The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

She was not mentioned again between us for many days, and then only casually. Yet his heart was full of her. I knew this from the way he talked about her to others.

IV

I was given a spacious apartment on the third story. It was here that my uncle had his suite and, as I was afterwards told, my cousin Edgar also whenever he chose to make use of it, which was not very often. Mine overlooked the grounds on the east side of the building, and was approached from the main staircase by a winding passage-way, and from a rear one by a dozen narrow steps down which I was lucky never to fall. The second story I soon learned was devoted to Orpha and the many guests she was in the habit of entertaining. In her absence, all the rooms on this floor remained closed. During my whole stay I failed to see a single one of its many doors opened.

I met my uncle at table and in the library opening off the court and for a week we got on beautifully together. He seemed to enjoy my companionship and to welcome every effort on my part towards mutual trust and understanding. But the next week saw us no further advanced either in confidence or warmth of affection, and this notwithstanding an ever increasing regard on my part both for his character and attainments. Was the fault, then, in me that he was not able to give me the full response I so ardently desired? Or was it that the strength of his attachment for the second bearer of his name was such as to preclude too hearty a reception of one who might possibly look upon himself as possessing a corresponding claim upon his consideration?

I tried to flatter myself that this and not any real lack in myself was the cause of the slight but quite perceptible break in our mutual understanding. For whenever my cousin’s name came up, which was oftener than was altogether pleasing to me, the light in my uncle’s eye brightened and the richness in his tone grew more marked. Yet when I once ventured to ask him if my cousin had any special bent or predominate taste, he turned sharply aside, with the carefully modulated remark:

“If he has, neither he nor ourselves have ever been able as yet to discover it.”

But he loved him; of that I grew more and more assured as I noted that there was not a room in the great mansion, no, nor a nook, so far as I could see, without a picture of him somewhere on desk, table or mantel. There was even one in my room. Photographs all, but taken at different times of his life from childhood up, and framed every one with that careful taste and lavishness of expense which we only bestow on what is most precious.

I spent a great deal of time studying these pictures. I may have been seen doing so and I may not, having no premonition as to what was in store for me. My interest in them sprang from a different source than a casual onlooker would be apt to conjecture. I was searching for what gave him such a hold on the affections of every sort of person with whom he came in contact. There was no beauty in his countenance nor in so far as I could judge from the various poses in which these photographs had been taken, any distinction in his build or bearing. His expression even lacked that haunting quality which sometimes makes an otherwise ordinary countenance unforgettable. Yet during the fortnight of my first stay under my uncle’s roof I never heard this cousin of mine mentioned in the house or out of it, that I did not observe that quiet illumination of the features on the part of the one speaking which betrays lively admiration if not love.

Was I generous enough to be glad of the favor so unconsciously shown him by those who knew him best? I fear I must acknowledge to the contrary in spite of the prejudice it may arouse against me. For I mean to be frank in these pages and to present myself as I am, faults and all, that you may rate at their full value the difficulties which afterwards beset me.

I was not pleased to find my cousin, unknown quantity though he was, held so firmly in my uncle’s regard, especially as—but here let me cry a moment’s halt while I speak of one who, if hitherto simply alluded to, was much in my thoughts through these half pleasant, half trying days of my early introduction into this family. Orpha did not return, nor was I so happy as to come across her picture anywhere in the house; which, considering the many that were to be seen of Edgar, struck me as extremely odd till I heard that there was a wonderful full length portrait of her in Uncle’s study, which fact afforded an explanation, perhaps, of why I was never asked to accompany him there.