The painters widow, p.1
The Painter's Widow, page 1
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
Copyright ©2020 by L.S. Johnson. All rights reserved.
Traversing Z Press
San Leandro, California
www.traversingz.com
ISBN (paperback): 978-0-9988936-5-5
ISBN (ebook): 978-0-9988936-6-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909947
Quoted excerpts in this book are from Henry V and Sonnet 60, by William Shakespeare
TABLE OF Contents
Chapter I Letters
Chapter II A Quiet House
Chapter III Mr. Windham
Chapter IV Mr. Smith
Chapter V The Second Murder
Chapter VI Miss Chase
Chapter VII Callisto House
Chapter VIII Portraits
Chapter IX Mr. Gribble
Chapter X Thwarted
Chapter XI Answers
Chapter XII And More Answers
Chapter XIII The Empty House
Chapter XIV Penelope
Chapter XV Closing Doors
Chapter XVI Farewells
Acknowledgements
ABout the Author
None is so fierce that dare stir him up:
who then is able to stand before me?
—Job 41:10
Chapter I
Letters
It is one of the curious things about living your life on a precipice: that there are days that are simply lovely, with a cloudless blue sky and warm, dry breezes, gentle enough to ruffle the hair of the woman you love as she spreads a blanket for you. An entire day moving at the drowsy pace of your easy partnership as you talk about gardens, or horses, or the funny story you overheard in the village. An entire day of fingers twining, of lips touching.
An entire, lovely day, at once whole and slow and yet eggshell-fragile, as all days are. Because you know how swiftly such peace can shatter; because you cannot help but wonder what horrors lie behind the most innocent of exchanges, what monstrosities lie behind your neighbors’ doors or in their basements.
Since we returned from Medby I did everything I could to forget. I told Mr. Smith no more; I told Jo no more, and she did not argue as she might have done. I busied myself with paying the last of my father’s debts and caring for him and Jo alike. I told myself I would be fine, as Mr. Morrow had assured me—
—but to think of him was to remember again, and when I remembered I dreamed: of the vast creature called Leviathan, of the man I had murdered, of the terror on the boat and my body sailing through the air like I was nothing and that great eye seeing me.
I tried to forget, and I avoided the merest glimpses of our bay. I looked away when Mrs. Simmons ladled out anything reddish-brown, lest I remember the blood that had run over my skin; I sent Mr. Simmons or Jo to the butcher, lest I remember how the knife felt when it gouged the man’s throat—
Not man, but Cutler. That was what Mr. Morrow had called him.
I went to church every Sunday, and when I saw an altercation in the village, or read about an outrage of violence in the papers, I held my hand rigid so as not to form an instinctive fist.
Several months ago I had practiced that fist, practiced it and more besides, telling myself I was an adventuress, a pirate like the ones I had thrilled to learn of in my childhood. Only now did I understand the dark price of such adventures. That there were monsters in the world frightened me; that I had so easily matched their violence terrified me.
And yet there were days like this one, when everything felt almost right: when my father had enough energy to join us at breakfast and hold a conversation, when Jo insisted we leave the house and take some time to enjoy the day, leading me over the soft hills I knew so well. When the blue sky and sweet-smelling grasses lulled me into a brief but deep sleep that seemed to breathe life back into my body.
And when I opened my eyes again, Jo was smiling down at me. “There you are,” she said. “Now you look more like yourself.”
I feared even to speak, that I might shatter this day, and instead pressed close. Her coat smelled of the grass and the wind and herself. It was her favorite now, a longer, fuller coat of grey wool that softened the men’s suits she wore, just as her longer hair softened her face. I knew the latter was a favor to me, for though she preferred it shorn I loved its wild thickness. A small gesture, but one that provoked me to a gratitude bordering on maudlin.
“Your father does better when you feel better, Caro,” she continued. Her fingers played with mine, curling and uncurling them. “You help him when you help yourself.”
“I know,” I whispered. For I did know: she was right, as she was right in so many things. Caring for my father meant I had to be at my best. My moods could lighten or darken his, could make the difference between eating well and nibbling fitfully, between joining us downstairs and staying moodily in his bed.
And I needed him to be well. Not just for his sake, though I loved him so dearly it hurt sometimes to think on it, but to give Jo more time to save us. He had returned from Medby so deeply tired I thought I might lose him, and only then had he confessed to me the truth of my circumstances: that our house was entailed to a cousin in New Holland, and the man was eager for it. Once my father passed, I would not only lose my surviving parent and thus my family, but my home as well. Jo was using her father’s colleagues to try and alter the entailment, but I suspected it was a hopeless endeavor.
Blood and horror behind me, a life adrift before me. But still, there were these lovely, fragile days.
We returned to the house slowly, pausing to gather a handful of wildflowers which Jo put in a vase to adorn our dinner. Mrs. Simmons was laying out the dishes, mostly lighter fare as heavier foods upset my father’s stomach now. Mr. Simmons I saw through the window, talking to a man about the drainage in our lower field. A routine act of management, yet I could not help but feel a small frisson of resentment that such work would only benefit my unknown, greedy cousin.
