“The roads are bad. What would you do if your car was stuck in the muck?” Florence asked.
“I imagine I’d walk back,” Noemí replied, setting down her spoon. “Really, it’s not a problem.”
“I imagine it isn’t foryou. The mountain has its dangers.”
The words did not seem outright hostile, but Florence’s disapproval was thick as treacle, coating each and every syllable. Noemí felt suddenly like a girl who’d had her knuckles rapped, and this made her raise her chin and stare back at the woman in the same way she had stared at the nuns at her school, armored with poised insurrection. Florence even resembled the mother superior a little: it was her expression of utter despondency. Noemí almost expected her to demand she take out her rosary.
“I thought I explained myself when you arrived. You must consult with me on matters concerning this house, its people, and the things in it. I was specific. I told you Charles was to drive you into town and, if not him, then perhaps Francis,” Florence said.
“I didn’t think—”
“And you have smoked in your room. Don’t bother denying it. I said it was forbidden.”
Florence stared at Noemí, and Noemí imagined the woman sniffing at the linens, examining a cup for traces of ashes. Like a bloodhound, out for prey. Noemí intended to protest, to say that she had smoked but twice in her room and both times she had intended to open the window, but it was not her fault it wouldn’t open. It was closed so tight you’d think they’d nailed it shut.
“It’s a filthy habit. As are certain girls,” Florence added.
Now it was Noemí’s turn to stare at Florence. How dare she. Before she could say anything, Virgil spoke.
“My wife tells me your father can be a rather strict man,” he said, all cool detachment. “He’s set in his ways.”
“Yes,” Noemí replied, glancing at Virgil. “At times he is.”
“Florence has managed High Place for decades,” Virgil said. “As we do not have many visitors, you can imagine she’s quite set in her ways too. And it’s quite unacceptable, don’t you think, for a visitor to ignore the rules of a house?”
She felt ambushed; she thought they had planned to scold her together. She wondered if they did this with Catalina. She would go into the dining room and offer a suggestion—about the food, the décor, the routine—and they would politely, delicately silence her. Poor Catalina, who was gentle and obedient, as gently squashed down.
She had lost her appetite, which had been scant to begin with, and sipped her glass of sickly-sweet wine rather than attempt to converse. Eventually Charles walked in to inform them that Howard would like to see them after dinner, and they made their way up the stairs, like a traveling court off to greet the king.
Howard’s bedroom was very large and decorated with more of the weighty, dark furniture that abounded around the rest of the house, and thick velvet curtains that could conceal the thinnest ray of light.
The most striking feature of the room was the fireplace, with a carved wooden mantelpiece adorned with what at first glance seemed to be circles, but revealed themselves to be more of those snakes eating their tails that she’d spotted before at the cemetery and in the library. A sofa had been set in front of the fireplace, and upon it sat the patriarch, swaddled in a green robe.
Howard looked even older that evening. He reminded her of one of the mummies she’d seen in the catacombs in Guanajuato, arranged in two rows for tourists to peek at. Upright they stood, preserved by a quirk of nature, and dragged from their graves when the burial tax was not paid so that they might be exhibited. He had that same withered, sunken aspect, as though he had already been embalmed, the elements reducing him to bone and marrow.
The others walked ahead of her, each of them clasping the old man’s hand in greeting, then stepping aside.
“There you are. Come, sit with me,” the old man said, motioning to her.
Noemí sat next to Howard, giving him a vague, polite smile. Florence, Virgil, and Francis did not join them, instead choosing another couch and chairs on the other end of the room to sit down. She wondered if he always received people in this manner, picking one lucky person who would be allowed at his side, who would be granted an audience, while the rest of the family was brushed aside for the time being. A long time ago this room might have been filled with relatives, friends, all of them waiting and hoping Howard Doyle would curl a finger in their direction and ask them to sit with him for a little while. She had seen photographs and paintings of a large number of people around the house, after all. The paintings were ancient; maybe they were not all of relatives who had lived at High Place, but the mausoleum hinted at a vast family or, perhaps, the assurance of descendants who would find their way there.
Two large oil paintings hanging above the fireplace caught Noemí’s eye. They each depicted a young woman. Both were fair-haired, both very similar in looks, so much so that at first glance one might take them for the same woman. However, there were differences: straight strawberry blond hair versus honeyed locks, a tad more plumpness in the face in the woman on the left. One wore an amber ring on her finger, which matched the one on Howard’s hand.
“Are these your relatives?” she asked, intrigued by the likeness, what she supposed was the Doyle look.
“These are my wives,” Howard said. “Agnes passed away shortly after our arrival to this region. She was pregnant when disease took her away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. But she has not been forgotten. Her spirit lives on in High Place. And there, the one on the right, that is my second wife. Alice. She was fruitful. A woman’s function is to preserve the family line. The children, well, Virgil is the only one left, but she did her duty and she did it well.”
Noemí looked up at the pale face of Alice Doyle, the blond hair cascading down her back, her right hand holding a rose between two fingers, her face serious. Agnes, to her left, was also robbed of mirth, clasping a bouquet between her hands, the amber ring catching a stray ray of light. They stared forward in their silk and lace with what? Resolution? Confidence?
“They were beautiful, were they not?” the old man asked. He sounded proud, like a man who has received a nice ribbon at the county fair for his prize hog or mare.
“Yes. Although…”
“Although what, my dear?”
