As soon as she got to the undergrowth, she found herself in the middle of another patch of nettles, and the welts that rose on her hands stung the tears out of her eyes at last.
Una did not go looking for her sister, but she found her all the same.At the snap of a twig under Una’s boot, a puffy face looked up from behind the curve of a great tree limb overhanging the river.
Una’s own hiding place, where the river was deep and quiet.
Violet burrowed her face into the bend of her arm again.
“I wasn’t coming after you,” Una explained stiffly.“I come here sometimes.I forgot that you knew about it too.”
Was there anything that the two of them hadnotshared in the past?Was there evenoneplace where she could be herself alone, and not in relation to Violet at all?Where she wouldn’t be assailed feelings that exhausted her?
A little swish sounded in the calmest part of the river, followed by a soft series of bubbles.
Una drew a square of brown paper from her pocket, then unwrapped the square of ginger cake within and threw it into the river.
Violet watched her fixedly.“Is that…?”
“Yes,” Una said, wiping her fingers.
“How do you know?”
“I raised him from a baby,” said Una.“I know.”
Violet had, arguably, played her own part in the raising of the orphaned river dragon, but to Una’s relief, her sister did not argue with her, but merely nodded and snuffled.
The frogs hidden in the bank at their feet began to make their evening calls.Una sighed.It was too late now to find the peace she had sought at the riverbank.Una never felt safe being outside at dusk.Her governesses had made sure of that with their terror of evening damps.
“Martha will be waiting supper for us,” said Una.“Let’s go inside before we catch a chill.Step where I step and you’ll miss the nettles.”
Chapter nineteen
London
CrispinFairweathercamehomefrom the office to find the Fairweather family seat—a humble but artfully appointed Bloomsbury terrace house—jammed full with his mother’s friends, talking about Art and Philosophy with capital letters.Such talk did not agree with him, so he slipped into his father’s study.
“Oh, hello, old chap,” said his father, looking up from a letter.
Crispin sat down and loosened his collar while his father poured him a drink.
“Shouldn’t you be keeping the rabble in the other room out of trouble?”Crispin joked.
His father laughed.“Shouldn’tyou, if it comes to that?“ He gave his son a sidelong glance.“Some of the girls are rather pretty, especially when they argue with you.”
Crispin sniffed.“If you’re talking about Penny’s friends, those girls wouldn’t give a civil servant a second look.A first look, even!Not unless I was trying to unchain one of them from the front steps of Parliament.And I prefer to leave that to the policemen.”
“Don’t let your sister hear you talking like that,” his father warned, with a slight wince.
“I certainly won’t, sir,” Crispin said.“I don’t fancy an acid attack at the breakfast table.”
“You don’t support the ladies in their crusade for the franchise, then?”his father said, in a tone that was, on the surface, merely curious.
Stephen Fairweather was the most diplomatic man Crispin knew, which was probably why he was so highly esteemed by his colleagues at the War Office.
“I don’t know,” said Crispin, growing serious.“I suppose itwouldbe fair.It’s just—there are so many things that are unfair, and that’s just one.I mean, it’s not as if we’re burning them at the stake.I could hardly get to the office the other day because of one of their agitations.They’re sure to get what they want in the end.Why must they make such an ungodly fuss over it in the meantime?”
“Why indeed?”his father said calmly.
His father picked up an envelope at his elbow, absently.“Do you know that the Prince of Wales has made it privately known that he wants the Oath of Accession altered?”
