Quest of the Five Clans: the Harlequin Tartan

CHAPTER 13

Our Mrs. Gray

My new home is built of the bones of the last. Same walls and foundations, same plan of rooms. The two adjoining houses suffered less in the fire that consumed my old home, my old life. With my new wealth I purchased both, combining floors. The result makes an absurd monstrosity. At times I wander astonished. I stand in my home again, returned from flame. And yet, here is a door where yesterday was wall. There a hallway leading I scarcely know where. So very like the dream of wandering a familiar place, finding rooms one has never before entered.

I paused at the doorstep, appreciating how the outer façade stood cleaned of soot. Within, hammers and saws, shouts and thumps made a pleasant welcome. I took deep breathes of sawdust, of paint, of varnish. The stench of the fire all but erased. Phineas struggled to maneuver the table-top carving out from the carriage. The maid took my cloak, 'tsk'ing at its condition. I strode past, down a hall to the front parlor.

A tableau of urbane drama awaited curtain-rise. Three persons poised for Act 1, Scene 1: the Reunion. Myself at the door, hesitant. A clerical person sitting, balancing tea-cup on knee. A woman standing. The audience immediately focuses upon her gazing out to the flowerless garden.

If a room be on fire, first you shall note upon entering is flame. Just so, when someone possesses such strange hair. The eye leaps to it. Elspeth had hair of copper red to match her Dublin lilt, her snub of nose. This woman's hair glowed the color of fox-fur at sunset, a rich warm fur of woman-hair.

I gradually turned eyes to the face. Strong chin, thin nose... she deliberately did not turn upon my entrance, allowing me time to consider. Did I know her? No. Yes. No. She echoed familiarity in all her parts. But I did not know the whole. Absurd, but she reminded me of Penn. Himself a creature of parts. A hint of the snake-woman in the neck, the dramatic pose. My gaze traveled down her person. Two pale hands rested in clear statement upon the slight swelling of her waist. Ah.

The gentleman seated by the fire stood. I knew him. The young cleric from this morning's unconsummated duel.

"Destiny seems determined our paths shall cross, Mister Gray," he drawled.

"That or you are determined to pester me," I replied, and strode past him to stand beside the woman. She continued to stare out the window. We pretended to consider the view together. In truth, I eyed her reflection in the glass. She eyed mine. Some twenty-odd years old, I'd guess. She stood tall and thin, but for the swelling of her womb. She bit lip, determined not to speak, nor to cry. What a menacing bear my reflection looked beside hers. I felt ashamed, focused my eyes beyond the glass and into the courtyard beyond.

"An oak stood there before the fire," I told her. "Branches black as night between the stars. Old as the city itself, no doubt. See how thick the trunk stood. Wide as any cart-wheel." Strange, this conversation. The words tasted familiar to my tongue.

She said naught. Should I draw her out? What does one ask one's forgotten wife? How did we meet? How went our honeymoon? Where is my favorite old coat?

"In the roots of the burned tree we found a bronze box," I observed. "Buried there centuries past." Excellent. Now she would ask what lay within the box. I would tease, dangling the answer.

Still she said naught. No interest in mystery? So much for female curiosity. I returned gaze from the absence of a tree to her reflection. I marked how she trembled. I was a beast, she a frightened thing in the animal's den. What to speak of? Politics? God, no. Gardening?

"No plant or statue could be worthy of replacing the lost tree," I declared. "But perhaps some ancient rock would serve. Carved by druids, imported from pagan hills. Unless it is best replaced with something entirely ephemeral. Something that speaks of time as much as any oak. A single rose bush, maybe."