“You and I,” Jo said, “should travel a little. Not far,” she amended. “Just to Sunderland. There is a lawyer there who renegotiated an entailment, it would be useful to have him recount his argument. And we could find some new books for your father—perhaps even take in a concert?”
“Perhaps,” I said, but I touched my head to hers. “Let me speak to Mister Simmons first.”
“Let us both speak to Mister Simmons,” Jo said, “so that you do not hear one thing and decide you’ve heard something else. The last time I proposed an outing,” she continued at my frown, “all he did was say the weather looked to turn, but you told me he said your father’s lungs were aching from the damp.”
“But the damp affects him—”
“Did we even have damp?” she interrupted.
“No,” I admitted, then quickly added, “but if it rains it always gives him a cough, and it makes his hip worse—”
“Both of which the Simmonses are able to treat.” She drew me to a corner of the dining room, looking deep into my eyes; despite my churning emotions I felt myself weaken as I always did. Would I never stop feeling like a lovesick girl when she looked at me so?
“He does better when you’re better,” she said in a low, earnest voice. “He takes his cue from your moods. Taking a few days for yourself allows him to have a holiday as well, through you. How much does he love hearing about the village, or when we’re able to get news from London? A few days away will give him a month of entertainment.”
I told myself it was her implacable reasoning that was making me nod, but when she looked at me like that, oh! I might agree to anything. Before I could respond, though, Mrs. Simmons came in with a small roast, and behind her Mr. Simmons helped my father teeter into the dining room and settle in his chair.
Shall I tell you of my father now? The Theophilus Daniels who had raised me, I had lost in the terrible events surrounding Harkworth Hall, when our dearest friends betrayed us and nearly killed him. The man who took his place had lost his facility of speech, his easy movements; yet there was also a greater kindness in him than I had previously known—and a thirst for adventure, too.
Since Medby, however, my father had changed yet again. The catarrh he developed in our last days there had never quite left him. He was cold, always, even with the warmth of spring upon us now he wore layers of clothing and demanded blankets wherever he settled. Our dining room was bathed in afternoon sunlight and a low fire burned in the grate; still Mr. Simmons was tucking a blanket over his lap.
That depth of kindness had remained, though now it was occasionally marred by irritation over small matters, like a light turned too bright, or if we read aloud too softly. I was more patient with this than Jo, though their little arguments seemed to rally him as my cajoling never did.
But most concerning of all was the sense of distance he had begun to emanate. Often now his gaze became unfocused, as if seeing a distant horizon invisible to us. The entailment, too, seemed to concern him less as time went on. At Jo’s last update he had merely waved his hand and murmured that we would settle it—as if such worldly matters were no longer his concern.
He’s leaving me, I had wept from the comfort of Jo’s arms that night. He’s leaving me, and he does not seem to care. And she had comforted me as best she could, but she could offer nothing
Now, however, the object of so much anguished concern asked for tea, and the butter to be applied to his bread. He wanted a napkin under his chin and the drapes to be opened, then closed some, then opened a little more, all tasks that Mr. Simmons accomplished with enviable patience.
“You two were out so early this morning, you missed the post,” Mrs. Simmons said, bustling in with a wad of letters. “And here’s the paper if you want to continue on from yesterday.”
“Would you like that, sir?” Jo asked. “We could finish the article on the new enclosure scheme.”
My father swallowed, licked his lips, then eloquently declared, “pah.”
“It’s a hard thing for some of the farmers around these parts,” Mr. Simmons said.
And there was a time when Theophilus Daniels would have agreed, and lectured us all on the history of grazing rights and its place in shaping the English character. Now he just snorted and ate his toast with vigor. I had no memory of my grandparents, and the elderly in the village were neighbors I greeted and conversed briefly with, but little more. This sense of age, of decline—sometimes it overwhelmed me.
Instead I busied myself with sorting our letters. Our usual bills, a few for Jo from London that I passed to her without scrutiny. Though she had settled with us, she still maintained the fiction of being Jonathan Chase, executor of her father’s estate and maintaining an interest in his legal firm. There were always papers for her to review and sign.
At the bottom of the pile was a small, crisp envelope, addressed to
Misses Chase & Daniels
in a hand that I knew far too well. My blood turned to ice, my fingers became nerveless. I was suddenly, furiously angry. No more, I had told Mr. Smith after Medby. It seemed, however, that my injunction had been ignored.
I opened my mouth to tell Jo, but she was already reading her own correspondence—and did she even need to know? After Medby she had left the decision to me, and I had said no. She had not indicated her own position had changed. Therefore I would simply reply in the negative to whatever he proposed, and forget all about whatever terrible prospect he would have us face.
Decided, I shoved the offensive letter deep in my pocket, and set myself to ignoring it.
“Good riding day,” my father opined, looking out the window.
