‘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.
But with her voluntary confinement still in effect, there was not much for Violet to do other than to go up to bed. On her way to the staircase, she passed the library. Perhaps she would try to read in her room. She went inside, and from the very bottom shelf in the corner, she picked up a book with a red leather jacket, the front cover embossed with gold script: Children’s and Household Tales by The Brothers Grimm.
She tucked it under one arm and continued upstairs to her bedroom, where she saw there was a little glass jar on her coverlet, glinting in the evening sun. Something was moving inside it.
It was a damselfly. Whoever had put it there had poked holes in the lid of the jar. A note had been fastened to the lid with a green ribbon tied in a clumsy bow. Violet opened the note and saw that it was from Graham.
Dear Violet, he had written in neat, Harrovian script. Get well soon. Best wishes, your brother Graham. She smiled to herself. It was like something the old Graham would have done.
She opened the jar, hoping the insect would come to rest on her hand. Instead, it flew towards the window, fast, like it was afraid of her. It seemed to Violet to make barely a sound. She opened the window to let it out, quickly shutting it again. The fleeting happiness brought by Graham’s gift evaporated.
She drew the black-out curtains, blocking out the view of the pink setting sun, turned on the bedside lamp and got into bed.
Dust fell from the pages when she opened them, at random, at the story of ‘The Robber Bridegroom’。
It was a grisly story – much grislier than she had remembered. A man was so desperate to marry off his daughter that he had her betrothed to a murderer. The only saving grace was that the girl managed to outsmart him, with the help of an old witch. In the end, the bridegroom was put to death, along with his band of robbers. Serves them right, she thought.
Abandoning the book, she took off her necklace, reaching over to put it on the bedside cabinet. She sighed at the clink and rustle of it slipping onto the floor. Violet peered over the edge of the bed but couldn’t see its gold glint; perhaps it had rolled underneath. Cursing, she climbed out from the covers and crouched on the floor, groping for the necklace. Her fingers came away empty, grimed with dust. Had it fallen behind the cabinet, somehow? She should have been paying closer attention. A chill gripped her heart at the thought of losing the necklace. It was true – as Nanny Metcalfe had commented more than once – that it was ugly; misshapen and blackened with age. But it was all she had of her mother.