Susan Schonberg - The Phoenix Of Love

When she spoke, her voice was low and clear, yet with a girlish quality at odds with her serene and mature appearance. “You’ve been to see my father,” she said, and she watched his reaction with unblinking eyes.

The feeling of unreality for Olivia intensified with his answer. “Yes,” she heard him respond, and she knew without question that was all he was going to say. Distantly, as if she had no more control over herself than an automaton, she evaluated him.

His clothes were worn, but they were those of a gentleman. But it wasn’t his clothes that interested her, so she dismissed them with hardly another thought. His hair, like her own, was black, but it was the dead black of charred wood, not the vibrant shade of night like hers. It was wild, untamed hair, coarse and difficult to train, and too long in places, as though he had tried to trim it himself without the use of a looking glass. But even this feature had no prolonged interest for her. What Olivia really needed to study, what she had to understand, she knew, deep inside her, was his face.

It was a hard face. The line of his jaw was much too strong, his chin too pronounced. His eyebrows were live things, crouched beneath a creased forehead too tall and noble to speak of mercy. His nose, full and proudly Roman, was not the nose of a man known for his kindness and generosity.

But, she thought, there was more to him than that.

The lines of his chin and the hollows in his cheeks were more the result of hunger than anything else. She could tell because she had seen that look before on beggar children in the street. He was tall, very tall, but his jacket flapped loosely with space that had once been filled with muscle.

As for the bags under his eyes, she knew they were due to a combination of sleeplessness and drink. Her father, on rare occasions, looked like that when he had had a particularly rough night of carousing in town. And the wrinkles on his brow, and the intimidating way his eyebrows drew together, those could be fixed if he were but to smile.

That, of course, was the heart of the question. Could this man be brought to smile?

And so it was that Olivia finally sought the one part of him that would tell her the answers. She looked into his eyes. Dark, dark eyes, she thought. Exceedingly dark; they were stormy eyes, full of horrible promises. Eyes that had seen too much from a mind that had done too much. Eyes that were full of terrible secrets that could haunt you in the night.

Eyes that begged for help.

And then, without realizing it, Olivia answered their silent plea. “If you want,” she said slowly, offering him the only thing she had to give at the moment, “you can pet her if you like.” And she held up the small ball of fur for his scrutiny.

A shudder ran through the marquis. It gripped him so strongly that, for a moment, Olivia thought he would surely fall. But then, just when she knew he would turn away, the tremor passed, and he slowly sank down to the ground beside her. Then, tentatively, as though he were afraid the small animal might bite him, he reached out one hand and began to pet its tiny head.

“Maddie,” exclaimed Olivia that afternoon as she grabbed a jam tart and popped it into her mouth, “did you see the pirate?”

“Now, love,” shushed the young girl’s nursemaid tenderly, “you know there are no such thing as pirates.” She held up an admonishing finger to her charge. “And how many times have I told you not to talk with your mouth full? And what do you mean by not washing your hands after playing with that filthy kitten?”

Olivia, not the least bit abashed by this chastisement, tried to hold on to her nanny’s attention. “But there are! I saw one here today! He even played with Isis!”

Maddie, having glimpsed the marquis herself earlier, knew full well whom Olivia meant. But she didn’t believe in giving in to flights of fancy, and she told Olivia as much.

“Olivia!” chided Maddie just as she was about to retort. “I told you not to talk with your mouth full. Now no more talk of pirates, child. I mean it!”

Olivia, left to her own thoughts as she munched her tart, reflected that it was a pity her nursemaid couldn’t have been with her to see the pirate. But her father had seen him, and he would surely understand her reference. After all, he certainly did look like a pirate. Even if he hadn’t exactly acted like one.

As always when she thought of her father, a smile began creeping its way up her face. Papa had promised to teach her about the ancient Greeks tonight, and she loved his lessons on Greek mythology. Maybe when he was done, they could talk about the pirate, and she could find out why he had come….

After dinner, much the same as before dinner, Olivia was alone. Wandering now through the empty house, she stopped suddenly as she heard voices raised in anger. She immediately recognized her father’s voice, but the other one was unfamiliar to her.

Softly tiptoeing around the corner, Olivia made her way gradually to the door of her father’s study. The door was open a crack, and without feeling the least remorse for her actions, she peeked through the opening.

Her father was in what her nurse would have called a “heated discussion” with a local tradesman. After racking her brain, Olivia remembered having seen this man make deliveries of wine and brandy to their house. It wasn’t an unusual conversation for her father to be having, thought Olivia morosely. She’d overheard several of its kind in the recent past.

As Olivia moved quietly away from the door and went upstairs to the bedroom, she grew increasingly unhappy. She was an intelligent child, and she knew that her father didn’t have much money. Ever since she could remember, Maddie had emphasized to Olivia the importance of practicing economies. But no matter what lengths Maddie and she went to in order to cut expenses from their daily budget, it never seemed to be enough.

Olivia sat down on her bed, her chin in her hand. She didn’t know what she could do to help her father pay the bills, but she was determined to try. Perhaps she and Maddie could expand the kitchen garden out back? She’d have to think about it.

Wentworth had long ago done away with the age-old custom of children eating their meals upstairs. It wasn’t really out of any noble sentiment that he ignored that form of etiquette—just the opposite, in fact. If the truth be known, Wentworth simply got lonely.

At supper Wentworth seemed inclined to be more melancholy than at any other time of the day. Perhaps it was the candlelight. Perhaps it was the empty expanse of table and the encroaching shadows. Who knew? In any case, before Margaret’s death, he liked to have his children with him at supper to keep him company. After his first daughter died, he grew almost fanatical about having Olivia there.

Wentworth’s melancholy tonight was so palpable that Olivia could barely eat. Sometimes she chattered brightly in order to shake her father from his blue studies, but tonight Olivia’s attempts had met with dismal failure. Her father spoke in monosyllables throughout the indifferently cooked meal, speaking only when spoken to, and often not even then. It didn’t take much, thought Olivia, to see that he was preoccupied with his own thoughts.

After a time, Olivia could stand the oppressive atmosphere no longer. Without realizing what had put her father into such a depressed mood, she asked in an unusually loud voice, “Who was that man today, Papa?”

Wentworth’s head snapped up from where he had been studiously examining a chip on his plate. The eyes of his innocent young daughter speared him in his seat like a pin in a butterfly, and for a second all he felt was agony. If Olivia had slapped him in the face and called him a devil, he could not imagine how she could have struck him with a deeper sense of guilt.