Against The World

Chapter 91: Twenty-Two Candles

Evelyn began her twenty-second birthday by asking me to find a clean cloth.

“Behind you,” she added.

I turned.

“Your other behind.”

“That seems anatomically unreasonable.”

“Uriah.”

I found it.

Our son watched the exchange from her arms with milk at the corner of his mouth and no apparent concern for my dignity.

I passed her the cloth, then bent to kiss her.

“Happy birthday.”

She smiled against my mouth.

“Thank you.”

Outside, the sky was beginning to pale. A thin white line of frost edged the window, and the nursery lamp still cast its shaded light across the floor.

Carol slept through the occasion.

Garrick appeared to be considering whether he had finished eating.

Evelyn looked down at him.

“Twenty-two,” she said quietly.

“How does it feel?”

“Ask me after breakfast.”

Helena arrived with breakfast.

Her husband followed with the expression of a man who had been entrusted with something fragile.

It was the teapot.

“I offered to carry the tray,” he explained.

“And I remembered the stairs,” Helena replied.

She set everything down, crossed to Evelyn, and kissed her forehead.

“Happy birthday, darling.”

Evelyn reached up and caught her hand before she could move away.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Helena sat beside her.

Garrick placed the teapot safely on the table and leaned down to kiss his daughter’s cheek.

“Twenty-two years,” he said.

“Have they been difficult?”

“Several afternoons stand out.”

She laughed.

We ate with the children taking turns requiring someone’s attention. Helena buttered toast for Evelyn while my wife held Carol. Garrick walked his grandson slowly between the window and the hearth.

I watched him pass the same chair three times.

“Does that help?”

“He prefers the view.”

“He can barely see the view.”

“Then we shall become familiar with it gradually.”

Evelyn caught my eye over her cup.

I decided the birthday morning was going well.

I brought out the paint box after breakfast.

The ribbon had loosened overnight.

I tightened it in the doorway, making it worse.

Evelyn saw me.

“You could simply bring it here.”

“I’m preparing the presentation.”

“Is the presentation winning?”

I abandoned the ribbon.

She shifted forward as I set the box on the table.

Her fingers stopped above the lid.

For several seconds, she only looked at it.

Then she touched the small brass catch.

“Oh.”

Helena smiled from beside the hearth.

Evelyn opened the lid.

Her name waited inside, painted in letters that had clearly required more confidence than practice.

She traced the uneven E.

“I’d forgotten I wrote that.”

“Your father hadn’t,” I said.

“It took considerable supervision,” Garrick added.

“You said I could do it myself.”

“And then I supervised from the doorway.”

She lifted the folding brush rest. Turned one of the old brushes between her fingers. Beneath the fresh paper lay the little stack of drawings we had brought home with it.

She found the sketch of her father asleep.

Garrick looked over.

“That was a private sitting.”

“You were in the drawing room.”

“With my eyes closed.”

Evelyn laughed, then looked more closely at the new paints.

“You’ve filled it.”

“I had help choosing.”

“From Mother?”

“From a man who discovered quite quickly that I didn’t understand blue.”

“There are several.”

“He was very thorough.”

Her smile softened.

She touched the new brushes, their pale handles still clean.

Then she found the letter.

I became aware of Helena standing.

“Come along,” she told Garrick.

He looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms.

“I’m occupied.”

“You may remain occupied in the next room.”

They took the children with them.

The door stayed partly open.

Evelyn unfolded the paper.

I sat beside her and tried not to watch every movement of her eyes.

She smiled at the first lines.

Then became quiet.

I knew what she was reading.

I had spent long enough writing it.

I like the way you look at me when you know I’m about to say something foolish.

You usually let me say it.

I like hearing you laugh when you forget that anyone might be listening. I like the way you tell a story and go back halfway through because you’ve remembered something you think I ought to know.

I like sitting beside you when neither of us has anything to say.

Her thumb moved along the fold.

There are things I knew about you before we married, and things I have learned since. I hope there are things you haven’t discovered about yourself yet that I will be here to see.

Paintings you want to make. Places you want to go. Opinions you will hold very firmly until you change them and explain that the circumstances are entirely different.

A small breath escaped her.

Almost a laugh.

I want to hear about all of them.

I love our children. I love the life we are making. And when I look across a room and see you, I still want to find an excuse to come closer.

Happy birthday, Evelyn.

I’m very glad you were born.

She read the last line twice.

Then she folded the letter carefully and put it on the table.

“Come here.”

“I’m already quite close.”

“Closer.”

