The manknew.Of course he did.He’d known about the boxing.He’d done his research.
Crispin took another long draw of the medicinal smoke before he spoke.But the pressure was lessening now, probably because he didn’t have to pretend it wasn’t there.
“Belladonna,” Crispin said.
The secretary nodded.“As I thought.A deadly poison makes it possible for you to do something other fellows of twenty-one take quite for granted—to breathe.It’s why you didn’t go into the armed forces, isn’t it?”
Crispin looked at him in surprise.Even his father hadn’t ever said it aloud.
“I knew they wouldn’t have me,” Crispin said.
“But we would,” the man said, without hesitation.
Crispin couldn’t speak for a moment.This was all a test, he told himself desperately—what a time to almost go to pieces!
“May I—may I think about it?”he said, and his voice sounded odd in his ears, but calm at least.
“Of course.”The man stood, and looked over Crispin one last time.“Not too shabby, by the way.”
“Sir?”
The esteemed Home Secretary’s expression was something between a wince and a smile.“The last fellow was sick all over my shoes.”
Chapter twenty-three
Ormdale
Asachild,Unahad surprised everyone by weeping inconsolably at the funeral of her father and brother.Her sisters had been dry-eyed, and somewhat bewildered by her behaviour.
They could not know that Una cried because she was glad she would never have to see them again.And she knew that only a very wicked child indeed could feel that way—one of the Amelias, Janes, and Lucys who endured a painful fate of their own in just repayment for their lack of filial piety.
Since Violet’s return, Una had gone about her duties as carefully as always.But she was filled with a deep and crippling shame.It was that sudden understanding she’d had at the riverbank the night before.She wasn’t just confused or hurt by Violet’s sudden return, she wasangry.
And she had no idea what to do with that anger.
Violet came in for tea with wild hair and bright eyes, waving a newspaper about.
“We kicked the Constitutional Crisis off the front page!”crowed Violet.“Oh!Cake!”she said appreciatively, tossing the newspaper onto the table in front of their uncle.
“Not theDaily Mail!“ Uncle George said in a pained voice, taking it up reluctantly.When he was done, he pushed it aside and gazed blankly at the tablecloth.
Una poured him a fresh cup of tea, and which he took much as a drowning man takes a life-preserver.
After he took a restorative gulp, he said in a low voice, “Don’t feel it is necessary for you to read it, my dear, if you don’t care to.”
Una was bewildered.It wasn’t unusual for something about the dragons to appear in the papers.Sometimes there were essays about them, too.Mr G.B.Shaw had written one calling their dragons a great Distraction, and Mr G.K.Chesterton had responded with an essay that Una couldn’t make head nor tail of in which he argued that the best things in life were, in fact, Distractions.
Una privately thought neither of them would last a day at the menagerie.
“Hullo, that’s my drawing!”Pip said in amazement, holding up the paper for all to see.
The stark sketch of the man who had attacked her unfolded before her eyes, along with a slew of lurid headlines that had something to do with her.
Una felt both very heavy and very light all of a sudden.
“You drew him so well, Pip,” she managed.
“How on earth did they come upon all this information!”Uncle George wondered.
