The Fourth Mistress - Chapter 37：Not so alone

When it was time for lunch, everyone moved to the dining room except for the painter, who continued with his work in the room. Louise finished her meal and returned to the room where George was working on the canvas. She walked around, coming to stand behind him to see the outline that had been painted with shades of beige and pink on it.

“Aren’t you going to have lunch, Mr. Steward?” questioned Louise.

“Not yet, milady. Once I start to paint, it becomes hard to leave it without finishing and food doesn’t matter. But thank you for asking,” replied the man, offering her a slight bow.

“I guess I shall leave you at your craft. If you do feel hungry, you can ask one of the servants,” stated Louise.

“Feel free to stand and watch, milady. It doesn’t disturb me,” he let her know.

“Thank you,” replied Louise, watching the colours on the palette. In the frame, she had stood next to Graham, but that wasn’t all. Her husband had put his hand around her shoulder, and it brought out a smile on her face.

“I usually don’t have many spectators when I am working on the portraits as most of them are busy people,” said the man, while he held the brush and added colours on the canvas.

“Since when did you start painting, Mr. Steward?” questioned Louise, curious to know about the painter’s background story.

“When I was a boy there was a gentleman, who had lent me his old paints,” answered the painter. “I heard from Mr. Graham that this is your first time being in a painting. My apologies if my first greeting came out wrong, words come out of my mouth without much block.”

“That’s fine,” she murmured, holding her hands behind her back. She then saw Graham enter the room.

“I thought I would find you here,” said Graham, making his way to where she was.

Louise noticed the coat he was wearing, and she asked, “Are you going outside?”

“Hm,” he gave her a nod. “I have to go and inspect the machines that are going to be sent to Hungate. If you want, you can accompany me,” he offered, worried over the incident that had happened yesterday.

“I will be okay here. I am watching Mr. Steward working on the painting,” replied Louise, assuring him with a smile. With the painter here, she had some questions to ask him.

“Okay. I will have Gilbert stay nearby,” replied Graham, and he did something that he hadn’t done before. Stepping closer to her, he pressed his lips against one side of her temples. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

“I will be waiting,” responded Louise, a blush coming to form on her face, and Graham walked towards the doors and left the room.

A few seconds after Graham left, the painter murmured, “Newlyweds never fail to surprise me with their open affections to each other.”

Louise smiled at his words and asked, “Are you married, Mr. Steward?”

Louise then asked, “How many portraits have you painted so far?”

“More than fifty,” he replied and then said. “But I took a break. Stopped taking in requests and this is the first one after a long time. Do you have any plans to make a solo portrait of yours, milady?”

“Maybe, but not right now,” replied Louise. “Maybe after a few months. How many paintings have you made for my family?” she inquired.

“Probably five or six of them. It was probably only the last one that had less people in them, but it took me quite some time to complete it to perfection. The lady was quite persistent to make sure I got her features right. Stood right behind me,” he said, and Louise could imagine Lady Viola standing and making sure to get her face and clothes as perfect as it was.

‘What made you bring out the portraits today?’ Louise remembered the question from the ghost.

“Can I ask you something, if you don’t mind?”

“It looked like you wanted to ask me something,” said the painter seeing Louise’s slightly surprised expression, he said, “I have painted many faces, milady. Trying to capture their expressions while noticing little details. What is it that you would like to ask?”

“Earlier when the Reeds used to live in Warlington, you used to be their sole painter, correct?” Louise’s voice was low, and her eyes looked at the open doors of the room they were in before her eyes fell back on him.

“Yes.”

“Did you miss to paint anyone in the family?” Louise curiously asked him.

“Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it? Sometimes they liked to have just the main family members, and some of the occasions there used to be the others. Likes guests or yearly once have a painting made along with their servants. The Reeds used to have a lot of paintings.”

“Paintings that you made?”

“No, from the previous painter before me. I came across it when I first met them,” answered the man. “Unfortunately, he succumbed to consumption and that’s why I got the opportunity to work with your family,” saying this, he bowed his head in appreciation, and Louise nodded her head.

Louise wondered if she was asking the wrong person. How would a painter, an outsider, ever know the significance of the portraits and what she was looking for? He was just someone who did his job.

“I was wondering if you might have known if anything ever happened, anyone who didn’t like looking at it or who liked them a lot?”

At her question, the man scrunched his face, and he rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think I remember, milady.”

Seeing him run his hand over his forehead, Louise asked, “Headache?”

“Just a bit of pain. It must be the hangover from last night,” said the man before turning back to continue his work.

Louise’s lips pursed. Unless George Steward was a relative of the Reed’s, there was no way these headaches that people experienced were something to do with hereditary. But why was it happening? If it was the food, Louise should have felt it too, but she didn’t.

