The inside was just as mellow and well-appointed, with dark, rose-patterned woodwork smelling of oil soap, plus dark-hued, layered window draperies that reminded Dawn of a dress that a fancy woman might’ve worn at a ball.“The house is all a bit much for me now,” the seventy-some-year-old Mrs. O’Connell had told them after they’d doffed their coats and sat down to tea in one of three reception rooms. A hint of an Irish lilt painted the elderly woman’s tone just as colorfully as the pink tinge on her soft cheeks and the blue of her eyes. “My husband passed on years ago, and now it’s me and far too many rooms.”Dawn, Kiko, and Natalia smiled back, their tea in front of them on the low cherry wood table. Mrs. O’Connell had already told them all about her husband: how he used to give music lessons here, how she could occasionally hear the memory of a violin or clarinet in an empty room.Since they were still in the small-talk stage of the interview, they hadn’t asked yet about her much younger cousin Eleanor or found out why Natalia had envisioned her grave at Highgate Cemetery.
