‘But your father—’
‘Don’t listen to my father,’ she said. ‘His only concern is that I am recovered by May Day.’
‘May Day?’ I echoed.
She nodded. ‘I am to be the May Queen.’
The May Queen! The words caused a sudden wrench deep inside me. I had never once thought about Missensham’s May Queen, nor even realised that May Day was so close. I watched Iris’s lips in the mirror as she spoke, but a weight was forming in my stomach. She spoke of how her father put a lot of money into the May Day festivities because the local manor house, Missensham Grange, was in decay and he felt obliged to support the community he represented in parliament, but they were words that meant nothing to me. I had never had the looks to be May Queen, and my mother would constantly remind me that I had a reputation as a delinquent, but now that I was reminded of something I could not have, I realised that a little part of me had wanted it after all. My chance had come and gone before I had even realised it. I had neither been considered nor consulted – I had not even been recognised as a girl.
‘…So,’ Iris concluded, ‘I do not really have a choice.’
So Iris would be the May Queen, but despite all her excuses about her father’s wishes, I could not believe that she did not want to wear flowers in her hair and be crowned the most beautiful girl in the village. I was sure that being May Queen was something that she wanted, even if she could not admit it to herself.
Then I realised that she had stopped talking, her head on one side as she looked into the mirror at my reflection, and I looked away embarrassed.
‘You seem surprised,’ she said, a little of her usual spark returning.
‘Aren’t you too old to be May Queen?’ I said bitterly. When she did not answer, I added, ‘I thought it a thing just for little girls.’
‘Not at all!’ I jumped when I heard Sir Howard’s voice in the doorway and began brushing Iris’s hair again even though every strand lay flat. ‘I think Iris is the obvious choice,’ he said, striding into the room.
I blushed, pulling Iris’s nightgown back over her shoulders.
He put a little bottle on the dressing table, little white pills tinkling inside the glass. ‘You know, Iris, I think that you are not up to receiving company today after all,’ he said, placing a Bible next to the bottle and putting a tumbler of water on top.
‘The May Queen?’ My mother scurried in after Sir Howard, but the congratulations I had expected from her did not come.
‘You object, Agnes?’ said Sir Howard, raising his eyebrows.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘Iris is such a delicate child and I always thought such a thing more suited to one of the village girls, who is more used to outdoor work. The procession sets off so soon after sunrise and Iris would only be in a little white dress; she could easily catch a chill at that time of the morning.’ She spoke quite earnestly, her curls bouncing as she nodded her head and clasped her hands together. I suddenly saw a motherly side to her – a protectiveness that I had not seen for a long time, but I was not the one who received it.
‘We would make sure that Iris does not freeze,’ said Sir Howard. ‘She can wear a white nightgown of her mother’s, which will serve just as well as a white dress, as it has full-length sleeves that will keep the chill out and is of suitable length for a girl her age.’
‘Does she not have a white lace tea dress?’ said my mother. ‘I would have thought a girl of Iris’s standing would have such a thing for entertaining in the summer months.’
‘I always thought those dresses more suited to grown women,’ said Sir Howard bluntly.
My mother opened her mouth. I knew that she had seen such dresses on the little girls of the Sunday school and I thought her about to say so, but then she thought better of it. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I agree that they do look quite indecent. I would not allow Nell to own such a thing because they look more suited to a boudoir.’ She spat out the last word, but I fancied that the real reason I did not own a tea dress was because she could never have afforded one.
‘A winter nightgown is surely of a thicker material,’ Sir Howard added.
‘But don’t forget that Iris would be walking all that way in no more than little white slippers,’ my mother persisted. ‘They would soon soak up the dew, and she would need all her strength to carry the willow arch, for it is heavier than it seems.’
‘She would not carry the arch alone—’ Sir Howard began.
But my mother wasn’t finished: ‘Well, perhaps we should arrange an understudy,’ she said, ‘just in case Iris is feeling delicate on the day. After all there are girls in the village school who would be suitable queens – Emma Flanagan and Rosalie Harris are perhaps a more suitable age and are both so fair. Iris does not even attend the village school and never did.’
‘I know the girls who you speak of,’ he replied. ‘They are indeed fair but I fear Emma Flanagan’s Irish ancestry makes her undesirable and she would have little time to prepare as she works hard outside school hours as a seamstress. Rosalie Harris is of low birth and has quite coarse manners, having only recently moved from some slum in Oxworth.’
‘The May Queen need not open her mouth,’ said my mother, ‘so I think there is little risk of an Irish brogue or common cursing – they only have to sit and smile and walk in the white slippers. Spare poor Iris the trek, especially if she does not recover from this quickly!’
‘Iris will recover quickly—’ he pushed the little bottle of pills across the dressing table towards Iris ‘—if she wants to. The girls that you mention will make suitable attendants, and Iris will be Missensham’s May Queen just as her mother was.’
