Page 31 of Infamous

‘Edith!’ said Mrs Miller, pressing a hand to her chest. ‘That isquiteenough.’

‘You heard what she said, Mother!’

‘I’d think that you’d be old and wise enough to know that your sister is only needling you.’

Lucy-Annewasonly trying to get a rise out of her – but Eddie’s fear that Nash would indeed find her writing wanting had been keeping her up late into the night, poring over her manuscript, crossing out lines and phrases and rewriting them in the margins until the entire thing was almost indecipherable. Her protagonist, Delilah Fortescue, was proving difficult to pin down. Eddie felt as if she were skittering over the surface of what she truly wanted to say, as if there were hidden depths beneath her writing kept at bay by a thick sheet of ice; no matter how hard she pounded, she could half-glimpse them but she couldn’t quite reach them.

‘You should read to him,’ Lucy-Anne said suddenly. ‘From your story. When he comes for dinner. And then we shall see how he really feels about yourgenius, before he’s gone to the trouble to have you to stay.’

‘Dinner?’ said Eddie, completely blindsided. ‘He’s coming for dinner?’

Mrs Miller looked flustered. ‘Yes, Edith, I’m sorry – I did mean to tell you but I only got the note today, and I had to run straight out for your things. He’s to join us for Michaelmas, the evening before you set off. His wife is busy, and he was going to be by himself, so your father invited him. Rose and Mr Rednock will be dining with the Lis, so there’s room at the table. I do think it best we meet him, anyhow.’

Eddie couldn’t think of anything more horrifying –Nash, in her terribly ordinary house, meeting her frankly rather bizarre family? Would Lucy-Anne hold her at knifepoint until she recited a few pages of her half-baked story? Would Simon treat him to a half-hour lecture on steam power? Trix would, undoubtedly, try to put something alive down the back of his trousers;that, she thought, he would bear with good humour, but as for the rest of it .?.?.

‘Well .?.?. this is going to be a very interesting sort of disaster.’

*

When the evening came, it was as if a whirlwind had entered through the front door; Nash shook hands enthusiastically with Mr and Mrs Miller and then very solemnly with Simon, as if they were two business associates meeting at a funeral, and then kissed both Lucy-Anne and Amelia’s hands as if they were society ladies in a ballroom. Eddie noticed that Lucy-Anne blushed, and felt a strange sort of triumph; not even her sister was immune to his charms, now that she was meeting him in person. When he reached Beatrice, who was almost hopping on one leg from her impatience to be greeted, he surprised Eddie immensely by crouching down into an undignified squat.

‘All right, then. Hop on,’ he said; she did immediately, throwing her arms around his neck so that she could be borne aloft on his back.

‘Good evening, Miss Miller,’ he said, bowing to Eddie and causing Beatrice to howl with delight as she was almost pitched forwards to the floor. Mr Miller, looking bemused, pointed him in the direction of the drawing room, and he carried an ecstatic Beatrice in as the rest of them trailed after him.

He sat down carefully on the sofa so that Beatrice could perch atop the back of the seat and stay a head and shoulders above the rest of them as they arranged themselves around him, Eddie taking a chair opposite and watching with barely restrained fondness as he reached into his jacket and then handed his pocket watch to Beatrice for her to examine.

‘Careful,’ said Eddie. ‘She’ll have it taken apart and put back together entirely wrong within five minutes.’

‘Well, perhaps she’ll improve on it,’ Nash said, accepting with a brief flash of a smile when he was offered wine. ‘Gosh, there are rather a lot of you, aren’t there?’

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘We eat as a family, even the youngest. I know it’s unusual – try not to be too shocked by our indecorous ways.’

‘I was born only recently,’ said Beatrice, putting the pocket watch down on top of Nash’s head so that she could open it.

‘Absolute rubbish, you’re obviously the eldest. What are you, five-and-twenty?’

Beatrice considered this. ‘Yes. About that age.’

‘Well, I’m never wrong,’ said Nash, glancing over at Eddie, who couldn’t help but smile back. ‘You are far too kind to invite me to join in your feasting, but I’m very glad you did – I’m afraid it would have been yesterday’s beef and a few mushy potatoes for luck back at my house.’

‘Oh, you poor thing,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘We’re very happy to have you – and to meet you, at last! Eddie’s been talking of little else for the best part of a month.’

Eddie’s expression soured; she caught Nash’s eye and shook her head, trying to convey both her utter mortification and the fact that her mother was obviously exaggerating. Nash seemed to find the whole thing very amusing.

‘It has been a delight to meet her! Liza and I are so set in our ways, we practically swoon from the shock when we meet somebody young and lively who wants to entertain us at our table.’

This was hardly an accurate representation of what her evenings at Nash’s house had been like so far, but there was no need to let her parents know this.

‘It’s very good of you to have Edith to stay in the country,’ said Mr Miller. ‘And Rose and her fiancé, too.’

‘I suppose they wish to spend some time together, to get to know each other before they marry,’ said Mrs Miller, ignoring Eddie’s dour expression. ‘And what better place to do it! Gosh, I used to love my trips to the country. My sisters and I would all hike up our skirts and go running about the place like wild, leggy beasts.’

‘Mother,’ said Eddie, but Nash only laughed.

‘Edith, the knowledge that I have legs cannot be such a shock to you, you have seen them many times yourself. Do stop glaring at me. Mr Nicholson, has the house been in the family long?’

‘Oh, since before recorded time,’ said Nash. Beatrice patted him on the shoulder and then held out her hand; he took something that looked suspiciously like a tiny, integral cog from her and then placed it on his knee for safekeeping. ‘Owned by all manner of dastardly ancestors of mine over the years. Apparently, it’s cursed. It’s certainly haunted to the rafters.’