"Do you think he's left Ballarat already?" Mattie asked anxiously as she pushed her food around her plate with her fork, having hardly eaten a single bite of it.
"Oh, I'm sure he hasn't," Jean replied, with rather more confidence than she felt.
Truth be told, she didn't have the first idea where young Doctor Blake had gone, or when he'd be back. After breakfast he'd all but run out the door, as if he could not be rid of Jean and Halcyon quick enough, and he'd told her he was going to visit his father but it was nearly six o'clock, and he had yet to show his face. Somehow Jean rather doubted he'd spent the entire day at the hospital, but if he wasn't there, where could he have gone? To the solicitor perhaps, Jean thought, but did he even know which man in town was handling Thomas Blake's affairs? Even if he did, all the solicitors in Ballarat closed their doors at five, and surely he'd have made his way home by now, if that was where he'd gone. But he'd not told her his plans, and he'd not sent word for her, and the speculation left her uneasy. Oh, Jean didn't even want to think about what sort of mischief a man like that could get up to, if left to his own devices.
"What sort of man is he, do you think?" Mattie asked her curiously. "What form does his daemon take?"
So far Jean had deliberately avoided any discussion of Lucien's daemon, and the strange interaction between Nemea and Halcyon in the corridor. For his part her little kingfisher had been quite taken by the lioness, and he had chattered about her almost constantly from the moment Lucien and Nemea walked out of the house, and Jean didn't care for that, not one bit. It simply wasn't seemly, for one daemon to be so enchanted by another so soon after they'd met, and the old ladies of the town would say that such a turn was an omen of things to come. The daemon knows the truths the heart won't speak; her mother had been fond of the phrase, and used it often, and there had been times the thought brought Jean comfort but mostly it just alarmed her, for her daemon was never quiet, and the words he spoke always left her feeling strangely vulnerable, as if he were showing to the world secrets best kept tucked away. Halcyon thought Nemea was beautiful and if Jean were being honest she rather thought Lucien was beautiful, too - oh, she had hardly ever seen a man so handsome - but he was still unknown to her, and his long absence from the house did not leave the impression of a man who could be trusted. No, it would be best if she could convince Halcyon to temper his affections, or try his best to hide them from everyone else, at least until she knew for certain what sort of man Lucien Blake truly was. And that daemon of his; she had to be seen to be believed, Jean thought, because people had all sorts of superstitions about what it meant when a daemon settled on a certain form, and she knew too well how those superstitions could cut to the bone, and perhaps, she thought, it might be best if she didn't answer at all, for if she told Mattie the truth now, the girl might get entirely the wrong impression, and then -
"Oh, Mattie, she's the most wonderful thing!" Halcyon trilled before Jean could stop him, his deep blue wings fluttering in the late evening sunlight streaming in through the curtains. "She's a lion, Mattie. A lion! Oh, you've never seen anything like her."
"I'm sure I haven't," Mattie said, smiling. The girl did so indulge Halcyon, even if Jean wished she wouldn't; Mattie seemed to think Halcyon was a funny little thing, which Jean supposed he was, but still. It was most undignified. And surely Mattie would notice how Halcyon seemed to glow at the thought of Nemea, and surely she would see at once what Jean had been trying so very hard to hide.
"A lion, Jean? Was she utterly terrifying?" Mattie asked curiously, her eyes eager and bright. No one in Ballarat had a daemon half so big, and rather than being frightened by the thought that her new landlord would be accompanied everywhere he went by such a beast Mattie seemed, already, as enthralled as Halcyon.
"She was perfectly well behaved," Jean said primly. She'd decided it would be best not to mention that Nemea had bared her teeth when they first met. "Quiet and calm and not at all alarming."
"Well, that bodes well, doesn't it?" Mattie's daemon, a grey hare called Osiris, piped up. Jean firmly insisted that no daemons were allowed to light upon the table, and so when they took their meals Osiris either rested in Mattie's lap, or in his very own chair, seeing as they almost never had a full house for supper. He was, at this moment, sitting on that chair, watching Jean curiously.
"I would hope-" Jean started to reply, but then there came the rather disturbing sound of the front door flinging open, accompanied by a great thump, as if a body had just collided with the wall, and then the hushed sound of cursing. Doctor Blake, it would seem, had made his way home at last.
Jean rushed to see to him, and Mattie and Osiris and Halcyon raced after her, their strange little company coming to a sudden halt when they reached the corridor, and found Lucien Blake sprawled on the floor, his great lioness tugging him towards his father's bedroom with his belt caught between her teeth. It made for the most distressing sight, the front door standing open and the doctor prone on the floor, his clothes a shambles and his neat hair mussed, while the beast dragged him on, as if he were a gazelle she'd caught for her dinner.
"Oh!" Jean cried, mortified, jumping into action and hurrying towards them at once. "Let me help you."
Nemea did not speak, but her golden eyes followed Jean's progress steadily, thoughtfully all the while, and when Jean reached them Nemea did not try to turn her away.
" 's all right, Jean," Lucien slurred, but his eyes were closed, and he made no move to rise. Jean caught him under the armpits and Nemea kept her hold on his belt, and between the two of them they managed to drag him into the bedroom while Mattie went to close the front door, and hide their shame from the neighbors.
