show the family in what light she considered Miss Dennison.
Jarvis leapt at the excuse to change the subject. “Durwood is the lad’s name,” he told her. “He has been as you saw him since birth, poor fellow. They never could teach him to read or write, but he is perfectly harmless, you know.”
“ I can read and write, if that is what she’s getting at!” Millicent said loudly.
“Your meat is growing cold,” Homer told her.
“How old is the boy?” I asked, to forestall Millicent’s next remark.
“Thirty-six or seven. Thereabouts,” Jarvis said.
“We took him for a very child,” Mrs. Winton exclaimed. “He is small.”
“Body and mind, both were held back,” Jarvis told us, with a sad shake of the head. “He has spent his life in idleness. It’s all he is good for.”
One had to wonder why he had been created. Another mystery, to add to Thalassa’s accident, and Norman’s death.
“What was your own line of work, Mr. Blythe?” she enquired, as inquisitive about a house of strangers as though they were to be her intimates for the next few decades.
These people meant more to me, however, and I listened with interest to hear his answer. “I am a retired politician, ma’am. I spent the active part of my life at Westminster.”
“Then you would know our Queen! Davinia has a great fondness for her. What is she like?”
“She was a gay, charming lady in her youth. She settled down very fast after she married Prince Albert and began her nursery. But she never let her growing family or anything else interfere with duty. They do say she feels her loss very much. I haven’t seen her for over a year now. I wrote her my sympathy, and have a note back from her. She says she never will recover, and I believe her.”
“Foolishness,” Miss Dennison told us, her eyes flashing. “The dead are dead, and no amount of moping and whining will bring them back. What she needs is a new husband, and I hope she makes it an Englishman this time.”
It was unlikely that a lady of Queen Victoria’s years would be looking about for another husband, but Miss Dennison’s eyes had soon turned to me, to include me in her advice. “You will enjoy to meet Cousin Bulow tomorrow, Davinia,” she added, in what seemed to me a most pointed way.
Dinner passed with no more outrages from the dame. Sir Homer was polite but rather quiet. His eyes were busier than his tongue. He listened and looked—mostly he looked at me. I began to wonder what was amiss with me, that he so often stole glances at me. Was my face dirty, my hair mussed? I thought not; there was no air of disapproval about him. His first curiosity and surprise were softening to approval, or so I thought.
When we left the table, we women retired to the gold saloon, where Mrs. Winton busied herself quizzing Miss Dennison, and receiving very little information for her trouble, save what she could pick up from oblique comments. But then she is good at that.
“Maybe Homer will loosen the purse strings, now that you are here,” she said, after a perfectly audible belch had escaped her.
“The house is run in a high style,” Mrs. Winton told her. “Everything is shipshape. The table well set, many servants, from what I can see. That topiary must require a deal of work.”
“He threatens to let it go back to nature, but his own mother put her foot down there. It was used to be his father’s pride and joy, you know. Unnatural, I call it. If you are interested in a real garden, Davinia, I shall show you my herb garden. Soon it will be in bloom. Then I shall be busy. Meanwhile, I must get to work in my laboratory. I’ll show it to you another time. I’m too busy tonight. Homer says I mustn’t take my teeth out in front of you either, and they ache. The tooth drawer made them too tight. You have a good sound set of teeth. My, so pretty. It’s going to be fun watching them.”
“My teeth?” I asked in confusion.
“Eh? No, no, Homer and Bulow. They will