But I already knew that, didn’t I? I already know whose hand wrote that note last night. I know the cast of those words like I know my own.
I glance up to my reflection in the mirror, and I’m surprised to see that I look rather well—at least, next to the white cloth face of the doll leaning against the glass. Still too thin, maybe, but my color is warmer, my eyes less anxious. I’ve taken an aspirin, according to the doctor’s instructions, and the headache that was threatening the sides of my skull has died away. Down the hall, I hear Evelyn squealing happily with Miss Bertram.
A low voice echoes in my ear.
Everything you seek is here.
I follow the squealing along a wide, high corridor until I arrive at Evelyn’s bedroom. “I was wondering where they put you last night, darling,” I say, and my daughter puts down a bright-colored alphabet block and runs to wrap her arms around my legs. I want to lift her up and blow raspberries into the warm skin of her tummy, as I usually greet her in the morning, but the act seems too raucous for my present tranquil mood, and besides, we’ve already reunited. Instead, I lower myself to the floor and return her embrace. Her hair smells of oranges.
“What a picture you are,” says Miss Bertram. “It’s a shame Mr. Fitzwilliam can’t see the two of you like this. He did want all these rooms for his children.”
I look past Evelyn’s head to the bedroom wall, which is painted a bright yellow, the color of sunshine. A pair of perfect windows, curtained in pink polka dots, gaze out on the second-floor balcony and the grounds beyond. On the white-painted bed, a pink-and-yellow quilt has been covered with sleeping dolls of all shapes and dresses.
“When was this room decorated?” I whisper.
“Oh, now, I don’t remember exactly. When the rest of the house was finished, I guess. Mr. Fitzwilliam always wanted a girl, you know. Boys, too, but there always had to be a girl. I think he has a soft spot. And now look! Here she is.”
I stroke Evelyn’s cheek with the backs of my fingers and swivel my gaze around the bookcases and dollhouses, the miniature table set for afternoon tea, the enormous stuffed bear in a rocking chair near the leftmost window, dressed in overalls, as if he had just returned from picking fruit in the orchard.
“Here she is,” I repeat.
There are four other rooms in the children’s wing: another decorated for a girl, two more in blues and greens, stocked with fire engines and soldiers. Each has a bookcase lined with all the childhood essentials: Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin, illustrated Bible stories and fairy tales. The fourth room contains a single bed and spare furniture of adult size. Miss Bertram explains that it’s meant for a nurse or nanny. “Though you don’t seem like the kind who hands her children off to the help all day, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” she observes as she closes the door.
“No. I kept Evelyn in my own room during her first year.”
“That’s what I thought. Still, it’s a good thing to have another pair of hands around, especially if you’ve got more than one.”
“More than one?”
“More children, ma’am. Children do come, one after another.” She says it baldly, without tact, as we wander down the airy corridor toward the staircase, swinging Evelyn between us.
“Not in my case, however.”
“Why, you never know what the future brings. You’re such a young thing. And then you don’t have a mama of your own to help out.”
“How do you know about my mother?”
“Mr. Fitzwilliam told me. I hope you don’t mind. I’m awfully sorry. I can’t think of much worse, for a child to grow up without her mama. Or her papa.”
“Well, I can’t help that.”
Miss Bertram doesn’t answer, and we reach the top of the staircase, long and sinuous, curving down to the front hall like the neck of a swan. I know I must question her more closely; I know I must urgently learn more about Miss Bertram’s role in my husband’s life. How she came by her knowledge. How much more she knows. How closely her intentions aligned with his.
And yet I find I haven’t a thing to say. Not a single query. A wholly unjustified contentment wells up inside me, as I regard the beauty of Simon’s house, the symmetry of its architecture, the marvelous sight of our daughter clambering down the steps of the elegant main staircase, gripping the rails as she goes, because she’s too small to reach the bannister. The light from the fan window floats in tiny motes before me. The raw edges of my nerves have all smoothed and rounded away. A smile forms on my lips.
After all, Miss Bertram lived here long before Simon, didn’t she? She belongs to the house, not to him.
“She’s a beautiful child,” says Miss Bertram. “How I wish Mr. Fitzwilliam could see her like this.”
“Yes,” I say, and I follow Miss Bertram down the stairs, while she takes up Evelyn’s small hand protectively in her own.
The strange thing is, I missed my mother most not when she first died but years later. When Evelyn was born.
The pregnancy and delivery, I suppose, went as easily as these things can go. My tall frame seemed to absorb the changes in my body without much fuss; until I was six or seven months along, you might hardly know I was expecting a baby at all. Even then, I maintained all my usual habits of exercise and activity, right up until the onset of labor itself, which occurred in the evening, as we were sitting together in the parlor, reading in quiet unity while Father’s gramophone played “Oh, Dry the Glist’ning Tear.” (I can still hear the melody in my head.) At first I thought the stiffening of my abdomen represented only the familiar pangs of false labor, but as the contractions grew and grew, each one coming sooner and harder than I expected, I realized what was happening. And for a few terrible minutes I didn’t know what to tell them. How do you explain to your father and your virgin sister that you’re about to give birth? What words, pray, do you utter to illustrate the delicate nature of your predicament?