But then she remembered Father’s words.
Perhaps they can stop you from turning out like her.
Was that why she had this sick, wrong feeling in her stomach?
The air was growing colder now. Violet could hear crickets, calling for their mates. She looked at Frederick, walking next to her. In the dim light, his dark features and long strides made her think of a panther.
They hadn’t spoken for a few minutes. Violet wondered if he thought she was ‘curious’ too, like her mother. She would need to take care that he didn’t catch her staring at him. She wished he would say something. He hadn’t commented on the beauty of the sun setting slowly over the valley at all, even though it had put more colours in the sky than she knew the names for.
‘Do you hear that?’ she asked. ‘It’s such a lovely sound.’
‘What is?’
‘The crickets.’
‘Oh. Yes, I suppose it is.’ She heard his laugh, rich and deep.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
‘You’re an unusual girl. First the midges, now the crickets … never known a girl – or a chap, for that matter – to be so fond of insects.’
‘I just find them so very interesting,’ she said. ‘Beautiful, too. It’s sad, though – they have such short lives. For instance, did you know that the mayfly only lives for one day?’
She had seen a swarm of mayflies, once, down at the beck. A great, glittering cloud of them, pulsing above the surface of the water. They looked to Violet as if they were dancing – she had been quite disturbed when she learned from Dinsdale, the gardener, that they had in fact been mating. Now, her cheeks flushed at the image. Would Frederick be able to tell she was having such unseemly thoughts? She wished she hadn’t brought them up.
‘Imagine’， she continued, anxious to change the subject, ‘having only one day left on Earth. I don’t think I’d be able to decide between catching a train to London to see the Natural History Museum, or … lounging by the beck all day. One last afternoon with the birds, the insects and the flowers …’
‘I know what I would do,’ said Frederick. They were passing by a briar bush now. Violet realised that she didn’t know where Father and Graham had got to: perhaps they were already back at the house. The sound of Father lecturing Graham （‘You must aim the rifle, boy’） had long since faded.
‘And what would that be, Frederick?’ she asked, blushing at the sound of his name on her lips. A strange, quivery feeling bubbled inside her.
He laughed and moved closer: his arm brushed hers and her heart juddered.
‘I’ll show you, but only if you close your eyes.’
Violet did as she was told. Suddenly, there was a hand on her waist, large and rough through the fabric of her skirt. Opening her eyes a fraction, she saw that the pink glimmer of dusk was blocked out by Frederick’s face in front of hers. She could feel his breath tickling her nose. It felt hot and smelled of coffee and something else, a sour note that made Violet think – oddly, unseasonably – of Christmas pudding. Violet tried to remember the word for the thing that Mrs Kirkby soaked the pudding in before setting it alight, but then—
He was kissing her. Or, Violet supposed that was what he was doing. She knew that people kissed, from reading books （‘to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss’ – that was Shakespeare, wasn’t it?） and because she had once seen Penny kissing Neil, the ill-fated under-gardener. They had been pressed up against the stable, clinging onto each other as if they were drowning. It had looked rather unpleasant.
Violet was surprised that she was still thinking so much, even though her lips had been completely enveloped in his – rather wet – ones. She was finding it quite difficult to breathe. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to breathe, with her mouth covered by his （the taste of his mouth was very adult, as though he had seen things, been to places she couldn’t comprehend … again she was reminded of Christmas pudding, why was that?）。
She was breathing through her nose now, Violet wondered if he could hear it, if she sounded like a cow … Her brain was a whirlpool. She thought of drowning, again. He was kissing her more fiercely now, pressing her against the briar bush; she felt twigs poking into her back and her hair – she would have to get them out before Father saw … Then he did something that made her almost stop thinking. He pushed something wet and slimy into her mouth – Violet thought of the toad – and she realised it was his tongue. She spluttered, and he pulled away. She took a deep breath, gulping at the clean evening air.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Got rather carried away there.’ He reached out a hand and traced the chain of her necklace with one finger.
She shivered. It was almost nicer than the kiss.
‘Best be getting back for dinner,’ he said. ‘We should do this again, though – same time tomorrow evening?’
She nodded, struck dumb. He turned to go, heading towards the Hall, which, with its yellow windows and high turrets looked to Violet like a scene from a book – a ship on a stormy sea, perhaps. She stayed for a while, waiting for her breathing to slow and picking out the twigs from her hair. As she walked back to the Hall （she tripped a couple of times, still reeling from the feel of his mouth on hers） she wondered if she looked changed, if anyone would be able to tell what had happened just by glancing at her. She certainly felt different. Her heart was beating as hard in her chest as if she had been running.
It wasn’t until she shut her bedroom door and her racing mind had settled that something Frederick had said, before he had kissed her so suddenly, returned to her.
She was a danger to herself. And the baby.
Violet had always believed that her mother died giving birth to Graham.
But Frederick had made it sound as though he had already been born.
18
KATE
Kate has been at the cottage for three weeks now. It’s late spring, and the year is ripening. It rained last night – hard enough that she feared the roof would buckle – but today the sky is low and blue, the air hot. Hot and thick to match her blood, which seems, in these last weeks, to have slowed its pace through her veins.
On the walk into the village this morning, she passes another row of moles, tied by their tails to a rusted gate. Flies hover about them, flitting between their damp fur and the clumps of dog violet that grow alongside the road. She’s learned that it’s a local tradition – the cashier at the greengrocer looked bemused when Kate shyly asked about it, explained that was how the mole-catcher proved his worth. But the shrivelled bodies still feel like a warning, especially for her.
By the time she reaches the medical centre, her shirt is sticky with exertion and anxiety. She was instructed to arrive with a full bladder, and her lower abdomen is tight and painful, straining against the waistband of her skirt. She checks her watch: ten past nine. She’s five minutes early.
Perhaps she won’t go in. Perhaps she’ll turn and walk back to the cottage without even knocking on the door, the same way she repeatedly dialled the number and hung up before anyone could answer. She did this five times before her nerve held and she managed to speak to the receptionist, to actually book this appointment.