Hannah Page 12

  She would no more have questioned her ability to play than she would her capacity to breathe. It did not seem in the least extraordinary; it seemed natural. Once more she had the feeling that as the mystery deepened, she was moving toward a more profound truth. Hannah played late into the night, until she heard the laughter of the servants returning from the village. There would be other times when she played the harp. And although she did not know it at the time, she would later think of this night as the first in her transformation.

  17 “DON’T OR CAN’T”

  TWO DAYS LATER the Hawleys arrived. Even though Hannah and the other servants could not come and go through the front door of Gladrock, were required to use the back stairs, and had much more work, it did not matter to Hannah. She would not be able to play the harp, but still she had her little bed tucked under the eaves with its round window that gave her a view of the sea.

  During the first two weeks after the Hawleys arrived, it seemed as if there were nonstop parties. The entertainment was quite different from that in Boston. There were picnics almost every day and tennis and croquet parties. The household seemed happy and relaxed and completely free of the tension that had gripped it throughout most of the spring. There was absolutely no mention made of Lila.

  Ettie drove Miss Ardmore ragged, for there was no keeping up with the child. She was, as her father said, “in her element in Maine.” One minute she was in the vegetable garden helping one of the ten gardeners weed. The next she was clambering into her bathing costume and asking someone to watch her while she swam. A frequently heard phrase around Gladrock was, “Is there a grown-up around to guard my life?”

  One day while Hannah was helping to serve breakfast, Ettie came running into the breakfast room barefoot in her bathing costume. “The tide is perfect for finding sand dollars. Perl is putting lobster crates on the mooring to keep them fresh for tonight’s party. Does he count as a responsible adult for guarding my life?”

  “Well, he’s certainly an adult,” Horace Hawley said, laughing. “Pushing seventy, I’d say. Is that right, Daze?” Daze was pouring coffee.

  “No, sir, more like sixty. But that’s the way it is downeast.” Downeast was the natives’ word for Maine.

  “And he’s responsible,” Mrs. Hawley said. “But if he’s busy with the lobsters, how can he watch you, too? And we must have all those lobsters because Mr. Wheeler arrives today and we promised.” Hannah caught her breath. He was coming today!

  “I could watch her, ma’am,” Hannah offered.

  “Can you swim?” Mr. Hawley asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Hannah answered immediately. It wasn’t a lie. She knew it was true. She knew that although she had never gone swimming before, it would be like the harp strings she had never touched until two weeks ago. She would simply do it. Somewhere within her there was this knowledge, this…this…this gift, she thought.

  So Hannah accompanied Ettie down to the cove beach. Daze’s father, Perl, was perhaps thirty feet off the beach in a dory, wrestling with the “lobster car,” a slatted wooden box in which the lobsters were kept tethered to a mooring until they would be fetched to boil for that evening’s “lobster feed.”

  “Hi, Perl!” Ettie yelled. “I have two responsible adults here. I’m going swimming.”

  “All right, de-ah. You do that. I’ll fish you out with this grappling hook if you start to sink.” He held up a line with a large hook on it.

  “Yeah, and put me in the pot with the lobsters.” Ettie laughed. She bent over and picked up a rock. “Have you ever seen me skip stones, Hannah?”

  “No, I can’t say as I have.”

  “I’m very good. You have to find the right stone. They have to be flat and not too big. Here’s one.” She bent over and picked it up. Holding it, she turned her palm up and with a quick motion swept her hand toward the water. The pebble released and skipped twice.

  “Very good!” Hannah exclaimed.

  “I can make it skip three times.”

  “Why don’t you get in the water,” Hannah urged. “The tide’s going out. It won’t be deep enough to swim.”

  “Just one more thing I’ve got to show you,” replied Ettie.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m also very good at throwing rocks and hitting a target. Watch this. See that sea lavender? I call it sea violets, though.”

  “Yes,” Hannah replied.

  There was a spray of pale purple flowers on silvery stems growing out of the pebbly beach of the cove, thirty feet from where they stood. “Now watch this. I can hit those violets.” Ettie picked up a good-size rock and swung her arm around like a pitcher winding up. The rock sailed into the air and landed smack in the plant. The tiny blossoms trembled.

