Page 24 of Happily Ever After
Brisk then, as though he felt he’d said more than he should have done, he tapped his cup against the ground to empty the remains of the coffee and began screwing the flask back together.
His sudden movement made me feel dismissed. ‘I suppose I ought to go back,’ I said.
‘To the dust and the spreadsheets?’ Jay stayed sitting while I clambered to my feet and handed him back the mug.
‘Yes. And because I don’t want Hugo to think I’m hiding from him. I don’t want him to feel that I… that I think less of him because of… what I found out today,’ I edited carefully.
‘You’re very kind.’ The words didn’t have the expected undertone of amused sarcasm; they sounded as though he meant them.
‘Maybe. Thank you for the coffee.’ I lingered for a moment. Walking away felt – not right, somehow. As though Jay and I had shared something more than coffee, something that had bound us together, although I had no idea why I should feel like this. He’d hardly spoken, while I’d gabbled enough for two.
‘I’ll see you again soon.’ He began to pack the flask back into the rucksack that had held it. ‘I have to; you’ve got my jumper.’
‘Yes.’ I was backing away slowly, leaving without leaving.
‘Go on, go!’ He was laughing now. He’d lost that strange, bitter tone that he’d had when he’d talked about life. ‘Spreadsheets wait for no man.’
‘They do, actually. They wait for me, anyway.’
‘Well, Lady Tanith won’t.’ He nodded behind me. ‘I think she’s coming for you.’
I turned around. Lady Tanith was, indeed, crossing the lawn at a vigorous pace. The Master trotted in her wake with his tail in the air, like a very small pageboy.
‘Andromeda. Why are you not in the library?’
I turned around to say something to Jay, but he’d gone. Evaporated into the bushes, knapsack, coffee dregs and all, leaving nothing but a small patch of crushed grass and some waving branches marking his passing.
‘I’m on my lunchbreak,’ I said.
‘A lunchbreak which has extended for’ – Lady Tanith ostentatiously looked at the slim gold watch on her wrist – ‘an hour and twelve minutes. I should like you to get back to work now. Thank you.’
She turned again and set off back towards the house. The Master hesitated. He looked up at me and twitched his tail.
‘Traitor,’ I said quietly. He blinked at me. ‘Come on, then.’
Together we set out across the grass, following Lady Tanith’s earth-scorching passage, back to the library.
12
ILLYRIA – TWELFTH NIGHT, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Lady Tanith was looking up at Oswald’s portrait when we came in. Without the curtains, the sun shone fully on his countenance and I could see that he must have been painted at about the age of forty or so. He looked like a thoughtful older man with a face only now starting to feel the effects of gravity, his hair had traces of grey at the swept-back temples but was still mostly the same dark shade as his grandson, and his back was erect.
Lady Tanith was murmuring sweet nothings to the painted visage and gently stroking the edge of his frame.
‘How old was Oswald? When he died, I mean,’ I asked casually, flipping the computer back on again carefully where she could see, so that she’d know I now turned it off when I wasn’t in the room. Hopefully talking about Oswald would distract her from my twelve-minute lunch hour overrun and I could learn something more about him. Any information which might lead me to the diaries would be welcome.
Lady Tanith pointed to a small brass plaque set into the bottom of the frame. ‘Oswald Matcham Dawe,’ it said. ‘19 January 1912 – 21 February 1975.’
‘Sixty-three? No age at all.’ I sat down.
‘Taken too soon,’ Lady Tanith sniffed. ‘In his prime.’
‘How old was he when this portrait was painted?’
She gave me a narrow-eyed look as though she suspected me of some kind of wicked calculation. ‘Forty-seven. He was very well preserved. Very active, for his age. Of course, he didn’t meet me until later. I came to the house in 1969, as companion to Caroline, his wife.’
‘That must have been?—’
