"I've heard from Sophie," he said.
Marek was silent, his eyes wary.
"She's going to be a bridesmaid at Ellen's wedding."
He did not expect Marek to reply, but he said: "To Kendrick Frobisher, I take it?"
"Not exactly," said Leon. "More to his kitchen gardens and his cows and his evacuees. It's supposed to be a sanctuary for us all, the wet house. She hasn't asked us if we want to be there."
Marek had reverted to silence, his eyes fixed on a sampler saying, East west, Home's best, which the departing landlady of Mon Repos had forgotten to take down.
"She's getting married on the eighteenth of December, just a week before Christmas. The wedding is at Crowthorpe in the village church at two o'clock in the afternoon. Crowthrope is where Kendrick lives, it's between Keswick and Carlisle...."
He babbled on, repeating the time and place, the nearest railway station, till Marek turned his head.
"Shut up, Leon." There was no feeling in his voice, only a great weariness.
"I could tell her you're here. I could tell her you're free. She doesn't know you're in England--Sophie didn't know whether we should--"
Now, though, Marek did show emotion. The onset of one of his instant and furious rages.
"You will say nothing about me to Ellen. You will not mention my name. "I put you on your honor," said Marek, reverting unexpectedly to his year at an English public school. "You will only hurt her," he said presently.
Leon's hero worship subsided momentarily.
"I could hardly hurt her more than you have done," he said.
-A Song for Summer, pages 362 and 363
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