I looked to the photograph on the desk. I had thought it posed in the same romantic style as the portraits in the study, as if it were an illustration to the Lady of Shalott, but now as I looked at it, I thought the lace neckline to be the gown of a May Queen and the flowers in the bouquet the blooms of spring. Iris’s mother had been May Queen, so of course she too would be.
‘Well, I suppose the whole of May Day is ungodly anyway,’ my mother said.
Her voice had weakened along with her conviction, and as she spoke about celebrating God’s creations and the joys of spring, I saw that Sir Howard had put his hand on Iris’s shoulder, his fingers gripping her collarbone. I looked to Iris but she seemed to be staring at her father’s reflection in the mirror, and him at her, their eyes connecting through the glass.
At last my mother seemed to talk herself round. ‘I am sorry, Howard,’ she said. ‘I do tend to take things so seriously, maybe I should just see this as a bit of fun like everyone else. After all, it is a special time for you to show off your daughter, for we see so little of her in the village.’
‘Thank you, Agnes,’ he said. He did not remove his hand from Iris’s shoulder, but my mother did not seem to notice.
‘If this nightgown you speak of is anything like the one Iris is wearing at the moment, the poor girl will look like a balloon,’ she said, stepping forward and tugging at Iris’s sleeve. ‘Will you let me alter it a little, so that she at least has a waist?’
‘That’s very kind of you, Agnes,’ he said. ‘Dora has already laundered it in preparation for the day, so you can collect it from her on your way out.’
‘Our way out,’ she muttered, and then, ‘Of course – Nell we can have no more of your chatter. All this is exhausting poor Iris and we need her to recover quickly!’ She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the dressing table.
‘Thank you, Nell,’ said Iris quietly, although I was not sure what she was thanking me for.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if the pills will make you worse for a bit, we should probably leave you in peace.’
She nodded, but when I glanced at her reflection, I thought that her eyes were slightly watery.
‘We will find Dora and collect the dress on our way out,’ said my mother, echoing Sir Howard’s command, then she pulled me from the room.
* * *
Then she stopped and grabbed my hand, glancing at me excitedly. ‘Do you see, Nell?’ she said. ‘They received us despite Iris’s illness. Do you know what that means?’
I stared at her blankly.
‘We move in their circles now,’ she replied to her own question, and then with a excited little chuckle in her throat, she added, ‘We are becoming like family to them!’
I did not bother to respond because what my mother had seen at Haughten Hall was very different to what I had seen that day. I thought of the little bottle of pills that Iris’s father had pushed towards her and his insistence that she be May Queen, of the sight of his hand squeezing her collarbone and the marks beneath her shoulders where the corset dug into her flesh. I thought again that there was something not right with the Caldwells, but it was a thought that did not linger long enough. I wish it had, but it did not.
I did not think about what I had seen, but what I had not heard – Iris was to be May Queen but nothing had been said about me. Sir Howard had not mentioned me, even as I sat in front of him tending to his daughter. My name had not even crossed my mother’s lips as she spoke of the other girls she considered so fair. But there was one person who I had longed to hear speak my name more than any other, yet she too had been silent. I thought that if Iris had chosen me as an attendant – if I had just heard the words from her lips – then that would have made everything alright.
I remembered the closeness I had felt to her when we had shared a saddle on the common and the little jump I had felt inside me when we had sat together on the window seat in the library and she had declared that we would be friends. I had thought that she had meant it, but today when the talk had turned to the May Queen and her attendants, Iris Caldwell had not said a word, and in that brief moment of silence, I had found myself alone once more.
14
It was not until one foggy morning at the end of March that I first started to see the foxes. I had become used to hearing them at night. They would often wake me and my heart would race until I realised that their screams were no more than wild creatures scavenging in the streets. Yet on that morning, as I sat in my chair by the window and gazed out across the village green, I saw a fox passing under the oak tree in the full light of day. It was tall and upright like a dog, quite different from the little country foxes I was used to seeing as they scurried off in the twilight. As it saw me it stopped, its front paw raised, and we watched each other for a while before it hung its head and trotted away, its nose to the ground. I did not think much of it at the time but, looking back I now see that fox as some kind of omen, for this was just the morning of a day that had so much in store.
‘I think you should call round,’ said my mother suddenly. She sat on her old basket chair, Iris’s long white nightgown on her lap and her sewing box open on the floor in front of her.
I looked away from the window. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said. ‘Call round where?’ But I knew exactly where she meant. Over the past fortnight we had heard nothing from the Caldwells but brief letters, which told us not to visit on account of Iris’s worsening illness. Iris and her father had been all my mother had spoken of for the last few days and the lack of news was more than she could bear.
She stopped pulling at her thread and stared at me over the top of her spectacles.
‘I can’t exactly pop round when we have been told to stay away!’ I said. ‘Anyway, my boot leather has hardened in the rain, the backs are starting to rub my ankles.’
My mother drew her lips into a tight little knot and looked back down at her work, her eyebrows lowered. She had been stitching Iris’s nightgown day in, day out and her fingers had become quite calloused. She had not only taken in the waist but had also altered the hem and was now embroidering the neckline with little yellow flowers, which she said were wild flag irises.
