CHAPTER 3: THE STEWARD’S QUESTIONS
Thomas Vane arrived wearing his riding coat despite the heat of the afternoon.
His boots were polished, and he carried a small notebook in his gloved hand.
Eleanor had never liked the way he looked around her rooms as though measuring furniture for an auction.
He asked whether she had ordered repairs without the master’s permission.
Eleanor said the chimney had been drawing smoke into her bedroom.
Vane pointed out that the house had several servants capable of cleaning a chimney.
She replied that the servants had been busy preparing for Richard’s absence.
Vane studied the heavy desk and asked why it blocked the door.
Eleanor answered that she had been rearranging her room.
He looked at the scrape marks across the floor.
Then he asked whether Daniel Hayes had been alone with her.
Eleanor said the blacksmith had come to examine the grate and had already departed.
Vane smiled without appearing pleased.
He reminded her that appearances mattered at Willow Creek.
She asked whether appearances mattered more than safety.
Vane’s expression changed at once.
He told her that the house was perfectly safe when everyone followed established instructions.
He moved toward the fireplace without asking permission.
Eleanor stepped into his path and said the room had already been inspected.
He tried to move around her.
She asked him why Richard had left a key to her bedroom with the estate office.
Vane stopped so suddenly that she knew the question had found its target.
He claimed that spare keys were kept for emergencies.
Eleanor held his gaze and asked why the key had appeared beneath her mattress.
The steward said he knew nothing of it.
He then suggested that she might be suffering from nervous exhaustion.
Eleanor recognized the phrase from Lydia’s letter.
She asked whether he had described Lydia Whitmore in the same manner.
Vane’s notebook slipped from his fingers and struck the carpet.
He recovered it quickly, but the movement exposed a thin red cut across his wrist.
Eleanor remembered seeing a red stain on the blue ribbon.
Vane asked where she had heard Lydia’s name.
She answered that she had heard it from someone who believed the truth mattered.
Vane’s face hardened.
He said there were names that brought grief to a household when repeated without understanding.
He warned her that Richard would not appreciate reckless speculation.
Eleanor asked whether Richard knew the steward was threatening her.
Vane took one step back.
He said she had misunderstood his concern and offered to send a doctor.
Eleanor told him that she needed neither a doctor nor his permission to rest in her own bedroom.
Vane left without touching the fireplace.
Ada waited near the staircase and watched him descend.
Eleanor followed the housekeeper into the narrow hall.
She asked how long Ada had worked at Willow Creek.
Ada answered that she had arrived before Eleanor’s marriage but after the disappearance of Lydia.
Eleanor asked whether she had known Lydia personally.
Ada hesitated, then said she had known a woman who lived in the western rooms.
She would not call the woman by name while Vane remained in the house.
Eleanor asked why.
Ada indicated a portrait hanging near the stairs.
The portrait showed Richard’s father standing beside a black horse.
A narrow opening in the frame revealed a glass eye that did not belong to the painted man.
Ada whispered that someone had been watching the hall through the old servant passages.
Eleanor asked whether Richard had ordered the openings built.
Ada told her that some of them were older than Richard, and others had been altered during his marriage to Lydia.
Then she returned to the kitchen before anyone could see them talking.
Eleanor stood alone beside the portrait and felt the weight of the house around her.
She had thought that wealth made every room private.
Now she understood how expensive privacy could become when someone else owned the walls.
