they want to. Nobody traps a butterfly in a schoolroom. Nobody flogs a butterfly for being stupid.”
What the hell? Oak took his time latching the gate closed. “Which one is your favorite?”
“The green hairstreak can hide among the leaves. Nobody can see him unless he wants to be seen.”
Worse and worse. “What about the Adonis blue or purple emperor?”
“They are bright, and that makes them easy to catch. Some people stick pins in butterflies and collect the carcasses. I wouldn’t do that.”
Oak wouldn’t do that either. “How do you study the butterfly well enough to draw him if you don’t collect a specimen to sketch?”
They’d reached the gate by the stream. Alexander clambered over, waiting for Oak on the other side. Oak unlatched the gate and stepped through, then refastened the gate. On a different day, he would have vaulted the obstacle, but the morning’s discussion with Vera had stolen such ebullience.
“If I wanted to draw a butterfly,” Alexander said, “I’d catch him in a glass jar and make sure he had leaves and whatnot to keep him comfortable. I’d sketch him as best I could, then I would thank him for his patience and let him go. Mr. Forester says talking to animals is a sign of a weak mind.”
Mr. Forester is an idiot. “Well, then, my mind is complete mush, for I confide all of my troubles in Charles, and he has never given me bad advice. I’ve suggested to your mother that you should have a dog.”
Alexander came to a halt. “A dog? For me? My own dog?”
“I’ve written to my brother Willow, who raises dogs, in hopes of securing a canine companion for you. Willow not only speaks to dogs, he can hear their replies.”
They had reached the stream, which in high summer was more of a soggy, meandering burn than a watercourse.
“Nobody can hear a dog talk,” Alexander said, picking up a stick and pitching it into the slow-moving current. “That’s silly.”
How many times had Oak’s brothers told him that drawing flowers was silly? “Do you know when Catherine is sad?”
“Yes. She looks out of windows a lot and twiddles the ends of her hair. When Miss Digg scolds her for that, Catherine doesn’t care. If she pouts and makes faces when she’s scolded, she’s not sad, she’s in a taking.”
The ground was too damp to sit on this close to the bog, so Oak perched on the log where he and Catherine had become acquainted.
“You know when Catherine’s sad because you watch how she behaves. She doesn’t need to say, ‘I am sad,’ but you know. It’s like that with dogs and horses and all manner of things. Watch closely, and you can see what they aren’t saying.”
He hoisted Alexander to sit beside him, though the boy jumped right back down. “Is that what you do, sir? You watch and study and see who people are?”
“Something like that.” Oak pushed away from his makeshift bench, unwilling to deny Alexander more activity when the boy had so little time out of doors. “Let’s have a look at the bog, shall we?”
“Do I have time, sir? We haven’t sketched Charles, and I must not be late.”
I will find this boy a pocket watch when I’m in London and send it to him for a Christmas token. Though Christmas tokens were usually exchanged only between family and friends, and when Oak left Merlin Hall, his departure would be permanent.
“We have time. What color would you use to paint the water, Alexander?”
The child took to the question with his characteristic earnest enthusiasm. The peaty quality of the stream, the low summer volume, and the afternoon sunlight created hues of amber, burgundy, bronze, sable, and gold, and Oak was able to use those observations to point out that black in a painting was seldom truly black, just as white was usually not quite white.
“And this stream flows under the bog?” Alexander asked, stopping on the edge of the path.
“That’s hard to say. Sometimes, a quaking bog forms as a pond recedes or spreads; sometimes, we don’t know what created it or whether it’s more extensive in summer, spring, or fall.”
“Or winter,” Alexander replied. “Bogs don’t always freeze just because you see ice. Mrs. Tansbury says bogs are never safe.”
“Mrs. Tansbury is right. We’d best be getting back if we’re to say hello to Charlie.”
Oak, much like his pupil, did not want to return to the house, did not want to explain to Catherine how to mix a carmine hue