Meggie looked at him. In the light of the new morning her hair looked like spun gold. Resa's hair had been just the same color when he had first seen her, in Elinor's house.
"Yes. Perhaps," said Meggie quietly. "But would the story really end so very differently if the Bluejay stayed? How could he give it a happy ending all by himself?"
"Bluejay?" A couple of toads jumped into the water in alarm as the Strong Man plowed his way through the undergrowth.
Mo straightened up. "Maybe you'd better not call that name quite so loud in the forest," he said, lowering his own voice.
The Strong Man looked as horrified as if men-at-arms were already standing among the trees. "Sorry," he muttered. "My head doesn't work well so early in the morning, and all that wine last night… It's the boy. You know, the one who works for Orpheus, the one that Meggie -" He stopped short at the sight of Meggie's expression. "Oh, whatever I say sounds stupid!" he groaned, pressing his hand to his round face. "Plain stupid! But that's how the words come out of my mouth. I can't help it!"
"Farid. His name is Farid. Where is he?" Meggie's face lit up, although she was making a great effort to look indifferent.
"Farid, of course. Funny sort of name. Like something out of a song, eh? He's in the camp. But he wants to speak to your father."
Meggie's smile was extinguished as quickly as it had come to her lips. Mo put his arm around her shoulders, but a father's hug was no use to a lovesick girl. Damn the boy.
"He's all worked up. He must have ridden here so fast his donkey can hardly stand. He woke the whole camp, asking: 'Where's the Bluejay? I have to speak to him!' No one could get anything else out of him!"
"The Bluejay!" Mo had never heard Meggie sound so bitter before. "I've told him a thousand times already not to call you that. How can he be so stupid?"
The wrong boy. But what did the heart care about that?
21. SHARP WORDS
Oh, please! he felt his heart say to him. Oh, please, let me leave!
John Irving, The Cider House Rules
"Darius!" Elinor couldn't bear the sound of her own voice anymore. It was horrible – grouchy, irritable, impatient. She hadn't sounded like that in the old days, had she?
Darius almost dropped the books he was bringing in, and the dog raised his head from the rug she had bought to keep him from ruining her wonderful wooden floor with his slimy slobber. Quite apart from the fact that you were always slipping on it.
"Where's the Dickens we bought last week? For goodness' sake, how long does it take you to put a book back in its proper place? Am I paying you to sit in my armchair reading? That's what you do when I'm not here, admit it!"
Oh, Elinor. How she hated the words coming out of her mouth, and yet there was no keeping them back: bitter and venomous, spat out by her unhappy heart.
Darius bowed his head, as he always did when he was trying not to show her how hurt he was. "It's where it belongs, Elinor," he said in his gentle voice, which only infuriated her more than ever. She'd been able to have magnificent quarrels with Mortimer, and Meggie had been a real little fighter. But Darius! Even Resa, mute as she was, used to stand up to Elinor better.
Owl-faced coward. Why didn't he call her names? Why didn't he throw the books at her feet instead of clutching them so lovingly to his scrawny chest, as if he had to protect them from her?
"Where it belongs?" she repeated. "Do you think I can't even read these days?"
How anxiously the stupid dog was looking at her. Then he let his massive head sink to the rug again with a grunt.
Darius put the stack of books he was carrying down on the nearest glass case, went up to the shelf where Dickens made himself at home, taking up a lot of space in between Defoe and Dumas (the man had written just too many books, that was his trouble), went straight to the volume she wanted, and took it out. Without a word, he gave it to Elinor. Then he set about sorting the books he had brought into the library.
She felt so stupid, and Elinor hated to feel stupid. It was almost worse than feeling sad.
"It's dirty!"
Stop it, Elinor, she told herself. But she couldn't. The words simply came out of her mouth. "When did you last dust the books? Do I have to do that for myself, too?"
Darius kept his thin back turned to her. He took the words without flinching, like an undeserved beating.
"What's the matter? Has your stuttering tongue finally given up? Sometimes I wonder whether you have a tongue at all! Mortola ought to have taken you with her instead of Resa – even when she was mute, Resa was more talkative than you."
Darius put the last book on the shelf, straightened another, and marched toward the door, holding himself very straight.
"Darius! Come back!"
He didn't even turn.
Damn. Elinor hurried after him, holding the Dickens which, she had to admit, really wasn't so very dusty. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't dusty in the least. Of course it's not, Elinor! she told herself. As if you didn't know how devotedly Darius removes the tiniest speck of dust from the books every Tuesday and Friday. Her cleaning lady always laughed at the fine brush he used for the purpose.
"Darius! For heaven's sake, don't make such a big deal of it!"
No reply.
The dog overtook her on the stairs and looked down at her from the top step with his tongue hanging out.
"Darius!"
By that stupid dog's slobber – where was he?
His room was right next to the one Mortimer had used as an office. The door was open, and so was his suitcase, lying on the bed. It was the case she had bought him for their first trip together. Buying books with Darius had always been a pleasure (and she had to admit that he'd kept her from making many silly mistakes).
"What…?" How heavy her sharp tongue suddenly felt. "What the devil are you doing?"
Well, what did she think? Very obviously, he was packing the few clothes he possessed.
"Darius!"
He put the drawing of Meggie that Resa had given him onto the bed, with the notebook Mortimer had bound for him, and the bookmark that Meggie had made him from a blue jay's feathers.
"The bathrobe," he said hesitantly, as he put the photograph of his parents, the one that always stood by his bed, in the case. "Do you mind if I take it with me?"
"Don't ask such silly questions! Of course not! It was a present, for heaven's sake. But where are you going?"
Cerberus trotted into the room and went to the bedside cupboard. Darius always kept a few dog biscuits in the drawer.
"I don't know yet…"
He folded the bathrobe just as carefully as his other clothes (it was much too large for him, but how would she have known his size?), put the drawing, the notebook, and the bookmark in the case and closed it. Of course, he couldn't manage to close the catches. He was so clumsy sometimes!
"Unpack that again! At once! This is silly."
But Darius shook his head.
"Heavens above, you can't go as well and leave me all alone!" Elinor herself was frightened by the despair in her voice.