In their room at night, Louise sat in the bed and watched Graham, who was reading parchments next to her. Noticing her staring at him, Graham asked her, “Did anything happen today?”

“It was a normal day. I was in the room looking at the paints being used,” replied Louise, and he hummed.

“Mother informed me about it,” his words made Louise wonder if Lady Viola said something about it. “Did you find anything from George?”

“Nothing that was helpful. He seemed ignorant,” replied Louise before asking Graham, “He mentioned that the family had more portraits. But I don’t think I saw them in the cellar.”

“There must have been some in the past. One’s that belonged to the older generations in the family but the last I saw them was when I was young,” replied Graham. He placed the parchments at the side and picked up Louise’s hand resting on the bed. “How are you feeling, Louise?” he asked his wife.

“A little worried if I will be seeing the ghost again, but also glad that I didn’t sense it since yesterday,” she replied, offering him a small smile.

“I hope you don’t. That it doesn’t show up again,” replied Graham, knowing it was just wishful thinking. “I apologize. We have been busy and haven’t been able to spend enough time together as much as we have to. And now there’s death and a ghost.”

Louise offered him a smile, “You didn’t do anything, Graham.”

“But I am possibly the reason why people have died,” replied Graham. “It is always people who are closer to me.”

“I married a righteous man, and you still are. You don’t have to feel burdened by their deaths,” she assured him. She felt him squeeze her hand. “If we both have time this Saturday, let’s spend some time together. Just us.” With the absurd things going around them, they needed some break and away from everything.

“Where would you like to go?” asked Graham, wanting to know if she had any particular place on her mind. Louise’ eyes looked at the door, noticing the shadow behind the gap below, and she softly gulped while keeping her cool.

“There’s a place called Javier’s, we could go there,” said Louise, turning back to look at Graham.

“Okay,” agreed Graham and Louise smiled. When her eyes fell back at the door, she noticed the shadow was no longer there.

“Maybe on a second thought, we could go to the lake that is in the backside of the manor,” whispered Louise to him. If the ghost had decided to eavesdrop and scare her, Louise was going to deceive it by making it go to a place where they were not going.

The next day, the weather was bright. It had been a while since Mr. Burton had visited Reed’s family members, giving them the needed peace. Louise now stood at the edge of the lake with Graham. He had got the servants to bring the boat near the edge.

Once Louise had taken a seat in the boat, Graham got in and rowed the boat away from the lake’s edge, taking them towards the centre.

Louise could hear the distant echo of birds chirping while the surface of the lake glimmered because of the rays of the sun. A calmness surrounded them, the worries forgotten at the land and spending their time in each other’s company.

“What’s there on the other side?” asked Louise, looking at the tall trees.

“Just the vast forest. But at the other edge of the forest, you will find the road to go to Hungate,” replied Graham.

“This place is beautiful and so peaceful,” she replied. “Poppy, my aunt’s helper girl, we used to go to picnics with my friend Caroline. Packing blankets, lunches and once even dinner.”

“Sounds like you had a lot of fun,” commented Graham, and she nodded.

“We did,” she smiled.

“Do you have memories of the time when your parents were still around?” Graham asked, watching her.

Louise hummed before replying, “Parts of it. Whatever I could cling on to at that age. It got better over the years, and Aunt Merlin taught me how to keep the good things that mattered so that I would cherish my parents with bright thoughts.”

“They are wonderful, your uncle and aunt,” said Graham, and she nodded.

“They are the best,” she smiled.

They spent their time in the boat, talking about irrelevant things while eating the food that had been packed by the butler and placed in here.

“There are small fish here,” said Lousie, noticing them swimming near the boat, and she leaned to get a closer look at them.

While staring at them, she saw her reflection on the surface of the water, but it started to change and turn into Lisa’s face, who was looking back at her. Her throat went dry. Her hands clenched, her heart slowly starting to pick up its pace as she continued to stare at the woman who looked back at her. The beautiful face then changed as if it was rapidly decaying until a corpse looked at her.

On the other hand, Graham, who was rowing the boat, noticed Louise’s smile fall from her lips and her expression turning to one of concentration. He wondered what she was looking at.

Louise turned pale, and her eyes turned wide when she saw Lisa’s hand reach out for her from the water. To get away, in haste, she quickly stood up and stepped behind.

“Louise!” Graham tried to grab her, but she fell right into the water.

For the first few seconds, Louise felt like a rock being thrown into the lake as she sank towards the bottom, leaving a trail of bubbles above her. Her mind distorted because she hadn’t expected herself to fall in the water. She noticed something off white was wrapped with aquatic plants and dirt on it.

Was that a skeleton?