When she was a girl she had gone there once, wading amidst waist-high weeds and picking through the brambles to get to the old cottage. She remembered it somehow. She had found a key in a drawer in an old dresser box in the spare room and had speculated endlessly about what it might open. It was the size and shape of a key which might fit into a door.
One day when Kate had been riding with her father she had seen the old cottage and had asked him about it. It's abandoned, he had told her. It was hard now to recall his voice because he had been dead for so many years. She had developed the idea that the key she had found must open the old cottage. It was on her father's property but it had not been inhabited for years. None of the servants seemed to know anything about it.
Kate had gone to the cottage at dusk, when her parents were occupied with preparing dinner and finishing up household tasks. She had opened the door with the key she had found and had entered the small building.
She remembered the effect the place had had on her senses. As she had stepped over the threshold she felt a sudden chill, perhaps because she had not expected to see the place kept, or to see anything inside it but old junk. She looked around, round-eyed, at a fine green velvet sofa, a polished mahogany table, and in the corner, a gold candleabra. The well-dressed room smelled of fine musk perfume.
The dim light streaming through the window revealed a bronze statue seated on a polished cherry pedestal. It was so unlike anything she had seen that she stared at it with fascination. As she moved closer she could make out the shape of it in the dim light. It was in the likeness of a gorilla, posed intimidatingly, with a threatening expression. Kate felt further unnerved in the cottage but she didn’t leave.
She became aware that bubbles were floating around her in the air. Turning she watched them, and realized they were issuing from the bronze gorilla’s mouth. She moved closer to the statue to study the phenomenon, but her gaze became caught by her reflection in the bubble.
It appeared to be her reflection at first, but as she stared she could see other images, the face of a man, tall, with dark hair. He held a woman in his arms and kissed her. Kate stared in astonishment.
She turned to another bubble and saw the image in it, a tall slim woman with skirts lifting, stumbling over rocks in the darkness. Her fine blue dress was torn and her long red hair was loose and tangled. Kate watched as she slipped, then clung to the rocks. Her mouth opened as though to cry out, but Kate heard no sounds except the chirping of birds in the rafters.
The sound of it jerked her to attention, and she looked back at the room. She saw the sofa, now covered with a white dust-cloth and several years’ worth of dust, and the table too covered with a cloth. The candleabra was tarnished and the white wax candles had melted and crumbled to bits.
Kate brought her arms close, rubbing at the sudden chills that came over her as she realized nothing was as she had first seen it. The bronze gorilla had disappeared.
Frightened, she backed out of the cottage and locked the door, then turned, intending to hurry back toward the house. Along the way the key fell out of her pocket. It landed somewhere in the high grass and she searched for it frantically. She was more concerned with returning home than finding the key, and she gave up her search after several moments.
The experience had printed itself on her mind. The man standing before her, a vagrant, brought it all back to her as he gestured toward the place. Kate was standing with him on the porch. It was dusk, like it had been that night years ago. She looked back at him, studying him. She was unable to make out his features in the shadows.
“The old place has been locked up for years of course,” she said. “You will have to make it presentable. The key has been lost. We will have to remove the door and install a new one.”
“I can do that,” he said, in a voice she low she could not really trace an inflection. “There’s no door. It looks as though someone broke into the place a while ago.”
Kate nodded. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I haven’t attended to it.”
Nicole stepped onto the porch, looking from Kate to the vagrant with curiosity. The stranger met her inquiring gaze levelly. Kate turned, then cast the vagrant an apologetic look. “Excuse us for a moment.”
In the parlor she faced her cousin. “Kate,” Nicole said, her brow knitted with unease, “who is that?”
“He’s looking for work. He wants to stay in the old cottage. He will do tasks around the house.”
Nicole looked appalled. “No,” she said, “we can’t have some stranger stay on our property. There’s only me and you living here, two women.”
“He doesn’t want money. He only wants to live in the cottage. You won’t notice him.”
Nicole looked discontent. “We don’t know him. We don’t know anything about him. I won’t feel secure living here, with him around.”
