be unsuitable now, however fine it would be if we were alone, just the two of us, or if the Girls were boys.”
We’ve stopped outside Karl’s study. By the way she puzzles at the half-open door, I can tell she’s queasy about whether to venture in or to pass over it. Shamming ignorance of her unease, I unhitch myself and go through.
“It might look like a mess,” she says, following after me, “but it has its own peculiar method.”
I make my way to a clearing on the rug, a small circle of carpet bordered by piles of books and papers.
“It may not be immediately evident, but this room is actually the brightest and airiest in the house.” She picks her way through and draws the curtain back. “The Heath right there. The air the best in London. One has only to leave the windows open a moment and that cigar smell is killed.”
I’m close enough to the chimneypiece to have a proper gander at the things littered on it: the matches, the tobacco boxes, the paperweights, the portraits of Jenny and the Girls.
“Look, here’s yours,” she says, pointing at the picture of Frederick.
On the way back out, I take the liberty to push in a file that looks ready to topple from the bookcase.
“He calls them his slaves,” says Jenny, meaning the books.
Back downstairs a tray has been made ready in the parlor. Nim stands beside it, biding our wishes. Frederick and Karl have already been served liberal shorts of gin.
“Lizzie, what shall it be, tea or coffee?” says Jenny.
“Whatever you’re having yourself,” I says.
“What do you say to coffee?”
“Nay, I won’t have coffee, but thank you.”
“Tea, then.”
“Not much up for tea either, you’re very kind.”
Karl slaps his thigh and gives out a good-humored roar. “Can’t you see it’s a drink the woman wants!”
The color runs up Jenny’s neck. She lets out a little laugh, glances at the clock and now down at her hem. “A drink, Lizzie?”
“Aye, I’ll have a nip, if it’s going.” To put me into the spirits.
Nim comes to me with a half-measure. She refuses me her eyes when she hands me the glass; keeps them low on the floor.
“Thanks, Nim,” I says, loud and clear so I’m heard. “You’re awful good.”
Her mouth twitches. Someone coughs. She scuttles back to the tray and sets about readying the Girls’ tea. Sat in the chair closest to her is Frederick. I watch for his behavior, but in actual fact, he bare notices her. More than that, he ignores her. I’d even say rude, if I didn’t know Frederick to be so particular about his graces.
From his royal spot on the settee, Karl proposes us. “To Frederick and Lizzie,” he says. “After the darkness of Manchester, may you find happiness and rest here in London.”
Tussy rummages in a drawer and comes out with two wrapped gifts. Frederick is served first: a red neckerchief. He ties it on and marches up and down and gives a blast of the “Marseillaise,” and everyone laughs and claps. Mine is a jewelry box, and inside, lying on a bed of velvet, a silver thimble and a pin with a bit of thread already fed into it. I hold up the needle between my fingers, and they all brim over.
Says Karl between his guffaws: “The revolutionary finally settles down to her fancywork!”
I make as if to pour my drink into the thimble. “It’ll come in handy for measuring my poteen.” And that—easy as falling off a chair—brings the house down.
When the laughter drains, the room settles into a tired silence. The tick of the clock. The sucking at glasses.
“Uncle Frederick,” says Janey after a time, “have you finished your history of Ireland?”
This gets Tussy excited. “Oh yes, Uncle Angel, when do we get to read it?”
“Oh, oh,” says Frederick, trifling with a corner of his jacket and frowning. “Thank you for your interest, my dear children, but I’m afraid I’ve been distracted of late. It’s all about France now.”
“Hmm,” gurgles Karl, “indeed. And speaking of that damned place, we need to take a clear position on the situation. Our initial support of Prussia is proving quite an embarrassment—”
“Karl, please,” Jenny interrupts. “Can’t you leave this outside talk until you are actually outside?”
Karl puts his hands up in surrender.
Tussy giggles.
Jenny catches my eye and gestures at the tray. “Lizzie, there is some tart here,” she says. “But if you are hungry for something more filling, I could have Nim fix you up some cold cuts.”
I shake my head, perhaps a little too fierce. “Please don’t go to any trouble. We ate on the train.”
Frederick, always liable for a man-faint if he doesn’t have his in-betweens, looks about to contradict me, but he sees the arrangement of my face and checks himself. “I fear Lizzie is getting restless. She is anxious to see the house. I promised to bring her to see it today.” He looks at Karl, as if begging leave.
Karl waves a woman’s wave. “Go on, Frederick. Show Lizzie your new home. We’ll have time to catch up later.”
While I’m putting my coat and bonnet back on, Jenny tells me what she’s done to the house. She calls my attention to certain arrangements and wonders if I’d like them altered.
“When I see them, I’ll tell you, Jenny,” I says. “You’ll be the first to know.”
The air outside runs into me, a respite. I wouldn’t mind walking the twenty-two minutes. “Will we foot it?” I says, thinking Frederick is beside me, but when I turn, I see he’s clean gone. “Frederick?”
Of a sudden, I feel him behind me, and then I see only black.
“This way it will be an even bigger surprise!” he says, bringing forth more laughter and clapping from the family gathered on the threshold, and though I notice I’m allowing it to happen, I do say to myself, I says, “Can’t I just see the blessed thing? Must it be one of their games?”
He’s gone and put his new neckerchief over my face as a blindfold.
III. A Resting Place
A donkey’s age, it takes him, to get the wretched thing off. Two, four, six taps of my boot and still he’s behind me, fighting with the knot.
“What’s keeping you?” I says.
“Patience, Lizzie,” he says, and I know it’d be no use telling him again, at this late stage, that his time in Manchester has turned him into a northern stumpole.
I feel
