Jane Steele(69)

“She’s spontaneous,” I offered. “It means nothing, I’m well aware.”

“It doesn’t mean anything like nothing, not to anyone who knows her.” Mr. Thornfield shook off whatever uneasy thought plagued him. “I could carry the chair upstairs, but then there remain stairs when we reverse course—should we carry Mahomet to the mountain instead?”

“Whensoever you like,” said I.

Again I was lifted—respectfully, more’s the pity—by my employer. The journey, reader, was too brief for my liking; but once I had arrived at the ground floor and saw the charming vehicle, all wicker and softly curving wood painted a demure black, with carefully placed cushions, I positively glowed as I was set into it.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this.” I looked up at Mr. Thornfield, who surveyed the results of his labours with satisfaction.

“Yes, well, do let me know if I should retain possession of it, supposing you decide to fly out the attic window.”

“No, I mean . . . thank you. Hardly anyone has ever bothered to take care of me.”

I paused to reflect, scarce registering that I had just confided an intimate fact to a near stranger. A list emerged:

—Agatha

—Clarke, when I was not taking care of Clarke

It may seem strange that I did not include my mother; but my mother was a butterfly’s wing, too fluttering and fragile to take care of anyone, and though we loved each other . . . she had left me, had she not?

Mr. Thornfield’s rough features smoothed into disbelief. “Whatever circumstance you’re speaking of, there ought to have been fifty lined up for the job.”

I sliced a look at him, unsure if he actually believed such nonsense; but he strode behind me, gripping the handles of the chair. Admittedly I might have wheeled the thing myself, but since Mr. Thornfield pushing me meant Mr. Thornfield a foot distant, I should have been a dunce to defend my independence.

“Where to, Miss Stone? I admit I had not thought so far, only feared that you were like to suffocate if you stayed in the same room any longer.”

“May we go to the morning room?”

“Think of this not as your chair but as your chariot, Miss Stone,” he proclaimed sarcastically, and I could not help but wonder whether Mr. Thornfield, on occasion, hid truth in falsehoods just as I did.

? ? ?

The master of the house and I forged a pattern when I was not at lessons with Sahjara; in the mornings and evenings, he would carry me downstairs so I could dine with what I was coming to understand was the family—the aforementioned individuals plus Mr. Sardar Singh—and after Sahjara had been led off to bed by Mrs. Garima Kaur, and Mr. Singh had adopted an introspective look and excused himself, the pair of us stayed up later and later and progressively later. I loved these strange sessions, for Mr. Thornfield, despite his prickliness, seemed to love them too, though it was a hard push not to blurt out What crime did you and Mr. Singh commit in the Punjab? or Why should the dead speak to you?

One night five days into my convalescence, Mr. Thornfield wheeled me into the drawing room after supper, I having confessed that good Scotch and I were not strangers, and when we were both equipped with this lovely commodity, I ventured to ask him a question. We should have been the picture of English domesticity, the firelight in Mr. Thornfield’s pale hair and I nestled into my cushions, if only I held a needle in my hand and not a glass of whiskey.

“Is Mr. Singh really the butler?”

Mr. Thornfield’s chin shot up. “By the Lord, is she actually interrogating me now?”

“He doesn’t sit with the servants at meals,” I insisted. “He doesn’t count the silver or manage your wine collection or berate the rest of the staff. I should venture to say that his only jobs are answering the door and locking the windows of a night, and those because he likes the control.”

Mr. Thornfield frowned. “Are you an inspector, Miss Stone? I shall have to look out over pinching extra kippers at breakfast and telling Sahjara lies about not being able to afford two mares for her instead of one.”

“That was a very neat way of not answering my question.”

“Oh, what’s the use—you’ve found us out.” Mr. Thornfield smiled, and this was an effortless one. “You know that Sardar and I were practically brothers growing up. The rest of the household, other than Sahjara of course, were his own servants in Lahore—we brought them with us, as he’d no wish to sack ’em all and they’d no wish to see the back of him. The man inspires affections left, right, and sideways—it’s a foul thing to watch.”

“So Mr. Singh is not a butler?” I pressed.

“Of course he is, supposing you want to keep meddling English busybodies out of our hair. But, no, you’re quite right—when Sardar vanishes, he is either studying the Guru, taking long constitutionals, or fiddling with Jas Kaur over replicating Punjabi dishes in the kitchen.”

I chuckled over my glass. “So though this is your estate, an argument can be made he is the master, since the servants are his domestics and not yours.”

“We couldn’t very well have made off with my parents’ household, could we, would’ve strained relations something frightful. You’re near to correct, but one of them—Mrs. Garima Kaur—was Sardar’s confidential secretary back in Lahore.”