“The mechanism requires daily attention.”
“The mechanism.” Tom shared a glance with Jem that communicated a volume’s worth of meaning. “And how is the ‘mechanism’?”
“Functioning.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. Only we noticed you don’t come down so often now. No pyre to build. Light’s burning. Steward’s managing the accounts and the inspectors and the correspondence and whatever else it is stewards do. Which leaves you with—what,exactly?”
“The light. The maintenance. The watch.”
“Right. The watch.” Tom pushed off the wall. “It’s only—if a man finds himself with time he didn’t have before, a man might consider putting that time to use. Socially, I mean.”
“I am not a social man.”
“No, you’re not. Which is a waste, frankly, because you’ve got a woman up there who’s cleverer than any of us, braver than most of us, and better looking than all of us, and you’re… what? Polishing brass?”
“The brass requires polishing to keep corrosion at bay.”
Jem laughed. Tom did not. Tom looked at him with an expression that held genuine exasperation beneath the amusement, the expression of a man who could not fathom how another man could occupy the same headland as Elizabeth Bennet and fail to act upon the obvious.
“All I’m saying,” Tom said, “is that if you’re not interested, there’s others who’d be willing to make the climb. Just so you know.”
“No one is climbing the headland to importune the steward.”
“Importune?” Tom tasted the word. “There’s a five-shilling word for a man who polishes brass.”
“Leave him,” Jem said, grinning. “He’ll work it out. Or he won’t, and one of us will.”
They departed with the loose, unhurried gait of men who had delivered their message and were satisfied with the discomfort it had produced. He stood at the harbour wall with the handcart and the oil and the thin December wind coming off the water. The discomfort sat where they had placed it, and he could not dislodge it, and the climb back to the tower was longer than it should have been.
Hissister’ssecondletterarrived on the same day as her first reply.
Two envelopes in Shaw’s sack—the first dated two weeks after his letter, the second dated a week after that. She had written twice before he could have received either. The implication was plain: she had not waited for his answer. She had written because she could not stop herself from writing, and the frequency was its own kind of reproach.
He read them in the gallery, by the light of the flame. The first was shorter than the Bath letter—calmer, more contained, as though the act of writing to him regularly had given her a structure she could inhabit without the desperation that had driven the earlier correspondence.
Dearest Brother,
Your letter arrived this morning. I read it four times. I read it to my aunt, who cried, and to my uncle, who did not cry but went very quiet, which is his version of the same thing.
We are back in London. My aunt has taken me to the theatre twice this week, which I believe is her method of preventing me from spending every evening at the instrument. She is probably right. The second performance was a comedy, and I laughed — actually laughed — which surprised me and surprised my aunt and did not surprise my uncle, who says I have always laughed when I am not trying not to.
You mentioned Bella. I was glad. She is well — old and deaf and still sleeping in every doorway, and she misses you in the way dogs miss people, which is to say completely and without the complications we attach to the feeling.
Richard dined with us on Tuesday. He asks after you every time we meet, which is more often than you might expect. I think my aunt has instructed him to keep watch over me, and he has taken to the assignment with more good humour than it probably deserves. I know you and he were never easy with one another in the way cousins are supposed to be. Perhaps because you only have a few unhappy recollections of him from school, but he is better company than you would credit, and he speaks of you with a warmth I do not think he manufactures. He would write to you himself, but he says you would not answer him, and I could not argue the point with any conviction.
You said you are keeping a light. You said the work suits you. You did notsay you are happy, and I did not expect you to, because you have never used that word about yourself even when it applied. But your letter was longer than three lines, and the handwriting was steadier than the last one, and I choose to read both of those things as evidence.
Your sister, G.
The second was shorter.
Dearest Brother,
Mrs. Reynolds writes that the south roof is leaking again. I mention this not because I expect you to do anything about it, but because someone ought to tell you, and I find I have appointed myself to the post. The housekeeper should not have to write to a man in Northumberland about roof tiles. The sister may.
I have also taken it upon myself to instruct the gardener about the east border, which had gone to seed in a manner I believe you would find personally offensive. My aunt says I am becoming managing. I prefer to think of it as filling a vacancy.
We have been dining with the Ashfords — Colonel Ashford served with Richard, and his wife is kind without being exhausting, which is a quality I have come to value above almost all others in London society. Their daughter Charlotte is near my age and reads more than she speaks, which suits me very well. I think you would like the Colonel. He is quiet in the way you are quiet, which is to say he is listening when other people believe he is not. I mention this for no particular reason and with no particular hope.
