He had a pleasant voice, and sang the song with as much confidence as if he were used to performing it on stage.
“What does it mean?” I asked. “The red blood reigns in the winter’s pale?”
“That blood will out,” he said, “even in the coldest surroundings.”
In spite of myself, I shivered, and it wasn’t just because Adam was rubbing the cooling poison onto my face and neck.
Blood and daffodils. It sounded like the title of a mystery novel by some sweet old lady who dealt in death and crumpets.
This whole business had been blood from beginning to end: my blood, bat’s blood, frog’s blood, saint’s blood, and Mr. Collicutt’s lack of.
And daffodils. A fistful of daffodils and crocuses had brought me face-to-face with Miss Tanty. What was it she had said—Don’t waste your crocuses?
“Do you suppose—” I asked.
“Shhh!” Adam said. “We don’t want to get any of this in your mouth, do we?”
With no encouragement on my part, he went on:
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take,
The winds of March with beauty.”
His words painted images in my mind, and I thought of Father and of Gladys and of flowers. We would never see another spring at Buckshaw.
“I hate daffodils,” I said, and was suddenly in tears.
Adam went on, pretending he hadn’t noticed.
“ ‘Violets … pale primroses … bold oxlips and the crown imperial … lilies of all kinds, the flower-de-luce being one.’ Old Bill Shakespeare was well up on the plant kingdom, you know.”
“You’re making this up to make me feel better,” I said.
“I assure you I’m not,” he said. “You’ll find it in The Winter’s Tale. You de Luces have been around for a remarkably long time.”
“Ouch!” I said. Adam was now applying the daffodil juice to a particularly tender spot on my nose.
“Yes, they do sting a bit, don’t they?” Adam asked. “I expect it’s the narcissine. The alkaloids have a tendency to—”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, but now I was laughing at him.
How could he ever understand?
It was quite hopeless.
“That’s you patched up, then,” he said. “Shall we go inside?”
“Inside?” I asked, taking hold of my skirt and spreading it like a fan. “Won’t you be ashamed to be seen with me?”
Adam only laughed and, taking my arm, led me upward between the old stones of the churchyard.
Heads turned and bodies swiveled in pews as we made our way up the aisle. No sooner had we squeezed into the front pew beside Father and Daffy than Feely struck up the opening chords of the processional hymn.
Now the choir was coming in procession from the back of the nave, singing their rousing morning song as the organ roared.
As they came abreast of our little party, not one of the singers failed to swivel his or her eyes sideways for a furtive glance at me, although they pretended not to.
There I sat as primly as I could manage, my eyes blackened with burned cork, my face and neck reddened by the blast and shiny with the poisonous juices of the daffodil, my clothing filthy with dust from the organ chamber, scorched and charred with the soot of an ether explosion.
Even the vicar’s eyes widened as he went past singing:
“The lamb’s high banquet call’d to share,
Array’d in garments white and fair …”
The diapason rumbled, shivering the age-stained pews, making the old wood tremble as it shook the fabric of the ancient church.