Kate knew that even though she owned the deed to the house she still ought to take her cousin’s feelings into account. Everything Nicole said was true and she was right to feel as she did. It was Kate who was behaving unnaturally. She had been on her guard until the vagrant had mentioned staying at the cottage, and then her memories of it had tumbled back.
For some reason she wanted him to stay there. She was afraid to enter the cottage but she wanted to see what it would be like for someone else. Even though the vagrant was completely mysterious Kate did not feel threatened by him.
“He will probably not stay long,” Kate said. “Likely enough a few nights and then he will be gone. I know the sort. I don’t want to turn him away. It’s just not in me to do that.”
Nicole was dumbfounded and her eyes still expressed protest but Kate pretended not to see. “I’m going back to speak with him,” she said, and went back to the porch.
The stranger was gone. Kate’s heart skipped a beat. She had expected him to remain, had expected that something would come of him but he must have heard her conversation with Nicole. She felt a trace of pity for him.
It was almost winter, which in Texas didn’t mean blizzards, but a hard freeze could be miserable or detrimental to someone who didn’t have shelter. She went to the far end of the porch, feeling strangely bereft, then she saw him.
He was moving toward the cottage.
Kate gave a swift intake of breath then stepped from the porch and followed him.
In the dusk she felt a curious sense of returning to herself, wading through the waist high grass toward the tree-shrouded, vine-covered cottage on the hillside.
The vagrant had already entered the cottage.
Kate followed him, pausing in the doorway.
He turned, and she felt curious as his dark eyes met hers. In the dimness his face was barely visible but his features appealed to her. She found herself moving toward him. She accepted his outstretched hand.
In the darkness part of her cried out against the behavior, against the illogical feeling which swept her. Dreamlike she looked around the room. It looked as it had for that brief moment long ago. The sofa was clad in green velvet. The mahogany furnishings glowed in the dim light. The brone gorilla stooped on its pedestal against one wall and spouted bubbles which floated on the cool air.
A breeze swept Kate’s face as she looked at the vagrant. Strands of hair covered her cheek, which he reached to brush aside. His eyes narrowed and his dark head neared hers, his high, arched brows furrowed with some unnamed emotion.
A sudden pain jerked her to awareness and Kate buckled to her knees. She grasped her ankle and he was beside her. He smelled of earth, smoke and hay, perhaps testifying to the places where he had slept. As Kate landed on the floor she became aware of the powder-fine dust, the dead dry leaves. He wasn’t looking at her with the same expression she had imagined, and the furniture was covered in dust cloths. There were no bubbles or bronze statue.
Kate gave a cry of pain as she moved her ankle. He touched it gingerly. “Easy,” he said, and for the first time she really heard the timbre of his voice. It was deep, and gentle. “You tripped over something in the doorway.”
Kate jerked her head back toward the door, then saw a loose board coming up. There were boards coming up everywhere. There were also cracks in the walls, and probably leaks in the roof.
She had imagined her encounter with him as well. He had crossed the room to reach her as she had stepped over the threshold, then tripped and fallen.
Kate felt foolish, afraid and slightly mad.
She wanted to say something to ground them in reality. “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said.
His eyes darkened slightly. Was he angry? When he spoke he sounded resigned. “When I approached the house I didn’t know there were only women. I’m sorry. You might have told me.” He was almost as aware of propriety as Nicole, Kate thought with faint amazement. It wasn’t something she had expected a vagrant to say.
“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly, truly wanting to know. The question hung in the air like dust. He didn’t answer or meet her eyes.
He rose to his feet, leaving her crouched on the floor.
“You want to live here,” she said. It wasn’t a question this time.
He still avoided her eyes. “I can use the work,” he said, “but I’m not going to beg you. If you’re going to tell me no, then do it, so I can look somewhere else for a job.”
“You can stay here,” Kate said. She realized she was still sitting on the floor, had made no move to get up because she had felt so disoriented, and felt foolish. She stumbled quickly to her feet. “What do you know how to do?”
“I’ll clean up your yard. I can clean out the barn. Maybe you and your sister can get cows or chickens.”
“She’s my cousin,” Kate said, then felt sorry she had volunteered the information. Maybe the less he knew about them the better. “We don’t know anything about animals. You can clean out the barn if you want. The house needs to be re-shingled. Know anything about that?”
