Weyward(18)

‘Please, William. Be reasonable,’ said my mother in a tight voice. ‘You can see that the leeches are just making her worse. Your wife is frightened and in pain. She needs cool cloths, and honey and elderberry, to soothe her.’

As she spoke, Anna let out a moan. Grace began to cry.

‘Please, Papa, please,’ she said.

William Metcalfe looked at his wife, then at his daughter. A vein throbbed at his temple.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But you must stop if I say so. And if she dies, it will be on your head.’

My mother nodded. She set about removing the leeches from Anna’s skin, asked Grace to fetch a jug of water and a cup. When these arrived, she knelt by the bedside and tried to get Anna to drink, but the liquid just dribbled down her chin. She laid a damp cloth over her forehead. Anna muttered, and I saw her fists clenching and unclenching beneath the bedclothes.

I sat down next to my mother.

‘Will you try the elderberry tincture?’ I asked.

‘She is very far gone,’ my mother said, keeping her voice low. ‘I am not sure she will be able to take it in. We may be too late.’

She took the small bottle of purple liquid from her basket and un-stoppered it. She held the dropper over Anna’s mouth and squeezed. A dark splash fell on her lips, staining them.

As I watched, Anna’s whole body began to shake. Her eyes opened, flashing white. Foam collected at the corners of her mouth.

‘Anna!’ William rushed forward, pushing us out of the way. He tried to hold his wife’s body still. I turned around and saw Grace standing in the far corner of the room, her hands over her mouth.

‘Grace, do not watch,’ I said, crossing the room. I put my hands over her eyes. ‘Do not watch,’ I said again, my lips so close to her face that I could smell the sweetness of her skin.

The room was filled with the terrible sounds of the bedframe shaking, of William Metcalfe saying his wife’s name over and over.

Then it grew quiet.

I did not need to turn around to know that Anna Metcalfe was dead.

‘Why did you not save her?’ I asked my mother as we walked home. It was still raining. Cold mud seeped into my boots. The boots that Grace had given me.

‘I tried,’ my mother said. ‘She was too weak. If Grace had come to us sooner …’

We did not speak for the rest of the journey home. Once we arrived, my mother started the fire. Then we sat looking into the flames for hours, my mother with her crow at her shoulder, until the rain eased and we could hear the birds singing outside.

In the days that followed, I longed for Grace; longed to hold her close and comfort her for her loss. But my mother kept me inside, away from the square, the fields. Where I might hear the rumours that tore like flames through the village. It did not matter: I could guess at them, from the pale set of my mother’s face, the dark rings under her eyes. Later, I learned William Metcalfe had forbade his daughter from seeing me.

We did not speak again for seven years.





11


VIOLET


Violet woke the next day exhausted from lack of sleep. But she got straight out of bed, even though it was a Saturday, and she had no lessons.

She couldn’t get her discovery out of her head. That strange word, scratched into the wainscoting behind her bedside cabinet. Weyward.

She touched the gold pendant that hung from her neck, tracing her fingers over the W. What if the initial didn’t stand for her mother’s first name, as she’d thought for all these years? What if it stood for her last name, before she married Father and became Lady Ayres?

Longing swelled in Violet’s ribcage. She was struck with a sudden desire to push the cabinet aside again and run her fingers over the etchings, to feel something her mother might have touched. But why would her mother have put her own name there? Had she meant for Violet to discover it one day?

She threw back the covers, but quickly drew them up again when Mrs Kirkby knocked on her door with a tray of tea and porridge.

The housekeeper had a distracted look clouding her broad features, and a faint, meaty aroma. Her knuckles were dusted white with flour, and there was a dark smear of what looked to be gravy across her apron.

Violet supposed she was busy preparing for the impending arrival of this mysterious cousin Frederick. Violet imagined Mrs Kirkby rather had her work cut out for her, given that they never had guests at Orton Hall. Perhaps she could catch her off guard.

‘Mrs Kirkby,’ she said in between sips of tea, taking care to keep her tone indifferent. ‘What was my mother’s last name?’

‘Big questions for so early in the morning, pet,’ said Mrs Kirkby, stooping to inspect a stain on the coverlet. ‘Is this chocolate? I’ll have to get Penny to put it in to soak.’

Violet frowned. She had the distinct impression that Mrs Kirkby was reluctant to look her in the eye.

‘Was it Weyward?’

Mrs Kirkby stiffened. She was still for a moment, then hurriedly removed the tray from Violet’s lap, even though she’d yet to finish her porridge.

‘Can’t recall,’ she huffed. ‘But it doesn’t do to go ferreting around in the past, Violet. Plenty of children don’t have mothers. Still more don’t have mothers or fathers. You should count yourself lucky and leave it at that.’

‘Of course, Mrs Kirkby,’ Violet said, quickly formulating a plan. ‘I say – speaking of fathers, do you know what mine has planned for the day?’