Free Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling by Michael Boccacino Page A

before I answered. A vague, bland answer might lead to an informal inquisition, but a detailed one might hint at a relationship that was more involved than was true.
    â€œI’ve been with the Darrow family for nine months, and in that time I’ve come to know Mr. Darrow as two very different people. The first man smiles when someone says something clever and eats as voraciously as the groundskeeper. But then there are times when he sees something either in the house or in the boys that makes him grow very distant. He is my employer, and so I don’t pretend to know him as one might know a friend, but whenever he is overcome by such an episode, I’ve begun to suspect that he’s thinking of what he has lost, and there is a sadness in his distance that leads me to believe that he may forever remain two people: one struggling to enjoy life, and the other trapped in sorrow.”
    The woman did not look away from the fireplace. Her chest rose and fell in an uncomfortable quiet broken only by the ambient sounds of the room—the embers in the fire crackling; the grandfather clock chiming; something shuffling across the floor in one of the upper chambers of the great house. I brought the cup to my lips again, pretended to drink, and set it back onto the saucer.
    â€œYou are very thorough, Mrs. Markham.”
    I placed the saucer on the table between us and stood to circle the room. I spotted a bookcase filled with obscure texts whose titles seemed to be in a language I had never seen before. I fingered the spines lovingly and turned back to Mrs. Darrow. “The one detail I find myself most curious about at present is the fact that I’m having a conversation with the alleged late wife of my current employer.”
    The woman smiled, and the stoic decorum that had framed her every action since we entered the house partially melted away. She lifted herself gingerly out from beneath the children and stood before the fireplace.
    â€œYou are right to be suspicious of me.”
    â€œThe children believe you. Who am I to disagree with them? But by all accounts Mrs. Darrow died.”
    â€œSo I did.”
    â€œI have lost many people from my life—my mother to cholera, my father to a heart attack, and my husband to a fire—and when they died, they did not come back.” The end of the last word sharpened in the air for a pregnant moment until I began again. “While I do not doubt the power of a mother’s love for her children, I will not believe that the love of my family was somehow inferior to yours.” I said this evenly, without hope of masking the jealous curiosity that had replaced my confidence, but I was determined nevertheless to have a cordial, honest discussion. “In order for this conversation to continue, I feel that I must ask—why you?”
    The woman did not appear to be surprised at the directness of my question; in fact she seemed relieved. The alleged Mrs. Darrow spoke facing the fireplace, a silhouette before the flames.
    â€œWhen I first took ill, I told anyone who would listen that I would conquer my sickness, that I would not accept anything less than a full recovery; that God was testing me. I followed the doctor’s instructions: I continued with my social engagements, I ate healthily, exercised regularly, and yet each day I grew more weary.
    â€œFood began to make me queasy, and I lost the ability to stand under my own volition. I became confined to my bed and slowly wasted away until the skin hung from my bones, loose and pallid. People came to my bedside and whispered words of solace and comfort, but that was of little consolation after I went blind, and even less when I lost my hearing.
    â€œYou would think that a person in such a state would be adrift in the darkness, but I could still feel; I could still smell. I knew when my family was nearby; when Henry kissed my forehead or pushed a strand of hair from my face, when James took my