Phoenix and Ashes em-4 Read online

  She began by trying to puzzle them out, rationally and logically but as the needle wove through the heavy linen, it became more of a meditation. Fire . . . flame . . . heat. The heat of passion ... of love and anger. Righteous anger, carefully controlled. Anger as a weapon. Could love be a weapon?

  A weapon—well, perhaps not, but armor, certainly armor! And as a shield. . . .

  It was hard to get past her own education, in a way. Young ladies weren't supposed to think about anger, or passion. Young ladies—

  Young ladies weren't supposed to think about a great many things, but she had never let that stop her before.

  It was long past the time when what young ladies were "supposed" to think about was changed.

  Passion. Passion was dangerous; passion overcame reason. Yes, it could, but only if you surrendered your own will to it. That was in the alchemy books, too. If your will was strong, and your heart listened to your head, passion could be a great force for good. Passion could drive a person to do more, far more, than she thought she could. Passion became strength. . . .

  She thought about the book that had held drawings of some strange cards, cards unlike the playing cards she was used to. The card called "Strength" was a picture of a beautiful maiden gently holding the jaws of a lion shut with a single hand. That was passion in control of will, the heart obeying the head. Fire yearned to blaze without control, and yet, under the gentle guidance of will, it was a willing servant. Not tame, but tempered. . . .

  The needle flashed in the sunlight, the seams grew of themselves. It was a pleasure to sew out here in the sun, and by just luncheon, she was finished. As she surveyed her handiwork with pleasure and a little pride in her accomplishment—three years ago she would haven't even have been able to sew up the hem!—she couldn't help but wonder that if she wore these up to the meadow, would Reggie notice?

  Ah, what am I thinking? Why should he notice what I wear or don't wear?

  She shook off those thoughts, changed into her new outfit with a sense of making another little step back toward that world she had been evicted from, and ate her luncheon with her nose firmly in her alchemy books. One of the authors was very taken with a magical discipline called the Kabala, but the moment she tried to puzzle that out, she felt her eyes practically watering. If her mother had ever mastered that school, there was no sign of it in the notes she had left, and all of the numbers and letters and strange words just made Eleanor's head ache. She went back to her medievalists. The book with the drawings of the cards attracted her profoundly; she couldn't have said why, because she wasn't interested in the so-called fortune-telling abilities of the cards. No, it was more as if they could tell her something about the powers of the Elements in a more understandable way than that Kabala book.

  It was not exactly pleasure-reading. She had to reread most paragraphs several times, and then pause and think about what she had just read before she went on. She didn't manage to get through more than a couple of pages at that speed. So when teatime approached, she packed up her basket with a sense of reprieve.

  Even if he's not there, she thought, as she walked bare-headed in the beautiful May sunshine, I'm staying out for a while, as long as I can. Who knows when I'll get outside the garden again once Alison returns?

  No one paid any more attention to her today than they did any other day, but as she made mental comparisons between her new clothing and that of the other girls she passed, she was pleased to see that it held up in the comparison. Of course, this was nothing like the nice frocks she used to have—and as for the wardrobes of Alison and the girls—you might as well compare a head of cabbage to a hothouse rose.

  Reggie would not be impressed, she suspected. Not unless he was seeing her in anything like the kind of clothing the girls of his set wore, and that was about as likely as being able to fly. But at least she wouldn't be looking like a beggar or a gypsy.

  More like a poor governess, she thought, as she reached the outskirts of the village, and sighed. But then, it isn't as if I have any hope of— She resolutely turned her thoughts away from hopes of any kind. She was spending time in the company of someone who was intelligent and friendly and knew who she was. That was enough. It had to be enough. It was all she was going to get.

  And I might not get that today, she reminded herself, as she reached the border of the manor lands, and made her way through the trees, and through grass that seemed longer today than yesterday. After all, what am I to him? Nothing more than someone his mother isn't trying to get him to marry!

  And, maybe, a friend.

  I want to be his friend, she realized, with an ache of longing. Surely that much isn't too much to ask for. . . .

  And how much of a friend could someone be, who probably hadn't said more than a few hundred words to him over the course of a decade? Oh, she could be his friend, readily enough, but why should he be hers?

  No, he probably wasn't there. He had no reason to be. She was someone pleasant and intelligent to talk to, but he could find that in any of his old friends from the University.

  If any of them are still alive. . . .

  But to her undisguised delight, he was waiting for her at the usual spot, reading something, as she came up through the last of the trees.

  He looked up with a start as a twig broke under her foot, his head jerking wildly as he scanned the trees for the source of the sound. He recovered quickly, and waved at her, but that first reaction made her furrow her brow as she approached him. What on earth had caused that?

  Was he seeing some of those wretched goblins?

  But—no, if there were any here to see, she would be seeing them.

  But his expression was affable enough as she approached, and as she got near to him, wading through the calf-high grass, he flung himself down on his knees, and looked up at her in imploring mockery.

