The truth of it computed in my mind. “The trip to the Continent,” I said slowly. “Those three months. That was some kind of a trial, wasn’t it?” I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. And to think I had started to feel sympathy for Dottie. “My God.”
“You can’t hate her,” Martin said reasonably. “You have to see things her way. Family comes first. Instead of marrying properly, as was his duty, Alex married an unknown girl of no family. He never introduced you to us. He didn’t even invite anyone to the wedding.”
“No, he didn’t,” I said. My legs were suddenly tired, and I took a seat next to him on the old tree, keeping a large space between us so we resembled two strangers waiting for a bus. Alex and I had married in Crete, just the two of us. It had been his suggestion, and I’d asked him why. Because, he’d answered, it isn’t anyone’s damned business what I do. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted Dottie breathing down his neck. It had been romantic, a whirlwind of sea and sunlight and passion, and I’d had no objection at all.
“Then, you see,” Martin continued, “the war came, and took Alex with it. Nothing turned out the way Mother planned it. But you behaved respectably as a widow, and there were no accounts that you were a fool. So she took you on to see for herself if you were suitable for the family.”
I put my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands in a most unladylike manner. “It isn’t just that I don’t want another husband,” I told him. “Any husband. It’s that I truly can’t marry you. The War Office never sent the official notice of his death, and the paperwork is a mess. So under the law I’m not precisely a widow—I’m still his wife. I can’t even get a widow’s pension.”
“That’s beastly,” Martin said softly. “I assume Mother doesn’t know. I’ll be the one to tell her, if you like.”
“She’ll dismiss me if we don’t marry.”
“No, she won’t. Mother has her faults, but she wouldn’t leave a member of the family with no means. Just leave it to me.”
I looked up at him. He spoke with the confidence of an only son who knows his mother will listen to his wishes. “And what will you do about a wife?” I asked.
“I’ll tell her to find me another, of course.”
“That’s madness. Don’t you want to choose your own wife?”
“My wife for how long?” he asked. He gave me a smile. “I’m not quite healthy, and the war nearly did me in. It’s made Mother frantic. If I shuffle off this mortal coil without leaving an heir, all of this will be for nothing.” He gave a grand wave at our surroundings, indicating the house and the woods. “I’ve known my duty since I was a boy—even more so after it became clear that Fran could never marry. Don’t worry about me, Cousin Jo. After the trenches, and then the hospital, it doesn’t seem like such a bad lot.” He pressed his hands to his knees and stood. “Come. I haven’t shown you the house yet.”
He rose from his seat and started slowly off through the trees. When we emerged, I looked at the house, standing tall and silent in the sunlight. There was something sullen about it, as if it kept its secrets on purpose, buried in the tangled brush that surrounded it. As the sunlight winked off the glass of one of the upper windows, I saw a figure looking out at us, but when I looked again, it was gone.
A servant, I thought. One of the maids. That’s all. I forced myself not to hesitate at the front door, not to think of the bloody tracks I’d seen in my dream. I couldn’t start babbling about nightmares, mists, and leaves. Instead, I stared ahead as Martin led me to the staircase.
Upstairs, Martin showed me Dottie’s picture gallery, a massive open space at the east end of the house in which she displayed her paintings. Two workmen were on ladders, rearranging works of art, moving the paintings already on the walls to make room for the new pieces Dottie had just bought. “This room is actually a ballroom,” Martin said, his hushed voice echoing from the walls. “But of course Mother doesn’t use it that way.”
I nodded and followed him. As we crossed the room, I thought footsteps echoed behind us, but it must have been a trick of the acoustics, because when I glanced back, no one was there.
On the same floor, at the other end of the house, were the rooms that included my bedroom. I was the only tenant in this part of the house, he explained, while himself, his parents, and the servants were upstairs. He paused on the stair landing, his hand on the rail, looking up. “Fran’s old room is up there,” he said, his voice quiet. “I suppose no one has emptied it out. I haven’t gone to look. I don’t think—Mother wouldn’t throw away her things.”
I looked at the expression on his face and placed a hand on his wrist. “We don’t have to go up there,” I said softly.
But his usual easygoing humor was draining out of him, leaving his gaze cold and bleak. “It’s a terrible thing to say,” he said, “but it was hard to love Fran. It was hard. You know?”