“I’d get us all new bed frames,” I said. “The springs in mine stick into me straight through the mattress, like the princess and the pea, and I can hear every time Justin turns over,” and I flipped the music box open again, to end this conversation.
Abby sang along, softly, turning the clay pipe in her hands: “Greensleeves is all my joy, Greensleeves is my delight…” Rafe turned the clockwork mouse over and started examining the gears. Justin flicked one of the marbles expertly into another, which rolled across the floor and clicked neatly against Daniel’s mug; he glanced up from a tin soldier, smiling, his hair falling across his forehead. I watched them and ran my fingers over the old silk and hoped to God I had been telling the truth.
The next evening, after dinner, I went fishing in Uncle Simon’s epic masterpiece for information about a dead Glenskehy girl. It would have been a lot simpler to do this on my own, but that would have meant throwing a sickie from college, and I didn’t want to worry the others unless I really needed to; so Rafe and Daniel and I were sitting on the spare-room floor, with the Marches’ family tree spread out between us. Abby and Justin were downstairs, playing piquet.
The family tree was a huge sheet of thick, tattered paper covered with a wild variety of handwritings, from delicate, browning ink at the top-James March, born ca. 1598, m. Elizabeth Kempe 1619-to Uncle Simon’s spider scrawl at the bottom: Edward Thomas Hanrahan, born 1975, and last of all Daniel James March, born 1979. “This is the only thing in this room that’s intelligible,” Daniel said, picking a bit of cobweb off the corner, “presumably because Simon didn’t write it himself. The rest… we can try having a look, Lexie, if you’re really that interested, but as far as I can tell he wrote most of it when he was very, very drunk.”
“Hey,” I said, leaning over to point. “There’s your William. The black sheep.”
“William Edward March,” Daniel said, putting a finger gently on the name. “Born 1894, died 1983. Yes; that’s him. I wonder where he ended up.” William was one of only a handful that had made it past forty. Sam had been right, the Marches died young.
“Let’s see if we can find him in here,” I said, pulling a box towards me. “I’m getting curious about this guy. I want to know what the big scandal was.”
“Girls,” Rafe said loftily, “always sniffing for gossip,” but he reached for another box.
Daniel was right, most of the saga was almost illegible-Uncle Simon went in for lots of underlining and no space between lines, Victorian-style. I didn’t need to read it; I was only scanning for the tall curves of a capital W and M. I’m not sure what I was hoping we’d find. Nothing, maybe; or something that whacked the Rathowen story right out of court, proved that the girl had moved to London with her baby and set up a successful dressmaking business and lived happily ever after.
Downstairs I could hear Justin saying something and Abby laughing, faint and faraway. The three of us didn’t talk; the only sound was the soft, steady rustle of paper. The room was cool and dim, a blurred moon hanging outside the window, and the pages left a dry film of dust on my fingers.
“Oh, here we go,” Rafe said suddenly. “ ‘William March was the subject of much unjust and-sensational?-something, which finally cost him both his health and…’ Jesus, Daniel. Your uncle must have been trolleyed. Is this even in English?”
“Let me see,” Daniel said, leaning across to look. “ ‘Both his health and his rightful place in society,’ I think.” He took the sheaf of pages from Rafe and pushed his glasses up his nose. “ ‘The facts,’ ” he read slowly, running a finger under the line, “ ‘stripped of rumormongering, are as follows: from 1914 through 1915 William March served in the Great War, where he’-that has to be ‘acquitted’-‘himself well, later being awarded the Military Cross for his acts of bravery. This alone should-something-all low gossip. In 1915 William March was discharged, suffering from a shrapnel wound to the shoulder and from severe shell-shock-’ ”
“Post-traumatic stress,” Rafe said. He was leaning back against the wall, hands behind his head, to listen. “Poor bastard.”
“I can’t read this bit,” Daniel said. “Something about what he had seen-in battle, I assume; that word’s ‘cruel.’ Then it says: ‘He dissolved his engagement to Miss Alice West and took no part in the amusements of his set, preferring to spend his time among the common people of Glenskehy village, much to the anxiety of all parties. All concerned realized that this’-unnatural, I think-‘connection could not have a happy result.’ ”
“Snobs,” said Rafe.
“Look who’s talking,” I said, scooting across the floor to rest my chin on Daniel’s shoulder and try to make out the words. So far, no surprises, but I knew-could not have a happy result-this was it.
