“Mam said stay in garden,” she said in her delicious Yorkshire accent, and shaking him off, she ran back to Smok.
Janushek saw the door was ajar, as if Lily were keeping an eye on the child from inside while she had private conversation, perhaps with Pip.Then he heard the kitchen door at the back of the cottage bang shut in a way that sounded intentional.Janushek went inside quickly.
Lily was alone now, hand gripping the chimneypiece, head bowed.She was shaking.
Janushek immediately folded her in his arms.
“My love, I am here, what is wrong?”
Too late, he realised he was speaking his own language to her, which she didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry,” he said in English.“I wasn’t thinking.”
She swivelled to face him, gripping his arms with fierce affection.“Don’t dare apologise for that!Ilikeit, Brik.”
Janushek searched her face.
“You told Pip,” he said.
She nodded.“It didn’t go well, as tha sees.”Her head dropped onto his shoulder.“I’m ashamed of myself.There’s Violet and Miss Edith, jumping on dragons’ backs, just for a lark.I fall to pieces telling my own son what I should’ve told him years ago.”
“There are things much more frightening than riding dragons,” Janushek said to his wife with certainty.“And one of them is raising children.”
She laughed into his shoulder, then looked up.“Thee came home early.Is all well?”
“I came home for something more important.”
“And what was that?”she whispered.
“You,” he said, and kissed her.
Chapter fifty-four
Ormdale
Unadidn’treallywantto go back to the muniments room at all.In the end, that is why she did it.If she was going to face it again—and she had to face it someday—she ought to do it on an afternoon like this, when she felt relieved and happy because Aunt Emily had come home.
She would have left Oolong downstairs, but he followed her stubbornly, almost as if he knew where she was going, and wouldn’t have her face it alone.
Una climbed the stairs with him padding beside her.In the aftermath of her confession to Violet, Una felt almost weightless.
“Is this how you felt, Oolong,” she whispered to him, “when the glasshouse was built, and you began to use your wings to fly again?”
When they got onto the roof she remembered: Pip had never returned the keys.How very absent-minded she had become!It must be because she hadn’t slept very much lately.Well, now that she was here, she ought at least to check whether he’d remembered to lock up the tower afterwards.
Sure enough, the door opened when she turned the knob, which was no more than she expected.What she had not expected was to find Pip himself, in a posture of alarm by the table, wearing, incongruously, an overcoat.
“What areyoudoing here?“ he demanded, though this was manifestly a question which ought to be asked of him.
He looked so guilty that she stared.
“I’m getting the nail clippers for Oolong,” she said.“What about you?”
“I—I—I’m sorry, Una,” he said, going red.“I said I checked on the relic, days ago.But I didn’t.I didn’t think it was very important.But I’ve checked on it now, and it’s there!So that’s all right, isn’t it?No harm done.”
Una didn’t feel itwasall right.“But why—why would you lie about that?”
“I don’t know!”he snapped, making Oolong startle.“Just—just leave it alone.”
