Chambers took the paper between two fingers and held it as if it would indeed bite him.
“Well?”
“It appears to be a poem, my lady.By a person named Moh-rho.”
“Moero.Correct.”
“I’m not acquainted with that writer.We didn’t, that is, I have not had the privilege.”
“I’m not surprised.She isn’t much read.”
“She?”His face remained impassive, but distaste was palpable in his voice.
“She,” repeated Georgiana.“Now look at the Greek and listen to this: “Nymphs of Anigrus, river maidens, who, who, always?Forever?Still?walk with, with rose colored feet on the deep, greet and hail and save Cleonymus who set these fair pictures—statues probably—to you, goddesses, beneath, beneath something, some sort of tree?”
Chambers stared at the paper still pinched between his fingers.
“Well?”
“What is it you wish, my lady?”
“Your opinion, man.Is it adequate?Nymphs are goddesses, are they not?”That much at least she knew; though, how they looked was beyond her.“Do they walk?Glide?Tread?That’s more formal.What do you think?”
“If this is your translation, I’m sure it must be correct just as it is,” the old man said through lips so tight she feared for his tongue.She ought to let him be.
“Do you care for it Chambers?In Greek or in English, either one?”
“Care for it, my lady?It is not my place.”He raised his eyes from the poem only to look back at the wall, avoiding eye contact.“I have no opinion.”
An unholy urge to goad him came and went.Infantile gestures never satisfied.
“Will that be all, my lady?”The voice betrayed no emotion.
Georgiana set down her quill.“You may go, Chambers.”
She sank back in her seat and lifted her cooling tea.Her butler was a gray cipher of a man with no more interest in her poems than Eunice had.
There were twenty people on Georgiana’s staff, and not one of them so much as looked her in the eye, much less engaged in conversation.To expect more was ludicrous.Differences of class aside, not one person had taken any interest in her study of Greek in the eleven long years since Andrew left.
Andrew cared, at least he did once.She squeezed her eyes shut.Andrew again.The man’s horridly scarred face—and the untouched face of the long-gone schoolboy—haunted her, had done so since she saw him at Groghan’s store.Thoughts of that face left her unable to get any work done.
She replaced her cup in its saucer with a slap.The clang of crockery made Eunice jump.Everything made Eunice jump.
“Stay put, Eunice.I’m just gathering my references.”
Georgiana rose on a swish of silk skirts, tossed the cup and saucer onto the tray, and pulled Liddell’s Lexicon and a handful of others off the shelf.She spread them on the desk and began to flip absently through them, checking various words.“Nymph” was clear and consistent.“Anigrus” didn’t appear and was likely a proper noun in any case, but she wondered what or who it was.Any man with a half-decent education probably knew.
She resented her own ignorance.She didn’t know how the nymphs moved.Walk was the simplest translation, she suspected, but she wanted to know how they walked, what sort of movement the poetess was trying to depict.Lack of knowledge frustrated her.
She picked up a shabby little book from the scattered pile and ran a finger over it affectionately.Stewart’s Advanced Greek for Young Scholars, her oldest and dearest friend.She smiled at the odd conceit.Her oldest Greek reference perhaps, though she had few enough friends.She opened the cover.A neatly copied inscription covered the frontispiece.
To Lady Georgiana,with wishes for success.
Respectfully,
A.Mallet
She wasseventeen when he found her lurking behind the palms in her father’s conservatory, contending with an abbreviated passage from Plato.Andrew acted as though it was perfectly normal for a girl two years his senior to struggle alone over material he had mastered many years before.Fear of discovery and her mother’s bile had made her very careful.Only Andrew knew, and he never revealed her secret to her parents.Two weeks after the encounter, an anonymous parcel arrived.It containedStewart’s.
Andrew didn’t think like the others.She savored his suggestions.He helped her through Pindar.He helped her through Paul.He told her she did “amazing work.”She refused to believe that life had changed him, no matter what passed between them in the end.A glimmer of hope sparked back to life in her.She rose abruptly.
“Call for the carriage, Eunice.We’re going into Cambridge.”
The placid face didn’t alter.Eunice seemed quite used to her mistress’s sudden odd starts.“Yes, my lady.Shall I bring a basket for goods?Are we going to the bookstore?”
“Yes, bring it, but we probably won’t need it.Fetch my parasol.Once we get there, we’re going for a walk.”
Andrew Holden may notwant to further our acquaintance, but he will.Oh yes, he most certainly will.
