‘It’s not about—’
‘And the flowers,’ she continued. ‘I thought you came with me to arrange the flowers because you liked to collect the fallen petals and because being in the church reminded you of the days that we had spent in there with your father, when we were a family.’
‘I didn’t like it,’ I said, ‘because it reminded me of Dad and that made me sad again. I didn’t think that I had a choice. You never asked me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I was just trying to take care of you the best way I knew. All those things I did with you were because I wanted to keep you close to me – to remind me that you were my daughter, because as long as you were with me then I still had a little bit of family left.’ She sighed, and I noticed a heaviness to her voice. ‘There are things that I should have taught you and things that I should not have kept from you, I can see that now, but these are things that are usually discussed between women, and I could not bear to think of you becoming a woman.’
‘Oh,’ I said, but nothing more, because I realised then that I understood so much more about what had happened between us since my father’s death, and every little quarrel, denial, or cruelty seemed to have new meaning.
‘Without your father to guide me, I became blind to so much,’ she said. ‘All that I could ever think of was making sure that you grew up to become someone he would have been proud of.’
‘You have told me enough times that I am not,’ I said bitterly.
‘I never meant—’
‘You never speak of what I might want,’ I said. ‘Only of what my father would want me to be.’
‘Well,’ she began. ‘That is important because your father had a certain standing in this village—’
‘Do you not see that it does not matter what my father would think?’
‘Nell!’ she spat, her eyes blinking furiously.
‘Whatever standing he once had, none of it matters now,’ I cried, ‘because my father is dead!’
28
‘My father is dead.’
They were words that I had never said in my mother’s presence before, yet they were the words that coloured everything we did, their weight hanging heavy in the air between us. They were also some of the last words that I ever remember saying to her as we sat together in the little front room of Oak Cottage on the last day of April of 1912.
My mother said that she always felt my father among us – that sometimes it was as if she could see him with us, watching us. I just thought that she was sentimental and fanciful, because I had only ever felt the space where he was not. It was a feeling that I had tried to numb with the wine from my father’s wake and with the company of Sam – someone who lived in a world where my father did not linger. It was a feeling that caused me to bury my head in fantastical novels and made me realise that things such as long hair and fancy clothes did not matter so much.
But while my mother felt that my father was still with her, when he died she had lost a part of herself. As she sat and talked about her old life of raising funds for repairs to the steeple and hosting society events with the mayor, I realised that her insistence on arranging the church flowers, Iris’s religious instruction and her jealousy of the new vicar’s wife was all she had been left with. She had not only lost a husband but also her home, her role in the village and her social standing.
She apologised for our ‘squabble’ as she put it, and for the mistakes she said she had made over the years – the confiscation of the biology textbooks, her lack of understanding when she had found me drunk in the church after my father’s funeral, and the way her reaction had got me expelled from school – but it was too little, too late.
And she said that I should not see Sam again.
As she said the words I realised how little she knew of my life and how little we talked, and that through everything that had happened, I had completely forgotten about Sam and not even realised it. The Sam that I now thought of was not the young man I had got drunk with, who had put his hand inside my drawers and the one who had betrayed me so painfully, but the boy who had been part of my family for a short time who slept with the window open in all weathers and ate with his hands at the dinner table. Sam was also the one who had been there for me after Sir Howard had threatened me – he had been with me when I had needed him most.
Sam had asked for my forgiveness but I had not given it. Soon he would be gone and I might never see him again. I needed to tell him that there was no bad feeling between us. I was ready to forgive him now, so seeing him again was exactly what I planned to do.
When I went to bed that night, I left the curtains open so that the first light of morning would wake me.
* * *
The girl stared back at me from the mirror, a girl that I did not recognise, her long white dress glowing in the dim light of morning. She wore a frilled bonnet to hide the blunt ends of her hair, little lace gloves on her hands.
May Day morning was here at last and I had a plan. I would meet Sam at the stables before he left to catch the omnibus and return to the village at sunrise. My mother would be up early, spending most of the morning in church, and had promised not to wake me. Once Sam had left, I would return to the village and slip into the procession unnoticed, claiming that I knew nothing of the whereabouts of Iris Caldwell who, by then, would be long gone.
I looked back at my reflection once more, at the girl I did not recognise. She stared back at me then she leant forward and took a little lace bag from the dressing table and put it over her arm. I left the room as silently as my reflection.
Outside, the first clouds of morning were starting to muddy the darkness, but there was just enough light for me to see my way across the village green. I had a piece of biscuit and some cheese to give Sam for his journey, and the rabbit’s foot to return to him, for now I thought that he would need luck more than I did. The omnibus was due at the crossroads in little more than an hour – Sam and I would not have much time for talking, but maybe that was for the best. I was sure he would be pleased to see me, though, and I thought that we could make the journey to Haughten Hall together, and that I could help carry his bags.
A scream split the air as I stepped into the well of darkness at the crossroads and I dared not move until I saw the shadow of the fox, its head low and ribs pumping in time with the sound – a string of shrieks, like the stab of a knife as if each breath was forced out in pain.
I took the road that ran between the fields and orchards, my feet stumbling on the dark path, until I heard the sound of the stream and took the path that followed it, past Haughten Hall and up on to the common.
As the track became steeper, I passed under the dark elm trees of the thicket, the twist of roots underfoot and the mustiness of the foxholes somehow stronger in the still of the morning.
The lamps were not lit at Waldley Court but, as I crossed the stable yard, I saw a faint crack of light from the open door of the old tack room. I feared I was too late and that Sam had already left. I pushed open the door slowly and peered inside.
The room flickered with a dull light, the hiss of an old Tilley lamp, filling the silence. The air was so cold it felt almost damp – the brazier had been brought in from the yard but it contained nothing but charred sticks and fragments of green glass, as if a bottle had been thrown into the fire. There was a heavy smell of cider in the air, mingled with the tang of sweat.