Page 2 of Salt Magic, Skin Magic
The ninth Marquess of Dalton shouldered into the room at the same time as the quavering announcement, for all the world like a locomotive engine, right down to the steam coming from his ears. A pair of footmen in the blue-and-gold livery of Raskelf flanked him; strapping fellows both, with thick necks, and thighs that rubbed together when they walked. Not that Thornby was looking at their thighs. He jumped up.
“My lord. Father. Thisisa surprise. How do you do? May I—”
Lord Dalton faced the windows and addressed the golden London twilight. “Well, you damned whelp. What are you trying to do? Ruin the family name?”
“You’ve seenThe Times? The review of my picture?” Thornby had done a number of things that might ruin a family name, but the painting and subsequent review were the most recent. He realised he was still clutching the paper in question, and tossed it onto the chaise longue.
“‘Lewd and indecent debauchery’, it says. What were you thinking, boy?”
The moon-calf, who’d been watching with open mouth, now had the decency to stand and clear his throat. “Perhaps I should, er, I beg your pardon, Lord Dalton. Good day, Thornby.” And he slid out between the footmen like a well-tailored eel escaping a trap.
Thornby watched the back of his father’s head uncertainly. Father had barely spoken to him for almost twenty years. Was he really here after all this time to give Thornby a dressing down about a painting? The last time Thornby had seen his father had been a year ago at the man’s wedding to the second Lady Dalton at a fashionable London church. Thornby had arrived at the service with a green parrot in a cage and a startling magenta waistcoat, and received nothing but a haughty glance.
“Well? What were you thinking?” repeated Father, still directing his words towards the windows.
“Mostly of composition, sir. In truth, I didn’t intend—”
“You’re not apainter.” Father spat the word out, as a man might say “You’re not acockroach.” “You’re a gentleman, or you damn well should be!”
Thornby thought of a number of things he might say about the nobility of the muse, but it seemed wiser not to. Father’s fists were clenched and brandy fumes were issuing from him in such measure one could almost see a haze above his tall hat, which he had not removed.
“I confess, sir, I only submitted the picture because I lost a wager,” Thornby said.
“And that makes it better, does it? Damned impudence.”
“As a gentleman, I could hardly back out.”
Father wheeled, with the air of a man making up his mind to something unpleasant, and looked at his son properly for the first time. Thornby, who had been reaching towards his glass, froze. The sounds of a spring evening in London seemed suddenly louder; the rumble and clatter of a passing carriage, footsteps, and the muted roar of busier streets further afield.
Father’s weather-beaten features were puce with annoyance. Probably he’d been handsome once, with straightforward, manly features, now blurred by time and extremities of emotion. He was thick-set and tall, and Thornby stood straighter in order to look him in the eye. Thornby was damned if he was going to be intimidated in his own home. Next to his father, he was skinny as a rail, and his fashionable narrow necktie and red silk smoking jacket suddenly felt as louche as a whore’s paints.
Thornby was used to being stared at. Mostly, he enjoyed it. But he did not like the way Father was looking at him now. Then, even as they glared at each other, Father’s expression grew unfocused, and became almost one of longing—an emotion Thornby was far more accustomed to seeing on the faces around him. Father murmured something under his breath. Could it be some sorrow, some shade of tenderness had entered his voice?
“Sir, I—” A note of genuine regret entered Thornby’s tone, but his father cut him off, expression changing to a rather stagy rage that put Thornby in mind of a villain in a bad play.
“You’re coming to Raskelf to cool your heels. Then you’ll marry some respectable girl before it’s too late.”
“I shan’t. I suppose I’m a bit sorry about the painting since it seems to upset you. I only did it for a lark, but I—”
“A lark? A lewd painting?” Father’s voice rose. It could surely be heard throughout the house, and probably in the square too. Yet Thornby thought he detected a false note, an edge of boredom, as if Father grew tired of his role of outraged paterfamilias. “You’re coming to Raskelf, and you’ll stay until I give you leave.”
“No, really. Awfully kind of you, but I don’t think I shall.” Thornby exaggerated his father’s bored tone and picked up his glass.
Father hit him; a hard, calculated slap that snapped Thornby’s teeth together. The glass fell to the hearth and smashed. Thornby put a hand to his mouth and it came away red. He glared at his father. No one struck Thornby and remained unscathed. At school they had learned not to, eventually, for he always hit back, even if it meant a thrashing. But even as he curled his hands into fists, something stopped him. One did not hit one’s father, however much one wanted to. One could not.
“It’s not a choice, boy. You’re coming. Then you’ll stay. Once you’re married, we’ll see.”
Father gestured to the footmen and one of them twisted Thornby’s arm behind his back and wrestled him down the stairs while Father shouted orders about trunks and carriages. Thornby had a confused impression of the horrified faces of the housekeeper and maid, peering up from the lower staircase, then the enormous Raskelf footman manhandled him out into the street without hat or coat.
Thornby’s trunk arrived at the carriage just behind them. Father’s louts had not given Thornby’s valet much time for packing. Passers-by were staring, but the crest on the carriage door, and the glares of the liveried footmen, caused them to hurry past. Thornby was hustled inside. Father sat opposite and the carriage jolted into motion.
“I say, my hat—” Thornby began, but Father’s face stopped him. His lordship looked as if he’d won the Derby, but then been handed his winnings wrapped up in the filthy handkerchief of a consumptive beggar. It was such a strange look, and so intense, that Thornby felt he would do anything to stop it.
“This carriage has seen better days,” he said, fingering one of the torn and weather-stained curtains, thinking to goad his lordship into a rant about finances. It was common knowledge that Father was facing ruin. If he wasn’t disowned first, Thornby could hope to inherit mainly debts.
“Now, boy.” Father’s voice was trembling with emotion. “Listen carefully, because I’m telling you that as of now, you and yours aremine.”
If Father’s rage had seemed stagy earlier, this seemed positively operatic. Perhaps Father had gone a little mad. Thornby hardly knew the man, after all. Thornby had left Raskelf, aged eight, for school, and seldom gone back there after his mother’s death a few weeks later. But even as a child he’d heard rumours of his father’s eccentricity; his wild, incontinent grief at the death of his wife, his obsession for buying useless coastal bits of Scotland and Ireland, and his hare-brained schemes to grow seaweed as a commercial crop for fertilisers. But perhaps Father’s financial strife had pushed him over into something worse.
