Читать книгу The Wild Child - Judith Bowen - Страница 11

SILAS HAD A STUDIO set in the trees well away from the house in a building that had once been reserved for staff. The Klassens lived with him and Fanny in the main house, a large shingle-sided two-and-a-half-story dwelling, built in a rather grand post-Victorian style nearly one hundred years before by his great-grandfather. The Lords and the Bonhommes, who’d settled at the other end of the island, had been business partners once, lumber barons cutting virgin timber on Vancouver Island at the turn of the century, a time when many family fortunes had been made in British Columbia.

Because there was no electricity on the island and because the studio was some distance from the house, which had a generator for essential electrical needs, Silas created jewelry as it had been created for thousands of years, using hand tools to work the precious metals and a propane-fired forge. At present, he was working on a commission from a Toronto auto parts mogul, a gift for his wife’s fortieth birthday. Six months earlier, Silas had delivered a magnificent diamond-and-opal bracelet to the same man—for his mistress’s birthday.

The current project incorporated tanzanite, a gemstone Silas particularly liked, set into the silver-and-gold neckpiece, bracelet and earrings. Without artificial light, daytime hours were precious and Fanny knew she could only interrupt him in his studio if it was important. This morning when he’d come back from The Baths—no sign of the visitor today—he’d found one of Fanny’s handmade envelopes in the willow basket outside his open studio door.

Silas shook his head. Parties! Was his daughter turning into a social animal like her mother? Fanny seemed to generate an excuse to have a party every couple of days.

Not that he minded. And he always humored her. Silas never forgot that he was the one who’d brought his daughter into these isolated circumstances on Liberty Island nearly three years ago and he’d do anything in his power to make sure she was happy here. Summer was a fine time, when Fanny could be a free spirit, safely wandering the forest and the shore with her dog. Winters were much harder.

Today’s event was most likely because of what had happened yesterday. Fanny hadn’t mentioned the incident at dinner—and neither had he—but he suspected the party was by way of an apology. She knew the old woman’s house was forbidden, whether vacant or occupied. Indeed, that entire end of the island was off-limits; she wasn’t even to cross the creek.

But he could understand that she’d been tempted. The newcomer must have been too much to resist. He didn’t blame Fanny. No other children around. No guests. Silas had no appetite for society, and it had been many months since he’d invited anyone to Liberty Island, other than the Klassens’ son, Ivor. His occasional trips to his studio in Vancouver fulfilled any needs he might’ve had for company, male or female. Nor had he intended to meet the island’s visitor, never mind under such odd circumstances. Busting into her kitchen and tearing through her house, no less! He was a little embarrassed about that.

Hell, he’d been scared. He’d looked everywhere for Fanny, in all her usual places, but she hadn’t been in any of them. Not in her tree house at the bottom of the garden. Not in her playhouse he’d built for her in the old orchard. Or in her room, playing with dolls, or up in the attic, where she’d found trunks of old clothes that had belonged to Silas’s grandmother and often played dress-up, sometimes draping even Bruno with a hat or scarf.

Silas had hoped the visitor would simply leave and that would be that. He admitted to some curiosity—why hadn’t she come wandering to the eastern side of the island before this? Why had she kept—as far as he could tell—so carefully to the Bonhomme property, except for that excursion to The Baths? He’d only seen her there once and the bathing pools, admittedly, had always been a sort of neutral territory. Still, how could she know that?

Silas glanced at the old-fashioned Rolex he wore. He’d freed himself from many of his big-city habits, including locking doors, which made no sense on Liberty Island, but he’d never been comfortable without the Rolex, which he’d worn ever since his grandfather, Hector Lord, had given it to him a few months before the old man had died.

Silas didn’t miss much of his previous life. The days of catching an afternoon flight to Paris for the weekend, or disappearing to Mexico at a moment’s notice to share a workbench with the silver masters in Taxco for a few months, or flying to Amsterdam twice a year to buy the rough diamonds he used in his work, then whisking off to Singapore to have them faceted and ground. Now that he’d begun living on Liberty Island again, he didn’t miss the once essential Palm Pilot, but the Rolex, one of the few personal mementos he had of a scattered family, stayed on his wrist.

