The Mermaid in the Basement (25 page)

“What can
he
do? He’s an actor.” Bertha spoke these words as if she had said, “He’s a leper,” for in her mind lepers and actors were on the same plane. “He’s a fortune hunter as well. He’s after your money, Serafina, and one more thing—” She picked up a thick slice of bacon and, instead of taking a small bite, shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Serafina often thought she looked not like a woman who was eating for enjoyment but like someone storing food away for a future need. “It’s him and those actors he lives with who dragged Clive down.”

“That’s not so, Aunt Bertha,”Dora said hotly. She was a quiet, sweet-tempered girl, but whenever anyone attacked one of her family, a small tigress seemed to emerge.Her eyes flashed with anger as she said, “At least he’s trying to help us, and he’s not a fortune hunter.”

At that instant Louisa entered the sitting room and announced, “There’s a Sir Aaron Digby come to call. Are you at home, sir?”

She put the question to Septimus, but it was Bertha who answered. Her black eyes snapped, and she said vigorously, “Of course we will see him! Show him in at once.” As soon as Louisa left the room, Bertha turned to Dora. “He’s come calling on you, Dora. He’s been trying to court you for weeks now.”

“I’m not in the mood for Sir Aaron,”Dora said. She started to rise, but Bertha arrested her with a sharp command. Her voice seemed to freeze Dora where she was, overtaking the young girl.“He’s come to call upon you, and I will expect you to show the proper grace. He’s quite taken with you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Dora said. But before she could even rise, Louisa entered and said, “Sir Aaron Digby.”

The man who entered was somewhat under average height and wore the latest fashions. His face was full, and his eyes were close together, which gave him a squinty appearance. He bowed and said, “Good monring. I hope I’m not calling at a bad moment.”

“Why, of course not, Sir Aaron,”Aunt Bertha gushed. “We’re just finishing breakfast. Sit right here and try some of these fresh fairy cakes.”

“Thank you,” Sir Aaron said. He moved across the room in rather mincing steps, sat down, and said, “I trust I find you well, Dr. Newton.”

“Very well, thank you.”

“And you, Mrs. Newton? But then you are always well.”

“Thank you, Sir Aaron,” Alberta said. She was watching the man curiously, for he had appeared in their lives some time ago in a rather minor way. He had called twice and had asked permission to take Dora to a concert and then to a ball. Both times permission had been granted, but Dora showed no enthusiasm for his advances. “I’m very well, thank you.”

Sir Aaron took one of the cakes, bit off a tiny fragment, and chewed it thoroughly. “Very fine,” he said. “You have an excellent cook.”

“She’s been with us a long time,” Septimus said.“What have you been doing with yourself, Sir Aaron?”

The visitor gave the usual reply to such questions, and then he turned and put his eyes on Dora. “I must tell you how very much I enjoyed dancing with you at the Union Ball.”

Dora dropped her eyes, and her voice was barely audible. “Thank you, sir. It was gracious of you to ask me.”

“Not at all! Not at all! I know you all have been under considerable distress. I can’t say that I know how you feel, for no man would until he’s gone through something similar. I’m sure that you’re all carrying on as well as possible under the dire circumstances of your son’s problems.”

“We do the best we can,” Serafina said firmly. She had disliked the man from the beginning, although there was no reason for it. Scccrty-two years old and had been married, but his wife had died recently. Digby’s wife had had money, and it had been rumoured that he had run through it with rather amazing speed. He also had two daughters living with him whom none of the Newtons had met.

“I think,Miss Dora, it would be good for you to get out, make yourself take part in activities. As a matter of fact, that’s the occasion for my visit.”He smiled at Dora and leaned forward slightly. “There’s going to be a Wagner concert this week. I know how much you like the music of Mr.

Wagner, and with your parents’ permission I would like to escort you. It’s next Wednesday afternoon at the park.”

Dora said immediately, “I thank you, sir, but—”

“Of course she will go,” Bertha interrupted.“What a thoughtful thing for you to do, Sir Aaron.”

