A tingle went up my spine. I glanced around. 'I don't see anyone named Ashley.'
'She sees you,' he said with confidence.
I took a deep breath. 'Why don't we go downstairs.'
Had family members told him about her? I wondered as we descended the main stairs. The name was common enough; perhaps he simply liked it and chose it on his own for an imaginary playmate. Given his isolation on the estate, it would make sense for him to create a fantasy friend.
When we reached the landing between the first and second floors, Patrick pulled on my arm to keep me from going farther. Below us, women were arguing.
'It's Mrs. Hopewell,' he said. 'She's mean. She hates me.
'Oh, I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Patrick,' I replied, then cringed at how I had sounded like a typical, patronizing adult.
'Robyn hates me too,' he added. 'Well go a different way.'
But I had just heard what Mrs. Hopewell was saying, and I wasn't going anywhere. I pulled him back and put my finger to my lips.
'You can't trust her,' the housekeeper said. 'You would be very foolish to hire that young woman.'
'Hoppy is right,' said another woman. 'I'm sorry, Emily, but I simply won't allow it.'
'Really. What makes you think you have a say in this, Robyn?'
'Adrian won't allow it,' Mrs. Hopewell asserted. 'He sent her family packing twelve years ago.'
Sent my family packing? If Adrian had dismissed us, why did we sneak away in the middle of the night? Something wasn't right.
'Her mother was a strange woman, a very angry woman,' Mrs. Hopewell went on. 'She was supposed to be watching Ashley the day she fell through the ice.'
Robyn quickly cut her off. 'We don't need to go into that, Hoppy. The point is, Emily, this girl will bring back bad memories and upset Daddy and Trent. I can't allow it.'
'Well, you talk to Daddy when he gets home,' Emily replied, 'and I will talk to my husband, and we will see if he chooses to listen to his daughter, his housekeeper, or his wife concerning the welfare of his son.' The strength of Emily's words were betrayed by the high pitch of her voice. I guessed that she was intimidated by Mrs. Hopewell and Robyn.
But I wasn't.
'Who are they talking about?' Patrick whispered to me as I took his hand and started down the main stairs.
'Your new tutor.'
I can't remember the last time I did something so impulsively. Curiosity about why my family had left and sheer defiance made up my mind. I had no idea how long I would stay, or rather, how long they would keep me. It worried me that I would be one more person in Patrick's life who didn't stay around, but I didn't know what I could do about that.
The scene at the bottom of the stairway had been brief and tense, Mrs. Hopewell responding to my introduction with one sentence: I know who you are.'
Mrs. Caulfield-Robyn-had informed me that the final decision on my hiring would be made by Mr. Westbrook.
Amelia had been bursting with curiosity when the door of the library reopened. The ladies had closed it in order to have their argument, but she had heard bits and pieces. I told her several times that the two older women had confused me with someone else, which, not surprisingly, she didn't believe.
That evening I stole away from Amelia's questions, taking a walk through town.
The fog, which had rendered the afternoon so dismal, now made the night seem brighter, the mist holding the apricot light of streetlamps and shimmering on the brick sidewalks. Though it was only seven o'clock, most of the shops were closed. Lights shone in the rooms above them and through the fanlights and windows of the old homes that fronted the eighteenth-century street. Somewhere ahead of me, at the end of High Street, was the river, but fog blotted out everything more than a block away. Peering in a shop window, pressing my face close to the glass, was like looking in a crystal ball, the objects inside magically clear.
I stared at a painting of a cat. I knew the artist at once, recognizing his attentiveness to the cat's ears, the expression in the animal's tail, and the tone of the background, carefully chosen to bring out the colors in the cat's coat. It was an early work by my father. I took a step back to read the shop's sign: OUVIA'S ANTIQUES.That's what you get for dying, Dad, I thought; your paintings are antiques now.
A man was working inside the shop, staring down at his clipboard, a pen hanging out of one side of his mouth like a cigarette-ex-smoker, I thought, recognizing my father's habit. I pushed open the front door, unloosing a flurry of bells.
'Shop's closed,' the man said, pointing to a sign.
'I was hoping I might look at the painting of the cat.
'It's not for sale. Nothing here is for sale. I'm just taking inventory.'
'It's a Venerelli, isn't it?'
He removed the pen from his mouth, perhaps surprised that a teenager would know something like that. 'Unsigned,' he replied.
'Even so, it is,' I told the man, walking over to the painting to study it more closely.
He put down his clipboard and joined me in front of the painting. 'How do you know that? It would be worth a lot more if I could be certain.'
'He was my father. I'd recognize his work anywhere.'
Now the man tipped forward on his toes to look at my face. 'Katie!' he exclaimed softly.
I took a step back.
I never expected to see you in Wisteria, but still, I should have recognized you. You look exactly like your mother.'
'Not exactly.'
'You don't remember me, do you?' the man continued. 'You were only a little girl the last time I saw you.'
I waited to see if his face surfaced in my memory as Mrs. Hopewell's had. 'No, I'm sorry, I don't.'
'Joseph Oakley.' He held out his hand. 'I was Ashley's tutor.'
'Mr. Joseph! I do remember you.' Though I didn't recall him looking anything like he did now. Ashley's tutor, a college student, had been skinny, with a little knob of a chin. The person in front of me had the shape of a plump, middle-aged man, and sported a full beard flecked with gray. But he was younger than he appeared; the skin on his face was smooth, almost lineless.
'My condolences about your father,' he said.
I nodded.
'I know how it is,' he went on. 'Mother died several months ago.'
'I'm sorry.
'That's why I'm back in town, settling her affairs. This was her shop.'
I glanced around at the odd collection of things-a beautiful oil lamp, a tacky ceramic of a fisherman, an elegant silver brush set, a purple teapot shaped like an elephant's head-his trunk was the spout. Next to my father's simple painting was a very large canvas: Several robust women with 1920 hairstyles bathed at a pink spring while odd-looking winged creatures darted about.
'Her taste was certainly… wide-ranging,' I said.
'Her records are even more erratic than her taste,' he replied with a grimace. 'Of course, Mother was no spring chicken when she had me, and I think she was losing it mentally these last few years. I'm going to be forced
