On the appointed day and at the appointed hour, the Baron stood on the platform awaiting the return of the Baroness Von Aux. His hair was combed severely and his expression was severe, and the flowers he held in his hand were gripped with severity, fixed as he was in fevered expectation. Mr. Olderglough was somber; he stood beside the Baron, and Lucy beside Mr. Olderglough. They were each of them looking straight ahead, beyond the tracks and into the unpeopled, forested lands. It felt as though the train were late, this because it was.
“She herself has held it up,” muttered the Baron.
“Oh, sir, come now,” said Mr. Olderglough. “Why would she do that? And how would she, even.”
“She has found a way—just to niggle the wound. And I’ll wager that when she does arrive, she’ll have some handsome young valet at her side.”
“She would never, sir.”
“Wouldn’t she? You forget the fiasco with Broom.”
“I have forgotten nothing. But I don’t see the purpose in making such assumptions before we’ve set eyes on her. It is a new day, sir.”
“It is a day like any other.”
“It is a fine and clean and just-born day. There has never been a day quite like today.”
“Bah,” said the Baron, and he stepped away to privately putter.
Lucy asked Mr. Olderglough, “What were the circumstances of Mr. Broom’s departure, did you say, sir?”
“I didn’t say.”
“Would you say now?”
Mr. Olderglough made a pained face. “A wickedness took hold of him, so that his position became untenable. He tried to shed the wickedness, and I also tried to help him in this. Alas, at day’s end there was nothing to be done about it.”
“But how did he die, sir?”
“He fell down the Very Large Hole,” said Mr. Olderglough, this stated as though it were elementary.
“A very large hole,” Lucy said.
“The Very Large Hole, yes.” Mr. Olderglough turned and pointed to the loping hills beyond the castle. “There’s only the one. Though one is enough, I should think. Just ask Mr. Broom, eh?” He shook his head. “It was a poor ending for the boy. I was sorry about it. I had hopes for him. Ah, but his greeds and desires got away from him, as greeds and desires are wont to do.” Mr. Olderglough chuckled. “I’ve just had a recollection, boy. Would you like me to share it?”
“All right.”
“I don’t want to force it on you.”
“No, I’d like to hear, sir.”
“Very well. I was but a lad, sitting at the breakfast table with my father. Unbeknownst to him, I’d taken and eaten the last sausage, knowing it was his by rights, for I’d already had my fill. When he saw the empty plate, he looked at me and said, ‘Some wear greed as a fine suit of clothes. But you, my son, bear its stamp ever more poorly.’ Now, what do you think about that?”
“I don’t know what to think, sir.”
“Do the words not resonate with you?”
“Not so very much, I don’t think.”
“They did with me. And after he said it, I remember, he stuck me with a fork.”
“With a fork, sir?”
“Jabbed me, really. I don’t mean to imply the fork was horizontal to my flesh. It was more a punctuation of the thought than actual physical torture. Father was a performer in that way.”
At the far end of the platform, the Baron was speaking plaintively into the air. Lucy watched him awhile, then turned back to Mr. Olderglough. “I can’t imagine your having a mother or father either, actually, sir.”
“No? Perhaps you think I was hatched from an egg, eh? And perhaps I was—I’ll never tell, boy.” He bent his ear. “Did you hear a choot?”
“A what, sir?”
“A choot.”
“Is that a type of bird?”
“It is the sound the train makes. Choot, choot.”
The train was indeed approaching, and the Baron returned to stand beside Lucy and Mr. Olderglough. The flowers were trembling in his hand and he said, “I’ve gone all shivery, Myron.”
“Think of the glad times you’ve passed with her, sir. She is still that same fresh young woman you courted those many years ago.”
“If only that were so, I shouldn’t have a care in the world.”
As the train pulled into the station, the Baron cast the flowers into its wheels and screeching machinery; the three men watched as the petals were consumed. When the train came to rest, they were drowned in surging clouds of steam, and they each of them closed their eyes.