the things I’d only read about in books. It was 1929, and the world was alive with fast cars and jazz and dancing all night while drinking bathtub gin. I had experienced none of it. And how was I to become a great writer without having any experiences to write about?