Chime. Part 26

We'd rounded into a sprinkle of outdoor tables, where eel-men were fortifying themselves for nightfall. The eels were running, and eels are best caught in the dark.

"Please! I shall go mad otherwise."

I sat at the nearest table; I couldn't be bothered to care, not about Cecil. But the thought of eels wriggled its way into my mind. Eels, sent to inland cities; eels, smoked or jellied or simply made into soup. Any method will do for those of homicidal disposition. Just add your favorite poison. It will never be detected beneath the taste of eel, which is so, well, eel-ish.

"I'm awfully tired," I said. "Can you be quick about it?"

Poor Cecil, consumed by a grande pa.s.sion, only to be told to compress his love manifesto into a haiku.

"I won't try to excuse my behavior," he said. "It was despicable."

Or a limerick.

There once was a rotter named Cecil,

Whose Love Interest wished he could be still.

Oh well. Unlike some, at least, I've never pretended to be a poet.

Cecil clutched at his hair, although he would undoubtedly prefer that his biographers describe him as having rent his hair. The effect was not unattractive. "I can't explain what came over me."

"I can."

He rent his dark tresses,

Resulting in messes,

Thus prompting his L.I. to flee till,

she reached the end of the world and jumped off.

Perhaps I have untapped potential.

"You do understand! You know how it drives one mad."

"What does?"

"Unrequited love," said Cecil.

"Unrequited l.u.s.t, you mean."

"It's no such thing!"

"Really?" I said. "I can hardly take that as a compliment."

Cecil's tongue stumbled over itself, trying to explain the fine distinction between pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t- "And drink," I said.

"Briony, please." Cecil reached across the table.

My hand jumped away of itself. "Don't touch me!" My voice went funny, making us both pause and lean back.

Cecil broke the silence. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Would you enjoy it if I were?"

Of course I wasn't afraid. I'd been afraid on Blackberry Night, but only in a primitive, reactive sort of way. The startle-fear of tripping on a stair, or hearing a noise in the dark.

What could Fitz possibly have seen in him? They spent such a quant.i.ty of time together.

"Whatever did you and Fitz talk about?"

Cecil blinked, twice, as though that would help him catch up with the conversation. "We were drinking mates. We didn't talk much."

"You can't drink and talk at the same time?"

"Oh, I showed Fitz a few things," said Cecil. "He's older than I, but less experienced in the ways of the world."

Fitz, less experienced? Fitz, who's been to Paris and Vienna? "What ways?"

"I don't want to talk about Fitz," said Cecil. "I want to talk about you, about us. First Eldric came, and now you've changed."

"You're the one who's changed." I showed him the pale underside of my wrist, the bruises left by two fingers and a thumb.

If there were such a thing as a vampire-puppy-dog, it would be Cecil. Big pleading eyes, asking for an ear-scratch and a nice warm bowl of blood.

"Why don't you have any bruises?" I said. The vampire-puppy-dog looked all about.

"Eldric hit you hard."

"He hit me where you can't see," said Cecil at last.

Where you can't see? Most satisfactory!

"Forget Eldric," said Cecil. "I was useful to you, admit it."

"Useful?" I said. "How do you mean?"

"Are you back to that game?" His eyes went narrow and chilly. Terrifying, I'm sure. "Pretending you never took me into your confidence about it."

"We'd get on better," I said, "if you could tell me what the it is."

"I'd never have thought it of you," he said. "I did it out of love."

Either I was mad, or Cecil was mad. I am not the sort of person to go mad, so the honors go to Cecil.

"Look at you," said Cecil. "That angel face, that lying tongue."

"What can I say to convince you that I'm utterly in the dark?"

"You could start with the truth," said Cecil.

What a fine bit of irony: I tell the truth for once, but am thought to be lying. "Just tell me, Cecil! Then we'll have something concrete to talk about."

Cecil shouted; his head and shoulders came at me across the table. I startle-jumped away, rammed into the back of the chair. It wasn't real fear, just the startle-fear that helps you run fast when there's danger about.

I rose. "I can't talk to you when you act like a spoiled child."

"You mind your tongue!"

"Oh, I do," I said. "I sharpen it every evening on your name."

