The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [16]
“And, Step-Mama,” he said, coming forward to plant a very French kiss on my cheek.
“Call me Mary,” I said firmly.
“I've come from London,” he said to his father, by way of explanation. “Uncle Mycroft caught me up on your news. When he told me you were en route from New York, I decided to come down last night and wait for you—he sent along a note to your helpful young housekeeper, so she wouldn't set the dogs on me.”
I'd heard precisely five words out of him at our first meeting, but I found now that his accent was as charming as the easy flow of his words—there was French at its base, overlaid with American English and something more clipped: Chinese? His clothing was a similar mélange, the canvas jacket homespun and local whereas the shirt had travelled a long, hard way from its beginnings. His shoes were, I thought, Italian, although not bespoke.
The dogs were a figure of speech—Mycroft knew we had no dogs. The housekeeper, however, was not, and I thought the reason Damian mentioned her was that he had noticed her standing in the door to the house: Lulu had her strengths, but silence and discretion were not among them, and it would not take a long acquaintance with her to realise that it was best to watch one's tongue when she was near.
“Pardon the interruption,” she said, “but I've fixed supper. Would you like to eat, or shall I put it into the ice-box?”
I spoke up, overriding Holmes' wave of dismissal. “Hello, Lulu, how are you? Dinner would be greatly appreciated, thank you. Shall we come now?”
“If you like,” she said gratefully. And as the table had been laid and the food already in its serving bowls, it would clearly have been a vexation had we said, No, thank you.
Mrs Hudson would have marked our homecoming with Windsor soup, a roast, potatoes, gravy, three vegetables, and a heavy pudding; she would have been red of face, and waves of heat would have pulsed from the kitchen doorway. Lulu, on the other hand, began with an interesting cold Spanish soup of finely chopped tomatoes and cucumber, then set down paper-thin slices of cold roast beef dressed with mustard and horseradish, a bowl of Cos leaves tossed with a light vinaigrette, and a platter of beetroot slices drizzled with pureed herbs—Lulu's aunt ran the nearby Monk's Tun inn, and the aunt's teaching was why I, for one, was willing to put up with Lulu's tendency to gab.
The two men ate what was before them, although I doubt either could have described it later. I, however, took second helpings of most, winning a beatific look as Lulu passed through with another platter.
In the presence of food and servants, conversation went from the summer's weather to Mycroft's health and then London's art world. Of Mycroft, Damian knew little, apart from finding his uncle looking well, but it seemed that he had been in the city long enough to converse knowledgeably about the last.
As he sat at our table and held up his end of the small-talk, I began to sense that somewhere beneath his deliberate ease and charm lurked the edginess we had seen before. On reflection, this would hardly be surprising: Their first meeting had ended on a note of pure animosity, and if neither of them was about to bring it up, nor were they about to forget it.
I decided that what Damian was doing with his friendly shallow chatter was to illustrate that he had grown up, to show Holmes that the natural resentment of a boy whose father had failed him had been replaced by a man's mature willingness to forgive, and to start again. That it was being done deliberately did not necessarily mean it was insincere.
Thirty-five minutes of surface conversation was as much as Holmes could bear. When my fork had transferred the last morsel of salad to my tongue, he waited until he saw me swallow, then stood.
“We'll take our coffee on the terrace, Miss Whiteneck, then you may go home.”
“And thank you for that fine supper, Lulu,” I added.
“Er, quite.” Holmes caught up three glasses and a decanter