The Lady of Lyon House (14 page)

Agatha Crandall kept to her room most of the day. She did not come down for meals with the family. I was walking down the hall to my room one night and she opened her door, peering out at me. Her eyes were frightened, and she seemed tense as she clung to the door and stared at me. Then she put her finger to her lips as though in warning and shook her head. I could smell the fumes of alcohol wafting from her room. As I walked on down the hall I thought I heard her laughing, but I had the strange feeling that the sound was not laughter at all. It could have been sobbing. She was obviously in an alcoholic stupor.

Corinne was tense and irritable, pacing through the rooms, looking out of windows, snapping at everyone who came near her. She did not go out at all, except for her habitual ride, and I had the feeling that her self-imposed confinement was taking its toll on her nerves. Lyon House might have been a prison for her, however luxurious, and she paced like an animal longing for. freedom but afraid to step outside. One day a servant girl dropped a tray on the way to the dining room, and Corinne flew into such a rage at the sound of the crash that I feared she would have a stroke. She dismissed the girl on the spot, despite floods of tears and wails of apology, and when the girl left, carrying a battered suitcase, Corinne stared at her as though she actually hated the poor creature. That night she sat in the parlor, sulking silently, and I knew the dismissal of the servant had merely been a way to release tension caused by something else that seemed to preoccupy her mind all day long. She was pleasant to me, but I stayed away from her most of the time.

I spent much of the time in the library. The days were cool and cloudy, and the library was comfortable and warm. I found a stack of battered romances, their bindings limp, their pages thumb marked, and I read for hours on end, curled up on the sofa, an apple in my hand. I escaped into the world of lovely damsels and dashing soldiers of fortune and castles with moats and towers. After I had finished the novels, I found a fascinating book on botany with large colored engravings. I had always been interested in flowers and leaves, and I jotted down notes on various specimens to be found in this area. The fourth day after our canoe ride to the village was sunny and warm, and I decided to go out and look for plants. I would take my sketchbook and watercolors and perhaps even paint some of the things I found.

Corinne was delighted with the idea. She was impressed by the notebook and nodded with approval as I described what I had learned from the botany book.

“Marvelous!” she cried. “It seems you have a thirst for knowledge and learning. That's so much better for you than reading all those novels. I want you to learn a lot of things and be very bright. Did you go to school?”

“Occasionally,” I replied. “Mattie and Bill couldn't always afford it.”

“Bosh! Didn't that sister of yours send you money?”

“Sometimes. Not enough for schooling.”

“Did you like school when you went?”

“I adored it,” I admitted.

“Well, I'm fond of you, child. When you go back to London, I shall see to it that you're enrolled in the best school for young ladies. All that music hall business can't be good for you. You've got breeding. It shows. We want to develop it!”

“That's very kind of you,” I said politely, “but—”

“No buts! Why must everyone argue with me?”

Her voice was crisp, almost irritable, but she looked up at me with an expression of real concern in her eyes. Why should Corinne Lyon care about me? I wondered. The raging dragon who had sent the servant girl off in haste wanted to pay my expenses at school. Why? I supposed the rich and eccentric had their whims, and this must be a sudden whim. She must have sensed what I was thinking, for she snapped hatefully and told me to go on about my business. Was the dreadful temper and disposition as much a prison as the house, I wondered? Did it imprison a Corinne who was really thoughtful and kind?

There was no room for these thoughts as I raced outside. I was too happy at being out in the sunshine and roaming over the countryside to give much serious thought to anything. I wore a pink and white dress and my hair flew free behind me, catching in brambles. The dress was soon splattered with mud and torn, but I did not care. After being confined in the house for three days, it was glorious to be in the fresh air, to feel young and healthy and so alive to everything about me. I was amazed at the watery blue of the sky, the delicate veins in a green leaf, the lichen that clung to the bark of a tree. I ran through the woods like a young cat, heedless of decorum and propriety. It was as if I had just been released from a prison of my own and was savoring the new freedom I felt.

