Page 4

I step toward the easel, entranced by the interplay of color on the canvas. It depicts an alfresco party by a river, the revelers’ faces blank and featureless, save one. Though her image is unfinished, the woman at the center of the painting is arresting all the same—more handsome than beautiful, her dark hair piled atop her head, stark against her pale skin, lips outlined in bold crimson. She stares out at me, her blue-green eyes piercing. The background seems to swirl, the colors blending and morphing, as if the scene is in motion. I can almost smell the scent of the white rose tucked in the woman’s bodice, can almost hear the rush of the river in the background. This painting is different from the art my aunt is known for—sweeping, unpopulated landscapes celebrated for their skilled interplay of light and shadow.

“That’s Iris,” Marguerite says, rising from her bed. “Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful. Lifelike and dreamlike all at once.”

“I had to paint her from memory. It’s been so long.”

“Who is she?”

Marguerite smiles sadly. “An old friend. Another artist.”

“I never knew you painted portraits.”

“I did. Early on. But I couldn’t find commissions. The society ladies all wanted to be painted by men. Sargent and Boldini. Bah.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I left portraits behind for landscapes because that’s what sold the best. But now, I can paint whatever I like, so I’ve gone back to them.”

“Tell me about this scene. What’s happening?”

“Oh, I took this study from life, dear. The summer of 1880. Iris and I were on a retreat in New York—the Hudson Valley. The light there is unlike anywhere else. After our lessons, the artists would unwind by the river, drinking and talking late into the evening. It was all very bohemian, as you might imagine. Papa threw fits about my going there ... but he didn’t have much say over me at that point. I was determined to make my own way in life by then. And I did. I sold my very first painting after that retreat.”

I turn back to the painting, admiring the texture and movement in Marguerite’s brushstrokes. The temptation to touch the swirling waves of paint is palpable. A feeling of vertigo washes over me. I could almost swear the woman’s unfinished lips twitched into the faintest of smiles. I blink twice and shake my head.

“Don’t stare at it too long,” Marguerite says, chuckling. “You might fall in.”

A soft knock sounds at the door and Harriet comes in. “Good morning, Miss Halloran. I hope the two of you fared well last night.”

“We did. We had a small mishap with sleepwalking, but other than that, we’ve done just fine.” I gesture toward the portrait. “Aunt Marguerite was showing me her painting.”

“She started working on that one a few weeks ago. Isn’t that right, ma’am?”

Marguerite’s forehead wrinkles. “I ... I can’t remember. I thought I started it last year. But the paint isn’t quite dry, so I suppose you’re right, Harriet. The days blend together anymore.”

Harriet hums under her breath and motions for Marguerite to sit at her vanity. “Let me take your blood pressure. Melva’s made biscuits and gravy for your breakfast. She’ll bring it up shortly.”

“I think I’d like to eat downstairs today. I need to get up and about more. Keep pace with you young people.”

Harriet smiles and wraps the blood pressure cuff around Marguerite’s arm, tightening the leather straps and placing a stethoscope lens on the inside of Marguerite’s elbow. She pumps the bulb a few times and listens, head cocked to the side as the dial jumps and then settles. “One-twenty-five over seventy. Perfect as usual.”

“We’ve always had strong hearts in this family,” Marguerite says proudly. “Not a heart problem to be found.”

Until Mama. Her heart problem had lain in wait, hidden for years—a tragic arrhythmia that none of us knew about until it was too late. I look out the window, where the leaves blow gently in the breeze. I can’t be sure whether Marguerite even knows about Mama’s passing. Perhaps she was told, and she’s forgotten. Surely Aunt Grace phoned her or sent a telegram ...

“Would you like to help me dress Miss Thorne for breakfast, Miss Halloran?” Harriet asks, clearing her throat delicately.

“Of course. And you can just call me Sadie,” I say. “Truly. I don’t mind.”

