The symmetry of it pleased me, though I could not say with any certainty whether the pleasure belonged entirely to me.
Hawthorne set my trunk at the foot of the bed with a pronounced thud, pulling me from my reverie. He straightened once more, awaiting further instruction.
“That will be all, Hawthorne,” Agnes said, regarding him with fondness. “You can return to your work in the greenhouse.”
He left without a sound, his footsteps carrying him down the corridor. Curiosity burned in the back of my throat, but I knew better than to give it a voice.
Instead, I moved to the window and looked out at the gardens. From my vantage point, the greenhouses were clearly visible—three long structures of glass and iron, their surfaces catching the mid-afternoon light until they appearedalmost luminous against the waterlogged landscape. Beyond them stretched orderly garden beds, dormant now, but soon the spring rain and warmer sun would draw the plants from their winter graves.
My companion crept forward again.
I felt it threading through my mind as we stared out at the greenhouses, its excitement quickening my pulse.
“Dr. Ambrose must have a large staff,” I said, turning toward Agnes, “to maintain grounds like these.”
She laughed softly. “Oh no, dear. It’s just myself, Hawthorne, and Dr. Ambrose.”
“Just the three of you?” The words escaped before I could smooth them with tact. “But the gardens alone must require a full staff.”
“Dr. Ambrose does most of it himself,” she replied, already moving to my trunk and opening it. “And Hawthorne helps, of course. He’s surprisingly good at growing things.”
I moved to assist her, taking the dresses she handed me, and hanging them in the wardrobe. “Still, it must be a great deal of work.”
Agnes gave a small shrug. “It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. Well,” she amended, almost as an afterthought, “since Hawthorne came to be with us, anyhow.”
“And how long has Hawthorne been here?”
I seized the opening, trying to draw a direct answer from her about the strange servant.
Agnes looked up at me then, her features wary. “Just over a year or so.”
I opened my mouth to press further, but she turned away, already moving the conversation elsewhere with the ease of someone who had closed this door many times before.
“You’ll find Dr. Ambrose keeps unusual hours,” she said. “He’s often in the greenhouse well into the night. You’ll learn his patterns soon enough, I suppose.”
“I see,” I said, hanging one of my dresses in the wardrobe. “Is there anything else I should know? About Dr. Ambrose, I mean. His moods or preferences? I would rather not make myself a nuisance to him.”
She paused, holding one of my gowns loosely in her hands, and regarded me with an expression that was both gentle and serious.
“Dr. Ambrose is a kind man when he remembers to be,” she said at last. “But like most men of brilliance, he’s… obsessed with his work. Single-minded, one might say. There are times he forgets to eat or sleep when he’s in the midst of something important.”
She smoothed a crease from the fabric, her attention drifting. “He’s also…” She hesitated, weighing an internal matter before continuing. “He’s a widower. The loss was not too long ago and the grief is still quite fresh, I’m afraid.”
My chest tightened unexpectedly. “I am sorry. That must be very difficult for him. For you as well, I imagine.”
“Yes, well.” Her features softened. “Best to be patient with him if he seems distant or short-tempered. It’s not personal, dear. He’s simply… carrying a great deal.”
Carrying the dead, I thought.
Aren’t we all?The voice responded, and the way it said it suggested that I was the thing being carried rather than the one doing the carrying.
I bent to retrieve one of my nightgowns from the trunk, glaring, though I doubted it cared.
To Agnes, I said only, “Of course.”
She set my father’s journals on the desk, then paused over the tintype, studying his face with the quiet respect of someone who understood what it meant to lose a person you had organized your entire life around. She placed it gently beside the journals.
“He’s fortunate you are here. It’s been lonely for him, I expect, since—” She stopped abruptly.
