Seven Minutes in Heaven(49)
He leaned over and said in her ear, “Jarvis is a very well-mannered fellow.”
“Jarvis, is it?” Ruby was saying. “What’s that he’s wearing?”
“His opera cloak,” Otis explained. “We’re having a night at the theater.”
Reminding herself that she was no coward, Eugenia forced herself to move a bit closer in order to see what an opera cloak made for a rat looked like. The tiny garment had been fashioned from a scrap of fine crimson velvet. It was fastened around the neck of a sleek little rat with golden fur and shiny black eyes.
Jarvis was sitting on Otis’s knee, showing no inclination to leap at Eugenia and run up her skirts, so she eased closer still.
“Does Jarvis mind wearing clothing?” she asked.
Otis had the knobby knees and ruffled hair of all boys his age. He also had a disconcertingly direct gaze that she’d seen on another male, his brother. “Jarvis is agreeable,” he informed her. “He has four or five costumes for different occasions.”
“But the red velvet is his favorite,” Lizzie said. “He didn’t take to breeches.”
That seemed reasonable. “What play were you performing?” Eugenia asked, turning to Otis’s sister.
Lizzie was extremely slender, too thin for a girl of nine. But her voice emerged from behind the veil with all the strength of a woman twice her age. “A scene from Congreve’s The Way of the World. It was one of our father’s favorites.”
“I memorized that play when I was about your age!” Eugenia exclaimed.
Lizzie gave a little squeal and threw back her veil, revealing a pale face with huge brown eyes. She pointed her finger directly at Eugenia. “‘Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an Epitomizer of Words!’”
“‘Witwoud,’” Eugenia retorted, “‘you are an Annihilator of Sense.’”
“I can’t imagine why you have both memorized that particular play,” Ward said with a touch of reproof in his voice. “If I remember it correctly, it is quite improper.”
“My favorite is Etherege’s She Would If She Could,” Lizzie said, ignoring him. “Do you know it?”
“Old Sir Oliver Cockwood?” Eugenia exclaimed. “Of course!”
“‘Oliver Cockwood’?” Ward repeated, his brows knitting.
Lizzie jumped back onto the chamber pot and threw out her arm again. “‘Jealousy in a husband—Heaven defend me from it! It begets a thousand plagues to a poor woman, the loss of her honor, her quiet, and her—’”
She paused dramatically. Eugenia sensed that Ward was not enjoying the performance—he was glowering—but she filled in the word obediently. “Pleasure.”
“‘And what’s as bad almost, the loss of this town,’” Lizzie finished. “She’s sent to the country, which is what has happened to Otis and me, as a matter of fact.”
“You have a fine declamatory style,” Eugenia said to Lizzie. “Didn’t those lines come from The Country Wife, not She Would if She Could?”
“They get mixed up in my mind,” Lizzie said, stepping down from the chamber pot again. “It’s one of the reasons that Papa said I was an awful actress. Did you know my father, Mrs. Snowe?”
“I regret to say that I did not,” Eugenia replied.
“He was rotten on the stage too, so he managed the curtain.”
“I shall have to ask the two of you to help me get you ready for bed,” Ruby intervened. “Does Jarvis sleep in the house?”
Otis clutched the rat to his chest. “Yes!”
Ruby didn’t bat an eyelash. “Does he sleep in a box? I don’t hold with animals in the same bed as people.”
“He sleeps with me,” Otis said, his voice rising.
“I have a little box I use for ribbons that would be just the right size,” Eugenia said. “It’s lined in soft green velvet, and I think a refined rat like Jarvis would find it most agreeable.”
“That would be safer for him,” Ruby said. “What if you rolled over on him one night?”
“I never would,” Otis stated.
“I can’t say for certain that my maid will have packed my box, but we could quickly ask her, if Mr. Reeve would show me to my chamber,” Eugenia said.
“I suppose,” Otis said reluctantly. “Jarvis and I will come along and see if he likes it.”
“Jarvis travels outside the nursery in a canvas sack,” Ward said.
“That’s for every day,” Otis said, popping Jarvis into a velvet bag with tasseled ribbons.
They left Ruby behind to supervise Lizzie’s bath. “Jarvis has a refined wardrobe,” Eugenia said.