There were also categories such as Conspiracies, Special Requests, and Helpful Suggestions.
Requests for Advertising was the only category of correspondence he allowed to go unanswered.He had once responded with inadvisable candour to a businessman’s request for George to lend his recommendation to a product claiming to substantially alleviate skin disorders, and had been startled and offended to discover his ‘endorsement’ on the fellow’s advertisements.
UNPRECEDENTED AND ASTONISHING,says Royal Dragon Master.
Emily had pointed out that while the man had used George’s words completely out of context, those had indeed been George’s words.George had forborne to answer any further requests for endorsements.
Superficially, both of the unclassifiable letters ought to go under the heading Official Correspondence.But there were oddities about both of them.
One came from Stephen Fairweather.The other was an anonymous telegram.
Stephen had written very formally to make an appointment to visit the Ormdale Menagerie with ‘a colleague.’Coming from a correspondent as garrulous as his wife’s cousin Stephen, George found it ominous.
The anonymous telegram from the Downing Street telegraph office, therefore, had gained an added gravity from arriving at much the same time.
BEWARE VISIT FROM WAR OFFICE STOP SIGNED A FRIEND
He sighed and took off his spectacles.He felt as if something profoundly important were missing, something that would help him make sense of it all.
Emily, obviously.
For now, though, he would settle for a very hot cup of tea.He would have to make do with the warm one Annie had delivered a little while ago, and as he reached for it, his eyes fell on the newspaper she had brought along with it.
There was a photograph of a face he had seen recently, a well-waxed moustache distracting the viewer from the sad eyes above it.He wore a great many medals on his tailored uniform, because he was, apparently, as the caption proclaimed, THE DUKE OF CORNWALL AND YORK, and the heir apparent to the English throne.
George picked it up with a cry of exasperation.How had he not realised it before?Why, this was the very man he had met in the royal library at Windsor!
“Heaven help me, Iamthe lunatic!“ exclaimed George, studying the face closely.“‘Another George’ indeed!Well,Christ keep thee, sir king, and thy kingdom, in very truth.”
But despite his faux pas in not recognising a senior member of the Royal Family, it comforted him a little to look into those sad eyes.As vastly disparate as their stations were, here was a man with more duties and more people to protect than he had himself, though he doubted that George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha had as many who truly loved him.
And what had the prince said, that day in the library?An invitation to visit him again if he were in trouble?Today, it felt like a gift, for which George gave silent thanks, and drank his tepid tea with renewed courage.
Then he heard a foot on the stair, and a familiar voice, which for an instant he thought he had dreamt.
“George, dear?”a voice called.“Are you hiding in there?”
“Emily!”he cried out, jumping up like an infatuated schoolboy.
They met at the door, with George scrambling for the handle on one side, and his wife opening it from the other, and as they found each other and came to rest in each other’s arms, they laughed.
“How many times must I remind you, dear, that it’sLadyEmily since your knighthood,“ she murmured in the vicinity of his beard.
“About as many times as you’ll have to remind me that I’mSir Georgemyself, I expect,“ he said into her orange-blossom-scented hair.“I’m so glad you’re home.I didn’t like to say it, but we’ve been insucha muddle without you.”
Chapter fifty-three
Ormdale
ItwasnotJanushek’sbest day, not by far.There had been an incident up at the kilns, and a worker had been injured.Though it might have been far worse than it was, Janushek could not help remembering the accident many years before that had left he himself scarred and without a job as a chemist’s assistant.Not to mention the accidents he had witnessed at the dye factory.These supplied him with a different variety of nightmare, the kind where he could not reach drowning people in time.
Janushek sent the man home on half-pay, and—not for the first time—cursed the lack of a doctor in the dale.He’d thought once that Gwendolyn Worms might fill this role, but it seemed she had no desire to return to the scenes of her youth.Not that Janushek could blame her.Gwendolyn had found a fresh start in London, far away from the ghosts of her past, just as Janushek had found one in a remote Yorkshire dale.
He arrived back at the cottage gate to find his daughter Bella playing with Smok in the garden.As soon as he saw her, his body loosened.He’d never imagined himself as a father, but in the end, nothing could have felt more natural to him.
Bella ran to him, and he braced to swing her onto his shoulders, but she shook her head, her curls flying, her eyes solemn.
Every time she looked at him like this, he felt a heady mixture of delight and terror.The poets didn’t tell you what this was like.Perhaps because they couldn’t.
