“Why should he care? He eats the same thing every day regardless.” She counted it off on her fingers. “One poached egg, two pieces of toast, one slice of bacon, black coffee with one sugar, served at exactly ten o’clock. He may be a tightfisted, mean-spirited old cuss, but I’ll give him this, he isn’t stingy about food.”
I considered this while demolishing the bacon. “Mean-spirited” didn’t bode well. Was he mean-spirited enough to dismiss me immediately upon meeting, if I said something wrong?
When you want to know something, consult an expert. I washed the bacon down with a slug of coffee and said, hesitantly, “Mrs. Kent? Can I ask you something?”
“Ask away.”
“Is there anything… err…” I paused, not sure how to continue. “That is, if I want to make a good impression on Dr. Halder, is there anything I should or shouldn’t do?”
“Mmmmm.” A thoughtful sound, not a negative one. “Not sure if there’s such a thing as agoodimpression, mind you. Don’t act scared, I’d say. I don’t say argue with him, but don’t cower. He’ll likely insult you. If you get mad, he’ll think it’s funny, and he’ll keep poking that spot for the next twenty years.”
“Charming,” I muttered.
“You know it.”
I took my empty plate and mug to the scullery and checked the clock in the hall. Barely eight. Assuming that I didn’t want to beard the lion in his den before he’d had his breakfast, I had at least three hours to kill.
“Will anyone mind if I look around the grounds?” I asked.
Mrs. Kent snorted. “Nobody aroundtomind. Mr. Kent’s the only one you’ll run into, unless you go across the road and start walking. And if you see Mr. Kent, tell ’im I need a chicken killed for dinner.”
I agreed to carry this message if I saw Mr. Kent, collected my sketchbook, and went outside.
The house was different in daylight. My impression in the dark had been an impressive construction of pillars and windows, a veritable mansion. By day, gazing up at it, it seemed somehow less than the sum of its parts.
Great columns rose for two stories, holding up a roof that extended outward, providing a broad shaded porch all the way around the building. Massive windows lined both lower floors. The third floor, under the eaves, was probably servant quarters, although I had not as yet seen anyone beyond Mrs. Kent.
And yet, despite the size and grandeur, Dr. Halder’s house had clearly seen better days. Algae had powdered the white wood with flecks of green, and here and there, I saw the telltale signs of paint that had peeled and been repaired.
A house like this would normally be surrounded by formal gardens, but these had long ago left formality behind. The paths were paved with red brick and kept neat enough, but where one might expect to see clipped topiaries and trimmed boxwood hedges, there were instead thick perennial borders. Even these had gone to seed, though they held up better than the house. I saw weeds lurking in corners and morning glory throwing narrow green ropes up through the shrubs, making a solid slope of leaves. The headmistress would have been appalled. The insects clearly were not. Bees and slender-waisted wasps formeda living cloud around the flowers. I watched a tiger swallowtail…Papilio something or other…stab its delicate proboscis into the tiny cups of a clary sage, and had a sudden suspicion why Dr. Halder did not care that his garden had gone to seed in such a fashion.
I circled the house by way of the garden. In the back, a pair of long balconies flanked the two wings of the second floor. On one side, the flower garden gave way to a practical-looking vegetable garden. The trees grew closer to the house on the other side, leaning out over the cleared ground. This was the side with the kitchen door. A patio had been picked out in red brick, running almost up to the edge of the woods. I could see at a glance which places got sun during the day and which lay in shade. The shady areas were carpeted with dry pine needles and softly moldering leaves. The sunny patches grew thick and lush, tangled up with greenbrier and Virginia creeper. Someone was obviously cutting it back occasionally, but there is only so much that one can do in the South. My father used to say that the vegetation down here wanted very badly to be a jungle.
Perhaps the lushness of the woods was the problem with the house, now that I looked at it from this side. The building didn’tfit. It made the whole scene feel unfinished, like a square of paper left blank and white in the middle of a painting of carefully detailed green leaves.
And that is a botanist thought if there ever was one. Enough of that. You’re here as an illustrator, not an architectural consultant.I looked up to the second story, where Halder’s office lay, according to Mrs. Kent.
Had it been three hours?My kingdom for a pocket watch.Father had had a lovely one, etched with silver, but it had eventually been sold along with everything else. I went back inside and checked the clock. Ten thirty. Surely that was close enough. I paused long enough to tell Mrs. Kent that I had not encountered Mr. Kent and ask directions to Dr. Halder’s office.
He kept his quarters on the second floor, and Mrs. Kent had pointed me toward the main entrance, which boasted a grand central staircase. Light streamed in through the windows that flanked the door, waking deep red undertones in the polished wood. It looked oddly unreal, as if it hadn’t actually been made to walk on. I looked around nervously, as if someone might disapprove of the hired help using it, but there was no one there, and no other, more inviting staircase. I put my hand on the banister, which felt smooth and tepid as a beetle’s shell.
Halder’s house was strangely empty. Since I arrived, I had only seen Mrs. Kent, who had mentioned her husband and someone named Sally, but a house this size should have a small army of servants scrubbing and polishing, shouldn’t it?
Then again, remembering the empty dining room, perhaps Halder didn’t feel he needed any more. But why build such an immense house and then let it sit empty?
I shook myself. It was none of my business how my employer spent his money, so long as he spent some of it on me. I reached the second floor, the boards creaking under my feet. The creaks seemed to echo much longer than they should have before dying away.
Stop it. It’s just nerves.
Halder’s door loomed in front of me. I wiped suddenly clammy hands on my skirt.This is it, you’ll walk in, he’ll take one look at you and tell you there’s been a mistake and turn you off…
Stop.
I knocked.
“Eh? What is it?”
That wasn’t exactly an invitation, but I pushed the door open anyway and beheld my employer.
