Chapter 16: Rite of Reformation

 

After too few hours of sleep, I rose and washed in icy water straight from the pump. I had no patience for warming a kettle over the fire. Then I shaved and pulled on clean clothes—for the plan that had formed overnight, I would need the cooperation of my mother, and she would be more amenable to my request if I looked civilized. No funeral services were scheduled in the cemetery so I could spare the time away.

I blew into my mother’s house on a gust of air and strode past the maid with the briefest of nods.

“Goodness,” Mother exclaimed, setting down her teacup. “You’re light on your feet this morning, my boy. What brings you here?”

“Mother.” I bent to kiss the top of her head. “What would you say if I asked you to move back into Maida House, lend me a pinch of your respectability, and pay a social visit with me?”

I pulled out a chair, sat, then raised my eyebrows in question.

“Oh, is that all?” she managed in a croak. “I would say yes.”

“Good. The house will be a lot of work, you know.”

“Hmph. You don’t have to tell me that. I’m in a better position to know than you are. But, darling, I thought you didn’t possess the funds yet?”

“I don’t. Not enough to repurchase all the estate’s former acreage, at least. But recently it’s come to my attention that some of the land may be mismanaged and underperforming, and thus may be available at a better price. The farmers are suffering from neglectful management. And I want to start positioning myself as…as myself. Benjamin Hood, heir to the Hood family’s history, for good or for ill. Men will be more likely to sell to me if they see me as a viable landowner, not some misbegotten younger son crawling out of the woodwork.”

“Consider me convinced.” She pursed her lips. “But don’t say misbegotten, it puts me in a bad light.”

I laughed. “As you wish. I have another request—you recall I mentioned Mrs. Stephens and a friend of hers have been staying at the house.”

“Yes. I heard about the fire at her house last night.”

“Did you?” Gossip traveled faster than horses. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Very unfortunate. Juno—Mrs. Stephens—is going to need to purchase some new things. Clothes and stockings and…feminine things of that nature.”

Mother considered me steadily, and I wondered what she read in my face. “I must know something more before I can respond. What is her relationship to you?”

I hesitated for a moment. “I’m not certain,” I said honestly.

For some reason, that lack of an answer seemed to settle my mother’s decision. “I will be very happy to help,” she said with a nod. “It’s the right thing to do. Thank God she wasn’t inside the house.”

“Thank you, Mother. Now, are you ready to pay that social call?”

“Right this moment? Whom are we visiting?”

“Mr. and Mrs. George Horvath. Are you acquainted?”

“Yes. They just lost that baby,” Mother said softly.

“Sadly, yes. He’s a carpenter, and I want to ask him about repairing the dining room ceiling at Maida House. But because of the recent loss, I thought it would be rather better to pay our respects before I start talking about plaster and woodwork.”

My comment about the work was true enough, but my main purpose was to ask about their child. Hopefully, Mother’s presence would help smooth the intrusion.

“Let me find my bonnet,” she said.

Mother collected her hat, then put together a wicker basket filled with almond biscuits and covered it with a cheerful square of fabric. I offered her my arm for the short walk across the village.

It took longer than I expected, however, because Mother stopped to speak with nearly everyone we encountered. Everyone knew me, although I knew no one. It was as if I’d been hiding in plain sight for the past eight years. Mother found a way to draw me into her pleasantries and mention the work I was planning for Maida House. At least I could afford the time for her to talk about our return to the manor. A wary corner of my mind screamed that I was doing the very thing I’d sworn not to do—reopening the house without the financial support of the full estate.

At the Horvaths’ doorstep, I stayed behind my mother’s shoulder as she knocked. A woman answered the door, near my own age with her hair pinned in a pragmatic knot.

“Mrs. Hood,” she said. “This is a surprise.”

“Hello, Emily,” Mother said. “Call me Rebecca, my dear. Have you met my son, Benjamin?”

“Not recently, I believe.” I recognized her pallid face from the morning of her child’s funeral when I had watched her weeping, but I could not mention it. I shook her hand, and she invited us in. “Can I offer you tea?”

“You are so kind, yes. These are for you.” Mother extended the basket of treats.

Mrs. Horvath disappeared into the back of the house, and I looked around the simple but tidy living area. Under the window, a bin of small, carved wooden wagons and horses indicated the presence of young children. The Horvaths kept no servants, from what I could see. We seated ourselves as Mrs. Horvath returned with a tea tray.

“Does your husband build furniture?” I asked, running a fingertip along a carved vine in the chair rail. The work was delicate and highly detailed. Juno would like this. The points of the Hedera helix leaves had been rendered accurately. Someone had been paying close attention.