  She bit her tongue. Oh dear. Now what is he about? She was afraid he was making fun of her. But on the other hand, it made her smile to see him doing something silly. How long had it been since he'd felt easy enough to be silly?

  "Oh, gentle maid, forgive, forgive!" he cried out melodramatically, holding out a bouquet of cowslips and primroses that he must have picked while waiting for her..

  "Forgive what?" she demanded with a giggle, taking the bouquet. "Don't be so ridiculous, you'll get grass-stains on the knees of your trousers!"

  He clambered to his feet. "Forgive that I wasn't here yesterday," he said in a more normal tone of voice. "I completely forgot that I had obligations to deal with yesterday. I should have remembered, and I should have told you."

  She felt a thrill of delight, at his words—he had thought about her!—but shrugged. "Oh, that! I wasn't here either. I heard you were giving the prizes at the school treat and I know how these things go— it isn't just prizes, it's speeches and the Maypole and all of that, so I knew you'd be busy all day, and I didn't bother to come."

  "Sensible girl!" he said, relieved. "And so I was. I've brought things to make it up. Real bottles of lemonade, the fizzy kind, and some only slightly squashed tea-cakes, and jam. And—" he paused significantly. "Chicken sandwiches. That's the great benefit of being the lord of the manor, you see; no pesky officials coming around to count how many chickens you've got, and whether one's gone missing." He shook his head. "And if you think I am going to feel guilty about depriving some poor FBI of a tin of chicken paste with my scandalous and unpatriotic behavior—"

  "Actually," she said, "I doubt very much if you're depriving anyone of anything. Most of the villagers have rabbit hutches and unreported hens, and I know for a fact there are unregulated pigs in the woods. No one is feeding any of the contraband animals any rationed grain; they're living off what they can scavenge, and I suspect that's true for what went into your sandwiches."

  He regarded her thoughtfully. "I expect that's probably true. My cook has an odd pen on wheels full of birds that she moves over the vegetable garden, and I've never seen her throw any grain to them."
/>   "Exactly." She smiled at him. "The chickens are eating bugs, seeds, and weeds, which is saving manpower in the garden, too. They're probably roosters, or at least, capons, which would have been culled anyway as chicks. So no one is being deprived of anything."

  "You salve my conscience as well as my easing my mind." He sat down on the old blanket he had brought and patted it. "Come feast with me, then."

  Perfectly happy to, she sat down across from him. Truth to tell, she was rather glad that he had brought most of the tea this time. Without Alison around, there wasn't much bread left, and she had given the old women the last of the cakes yesterday. Her offerings were a bit scanty.

  "So how was the school treat?" she asked, conversationally. "Were the children absolute demons?"

  "They were rather decent, actually," he replied. "That might have been because we thought of a few more things to keep them out of trouble this year. Swings in the trees, rides in my motor, that sort of thing."

  "That was rather kind of you!" she exclaimed, a bit surprised that he had done any such thing with his fast motorcar.

  He shrugged, but looked pleased. "Oh, it was just to the gates and back. But they seemed to like it. Played the very devil with my bad leg though. I forgot how much work there would be, what with all the gearing changes and braking. By the end of the day—"

  He broke off, a little flushed. Embarrassed? It could be. There were those who would think that, because he wasn't lacking an arm or an eye, he was malingering. "What?" she supplied, trying to sound casual. "You could hardly walk?"

  He looked shamefaced. "Something like . . ."

  "Then I suspect it's a good thing you found that out driving the children up and down to the gates, and not some other way," she said, trying not to be too specific. "It does seem to me at least that your doctors are right about taking a long time to heal."

  "Well, I think you'll be happy about one thing, anyway," he said, sounding as if he was changing the subject. "Listening to the speeches, one of them was—well, rather better than I had any expectation. So Mater and I decided that we're going to put up a scholarship for the village boys to go to Oxford. Father always intended to, so now we shall."

  At first, she was irrationally pleased. How many clever boys had she known who could have done very well at university if only they'd been able to go? But then, she thought, All very well for the boys, certainly, but felt a twinge of resentment thinking about the number of equally clever girls who ended up just like their mothers, birthing lambs and babies at nearly equal intervals. "What about girls?" she asked aloud.

  "What?" He stared at her as if she had said something startling.

  "I said, what about girls?" she repeated, firming her chin stubbornly and daring him to look away. "Why only boys? Don't you think girls from the village ought to be able to go if they're clever enough?"

  "But—but—" Now he was really staring at her. "But what are they going to do with a university education? A boy can teach—become an engineer, a scientist, a doctor, a scholar—"

  "And a girl can't?" she retorted, now feeling quite angry with him. "What about that lady doctor you were always talking about? Why can't a girl become an engineer or a scientist?"

  He looked at her as if she had suddenly begun speaking in Urdu. "But—but—"

  "I was going to go to Oxford," she reminded him. "What's more, you told me I should, and that I shouldn't let anyone dissuade me!"