“I can do that,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly.
“That’s good. This cottage doesn’t suffice as payment. I’ll give you some money. We can work it out later. For the time being I’m going back to the house. It’s late.”
He didn’t argue. He seemed to be waiting for her to leave as she turned and stepped out of the cottage, then crossed the field. She could feel his eyes on her back.
She couldn’t sleep that night.
Kate was awakened by the sound of scraping on the roof. Her eyes flew wide as she listened avidly to the unfamiliar sound. She got out of bed and dressed quickly, then entered the kitchen. Nicole was standing in the middle of the room holding a cup of coffee. She wore the same discontented expression Kate had seen last night.
"What is he doing up there?" Nicole hissed to her.
The previous evening's events rushed back to her. Her eyes widened as she remembered the vagrant. She didn't even know his name. "I gave him work to do," Kate said. "He's taking the shingles off the roof. If this doesn't work then I'll tell him to go. That's all there is to it."
Nicole gave her a doubtful look. "This is so unlike you," she said. "We don't know anything about this man."
Kate felt weary at the prospect of more of the previous evening's argument. "I will talk to him this afternoon," Kate said. "I want to know his name, and where he's come from."
"Do you think he will tell you that much? From the look of him he wants nothing to do with us, really."
Kate realized it was true. He probably wanted to tell them nothing about his past, but that made it seem all the more pertinent that she know at least the basic facts about him.
She went outside and crossed her arms, watching him on the roof. His sleeves were rolled up and his hair was mussed from the strong wind that blew over the house. "Do you want breakfast?" Kate shouted to him.
He turned at the sound of her voice, and his eyes narrowed. He crept to the edge of the roof and knelt down to her.
Kate smiled more pleasantly and moved closer. "Good morning," she said. "Nicole has scrambled some eggs, and there are biscuits. I can bring you something if you would like."
Though they were separated by an expanse of several feet Kate still felt his proximity. His face was clearly visible in the sunlight and Kate studied it momentarily, admiring what she saw. His hair swept in a black mass over his high, pale brow, framing green eyes which appeared to be looking her over.
"Thank you," he said, and Kate felt a slight, inexplicable relief at his agreement. It seemed somehow a step closer to speaking with him about his past.
One day when Kate had been riding with her father she had seen the old cottage and had asked him about it. It's abandoned, he had told her. It was hard now to recall his voice because he had been dead for so many years. She had developed the idea that the key she had found must open the old cottage. It was on her father's property but it had not been inhabited for years. None of the servants seemed to know anything about it.
Kate had gone to the cottage at dusk, when her parents were occupied with preparing dinner and finishing up household tasks. She had opened the door with the key she had found and had entered the small building.
She remembered the effect the place had had on her senses. As she had stepped over the threshold she felt a sudden chill, perhaps because she had not expected to see the place kept, or to see anything inside it but old junk. She looked around, round-eyed, at a fine green velvet sofa, a polished mahogany table, and in the corner, a gold candleabra. The well-dressed room smelled of fine musk perfume.
The dim light streaming through the window revealed a bronze statue seated on a polished cherry pedestal. It was so unlike anything she had seen that she stared at it with fascination. As she moved closer she could make out the shape of it in the dim light. It was in the likeness of a gorilla, posed intimidatingly, with a threatening expression. Kate felt further unnerved in the cottage but she didn’t leave.
She became aware that bubbles were floating around her in the air. Turning she watched them, and realized they were issuing from the bronze gorilla’s mouth. She moved closer to the statue to study the phenomenon, but her gaze became caught by her reflection in the bubble.
It appeared to be her reflection at first, but as she stared she could see other images, the face of a man, tall, with dark hair. He held a woman in his arms and kissed her. Kate stared in astonishment.
She turned to another bubble and saw the image in it, a tall slim woman with skirts lifting, stumbling over rocks in the darkness. Her fine blue dress was torn and her long red hair was loose and tangled. Kate watched as she slipped, then clung to the rocks. Her mouth opened as though to cry out, but Kate heard no sounds except the chirping of birds in the rafters.
