Page 71 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Discarded scraps of paper littered the surface of the table before her, and her pen moved in a frenetic blur as she worked, her fingers cramping past the point of pain even into an odd numbness. She was aware—vaguely, distantly—by the renewed zeal of the voices that had mostly dimmed to a hazy rumble in the back of her mind that Neil had brought the rest of the books that had once adorned the shelves of Ambrose’s study. Time passed in the delivering of fresh pots of tea, in the patterns of feet traipsing across the floor, in the lighting of new candles. There was a persistent buzz in her ears, an ache in her clenched jaw, and a curious dryness of her throat despite the copious cups of tea she had consumed. It was a struggle to keep the letters from swimming off of the page before her eyes, to check and recheck them against various texts.
And then, finally, the stomp of small feet scurrying toward her jerked her attention from the page. Her letters had gone crooked upon it, slanting in a messy jumble, like the slur of drunkenness rendered visible. She blinked twice, in an effort to clear her fogged vision enough to reveal her visitor.
“Dannyboy,” she said in a strange rasp. “What are you doing awake at this hour? Have you had a nightmare?”
His brows lifted, disappearing beneath the untidy fluff of his bangs. “It’s morning,” he said. “Didn’t ye know?” He lifted his hand to reveal a plate set upon it, which had been loaded up with eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and points of toast. “I brung ye this. From the children’s table.”
Emma’s heart sank to the soles of her shoes. Had she truly worked straight through the night, so many hours passing as if in minutes? “Thank you, Dannyboy. How very kind of you.” She managed to dredge up a soft smile for him along with a fond stroke of his hair, and he preened beneath theattention. “I suppose you must be waiting for Hannah?”
“Yes,” he said, and ducked his head with an abashed expression. “But I don’t expect she’ll want to come today,” he added.
“Whyever not?” Emma asked.
“She don’t like being Guildenstern,” Dannyboy confided. “But I got to be Rosencrantz, and someone’s got to tell me my lines, since I can’t read ‘em m’self.”
For a moment, Emma could only stare vacantly, uncomprehending. “Oh,” she said at last. “Hamlet.” Miss Finch must have started the older children on Shakespeare. There was an odd sort of irony in it, since it had also been amongst Ambrose’s favorites. And why not? It was a play rife with murder and spying, plotting and betrayal, with a tragic end for those involved. A tidy little parody of her present situation.
Hamlet—along with a few other favored plays—had been amongst those books upon the shelves in his office. Her fingers drifted toward the stack of notes Rafe had once made, scanning the lines. There;Hamlet. AndOthello.AndAntony and Cleopatra. All with neat scores of tally marks made beside them, indicating that they had been checked over and over, and by more pairs of eyes than only her own. Another dead end.
From the doorway of the ballroom, Hannah’s voice sailed to her ears. “But Auntie Lydia, I don’t wantto be Guildenstern!” This was accompanied by a stomp of Hannah’s small foot in perfect childish petulance.
Dannyboy rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh much too large for so small a boy.
“I thought you liked Shakespeare,” Lydia said, as she conveyed the girl toward Emma’s table where Dannyboy waited. Of course, Lydia, who managed a theatre which had performed rather a lot of Shakespeare’s plays, would take offense.
“I like the comedies,” Hannah groused. “And the poems.”
“Sonnets, darling,” Lydia said. “They’re called sonnets.” She turned a contrite smile upon Emma. “I caught her wandering the upper floor,” she said. “I think she must have slipped out while Diana and Ben were sleeping.”
“Only for breakfast!” Hannah said. “But I got lost. Can’t I stay? I truly do not want to be Guildenstern.”
“Ye gotta be,” Dannyboy said. “Else how’s I’m s’posed to be Rosencrantz?”
Hannah thrust her nose into the air. “I won’t get killed just so youcan be Rosencrantz!” she declared.
“Yer shammin’ me. That’snot what ‘appens, is it?” Dannyboy cast wide eyes at Emma.
“I’m afraid so,” she said apologetically. “To both Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. There’s rather a lot of death that goes on in the tragedies.” And perhaps a touch too much even in the comedies. A perverse echo of life, she supposed.
“Well, I don’t want to get killed, neither,” Dannyboy said, setting his shoulders in a mulish stubbornness.
Hannah sidled closer, loosing Lydia’s hand to take Dannyboy’s instead. “Auntie Emma, haven’t you got a copy of one of the comedies we could borrow? I promisewe shall be very quiet, and I shall help Dannyboy with his reading.”
“No, darling, I’m afraid I don’t.” She had never favored Shakespeare—though she had dutifully attended each of Lydia’s plays, regardless.
Hannah thrust her lower lip out in a pout. “Nor even any sonnets?”
Emma shook her head. “But Miss Finch surely has quite a selection on hand. She likes to teach the children a bit of everything. If you can convince her to—to—”
A queer buzzing took up residence within her ears, drowning out the dull drone of voices around her. Ambrose had once had a book of sonnets. It had been a family heirloom, passed down from oldest son to oldest son; a rare quarto printed in 1609. She had returned it years and years ago, shortly after his death, since she would never have a son upon whom to bestow it. It had seemed fair, since she had got everything else of his.
She hadn’t given a thought to it in years. Ten of them, more or less.
Her trembling fingers swiped through discarded balls of paper, through all of her failed efforts, searching for the list. The damned list of those wretched, incomprehensible numbers.There—she snatched it up, and it quivered in the clutch of her fingers. “Lydia,” she said, through the tight vise of her throat. “How many sonnets are there?Exactlyhow many?”
“One hundred fifty-four,” Lydia said, her brow pleating. “Why do you ask?”
“The list.” Emma swallowed hard. “Mind you, there’s numbers missing—but the highest is one hundred forty-eight.” Not exact. Not proof positive. But a chance, she thought, however small.
