Inside, the walls were decorated in poppy wallpaper, a mix of blooming orange flowers and buds not yet opened. Alice pulled back an eyelet comforter identical to the one in the guest room and lifted Madeline onto the four-poster bed, surprised at how light she was. Madeline rolled toward Alice, her eyes tightly closed. Her skin looked deathly pale against her bright red lipstick, which had not smudged or faded during their meal.
“I’m so lucky to have you,” she said then rolled away, and immediately began to snore.
On the mahogany nightstand beside the bed sat a shallow ceramic bowl holding two gold wedding bands and the antique brass key. Alice slipped the smaller of the two bands onto her ring finger where it fit snugly. Madeline’s hand rested on top of the comforter, her fingers adorned with gold and turquoise, knuckles too large to remove those rings, too large ever to wear her wedding ring again. This seemed more final than Gregory’s death, the way Madeline’s body had aged without him.
Alice returned the ring to the bowl and reached for the antique key. It was heavy in her palm. She stared at the monogrammed initials on the bow, the long stem. It would have been so easy for her to abscond with the key and let herself into the library, but she had no reason for subterfuge. Madeline had promised to take her there later that day. Alice returned the key to the bowl and pulled the comforter around Madeline’s frail body. As she brushed the old woman’s hair from where it had matted against the side of her head, she noticed wrinkles along her forehead Alice hadn’t spotted before. She fought the urge to bend down and kiss Madeline’s temple.
Alice tiptoed out of the room, stopping at the library door, giving the heart-shaped knob a quick brush of her fingertips. While she desperately wanted to go inside, not so much so that she was willing to betray Madeline. Their trust was nascent and delicate, not yet solid.
Instead, she ventured downstairs to clean up the remains of their lunch. When she entered the dining room, their plates had been removed, the table wiped clean. In the kitchen, the pan Madeline had used to grill their sandwiches was drying in the rack. The splatters of butter had disappeared from the stove. It was as though Madeline had never cooked the meal to begin with, and Alice wondered if she really had. This house had a way of serving itself and its occupants. She didn’t understand it, and no amount of questioning would allow the house to make sense. It existed by its own rules, was governed by its own reality. Alice decided she was happy to bear witness to it.
With nothing else to do, she wandered into the parlor where she let Currer hop into her lap, stroking the sleek black fur that was silkier than Agatha’s. The grandfather clock ticked away above, each minute dragging on as she waited for Madeline to rise. Eventually, as it became clear that waiting was nothing more than stalling, she stood and braved the threshold to the guest room to write.
On the wicker desk a stack of paper and ink pen awaited her. Alice preferred to write on a computer. The keyboard could keep better pace with her mind. But a notepad was all she had, so it would have to do.
Hand poised above the cream stationery, she tried to concentrate. Her mind remained vast and empty. She willed herself to get something down, even a single word. But writing one word required some intuition of what might follow. Something as simple asthewas not just an article. It had to be complemented by a person, a place, a thing. Alice pestered her brain to come up with anything at all, a rambling stream of consciousness that might guide her into Madeline’s story. This was not Alice’s way. She needed an image, and before that a clear message, a lesson her client needed to learn. Alice wasn’t sure what she had to teach Madeline. She was beginning to suspect that instead the old woman had much to teach her.
Frustrated, Alice lifted the pen from the page, where it had left a blue blot, spreading like blood into the shape of a heart. Even the page itself was taunting her. She threw the pen across the room, where it skidded against the floor and hit the wall with a gentle thud. The sound echoed, collecting intensity as it vibrated through the room and down the hall, as though she’d dropped a dumbbell or a hammer, something much heavier than a pen. When the banging quieted, the floorboards creaked and a steady patter of feet approached the door.
“Alice, is that you? Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” Alice said, embarrassed. “I just—I dropped my pen.”
She opened the door to find Madeline rubbing her scar as she stared into space, hair askew, like a child who’d just woken from a fitful nap.
“I was having the most wonderful dream and—” Madeline stopped. Alice watched the dream wash over her, brightening her eyes, as she continued to stroke her scar. Alice understood that the dream was about Gregory, that it was a gift and a curse to get to see him again.
Madeline excused herself to freshen up. When she reemerged a few minutes later, she was wearing a pale blue paisley blouse and navy pants. It was at once the outfit of an old woman and timelessly fashionable. Anything comparable would look absurd on Alice, not so much because of her youth, but because the confidence of the woman wearing the outfit made it exude style. Alice tugged at her own ill-fitting shirt, wondering if it was the hunched body beneath it that caused it to gape and pull.
Madeline headed for the library, producing the key from her pocket just as she arrived at the door. Alice did not realize that she was hovering until the old woman turned and her face was mere inches from Alice’s. That close, Alice could see just how deep the scar was, how it collected dry skin in its red crevice. It was still raw, even though the accident had happened a decade ago.
Madeline held Alice’s gaze until the girl motioned toward the quote on the doorplate.
“It’s Rilke,” Madeline explained. “Love consists in this, two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.Some translations have it assolitudes that border, protect and greet each other.I prefer a meeting to a border, even if I suspectborderis more accurate to Rilke’s intention.It was Gregory’s favorite quote.”
She slipped the key into the lock and twisted as the number on the dial shifted to seventy. She turned the heart-shaped knob and pushed the door open. “After you.”
The air in the library hit Alice, both stale from closure and warm from the fire, already blazing. It smelled piquantly of paper and sweetly of wood laced with a hint of cinnamon and clove.
Madeline settled into her chair in front of the fire and lifted a copy ofGreat Expectationsfrom the table, flipping to somewhere in the middle of the thick book. As she read, Alice wandered around the library. She let her fingers graze each title, noting that Madeline had every D. H. Lawrence novel and yet the six copies ofWomen in Lovewere nowhere near the fourteen editions ofLady Chatterley’s Lover, the third most repeated book, as far as Alice could tell, afterLittle Women, for which Alice counted eighteen copies near the fireplace, andWuthering Heights, a copy gracing every shelf.
“Searching for something in particular?” Madeline glanced up from her book.
“Not really.” Even to Alice, these words sounded like a lie. “I’m just wondering, it’s a very peculiar collection.”
Madeline slipped her bookmark into the Dickens novel, set it on the table, and crossed her arms. “It’s idiosyncratic to be sure. Shouldn’t a library be particular to its owner?”
“Yes, but why, for instance, do you have so many copies ofLittle Women?”
“Not a fan?”
“I’m a fan. I have one copy at home.” Her father had given her the book when she was ten, and they’d read it together each night. Alice laughed as he put on different falsettos for each of the sisters. When they finished the book after a few months, Alice insisted they start over again. This lasted until she outgrew bedtime stories. It was the only book they read together. After he died, Alice never read the novel again, although she had every scene memorized.
“You have eighteen copies. Why does anyone need so many copies ofLittle Women? Of any book, really.” It wasn’t like they were first editions, collector’s items.
Madeline studied Alice, who suddenly felt ashamed for her brashness. “It’s correlative,” Madeline said at last. “The more copies I have, the more the book has seeped into my bones, the more it has taught me about love.”
Some shelves were packed with obvious romances likePride and Prejudice, Emma, The Princess Bride, some held books likeAnna KareninaandMadame Bovarythat were more about heartbreak than about love. Others that didn’t seem to be love stories at all.
