The boy’s golden head was bent over his porridge bowl. As usual, he was eating as ravenously as if he had not tasted food for days. At fourteen years old, he was growing quickly.
“Shall I ask Bridie for more toast?” she suggested, seeing there were only two slices left in the rack. Her husband, late for the surgery, had hurried out, a slice in each hand, to the stable.
The boy’s mouth was full, so he shook his head instead of trying to speak. She was pleased to see it; her decision to continue to educate him at home instead of sending him to school was paying off. His manners were daily becoming more gentlemanly. His father had reported that the execution of his schoolwork was improving too, and had shown her some recent work selected by his tutor. She had been particularly taken by the accuracy and neatness of his map-drawing.
She poured herself a second cup of tea. “Do you have geography today?” she asked him. “I thought your map of Canada and the United States was extremely well done.”
He was scraping up the last of his porridge onto his spoon. “I like drawing,” he told her, “but I don’t like geography much. Today I have Latin verbs to learn, then French with Monsieur Lavelle this afternoon.”
She nodded, glancing at the clock. “Well, if you are finished with your breakfast, you had better get to your books.”
He kissed her cheek and left the dining room. She heard his boots striking the flagstones, then thudding on the library carpet. Why could fourteen-year-old boys not walk quietly?
Bridie came in to clear the table before the second cup of tea was drunk. “Oh, Bridie, we seem to be running a little late this morning,” she said. “Will you sit down and we can go through the list here, to save time?”
“Aye, madam, I have it in my apron pocket.”
Wednesday was shopping-list day. Bridie took the list from her pocket and sat in the boy’s place. Familiarity with servants was greater at Drumwithie than it had been at her father’s vicarage, but even here it would have been unthinkable for Bridie to sit in the master’s chair. They pored over the list together. All the usual things were there. She granted Bridie’s request for two packets of laundry starch instead of one, and the task was finished.
“I’ll be away to the kitchen, then, madam,” said Bridie. “Baking today, ye ken.”
“Oh, yes!” She handed Bridie her empty cup. “May we have scones? Jamie loves them so, and he seems to need so much food these days!”
“Aye, no bother, madam. There’s plenty of sour milk to use up.”
“Thank you, Bridie.”
Drawing her shawl about her shoulders, she went through the boot room and out of the side door. She had to pick up the hem of her dress as she made her way across the dew-soaked grass and into the scrubbier vegetation of the glenside. Once she had entered the caves and was standing in the first chamber, she let her skirts go. They swept the damp floor as she felt her way along the wall to the next cave, and up the staircase to the one with the slit between the boulders.
The stripe of daylight bisected the gloom. She could just see the place where the passageway led off the cave, and when she went towards it, she could hear the water splashing into the pool.
Quickly, she took off her shawl and jewellery. She left her wedding ring and the tortoiseshell comb her husband had given her on their tenth anniversary in the centre of the folded shawl. Then she slipped off her house shoes. Her stockinged feet silent on the wet stone, she felt her way along the wall towards the sound of the trickling water, and the promise of oblivion.