The labor was long and arduous, and Caroline was delirious by the end. The doctor forced fluids into her through a tube pushed down her throat, and she gazed at him from the bed with uncomprehending terror. Liz and Estelle kept the baby those first few days, taking turns to lay cold cloths onto their mistress’s skin to cool her. Caroline recovered, at length, but when they brought the child to her, her gaze swept over it impassively, and then she turned her face away and would not nurse it. A wet nurse was found in the village and Caroline, who wanted to be sure that the girl would live before she dared to love her, found, as months and then years passed, that she had left it too late. The little girl did not seem to belong to her, and she could not love her. The child was two years old before she was given a name. Estelle, Liz and the wet nurse had been calling her Augusta all that time, but one day Caroline looked dispassionately into her cradle and announced that she would be named Meredith, after her grandmother.
Meredith was a lonely child. She had no siblings to play with and was forbidden to play with any of the village children that she saw roaming the fields and lanes around the manor house. The household was in decline by then, and the village of Barrow Storton was a sad, quiet place with most of the young men gone off to fight and die on the continent. Henry Calcott kept mainly to town, where his gambling consumed so much money that several of the staff, including Liz and the scullery maid, were laid off, leaving Mrs. Priddy to keep the house as best she could with only Estelle to help her. Mrs. Priddy was kind to Meredith, letting her eat the leftover pastry scraps and keep a pet rabbit in a pen outside the kitchen door, where she fed it carrot tops and ragged outer lettuce leaves. A tutor came, five mornings a week, to teach Meredith her letters, music, needlework and deportment. Meredith hated the lessons and the tutor both; and escaped into the garden as soon as she could.
But Meredith longed for her mother. Caroline was an otherworldly creature by then, who sat for hours in a white gown, either at a window or out on the lawn, staring into the distance and seeing who knew what. When Meredith tried to hug her, she tolerated it for a moment and then disentangled the child’s arms with a mild smile, telling her vaguely to run along and play. Mrs. Priddy admonished her not to tire her mother out, and Meredith took this instruction to heart, fearing that she was somehow responsible for her mother’s persistent lethargy. So she kept away, thinking that if she did her mother would not be so tired, and would get up and smile and love her more. She played alone, watching pigeons on the rooftops courting and bowing to one another. She watched the frog spawn in the ornamental pond slowly grow tails and hatch into tadpoles. She watched the kitchen cats as they chased down hapless mice and then devoured them with swift, perfunctory crunches. And she watched the Dinsdales in the clearing through the woods. She watched them whenever she could, but she was too shy to ever let them see her.
The Dinsdales had three children: a tiny baby who went around in a sling on his mother’s back, a little girl with yellow hair like her mother’s, who was a few years older than Meredith herself, and a boy, a dark, strange-looking boy whose age Meredith was unable to guess at, who went everywhere with his father and played with his little sister, grinning as he teased her. Their mother was pretty and she smiled all the time, laughing at their antics and hugging them. Their father was more serious, as Meredith understood fathers should be, but he smiled often too, and put his arm around the boy, or lifted the little girl high into the air to sit astride his shoulders. Meredith could not imagine her own father ever doing such a thing with her-the very thought made her uneasy. So Meredith watched this family, fascinated, and even though they were happy and bright she came away from her clandestine visits feeling tearful and dark, unaware that she watched them because she envied them and was filled with yearning for her own mother to hug her that way.
One day she made a mistake. Her mother was on the lawn in her wicker chair, an untouched jug of lemonade on the table beside her with thirsty flies settling unafraid on the beaded lace cover. Meredith emerged from the woods and was startled to see her there, immediately brushing down her skirts and tucking her hair behind her ears. Her mother did not look up as she approached, but managed a wan smile once her daughter was standing right in front of her.
“Well, child, and where have you been today?” her mother asked her in a voice that was soft and dry and seemed to come from far away. Meredith went right up to her and tentatively took hold of her hand.
“I was in the woods. Exploring,” she said. “Shall I pour you some lemonade?”
“And what did you find in the woods?” her mother asked, ignoring the offer of lemonade.
“I saw the Dinsdales-” Meredith said, and then put her hand over her mouth. Mrs. Priddy had warned her never to mention the Dinsdales to her mother, although she had no idea why not.
“You did what?” her mother snapped. “You know that’s not allowed! I hope you have not been talking to those people?”
“No, Mama,” Meredith said quietly. Her mother settled back into her chair, pressing her mouth into a bloodless line. Meredith steeled herself. “But, Mama, why can I not play with them?” Her heart beat fast at her own temerity.
“Because they are filth! Gypsy, tinker villains! They are thieves and liars and they are not welcome here-and you are not to go near them! Not ever! Do you understand?” Her mother leant forward in her chair like a whip cracking, and grasped Meredith’s wrist so that it hurt. Meredith nodded fearfully.
“Yes, Mama,” she whispered.
They are not welcome here. Meredith took these words to heart. When she watched them next her envy became jealousy, and instead of wanting to play with them, and share their happy existence, she began to wish instead that they did not have their happy existence. She watched them every day, and every day she grew crosser with them, and sadder inside, so that it came to seem to her that it was the Dinsdales who were making her sad. Her and her mother both. If she could make them go away, she thought, her mother would be pleased. Surely, she would have to be pleased.
On a hot summer’s day in 1918, Meredith heard the Dinsdale children playing at the dew pond. She edged closer, through the dappled light beneath the trees, then stood behind the smooth trunk of a beech and watched them jumping in and out of the water. It looked like tremendous fun, although Meredith had never been swimming so she could not know for sure. She wished she could try, though. Her skin was itchy with the heat, and the thought of all that clear, cold water washing over it was so tempting it made her weak. The Dinsdales were splashing up arcs of crystalline droplets, and Meredith noticed how dry her mouth felt. The boy’s skin was so much darker than his sister’s. It was a kind of nut color, and his raggedy hair was inky black. He teased the girl and dunked her under the water, but Meredith saw that he secretly watched her and made sure she was still laughing before he dunked her again.
She leant out for a better view, and then froze to the spot. The Dinsdales had seen her. First the boy, who had climbed out and was standing on the bank, water streaming from the hems of his short breeches, then the girl, who paddled in a circle to see what her brother was looking at.
“Hello,” the boy said to her, so casual and friendly, when Meredith felt like her heart might explode in her chest. “Who are you?”
Meredith was amazed that he didn’t know, when she herself felt that she knew them so well. It outraged her that they did not know who she was. She stood, stock still and breathless, not knowing whether to stay or to run.