a vast family or, perhaps, the assurance of descendants who would find their way there.
Two large oil paintings hanging above the fireplace caught Noemí’s eye. They each depicted a young woman. Both were fair-haired, both very similar in looks, so much so that at first glance one might take them for the same woman. However, there were differences: straight strawberry blond hair versus honeyed locks, a tad more plumpness in the face in the woman on the left. One wore an amber ring on her finger, which matched the one on Howard’s hand.
“Are these your relatives?” she asked, intrigued by the likeness, what she supposed was the Doyle look.
“These are my wives,” Howard said. “Agnes passed away shortly after our arrival to this region. She was pregnant when disease took her away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. But she has not been forgotten. Her spirit lives on in High Place. And there, the one on the right, that is my second wife. Alice. She was fruitful. A woman’s function is to preserve the family line. The children, well, Virgil is the only one left, but she did her duty and she did it well.”
Noemí looked up at the pale face of Alice Doyle, the blond hair cascading down her back, her right hand holding a rose between two fingers, her face serious. Agnes, to her left, was also robbed of mirth, clasping a bouquet between her hands, the amber ring catching a stray ray of light. They stared forward in their silk and lace with what? Resolution? Confidence?
“They were beautiful, were they not?” the old man asked. He sounded proud, like a man who has received a nice ribbon at the county fair for his prize hog or mare.
“Yes. Although…”
“Although what, my dear?”
“Nothing. They seem so alike.”
“I imagine they should. Alice was Agnes’s little sister. They were both orphaned and left penniless, but we were kin, cousins, and so I took them in. And when I traveled here Agnes and I were wed, and Alice came with us.”
“Then you twice married your cousin,” Noemí said. “And your wife’s sister.”
“Is it scandalous? Catherine of Aragon was first married to Henry VIII’s brother, and Queen Victoria and Albert were cousins.”
“You think you’re a king, then?”
Howard reached forward and patted her hand; his skin seemed paper-thin and dry, smiling. “Nothing as grandiose as that.”
“I’m not scandalized,” Noemí said politely and gave her head a little shake.
“I hardly knew Agnes,” Howard said with a shrug. “We were married and before a year had passed I was forced to organize a funeral. The house wasn’t even finished back then and the mine had been operating for a scant handful of months. Then the years passed, and Alice grew up. There were no suitable grooms for her in this part of the world. It was a natural choice. One could say preordained. This is her wedding portrait. See there? The date is clearly visible on that tree in the foreground: 1895. A wonderful year. So much silver that year. A river of it.”
The artist had indeed carved the tree with the year and the initials of the bride: AD. Agnes’s portrait sported the same detail, the year carved on a stone column: 1885, AD. Noemí wondered if they had simply dusted off the old bride’s trousseau and handed it to the younger sister. She imagined Alice pulling out linens and chemises monogrammed with her initials, pressing an old dress against her chest and staring into the mirror. A Doyle, eternally a Doyle. No, it wasn’t scandalous, but it was damn odd.
“Beautiful, my beautiful darlings,” the old man said, his hand still resting atop Noemí’s as he turned his eyes back toward the paintings, his fingers rubbing her knuckles. “Did you ever hear about Dr. Galton’s beauty map? He went around the British Isles compiling a record of the women he saw. He catalogued them as attractive, indifferent, or repellent. London ranked as the highest for beauty, Aberdeen the lowest. It might seem like a funny exercise, but of course it had its logic.”
“Aesthetics again,” Noemí said, as she delicately pulled her hand free from his and stood up, as if to take a closer look at the paintings. Truth be told she didn’t like his touch, nor did she much enjoy the faint unpleasant odor that emanated from his robe. It might have been an ointment or medicine that he’d applied.
“Yes, aesthetics. One must not dismiss them as frivolous. After all, didn’t Lombroso