• ELEVEN •
A COLD SHIVER SHOOK me. A goose had waddled over my grave.
Not knowing that she was dead, this poor man was obviously under the impression that I was Harriet. Would I be able to act out the lie, or should I simply tell him the truth?
He stepped back and beckoned me in through the open door.
It’s at moments like this that you find out what you’re made of: moments when everything you’ve ever been taught is fighting against your heart. On the one hand, I wanted to run—down the stairs, out of this house, home to Buckshaw, up to my room, lock the door, and dive under the blankets. On the other I wanted to throw my arms about this round little person, let him put his head on my shoulder, and hug him until the sun burned out.
I stepped inside and he shut the door abruptly behind me, as if he had captured a rare butterfly.
“Come,” he said. “Sit.”
I followed him into the room.
“You have been gone a long time,” he said as I perched on an offered armchair.
“Yes,” I said, deciding in that instant to follow my instincts. “I’ve been away.”
“I beg your pardon?” He cocked his head toward me.
“I’ve been away,” I repeated, louder this time.
“Are you well?” he asked.
His voice was quite deep: too deep for a boy, I decided.
“Yes,” I said. “Quite well. And you?”
“I suffer,” he said. “But otherwise I am quite well also.
“Tea!” he added suddenly.
He went to a sideboard where an enamel teapot stood on a small hot plate. He switched it on and stood wiping his fingers nervously on his trouser legs as it heated.
I took the opportunity to look round the room: bed, dresser with black Bible, clothespress. On the wall above the bed were a couple of photographs. The first, in a black frame, was of a man in robes, standing with the knuckles of one hand pressed white against a tabletop, an open book in the other, staring with contempt at the camera. Magistrate Ridley-Smith—I was sure of it.
The second photograph, smaller than the other, was in an oval frame of what looked like bamboo. In it, a pale-faced woman in a frilly white dress looked up with haunted eyes from her needlework, as if someone had just broken some tragic piece of news. She was seated on a verandah from which glimpses of exotic trees were visible, but out of focus in the background.
There was something familiar about her.
I maneuvered myself as casually as I could for a closer look.
The little man turned off the switch, lifted the kettle, and poured some of the tar-black liquid for each of us.
“Your favorite cup,” he said, handing me a china teacup and saucer decorated with large blue pansies. The cup was badly chipped along the rim, black cracks running out from each nick like a map of the Amazon and all its tributaries.
“Thank you,” I said, turning away from the photograph. I would need to be better acquainted before summoning up enough boldness to ask about her. “It’s been ages since I had a good cup of tea.”
Which, except for my breakfast with Dogger, was true.
I forced myself to raise it to my mouth and smile pleasantly as the acrid sludge ate away at my taste buds. This brew had been steeping for months.
After a very long pause he asked, “How is Buckshaw?”
“Much the same as ever,” I said.
Which was also true.
He was staring at me eagerly over the rim of his cup.
“It’s lovely in the spring,” I said. “It’s always lovely in the spring.”
He nodded sadly, as if he didn’t quite know what spring was.
“Is the magistrate at home today?” I asked. I did not want to risk guessing whether this curious man with whom I was sipping tea was the son or the brother of Mr. Ridley-Smith. I had never seen him at St. Tancred’s, whose parishioners I knew on sight from the oldest gaffer to Mrs. Lang’s latest baby.
“Father?” he said. “Mr. Ridley-Smith? Mr. Ridley-Smith is never at home.”
“I was hoping to see him about a church matter,” I said.
He nodded wisely. “About the saint?”
I almost dribbled my tea. “Yes,” I said. “Actually it is. How did you know?”
“Mr. Ridley-Smith talks to Benson in the air.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“In the air,” he repeated, waving a hand. “Mr. Ridley-Smith talks to Benson.”
“I see,” I said, although I didn’t see at all.
“The saint must not be wakened!” he said in a suddenly loud, gruff voice, and I realized he was mimicking his father.
“Why not?” I asked.
He did not reply, but stared up at the ceiling.
“Shhh!” he said.
My ears had already picked up a change in the sound of the room, as if it had suddenly become larger. There was a humming—a hiss …
“Ottorino Respighi,” a flat, hollow voice announced, seeming to come from nowhere. “The Pines and Fountains of Rome.”
The words were spoken without expression, as if the person who spoke them were tired of breathing. He also mispronounced “Respighi.”
There was a click! and then the crackling of a needle in the grooves of a spinning phonograph record.
The tinny music began. I located its source at last as a grilled opening high on the wall.
“Why—” I began, but he stopped me instantly with a raised hand.
“Listen!” he said, putting a webbed finger to his lips.