Page 73 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
She looked up at Hal’s family, smiling. “He is breathing,” she repeated. She did not realize tears were running down her cheeks until Ned knelt in front of her and dried them with his handkerchief. “He’ll be all right now,” he assured her. “Won’t he, Lord Lechton?”
Lord Lechton smiled. “We will have to watch him, Snowden, but yes. I think we have cause to be optimistic.”
They moved Hal to a couch. Margaret sat with his head on her lap, watching every breath, holding his wrist so she could feel every beat of his heart. Both were strengthening, and his color was returning.
Meanwhile, Pauline had ordered tea and coffee, and those who had not eaten enough lunch were snacking on leftovers. To Margaret’s surprise, only a little over half an hour had passed since Hal’s collapse.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said to Lord Lechton. He was staying until Hal woke up and had the pie in a box to take with him to a chemist friend. Apparently, her footman had found him on the point of leaving his house, for an errand that could wait, he insisted.
Margaret lapsed into silence again, until she thought of something else. “Did they find the old woman who brought the pie?” Margaret asked. Ned shook his head.
“Miss Trent has sent to let Mrs. Moriarty know, and Wakefield,” he said. “If she can be found, they will find her.”
Margaret didn’t care, except she wanted Snowden to be brought to justice so that she and Hal would be out of danger.
“Margaret, do you want me to send a message to the Archdeacon?” Pauline asked.
Margaret could not make sense of the question. “What for?”
“If Snowy is not going to be well enough for the wedding…” Pauline began.
Margaret caught her breath. Her eyes caught Lily’s concerned gaze. “Stop the wedding?” she asked.
The husky voice from her lap stopped all talk and movement in the room. “No,” said Snowy.
*
Snowy was walkingin a garden. He was not sure where the garden was or how he got there, but somehow, his ignorance didn’t worry him. Surrounded by peace, he was certain that, in this place, at this time, nothing could harm him.
Through an arched opening in a hedge of fragrant roses, he could see the glint of water. A lake, ruffled by the gentle breeze that, closer at hand, played with the long heads of the wildflowers in the meadow that sloped down from the hedge to the water’s edge.
A mown path led through the meadow and into a grove of trees. Willows, probably, since they grew with their feet in the lake. Beyond them, he could see a roof. A house? He strolled toward it along the path, stopping every few feet to admire another flower.
They were subtly different from the wildflowers he had known as a boy on the farm. This one was a corncockle, but the flowers came in a rainbow of colors instead of just magenta. There was columbine, but with larger flowers. The daisies were pink and purple, the harebells white and pink as well as powder blue. Lady’s smock eschewed its pastel colors for bright magenta and vibrant cerise.
Chicory, cornflower, lady’s bedstraw, everywhere he looked he saw old favorites, made anew with some magic paintbrush and endowed with a scent that surpassed any he remembered.
It was the same under the trees. Who had ever heard of red bluebells? Or orange forget-me-nots? Or pink and purple wood anemones?
By the time he came out of the woods, he had realized another anomaly. Flowers of spring, summer, autumn—even winter—all out at the same time.
Later, he would wonder that he felt no disquiet. Perhaps the sight of the pavilion in the gardens beyond the woods drove any other thoughts from his head.
The lake curved into a bay just in front of him, and the pavilion rose from the center of the bay, three stories high, with a delicate spiral staircase climbing as far as the third level. Bridges crossed the bay in a series of gentle arches, linked by platforms, and on one of those platforms sat the first people he had seen since he found himself in the garden.
Something about them teased at his mind, and as he grew closer, he realized what it was. The woman was his mother. The man with her—surely that was the man he saw whenever he looked in the mirror?
As he reached the first bridge, they saw him, and his mother gave a glad cry and started forward. The man followed her more slowly, so when Snowy met his mother on a bridge part way across to the pavilion, the man was still a bridge and a platform behind.
“Hal, my darling.” His mother flung her arms around him, and he hugged her back for a long moment. “But why are you here?” his mother asked. “Surely it is too early?”
Without letting go of Snowy, she turned to the other man who was suddenly beside her. “Edmund, I think he has done it. I think Richard has killed Hal.”
I am dead? That explains the flowers.Snowy thought he should probably care, but it didn’t seem important. Not when the man who looked like him was clasping his hand and smiling at him. Close up, Hal could see that his father’s jaw was slightly squarer, his nose more humped than straight, his hair darker. In dozens of tiny ways, they were different, but to the casual eye, they could be the same man.
“Not dead yet,” Papa said to Mama.
Mama narrowed her eyes and seemed to look inwards. “Ah. Yes. I see. Hal, darling, you need to go back. Before it is too late.”
