Free The House Of Smoke by Sam Christer

like this one.’
    ‘It is not a
good
choice; but as you wish, sir. Are you ready to attend Lady Elizabeth?’
    I took one last look at myself, pulled at the waistcoat for a final time. ‘Yes. I most certainly am.’
    Cornwell’s lips twitched with the suggestion he might once more try to talk me into the brown garment then he turned and walked out.
    I followed his well-polished heels along the now-familiar route into the main body of the house, across polished parquet floors and richly woven carpets and rugs. He opened a door, stepped aside and announced, ‘Master Simeon, my lady.’
    Elizabeth broke from looking out of the window on the far side of a large room and thanked him. She was dressed in a delicate white blouse and simple black skirt. To her left stood a round wooden table, covered in lace and laid for tea. Adjacent was a small piano and a little further away a sloping-topped writing desk.
    Cornwell closed the door and Elizabeth’s smile lit up the room like a thousand gasoliers as she approached me and asked, ‘How are you, Simeon? I heard you endured something of a bruising encounter with Mr Brannigan.’
    ‘You could say that, my lady.’
    She looked amused and motioned for me to take a seat at the table. ‘When we are alone, you should be informal and call me Elizabeth and I shall call you Simeon. I presume you are already on such first-name terms with Sirius and Surrey?’
    I tried not to show my awkwardness as I sat. ‘Not yet.’
    ‘Then from now on, you will be. You must set the pace or next thing you know they’ll have you doffing your cap to them.’
    ‘I understand. Thank you.’
    ‘You are very welcome.’ She smiled as she settled. ‘This room is, ironically, called a drawing room.’
    ‘Why?
    ‘Why do you think?’
    ‘Because people draw in it?’
    Her eyes laughed at me. ‘No, but I see why you might hazard such a guess.’
    For a moment, my mind was not on her words, her explanations or whatever lessons she had in mind for me. It was on the locks of her hair that glistened like spun gold. It was on the soft creases near her eyes and mouth that underlined how beautiful she was. It was on her voice, how sensual it sounded. ‘Are you listening to me?’
    The question pulled me up and made me redden.
    ‘I was saying,’ she continued, ‘the name is derived from its original title, the
withdrawing room
. It was a place where people of great wealth could withdraw from company in the house and be alone, be less social. And as my task is
not
to make you more withdrawn, but to enable you to be more social, it is ironic.’
    ‘And is withdrawn such a bad thing to be?’
    ‘Not by choice. But you must also have the skills to be outgoing, in order to mix with all and sundry.’
    ‘Why?’
    She laughed. ‘Is
why
your favourite word? The short answer to your question is, because this is what the professor wants. And we all do what the professor wants.’
    ‘Do we?’
    ‘We do,’ she said, sternly. ‘And if you learn nothing else today, learn that we do
whatever
the professor wants,
whenever
he wants it done.’ Point made, she relaxed again, ‘Now, tell me about yourself. About your family and upbringing.’
    ‘I would rather not.’
    ‘I heard you were orphaned,’ she persisted, ‘which means you were probably brought up in a workhouse, where education is seldom a priority. Can you read or write?’
    ‘I was taught some reading and writing. Enough to create a hunger for it. And I was around good people who encouraged me to think for myself and talk proper.’
    ‘Talk properly. Not proper.’
    I reddened again and wished the damned lesson were already over.
    ‘So tell me then, what books do you have knowledge of?’
    ‘Many,’ I lied, then checked myself, ‘but none to speak to you about.’ I looked down at my feet to avoid her questioning eyes.
    ‘The professor is very interested in Russian writings on nihilism and American developments in ontology. Do you have any