II. Vera.

Cyril was lingering in the hallway for no particular reason, trying to place a certain oddly familiar yet unidentifiable scent that hung in the air. There was a sweetness to it, but it was not floral-- more of a sugary sweet. A slightly sickly, sticky sweetness that his nose told him he didn't like. Some awful cake the baker was baking? No, it was more immediate than that. It didn't have the faintness of an odor blown in from far away, not even so far as the kitchen, but was patently emanating from something nearby. Cyril couldn't say why he did so, but he followed it, feeling like a hound on a scent rather than a man walking through his lover's house.

It was to a door left slightly ajar that his nose lead him. He approached the door, careful not to make a sound, and positioned himself just to one side of it. He heard voices in the room within, one very familiar voice, and another voice, less so, but a voice he nonetheless knew, although he had not heard it in such a long time. The first voice was a young woman's, high-pitched and slightly nasal. It was not an unpleasant voice, but neither was it a voice that would have been described as "dulcet tones" or "melodic syllables" or anything like women's voices were described in certain kinds of novels. The second voice-- there was nothing about the second voice to say whether it was male or female. It was a low, rasping, shuddering kind of voice, the kind of voice a raven might have had, if it could speak. The sound of it filled him with an altogether unaccustomed feeling. If he had been forced to pick a word for it, that word would have been heartbreak.

"I know how you love them," the young woman's voice was saying. "So I managed to sneak some in for you."

"How did you remember?" asked the other, raspy, androgynous voice, and Cyril frowned thoughtfully. "Treacle buns . . . I haven't had them in so long." That voice had not always sounded so, like the voice of someone long dead.

"Of course I remember," the girl said matter of factly. "Uncle Cyril was always going on about them, about how much he hated treacle."

It was true, Cyril thought. He did hate treacle, and all things treacly. With a passion. No wonder the smell had drawn him, even more surely than a smell he liked would have. There was something about treacle that both intrigued and infuriated him. Something very striking and traumatizing involving treacle must have happened to him when he was quite small.

The rasping voice shuddered into laughter. "Ah, so he was. Yes, he left us in no doubt as to his feelings on treacle." There was a pause, then the faint sound of someone eating-- presumably a treacle bun. Cyril made a face, glad he wasn't obligated to partake of it.

"Do you like it, Mother?" the girl's voice asked eagerly.

"I do. Thank you, Vera. You're a good girl," her mother said.

"Would you like me to read to you today, mother?"

"Ah, no, not today. I'm tired today." The voice did sound tired, wavering like a flag in tatters.

"I'll leave you then," said Vera. "Shall I leave the buns here?"

"Please do. I'd like to have some later, when I wake up."

"All right then, mother. I'll see you soon, shall I?"

Now was the time when Cyril, if he had wanted to remain undiscovered, would have quietly hurried away down the corridor. Cyril, however, though an avowed eavesdropper, considered himself above skulking. If he was going to overhear something, he would at least be honest about it. So he waited, leaning back against the wall next to the door, his nose twitching slightly, distracted by the treacle scent which still hung in the air.

Vera, passing through the door, saw him at once. Cyril smiled. Vera stopped and stared. But she did not speak-- instead, with a scowl, shutting the door firmly behind her. Vera was a rather peakish girl, gaunt, all angles, as Irish in look as her mother was: black-eyed, black-haired and terribly pale. She looked not at all like her father Percy, who was the reason he knew her, but Cyril loved her no less for that. He continued to smile as Vera gripped his arm and physically dragged him away down the corridor and into her own room. She closed the door of her chamber behind her as well, behind both of them, her eyes livid. Vera's pet myna bird stirred in its cage as they entered, hopping and fluttering its wings, then fixing them both with a bright black eye. "Just what do you think you're doing?" Vera demanded sharply.

"I? What am I doing? Nothing at all."

"You were listening."

"Oh, yes, I was doing that," Cyril admitted.

"Well, you shouldn't! You shouldn't have been! It's a secret!"

"What is?" asked Cyril mildly. "The fact that your mother can talk?"

"She only talks to me," Vera said fiercely.

"That's apparent. I was under the impression that she hadn't said a word in three years to anyone. In fact, I think everyone is under that impression. Imagine my surprise when I passed by and heard her voice. Talking about treacle, of all the benighted subjects."

Vera was pacing the room, her hands animated, fluttering. There Cyril recognized her father in her at last. Those were his movements. As though she guessed who he was thinking of, she turned to him, her expression grave. "You can't tell Father," she said.

"I can't?"

"He can't know, he can't! The reason Mother doesn't talk to people is because she doesn't want to talk to them. If people knew, they'd start expecting her to talk again, and I don't think she could bear that. She only wants to talk to me. She trusted me with her secret. If she-- if she knew I'd let you discover the truth . . . . What if she never talked to me again?" Vera's eyes were wild. She was very much like her mother had once been, this excitable, somewhat feral, creature who was at the same time very clever, very aware of what she needed to say to make her Uncle Cyril do as she wished. "I won't have anyone then."

Vera was, Cyril did not doubt, a lonely girl. She kept herself to herself, far more than her twin brother and her little sister did. She did not have any friends outside the household that Cyril was aware of. She was so often holed up in her mother's room, ostensibly reading novels to her, but also, it now seemed, talking to her. Did they exchange confidences, perhaps? Did they plot? Did they dream? "What do you talk about all day, I wonder?" Cyril mused aloud.

Vera's eyes grew shuttered. "It's none of your concern."

"Of course, of course it isn't," Cyril assured her hastily. "It's only that I've missed talking to your mother, and I wonder what she says. That's all. Please, do give her my regards, without letting her know what I've heard. And rest assured, I will keep your secret. I won't tell a soul."

"Not even Father?"

"No, not even him. I promise. You can trust me."

The girl stared at him for a long while. Cyril returned her gaze steadily, patient. This girl, he thought suddenly to himself, would never marry. The random thought caught itself up in his chest, and he felt a slight twinge of pain there. He knew himself well enough to know that this sensation was emblematic of a fierce kind of protective love. There was somthing about Percy's children that inspired this feeling in him. At last, as he watched, Vera's stony face melted into one of her rare smiles. "I do trust you."

"Thank you." Cyril gave a slight bow. "I appreciate your trust, and I won't betray it."

The girl was silent again for a few moments, but Cyril waited. He saw her lips were parted, saw unspoken words hovering there. "Mother does too," Vera added at last. "Trusts you, I mean. She doesn't hate you or Father, you know. That isn't why she stopped talking."

Cyril nodded slowly, digesting this. "Thank you," he said again. He decided he should reward this confidence with a confidence of his own. "I had been wondering about that."

Vera was still smiling a little, her black eyes as bright and sharp as the eyes of her myna bird, and Cyril found himself wondering how much this girl knew. What had her mother been telling her? For Vera's mother had always been a woman with a great deal to say, whether she said it or not.

No matter. Whatever she knew, Cyril was certain she could be trusted with the knowledge. After all, she had trusted him, and what was a surer sign of trustworthiness than trust? "I hope you've learned something from this experience," he told her with mock severity.

"Learned something? What?"

"You shouldn't keep treacle in the house. It can only lead to trouble."