“Well, not any more! Not that man, anyway. Do I make myself clear?” Caroline snapped. She fought to contain her voice. It was wavering, reeling; it threatened to rise to a shriek.
“They ’as extra mouths to feed!” Cass Evans piped up.
“Hush, child!” Mrs. Priddy hissed.
“What?” Caroline said. She stared at the green-eyed girl in incredulous fear. “What?” she repeated, but Cass shook her head minutely and did not speak again.
Only Lord Calcott’s intervention kept Mrs. Priddy in her job in the wake of this misdemeanor. He did not understand his wife’s objection to Dinsdale, and he did not try to. He merely silenced her and then took himself to London to avoid her vitriolic mood. The staff began to give Caroline a wide berth, fearing her unpredictable rages, her spells of sudden weeping. Late one night, after retiring, Caroline rose and went down to the kitchens in search of liver salts to calm her stomach. She went on soft feet, her slippers making almost no sound, and paused outside the scullery, hearing the girls still clearing up the dinner plates, and chatting to the stable boy, Davey Hook.
“Well, why else do you think she’s took against them so fierce?” Cass’s village accent was instantly recognizable.
“ ’Cause she’s a nob-they’re all like that! Noses up in the air,” Davey said.
“I think she’s half lost her reason since little Evangeline died, poor mite,” Estelle spoke up.
“I’m telling you, I heard it. There weren’t no mistaking it-I heard it. That woman who came in from the station had something hidden under her coat, and then I heard a baby crying up in the mistress’s chamber-I did! And then all of a sudden Robbie Dinsdale finds a lad out in the woods-and we saw her go over there, carrying something with her. We saw her.”
“But you never saw what it was she carried, did you?”
“But what else could it have been?”
“Why, anything at all, Cass Evans!” Estelle exclaimed. “Why ever would the mistress take a child out and leave it in the woods?”
“You said yourself she’s lost her reason!” Cass retorted.
“Only since she lost the little ’un, I said.”
“Maybe it’s hers. Maybe that’s her baby-another man’s baby! And she had to keep it hid from the master-how about that, then?” Cass challenged them.
“It’s you ’as gone soft in the head, Cass Evans, not her upstairs! Toffs don’t go about dropping babies like farmers’ daughters!” Davey laughed. “Besides, you’ve seen that bairn the Dinsdales have got-swarthy as a blackamoor, he is! He’s not her boy, he couldn’t be. Not with her so pale. That there’s a gypsy child, through and through. Some other lot probably cast it off, too many mouths to feed, and that’s the beginning and end of it,” the boy said.
“You mustn’t say such things about her ladyship, Cass,” Estelle warned her, softly. “It’ll fetch you nothing but trouble.”
“But I know what I heard. And I know what I saw, and it ain’t right!” Cass stamped her foot. Outside the room, Caroline’s chest was burning. A pent-up breath escaped her in a rush, not quiet enough, and the conversation within halted abruptly.
“Shhh!” Estelle hissed. Footsteps approached the door. Caroline turned on her toes and fled back to the stairs as silently as she could.
Henry Calcott was not at home when Cass Evans was dismissed. Caroline dealt with Mrs. Priddy, Cass having been sent to her room to pack her meagre possessions.
“The girl’s family is well known to me, my lady. I am certain she is not the thieving kind.” The housekeeper’s face was clouded with concern.
“Nevertheless, I came in to find her rifling through my jewelry box. And now a silver pin is missing,” Caroline replied, marvelling at the dispassion in her voice when inside she was wrought with panic.
“What kind of pin, my lady? Perhaps it has been mislaid and is around the house somewhere?”
“No, it has not been mislaid. I want the girl removed from the house, Mrs. Priddy; and that is all I have to say on the matter,” Caroline snapped. Mrs. Priddy watched her, helplessly, with eyes so sharp that Caroline could not hold her gaze for long. She turned back to the mirror above the mantelpiece and saw no trace of fear, or guilt, or nerves in her own face. Her features were pale, immobile. Like stone.
“May I give her a good reference, at least, my lady? To give her a start elsewhere? She’s a good girl, she works hard-”
“She steals, Mrs. Priddy. If you write a reference, you must include that information within it,” Caroline said quietly. Behind her, she saw Mrs. Priddy’s expression change to incredulity. “That will be all, Mrs. Priddy.”
“Very well, my lady.” The older woman spoke coldly, and walked stiffly away. When the door closed behind her, Caroline sagged, holding the mantel for support. Her stomach churned, and she tasted bile. But she swallowed it down and steadied herself. Cass left via the kitchen door, with tears and highly vocal outrage, an hour or so later. Caroline watched from the upstairs hall window, and when Cass turned to look back at her former home she met Caroline’s guarded gaze with a glare of such fury that it would have scorched a more feeling person.
Lord Calcott merely grunted when the new girl, who was fat and plain, opened the bedroom curtains one morning.
“What happened to that other lass? The brown-haired one?” he asked, idly.
“I had to let her go,” Caroline replied flatly. He said no more on the topic, since it was hardly an inconvenience to himself. Indeed, he was in residence less and less, and spent scant enough time with his wife for a second child to be conceived-the pregnancy was a long time coming. Caroline feared that nothing would ever again feel as wonderful as holding Evangeline for the first time, but the changing of her body brought with it an anticipation of love that was irresistible, and she succumbed to it, turning in on herself, humming softly to the unborn baby, feeling it wedged tightly beneath her ribs, a kernel of warmth and life in the dead husk of her being. But the boy, for boy it was, was born months too soon and had no chance of life. The doctor was all for taking it away with the bloodied sheets, but Caroline demanded to see her child. She studied the tiny, unformed face in wonderment-that she could still feel loss, that her eyes had tears left to shed. But it was the last of the love she possessed poured into that one gaze, that one long look she took at the dead baby’s face. The very last touch of warmth inside her, she passed to him; and then the doctor did indeed take him out with the bloody sheets and all was lost.
Caroline’s recovery was slow, and never complete. By the time she was well enough to receive visits from friends, and Bathilda, they found her slow and dull, her conversation near nonexistent, her movements sluggish and her beauty much diminished. There were hollows at her eyes and cheeks, her hands were as bony as bird claws and there were touches of gray at her temples even though she was not yet near thirty. She seemed ghostly, as if part of her had left for another plane. People shook their heads sadly and thought twice before adding the Calcotts to any invitation list. Left alone, Caroline walked a great deal. Around and around the gardens, as if looking for something. One day she went through the woods, to the clearing where the Dinsdales still camped. They had learnt to give the house a wide berth, and never came again to swap labor for food. Caroline, therefore, had no excuse to argue for their removal, and to be thwarted this way made her ever more bitter toward them.
She waited in the trees, staring at their brightly painted wagon and the patchwork pony tethered nearby. Their home looked so jaunty, pitched there on the green summer grass; so practical, so wholesome. Caroline was reminded of White Cloud’s teepee, and this, like any thought of the ranch, made her vision swim and her mind close up in misery. Just then the Dinsdales returned from the village. Mrs. Dinsdale, whose blonde hair hung in angelic ringlets, had a babe in arms, and holding onto Mr. Dinsdale’s hand was a sturdy boy of about three years, dark colored and round. His steps were sure but they made slow progress, pausing every few steps for the boy to crouch down and examine something on the ground with an endless curiosity. Caroline’s breath caught in her throat. William so resembled Magpie that it was near unbearable to look at him.