CHAPTER 3
“The studio suite?” Mrs. Kent frowned at me, not a negative frown but a puzzled one. “Huh.”
“Is there something wrong?” I asked timidly. “He said I should use the paints there.”
“No. Just surprised, that’s all.” She squared her shoulders. “I haven’t done more than dust it for the last year. I’ll have Sally bring fresh sheets.”
“I’m sorry to keep making more work for you,” I murmured.
“No, it’s fine. I…” She stopped, clearly thinking better of what she was about to say. “It’s a very fine room.”
She led me up to the second story, on the far side of the house from Halder’s study, and pushed open a door. I stepped inside and felt my eyes go wide.
Glass doors on the far side of the room opened onto a narrow widow’s walk, flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows that left the room filled with light. The walls were painted white and had no wallpaper, and the polished wooden boards gleamed.Yellow ochre and burnt umber for the wood, gamboge for the squares of light across them…It was a beautiful, airy space, and it was clear that I wasn’t the first person to think so, because the room was strewn with books and brushes, pencils and palettes, even a silk dressing gown tossed carelessly over the back of a chair. It looked as if the owner had simply stepped out a moment earlier.
A doorway on my left led to a bedroom. The bed had been stripped, but that was the only sign that it was unoccupied. One door of a wooden wardrobe stood ajar. It still had clothes in it.
“Are you sure…” I began, and stopped.Are you sure no one is using this?I wanted to ask, but that was a ridiculous question. Obviously Mrs. Kent would know.
“I’ll just get these out of here,” the housekeeper said, following my gaze to the wardrobe. “They should be packed in a chest anyway.”
“But who was using it before—”
“If you want to fetch your suitcase,” Mrs. Kent interrupted, “I’ll send Sally up with the sheets.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” By the time I had returned with my suitcase, the wardrobe was empty and Mrs. Kent had gone. I unpacked my clothes again, then stood in the center of the studio, looking around helplessly. Even though Halder had said that I was to use this suite, I felt as if I was intruding.
I drifted to the worktable near one of the windows. Tin tubes of oil paint were heaped to one side, and I read the names as if greeting old friends.Zinc White. Rose Madder. Aureolin. Cobalt Violet. Chromium Green Oxide.And there, a sturdy wooden box with the lid flipped up, and blocks of familiar pigment slotted into dozens of little cubbyholes. A porcelain palette lay next to it, the white surface stained with old washes.
These must have belonged to the artist who had painted such exquisite beetles. I wondered who they were, and why they had left before finishing Halder’s illustrations. Mrs. Kent had said that she hadn’t done more than dust for the last year. Had it simply been left like this, untouched? And why had Halder waited so long to seek out a replacement?
The door opened behind me. I turned, finally catching a glimpse of the elusive Sally. She was a small white girl with mousy brown hair, who was probably older than twelve and younger than twenty. (Despite teaching girls for a number of years, I still can’t tell ages apart after a point. They all just look incredibly young to me.)
“Are you Sally?” I ventured.
Sally let out a shriek and flung the sheets she was carrying into the air. “Oh! Youstartledme, miss!”
“I see that,” I said, a bit more dryly than I intended. By the way she’d thrown the sheets, you’d think I had announced my intent to kill and eat her on the spot.
“’M not used to other people in the house, miss,” Sally explained.
“The doctor doesn’t have many visitors?” I asked, helping her to gather up the linens.
“Oh no, miss. Not often.” She screwed up her face in thought. “Last one was another doctor, I think? Only not a doctor at the hospital, but like the doctor here. All bugs and such. Why, he had a box of grasshoppers in his luggage!Liveones!”
“No family, then?”
“Oh no, miss. Doesn’t even put up a Christmas tree for the season, ’cause no one visits. But I go to the Kents for Christmas, so that’s all right.”
I filed this away while helping her make the bed. No family, and apparently few friends. Given his manner, I couldn’t say that last surprised me much. Though if he was like most naturalists I know, he probably kept up dozens of correspondences with other people in the field.
Sally showed me where the catches were on the doors to the balcony. The windows were already open, letting a breeze swirl through the room.
“Will there be anything else, miss?” she asked. Judging by her hopeful air, I was providing rather more entertainment than her usual cleaning. I was sorry to disappoint her, but I already knew that I couldn’t compete with live grasshoppers in the luggage.
“I’m afraid not. I don’t have much to unpack. Is there anything I should know?”
She sat down on the bed and gave this serious thought. “Mrs. Graham comes by for the laundry on Tuesday, so you’ll want toleave yours in the basket on Monday night. And there’s bugs in the water sometimes. They startle you if you aren’t expecting it! But if you need water for drinking, you know, that’sdefinitelygot no bugs, there’s a pump by the kitchen.”
