Page 30 of A Gathering Storm
Nicholas shook his hand briefly. “You said I could bring Snow—is that still all right? I can take him home if you prefer.”
“Of course, no trouble at all.” Ward turned to Pipp. “Mr. Pipp, will you bring some tea for Mr. Hearn? Oh, and a bowl of water for Master Snowflake.” When Pipp looked confused, he added, “The dog.”
Pipp’s eyebrows rose but he murmured, “Very good, sir,” before melting away.
Ward turned back to Nicholas.
“Would you like some breakfast?” He gestured at the dishes on the sideboard.
“No, thank you. I’ve already eaten.”
“I hope you don’t mind joining me while I finish breakfast?”
“Not at all, I’m happy to wait,” Nicholas replied evenly. And still, frustratingly, Ward could glean no sense of how happy or otherwise he was to be here.
“Please, take a seat,” Ward said, returning to his own place. “Mr. Pipp will be back directly with fresh tea.”
Nicholas selected the chair to the right of Ward’s own. Snowflake trotted as close to his heel as could be, before settling himself down at his master’s feet with a few whuffling breaths.
“He stays very close to you, doesn’t he?” Ward observed. “It’s as if he’s afraid to let you out of his sight.”
When Nicholas looked down at the dog, his stiffness eased, a small, fond smile curling the tight line of his mouth. That smile had a remarkable effect on his face. The man’s fierce features softened. He was handsome when he smiled, his expression very appealing. There was much, in fact, about Nicholas that was appealing: the lean, tough body; the obvious, unshowy intelligence. And something too, about that quiet, self-contained reserve that Ward greatly liked. It was soothing, that stillness.
“He prefers to be with me,” Nicholas said, bending down to caress the dog’s ears. “Poor fellow was near death when I found him, and I doubt he’d known a moment’s kindness in his life before that. He doesn’t trust easy.”
“He was injured when you found him?”
“Ayes,” Nicholas said, his soft Cornish burr gentle as the dog gazed devotedly up at him, big, round head cocked at an odd angle so he could keep that single eye on Nicholas. “He was a fighting dog. Came off worst in a bout and was left to die in an alley. When I found him, he was in such a terrible state, I thought it would be kinder to kill him, but I was too much a coward—I couldn’t do it.”
Ward stared at the dog’s empty eye socket, the hollowed space softened by a layer of white fur. He saw that the dog bore other scars on his unlovely face.
“It’s not cowardly to shirk at killing a living being,” Ward said.
“Yes, well, I’m glad I wasn’t able to do it now. Snow’s the gentlest companion you could wish for. Has the sweetest soul.”
Ward was immediately intrigued. “Do you really think a dog can have a soul?” he asked. He was genuinely curious, but as usual, his awful, wrecked voice made his words sound harsh, so that the question came out sounding like an accusation. He opened his mouth to apologise or explain—something—but when Nicholas looked up to meet his gaze, he didn’t seem offended.
“I’m certain of it,” he said simply. “Whatever a soul is—I’m not sure I know.” He shrugged. “Perhaps you will find out from your experiments.”
Ward smiled, relieved that not only had Nicholas not found his question offensive, he seemed to find it interesting. “Perhaps I will. I don’t see why a soul or a spirit—whatever you want to call it—shouldn’t be capable of being observed and measured. It’s only a matter of finding the right way to do it.”
Nicholas canted his head to one side, considering Ward curiously. “Is that right, though? A soul isn’t like a—a rock or a butterfly. It’s not something you can stick in a glass case and put a label next to.”
“You’re the one who said you saw a soul in Master Snowflake,” Ward pointed out. “If you can identify a soul just by looking at a dog, is it so unreasonable to suggest I might be able to identify one using sound scientific methods?”
Nicholas’s brows drew together at that, not in a frown as such, but in a thoughtful expression. “I’m not sure those are the same kinds of seeing. What I’m talking about is . . . more fleeting. A momentary flash of recognition that you feel here.” He touched his solar plexus. “That’s not the sort of seeing you’re talking about.”
“Oh? And what sort of seeing am I talking about?”
“I think you’re talking about capturing something, then peering at it. Studying it. Taking it apart and putting it back together again till you know exactly how it works.”
Ward felt oddly thrown by that assessment, which struck him as not entirely approving. “Well, thatishow scientists understand things.”
Nicholas nodded. “I know, but I’m not sure everything can be understood in that way. Some things are too fleeting, or—oh, I don’t know—tooshadowy.”
“Nonsense,” Ward replied. “Everything is capable of being studied and understood. I have to believe that. What do we have otherwise? People going around declaring this or that to be a truth based on some nebulousfeelingthey get? How could you ever disprove such a supposed fact, if you didn’t agree with it? And how would we ever progress without the ability to disprove and offer new, better explanations? The discipline of science—the drawing of logical conclusions from objective evidence—is the only reliable way we have of understanding anything.”
“So what is it that you wish to understand?” Nicholas asked. “From these experiments of yours?”