Page 38 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘Of course you have a number. Somewhere, we’re all a number. In your family, are you seventh? Eighth?’
‘Number six!’ Amadeus shouted with a half jump. ‘Garnett was above me. But he’s gone now. So, when people look at us all lined up, I’m number five, but Mama and Father say, and we all know that I’m number six.’
Garnett. That was the boy they’d lost. Done a sight better than many a family—especially the families in the poorhouse where he’d grown up—in only losing one. And those they’d kept seemed healthy and whole. One tragedy amidst so much life would have been considered a blessing.
But even a little loss marked a person.
And a battlefield of loss?
It scorched a person’s soul.
‘I miss him,’ Amadeus said.
‘You weren’t even born when he died,’ Phineas said, then regretted the words, not only for their brutishness but for their simplicity.
‘I know,’ the boy said, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the harsh angle of his tone. ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.’
Phineas walked his fingers along the book spines. There.The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland, Practically Describedand Illustrated. Phineas took the book, pulled out his reading glasses, and settled into his chair.
‘Uncle Phin.’ Amadeus climbed over Phineas’s knee and settled into the small space on the cushion.
Phineas shifted aside with a huff. ‘We discussed this. I’m not your uncle.’
‘Will you read to me?’ The boy slid, stiff with bony angles, against the chair arm.
‘The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland? You want me to read it to you?’
The boy pressed the back of his hand against his mouth as he yawned. ‘Is it exciting? Are there pirates with swords, or magic?’
Phineas opened the book to the title page. ‘Not exactly. This book is full of something better.Answers. Have you ever been on a train?’
Amadeus shook his head. ‘I see them, but we walk everywhere. Nanny says it helps us sleep. Or helps her sleep. I forget.’
The spine cracked as Phineas opened to the first chapter. ‘If I am going to read to you about trains, you must act like people do on a long train journey. Everyone on a train is very quiet, because they are too busy looking out the window and enjoying the view. Can you be quiet like that?’
‘I’ll be quiet, Uncle Phin,’ Amadeus said in a loud whisper, and made a motion like he was buttoning his lips.
‘Very good. Now. Let us begin.The Permanent Way Railway is laid to the English standard gauge, viz, four feet and eight and a half inches. Although the land taken is wide enough for a double way, being about seventeen yards, there is, at present…’
After a few pages, Amadeus’s chest slowed its rhythm. He rubbed his wrist against his nose, then fell back against Phineas’s shoulder and snored softly.
Phineas turned the page slowly, keeping his torso still and only moving his hands. He arched a little into his chair, and whenAmadeus mumbled, Phineas froze until the boy settled back into his sleepy silence.
Children were uncomfortable.
And when they were asleep, they made all sorts of noises. They snuffled. Snorted. Grunted. Even giggled.
They were also warm. And heavy.
Veryheavy.
Phineas turned another page. The letters grew fuzzy, and words lost their familiar shapes. He turned into his shoulder and yawned.
Amadeus jerked, and his elbow dug into Phineas’s hip. Phineas stifled a yelp.
Children were also painful.
Ten years old… Had he ever been like this child? Phineas counted through the years, the places on the road, and the hovels of his childhood. Could he even remember ten? He tried to place a city or even a country, but through the blur of memories, one outpost was so very like another. Ten was certainly after his mother had married the corporal, a man much older than her, but one with a steady income and who appreciated the regimen they’d learnt to live by in the poorhouse. Ten might have been when Phineas had learnt how to play the bugle. It was after his stepfather had taught him how to read, but before he’d learnt how to dodge a hand angry with too much rum. Where had those days even been spent? Nova Scotia? Port Arthur? Or further afield, in the tropics? Maybe ten had been those days when the sea had stretched into the sky, and buzzing insects had carried his mother away, not on their wings, but with disease.
