“Come up, Cousin.” Rebecca leaned over the railing. “She’s been calling for you.”
Mr. Burton pushed past me and climbed the stairs.
Delphine let out a low whistle.
“Be quiet.” I stepped forward and shook her shoulder. “Just be quiet.”
My grip tensed like a claw and she winced. Her face wavered in front of me, her lower jaw pushed out, pugnacious. “Let go of my arm.”
“You were upstairs with her.” I knew I would leave bruises. I wanted to let go. Delphine was annoying, but she did not deserve this seething wrath that coated the edge of my vision and kept my hand clamped tight.
“Let her go.” Rebecca’s voice was flat and low pitched. She stood beside me, her hands resting on her skirts.
We locked eyes. My grip loosened and Delphine jerked herself back, rubbing her shoulder.
“There.” Rebecca’s shoulders dropped an inch. “We’ll keep this between us.”
“But she—”
“It wasn’t your place to tell him, Delphine. That was Lucy’s place. And Lucy’s apology.”
“What am I apologizing for?”
“She could have broken her neck.”
“But she didn’t.”
Rebecca’s gaze had not left mine. “Your temper will be your undoing, Lucy.”
Mr. Burton glowered down at me as I remained seated on a horsehair divan. He did not say a word.
I raked my nails on the brocade and stared at the tips of my boots. “She tripped over the cat. It could have happened to any of us.”
“She could have broken her neck.”
“I’ve already heard that scenario.”
“Your only responsibility, Miss Blunt, is the well-being of my wife.”
“What will you have me do? Kill the cat? Lock her in her room? She’s not a child.”
“The cat will be taken care of.”
A shiver traveled my spine. “It’s not Mr. Quimby’s fault.”
“He’s a hazard. Jacob—”
I stood and crossed to the door. “Jacob will do nothing to the cat. I forbid it.”
“Who are you that you can answer to me like that?”
My temples throbbed. I had gone too far.
“I want Rebecca to see to Eugenie.”
“She does not want Rebecca. I am her companion now.”
He took a step back, then crossed his arms and rolled his shoulders. His skin reddened. The light from the sconce traced shadows under his cheeks and along the deep lines round his mouth. “She is fond of you.”
A quaver of heat pressed from my chest. I forced myself to take a breath. “Yes.”
“And you?”
“I am fond of my employer too.”
With a slow nod, he dropped into his desk chair. He laid his hands on the scatter of papers and I noticed how elegant they were, so at odds with the angles and rust that made the rest of him.
“I need to minister to your wife. She’ll require quiet the next few days and nights. You can trust me to provide that succor, Mr. Burton.”
“‘There is a curious animal, a native of South America, which is called the preaching monkey.’” I pulled a chair close to the bed, flopped back, and stretched my legs and bare feet to the coverlet. “‘It has a dark, thick beard, three inches long, hanging down from the chin. This gives it the mock air of a Capuchin friar.’”
“It reminds me more of Mr. Finch.”
I curled the newspaper. “He is clean shaven.”
“Is he?”
With a shake of the paper I continued. “‘In their evening meetings they assemble in vast multitudes. At these times the leader mounts the highest tree and the rest take their places below. Having by a sign commanded silence—’”
“Have you found him?” Her voice was rough and nasal. Though it had been five days, the swelling was still apparent and the bruising purple. The cut at the edge of her hairline would scar.
“He’s hiding. Cats are good at it.” I did not tell her I feared him dead: I had seen Delphine toss him to the edge of the woods late at night, and my morning calls brought nothing.
She pressed the heels of her hands to the ridge above her eyes. Then she twisted and reached to the drawer at her table, riffling through the handkerchiefs. “Where is it?”
I folded the paper, pushed it against the cushion, and dropped my feet to the floor. “You don’t need that.”
She turned her head to me, then reinvigorated her search, yanking the drawer to the floor, then grappling across the sheets and quilt to find purchase at the other table.
“Gene.”
