Read Online The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann - Free Book Online Page B

“To find some turnips for breakfast. It’ll be all right, Barthy.”
    Bartholomew looked down at their arms, Hettie’s dripping red, right next to his own delicate swirls. He knew why she had done it then.
    â€œWell, aren’t we the finest-looking people in Bath,” he said, and then they went to the wash tub and he helped her scrub away the red, and they were both smiling by the time Mother came back with the turnips.

CHAPTER VI
Melusine
    P AK , n. Faery vernacular meaning “one who has a long nose,” or spy. (Not to be confused with the breed of faery called “puck” or “pooka,” those wicked shapeshifters whose cunning, and shocking lack of moral restraint, do yet again illustrate for us the debased nature of the fay.)
    Mr. Jelliby slammed the dictionary closed and buried his head in his hands, letting the leather-bound volume slip from his lap. It fell to the carpet and lay there, spine up, its pages crumpled.
    A low moan escaped his lips. They thought he had been spying. Mr. Lickerish, Lord Chancellor to the Queen, thought he was a spy. He, of all people. No doubt the Throgmortons and Lumbidules of this world would think nothing of breaking down a door or two in order to inform themselves on other people’s business. But Mr. Jelliby, who thought simply getting out of bed quite tiring enough and had no wish to pry into other people’s business, was now the one under suspicion. He was not used to being distrusted, and it upset him very much.
    For days after his disgraceful departure from Nonsuch House he was in a glum mood. Ophelia noticed almost at once, but when she asked what was troubling him he wouldn’t say. He stopped going to his club. He stopped seeing the visitors who came to the house on Belgrave Square. For the Covent Garden performance of Semiramide, he was absent from the family box, and he even stayed home from service on Sunday morning. When Ophelia at last confronted him and told him she had heard what had happened from some dear and trusted friends and that he needn’t worry himself over it, he locked himself in his study and refused to come out.
    He knew most of Ophelia’s “dear and trusted friends.” He knew them quite well. Gossips, the lot of them. They made it their business to find out everything about everyone, and then to toss this information around them like flowers at a wedding. If they had obtained some scandalous bit of news, every drawing room in London would have heard of it by now. What humiliation. What dishonor to his name. People had always thought him a pleasant, vacant sort of person. The sort of person you could invite to parties without having to worry about his bringing up sore topics like faery integration or Charles Dickens’s novels. No one had ever taken much notice of Mr. Jelliby, but at least they hadn’t thought ill of him. And now? Now they would be inventing all sorts of stories. He had an image in his mind of a gaggle of long-necked geese, all done up in petticoats and crinolines, sitting around a stuffy parlor and talking about him.
    â€œDid you hear, Jemima, he broke down a door? Oh, yes! In the Lord Chancellor’s house! You know, behind all those handsome looks and broad smiles he must be secretly quite the violent fellow.”
    â€œAlmost certainly, Muriel. One has to be in his profession. And how poor Ophelia is faring, with that hanging over her head like a veritable Sword of Damocles, heaven only knows. She’s a perfect angel, not carrying on and saying only good of him. The silly dear. When he’s so obviously a wicked spy . . .”
    And they were not even the worst. He absolutely dreaded the next meeting of the Privy Council. Mr. Lickerish would be there. The other members would be there, all quite well-informed, all wondering whether he worked for the Americans or the French or some radical anti-faery formation. All wondering how well it paid.
    But the day