Hazel set aside her book and looked back at Bernard’s eager, expectant face. He was asking her a question to which she already knew the answer, had known it her entire life. There was only ever one life for her if she wanted to survive.
“Yes, Bernard,” she said softly. “I will marry you.”
“Oh, marvelous!” He kissed her, and Hazel leaned in to let him. Her eyes remained open, and she saw his eyelashes fluttering in pleasure. He pulled away with a wet smack. “We’ll wait until your mother is back in town to begin preparations in earnest, but my family is going to want quite the fete.”
Hazel wasn’t sure what to say. She just nodded again and gestured to her book.
“Oh yes, of course,” Bernard said. “I promised I would leave you to your reading.” He stood and shook the dirt off the handkerchief on which he’d been sitting. He frowned at a small stain, and then folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. He went to leave, but before he fully about-faced, he paused to lift a finger. “Is there—？ I’m sorry to even be saying this, I don’t know why I’m asking, but—did you have another suitor? I know how ridiculous this is, but the rumors are—well, you know how these things can be.”
“No,” Hazel said. “There has never been any Russian count or Bavarian duke or whomever else anyone in the New Town has invented in order to amuse themselves while the theater is closed.”
Bernard smiled and bowed before taking his leave. Hazel read by the light of the sinking sun until it was too dark to make out the words on the pages, wondering where in the city Jack Currer was at that very moment and why the white lie she had told to her cousin came so readily.
From the Observations of the Diarist Samuel Brass （Vol. 1, 1793）：
Pray tell, what has happened to the Doctor William Beecham, Baronet? No one would have ever accused him of being a social bon vivant, but in recent months it seems as though he’s retired from the social scene completely. I attended the Earl of Tooksbery’s annual luncheon at Hampshire last week, and the Countess remarked that she believed the Doctor hasn’t been in his right mind since the death of his wife. “And who treats a doctor who has gone mad!” she said to me before flitting off to consult with the Marquis de Fountaine on the latest trends in gardening.
The Countess’s estimation is generous. Less kind lips have suggested that the Doctor’s madness has to do with an obsession with alchemy and the Philosopher’s Stone. Though the Doctor was never a social butterfly, he was at least formerly a fixture in the London social scene. He spent the summer last year on the Isle of Skye and simply never returned to England. Lady Sordell hinted that the Doctor may have fallen out of the good graces of the Royal Family and that his retreat to Scotland was actually an exile at the command of Queen Charlotte. Alas, I don’t believe it. Having attended several parties where Beecham stood miserably in the corner, I can personally attest to the fact that Beecham has never enjoyed the company of anyone but his wife and his books and his pet tortoise. There is no doubt in my mind that his retreat from the London set was personal preference of his own unhappy, unsociable volition.
25
WHEN JACK HEARD THE KNOCKING ON the front doors of Le Grand Leon, he was certain it would be creditors, coming to reclaim the property. When the theater closed, Mr. Anthony had given Jack the keys, told him to keep it in fair shape until they could open up again the following season. Thieves Jack could handle. Bankers were the real threat.
In a brief flash of ecstatic hope, he imagined that maybe the knocking was Hazel, that she had come to find him, to run away with him. The memory of their kiss still lingered on his lips, the joy of it, the hidden thrill, and also the terror. That kiss was the night of the nightmarish body, the man with the sewn-open eyes, whom they had left on the grass for the priest. It was easier for Jack just to pretend the entire excursion had been a dream, that none of it had happened.
Dawn had barely broken over the crest of Arthur’s Seat, which Jack could make out through the tiny window in the upper gallery if he craned his neck and pulled the curtain aside. But this morning, he pulled his few dingy blankets over his head and hoped the knocking would stop. It didn’t. It continued: clanging, frantic knocks that set the frames on the lobby wall rattling. “Oi, theater’s closed! Come back another time!” Jack shouted.
The knocking persisted. Whoever it was would not be deterred. Jack sighed, and rolled off the disused stage curtain he had been using to turn his bed into something that more resembled a velvet nest. “A’right, a’right, whoever ye are! Just shut up for a moment, and I’ll be right down.”