“Not at all. It will be my pleasure.”

Sir Aaron stayed and talked to Septimus for some time, but it was obvious that his attention was directed toward Dora. Finally he got up and came to stand before Dora. “I will be here to call for you at one o’clock. Until then I remain your servant, Miss Dora.”

He turned and left the room, and Bertha at once began speaking vehemently to Dora. “You sat there like a block of stone, Dora! What is the
matter
with you?”

“I—I don’t like him.”

“You don’t
like
him? What is there not to like? He has money. He has a title, and he’s obviously interested in you.”

Dora looked up, and her lips were trembling. She had no ammunition to use against Aunt Bertha, but whispered, “He’s twenty years older than I am, and he has two daughters almost as old as I am, and besides,” she said again, “I don’t like him.”

“Nonsense! You sound like a green girl. Don’t like him, indeed!” She turned and said forcefully, “Septimus, I think it’s time for you to take a firm hand. Dora must learn that she should be guided by her family.”

Serafina stood helplessly by, and finally Dora got up and mumbled, “Excuse me,” and half ran from the room.

Septimus was the mildest of men, but there was something like exasperation in his voice when he said, “Bertha, I think you should be more gentle with Dora.”

“Well, I see you’re not in the least grateful for what I try to do around here! You don’t care enough about your daughter, and that’s your problem. Why, if it weren’t for me, Serafina would never have married Charles.”

The woman could not have said anything that pained Serafina more. She knew, indeed, that Bertha had been the prime mover of her marriage to Charles. It was she who had introduced them and had constantly filled her mind with how wonderful it would be if she could just become his wife. She would become the Viscountess of Radnor! She gave her aunt a cryptic look, then turned and left the room. She heard Septimus say, “I’ve been a bad father . . .”A moment’s anger struck through Serafina. She had an impulse to turn around and confront Aunt Bertha, to tell her that her marriage counseling had led one of Septimus’s daughters into one of the most terrible experiences possible. She knew, however, that it would be hopeless, and going to the laboratory, she sat down at the desk. She had been working long, arduous hours on the cypher in Kate Fairfield’s journal, but with no success whatsoever. She had been highly interested in cyphers at one time and had learnt the basic form for them, but this cypher was such that the usual methods would yield nothing.

She looked up as her father entered, his face tense and his jovial expression wiped completely away.

“I feel so helpless, Daughter!”

“We all do, Father.”

Her father whispered,“What can I do, Daughter? What can I possibly do?” Serafina saw tears in her father’s eyes, and the sight shocked her to the core of her being. She had never seen her father weep. They were not a demonstrative family, but impulsively Serafina rose and went to her father. She put her arms around him, and he clung to her as if he were the child and she the parent. Serafina held him and thought of several times when she was a child and had had nightmares. It had been Septimus who appeared at night, put his arms around her, and comforted her until she went back to sleep. She had awakened the next morning to find that he was still there, and she still remembered those times as some of the most notable moments in her life as far as her father was concerned. But even as she comforted her father as best she could, a thought seemed to whisper into her mind.
Yes, but who will comfort me?

Dylan had brewed a pot of tea and was allowing it to steep when a knock at his door made him look up with surprise. “Who can that be, I wonder?” he murmured. Moving across the room, he opened the door and saw Viscountess Serafina standing there. “Well, good morning,” he said, smiling. “It’s a good surprise you brought me this morning. Come in, Viscountess.”

Serafina stood there for one moment, and the sight of Dylan’s smile, his athletic form, his coal black hair with the slight curl brought an instant thought.
He’s probably the best-looking man in England.
The thought irritated her for some reason, but she stepped inside and said, “I had no way to tell you I was coming.”

“No problem, ay. Here, I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea. Why don’t you sit down and share it with me.”

