“They are, my lady.” Trevillion glared at the wherryman who’d been unashamedly listening in. The wherryman hurriedly bent to his oars. “But the garden is in a state of renovation and I thought you’d be interested. Also,” he added very drily, “I have business there, and since my job is to guard you and you insisted on going out today, I couldn’t very well make the journey without you.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice small, as she let her fingers trail in the water.
The wherryman scowled at him.
Trevillion sighed and turned to watch the Harte’s Folly dock draw near. The pleasure garden had been a very popular attraction before the fire, and the dock had once been wide and well maintained. Now it was half fallen into the Thames, only a narrow part shored up and rebuilt with new wood. Behind the dock the burnt and ruined vegetation looked positively grim—not at all like a frivolous pleasure garden. ’Twas said that Harte intended to rebuild the garden entirely, but Trevillion thought it an almost impossible goal, attainable only with a tremendous outlay of money, and then the end result still uncertain.
o;Yes, I see, but there mustn’t have been very much room down there.”
“No, there wasn’t,” Indio assured her earnestly. “And Caliban lay on top of me an’ Daff.” He leaned close to whisper in her ear. “He’s very heavy. Daff squeaked. I think she was nearly squashed.”
Lily laughed through her tears at this bit of information, for she understood as her son seemed not to that Caliban had covered Indio to protect him from the tree roots.
She glanced again at Caliban as she said, “You and Daffodil were very brave.”
“And the best part, Mama,” Indio said, tugging her hand to get her attention, “the best part is Caliban spoke. Did you hear him? He shouted my name!”
“What?” Lily stared at Indio’s filthy little face and then back up at Caliban. She absently noted that he had a bleeding scratch on his cheek. That shout right before the accident—had that been him?
Caliban looked away from her, his face pale, and she immediately wanted to get him alone so that she might find out if he could truly speak.
“I’m glad your boy’s safe, ma’am.” Mr. Herring’s words were kind but he was looking worriedly at the wreckage of the tree and machine.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be taking him back to the theater for a bath and to patch up his scratches. And I’ll do the same for… erm…” Good Lord, what did the other gardeners call Caliban? She gestured vaguely at him.
“What?” Mr. Herring glanced at her in alarm. “But I’ve already lost the new man—ran off who knows where. I’ll be needing Smith.”
Smith? Lily drew herself up. “I’m afraid I must insist, Mr. Herring.”
“Oh, very well.” The head gardener waved her off wearily. “Probably won’t get much work done the rest of the day anyway. Don’t know what I’ll be tellin’ the master.”
“I have a feeling that won’t be a problem,” Lily muttered under her breath, ignoring Caliban’s warning glare. She turned to Indio. “Can you walk to the theater, love?”
The question seemed to prick her son’s male pride—a fickle, easily provoked thing—and he snapped back, “Of course, Mama.”
His hauteur was rather ruined, though, by the drooping of his shoulders. Now that the excitement was past it was evident that the accident had taken its toll upon Indio’s stamina. He yawned widely even as he stumbled down the path. In another few steps Caliban scooped him up without a word.
The thought made Lily eye the big man carrying her son on his shoulder. He could talk—or at least he had spoken. One word, true, but surely where there was one there were more? Lily spent the rest of the walk to the theater with myriad questions swarming her brain.
Maude was away shopping for the afternoon, so the theater was empty when they arrived.
She waited until they were safely inside before turning to Caliban and demanding, “Can you talk?”
He opened his mouth and for a terrible moment nothing happened, but then sound emerged, creaking and halting. “I think… yes.” He swallowed and winced, as if the words physically hurt.
“Oh,” Lily whispered, pressing her fingertips to her trembling mouth. “Oh, I am glad.”
“Told you,” Indio said sleepily from Caliban’s shoulder.
“So you did,” Lily replied, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. She was turning into a veritable watering pot. She inhaled to steady herself. “I think you need a nap, little man.”
It was a measure of how exhausted Indio was that he didn’t even protest that he was now much too old for naps. Lily relaxed her cleanliness standards far enough to simply insist she wash his face for him before laying him down, already mostly asleep, in her own bed.
She gently shut the door to her bedroom and looked up to find Caliban reading her play in the outer room.
He set down the sheet he’d been holding and cleared his throat. “It… is… good.” He looked at her. “Very… good.”
His voice was naturally deep, but there was a strained, hoarse quality about it that suggested damage.