Free’s friends relinquished her to Oliver’s care with reluctance. The cabs were overrun; the streets crowded with foot traffic. There was no chance of taking a carriage.
Instead, they walked. For the first fifteen minutes, Free was cheerful, burbling about the crowd, the mood, how much fun she’d had and how she couldn’t wait to do it again. All her energy made him feel old and weary.
“Where are you taking me?” Free finally asked after they’d traipsed through a handful of dingy streets. “It looks like we’re going to Freddy’s.”
Oliver blinked and turned to his sister. “I thought you liked Aunt Freddy. You write to her every week. You’re her namesake.”
Free rolled her eyes. “For the last four years, Oliver, I have only been writing her angry letters, and she has been answering them with just as much vituperation. You never pay attention to anything. We are arguing.”
Had it been four years since he’d last spent any significant time at home? Oliver totted up the time…and then swallowed.
“You argue with everyone,” he finally said. “I didn’t pay that any mind.”
“She’s going to lecture me. Do you know what Freddy will say when you tell her what I was doing?” Free’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re bringing me to her? Because you want her to say—”
“Honestly, Free.” Oliver looked skyward. “I was bringing you to Freddy’s because I thought you would like to see her. I can take you back to Clermont House, if you’d prefer, but the last time you were there you complained that you didn’t know anyone and there was nothing to do. I hadn’t thought about Freddy’s lectures, and if I had, I wouldn’t have brought you. I don’t know what it is about Aunt Freddy, but the instant she tells me not to do something, I find myself most wishing to do it.”
Free’s lips twitched up reluctantly.
“And she never used to lecture you, in any event. Not like she did the rest of us.”
Free sighed. “That’s changed. I told you, we are arguing. We’ve spent the last Christmases pointedly talking about each other, loudly, to other people so that we can be overheard. How did you not notice?”
Aunt Freddy was so prickly that it was difficult to tell when she was actually upset and when she was just making noise about something or other to try to make some ridiculous point. She’d been making dire predictions of gloom as long as Oliver had known her. None of them had ever come true.
“What did you argue about?” Oliver said. “Or do I want to know?”
“She needs to go outside.”
Oliver took a deep breath. “Oh.”
If Freddy knew what they were doing now—walking on regular city streets—she would have complained of palpitations of the heart. If she’d known they were doing it with crowds about, she would have fainted.
When he was younger, he’d accepted as fact that his Aunt Freddy refused to leave the tiny flat that she inhabited. His mother said that she had once gone out—briefly—to the market, but even that had ended once she’d found someone to deliver the necessities of life. It had just been the way of things, an immutable characteristic inherent to Freddy.
“She didn’t like my manner of telling her to go outside,” Free said, “and she told me to apologize. So I told her that I was very sorry for my hasty words, and what I had meant to say was that she should be going outside every day.”
“Oh,” Oliver repeated, shaking his head. “You know, our aunt is the one person who is too stubborn to be bullied by you.”
Free shrugged. “She told me I was an impertinent little baggage, and so I told her that if she could lecture us on how we should be living our lives, I would lecture her on what she was doing. That if she could sniff and say, ‘it’s only for your own good,’ I could do the same.”
Oliver let out a sigh. “Free,” he said quietly, “I don’t really understand what is wrong with Aunt Freddy. But I really don’t think she can go outside. If she could, she would have done it years ago. Spending three decades cloistered in one tiny room is not something someone chooses to do in a fit of pique.”
Free looked even more rebellious. “Maybe she can and maybe she can’t, but she should. And even if you’re right, why can she not just tell me that? Instead, she refuses to talk about it—always by pointing out my flaws. It’s not fair that she can tell me how I need to use lemon juice to get rid of my freckles, and I can’t even tell her to get some fresh air.”
Oliver shook his head as they came to the building where his aunt lived. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not fair. I suspect it’s even less fair that Freddy can’t go outside. Have a little compassion for your aunt, Free. Since we’re here, maybe this is a good time to apologize to her.”
“Why would I apologize? I’m not wrong.”
Oliver sighed again. “Then you can come up and say absolutely nothing. That will be fun for you both.”
Oliver passed a few pennies to a flower girl on the corner in exchange for a bouquet, and they marched up the stairs of the building. There was a bit of rubbish nestled in the corner of one landing—weeks-old rubbish, by the looks of it. Oliver made a note to talk to the owner once again. If his aunt was going to spend all her time here, it should be as nice as possible.
He knocked on the door and waited.
“Who’s there?” Freddy’s voice sounded a little more quavering than Oliver remembered.
“It’s Oliver.”
The door opened a crack, and he caught a glimpse of his aunt peering at him. “Are you alone?” she said. “Has the city erupted in flame? Are there riots?”
“No,” Oliver said. “The gathering was orderly.”
She opened the door wider. “Then come along in. It’s so good to see you, love.” She began to motion him inside. But as she did, her eyes landed on Free, standing a foot behind Oliver.
For a second, Freddy’s face transformed. Her eyebrows lifted; her eyes lit. She swallowed, and her hand twitched out to Free. But then she seemed to catch herself back, and that transmutation happened in reverse—happiness turned into obstinate denial.
Argued, indeed. They were two of the most stubborn women that he knew—possibly why they cared for each other so much, and certainly why they’d been “arguing” for four years when they clearly loved each other. Oliver shook his head. “Can we come in, Aunt Freddy?”