“You will if these hands ever ’ad any skill and learning,” said Mrs. Saunders. “And you shall ’ave the lace off it sure as I’m a good Englishwoman, for I will clean that with the blessed Sunday bread and eat potatoes instead.”
Mrs. Saunders must have gone to gossip about Celeste at Pike Brothers’ haberdashery department, because not an hour later, Arty’s mother knocked at the door to drop in a small sewing kit and several lengths of hair ribbon for the “poor young lady,” while just before lunch the Misses Porter brought one of the nuns to visit, in case the girl had need of spiritual counseling, and presented Celeste with a small jar of their own gooseberry preserves. Lunch itself was interrupted by the arrival of Agatha Kent’s man with the bed in the farm cart, and Celeste looked to Beatrice as if she would drop in limp exhaustion as Smith and the farm boy labored loudly up the stairs and bumped about moving the writing desk and knocking the bed together with wooden mallets while the horse snorted at the open window and then put his head in the window box to nibble on Mrs. Turber’s pelargoniums.
Beatrice had sent Celeste to rest in her newly curtained nook and was contemplating retiring to her own room, now stripped of its dirty linens, when there was a hideous shriek downstairs and Abigail called her down to receive a freshly killed rabbit that had sent Mrs. Turber into a fit of the vapors. The three boys she tutored had sneaked in through the back gate to knock at the kitchen door with the gift and to ask if the Belgian princess might be induced to wave at them from the upstairs window. Not to worry, reported Abigail, she had given Snout a box on the ear for his impudence and sent the lot of them packing. Beatrice suggested that for a girl her size, the boxing of boys’ ears was not a safe pursuit.
“He’s my big brother, miss,” said Abigail. “He knows I’ll give him worse than that if he don’t mind his manners.”
Beatrice was horrified. How had she not seen the family resemblance, the same streak of resolve in the thin faces? How close had she come, several times, to making some remark or giving some warning to Abigail about the boy’s family?
“The rabbit is quite a prize,” said Beatrice, blushing with confusion. “Please thank your brother for me.”
“Best not,” said Abigail. “Likely he poached it. He’ll come to no good, if he’s not careful.”
“Your brother is quite the scholar,” said Beatrice, looking to make amends, if only to appease her own conscience.
“If only he had his mind fixed on the schooling and not half of it always off in the woods,” the young maid replied. “I hope you’ll be hard on him, miss. Keep him up to his work.”
“Did you like school?” asked Beatrice. If she was as sharp as her brother, it seemed a sorry waste that she should spend her life blacking grates and emptying chamber pots.
“Oh, I loved it, miss,” she said. “But too much learning’s a waste for a girl like me. I’ll be married most likely and a few years in service and a bit o’ money put by means I’ll get to have my pick, rather than have to take potluck. You know how it is?”
“It can surely never be a waste to feed one’s mind,” said Beatrice, shocked but impressed at the girl’s practical grasp of her prospects.
“No offense, miss,” she said. “That’s all well and good for a lady like you, but I’m a farrier’s daughter. The husband I’ll be after likely won’t take kindly to a wife with airs of reading books and such.”
“I think you’ll find most women in pursuit of a husband share an interest in appearing less educated than they really are,” said Beatrice. “It is why I have a low opinion of them.”
“Of women, miss?” said Abigail.
“No, of husbands,” said Beatrice.
“Maybe I won’t need one if my brother does make something fine of himself with all his schooling,” said Abigail, wistfully. “At least if I kept house for him, I’d know who was in charge—and it wouldn’t be him.”
Mr. Tillingham and the Professor were seated on the lawn, two dark silhouettes at a white iron table, under the spreading sunlit boughs of an ancient mulberry tree. The tea urn had not yet been brought out, but a stand of small cakes and a silver platter of thinly sliced bread and butter suggested its imminent arrival. Only the white cloth on the folding side table flapped to break the green and silent tableau. Hugh wondered whether the scene before him was an illusion or whether the day before, among the suffering refugees on the docks of Folkestone, had been just a dream, for surely the two scenes were from incompatible worlds.
When Mr. Tillingham had sent a note that morning inviting Aunt Agatha and her nephews to tea, Hugh had tried gently to suggest that Mr. Tillingham’s exhausted refugees should be allowed quiet.
“That is precisely why we must go,” said his aunt. “If we decline, there is no knowing whom Mr. Tillingham might invite instead.”
“Gentlemen, welcome,” said Mr. Tillingham, waving his cane. “I do hope the ladies are en route?” He turned to the Professor and added, “This fine weather does tend to make the bread curl and these days it’s a shame to waste good butter.” The Professor stood to greet them, and Hugh, who had not paid much attention to him during the long trip from Folkestone, saw that he was not as old a man as he had appeared. In fresh clothing and clean-shaven, he presented a compact but upright figure. He wore a dark tweed jacket over a high-collared white shirt and dull red tie, some dun-colored flannels pulled in at the waist, and a pair of soft shoes. That his shirt moved independently about the neck showed that it was too big. Hugh assumed from Mr. Tillingham’s approving glance that he himself had donated the items and was not displeased with the professorial effect.
“You look so much better, Professor,” said Hugh. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep?”
“The home of Monsieur Tillingham has provided sanctuary for the body and balm for the soul,” said the Professor. “I was just saying that I feel as if returned to civilization from a long expedition to a darker continent.”
“You will be shocked at the privations the Professor has endured,” said Mr. Tillingham. “I only wonder if they will be too much for the ladies to bear.”
“Aunt Agatha and Miss Nash will have words for you if you dare suggest they are too fragile for such stories,” said Daniel, casually removing a slice of bread from the tea table and settling in a chair to munch on it.
“But perhaps the Professor’s daughter will not like to relive such difficulties?” said Hugh. “How is your daughter, sir?”
“I have not yet seen her. It was better for her to rest,” said the Professor. “For though I shielded her as much as any father could, my poor child, she has glimpsed des horreurs.”
“Heroic,” said Mr. Tillingham, stroking his chin. “The learned man stands against the brutish horde. It is an ancient theme.”
“I visited the hostel today,” said Hugh. “Some of your compatriots report great difficulties sleeping. Dr. Lawton and I had to prescribe sleeping drafts to several.”
“I’m not surprised they are undone.” The Professor sighed. “To the peasant, the loss of a few possessions, and the eviction from home—I am sure it feels as large to them as it does to persons of real property. Yet even my own not inconsiderable losses must be of no account against the destruction of civilization to which I was witness.”
“The Germans burned the ancient library at the Professor’s university,” said Mr. Tillingham. “If we needed any further proof that civilization stands in the breach…”