I obliged.

She kissed me with one hand against my cheek.

When she drew back, her eyes were wet.

“I had something clever ready.”

“You can tell me later.”

“I may have forgotten it by then.”

“I’ll risk it.”

She rested her forehead against mine.

“Thank you for remembering the paint box.”

I looked toward her name beneath the lid.

“I wanted to see what you would put in it next.”

The afternoon light reached the little sitting room shortly after lunch.

We had moved a table nearer the window. A board protected its surface, and a jug of clean water stood beside the brushes.

Evelyn sat down wearing an old gown with the sleeves rolled back.

She opened the box.

I settled into the chair beside her with the book Mary had helped me choose.

“What are you painting?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Should I move?”

“Only if the story is bad.”

I opened to the first page.

The tale concerned a miller’s daughter who inherited a boat despite living nowhere near a river.

Evelyn mixed blue with a little brown.

By the second page, the daughter had decided to carry the boat over a mountain.

“That seems difficult,” I said.

“You’ve interrupted already.”

“I’m concerned about her planning.”

“Read.”

I read.

A crow offered assistance.

Evelyn selected a broader brush.

By the time the crow demanded payment in silver buttons, I had decided I disliked him.

My wife disagreed.

“He did explain his terms.”

“He waited until she was halfway up the mountain.”

“A strong negotiating position.”

I looked at her.

She kept painting.

The corner of her mouth gave her away.

For a while, the only sounds were my voice, the fire, and the soft touch of her brush against the water jar.

She was painting the window.

Or rather, the view through it.

The pale roofs below us. A dark line of wall. Winter sky opening above the hills.

She left much of the paper untouched.

I had expected her to fill it.

Instead, the light seemed to come from those empty places.

“How do you know where to stop?”

“I don’t always.”

She leaned back, considered the page, then added a small stroke near the wall.

“There. That was probably too much.”

“It looks right to me.”

“You’re in love with the painter.”

“Yes.”

“That compromises your judgment.”

“I shall endure it.”

She smiled and reached for another brush.

Later, Helena brought Carol in for a feed.

I put the book aside while Evelyn washed her hands, then picked it up again once she was settled.

“Where were we?” she asked.

“The crow has stolen a waistcoat.”

“Borrowed.”

“He sold it.”

“Then I withdraw my defense.”

Our daughter fed while I continued reading.

The painting waited by the window.

When Carol went back to her grandmother, Evelyn returned to it without apology or hurry.

She worked until the light began to fade.

Then she set down the brush.

“Finished?” I asked.

“For today.”

I closed the book with a finger between the pages.

The boat had still not reached water.

We had enjoyed ourselves anyway.

When Evelyn came out of the bedchamber before supper, I forgot what I had intended to say.

The gown moved from blue to green as she crossed the light.

Its sleeves fell softly at her wrists. Her hair had been pinned back enough to show her face, with a few dark strands left loose beside her cheeks.

She stopped in front of me.

“Well?”

I stood.

“You’re beautiful.”

“You said that at the fitting.”

“I was right then too.”

She looked pleased.

Then she turned a little, letting the skirt move.

“It’s comfortable.”

“Good.”

“And I can sit down in it.”

“An ambitious design.”

“And if our son disagrees with the color, he can tell his grandmother.”

I offered her my arm.

She took it.

At the door, she paused to look once more in the mirror.

I waited while she adjusted a loose strand of hair.

Then she nodded to herself, and we went downstairs.

The small dining room had acquired more candles than I remembered approving.

Helena avoided my eyes.

There were places for family and friends, with the cradles in the adjoining room where we could see them through the open door.

Mary had left her ledger elsewhere.

Melody had dressed for supper and was already arguing with Alistair about whether a birthday entitled someone to win at cards.

“It entitles them to choose the game,” he said.

“That seems ungenerous.”

“It also entitles them to lose.”

Evelyn smiled as they greeted her.

Eleanor had brought a small parcel wrapped with extraordinary neatness. Inside was a smooth stone weight for holding drawing paper, veined with green.

“For when you open a window,” she said.

Evelyn ran her thumb over it.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t drop it on your foot.”

“I’ll try to resist.”

Tilda and Aldren arrived together, the former carrying a pair of little metal clips for the painting board.

“Eleanor told us,” Tilda explained.

From the doorway, Beatrice announced that if anyone wished to admire presents for another hour, they could do it over cold supper.

We sat down.

She stayed once the dishes were brought in.

Helena had made certain there was a place for her.

