An Ever Fixéd Mark Read Online Free Page B

it was a good weekend?”
    “An excellent weekend.”
    “Lizzie?” Meg took the strainer from the
cupboard. “Don’t tell Nora about Alec, okay?”
    Lizzie took the strainer from her hands.
“Okay.”

Chapter Three
     
    Lizzie dusted along the dresser, careful not
to upset the few china objects displayed on the lace coverlet. She
paused and looked up at the portrait of Harriet Fulton. She
wondered if Harriet was ever distracted by a young man. Lizzie
couldn’t imagine Harriet thought about the things that kept filling
her mind. Maybe she did. Over Lazarus Benedict before he became her
husband. Or maybe the boy who delivered coal.
    Lizzie went over to the
window and ran the cloth along the window sill. She looked down at
the cold gray parking lot. The outside of the Fulton House seemed a
strange contradiction to the scarce 19 th century furnishings within.
It often seemed that the house was in its own place, its own skewed
time. It wasn’t quite a step into the past, with fluorescent lights
buzzing on some of the ceilings or the motion sensors hanging above
the doors. Nor was it completely in the present. Just somewhere in
between.
    A few guides liked to suggest there were
ghosts roaming about the rooms. Lizzie was seldom able to blame the
chills she got in the bedrooms on other worldly occurrences. It was
just that cold. Then again she often walked into a room and felt
her mood change suddenly - as though walking into a memory that was
stuck in the air like all the dust dancing in the sunbeams.
    Harriet’s room, more than any other, made
her feel sad. She wondered if it was Harriet’s sadness… or another.
Or her own. Lizzie accepted the fact she had an active imagination
and that the few details of intrigue about the Fultons were not
enough to make the talk of furniture and wallpaper interesting … to
her at least.
    “Lizzie, are you finished in here?” Paula’s
voice called her back to the focus of the task at hand.
    “I just… a few more minutes,” Lizzie smiled
at her manager.
    “Andrew just started a tour,” Paula diverted
her eyes from a direct glance at Lizzie.
    “Oh. Okay,” Lizzie persisted her smile. She
never knew what to do with Paula. It was difficult to understand
whether or not Paula liked Lizzie and her disdain for staying on
script with the tours. Lizzie didn’t really care about the
furniture as much as everyone else. She was fascinated by the
Fultons, who actually slept and sat upon the beds and chairs. They
were more interesting than the wood and upholstery. That’s not
really what they were supposed to discuss. Paula had a sense of
humor… but Lizzie often thought she was silently cursing her lack
of respect. But Paula was too sweet to say anything.
    “So if you could do the three o’clock, that
would be good,” Paula let herself turn her glance back to Lizzie’s
smile.
    “Absolutely,” Lizzie moved over to the bed
posts and gently wiped along them with the dust cloth. “Paula, do
we have any more information about Harriet?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We know when she was born, when she got
married, when she died. We know whom she married, that she had four
babies and lost three of them. What else do we know?”
    “You have her portrait,” Paula walked to the
dresser.
    “Do you think she looks happy? Or … like
she’s thinking of something?” Lizzie stopped herself from leaning
against the bed post.
    “I think that glassy stare is the paint,”
Paula laughed. “No, there isn’t much information about Harriet. She
wasn’t as involved in the community as her parents. There aren’t
many records of her activities. We don’t really know much about
her.”
    “Nothing in the archives?”
    “I’m afraid not,” Paula shook her head.
“Why?”
    “I was just curious. I guess I was looking
too long at her portrait,” Lizzie sighed and went towards the
headboard.
    “Well I don’t think you could fit much more
info on the tour anyway,” Paula shrugged.