Devotion, Ep. 9
“I just thought we might not want to be tripping over Whiskers after he got rid of the mice from your attics, girl,” said Emma.
“Oh, I understand,” I said. “Well, maybe someone will want him, let’s see…”
We’d slept in, and soon started playing with the clothes we bought last night.
As if he knew we were trying things on upstairs, that lively young David knocked, this time at the oaken front doors, where down we rushed only to hear … “My dog is thirsty. Can he have some iced twee?”
I joined Emmy at balking — the impudence!
She was infectious but I tried not to laugh as I told him plainly, “This is Solemnwood, dear David.”
“But two pretty sisters always have iced twee on hand, even in the winter. Gabriel doesn’t drink hot beverages.”
Gabriel drank from a bowl of good well-water in the kitchen, his “twee.”
I couldn’t help but take this first opportunity to suckle my love’s astonished breasts before she resumed fully dressing, when I heard —
“My father knows what you did!”
Emma straightened: “And you, stripling, are you so sure how your siblings died?”
There was silence now. David’s young face was fearful. Of Emma, giving him her imperious look. I remembered our playing queen & court as children. Our brother got to be king. I was afraid she’d grow up and run off to become an actress when she appeared in some local plays. But despite her flights and fancies, she’d stayed.
Church has done her no good, thought Emmalee of the reckless erotic moment just passed. She is pagan. She watched her sister now…
Alice was thinking: David has been playing with us, with me. I must have left something written about my concoctions, about “iced twee,” when overseeing the boy’s now-dead sisters.
By the time David looked back at me, my face was composed and compassionate. His own face took me in, I could tell. And when he spoke, his voice only sought to understand:
“You-you pray with strange sounds, wearing rags … I saw you in the attic by candlelight. And- just now…?”
“Yes, you poor thing,” and I went and hugged him. “But I passed your test, didn’t I? I would never risk Gabriel’s constitution.”
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I felt the youngster’s body stiffen then go almost torpid. This spoke to me of a lack of his mother’s presence.
They all had some apple juice. David followed her into the kitchen.
“I’ll help … if I can.”
“Ohh, thank you, David. Or is there something on your mind?”
“It must feel horrible to know people think a bad thing about you and you know it’s not true,” he said.
“Here, I’ll carry the tray, you can bring these napkins if you like.”
“Your sister’s right, I don’t know who hurt Deb and Dori, who … killed them.”
“Well maybe we can find out soon, you know? You already strike me as having used a necessary tactic back there, to bring me out, see what you’d hear from us. Kind of sounds like those kid detective, the Hardy Boys,” I elaborated smiling down at him.
“Yeh. I guess I’m a kid.”
~~~~~~~
That afternoon Emma and I took the cat across the road and encountered David walking along the edge of the still blustery parkland with Whittaker, his father, and it was good to have them both in to warm their bones.
“I’m afraid my son thought the two of you were witches or some fool thing,” said Mr. Collings from his chair in the living room.
From my days as governess at his home, I knew Whittaker to be a handsome gentleman, but of course he was really only now heavy into his grief. He, Emmy, and I sat and chatted amiably while David had Gabriel the St. Bernard out back.
He phrased his words for us both. “My estranged wife was to have accompanied David home and they’d have departed again after Christmas with us. Us … minus the twins.
“We still don’t know how they died. I suspect Penelope let the boy come to me because I’d be so alone. And I gifted him the dog so he might feel better. Do forgive us, all of us. You were by every account an excellent governess, Alice.”
“I miss the girls and it pierces my heart, Mr. Collings. I’m sorry, but I thought it best to not come up to check on you till you asked for someone. And you say the teabags we used that day got thrown away?”
“Yes, unfortunately. In those days I was in such shock, doing everything myself, it was the holidays, I hadn’t had time to hire a maid, everything… That still doesn’t explain the early trash pickup that day, though.”
After a while, young David Collings and his father, “Whit,” as he wanted us to call him, left the house for the short walk to their own house.
