Weyward(13)

Nanny Metcalfe offered Violet her arm as they made their way around the grounds. The gardens were bright with flowers – blue spikes of hyacinth, fleshy whorls of rhododendrons – so bright that she averted her eyes and looked down at her feet in their leather brogues.

‘Isn’t it lovely to be outside, listening to the birds?’ Nanny Metcalfe said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Lovely.’

But she couldn’t hear the birds. In fact, she could barely hear anything at all, other than Nanny Metcalfe’s voice. It was as if her ears were wrapped in wool.

A butterfly passed them. Out of habit, Violet lifted her hand, but instead of coming to rest on her palm, it flew on, like she wasn’t even there.

‘Your father would like you to take your tea downstairs this evening, in the dining room with himself and Graham,’ said Nanny Metcalfe.

‘Very well,’ said Violet faintly, watching the butterfly until it was no more than a white flash in the corner of her vision.

‘Nanny,’ she said, pausing as she tried to word the question that had worried at her for days. ‘Was there something wrong with my mother?’

‘Your mother? Don’t know where that’s come from. Violet, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I barely knew her ladyship, rest her soul.’

But Violet saw that Nanny Metcalfe’s cheeks had reddened.

‘And … what about me? Is there something wrong with me?’

‘Here, pet,’ Nanny Metcalfe said, turning to look at her. ‘Wherever would you get an idea like that?’

‘Just something Father said. And I’m not allowed in the village, but Graham is. And – until this cousin – no one has ever come to call.’

People were always calling on each other in novels, Violet had learned. And it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of nearby families of similar status, who might be disposed to friendship. Why, Baron Seymour lived only 30 miles from Orton Hall and had a son and a daughter of equivalent ages to Graham and Violet. She had once looked them up in Father’s battered copy of Burke’s Peerage.

‘Och, your father’s just overprotective, that’s all. Don’t you pay him any mind. Here, we’d better be getting back so you can have your bath.’ Her words made Violet feel very small, as if she were six instead of sixteen.

Violet didn’t brush her hair before supper, and wore her least favourite dress, an ill-fitting orange gingham. She knew it made her look sallow and drawn, but she didn’t care.

Mrs Kirkby set a shrunken joint of roast mutton on the table. Violet hated mutton, though she knew from Father’s lectures that they were rather lucky to have it at all. Still, she tried not to picture the gentle, cloud-soft sheep that had given its life for their meal.

She looked at her plate. The meat was grey and lumpish, the sort of thing Father would never have eaten before the war. Watery blood leaked from its flesh, staining her potatoes pink. She felt as if she might be sick.

She put her knife and fork down, before realising that Father was watching her. A fleck of gravy quivered at the corner of his frown.

‘Eat up, girl,’ he said. ‘Follow your brother’s example.’

Graham, whose plate was already nearly empty, flushed. Father helped himself to more gravy.

‘You will recall,’ he began, ‘that your cousin Frederick is coming to stay with us tomorrow. He’s an officer in the Eighth Army, taking leave from the fighting in Tobruk. Do you know where Tobruk is, Graham?’

‘No, Father,’ said Graham.

‘It’s in Libya,’ said Father between mouthfuls. Violet could see strings of meat in his teeth when he talked. The urge to vomit returned. She trained her eyes on the painting hanging on the wall behind him – the portrait of some long-dead viscount, looking on imperiously from the eighteenth century.

‘Godforsaken place,’ Father continued. ‘Full of savages.’ He shook his head. Violet flinched as she felt something brush against her leg. Pretending to drop her napkin, she peered under the table in time to see Father deliver Cecil a swift kick to the rump. ‘Those wops haven’t a clue what they’re doing out there. They couldn’t govern a sandbar.’

The maid, Penny, began clearing the plates to make room for pudding. Eton mess, a favourite of Father’s, who never lost an opportunity to remind Graham that he had expected him to follow in his Etonian footsteps. (Graham had not got into Eton. He was on summer break from Harrow.)

‘Your cousin’, said Father, ‘is risking his life every day, fighting for his country. I expect you to treat him with the utmost respect when he arrives. Is that clear, children?’

‘Yes, Father,’ said Graham.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Violet,’ Father said, ‘you will not hide in your bedroom. Such laziness disrespects the soldiers fighting hard for King and country and is unbecoming of a woman. I expect you to maintain a cheerful presence around the Hall and be gracious towards your cousin. Understood?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘You will recall what we discussed,’ he said.

‘Yes, Father.’

After supper, Violet finished her needlepoint lesson with Miss Poole. When they were done, she sat for a while, looking longingly out of the window. It was very bright for seven o’clock. Normally, she’d spend an evening like this outdoors, sitting under her beech tree with a book, perhaps; or down by the beck, sketching the frothy white plumes of angelica that grew there.