Читать книгу The Regency Bestsellers Collection - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 26

“The girl ca—” Daisy stopped and tried again. “The girl cat-cheese . . .”

“Catches,” Alex gently corrected.

“The girl catches the fish.”

“Very good, darling. Go on.”

Now that she’d been fitted for spectacles, Daisy was flying through her primers. Her mind had connected the letters and sounds long ago. She simply hadn’t been able to see them.

The primers had needed a bit of editing. As originally written by a certain Mr. Browne—who suffered an appalling lack of imagination—the boys did everything interesting and the girls never left home.

Nothing that a few snips of the shears and a couple dabs of paste couldn’t manage.

Daisy turned the page. “The boy wa-shes the dish.”

“Excellent.”

Rosamund was making strides, too. Or if not making strides, at least she’d stopped mulishly blocking the road. The girl had already been a voracious reader, and her command of numbers was well beyond her years. She scarcely needed any lessons. What she needed were the sorts of things she’d never ask for and only would occasionally, grudgingly accept. Things like praise and warm pats on the shoulder. Alex was still working up to hugs.

All in all, she was encouraged. There was still a great deal to accomplish by summer’s end, but both Rosamund and Daisy were on their way.

And then there was Chase.

His amorous liaison with Winifred may not have come to fruition, as it were, but it seemed to have had the intended effect. Chase now avoided Alex with unqualified success. Save for the perfunctory morning condolences (scrofula being the latest ailment to claim poor Millicent’s life), she hadn’t seen him in a week.

Therefore, neither had the girls.

Rosamund and Daisy could memorize the encyclopedia, and they still wouldn’t truly be ready to leave for school—not unless they knew they had a loving home to come back to. There was only one person who could give them that. And when that person wasn’t working with Mr. Barrow, he was hammering at something in his Rake Room.

Alex knew they had an undeniable attraction, but she couldn’t be so irresistible as that. Perhaps she could find some way to render herself entirely undesirable. Daisy might have a noxious skin condition to recommend.

“What’s this?” Daisy twisted on Alex’s lap. She plucked at the ribbon tied about Alex’s neck and pulled the beaded cross pendant out from beneath her fichu. “You never take it off.”

“The beads were a gift from my mother.” Alex untied the ribbon from behind her neck. “You may look, if you wish.”

Daisy ran her fingers over the tiny red beads. “Why aren’t they on a proper chain?”

“Governesses can’t afford gold chains.”

Nevertheless, Alex kept them as secure as possible—individually knotted, on a ribbon that she faithfully replaced every three months, lest it fray.

“They’re corales,” she told Daisy. “Red coral beads. Where I was born, mothers make a bracelet of them and tie it around their baby’s wrist.” She reached for Millicent and demonstrated, wrapping the ribbon around the doll’s arm where the carved wooden hand met the batting-stuffed arm. “Like so. It’s for protection.”

“Protection?” This skeptical inquiry came from Rosamund. Apparently, she’d been paying attention from across the room. “Protection from what?”

“From all sorts of terrible things. Sickness. The evil eye. An aswang—that’s a witch. There are all manner of fearsome creatures. Take the manananggal.”

“Magana-what?”

“Manananggal.” Alex made her voice dark and mysterious. “She’s a lady vampire who can cut herself in two. Her legs remain rooted in the ground like a tree stump, and the rest of her flies out into the night. Her intestines unwind like a string behind her, and she goes hunting for mothers and their children. She lies on the roof of a house, and uses her long, long tongue to reach her sleeping prey, probe down their throats, and suck out their blood.”

“I shan’t be frightened of those,” Daisy said. “The intestine is only twenty-six feet long, and the Philippine Islands are much farther away than that. No mana-thinggum could possibly reach us.”

“Perhaps not.”

“I have a necklace from my mother, too.” Daisy scampered to the trunk that served alternately as treasure chest and Millicent’s burial vault. Rosamund looked on, wary, as her sister sifted through the contents and retrieved a small, gilded box inlaid with French motifs painted on porcelain.

Once she’d returned to the bed, Daisy opened the box and drew out a gold pendant on a slender chain. “Here.”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Alex said.

“It’s a locket,” Daisy said proudly. She picked open the latch to display a painted miniature. “That’s Mama.”

Alex took the pendant in her hand, holding it closer for examination. “How beautiful she was.”

“Oh, yes. She was very beautiful. She was brilliant at singing and cards. And clever, too. She always knew just how to make you feel better, if you had a stomachache or cough.”

