She lay for a moment, winded, watching him push through the trees. Slowly, she pulled up her tights – she could hardly bear to touch her own skin – and crawled to her feet. Something glimmered in the greenery: looking down, she saw that her pendant appeared to be cracked into two halves, like rusted wings. It was this, rather than anything else, that brought the first hot pricks of tears to her eyes.
Her mother’s necklace. He had broken it.
It looked like a smaller piece of the pendant had snapped off and fallen onto the ground. Picking it up, she realised it was a tiny key with jagged edges. It dawned on her that her mother’s necklace wasn’t a pendant at all, but a locket; with a hinge so small that she had never noticed it. The key shone brighter than the battered locket, as if it had not seen daylight for many years.
As Violet made her way through the woods, listening to the strange sound of her own breathing, she gripped the key tightly in her palm. Distantly, she wondered if her mother had been the last person to touch it. Even that thought gave her no comfort.
The deckchairs had been put away and Father and Graham had gone inside by the time they got back. The entrance hall was filled with the smell of whatever Mrs Kirkby was cooking for supper – some kind of roast meat. It turned Violet’s stomach.
‘I think I’ll go and lie down before dinner,’ she said. Her brain felt like it was swimming, and her speech sounded slurred and thick.
‘Good idea,’ said Frederick. ‘Shattered, myself. You’ve rather worn me out. I trust you enjoyed yourself?’
She made for the stairs, swallowing the bile that coursed up her throat. The colours from the stained-glass windows, backlit by the afternoon sun, were impossibly bright, streaking the parquetry as though with blood. Her head thudded and she gripped the handrail for support. The staircase seemed longer and steeper than usual, as if the Hall had turned into some nightmarish inverse of itself.
Once she was in the safety of her bedroom, she tried to wash away the strange, sticky substance at the old enamel washstand. Then, she changed into her nightgown. She bundled the soiled underwear and ripped tights into a ball and hid them between the mattress and the bedframe. She thought of the silk slip she’d made for her trousseau, intended for her wedding night – useless, now.
Before she got into bed, she took the feather – Morg’s feather, as she thought of it – from its hiding place between the pages of the Brothers Grimm. She placed it gently on her pillow, next to her mother’s locket and the tiny key. She stared at them, the blue-black of the feather blurring into gold as her vision swam with tears.
When the gong rang for dinner, she squeezed her eyes shut. The room seemed to be shifting, like a carousel at a fair. She must have slept, because the next thing she knew, Nanny Metcalfe was calling her name, holding a tray of tea and toast.
‘Sorry,’ she said, sitting up and quickly sweeping her treasures under the coverlet. ‘I don’t feel at all well.’
‘The heat,’ said Nanny Metcalfe. ‘I’d say you’ve gone and given yourself sunstroke. Should’ve had your hat on. Lots of water and a bit of food, followed by a good long sleep, and you’ll be right as rain in the morning.’
Violet nodded weakly.
‘Frederick was asking after you,’ said Nanny Metcalfe. ‘Came down to the servants’ sitting room, after he’d had his supper. Wanted to know if I’d look in on you. Nice young chap, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Violet said. ‘Very nice.’ She could still smell the sour tang of his sweat.
‘What’s that you’ve got in your hair?’ Nanny Metcalfe reached out and pulled something from behind Violet’s ear. It was the primrose flower that Frederick had given her.
‘Very pretty,’ said Nanny Metcalfe. ‘But be careful you don’t ruin the sheets with such things. Flowers leave stains, you know.’
She slept without dreaming, and when she woke with the birds, her whole body felt stiff and painful.
She dressed slowly. In the mirror, she looked pale and sallow, as if she were an invalid in a book. She almost wished that she were an invalid （was there a way of becoming one?） and could stay in her room for the rest of the day. Then she would never have to see Frederick again.
The dining room was rich with the smell of breakfast. Father was hidden behind The Times （‘Kentucky sunk near Malta’ the front page blared） and Graham was forking food into his mouth over a Dickens novel. Scrambled eggs congealed in their dish, a lurid yellow. A plate of bacon rashers （the last remains of Jemima, Violet thought grimly） looked like flayed skin.
Frederick wasn’t there. Gradually, the hammering in her heart slowed.
She sat shakily at the table.
‘Nice walk with Freddie yesterday?’ said Father from behind his newspaper. Violet flinched.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, because what else could she say? Even if she knew the words for what had happened, Father could never know. He would think it was her fault somehow, she knew. Perhaps it had been her fault? I trust you enjoyed yourself? He must have thought she wanted him to do it. She thought she might be sick. How could she face him?
‘He’s gone back to London, by the way,’ said Father. ‘Took the early train this morning. Ran him down to the station myself. He said to tell you goodbye, Violet.’
‘Oh,’ she said, not knowing what she should feel – relief? Sadness? She remembered the primrose flower, with its crushed petals.
‘A fine young man,’ Father said. ‘Rather reminds me of myself, at that age. I do hope he makes it through the war.’
Graham rolled his eyes at her. She tried to smile at him, but her cheeks felt as though they were made of India rubber.
‘What happened to you?’ Graham asked her. For a moment she thought that he could see – that everyone could see – the shameful memory that lay coiled inside her, like something rotting.
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly.
‘I mean, what happened to your face? There’s a big red mark on it.’
‘Oh.’ She had forgotten all about the bite. ‘Something got me – a midge, I think.’
Father turned a page of his newspaper, apparently uninterested.
‘Ha,’ said Graham. ‘But they never sting you! Whereas I can never get the bloody things off me. Maybe they got sick of me and thought they’d sample something new.’
‘Language, Graham,’ said Father.
‘Who knows,’ said Violet. ‘Maybe they did.’
27
KATE
Two hundred pounds.
Kate counts again, just to be sure. Her bank account is empty, so she’s down to her last clump of notes, still hidden in the lining of her handbag. She needs to make this last, until she finds a job. Several times, now, she has walked past Kirkby’s Books and Gifts in the village. But she couldn’t bring herself to go in.
But she has to do something … there is food to buy, and utility bills to pay – fat brown envelopes have begun to appear through Aunt Violet’s letterbox, the most recent marked ‘URGENT’ in angry red letters.
Later, a book in Aunt Violet’s collection catches her eye: The British Gardener.
Looking out of the kitchen window at the garden, she feels a twinge of doubt. It is so overgrown, and filled with the oddest of plants: great green trumpets reach skyward, vying for space with hairy stems, purple buds nodding on their leaves. She’s not sure she’s up to this. But a baby needs nutrients, vitamins. From vegetables, green things, like the ones that crowd Aunt Violet’s garden.