"Can you stand, Doctor Blake? Just for a moment?" Jean asked him. He was lying flat on his back, limp as a deflated life raft, and as strong as that lion of his was Jean wasn't certain they'd be able to lift him onto the bed, not even with Mattie to help them.
Lucien muttered something that sounded like perfectly fine right here, and Nemea let loose a soft sound of frustration.
"You're better than this, Lucien," she grumbled. She caught him under the shoulder with her nose, and pressed against him until he relented, and tried to rise. With his daemon to support him he managed to sit upright, and Jean gave her his arm to steady him. For a moment he rested, his eyes screwed up tight as if he could not bear to look at his surroundings, and Jean stared at his hand, resting on her forearm. That hand, so much bigger, so much stronger than her own, those long, thick fingers, his tanned skin marred here and there by small, silvery scars; it made for a compelling sight, made her feel small somehow, and fragile, compared to him.
"Lucien," Nemea grumbled; his back was propped up against her forehead, and she surged forward, demanding that he move.
"All right, all right," he said in defeat, and then his grip tightened against Jean's arm, and his free hand caught the edge of the bed for leverage, and he levered himself upright, just far enough to flop uselessly onto the mattress with his legs dangling off the end. In all her days Jean had never seen a man so utterly debauched; even when Christopher drank to excess he never went so far that he couldn't stand up, perhaps because he knew Jean would never let him near her bed in such a state.
"Let's get you settled, Doctor Blake," she said, and he submitted to the gentle urging of her hands, shuffled around while she tugged and pulled at him until he was lying on his back in the middle of the bed. He wasn't speaking any more - in fact, Jean was fairly certain he wasn't conscious at all. She heaved him over onto his side, in case he decided to be sick later, and then took a step back. All the exertion had slipped a lock of her hair loose from its pins, and she brushed it back from her eyes before straightening her shirt.
What a waste, she thought as she looked at him. Such a handsome man, with so much potential, and yet he was reduced to this.
"Thank you, Mrs. Beazley," Nemea said in her low, soft voice. "I'll look after him, now. I apologize for the interruption to your evening."
Jean very nearly reached out to give the lioness a reassuring pat on the head, but she caught herself at the last moment, and tugged her hand quickly away; what had she been thinking! She could hardly touch his daemon, such things simply were not done, and she was fairly certain that as polite as the golden lioness seemed to be, such impudence could easily cost her a finger. It's just the strangeness of the day, she told herself. Things will settle down.
"Do come and fetch me if you need anything," Jean told her sincerely.
Nemea did not answer; she lept easily up onto the bed and stretched herself out along his side; laid out like that, she was as tall as he was, and they made for an intimidating sight. Jean left them in peace, ushered Mattie away from the doorway where she'd been gawking, and started to pull the door closed behind them before she thought better of it. No doubt Nemea was a very resourceful creature, but even she might struggle with a doorknob, and it would be best, Jean thought, to leave the door open, so Nemea could come and find her, if need be. In her heart, though, Jean dearly hoped she would not see the lioness again until breakfast.
"What happened to him, Jean?" Mattie asked her urgently, peering through the crack in the doorway as if to get a better look. Jean took Mattie by the elbow, and marched her smartly back to the kitchen, not wanting to answer such a question within sight of that bedroom door.
"I'll tell you what happened to him," Jean said darkly as they returned to their seats, and their supper. "He happened to himself. The man smelled like the inside of a whiskey barrel. God only knows how he made his way home in that state."
Drunk as a lord, while his father lay dying; Jean had been wondering what sort of man Lucien Blake was, and she rather thought he'd just answered that question for her, and she rather wished he hadn't, for the truth was bitterly disappointing. Great men have big souls, her mother had told her, and perhaps Lucien Blake could have been a great man, for he had quite the biggest daemon - the biggest soul - Jean had ever seen, but there was nothing great about him now, not to her eyes.
"His daemon-"
"Nemea," Jean supplied the name absently.
"Nemea. She seems lovely, Jean," Mattie said, her eyes wide and earnest. "And if she is, then he must be, too."
That was the part that Jean couldn't quite wrap her head around. Nemea had been polite and soft spoken; in fact, she'd said very little, and yet when she did speak she had several times admonished Lucien for his behavior. What could it mean, Jean wondered, that his daemon should seem to disapprove of his behavior? Did that mean that Lucien himself did not want to be like this, abrasive and drunk and irresponsible? Some people were at odds with their daemons, at odds with their very natures, and Jean knew a thing about that for she had been trying, all her life, to encourage Halcyon to settle down, and he had refused at every turn. Jean longed, most fervently, to rehabilitate her own heart into something more sedate, something less wild; was Lucien the opposite, made reckless somehow, and while his heart yearned for peace? It was a strange thought.
"Oh, she is, lovely, isn't she, Jean?" Halcyon came to light on her shoulder, and brushed his little head against her cheek affectionately, and Jean reached for him, trailed her fingertips over his feathers and sighed, just a little.
"She's awfully big," Osiris said, a little apprehensively, "but she is trying to take care of him."
"Perhaps he's simply had a bad day," Mattie suggested.
"I'm sure you're right," Jean agreed. Mostly, she just wanted to put an end to any further discussion about young Doctor Blake and his strange daemon, for the thought of them troubled her deeply. "Grief does all manner of things to people. We shall give Doctor Blake the benefit of the doubt. Now go on, Mattie, eat your supper before it gets cold."
