Chapter 44
Harper felt a flush creep over her face as she entered the formal dining room and saw Anna sitting at the grand table, chatting with Max.
“Lady Bell said there was a special guest,” Harper said, forcing a smile on her face to cover her surprise.
Anna looked up, her expression bemused. “I was as surprised as you look to get the invite. Lady Bell is up to something.”
Harper walked over to the place setting and sat. “How are you, Max?”
He nodded and looked at her and Anna amusedly. “I’m great. This gig is so much better than anyone told me it would be.” He straightened up and said in a mock-formal tone, “I will return with your appetizers.” And disappeared out the room.
Harper looked at Anna. The absurdity of the situation setting in, she burst out with a manic cough-laugh while Anna watched her with a mocking sort of amusement in her eyes. Harper felt another flush coming and again was glad for the atmospherically dim lighting.
“Well, now you have to tell me your life story,” Harper said. “You promised before, but you had to drive home, but now … I assume you are in one of the cottages across the way?”
Anna nodded. Outside the rain was still coming down, but the wind had died a bit.
“The first on your left as you look out the window, so you are right, no excuses about having to get home.” She looked around.
“I have to say, this is nice. I have only been in here for the holiday parties, never for a full dinner.”
“You have holiday parties?” Harper asked, then checking her surprise, “I mean, I don’t know why that would be strange, it’s just that …”
“Everything you’ve ever heard about Bell Manor is scary, mysterious, gothic, and terrifying? And the idea of a holiday party with a buffet set up on this big table and a bartender overserving the house staff in the formal study is a bit hard to imagine?” Anna grinned.
Harper nodded. “Yes, actually, yes.” She swallowed a laugh, feeling the tension melt off.
“Well, the parties are great, and Lady Bell funds a village party as well. They have it in the meetinghouse, which I bet you haven’t seen, but she pays for the food, drink, music, all of it.” Anna paused. “She’s not what you expected, is she?”
“None of this is,” Harper replied. “What do you make of the cats?” She looked around the dining room, where several of the chairs were occupied by piles of purring fluff.
“No idea,” Anna said. “I obviously haven’t been back to the village since I brought you up here, but I’d bet it’s pretty empty of felines right now.
” She looked to the seat next to her, which housed a solid white cat with a tawny nose.
“I bet it’s the storm. The island cats have always been their own thing.
They don’t really belong to anyone, not really.
They have their favorite humans and everyone takes care of them. They are their own society.”
“Why did Lady Bell set this up?” Harper asked.
Anna gave her a shrug that said she knew as much as Harper did as Max entered with two plates.
“Ladies, I present seasoned polenta chips topped with poblano and guajillo chilis, accompanied by a cabbage slaw.” He placed the plates in front of both Harper and Anna.
Harper’s stomach growled loudly, reminding her that it had been a long time since breakfast. Max laughed as he poured wine for both of them. “I heard that.”
Harper smiled. “I imagine you did. This is well timed.”
Max smiled and disappeared back to the kitchen. Harper took a bite and felt light-headed for a moment.
“Why is everything here so good?” she asked, not expecting any answer.
Anna laughed. “I know what you mean.” She swallowed.
“But fun fact about the cats, they came here with the original Lady Bell in 1680. She lived in Boston with her husband, the Duke of Kinross, while Bell Manor was being built for several years. No one really knows if she brought the cats from Scotland or from Boston, where they lived while the manor was being built.” She forked another bite, looked up at Harper.
“It’s like the Hemingway cats in the Florida Keys. ”
Harper shook her head. “Hemingway cats?”
“Hemingway cats. Ernest Hemingway was given a white six-toed cat by a sailor. The rest is history, and now there is an active society of six-toed Hemingway cats in the Florida Keys,” Anna said as she took another bite.
“You are a fount of information.” Harper scooped up the last bit of slaw onto her fork.
“Snow White,” Anna said with a satisfied smirk.
“Snow White,” Harper repeated, enjoying this game.
“It was the name of the original cat. Somewhere here on Bell there was a Snow White, or maybe a few, but all these cats came from a relatively small gene pool.” Anna reached over and stroked the ears of the white cat next to her.
Harper took her final bite, her stomach noises quelled. “You’re stalling. You were about to tell me how you came to be a groundskeeper slash gardener slash carpenter for a notoriously mysterious manor house on a sea cliff in the far edges of the Atlantic.” She sipped her wine and smiled at Anna.
“You have a good memory,” Anna said, also finishing her plate. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to hear about the Ghost Apple tree in the arbor?”
“I would, actually, but first you.” Harper straightened her spine and gestured to Anna.
“Okay, fine, but it’s not as fascinating a story as you are thinking.” Anna mimicked her posture.
“Try me,” Harper replied. “I’m a scientist, I’m used to finding fascinating things where others just see data.”
Anna gave her an amused expression that caught Harper’s breath for a second.
“I grew up here. My mom worked at the clinic, never knew my dad, he was a fisherman and died when I was a baby. I went to school with Einar, actually. Did he tell you what a hellscape that was?” She rolled her eyes dramatically.
Harper grinned and nodded. “He did, basically like online school?”
“That’s putting it nicely,” Anna said. “There are requirements for actual instructional hours or whatever, so we’d do classes online and then occasionally altogether, but by high school there was only twelve of us.
You’d think we’d all be super close, right?
But my friend crew consisted of Einar and a girl named Frankie Sacks.
The school would default to the little kids, which there were way more of, so we’d make wind chimes out of popsicle sticks.
It was not awesome.” She paused. “One year they gave us older kids owl pellets, you know the ones?”
Harper nodded, all the day’s tension gone. “I know the ones, pull out the bones, recreate the mouse.”
