Agatha frowned in suspicion. “Sydney Algernon Griffin!” she called. “You promised you’d—”
Before she could manage to set her work aside, block his way, and forestall an exit, Sydney reappeared at the foot of the stairwell. He’d changed his brown coat for one of bottle green, and the flush on his pale cheeks spoke of haste and excitement—but also, to his mother’s keen sight, of guilt. “Going out again, Mum,” he called cheerily. “Back late. Love you!”
“—print this plate—” Agatha managed, but not quickly enough. The doorway was empty, and the chime of the shop bell was the only reply she got.
So much for filial duty.
This was the bane of Agatha’s current existence: she couldn’t very well leave the business to her son if he was never around to run it.
Her temper surged like a storm cloud, and descended upon the only object available. Her apprentice, whose dark head lifted, and whose creamy complexion went rose red at the sight of her mistress’s narrowed eye.
Lord, but weren’t the young astonishing? Even at the end of a day so long as this, Eliza radiated keenness and energy. “Break for dinner, ma’am?” the girl piped. “I know it’s Betsy’s night off, so I could run to the Queen’s Larder for a pie, if you like. One pie ought to be plenty for the two of us.”
An attempt at distraction. It would not work. “Eliza,” Agatha said, with careful clarity, “do you know where my son is off to this evening?”
The girl’s glance flicked down, then back. “I couldn’t say for certain, Mrs. Griffin.”
Agatha’s voice was cool as a razor. “Perhaps he is attending one of the Polite Society’s chemistry lectures.”
Eliza ducked her head. “Couldn’t say, ma’am.”
“A poetry reading? A concert? A play in some theater or other?”
Eliza shook her head.
Agatha drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Dare I ask whether my son has developed a passion for Mr. Rossini’s latest opera?”
Eliza sighed wistfully. “If only.”
Agatha snorted.
Her apprentice blushed and bit her lip. “That is—I don’t think so, ma’am.”
“So.” Agatha drummed her fingers again, four tiny beats like a guillotine march. “That leaves only one possibility. Eliza, tell me my precious, precocious Sydney is not bound for the Crown and Anchor, to drink bad ale and cheer for whoever is spouting tonight’s most radical nonsense.”
“It wouldn’t be right to tell a lie, ma’am,” Eliza said plaintively.
Agatha pinched at the bridge of her nose to keep her head from exploding in maternal vexation.
She knew part of this was her fault, really. She and Thomas had raised the boy in a print-shop, surrounded by persuasive pamphlets and cases of type waiting to be reordered and rearranged into new flights of rhetoric. Sydney swam in arguments like a fish—but Agatha was worried that only made him ready to be hooked and filleted.
Her voice ground out the old complaint. “I never expected him to be a paragon. He’s a young man, after all. It’s best to keep your expectations low if you want to avoid disappointment. I just wish his vices kept him more often at home!”
She cocked an eyebrow at Eliza, who was still squirming, even though the girl had done absolutely nothing to squirm about.
Unless...
“At least he doesn’t seem prone to debauchery,” Agatha said, watching carefully. “That’s something.”
Ah, yes, there it was, the flush spreading from the girl’s cheeks to the tips of her ears. It was as good as cracking open her diary to read it in plain ink on paper.
Her son and her apprentice were more than merely friendly.
Not surprising, really. They were both healthy and young—oh, so young! Agatha could remember when nineteen seemed mature and wise and fully grown. It took nearly two decades to reach it, after all. But nineteen looked very different when you looked back on it from the lofty heights of forty-three. And forty-three would probably look green as grass from the cliffs of seventy-five, should Agatha be lucky enough to attain such a venerable age.
Time tumbled you forward, no matter how hard you fought to stay put.
Agatha sighed and looked down at the image on the copper plate, with its burrs and burnishing. All those little figures, waiting for the acid bath to draw their lines sharp and true. Today they were everything; tomorrow they would be forgotten.
