Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
Karen passes the remainder of the early morning hours in her bed yet unable to sleep. The broad square of her window warms with morning light and finds her drawn, yet alert. Her mind has played the night’s scene over and over again – from the first thud at the door to Castle’s large hand taking her own.
“You would leave?”
A bloom of heat spreads through her body, and her bedclothes seem to have the weight of heavy chains. She rises with a sigh of frustration a full hour before Dinah is due to build a fire and leave a breakfast tray. A copy of Stendhal’s The Red and the Black at her bedside cannot hold her attention. Her hands seem too weak to hold a pen for her journal.
Feeling ancient yet lit through with fire, Karen dresses and pulls her hair into a sleek knot. With a deep breath, she pulls open her bedroom door and steps out into the hall, fully expecting the chaos of the night to be still spread across the foyer below.
The floor is spotless, the front door closed and latched firmly. The dark splashes of blood and filth tracked in with the injured Castle have been cleared away. The floor is freshly swept and gleaming. He has done as promised, though the shock of it sets her back a few steps.
She cannot help taking the stairs two at a time to the ground floor. The door is slightly ajar. When she pushes it open a scene of idyll is revealed. The whiskey and bloodied clothing are gone, and the room is neat as a pin.
Karen’s fingertips drift to her collar as she recalls the night before.
“I have the pleasure of owing you my life.”
“There is no debt,” she says again, softly.
As Karen turns to go, a small flash of unexpected brightness catches her eye. There, on the seat of Castle’s favorite chair, is a sheet of paper folded into a precise square. It is addressed merely to “The Seamstress.”
Karen presses her lips together tightly. She snatches the note up and unfolds it. The flowing script is a surprise, given Mr. Castle’s manor. She steps under an east-facing window and reads:
Madam,
Many thanks for your quick and able assistance. I am thankful someone so skilled with needle and thread was so close to home. My regular tailor, himself quite skilled at patching and stitching, will appraise your work in the morning. I expect he will find it faultless.
The extent of mending needed may delay my return to Thorn House. I will ask my tailor to visit with you and confirm all is well in the home. Though you insist no debt is owed, I am
In your service,
FC
“Miss Page!” Mrs. Nelson appears in the door, a dust cloth in hand despite the early hour.
Karen starts, turns to hide the paper in her hands, and offers an ingratiating smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Nelson. Are you well?”
“Well? Well?!” The matron’s frilled cap quivers as she shakes her head, “I awake this morning and proceed to the front hall, as is my custom. There, I spy chips of wood at the baseboard. ‘Why,’ I say to myself, ‘That is the VERY color of our own front door!’
Mrs. Nelson reaches one trembling hand to Karen, the other presses the dust cloth to her bosom. “Miss Page, I opened that same door to find the lock battered! Our home attacked!”
Karen tucks the letter under her shirtwaist and threads her free arm into Mrs. Nelson’s. Karen pats the older woman’s sleeve as she guides her out to the hall towards the kitchen.
“There, there,” she murmurs, “I’m sure it was nothing to worry over. Why, so much of this old house is fitted in the same wood tones. In fact, I believe I myself may have mistakenly chipped something …”
Of course, Karen thinks. Only a long-time housekeeper would wake to check front-hall baseboards. She holds the green baize door for Mrs. Nelson and follows her to her sitting room.
Lack of sleep on Karen’s part does not impede Leo’s energy. The schoolroom is a galvanized after breakfast by the arrival of an envelope, water stained and covered in stamps, addressed to Leo herself. It is a letter from her parents several sheets long, folded around an image of the moon on stiff paper. Looking closely, student and governess discover it is an exact likeness that goes well beyond illustration. Karen’s exhaustion lifts as she helps the decipher Professor Leiberman’s crabbed, slanting script:
“Little one,
Your mama and I think of you every day. We send our love along with this fascinating discovery – a “daguerreotype” of the January moon. A Frenchman skilled both in science and art has discovered a novel method of fixing images on a card. We encountered him on our travels and were reminded of your sharp little mind.”
Leo traces her fingers along the knapped edges of the card, careful not to touch its heavily inked face. She hunches deep over the letter, losing herself between the lines. Karen catches the end of the first page and reads before she can stop herself:
“Are you taking good care of Mr. Castle? Perhaps you might read aloud to him some nights. He must not be allowed to forget happiness…”
The words are like weights and remind Karen of another note tucked among the books. She paces before the bookshelf a moment before taking down the cloth-bound book of poems and pulls the sheet free.
…Are you well, papa? Do you miss your Lisa and Frankie? Mama misses you terrible…
A breath of cold rolls across Karen’s neck. She folds the paper and tucks it into her pocket beside Castle’s letter.
“Leo, perhaps we’ll compose a reply to your mama and papa?”
