‘Asher, you look terrible. You really must get some more sleep,’ says Leonora, buttering a slice of toast. The sunlight streams in the window behind her, creating a halo of her hair. ‘Tell Eli Bligh to keep his hands to himself.’
I don’t react, just sip my coffee. The children stare at me, wide-eyed. At the other end of the breakfast table, Heloise-Luther raises an eyebrow – apparently the only four people who didn’t know my nocturnal habits. I’d have preferred it to remain that way; it’s never paid for Mother to have my secrets.
‘Really, Miss Todd?’ asks Heloise-Luther, leaning forward as if to gossip; a very un-Lutherish thing to do. ‘Do tell: will there be wedding bells?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, M-Mr Morwood.’ I don’t manage to moderate my tone, only to change the words that tumble out. Leonora’s brows shoot towards her hairline, but Mother merely smiles. It will amuse her to score a hit so easily.
I wonder what they would both do if I removed the mourning ring, sat here eating breakfast with my own face. Tell my grandmother what I have done, who is really sitting at the table with her. Would the shock cause Leonora to keel over? I think not, she’s tougher than that. What would bother her more? The witchcraft or the sight of her long-lost daughter’s face? The return of that daughter and the granddaughter she never knew. What if I were to tell her that I’ve already done to her children what she wants me to do to her? That I won’t – can’t – do it again, not for anything in the world.
What if I stood and left her and her daughter-son to talk after all this time?
‘Where is Luned?’ Leonora snaps. ‘Honestly, that girl.’
I shrug, don’t ask what she wants, don’t offer aid. A quick bored glance at my mother-uncle and I look away. But Leonora is off on another tangent, snapping at poor Albertine. ‘Don’t put so much cream on your porridge, child. It will spoil your complexion.’
Her tone’s proprietorial; already she’s regarding the child as an asset she owns. That she hopes to possess in more ways than one. Albertine ducks her head, puts the jug back on the table. I shudder; it sounded like my mother talking to me.
‘Whatever’s the matter, Asher? Are you getting ill?’ Leonora sounds more irritated than concerned. As if it might inconvenience her.
‘No, Mrs Morwood, just a little cold.’
The door opens and one of the Binions enters carrying a fresh pot of coffee and a tray of bacon. I give her a nod and she blinks in return – the biggest reaction one ever receives from them. She sets her burdens on the sideboard, then turns quickly and exits, leaving the door a little ajar. I don’t know if they keep forgetting to serve the food, or simply have too strong a desire to get out of the room and the gaze of Leonora, the indifference of Luther.
‘Luned—’ I think Leonora chooses that name because she can never remember the Binions’ ‘—close the… oh, damnation.’
‘I’ll do it, Grandmother.’ Connell leaps up from his seat.
I smile. ‘Thank you, Connell.’
‘Quite the gentleman, my boy,’ Heloise-Luther says with a broad grin, that his son tentatively returns. Leonora does not acknowledge the lad. Heloise-Luther has been different, kinder and gentler with the children, and Connell doesn’t know what to make of it. I asked him yesterday if his father had ever been kind and he replied that he did not recall so. The poor boy must think it a trap; I can’t say I am completely sure it isn’t.
Leonora changes directions, charges: ‘Asher, be so kind as to go into the Tarn after lunch and see if Zaria has done her work.’
‘It’s not even been a week,’ I say. I take a sip of coffee in the hope it will make my headache go away. ‘Besides, the surgery is open this afternoon.’
‘Then go this morning.’
‘Mrs Morwood—’
‘I was not asking, Asher Todd! The children will not die for lack of a day’s education.’
Recklessness burns through me. ‘If that’s your attitude then I fail to understand why you bothered to hire me.’
There is the sharpest silence in the room that I’ve ever heard. Almost like the sort that comes after a slap to the face. The moment of disbelief when time and even breath stop. Just that sliver of a moment before all hell breaks loose. Then: rescue from an unexpected source.
‘Mother, Miss Todd is clearly unwell. Look, she is pale and her hands are shaking. I suggest she spends the morning resting. Folk will expect her help in the afternoon. The poor girl is exhausted, expending so much of her energy caring for others. I shall entertain the children – perhaps a ride around the estate?’ Heloise-Luther smiles and speaks in a low, soothing tone; the voice of reason. I don’t know if it’s the content of his comment or simply the fact she’s never seen him act as a peacemaker before, but Leonora is surprised enough to not contradict him.
‘Alright. Rest for today, Asher, but I expect you to see Zaria tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, Mrs Morwood,’ I say, but my throat is raw and rough and I sound as if I’m about to cry. Perhaps I am.
* * *
I spend the rest of the day avoiding my mother. It’s not hard as she does not seek me out, and I notice her riding off again after lunch. I wonder that she still has places to visit. Then again, this was her home and she has been in exile for a long time.
Her lies need to be addressed. Or do they? Do I ignore them? Simply prepare to leave. What point is there in confronting her? There will just be more lies.
I think about Luned gaining the freedom I’ve wanted for myself.
I think about the children, suspended in the toxic air of this house.
I think about Leonora and what she might do if I am gone; will she try to find another such as me? Even if she fails, how will she shape Albertine? When Jessamine returns, will she be able to stand against the old woman?
And when Jessamine returns, what will Heloise-Luther do? Does my mother remember what her own ghost tried to do to her brother’s wife? What memory does a spectre have for the things it did after death?
I feel like a ghost, like a thing made of mist, shreds of me taken away each time there is a fresh breeze, stripping me away until there will be nothing left. Everything is shaken, destabilised – just as I came to break this house, so too I’m breaking. The fault lines that run through me are growing wider and wider.
