The Sweet Far Thing
Page 12

As promised, Tom and I have come to visit Father. I’ve not wanted to see him in this place. I prefer to think of him always in his study by a robust fire, his pipe in one hand, a twinkle in his eye and a fantastic tale at the ready to entertain all. But I suppose even the Oldham Sanitarium is a far better memory than the one I have of my father in an East London opium den, so lost on the drug that he’d bartered even his wedding ring for more.
No, I shan’t think about that. Not today.
“Remember, Gemma, you’re to be cheerful and light,” Tom—my older, yet sadly not wiser, brother—advises as we stroll down the great expanse of lawn past neatly trimmed hedges with nary a stray branch or errant weed to disturb their careful symmetry. I smile brightly at a passing nurse. “I think I shall remember how to behave without your good counsel, Thomas,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I do wonder.”
Honestly, what use are brothers except to torment and irritate at equal turns?
“Really, Thomas, you should take more care at breakfast. You’ve an egg stain big as life on your shirt.”
Tom paws at himself, panicked. “I don’t see it!”
“Right”—I tap the side of his head—“here.”
“What?”
“April Fools’.”
His mouth twists into a smirk. “But it’s not yet April.”
“Yes,” I say, marching ahead at a good clip. “And yet you are still a fool.”
A nurse in a starched white pinafore points us toward a small sitting area near a gazebo. A man sits stretched out on a reclining caned-back chair, a plaid blanket across his legs. I don’t recognize Father at first. He is so very thin.
Tom clears his throat. “Hello, Father. You’re looking well.”
“Yes, better each day. Gemma, pet, you’ve grown more beautiful, I think.”
He only glances at me as he says this. We don’t look at each other anymore. Not really. Not since I pulled him from that opium den. Now when I look at him, I see the addict. And when he looks at me, he sees what he would rather not remember. I wish I could be his adored little girl again, sitting at his side.
“You’re too kind, Father.” Light and cheerful, Gemma. I give a pained smile. He is so thin.
“Fine day, is it not?” Father says.
“Indeed. A very fine day.”
“The gardens here are quite lovely,” I say.
“Yes. Quite,” Tom seconds.
Father nods absently. “Ah.”
I perch on the edge of my seat, ready to go at a moment’s notice. I offer him a box wrapped in elaborate gold foil and garnished with a big red bow. “I’ve brought you those peppermints you’re so fond of.”
“Ah,” he says, taking them without enthusiasm. “Thank you, pet. Thomas, have you given any thought to the Hippocrates Society?”
Tom scowls.
“What is the Hippocrates Society?” I ask.
“A fine gentlemen’s club of scientists and physicians, great thinkers all. They’ve expressed an interest in our Thomas.”
This seems a fine match for Tom, as he’s a clinical assistant at Bethlem Royal Hospital—Bedlam—and, despite his many faults, a gifted healer. Medicine and science are his twin passions, so I cannot understand his sneer at the Hippocrates Society.
“I have no interest in them,” Tom says firmly.
“Why not?”
“Most of their members are between the ages of forty and death,” Tom sniffs.
“There is great wisdom in those halls, Thomas. You’d be wise to honor that.”
Tom takes one of the peppermints. “It is not the Athenaeum Club.”
“Setting your sights a bit high, aren’t you, old boy? The Athenaeum takes only its own, and we are not its own,” Father says decisively.
“I might be,” Tom contends.
Tom wants desperately to be accepted into the very finest of London society. Father thinks him foolish for it. I do hate it when they argue, and I don’t want Tom to upset Father just now.
“Papa, I hear you shall come home soon,” I say.
“Yes, so they tell me. Fit as a fiddle, your old man.” He coughs.
“How nice that will be,” Tom says without enthusiasm.
“Quite,” Father agrees.
And with that we fall into silence. A flock of geese wander across the lawn as if they, too, have lost their way. A groundskeeper shoos them toward a pond in the distance. But there is no one to help us onto a new path, and so we sit, talking of nothing that matters and avoiding all mention of anything that does. At last, a moonfaced nurse with coppery hair going to gray approaches.