He was no longer sure if that was true.
Still, he wasn’t the kind of person who made promises he didn’t keep. So he would write to her. Once, at least. It would probably take up a great deal of time. Striking the right tone would prove challenging.
And then perhaps he would take the boys sea-bathing.
Sea-bathing, letters, a great big stone: it was good to have a plan.
On their way to view the stone, Archie said, “You have been holding out on us.”
“I have not been,” Effie protested. Lord, he didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “We can’t marry. Well, I can; shewon’t. She also doesn’t want to continue our liaison in any form whatsoever, so I’m not sure what more there is to say.”
“Not that,Mrs. Landers,” Archie said. He turned to Simon. “It seems, that in addition to writing poetry for Miss Evans’s magazine, he’s also dispensing advice for married women under yet another pseudonym.”
Archie and Simon laughed heartily, and Effie said, “Yes, yes,” as he waved away their good-natured jeers.
It was good to know, though, that he still had his friends, that he still had their good-natured jeers.
They alit a while later in a farm field and contemplated a rather unimpressive rock.
“It’s a lump of sandstone,” Simon said.
“It’s no Stonehenge,” Archie agreed.
“The story,” Effie said, “has something to do with the devil being angered by everyone converting to Christianity in . . . the past at some point.” He hadn’t been listening that closely to Mrs. Mitchell, though normally this would have been exactly the kind of attraction he would have found fascinating. “He was digging a dike to drown all the ancient villages around here, and he stubbed his toe on this stone and abandoned his heinous plot.”
“All it took for the devil to give up his scheme was a stubbed toe?” Archie asked.
“This is the same devil who rained curses on Job?” Simon asked.
“And beheaded the faithful and what have you?” Archie said.
“Oh, and wasn’t there a terrible dragon with seven heads sweeping the stars from the sky?” Simon asked.
“Perhaps, and what about plunging people into a river of fire and boiling blood?”
“I believe that’s Dante, not the Bible.”
“Oh, my mistake.”
“Regardless, the point stands,” Simon said, turning to Effie. “A stubbed toe would not deter Lucifer.”
It was possible Effie’s smile at that point was a tiny bit genuine.
* * *
“Do you think I ought to let Leander go free?” Effie asked three nights later, when they were settled in with their post-dinner drinks. It was something he’d been thinking about the past few days.
“We are speaking of Leander the bird, not Leander the doomed mythological hero?” Archie asked.
“Yes.”
“Can a tropical bird such as Leander survive in England?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t think that he would live a long life in our climate.”
“Even so, perhaps he would rather be free.” Effie was in his cage, in his glass-encased prison, but did Leander need to be?