I sat down on the bank of the river, out of breath. I was rather ashamed of my abandon, but I felt alive with every fiber. I could feel muscle pulling and blood coursing and life charging through me. It was a rare feeling, something I had seldom felt before. Perhaps it was relief after the tedious days inside. Perhaps it was merely youth. I took out my sketchbook and began to draw the fern that grew along the sandy white bank. I leaned back against an old log, my shoes off, my toes in the warm sand. The first drawing was not satisfactory, and I started a new one, peering carefully at the fern and then carefully copying it on the coarse paper. Birds fluttered through the branches of the trees and the water gurgled pleasantly as it flowed over pebbles. Insects buzzed, darting across the rays of sunlight that slanted through the trees.

I looked through my notes, identified the fern and wrote its name beneath the completed drawing. The spot was idyllic and charming, and I was loathe to leave it, but I wanted to find another specimen to sketch. I would show them proudly to Corinne, and I knew they would please her. I smiled as I thought about what she had said this morning. It would be nice to go to school, to really learn about history and math and all the things I was so ignorant of, but it was, after all, probably just a whim of hers, one she would quickly forget. Still, it had been nice of her to even mention it.

I strolled through the woods, calmer now, a little tired from my earlier enthusiasm. I saw a rock in a clearing, a ray of yellow sunlight beaming down directly on it. A tiny green grass snake curled at its base as though warming itself in the heat. I saw aspen trees with tremulous leaves that fluttered in the slight breeze, and elm and maple and oak. I collected leaves from each of them and pressed them in my book. I saw tall sunflowers growing directly behind a fence that enclosed one of the fields, their large brown centers surrounded by vividly gold petals. It was pleasant to see a flower and not know what it was, to look it up in my notes and identify it.

I spent three hours in this manner, wandering around the woods and crossing the fields that were worked by the tenant farmers. I crossed a brook, stepping carefully from one stone to another, the water splashing over my bare feet, my shoes held high in my hand. I climbed over a weathered gray stile and found myself in the middle of the apple orchard that Edward had pointed out the day I arrived in Devonshire. The trees spread heavily laden branches, the fruit green but turning rose colored. The ground beneath was shady and moist, covered with dead leaves. There was the heady odor of rotting fruit. Bees buzzed around apples fallen the year before and not gathered, brown and sour now. I pulled a green apple from a branch and bit into it. It was tart and sour but I ate it just the same. My fingers were soon stained with the juice, and I ate two more, sitting on the stile with my sketchbook in my lap.

I drew an apple tree, looking up now and then to get the right detail of branch and leaf, munching on the green apples as I drew. I was not pleased with the finished product, so I drew a single leaf, trying to make the veins identical to those in the leaf I held in my hand as an example. I was absorbed in my work and did not hear footsteps approaching. I was not aware of anyone near until a long shadow fell across the paper.

I looked up, startled. I saw the man and recognized him immediately. I identified him from the thin pink scar that ran from cheekbone to chin. He was the man who had followed me in the fog, I was sure, the same man I had seen in the music hall, sitting at one of the front tables. He did not wear a checked cloak now. He wore a loose white shirt and a pair of doeskin breeches that were stuffed into the tops of tall black boots that had turned-back cuffs, the kind of boots I had always fancied pirates would wear. He looked something like a pirate with his sharp nose, the darkly tanned skin stretched tightly over the bony face, the line of pink scar making a severe contrast.

My first impulse was to run. I stared at him, too frightened to even move. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at me with dark brown eyes that were almost black. They were intense eyes, burning darkly. He was very tall, taller than Edward Lyon, with a thin, lanky body that was nevertheless muscular and strong. He would be lithe and rapid, steely in combat, I thought.

“Who—who are you?” I asked, finally managing to speak. My voice trembled, and I had to hold my sketchbook tightly in my hands to keep them from shaking.

“I am Philip Ashley,” he replied. His voice was coarse and guttural, a harsh voice that was strangely appealing. A buccaneer's voice, I thought to myself. “What are you doing in my apple orchard?”

