Chapter 11
“Now,” Isadora said, holding up the small carved horse, “this one is very important.”
Violet looked at the horse. Then she looked at Isadora. Then she looked at the horse again with the deliberation of someone making a significant decision.
“This,” Isadora said, “is Archibald.”
The maid folding clothes near the window made a small sound that might have been a laugh, but she quickly suppressed it.
“Archibald,” Isadora continued with the utmost seriousness, “is the fastest horse in the entire kingdom, which is considerable because the kingdom is very large and there are a great many horses in it.” She lowered the horse a little. “He belongs to the princess. Which princess, you ask?”
Violet did not ask, only made a grab for it.
Isadora moved it just out of reach. “I will tell you which princess. Her name is… hmm…” She considered the shelf nearby. “Eleanor. Princess Eleanor, who lives in a castle that is very big and has a great many towers and is hidden behind a forest that only the bravest people can find.”
Violet gurgled.
“Yes,” Isadora agreed. “Exactly. Now, Princess Eleanor did not exactly want to live in the castle, because castles are cold in the mornings and there is always someone telling you to sit up straight. But she had a horse named Archibald, and Archibald could take her anywhere she wished, so the castle was more tolerable than it might have been.”
She set Archibald down on the blanket.
Violet immediately wrapped both hands around him and held him up with an expression of profound triumph.
“Well done,” Isadora praised. “He’s yours now. Archibald has made his choice; this is simply how it is.”
The maid made another sound that was quickly muffled.
Isadora reached back to the shelf and grabbed a small carved bear, somewhat worn at the ears. “And this,” she said, “is the bear. He does not have a name yet because he is very private about it. He lives in the forest outside Princess Eleanor’s castle, and he is—what do you think?”
Violet was chewing on Archibald’s leg.
“He is wise,” Isadora decided. “He is a very wise bear who gives advice to travelers who come through the forest, though his advice is occasionally strange and requires some patience to understand.” She held the bear up thoughtfully. “A bit like some people I know.”
She placed the bear on the blanket beside Archibald.
Violet looked at it, then at Isadora, then back. She lifted Archibald and hit the bear with it.
“That is not how we treat the wise bear.” Isadora tutted.
Violet hit the bear again, with more conviction.
“Princess Eleanor,” Isadora said, retrieving the bear with dignity, “had better manners than this. Mostly.” She settled back in the chair and propped the bear on her knee, facing Violet.
“Now, one day, Princess Eleanor decided she had had quite enough of the castle. She had been told to sit up straight approximately forty times that morning—which, you’ll agree, is excessive—and she had had a disagreement with someone about something that she was entirely right about, so she decided that what she needed was fresh air and the company of sensible people.
” She paused. “The problem was that sensible people were in rather short supply.”
Violet babbled.
“I know,” Isadora cooed. “It is a recurring problem.”
She glanced toward the window. Outside, the afternoon was beginning to darken into evening, the grounds turning amber in the dimming light. The maid had slowed her folding, listening openly now, which Isadora didn’t mind.
She looked back at Violet, who had abandoned Archibald and was now chewing on the corner of the blanket.
“So Princess Eleanor saddled Archibald herself,’ Isadora continued, rescuing the blanket with one hand and returning Archibald with the other, “because she had decided not to ask for help with things she could manage on her own, which was a quality she had in abundance, sometimes to her own inconvenience.” She picked up a small carved rabbit from the shelf. “And she rode into the forest.”
Violet looked at the rabbit. Then she looked at Isadora.
Then she reached for the rabbit, straining forward with both hands, “Oh, all right.” Isadora gave her the rabbit.
“This is—let’s call her Millicent. Millicent lives in the forest too.
She is extremely fast and knows all the best paths, and she has absolutely no patience for anyone standing still when they could be moving. ”
Violet examined Millicent thoroughly and decided she liked her ears.
“Good choice.” Isadora nodded. “Millicent’s ears are her best feature, and she knows it.
Do not tell her I told you.” She looked at the remaining animals on the shelf—a fox, a small deer, something that was possibly a badger.
“Now the question is whether Princess Eleanor finds what she’s looking for in the forest, and the answer is… ” She paused.
Violet looked up from Millicent, as though the pause itself were an event.
Isadora laughed. It came out soft and genuine, as if caught off guard by her own amusement. She pressed one hand briefly to her mouth and looked at the baby, who was staring at her intently.
“You are watching me very carefully,” she noted.
Violet made a sound.
“Yes. I’m watching you too.” Isadora leaned forward slightly, bringing her face a little closer.
“The answer is that Princess Eleanor does not entirely know what she’s looking for yet, which is either the most frightening thing or the most interesting thing depending on how you think about it.
” She tilted her head. “I am still deciding.”
Violet reached out and grabbed her sleeve.
“Ah,” Isadora said. “You have something to say.”
The baby tightened her grip and babbled a string of syllables with the confident cadence of someone making an excellent point.
“You make a compelling argument,” Isadora said gravely. “I’ll consider it.”
She lifted Violet into her lap, settling the baby against her with the ease that had developed over the past weeks without her noticing it, and picked up Archibald from the blanket.
“Now, where were we?” she asked. “Ah, yes. The forest. Princess Eleanor. Millicent the rabbit with the excellent ears.” She walked Archibald through the air in front of Violet’s face.
“They rode for quite a long time, and the forest was very beautiful, because the best forests always are. Princess Eleanor began to feel… not better, exactly. Something more complicated than better.” She paused.
“She began to feel that things might become better eventually, which is a different feeling but not a smaller one.”
