Sahjara curtsied, so happy her head might have split from her grin, and quit the room.
I went to the window, attempting to calm myself; but hardly had I arrived before I saw the master hesitantly approaching, a stiff-backed reflection in the prophetic windowpane.
“Miss Stone, are you quite well?”
His awkwardness put me at once at my ease. “Very well, sir. How are you?”
“Oh, don’t mimic my pretences to English manners, for God’s sake, it’s hardly sporting.” Flashing a grim smile, he continued, “You’ve questions, no doubt; and I am willing to trade the commodity, for though I did seek an unusual governess—”
“You hadn’t anticipated the scope of my abnormality.” I sought the cool of the glass and leant my head against it, as much to mask my fright as in genuine fatigue.
You’ve scarce had time to dash off a letter to your mother’s solicitor and you’re already being tossed back into the gutter.
“And therefore I propose you dine with me this evening.”
“Of course, I can hardly blame—” I broke off. “You propose what?”
“Dining. You’ve, ah, heard of the practice? It takes place in the evening hours more generally—at least, north of the Sutlej it does.”
“Mr. Thornfield,” I announced, “you owe me dinner at the very least over the vast number of weapons displayed just now.”
“Of course.” A peculiarly endearing crease appeared at the edge of his right eye, encroaching upon his temple. “I’ve had a blow, Miss Stone. Sack’s appearance was entirely unexpected. I should never have wished you to see—”
“I accept your invitation with great enthusiasm, sir.”
Mr. Thornfield crossed his arms as I limped towards the hall.
“There have already been multiple moments which cause me to suspect your true self a giant deliberately casting a small shadow,” he reflected just as my crutch passed the threshold.
Pausing, I struggled to reply.
“Oh, never fear the ramblings of a former soldier, Miss Stone.” He drew a hand over his neck exhaustedly. “We’re cracked to a man. Go on, I’ve business to attend to.”
So I shuffled, step-thunk, step-thunk, out of the room and away, reflecting upon the three most immediate tasks before me:
—comfort Sahjara and learn what you can of what threatens this household
—navigate dinner with Mr. Thornfield
—learn to walk silently upon a sprained ankle and thereby perhaps learn a very great deal indeed afterwards
? ? ?
I lay atop my quilt for twenty minutes, taking tiny sips of laudanum, fretting that not only did I understand nothing of the workings of Highgate House but also that I possessed no precedents to guide me.
Are small girls always as formidable as Sahjara? I wondered.
Perhaps they were not; but I had been. The fact that we shared a particular home at a particular age was accidental; how then did I find it so binding, as if she were my responsibility not due to the lie which had brought me here but the truth I was discovering—that I liked these people and wished for them to like me in return?
When is a butler not really a butler?
Gingerly, I flexed my foot. My experience apart from London and Lowan Bridge School, each savage places, was limited to Mamma’s midnight picnics beneath the rustling leaves. At the thought of a butler ejecting a guest, however, and all the happy times Sardar Singh had sat with Sahjara and me whilst Mr. Thornfield was gone—something irregular was afoot. And what was Mr. Singh, if he was not the butler?
What has Mr. Augustus Sack to do with a trunk missing from the Punjab?
This seemed a rather more dangerous question, but one which required answering—and to that end, I sat upon the edge of my bed and shifted my weight until I stood fully.
“Bugger,” I gasped.
Hobbling as far as my mirror was excruciating; leaning against the edge of the dressing table, I examined myself. At twenty-four, I had not gone far towards matching my mother’s undomesticated beauty, and thus I did not often seek my own reflection. My dark hair still undulated irregularly no matter how much care I took in pinning it up, my eyes were as large as a feline’s but still the same plain brown, and my face still invited comparisons to the enchanted creatures which left England long ago.
I pinched the colour back into my cheeks, as I had no wish to alarm Sahjara further . . . not when I was so badly in need of answers and she the best purveyor of that precious, perilous commodity. The past, no one knows better than myself, is a silent stalker, and I headed for the schoolroom with the express intention of seeing her pursuer more plain.
EIGHTEEN
“I see, at intervals, the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of the cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”