Chapter 7 #2
He looked up, startled, then gave a reluctant huff of laughter. “None at all.”
She came closer, not immediately sitting, merely resting a hand on the back of the opposite chair. “That is unfortunate. I find most problems are far more cooperative when intimidated.”
Anthony glanced at the book, then back at her. “It’s dates,” he said almost quietly, as though confessing to something mildly shameful. “They do not belong to anything. They’re just there. Father says they matter because they explain how things happened.”
“What do you think? Do they?” she asked.
Anthony hesitated. “Sometimes. Other times, they feel like numbers wearing important coats.”
Lucy smiled faintly and sat at last. “That is a very precise observation.”
He shifted in his chair, emboldened. “I can remember stories. I remember things people say. But this...” He gestured at the page. “It disappears the moment I close the book.”
“Then perhaps you are trying to remember it in the wrong shape,” Lucy said, lightly. “You are asking it to be flat.”
Anthony considered this. “What shape should it be?”
“That depends,” she replied. “What do you see when you look at one of them?”
He leaned closer to the page, squinting slightly. “This one feels cold. I don’t know why.”
“That is reason enough,” Lucy said. “Cold things linger.”
He glanced at her, uncertain whether she was teasing, then returned to the page. “This one feels loud,” he added after a moment. “Like people arguing.”
Lucy’s eyes softened. “Then you will remember it when you hear raised voices.”
Anthony nodded slowly, as though testing the idea rather than accepting it outright. He tapped his pencil once against the desk. “No one ever says it can be like that.”
“There are many ways to make peace with facts. This is just one of many that I have discovered,” she said. “Most of them are dull and don’t work most of the time, but I found one that was… survivable.”
Anthony glanced up. “Did you dislike learning about dates and facts too?”
“Very much,” Lucy replied and nodded, leaning closer to him.
“Don’t say a word of this to anyone, but I loathed studying.
All I wanted to do was read books and frolic with my cousins.
Also, as a lady in society, I had the additional misfortune of being expected to remember an alarming number of people.
Names, ages, titles, relations. Who belonged where, who must never be seated beside whom.
A lady of society is not forgiven for confusion. So, it was tasking.”
Anthony shook his head slowly. “My problems might be too little. That sounds worse than just learning dates,” he said gravely.
“It was,” she agreed and then squinted her eyes, “so I cheated.”
Anthony straightened in his chair. “How?”
“I decided everything was food.”
He blinked. “Food?”
“Yes. Entirely shamelessly.” She pulled the book a little closer, careful not to take it from him. “When I see a name, I ask myself what it tastes like. When I see a place, I imagine what it smells of. When I see a year, I decide whether it feels heavy or light... like pudding or like bread.”
Anthony stared at her, then down at the page. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“Almost certainly,” Lucy said. “Yet it works, but not at random,” Lucy continued, her gaze settling on the open book. “Food is only useful in this case when it follows a pattern. Your mind remembers differences, not lists.”
Anthony shifted closer, resting his elbow on the desk. “What sort of pattern?”
“Importance,” she said. “Some things matter because they happened quickly. Others matter because they took time, effort, and patience. If a fact took years to come into being, it should not feel light when you try to remember it.”
She indicated the date with her finger. “Tell me, why is this discovery important enough to be marked here?”
He thought for a moment. “Because they searched for it for years before they found it.”
“Then that labor should be reflected,” Lucy replied. “Choose something that cannot be hurried, something that must be made slowly, or it fails entirely.”
Anthony nodded, understanding settling in his expression. “Bread,” he said. “The kind you leave to rise.”
“Yes,” Lucy said quietly. “Now, it will stay because it belongs.”
She moved her hand to the next line. “What about this place, what do you know of it?”
“It was by the coast.”
“Then let it carry the sea with it,” Lucy said. “Salt, wind, trade. Your mind knows how to return to places when they are allowed to feel like themselves.”
Anthony bent over the page again, writing with more care than before. The irritation that had sharpened his movements earlier was gone now, replaced by confidence.
After a moment, he said, almost to himself, “It isn’t harder. It just makes more sense.”
“Good,” Lucy replied softly. She shifted closer, so they were both looking at the page together. “Now do this one.”