Harriet gives me the faintest of nods and moves to open a window, letting in a rush of cool morning air. “Her underthings are in the top drawer of the bureau. Bloomers and a camisole.”

“No corselet or brassiere?” I ask.

“No,” Marguerite says. “I haven’t worn one in years. Do you know, in France, I spent almost the entirety of one summer in the nude? It was divine.”

I see Harriet stifle a laugh as she pulls back the sheer curtains.

“What? The French are much more relaxed about that sort of thing.” Marguerite unties her nightgown, and it slips off her shoulders onto the floor. “I’m an artist. I’ve no issue with the human form.”

“I can see that.” I bring a pair of silken underpants and a camisole from the bureau, and help Marguerite into them, sliding the silk over her soft skin as I avert my eyes. For her day wear, she chooses a lace tea gown in prewar style. Harriet and I button up the back, and then Harriet excuses herself to go downstairs.

I guide Marguerite to the vanity and begin brushing out her tangled locks, first with my fingers, and then a boar-bristle brush I find in one of the drawers.

“Where did you get your training?” Marguerite asks, sighing with pleasure as I use the bristles to gently massage her scalp.

“My training?”

“As a ladies’ maid.”

“Oh. I’m not . . .”

Go where she is.

“In Kansas City,” I say. It isn’t really a lie. I have a knack for hairstyling and cosmetics, and often helped style the cabaret girls at the Pepper Tree before their dinner shows.

“That’s where I grew up,” Marguerite says. “In Brookside. Our house had seven bedrooms.”

“I know it well.” Aunt Grace still lives in the handsome three-story redbrick house, with its Greek Revival portico and ornate gardens, built by my great-grandfather, who made a fortune in overland shipping before the Civil War. I finish my brushing and begin braiding Marguerite’s long hair in a loose, single plait. “What brought you here?”

“Papa sent me here when I was eighteen,” she says, closing her eyes. “I was in poor health, and he wanted me to take the waters. Eureka was little more than a pioneer camp back then, but I fell in love with the light. The landscape. There were artists here, even back then, so I fit in. After my travels with Iris, I came back in 1882 and bought this house for a song. It wasn’t finished, on the inside, but the murder was the real reason no one wanted to live here.”

I pause plaiting her hair. “Pardon me?”

“Oh, you’ve never heard about Lucy Blaylock?”

“I don’t suppose I have.” Suddenly, the cheerful birdsong outside the open window seems to diminish. “There was a murder?”

“Well, they say it was a murder. They put her husband away for it, at any rate. Lucy fell from one of the attic windows. A neighbor boy passing by saw her struggling with someone shortly before she fell. Mr. Blaylock was a wealthy businessman. Kept a mistress on the side. That sort of thing never goes well for either woman, I’m afraid.” Marguerite laughs under her breath. “Sometimes I see her. Lucy. She’s still here, but she’s not the only one. This old house holds many ghosts, my dear. Some of them are mine.”

I’m held speechless by Marguerite’s words—partly because of the strange sounds I heard in the attic, and my brother’s childish ghost story, but mostly because of my own affair with Ted. In Lucy’s situation, it was the wife who ran afoul of her philandering husband. But how many times has the mistress been on the wrong side of a man’s ire and met a similar fate?

I remember an argument Ted and I had, late in our relationship, when I’d grown impatient with his ambivalence. He’d pinned me beneath him, his weight heavy as a boulder, and grasped my chin so roughly I bore the outline of his thumbprint there the next day. His overexcitability when we made love often frightened me. With his strength and size, he could have easily snapped my neck. Or choked me. And no one would have known where I was or how to find me. My mother never even knew where the boardinghouse was because Ted forbade her to visit me. He was paying my rent, after all. He paid for everything, so he made the rules.

Now here I was, alone. Abandoned like so many mistresses—and wives—before me. But better to be alone than dead. Because despite Marguerite’s chilling words, a house full of ghosts frightens me far less than a man’s rage.