Someone to Hold

Had there ever been a worse villain than he?

To end a perfectly delightful evening—though it had still been early—on his return he had run into Marvin Silver on the stairs and been grinned and leered at as he brushed past. He had felt . . . dirty.

It had not been the best day of his life.

Joel stood and brooded before his mother’s portrait, wondering what he was supposed to do with himself for the rest of the day. Of course, there was that dinner engagement at the Royal York this evening. He grimaced at the very thought. He could go to the orphanage to apologize again to Camille, but he did not know quite what he would say, and he did not imagine she would be thrilled to see him. In other words, he could add abject cowardice to his other shortcomings. He could stay at home and sketch her—flushed and flustered and animated as she taught the children the Roger de Coverley; flushed and martial of spirit as she taught him the steps of the waltz; flushed and vividly triumphant a few minutes later after he had spun her recklessly through a turn. But when he tried to bring the images into focus, he could see her only as she had looked on his bed—gloriously, voluptuously naked and feminine with her hair down.

Make some stew?

That old man was dying. He could have no wish to set eyes upon Joel again, and he certainly would not want to be pestered with more questions. If Uxbury was still at the house—and he probably was—he would undoubtedly do all in his power to keep Joel out, and there might well be two other equally hostile family members there by now. Even the butler would be difficult to get past. Going back there, then, would be a pointless waste of time and money.

He went anyway.

He was certainly right about one thing, though. He did not see Mr. Cox-Phillips.

As the hired carriage drew up at the front of the house, the door was opening, coincidentally as it turned out, and a gangly young servant stepped outside, an armful of what looked like black crepe in his arms. The butler came after him and stood on the threshold, watching as the young man twined the black strips about the door knocker, presumably to muffle the sound of it. When Joel stepped down from the carriage, the butler looked up at him, his eyes bleak and quite noticeably reddened. Joel took two steps toward him and stopped.

“I am so sorry,” he said.

The butler said nothing.

“When?” Joel asked.

“An hour ago,” the butler told him.

“Did he suffer?” Joel’s lips felt stiff.

“He was in the library,” the butler told him, “where he insisted upon being brought every day. I was pouring his morning coffee when he told me not to bother if all I could bring him was swill that smelled like dirty dishwater. He scolded Mr. Orville for forgetting to wrap his blanket about his legs. When Mr. Orville informed him that it was already wrapped about him warm and tight, he looked at it, and then he looked surprised, and then he was gone. Just like that.” He looked bewildered, and tears welled in his eyes.

“I am so sorry,” Joel said again. If he had come yesterday . . . But he had not. He felt a curious sense of loss even though Mr. Cox-Phillips had been no more than a stranger who happened to be related to him. He had also told Joel his mother’s name and given him a small portrait of her, and both were, Joel realized for the first time, priceless gifts. “I am sorry for your grief. Have you been with him long?”

“Fifty-four years,” the butler said. “Mr. Orville is laying him out on his bed.”

Joel nodded and turned back to the carriage. He was stopped, however, by another voice, haughty and imperious.

“You again, fellow?” Viscount Uxbury asked. “You have come begging again, I suppose, but you are too late, I am happy to inform you. Take yourself off before I have you thrown off my property.”

Joel turned back to look curiously at him and wondered briefly who would do the throwing. The butler? The thin young man who had finished with the strips of black crepe and was ducking back into the house behind the butler? Uxbury himself? And my property? It had taken him less than an hour to claim it for himself, had it? Joel wondered what the other two claimants would have to say about that.

“You left your doxy behind today, did you?” Uxbury said.

“You have just suffered a family bereavement,” Joel told him. “Out of respect for the late Mr. Cox-Phillips and his faithful servants, I will let that gross insult to a lady pass by me, Uxbury. But take care never to repeat it or anything like it in my hearing again. I might feel obliged to rearrange the features on your face. You may proceed,” he added to the grinning coachman as he turned back to the carriage and climbed inside.

It would surely be false self-indulgence to feel bereaved over the death of a stranger. He felt bereaved anyway.

* * *

Camille rearranged her room. She hung the Madonna-and-child sketch over the table and stood looking at it for a few minutes. She toyed with her breakfast and ate it only because she would not waste food in such a place. She played the pianoforte in the playroom and sang with the handful of children who clustered about her, four girls and two boys.

She took Sarah out into the garden and sat on a blanket with her, playing with her, tickling her to make her laugh, rubbing noses with her, talking nonsense to her, and otherwise making an idiot of herself. Winifred joined them and earnestly informed her how important it was for babies to be played with and touched and held even if they would not remember it when they grew older.

After Sarah had fallen asleep and been taken indoors, Camille turned one handle of a long skipping rope while a succession of girls and one boy jumped through it. She even joined in the strange chant that was the accompaniment to the jumping. Winifred informed her that she was a good sport.