A Lady Under Siege (12 page)

He looked at her expectantly, and from the hard glare he received in return it was clear she thought he was insane.

“At first, on waking every morning,” he continued, with less confidence than before, “I obsessed and tormented myself as to what these night visions of mine could mean. Then, suddenly, two months ago now, a new person entered Derek’s world—my world. This person, a woman, looks exactly like you. Not like a sister, or cousin, in appearance she is you exactly. Her name is Meghan. Do you know that name? She has a daughter, Betsy, two years younger than my own. Meghan? Betsy? Derek?”

Sylvanne looked at him without comprehension. His voice became more desperate.

“Do you know what a television is? Television—wondrous machines. Have you ever, in your dreams, watched a television?”

“You’re mad,” she growled.

“You think so?”

“You’ve destroyed my life, for nothing.”

He sagged back in his chair, distressed by the thought she might be right. At that moment his daughter Daphne began to cough, softly at first, then more violently. He rose from his chair to look upon her. Just as suddenly as she had started coughing, she stopped. He watched her settle back into sleep.

“Whatever I’ve done was for her,” he said. “In the future, you see, they possess amazing medicines, and such clever interventions as to make us poor primitives look like mere beasts, poking and prodding in ignorance at our wounded flesh. I inhabit Master Derek’s head, but have no influence upon him, for if I did, I’d make him busy himself with seeking out and consulting the best medical authorities of his time and place. But I can’t—I can’t convey to him my daughter’s symptoms, or make him take any interest in the science of healing the human body. I’m merely dragged along impotently with him through the life he leads, which I can’t help but judge to be a dissolute, pointless existence. Through his eyes, from time to time I catch tantalizing glimpses of medical knowledge that might save my poor daughter’s life, but they remain mere glimpses, nothing near to specific diagnosis or remedy. The knowledge is there, tantalizingly close, yet inaccessible to me. And then, just when I began to despair at the cruelty of it, the hopelessness, I saw a woman, a beauty like yourself. Not merely
like
you. You. Exactly like you, she looks, in all features of face and body, and even to the graceful way you carry yourself. She, or you, came to occupy the dwelling next to his. Do you understand me? I thought if I could talk to you, you might know of this other world, of this Meghan, and have her talk to Derek—do you understand?”

“You wish me to speak to people you’ve dreamt? You are mad.”

“Am I? If so, I’m sorry.”

He turned away to keep her from seeing a tear streak his cheek. He wiped it with his sleeve and turned to her again. “I’ve already lost a wife,” he said. “I can’t stand to lose our child. I can’t stand it.”

Sylvanne was unmoved. “If it’s pity you seek, don’t ask it of someone so ill-treated by you,” she said. “For what you have done, God will spare you no mercy.”

“From what I’ve seen of the future, there is no God,” Thomas answered. “It’s every man for himself, and every woman too.”

There was a gentle knock at the door, and Kent entered, followed by Mabel, who was excitedly chattering to him. “And such gorgeous draperies! Must have come clear from Persia, I should—” She cut herself short as she realised into whose presence she had entered. She glanced from Lord Thomas to the sickly girl upon the bed, then to Sylvanne, seated in a chair in an odd posture, wondering at first why her Mistress kept her arms behind her back.

“Her rooms are ready, Sire,” Kent announced.

“Madame, wait till you see them—you’ve never dreamt of such luxury!” Mabel gushed.

“My dreams come up short, do they?” Sylvanne replied, not taking her eyes from Thomas.

He ignored her remark, and informed her, “I’ve had several fine steers slaughtered for my returning soldiers to feast upon, and made certain the choicest cuts were set aside for you. If beef is not to your liking, feel free to ask the kitchen for any fish or fowl you please, cooked to any taste your palate fancies. You’ll be served meals in your rooms, for now. You’re staying in my wife’s quarters. I’ve tried to make it as comfortable as possible.”

“Have you changed the sheets since she died?”

