by Linn Chapel
Tressa tried to smile. “I’m alright now.”
“Quit your job here. Or slip a lethal dose of some medicine into his coffee.”
She shook her head wryly and several loose strands of hair brushed her cheeks. She reached upward to find that her tight twist was trailing in disarray after her struggles. “That’s tempting, Holt, but not very practical.”
Her thoughts spun on. If she were to press charges against Dr. Patterson, questions would be asked about Holt and he would be called upon as a witness.... Such a prospect was fraught with complications.
Just as she was coming to that realization, Holt reached up to take the pins out of her hair and drop them into her bag. She gazed up at him, surprised, as her hair spilled onto her shoulders. His fingers smoothed it on either side of her face.
“Much better,” he murmured, holding her gaze. “Think no more of the doctor tonight, Tressa.”
She nodded.
Just before they exited the hospital together, Tressa caught sight of Sue Callahan standing behind the reception desk. The gossipy nurse seemed to be giving all of her attention to a stack of papers in front of her, but there was no mistaking the smile of triumph on her face.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Holt’s car, Tressa took a series of deep breaths. The last of her tension finally receded as the vehicle exited the parking lot and the lights of the hospital complex were left behind.
To her surprise, Holt stopped at a small market a few blocks from her apartment. “We’ll purchase a few provisions,” he told her as he parked the car.
Holt must be planning to join her inside of her apartment for a while, then. Suddenly, Tressa’s earlier resolve to part from him outside of her building melted away. Just a little more time with Holt could do no harm, she told herself.
Once inside the market, Holt led her to the freezer aisle where he frowned in indecision over the many flavors and brands of ice cream. Out of the corner of her eye, Tressa could see the teenage cashier craning his head to get a better look at her companion.
She glanced sideways at Holt as he examined the ice cream labels. With his black clothing and coal black hair, and the look of hard-won experience that surrounded him like a powerful aura, it was no wonder the young cashier was staring at Holt.
“Formosa Fruit or Heavenly Chocolate?” Holt held up two containers of ice cream for her perusal.
“Heavenly Chocolate, please.”
Holt next brought her to an aisle where he made low, disparaging remarks about the bottles of wine and beer that filled the shelves. “I wouldn’t even water a houseplant with most of it.” He lifted two bottles of Abbey Ale off a shelf. “This may be passable.”
As the cashier rang up their purchases, Tressa noticed that the teenager had adopted a cool, tough look, narrowing his eyes into slits. It must have affected his vision, for he dropped the change onto the counter before he could get it into Holt’s waiting hand. His tough look disappeared. “Oops, sorry.”
As they walked outside the market, Holt said musingly, “I wonder what was amiss with that fellow?”
“A bit of hero-worship, I think. He’d probably give anything to dress in black and look as dangerous as you,” Tressa murmured with a touch of humor as she entered the car.
“Dangerous,” Holt repeated. He closed her door, circled the car, and entered the driver’s seat. “Do you think I look dangerous?”
“Holt, you can’t help looking dangerous,” Tressa replied with a little laugh. She buckled her seatbelt. “It’s just the way you are.”
“Does that make you uneasy?”
“No.” Then she added more truthfully, “Maybe sometimes. It’s just that we always seem to meet at night,” she added.
“Do you feel uneasy with me tonight?” Holt gave her a searching glance as he started the engine.
“No, I’m just relieved that you heard me cry out at the hospital. Being dangerous with Dr. Patterson was the best thing that could have happened.”
Holt laughed as he pulled the car away from the curb. Then he added in a thoughtful voice, “By the way, what were you trying to do with this?” Slipping the small knife out of his pocket, he took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at it with a frown. “It’s rather small for a weapon, isn’t it?”
A bit self-consciously, Tressa answered. “I found it at an antique sale. I carry it with me when I work nights. One of the other nurses gave me a canister of self-defense spray which would work much better, but I lost it somewhere in my apartment.”
“Your weapon, if one can dignify it with such a name, is a silver canapé knife,” he informed her dryly. “Pretty knives like this were popular about a hundred years ago – for dinner parties.” He handed it back to her.
“I suppose I should graduate to a modern switchblade,” she said wryly as she stowed it in her bag. “You sound like you know a lot about antiques.”
He smiled as he drove on. “I like old things.”
Tressa ate a spoonful of chocolate ice cream as she sat on her sofa, watching Holt. He had just finished a glass of ale and was kneeling next to the old wooden chest she had brought out for his inspection.
Fitting a small key into a lock, he swung the lid upwards. The collection of antiques inside seemed to please him. There were a few family heirlooms, and the rest she had purchased at sales as she had gone about the pleasant task of furnishing her apartment.
“A scrimshaw carving on whalebone. Very nice work, and becoming rare, even in New England.” He lifted another object out of the chest with careful hands. “A pair of spectacles, with both lenses intact. It was fashioned about a hundred years ago, I should say.” He brought the spectacles up and peered through the lenses for a moment.
Several more items followed, and last to emerge, wrapped in aged linen, was a small golden pocket watch. Holt examined the dial and then pried open the back cover to look at the tiny gears.
