"No." There was a finality in his tone reminiscent of the gallows. "Your sister and I discussed that already. Until he's old enough to understand better, his mother is ill and that's the end of it."
"It's a hard business never to see his mother again."
"I cannot perceive that it would be of much advantage to him in the future, since he saw little enough of her in the past.''
"Hard for Clarinda, too."
"Indeed it would be if she cared a fig for him. For either of them," he added, reminding me of the other child who was away at school. I wondered if that boy was a true son of Aunt Fonteyn's brother or the first of Clarinda's changelings. Now was not the time to make an inquiry, though. Besides, this was in direct opposition to the impression Clarinda had given me on her feelings for either of them and wanted sorting.
"How can a mother not care for her children?'' I mused in a way meant to draw him out. Even my own mother, twisted in mind and heart as she was, cared after a fashion for her two children. She'd removed her damaging presence from us all those years ago, after all. Not unlike what Edmond was trying to do now for Richard.
His answer was curt and lacking in interest. "Ask her sometime, you'll find out soon enough that she hasn't a jot of regard for anyone but herself. But if it were otherwise with her, it still wouldn't matter. She forfeited all rights to them when she did her murder.''
I looked at the stone bust on the mantel. On impulse I picked it up and turned it over to see if anything might be marked on the base to indicate who it represented. Neither Aristotle nor a Caesar, the neatly carved inscription identified it to be Homer. That little mystery explained, I put it back in place.
Since Edmond had ascertained for himself the fact of my honor, now would be the time for me to return the favor, to make sure that all would be reasonably well for Clarinda, if not for her sake, then for Richard's. "With you as the turnkey how will she be treated?'' I asked very quietly.
"A damned sight better than she deserves. Don't worry yourself. It won't be a Bridewell, she'll not want for creature comforts, but I'm going to make damned sure she has no opportunity to kill ever again."
I believed him. He was as he presented himself. Perhaps Clarinda's constant lies had created in him a need to cleave to the absolute truth. So said all my instinct as I studied his hard face. It was no small reassurance to me that my growing respect for him was not misplaced.
He took another long drink, then glared at me.
"What is it? You want to toast her health or something?" He nodded toward my untouched brandy.
Damnation, but I was tired. "No. Nothing like that." Just the prospect of trying to pierce through his brick wall again was enough to renew the ache behind my eyes. He could think what he liked about my not drinking his brandy, to hell with it.
"What, then?"
For all his roughness, his willingness to do well for Richard spoke of an innate decency in his heart. This told me that Clarinda would be all right for the time being. Complete confirmation of it could wait for another night.
"I just wanted to say that should you ever feel differently about the boy, then you're welcome to come visit him any time."
He seemed on the verge of tossing the invitation back in my face, if I could judge anything by the sneer that briefly crossed his own. Then he visibly reigned himself in. "I'll consider it," he muttered. "Now get along with you. I need my rest."
I took this servant's dismissal in good grace. The man was in pain and only wanted the privacy to get thoroughly drunk. God knows, I'd do the same were I to find myself in his shoes. I wished him a good night, getting no reply beyond an indifferent grunt, and shut the door on him.
Halfway along the hall I had to stop for a moment, staring at nothing in particular while my thoughts finally caught up with events.
Good God in heaven... Richard was going to come home with me.
Then I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting the house down.
CHAPTER
-4-
"Faster! Faster! Faster!" Richard screamed into my right ear. "Yah-yah-yah!"
I did what I could to oblige him, though things nearly came apart when I made a sharpish turn into the parlour. Our progress was nearly defeated by the high polish on the floor causing my shoes to lose a bit of their grip on the turf so to speak. I just managed to gain the safety of the parlour rug in time to keep us from taking a slide into an inconveniently placed chair. We flashed by Elizabeth and Oliver, who were sensibly sitting and having their tea before the fire, whooped a hallo at them, then shot out the other door and into one of the narrow back halls where the servants usually lurked. It was a straight path on this part of the course, so I stepped up the speed and galloped hard and with lots of needless bounce, much to the delight of my rider. Richard giggled and gasped, tightened his stranglehold around my neck, and dug his heels more firmly into my flanks.
"Have a care," I told him, making sure of my own hold on his legs. "We're coming to a hill."
He shrieked encouragement to his steed and I carried us up the back stairs three at a time, wound my way through the upper back hall to the upper front hall, then jounced roughly down to the front stairs landing, startling the one maid in the house who hadn't heard our noisy progress. She let forth a satisfying screech, throwing up her hands, an action that amused Richard mightily. He yelled out a view-halloo, told her she was the fox, and we gave roaring chase as far as the entry leading to the kitchen. Showing an unexpectedly fleet turn of foot, she ducked through to safety, smartly shutting the door in our faces just in time.