There is no answer. The little girl is wholly consumed, drinking in the love of her distant parents, deaf to the schoolroom and her governess. Karen straightens a stack of books, arranges glassware along the windowsill, then finds herself staring out to the distant bay.
Who is this tailor? Where could Mr. Castle go for the sort of care his injuries would demand?
Outside, steely clouds dot the parchment-colored sky and shadow the rooflines of neighboring houses. Karen props her jaw in one hand and studies distant snow moving slowly over the city. At her back the fire pops and sparks; Leo whispers the words of her father’s letter; somewhere downstairs a maid is singing.
A handful of deep breaths transport Karen to the long-forgotten window seat of Aunt Marion’s guest room – called the Red Room for its burgundy drapes and dark Arabian rug. Karen is ten. A round spot of red blood goes brown on the knee of her pinafore. Her cousin John shouts at his mother on the floor below.
The trouble began when Karen borrowed a book of North American songbirds from the library shelves and hidden away to trace illustrations and imagine flying as free as those beings might.
John found her instead.
“Little rat – your paws are dirtying my fine book.”
Karen pulled back, hugging the book against her chest. John leaned in close, his lip curling in a foul sneer.
“Give me my things, rat.”
He pulled the book from her hands and whipped her temple with the spine. The knock sent Karen back, drew blood, made her dizzy. Karen launched herself at the bigger boy, tumbling him to the rug and punching savagely. When Aunt Marion had arrived, Karen was hauled back roughly by the neck of her dress and slapped with such venom she lost sight and sound.
“You creature. You dare attack my son – your master?” Aunt Marion’s voice was cold as January and hollow besides.
Held by both arms, Karen writhed and spat with rage. “He’s not my master. I’m no servant.”
Marion recoiled with disgust. John crept behind his mother’s skirts and peered out at Karen, who noted with some pride his swollen lip and reddened cheek. Aunt Marion’s hand curled as if to lash out again.
“No,” her aunt replied in a frostbitten tone, “You are lower than a servant. You do nothing for your keep.”
Here in the present, Karen knows the next steps like an old dance. She would spend the rest of that day and the whole night besides locked in the Red Room. The book would vanish. The following afternoon Headmaster Fisk would be summoned, and within the week she would be on a coach to Lowood school. Three months after that she would receive word from a family servant of Kevin's death.
“Miss, are you well?”
Karen shifts and her head tumbles from her hand. The shades of Aunt Marion and John dissipate. When she fully returns to the room, Karen finds Leo watching her from the table.
“Of course, dear one. I was only looking at the sky. The weather will hold a few more hours – will we walk to the park before the snow arrives?”
Leo grins in agreement. She tidies away her father’s letter, carefully preserving it in the front leaves of an oversized book of fairy tales.
__
Shortly, with both dressed for the afternoon chill, Karen unlatches the front door. She is startled to find Mr. Hoyle on the step; his hand is raised to knock.
“Good afternoon, Miss Page.”
“It is a pleasure, Mr. Hoyle.”
He smiles as Leo delivers a fierce hug around his middle.
“Leo Lioness – are you behaving for your governess?”
The girl nods with her cheek pressed against Curtis’ stomach. He meets Karen’s eyes with warmth, then gives a look that speaks plainly: there is something they must discuss.
“Leo, will you fetch my gloves from the school room? I’m quite forgetful today.”
The little girl nods and departs on her mission. There is time now for whatever Mr. Hoyle has for her.
“We share an acquaintance with more luck than sense. And an excellent seamstress.”
Her heart flutters once, twice. Karen draws in a sharp breath of understanding.
“I believe we do, sir.”
There is a mild of relief on Curtis’ face as he leans down to Karen. His voice is low, “All is well – mostly. You saved his life, Miss Page.”
“Oh, I highly doubt –“
“No,” Curtis cuts her off, the edge of his whisper harsh. “Frank got himself into something that could have killed him. He told me –“
At that moment, Leo returns to the front step. “Curtis,” she announces with the grace of a society matron, “Miss Page and I are walking to the park. Come with us?"
Curtis replies a look of fondness Karen recognized in Mr. Castle all those weeks ago. Wherever Leo’s family are now, they must surely know she is cared for both inside Thorn House and beyond.
“We would be delighted if you joined us,” Karen adds.
"How could I refuse?"
The three proceed along an avenue bright with winter light. Leo moves ahead, eager to reach the park and the waterfront. With light steps, she flits forward - first, ringing around a winter-bare tree, then darting up the steps of neighboring houses before dancing down again. In a few moments, she is well ahead of the adults and deep in a world of her own.
For Karen, each step calls to mind a new question she does not dare ask. What is the extent of her employer’s injuries? What activities incur such wounds? Has this happened before? What happens if it happens again and no one is there to help him?
The words die on her tongue. Instead, she finds herself making frustrating (if polite) conversation.
“Have you been acquainted with Mr. Castle long, Mr. Hoyle?”
