“I will return later. I will send Desmond up to you now.”
He heard me, his eyelids flickered, but he said nothing. He was angry, and with good reason. His thirtieth birthday was two weeks away. He would not live to see it. I would have been angry, too.
THE THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER
Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry;
Oh! If you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, who ever felt as I!
—Sappho
Ispent the next two days sulking around Grey House. I worked on the household accounts, tidied the stillroom, read and wrote letters. Or at least I pretended to. The truth is, I often found myself staring at a book I did not remember picking up or writing such utter gibberish that in the end I tore the pages into tiny pieces and dropped them into the wastepaper basket. I was utterly useless, waiting for Brisbane to send a report and for Simon to expire. I went often to the sickroom, intending to read to Simon or simply sit with him, but he had settled into a routine with Desmond and seemed easier with him. I made Simon uncomfortable and, if I am honest, I was uncomfortable as well. Edward’s death, while horrible, had the saving grace of being quick. Simon would not be so lucky. It was torture to watch him suffer, and I was craven. I made every excuse I could to avoid the sickroom, until my conscience prickled and I knew that I could put it off no longer. I always felt a guilty sense of release when I slipped out again, like a child on holiday from school.
To assuage my guilt I spent hours closeted with Cook, concocting menus that I thought might tempt him to eat. I needn’t have bothered. He ate little, sometimes barely tasting the delicate morsels we sent up. Each day I saw the plates go by, often untouched, and each night I prayed to a God I no longer wholly believed in for Simon’s deliverance. But he lived on and I added that to the score I had to settle with God.
To add insult to injury, it was at about this time that I was adopted. One morning, as I sat muttering obscenities over Cook’s outrageously extravagant food accounts, I heard a sound from the floor. A distinctive, wholly unwelcomequorkingsound. I edged around my desk and glanced down.
“Good Lord, how did you get loose?”
The raven looked up at me and cocked his head. “Good morning,” he said, quite civilly.
“Yes, good morning to you, too, I suppose.” He continued to regard me thoughtfully and I returned the favor. He was too big for me to wrestle back to Val’s room were I so inclined. But even if his size was no deterrent, his beak and talons were. We enjoyed our impasse for some minutes, but at length I grew bored and returned to my accounts.
Immediately, the wide black wings whirred and the raven flapped up and settled himself on my desk. I froze, but he did not move again, apparently content to perch there, watching me. He was rather gentlemanly, all things considered. He did not disturb my papers or inkwell, keeping himself carefully out of my way. His round, shining eyes were focused steadily on my pen, watching with great interest as I made my sums.
After a minute, I opened a box of sugared plums and held one out to him.
“Are you hungry?”
He made a sound I had not heard before, something very like Aunt Hermia’s sigh of pleasure whenever she is offered a box of violet creams. He plucked the plum from my fingertips and tore into it. It was not particularly pleasant to watch, but he seemed very contented.
“Sweeties,” he said when he had finished.
“Hmm, yes, sweeties. Whatever shall we do with you?” I asked him rhetorically. Val had made no progress with his scheme to return him. I had scanned the newspapers every day, but there was no mention of a scandal regarding the Tower ravens. For all intents and purposes, I supposed the fellow belonged to us now.
Or perhaps to me, I thought with a flutter of alarm as he toddled across the desk. He lowered his head, bobbing it toward me. After a moment, I realized he expected something and I lifted a hand to scratch his handsome feathers.
“You are no better than a dog,” I said repressively. But he was busy making his littlequorkand bobbing for more scratches on the head. When he was finished, he flapped down from the desk and busied himself inspecting the room. He walked the length of it, poking his shining head into the nooks and crannies, occasionally chattering at me. I responded, feeling rather stupid, but at least he said a word or two in return, which is certainly more than a dog would have done. By the time I had finished the accounts we were rather good friends and I was feeling a bit less bleak than I had before.
“You are a very companionable creature,” I told him. “But you really ought to have a name. I suppose Hugi or Muni is too expected. I wonder what they called you.”
He looked at me with gem-bright eyes, and for one mad moment I thought he was going to tell me. But he kept his secret and did not speak again for the rest of the afternoon.
To my delight, Portia called that evening. I nearly wept with relief. I greeted her warmly, too warmly, I suspect, for she pulled out of my embrace and looked at me suspiciously.
“Darling, do you feel quite yourself?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s been quite dreadful, really. Simon is worse, nearly at the end, according to Griggs.”
She divested herself of her hat and gloves and other trappings, heaping them in a bright, shifting pile of expensive, misty blue. She kept Puggy, settling him onto a purple fringed cushion as she took a chair. We began our usual duet.
“Oh, not that cushion, Portia. It’s rather a favorite.”
She gave me an injured little pout. “Puggy is very well behaved. What do you expect him to do to it?”
