Chapter 32
Aunt Deveraux looked after him, said in a thoughtful voice, “I MUST SAY PILCHER DID LEAVE WITH A GOOD PARTING LINE. I RATHER THINK HIS FATHER MIGHT TAKE ANOTHER POKER TO HIM FOR FAILING TO NAB YOU AND YOUR GROATS, MY DEAR, FOR HIS FATUOUS brOTHER.”
Finch patted Cam’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“My mouth is a bit bruised. Pilcher has sharp teeth. My scalp hurts from him yanking on my braids, but otherwise—” She gave them a huge smile.
“I feel perfectly splendid.” She pushed her hair out of her face, hugged her aunt, pulled back, kissed her, grinned, and like Finch, said slowly right in her face, “You are a mighty warrior, my lady. Would you marry me since Pilcher has left me and my groats in the dirt?”
Her aunt patted her cheek. “ALAS, DEAREST ONE, IT WOULD NOT BE THE DONE THING. ONE CANNOT LIVE BY LIVELY WIT ALONE. FINCH! LOVELY BLOWS WITH THE POKER, MADE HIM VASTLY SORRY. BUT I WONDER WHY DID HE ACT SO SUDDENLY? I’VE KNOWN HIS FATHER FOR YEARS, HE’S A PALTRY SORT, ALWAYS WHINING.
HE WILL DOUBTLESS CLAIM PILCHER IS INCOMPETENT.
AS FOR THE MONEY BEING FOR HIS SON SYDNEY, FOR HIS POLITICAL CAREER AND IMPRESSING THE RIGHT PEOPLE, THAT LIE WON’T FLOAT.
AH, I SEE NOW—OLD NICKLEBY HAS FINALLY LOST ALL HIS POOR WIFE’S MONEY AND HE WANTS YOURS AND THUS PILCHER TRIED TO FORCE YOU TO WED HIM.
HMM, I SHALL HAVE TO CONSIDER WHAT PUNISHMENT TO METE OUT.
I MAY HAVE HIM BANISHED FROM THE TEA ROOM, THAT WOULD BURN HIS FATHER’S SELFISH brAIN.
“NOW, CHILDREN, WE WILL RESTORE OURSELVES WITH A LOVELY CUP OF TEA. FINCH, DO TELL TURTLE TO brING FRESH-BAKED SCONES WITH THE TEA TO CALM OUR JANGLED NERVES. AND DEAR BOY, brING YOUR POKER, KEEP IT CLOSE. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN ANOTHER MISCREANT WILL TRY TO TRIFLE WITH POOR LITTLE CAMILLA.”
The old lady patted her skirts, threw her head back and marched through the gardens to the back door, swinging her cane. Was she whistling? No, impossible, if she were whistling the whole neighborhood would hear her.
Cam said in a meditative voice to Finch, “I wonder if she’s done this before, say fifty years ago, when an unwanted suiter tried to force himself on her.”
Finch pondered this. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” he said, looking after her, and added with a smile, “She is such a precious old relic, stout of heart, always ready to protect the ones she loves.”
Cam rotated her shoulders, stretched, looked at the grass stains on her skirts. “Finch, I did do something to Pilcher. I bit his tongue but good.”
“It appears so, my lady, and not a bad thing either. He’ll suffer for another several days, an excellent lesson.”
“How did you and Aunt Deveraux come out?”
“We were in the drawing room. She was telling me of a potion she used on a randy gentleman she did not wish to bed and it turned him, well, flaccid, but do not inquire into that, you wouldn’t understand since you are an innocent.
Then my lady was suddenly on her feet, amazingly fast, really, and she was out of the drawing room in a flash, waving her cane.
How did she hear you when I didn’t? It’s amazing and I do not understand. ”
“I don’t understand either, but I am very grateful to both of you. Thank you, Finch.”
Cam started toward the drawing room to thank her aunt, kiss her powdered cheek and eat one of Mrs. Tartle’s scones when the word theorem flashed in her mind.
Where had that come from? Where had she heard that word?
Yes, she remembered. She learned all about the Pythagorean theorem from the math tutor her father had finally sent to teach her after she’d begged him long and hard.
But it wasn’t Greek triangles she wanted to review, no, it was the word theorem—it was a wonderful word, a word with all sorts of possibilities, a word that sounded very scholarly and profound, like she was very smart when she said it aloud.
But what exactly did it mean? She detoured to the small library, lovingly cleaned three days a week, all the tomes read according to Aunt Deveraux, all of the naughty ones many times, and she’d waggled her lovely plucked white eyebrows.
Cam pulled the dictionary from the shelf and looked up theorem.
It came from the Greek in the sixteenth century.
It seemed to Cam nearly everything she didn’t understand came from the Greeks.
She read through the definition and grinned—such a sophisticated word and yet its meaning was simple.
All that was required to fashion a theorem was to look at something with your own eyes, observe it closely, record what it did, how it acted, and draw conclusions based on logic.
And what was logic? It was nothing more than common sense.
It was amazing. She’d just discovered that something she’d believed was beyond her ken, wasn’t.
She could see, she could observe, she could draw conclusions.
She’d watched Averil manipulate her father by sticking her bosom in his face.
Observation, logic—and the end product was always her father’s capitulation. Her first theorem.
Cam closed the dictionary, shoved it back onto the shelf between a well-worn copy of Fanny Hill and Molière’s plays, and returned to sit in her comfortable chair in front of the library fire.
She straightened the stem on her glasses, and pictured Alex in her mind.
She would speak to him of theorems and invite him to go observing with her.
He would think she was very smart indeed.
On the other hand, Alex hadn’t answered her note to him. Perhaps he was no longer interested in her. Perhaps he never had been interested in her, only very polite. He didn’t care. He’d forgotten all about her.
No, that couldn’t be. Cam rose, shook out her skirts, and up went her chin.
No more pitiful helpless damsel. She was going to do something.
She was going to read two scientific books in her father’s library, then she was going to hunt Alex down like a fox.
She was going to impress him, demonstrate how smart she was, maybe teach him how to observe properly, and she would kiss him.
Cam told her aunt Deveraux about Alex, how she admired him and how he hadn’t answered her letter. Aunt Deveraux patted her cheeks and said at the top of her lungs, “YOU ARE A SPLENDID, VERY SMART YOUNG LADY. THIS HANDSOME YOUNG BUCK HAS NO CHANCE. MAKE ME PROUD AND brING HIM DOWN.”
Six days later, Cam and Cilly left Bath.