The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (38 page)

H
E DID JOIN us for supper that night, in body if not in spirit. For he entered the dining room, sat down, and picked up his soup spoon without giving us so much as a glance. He appeared startled when I greeted him, as if he had forgotten anyone else would be there.

After that he made only the sparest replies to any of my attempts at conversation and for his part made no inquiry regarding the progress of our studies. Nor did he inquire about my sisters—or even about you, Father, though I knew you had once been acquaintances. He ate his soup as if it were the gravest of tasks.

The children were sullen and slouched in their chairs; the clock consumed each bite of time with a tick. Lanna came in, bringing a plate of beef and cabbages but no hope for conversation.

At last I grew peeved at the silence. “Would you like the children to demonstrate their reading after supper, Mr. Quent?” I said in as lively a voice as I could manage. “I believe you will find they are improved, even in just these last few days.”

He had already risen before I finished speaking. “I must attend to my work. Good night.” He gave a stiff bow, turned on a heel, and was gone.

“He doesn’t like us,” Clarette said. “He wishes we weren’t here.”

“You know that isn’t so,” I said, but it was an automatic utterance, like the clock chiming the hour. I affected a smile for their sake. “Mr. Quent is a busy man, that’s all. That’s why he brought me here.”

Chambley hung his head. “But
you
don’t want to be here either.”

“Now you’re speaking nonsense,” I said. “I would not have come all this way if that were the case. Let’s go upstairs. It’s time for bed.”

I do not know if it was their cherubic faces or the way they slipped their hands into mine, but all the vexation I had felt toward them after their outburst in the parlor vanished, and I held their little hands tightly in my own as I led them up the stairs.

“You should not have frightened me like that today, you know,” I said as we reached their room. “I’m afraid I did not make a good first impression on Mr. Quent because of it.”

“We didn’t
want
to frighten you,” Chambley said.

“On the contrary, I think you had every intention of frightening me.” I looked down at Clarette. “It was a game, wasn’t it?”

She smiled up at me. “Yes, that was it,” she said. “A game.”

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I brushed her dark hair. It was fine as silk. Chambley started to say something, but I shook my head. “No more talk. It’s time to sleep.” With that I sent them into their room.

I took a candle and went up to my own room. I tried to read, but as always the candlelight was too dim, and my thoughts kept turning back to that afternoon’s commotion. I rued the way my introduction to my employer had gone. However, that the children should be prone to bursting out in an improper manner could only be expected given the oppressive atmosphere in this house. I had felt it myself ever since coming here and especially since Mr. Quent’s arrival—the dreadful need to always go about like a mouse, creeping along without making a noise.

No doubt that was why today’s outburst in the parlor had disturbed me so, for in no way did I believe the children had seen any sort of apparition. They had wanted to frighten me, that was all. And for a moment, suffering under all the gloomy weight of the silence that possessed this house, I had almost believed in ghosts.

However, the only presence that haunted Heathcrest Hall had sat at the head of the table earlier this evening, eating beef and cabbage. While I would grant the spirit the respect it was due, I was determined that I would not exist in fear of it.

T
HE MASTER OF the house was in residence for the next several days, though if Mrs. Darendal had not repeatedly reminded me of this fact, I would have been hard-pressed to know it. He did not come to observe the children’s progress, nor did he take any more meals with us. If he was seen at all, it was from a distance, and at such time he was always moving away, his shaggy head bowed and his broad shoulders slumped.

I confess, I could not find cause to complain about the arrangement. The farther
he
was from our parlor, the less
we
had to fear making some unwanted noise. While it was my intention that our studies should be ordered and not boisterous or unruly, it was not my belief that the children should never be allowed to laugh or to make such cheerful or even silly noises as were a natural part of childhood.

Mrs. Darendal was not of a similar mind, and on more than one occasion her stiff gray figure appeared in the door of the parlor.

“Hush!” she would say. “The master is at work, and your voices carry like a flock of crows.”

Whether it was our voices she thought of as crows or if it was we who bore the comparison, I did not know. But one time, after she had left, the children paraded around the table, flapping their arms and letting out caws and cackles. I ordered them to cease—but not so quickly as I might have done, for it took me a moment to be sure I would not cackle with laughter myself.

Since the incident in the parlor, I had not taken the children on any more walks outside the manor; I was reluctant to give them any opportunity that might allow them to claim they had seen apparitions. However, the lack of exercise had an ill effect on them as well as me, until none of us could keep our eyes on a book. After that, we resumed our walks. A series of longer days had burned away the mist, so that the weather was clear and not at all conducive to the viewing of ghosts. All the same, we did not wander so far from the house as before.

Yet often I was tempted. On fair days I longed to venture to the edge of the rise that Heathcrest commanded, to gaze at the straggled line of the Wyrdwood to the east, to see something green. However, I did not want to take the children so far, and I never had enough time during daylight hours to go there on my own, for the children required all my attention.

What little time I did have to myself came in the afternoons of longer lumenals—days that contained too many hours for all of them to be spent in walking or reading or studying. At such times I would send the children to play as they wished in their room, and I in turn would retreat to the kitchen to sit and take a cup of tea.

On those occasions Lanna often joined me. Through gentle and persistent effort I had won first a look from her and eventually a smile. She could not talk to me, but I was grateful for her company; Heathcrest was not an easy place to be alone. I found that if I spoke about whatever thoughts came to my mind, she would find something to work on nearby.