Violet grabbed Archibald mid-air.
“Caught,” Isadora laughed. “Archibald has been captured. This is a significant development.”
* * *
James almost didn’t go in.
He had meant to. He had come upstairs with the intention of saying something.
He had not worked out exactly what—perhaps an acknowledgment that the afternoon had not gone as intended, that he had produced a list that Henderson had helped him prepare, which, in retrospect, he could see was not the correct approach to the first afternoon of a marriage, however practical it was.
He had stood outside the nursery door with his hand poised to knock and heard her voice inside.
He had not knocked. Instead, he had pushed the door open very quietly and stayed where he was.
The maid near the window had noticed him, her mouth dropping open in an O. He put one finger to his lips, and she immediately returned to her folding.
He looked at Isadora.
She was sitting in the chair by the shelf with Violet in her lap, entirely unaware of him. Her hair had come loose on one side—it always did when she was too occupied by whatever she was doing—soft strands brushing against her cheek.
She had a small carved horse in one hand and was walking it through the air while Violet made a grab for it with both hands, and she was saying something about a forest. She looked…
He stood in the doorway, racking his brain for the right words.
She looked entirely herself. Unguarded and warm and quietly delighted by a baby who had just snatched a wooden horse out of the air and was holding it up like a trophy.
“Caught,” Isadora laughed softly, her face lighting up. “Archibald has been captured. This is a significant development.”
Violet made a triumphant sound.
“Do not be smug about it,” Isadora chided playfully. “It does not suit you.” She looked at the horse in the baby’s hands. “Although I’ll admit the execution was impressive. You had good timing.”
Violet looked at her with rapt attention.
“Now,” Isadora said, lifting the small rabbit from the blanket. “Millicent has an opinion about this turn of events—”
“Does Millicent always have opinions?”
She looked up, her gaze finding him immediately. Surprise flashed across her face before she gathered only a fragment of her usual composure. He had caught her too off guard for anything more.
He was quietly glad of it.
“Millicent,” she said after a moment, “has a great many ideas. She is that sort of rabbit.”
He stepped into the room. Violet heard him, turned her head, and made the sound she made when she had located something of interest. She held Archibald out toward him in a way that did not mean she intended to give it, but that she wished to establish that she had it.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile, sitting on the blanket. “He looks well.”
Violet retracted Archibald immediately.
“She does that,” Isadora remarked.
“I’ve noticed.” James looked at the shelf. At the remaining animals—the fox, the deer, the ambiguous badger. “How many of them have names?”
“The horse is Archibald. The rabbit is Millicent. The bear is private about his.” She glanced up at him. “The fox I have not gotten to yet.”
“The fox’s name should be something sharp,” James said, picking it up without thinking. “Something that sounds fast.”
Isadora looked at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She looked back at Violet. “Go on, then.”
He turned the fox over in his hand. It was small and well-carved, the kind of toy made with enough care that it had lasted long enough to become worn at the edges. He thought about his cousin, who had lived in this house and chosen these things for a child he had loved and would not see grow up.
“Sebastian,” he murmured.
Isadora tapped her chin. “Sebastian the Fox.”
“He is quick and clever, and he tends to appear when you least expect him,” James said.
He set the fox on the blanket in front of Violet, and she regarded it curiously. Then she picked it up and proceeded to stuff it into her mouth.
“Sebastian is perhaps not the peacemaker I hoped he would be,” James drawled.
Isadora laughed. It was a genuine laugh, unguarded, the laugh that did something entirely unreasonable to the atmosphere of whatever room it sounded in.
She caught him looking, so he turned his gaze to Violet.
The nursery was warm, the fire steady, the light turning amber through the windows. The maid had finished folding and slipped out at some point without either of them noticing.
Violet was sitting on the blanket with Archibald in one hand and Sebastian in the other, conducting some private arbitration between them.
“You were going to say something when you came in,” Isadora noted.
James looked at her. “Yes, earlier,” he said. “I do not do this well. I want you to know that I know—”
The door opened, and Mrs. Plum came into the room, a folded blanket over one arm and Violet’s feeding things in the other hand. She stopped when she saw them both, assessed the room in one second, and inclined her head.
“Forgive me, Your Grace. Your Grace.” A brief acknowledgment of them both, slightly uncertain in its order, which was perhaps understandable given that there were two of them now. “It’s nearly two. Time for her feeding.”
“Of course.” Isadora rose with Violet in a single practiced movement before transferring the baby to the nurse’s arms.
Violet immediately objected.
“Archibald,” Isadora said, retrieving the carved horse from the blanket and pressing it into the baby’s hand. The objection ceased.
Mrs. Plum looked at the horse, then looked at Isadora. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
She went to the small adjacent room, Violet already distracted by Archibald, and the door closed softly behind them.
The nursery fell quiet.
James looked at the door, then looked at the remaining toys on the blanket. He stood and straightened his coat with the composed ease of a man who had not been in the middle of saying something a moment ago.
“I’ll have Mrs. Holt send up tea to your sitting room,” he offered, “if you’d prefer a quiet afternoon.”
Isadora looked at him for a moment.
“You should go outside.”
They both turned to find Mrs. Plum holding Violet.
“Both of you,” she added, carefully lowering Violet to stand on her feet, and she toddled forward, her arms outstretched for balance.
“Fresh air. You’ve been in this room since one o’clock, Your Grace, and His Grace has been in his study since before that.
Neither of you has seen the outdoors since you arrived.
” She paused. “She’ll play for at least two hours. Go.”