“A nice example of a lady’s watch from America. A lovely Victorian bauble.”
When Holt brought out his own antique pocket watch, Tressa paused with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth. Worriedly, she sent her psychic ability flowing outward.
To her relief, Holt’s intentions appeared calm, like a pool of silvery-blue water. Small, gentle ripples crossed its gleaming surface. Absorbing its meaning, she learned that he had no intention of mesmerizing her again with his watch. Instead, he planned to talk to her about history. He also meant to hide how much he knew from first-hand experience.
Swiftly she pulled her thoughts back inward.
Holt reached over and handed her the silver pocket watch. “I showed you this briefly on the night we met. It’s much older than your Victorian watch.”
Holding his watch in her hand, Tressa noted the fine engravings on the case. A delicate design of leaves and flowers twined around the edge, and in the center stood two figures, a man and a woman, surrounded by rolling countryside. Opening the cover, Tressa examined the painted dial with its miniature scene of a blue lake, green trees, and creamy clouds. The paint was still glowing despite the hairline cracks that had formed over the years.
“It’s so lovely. How could anyone make this without modern technology?” she marveled.
“The making of a watch required great skill, and yet there were many fine craftsmen living in England when this was made. But who will pay for such skillful work today?” A note of resentment had crept into his voice.
“Holt, what do you think of the modern world?” Tressa asked as she returned the pocket watch to him.
She must have hit a nerve, because suddenly Holt stood up and began to pace restlessly about the room. “It disappoints me. It angers me.” He laughed and added, “Above all, it irritates me. But what I know of history leaves me unimpressed with past ages, as well.”
“You’re very particular, Holt,” she observed with a small smile.
He glanced at her. “I’m critical to a fault, but I don’t seem to be able to change my nature.
Few things have ever met with my approval.”
“Well, I don’t like modern times either,” she confessed. “I’m tired of traffic and advertising. I’m tired of the way people treat each other – like things.”
“The past was not perfect.”
“I’m sure you’re right. Still, I wonder if I would have been happier in the past,” she said a bit wistfully. “I feel so out of place in modern times.”
“Tressa, it’s likely you would have been poor, like most of the populace. Girls from the lower classes didn’t always end up living happily ever after.”
Tressa nodded a bit sadly. “But I can’t help dreaming. If only we could keep our comfortable houses and our vaccines and antibiotics, and still have something of the way people treated each other in the past... a kind of graciousness. A sense of their value.”
“You are a very odd young woman, Tressa,” he informed her lightly. “Why aren’t you stridently complaining about your hardships or busy advancing your career?”
She considered that. “I haven’t run into any prejudices or problems, so far. I could have chosen from three or four different careers, but I don’t seem to have any ambition,” she said ruefully. Frowning to herself, she added, “The only things I’ve tried to accomplish have been failures.”
Holt drew closer. “Failures? What kind of failures?”
She shook her head. “They’re not even worth mentioning, Holt.”
“But failures interest me.”
She thought for a moment about her latest failure in playing an active role within Operation M. She mustn’t say a word about that, not to Holt!
Her failures weren’t confined to her recent activities with the Operation, though. There were plenty of other examples.
Tressa glanced at him and confided, “Ever since I started working at the hospital, I’ve been trying to change the medication protocols. Giving my patients more choice in their own medications would mean a lot to them. Some of them could even go home earlier. But I haven’t been able to make a single change.”
“Are your patients happy when you tend to them?”
Tressa felt a smile tugging at her lips. “I suppose they are. Little things I do make them feel better, like adjusting their window blinds or finding things they’ve misplaced.”
Holt crossed his arms over his chest. “But that sounds suspiciously like a success. Tell me about some real failures, Tressa.”
She said a bit defensively, “You can’t deny that I failed in my college career. I left after two years, and I have no degree.”
Holt stared back at her, unimpressed. “If that is the darkest of all your failures, I shall not be able to refrain from bursting out in cynical laughter.”
“Holt, you’re hard to please.”
“I’m well aware of that, as you know.”
She eyed him reflectively. “What do you think makes a true failure, then?”
Holt stared off into space with a faraway expression. “There are failings and disappointments that anyone could experience. But a true failure strikes at the depths of one’s own soul.” His voice dropped. “A true failure is always something personal, Tressa.”
A little shiver ran through her and she wondered what he was thinking about. Then she began to recall another failure of hers, that long, fruitless search for something so vague she couldn’t even name it.
“There is a true failure in my life, Holt, now that I come to think of it,” Tressa went on. “For some reason that I’ve never understood, I’ve always been searching for something that doesn’t matter to anyone else, only to me. I’ve been searching for it for as long as I can remember. But it’s not some key to happiness, or the answer to life, or any of those things people always talk about. I’m not sure what it is, but I can’t seem to find it in modern life. I think it has something to do with the past, but I can’t get any closer to it by reading books, or collecting antiques. I’m not sure I’ll ever find it.”
His eyebrows rose. “A true failure, at least for now. But a curious failure.”
“No. It’s pathetic. The story of my life isn’t very dramatic, Holt. Even my truest failure is flat and unexciting.”