“He does, and he made that by hand,” she said with pride. “Adele Toth made that embroidered pillow you see on the chair.”

We sipped tea and admired a few other carved pieces around the room. Mrs. Horvath and my mother chatted about mutual acquaintances. Then, in a polite silence, Mrs. Horvath donned a questioning smile. She wanted to know why we had come.

“Emily.” Mother slid forwards to sit on the edge of her chair. “Allow me to express how truly sorry I am for the loss you experienced. I know we spoke briefly at the time, but…those early days pass in a fog. I wanted to repeat my sentiments in a clearer moment.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Horvath set her cup on her saucer with a hollow rattle. “Thank you. To this day I don’t know how I…well.” Her eyes cut to me, and I quickly turned my head to study a framed needlework sample hanging on the wall.

“You went through all the physical effort of the childbed,” Mother said with quiet empathy, “and yet woke up the next morning with empty arms.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Horvath whispered.

“You knew him. He was your son, and you knew him.”

“Yes.”

I glanced at my mother. It was too easy to forget she had a whole lifetime of experience that was not mine to share. Even during the terrible days of grief we had walked through together, we hadn’t truly shared our burdens.

“He knew you, too, Emily. You will always be his mother.”

Mrs. Horvath stifled an unsteady breath. My mother stood, abandoning her cup and saucer, and crossed the room. To my surprise, she knelt at the woman’s feet and clasped her hand. I should not have been there. I was an intruder—a male intruder—in such a scene. And yet I had my own agenda to pursue. I would make myself ask awkward questions yet again because I had told Everett I would, and because I didn’t want to dig more tiny graves.

But before I could muster up a query, my mother spoke again.

“When Joseph…” She swallowed. “When my Joseph passed, I tormented myself with guilt. What had I done wrong, how had I failed him so utterly?” I couldn’t see Mother’s face, but Mrs. Horvath dashed away tears and listened intently. “He was a grown man, of course, and not an innocent babe. But he was still my son. It took me a long time to stop asking those questions and stop accusing myself. I don’t blame God, and I don’t blame Joseph.”

I forced my fingers to unclench from the carved arms of the Horvaths’ chair. I blamed Joseph—I still blamed him.

Mrs. Horvath nodded. “That’s what Mrs. Stephens said, too. That I couldn’t blame myself for the babe’s death.”

Juno. She knew Mrs. Horvath. Why had Juno involved herself with the Horvath baby? I almost groaned aloud. If only she had been nowhere near the Horvaths. Mother turned her head sharply, and we exchanged glances. I gave a tiny shake of my head.

“That’s right, dear,” my mother murmured to Mrs. Horvath as she separated their clasped fingers. With a hand braced on her bent knee, Mother struggled to rise. I lurched to my feet at the sight of her frailty. Grasping her under the elbow, I steadied her and lifted her back to standing. Together we returned to our seats.

“Did you say Mrs. Stephens?” I asked. The sound of my voice was too rough and too harsh for the quiet room.

“Yes.” Mrs. Horvath inhaled a shaky breath, but her next exhalation was steadier. “She was very kind.”

“Is Ju—Mrs. Stephens a particular friend of yours?”

Mother threw me a cutting glance, but I had to know.

“I suppose you could say that. She was so solicitous of my health when I was with child. And then afterward…I found her to be very caring.”

My eyesight darkened around the edges. Please, God, no. Mrs. Horvath said she was kind and caring. She had nothing to do with Mrs. Roberts. She’d been nothing but charitable toward Sarah Greeley.

But hadn’t I also called her an enchantress? Maybe her allure had covered dark truths. She had no children of her own—what if malevolent jealousy lurked deep in her soul? My vision faded further before I loosened my jaw and pulled in a lungful of air.

I stood abruptly. The chair slid back a few inches with a dry rasp. I needed to see Juno, to speak with her. Mother and Mrs. Horvath both looked at me with questioning eyes.

“Thank you for the tea,” I said haltingly. “Please ask Mr. Horvath to call on me at Maida House at his convenience. I expect to have work to offer him soon.”

Mother rose with considerably more grace than I had shown. She spoke a quiet word with Mrs. Horvath as I fetched our coats.

“That poor woman,” she said once we were outdoors. “Thank you for bringing me here, Benjamin. I should have thought of it myself. Sometimes I am too wrapped up in my own daily life. I hope I did her some good.”

“You are a marvel,” I said.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m afraid I cannot take much credit for you, but you are my proudest accomplishment.”

“Me?”

She looped her hand through the crook of my elbow as we walked. “It’s certainly not Joseph,” she said sourly.

