Page 16 of A Rare Find

The first time Elfreda saw Georgina Redmayne, she was five or six. Grandmama was still alive. Mother too, of course, but Mother had been inside, abed, and it was Grandmama who’d taken her out into the park. While Elfreda was weaving a necklace of dandelions, a little, impertinent girl astride a too-big pony trotted right up to her and asked to see the dragon. Elfreda hadn’t yet heard the neighborhood gossip that had painted Grandpapa as a dragon breeder, as well as a druid, and only stared at the girl, who went red with pique to the roots of her red hair, and let her pony eat the dandelion necklace before cantering off.

That was the beginning. This was the end.

Elfreda would avoid Georgina like the plague.

Papa was avoiding her like the plague. After his walk, he’d locked himself and his Empress Matilda penny in the library and wouldn’t even open the door to receive his dinner. She’d left the tray in the hall.

Now it was well past eight in the evening. Elfreda sat contemplating a plate of cold pork bones at the kitchen table with her sister Agnes beside her and the housekeeper opposite.

“I’m not going up to bed,” announced Agnes, pulling her chair over to the hearth. “I’m practicing for London. Beatrice says it’s terribly provincial to sleep between dinner and breakfast.”

Beatrice Parker was Agnes’s bosom friend, sixteen years old and out in society. Every day, Agnes paced the entrance hall, hoping for another of Beatrice’s letters from Mayfair, where her family had taken lodging for the Season. These letters tended to produce either a storm of weeping, a bout of excessive curtseying, a vociferous craving for frozen punch, or some particularly annoying combination of all three.

“I can’t ride Æthelstan anymore,” continued Agnes. “Beatrice says none of the girls ride donkeys in London.”

You’re not going to London anytime soon. Elfreda almost said it aloud. Papa always had money enough to buy a rare book on Paternoster Row. Not so when it came to things he considered frivolous, like gowns and slippers. He would never pay for a debut. And the other option had been foreclosed.

“You love Æthelstan,” she said instead. “Æthelstan loves you. He kicks everyone else.”

“I want to take Æthelstan to London, of course,” responded Agnes. “But I can’t ride him there. I’ll walk him on a leash, with Beatrice, when she walks her Pomeranian.”

Elfreda put on a vague smile and started clearing and stacking plates. Lately, Agnes showed every determination to style herself like a conventional young miss. The harder she tried, the more peculiar she seemed.

She would admire Anne Poskitt excessively. Perhaps Elfreda should have sent her to dine at Redmayne Manor. An evening of French food in fashionable company. Elfreda wanted that for her. Except, Redmayne Manor. Except, Georgina.

Georgina.

Elfreda slammed the crockery.

“What’s a better waltzing partner?” Agnes stood up from the chair and wandered the kitchen. “A broom? A jug? A bellows?”

Eventually, she did go up to bed, but only after Elfreda resorted to chasing her around the table with an onion, repeating, “Promise me the next two dances!” at the top of her lungs. Agnes hated onions.

Elfreda dropped the onion back into the basket, knowing she’d been silly, even before Mrs. Pegg said to the low rafters, “Did ever anybody see the like?”

She crept to her own bed, dejected, a silly daughter who’d embarrassed herself one too many times.

In the morning, Mrs. Pegg prepared breakfast for Papa and Agnes, while Elfreda cooked porridge for the twins and carried it up to the nursery.

“Heavens,” she said upon entering. “Hilda and Matilda have vanished! Wherever could they be?”

The nursery was a small, dim room, with narrow windows. Elfreda had done her best to relieve the chill of the stone with carpets and tapestries and whatever upholstered furniture she could drag up the stairs. This had resulted in a warmer, cheerier atmosphere, but it had also furnished the children with dozens of attractive hidey-holes.

“Are they under this rug?” Elfreda asked, lifting a corner of the rug with her toe.

She heard stifled laughter, and Hilda exploded out of a mound of pillows. The fur tippet was wrapped around her neck, and she’d added a muff on each arm.

“I’m not hungry,” said Hilda. “I ate Hilda for breakfast.”

“Ah,” said Elfreda. “Did you also eat Matilda?”

“I ate Matilda,” said Matilda, crawling out from beneath the bed. She was wrapped in a raggedy shawl and wearing mittens. Grendel, the elderly beagle, waddled after her.

“Hilda and Matilda weren’t very big,” noted Elfreda. “I’m sure you have room for porridge.” She set the tray on the table.

Matilda crawled over to the table, climbed into a chair, and began to lick at a bowl. Hilda followed suit.

Elfreda put her hands on her hips. “Spoons, please.”