David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

“What do you mean?” asked Lucy. The man’s voice was light and easy, but his words chilled her.

“The world is changing, young lady. You must know that. The things that play in the forest about here—they will play no longer. And sport no more seen on the darkening green.” He paused for a moment. “Oh, dear. I do hate when I quote my own writing, but I just now understand what I was saying, and it is such a surprise when things become clear.”

“Lucy!” Martha hissed just above a whisper. “Do you know this gentleman ?”

The older man removed his hat and bowed. “I do beg your pardon. I seem to have forgotten my manners. My name is William Blake, engraver, and I am at your service.”

There was no doubt the man was peculiar, but Lucy’s instincts told her that she had nothing to fear, so she curtsied and smiled at the man. “I am Lucy Derrick, and this is my sister, Mrs. Martha Buckles.”

“Very charmed, ladies. And I believe it is you, Miss Derrick, that I have come all the way from London to see. And having completed my task, I must return to London and my work. I do hate to be away from my home and my dear wife. I only wished to come here to make your acquaintance.”

“I am very sorry,” said Martha. “You traveled more than a hundred miles to meet someone you did not know, and having said hello to her, you return from whence you’ve come?”

“You have it precisely,” Mr. Blake answered with great cheer. “Now I have ordered it so that when Miss Derrick and I meet again, we will no longer be strangers.”

“That is nonsensical,” said Martha.

“If you subscribe to the narrow reason of Bacon and Newton and Hume and men of that stripe, then I suppose it is,” answered Mr. Blake. “I choose not to let the devil’s logic interfere with God’s truth, not when it is before my eyes.”

Martha turned to Lucy. “You appear remarkably unperturbed. Do you know something of all this?”

Lucy shook her head. “This sort of thing happens to me a great deal these days. But sir, can you tell me nothing more of your business with me?”

“I cannot because I know nothing of it,” he answered. “I have no doubt we shall know in time. But the green is darkening, is it not? The mills come, belching smoke and ash, grinding men to dust, and nature prepares to decay. You know it too, I think.”

“Lucy,” Martha said again, the urgency evident in her voice.

Lucy was about to respond, but she suddenly heard weeping, and she observed that Mr. Blake heard it too. It was a soft sound—a delicate, feminine sobbing—nothing menacing, and yet Lucy understood that the afternoon had turned. The air grew cool, and the hair on the back of her neck bristled. Everything around her refined and sharpened into vivid colors. She heard every twig and leaf crunch under their feet.

They traveled some fifty feet down the path and found, sitting under a tree, a young woman in a dingy white dress, rustic by the look of it. They could not determine her age, for she had her back to them, but she wore her coppery hair loose and unruly under her bonnet, and by her size—tall and very thin—Lucy imagined her to be in her late teens. There was something about her look, about her misery and the way she held her head in her hands, that reminded her of herself weeping after the death of her sister. She remembered one afternoon, some weeks after the day her father had admitted her to his study, when she had been walking behind the house, and Emily’s death had struck her fresh, like a blow. She had understood, as if for the first time, that her sister was gone, that she would never see her again, and the emptiness of this realization overwhelmed her. She had fallen to the ground and wept, unable to stop herself, unable to find the will to try.

She knew not how long she lay there—hours perhaps—lost in her own misery, until she’d felt hands upon her shoulders. She’d shrugged them off, but they were insistent, and when at last she looked up, Lucy saw that it was her father, out of his study, pulling her to her feet. He was not used to being an affectionate man, and he did not love to touch even his children, but he took her into his embrace and let her weep against his shoulder for long minutes, until she felt smothered by the scent of wet wool. She did not know if there was ever a moment when she’d loved her father so well, or needed him more, or was so glad to have his guidance.

Now she looked upon this strange girl as she sat hunched over, a mournful, almost bovine sound escaping her lips, and Lucy wanted to comfort her, wanted to offer her some small portion of what only another person can provide in such moments of grief. As they approached, the girl did not regard them at all, and they saw she was bent over a book. The text must be passing melancholy, Lucy thought, to elicit such a response.

Martha hung back, but Lucy circled around, and Mr. Blake walked by her side, a look of pure concern upon his wrinkled face. When they could see the girl’s face, they noted that she was pretty, with a fair countenance, somewhat marred by freckles and a nose broad and flat at the bridge, but with large, very beautiful hazel eyes—red and moist with tears though they might have been.

As Lucy and Mr. Blake approached her from the side, the girl suddenly started and scrambled to her feet in a terrified scurry, more animal-like than human. Once she rose, however, she appeared somewhat calmed by the sight of the two young ladies and the kindly older man, who anyone could see posed no threat. There was, however, a marked look of incomprehension on the girl’s face. Her mouth hung slightly open, her eyes squinted as though willing the world to form into some intelligible shape.

Curiously, the girl wore a slate around her neck, held on by a piece of thick cord, and in her hand she held a piece of chalk. The book she’d been reading lay on the ground, and Lucy read the spine. It was Byron’s Poems on Various Occasions .

“Hello,” Lucy said cautiously. “We are sorry to have startled you.”

Martha had now come around to face the girl, who had begun to mark up her slate with furious speed. I am Sophie Hyatt. I am deaf .

Lucy gestured that she would like the slate so she might respond, but the girl shook her head and gestured toward her lips. Lucy had read of deaf people who could understand words by watching a speaker’s lips, though she had never seen the thing done herself. Overwhelmed by the wonder of it, Lucy said, speaking slowly and moving her mouth in exaggerated gestures, “I am Lucy, and this is Martha and Mr. Blake.”

The deaf girl laughed, and in her laughter, she appeared remarkably beautiful. Speak as you are used , she wrote on the slate, and held up the sign with her eyes twinkling. Not so slow .

“I am sorry,” Lucy said. “I did not mean to offend you. Or to startle you. We heard you weeping, and wished only to make sure you were not in distress.”

“Not in distress,” said Mr. Blake. “In love.”

She wiped at her eyes with her fingers and wrote, Yes .

Unable to help herself, Lucy said, “Not with Byron, I hope.”

Sophie took a step backwards. Do you know him? she wrote after a moment’s reflection.

“Only a little,” said Lucy, not wishing to set herself up as a rival to this deaf girl, though she was pretty, and a certain kind of man liked a vulnerable woman. Was Byron such a man? Would he prefer this poor creature to Lucy? She hated herself that such thoughts occurred to her, and she summoned the will to set them aside. In this she was very near successful. “I do not know him well enough to be invited to Newstead. I come merely to look at the grounds with my sister, and we met Mr. Blake along the way.”