I could not help but think of how Iris might look in the nightgown. She would be a May Queen, just as her mother was, her hair loose and flowers all around her. I thought of how the nightgown would flow around her as she walked, the fabric gaping on her shoulders, the little yellow irises resting on the jut of her collarbone. But Iris Caldwell was a girl who had made a promise of friendship to me, only to take it away when she did not consider me as her attendant. I could not bear to think about her anymore, so I turned my head towards the window again.
The fox had disappeared into the haze, but I could see the sheen of the mist on the oak tree and the damp timbers of the bench. In the distance the blue lamp of the police station glowed dimly through the fog and I could just make out the maypole, which now stood on the village green, its ribbons fixed so tightly that it seemed no more than a dead tree.
‘Here!’ My mother reached under her chair and took out a brown paper bag, handing it to me. ‘You can take this round to Haughten Hall and drop it off for Iris, and if she is recovered then it will be difficult for them to refuse you a visit.’
I took the bag from her and peered inside. ‘Liver salts!’ I cried, recognising the green stripes of the tin. ‘I can’t claim to be just passing by if I only have liver salts. The Caldwells have a housekeeper they could send out for liver salts!’
I did not expect an answer from her and I did not get one. My mother would do anything to please those that she thought her betters and I knew this was something I could not argue against.
‘Well,’ she said returning to her embroidery, ‘I can’t go myself, Nell, because, as you can see, I am busy, and all you seem to do with your time at the moment is sit in that chair and gaze out the window. You make no effort to find work or to mix with the right sort of people, you wear your hair as if you were a boy and…’
It was a speech I had heard from her before, many times over, and, as she spoke I went to the door to get my jacket and the boots that rubbed my ankles, trying not to look at her slowly shaking head and her lips that spoke only of her disapproval.
‘…and what about your father?’ She looked up at me, her eyes blinking through the thick lenses of her spectacles. ‘Well, he would be turning in his grave!’
I grabbed the paper bag from her and left the house without a goodbye. Then I set off in the direction of Haughten Hall, past the oak tree, the bench and the skeletal maypole.
It was not until I stood at the little plank bridge and looked across the stream to Haughten Hall, that I started to think of all that I had seen there over the past few weeks: the portraits of Iris’s dead mother that covered every wall; the marks on Iris’s back where her corset had rubbed the skin raw; Sir Howard’s large hand gripping Iris’s shoulder; the little bottle of pills that he had pushed towards her. Even now as I looked towards the house, the thick lintels that topped every window seemed like lowered eyebrows as if the house was frowning – warning me to stay away. I realised that, despite what my mother might think, Haughten Hall was not the kind of place that I could just call round with a bag of cheap medicines.
I continued on the cart track that led up on to the common, hoping that Sam would be out exercising the horses or that I would find him at the stables when I reached Waldley Court. I was wearing a striped dress that he had always liked me in and over the last fortnight, I had at last gathered the courage to show him what was underneath. I walked slowly, the damp air heavy in my lungs until the path climbed out of the mists and I was high enough to see it settled like a blanket over the low fields.
As I approached the little thicket of wych elms on the bend of the road, I saw a dark shadow mingling with the bent trunks and I started to fear passing through a place where thin
gs could happen unnoticed. The shadow seemed to grow and warp with every step I took but, when the dark figure raised a hand to shelter its eyes from the weak sunlight, a cape slipped from its rounded belly and I recognised Dora, the Caldwells’ housekeeper. She stood, her face turned away from me as she gazed in the direction of Waldley Court, a little riding crop in her hand, and it was only the sound of a loose pebble catching under my foot that caused her to turn sharply.
‘Oh!’ she said, pressing her hand to her chest. ‘You startled me. The old folk say bad things about this place.’
‘I am not allowed to listen to that kind of talk,’ I said, ‘for my mother says it is ungodly.’
She smiled. ‘Of course, miss.’
‘You have been out leading Edelweiss again,’ I said. ‘I did not know that Iris was well enough to ride or that she would be allowed to again!’
She nodded but looked away, and I could not help but feel a little bit sad that the family my mother thought so highly of had been avoiding us.
‘Is Iris nearby?’ I asked, peering into the trees.
‘She has taken the horse up on the common on her own,’ she replied. ‘She does not really need me anymore; I only lead the horse out here because Sir Howard asks me to. Please do not tell him that I am not with her. You see, these days I cannot keep up with her.’ She laid a hand on her swollen belly. ‘Sir Howard has been very kind to let me keep my position considering my condition, but the doctor has told me that I must not walk too far, nor even lift my arms above my head, and I should not really be doing half the duties that Sir Howard make me suffer.’
‘Of course,’ I said, but then I remembered the paper bag I was carrying and held it out to her. ‘Would you give these to Sir Howard when you return to the house, please? It is medicine for Iris’s illness.’
‘Yes, miss.’ She nodded but she did not smile, not even out of politeness and I wondered if I had said something wrong as she took the bag from me, glancing down at it as if it held dirt.
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