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Maggie shrugged. "Well, it's a bit trickier than preparing a banquet for 1500 after a lean hunting season and a drought, but if you have the raw ingredients, I can tackle it."
It took even Maggie's magic the remainder of the light part of the afternoon to make the required candies and shore up the foundation, shingle the walls, and patch the roof with fresh sugar wafers. Fortunately for her, the power that defined her hearthcraft talent as that of hearth and housework took the term housework literally, so that it included a bit of light carpentry.
Colin and Aunt Sybil sat on stumps in front of the house, drinking tea and munching the fresh roofing material, watching Maggie apply the fudge at strategic points so that it could spread itself before she applied the shingles.
"I only tuned in when you children were in the river, young man," said Sybil conversationally, "Have you known my niece long?"
Though Colin's experience was limited, it was not so limited that he had never before heard that tone of voice from fond female relatives of unmarried girls. "Er-not that long. We're traveling together on official business actually-Sir William's orders."
"I see. Maudie's message hinted that there had been some unpleasantness?" "Message, ma'am?"
"My familiar, my budgie bird, flies messages between us sometimes-to keep in touch, you know."
"Isn't that a little awkward, considering?" He nodded to Ching, asleep in Sybil's lap, face nestled in his front paws as completely at home as though Sybil were her sister.
"Oh, Ching knows he mustn't be naughty and bother Budgie. Maudie has made that quite clear." She stroked the cat's spotted fur. "Our mother wouldn't have needed a budgie for her messages, of course."
"She wouldn't?"
"Oh, no. She could talk to you plain as day through HER visions. She talked Maudie all through birthing Bronwyn, even though she had to be in Queenston just then."
"Bronwyn?" Colin asked, sipping his tea. Maggie certainly had an extensive family. More of them just seemed to pop up in conversation all the time.
"Maggie's ma. Lovely girl she was, Bronwyn."
"It seems like Maggie has an awful lot of relatives, and they're all ladies. Tell me about Bronwyn, will you? Maggie talks about distant ancestors, but hasn't said much ahout her immediate family, other than that she's rightfully worried about this one sister who doesn't seem to be entirely a sister." He felt a bit guilty for taking advantage of Maggie's doing a favor for her aunt to pry, but his horse and his musical instruments, as well as her things, had been stolen in this venture. He felt, under the circumstances, he really ought to have the whole story. Besides, it could add immeasureably to the background he needed to improve that song . . .
Aunt Sybil was a kind person and a lonely one, however, she was not stupid. She gave him a hard look from under her brow that considerably heightened her resemblance to her sister. Maggie, having finished the foundation and the walls, and having patched the hard-candy windows with an extra shingle or two, had climbed the ladder her aunt used to climb to her bed-loft. With this she mounted the roof. She was again applying the fudge as binding material in strategic places so that it would spread itself properly to be ready for the application of the sugar-wafer roof tiles. "Well, young man, I can understand your curiosity. I suppose I can tell you something now, but the rest I'll save till Maggie's done there and we can all have a bit of supper. There's a lot she doesn't know, either, that I think she ought . . ."
"Any enlightenment you can provide would be appreciated, ma'am," Colin said. He had finished his tea and roof tile and had taken his guitar from its bag. He strummed lightly the strings as he fingered the keyboard. It kept his hands limber.
"I suppose Maggie has told you that she is a love child?" "A-? Oh, yes, she did. I thought that was a little strange, because she and Sir William and everyone else acted as though she is a legitimate heir."
"She is, she is. But only because Sir William chose to acknowledge her, when he married her mother.'' "I think you had better explain about that part." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]