Her search grew frantic, her fingers shaking as she combed them over the tabletop, dislodging and nearly knocking over a table lamp. She clutched the correspondence I’d brought up, crumpling the envelopes and dropping them in a heap.
“Gene—” When I grasped for her she swung out an arm, knocking me back with a sharp strike to the cheek.
Her lips were so taut they’d turned white. She kneeled on the mattress, fists clenched to her chest. “It was your fault.”
“How was it my fault?”
“You didn’t tell me . . . I didn’t know where you were. All I heard was the creak of that damn rocking horse you insist on keeping.”
“You imagined it. You were dreaming. I was downstairs with Cook.”
Her skin grew pallid and sweat clung to her forehead. “He’s dead. I know he’s dead. It’s your fault.”
I pressed my palms to my temple to soothe the pounding. Everyone blamed me for something I was not even present for. And then to have Eugenie turn on me was too much. She should have been paying attention. “No. It’s your fault. You tripped over the cat. How much laudanum did you have?”
“I didn’t—”
“God, don’t lie about that.” I picked up the letters and slapped them on her writing desk.
“I was ill. And calling for you. Why didn’t you hear me?”
I smacked my hand on the table. “Because you didn’t call. And you weren’t ill. No wonder they rarely let you out of this house.” With a gasp, I covered my mouth. “I didn’t mean that.”
She was still as a statue, and her expression hardened to marble.
“Gene—”
“Get out.”
“I didn’t mean it.” My pulse thumped in my throat. “Please.”
She seized the base of the oil lamp and slung it. I ducked, avoiding the worst. The brass base slammed into the wall and fell to the floor. I sprinted over to turn it upright before the oil could seep out. The globe spun and slowed on the carpet.
She breathed in and out through her mouth. “Why are you still here?”
A bird has settled on the window and tips her head to watch me. A crow. She likes to sun herself against the glass. Sometimes she carries moss or twigs, other times a strand of meat. If I stay still, she trusts enough to doze. Once she came in the rain, and thick drops flashed from her wings and her claws tapped the window thrice before she took off again.
Today she paces the ledge. Back and forth. Her head dips and elongates. Her beak stutters open and snaps shut. Back and forth on a ledge so narrow her blue-sheened wing presses the glass.
The shift of my foot on the cell floor startles her. She opens her wide wings and rushes away.
I waited at a turn in the path Delphine took to her boarding house. The trees’ shadows were sharp as spears and the dead leaves hissed in the wind. She was bent to the chill, wrapping her wool shawl around her shoulders, her woven reticule tucked tight under her arms.
I stepped in front of her, pushing a hand to her chest until she was backed to a maple’s trunk.
Her eyes were wide and blinked rapidly. Her mouth formed an O but had no words behind it.
“You will find that cat, or I’ll make sure you’re shipped back where you came from.”
She struggled and pushed at my arms. I pressed harder against her chest.
“Do you hear me?”
“You’re pathe
tic.” Her lips twisted into an ugly shape. “Do you know what we call women like you? Chienne.”
I took a step back. Whore. Bitch.
“The cat is dead.” She rolled a shoulder and straightened her shawl. “Let me by. Or do you want me to tell your mistress you tried to seduce me in the woods?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eugenie refused my entreaties and apologies. I made them through the keyhole between her room and mine, then grew tired of her silence on the other side. I finally left my bedroom and made my way down the stairs, each step away from her joined with a growing resentment of her pride. I had done nothing wrong. I did not deserve the ill treatment.
Rebecca caught me at the turn to the kitchen. “Where are you going?”
“To find the cat.”
I stopped in the kitchen, my gloves crushed between my fists. Delphine was at the sink, her arms up to her elbows in dishwater. She held a sopped rag, and it wagged from her fingers as she mopped her brow with the back of her forearm.
Cook sat at the table, a bundle of mending on her lap. Her boot heels hooked over the spindle of an empty chair she’d pulled to face her.
“What’s Mr. Quimby’s favorite food?”
“Rabbit,” Cook said. “Liver. Hearts, especially.”