"Outfoxed!" I cried in mock despair to my laughing rider. "She's gone to ground and the dogs can't find her. What shall we do now? Another steeplechase?''
"Yes, please!" he bellowed, freshening his hold 'round my neck. I took us through the house twice more as we pretended each corner was a church steeple we had to make in time to stay ahead of a pack of pretend horsemen who were hot on our heels. We naturally won each race, for I was a steed of superior stock, a point I'd confided to him when I initially proposed our horseback riding game.
This was his first night in London, and it was proving to be a memorable one-for us b5th. I could not have been happier, and never before in my life had I felt this particular kind of happiness. No plans, no speculations, nothing I'd ever imagined had remotely prepared me for the actuality of his constant and immediate presence. He filled the house, he filled the whole world for me. At times I could scarce take in that he was real, and at others, it seemed that he had been with me always from the very moment of my own birth.
Once he'd learned that Edmond had given Richard over to my care, Oliver generously opened his house to the lad and welcomed him in. Elizabeth was just as keen about having the boy in as well and managed within the space of a few days to turn a couple of the upstairs rooms into a very fine bedroom and nursery for Mrs. Howard and her charge.
That lady was not herself adverse to moving out of Edmond Fonteyn's no doubt gloomy household and into ours, but with all the row going on, I was certain she'd be having second thoughts soon enough. Past personal experience with nannies had taught me that they prefer routines of the quiet, restful sort, something that would likely be lacking during those hours when I was up and around.
My time with Richard was short owing to the limits of my condition, but happily for the present, the winter nights started early and lasted long. Even so, on this first evening the instant I was awake I anxiously bolted from my cellar sanctuary to rush upstairs and see him, taxing the patience of Jericho, my valet. His inviolable custom was to lie in wait in my room, then seize upon and subject my person to an interval of grooming and dressing so I wouldn't shame him before polite company. As Richard and I galloped past, we surprised him emerging from my doorway, razor in one hand and cloth in the other, indication that I was in for a shaving tonight. Jericho's mouth popped open in startled disappointment before he hurriedly retreated out of the way.
The rest of th
e servants had simply been told that Richard was our cousin and committed to our care. If anyone chose to make anything of his uncanny resemblance to me, Jericho was to report such murmurings, and I'd have a little "talk" with the person to discourage idle gossip. Like Nanny Howard, Jericho knew all about the boy's true paternity, and both could be trusted to keep it to themselves. We'd all planned that Richard would also be informed but only when he was old enough and when the time was right, It seemed best to curtail any possibility of him overhearing something he wasn't ready for by making sure all the other servants were just as discreet.
Richard and I made another circuit of the upper rear hall and emerged into the front again but were forced to abruptly rein in. Nanny Howard stood square in our path, hands on her hips, and a stern cast to the look on her face.
"Mr. Barrett!" she said in a tone to match the look.
"Oy-oy-oy!" Richard yodeled, thumping the top of my head with one fist while the other twisted the remnants of my neckcloth around. "See me, Nanny! We're having a race!"
"You'll race yourself into an upset stomach with all that shouting," she told him, fulfilling my expectations about nannies and their preference for a quiet routine. Her eye fell upon me like the hand of doom. "Mr. Barrett, it will be his bedtime soon and now he'll be hours settling for it."
Not at all contrite, I nonetheless came up with a pretty speech of apology and volunteered to help in that task. "What's your best settling remedy, then? We'll get him fixed right up. How about a tot of hot milk with a little honey for taste? That always worked for me."
This mollified her somewhat, but she still showed some reluctance to let go her chagrin. "You needn't trouble yourself over such trifles, sir. I can see to things."
"Hardly a trifle. Besides, I got him stirred up; it's only fair I stir him down again."
"But, sir"
"This isn't what you're used to, I'm sure, but we run things differently in this house. I'm very interested in the lad's well-being, so you might as well get used to the fact that I'm going to be underfoot quite a lot. You've got him to yourself all through the day, but for an hour or so at night it's my turn."
She pursed her lips in swift thought and being every bit as intelligent as I'd estimated, decided cooperation was preferable to argument. "Very well, Mr. Barrett. But I must remind you that Richard is not yet used to such excitements. Perhaps it's best to ease him into things a little at a time."
It sounded reasonable to me, and I wasn't one to cross her on anything as important as a growing lad's bedtime. Not yet, anyway. Richard groaned a protest as we ducked into the nursery and pulled on my neckcloth again in an effort to turn his steed back to the beckoning fields of the rest of the house. The fabric came all undone and slipped free, and not wasting the opportunity, he waved it like a banner, then whipped it around my eyes.
"What's happened?" I gruffly asked, blundering about with one arm extended to feel my way. "Who blew out the candles?"
