A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [37]
Veronica balked at the indicated door.
“Do you mind if we wait in the library, Marshall? I may be upstairs some time, and Miss Russell will enjoy looking at the books, I think.”
An instant’s hesitation was the only sign of a dilemma that would have undone a lesser man. Mere visitors were not normally given the run of the house, the hesitation said, but in the past Miss Beaconsfield had become more than a mere guest, and no formal announcement had been made to the contrary.
“Lieutenant Fitzwarren is currently in the library, miss,” he said, further explaining his hesitation and giving the decision back to her.
“Miles?” she said, and it was her turn to hesitate before squaring her shoulders. “Well, I shall have to see him sometime. Perhaps you’d best warn him I’m coming, though. I’ll show Miss Russell the drawing room, and you can come back for us.”
This diplomatic solution met with his approval. He ushered us in and faded away, to reappear shortly, bereft of coats and paraphernalia. I was relieved that I was not to spend more of the evening in the austerely formal room, with its grey walls more suited to a summer’s day and its collection of remarkably unsettling futurist paintings. The library for me.
Veronica’s face was serious but not apprehensive; however, the spine that I followed down the portrait-lined passageway belonged to someone about to confront a firing squad. She took two steps inside the room, then stopped, and I looked past her at the figure by the window.
It took no great medical knowledge to recognise in Miles Fitzwarren a sick young man, and no great cleverness to discern his ailment. He moved as if gripped by the ache of influenza, but the torpid lassitude of that illness was replaced here by a jittery restlessness, an inability to settle into a chair or a thought, which reminded me of a caged zoo animal. It was painful to witness. To Veronica, it must have been excruciating, but there was no sign of it in her face or her voice.
“Hello, Miles.”
“Evenin’, Ronnie. You’re certainly looking chipper,” he burbled gaily. “Surprise to see you here, don’t you know? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Did you have a good Christmas? How are your parents—your father’s sciatica, was it? Hope it didn’t interfere with the shootin’ this year. Oh, here, frightfully rude of me… Come and sit down. You a friend of Ronnie’s? Miles Fitzwarren. Pleased to meet you, Miss…”
“This is Mary Russell, Miles. A friend from Oxford.”
“Another bluestocking, eh, Miss Russell? Or do you go around doin’ good, too? How are the opera sordida, Ronnie? Most awfully embarrassin’, you know,” he confided to me, “bein’ surrounded by people who do good deeds right and left.” His attempt at gay and tripping laughter rang hollow even in his ears, and the fuzzy remembrance that he was mourning his sister, or perhaps the tardy realisation that he was giving away quite a lot, hurried him on. “I’ve heard about this church lady of yours, Childe. Supposed to be quite the thing. Friend of mine in the City went to hear her about a week or two ago, said she talked all about love. Quite taken with her, he was, though I must say it all sounded positively loose to me, love in church. Still, she probably means well enough.”
“Miles, I—”
“As a matter of fact, I saw her,” he prattled on desperately. “A week ago. Someone told me who she was. Tiny little thing, should have thought she was a child if I hadn’t seen her face. Suppose she is a Childe, though, isn’t she—the name, d’you see? Still, good things come in small packages, they say.”
I do not know what further revelations the man might have split, or what Veronica would have said, because the melancholy presence of Marshall appeared at the door and said that Mrs Fitzwarren would be pleased to see Miss Beaconsfield, if she should care to follow him.
Veronica stood up, bit her lip, took three impulsive steps forward to where Miles sat perched on the corner of a desk, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and turned to go. From his flinch,