“He said she felt trapped.”
“Trapped. Yes. And in those circumstances it was not surprising that she sought a means to escape. At the same time, she sought a way to prove to her father and me that we did not have the final say in her future. Marrying Robert Crofton must have seemed the perfect means to bring about both those ends.”
“Are you saying that she didn’t marry for love?” When she pulled a sour face at the word, I remembered her term for it. “I mean, do you suggest there was no sentimental attachment between them? That she cared nothing for my father but as a way to free herself from her life here?”
The apprehension in my words seemed to puzzle her. “Why should she have felt any attachment to the man? She scarcely knew him. A tenant, a mere farmer. They can have spoken hardly two dozen words together until she persuaded him to elope.” She gave a dry laugh. “Not that I imagine he took much persuading. He probably believed he was gaining access to a higher social sphere than he ever could have attained as a farmer.”
I tried to hide my dismay. I knew she would think it foolish of me, but I had imagined that my parents had been devoted to each other. Mother had scarcely ever spoken of my father to me. I took that to mean that losing him was so painful that she could not bear to be reminded of him. But perhaps it meant only that he rarely crossed her mind after he died. Why was the idea so painful to me?
Because it was a gulf between us, I decided. I had loved with my whole heart, not once but twice, and the idea of a life in which that emotion never played a role was abhorrent. If my mother had been incapable of that kind of attachment, it made her seem more of a stranger to me than ever. I didn’t want that to be the case—I wanted to feel that she and I were connected by temperament as well as by blood.
“Do you know anything about my father besides that?” I asked.
She shook her head, mussing the arrangement of her white locks on the pillow, and waved one of her thin hands dismissively. “No, and I do not need to. He was unimportant.”
Anger flared in me at hearing my father dismissed this way, but she continued, unaware. “Your mother would have married a tinker to spite her father and me. But I understand why she felt that way. She was my daughter, after all, and I married partly for spite. Had they not forbidden me to marry a foreigner? Yet I did, despite my father making the most terrible threats and… and reproaching me for my ingratitude.”
That had not been what she had started out to say, I felt sure. Then a half-smothered yawn came from my uncle, and I realized his presence might be making her circumspect. I had grown so absorbed in our conversation, and my uncle had been so uncharacteristically quiet, that I had forgotten he was still in the room. “You do not sound Romanian,” I said to my grandmother.
The old lady frowned at me. “I was educated in Switzerland and France, like any well-bred girl of my status. My family always spoke English, French, and German; Romanian was for the servants.” Then she sighed. “It was wrong of me to defy my parents,” she said in a low voice. “Wrong of me to choose to obey my husband instead of heeding my father. When misfortune struck, I was instrumental in bringing it upon us. That is what I wanted to tell you…”
“Mother,” my uncle said warningly, “you mustn’t get worked up. It isn’t good for your health.”
“My health is immaterial,” she retorted. “We all know I have few enough days left on this earth, and before I go I must tell Clara the source of all the family’s ill luck. She must—”
But as my uncle moved toward her with, I was certain, the intent of silencing her, her words died away into coughs. Her son picked up the glass on her bedside table, poured a few drops into it, and held it to her lips as soon as the paroxysm had passed. She took a few sips before letting her head fall wearily back on the pillow.
“I weaken daily,” she said. “You cannot conceive of how frustrating it is when one’s soul is as vital as ever but bound to a decaying machine. Fortunate girl, you still have so many years before you.”
“Please,” I said, “is there anything else you can tell me? I feel I still know so little of her. Is it true that all of her possessions were removed after she married?”
“Her father wanted all traces of her removed from our lives. But she left behind a trunk that I think she meant to take with her. It contained a few of her favorite books, her best dress, a few other oddments. It was found in the great hall, as if she had carried it to the front door only to leave it at the last minute. Perhaps she found it too heavy.”
“If she disappeared, how did you know she had married?”
“She left a letter full of defiance, or so my husband said. He threw it in the fire.” Her voice had developed a wheeze, and at her gesture I picked up the glass and held it to her lips so that she could drink.
“I suppose he also destroyed the trunk?” I said, bracing myself for disappointment. But to my astonished delight, she shook her head.
“There, by the bureau—I had Horace fetch it for you. All those years ago I hid it in the eaves where my husband would not find it, and now it is yours.”
Without intending to I found that I had risen to my feet. “May I—?”
“Of course, child. It belongs to you now.”
The words had scarcely left her lips before I was kneeling by the trunk—quite a small one—and raising the flat lid. The contents were sparse enough, but their meaning sent my heart knocking against my ribs in excitement. My mother had handled these things, had valued them enough to wish to take them with her into her new life.
They were few in number, to be sure. A half dozen books, mainly translations of classical verse; a dress of robin’s-egg blue satin with enormous puffed sleeves; a matching pair of satin slippers; and a box containing some modest pieces of jewelry as well as a fan, handkerchiefs, and the like. I did not want to examine them all under the gaze of my uncle, who was openly staring, so I closed the lid and made to pick the trunk up.
