Chapter Thirty-Two
Libba made it home just before nightfall, basket in hand and with a belly pleasantly full of well-cooked eggs.
Before she’d left, she had gone into her old bedroom. She had entered it and she had poked around and Ulysses had let her.
“Take whatever you like,” he’d said. “It’s all yours, anyhow.”
“Do you have anything of hers?” Libba had asked, trying hard not to hope.
He’d considered it. “I might do. I’ll look around. Give you a reason to come back. She sold all her paintings, though. Sold ’em on the boardwalk. If I had one, I’d tell you.”
That was what had given her the idea to look for the specific item she’d taken tonight. That word. Painting.
She had known her mother had had paints in all sorts of bright colors; she’d just never considered why she might have.
She touched the top of the basket absently as she pushed her way into the Rest, and as soon as she was fully inside and had the door shut against her back, she called for her brother.
“Mal?” she sang, frowning at how sedate it seemed in here, after such a hectic day. “Malcolm, are you home?”
No one answered.
The parlor was empty, though the fire was lit, casting a halo around a little, white card they kept on the mantel. Felicitations, it read.
Someone had given it to Elias, on the day of Willa’s funeral. Someone no one had seen. She hadn’t much thought about it or looked at it since that day, but she paused tonight. She set the basket down and crossed the room and picked it up, turning the thick vellum card around in her hands.
It had a sketch of the shingle beach on it, simple and rough.
Had Willa been an artist too?
Had both of her mothers been artists?
She pressed her lips together and set the thing back in its spot. She reminded herself that Willa Selwyn was dead.
She couldn’t have drawn that sketch. You had to be alive to make art.
“Mal?” she called again, taking up the basket and checking the dining room next, which was occupied by Hattie and Monica sharing a cream tart.
“He’s in the guest wing,” Hattie said, giving a sleepy smile to Libba. “Come and look at my belly. It is finally rounding.”
And of course, she couldn’t decline that invitation, so she spent a few moments cooing and marveling over Hattie’s growing child.
“Sometimes I feel little flickers inside,” Hattie said wistfully, pressing her hands over the top of the swell. “Not quite kicking, but soon, I think. Soon.”
“We’ll want to feel them every day until the baby comes,” Monica told her, her fingers hovering over her round, pink cheeks. “Oh, it’s so exciting, isn’t it? A baby!”
A baby, Libba thought to herself.
She wasn’t really certain she’d believed it until just this moment. She broke off a piece of the tart’s crust and popped it in her mouth as she left them, moving toward the guest wing.
What was Mal doing back there? Was he speaking to Lem?
Perhaps those two would finally get to know one another. She hadn’t said so, of course, to either of them, but she wanted that. She wanted it very much.
“Mal?” she called again as she reached the guest wing’s hallway. “Are you down here?”
“In here!” he called back from an open door.
Not Lem’s.
She was already narrow-eyed and puzzled at the surprise when she turned into the room and came up short, her heart giving a thump and then dropping into her gut at seeing Jasper, there with her brother, seated casually in the corner of the room and smiling, like they were having a normal, everyday chat.
“Oh,” she said. “Jasper.”
“Pleasant evening to you,” Jasper returned, still smiling, still warm. “What’s that you’ve got?”
She looked down at herself, remembering the basket, and blinked. “Oh. It’s for Mal. I … wasn’t expecting … Why are you two back here?”
“Bed’s better than a chaise, I think,” Jasper replied, shrugging but flashing a grin at her that told her in no uncertain terms that he understood perfectly well how strange this was. “It was time.”
“Past time,” Malcolm confirmed, his eyes on the basket. “Are you going to give that over, then?”
She frowned, hugging the basket to herself. For a moment, she didn’t want to give it up. Just one moment.
She knew she hadn’t taken this for herself, after all.
She stepped forward and held the basket out by the handle, giving the whole thing to Malcolm with a little frown on her face.
As soon as he’d taken it, she sank onto the corner of the guest bed, biting her lip as she watched him.
He was grinning as he flipped the little cloth back that covered the thing, clearly expecting something silly or frivolous or perhaps edible. His smile faltered a little upon seeing that it was none of those things, his eyes widening.
“Good Lord,” he said, drawing out the old, battered abacus, its beads gone soft and chalky over years of weathering and window-filtered sunlight. “Is this …?”
She nodded. “The one you played with. When we were little.”
“Faither gave you this?” he asked, staring up at her with the thing held partially aloft in the recesses between his fingers as she nodded.