This game went over enormously well with him. I played it to the limit, pretending to smash face first against a wall resulting in a crash to the floor-a slow and gentle one with much loud moaning, despair, and calls for caution. We ended up rolling and tussling like puppies until he was breathless. One advantage I had over any other adults he'd ever play with was that I didn't get tired.
"I think you need a carpet in here, Nanny," I said, still lying on the floor because Richard had decided to hold my legs down by sprawling over them. "A nice thick one. Don't want the boy to get any more bruises than necessary."
"It's sure to get very dirty, sir." "Then let it get dirty, we can always get another. I'll put my sister onto it tomorrow. London's full of shops; the three of you can go pick one out. Does he need anything else-clothes, furniture, that sort of thing?''
"Toys!" Richard shouted, taking off one of my shoes and measuring it against the other, sole to sole.
"He is well supplied with all that he needs, sir, with more than enough, I think."
The furnishings from the nursery at Edmond's home had been carted over and put into place in these rooms. Moving from my childhood home to London had proved to be a bad wrench for me, and I was full grown and well prepared for it. I'd hoped that the sudden change for Richard would be lessened with the presence of having his own familiar things around him. It must have worked, for he seemed carefree enough.
"Well, you be sure to tell us of your least little need, hear? The big needs, too. You have any problems, you come straightway to any of us so we can fix 'em."
"Yes, sir."
"One's bigger than the other," Richard observed of the toes. He looked at me for some sort of reaction. "One's bigger than the other."
"So it is,'' I agreed, propping up on my elbows to see. "By a fraction of an inch. I'll have a word with my shoemaker."
"What's a fraction?"
"A portion of something, usually very small."
"A portion of what?"
"Anything you like."
He now measured my shoe against one of his own. "It's bigger by a fraction of an inch," he pronounced.
"So it is, by lots of fractions of inches. I'll teach you properly about them if you like."
"Yes, please."
"Nanny, have we got a measuring stick about the place?"
"I'm not sure, sir."
"Then perhaps you'd be so kind as to ask Jericho to find one. He usually knows where everything is."
"But, sir, about Richard's bedtime"
"Oh, bother, I suppose if we must. Tell you what, have Jericho bring a measuring stick, and you go turn up that hot milk and honey. I'll give Richard a lesson in fractions. With any luck, the combination will put him to sleep. It always worked for me."
She tucked in her lower lip in an effort not to smile and whisked out. A moment later Jericho appeared in the door- way bearing the required stick and a pained expression when he saw the state of my clothes.
"Good evening, Jericho. Have to hold off on the nightly wash and brush up for the moment."
"I think it is just as well, Mr. Jonathan. Had you taken the time earlier, it would have all been for nothing."
Richard giggled. "Jericho."
"And what about it?" I asked. "That's his name."
I got another giggle for a reply.
"I believe Master Richard is referring to the unfortunate habit Londoners have of calling the back garden privy a 'jericho,' sir," my excellent friend said with unsuppressed distaste.
Another giggle from below.
Well, I had to put a stop to that. "Richard," I said, fully sitting up and addressing the boy in a serious tone. It took a repetition or two before he calmed down sufficiently to give me the solemn sort of attention the occasion required. "Making fun of a person's name, no matter what it is, is very rude and not at all becoming of a gentleman. You understand that?''
He pouted and nodded.
"Very good. Now I want you to promise not to make fun of anyone's name ever again, particularly Jericho's."
I'd had to deal with this subject before with the servants, Jericho was the true head of this household when it came to all practical matters, and it wouldn't do to have anyone finding amusement in his name and thus undermining his authority. His was an excellent name, after all, and certainly not his fault that it had been corrupted by the locals into something that might be thought basely amusing.
"I promise."
"What an excellent lad you are! Now can you tell us where Nanny keeps your little nightgown? If you're all dressed and ready for bed when she comes back, then she might not be cross with me for keeping you up so late."
Put this way, he had no objection to helping me avoid Nanny's wrath and readily pointed out a chest with drawers. We searched through its contents and discovered a suitable garment.
"I can take over from here, sir," said Jericho. "Perhaps if you would use this time to put yourself into order as well..."
I obediently set to work on myself as he turned to take care of Richard.
"Won't that come off?" Richard said, pointing to Jericho's dark skin.
"I assure you it will not, Master Richard. See for yourself." He held his hand out for the child's close inspection. Said hand was peered at, rubbed, and pinched. "See, just like yours but with more color-and a good deal cleaner. A trip to the washbasin is in order, I think. Come along."
He gently guided Richard away, and from that so subtle action smoothly assumed the same position of command he held over me when it came to proper grooming. Jericho could be quite formidable when he chose, but in this instance he was careful not to bowl the lad over by overdoing his grand manner. A soft word here, a delicate recommendation there and he had Richard painlessly scrubbed and dressed for bed before the boy knew what had happened.
P N Elrod - Barrett 4 - Dance of Death Page 8