Henrietta looked shocked, but Silvestre’s eyes sparkled. “It sounds a very gypsy life. I’ve often wished I might live so. I’d like to follow the drum, I think. Such adventure!”
Hetty shuddered. “Don’t, Silve! I can think of nothing more unpleasant.”
Her sister struck the open tome. “This is useless. We could go through the whole book and find nothing.”
“I fear you are right.” Felicity smiled. “But thank you for trying.”
Silvestre set the book aside. “Letters! Papers! That is where we should be looking.”
“But I have none!”
“Impossible. You must have something.”
“Oh, hush, Silve!” Henrietta threw an apologetic look across the table. “Don’t heed her, Felicity. She means well.”
“Do be quiet, Hetty. This is important. There must be something, Felicity. What happened to your papa’s effects? Someone must have taken care of all that. A person does not die without leaving a whole —”
“Silve!”
Felicity gave a rueful smile. “It’s all right, Hetty. It does not hurt to talk of it. And Silve is right.”
The other twin grinned. “I’m as blunt as Aunt Angelica. But I am right, aren’t I? There would have been clothes, letters, papers. All kinds of possessions must have remained, even if you were living out of a portmanteau, as it appears you may have been.”
Images coursed through Felicity’s mind. The tumbled disorder of the room in which they’d slept, she invariably in a cot or truckle bed, out of which she’d crept many a night to slip in beside Papa’s sleeping form. He’d never minded. Once or twice there had been a separate room, but mostly they’d shared. Clothes? Yes, a plethora of garments strewn pell-mell on chairs or the dresser or the bed in the day. His boots discarded on the floor until he remembered to set them outside for polishing. His shirts, neck-cloths and other mangled articles flung in a pile awaiting the attentions of a laundress. The parlour, when they’d had one, which was not all the time, with his books piled higgledy-piggledy on the tables, the sideboards, everywhere a surface offered. Papa had swept them aside for her lessons, picking up any he needed to illustrate some point he made.
“Books,” she said aloud. “He had a lot of books. I have no idea what happened to them.”
“But papers, Felicity. Think!”
Thus exhorted, she swept her mind for an appropriate image, and found none. If there were papers she had no memory of any, other than the ink-spattered sheets covered in her laborious copperplate as she transcribed at his dictation, or copied a passage he designated to be done while he was out. Also her childish attempts at sketching, which Papa was apt to overpraise and display with prominence wherever he could find a space.
“I don’t remember any papers. Only his journal, which I have preserved.” Her mind jumped. Papa’s journal! She’d thought it lost to her forever, but Lord Lynchmere had restored it to her, along with her valise.
“The very thing! There must be a clue in a journal. Come now, Felicity. You cannot have had it all this time without reading it.”
“Don’t be silly, Silve. She probably knows it by heart.”
“I don’t.” Catching a little of Silvestre’s enthusiasm, Felicity lit with hope. “I have read it, of course, but as for recalling anything pertinent…”
“What do you remember from it, Felicity?”
Henrietta’s hesitant query amused her, what with Silvestre’s positively gimlet gaze boring into her with unmistakeable demand.
“In the main, it is an account of the places where we stayed, and what we did there. Or what Papa did there, though I cannot say it made much impression upon me. I was more inclined to dwell on his references to my progress, where he wrote that Flissie’s writing was improving or praised a particular drawing. I was used to skip the rest.”
“Who shall blame you?” Henrietta’s eyes were swimming. “You poor thing! So tragic. I should think any such mention was balm.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hetty! Must you turn into a watering pot?” Silvestre cast an exasperated look at Felicity. “I apologise for my sister’s ridiculous sensibility.”
“Can I help it if I am soft-hearted?”
“You ought to. Do you see Felicity crying over it? It was a long time ago. Besides, it is not in the least helpful to be falling into the dismals.”
“I am not in the dismals! I am merely sympathising with poor Felicity’s plight.”
“If you sympathised with her present plight, it would be more to the point.”
“I do, but —”