“There’s more,” she said. “He said we can take whatever we like. But I saw that … and …”
Mal’s chin gave a very slight quiver, his lips folding in on themselves as he held the thing, still not removing it entirely. “Oh.”
She glanced at Jasper, a little desperate. She had done this wrong, hadn’t she? She’d given it wrong.
Jasper stood and strode over, putting a hand on Mal’s shoulder as he peered down at the thing. “The Marvelous Wooden Abacus, eh?” he said, giving a squeeze. “That’s a relic, you know. A proper one.”
“‘Relic,’” repeated Mal, a single tear sliding down his clean-shaven cheek. “It is, isn’t it? I would’ve thought it long lost.”
“Nothing is lost,” Libba put in immediately, her own eyes starting to feel misty. “He kept the room exactly as it was. Your old jacket is still where you threw it on that last day. You could come next time if you like. Poke through it.”
Mal shot her a look, his mouth flat and hard.
It made her hold her hands up in apology. “Or if you want me to look for something, I can,” she amended. “Whichever you like.”
“This is enough,” Malcolm decided, looking between his sister and the toy and back again. He stood and crossed the room, dropping a kiss onto the part in her hair. “This is perfect. Thank you, Lib.”
She blinked up at him, wanting to reach out, to stop him and say more, but he was already giving a little smile and stepping toward the door. “The two of you have stolen quite enough of my day, I think,” he decided. “I’m going to take a long bath and head out to the tables. Do not join me.”
“Rude,” said Jasper, though he was smiling and sounded relieved. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Mal replied toothlessly, then he gave them another little glance and a shake of his head before he was gone.
Libba watched the empty doorway for a moment, noting that Malcolm had not closed them in together. It made her give a little titter, a little shake of her head. A fond, tiny sigh that released some of the abacus-shaped tension in her chest.
And then she turned to look at Jasper.
He was looking back, those golden eyes soft and crinkled at the corners. “Libba,” he said.
She twisted her lips. “Pleasant evening to you,” she responded.
For a moment, they just watched each other, softness tugging at their lips, at their brows, at their jaws.
And then they sighed in unison.
“Long day,” Jasper commented, leaning back in his chair and drawing his ankle up higher, above his knee, hands anchored over his boot. “Very long.”
“Too long,” she agreed. “Shall we ask each other how our respective unpleasant errands went?”
He shrugged, clicking his tongue. “Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps next year. There is time.”
“Is there, indeed?” she asked, leaning back with her hands planted in the mattress behind her. “How very intriguing. When will you be vacating my flat?”
“‘Vacating’?” he replied with a grin. “I shan’t be. It is yours, as agreed. But so am I, I’m afraid. Sorry about that.”
She gave a dramatic, chest-creaking sigh. “There is always a catch with you, Townsend.”
“Always,” he agreed. “And I keep my receipts.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that you do,” she answered, tilting her head to the side. “I shall have to separate out a very good printing of the Romeo and Juliet playbill for your collection. But I must insist upon a frame. The corkboard is too risky. Too exposed.”
“A frame,” he repeated thoughtfully, nodding. “I have a man for that.”
“You have a man for everything,” she said, finally letting herself grin. “I am very excited about my chandelier, you know. Malcolm said there are bits of jasper in that barrel. I think they should be included.”
“Jasper isn’t transparent,” he pointed out, his own grin emerging. “It won’t refract the light.”
“It will absorb it,” she said. “And be all the more beautiful for doing so.”
“Do you ever speak plainly, Lib?” he asked, leaning forward. “Ever?”
“I try not to,” she answered, continuing to recline in the opposing direction. “Why? Is there something plain you wish for me to say?”
His eyes darted over her face, her eyes, her mouth. He released a little gust of breath, taking in the impression of her there on the bed. “No,” he decided. “I like you as you are.”
“Hm. Well, then, I suppose you’ll be disappointed when I get up in a moment to go begin my evening toilette. I shall come back, of course, but I will not be as I am.”
“No?”
She shook her head slowly, smirking at him. “No. I’ll just be in my tatty, old robe. And my hair will be wrapped up. It’s a tragedy, really, how mundane I am under all the plaster and paint.”
He paused and then groaned. “You’re going directly for the throat, then?”
“Directly,” she decided, pushing herself off the bed and standing, stretching her arms up over her head. “Are you prepared?”
He nodded and he sighed. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I think I finally am.”
She couldn’t help going just a little soft in response, her eyes hooded and her lips curving as she beheld him. “We shall see,” she told him fondly.