“Your
apple orchard?”

“I've just rented the Dower House. The apple orchard goes with it. I suppose that makes it mine, as long as I pay my rent.”

“You—you live here?”

“For the time being,” he retorted sharply. “You haven't answered my question, young woman. Who are you?”

I knew very well that he knew who I was. I started to blurt that out, to accuse him of following me in London, of spying on me, but something held me back. A curious calm came over me. I was no longer afraid. I was merely fascinated, as one might be fascinated by a deadly snake. This man evidently wished to pretend he didn't know me. I could pretend as well. I could be innocent and naive, and perhaps I could learn what this was all about. It might be a dangerous game, but I threw caution aside and looked up at him with large blue eyes.

“I am Julia Meredith,” I replied. “I am staying at Lyon House. This used to be part of the estate. I didn't know anyone was living here, or I wouldn't have trespassed.”

He scowled, looking at me with those fierce eyes. There was nothing soft or pleasant about Philip Ashley. He was not at all handsome—that was not the word one would use to describe him. Tall, rangy, with long legs and arms and thin shoulders that jutted out beneath the loose folds of linen, there was something fascinating about him. I could not visualize him in a parlor; he would not fit. He would look at home on the deck of a pirate ship, cutlass in hand, or in front of an army, leading his men on to slaughter. He looked as if he wanted to slaughter me now, and I drew back on the stile.

“Don't look that way,” he growled.

“What way?”

“As though I were going to throttle you just because you stole some apples.”

I looked down guiltily at the apple cores on the step beside me. He saw the look and laughed. The laughter had the same quality as his voice, harsh, guttural, ugly yet appealing. The man had great force of character; it emanated from him in overpowering waves. No one would ever be unaware of him. I regarded him now. He was no longer a shadowy figure in the fog. He was no longer the mysterious man who came to the music hall each night to see my performance. He was a man of flesh and blood, and as such he was less terrifying, although I felt a tremor as he fixed his eye on me and arched one dark brow.

“What's that you have?” he asked.

“My sketchbook. I've been sketching plants.”

“Hand it to me.” It was a command, and I held the sketchbook out to him. He flipped through the pages, examining my work. His thin lips curled up at one corner, wryly. He arched his brow again and handed the book back to me.

“Abominable!” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied crisply.

“Have you ever drawn before?”

“Not often.”

“It shows. Here—” he took the book away from me again. “Let me show you how it's done. It's clear you don't know the first thing about sketching. Give me the pencil.”

He rested the pad on the top rail of the fence, flipped over to a new page and stared down at the blank expanse of white for a moment. Gripping the pencil with fingers that looked far too brown and strong for such a slender object, he made a few strokes. He glanced at me, dead serious now. There was a frown on his face, and he seemed to be concentrating on some inner image. He stared at me, not seeing me, and then he turned back to the sketchbook. He made a few more strokes, held the pad out to examine the finished result, then handed it to me. It was a sketch of my face. I was amazed at the likeness. He had achieved in a few moments what I could never have done.

“That's the way,” he said. “Get the picture focused in your mind and put it down on paper, quickly, before the image fades. Don't fuss. Don't bother with neatness and exactness. Above all, don't study what you're doing, just slap it down.”

“Are you an artist?” I asked.

“Hardly. I dabble a little. That's why I'm here.”

“To sketch?”

“To paint.”

“What do you do for a living?” I asked.

“Nothing much,” he replied. “I dabble. I buy, I sell. I loaf most of the time, travel a lot.”

“You're from London?” I asked.

“One of the best families,” he replied, making a mock bow.

“It's a wonderful city. I live there, too,” I said.

He did not rise to the bait. He did not intend to discuss the city. He stood there with his hands on his hips, his legs spread wide apart, staring at me rudely while I gathered my things together. I got down from the stile, brushing my skirt. I was suddenly aware of how I must look, my dress dirty and torn, my hair tangled. There was probably dirt on my face as well. I drew myself up with as much dignity as I could muster under the circumstances.