“UNCLE SEBASTIAN,” A SMALL VOICE SAID from the stairwell as Sebastian descended. “What is happening to my father?”
Sebastian looked down. Harry sat on a chair in the entry. It was an adult’s chair, and his legs didn’t quite reach the ground. He sat, his arms folded, waiting patiently as Sebastian had never been able to do at that age. His nephew’s dark hair spilled in every direction; his expression was set in childish worry.
“Why were you and Papa yelling at one another?” Harry looked scared.
“Because we couldn’t agree,” Sebastian finally said. “Sometimes it happens. People can’t agree.”
Harry slid off the chair. He was clutching a wooden horse. He slowly came up the steps until he met Sebastian halfway. With Sebastian on the upper step, it made Harry seem even smaller than he was, barely higher than Sebastian’s knees.
“Are you going to go away and never come back?” he asked.
“No.”
Another pause. “Is Papa going to die?”
“Why…” Sebastian licked his lips. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because the doctor comes so often. He did that last year with Mama.”
It wasn’t Sebastian’s place to tell Harry about his father’s illness. But he couldn’t bring himself to lie, either. “Ask your papa,” he finally said.
Harry’s face crumpled. “That means yes.”
“Shh.” Sebastian sat down on the steps next to his nephew, removing that awful difference in their heights. “It will all work out, somehow.” He let out a breath. “I’ve been making your father angry these last few weeks, and that isn’t good for him.” He looked up. He didn’t know what to make of his brother anymore, didn’t know what was right, except that yelling wouldn’t change anything. “I’m not going to do that anymore,” he promised. “That will help. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” Harry said.
And he wasn’t. His shoulders shook convulsively, but he didn’t let out so much as a sob.
“I’m not crying,” Harry repeated. “Papa said men don’t cry, and so I’m not crying now.”
Don’t be ridiculous, Sebastian thought of saying.
Or: Crying is allowed when you’re sad.
But Benedict wouldn’t appreciate Sebastian’s interference with his parenting, and in the end, Harry was Benedict’s child. It was his decision, no matter what Sebastian thought of it.
“Right,” Sebastian said, sliding his arm around Harry. “Good. You’re not crying. I’m here, not crying with you.”
“VIOLET,” LILY SAID, taking her sister’s hands. “How did you know that I needed you so?”
They were in Lily’s private study, the door locked. Lily had threatened her children with tarring and feathering if they interrupted her within the next hour, which meant they had at most fifteen minutes. Lily sat at her desk, her eyes wide and beseeching.
Violet hadn’t known. She’d needed Lily—needed to be reminded that someone needed her, if only to talk sternly to Frederick about how the dignity of his tin soldiers could not be upheld if they continued to conduct excursions in his chamber pot. With Lily, she served a purpose, a real one.
Violet folded her hands.
“Help me,” Lily said. “This is more than any mother can bear.”
“What is wrong?” If one of Lily’s children had been ill enough to occasion concern, surely she would have sent for Violet already.
“Look what I found in Amanda’s things.” Lily’s hands were shaking as she took a key from the ring in her pocket and unlocked the drawer of her desk.
Suddenly, Violet had a very bad feeling about what Lily was about to produce.
“This.” Lily pulled out a volume. “This.” Her voice trembled.
It was only with great effort that Violet kept the emotion from her face. “Pride and Prejudice,” she said calmly. “And a first edition at that. Good heavens. Those have become quite valuable now. Did a suitor give it to her? You’re right. She never should have accepted such a thing from a man, no matter how thoughtful the gift. She’ll have to return it.”
Not lies. Not the truth, either, but none of it was outright falsehood.
“Open it.” Lily looked away. “Just…open it.”
Violet did, even though she knew what she would see. It wasn’t the frontispiece of Pride and Prejudice.
The Higher Education of Women, by Emily Davies.
Violet looked up into her sister’s eyes. “Emily Davies,” she said so calmly that she’d never have known how her own heart raced, had she not felt it beating wildly in her chest. “I have not heard of a novelist by that name.” Also true; the Emily Davies Violet knew wrote essays, not novels. “Does she write improper fiction?”
“She’s not a novelist,” Lily spat. “She’s one of those…awful women. She writes about the rights of women.”
“Oh. Dear me.”