Page 47
Oliver’s eyebrows raised incrementally.
“Nevertheless,” Christopher continued, “if you’re attempting to goad me into stomping away, you’ll have to be more imaginative than pointing out that I can’t reach the tallest shelf in the kitchen. I’m afraid you’re about twenty years too late for me to care. There was one summer when my baby sister was several centimetres taller than me, and, I admit, that was lowering, but I eventually reclaimed my title as the tallest Keene child. I’m also below average at cricket and your sister annihilated me at fencing, so perhaps that will provide better ammunition.”
“Sofia beats everyone at fencing and cricket is a stupid sport.”
“Finally, something to build a friendship on.” Christopher grinned.
“I don’t want to be your friend.”
“Because you have so many better ones to rely upon? Come now. I’m quite set on marrying your sister, so you might as well relent and learn to love me.”
“You’re cracked in the head.”
“And you smell like a stagnant cow pond. See how easy I am to converse with? This is practically a conversation we’re having. An important quality in any friendship.”
Oliver sniffed the air and then wrinkled his nose. “I do smell.”
“And you see, if you had friends, you would understand that’s exactly why you need them. Who else will point out your unappealing aroma? That’s at the top of the list of important things one friend does for another.”
“There’s a list? You’ve been spending too much time in my sister’s company. Sofi loves to write lists.”
“There is no such thing as too much time in Sofia’s company, but yes, of course there is a list.
“Number one has already been addressed. Number two: when your breakneck riding catapults you over your horse’s neck and into the river, your friend will laugh, but then he’ll leap into the water beside you so you aren’t the only soggy idiot returning home. Number three: a good friend knows the difference between a truly terrible day and when you are just whining. If it’s the former, he’ll fix it if he can. If it’s the latter, he’ll remind you that you missed luncheon, shove a biscuit in your mouth, and tell you to stop droning on like a spoiled lout.”
Christopher stood and filled an ancient tin cup with water, offering it to Oliver. “There’s more, but you have to be part of the secret club to know the rest.”
Oliver took the drink and stared thoughtfully at the contents. He watched it as though longing alone could transform water into wine. As though he knew this was a thirst that would never be quenched again and was unwilling to take that first sip of its paltry substitute. Oliver lowered the cup without drinking. “Exactly how long do you plan to be stuck to me like a barnacle on a boat?”
Christopher shrugged. “Until my presence feels more like company than a barricade standing between you and a drink.”
Two mornings after Oliver’s arrival at the cabin, they received an unlikely visitor—Davies, the head gardener, who did little in the way of actual gardening these days due to his creaking knees and a shortness of breath that often struck without warning. Instead, he toddled around the estate from dawn to dusk, wispy grey hair falling over his eyes as he listed against his walking stick to run his fingers across the plants he passed.
Christopher noticed Davies paused in the shade of an old oak tree, but he was too distracted by one of his and Oliver’s regular squabbles to pay him much mind at first. Davies remained nearby for a long while, bushy brows furrowed at the dramatic scene unfolding before him. Oliver had lost his balance reaching in to test the temperature of the hip bath. Apparently, he preferred head trauma to accepting a steadying hand from Christopher.
“Yes, do be stubborn about it, because what this bath really needs is a pint of your blood added to it,” Christopher said.
“Maybe then it would actually be warm.”
“I’m a valet, not a footman. If you want more than a kettle’s worth of hot water, you will have to let me fetch Jeremy.”
“He annoys me.”
“Everyone annoys you, so I can’t see why that matters.”
Preoccupied with their row, Christopher failed to notice Davies’s quiet approach. “Cool water is good for the root system. Activates the circulation of nutrients down to the roots. Your roots appear to be lacking, son.”
Christopher stepped between the pair as if the physical barrier of his body could absorb Oliver’s inevitable barbed response. It would at least save the old man from a splash of frigid bath water if Oliver determined that Davies’s root system required “nourishment” more than his. But neither of those things occurred.
Oliver just looked at Davies, his lips pressed together in a frown, and then he turned away, dropped his trousers, and climbed into the tub.
Davies nodded once. “Good lad. It will help. And in a week, I will need you to dig some holes for me. Twelve of them, two feet deep, in a semicircle just there, east-facing next to the cabin.” He lifted a bony finger to indicate the exact placement. “The chestnut saplings we planted last year aren’t getting enough sun. This change is what they need to thrive, even if they complain a bit about the new scenery at first.”
Before Christopher could invent an excuse for why that was impossible, Oliver nodded. “Si, all right.”
The moment the gardener stepped away, Oliver went back to being bull-headed, and Christopher was left to question whether the compliant man who had agreed to dig holes was nothing more than a figment of his imagination.
The hours that followed became increasingly difficult. Oliver’s resigned surliness shifted into debilitating headaches and tremors so violent that, at times, he could not hold his own cup without splashing the contents onto his trousers. Then the headaches receded, leaving dizziness and nausea in their place, which, while difficult to watch, did offer a reprieve from insults and the occasional hurled object.