I choked out a sputtering cough that trailed into a horrified “Mother!” But then we both laughed at her audacity. Almost eight years had passed since my brother’s death, and it was our first moment of dark humor. Maybe Mrs. Horvath had helped us, too. She’d given me another piece of the truth about Juno.

We parted at Mother’s doorstep. “I’ll be back on Sunday to walk with you to church,” I said. “Afterward, we’ll go together up to the house.”

“Wonderful.”

“I need a horse,” I murmured. “And a carriage, a driver, a boy to work in the stable.” My years of careful savings would pour out like water, especially as I initiated the land purchases. I needed to restart the Maida income stream right away. First, I need to speak with Juno.

“You need a thousand things,” Mother said. “But I’m so glad, Ben. I think it’s time.”

I hope you’re right. On impulse, I bent and folded her narrow frame into my arms. She was smaller than I remembered. “Thank you. For everything. Until tomorrow, then.”

* * *

I departed and walked through the village toward Greeley’s house, intending to ask him about his whereabouts the previous evening. I needed to be sure he’d had nothing to do with the fire. Surely he wouldn’t have risked his daughter’s life.

The man was a chandler by trade, although I’d always purchased my tapers from a woman on the next street. His business was located at the end of a short block of shops. The first floor was the storefront and workshop, while he and Sarah, before she’d run to Juno, had their residence in the second story. The shop door was closed and locked, however, with no note indicating an intention to return. I would have to find him later.

At the greengrocer’s shop, I purchased fresh food for my houseguests and then ducked into the next doorway and picked out two bottles of French burgundy. The girl behind the counter at the wine merchant’s shop I did not recognize, but she must have known me.

“Mr. Hood,” she said. “Very pleased to have your custom. Will you be taking these bottles up to the big house, then?”

I blinked in surprise. How did the girl know the particulars of my life? Did the whole village know? “I’m not sure how their intended destination is relevant to their taste,” I said dryly.

“It’s not, I only wondered if—” She stopped as she understood my rebuke. “Right.” Her face reddened. “You’ll have Everett Toth there with you. Send him regards from Abigail Meading if you please.”

She was blushing and flustered, so I exerted myself to redeem my pointed remark. “Of course. You were at school together?”

“Yes. And whatever people are saying, I’m sure that the hex will not harm Everett.”

“The—the hex? What in God’s name are you referring to?” But I’d heard similar phrasing from Roberts—a hexed lineage.

“You haven’t heard? I assumed you sheltered Everett.”

“From what?”

“The hex?” It emerged as a timid question. The girl was so muddled that I could not feel awkward about my stutter. “His mother’s hex. I really didn’t think it could be—”

“No. Please, stop. Everett lives at home with his mother, although I really cannot understand why I am explaining that. Everyone is fine, and no one,” I said firmly, “is hexed.”

“No one except the Pfeiffer baby and all those others.” The girl’s snub nose lifted. She pushed a bill of sale across the counter towards me.

I slid the bottles into my market bag and collected the receipt. “Not even them. I’ll be sure to pass Everett your greeting, Miss Meading.”

After leaving the shop, I endeavored to put the girl’s superstitious, unfounded comments in context. Roberts had also referred to the Toth’s hexed lineage. Who else thought that way? My own village was not nearly so Christian, in spirit or tradition, as I had imagined. I followed my mother’s example and nodded to all the pedestrians I passed on the streets and walkways, and many people returned my greetings. They weren’t all bad people. Still, the unease lingered. I did not believe in a hex, but apparently, some did.

For the walk to Maida House, I decided to approach along the road and up the long gravel drive, instead of sneaking in through the cemetery tunnel. It’s my house. I could come and go as I pleased.

After I let myself in the front entrance, my boots resounded in a long echo in the quiet hall.

“Hello?” I called, walking slowly along the main passageway.

The library was empty, and the fireplace there was cold. No one was in the kitchen. The dining room was also empty and faultlessly clean. When had Juno found time to work? Daylight and the spotless woodwork only highlighted the damp, sagging corner of the ceiling. I passed back through the main hall and put a foot on the first riser of the staircase. “Is anybody here?”

Had Greeley come to collect Sarah while I’d been away? I tamped down a rising panic. The people in my house were my responsibility. But I already knew they were gone—I could feel it in the stillness of the air. The handle of the heavy market bag weighed on my fingers, and I turned back to the kitchen.

I set the food and wine on the worktable and looked around the room once again. Nothing was out of place.

Except for a slip of paper in the center of the table. It was a note on rich stationery I recognized. How had I missed it before? The stricture in my chest unfurled in sudden relief. I snatched up the note.

