A Study in Drowning(65)

My sly and clever girl,

You must have gotten my address from papers in your father’s study, or else how would you know where to write me? I shall not underestimate your shrewdness again, and perhaps I shall even expect you, one day, to show up at my door. I would not protest it. I might be very happy to see you scowling at me in the threshold.

The poems you sent me were, I think, rather good. I particularly enjoyed the one about Arethusa. I did not think that a girl of Northern blood would have any interest in our myths and legends, but I suppose your father did not give you a Southern name for nothing.

Please do send me more, should you feel so inclined. When I am at Penrhos again, I would very much like to discuss Arethusa. She is generally seen as an aspect, or rather, an equivalent, of Saint Acrasia, who, as you know, is the patroness of seductive love. A very interesting subject for your poem.

Yours,

E.M.



“Arethusa,” Effy said. Her mind was still reeling with the effort of trying to understand all she’d just read, but Arethusa she knew. “She’s the Fairy King’s consort, at the beginning of the book.”

“Yes,” Preston said. “She’s initially presented purely as a foible for the protagonist—seductive and active where Angharad is submissive and passive. Like your two-headed goddess, Saints Acrasia and Amoret. As Myrddin mentioned in the letter. But eventually Arethusa becomes an ally. It’s a very clever subversion of the trope of the malevolent seductress.”

“He didn’t say who he was writing to.” Effy stared down at the page again, just to be certain. “He said she had a Southern name . . . one of Blackmar’s daughters. Myrddin’s diary mentions that Blackmar’s eldest daughter showed him some of her poetry, remember?”

Preston nodded. “And the dates line up—that entry was in January; this letter is from April.”

Effy’s heart was pounding. It didn’t help that she was very close to Preston, their shoulders nearly touching, the heat of his body against her. She took a breath to steady herself.

“Let’s look at the next one,” she said.

13 November 189

My foolish and lovely girl,

I fear your father has discovered us. He asked me, without euphemism or subterfuge, whether I had imperiled his daughter’s purity, whether I had taken you to bed. I told him truthfully that we had NOT lain together. I don’t know if you are a virgin, like your self-styled protagonist. And I don’t know why your father has such a keen interest in his daughter’s purity—you are a grown woman, for Saints’ sakes.

Best not to see each other for a while—at least until I can speak with your father about this delicate matter. But if you do manage to slip away, I shall reward you lavishly.

Yours,

E.M.



Effy’s stomach lurched like a ship in the waves. She didn’t want to think about Myrddin this way. This was worse than the photographs. She had loved Myrddin’s book so thoroughly that she’d left tear marks on its pages, so thoroughly that its spine was cracked from a thousand readings—she did not want to imagine him this way, ruminating on whether he should take some young woman’s virginity.

Her breath was coming in short, hot gasps. She looked up at Preston, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

He looked back at her in concern, and then said in a tight voice, “Let’s just read the last one. It’s short.”

1 March 190

My beautiful and debauched girl,

You said something to me last night, as we lay together, that I shall not soon forget. I was near to sleeping, but you pulled the covers over your naked breast and sat up. Leaning over me, you said, “I will love you to ruination.”

I sat up as if I’d been prodded, since neither of us had said those trite three words to the other before, and answered somewhat groggily, “Whose ruination? Yours or mine?”

You did not answer, and I still wonder.

Yours (in every conceivable fashion),

E.M.



“That’s the line,” Effy whispered. “From Angharad.”

Preston swallowed. “‘I will love you to ruination, the Fairy King said, brushing a strand of golden hair from my cheek. Yours or mine? I asked. The Fairy King did not answer.’”

“From the first time they lie together.” Effy’s voice was trembling. “On their wedding night.”

“Spring of one-ninety,” said Preston, and his voice was shaking a little, too. “That would have been around the time that Myrddin began writing Angharad—or allegedly began writing Angharad. It all lines up.”

Effy shook her head. Her vision was crowding with blackness, panic surging up in her like a wave. “I still don’t understand.”

“This is the connection to Blackmar. Not friendship or employment—Myrddin had an affair with Blackmar’s daughter, and somehow Angharad was born from it. No wonder Blackmar was so cagey when discussing it. I don’t know how Greenebough factors in, or why the decision was made to have the book published under Myrddin’s name—if indeed it was Blackmar’s work, of course—but it’s conceivable that the daughter was somehow part of the . . . negotiation process.”

“You’re saying they bartered her, like a piece of livestock.” Effy wished she could drift from her own body, to slip out that secret door into the safe, submerged place. But her body seemed to be holding on to her mind with all its might: blood hot, stomach churning, terrible signs of life. “And if Blackmar was so concerned about his daughter’s purity, and Myrddin clearly took it, then why would he let Myrddin have Angharad, too? That diary entry says Blackmar delivered the manuscript to him in August of one-ninety-one.”