I shoved on a glove. “Cooked or raw?”
“I’ve some salted.”
“Delphine’s coming with me.”
We strode across to the barn. Delphine glared over her shoulder and held her bag of salted offal straight out from her side. Her other hand grappled and clawed at her shawl. She didn’t have gloves and I didn’t care.
“If I were a cat, and thrown out of my warm lodging, a barn would be my first choice to survive the night.” The space echoed. The horses and brougham were absent. The air was gray with dust from the hay and icy on my lips. I peeked over the first stall at the banked straw, unhitched the latch, and toed the bedding aside. “Mr. Quimby. We’ve got your favorite food.”
The straw yielded nothing. I hesitated before setting out a bit of meat, for any creature could steal it and most would find it a great delicacy. Delphine stood next to me, shifting the straw with her foot. I saw it then, woven in her hair. Pink ribbon. Grosgrain. From the third roll in the sewing chest.
“What’s this?”
Delphine flinched when I hooked my finger near the knot of ribbon tying her mess of hair from her face. “It’s a ribbon.”
“I see that.”
“Do you want to talk about the ribbon or find the stupid cat?”
I handed the pouch to Delphine and pointed to the loft ladder. “Go up there and see.”
I opened and then clamped the lid back to a grain bin and turned to find Jacob standing with a hoe slung over his shoulder. He made a quick gesture to the field. “He only comes to the missus. You’re just wasting breath out here.”
“She thinks he’s hiding in the house.”
“He’s got a taste of the wild life.” He squinted to the door I’d left hanging wide. “Now he doesn’t have a bell.”
Delphine started back down the ladder. Jacob swung the hoe from his shoulder and set it against a stall wall, then loped over. “Watch yourself on the way down.”
“We’ll try the woods.”
Matron has brought another chair to my cell so we both avoid the floor. I’ve been watching the water seep and puddle in the corner under the window. Flecks of rust from the bars float on the surface, and when I blow on the water, the ripples send them swirling like minuscule ships. Two have landed on the damp shore, and I like to think the others will find a destination.
Now we sit together and she watches me lift my spoon from the tin bowl. I press the oats to the roof of my mouth and swallow. “I like the raisins.”
“I thought you would.”
Her hands play her skirts, folding and creasing and twisting and smoothing. She slows them when she catches me following their patterns. Sets them, first left, then right, on her thighs. She coerces a smile, though I can see it takes effort for her to retain.
I like her eyes. I like the way she lifts her eyebrow when she wants to say something and decides against it and how the bones of her wrists round. She works very hard at sternness, but I see the sag of her shoulders when she knows she’s failed. I notice her footfall outside my cell late at night and that she stops for a moment and mumbles God rest you before turning away.
“Do you say it to the other women?”
She looks at me with surprise. “Do I say what?”
“Do you say good night to them?”
She shifts her hips and points at my meal. “You should finish before it goes cold.”
I lay the bowl in between my legs. “It was cold when you brought it. But the raisins were nice. Almost as good as the peach cobbler LeRocque—”
“You shouldn’t talk of him.”
“I’m aware you aren’t keen on the man.” I stick the spoon to my tongue and lick the hollow clean. “I think you’re jealous of my time with him.”
Her cheeks flame and her smile tenses and drops.
“Or his time with me? Is that more accurate? Do you have a yen for Mr. LeRocque? I’m afraid he’ll never leave his wife. And he’s leaving soon for the West, he’s leaving right after . . . Well, maybe a day after.” I set the spoon in my bowl and the bowl to the ground, then stand and move to the puddle. I lean down and set a large curled strip of rust and white paint to spin. “He says the inns are bursting, the taverns are empty of beer, and there’s a line to the warden’s for the lottery to see me hang. Is that true?” The little boat twists and sinks. “I can hear them build the gallows. They start so early with the hammering. Are they building viewing stands, or will they just pull the pews from the church for the day?” I know they stop when Matron and I cross the yard to the laundry. Their eyes burn into my skin as we pass. The yard smells of sweet green wood.
