She didn’t come. There were only six days left of their holiday, and she didn’t come.
It was fine, though. In fact, it was for the best, because by nine o’clock, Archie, Simon, and Effie were sitting around in silk dressing gowns talking again about salt and strawberries and how their parents didn’t love them.
Apparently, Effie’s trip into Doveborough with the ladies that first day had involved a stop at a modiste, and his heretofore unexplained disappearance earlier today had been to pick updressing gownshe’d had commissioned for the three of them.
“Justtryit,” he’d said, over and over, after it had become apparent that the Morgan sisters weren’t coming. Effie had disappeared, changed into his, and returned and held out the other two beseechingly. “They cost a right fortune, what with the rush I was in. I promise, the wearing of this gown will confer the most delightful sensation. It will lift your spirits, Archie.”
Archie had started to protest that his spirits didn’t need lifting, but Simon interrupted, grumbling about how he couldn’t listen to any more of Effie’s entreaties. He’d grabbed the proffered gown and taken himself off to change.
Once two of the three of them were attired in silk—Simon in royal blue and Effie, surprisingly, in lilac—Archie began to feel cornered, a fox staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Look what a lovely color yours is, Archie,” Simon said laughingly, nodding at the forest-green gown Effie held. It was good to hear Simon say anything laughingly.
“I asked for masculine colors,” Effie said archly, “knowing that would be important to you lot.” He grew serious. “Yours is green because you love the trees, Archie, and Simon’s is blue because he is always looking up, imagining a better world.”
Well. Archie’s throat tightened. He was discomposed by having had Effie’s poet eyes turned on him.
“And yours is lilac because . . . ?” Simon prompted.
“Mine is lilac because the modiste was out of black silk,” Effie said blithely. “Alas. My gown really ought to be black like my heart.”
Archie found his voice. “Your heart is not black.”
Effie raised his eyebrows.
“You see the beauty in the darker side of life, when the rest of us look away. I’m not sure if that kind of seeing is a blessing or a curse. But either way, it doesn’t mean your heart is black.”
Effie blinked rapidly; apparently it was his turn to be at a loss for words.
Feeling a bit sheepish about his little speech there, Archie said, “Oh, give me that,” and stalked off to change.
When he returned, Simon was sliding around on his chair. He was rotating his hips and flapping his bent-at-the-elbow arms in such a way that, together with the blue of the gown, he looked like an enormous peacock trying—and failing—to take flight. “This fabric does create a curious but pleasant sensation.”
“A curious but pleasant sensation,” Archie echoed.
“Ah, you are in agreement!” Effie cried triumphantly.
“No. Well, yes.” He was, but he’d been echoing Simon’s words because the phrase itself had plucked a chord within him. The hearing of those words wasitselfa curious but pleasant sensation, though it did leave him with the sense that his mind was trying to settle on something just out of its reach. Not unlike when one wakes from a dream and is still connected to it but only by vanishing tendrils.
It never worked, trying to hold onto those dreams, so he turned his attention to the present, where, he had to admit, he was learning that a silk dressing gown against one’s bare skin was indeed an agreeable sensation. He joined Simon in his attempt to take flight, flapping his arms as he squirmed in place. If Simon was a peacock in blue, Archie was a mallard in green.
Archie was the sole occupant of a settee that had been covered in silk. In keeping with everything else in Quintrell Castle, it had seen better days. But though it was stained and the stuffing was coming out near one end, the silk was still smooth. Archie’s attempts to mimic Simon while sitting on a silk settee and wearing a silk dressing gown caused him to slide off the damn thing entirely.
Laughing uproariously along with the boys, he got up and made a more controlled attempt at the same feat, sliding from one end of the settee to another. “Do you remember that time at school when it was raining on top of a bit of snow that had already accumulated, and the combination of precipitation made for an ice field all around the grounds?”
“We nicked some wooden trays from the kitchen and went out and slid down that knoll that abutted the cricket pitch,” Simon continued, coming over and elbowing Archie out of the way. “Let me try.”
They all laughed as Simon aped Archie’s sideways slide. There was something extra amusing about the starchy, overserious Simon in this particular setting, and judging by the volume of his own laughter, Simon himself knew it.
“My turn! My turn!” Effie did not bother with the measured approaches adopted by the other two, and hurled himself at the settee in such a way that he slid rapidly down it, bounced off the carved wooden armrest on the far side, and landed in a heap of laughter on the floor.
After their laughter died down, Effie suddenly said, “I lied earlier. The reason my gown is lilac is that lately I’ve been feeling more . . . colorful.”
Archie had no idea what that meant.
“It’s impractical, of course, to remake one’s entire wardrobe, but I have resolved, going forward, to experiment with cheerier hues.”
“Is your newfound interest in brighter hues reflective of an inner shift? A change of outlook?” Simon asked.
