Michael let himself into the back door and climbed the stairs to the nursery floor. To his surprise, Finster was dozing in a chair by the hearth. He touched her shoulder.
“It’s only me,” he said. “What’s amiss?”
Finster knuckled her eyes. “A nightmare, sir. Our Bea dreams you are gone and never coming back. Mrs. Harris says I’m not to tell you that, but it happens nigh once a week lately.”
Michael sat on the edge of the cot where Bea slumbered. “We went through this last year. She was left at the vicarage right about this time, though who knows how many well-meaning neighbors took a turn with her first and tried to spare her that fate.”
“Was she crawling when you took her in?”
“Trying to, though she lacked the wonderful roundness babies are supposed to have, and the wet nurse said Bea was noticeably underfed. We added porridge and peas almost immediately, and Bea seemed to come right.”
“Papa?” The child’s voice was little more than a whisper in the dark. “Papa, are you here?”
“I most assuredly am,” Michael said, shifting to sit at her hip.
She flipped back the covers and buried herself against his chest. “I dreamed you were gone away. Far away, and Thad and I couldn’t come with you. I was scared. Did you come because I was scared?”
He’d come because he’d been happy, and he was still happy, in the part of his heart that hadn’t ever thought to confide his burdens to another human being. Another part of his heart, that loved Bea and Thad, chided him for the risk a late-night visit might entail if Helmsley’s spies were vigilant.
“I came because I was passing by and thought to look in here without disturbing you. I’m sorry you were frightened. Finster was sitting by the fire when I arrived, keeping you safe for me.”
An unfair burden on Finster, and one Michael envied her.
A particularly strong draft gusted down the chimney and caused the fire in the hearth to flare. By the light of the flames, Michael saw a pale, worried little girl, trying to make sense of a confusing life.
“Why can’t you stay with us, Papa? All the other papas live with their children. You come only on Sunday. I want to go with you to Lambeth Palace, no matter how far away it is.”
“I live in a single room, Bea. No place for stuffed animals or toy soldiers. Barely any heat. I haven’t a cat, and all I do is work. I have one narrow cot, no books, no slates to draw on or chalk to draw with. You and Thad would not enjoy living with me. You’d hardly see any more of me than you already do.”
In another year or two, she’d have the mental wherewithal to offer the predictable retorts. Then why not live here with us? Why stay where it’s cold and cramped when we have plenty of coal and blankets here?
She burrowed closer. “Promise you will always come to visit, Papa. Visit as much as you can. Don’t go far away. Please.”
“Only as far as Lambeth, and only because I must.” He stopped short of promising that someday they would live together, and someday he would do as the other papas did: Take his daughter to the park regularly, sit beside her in church, read her stories every night at bedtime. Comfort her when the nightmares came, guide her when life’s questions proved too vexing.
He wished all of that for them, but could promise none of it. Not until Hannibal Arbuckle—a notably robust specimen—was playing chess with Old Scratch, and maybe not even then.
“Will you stay tonight?” Bea asked. “You never stay with us. You only visit.”
“I will stay for a time. Shall I sing to you?”
She let him go. “Yes, please, about the elfin knight and the clever lady. I like that one. She’s smarter than he is—she tells him to do impossible things, and he has to do them—and they get married forever.”
“Finster,” Michael said, “I have my orders. Thank you for keeping watch.”
“Aye, sir. Until Sunday.” She left without bothering to light a carrying candle.
“Tuck in the covers, Papa, then you can sing to me.”
Michael cocked his head. “I must be having trouble with my hearing. My dearest, sweetest, most darling daughter would never forget her please and thank-yous.” Unless her father wasn’t on hand to offer a thousand gentle reminders.
“Papa, would you please tuck in my covers?”
“Of course.” Michael complied, making a great production out of ensuring Bea’s covers were snugly anchored by the mattress. He’d been observing that ritual with her since she’d first slept in a trundle bed rather than a crib, and yet, someday soon, she’d be too grown-up for such fussing.
And I am missing years that we will never have back.
As he launched into the tale of the brash elfin knight and the ingenious lady who turned a schemer into a suitor by demanding that he do the impossible for her, he comforted himself with a familiar argument: Yes, he was an absent father, but Bea and Thad were alive, safe, and well cared for. One must count blessings rather than regrets.
He sang on, even after Bea’s breathing had fallen into the slow, rhythmic pattern of slumber, and another thought occurred to him: Psyche would tell him to count blessings and regrets. Both mattered. Both were true.
As he drew the covers up around Thad’s bony little shoulders and kissed Bea’s forehead, Michael’s joy from his evening with Psyche dimmed.
He would not become a nuisance to her—he barely had time to spend one night a week with her—and he would become her lover. The invitation had been unspoken and unmistakable. For a time, they’d offer each other comfort, pleasure, and companionship of a limited sort.
But only for a time. Sooner or later, Psyche would remove to France or Italy, where women were taken seriously as artists. Germany and Russia were also possibilities. America doubtless had its share of wealthy families eager to immortalize themselves on canvas.
Michael could not go with Psyche, and she could not set aside her artistic ambitions merely to be the paramour of a penniless cleric. Clerics were not supposed to have paramours, in any case, though Danner at least honored that rule in the breach.
Michael let himself back out into the cold night, locked the door, pulled on his gloves, and began the trek to the river. Spring in all its glory was soon to arrive and then summer, of course, but inevitably, winter would return.
When that happened, he hoped that he and Psyche would count their time together firmly in the blessings category and not among the regrets.
“The presses can’t work fast enough,” Ricardo said, passing Psyche a bag of coins. “Everybody wants your flower girls in their shop windows, and that means everybody else must have them in their parlors. When will you do the last four?”
Psyche wandered to the desk where Ricardo kept his account books and sat in the matching chair. In a workshop awash with half-finished sketches, prints ready to frame, copper plates, wood blocks, burins of various styles, and stacks of paper, the desk was an island of order. The back of the chair copied the escritoire’s scrollwork, and the seat boasted a comfortable embroidered cushion.
Ricardo was of a piece with his place of work. Dark hair tousled and untidy, sleeves turned back, his waistcoat dusted with wood shavings, and a minute hole near his watch chain. He was unkempt, as a working artist often was, and yet, his gaze was steady, his smiles genuine, and his word reliable.