Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

expert on these little-visited hours of the night. Sailors, I believe, call them the 'graveyard watch', and it

is odd to think of them, even as I write, steering by wind and star over the great desolate oceans of the world.

It is also, perhaps, the hour of fanciful thoughts. I beg your Ladyship's indulgence. I do not believe I have properly thanked you for your goodness to me over this matter. The somewhat public decay of my faith must have been an embarrassment to you if not indeed an affront to your own strong belief and Christian righteousness. To be treated so graciously places me for ever in your debt. It is my profound wish that one day I may find the means to repay it.

I shall now lie down, close my eyes and at least play-act the part of a sleeper. Morpheus may then take pity and come to me. I shall write again in the next days and give you news of the Great St Petersburg Expedition, though I fear - hope? ~ it will be quite forgotten by the time we drink our morning chocolate.

I remain, Madam, your most humble, grateful, wayward servant,

Julius Lestrade

Rev Jls Lestrade to Miss Dido Lestrade

Paris, 22 October 1767

My dear Dido,

A word from your errant brother. I hope you are not still in a pet with me. I know my actions have caused you much uneasiness. I can but ask for your tolerance and patience and assure you of a brother's love. Paris is pretty enough. My French holds up though is not as elegant or correct as your own. How are things at Cow? Is Mrs Cole taking care of you? What of your headaches? Does Dr Thome's medicine give you some relief?

Listen, my dear, there is some talk here that we may go to St Petersburg in Russia. Do not be alarmed! Monsieur About, whom you would like mightily, has persuaded me to it though I cannot say if it will come off. Not very likely, I think, yet it

may be better than kicking my heels here. I have written to Lady Hallam. Do you ever see her? How does she seem? I do not know why I ask you all these questions; Lord knows where you could send a reply.

Do not be angry with me, Diddy. You and I should always endeavour to be well together. See that George Pace fixes that hole in the roof before the weather is really bad, and do, I beg you, give some attention to the garden.

I am your affectionate, foolish brother.,

Julius

Rev J Is Lestrade to Lady Hallam

Berlin, 31 October

My dear Lady Hallam.,

I am writing to you from the Hotel Bristol in Berlin where I have a very dainty room and a better desk than in my study at Cow from which to write to you.

I cannot quite believe that I am here. About is a magician, a benign Faustus. His energy is prodigious. We left Paris a week ago, the servants rousing us before first light on the morning of our departure, and all of us gathering, with vague remembrance of our undertaking of the previous night, at the breakfast table for hot chocolate and buns. About was there already, tucking in and looking as if he had slept twelve hours.

Mr and Mrs F and myself, carefully avoiding one another's eyes, were forced to display a zeal we in no way felt. Yet which of us cared to stand revealed in the character of a mere talker? A blabbermouth! Within a minute About had us toasting St Petersburg, the Empress, the travelling life. Thus a mans concern with how he looks to the world will allow him to be dragged halfway across its suface. It was, I assure you, a very comical scene. I dare say it would come off to good effect in the theatre. , After breakfast, our trunks were hastily assembled, and we

mounted into our chariot. It is a rather old machine, very brown inside and out, apart from the spokes of the wheels which have some old yellow paint on them. The stuffing in the seats has bunched in places, one of the windows will not completely close, and there is a continuous eerie lament from the rear axle, but we have become quite attached to it, for it is a very sturdy machine with a good, dry smell and plenty of space for us all, even Mrs F's hoops.

By the time we made our first stop, a pretty inn outside the town of Compiegne, we were all remarkably resigned, the more so when the innkeeper regaled us with an exquisite stew of duck and bacon, and About persuaded him to part with a half-dozen bottles of his best red wine from his 'cave'. The weather, which had been grey in Paris, ripened into a glorious autumn afternoon. Our coach, which glories in the name of 'Mami Sylvie', after one of About's elderly female relatives, quite consumed the distances, racing between the hedgerows and bouncing us through settlements which, despite their evident poverty, were picturesque to us. That night I had my first good sleep in many weeks, at least seven hours of blissful slumber. I wonder now how much of our suffering, our mental anguish, is occasioned by the lack of it. It may be that the cure for many of our ills is no more than the administration of a potent sleeping draught.

You may consider, madam, that we are an oddly assorted band of voyagers, but I must report that we agree with each other very well. Mr and Mrs F are honest folk, easily ruffled, I fear, and Mr F never far ffom bluster, but essentially well-meaning, and one cannot ask for more. They are delightfully and consistently contemptuous of all things un-English. All that we see - cows, trees, buildings, the very men and women we pass upon the road - have to the Featherstonian mind a more lovely counterpart in Albion. This, far ffom exasperating