  "Yes, but these are just village girls, farmer's daughters, with no expectations!" he said, then continued to make his situation worse with every word. "It's not as if—I mean, you're not the same class as they are—I mean—"

  His mouth snapped shut as she flushed, as he realized he had just said something horribly rude. She looked down for a moment at her handmade skirt, then looked defiantly up into his eyes, daring him to make the comparison between the class she was supposed to be in, and the one she was apparently in now. "Maybe they have no expectations because no one ever let them think that they could," she said bitterly. "Maybe, if someone bothered to show them that they could have dreams, they might be able to dream them. Mightn't they? Just because they're shopkeepers' girls and farmers' daughters doesn't mean they don't have minds. Some of them have very good minds. And I think it's a shame and a sin that all they're thought good for is tending babies and putting up jam."

  His eyes looked miserable. But she was very angry now. And she wasn't going to let him off the hook.

  "Besides," she pointed out, with coldly, poisonously perfect logic. "Someone had better start helping ordinary girls to do things like becoming doctors and teachers. Because thanks to that bloody war, there aren't going to be any doctors and teachers otherwise. And I don't see the pretty young ladies of the proper class rushing off to university to fill the void! Do you? Of course not. It wouldn't be ladylike. It wouldn't be proper."

  He made a strangled little sound in the back of his throat, and looked away.

  I shouldn't have said that, she thought. And then thought, rebelliously, But I'm right. And I'm not going to apologize.

  "You are a truly horrible young woman, you know," he said, very slowly, as if he was weighing and measuring each word, still looking away from her. "Only the truly horrible and the young would dare to tell that much truth."

  "Only someone who doesn't have any room for illusions anymore would dare to tell that much truth," she corrected, as the anger slowly faded and cooled to an emotion that was darker and bleaker than that flare of temper. "I can't afford illusions; they are altogether too expensive to maintain. There are a great many of us in that position now."

  "Yes," he replied, turning back, slowly. "There are."

  They stared at one another, and he finally heaved a great sigh. "That was a very stupid thing to say, wasn't it?"

  "It's that whole game," she said, the bitterness back, redoubled. "That whole game of class. It's not going to work, you know! If this wretched war is ever over, it's just not going to work anymore, the whole construction is just going to go smash!"

  "Like it did in Russia?" he replied. And managed a wan smile. "You've been listening to Mad Ross Ashley."

  "I've been reading," she retorted. She didn't say anything more, but she was thinking a great deal. I don't know what's going to happen, but— well, just look! Even fifty years ago, you had rich American girls with piles of new money coming over to marry a lord with a name but no prospects, and rich tradesmen's boys getting themselves blue-blooded wives out of the Royal Enclosure that were desperate to get themselves out of tumbledown Tudor manors and into a nice London townhouse in the West End! It can't go on, can't you see that! You can't go on playing that silly game of we and they and by now you should know it!

  But she didn't say anything. She'd already said more than enough, actually. If he couldn't see this for himself—

  But he passed his hand over his eyes, as if his head hurt him. "It's—" He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't even know if we're going to see an end to this, not even with the Americans coming in. Sometimes—" He took his hand away, and looked past her, into the distance, his voice flat. "I don't know if anything matters anymore, because all we are ever going to see is that Juggernaut grinding on and on until there isn't anyone left to fight... so what's the point of anything anymore? Why bother trying to change anything, when there isn't going to be anything left to change?"

  She bit her lip. She hadn't meant to throw him into this slough of despair, and the worst of it was, she couldn't disagree with him.

  And there didn't seem to be anything she could say to make any difference. Or at least, nothing that wasn't at least partly a lie.

  "I'm sorry, Reggie," she said, finally. "I didn't mean to—to remind you."

  He looked up, and at least he didn't try to smile. "I don't know how any of us can get through the course of a day without being reminded," he said, quietly. "You have to be lying to yourself, I suppose, or purposefully blinding yourself. Like the people who can't seem to find
anything to talk about except how hard it is to find a good servant or the impossibility of getting a good chop. Anything except about what's across the Channel."

  "But there are good things left, still," she replied, forcing herself to rally, and trying harder now to give him some sense of hope. "I can't see that it's wrong to remember that. Pretending the bleak things don't exist is wrong, and not trying to do something about them is worse yet, but it can't be wrong to also remember that there is still joy, still a little peace, still things to laugh about, and still love." She felt her voice faltering, but forced herself to carry on, hoping that she didn't sound too maudlin. "If we forget that, we'll lose hope, too."

  "Ah, hope," he said, his voice growing a little lighter. And he did manage a smile. "Hope, the last spirit left in Pandora's jar, after she let all the troubles and plagues of the world out."

  "And she let hope fly free, too," Eleanor said softly. "Because when all is said and done, hope is sometimes all that keeps us from surrendering to despair."