His calm acceptance of his wife’s fault should have made it easier for me to speak. Instead, it only seemed harder. I suddenly wished that I had been forthright with him from the beginning, and told him not only about the seances but also that Epiny was writing to Spink. To tell it now made me feel I had been a party to his daughter’s deception, as indeed I had. He listened in silence as I told the tale, passing lightly over Epiny’s efforts at being a medium and dwelling charitably on how impressed Spink had been with her. My uncle lifted his brow in surprise when I told him that Spink’s mother and elder brother would surely write to him any day now to ask permission for Spink to court Epiny. It was only surprising that he had not already received their letter.
“Perhaps I did,” he said when I paused. “Perhaps it is in my wife’s secretary, with our correspondence. Perhaps it is what triggered this whole incident. Let me be blunt with you, Nevare. My wife has lofty ambitions for Epiny. Marrying the soldier son of a new noble and living hundreds of miles away from Old Thares and the court is not what she has in mind for her elder daughter. She takes Epiny into situations that I think ill advised, to try to advance her socially. This seance nonsense, for instance…if only the girl were not so childish. Other girls her age are already young women, formally presented to the court and already spoken for. But Epiny…” He sighed and shook his head. In the darkness, I caught his rueful smile. “Well, you have seen how she is still a little girl in all the important ways. I tell myself that in her own good time, she will grow up. Some flowers bloom later than others and some say their fragrance is sweetest. We shall see. I have forbidden Daraleen from rushing Epiny into womanhood. Childhood is too brief and precious a thing to waste.” He cleared his throat. “I thought that my lady wife had come round to my way of thinking when she suggested that Epiny be sent off for some time with other girls her age. Epiny objected, with one of her harangues about being trained to be an ornament for a rich man’s mansion.” He glanced at me and his smile was small and a bit bitter. “I suppose I should have guessed that she was already imagining herself dominating a poor officer’s quarters instead.”
I walked on with him, arm in arm, and my tongue felt thick with ashes. Epiny deceived her father, and by my silence I contributed to it. Yet what was I to say? That when she was alone with Spink and me, she behaved not only as a young woman, but also as something of a coquette? I kept my silence and my guilt.
“So I can see how your friend’s infatuation with her and his prompting of his family to seek permission to court would have been upsetting to Lady Burvelle. She has not even had a time to display her precious treasure at court, and some new noble upstart is trying to claim her and carry her off to a life on the wild frontier!” My uncle almost made a joke of it. He sounded amused, but regretful that it had happened.
I took a breath and plunged in. “Spink is very taken with my cousin, Uncle. That is true. But he has not written to her. The correspondence has been one-sided. It is true that he asked his mother and brother to speak for him, but surely that is what any honorable man would do; first, to attempt to secure permission before he began any courtship of the girl.”
I thought I had carefully led him up to seeing the truth of it: that Epiny only pretended to be childish. But he would not drink of that idea. Instead, he said, “Well, at least my little girl has had her first childish infatuation. Surely I can take that as a sign of her growing up. And she chose a handsome soldier lad in a bright uniform with shiny buttons. I suppose I should have expected it. But I had no sisters, you know. Your father and I and our two younger brothers were like a den of bear cubs growing up. My mother despaired of ever teaching us anything about young women and how they should be treated. Epiny and Purissa are delightful but mysterious to me. They play at dolls and tea parties…it is an enchanting thing to watch, but how, I ask you, can that consume hours of their time? But doubtless you think me indulgent. I suspect your own father takes a firmer line with his offspring.”
“He does, sir, in some ways. And in others, he is indulgent. Once when Elisi asked him to bring her back blue hair ribbons from his trip to the city, he brought her, not two, but twenty, in every shade of blue the millinery had offered him. I do not think it a fault for fathers to dote on their daughters.”
We had drawn near to my dormitory. We halted on the walk. The tips of my ears and my nose stung with cold, but I sensed my uncle had not said all he wished to say.
“Let me change the subject, Nevare. Your letters were very detailed, and I assure you that your keen observation of how cadets are treated here will benefit those who follow you. But bring me up to date on yourself. How have you fared over the last week?”