He met her icy glare with a gentle, supplicating look. “Please don’t hate me,” he pleaded. “Go and eat what I’ve offered, then have your maid bathe you, aided by my wife’s former maidservants, whom you will find to be sweet-natured, trustworthy girls. Then sleep. Perhaps in restful sleep you’ll feel your pain subside, and your heart begin to soften.”

“He talks of softening my heart while he keeps my hands shackled,” Sylvanne said.

“Of course, of course,” said Thomas. “How thoughtless of me. But you must promise to be good.”

“You don’t know the meaning of that word,” Sylvanne snapped.

“Yes, well. Eat. Bathe. Sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.” He gestured to Kent to take her away.

17

“H
ello, anybody up? Good morning! Hello!”

Meghan woke with a start on the living room couch. The room was bright with sunlight. She threw off the duvet, and staggered to her feet, bumping the coffee table she’d pulled close the night before to keep her two phones within arm’s reach. In her groggy, half-wakened state she thought at first one of them must have rung, but which? No, a voice had called, that’s what it was—she turned and could see across the kitchen counter to the back door, where Derek knelt outside, bringing his grinning, expectant face close to the broken window pane.

“Slept on the couch, did you?”

Meghan came to the kitchen in her pyjamas. “I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping upstairs, knowing the door wasn’t lockable,” she explained. “Don’t!”

It was too late—Derek had already stuck his hand through, unlocked and turned the handle, and given the door enough of a push that the wine glass, perched precariously atop the paper towel roll, teetered and crashed to the floor tiles. Derek flinched at the sound, and closed the door sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Didn’t know you’d booby-trapped the place.”

“Jesus Christ,” Meghan answered irritably. “Don’t try to come in until I sweep up.” She rummaged in the cupboard under the sink for a dustpan and a hand broom, and set to work brushing up splinters of glass on her hands and knees. Derek watched her through the closed door. She felt his eyes on her and realised self-consciously that on all fours like this her thin pyjamas were stretched tautly across her behind. She stood and then lowered herself to a squat instead, not that it made much difference. She was still a woman in pyjamas being watched by a man through a window.

“I’ve already been to the hardware and got the glass, it opens at seven a.m. for tradesmen, you know, even on Saturdays,” Derek nattered from the sunshine of the deck. Through the missing pane she could hear him well enough. “They’re all there, too, the poor bastards, working weekends. You have such a nice little deck here. Very cozy. Great view of my place, all the prized possessions piled in my back yard. It looks a mess, but believe it or not I know where everything is. And don’t ask me if I want coffee.”

“I wasn’t about to,” Meghan grumbled. A couple of the slivers of glass were so microscopic the broom was passing over them, leaving tiny glinting irritants that stoked her annoyance.

“And don’t make any for yourself, either,” he said cheerfully. “I brought you one, and some croissants. I asked myself, does she seem like the croissant type or the Danish type? Went with the croissant—you can add jam to a croissant, but scraping the jam from a Danish, it’s just not done.”

“That’s very good thinking!” chirped Betsy, prancing into the kitchen all smiles.

“Stop right there,” Meghan ordered. “Don’t come any closer in bare feet.”

“You I got tea,” Derek said to her.

“Black tea?” Meghan frowned. “She’s too young for caffeinated drinks.”

“I bet she likes Coke,” Derek responded. “That’s got a hell of a lot more caffeine than an innocent cup of tea.”

“She doesn’t drink sodas either,” Meghan answered sharply.

“You’re always getting me in trouble with your mother,” Derek teased Betsy.

“I drink ginger ale, sometimes,” she announced.

“That’s not caffeinated,” said Meghan. She stood up, surveyed the floor, and decided it passed muster. She went to empty the dustpan with its shards of wineglass under the sink.

“How’d you break that?” Betsy asked.

