Calista, Laura Rahme [best ereader for comics txt] 📗

gravely ill one evening and didn’t leave her bed for weeks. Her cough worsened over Christmas. We all believed she had caught a cold. She had done so many times before. She didn’t wish to see a doctor at first. She asked to see Miss Vera. It was… odd.”

“How would this be odd?”

“Well she’d never seen Miss Vera since the wedding ten years ago. The two never got off to a proper start. In France you may speak of equality, but here, in England, one should know one’s place. Respectable Englishmen do not marry peasant girls. And certainly not from the Greek countryside.”

“I see, now. Do you think Miss Vera didn’t think much of her brother’s wife then?”

“Well, it’s not for me to say. All I know is she remained a spinster due to local gossip. If she resented her sister-in-law, I wouldn’t know. Yet, as Mrs. Nightingale’s illness worsened, I know for a fact that she dispatched a letter, and confessed to me that she hoped Miss Vera would come quickly to Alexandra Hall.”

“I can understand that Calista might have wished to speak with another woman. It’s quite lonely here at Alexandra Hall. So what happened? Did Vera come?”

“She did. For a while, Mrs. Nightingale regained her appetite. Miss Vera spent time with her in her room and I think her presence did much good. But then her cough worsened. She had much difficulty breathing. Before Mr. Nightingale could fetch a doctor, he found her dead one morning. It was dreadful.”

Mrs. Cleary’s tea had grown cold.

“Was she buried in her home village, back in Greece?”

Mrs. Cleary attempted to hide her discomfort. “Sadly, no. Mr. Nightingale was in no way inclined to make that journey. Imagine, setting off to France to board a ship from Marseilles and sailing all the way to Athens. Then yet another ship to her island home. Oh, no. Mr. Nightingale was adamant that he had an important project to attend to, and could not absent himself from Alexandra Hall, not even for two weeks.” Resentment tinted Mrs. Cleary’s voice. “Even his sister who had visited him for the first time in years failed to part him from his work. I remember it well. We were in mourning. Miss Vera entered his study and they talked for hours. He lashed out at her and told her to mind her own business. Then he sent her packing. A day later, we buried Calista in the garden.”

“I see. Now that you have mentioned Mr. Nightingale, I must tell you this. It is out of character for a man of learning, one so passionate about his work, to give up on his desire to live. I am alluding to his sudden death in August. Rather odd, don’t you think? Do you think he felt guilty when his wife died? And that he let himself die?”

Mrs. Cleary thought for a moment. “Mr. Nightingale was never quite the same after his wife died. He used to walk through the house with a worried look on his face. At the time, I gathered his work troubled him.”

“It must have been important work for him to deprive his wife’s family of attending the burial. What was he working on?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” She waved a hand and turned her face away, avoiding eye contact.

“Where did you say he conducted that work?”

His question remained unanswered. A tall maid with ginger-coloured hair had come forth, and upon seeing her, Mrs. Cleary promptly stood.

She cleared her throat and gave orders.

“Shannon, I believe Mr. Leroux has finished his breakfast. Hurry up and clean the table and bring a water carafe to the study.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cleary.”

Mrs. Cleary turned to Maurice. “If you’ll excuse me, I will see that the cook has everything he needs. Let me know if you’d like some sandwiches for lunch. I’m sure we have some ham in the larder and I’ll ask Gerard to make a fresh loaf of bread.”

“That will be lovely, thank you.”

She stared at him as though collecting her thoughts.

“Mr. Leroux. You’ll find Alexandra Hall a fascinating place. At times when you examine all the art work and the exquisite objects that Mr. Nightingale so loved to collect, you might overlook details the first time round. Colours and shapes have a habit of changing in this house, in a most unusual way. When you think you have grasped what you are seeing, you find it is all an illusion, and things take on quite another form.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Mrs. Cleary. But I’ll keep an open mind,” said Maurice.

“Oh, no. You’ll understand what I mean, in time.” She hastened away.

Maurice began his inspection of the house by visiting Calista’s bedroom upstairs. Soon after breakfast he headed to the room diagonally from his.

As he unlocked the door and stepped inside, a lingering feminine scent wafted to his nostrils. It was soft, jasmine like, and a mournful feeling tugged at his chest as he inhaled. The large bed, untouched since January, was painted in white and gold. Silk blue sheets mirrored the azure of the ceiling. Within this celestial artwork, naked cherubs looked down onto the bed. The room’s serene atmosphere was enhanced by the pink pastel blooms adorning the walls.

Maurice’s eye lingered on an antique vanity table to his right. Mrs. Cleary’s obvious fondness for Calista had moved him. A wave of sadness rushed through him as he sighted the objects on the table: a silver casket, a porcelain brush, a handheld mirror and numerous perfume bottles. But upon lifting the casket, he was struck by its contents— coral and bead necklaces, in a style that he’d never seen. Inside the drawers, he found no letters, only paper and ink. And then more strange beads, many of them, blue.

Maurice opened the tall 18th century double-door closet but instantly shirked back, clamping his