The Baroness sat upright in her bed, reading a book. Lucy entered with her breakfast tray and stood at a distance. She knew he was there but didn’t raise her eyes right away; exhaling sharply, she clapped the book shut and said, “I for one find it an annoyance when a story doesn’t do what it’s meant to do. Don’t you, boy?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean, ma’am.”
“Do you not appreciate an entertainment?”
“I do.”
“And would you not find yourself resentful at the promise of entertainment unfulfilled?”
“I believe I would, ma’am.”
“There we are, then.”
“We are here,” Lucy agreed.
The Baroness set the book on her bedside table and looked at Lucy. “So, this is the infamous letter writer.”
“Am I infamous, ma’am?”
“In that you’ve been on my mind, yes. May I ask what prompted you to write it?”
“I felt it justified. Are you displeased with me?”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
“I suppose you must.”
“It upset me greatly, your letter.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“I dislike urgency of any kind.”
“Neither am I fond of it. But all was not well here, and as your absence seemed the source of the problem, then I took my small liberty.”
“You call it a small liberty.”
“I do, ma’am.”
“I spilled tea over my dress reading it.”
“He was eating rats, ma’am.”
“What?”
“The Baron was eating rats. All was not well here.”
She gave him a queer look. “Is that meant to be funny, boy?”
“It’s not meant to be, no.”
“You’re a strange one.”
“Possibly I am, ma’am, yes. Probably I am.” He considered it. “I am,” he said.
She drew back her blanket and sat on the edge of the bed, her bare feet hovering above the floor. A shiver ran up her spine, and she yawned, and asked, “What is your aim, here, exactly?”
“I have no one aim, ma’am, other than to perform my duties agreeably. In regard to the present moment, my hope is that you’ll forgive me my imposition.”
“It seems likely that I will.”
“That’s my hope.” He held up the tray. “Where would you like me to put this?”
The Baroness didn’t answer, having drifted into some private mood, gazing dreamily at the wall, or through it. Lucy set the tray on a side table and said, “If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am, it’s good that you’ve come.”
“Good for whom?” said the Baroness absently.
“For everyone.”
“I don’t know about that.” She came away from her reverie and turned to Lucy with an expression of amusement, as though he had said something humorous.
“What is it, ma’am?”
“I don’t know what,” she said. “I just felt so happy all at once. Strange.” She touched the pads of her fingers to her fine, pale forehead. There was something in this small gesture which startled Lucy; and he suddenly understood how this person could drive a man like the Baron to the depths to which he had recently sunk.
Lucy wished to mark this understanding of her powers, to comment upon it. He said, “You’re just as Mr. Olderglough claimed, ma’am.”
She slid off the tall bed and moved to sit on the bench before her vanity mirror. “Is that so,” she said, her ribboned hair halfway down her back. “And just how did he describe me, I wonder.”
“He said that you were a light in a dark place.”
She was stealing glances at herself, from this side and that; and now she studied her face directly. What entered into a beautiful woman’s mind when she considered her reflection? Judging by her expression, she was not thinking in admiring terms. “Anyway, it is dark here,” she told him. Taking up her tresses in both hands, and in an uninterrupted corkscrewing motion, she coiled and stacked her hair into a tidy pile atop her head; and pressing the bun down with her left hand, she pinned it in place with her right. Lucy had never before seen such effortless feminine pruning, and was impressed by the seamless brutality of it. The Baroness was watching him in the mirror. “So we’re to be friends, you and I, is that right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, then, friend. Bring that tray over here and feed me while I get ready.”
Lucy thought she had merely been acting playful in saying this; but as she sat by expectantly, now he saw that she was serious, and so he did as she asked, taking a seat beside her and feeding her fruit and porridge and sips of tea while she appraised her face, altering it here and there with creams and powders and coloring, these set out neatly before her in jars and canisters and spray-bulb bottles. Lucy enjoyed his feeding her to the utmost; there was in her eyes a sorrow so profound that it invoked a drop in his stomach. He had no wish to protect her from it, or alleviate it, as he did with Klara; he merely wanted to witness it, and to recall it later when he was alone. He admired her in the way one might admire an avalanche, and his mind meandered, for he was intoxicated by his nearness to so rare a person as she. At a certain point he realized the Baroness was pinching the top of his hand.
“Did you hear what I asked you, Lucy?”
“I didn’t, no.”
“I asked if you might accompany me on a walk later.”
“Yes, ma’am. And where shall we walk to?”
Her eyes became distant. “I will lead the way,” she told him, then asked him to leave, that she might dress for the occasion. Afterward Lucy stood in the hall outside her door, staring in wonderment at the smarting red smudge on his hand.