I must leave before I’m entirely sundered.
* * *
The next day I take a healthful walk into the Tarn. I have morning tea at the coffeehouse, I listen to the gossip about the still-missing priest and wonder again when someone will decide to write to Lodellan for a replacement. I do not go and see Zaria Taverell. How long before Leonora decides to go into the village herself? How many days will I be gone when she does? What will happen when she discovers my deceit? How long before she begins the process again of removing Heloise-Luther from her position? How long before my mother finds out and retaliates?
I think about Luned, try to calculate how far away she will be by now – perhaps a quarter of the way to St Sinwin’s Harbour? I should have gone with her. I thought it as I watched her disappear into the icy black of last night. I should have gone, I’ve done what I must – what I promised. What am I waiting for? What is holding me, really?
Eli?
It means nothing. Have I said that enough times to make it true? Turn from that, Asher, do not examine it too closely.
The children; what will happen to them if left here with their grandmother and a father who’s both more and less than he was? What will happen when Jessamine comes home and finds… what has replaced Luther? All these things I so adamantly avoided considering before – how else would I have been able to do what I had to? – all these thoughts come rushing in now there’s no seawall to hold them back.
My musings are interrupted when I reach the outskirts of the manor garden, and I come across Burdon, sitting quietly on a tree stump, smoking a pipe. He clearly did not expect to be found.
I grin. ‘I’ve never seen you out here before.’
He shakes his head. ‘I seldom come. But… that house feels strange.’ He examines the toes of his shoes, then says wistfully, ‘When do you think Mrs Charlton will be home?’
‘Missing her?’ I ask.
‘I’m just used to her being around. Nothing’s felt right since she went away. And the young mistress. She’s kind.’
I could tell him that the house was strange before that, since I arrived in fact. ‘Burdon?’
‘Hmm?’
‘May I ask you something?’
‘Just did.’
‘Very funny. You’ve been here a long time?’
He nods. ‘Man and boy, been in service to the Morwoods.’
‘I saw Mrs Morwood with a painting some days ago – a young woman, beautiful, with red hair and blue eyes.’ He’s gone still, but I press on as if I know no better. ‘She said it was her daughter.’
He puffs on the pipe in perturbation.
‘She seemed rather sad.’
More puffs, no answers.
‘I’m going to keep asking, Burdon.’
He removes the pipe, sighs, and smoke envelops his head for a moment before the wind whips it away. Burdon looks at me as if assessing my trustworthiness or otherwise. Here, at the end, I feel I can ask such things. Who else in my life ever knew my mother before? Before she had me. Before everything happened.
‘Burdon?’
‘I’m getting to it,’ he snaps. Shakes his head, slants his eyes at me sideways. ‘Miss Heloise was the eldest, Master Luther a year or so younger. Not much between them, but the mistress preferred Heloise, and the master the lad. Never have I seen a more spoiled pair of brats, the parents competing to see who could spoil them more.’
I laugh out loud, surprised; the idea of them as mere brats pushed the sound from me. But Burdon’s face remains dour.
‘It’s not a joke, missy. They were friends, I suppose, didn’t fight all the time, sometimes got along better than well. But there was always the fact that the mistress was determined Heloise would inherit the estate, the lad would be nothing. He’d draw an allowance like some… spinster sister.’ He shakes his head. ‘His mother never gave him anything to be proud of – is it any wonder he disgraced himself?’
‘Oh.’ I examine his expression carefully. In all of Heloise’s tales, she was more sinned against than sinning. Still and all, it’s a long bow to blame everything on Luther. ‘And you don’t think…’
‘Girls don’t need to inherit, not if there’s a perfectly serviceable son about.’ He puffs on his pipe again as if drawing in fuel to fire his outrage at women who don’t know their place.
‘Ah,’ I say. He’ll be delighted to hear about Albertine then. Poor Luther deprived once again.
‘What happened to her?’ I ask. ‘To Miss Heloise?’
‘Sent away. Finally got herself into trouble, silly little trollop, and the old mistress couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to think of all her plans brought down because the stupid girl couldn’t keep her legs together.’ He puffs on the pipe again. ‘I don’t know what happened to her. Or the baby. I wonder about the baby sometimes, though. What happened to it. It’s strange to think of all that vibrant, difficult life dead in a ditch somewhere.’
‘Thank you, Burdon. That was a horrible story,’ is what I manage to get out past the lump in my throat. I change the subject. ‘Will you ever leave Morwood, do you think? Retire?’
He looks at me like I’m a fool. ‘It’s my home, Miss Todd.’
And I realise that most people will remain somewhere as long as they can no matter that it’s no good for them. Home might be a pile of shit, but they’ll stay because it’s warm and the smell is familiar and they’ll cling to that. They’ll cling to it because leaving, walking into the rain to be washed clean would mean being cold and wet, walking away from what you know will mean being lost. No matter that you will make a new way, a new path – the majority of folk don’t get beyond their fear of change.
What would happen if I told him everything? Secrets do not stay in the dark where we put them. Some lie dormant, but others slither beneath doors, over windowsills, through the cracks in walls, out into the light where everyone can see them, poke at them, know them. Sometimes they burst from us when we least expect them. I feel as if I’ve held these ones for too long; I’m no longer the vault I once was.
Burdon rises. ‘Coming in, Miss Todd? Getting cold.’
I shake my head, force a smile. ‘I think I’ll stay out a while longer. It’s refreshing. Thank you, Burdon.’
I watch the butler go, walking briskly with a slight hitch in his step. An old man’s gait.
When he’s gone from my sight, I vomit until there’s nothing left in my stomach but a pale thin yellow fluid.