Silas remembered clearly the day the old man had given it to him. He’d arrived home from university to announce he’d dropped out of business school and was going to Milan to study art. His parents had been furious—as Silas had expected—but the old man had beckoned him into a back room, where he’d taken off the watch and handed it to him with a chuckle. “Here, my boy. It belongs to you.” No further explanations.

Hector Lord had been dead for nearly fourteen years.

Almost two o’clock…

Idly, Silas wound the watch as he strode toward the orchard. When Fanny had begun staging her little events earlier that summer, he’d sometimes offered to help carry her supplies to wherever she was holding the party. Her playhouse. The promontory where they had picnics. Or, most difficult for him, her tree house behind his studio. He couldn’t climb up there as easily as he’d done when the tree house had belonged to him and Ivor. Fanny was always deeply offended at his suggestion, as only Fanny could be, insisting she could—and would—do everything herself. She was independent, all right. Sociable and sassy. Loving.

She was everything in the world to him, the center of his life.

When he arrived, five minutes early, she was setting out cups and plates on a table in front of the playhouse, which he’d designed and then had built and painted, with Matthew’s help, to resemble a miniature gypsy caravan. Everything was built on a three-fifths scale, perfect for a child.

“Hi, Dad!” Fanny had a temper but she couldn’t hold a grudge for very long. It was another of her characteristics he adored. She certainly didn’t get it from his side of the family. No matter what had come between them—and they had plenty of disagreements—her sunny spirits would bubble over and she’d forget her outrage in a minute.

“What’s the occasion?” He took one of the solid and squarely built little wooden chairs ranged around the small blue-painted table and sat down. “Kelly’s birthday?”

She gave him an arch look and continued setting out cups and plates, places for six, he observed. “It’s a surprise, Daddy. I can’t tell you,” she said, then continued a little worriedly, “I don’t know when Kelly was actually borned so I don’t know when to have a party for him.”

Silas’s personal theory was that the little gray squirrel Fanny was so fond of was already a generation or two past the original “Kelly.” How long did squirrels live? “Born, honey, not borned,” he automatically corrected.

“Born,” she repeated under her breath, counting out the cutlery. Silas watched as she went to the nearby doll carriage and pulled out a Tupperware container. “You can take the lid off this, please.”

Silas pried the top off. “Mmm, cake.”

Fanny nodded, looking pleased. “With icing. Auntie Aggie made it. What time is it now, Daddy?”

Silas checked his watch. “Five past two.”

“No, ’xactly. What time is it ’xactly?”

“Okay.” He studied his watch again. “It’s six and a half minutes past two.”

Fanny nodded, her face sober. She sighed, then put the cake in the middle of the table and went back to the doll carriage and pulled out more Tupperware containers. Vegetable strips. Some kind of nutritious-looking dip—trust Aggie. What would he have done these past few years without her and Matthew? Juice boxes. A plastic jug of water alive with ice cubes—

“Now what time is it, Daddy?”

“Ten past. Shall we get started?” Silas glanced at the five other places set at the table. “Is Auntie Aggie coming?”

“No. She said she’s too busy. This one’s for Bruno—” Fanny touched one plate, part of an unbreakable set she kept in the caravan. “And this one’s for Kelly, ’cept I’m not sure he’s coming.” Silas hadn’t heard the squirrel. Kelly rarely “visited” but, when he did, he made his presence known by his loud chirruping from the huge Orenco apple tree behind the playhouse.

“Matthew’s gone over to Half Moon Bay, if you’re expecting him,” Silas told her. “He won’t be back until just before dinner.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Auntie Aggie told me that already so I didn’t make him a ’vitation. What time is it now—hey!”

There was a distinct clip-clop on the packed earth of the path that led toward the wharf. The donkey! Of course.

Silas turned to see the grizzled old beast clatter into view, head bobbing. He’d been a fixture on their side of the island, off and on, for months. Harmless enough, from what Silas had seen. Probably lonely, too, although Silas knew someone had made arrangements for weekly hay drop-offs in the spring. Bruno sat up, ears perked, eyes interested.

This was the “surprise”?

“Andy!” Fanny cried out. The animal had a name? How did Fanny know—“—and Eva!”