  “Hope you didn’t hurt the plant. They are so pretty.”

  “Oh, no, they’re very tough. They can stand the salt, the water coming in and out. That one probably gets covered at high tide. Here, let me pick you some.” Ettie scampered over, bent down, and snapped off a few stems, then brought them back to Hannah. She curtseyed and held out her hand with the flowers. “For you!” Ettie looked up shyly.

  “Thank you.” Hannah curtseyed back. “Now, are you ever going to get into that water?”

  “Yes, right now,” Ettie replied and walked toward the lapping waves.

  Hannah felt the excitement growing in her. She had never before seen anyone really swimming. She had seen pictures in books, drawings, engravings, paintings of children swimming in ponds or splashing in the surf, but never in real life had she seen a human being immersed in the water. The stirrings that she felt in her feet intensified and crept up her legs. She had once thought of the sensation as a liquid murmur, but now there was a pulse, flickering in her bones. The cool radiance from the pouch seemed to spread throughout her body.

  “Whooo-eee! It’s cold this morning!” Ettie shrieked as she waded into the water. “Oh, I forgot my swimming booties. Oh, well. Now you count to three, Hannah, and then I’ll plunge in.”

  “All right.” Hannah laughed. “One-two-three.”

  Ettie looked around and smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Uh, count to, say, eight.”

  “Okay, here we go.” Hannah began to count. She reached five and saw Ettie looking at her nervously. “Six, seven…seven and a half…eight.” Will she plunge in? It must be awfully cold, Hannah thought.

  “Eeeoow!” Ettie flung up her arms and rushed into the water. There was a ferocious splashing and water spangled the sunlit air.

  Hannah watched mesmerized as Ettie ducked under, then came up again. “It’s really nice once you get used to it,” she yelled.

  Every fiber in Hannah’s body longed to be where Ettie was and yet she knew intuitively that this was not the time. Perhaps like the first time with the harp when a single strain of a vibration sought her, she would be called, summoned, gathered to the water. She was not yet ready. But she would be. Her season was coming; of this she was certain.

  Ettie didn’t exactly swim, although Hannah had no doubt that she could. The little girl seemed quite buoyant, but she more or less jumped about, ducking and splashing, rolling herself in a little ball, trying to do an underwater somersault, and then every few seconds calling out, “Watch this, Hannah!” or “Look at this. I invented this trick myself.” The cumbersome bathing costume did not seem to impede her at all.

  She was in the water for almost half an hour, and when she emerged, her lips were blue and her teeth chattering. Hannah wrapped her in a big fleecy towel. “Now come on, Ettie. We have to run up to the house. Your mother and Miss Ardmore made me promise I’d get you up there as soon as you came out. And you have to go to Helen Beaton’s birthday party.”

  “She’s so stupid.”

  “What an unkind thing to say, Ettie. I’ve never heard you say anything unkind like that before.”

  “Well, she’s not stupid, but her birthday party always is.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh, we have to wear p
arty dresses and play dumb games.”

  “What’s dumb about the games?”

  “They’re girl games so you won’t mess up your party dresses. So boring. My birthday is in winter, but if I had a summer birthday, I’d have a swimming party.” Ettie’s voice came out all shivery for she was still shaking with cold. “As a matter of fact, I think I might change my birthday. Oh, yes! What a fantastic idea. My real birthday is December twentieth. Stupid time for a birthday. Too close to Christmas. I think I’ll change it. Let’s see…maybe August fifteenth, that’s not far off at all. The water will be even warmer. And not only that, it’s during the nights of the shooting stars.”

  “The shooting stars?” Hannah asked.

  “Oh, yes!” Ettie clapped her hands together. “It’s the most beautiful time. The stars start to fall from the sky. That’s it! I’m going to have a nighttime swimming and shooting stars party. We’ll float on our backs and watch the sky. And we’ll have games. Whoever sees the most falling stars wins. Oh, I’m so excited, I don’t know how I never thought of this before. Quick! I’ve got to go talk to Daddy!” She scampered up through the meadow and onto the lawn.

