“Are ye dead then and still just walkin’ about?” Lily boldly asked.
“Oh, marvelous!” my aunt exclaimed, clapping her hands together with obvious delight.
“Just as I planned.”
Six
“You are mad, absolutely mad!”my sister declared as we sat in my aunt’s small informal parlor where she had recently had a jungle installed forpracticeas she put it before departing for her African safari— the one that had to be postponed. It had been complete with a monkey that had since been returned to the London Zoo.
“What do you know about raising a child?”
To say that Linnie was quite outspoken in her opinion on the matter was another understatement.
“Experience at having once been one?” I suggested over a glass of the port wine she preferred while our aunt was presently conducting a tour of the house with Lily, who had shown particular interest in the Sword Room.
It contained battle regalia, armor, shields and no small amount of swords of past ancestors. I had loved exploring it as a child.
“Pish tosh!” Linnie replied quite colorfully. “Do you honestly believe that qualifies you to raise a child? And she is hardly a child, but a half-grown young woman!”
“What,” I countered, “qualifies anyone to raise child? Most certainly Aunt Antonia had no practical experience and see how she succeeded.” I pointed out.
“Precisely,” Linnie replied with a direct look at me.
She took another sip of port while I looked about for a bottle of Old Lodge. We had taken supper with our aunt, that also included Lily.
A memorable experience as our aunt was quite amused by Lily’s somewhat lack of table manners and had taken to pointing out the various pieces of silver dinnerware along with the array of China pieces as if it was a grand adventure.
Lily had been quite taken with the education in the finer points of dining.
“Crivvens,” she had remarked again. “I was lucky to get a spoon at Madame’s,” to which Linnie looked as if she might faint.
“Oh, my, how like you,” she had commented with a look down the table at me.
And with that validation, I now told my sister, “Precisely!”
“It is possibly not exactly the same,” Linnie continued her argument as I found the bottle of Old Lodge and poured a two-finger measurement. I had the feeling I was going to need it.
“We had a governess from the earliest age who instructed us in manners and etiquette… Or attempted to when you had not taken yourself off on your horse or gone adventuring in a hedgerow,” she continued.
I had to admit, we had approached our lessons from different points of view.
I simply became bored by it all and devised any method to escape our early lessons in deportment and what was expected of children of our station. What poppycock!
And as for my sister? I dearly loved Linnie, however, we were very different in many ways. Still, I had hope for her considering her… affair with my publisher James Warren as an example. Of course, no one was supposed to know about that.
I downed the whisky and poured another, as the subject of our conversation— Lily, appeared with our aunt.
“Do ye know that yer aunt…” she paused and corrected herself, “her ladyship has a sword that is near a thousand years old?” she commented with great excitement. “Crivvens!” There was that word again. “I canna even imagine a thousand years. But it’s a right fine sword. She let me hold it!”
A girl after my own heart, I thought. But I supposed for now the knife Munro had given her would have to do, once she was instructed the best way to use it so as not to injure herself. Swords could come later.
“It’s all arranged,” our aunt announced, crossing the parlor in full costume with that ghastly make-up.
She grabbed a glass and held it out. I poured. No port wine for our aunt as she plunged on ahead in her usual take-charge manner.
“And Lily is in complete agreement. She shall take your former room, Mikaela. I will make arrangements for a tutor— I believe Marion Abercrombie has someone she will recommend since your tutor is quite past it, or possibly no longer with us.
“It will liven everything up around here,” she went on. “I do dislike being bored. After all,” she added with a look in my direction. “You have your novels and your inquiry cases with Mr. Brodie. You cannot possibly attend to all the needs of a young girl.