“Am I late?” The woman who’d moved into the Bonhomme house stepped from the wooded path into the clearing. She was dressed in jean shorts and a pink T-shirt and had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Her left arm, oddly, was festooned with what seemed to be loops of yellow yarn. Eva. Silas stood automatically, as he’d been taught to do when a member of the opposite sex entered the room—he supposed this arrangement under the apple tree qualified as a room.

Fanny clapped her hands in delight. “Surprise!” she crowed. “Surprise! Surprise!” Silas heard the squirrel start to chatter in the tree overhead. So Kelly had joined them, after all….

The afternoon, which had promised to be just another hot, somewhat boring July afternoon, had suddenly become interesting.

EVA’S FIRST THOUGHT—that Fanny’s father might have had something to do with the party invitation—evaporated when she saw his expression, as dismayed, she was sure, as her own. He hid his surprise instantly and stepped forward, hand extended. “We weren’t properly introduced yesterday. Maybe we should start again. I’m Silas Lord.” He nodded. “Welcome.”

“Eva Haines.” She shook his hand briefly, aware of the heat of his skin, the hard, dry strength of his fingers….

At his reference to their previous encounter, the way he’d practically thrown her to the side as she grabbed his arm to prevent him from barging into her kitchen, her lips thinned, and she answered him coolly. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“You’re limping,” he said bluntly, leading her toward the small table.

“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. The briar she’d removed must have left something behind, because her heel had begun to throb that morning. She’d stuck on a Band-Aid after her run and had worn thick socks with her sneakers.

“It’s a party!” Fanny, at least, was delighted to see her. “This is my dad, I guess you know that—” Silas nodded again “—and this is my playhouse he builded for me and this is Bruno, well, you know him!” She waved toward the branches overhead. “And that’s Kelly up there, he’s my squirrel.”

Eva dutifully peered up but didn’t spot the source of the scolding. She waved and called softly, “Hi, Kelly!” then felt rather silly, knowing Silas Lord was watching. Her initial impulse had been to enter into the child’s game, her play “world,” just as she’d have done with one of her students at school.

When she turned, Fanny’s father was indeed watching her.

He gestured toward a small chair opposite his, and Eva approached. “Are you in the habit of talking to squirrels? And what, if I might enquire, is that unusual bracelet you’re wearing? It’s very attractive. Did my daughter make it for you?”

“Dad!” Fanny giggled.

Eva lifted the loops from her wrist and set them on the table. “You could say that. I found my way here by following the yarn Fanny left on the bushes. That was very clever of her.”

Fanny beamed. “I wanted you to draw me a map, Dad, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Silas met Eva’s eyes. “I’m guessing you got an invitation, just as I did.”

“Yes.”

“And you followed the clues. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel.”

Eva laughed. “Exactly. Except the birds didn’t eat up all the clues, like they ate the crumbs—”

“I know that story!” Fanny interrupted, coming to the table and looking important as she picked ice cubes out of the beverage container with her fingers and put one in each of the three plastic glasses in front of her. “Dad reads that story to me.”

“No birds to eat up all the crumbs,” Silas said in a low voice, his eyes on Eva’s, “and no big bad witch at the end of the trail, either.”

Eva hesitated for a split second, then shook her head. “No.” Fanny’s father seemed very different today from the man she’d met yesterday. Then he’d been brusque and determined, angry and arrogant, with the exception of those few minutes on the trail when he’d returned, almost as an afterthought, to offer to escort her back to Doris’s house. Was that to make sure she left the property? This afternoon he seemed deliberately friendly, even jovial.

“Except Auntie Aggie, of course,” he teased, with a glance at his daughter. The half smile transformed his face, changing it from grim and rather formidable to handsome, even boyish. Which was the real Silas Lord?

“Dad!” Fanny shouted. “Don’t say that! Auntie Aggie’s not a big, bad witch. Here, have some.” She pushed a glass toward her father.

Silas took a sip. “Mmm,” he said, with a smile at his daughter over the rim. “Champagne! I suppose that’s in honor of our visitor.”

“It’s not champagne, Dad,” Fanny said seriously. “It’s fizzy water and lemonade, just like I had at Eva’s.”

“Aha!” Silas put his glass down firmly. “So you were in the house, you little rascal!”