Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [93]
“Come lay your head, Claire,” he said quietly. “It’s been a long day for us both.”
* * *
I had been afraid that the encounter with Alexander Randall would set Jamie dreaming again. It did not happen often, but now and again, I would feel him wake beside me, body tensed in sudden battle. He would lurch out of bed then, and spend the night by the window as though it offered escape, refusing any form of solace or interference. And by the morning, Jack Randall and the other demons of the dark hours had been forced back into their box, battened down and held fast by the steel bands of Jamie’s will, and all was well again.
But Jamie fell asleep quickly, and the stresses of the day had already fled from his face, leaving it peaceful and smooth by the time I put out the candle.
It was bliss to lie unmoving, with the warmth growing about my cold limbs, the myriad small aches of back and neck and knees fading into the softness of oncoming sleep. But my mind, released from watchfulness, replayed a thousand times that scene outside the palace—a quick glimpse of a dark head and a high brow, close-set ears and a fine-edged jaw—that first harsh flash of mistaken recognition, which struck my heart with a blow of joy and anguish. Frank, I had thought. Frank. And it was Frank’s face I saw as I sank into sleep.
The lecture room was one of those at London University; ancient timbered ceiling and modern floors, lino scuffed by restless feet. The seats were the old smooth benches; new desks were saved for the science lectures. History could make do with sixty-year-old scarred wood; after all, the subject was fixed and would not change—why should its accommodation?
“Objects of vertu,” Frank’s voice said, “and objects of use.” His long fingers touched the rim of a silver candlestick, and the sun from the window sparked from the metal, as though his touch were electric.
The objects, all borrowed from the collections of the British Museum, were lined up along the edge of the table, close enough for the students in the front row to see the tiny cracks in the yellowed ivory of the French counterbox, and the stains of tobacco smoked long ago that browned the edges of the white clay pipe. An English gold-mounted scent bottle, a gilt-bronze inkstand with gadrooned lid, a cracked horn spoon, and a small marble clock topped with two swans drinking.
And behind the row of objects, a row of painted miniatures, laid flat on the table, features obscured by the light reflecting off their surfaces.
Frank’s dark head bent over the objects, absorbed. The afternoon sun picked up a stray reddish gleam in his hair. He lifted the clay pipe, cupped onehanded like an eggshell.
“For some periods of history,” he said, “we have history itself; the written testimony of the people who lived then. For others, we have only the objects of the period, to show us how men lived.”
He put the pipe to his mouth and pursed his lips around the stem, puffing out his cheeks, brows raised comically. There was a muffled giggle from the audience, and he smiled and laid the pipe down.
“The art, and the objects of vertu”—he waved a hand over the glittering array—“these are what we most often see, the decorations of a society. And why not?” He picked an intelligent-looking brown-haired boy to address. An accomplished lecturer’s trick; pick one member of the audience to talk to as though you were alone with him. A moment later, shift to another. And everyone in the room will feel the focus of your remarks.
“These are pretty things, after all.” A finger’s touch set the swans on the clock revolving, curved necks stately in twofold procession. “Worth preserving. But who’d bother keeping an old, patched tea cozy, or a worn-out automobile-tire?” A pretty blonde in glasses this time, who smiled and tittered briefly in response.
“But it’s the useful objects,