She tapped the next date, the paper rustling faintly beneath her finger. “Why was this year written down?”
Anthony squinted. “That was when they finally solved the problem of longitude.”
“Exactly,” Lucy said. “What made it so difficult?”
He brightened a little, encouraged. “No one could measure it properly at sea. Ships were lost because of it.”
“Good, and how long did they try?” she asked.
“Years,” he said promptly. “Decades.”
Lucy nodded. “Then that is your anchor. Do not remember the number first. Remember the struggle.”
She paused, then smiled faintly. “Now, if this discovery were a meal, what would it be?”
He frowned, considering. “A stew?”
“Why a stew?”
“Because it takes a long time,” he said slowly. “Many things have to go into it before it works.”
“There you are,” Lucy said, pleased. “A long, slow stew, watched over carefully, until at last it is fit to serve. When you think of that year, you think of the pot finally coming off the fire.”
He glanced back at the date, then nodded once. “You’re very clever, Miss Lucy.”
Lucy leaned back, satisfied. “Thank you so much, Anthony. I cannot recall the last time someone said that to me.”
A sharp click of footsteps announced Brook before he was even visible.
Anthony glanced toward the doorway, and Lucy’s eyes lit with interest, and she straightened instinctively.
Brook was Rowan’s second-oldest son, and he was a mystery to her.
She had heard much of this second son, the one who, unlike most well-bred boys, delighted in clever tricks, in bending the rules just enough to unsettle adults.
He was said to be irrepressibly mischievous, never satisfied with obedience for its own sake.
Until this moment, she had never spoken with him, never seen him up close for more than a few seconds.
In fact, Brook had never said a word to her.
“What is it, Brook?” Anthony asked, looking up from his book as his brother appeared in the doorway, hair tousled and eyes bright with curiosity.
“I need to know why the sundial is off this morning,” Brook said, frowning. “I measured the shadow twice, and it’s almost five minutes behind the clock.”
Anthony blinked. “For school?”
“No,” Brook said quickly, waving a hand. “I just like to know when things don’t line up.”
Anthony considered him for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, it would make more sense if you ask Miss Lucy. She’s helping me study. She can help you.”
Lucy’s voice cut in. “Good morning, Brook. Did the sundial wake you fairly?”
“I will not stay,” the boy declared, arms crossed, chin jutting. “I do not need lessons from you.”
Anthony groaned. “Don’t be rude, Brook. She’s only trying to help.”
“What? I do not need her help,” he whispered to Anthony.
Lucy raised an eyebrow, leaning slightly closer. “Indeed? Yet, you’ve found your way here. I take it the sundial, or whatever pressing matter brought you, could not wait?”
Brook scowled. “It’s not pressing. I just needed Anthony. That is all.”
Lucy squinted her eyes and turned to face him. “I don’t think you have ever properly introduced yourself to me. Have you forgotten the manners you were taught, or are you simply not a gentleman at all?”
Brook blinked, caught off guard for the briefest moment, then straightened his back, chin high. “I am a gentleman,” he said. “I simply do not always see the point in using them.”
Lucy’s lips twitched. “Not see the point?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “That is a very ungentlemanly thing to say.”
Brook’s mouth tightened. He made a small, dismissive sound in his throat, spun on his heel, and marched out of the room with an exaggerated huff, the door closing rather harder than necessary behind him.
“You must be careful with him,” Anthony said at once, lowering his voice. “Brook is… difficult.”
Lucy turned to him, curiosity brightening her expression. “Difficult or merely bored?”
Anthony gave a rueful half-smile. “Both. He has driven away more tutors than I care to count. Some lasted weeks. Others scarcely days. He delights in pranks, and he has an unsettling talent for discovering precisely what unsettles people most.”
“That explains the defiance,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “It is easier to misbehave than to admit one is uninterested.”
Anthony studied her. “You are not offended?”
“Hardly,” she replied. “Boys like him test boundaries because no one has yet given them a reason not to.”
He shook his head. “I warn you only because he does not take kindly to correction.”
Lucy smiled, untroubled. “Then I shall not correct him, dear Anthony,” she said lightly. “I shall make friends with him.”
Anthony laughed under his breath as he turned back to continue his studying. “God help you then.”