Flag strode on ahead, leaving Maria and Meredith to walk side by side, picking wild flowers from the hedgerows and firing questions to and fro-what was it like living in a caravan, what was it like living in a mansion, how many servants were there and what were their names and why didn’t Meredith go to school, and what was school like and what did they do there? In the village they stopped at the door to the farrier’s shed to watch as he pressed a hot iron shoe onto the foot of a farm horse, whose hooves were the size of dinner plates. Clouds of acrid smoke billowed past them, but the horse did not blink an eye.
“Doesn’t it hurt him?” Meredith asked.
“ ’Course not. No more than it hurts you to have your hair cut,” Flag shrugged.
“Get on with ye, casting shadows o’er the work,” said the farrier, who was old and grizzled and stern of eye, so they carried on toward the grocer’s. They bought a broken loaf and a jar of Bovril, and even though there was only enough left for two small sugar mice, the lady behind the counter smiled at Meredith and gave them a third.
“Not often we see you in the village, Miss Meredith,” the lady said, and Meredith caught her breath. How did the woman know who she was? And would she tell Mrs. Priddy? Her face went pale and panicked tears came hotly into her eyes. “Now, now. Don’t look so aghast! Your secret’s safe with me,” the woman said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Carter!” Maria called brightly, and they went outside to devour their sweets.
“Why aren’t you allowed to go into the village? No harm could come to you,” Flag asked as they stopped by the pond to watch the ducks circling idly. They sat down on the grass and Meredith nibbled at her sugar mouse, determined to make it last. She so rarely had sweets.
“Mama says it’s not seemly,” Meredith replied.
“What’s seemly?” Maria asked, licking her fingers with relish. Meredith shrugged.
“It means she’s too good to go mixing with the hoi polloi. The likes of us,” Flag said, sounding amused. The girls thought about this for a while, in meditative silence.
“So… what would happen if your ma found out you was along here with us, then?” Maria asked at length.
“I would be… told off,” Meredith said uncertainly. In fact, she had no real idea. She had been told off for even watching the Dinsdales. Now she had sneaked out of the gardens and come into the village with them, and talked to them lots, and been seen in the grocer’s by a woman who knew her name, and it had all been wonderful. Painfully, she swallowed the last of her sugar mouse, which had lost all its sweetness. “I should go back,” she said nervously, scrambling to her feet. As if sensing the change in mood, the Dinsdales got up without argument and they began to walk back along the lane.
At the gates, Meredith slithered back through the gap as quickly as she could and pulled the gate closed, not daring to look up at the house in case somebody was watching. Her blood was racing and only once the gate was shut did she feel a little safer. She held on to the bars for support while she got her breath back.
“You’re an odd one and no mistake,” Flag said, with a bemused smile.
“Come and have some tea with us tomorrow,” Maria invited her. “Ma said you can-I asked her already.”
“Thank you. But… I don’t know,” Meredith said. She was feeling exhausted by her adventure and could hardly think of anything except getting away from the gates without being seen talking to them. The Dinsdales wandered off and Meredith put her face to the bars to watch them go, pressing the cold metal into her skin. Flag pulled a leggy stem of goose grass from the hedge and stuck it to the back of Maria’s blouse, and the blonde girl twisted and craned her neck, trying to reach it. As they passed out of sight Meredith turned and saw her mother standing in the upstairs hall window, watching her. Behind the glass, her face was ghastly pale and her eyes far too wide. She looked like a specter, frozen for ever in torment.
Meredith’s heart seemed to stop, and at once she thought desperately about running away to the furthest part of the garden. But that would only make matters worse, she realized in a moment of cold clarity. She suddenly needed to pee and thought for a hideous second that she would wet herself. On trembling legs she made her slow progress into the house, up the stairs and along the corridor to where her mother was waiting.
“How dare you?” Caroline whispered. Meredith looked at her feet. Her silence seemed to enrage her mother further. “How dare you!” she shouted, so loudly and harshly that Meredith jumped, and began to cry. “Answer me-where have you been with them? What were you doing?” Mrs. Priddy appeared from a room down the hall and hurried along to stand behind Meredith protectively.
“My lady? Is something the matter?” the housekeeper asked, diffidently.
Caroline ignored her. She bent forward, seized Meredith’s shoulders and shook her roughly.
“Answer me! How dare you disobey me, girl!” she spat, her gaunt face made brutal by rage. Meredith sobbed harder, tears of pure fear running down her cheeks. Straightening up, Caroline took a short breath that flared her nostrils whitely. She measured her daughter briefly, then slapped her sharply across the face.
“My lady! That’s enough!” Mrs. Priddy gasped. Meredith fell into shocked silence, her eyes fixed on the front of her mother’s skirts and not daring to move from there. Caroline grasped her arm again and towed her viciously to her room, pushing her inside so abruptly that Meredith stumbled.
“You will stay in there and not come out until you have learnt your lesson,” Caroline said coldly. Meredith wiped her nose and felt her face throbbing where her mother had hit her. “You’re a wicked child. No mother could ever love you,” Caroline said; and the last thing Meredith saw before the door closed was Mrs. Priddy’s stunned expression.
For a week, Meredith was kept locked in her room. The staff were given orders that she was to have nothing but bread and water, but once Caroline had retired, Estelle and Mrs. Priddy took her biscuits and scones and ham sandwiches. They brushed her hair for her, told her funny stories, and put arnica cream on her lip where the slap had made it swell, but Meredith remained silent and closed off, so that they exchanged worried looks above her head. No mother could ever love her. Meredith dwelt on this statement for a long time and refused to believe it. She would make her mother love her, she resolved. She would prove that she was not wicked, she would strive to be good and obedient and decorous in all things, and would win her mother’s heart that way. And she would shun the tinkers. Because of them, her mother could not love her. They are not welcome here. She lay listlessly on her bed and felt her old anger at the Dinsdales, her old resentment, well up into a stifling pall that cast a dark shadow over her heart.
Epilogue
Spring is finally looking like it might win. We’re through the muddy daffodils stage, past the week where soft tree blossoms were stripped by wind and rain and left to rot at the roadside in pink and brown drifts. Now there are tiny cracks in the earth of my sparse lawn, and fledgling sparrows line up along the fence, wide yellow mouths and fluffy feathers. I might get a cat, if it weren’t for these absurd little birds, sitting shoulder to shoulder like beads on a string. I check their progress daily. The last tenant here parked his motorbikes on the lawn, and piled up the debris of his DIY, so there isn’t much grass, but it will grow now, I think. The sun finally has some warmth. I sit out in it, tilt my face to it like a daisy, and I can feel the summer coming at last.