Weyward(78)

She looked away, staring into the fire.

‘That is why I came to you,’ she said. ‘I thought that if it happened again – if this baby were dead like the others – he might kill me.’

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her as she watched the fire. Without her cap, I could see that her hair, which had been bright as poppies when we were young, had darkened into a deep auburn.

‘I am sorry about the baby,’ she said softly. ‘It was innocent. I tried not to let it get to that stage. Each night, after he – after he has been in me, I wait until he has fallen asleep and take care to wash away his seed. But it was not enough.’

‘It is not your fault,’ I said. I knew the words sounded hollow. Really, I did not know how to bring her comfort. I had never lain with a man. In church, the rector said that the physical union between a husband and wife was sacred and holy. There was nothing sacred about what Grace had described.

‘I do not want to talk anymore,’ she said. ‘I am tired. May I sleep here?’

‘Of course,’ I said, reaching over to take her hand in mine. She flinched at my touch and her grasp was limp, defeated.

We lay curled together on my pallet like kittens. On the pillow, my dark hair mingled with her reddish strands. I could tell from the rhythm of her breathing that she was close to sleep. I drank in the smell of her – milk and tallow – as if I could keep it with me always.

I remembered, then, a sun-warmed day from childhood. We had been very small, so small that we were not allowed to wander far alone. My mother had been watching us, but we crept out of the garden when her back was turned, and followed the beck all the way to a green meadow, bright and soft with wildflowers. Weary from play, we had curled up together on the grass. There, with the bees droning gently and the air sweet with pollen, we had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

I thought of the bruises on my friend’s skin and tears wet my cheeks.

‘Grace,’ I whispered. ‘There could be another way.’

I wasn’t sure that she heard what I said next, but I felt her hand reach for mine in the darkness.

When I woke the next morning, she was gone.





38


VIOLET


Violet was roused by the sound of footsteps. She had stayed up until dawn reading Altha Weyward’s manuscript. The candle had burned right down, leaving a moon of wax on the floor. She felt as if something had shifted inside her. As if she had been told something about herself that she had always known. One by one, memories fell into place, revealing their true form. The day of the bees. The click of Goldie’s pincers in her ear. The way she had felt the first time she had touched Morg’s feather.

Her legacy.

Father was in the kitchen, bearing provisions and a tight expression. Violet felt as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time in her life.

The treasured picture of her parents’ wedding day – their faces shining with love, the air bright with flower petals – dissolved.

He had never loved her mother. Not properly.

Deep down, Violet had known this all along. She’d only let herself be fooled by the fact that he’d held on to those things of her mother’s – the feather and the handkerchief – since her death.

But she had been wrong. They weren’t treasured mementoes of a beloved wife much mourned. They were trophies. Like the tusk, the ibex head … even Percy the peacock.

Her mother had been little better than a fox, to be discarded after the hunt, broken and bloodied.

She remembered the look on her father’s face the day of the bees, when his cane split her palm in two. At the time she had thought it was fury. But now she knew better. It was fear. All along, he’d recognised that she was her mother’s daughter, had known what she was capable of. That was why he had hidden her away, forbidden her from learning about Elizabeth and Elinor. About who she really was.

And as for Father himself?

He was a murderer.

Violet watched him as he lined new tins up on the table. It was a warm day, and his forehead was pearled with sweat. The blood vessel on his cheek had burst into a red spider’s web. He spoke and Violet watched his jowls tremble.

‘Frederick has sent a telegram,’ he said. ‘He has agreed to marry you. He has been granted a week of leave in September. We’ll have the wedding breakfast at the Hall. You’ll be able to stay for a while, afterwards. The engagement will be announced in The Times next week.’

Violet said nothing. The sight of him was making her ill. He was her only surviving parent, but she would have been happy never to see him again for as long as she lived.

Thankfully, after delivering the news, Father didn’t linger. He left without saying goodbye. She closed her eyes in relief at the sound of the key turning in the lock.

Now she could think.

She pictured a life with Frederick. The memory of the woods – the crushed primrose flower, the searing pain – came back to her.

I trust you enjoyed yourself?

She wouldn’t – couldn’t – marry him. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to, she thought desperately. Perhaps he would die in the war. But Violet had the awful feeling that he’d survive, like a cockroach clinging to the underside of a rock. Meanwhile, his spore would continue to grow inside her. The thought of his flesh mingled with her own made her want to retch. And then, once it – the child, though she refused to think of it in those terms – had slithered out of her and into the world, Frederick would come to claim them both.