Page 85

“Is that what everyone says?” Elf pressed her interlaced fingers to her chin, eyes still fixed on the floor. “It might have been. We didn’t talk about it. Papa didn’t.” She corrected herself. “Grandmama said once that Mother felt low, but not like I did when something made me sad. That it was different. There was a weight on her, an invisible weight, so it required all her strength even to breathe. She was kind to me when she did come down, but…distant.”

Elf had never spoken of her mother in Georgie’s presence.

She seemed suddenly distant herself, so they put an arm around her and drew her close. She pressed her face to their neck.

“I wish I’d tried harder.”

Georgie stroked her hair. “To do what?”

“I don’t know. To bear some of the weight.”

“How could you have? If it was invisible, like your grandmother said?”

Elf inhaled and drew away. She’d spent all morning trying as hard as she could to mitigate the damage to this well-loved room. Clearly, she’d bear the collapsing ceiling on her shoulders, if such a thing were possible.

Did she see the irony? Asking for more weight, when what she carried already was enough to crush?

“I’ve been wondering,” she said, before they could figure out the way to put their thoughts into words. “Do you have your mother’s letter with you, in Twynham? Would you show it to me?”

They tensed. They’d been aware, of course, that she’d return, at some point, to the subject of their mother. It was inevitable after their dramatic disclosure. Regardless, her request caught them unprepared. They’d had time to get used to the idea that their mother was alive. But they hadn’t had time to get used to the idea that someone else knew, that Elf knew, and was forming her own opinions, charting a course of action. In the light of day, they felt exposed, guilty even, for betraying their mother, or perhaps, paradoxically, on their mother’s behalf.

This was all too fresh.

“Show it to you,” they said gruffly. “Why?”

A crease in her forehead acknowledged this gruffness, but her gaze didn’t waver. “You told me the letter was barely legible. I have experience reading all sorts of barely legible texts. Perhaps I can fill in the gaps.”

Instead of shaking their head, they lowered it and rested their brow on Elf’s brow. She curled her fingers in the robe. Slowly, their spine relaxed, and they folded over her more naturally.

“Thank you,” they said. “But you won’t ascertain where she went from the letter.”

They could feel the flutter of her lashes. “Maybe there’s more about why she went.”

“I know why.” Their mother had chosen Lady Beverly over everyone and everything else, without any compromise whatsoever. “I know all there is to know.”

Her fingers clutched at the robe. She wanted to argue, but instead, she exhaled and released her grip.

They straightened. “And now?” They aimed for a lighter tone. “Shall we go get a carpenter to patch up the roof?”

Her beautiful mouth had that downward turn. “Papa won’t allow Mr. Hibbert through the door.”

Their mouth twisted too. Mr. Marsden had scattered his petty rules all over Elf’s life like pins, making every step hazardous as she staggered under burdens that were his by right. But all they said, mildly, was “Your father’s not here.”

Elf hugged herself. “He won’t want to pay for it. Once he returns, he’ll yell about not getting blood from a stone and rip up the bill, and…”

“Does he want the ceiling to come down with the next rain?” Georgie interjected, less mildly. “He has to pay. And what’s his quibble with Hibbert?” The man was a master builder and a model of rectitude.

Elf twisted a dark lock that snaked down her neck, fallen loose from her messy chignon. “It’s to do with St. Alcmund’s.”

Again with St. Alcmund’s. “Why such scurrilousness associated with a bloody old church?” No one even went to services at St. Alcmund’s. It was less a church than a ruin. All Souls was newer, bigger, the church church. A moment later, they remembered who they were talking to.

“Oh.” They frowned. “Of course. It’s old. That’s why.”

Elf nodded. “St. Alcmund’s was founded in the year seven hundred. It’s one of the few Saxon churches to have survived the conquest unaltered. For centuries, it served as an ossuary, but the bones were removed in…”

Seven hundred. Saxon church. Elf was going on about bones, but Georgie wasn’t listening. They wanted to shout, to dance.

Elf fell silent. Her look was quizzical.