The Crafters Book Two by Christopher Stasheff, Bill Fawcett Page B

you, Peri? Latin and Greek, Harvard, Yale, somewhere, once? That old book of your family’s—?”
    Pericles guffawed and dealt the hapless Culpepper a strong buffet on the back. “Aw, now, H’raysh”—thus does the Yankee tongue mangle the sweet syllables of Mr. Horatio Culpepper’s Christian name!—”you know I never did have me any sort of a head for furrin languages.”
    Here he gave Mr. Culpepper a swat so fierce that I marveled at what passes for male camaraderie. The poor, plump little man lurched forward, his hands skidding among the tea things and quite upsetting the cream. As I rang for Maisie to clear away the resulting mess, I heard Mr. Culpepper say in that peculiar, staccato manner of his that yes, yes, he must be mistaken, quite wrong, surely thinking of another friend, the Classics were not Mr. Factor’s meat at all, and so on.
    Perhaps my imagination runs too rampant, darling Caroline, but I have reviewed my memories of teatime and the conviction remains: He was afraid. Mr. Horatio Culpepper was purely terrified of his supposedly dear friend, Mr. Pericles Factor.
    Whatever can it mean? Sitting here, poring over the first introductory lessons of Mamma’s old Greek text, I freely admit that I do not know.
    But I do intend to find out. Think, then, often of
    Your Bemused Yet Determined Friend,
    Delilah
    * * *
    May 1804

    Dearest Caroline, whatever shall I do?
    Forgive the haste with which I write and all accompanying failures of proper Form and Art. My brain reels. Well has my Papa lectured that learning is a dangerous superfluity in woman. Would that I had never opened that accursed volume! One woe doth tread upon another’s hem. I am undone!
    And I will thank you, in the name of our sweet friendship, to limit your reply to what small guidance you might offer me in my peril. I really do not need to hear about the “utterly charming young gentleman from Huntingdonshire with the imploring brown eyes” who has so clearly turned your head from things that really matter. How can you stoop to vulgar Bath flirtations at a time like this?
    Better if you had followed my example and lavished your time upon books rather than jumped-up Huntingdonshire pups, be their brown eyes ever so wheedling. For I confess, much pain and difficulty though Mamma’s texts have brought me of late, I find the pursuit of the knowledge they contain to be strangely compelling. The Greek I mastered with unwonted ease, the initial difficulties of the first few chapters once surmounted. It was as if I had been born to mastery of the tongue, somehow. Mamma spoke of certain members of our family having a certain Talent. Could this be mine? I wondered.
    It must be that Talent of one sort or another has some bearing upon my facility for the Attic language, since I admit my studies were neither focused nor single-minded. I was too intrigued by the odd relationship I earlier observed between Messrs. Culpepper and Factor. You will recall—if your pet suitor has not quite driven all recollection of me from mind—that I mentioned the fear I sensed emanating from poor little Mr. Culpepper when he gainsaid the American lout. Minded to discover more, I did not hide myself away in Mamma’s old room half so much as I originally planned. My Greek studies should have suffered thereby; they did not. In the course of a scant week I find myself possessed of both a workable knowledge of Greek, a smattering of Latin (I have found another elementary text among the volumes of Mamma’s library), and the sure and certain conviction that Mr. Culpepper is in mortal danger at the muscular hands of his so-called “friend” Mr. Pericles Factor.
    Yes, it is so. I know it for a fact. Criticize me if you must for what I shall now tell you:
    It was only last night my theories achieved confirmation. My daily observations of our two guests hinted ever so subtly at an occult relationship between the twain which was not conducive to Mr. Culpepper’s health or