Phoenix and Ashes

own meal.

'Good morning, my lady, Aunt April,' he said cheerfully as he went to the sideboard to help himself—noting with a sigh that it was a dark-bread day. If there was one thing he missed more than anything else since rationing had begun, it was good white bread.

'Your dear mother is up and out as usual,' his aunt told him, after presenting her cheek for him to kiss. 'And where she gets that energy from at this hour of the day, I could not tell you. Certainly not from my side of the family. Positively indecent. No one should be that awake at six. Well, excepting milkmen, I suppose. And farmers. And one's maid. But they shouldn't be so cheerful about it. And your dear mother should know better. It troubles the servants when the mistress is up as early as they are.'

Lady Virginia, said nothing, neatly and economically disposing of grilled tomatoes, while Aunt April talked and buttered toast without shedding a crumb.

This was Aunt April's usual sort of chatter; if there was a silence, she moved to fill it with whatever came into her head, which made for some interesting social moments, now and again. Reggie could still remember the time at a dinner party in this very house, during his first year at Oxford, when she had asked an eminent member of the the House of Lords, just as he was filling his lungs to pontificate, if there was a reason why his shirt-front popped every time he took a deep breath. Since the poor man had—up until that moment, at least— clearly been unaware that his shirt-front did any such thing, he had been left gaping at her like a stranded fish and had completely lost his train of thought. Nor was that the end of it; he had been so self-conscious for the rest of the evening that he never spoke more than a sentence or two. As this had the result (at least according to his father) of preventing at least three arguments, any one of which might have erupted into a major disagreement if not a diplomatic incident, Aunt April had earned the undying gratitude of the rest of the guests and standing invitations to more events than she could ever possibly attend. And if she had a reputation as being more than a bit dotty, every hostess worth her salt-cellar knew Aunt April could be counted on to defuse potential disasters with an unfocused laugh and a disingenuous remark at precisely the right moment. And if a stuffed-shirt or two was left embarrassed and wondering how it had happened, at least it was nothing he could take exception to.

'Mother's been an early riser for as long as I can remember, Aunt April,' Reggie said, sitting down with his own plate of grilled tomatoes and eggs. 'And I doubt that the servants even notice. This is the countryside; people get up earlier than they do in town.'

'And I can't think why,' Aunt April responded, waving her knife for emphasis, her brows furrowed. 'What is there to get up early for? It's not as if there was shooting at this time of year, and anyway, by the time it's shooting season, getting up early isn't early anymore, it's properly late.'

Reggie didn't even try to wrap his mind around that statement; it made sense to Aunt April, so that was all that counted.

'You do rattle on, April,' said Lady Virginia without rancor. 'Reginald, I want to speak with you as soon as you have finished your breakfast. Privately.'

'Oh, good,' Aunt April said, looking suddenly cheerful. 'We'll get that over with, then, and it won't be hanging over our heads like a rock of Sophocles, or was it the sword of Thucydides? Whichever it was, it was a terribly uncomfortable object to have hanging over your head, and I would hate to have it hanging over ours, spoiling the entire visit—'

'Damocles,' Lady Virginia said, interrupting. 'It was the Sword of Damocles, dear, as if you didn't know, since I know very well you were making better use of your brother's classics tutor than your brother did. Now, if you could take your tea to the terrace—'

'Oh, I'm finished, Virginia, and I'll run off and find nothing to do,' Aunt April said, with a gay little wave of her hand as she rose in a flutter of lace flounces. 'Do get him to come around to taking up his powers again, will you, dear? Of course you will, if he doesn't want to, you'll threaten him with Smith.'

She trotted off, without waiting for a word from either of them, leaving him staring at Lady Virginia across the breakfast table, nervously crumbling toast and wishing he'd sent down for a tray instead of coming to the table this morning.

'Reginald,' Lady Virginia said, raising her chin a little. 'This nonsense of avoiding magic must stop. Now.'

She couldn't have been more direct, and she left him with no graceful way out of the conversation. He clenched his teeth, and replied just as directly.

'Lady Virginia—forgive me, but you can't possibly know why I am—'

She did something she had never done before, in all of his acquaintance with her. She interrupted him.

'Actually,' she said tartly, 'I do know. I know exactly why, in excruciating detail. I have not been idle these three years. I am a VAD— a working VAD, though admittedly, a part-time VAD, since my old bones are hardly up to the long hours the young ones put in, and I have no intention of living in some squalid little dormitory with a pack of girls. I have been spending many long hours at the bedsides of young enlisted men, and I wasn't simply mopping their brows, as you should by now be aware. Furthermore, they talk to me, Reginald. I induce them to talk to me, because it is sometimes the only way to purge them of their horrors.'

Reggie felt his eyes widen with shock. It had never occurred to him that aristocratic Lady Virginia would have volunteered to do nursing-aide work. But—she was continuing.