‘Hello, Charlotte,’ said Kate, dropping to her knees so she was the same height as the little girl. ‘I have come to play with you and Dolly.’
‘And Teddy,’ said Charlotte, pointing imperiously at him.
Kate bit her lip, hiding her smile. ‘And Teddy,’ she agreed.
‘Only while we are here,’ he murmured to Kate as he lowered himself to the ground. ‘I will not respond to that name anywhere but in this room.’
Kate nodded, her eyes smiling. Even though he was not keen on the shortened version of his name, he was glad to see she was happy again and that the horror of her memory, the one thathad gripped her so tightly with the spilt tea in the Blue Lounge, was being wiped away by passing time with his innocently happy niece.
‘Where is Dolly going today?’ Kate asked Charlotte.
‘To… to… the darden.’
‘To the garden,’ Kate repeated. ‘How lovely!’
For a while, Edward watched them play together. Charlotte did not seem to need his input, although at one point, his body became a mountain Dolly had to climb. The autumnal sun poured through the high windows and the room warmed. A few times, Edward felt his eyelids grow heavy, but he managed to snap himself awake before he started snoring. He had not been sleeping well, which was not new, even if the reasons behind his sleeplessness were. He’d been overthinking his relationship with Kate. Again, the overthinking wasn’t a recent development. He had been this way since he could remember, but dwelling on Kate and whether or not he had made her uncomfortable was a fresh form of agony.
Leaning back against the wall, he stretched his legs out in front of him. Charlotte climbed between them, facing outwards to talk to Kate. He wasn’t following the conversation until Kate said, ‘Look at the big lake in front of them. See how deep it is too. They will need a boat to get across this water.’
Edward watched Charlotte’s curls bobbing as she nodded.
‘Oh, how lucky,’ Kate said. ‘Here comes one now.’ She pushed a wooden box across the floor until it was in front of Charlotte. ‘Is Dolly going to get aboard?’
Charlotte went to put her toy in the box and then stopped. ‘Need Ace.’
‘Ace?’ Kate asked.
Charlotte leapt to her feet. ‘Yes. Ace on boat.’
Edward locked eyes with Kate, tilting his head slightly, hoping the movement indicated he had no idea who Ace could represent. She nodded in acknowledgement.
‘The boat can wait for Ace,’ she told Charlotte.
‘Not Ace.Ace.’ Charlotte emphasised the first letter of the name, but it was no clearer to him who this person might be. Charlotte ran to her small bed and fetched a teddy bear. She held it up to show the adults. ‘Dis Ace.’
‘This is Ace?’ Kate emphasised theatoo, which seemed to satisfy his niece, who brought the bear back to the makeshift boat and added both toys to it.
Charlotte began to push the boat around the room. It was clear this Ace was in charge of Dolly, because whenever Charlotte spoke like she were the bear, she said things like ‘Teatime’ and ‘Time for bed now,’ ordering Dolly to do things as if she were a child.
Edward leaned forward, watching the interaction intently. The brothers had no idea how Charlotte had travelled from America to England, a trip that normally lasted six weeks but could have been as long as ten weeks. That person had presumably also travelled from Plymouth to London, keeping Charlotte safe in a new and possibly frightening environment.
But whoever had brought her had not stayed to see her delivered to her uncles, had not watched over her as the four brothers had struggled to rearrange their lives in order to accommodate a little girl they had never met before. That disparity had always struck Edward as strange. Even if the person had not been a relative, it was hard to imagine anyone knowing Charlotte and then being able to walk away without first meeting the family with whom she was going to be living. Edward knew he was biased, she was his niece and he adored her, but he was fairly sure she cast a spell on everyone who mether and he could not understand why her travelling companion had abandoned her with the lawyer.
Now it was possible they had a name for the person who had travelled with her and cared for her during her voyage. Except… Ace was not a name.
‘Can you find out if Ace is a man or a woman?’ he asked Kate in a soft murmur.
She appeared not to have heard him and he did not want to interrupt to repeat his question, not when this was possibly their first insight in months.
After a while Kate said, ‘Should Ace go to sleep now too? I think he is getting tired.’
Charlotte giggled. ‘Ace is a girl.’ She took the bear from Kate’s outstretched hand and lowered it next to Dolly. ‘I get blanket.’ She rushed over to her toy crib and took a small blanket from the top. ‘Now dey sleep.’
‘While they have a rest,’ said Kate, ‘shall I read you a story?’
Charlotte nodded, her thumb already in her mouth. Kate tucked the little girl into her bed and took a book from a small stack next to it.
Edward listened as Kate read, her voice soft and melodic. He did not listen to the words, only stared at the box with the toys lying next to one another. Kate had found out something not one of them had managed in the five months since Charlotte had been living with them, although what he was going to do with this newfound information, he wasn’t sure.