The sound of it jerked her to attention, and she looked back at the room. She saw the sofa, now covered with a white dust-cloth and several years’ worth of dust, and the table too covered with a cloth. The candleabra was tarnished and the white wax candles had melted and crumbled to bits.
Kate brought her arms close, rubbing at the sudden chills that came over her as she realized nothing was as she had first seen it. The bronze gorilla had disappeared.
Frightened, she backed out of the cottage and locked the door, then turned, intending to hurry back toward the house. Along the way the key fell out of her pocket. It landed somewhere in the high grass and she searched for it frantically. She was more concerned with returning home than finding the key, and she gave up her search after several moments.
The experience had printed itself on her mind. The man standing before her, a vagrant, brought it all back to her as he gestured toward the place. Kate was standing with him on the porch. It was dusk, like it had been that night years ago. She looked back at him, studying him. She was unable to make out his features in the shadows.
“The old place has been locked up for years of course,” she said. “You will have to make it presentable. The key has been lost. We will have to remove the door and install a new one.”
“I can do that,” he said, in a voice she low she could not really trace an inflection. “There’s no door. It looks as though someone broke into the place a while ago.”
Kate nodded. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I haven’t attended to it.”
Nicole stepped onto the porch, looking from Kate to the vagrant with curiosity. The stranger met her inquiring gaze levelly. Kate turned, then cast the vagrant an apologetic look. “Excuse us for a moment.”
In the parlor she faced her cousin. “Kate,” Nicole said, her brow knitted with unease, “who is that?”
“He’s looking for work. He wants to stay in the old cottage. He will do tasks around the house.”
Nicole looked appalled. “No,” she said, “we can’t have some stranger stay on our property. There’s only me and you living here, two women.”
“He doesn’t want money. He only wants to live in the cottage. You won’t notice him.”
Nicole looked discontent. “We don’t know him. We don’t know anything about him. I won’t feel secure living here, with him around.”
Kate knew that even though she owned the deed to the house she still ought to take her cousin’s feelings into account. Everything Nicole said was true and she was right to feel as she did. It was Kate who was behaving unnaturally. She had been on her guard until the vagrant had mentioned staying at the cottage, and then her memories of it had tumbled back.
For some reason she wanted him to stay there. She was afraid to enter the cottage but she wanted to see what it would be like for someone else. Even though the vagrant was completely mysterious Kate did not feel threatened by him.
“He will probably not stay long,” Kate said. “Likely enough a few nights and then he will be gone. I know the sort. I don’t want to turn him away. It’s just not in me to do that.”
Nicole was dumbfounded and her eyes still expressed protest but Kate pretended not to see. “I’m going back to speak with him,” she said, and went back to the porch.
The stranger was gone. Kate’s heart skipped a beat. She had expected him to remain, had expected that something would come of him but he must have heard her conversation with Nicole. She felt a trace of pity for him.
It was almost winter, which in Texas didn’t mean blizzards, but a hard freeze could be miserable or detrimental to someone who didn’t have shelter. She went to the far end of the porch, feeling strangely bereft, then she saw him.
He was moving toward the cottage.
Kate gave a swift intake of breath then stepped from the porch and followed him.
In the dusk she felt a curious sense of returning to herself, wading through the waist high grass toward the tree-shrouded, vine-covered cottage on the hillside.
The vagrant had already entered the cottage.
Kate followed him, pausing in the doorway.
He turned, and she felt curious as his dark eyes met hers. In the dimness his face was barely visible but his features appealed to her. She found herself moving toward him. She accepted his outstretched hand.
In the darkness part of her cried out against the behavior, against the illogical feeling which swept her. Dreamlike she looked around the room. It looked as it had for that brief moment long ago. The sofa was clad in green velvet. The mahogany furnishings glowed in the dim light. The brone gorilla stooped on its pedestal against one wall and spouted bubbles which floated on the cool air.
A breeze swept Kate’s face as she looked at the vagrant. Strands of hair covered her cheek, which he reached to brush aside. His eyes narrowed and his dark head neared hers, his high, arched brows furrowed with some unnamed emotion.
