• • •
My grandfather has something of a reputation, hardly any of it good. Though his books are quite good. Felix Girard’s Ghosts of Bain Dzak in particular. That’s the one about Mongolia. I like it very well, myself. But Harry Owen hasn’t read it, not yet.
It must have been very dull, that summer of 1841, to keep Harry Owen waiting in that study.
And my father, where has he gone? Honestly, I don’t know. He’s still there somewhere, in Felix Girard’s lodgings. I can hear him, the soft little rustlings. Keeping himself busy among the collection. If only Harry Owen had that knack.
But he lacks it, and having waited half an hour, is just pulling himself together to leave—first shifting in the hams, a tensing of the knees—when, with great tumult, my grandfather, Felix Girard, arrives.
There’s always tumult when Felix Girard arrives. He’s a large man, coarse and broad, with a fierce feral thicket of red whiskers interspersed with sparse tendrils of grey; often he’s loud, sometimes drunk, usually dirty, and peculiarly dressed—bombachas, bolas, a moleskin coat, all stuff he’s picked up in his travels, affectations in anybody else but in my grandfather unself-conscious, worn to suit the weather; no moleskin today, because of the heat probably, but still remarkable enough, in his unraveling yellowed shirtsleeves, all unbuttoned and awry, and exuding an unmistakable sweaty musk.
There are two people with him. One is a man, wiry, thin lipped, upright, with steel-grey hair and a cool, severe, unblinking predator’s eye—this is Hugh Blackstone, captain of a small ship for hire, Narcissus, at anchor in the Thames. The other is a young woman, pale as a flame is pale, white gloved, elegantly muslined, with a cunning, sharp-toed boot and a pert yellow flounce. Seeing Harry Owen sitting there in the murk with his rodent companion, she immediately lets forth three melodious trills of laughter, crying, Oh, Papa, it’s a new specimen! Did you stuff it yourself? Oh, no, of course not—that’s Johnny Twomey’s rotten handiwork—I’d recognize it anyplace!—pointing at the pendulous ash clinging to the tip of Owen’s cigar—You can tell by that funny little fringe left hanging loose there!
Laughter then, among the three. Even Hugh Blackstone’s stony visage contorts in that muscular rictus meant, by him, to signify a smile.
• • •
Hilarious, isn’t she, my mother?
• • •
And irresistible as well, for not a moment after she’s insulted him she’s offering Harry Owen her hand, saying, with a charming absence of guile, You must excuse me, Dr. Owen. I’m afraid my father’s new assistant, Johnny Twomey, isn’t working out very well, and I can’t seem to stop myself making jokes at his expense! Please forgive my very poor manners. I am Clotilde Girard.
Then she touches his hand, just barely; or rather, she does not quite touch it, creating, instead, by her motion, a small, warm current of air, suggestive of a touch, at the same time looking steadily into Harry Owen’s eyes with her own, those distinctive eyes, pale grey-blue, like a sea held close beneath cloud, as if to say, There, this is just between us!
Oh, she’s expert, my mother; expert at making it all disappear. Harry Owen will forgive her anything in that moment, and he does, taking her hand, squeezing it, pleased to meet her, my dear, despite her quick, small, triumphant smile; or maybe he doesn’t see that, so speedily is it replaced by another of such sincere friendliness and cordiality as to belie the first.
Dr. Owen, I am so glad you have come.
She leans very close when she says it, her breath warm on his cheek, her skin with its sweet, soft scent—she’s fresh pastry, my mother, warm croissants, meringues, Bath buns with orange icing.
• • •