Page 26 of The Curious Story of the Missing Lady
“I mean you’re ... off.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Not off like that.Off. Like your thoughts are elsewhere.”
He sat at the table and twiddled his thumbs. “There is something I been meaning to tell you, M’Lady.”
“Well then, out with it.”
“Well, M’Lady ... I owe you my life. In all the times I’ve known you, we’ve never spoke, you and I, about the, uh, circumstances by which we’re brought together.”
“What about them?” said Lady Elizabeth, placing her hands on the back of the chair opposite.
Garret stared at his thumbs. “You felt sorry for me when I owed them gamblers.”
“They were going to kill you for it,” she reminded him.
“Oh,” he said with a smile, “indeed they were. And they would have, too, if you hadn’t intervened and told them your brother had taken care of me for a similar situation.”
“Why are you bringing all this up, Mr Garret?”
“Well, it’s just that I’m grateful, is all. I never told you that.”
“You’ve told me that constantly, Mr Garret.”
“Oh, right, but not sufficiently.”
“I don't know how it could be done more sufficiently. But I assure you, Mr Garret, you’ve made it clear to me just how blessed grateful you are.”
He twiddled his thumbs in the opposite direction. “Yes, well, be that as it may, I look with fondness upon our many adventures. The way we scammed that innkeeper out of a week’s worth of room and board by pretending to be husband and wife.”
She laughed, and her face was bright, her eyes, though dark, watered a bit, revealing a secret sorrow within her that might never be quelled. She was beautiful and had not the faintest idea of it.
“Yes,” he continued. “And so we hopped from town to town, village to village, inn to inn, and no one was ever even close to discovering who it was that was dining and sleeping and cutting out, dining and sleeping and washing and cutting out again.”
He laughed at this, and she joined him. It was such a full sound, from someplace inside her that she guarded with her life.
“And now we’re here. And, as you say, this is the one that will really line our pockets.”
“It will,” she said. “You can be sure of it. Five hundred pound apiece. Imagine it, Mr Garret.”
“And you say you’re bound for Scotland?”
“I suppose.”
“And the, uh, thewretch?”
“She’ll make rather a good Lady’s maid; don’t you agree?”
He laughed again at the thought of it, and then became aware that his mouth had gone dry. He rose to fetch the carafe of water.
She stopped him with a touch of the arm. “What is it, Mr Garret?”
He breathed loudly through his nose. “You, a Lady, and me, a piggish brute that stinks of the butcher’s mallet – well, we don’t really belong in the same company, I suppose. And yet, here we are, lo these many years, and yes, you’ve more than once lost your patience with me. But I do believe it’s made me a better man. And when I hear you talk of Scotland, and how after this plan of ours – excuse me, ofyours– is fully hatched and done with, I suppose you expect that we’re to part forever.”
She shook her head slowly, fumbling for words. “I ... I haven’t thought of it, Mr Garret, to be honest with you.”
“Right,” he said, quickening, “well then, no matter. Thought I’d better go and gather some firewood now if you’ll excuse me. Getting dark and cold out.”
