The stew was gray and unappetizing, and Freddie’s face, as his mother handed him back a plate of gnarled brown lumps and a watery wash of liquid, was dismayed.
“Urgh, Mum, this looks gross.”
“Well, it’s supper, Freddie, so you’ll have to manage. Take a baked potato,” Mitzi said. She took Kitty’s plate and began ladling. Kitty picked up a potato with her fingers, and pulled a face as she put it on the side of her plate.
“Those potatoes are rock-hard. They look like dinosaur eggs.”
“For goodness’ sake!” Mitzi snapped. She put a plate down in front of Richard and then began to help Edward.
“I must say, it does smell a little unappetizing,” Edward ventured as she passed the plate to him. He took a piece of meat—beef, was Hal’s guess, though it could have been anything from mutton to venison—and chewed cautiously. “Do you think I dare ask for some mustard?” He spoke around the lump in his mouth.
“Personally, I wouldn’t risk it,” Abel said. He was sawing at his meat with rather grim determination, and he put a piece in his mouth, grimacing slightly. “It’s actually not too bad,” he managed.
“What did I miss?” The voice came from the doorway, and Hal turned to see Ezra standing there, shoulder propped against the doorframe.
“Oh, it’s you,” Harding said, rather sourly. “How nice of you to deign to join us.”
“I didn’t miss much, judging by Abel’s face,” Ezra said. He pulled the chair out next to Hal and sat down, resting his tanned forearms on the table. “So. What’s for supper then?”
“Gray vomit and dinosaur eggs,” Kitty said with a giggle.
“Kitty!” Harding thundered. “I’m thoroughly fed up with you today.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Harding.” Mitzi slammed a plate in front of him. “Leave the child alone. It’s not her fault you’re in a foul mood.”
“I am not in a foul mood,” Harding snarled. “I am simply asking for basic manners at the dinner table.”
“Look, Mrs. Warren is very old, and she’s done her best,” Abel began, but Ezra interrupted him.
“Oh, give it a rest, Abel. The girl’s right. Mrs. Warren’s cooking has always been terrible; it’s just that as kids, we only had boarding school dinners to compare it to, so we didn’t realize quite how bad it was. Harding’s lot are lucky enough to have higher standards of comparison.”
Hal’s bowl had made its way down to her, and she poked cautiously at the gray lump of meat, and abandoned the stew in favor of the baked potato. The skin was wrinkled, but when she sliced into it, she could feel the middle was raw.
“Well, I’m not eating it,” Kitty said firmly. She pushed her plate away. “I saw Mum buying Hobnobs in Penzance today.”
? ? ?
THERE WAS NO DESSERT, BUT after dinner they made their way through to the drawing room, where a lukewarm pot of coffee stood on a table in front of the fire. Mitzi left the room and returned with three packets of biscuits, which she opened up and distributed. Her children fell on them like starving orphans. Hal picked out a chocolate digestive and dipped it into the cup of coffee Edward poured for her. The taste, as she put the crumbling corner in her mouth, was pure home, and for a moment she was transported back to her childhood, to Sunday mornings in her mother’s bed, surreptitiously dipping cookies into her mother’s morning coffee.
“Are you all right, Harriet?” Mitzi’s voice broke into her thoughts. “You looked very pensive there, for a moment.”
Hal swallowed her mouthful, then forced a smile.
“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“I found out something about Hal today,” Ezra said unexpectedly, from the other side of the room. He picked up his coffee and sipped it, his eyes resting on Hal as he swallowed. “Something she’s been keeping rather quiet.”
Hal looked up, startled, and felt her heart speed up a little. She went back over the conversation in the car, the things she had said about her mother. Had she let something slip? Her hand, as she set the coffee cup down on its saucer, shook a little, so that the china rattled together with a tinkling sound.
“What’s that?” she managed at last.
“Oh . . . I think you know, Hal,” Ezra said. There was mischief in his smile. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell them.”
This is it, Hal thought. He knows. He’s found something out, and he is giving me a chance to confess before he tells them about my past.
“You’re right,” Hal said. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “There is—there is something I didn’t tell you. Uncle Harding—I—”
Ezra put something down on the coffee table between them.
It was a tin of Golden Virginia tobacco.
Hal felt the blood rush to her face as she realized her mistake, the huge blunder she had almost just made.
“Harriet is a tarot reader,” Ezra said. “Aren’t you, Hal?”
“Oh!” Mingled relief and anticlimax flooded through her. She felt a strong desire to laugh. “I didn’t realize that’s what you were going to— Yes. It’s true.”
“A tarot reader?” Mitzi exclaimed. She clapped her hands. “But how exotic! Harriet, whyever didn’t you tell us?”
“I don’t know,” Hal said truthfully. “I suppose . . . some people are a little bit odd about it.” She thought back to Mrs. Warren, the fury that had boiled up in her face when she saw the cards.
“You know,” Abel said, “you know . . . it’s funny. I would never have thought Maud’s daughter would end up doing something like that. She was terribly skeptical.”
Hal glanced up at him, but there was nothing combative in his tone or expression. His face was only a little sad, as if remembering back to happier times.
“She was . . . well, I’m sure you know this better than we do, but she was a very rational person,” he continued. “She had no time for what I think she would have called ‘bullshit.’ Sorry, Harriet,” he added hastily, patting her arm. “I don’t mean that to sound as rude as it probably comes across. I hope I haven’t offended you.”
“It’s okay,” Hal said. She smiled, almost in spite of herself. “I’m not offended. And actually . . . I don’t really believe in it myself.”
“Really?” Mitzi said, her voice slightly doubtful. “How does that work, then? Don’t you feel guilty taking people’s money if you think it’s all rubbish?”
Hal felt her cheeks flush. She rarely admitted this to people she didn’t know—certainly never to clients. It felt like a doctor admitting that he had no faith in conventional medicine, or a psychiatrist dissing Freud.
“That probably sounded more cynical than I meant it to—but . . . I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in knocking on wood, or crossing fingers, or crystal gazing, or any of that. I don’t think the cards have any special occult power, though I’m not sure I’d say that outright to a client. But they do . . .” She found herself struggling to articulate something she rarely dissected, even to herself. “They do still have meaning—even if you know nothing about tarot, you can see the richness of the symbolism and the imagery. The ideas they represent . . . they’re universal forces that bear on all our lives. I suppose what I believe is not that the cards can tell you anything you don’t already know, or that they have magical answers to your questions, but that they give you . . . they give you the space to question . . . ? Does that make sense? Whether the statements I make in a reading are true or false, they give the sitter an opportunity to reflect on those forces, to analyze their instincts. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right.”
But Mitzi was nodding, a frown drawn between her neat brows.
“Yeees . . .” she said slowly. “Yes, I can see that.”
“So will you do one?” Kitty asked. She sat up, her eyes wide with anticipation. “Do me! Oh please, do me first!”
“Kitty,” Mitzi scolded. “Harriet is not at work.”