If he cared any longer about being in a young lady’s room, the concern was quite buried underneath – all this. The two of them holding the book together, his arm nearly – but not quite – brushing her back, the lingering smell of violets and wet dog and now well-preserved old book.
And the chapel! That was the least of all the things he felt, and still it was very great. To think of it was one thing, but to see it was another.
He had promised her they would go there someday, had he not? Such a long time ago. Well, he had taken her other places, he thought bitterly. A cell in Graywatch, for one. Nearly back to Brunnhold, if it had not been for mere chance.
He could not see her face for a tangle of red hair when she nodded. He had the urge to lean around and look at it, as if they really were children. As if it took nothing but a cheerful word or a drawing of a hingle to lift the spirits.
She went on at last; he looked back down at the book, shifting slightly. It was very inappropriate, how close they were, but he could not seem to let go. The texture of the cover was so familiar underneath his fingers. And yet it was so much smaller, and despite her care, so much more worn.
It was hard to imagine – and the imagining made him feel very strangely. Her book, their book, read aloud to strange children in a strange place. Strange children in servant’s blue, touching the gilt letters with callused little fingers. He was uncomfortable, and then uncomfortable for a wholly different reason. That feeling was not born of reason. He looked down at her hand on the page, with its short blunt nails and agile, toughened joints. Absolutely nothing made sense.
Except for one thing, which was the thought of Aurelie reading aloud to the children.
I like to remember, I suppose.
The phrase seemed to speak for other things. Of which he had none to offer – he had, after all, made a point of holding into nothing.
He had thought so, at least.
Both things, she had said firmly. Morandi swallowed; it sounded to him deafening. As did his voice when he spoke. “I recall the one you told me first,” he went on, a little embarrassed himself. “Of the tin soldier and the paper ballerina. I knew it when you began reciting it two days ago. I could almost have finished it myself.” His cheeks were very hot, but he was as adamant to speak as he had been to show her his drawings the night before. “And, er – Blockhead-Hans, is it? And the poor fir tree.” The Little Match Girl he remembered too quite suddenly, disturbed.
“May I?” His fingertip found the top edge of the page questioningly; he glanced over. “Did it – give them comfort?” The words were as ill-made as the drawing, much less practiced than others which came easier to his tongue. Comfort from – what?