Page 41 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
Still rocking the bundle, Father crossed the room.Unthinking, Johannes automatically raised his arms as he had done a hundred, a thousand times before.With a coo and a whisper, his niece was eased into them.She squinted her eyes and snuffled against the blanket before her tiny mouth distorted into a lopsided yawn.
‘Does she have a name?’he asked.
‘Elizabeth, after Phineas’s mother,’ Rosie said.‘While she’s little, we’ll call her Betty.’
‘Betty Babbage.’He laughed, then hushed when his niece frowned.‘Welcome to Honeysuckle Street, little Betty.’
A world of possibilities, of endless wonder, of infinite dreams… it was just waiting to be grasped in her tiny, clenched fist.She would skin her knee in the street, she would climb trees in the park, she would learn how to read, and she’d create her own eternity.Maybe one day she’d have a brother or sister to rule the street with, but until then, she’d have the younger Hempel children to watch over her.It would be a childhood so much like their own, but also so very different.
Johannes looked to his sister.Phineas pressed a kiss to the top of Rosanna’s head and smoothed a loose curl.A jolt of realisation thumped hard through his chest.His sister was now a mother.She had grown and changed.They’d always be the best of friends, but things weren’t like they had been before.He rocked his niece.He’d been so preoccupied in trying to hold his world still, he’d completely missed that everythinghadalreadychanged.
It was incredibly exciting.Thrilling.An adventure, even.The vastness of it all felt terrifying, too, filled equally with dread and wonder.And Johannes, ever so thorough and cautious, finally understood.He had tried to build fences around Florence.He had hemmed her in.In trying to care for her, he’d trapped her.She didn’t want to be master of the world.Just her own.
As clear as lines on blueprints, he now saw not a future or a grand plan—but only a step.
A single, exhilarating step.
The door squeaked.Little murmurs and shuffles on the carpet announced the arrival of the rest of the Hempel entourage.Ammie led the line.‘Nanny Abagail said we had to wash our hands.And whisper.And sit in the corner.If we do all those things, can we meet the baby?’
The uneven little group with ruffled hair and freckles from too much time at play filed into the room.Hazel gave a happy gurgle when she spotted Phineas and launched herself at him to wrap around his shins.Phineas hoisted her into his arms and propped her up on his hip.
God, he loved them.He loved being in the thick of their drama.Loved walking them to the park.He loved mediating their fights or helping them with their readers and sitting down at the long table with them every night.
He was going to miss special birthdays at the hotel.He was going to miss so many wonderful things.He would miss them all so much.
Johannes eased the swaddled Betty into Beatrice’s waiting arms.The rest of the children jostled one another, desperately trying to behave and yet helpless against their excitement.With a nod to Rosanna, he left his siblings to meet their niece.
On the stairs, he almost collided with Elise.‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said.‘I need to talk to you about Number 6.I… I don’t want to buy it.I’ve changed my mind.’
‘That is good news,’ Elise replied with an excited clap of her hands.‘Because I do not wish to sell.I have a plan of my own.’
Chapter Twenty-one
TheprintedannouncementthatHolt – Architecthad placed second in the competition for the New Water Company lay where her father had dropped it on his table.He was sitting in his chair, turned away from the room and staring out of the window at the skyline and smog.
Florence paused by the desk closest to the furnace.‘Johannes?’
‘Doesn’t work here anymore,’ her father answered.‘We both agreed it might be best if he moved on.’
She hadn’t been down here for a fortnight, and a light film of dust had settled across his desk.He had packed his pencils and stylus, his brushes and graphite.Just her own pens, including her favourite rule pen, lay beside the dried watercolours.She sat at the desk, then stood.It was set far too high for her.She was about to ask her father to adjust the height, then stopped.It was for the best that he’d moved on, but still… it hurt to think of erasing that last hollowed-out space of him from her world.
A stack of correspondence paper lay within reach.Florence pulled a sheet from the bundle.She took up her pen and adjusted the nib.
‘What are you painting?’her father asked.
‘I haven’t decided,’ she replied.
‘I have some plans that need colouring.If you can bear to work with me again?’
It was a small olive branch from a man who was not good at extending them, and with a smile and a nod, she accepted it.He made as if to get up.
‘Later.’She dipped her pen in a glass of water.‘Today, I would like to paint outside of someone else’s lines.’
Water clung in a thick droplet between the rule pen’s prongs before she lowered them and mixed it into the pad of paint.Green first.Green for the grass.That’s where she would start.
‘I’m sorry.’Father rested his elbows on his knees.He hung his head and slumped into his seat, scrunched and small.‘I should have stopped you from getting on that horse.I should have been watching you.And with George, I should have listened closer to the rumours about him.His business dealings, and… and the rest.I have one daughter.I was always too distracted by the next commission, the next client.I was so determined to be someone great, yet I never stopped to be who I already was.Your father.’
‘A better father would have left me behind when you went to all those places.A better father would have seen that I learnt proper etiquette instead of teaching me how to calculate all those formulas.Might have taught me how to read plans but never let me work on them.’She set down her pen and swivelled in her seat.She held out her hands, waiting until he crossed the room and took them.‘I wouldn’t trade any of it.’
