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door as he heard the return of Mary-Ann to take up the breakfast platter. Taking the steps two at a time, he darted back up the stairs to the ground floor and slipped into the dining room. He was a few moments ahead of Mary-Ann and had just gathered his breath when the door swung open to reveal Mary-Ann’s sour face. Preferable though Kate’s presence may be, Avery was yet to compose himself from that morning’s exchange and he was grateful for some time to reflect on his dreams. Mary-Ann set the food down around him, scowling as she raised the coffee pot in anticipation.
    “ Yes, please, Mary-Ann.” Avery watched her pour a careful stream of hot coffee into his cup. Her hands were steady and Avery could not help but think that she would have made a far more prudent choice as ladies’ maid than Kate. As he watched Mary-Ann bustle competently about the dining room, he remembered how clumsy Kate had been that morning helping him dress. What a fuss it had been! For his part, he had been nervous around her, guiltily shying away from her touch as if her skin were aflame. As he had stepped into the grey dress, he had felt foolish in his underclothes and he had tried to hurry her along. Kate’s inept and heavy handed buttoning and hooking was preferable to her delicate and light touch, which teased his senses. His hurrying her had made her more fingers and thumbs than usual. It had been her hands about his shoulders and neck, roughly tugging at the collar hooks, that called to mind the most vivid memory of that morning’s dream, her arms flung about him in a fit of passion not duty, and he had snapped at Kate rather than disgrace himself.
    “Thank you, Mary-Ann.”
    “Yes, Miss,” and with a simple bob, Mary-Ann retreated to the hallway whereupon the tall figure of Jamieson stepped forward to take her place.
    “ Arthur? When do you expect my father home?” Avery enquired of the butler.
    “ I believe he is expected back for supper, Miss Silver.”
    “ Thank you, Arthur. That will be all.”
    “ Very good, Miss.” With a practiced hand, the door closed behind Arthur Jamieson with a delicate click and Avery was left alone to his breakfast, yet found himself without an appetite. Insatiable though his hunger was, there was nothing before him that would satisfy it. In a week’s time, Avery would be twenty and life so far, was not unfolding the way he had expected. He pushed his chair away from the table and walked to the fireplace. Above it, an ornate mirror was hung, he stood before it and tried to see anything of himself in the girl staring back at him. Her hair had been pinned up and pulled back, making her neck look long and her ears more prominent. Eschewing any make-up, the girl had a tired and much older look about her than she should; to Avery, the girl did not look very happy and he could sympathise fully with her. Neither of them could bear to spend another minute with the other.
    “ Damn!” Avery’s quiet curse was swallowed by the silence of the room and he bowed his head, his fists balled against the mantelpiece. His eyes burnt with angry tears. His heart and his head were of one accord but his body was not. He was no fool, but since he could remember, he always imagined that at some point in the future, as part of his passing into adulthood, as a rite of passage or puberty, he would become a man. As time had gone on and he had grown older, he had always known that this could never happen. Standing in the family dining room, an uneaten breakfast for two on the table, dressed in a grey silk dress stained with his own tears, Avery realised his own folly. His dreams of Kate were not foolishness; his dreams of himself were. Furious at himself he wiped hard at his eyes with his knuckles and he peered again at the girl in the mirror. Eyes fixed on each other, Avery stared her down. Unblinkingly, he leant in to whisper, “If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.”
     

Chapter Three - Imogen, 1911
     
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