“Yes, I know that’s a lot of conjecture,” I said, misreading the look on his face. “I’ve not had time to give it much thought.”
He smiled at me, his eyes shining a little too brightly in the way they sometimes did. “We are going to make a very good team, Em.”
I snorted to cover the heat rising in my face. “So far, our teamwork seems rather unevenly distributed.”
“I may be of use to you yet, my dear dragon.” He left me, pulling the door shut softly behind him.
23rd November
After paying a visit to Poe this morning, I returned to find Bambleby vanished yet again. Clearly, he is still looking for his door—why does he bother being so bloody secretive about it? And why not enlist me to help?
Feeling put out, I wandered about the cottage for a while, eyeing the various knickknacks he’d cluttered the space up with and wishing I could be more offended by them. I ran my finger over the mantel—not a speck of dust. I recalled how dingy the place had been when I moved in, yet I’d never observed him dusting.
Perhaps in anticipation of my displeasure, he had left several completed diagrams of basalt rock formations on the table, those which the villagers said were inhabited by the “little ones.” This section of the paper I’d assigned to him—at least he had gotten something done. I read over the summary he’d left beneath the diagrams—it was brief, but acceptable.
I sat down to work but found my mind wandering. The weather outside had a quality of softness one finds only in winter; clouds drifted in and away, dreamlike, loosing handfuls of white. The wind was from the north and carried the smell of sulphur from some invisible mountain spring.
I put my pen down and pulled on my cloak and boots. We had a healthy supply of wood, but I wanted some exertion.
The first log split eventually, though I had to take a few swings at it. The second was riddled with knots, and it went flying sideways when my axe struck it. As I went to dig it out of the snow, I heard the soft press of booted footsteps.
“Emily!” Lilja called. Margret trailed behind, both of them smiling at me. “We’ve just been giving Ulfar a hand unloading supplies at the dock, and came to see if you’d like to join us for some wine. Thora’s been complaining about the drinks again, so he thought he’d try ordering a few French bottles.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I wouldn’t wish to interrupt your chores. Also, I prefer not to imbibe so early in the day.”
Lilja’s face fell. Only once the words were out of my mouth did I realize how they sounded. “I don’t mean to say that it’s too early to drink,” I clarified. “Only that I do not drink much generally, and thus it is too early for me. But those who drink frequently would likely disagree.”
They gazed at me, brows furrowed. Oh, well done, I thought. How was it that in trying to remove my foot from my mouth, I invariably managed to shove it in even deeper?
I began to sputter something else, but fortunately Lilja spoke first. “You look like you’re improving,” she said, gesturing at the axe. “Would you like me to give you a lesson?”
I almost wept at her kindness. “Thank you,” I murmured.
Looking amused, she took the axe away from me. “I’ll show you how I do it, then you can try again.”
Margret settled on another stump to watch. Lilja arranged the piece of trunk, rotating it a little in the unthinking way of expertise, changed her stance, then brought the axe down in a swift arc. The wood split, though not quite in half.
“That’s how I like to do it,” Lilja explained as she picked up the larger half and set it back on the stump. In her callused, capable hands, the axe seemed light and small. “It’s easier to split if you strike the edge, not the centre. Now I can do this—”
She swung again, and the piece cleaved in two. “And there you have it. About right for your stove?”
I nodded. I admit I would not have thought I could be impressed by this sort of rustic skill, but Lilja made it look like an art. “You must be much in demand in the village,” I said.
“I can split a full cord in an hour,” she said, not boasting, but by way of answer. “I’ve been doing this since I was seven. I wouldn’t want any other job.”
“And do you also enjoy this form of exercise?” I asked Margret, who had been sitting quietly, swinging her feet with a little smile on her face.
Margret grimaced. “I’d rather be inside at my piano, or reading a book. Chopping wood is Lilja’s job. She keeps me warm.”
Lilja blushed at her, and then she looked at me with such warmth and gratitude that I found myself asking inanely, “And are there different categories of axe?”
Lilja was very patient with me. She showed me how to grip the axe—I’d been going about it all wrong, apparently, swinging it like a hatchet.
“See these lines?” she said, pointing to the split side of a log, where a network of cracks sliced through the grain. “That’s where you aim. I’d go for this one here, myself.” She traced it with her finger. “That way you avoid the knot. See?”
“You may be overestimating my skill if you are expecting me to aim at anything smaller than the log itself.”
She laughed. “Just do your best.”
There was something in the comfortable way she said it that made me feel easier. I split the log in only two strokes. I managed to hit one of the cracks in the next piece, and it divided with a single blow.
Margret clapped. “Well done!” Lilja exclaimed, beaming as if I’d completed a marathon. In truth, I did feel rather proud of myself. It’s funny how the practice of such simple, ancient skills can put one at ease.
My progress, though, was rather uneven. My aim began to improve under Lilja’s instruction, but I did not have her strength, and I could not be comfortable swinging something so deadly about, particularly after the fiasco with Wendell. After we’d accumulated a little pile between us, she and Margret helped me cart it inside, and I found myself inviting them to stay for tea, though my notes scowled accusingly at me from the table.
“How cosy!” Margret said, and they both looked around the cottage admiringly. For some reason, I did not inform them that the cosiness was all Wendell’s making. Not once have I been complimented on my apartments at Cambridge. Well, I spend most of my time in the library or my office, so what does it matter?
Lilja asked if Wendell was in, and both looked relieved when I shook my head.
“Surely you aren’t frightened of him?” I enquired.
“Oh, no!” Margret said a little too quickly. “We’re very grateful to him for helping us.”
“Yes,” Lilja said, and I understood then that they were afraid of Wendell, very much so, and eager to avoid offending him.
I sensed Margret wanted to pursue the subject of Wendell somehow, but she said nothing more as I made tea. I was relieved they hadn’t mentioned the tavern again—I doubt I will ever be easy in such places, particularly when all in attendance insist on approaching you for a warm-hearted sort of chat, full of praise and gratitude that I have no more idea what to do with than one of Thora’s skeins of yarn and some knitting needles.
We chatted about my research and my forthcoming ICODEF presentation with Bambleby, and then as I poured the tea, Margret said in a bit of a rush, “Then you and Wendell are not—an item?”
I blinked at her. “I—no. Of course not. We are colleagues. And friends, I suppose,” I added grudgingly.
“I didn’t think so,” Lilja said, giving Margret a just as I said sort of look. “What with how he carries on with the village girls.”
But Margret’s brow was furrowed. “I only thought— The way he looks at you—”
The way he looks at me? I thought about the way Wendell looked at me sometimes, particularly when he thought I wasn’t aware of it, and then I felt hot, then cold, then hot again. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, turning away to conceal my blush. Good grief, you’d think I was a girl of sixteen.
Lilja kicked Margret. “She probably has someone back home, you goose.”
“Do you?” Margret said.
“Oh, no.” I busied myself with the toast—one of Poe’s palest, softest breads. “I’m always much too busy for that sort of thing.”
Margret blinked. “Then—then there’s never been anyone you fancied?”
“Oh, of course,” I said, much relieved that the subject had shifted from Wendell. “There was Leopold—he and I were together a year. We were studying for our doctorates at Cambridge at the same time. He went away to Tübingen afterwards on a fellowship. He asked me to come along, but obviously it was out of the question.”
Lilja waited, as if expecting me to go on. “And—that’s it?” When I looked at her blankly, she seemed embarrassed and said, “That’s it. I see.”