  “Ettie, wait up!” Hannah called, running after her. She could just imagine Ettie racing into her father’s study dripping wet.

  An immense oak spread its shade along the entire front of the porch. Clarice was reading under it as she often did. She looked up from her book now as Ettie rushed close by her, dropping her damp towel.

  “Don’t drop your old wet, salty towel on my books,” Clarice said crossly. “Honestly.” Clarice sighed, then muttered, “One sister’s a loon and another half seal. Veritable menagerie here.”

  “Sorry,” Ettie said with barely a glance and rushed up the porch stairs, followed by Hannah, who picked up the towel. When Hannah rose up she saw that another figure had just stepped onto the porch from the main house. The painter! He stood back in the shadows and watched as Hannah approached.

  Hannah came onto the porch and put the towel around Ettie’s shoulders, then shrank back so that she was out of the painter’s line of vision. It was too disconcerting to see him in front of all these people. She had not seen him since he kissed her in the music room. Thankfully Ettie soon became the center of attention.

  “Mummy! I want to change my birthday to August fifteenth, and we’ll have a swimming party. I want to check the tide tables to make sure that there’ll be enough water for night swimming, because we’ll want to see the stars, too.”

  “Ettie! For heaven’s sakes, you’re dripping all over and can’t you even say hello to Mr. Wheeler?”

  “Hello!” Ettie looked up, still shivering.

  “My goodness, you look charming all wet and fresh from the sea. A sea creature. Maybe I should paint you swimming?”

  “Oh, Stannish, don’t be ridiculous!” Mrs. Hawley laughed.

  “It’s a wonderful idea!” Ettie exclaimed. “You could paint me doing my water tricks. I’ve nearly perfected the underwater somersault.”

  “But how would I paint you if you are underwater the whole time?” the painter asked.

  “Not the whole time,” Ettie replied. “And maybe you could come in the water and see me when I was under, then run to the beach and sketch a little, then back into the water.” Hannah now turned her head and observed the painter boldly. She felt her heart race. Don’t lie! a voice in her head suddenly commanded. Don’t!

  “But, Ettie, I don’t swim,” the painter replied.

  “Don’t swim?” Ettie said, astounded. Her teeth had finally stopped chattering. She cocked her head and said, “Don’t or can’t swim, Mr. Wheeler?”

  “Ettie!” Mrs. Hawley gasped. “Don’t be pert now.”

  “Can’t, Ettie,” the painter replied simply. And although the remark was directed at Ettie, Mr. Wheeler dipped his chin and this time turned his eyes toward Hannah as he spoke. Hannah was shocked. There was alarming wretchedness etched in every line in his face. She had never seen such profound sorrow. She averted her eyes, wondering if anyone else noticed it. But they all seemed completely oblivious.

  “Now, Hannah, please take Ettie upstairs,” Mrs. Hawley said. “And will you come back down, Hannah? I have something I want to ask you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hannah replied.

  18 GIRL IN THE SHADOWS

  “BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND, ma’am,” Hannah protested. “I mean the portrait was being painted in Boston in the drawing room and everything is so different here.” Mrs. Hawley looked at Stannish Wheeler, who took a few steps closer to Hannah. Please don’t come any closer, Hannah prayed silently. Whatever are you trying to do?

  “Yes, Hannah, I understand your concern.” He made it somehow sound personal, but she cared not a whit one way or the other. She just didn’t understand how it could be done. “You see,” he continued, “the general background of the painting has been completed. And so has, for that matter, the foreground with Clarice and Ettie. Lila is in the background where there are more shadows and her figure is not…” He hesitated. “So distinct.”

  “But still, I look nothing like Lila.” The whole notion of this was angering her deeply.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Hawley said. “You see, Lila was sulking so much that I said I thought it might be good if we had her more in the shadowy part of the painting. I mean a girl with a sulky face is not especially attractive, even if she is a beauty like Lila.”

  “So you see, Hannah,” the painter continued as his eyes traveled over Hannah from head to toe. “You are about the same height and size. And Lila was posed leaning against the vase.”