Curtis looks up to the sky, seeming to count years in the clouds.
“Quite a long time, Miss Page. I mentioned I served with Frank, didn’t I?”
She recalls the previous day that began with Mr. Russo at the door and ended with Mr. Castle torn to ribbons under her hands. “Indeed. Rock River, you said?”
They turn onto the broad main street that carries directly to the end of Manhattan island. At the far end, beyond carriages and carts crossing in haphazard transit, Karen can see the shift and glitter of January ice in the bay. The pair continues in silence. Curtis is lost in thought.
“On the upper Mississippi – Frank, myself and a few other good men. We rode with infantries facing western tribes.”
Ten years before, newspapers reported soldiers taking on thousands of armed warriors in Wisconsin. Over a long summer that ran red with blood, the US military put down an unprecedented uprising. The battles secured lands for the union and made headlines from Florida to Maine. While national events were not part of the Lowood curriculum, Karen could remember the people of Fagan Corners and their brutal estimations of the tribes.
Leo is well ahead, making a game of skipping across light and shadowed patches of the path. She pauses to kick at a mound of gravel-thick snow before dashing on.
“I remember the reports,” Karen ventures, “It must have been quite dangerous.”
Curtis shrugs, neither denying her statement nor making much of it. He is a big man but radiates a calmness that Karen imagines even combat could not shake.
“It was war. Frank and Bill led platoons, I was a medic – ended up helping out on both sides when it came to it. Never had a problem if it was for Frank.”
Karen slows in her steps and to face Mr. Hoyle directly. He moves in step with her, staying close so their voices do not carry.
“Both sides?”
Mr. Hoyle tucks his chin to his chest. The two keep pace with long, slow strides as he thinks.
“Frank and I share similar views on the battlefield and off. No one was born who deserved to suffer. We helped when we could. Soldier, warrior, farmer, passerby; doesn’t matter–” He halts in the middle of the path and shakes his head with a soft chuckle.
“We’re no angels, Miss Page. We’re no monsters, either.” Curtis shakes his head, “I don’t mean to be morose. The day is too fine for that.”
He gestures back along the avenue. “I run a surgery in the Five Points – don’t often get time to stroll the avenues.”
A wry grin tugs at the corner of Karen’s mouth, “I expect there’s plenty of work to keep a tailor busy.”
“Lot of families. Women. Children. They deserve care; no matter what the papers say about the neighborhood.”
Karen likes Curtis’ steady, decided manner. She imagines he would have saved lives and souls alike on the battlefield. Standing with him in the wind-whipped, bright afternoon light, Karen feels as though last night’s events happened in some other life. The blood, the whiskey, the touch of Mr. Castle’s hand on her own.
“Please. Is he truly well?”
Curtis raises one large hand in a gentling movement, “I can assure you, Frank doesn’t stay down long.”
“There was so much blood. I thought that he would die –” Karen’s words tumble out in a rush before she can give them much thought. She presses her lips together and feels a blush heat her cheeks. “Apologies, Mr. Hoyle.”
“None needed, Miss Page. We share the same sentiment. You found him in time – kept him safe.”
A chill passes through her as Mr. Castle’s words the night rise like mist, “Nothing will threaten the safety of this house.”
Curtis studies Karen’s pained expression. He seems to search for - and find - something in her furrowed brow. “Are you very devout, Miss Page?”
“Sir?”
He grins, “There's a congregation on Baxter and 10th that meets most Sundays beside my surgery. Governesses and seamstresses are encouraged to piousness, I believe.”
Karen returns his grin, “Particularly on Sundays, Mr. Hoyle.”
Sunlight dapples the shoulders and lapels of Mr. Hoyle’s coat and warms the hazel of his eyes. “Ah, well. You must bring your bible to the Five Points, then. You might even stop in and say hello on your way.”
“That would be a fine idea, Mr. Hoyle.”
He inclines his head in the smallest of bows, then calls down the street to where Leo is attempting to scale one of the ornamental trees along the curb.
“Miss Leo, mind your governess. And get DOWN THIS INSTANT!”
He turns with a wave and walks back the way they came. Karen watches him depart, idly slipping a hand into her pocket. Her fingers encounter the much-folded edge of Lisa’s letter.
“Mr. Hoyle!”
He is only a block away, but it could be miles in this cold. Karen’s lungs burn as she runs. She is breathless but animated as she passes the letter to him.
"Please, could you see he receives this? It isn't sealed."
Curtis is puzzled but accepts the page and opens it. As he reads, his face passes from surprise to open grief. When he reaches the end, Curtis doubles the note again and tucks it into his breast pocket. His head hangs a moment, hand resting where the letter now resides. As he lifts his gaze, Karen can see tears along the dark line of his lashes.
“Thank you. For this - for Frank.”
“Until Sunday,” she replies.