I smiled at this regular ploy. “By which I take it you would like a turn in the carriage?” Under the table I nudged Jo with my foot. “I think we can manage that.”
But Jo did not respond. She was fixed upon the letter in her hand, and I realized that her face had gone pale. She was nearly as white as her cravat. “Jo?” I asked in a quieter voice.
She blinked and looked at me, and for a terrible moment it was as if she was gazing at a stranger, and then she shook herself. “Ah, no—not for me today. I must respond to this.” She nodded, as if agreeing with herself. “If you’ll excuse me,” she added.
“Jo, are you—”
But she was already gone, the door swinging shut behind her. I found myself staring at her plate with its congealing food. The look in her eyes—! It was a stark contrast to the warmth of earlier. And the tone in her voice—
My father poked my hand with his spoon. When I looked at him he jerked his chin at the door. “Go on,” he said.
“She did not seem to want—”
“Go,” he urged, then went back to eating his soup.
Slowly I rose, working my skirts free from under the table. My father was now wholly focused on his bowl and the Simmonses were elsewhere. I felt alone, and filled with dread. Mr. Smith’s envelope a weight in my pocket, and Jo—oh, we had not been together so very long, but in the months of our companionship I would have sworn that she had kept nothing from me. She had received difficult news from home before: debts run up by her mother, a fever suffered by her sister, problems with a man at the firm who her father had favored. Always she had told me about them at once; always she had invited my opinion.
What could she have read that would make her turn away from me?
I went upstairs with a heavy heart and a leaden stomach. The sight of her closed door did nothing to ease my worries. I told myself I was being foolish—it was only my nerves, strained by the entailment and my lingering memories, coloring my judgment now.
When I knocked, however, it was some time before I heard the floorboards creak, and when Jo opened the door her face was drawn. Before I could speak she touched my arm.
“Caro, I’m not feeling well,” she said. Her eyes were looking at my face, yet she would not directly meet my gaze. “I think it best if you take your father riding, while I rest this afternoon.”
“Your letter,” I began—but I did not know how to proceed. This was a different Jo, neither welcoming nor in the grip of her own headstrong emotions. When had she ever rested?
“Oh, that! My mother’s foolishness, nothing more. I will tell you about it later.” At that her mouth turned up at the corners, more rictus than smile. It was ghastly to see. Still, she took my hand. “I will tell you, Caroline,” she repeated. “Once I feel restored to myself. I promise.”
“You know I am here for you,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Whatever is the matter—whatever has happened—between ourselves we can solve it, like we always do.”
There was a moment, then, when her lips parted, when I felt her about to embrace me and confess all … but then she drew back, still smiling that deathly smile. “I know,” she said too-brightly. “But it is nothing, truly. A—a misunderstanding, nothing more. I will rest and then address it.”
Should I have pressed her? Oh, I thought to do so, even after she closed the door in my face. But in truth I knew little of Jo’s family and their circumstances, save what she had told me that longago night in Harkworth Hall. To pry now seemed like it might only upset her further. Surely she would make her way to me when she was ready.
I went back downstairs. Mr. Simmons readied the carriage and I pressed close to my father as we rode down to the village, where we stopped for a little while before turning back. He no longer felt well enough to sit in the inn as he used to, but still many came out to greet him and shake his hand. The way his eyes lit up, the newfound vigor in his voice, distracted me from my concerns for Jo.
We returned in the afternoon, just as the air was turning chill. It was only as I was undoing my cloak that I remembered Mr. Smith’s letter was in my pocket. Here was an excuse to talk to Jo, even if just to distract her as the ride had distracted me.
But when I went to her room, I found the door ajar, the bedcovers hastily dragged back into place, the fire banked in the hearth.
Jo was gone.
Dear Misses Chase and Daniels—
We have found a painting that bears a striking resemblance to the one you described in Thomas Masterson’s hallway, in the bedroom of a lord we suspect was murdered. It would be of great help if you could come to London and confirm this is the same work. We would of course provide your transportation and lodging for this inspection, and for any further assistance you might be able to provide. I have instructed Mr. Windham to return to London by way of your village, to either assist you in your journey south or to apologize on my behalf for disturbing your tranquility.
Your obliged, &c.,
J. Smith
Chapter II
A Quiet House
In Jo’s absence it was as if the air had left the house, making the empty rooms oppressive, even stifling. I told my father and the Simmonses that Jo had been called away unexpectedly; I tried to believe my own words. They were true in a sense, but the suddenness of her departure, how she had shied away from me—it was not the woman I knew, the one I had come to love and trust with my life.
On the pretext of airing out her room I looked more carefully at what she had left behind. She had taken a dress in addition to a change of linen, rather than a second suit. Though I told myself I was being foolish, the choice struck me as ominous. She still wore dresses at times, though with increasing rarity, and when she did she was such a picture of awkwardness that my heart would go out to her. That she would choose the hated garment now—! But perhaps it was her mother’s wish, and who would not endure such awkwardness for a parent, no matter how fraught the relationship?