  “But my hair is a completely different color,” Hannah protested weakly.

  “No one has hair quite like yours, Hannah. It is a fascinating color, and it changes in the light.” A slightly enigmatic smile played quickly across the painter’s face. “But don’t worry. The figure is in profile. I plan to have very dense shadows in the region of her head and face. The hair of the figure will not really be visible. But I can suggest hair. A painter must be able to inspire a viewer’s imagination, evoke what might be there even if it is not.” He paused and turned to Mrs. Hawley. Then he continued, “I really just need you to stand in, Hannah, so I can get the form.”

  “And I’m sure that Lila’s dress will fit,” Mrs. Hawley added.

  The figure, Hannah thought. Lila had become “the figure.” Mr. Wheeler was now “the painter” and Mrs. Hawley was “the client.” But what am I? The form? Oh, yes, the form! The girl in the shadows, I suppose.

  They were speaking of her as if she didn’t exist, wasn’t even present. How could they do this? It wasn’t right. Hannah had been standing to the side during this conversation. She now placed herself squarely in front of the painter. Her eyes were bold. Look at me! she silently commanded. “I am not sure whether the dress will fit, sir.” She then turned around and faced Mrs. Hawley. “And, ma’am, I think if Lila ever detected even a trace of me in the painting…it could…” She hesitated. “Well, it could cause much agitation.”

  “Oh, but, my dear, there won’t be a trace of you really. Mr. Wheeler assures me of that.”

  Hannah turned toward the painter. “He does?” She raised one of her eyebrows. He would not look at her now.

  “Oh, yes, he does. You know he is so skillful. It will be our little secret. You can keep a secret, can’t you?” She did not wait for a reply but cocked her head almost flirtatiously at the painter. “And I am sure Mr. Wheeler can as well.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Wheeler is very good at keeping secrets,” Hannah said softly, looking directly at the painter.

  “It won’t take long. Just a couple of sessions, really,” the painter mumbled, still not looking at her.

  But she found nothing assuring about the situation at all. The very thought of putting on Lila’s dress was completely horrid. However, what could she do? She went into the house feeling a mixture of anger and confusion. Anger that she could be ordered to do something like this
and confusion that the painter could so easily substitute her for such a loathsome person. When she was mounting the stairs to polish the wall sconces on the second floor, she caught a glimpse of the painter making his way down the driveway. She flung down her polishing cloths and raced out of the house and, taking a back way, circled through the woods so she could cut him off at the bend in the driveway. No one would see them there.

  From behind the giant spruce tree where she waited, she heard his approaching footfalls on the gravel. She stepped out but not far from the tree.

  “Truth! You paint the truth, sir? Is this what you call the truth, substituting me for Lila Hawley? Or perhaps you’re flattering me? Is that it?”

  “Hannah, no. Stop it. You know that’s not how it is.”

  “Well, how is it? Am I supposed to feel pleased that a lowly servant, a scullery girl, is let in on a secret? I don’t care about this family’s secrets. Oh, yes, and I get to wear a gown instead of this uniform. It’s my downstairs uniform, by the way. I’m amazed that Mrs. Hawley let me come and speak with a guest while wearing it. You know the rules, Mr. Wheeler. Not supposed to be seen in my mobcap and dusting apron. Oh, but I forgot. I’m really just a form. Lila and I are just interchangeable, so no matter—right?”

  “Don’t be cruel, Hannah.” He walked to where she stood at the very edge of the forest on a patch of moss.

  “‘Cruel’? You’re calling me cruel! Oh, Mr. Wheeler, that is pathetic. You are pathetic.”

  He dropped his eyes. “Yes, I know,” he said quietly. There was something in the muted way he spoke that both touched and shocked Hannah. “I…I make no excuses.” He suddenly stepped toward her. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her to his chest. It was so sudden, so disorienting, that for several seconds Hannah was not precisely sure where she was—logically her mind told her she was at the edge of the drive, but she had never felt closer to the sea. She was heady with the scent of a tangy salt wind that seem to blow through her. He was kissing her lips, crushing his face against hers. She was lost. She was adrift. She was happy.