Page 56 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
After a minute, light steps approached. The door opened and a wonderfully familiar face peered out under a maid’s cap.
“Teresa!” I exclaimed. “Oh, what a relief. I was afraid you would be gone.”
“Miss!” she gasped. She curtsied, half-stumbling in shock.
I stepped over the threshold, but Teresa blocked me from going farther, lifting her trembling hands with fingers splayed.
“What are you doing?” I said, confused.
“You must not come in,” she whispered desperately. “Go. Justgo.”
“I know John is here,” I assured her.
Her hands flew up to clap her cheeks. “And youcame? Oh, Heavens.” She fumbled a dusting cloth from somewhere and began sniffling into it.
Anger rushed into me. “What has he done?” Then weighty steps thumped down the hall, and John strode into the entryway.
Now it was his turn to stare. Only his lips were animated, sucking frantically on his pipe like an excited fish. The house reeked of his tobacco, an obnoxious concoction that somehow involved cherries.
“I have returned,” I announced. That sounded grand.
He fumbled the pipe from his mouth. His empty lips puckered twice more, then unexpectedly split in a wide smile. “What a welcome surprise.” His head ratcheted toward Mr. Knightley.
“May I present Mr. Knightley,” I said. It seemed best to pretend their prior, brief meeting had never occurred.
They shook hands. The contrast was very gratifying, Mr. Knightley’s athletic grace, perfect dress, and solid shoulders beside John’s stooped, wrinkled, pudgy form. But a civil greeting was not what I had expected. Nor what Mr. Knightley expected. He uttered a terse “How do you do?” and gave me a mystified glance.
“You should have sent a letter that you were coming!” John exclaimed, seemingly manic with delight.
“I wrote many times,” I said, skirting the question. My earlier letters had not been answered, and it had seemed unwise to announce this visit.
John waved his pipe jovially. “The mails are hopeless. The letter carriers blame the war, but that is nonsense. It is pure laziness.” He scowled at Teresa. “Go! We will use…” He stopped and gave me a disconcertingly stretched smile. “What am I thinking! This isyourhome. Where would you like to recover from your trip?” He pulled out his pocket watch and squinted at it.
“The sunroom,” I said to Teresa. The parlor would feel like I was a visitor. “Tea, please. And sandwiches, if Serle has something to hand. We have had a long walk since breakfast.”
Teresa remained frozen, watching me with wide eyes, the fingers of one hand knotting in her apron. John tore his gaze from his watch and snapped, “Go!” at her before she hurried away.
John gestured for us to precede him down the hall. As we entered the sunroom, he muttered, “I will just check…” and scuttled away down the corridor. A distant door slammed.
I stood, thinking.
Mr. Knightley walked a tense circuit of the room. He ended facing me and said, “I owe you an apology. When I first called on Hartfield, your brother-in-law’s behavior led me to believe—”
I quieted him with a touch. “I have no doubt that he claimed Hartfield. It isthisbehavior that confuses me. He has never been deferential. Or even civil.” I examined the sunroom. The decor was homey—a quartet of linens embroidered by me and a few friends, an exceedingly amateur watercolor I painted when I was fourteen, and several screens woven with dried flowers. But the linens were hung in a different order. The flowers on the screens were crushed. And something deeper tickled inside my mind—wrong, wrong.
“Perhaps the law foiled his plan,” Mr. Knightley suggested. “Might he have found instructions from your father saying that you should have Hartfield?”
“If John found those, he would burn them.” Here, the tobacco reek was acrid enough to make my eyes water. A brass plate was heaped with what must be a pound of tobacco ash. Why would a man who despised crafts smoke in a room that even Papa called excessively frilly? “Something is very wrong. Teresa was frightened. And Serle should have come running the moment she heard I was home.”
I left the sunroom and led Mr. Knightley through the dining room to the kitchen. The kitchen door was closed. It would not budge when I turned the latch; it was barred somehow. A bitter scent pricked the back of my throat.
I listened. Silence. The kitchen was never quiet.
I backtracked to the sunroom, almost running now, and tried the garden door. That opened, and I drew a relieved breath as we burst into the rear courtyard, surrounded by shining sun and birdsong.
We followed the flagstone path beside the house around to the kitchen. The windows had been boarded up from the inside. The dirty glass revealed nothing but rough-fitted planks.
“There you are!” John cried behind us, huffing as he jogged awkwardly around the corner. He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his sweaty forehead. “Oh, you discovered the kitchen renovations. That was to be a surprise—”
