Ivy
Oh, goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand…
Oh, I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland,
My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I'm covered in you.
- Ivy (Taylor Swift)
The house never used to be so cold. Jean wasn't sure when she first recognized the change, but suddenly, the halls had a chill to them she'd not experienced before. It was as though the house already knew what was going on inside its walls.
It was quiet, too. And not the ordinary sort of peaceful quiet. This silence was deafening.
For years now, Jean Beazley had lived in Doctor Blake's home and worked as his housekeeper. She cooked his meals, she kept things clean, she did the laundry, she served as receptionist for his medical practice, and she did anything and everything the good doctor needed. As he started to need more help, she took to managing his inventory and filing his patient records and keeping the books. A lifetime ago, she had managed a farm all on her own, including hiring and looking after farmhands while raising her two sons. Watching over the accounts and paying the bills did not frighten her in the least.
But one thing did frighten Jean very much. The uncertainty of change was what kept her awake at night. Nights like tonight, when the quiet seemed to roar in her ears and the chill filled the air with a sense of foreboding. The house did not scare her, though, and she decided to wander, as she often did when she could not sleep. Despite the quiet and the cold, she would find what comfort she could inside her own home.
Even if this was Doctor Blake's house, it was also Jean's home. She had lived her for a long time. She served the doctor, of course, but when she cooked meals for him, she also cooked for herself. When she did his laundry, she also did her own. When she sat down by the fire on a winter's night with her knitting, he sat across from her with a book, and they would pass the time together.
They were alike, she and Thomas Blake. Jean knew that even if all the facts pointed elsewhere. Oh he was educated and somewhat harsh and wealthy and a man, and Jean was none of those things. But they shared an innate sense of the world, of doing things the way they should be done. She wondered, actually, if Doctor Blake's sense of such things was innate or if it was hard learned, as it was for Jean. Regardless, it was a sensibility they shared. They also shared a palpable sense of grief. Jean had lost her husband in the war, and she'd struggled to raise her two sons on her own. Her boys were not dead, but they were lost to her, in their ways—young Christopher off in the army and Jack off wherever the wind blew him. Doctor Blake, too, had lost his beloved wife far too early in their life together. And his son had been lost in the war. Jean's Christopher had been buried with his fallen brothers in arms in the Solomons, and Jean had an empty grave for him in the churchyard at Sacred Heart. Doctor Blake's Lucien had vanished. He had been taken a prisoner of war by the Japanese in Singapore, and there was no trace of him after that. Both Jean and Doctor Blake lived all alone. But they did so together.
Jean could not quite remember when he had told her the story of his son, Lucien. It must have been a night like tonight, cold and quiet and still. That was the sort of setting where one might spill secrets of the heart. Secrets of grief. The worst part of all, for Doctor Blake—and really for any parent, as far as Jean could tell—was not knowing what had happened. Jean knew what had happened to her husband. One of Christopher's regiment had returned home and come to see her and told her of the battle and how bravely Christopher had fought and how much he had wanted to return home. She knew that he had not suffered for too long and he had been with the men he vowed to fight alongside. Doctor Blake did not know any of that about Lucien. He knew only that his son had been captured and put in a camp where so many had suffered so terribly. But there was no proof of his death. No sign of him when the camp was liberated. No record of a transfer or anything else. It was as though he had simply vanished. Jean knew a little of that, with the way her Jack wandered aimlessly and recklessly through the world. He went months without being in contact with her. But he would always send a letter eventually, assuring her that he was alive and well. Or as well as he could be, she supposed. To have a son—Doctor Blake's only son—be gone without a trace for almost fifteen years was a pain Jean could not imagine.
She had been thinking quite a bit about this mysteriously vanished Lucien Blake lately. He had been the doctor's only family. And now he had no one.
That was where the uncertainty and the fear crept in for Jean late at night like this. Doctor Blake had suffered two strokes now. The last, just two short weeks ago, had taken his ability to speak. He was barely ever awake, and he had lost the ability to even eat. Doctor King, who Jean had never really liked, had made Doctor Blake as comfortable as possible. He'd also taken over Doctor Blake's patients, though thankfully not at Doctor Blake's surgery. A district nurse was assigned to Doctor Blake around the clock. And Jean knew what that meant. Her beloved doctor would not last long.
