Chapter Eight
By the next day, I could get out of bed easily enough and even manage to keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. The world was still covered in snow and silent. Anton and I were still isolated in his mansion.
He had washed the clothes I had been wearing the other day. I dressed in my baggy jeans and found t-shirts, smelling clean. It was early, but I wanted to move around. I was tired of lying in bed all day.
I opened my door a crack and looked out into the hallway. The house was huge, ornate and silent. The floors were made of a shining wood with soft red carpets interspaced. There were delicate end tables and huge portraits. It was like no place I had ever seen before. It was so rich and fancy, I felt terribly out of place.
I tiptoed down the hallway stopping to admire the portraits. Some were massive, taking up an entire section of the wall, others were small enough to be held in my hand. I could see Anton’s likeness in them. His eyes, his nose, his chin, they appeared on the portraits on the wall. His family line stretched back for generations.
I came across a stairwell and went down to the first floor. There was a grand entryway and I walked down around the stairs and towards a grand library. The room was cavernous, books lined the walls all the way up to the second floor. There was a huge fireplace with a roaring fire and Anton was sitting in a chair in front of it.
“Hi,” I said from the doorway.
“Hello, please come in,” he said without lifting his head. My arrival hadn’t startled him. He must have heard me coming. I walked into the library feeling very small around all of the tall shelves of books.
I sat down in the chair opposite Anton and looked over at him. He marked his page in his book and then set it to the side.
“Tea?” He asked. There was a beautiful porcelain tea set next to him. I nodded and he poured me a cup and handed it over.
“Um...I wanted to thank you for saving me. I just realized I hadn’t done that yet. I probably would have died if you hadn’t come,” I said, sheepishly. He didn’t say anything. “But I was thinking I should probably get out of your hair.”
“Why do you think you’re in my hair?” He asked. “I enjoy having you here and you can’t leave. You’re feeling better, but you’re definitely still sick. You had a fever of one hundred and four degrees the other day. Had it risen any higher and I would have taken you to the hospital. You still need your rest.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” I said.
“You aren’t a burden,” he replied. “Besides, where would you go? Back to the office building? You almost died there. You can’t stay there. That building has no running water, electricity or heat. We’re not even halfway through winter. This won’t be the last of the snow or the cold and since you don’t have anyone to call, why don’t you stay here? There’s plenty of room.”
I thought it would be uncomfortable to be in a stranger’s house, but it was such a big house with so much interesting stuff to look at, that it was impossible to be bored. Anton gave me a tour. He showed me the library and his mother’s collection of first editions: Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, letters from Mark Twain. They rested behind a pane of thick glass.
“Do you want to look closer?” Anton asked me. But I shook my head. They were too valuable, too nice. I didn’t want to tarnish them with my dirty fingers.
He led me to the formal sitting room filled with high-backed comfortable chairs, elegant antique side tables, fireplaces and decorated fire screens.
I giggled and he looked over at me. ‘What?” He asked.
“Well, good sir,” I replied. “This is a terribly fancy room. I feel rather underdressed,” I said pointing to my oversized jeans and baggy t-shirt.
“You look fine,” he said. “You should buy some more clothes. You can order them online, I’ll pay for them-”
“You don’t have to buy me clothes,” I interrupted.
“I know that I don’t have to, but I would like to. You can’t keep wearing the same thing.”
He offered me anything from his sister’s closet, but I only shook my head, telling him that he should never offer to give a woman’s clothes away without her permission. Her clothes wouldn’t fit me anyway. She was a solid foot taller and about twenty pounds lighter than me. She was one of those willowy girls that always made me feel rather squat.
He waved his hand in front of his face and said, “she’ll never know. She’s running an artist’s retreat in Phoenix, she won’t be back for months.”
It was awfully tempting. He led me up to her room. It didn’t look like anyone else’s. It was huge, with bright windows. There were canvases, paint and shawls spread all over in a sort of organized chaos. In her large walk-in closet, there were dresses, skirts and tops hanging from hangers. To my surprise, I was able to find a long sweater dress that actually fit me.
“I might borrow this,” I said. He smiled and told me to take whatever I needed, his sister wouldn’t mind.
“Can I see your room?” I asked.
He led me down the hall and up another flight of stairs. His room was isolated, far and alone in the East Wing. The room was dark. Long, heavy curtains blocked the windows. When we entered, he pushed the curtains aside brightening the room with sunlight.
There was a huge, four-poster king-sized bed in the center of the room. Much like the bed in my room, there were lion heads carved into the headboard. There were lions everywhere in this room. Above the fireplace, which had fresh ashes from a recent fire, was a huge oil painting of a lion at rest. It was lying on its side, its tale mid-sweep. It stared out from the painting challenging the viewer.
I remembered the lion from the barn, the way it had looked for me, hunted me. The lion in the picture had the same expression. I was the prey, it was the predator.
There were books and notepads piled up on an old-fashioned desk with a MacBook. I walked over to see what he was working on. I could feel his eyes on me. His notes were indecipherable, mentions of Sparta and Sophocles interspersed with phrases written in Greek.
There was a greenhouse. It was warm and smelled of fresh earth and flowers. There was a herb and vegetable garden and roses and hydrangeas in full bloom even in winter. I walked slowly through, smelling the air.
“It’s so warm in here,” I said, turning to him. He was walking beside me, his hands clasped behind his back.
“I imagine you’ve been very cold these last few weeks,” he said. “I wish you would have accepted my offer sooner. Why didn’t you?”
“Because you were a stranger,” I said. “Most of the time when men offer to ‘help you out’ there are some strings attached.”
He shook his head in disgust, “I would never have done that,” he said.
“Most people aren’t that charitable,” I said.
“Well, as you can see, we have a lot of space and besides,” he looked down and paused for a moment. “If you hadn’t been here I would have been forced to endure this storm on my own. You’re doing me a favor, keeping me company.”
I smiled at him. He was too nice for a rich person. He should have been snider and condescending. He was so kind and generous and open and honest. I wasn’t sure what to do with him.
I couldn’t hold back a yawn and I covered my mouth sheepishly.
“Maybe you should go back to bed,” he said. He led me back up the ornate stair, his hand settled on the small of my back. It was an intimate gesture, but a comforting one as well. He stopped at the door. It was almost like we were on a date and he was dropping me off on my doorstep.
“Thank you for the tour. You have a lovely home,” I said.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “I meant it when I said you should stay as long as you would like. No strings attached, I promise.”
I gave him one last look and then walked into the room. He closed the door behind me. I had to stop for a moment to catch my breath. When we had been standing in the doorway, for just one moment I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me. We had been standing so close.
The doctor had left a pair of scrubs for me to sleep in and I changed and crawled back into bed. As I closed my eyes I imagined living in this house. Taking tea in the sitting room, sitting with Anton as he worked through his thick books. I could be a teacher at the local school, I could garden in the greenhouse. I slipped into sleep, dreaming of another life.