“Steady there!” my uncle boomed. “I’ll have one of the servants take the box to your room. Why do we have them if not to carry things for us?”
“I don’t mind,” I said, reluctant to let the precious thing out of my grasp. “Truly.”
My grandmother closed her eyes as if I wearied her. “A woman in your position should not lift a hand on her own account.”
“For years I had no servant and had to do my own carrying,” I said stubbornly.
But my grandmother was determined. “It’s well past the time when you should have left that behind you. To think that I would need to school a baroness on her stature!”
Another coughing fit seized her, and my uncle announced, “That’s a long enough visit for today. You can speak to Mother again tomorrow morning, if she is feeling well enough for visitors.”
She raised her head from the pillow again. “Come,” she croaked, “give your grandmother a kiss before you leave, child.”
Though surprised at this sentimentality, I returned to the bedside and bent over to touch my lips to her cheek. Her hand clutched my arm, and so strong and unexpected was her grip that I nearly yelped.
Hissing the words into my ear, she whispered, “Come back at five o’clock, without that oaf of a son of mine. Then we may speak freely.”
“Yes, Grandmama,” I said, and then added for my uncle’s ears, “I’ll return tomorrow morning.”
She did not reply, as another fit of coughing seized her. My uncle actually took my elbow to hurry me toward the door, so eager was he to be rid of me.
“You needn’t push me about,” I snapped.
The look he gave me was neither friendly nor avuncular, and his grip did not ease. “You have worn her out with your questions. I should have seen you out long before this.”
“You won’t be able to stop her from talking to me,” I told him. “Whatever it is that you don’t want me to learn, I assure you I will find it out.”
For answer he merely propelled me out the door and into the hallway, releasing his grip
on me at last and shutting the door smartly behind me. The sound of my grandmother’s coughing penetrated through it.
I rubbed the place on my arm where his grip had pinched me and reluctantly withdrew. I had a strong suspicion that before the trunk made its way to me its contents would be subjected to close scrutiny. And with my grandmother weakening so quickly, I hated to waste another minute before talking of whatever it was that was weighing on her so. Just what was it that my uncle was so determined I should not learn?
CHAPTER EIGHT
As always when I was troubled in mind, I felt that discussing the matter with Atticus would bring me some measure of comfort. When I went in search of him, Mrs. Furness told me that he was in the library, a room I had not yet seen.
Its leaded glass windows offered a fine view of the meadowland at the front of the house where it stretched down to the river and beyond. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray, and the trees bent and swayed under a high wind, which shrilled around the edges of the windows. Even from here I could see the river foaming around the rocks in its path, and I remembered what Mr. Lynch had said about its having overflowed this summer. It still looked as if it were running high and fast enough to pose a danger to the unwary.
Closer at hand, the view was considerably more attractive, for Atticus sat at a table with a book open before him. Whatever it was, it had made him smile.
“What are you reading?” I asked, coming to peer over his shoulder at the page.
“Finished already? It’s an eighteenth-century guide to supernatural creatures. I’m reading about vampires.” He turned a page and read in portentous tones:
These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer.
I shook my head. “It’s remarkable that men of learning took such legends seriously enough to devote themselves to their study.”
“I don’t know,” Atticus mused. “It seems to me that an important part of scientific inquiry is finding the grounds to separate assumption from fact. Sometimes that may mean assembling definite observations instead of dismissing ideas out of hand, even when the ideas seem ludicrous on the surface.”
“Well put, Lord Telford,” came a quiet voice, and I found that Mr. Lynch had joined us unheard. “It is not necessarily a sign of superstition but of an open mind to study lore such as this. For all we know, there could be astonishing revelations about the world we live in hiding in stories that are dismissed as sensational fiction.” He gestured toward the shelves beside which we were standing. “This is my collection,” he said. “Or as much of it as I can bear to leave behind during my time away from Thurnley.”
The titles ranged from popular fiction, like Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein and the fantastical stories of Théophile Gautier, to obscure treatises, like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the volume Atticus held, The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, & c. by one Augustine Calmet. I hoped that Mr. Lynch had not thought we were mocking his taste in reading, but I could not keep from observing, “It is an unusual collection. How did your taste for such subjects begin?”
His shrug drew my eye to the unevenness of his shoulders, plainer now in the light of day that streamed through the windows. “Certain events in my youth planted a seed, shall we say, that grew into a devouring curiosity. It fascinates me to learn what the men of different lands and different centuries labeled with the word ‘monstrous.’”
“One can learn a great deal about people by studying what they choose to demonize,” Atticus agreed. “Have your studies disclosed anything surprising?”
For the first time Mr. Lynch’s smile betrayed a hint of steel. “Disappointing, yes,” he said. “Surprising? Given what I have observed firsthand over the years, no.”