Serafina sat down and, glancing around the room, was impressed with the neatness of it. On the night they went to Kate Fairfield’s, she hadn’t taken the time to look around, but now she was curious. It was not a large room, and the walls were crowded by at least a dozen paintings that stirred her. They were modern impressions of sunlit landscapes, blurs of water lilies all in blues and greens with flashes of pink, and trees beside cornfields. All of them were highly individual experiments in art and were obviously the selection of a man who had very definite opinions about what constituted beauty in art.

“I like your paintings,” she said.

“Thank you. They’re done by a friend of mine.”

“Perhaps you could take me to see him sometime. I might be interested in purchasing his work.”

“Well, actually it’s a young woman who does the paintings.”

Serafina was surprised for no reason that she could identify. “Well, that doesn’t matter,” she said. “It might even make it more interesting.”

“We’ll do that.”

As she sipped her tea, Serafina was aware that Dylan was studying her countenance. He did not do it covertly as many men might have, but faced her squarely, his trim shoulders set, his eyes steady, and she wondered what he was seeing. “Sorry I am to see how the trouble is wearing you down, Viscountess,” he said finally.

She was caught off guard by his observation. In the mirror, she had seen little outward sign of the pressure brought by Clive’s problem. “It’s been very hard on all of us.” She hesitated, then said, “I saw something today I’ve never seen before.”

“And what was that now?”

“Something I saw in my father.We were talking about Clive’s imprisonment, and Father had tears in his eyes. He could barely speak, but he whispered, ‘What can I do, Daughter? What can I do?’” Serafina dropped her eyes and added, “I’ve never seen my father cry before.”

“There’s no escaping trouble,” Dylan said. His voice was soft and gentle as a woman’s, and compassion was in his eyes. “The old Hebrew said it well:‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,’ and women, too, of course. Plenty of unkindness in this world, there is. That’s why all of us should help bear one another’s burdens. Every man and woman is born the same, and we all go the same. The captains and the kings and the tinkers and the beggars, we all go alike.”

“I—I never thought deeply about those things.”

“Haven’t you now? Well then, I think the very mention of time to come is like a spectre to some. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring—or today for that matter—but the one thing we know is that time will bring its sorrow and grief.” He added thoughtfully, “And we build bridges.”His brow furrowed in a single ridge. “We build bridges until the river wets our feet, but there’s no bridge to carry us over troubles and griefs and woes. All of us have to go through the depths of grief. It’s the lot of all of us, Viscountess, and it seems God has no favourites in this.

Indeed, sometimes He puts His favourites into the valley of humiliation, and the valley of pain, more than anyone else. Right now you’re in that valley, and it’s grieved I am for you and for your family.”

Serafina listened to Dylan as he spoke with more gentleness than she had ever heard in a man’s voice. It shocked her somehow, and at the same time brought her a measure of consolation. “That—that’s what I’ve always thought, but I’ve been afraid to speak it out.”

“We need to speak our thoughts out, Lady Serafina. That’s what the tongue is, a miraculous organ that allows us to say what is in our spirits and in our souls and in our minds. The thoughts gather there, but unless they are spoken they fall dead at our feet. It’s the tongue that makes man different from the animals, among other things, of course.” He seemed very thoughtful now. “We can tell when animals are pleased by their bodily actions, but good it is to have a counselor bring news of comfort to us. As water to a thirsty man, so is a counselor who brings ease in the time of sorrow.”He seemed to think deeply, then said, “But the times of sorrow need not be overwhelming. Have you read the story of King David?”

“No.”

“He had many sons, but he had one son that he loved above all else. Loved him to distraction, King David did. This favourite son of David’s was Absalom. David poured his love, his affection, and gifts upon that boy as he grew up, so that his whole heart and soul was tied up in the young man. David announced that Absalom would be the king after David died. But Absalom had a weakness. He couldn’t wait for the blessing his father wanted to give him, so he made a conspiracy to kill his father and take the throne. King David awoke one day to find that Absalom had raised an army, and the old man had to flee his own kingdom.”