It was easiest for Hope and me. I was the youngest, I
was in Love with no one except perhaps Euripides, and while I grieved deeply for my father and for Grace, there was little in the city or our life there that I loved for itself—although rather more that I took for granted, like my own maid and all the books that I wanted. I was frightened of the unknown that we faced, and of our ignorance; but I had never been afraid of hard work, I had no beauty to lose, nor would there be any wrench at parting from high society, I didn’t relish the thought of sleeping in an attic and washing my own clothes, but then it didn’t fill me with horror either, and I was still young enough to see it in the light of an adventure.
Hope had told me weeks before that Gervain’s original plans had included a maid to do the heavy work, and four rooms would have been sufficient if not ample for the two of them (our house in town had eighteen rooms, including a ballroom two stories tall, plus kitchens and servants’ quarters). These latter days she was subdued, but there was an air of suppressed excitement about her. Once started on a task that could be finished in one effort, she would accomplish it efficiently enough; but she was absentminded about messages, or about remembering to return to a task only partially completed. She confessed to me one night that she felt guilty for feeling so happy: It was very selfish of her to be glad that she was going with Gervain, yet would not be moving away from her family.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Seeing your happiness is what’s holding the other two together.” Nearly every night, after Grace and Father had gone to bed, Hope and I met, usually in my bedroom, to discuss how “the other two” were doing, and whether there was anything further that might be done for them. And for Hope to ease the tension of being quiet during the day for her father’s and elder sister’s sakes by babbling at length to me about how wonderful Gervain was. “Besides,” I added after a moment, “washing your own floors will be enough and plenty of reality for you.”
“Don’t forget the tarry aprons you prophesied before,” Hope said, smiling.
No one mentioned goblins or dragons or magicians.
2
The day of the auction came all too soon. The three of us spent it locked up in I Grace’s sitting room, which had been re-| served from the sale proceedings for the use of the family, shivering in each other’s arms, and listening to the strange voices and strange footsteps walking in our rooms. Gervain was in charge; Father had been bundled off to spend the day going over records at the shipyard; it was Ger who had the lists of items to be sold and saved, and it was he who answered questions.
At the end of the day, Ger knocked on our door and said gently, “It’s all over; come out now, and have some tea.” Much of the furniture was left, for we had been left the house and “fittings” for the two more weeks Ger had estimated it would take us to be packed up finally and gone. But many of the small pieces—Father’s Chinese bowl, the smaller Oriental rugs, vases, little tables, the paintings off the walls—were gone, and the house looked forlorn. The three of us wandered from room to room clinging to each other’s hands, and silently counting the missing articles in the last sad rays of the setting sun. The house smelled of tobacco smoke and strange perfumes.
Ger, after leaving us half an hour alone, swept us up from the drawing room where we had collapsed at last—it had suffered the fewest depredations of any of the rooms—and said, “Come downstairs, see what your friends have left you,” and refusing to say more, ushered us down to the kitchen. Father met us on the front stair, gazing at a dark rectangular spot in the wallpaper, and was brought along. Downstairs, on tables and chairs and in the pantry were laid haphazard any number of things, much of it food: smoked hams and bacon and venison, sealed jars of vegetables and preserves, and a few precious ones of apples and peaches and apricots. There were bolts of cloth, gingham and chintz, muslin, linen, and fine-woven wool; there were leathers, soft and supple and carefully stretched; and there were three heavy fur capes. There was also a canary in a cage, who tried a trill on us when we peered in at him.
“You should not have let them do this,” said Father.
“Indeed, I did not know,” Ger said, “and I am glad I did not, for I am not sure I would have tried to stop anyone. But I only discovered it myself a few minutes ago.”
Father stood frowning; he had been very firm in resisting offers of charity, and in paying all his debts, even when fellow merchants were willing to cancel them silently, for old friendship’s sake.
A few servants had pleaded to stay with us, even without pay, until we left; and although we could ill afford even to feed them, Father could not quite bring himself to send them away. One of them, a young woman named Ruth, came down the scullery stairs now and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Huston; there’s a man here to see Miss Beauty.”
“All right,” I said, wondering who it might be. “You might as well send him down here.” Father made a restless motion, but said nothing. The rest of us looked at one another for a moment, and then there was, the tread of heavy boots on the stairs, and Tom Black appeared in the doorway.
Tom bred, raised, and trained horses; he had a stable in die city, and a stud farm outside the city, and an excellent reputation throughout a large portion of the country. He sold hacks and hunters and carriage horses for his livelihood; all our animals had come from him. My sisters had owned, up until this morning, two pretty, round little mares with gentle manners; and for me, who looked slightly better in the saddle than anywhere else, there had been a long lean chestnut gelding who could jump over anything that stayed in one place long enough for him to gallop up to it. But Tom’s real love was for the Great Horses, eighteen hands high and taller, descended from the big, heavy horses the knights had used to carry themselves and several hundred pounds of armour into battle at an earth-breaking gallop. Many draft horses pulling carts and ploughs across the country owed their size and strength to the diluted blood of these old chargers; but the horses Tom bred were sleek and beautiful, and ridden by princes.
“Your horse,” he said to me. “I’ve left him in the stable for you. Thought I’d best tell you, so you could go down, say hello, settle him in; he’ll get lonesome by himself, now that all the little stuff is gone.” The little stuff was our riding and carriage horses, which had been taken away by their new owners. “And his saddle. It’s only an old one. A bit worn. But it’ll do you for a bit.”
I was looking at him blankly.
“Don’t gape at me, girl,” said Tom irritably. “Great-heart. He’s in the stable, waiting for you. I’m telling you to go say good night to him or he won’t sleep for worrying.”
“You can’t give me Greatheart,” I said at last
“I’m not giving him to you,” replied Tom. “There’s no giving about it. He won’t eat if you go off without him, I know it. He’s already been missing you these last weeks; you come around so rarely, it makes him uneasy. So you take him with you. He’s a big strong horse. You’ll find uses for him.”
“But—Tom,” I said desperately, wondering why no one else was saying anything. “He’s a tremendously valuable horse—you can’t want one of your Great Horses pulling a cart, which is all there’ll be for him with us. He should carry the King.”
“He wouldn’t like carrying the King,” said Tom. “He’ll do what you tell him to. I didn’t think I had to tell you to be good to him, but I’m wishing you’d stop talking nonsense to me and go down to the stable. He’ll be worrying that you don’t come. Night, miss,” he said, nodding to each of the three of us, “sir,” to Father and Gervain. And he stamped back up the stairs again.