‘No one will be next,’ I tell her.
Deirdre looks at me for a moment and then turns to the window. She speaks more quietly, as if this is an argument she’s having with herself. ‘She never talks. Who knows what she’s thinking?’
Simon frowns and his mouth begins to move. ‘What did mmm…’ We watch for a bit while he struggles with Maud’s name.
Then I answer his question. ‘What did she do? She watched out for you, Si. She saved you from a fall. You might be dead if she hadn’t.’
‘She…’ There’s a k-word coming. It scratches in his throat like a hairball, until it threatens to choke him.
‘Killed Django, yes, but someone had to.’
He frowns at me, struggling with this new thought. ‘Why did someone have to?’ He pushes my arm away and shuffles off my lap to stand on the floor. ‘Why did someone?’ I watch the rage gathering in him, tightening his face, pulling him upright.
When Maud appears in the doorway all Simon’s red-faced fury is turned on her. ‘Why did you?’
Maud turns to Abigail, standing beside her with an arm round her shoulder, then she faces Simon again. ‘Because, Simon…’
We’ve never heard her voice. We couldn’t know it would sound just this way – the soft music of it, the faint Welsh lilt – but now no other voice is imaginable.
Maud breathes and tries again, speaking slowly but with gentle urgency. ‘Because I wouldn’t have him fill you with that book of death.’
Simon glares at her, shaking with rage. ‘She must be sent to her room,’ he says, ‘withouten any ice cream.’
They stand for a moment confronting each other. Then Maud turns and runs. We hear her footsteps on the oak staircase, all the way to the top of the house and more faintly along the passage. A door bangs, and I know which door it is. She’s chosen your beautiful bathroom, Caro, to hide herself in. The house creaks and falls silent. Deirdre rests her head against the glass. Aleksy sighs. Abigail says, ‘We should have tea,’ but doesn’t move, and I realise this isn’t a proposal, but an expression of loss. A strange peace settles on the room.
Agnes
We rode for two days. It was late afternoon when we saw the village. A fresh spring wind came up to meet us. The hedges were all in blossom, the track skirted with sorrel and thrift, a sight I’d not thought about in my time among the scroungers but had pined for in my heart. Dell, who is not so used to riding, sat behind with Walt. I saw in the distance through the trees the swallows swooping and the cows grazing the meadow, everything in its right place.
When the Monk’s Ruin came into view ahead of us, I cut in through the trees and headed for the High Wood, so that we would see the Hall before being seen.
The villagers who had once been my neighbours were gathered on the grass. Seeing them together and the Mistress with them I faltered. If Brendan was dead they couldn’t blame me for it, but I had escaped from the red room and defied the power of the Hall. I told Dell, though she seemed less afraid than I was, that everything would be all right and that she should stay by the horse with Walt. If they took me she should do as we had agreed – ride boldly to the oak door and ask to speak to Sarah. If Sarah wouldn’t come she should tell whoever would listen that little Walter was Brendan’s child and should be taken in for his sake.
I dropped quiet as I could to the ground, pulled the leather bag from Gideon’s back and took some steps towards the lawn. The shadow of the Hall reached out to meet me, pointing with its gables and chimneys.
A woman stepped from the shadow of a tree and I saw it was my old neighbour Bessie. She threw her arms around me. ‘You here,’ she said. ‘I never thought to see you again.’ Drawing back, she put her hands to my face. ‘And are you well, dear Agnes, and are you home for good? Your cottage stands empty since your poor mother died.’
‘I’m home if they’ll have me, Bessie,’ I said, ‘and not lock me up.’
She shook her head and sighed. ‘That’s more than I know.’
I asked her, ‘Why is the village gathered?’
‘A terrible thing. Morton is dead and they say Daniel killed him. So he must be beaten, poor boy, and sent out into the forest to scavenge.’
‘Dead how? Of what cause?’
‘Tal found him in his bed with his throat cut and swears he saw Daniel washing in the brook at midnight.’
‘And what does Daniel say?’
‘At first he tried to speak but no words came. Now he is proud and silent, and that’s enough for them.’
‘But he was always so kind.’ I couldn’t believe that Daniel would do such a thing.
‘And such a good father he is to Annie’s little girl. And so happy he’s been these past months between the child and helping Roland.’
‘Helping him with what?’
‘I don’t know altogether. First it was the murk that must be broken apart, all the pipes inside it, and each part carried up to the turret to be peered at. Then day after day, water to be boiled on the fire.’
‘But what’s it for, all this carrying and boiling?’
‘It’s beyond me, Agnes dear. But Roland says it’s set down in the Book of Windows if you know how to read it. And so they played like boys. And now this. I should stand on the lawn to watch but I can’t bear to watch.’ Bessie’s tears stopped her talking then. We held each other until Gideon snorted among the trees and shook his mane, and we heard Walt gathering himself to cry out and Dell soothing him.
Bessie looked to see who I’d brought with me. ‘Is it a scrounger? And a scrounger’s child?’
I waved the question away. I wanted more news. I wanted to hear how things stood in the village. ‘Tell me about Megan. Does Megan have a child yet?’
‘You didn’t hear, of course. There was no wedding. Megan ran with the other girls to the wood, though the rain had come on hard during the night and the way was all mud. But there was only a tree with bindweed hanging on its trunk, and no husband. Now she keeps away from the Hall when she can. And Roland devotes himself to the Book of Windows, with Brendan gone. So much change, such troubles, and Morton murdered in his bed.’
Her sobbing was drowned by Walt, who had opened his mouth in a pure, clean cry.
Faces turned towards us from the lawn. I heard behind me Dell tramping among the trees, crooning words of comfort, and Walt’s noise muted to whimpers and gurgles. Then the Mistress spoke and everyone looked at her again, and Daniel was led out, hooded and naked to the waist.
Someone else was making noise, one of the villagers. It was Annie with an infant in her arms. I saw her stifle her own howling with a hand to her mouth. Her anguish was for her living husband not for her dead father. I was sure of that. And it came to me, not as a thought but as a feeling, a sensation on my skin, that it was true. It was all true. I remembered how Morton had taken hold of me the night I cut myself in the red room. And I knew all in a rush that Annie’s baby was Morton’s doing. And my mother’s baby too, who was born too small to live. Brendan had not lied about that. Daniel, who shrank from speaking, had once spoken up in front of the whole village to save Annie. And now there was another girl growing under Morton’s too watchful eye. I saw how Daniel might have wished Morton dead and not left it at wishing.
Walt had started up again, in spite of Dell’s efforts to distract him from his hunger. I would have fed him but had more urgent work to do. His wailing had drawn more than looks. Tal had left the gathering and was walking towards us, his face blank as a stone, and Peter trailing after him. There was movement among the villagers, a murmur of voices, and Sarah appeared from among them, hurrying across to where we stood.
People turned this way, and back again towards the Mistress whose voice rose to silence their noise, then this way again, straying towards Sarah, who had never walked away from a flogging however she shrank from it inside, and towards me who was mad and had escaped to live among the scroungers, and was mad still no doubt and stained with scrounger ways.