“It would have been better if she hadn’t known,” Rosamund said.

“Why would you say that?” Alex asked.

“That’s how she caught her death. She was helping nurse the neighbor’s boy when he was ill with the putrid throat. He got better, but not before making her sick. She wasn’t so very clever after all.”

“She was,” Daisy retorted angrily.

“She ought to have never gone. Anyone could see what would come of it. It was stupid of her.”

“Rosamund,” Alexandra said gently.

Daisy jumped to her feet. “You can’t say that. Take it back.”

“I shan’t take it back.” Rosamund tossed aside her book and stood. “It’s the truth. Mama was stupid and reckless. She cared more about mending the neighbor boy than she cared about staying alive for us.”

“That isn’t so,” Daisy yelled through tears. “You’re mean and spiteful and I hate you.”

“Well, I hate her.” Rosamund tore the necklace from Daisy’s hand and threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor. She stood there for a moment, breathing hard and staring at the wall. Obviously struggling not to cry.

Alex approached her gingerly. “Rosamund.”

“Don’t.” The girl flinched, recoiling from the touch. “Don’t touch me. Leave Daisy alone, as well. Don’t pretend to mother her. You’re leaving at the end of the summer. And when you’ve gone, we won’t miss you at all.”

Rosamund ran from the room. Daisy had retreated to a corner, where she curled her knees to her chest, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed.

Alex wanted to soothe them both, but she knew well from her own youth that the loss of parents couldn’t be healed with biscuits or hugs. The girls needed time, and they needed to know they were safe. Safe to rage or shout or cry, without being told to hush. With her, they needn’t pretend they weren’t hurting inside. If nothing else, she could give them that—for a few more weeks, at least.

She found the locket and turned it back and forth in her hands. Thankfully, it appeared undamaged from its disastrous flight across the room. The hinge had been tweaked, but she was able to bend it back in place with a bit of gentle manipulation. After replacing the necklace in the French inlaid box, she returned it to the trunk at the foot of the bed. In digging for her treasure, Daisy had made quite a jumble of the playthings and blankets that filled the chest. Alex pulled it all out, planning to fold, sort, and organize the contents as she replaced them.

When she reached the bottom of the trunk, however, she found a mysterious bundle, roughly the size of a teapot. It had been tightly wrapped in oilcloth and bound with a length of twine.

Which was tied with a cat’s-paw knot.

Alexandra ran her fingers over the twine, considering. Children needed privacy, just as adults did. Poking through the girls’ secrets could damage what fragile trust they’d built. She decided to replace the bundle beneath the other contents, close the trunk, and say nothing about it.

And then she changed her mind.

An anxious weight had settled in her stomach, heavy enough to pin her to the floor. She wouldn’t rest easy until she learned what was in the bundle.

With a quick look over her shoulder, she picked apart the knot with her fingernail and carefully unfolded the oilcloth. What she found inside made her heart wrench.

Everything two girls might need, should they wish to run away.

Money, chiefly. Alex did a quick counting, and the total was above ten pounds. That was an impressive number of coins, no doubt pilfered one by one from Chase’s pockets and carefully hoarded over the months.

Oh, Lord. Rosamund was always making quips about her “escape plan,” but Alex had believed her to be joking. The preparation reflected in this bundle was serious indeed.

Aside from the purse, Alex found a tiny book of coaching timetables, maps of London and England, a flint and tinderbox, a pocket knife, a ball of twine, and a compass. The same compass that had gone missing a few weeks ago. Apparently, it hadn’t gone missing at all. It had joined the rest of Rosamund’s cache.

Last, she found a simple sewing kit. Needle book, thread, and a small pair of shears. Her lips curved in a bittersweet smile. At least she’d convinced Rosamund of the value of needlework.

Alex hastily remade the bundle, careful to replace the objects as she’d found them, and tied the twine with an identical knot. She reburied the packet at the bottom of the trunk and closed it.

One thing was clear. She would have to redouble her efforts with Chase. She didn’t want to betray Rosamund’s fragile trust by telling him about the bundle, but there was more at stake here than he knew. Rosamund was capable and determined, and if she decided to take Daisy and run away, no headmistress would be stern enough to prevent them, nor quick enough to track them down. They had squirreled away enough money to take them anywhere in England. Possibly farther.

If Chase wasn’t careful, sending the girls to school could mean losing them. Forever.