There was roast meat with herbs, onions cooked until they were sweet, warm bread, and a dish Evelyn recognized before it reached her.

“Mother.”

“What?”

“You asked them to make it.”

“Possibly.”

Evelyn took a generous spoonful.

I leaned toward her.

“What is it?”

“Something I used to claim I disliked because my cousin always wanted the last helping.”

“Did it work?”

“For nearly a year.”

Across the table, Garrick lowered his glass.

“We knew.”

Evelyn stared at him.

Helena began to laugh.

The conversation moved easily after that.

Alistair told a story about a formal dinner at which the guest of honor had fallen asleep before the second course. Mary asked whether the speech had already begun.

“It had not.”

“A missed opportunity.”

Melody laughed into her cup.

When Garrick woke and objected to the distance between himself and his mother, supper paused around us without becoming an event.

Evelyn went into the adjoining room.

Helena followed with her plate.

I brought her drink.

Through the open door, we could still hear Eleanor explaining exactly why a visiting official had once been required to climb his own proposed staircase.

Evelyn ate another mouthful and listened.

“I’m glad we did this,” she said.

“So am I.”

Then Melody demanded the official’s exact words, and my wife leaned forward to hear the answer.

Beatrice brought the cake herself.

Honey and orange filled the warm room.

Candied peel lay across the top, bright beneath twenty-two small flames.

Evelyn’s face changed when she saw it.

Helena watched her daughter rather than the cake.

I watched both of them.

“Oh,” Evelyn said.

Beatrice set it down.

“And every piece on top is accounted for.”

“I haven’t touched it.”

“Yet.”

Garrick rose with his glass.

Evelyn looked up at him.

“Father.”

“Briefly,” he promised.

He seemed to consider several things he might say.

Then his expression softened.

“To Evelyn. We’re very glad to be here with you.”

Her hand found mine beneath the table.

Glasses lifted.

She blew out the candles in two breaths.

One near the center resisted.

Melody leaned forward as though preparing to assist.

“I have it,” Evelyn said.

She extinguished it.

Everyone applauded, which made her laugh.

While Beatrice reached for the knife, Evelyn stole a piece of peel from the edge.

Her mother saw.

Then took one herself.

The musicians began after the plates were cleared.

A fiddle and a small harp.

Nothing loud enough to trouble the children, although Carol appeared willing to be troubled on principle.

Garrick carried her while Helena spoke with Ilyen near the hearth.

I stood beside Evelyn.

“Would you like to dance?”

She looked toward the little space we had left near the windows.

“One.”

I offered my hand.

She rose and came with me.

We moved slowly.

There was no room for anything elaborate, which suited my abilities considerably.

Her hand rested on my shoulder.

Mine settled at her waist.

For a while, she watched my face.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“That looked like something.”

“I was remembering you learning.”

“I’m attempting to forget.”

“You concentrated so hard.”

“I still do.”

“I know.”

She stepped closer.

“You can look at me. Your feet will manage.”

I looked at her.

The green in her gown caught the candlelight.

Behind her, Mary was smiling at something Melody had said. Helena leaned against Garrick’s arm while he held their granddaughter.

Evelyn turned gently beneath my hand, then returned.

When the tune ended, I expected her to let go.

She kept my hand.

“Perhaps another.”

Later, upstairs, I helped her remove the pins from her hair.

There were more than I had expected.

“You’re certain these all went in tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I think we should count them.”

“You counted the candles.”

“That was easier. They were burning.”

She laughed.

Her hair came loose over her shoulders.

I set the final pin in its dish and bent to kiss the back of her neck.

She reached up and touched my cheek.

“Was it enough fuss?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Too much?”

“No.”

She turned on the stool to face me.

“It was lovely.”

I sat beside her.

The children were asleep for the moment. Her gown hung carefully over the screen, and the paint box stood open on the table.

She had put my letter beneath the lid where she could see it.

“Mother wants me to come and paint at Valewood one afternoon,” she said. “When the weather is kinder.”

“I’d like that.”

“You’re invited.”

“Will there be a mountain and a boat?”

“We haven’t finished the story.”

“We could finish it there.”

She considered this.

“Before then, I hope.”

I smiled.

She leaned against me, and we sat until Carol began to stir.

While I lifted our daughter, Evelyn went to the painting by the window.

“What are you doing?”

“Something I forgot.”

She took up a pencil.

At the bottom of the winter view, in the small space she had left clear, she wrote her name and the date.

Then she added:

My twenty-second birthday.

She looked at it for a moment.

“Now,” she said, “I’m finished.”

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