Thus, while she polished plates or sliced radishes, I would speak of Invarel; of all the little gardens and cloisters I had loved; of the Citadel on its crag; of the grand carriages I saw driving up to the New Quarter; and of the boys hawking broadsheets on corners. I knew that she listened, for sometimes she ceased her work and stood with her head tilted and eyes shut. So I would keep speaking—until Mrs. Darendal entered, as she always did before long, and Lanna scurried away. Mrs. Darendal would treat me to a sharp look. I, in turn, would reply with a smile and ask if she wanted a cup of tea.

“You leave the children to themselves often,” she said one afternoon. “I heard them in their room. Should you not be looking in on them?”

I sipped my tea. “I’m sure they are very well.”

The housekeeper started toward the door, then paused. “But I cannot think it is good for them to spend so much time alone.”

“On the contrary, being on their own is exactly what they need. One should never feel they are being observed at every moment. If one does not feel trusted, one will never learn to be trustworthy.”

“But you cannot know what they are doing.”

I set down my cup and stood, feeling a warmth in my cheeks—from the tea, of course. “Mrs. Darendal, I was hired by Mr. Quent to care for the children. I trust you will not question his judgment by instructing me how to do my job.” Without waiting for a reply, I left the kitchen.

After that, much as I enjoyed Lanna’s company, I found myself avoiding the kitchen. Instead, during such time I had to myself, I took to making a tour of the house. It was quickly apparent that making a thorough exploration of Heathcrest Hall would take some time; it was larger than I had thought at first, for there were many parts of it the current occupants never went into. However, while the doors to these rooms and wings were shut, they were not locked, so I spent several afternoons wandering through chambers filled with claw-footed chairs, yellowed Murghese vases, and scientific instruments of greenish copper whose purpose I could not fathom.

Portraits hung on many of the walls, their subjects clad in the attire of another age, their faces proud, even haughty. I wondered if these were Mr. Quent’s forebears. Only they did not look like him. Some of the men wore large rings with a crest upon them. I had seen no rings of any kind on Mr. Quent’s hands. Nor did he seem to have a title other than
Esquire,
which any well-to-do gentleman might append to his name. I could not help thinking this seemed a grand house for a mere gentleman.

At the head of the main stairs was a portrait of what I supposed was, given its prominent location and the more modern attire of its subjects, the last family to dwell in the house prior to Mr. Quent. A lordly-looking man of late-middle years sat in a chair, a similarly aged but still-handsome woman resting her hand on his shoulder. Beside them stood a young man, his good looks marred by the hint of a smirk the artist’s brush had lent him.

Only after passing the painting several times did I notice that there was one more figure in the portrait. A girl of perhaps nine or ten stood apart from the others, her dark dress and dark hair melding with the shadows cast by a curtain. Only her face stood out, as pale as that of the porcelain doll she held in her hands. As I explored the house, I saw the lordly man, the woman, and the younger man who was surely their son in other paintings, but in no other portraits did the dark-haired girl appear. Who she was, what had become of her, was something I did not discover in my explorations.

However, there was something I did learn one afternoon as I wandered the house: Clarette had not been making up a story when she told Chambley there was a locked room upstairs. It was on the second floor, in the west wing, though none of the other rooms in that part of the house was locked.

There was nothing remarkable about the locked door; it looked like all the others. Nor was there any reason to think it was different on the inside, and I assumed the room beyond was similarly filled with furniture, or murky paintings, or empty trunks. I would have forgotten about the room had it not been for the fact that, as I started down the stairs, I heard the sound of a door opening behind me.

Peering between the banister posts, I saw a door open and shut down the hall. A quick count assured me it was the very door I had found locked a minute ago. A pair of heavy black shoes and the hem of a gray dress appeared in view. There was a jingling noise and the sound of a lock turning.

I bit my lip and hurried down the stairs, lest Mrs. Darendal catch me.

The next afternoon I again sent the children upstairs to play. Once they were in their room, I went directly to the west wing, to the second floor, and counted the doors until I came to the one. It was still locked. I hesitated, then pressed an ear to the wood.

Silence.

I knew it was foolish. What was beyond the door was none of my business. Nor was it likely of any interest. But that this one door of all the doors in this wing was locked made it a thing of curiosity, and the fact that I had seen Mrs. Darendal coming from it even more so.

Hoping to learn something by another avenue, I went downstairs and outside. The day was growing blustery; clouds ebbed and surged overhead, and the wind tangled my hair. I walked around the west side of the house and counted the windows on the second floor, making sure I had picked out the right one. However, it was all but covered in ivy, and so my efforts were thwarted by my own namesake.

I went back into the house. It was time to retrieve the children. We had a whole chapter yet to read before supper, and the afternoon was blowing away with the storm clouds. I climbed the stairs. However, when I came to a stop, it was not at the door to the children’s room, but rather at the locked door.

It was wrong. All the same, I knelt and put an eye to the keyhole. Squinting, I tried to make sense of what I glimpsed beyond. I saw green light and tall, shadowy shapes.

“Is there something you’re looking for, miss?”

I leaped to my feet. I suppose I gasped; at any rate, it took me a long moment to find my breath, and then all I could utter was, “Mrs. Darendal!”

The housekeeper walked toward me down the corridor. I heard a faint jingling as she did. The corners of her mouth were drawn in a frown more severe than usual.

“I discover the children in their room,” she said. “Alone. And then I find you here.”

I tried to think of some excuse for my presence but could devise none under her scrutiny. “I only wondered,” I said. “This door—none of the others is locked, but this one is. Do you know why?”