Off to my house on a salvage mission. Will return before nightfall. –J.

I refolded the page and slid it into my pocket. Juno had the forethought to provide me with an explanation.

For an hour I worked outside on removing Hedera helix vines from the south façade. Using a ladder from the stable and shears from the cobwebbed gardener’s shed, I pulled at the recalcitrant ivy. A considerable pile of pruned pieces grew around the base of the ladder, where my coat was folded over the bottom rung. Like the rest of the work needed around the house, clearing the vines from the façade deserved more than one man’s efforts. It was slow going, especially with half of my mind waiting on the others to return. I had to keep busy, or I’d find myself staring off into the distance, watching the horizon for a glimpse of Juno’s sweeping skirts and dark hair.

When she finally did appear on the drive, she was with Sarah and Everett, who towed a little wheeled cart. I pivoted on the ladder and gave them all a wave before climbing down. The midday sun provided only faint warmth to the autumn air, but I was perspiring after wrestling with the vines. I dashed my forearm across my face and slipped back into my coat.

For a moment I was embarrassed to be seen in such a state, sweating and dressed like a common laborer. A gentleman should not have dirt under his fingernails or a shallow, stinging cut at the base of his thumb. I rubbed at the blood with the tail of my shirt. She already knows you’re a gravedigger, you turnip.

Juno’s gaze was wary as I approached. She wore a woolen shawl and a fresh cotton dress. One of hers, rescued from the house, or maybe borrowed.

“Ladies.” I stuttered but did not care. “Everett. What have you there?”

He stood aside so I could see the contents of the wagon. It was full of plants. I stared at the overflowing, leafy profusion of vegetation. There were pots of strawberry and raspberry, a huge mint plant, silverbeet, my purloined Viburnum tinus—I recognized them.

“These are from your conservatory,” I said to Juno.

“Yes. You gave me five minutes, and I was able to pull some flora out through the glass doors. They waited for me outside overnight, just on the far side of the oak tree, but I think they’ve all survived the cold. There are more waiting to be fetched.”

She was pleased with herself. Of all her possessions, she’d chosen to save the plants? She had odd priorities.

I shook my head. “I see. You’re welcome to move these into the Maida hot house. It’s a mess, but I don’t suppose that will much slow you. Tell me if it needs any major repairs.”

“Thank you.” She flashed a dimpled grin. There was no surprise in her expression. She’d known I would offer her plants a new home here, of course. The revelation from Mrs. Horvath weighed on my mind. Was Juno that much of a schemer? What else had she hidden from me?

Sarah leaned close and whispered something in Everett’s ear, and he nodded.

“We’ll just take these around to the rear,” he said, hoisting the cart’s handle. He and Sarah walked off together, leaving me alone with Juno.

I couldn’t take my eyes from her. How best to broach an awkward subject? You’re beautiful, but I’m afraid you might be deadly. I stepped forwards and put a hand under her elbow. She raised her chin and met my gaze.

“Did you find out anything about the fire?”

“Not yet,” I said, then hesitated for a moment. “I visited my mother this morning and Mrs. Horvath. Juno, I must speak with you.”

“Of course.”

Her face betrayed no distrust, although I doubted my own ability to assess her. “Thank you. Will you explore with me the famed Maida hedge maze?

“Hedge maze?” Juno turned her head as if she’d simply missed seeing one in the lawn.

“It’s on the far slope.” I offered her my arm. “But I cannot vouch for its current condition. It’s been long neglected, like everything else around here.” I flicked a glance at her, remembering with a flush how she’d begun to make amends for my own neglect two nights ago in the attic.

“Lead on. And tell me about Mrs. Hood.”

She has dark hair, dimples in her cheeks, and she likes ‘denude.’ She bewitched me.

“Ah, yes,” I said, shoving aside a distracting vision of Juno in a bridal veil. She referred to my mother, of course, not herself. Juno was so lovely that I found myself avoiding the difficult questions about the infants’ deaths. We walked in silence for a minute or two. “My mother, the former Rebecca Price, was born in Stonebridge in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-seven to Squire Randall Price and his wife Anne, the second of four daughters. She has a scar on her left wrist, and she loves blueberries—” I stopped when Juno laughed and lifted my eyebrows. “Not what you had in mind?”

“Sometimes I wonder if you saved up two decades’ worth of words and have now decided to spend them all lavishly. What is that wall?” she asked, pointing.

We approached an eight-foot-high brick enclosure with apple trees espaliered along it at equal distances. The untended trees dropped their overripe fruit in fragrant, mushy piles at the base of the wall. In the north wall was a wide, ungated opening, and conifers crowded the space within.