"I could make things hot for you." Cecil's lips were bloodless. "I could make you squirm."

My hands were shaking. "Are you threatening me?" I clasped them behind my back.

"What if I am?"

What a stupid question. "Then I shan't bother to stay." I walked off, but he shouted after me.

"I'll expose you, I swear I will. You don't believe I will, but just you wait. One of these days, there will come a knock at the door, and what will you think when you open it to see the constable on the other side?" And more of the same, much more.

I was halfway across the square before he stopped shouting.

Dr. Rannigan had come and gone, leaving gloomy news and gloomy fathers. I found it hard to attend to what Mr. Clayborne told me. I felt as though I were listening to him through the wrong end of a telescope. My startle-fear still hung about, which was distracting. Go away! I told it. I don't need you anymore.

"Pearl told me something," I said. "She says Leanne's visits tire him."

There! I'd achieved one happy result. No visits from Leanne, for the present. Not until he improved. Mr. Clayborne himself said so.

And still the startle-fear hung on. It had outlived its purpose, which was to help a person spring into action, spear the woolly mammoth, stake the vampire-puppy-dog. But it didn't help a person understand how she caused Eldric to fall ill. If I knew how I'd done it, perhaps I could reverse it.

I don't need you any longer, I told the startle-fear.

It didn't care.

You've become a nuisance.

It didn't care.

You are no longer adaptive. Have you never heard of Mr. Darwin?

It hadn't.

Ignore it, Briony. You shall have to adapt instead. Think! Stepmother was ill; Eldric is ill. Eldric looks just as Stepmother did, like an egg without a yolk. Stepmother fell ill because you called Mucky Face, and Mucky Face injured her spine. Eldric fell ill because-because why?

What did I do?

Dr. Rannigan confessed to being astonished. How could Eldric have made a full recovery in only two days? This had been the d.a.m.ndest season for illnesses, he said. The swamp cough comes and goes. The egg-with-no-yolk illness comes and goes. He didn't know what the egg illness was, mind you. He'd seen it only in our family. When Father grew ill, when I grew ill. Eldric's case reminded him particularly of the late Mrs. Larkin's illness, how with her too the disease came and went. Her decline was slower than Eldric's, but she'd surely have died of it if there hadn't been, oh, you know, the unfortunate incident with the a.r.s.enic.

I heard Eldric come down the corridor to the library. It's astonis.h.i.+ng that one can recognize a person merely by the way his shoe meets the floor. Now his hand touched the library doork.n.o.b, now the door whispered across the carpet. "It's dark in here."

I'd left the lamps dark in case my face betrayed me. I wasn't as sure of my Briony mask as I'd once been. Rain rattled at the windows, coals spat in the hearth. I sat on the carpet, in the shadows. I reserved the spatter of firelight for Eldric.

"You're looking very well," I said. One couldn't say the roses had come back to his cheeks-he wasn't a pinkish person-but he'd gone gold again.

You're looking very well. How stupid you sound, Briony! You speak just as Father might.

"I am entirely well," said Eldric, "which has Dr. Rannigan exploring first one theory, then another, trying to understand. But not being a man of science, I don't care about understanding. I simply want to go outside and break a few windows."

Say something, Briony; say something! The Briony mask always had something tart or amusing to say, but the underneath Briony could think of nothing. The clock tut-tutted in the silence. How slowly it spoke, so slowly that between tick and tock came the sharp silvery plink of rain on gla.s.s.

"I'm glad you're better," I said, which was trite but true.

Better, he was better! As soon as I said the word, I felt relief. For once in my life, I felt relief. It came as a melted-b.u.t.ter drizzle down the back of my legs. It pooled in my knees. Perhaps that's why people's knees grow weak.

"I was a little dishonest with you," said Eldric. "In order to tell you what's on my mind, I have to bring up Blackberry Night."

Blackberry Night. On came the crimson tide. I leaned forward to stir the coals; my hair fell over my face.

"It's uncanny," said Eldric, "how you've adapted to using your left hand."

I had to be careful. I'd been giving my left hand too much liberty.

"Forgive me for being a nosy parkerius," said Eldric, "but I wanted to know if you've seen Cecil since Blackberry Night?"