His face lit up with humor. “On the contrary, Tressa, you are a flaming revolutionary – a quiet young woman who wields a sword against the problems of modern times. Most of the women of this age think only of shoring up strongholds of power for themselves.”
“You certainly don’t mince words, Holt! Do you ever get into trouble with your opinions?” Tressa asked with a laugh.
He snorted. “I have given offense more times than I can count. Did I offend you just now?”
She shook her head. “No. You don’t seem to be afraid of speaking your mind, but that doesn’t bother me. You must not be afraid of anything,” she added.
Holt’s glance landed on her face, but he quickly looked away. “You’re wrong, Tressa. I am afraid of some things.”
“I don’t believe you,” she replied jestingly. “Name one.”
His dark eyes went to her face for a second time, and once again they ricocheted away. “Time is one of them,” he answered softly. “Most people fret about having enough of it. My own fears are different, but the reason for that would be far too difficult to explain.”
He knelt and began to pack her antiques back into the wooden chest. “With all your interest in the past, I’m surprised you have so few volumes of history on your shelves,” he said.
Tressa realized that he was steering the conversation away from dangerous waters. “I’ve always liked stories and poems better than facts,” she said, following his lead. “I’m interested in what took place in people’s hearts and minds. When I’m reading, I try to imagine what was important to them, and why they made the choices they did.”
Tressa had finished her ice cream by that time and set aside the bowl. She had changed out of her nurse’s uniform into a soft blue sweater and a pair of jeans as soon as they had arrived at her apartment, and now she settled herself more comfortably on the sofa, curling her legs underneath her.
Holt’s gaze remained on the wooden chest even after he had closed its lid. “Yes, how often people have been compelled to act in ways that were counter to their own wishes.”
She had come very close to his secret again. Cautiously, she added, “That’s part of it. But there were also times when people seemed to be… swept along by Providence. Without even being aware of it.”
“Providence,” he murmured. “The mysterious workings of the hand of God.” Holt stood up and paced the room. “But are all souls within its reach?”
Silence filled the room for several long moments.
“You sound doubtful,” she said softly.
“Once I was not.” Glancing at her, he added, “But that was when I was a boy, the eldest son of a venerable Catholic family. Somehow, the Langley’s kept the old faith of England despite the trials of the Reformation. They suffered some of the usual consequences, of course... loss of reputation and of property. Even a bloody martyrdom.”
“A martyrdom?” said Tressa with a startled look.
“One of my forebears was reckless enough to harbor a Catholic priest during those dangerous times. They were both betrayed, and later they were executed in the brutal manner of the day.”
Tressa eyed him thoughtfully. “But the Langley’s still survived. You come from a family of survivors, Holt. Maybe your belief in Providence will survive, too, in the end.”
A mirthless laugh escaped him. “That’s doubtful. But as for being a survivor, that much is true. More true than you could possibly know.”
Holt had come to stand near a window as he was speaking. Suddenly he stepped even closer to the glass. “I just saw that blackguard, Stix.”
Tressa felt a shudder go down her limbs. She had seen the look on Stix’s face the other night. It had been the look of a hunter scenting desirable prey.
Holt pulled aside the curtains so that he was standing in full view of the
street. “I must stay with you longer. When Stix doesn’t see me leaving your apartment, he’ll give up.” After another minute, he turned from the window and joined her on the sofa, where he opened a book. “Shall I read to you? It will help pass the time.”
How she wished that Stix had never spotted her. She edged closer to Holt on the cushions, and her shoulder brushed up against the sleeve of his black jacket.
At her nearness, Holt’s hands stilled, although he did not look her way. After a moment, he began to turn the pages again.
“Here, just the thing,” he said, and he began to read.
“While that heart bleeds, the hand presses it close. Grief must run on and pass into near memory’s more quiet shade before it can compose itself in song. He who is agonized and turns to show his agony to those who sit around, seizes the pen in vain!”
Holt stopped to mutter under his breath, “Yes, so futile,” before continuing.
“Thought, fancy, power, rush back into his bosom; all the strength of genius cannot draw them into light from under mastering grief; but memory, the Muses’ mother, nurses, rears them up, informs, and keeps them with her all her days.”
“Those are sad lines, but the words are beautiful. Are they about self-expression, Holt?”
“They are about the loss of self-expression, about words and thoughts that remain hidden in the dark recesses of grief. Hidden but not dead, for memory can easily preserve them – for a very long time.” He drew in a breath. “Whether one wishes for memory to do so, or not.”
“Who was the author?” Tressa asked softly, hoping to draw his thoughts away from his own past, for it so obviously disturbed him.
“The author? A poet named Walter Landor, a difficult man, but I rather liked him.” Holt looked up and quickly added, “A figure of speech, of course. I’m familiar with the lives of many authors because of my work.”
“You know so much about the past.”
He turned the pages. “I’ve learned many facts – through study, of course – and I would like nothing more than to challenge a number of modern scholars and force them to defend their baseless claims.” He turned another page and uttered a murmur of approval. “Here are some lines of Shelley’s. He was brooding on something unrealistic, as usual, but he was such a fine poet that the words fairly leap with life.”