“You have located the living puzzle, clever girl. The next challenge is finding the center of it.”

She nudged my arm with her shoulder. “Return to the topic of your mother. But tell me who she really is, not the names of her childhood pets.”

We closed the remaining distance and passed through the opening. Together we entered the first avenue of Taxus baccata. I recalled the paths as neat and wide, but the yews had seized the open space and squeezed us into a narrow aisle. Juno brushed against me at hip and shoulder with each step. The midday sky was partially blocked by the towering hedges. As soon as we turned the first corner, the entrance was out of sight. I cut a quick glance back at Maida House, where the roof and fourth story were still visible.

Inside the maze, my mood turned more somber. “She means well,” I said softly in response to Juno’s question. “She loves me. The loss of my father followed two years later by Joseph’s suicide, plunged her into grief from which she has only recently emerged. I have never been quite perfect as a son, and sometimes her mourning made me feel…insufficient. The fact of my existence could not lift her melancholy.”

“I am sorry,” Juno said softly.

“Thank you. I believe we have recently mended some old hurts.” White gravel crunched underfoot. I shifted my shoulders to resettle my coat. “Shall we take the direct route to the center, or wander about and get ourselves thoroughly lost?”

“Do you know the direct route to the center?”

“Not at all,” I confessed.

Juno laughed. “Then it’s decided. We’ll wander until lost. But I hope it won’t take more than an hour, or I’m going to need a cup of tea. I’m an Englishwoman, after all.”

“Will you use your dark arts to conjure up tea at a whim?” I teased, then wafted my free hand about. “A snap of your fingers, and poof.”

Juno appeared to consider, then nodded. “Yes, of course. All I shall require is my smallest cauldron and a particular sachet of rare herbs. Then I apply flint to steel,” she said, jangling my chatelaine at her waist, “and burn dry fuel. Add water to the cauldron—”

“Wait, now,” I exclaimed. “That’s just making tea. You’re describing regular tea.”

She slanted her lips in a sly smile. “There is a certain magic to tea if you do it properly.”

I chuckled. “I suppose that explains why we all turn to ogres without it.”

We rounded a corner and faced a branching intersection. I peered left and right, but the identical paths offered no clues. Juno looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“Left,” I said.

“Left,” she said at the same moment, and our voices made a chiming octave in the quiet maze.

I smiled. “We occasionally agree.”

“I disagree,” said Juno loftily. “We often agree.”

She tightened her grip on my arm in a brief squeeze. We turned left into deeper isolation among the thick hedges. I glanced again at the roofline of Maida House to realign my inner orientation. Ahead, the finial atop a birdcage-like gazebo poked above the yews. We had penetrated the maze, but the center was still several turns away.

A rustling noise emanated from the wall of shrubbery ahead of us.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“Yes. Is there someone in here with us?”

The suggestion made my back stiffen. It was less than a full day since Juno’s house had burned. Was someone hunting us? The source of the sound was low, and I scanned the greenery without glimpsing anything.

“I can’t imagine how or why anyone else would be inside this jungle,” I said in an attempt to persuade myself.

The yew branches were less dense near the ground. I disengaged myself from Juno’s hand and sank to one knee for a better look. There, with my head bent close to the gravel, I could see from our path through to the next one over.

The rustling sounds grew more frantic. Finally, I saw the source of the noise—a gray dove flapped in the tight space below the yew.

I exhaled on a laugh of relief. “It’s just a bird. A dove, a juvenile, I’d say, and probably injured. See?” I gently lifted a branch to expose the little creature.

“Oh, poor baby,” Juno murmured. She crouched beside me, careless of her hem, and reached for the bird. “Are you trapped?” she asked the creature. “No, hold very still, please. There you are.”

She cupped her hands around its wings, stilling the flapping. One wing looked normal, but the other was…askew. It would not close flat against the bird’s body. It would never fly again.

“That wing,” I said. “It won’t be able to survive.” The bird’s fate was either starvation or to become a predator’s meal.

“I know.” Juno whispered to the little dove. “I am glad to feel your silky feathers. I am sorry you won’t live the full span of a dove’s lifetime.”

Her tone reminded me of the ritual she’d conducted for the Viburnum tinus. I knew what she was thinking. “Juno…”

“Your mother must have brought you worms and insects, and surely you had siblings in the nest.” She stroked the tiny head with one fingertip, and the bird calmed. “I hope your life afforded you at least one moment of pleasure—perhaps you soared in flight? And I hope your death brings life to other creatures. Thank you.”

Then, with one hand still holding the bird’s wings, she closed her other hand over its head and made a sharp, brutal twist.