Jean had no idea what would become of her when Doctor Blake passed. They had never talked about it before. After his first stroke, they had both assumed that he would recover in little more than a month and be back to his usual life. But after only three weeks, the second stroke had debilitated him completely. Jean carried on as best she could, cooking and cleaning for herself and the district nurse. She continued to manage the books and take her weekly wages, but she had already decided that she would cease the payments the day Doctor Blake died. The executor of the estate would take over the books, and Jean would surely have to move somewhere else. But the swirling questions of when and where and how continued to keep her up at night. Her future was uncertain, and though she knew she should be making arrangements for herself, Jean just could not bring herself to do it. Not while Doctor Blake was still living, even if only barely.
She wandered the house, pink dressing gown wrapped tight around herself. She did her best to keep quiet, not wanting to disturb Doctor Blake or the district nurse. But this was Jean's home, a house she knew as well as if it were her own. She knew precisely where the creaky floorboards lie in wait, and she knew well to avoid them. Her white slippers made hardly a sound as she made her way through the house.
There was no destination in mind for Jean, not really. She just did not want to be alone in her room just now. The pink walls were a comfort to her most of the time, but in the dark, with the cold and the quiet, those walls seemed to creep closer. It made Jean want to move about. And so she did.
Somehow, Jean found herself at a set of double doors. They led to Mrs. Blake's studio, Doctor Blake had once told her. His wife had been an artist, and in his love for her, Doctor Blake had set aside a suite of rooms for her to use for her painting and for her private haven in the house. Since her death almost forty years ago, the rooms had been shut tight. Locked, Jean thought. She'd never been inside those rooms before, nor had she tried to enter them.
Once or twice, she'd walked by the studio doors and thought she heard voices. She'd pressed her ear to the door to try and hear, and Doctor Blake had found her like that. He had given a sad sort of smile when she explained what she thought she'd heard, and he told her we all like to think that ghosts are real if only so our loved ones can be with us again.
Jean liked that idea. She didn't believe in ghosts, of course. Neither did Doctor Blake. But the idea that those we have lost can still be with us in a small way was a very nice thought. Over the years, she had wished more than anything that she could have spoken to Christopher just one last time, told him all that was in her heart, seen his boisterous smile and heard his voice. Jean was rather sure that Doctor Blake felt the same about his wife and his son. But then again, perhaps they both would agree that loss and regrets are best left in the past. Having them brought up again do none of us any good. Not when there's nothing to be done.
With a little shake of her head, Jean turned to go to another part of the house. Perhaps to the sunroom to see her plants in the moonlight, though it might be too cold a night for that.
But then Jean heard something. A faint whisper, she thought. She was probably just hearing things. Her mind was playing tricks on her what with the late hour and the maudlin wandering of her thoughts to match her wandering through the house. Something, anything to break the gaping maw of silence.
Whatever it was, it was just enough to convince her to follow her own deeply hidden sense of adventure and recklessness. Jean turned back to the studio doors and reached for the knob. It was freezing against her hand. But when she turned it, it gave way.
The paint on the door cracked with disuse as it came away from the jamb. The hinges creaked, but Jean moved slowly to be as quiet as possible. She hoped no one would wake at the noise.
In front of her was a staircase. When Doctor Blake had explained a suite of rooms, she imagined a sitting room and perhaps an attached bathroom converted into an artist's haven. She did not know that the studio was upstairs.
There was nothing for it but to go up those stairs. They were coated in forty years' worth of dust, and the musty smell stung Jean's nose. The floorboards groaned under the weight of footsteps after so long left dormant.
The whispering that Jean thought she heard outside the door got louder, though she could not make out precise words or distinct voices. Jean's heart started to race as she approached the top of the stairs, and if she had any sense at all, she would have run right back down and slammed that door behind her. And yet, despite her anxiety of not knowing what she would find, Jean could not feel any fear. Whatever was in this long-forgotten room would not harm her. She knew that, somehow.
Jean reached another door and opened it. The whispering was immediately cut off. When Jean went into the room, she found a pleasant sitting room though abandoned for decades. On the sofa she saw a young woman and a middle-aged man. They were staring at her in as much shock as Jean felt to look at them.