“I didn’t. He did,” said Meghan curtly. At the door she unknotted and removed the rope she’d strung the night before, her last line of defence. She opened the door and let him in. He crossed the threshold carrying a bag of croissants in one hand, and in the other he balanced the coffee and tea, one atop the other in their plastic-lidded paper cups. “Better be careful!” Betsy giggled delightedly, and Derek played to his audience of two, like a court jester or a clown at a birthday party, pretending to almost stumble and bobble the drinks. His cavalier style, which Meghan saw as deliberately courting disaster and further spillage, infuriated her. And yet when he set the cups upon the kitchen table, and turned around to look at her with his big open face, a strange emotion seized her.

The events of the previous night came flooding back to her, and her mind filled suddenly with images of the same sharp blue eyes, broad forehead and large mouth, seen precisely as Lady Sylvanne had seen them, in the bedroom of a sickly twelve-year-old girl. She was looking into the face of Thomas of Gastoncoe.

“Something wrong? Derek asked.

His words made her aware that she’d been blatantly staring at him, as if he were a painting, or a photograph.

“Mom, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Betsy.

“Not a ghost,” she said, flustered. “I’m fine, really. Derek has come to fix our door, so why don’t—”

“And our fence,” the girl interrupted.

“That’s right, and our fence, so why don’t we let him get on with it?”

“But we haven’t had our breakfast.”

“He has, I think.” He nodded in confirmation. “Let’s go get properly dressed, come back and eat up quickly, and get out of his way.”

“You won’t be in my way,” said Derek. “And this won’t take ten minutes. The fence is another matter, it’ll take a bit longer. I bought a couple of two-by-fours to reinforce it.”

“That’ll be fine,” Meghan said. She fought a continuous urge to stare at him. Thomas of Gastoncoe. A dead ringer.

“I’m going to have a sip of tea,” Betsy announced, putting on a British accent. To her great surprise, her mother didn’t say anything in response. She picked up the paper cup and brought it to her lips, and still Meghan paid her no heed. She sensed that her mother was suddenly preoccupied with Derek, and the feeling brought a pang of jealousy.

“I’m drinking it!” she declared.

“Fine, go ahead,” Meghan answered absently. “I’m going upstairs to get dressed.” She hadn’t figured out how to broach the matter of her dreams with Derek, but she knew one thing: it should not be done in pyjamas.

U
PSTAIRS SHE WAS ABOUT
to pull on a pair of jeans and a tank top—her usual Saturday uniform—when she decided a shower would clear her head and help sort her thoughts. Under the warm spray she gave her mind up to Sylvanne and Thomas. They had finally come together, they had clashed, and she had lived it—she had felt the ferocity of Sylvanne’s hatred of him, and it made her shudder. Then she recalled how Thomas has spoken the name Meghan, how he had described her. He called me a great beauty, she remembered, and the flattery pleased her. It’s too long since I’ve heard anything like that from a man, she thought, smiling to herself. Drunken Derek yelling “You’re cute when you’re angry!” doesn’t count. She remembered how Thomas had spoken of Derek’s life with incomprehension—what were the words he’d used? Dissolute and pointless. Dead on. With a sudden shock she realised she had left her daughter alone downstairs with that very man, a man she barely knew, a man she habitually described to friends as the obnoxious drunk next door.

She dressed quickly and hurried back down to the kitchen. There was no one there and the pane had already been replaced in the back door. Through the window she could see Derek pulling nails from the fence planks with a hammer, while Betsy, still in her pyjamas, was bouncing on the trampoline, landing on her feet one time, her bum the next. They were happily chattering to each other like old pals. Meghan opened the door and stepped out onto the deck.

“What the hell do unicorns need a horn for anyway?” Derek was asking. “Narwhals are the only other mammal with a big pointy pole sticking straight out their foreheads, and they
use
theirs, to dig up food from the sea bottom, but a unicorn eats grass like a horse, does he not? A horn’s only going be a nuisance in that case, getting in the way all the time.”

“They need the horns to defend themselves,” Betsy replied.

“From who?”

“Lions and tigers and things.”

“Your unicorns have wings—they’re not going to stand around poking their head at a bunch of hungry lions, they’d fly away.”