A sudden pain jerked her to awareness and Kate buckled to her knees. She grasped her ankle and he was beside her. He smelled of earth, smoke and hay, perhaps testifying to the places where he had slept. As Kate landed on the floor she became aware of the powder-fine dust, the dead dry leaves. He wasn’t looking at her with the same expression she had imagined, and the furniture was covered in dust cloths. There were no bubbles or bronze statue.
Kate gave a cry of pain as she moved her ankle. He touched it gingerly. “Easy,” he said, and for the first time she really heard the timbre of his voice. It was deep, and gentle. “You tripped over something in the doorway.”
Kate jerked her head back toward the door, then saw a loose board coming up. There were boards coming up everywhere. There were also cracks in the walls, and probably leaks in the roof.
She had imagined her encounter with him as well. He had crossed the room to reach her as she had stepped over the threshold, then tripped and fallen.
Kate felt foolish, afraid and slightly mad.
She wanted to say something to ground them in reality. “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said.
His eyes darkened slightly. Was he angry? When he spoke he sounded resigned. “When I approached the house I didn’t know there were only women. I’m sorry. You might have told me.” He was almost as aware of propriety as Nicole, Kate thought with faint amazement. It wasn’t something she had expected a vagrant to say.
“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly, truly wanting to know. The question hung in the air like dust. He didn’t answer or meet her eyes.
He rose to his feet, leaving her crouched on the floor.
“You want to live here,” she said. It wasn’t a question this time.
He still avoided her eyes. “I can use the work,” he said, “but I’m not going to beg you. If you’re going to tell me no, then do it, so I can look somewhere else for a job.”
“You can stay here,” Kate said. She realized she was still sitting on the floor, had made no move to get up because she had felt so disoriented, and felt foolish. She stumbled quickly to her feet. “What do you know how to do?”
“I’ll clean up your yard. I can clean out the barn. Maybe you and your sister can get cows or chickens.”
“She’s my cousin,” Kate said, then felt sorry she had volunteered the information. Maybe the less he knew about them the better. “We don’t know anything about animals. You can clean out the barn if you want. The house needs to be re-shingled. Know anything about that?”
“I can do that,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly.
“That’s good. This cottage doesn’t suffice as payment. I’ll give you some money. We can work it out later. For the time being I’m going back to the house. It’s late.”
He didn’t argue. He seemed to be waiting for her to leave as she turned and stepped out of the cottage, then crossed the field. She could feel his eyes on her back.
She couldn’t sleep that night.
Kate was awakened by the sound of scraping on the roof. Her eyes flew wide as she listened avidly to the unfamiliar sound. She got out of bed and dressed quickly, then entered the kitchen. Nicole was standing in the middle of the room holding a cup of coffee. She wore the same discontented expression Kate had seen last night.
"What is he doing up there?" Nicole hissed to her.
The previous evening's events rushed back to her. Her eyes widened as she remembered the vagrant. She didn't even know his name. "I gave him work to do," Kate said. "He's taking the shingles off the roof. If this doesn't work then I'll tell him to go. That's all there is to it."
Nicole gave her a doubtful look. "This is so unlike you," she said. "We don't know anything about this man."
Kate felt weary at the prospect of more of the previous evening's argument. "I will talk to him this afternoon," Kate said. "I want to know his name, and where he's come from."
"Do you think he will tell you that much? From the look of him he wants nothing to do with us, really."
Kate realized it was true. He probably wanted to tell them nothing about his past, but that made it seem all the more pertinent that she know at least the basic facts about him.
She went outside and crossed her arms, watching him on the roof. His sleeves were rolled up and his hair was mussed from the strong wind that blew over the house. "Do you want breakfast?" Kate shouted to him.
He turned at the sound of her voice, and his eyes narrowed. He crept to the edge of the roof and knelt down to her.
Kate smiled more pleasantly and moved closer. "Good morning," she said. "Nicole has scrambled some eggs, and there are biscuits. I can bring you something if you would like."
Though they were separated by an expanse of several feet Kate still felt his proximity. His face was clearly visible in the sunlight and Kate studied it momentarily, admiring what she saw. His hair swept in a black mass over his high, pale brow, framing green eyes which appeared to be looking her over.
"Thank you," he said, and Kate felt a slight, inexplicable relief at his agreement. It seemed somehow a step closer to speaking with him about his past.