If ever there was a time for a long bath, this was it. Buried in bubbles, I let the morning wash over me. Lines from books floated past with the ease with which I usually recalled theorems—Ohm, Kirchhoff, and Pythagoras now stood beside the truths espoused within Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Clara’s Sense and Senseless.
We can all plague and punish one another. Elizabeth Bennet said it to Caroline Bingley, who was trying to flirt with or “punish” Mr. Darcy for some surly comment. That was true. We could all do that to one another—protect ourselves by causing harm. Intimate as you are, she said, you must know how it is to be done. It was a delicious wisp of spite.
Isabel liked Grant, and I could have ended it. The Nathan story alone would have sent him running. Payback. But Nathan’s grandfather had been right. That would have been about me, not her, and I wanted to be more than that. I wanted more for me, and despite everything, seeing her now as I did, I wanted more for her too.
Finally dressed in the brown wool Isabel had laid out for me, I grabbed Nathan’s coat, now dry from resting on the heated bathroom floor, and stepped into the gallery. I trailed my finger along the glass cases. Books, fans, playing cards, gloves. Cases full of family history—Gertrude’s family history. The prayer book carried each Sunday by her grandmother, perhaps. A fan fluttered by an aunt. They were mere objects now. The emotional value lost, the connection lost, by being tucked away under light and glass.
It had struck me as sad to separate the people from their story. But I had done the same. I recalled my Lanvin shoe box and my mom’s treasures I kept locked away inside it.
“What’s wrong?”
I looked up to find Nathan sitting in the same chair I’d rested in days before.
I shook my head. “I just thought of something I need to do when I get home.”
He stood, shrugged on his coat, and stretched out his hand. Once mine was firmly within it, he tugged and we headed down the stairs. “A special late morning tea is set up on the lawn. Sonia’s been darting up and down the stairs, afraid you would miss it.”
“What have they got in store for us now?”
“If her excitement is any indication, it’ll be over the top.”
Nathan led me through the hallway toward the back of the house rather than out the front door. We crossed the ballroom, and in my mind I could hear the previous evening’s music echoing within its walls. We passed through the narrow glass door at the end, and I could feel the notes of our beautiful silent dance.
“By the way, you were right. It doesn’t work that way.”
I glanced up at him. “What doesn’t?”
“Gertrude popped the TV out of its hidden panel in the Day Room. Isabel walked in, watched a moment of some odd show with a girl with pink hair, then walked back out, no change in her expression at all.”
Day Three. Tomorrow I would have to get her home.
A huge white canvas caught my eye. “Over the top” was an understatement. Across the lawn, situated at the edge of the formal gardens, sat an elaborate picnic. It looked as if they’d moved an entire room out of the house and onto the lawn. There were two of the canvas shades held high on tall wood poles. On the rug laid beneath them sat a table filled with tiered silver trays and two tea services. Chairs were arranged in groupings, and at the edge of the scene stood large wicker bins. I saw the handles of badminton rackets and what I thought was a cricket bat sticking out. The bowls were scattered across their court, a small patch of lawn leveled and cut close like a putting green.
“How did they do all this?”
“When you went up for your bath, I watched from a window.”
I yanked at his hand.
“Not you. This. I watched this. They’ve been carrying all this out for the past hour . . . Come on.”
“There she is.” Helene noticed us first and stepped off the carpet to envelop me in a tight hug. She looped her arm through mine and pulled me close. She smelled of baby powder and roses. “I wondered where you were. I was afraid your adventure was too taxing.”
I met Gertrude at the table. “Thank you for sending Sonia up with the tea. It was wonderful to find it sitting on the desk.”
“I can’t imagine how cold you were.” Gertrude looked to the house. “The last time I fell in that stream I was sixteen. My brothers pushed me.”
I followed her gaze and studied the house as well. The back was even more impressive than the front. The front was straight—one austere expanse of stone from end to end softened only by the semicircular bays on the corners. The back, however, had two wings flanking each end of the house at ninety-degree angles. Glass windows filled the center section across both floors, and the wings were capped in their own bay windows, also two stories high.
I looked back to Gertrude. Her face had paled and fallen. She threw me a tremulous smile. “They’re all gone now.” The china rattled as she set down the teapot. She clenched her hands, released them, then reached to hand me a cup.
Everyone was present. Isabel sat with Grant near the bowls lawn. She sat ramrod straight, no twenty-first-century slouch. I needed to call Dr. Milton.
Gertrude poured two more cups of tea. I handed mine to Nathan and helped her pass two more to Helene and Herman.
Herman’s eyes looked clouded and young to me. Their expression was not that of the vain, proud Sir Walter Elliot.
“How are you, Admiral Croft?”
“Helene.” He whispered his wife’s name as if it were contraband. “She called you a different name on our ride. I can’t remember it.”
“She called me Anne, but don’t worry about that. If the names are confusing, don’t use any of them. It’s only meant to be fun.”
He nodded but did not look assured. He shifted to face Isabel. “I don’t remember your name either. This is all becoming—” He looked back to me. “Who is she again?”
Isabel didn’t hear us, or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge Herman’s question. She was listening to Helene and the Lottes. It took me a moment to catch on.
“All the common rooms have one,” Sylvia was saying. “Gertrude told us about them when we arrived, but you’d never notice. They are so cleverly hidden.”
“That might be nice for our rest this afternoon. Herman loves that new BBC mystery,” Helene returned to Sylvia. “He’s finding it hard to be away from the fixtures, the familiar things from home. I am too, if the truth be told.”
“That’s understandable. The line can feel too blurry for comfort.” Aaron cast a glance to Herman, who was slowly tuning in to the conversation.
“I do miss Jeopardy. We watch it over dinner. Do you know Jeopardy? It’s an American show.” Helene directed her question to Isabel but didn’t wait for an answer. She smiled to Sylvia. “It’s what keeps my brain so young.”
“Clara does that for me,” Sylvia laughed.
“Can we watch Jeopardy too?” Clara asked.
“If Mrs. Mueller finds it, sure. You might find it dull though.” Sylvia handed her a napkin to place under her cookie.