Green Willows. V. J. Banis

we....” I could hardly say we had strolled through the woods together, though, and now it was my turn to stop in midsentence.

      “He’s a lonelyish man,” she said, as if that covered everything. “I’ll tell the mistress you’re here.”

      “Oh, then you’re not the mistress?” I blurted out.

      “Me? Heavens, no, where did you get that idea? But I suppose I should have introduced myself. We see so few people, and I was that glad to see you. I’m Mrs. Duffy, the housekeeper.”

      She gave me a smile that was so warm that truly all my uneasiness vanished and I was glad to be here in this brightly lit room and by the warm fire.

      “The mistress,” she said, “is his sister, Miss Eleanor. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d best tell her you’re here.”

      She went out, her skirts whispering as she walked. The house was still but for the crackling of the fire. I turned to stare into the flames and thought of the man I had met on the path. How could I ever face him again? But perhaps I would not have to. No doubt I would deal most often with the mistress.

      His sister, Mrs. Duffy had said. Was there no wife then? Surely there must have been, as there was a child. Perhaps his wife had died. That would explain why he was, as the housekeeper had put it, lonelyish.

      I heard a movement and turned back toward the doorway to the hall, my eyes instinctively going upward, as one’s eyes do, to meet the face of a person of normal height. Mrs. Duffy had not warned me, nor had Mr. Tremayne. There was no reason why they should have, I suppose, and yet in that embarrassing second or two when I had to lower my eyes down to the level of a wheelchair, I could only wish that someone had made some reference to it.

      Instinctive too was the shrinking feeling I experienced—pity, repulsion, even curiosity, and mixed with them was an urge to show no emotion at all.

      I was aware, however, that I had shown them by the flicker of resentment—too strong a word, perhaps disdain?—that showed in her eyes. It was gone in an instant, and I saw now a crippled woman in a chair but a very strong-minded one who, having paused for whatever effect just within the room, now moved forward by her own efforts. I doubted very much that she would ever want someone to push the chair for her, for she gave that impression.

      Mrs. Duffy had paused behind her in the doorway. She gave me a glance, encouraging, I thought, and said, “This is Miss Kirkpatrick, ma’am. I’ll bring the tea.” She disappeared down the hall.

      “Sit down, Miss Kirkpatrick, please. I’m Eleanor Tremayne. We’ll have some tea in a moment.”

      “How do you do?” I sat in the chair she had indicated. She wheeled herself about so that she was facing me across a tea table. I watched her hands as she turned the chair. They were strong and her wrists were thick and powerful. She did not smile easily but kept her mouth in a thin, straight line. Her hair, a dull brown color, was worn pulled sharply back from her face, giving her a masculine appearance.

      For all of that, though, her eyes, while shrewd and appraising, were not unfriendly, and I thought she welcomed a new employee with more grace than might have been necessary.

      We exchanged a few desultory remarks about my journey and the weather, plainly making conversation until the tea was brought in. In a moment Mrs. Duffy returned, bearing a silver tray which she placed in front of Miss Tremayne.

      I had been wondering if I would meet Mr. Tremayne again. I rather hoped not, as I thought I would be embarrassed to face him so soon after my faux pas. Apparently I was to be spared that awkwardness, as there were only the two cups on the tray.

      She poured, all the while asking me polite questions. I was an orphan, was I not? Had I no relatives at all, then? How long had I been at Mrs. White’s? Had I been to this part of the country before?

      I answered her questions as openly and as pleasantly as possible. She had, after all, every right to know everything about me, and in fact my correspondence with her brother, which had led to my being hired sight-unseen, had not included a great many questions regarding my background, so that much of what she asked me was, from their point of view, new territory.

      As I sipped my tea, I found it increasingly difficult to follow the conversation. I had traveled all day, most of it in a cold rain. The warmth of the fire combined with the warmth of the tea had made me drowsy and I found myself making an effort to keep my eyes open.

      I must have actually begun to nod my head, because she said abruptly, breaking off some sentence the direction of which I had lost, “Why, how thoughtless of me. You’re tired, of course.”

      I brought my head up with a jerk and said as quickly as I could, ‘Oh, no, it’s all right, really.”

      “Nonsense,” she said, dismissing my protests with a quick gesture. “Would you ring for Mrs. Duffy, that cord over there, just by the door, thank you.”

      I pulled the cord and heard a faint tinkling sound in the distance. In a moment, Mrs. Duffy bustled in and, at Miss Tremayne’s instructions, I was escorted off to my room.

      As we were going out, though, Miss Tremayne asked me something that struck me as odd. “Miss Kirkpatrick,” she said, “are you a fanciful girl?”

      I paused to look back at her. It was such an unexpected question that I had to think for a moment before answering.

      “Why, I don’t know,” I said.

      “You don’t know?”

      “At Mrs. White’s, there was hardly any opportunity for being fanciful.”

      “I see.” Those shrewd eyes of hers studied me so intently that I had to resist an urge to fidget. “Well, we shall have to hope that you are not.” She paused and in a lower voice added, “If you should have the opportunity.”

      I hesitated a few seconds longer, but she had lowered her gaze and was studying her hands. Apparently I was dismissed. When I glanced at Mrs. Duffy she gave me a faint smile and led the way from the room, and I was obliged to follow her.

      As she led me up the stairs, Mrs. Duffy kept up a steady stream of chatter, a nervous sort of chatter that sprang, I guessed, from her pleasure at having an audience. Fortunately none of it required much in the way of answers from me, for I found myself looking around with curiosity, examining my new surroundings.

      It was a striking house, far more luxurious than anything I had been in before. At the same time, though, there was an artificiality about the place that jarred. It had a contrived look of oldness, but it was obvious at second glance that the house was really rather new. Mrs. White’s, for instance, had originally been a manor house and went back several hundred years, while I would not have guessed Green Willows to be more than, say, twenty or thirty years old.

      Yet for all its newness, the house had an odd air of neglect, of disuse. I do not mean it was dirty or shabby. The light from Mrs. Duffy’s lamp gleamed smartly on silver and brass and freshly washed mirrors. The walls were paneled partway up in a very handsome dark wood and a rich brocade cloth covered above that. There was an emptiness, though, a hollow quality. When one spoke, one’s voice seemed to ring falsely on the air. It was like a house that, although kept up, has not been lived in for many years.

      Perhaps I was only being fanciful indeed, and at any rate, I was glad to see that I would be living in such a fine house.

      The stairs were wide and thickly carpeted. They went up straight to a landing and then off at right angles in either direction. As we reached the landing, the light showed a handsome portrait hanging there. In daylight it would dominate the stairs.

      “Oh,” I said, pausing involuntarily, “how lovely.”

      “Who? Oh, that, yes,” Mrs. Duffy said, pausing too. “That was the missus, his wife, the little girl’s mother. She is lovely, isn’t she? Her name was Angela and they say that’s exactly what she was, an angel.”

      She lifted the lamp so that its light fell