“There you are!” The booming voice belonged, of course, to my uncle, who stood on the threshold regarding us. “I’ve been looking for you, niece. I thought I might take you and your husband round to the cow barn and the other outbuildings. When you see them you’ll understand how vital it is to carry out extensive repairs.”
Atticus, no doubt gauging that this scheme would drive me completely out of patience, performed the hero’s part and stepped in front of the bullet. “I don’t believe Clara has finished her exploration of the library, but I should be delighted to accompany you,” he said. “I hope you’ll tell me about all the work that needs to be carried out on the estate.”
“That would take more than one afternoon,” Mr. Lynch said gently, and his guardian shot him a look that was positively hostile before shepherding Atticus out of the room and away from us.
“Your husband is an interesting person,” said my companion. “He does not seem to feel the need to bluster and stamp about as my guardian does to make his presence felt, yet he makes a powerful impression all the same.”
I smiled my agreement. “Atticus is a remarkable man, especially given his upbringing.”
“Oh?”
“He was not raised to hold himself in any regard,” I said. “His physical imperfection, though minor, was enough to cause the ignorant to draw away from him. Even his parents disdained him for it.” I suspected that Mr. Lynch had experienced something similar, and I was curious enough to want to draw him out.
“I am not surprised to hear it.” His dark eyes were thoughtful as he gazed into space… or into his past. “You will probably not be astonished to learn that my schoolfellows were merciless about my slight curvature of the back. They called me… well, no matter. The fact that children can be cruel will not surprise you, I am certain. I still hope to find some knowledge from studying accounts both historical and fictional that would explain why we are so hostile to those who are different, especially in our youth. Still, one hopes for better from adults, who ought to have the wisdom of age and experience to give them insight.”
“Adults like my uncle?”
He rubbed his chin, avoiding my eyes. With his high forehead and slender hands he reminded me a trifle of Atticus, and I wondered if that was part of the reason that I felt suddenly protective of him. “I never knew my parents,” he said presently, “and my guardian insists that it’s better for me to remain ignorant of them. That makes me fear they surrendered me willingly to his care—that they did not want a deformed child and rejoiced to find that they need not keep me.”
“Do you know this for certain?” I exclaimed, shocked. Even Atticus’s parents, neglectful though they had been, had not abandoned him outright.
A gentle smile. “No, it’s mere supposition. But the fact that even my guardian prefers to keep me at a distance—by sending me away to school, then to work—tells me how the world must view me. He has never bothered to conceal that he does not want me nearby. As the world goes, it is not so great a burden, but it is still unpleasant to feel that one is an inconvenience to those who should have one’s welfare at heart.”
Abruptly I remembered feeling something very similar in my girlhood. “My mother sent me away,” I said without having intended to.
The warm brown eyes were attentive. “When?”
“I was seventeen. I was a maid at Gravesend Hall then, and she the housekeeper. I was dismissed for being too familiar with a member of the family. I don’t like to make any of this generally known,” I added, “for I should hate for Atticus to be looked down on for having a wife of such humble origins.”
“I’ll not breathe a word to Mr. Burleigh,” he assured me.
“Thank you. It isn’t exactly a secret anymore, but it makes it more embarrassing that the young man I was caught trysting with was Atticus’s brother, Richard.”
“Ah! He who returned from the dead.”
I cast a reproving
look at him but otherwise ignored this quip. “Lady Telford dismissed me, and my mother carried out her orders. Mind you, Mother made certain I had the means of finding lodgings and employment, and it would have been disastrous for us both had she thrown over her position in protest, but… at the time I almost wished she had. I felt rather as you did, that she found me a problem to be packed off to London, out of sight and where I could do no further damage.” I came back to the present to find my young companion’s eyes fixed on me with such concern that I laughed in embarrassment. “Please don’t feel sorry for me, Mr. Lynch—I felt quite sorry enough for myself. As you can imagine, a seventeen-year-old girl could generate enough self-pity for a lifetime. And you see, everything worked out in the end, for Atticus sought me out and made me his wife.”
“Did everything work out for your mother?” he inquired. “Did she retain her position?”
“Until her death. Which followed all too quickly after my departure.” I wondered now whether, if she had walked out of Gravesend with me, she would have succumbed to some other illness. Or would she have lived many years more?
Letting my thoughts wander in that direction would only be tormenting myself, and indeed, there were already tears in my eyes. I had found that I wept more readily now that I was expecting a child, and it was embarrassing for it to happen before a new acquaintance.
I reached for my handkerchief, but Mr. Lynch had already produced one. With a murmured “If you’ll permit me… ,” he touched it gently to the corners of my eyes. Under his intent gaze I felt foolish.
“Please forgive my display,” I said. “Talking with my grandmother seems to have stirred up my emotions. After all these years, finally to learn something of my mother’s past has been a bit unsettling.”
“I shall forgive it and with pleasure, if you will answer a question for me.”
Though his tone was deferential, I felt a little spark of resentment. I disliked having conditions foisted upon me.
“Well?” I said, more coolly.
Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse Page 10
