“The money that was being used for art school might be allocated differently,” he said stiffly.
Couldn’t they see he would never be anything but small, if he did not broaden his horizons?Or did theywanthim to be small?
“Now it is time for thehavdalahcandle, my little mouse,“ Janushek said, lifting their tiny daughter from her chair.He held her on his lap as he helped her dip the burning candle into his cup of wine, which she did with great solemnity, giving a wriggle of delight when the wick hissed at her.Then he sang a short song to signal the end of his religious observance.
The little girl joined in, though the words surely meant little to her, thought Pip.But it made his mother smile, and Pip was surprised by how young and lovely she looked, her hair golden in the firelight.
During his childhood her smiles had been rare.Now, she seemed to grow younger every year.
“To bed!”Janushek declared.
“Smok!Smok!”the child cried, and Janushek whistled.Smok lumbered out from under the table, ruby eyes glinting, for the child to be put on its back.Janushek snatched up his violin from the sideboard and led the girl and the dragon away to the accompaniment of a wild Slavic tune.
In the quietness left behind, his mother got up and put the kettle on the hob.
“You understand where the money comes from, Pip?”she said, all seriousness again.
“From the squire’s family.”
She did not answer.
“Help me with the dishes, lad.”
While the water was heating, he scraped the crockery, putting the scraps into a pail for the chickens.
“You could hire someone to help out, Mam,” Pip pointed out.
She took a tea towel from its hook.“I like doing for myself,” she said simply.“I had years of doing for other people.I can please myself now.”
Lily Dugdale had done the jobs of five or so servants for the down-at-heel squire’s family, until the family’s fortunes had turned around.She had her own little cottage garden now, with a pen for fowl and a bee skep.There was a slow pleasure in the way she kept busy about the place.
“You’re right about the money coming from the abbey family,” she said, grating soap flakes into the sink.“Have you wondered why?”
“I know why,” he said.“I’m not a fool.”
She looked at him, her face soft.“You’re twenty-one this year, Pip.And you’re already a man.”
Here was an opportunity for him to make his point.“Can’t you see that’s why I need to go abroad?To make something of myself, before it’s too late?”
She took a deep breath.“There’s something you should know, lad.About your father.”
Pip stopped breathing.An old, wild idea—a secret hope that scared and elated him so that he daren’t even admit it to himself—flickered alive inside him.
And he was scraping a plate.Would he really be scraping a plate into the chicken pail when the world finally turned right-side up?
Her voice was very soft when she finally spoke.“It wasn’t the old squire, lad.You’re not one of his.”
Without speaking, Pip put down the plate and walked out of the lodge.
For a moment, he had been so filled with pain, he couldn’t speak or respond at all.Outside in the moonlight, he took great gasps of air.
Then something alive butted into his shoulder in the dark, and a hard object dropped onto his shoe.
The live thing was hard and bumpy, with a warm tongue and an insistent huff.
It bit him.
“Oi!”he shouted, and batted at it, but it was crumpled on the ground at his feet now, exhausted.
