“That is,” said Mr Hull, “you are Mr Grigsby’s ward, and he has known you all your life.”
To a point, Daniel thought.For Mr Hull’s benefit he merely nodded again.
“However,” Mr Hull went on, “he has perhaps not understood the whole of you.”
Daniel baulked.
“And,” Mr Hull continued undaunted, “appearing now more fully yourself, the sight has startled him.”
Daniel stared at him.“You have the advantage of me, sir.I must ask how you came by this knowledge.”
Mr Hull hesitated, a queer sound emerging from his throat alongside an abortive gesture of his hand, as if to summon the words he lacked.Eventually he settled upon, “It is not so uncommon an occurrence from whence I hail for a young lady to be revealed as a gentleman, or the reverse, or both, or neither.”
Whatever Daniel had expected to hear from him, it wasn’t this.Before he could halt his tongue he heard himself borrowing the stranger’s archaic words to demand, “From whence do you hail?”
Mr Hull blinked.“Göteborg.Sweden,” he added in reply to Daniel’s bewildered look.
Admittedly Daniel knew very little of Sweden.The hair’s-breadth hesitation before Mr Hull’s answer nonetheless gave him room to doubt his origins.However, if the sentiment were sincere—if indeed he truly saw nothing objectionable in Daniel’s situation—then…
“Again,” said Mr Hull, his words breaking through the rapid whirling of Daniel’s thoughts.“With your permission, I would endeavour to explain matters to Mr Grigsby, in a manner that might give him less of a shock than he has endured thus far with our arriving unannounced.”
Pride demanded Daniel refuse.It was his own responsibility to explain himself to the man who’d known him all his life, not to leave the task up to his newfound clerk.And yet, if he were to speak to Mr Grigsby now, Daniel didn’t know how he could possibly summon a single syllable, much less a full explanation that would satisfy Mr Grigsby’s entirely-justified disbelief and bafflement.It was this latter point, and perhaps the intoxication of meeting one who seemed to innately understand his peculiar situation, that induced Daniel to acquiesce with a bare and brisk nod.
“I must apologize for the shock to you, as well,” Mr Hull continued, to Daniel’s bewilderment.“When I suggested to Mr Grigsby that we pay a visit to his ward I had thought it would be a pleasant surprise for you both.”
“It ought to have been,” Daniel felt forced to admit.
It would have been, if he were the ward that Mr Grigsby had thought he’d had.But Daniel was not Miss Flora Fairfield.He’d never felt sorry for it until now.Throughout his predicament and his escape he’d clung to the truth of his soul and made it a blazing beacon to burn fierce and bright against the darkness that threatened all ‘round him.He was glad Lofthouse thought no less of him for it, but in truth, if Lofthouse had objected to his truth, then the clerk would’ve become just another obstacle for Daniel to surmount, and he would have held no qualms about doing so by whatever means proved necessary.Luckily for them both, Lofthouse had proved himself a stalwart ally.
When it came to Mr Grigsby, however…
All the ills Mr Grigsby had committed against Daniel’s happiness had been in ignorance.Daniel had never dared to contemplate what might have occurred had he proved brave enough to take his guardian into his confidence.Would Mr Grigsby in his genial benevolence have assisted in his escape?Or would Daniel merely have found himself thrown into Bedlam for his own good?
“Mr Lofthouse said he had visited,” Mr Hull continued.“Did he not explain…?”
What Lofthouse was supposed to have explained would remain a mystery, for at that moment Sukie poked her head into the front hall.
“Mr Grigsby believes he is up to the challenge of conversation now,” she said, with a tone and a glance that would’ve told even those unfamiliar with the elder gentleman’s pattern of speech that she had quoted him direct.
Mr Hull murmured a polite reassurance and bid Daniel wait a moment whilst he saw to his employer.In another moment he’d vanished into the kitchen.Sukie, meanwhile, paused halfway across the threshold to the parlour and shot an expectant glance at her husband.
Prudence, etiquette, and plain old common sense all decreed that Daniel ought to give his guests privacy and retreat to the parlour with his wife.Terror, curiosity, and a faint frantic fluttering of agonized hope bid him flatten himself against the foyer wall and listen intently to glean what his guardian thought of the man he’d become and how the Devil his clerk intended to explain it.
Sukie smiled, took him by the arm, and drew him into the parlour.
She brought him to the arm-chair he’d abandoned just a scant few minutes earlier.Already it seemed a lifetime ago.He sat down.She resumed her post in her own chair.He answered her enquiring glance with a mute shake of his head.She looked doubtful but respected it, nonetheless, taking up her mending again in companionable silence rather than forcing him into conversation.
His book remained precisely where he’d left it.After a few moments of stupefaction he picked it up.It fell open in his lap to where he’d left off.The words on the page were incomprehensible to his eyes.The ticking of the mantle-piece clock echoed like thunder-claps in his ears.
The only thing louder was the arrival of footsteps down the corridor.
Daniel jerked his head up to find Mr Hull arm-in-arm with Mr Grigsby, leading the elder gentleman over the threshold with all the delicacy of a bridegroom attending his bride.He stood.His book thudded to the floor.He scrambled to retrieve it and set it aside, only for it to nearly topple again, before he could put it firmly to rights at last and face his guardian.
Sukie arose as well, directing Mr Hull to show Mr Grigsby to the settee.A glance between husband and wife—him contrite, she knowing—sufficed to send her off to the kitchen for tea with the clerk.
Leaving Daniel and Mr Grigsby alone.
Whatever Mr Hull had said to him, Daniel expected to find Mr Grigsby appearing harrowed by it at the very least.But while his brow was certainly more furrowed than when he’d first arrived, Mr Grigsby appeared otherwise none the worse for wear.