“That’s it, except they weren’t paying any attention to us, so Einar, Frankie, and I, we took all our bones and made one big three-headed Godzilla mouse monster. The teacher was not amused, and that was the end of the owl pellets. They claimed we ‘scared’ the little kids.” She sat back and smiled.
Max entered the room with his silver cart and two covered plates. “May I present pappardelle with a vegan Bolognese, fresh French bread, and roasted broccolini.”
“Yes, you may,” Anna said with mock formality. “Max, do you get any of this back in the kitchen?”
“Why yes, I do,” Max replied with equal mock formality. “My colleagues and myself dine quite well.”
“Good to know, good to know,” Anna said with a laugh.
“You don’t eat here at the house?” Harper asked Anna as Max put a plate of pasta and bread in front of her.
“Only on special occasions. I mean, I probably could, but the cottages typically keep to themselves.” Anna looked down at her plate. “This is making me rethink that, though. …”
“Bon appetit,” Max said, and left the room.
“My God, this is unreal,” Harper said through a full mouth.
Anna swallowed and sipped her wine. “Okay, so high school sucked. Did Einar tell you they tried to hold a prom?”
Harper nodded as she scooped up pasta. “How did that work?”
“It didn’t. Frankie had a mainland boyfriend by that time, some dude she’d met online. You think the locals treated you like poop when you first arrived? They were about to run that guy off the island with torches and pitchforks,” Anna said as she took a bite.
“So you and Einar …” Harper prodded teasingly.
“Yeah, no. I mean, love Einar, but no. Even then, I knew my type.” Anna matched Harper’s teasing tone. “How about you? When did you know?”
Harper took a deep breath, considering the question. “I suppose I always knew, I just didn’t have the words until I was in college. There’s a lot I don’t remember about growing up, but you know what you know about yourself, know what I mean?”
Anna nodded. “I know.”
“Okay, no distractions, you’re telling me your life story. You graduate. You went to college?” Harper asked.
“Life story, yes, college. Ann Arbor. It was as far as I could get from Bell and still study what I wanted to study.” Anna twirled her pasta on her fork.
“Botany,” Harper said as she tore off a piece of steaming-hot bread and sopped up the sauce.
“Yep. I graduate again and then I get the call that my mom is ill, so I came home. Mom died about five months later, lymphoma. By that time she was in a hospital in Boston. I was subletting a room near the hospital to stay close. But when she passed, I came back here to clear up her business, house, expenses, all that jazz. But what I didn’t expect was that I didn’t want to leave.
” Anna paused, staring out the windows at the rain.
“At first I thought it was grief, familiar things, places. But after a while, I realized I felt like I had a reason for being here, a purpose.” She looked back at Harper, her sky-blue eyes clouded.
“I hadn’t felt that in a while. So, I took a job as a gardener at Bell Manor and never left.
I thought about it plenty, but then Lady Bell offered me groundskeeper when the last guy retired, and it just felt right.
” She paused, looking at Harper curiously.
“Told you it wasn’t a very interesting story. ”
Harper regarded her. Anna’s expression was unsure, like she had shared too much too fast. Harper recognized the look, she had been feeling it every time she spoke about herself since she arrived on Bell.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about your mom, and your dad.
I know what it’s like to lose your family young. ”
“Yeah, it sucks,” Anna said softly. “You lost your mother too?”
“Both my parents, I was thirteen,” Harper said. “And yeah, it sucks.” She straightened and looked down at her empty plate. “But the really interesting part, you said you have a purpose here. A lot of people would have settled their mom’s affairs and gone back to the world. You didn’t.”
Anna gave her an inexplicable smile. “I didn’t. Bell has a way of calling back its own.”
“That’s about the one thousandth time I’ve heard that since I’ve been here,” Harper said with a curious grimace.
“Because it’s true,” Anna replied. “You’ve certainly heard about our Michelin Star chef back in the kitchen? And Einar, hell, that guy was gone; he just reappeared back on Bell, too, one day. In fact, it’s pretty rare that people leave for good, even if it takes a minute for them to return.”
“I’ve heard that too,” Harper said quietly. Max entered and cleared their places, and left delicate bowls of chocolate mousse in their place.
“Okay, I’m not the only one who gets to spill their secrets.” Anna gave Harper a smirk. “My turn and I apologize for being blunt, but are you with someone back home?”
Harper flushed again and choked on the coffee that Max had delivered with the mousse. “I … I … no,” she stuttered.
“That’s a pretty loaded no,” Anna said with an inquiring look.
“You caught me off guard,” Harper said. “It’s fine to ask. I … it’s just … I did, and it’s over, and it was rough.”
Anna watched her for a moment. “I’m sorry. That’s no good.”
Harper shrugged. “It was inevitable. I’m not easy.”
Anna gave her a small nod, absorbing her words. “I’m not, either.”
Harper locked her eyes on Anna’s. “We’ll have to compare idiosyncrasies sometime.”
Anna gave Harper a half smile, not breaking her gaze. “I’d like that.”
They sat in a comfortable silence, letting the other feel the space they were in, and when all was done, Harper walked Anna to the back door, where she would head back to her cottage.
Harper started to say “Goodnig—” but Anna’s fingers grazed her lips. Harper felt an immediate shock at the touch, her body was tingling.
“Good night, Harper, come over anytime.” Anna nodded back to her cottage. “You know where I am.”
Harper nodded. “I do. Good night.”
On her way back to her room, Harper felt an odd weightlessness. She hadn’t even felt this with Leia. With Leia it had been the danger of being found out as a couple, pure adrenaline. With Anna, it was, well, it was like coming home.