I lurch forward as if punched in the gut.
Matron comes to me. Her arms are strong around my waist, her hips and legs are tight to the back of mine. She rests her cheek on my shoulder blade. Her grasp is firm, but the trace of her thumb along my waist is soft.
“Your Mr. LeRocque makes up half of his stories and steals the other half.” We are upright, but still she holds me. Her breath heats my neck. “The men are replacing the boilers in the shoe shop and the rotten roof above the kitchens.” Her keys and the prong of her belt buckle jab my hip. “There is no lottery. And there is still possibility.”
It didn’t take long to find Mr. Quimby. His carcass lay in a shallow divot in the orchard, his entrails blackened. His orange coat was an easy target for a fox or a bobcat. Jacob removed his collar and rolled him to a tarp with the blunt end of a rake. We folded the canvas and tied the ends with twine.
Delphine stood a length away and rolled her eyes. “You should leave it for the animals. He’s nothing but food now.”
“The missus will want to bury him, I think.” Jacob sniffed and glanced up at the sky.
I looked at Delphine and that stupid ribbon. “She’ll also want to know who threw him out the door.”
“No.” Delphine shook her head and stepped back, her foot and ankle wobbling on the exposed root of a cherry tree. “I’ll lose everything.”
“You should have thought of that before.”
“My brother—”
“Mr. Burton won’t want him at the mill. Not after this. He might be kind enough to buy you a ticket back to . . . Where are you from?”
Jacob tugged at my elbow. “You leave her now.”
I ignored him.
Delphine trembled. She held a hand to her mouth and her gaze swam from me to Jacob. “She told me to do it.”
“Rebecca—”
She gave a sharp nod.
“You don’t answer to her.”
“What would you have me do?” Her hand dropped to her throat. “Michel and I have nothing. Please. There’s no food. There’s no family. Please.”
“She�
�s got nothing. Let her be.” Jacob lifted the tarp by the twined ends. “We need to bury the cat before dark.” He trudged past us.
Delphine caught my coat in her grip. Her stare was flint, all pretense of impending tears evaporated. “You can lose things just as easily as me. Positions. People. So, if you say anything, I’ll tell about you. Will you tell?”
“No. I suppose I won’t.”
“Then I will keep your secret too.”
Mr. Quimby was buried behind the barn, with a fine view of the fields and a wide swath of forest.
Eugenie had allowed me to guide her to the small grave, but she let go my arm and stood alone, her jaw muscles shifting and tensing as Cook read from Psalm 103.
The Lord is merciful and gracious . . .
The daylight had lost its luster, the tips of the hills of maple and beech tamped to a dull gray. Jacob shifted his hip, his arm resting on the shovel. He glanced to Delphine and patted her arm once. Rebecca stood on the other side of Eugenie, one hand tapping the back of the other, lips pursed to contain her smug look. I crushed a handful of soil until it was a dense ball, then pressed my thumb against it to crumble it to the earth. It smelled of dead leaves and rot.
For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust . . .
I lay in my bed that night as awake as if it were morn. My position in the household felt tenuous. Nothing to grasp on to. I heard my father’s drink-tinged voice, the words knife-edge sharp. You’re nothing. I heard Delphine’s threat and the echo of Aurora’s warning.
The lock tumbled in the door. I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of my bed. My toes curled in surprise at the cold floor. The stove, with its dwindling embers, left no warmth and a dim glow.
“Will you undress me?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She padded toward me, feet bare, and I took her hands and held them until she stepped between my legs.
“I’m so sorry.” I leaned to her, my forehead pressed to her stomach. Then I ratcheted in a breath and unhooked the buttons from the plaid bodice. Her warm tears fell to my knuckles. I continued, removing the bodice and skirt and draping them on the chairback, untying the cage hoop and watching it coil to the floor. I rolled the corset and left it on the desk. “Forgive me.” I unpinned her hair, combing my fingers through long strands that straightened and curled against my skin.
The Companion Page 20