D’Avenant was a natural parent. Sadly, of course, no woman worth her salt as a mother would entrust her children to a drinking man. A father’s self-possession had to be absolute. If there were children relying on him, a man had to be capable of facing any storm that might lash his family, not running for comfort in a liquor bottle.
The walled garden was in full splendour. The sun poked through the clouded sky, casting alternately bright, then shaded light. Apples, peaches, and nectarines hung heavy on the fruit espaliers, raspberry canes were laden with berries, currants and grape vines were putting on their last push to ripen, while on the ground, cabbages, and root vegetables—potatoes, carrots, beets, onions—were filling out in a race against first frost, as were the melons and cucumbers for pickling.
Romelle and hired girls from the village had worked long hours every day all summer to produce the year’s food supply, and soon would be preserving what would not be dried or put into the root cellar.
Maman made her way to the garden bench with Sophie’s help. Romelle joined them. Maman loved the garden, but with her rheumaticks it was becoming more difficult each passing year to get across the lawn to it. Today, however, she was here to confer with Sophie and Romelle where they could not be overheard by Lady Maryam.
Sophie sat down beside her on the bench.
Romelle, a gypsy with broad cheekbones, dark eyes, and olive complexion, stood before them, her feet apart and her fingers dusty with soil. Her hair, still dark despite her late middle-age, was held back with a scarf. “Is Julianne tolerating the St. John’s Wort?”
Sophie nodded. “I’m brewing her tea three times a day as you instructed. She dislikes the bitterness of it of course, but—”
“She is trying so hard,” Maman said. “It has been ten weeks now and those bottles are still unopened, merci mon dieu pour ça.”
“I am in conflict about the bottles being in view, Maman,” Sophie said. “I cannot decide if it makes it harder for her to see them all the time.”
“Oui,” Maman said, “But my fear is that if we hide them and she returns to the bottle, she will merely become a hidden drinker, which adds one more lie to her life.”
“She is proud,” Romelle said. “Every day they remain untouched she can hold her head up. It is her choice. They are a sign of success.”
“I hope you’re right,” Sophie said.
“Me too,” Maman said. “My concern now is September 14th.” The anniversary of the day Julianne’s family was murdered had always been hell at Edgemere. The closer the date drew, the more unstable Julianne became. At night, even when she’d had the cognac, she had terrors. In the day she drank until she staggered. She had never met that date soberly. “Her room is too close to Lady Maryam’s. It could be a disaster if she heard Julianne first and went to her room.”
Romelle shrugged. “Lady Maryam is going to find out some time.”
“Yes,” Maman replied, “But better if Julianne chooses when. She’s working so hard on the problem of the alcohol she hasn’t figured out what to do about Lady Maryam. She is standing on thin ice. Any shift of weight threatens calamity.”
“We shall have to move Julianne to the servants’ wing where we can attend to her at night,” Sophie said.
“I will speak to her tonight and send her to you after,” Maman said.
The after-dinner activity that night was portraiture. Lady Maryam gave the children art pencils and paper and Maman, Maryam, and D’Avenant were to pose. For the fun of it she assembled the gathering in the Drawing Room.
Brigid accompanied Megan, paper on the floor, while she scribbled. Edward sketched Maman, instructing her to make faces and hold her hands like claws. Maman obliged, laughing, making him demonstrate first what he wanted so she could mimic him. Which made him—and her—laugh more.
“Ehn!” Maman said, looking at his latest sketch. “You gave me horns!”
He burst into laughter.
Elizabeth took the task more seriously and said she wanted a portrait of D’Avenant and her mother together. She posed them on a settee, side by side. “You have to be very close,” she said, “Or you won’t fit on the paper.”
D’Avenant did as she asked, and moved closer to Lady Maryam until his hips grazed hers. Sitting like this unsettled him. He sensed the waves of sensual energy coming off Lady Maryam. Under other circumstances he would have delighted to let them wash over him. But the last time he posed for an artist, he had been with Emma, sitting just like this, with the same sensual ripples coming off of her.
And he had been in the full cry of betrayal.
“Are you alright, D’Avenant?” Lady Maryam asked across her shoulder without turning her face so the pose would not be ruined. “You seem a bit unsettled.”
He stood up. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” He left the room.
“Chère.”
“Maman.” Julianne came into her room, relieved it was finally bedtime. After she’d left the drawing room she’d gone down to the stables to greet the horses. She rubbed their noses and necks until the urge for a drink subsided and then sat there in the dark near Starburst, talking nonsense just to hear the gelding nicker in response.
“Unfortunate choice of poses tonight.” Maman patted the edge of her bed. “Elizabeth could not know.”
“No.”
“We are in early September, ehn?”
Julianne sat beside her and started unbuttoning the waistcoat.
“I’ve been thinking. Your room is so close to Lady Maryam’s maybe for the next two weeks or so you might do better to sleep downstairs near Sophie, Sarena, and Romelle, away from where you could be heard.”
“If I have night terrors and scream.”
“Oui. Lady Maryam is a mother. She would instinctively fly from her bed and be at your side before she realized she had entered your rooms.”
Julianne rubbed her face. “Alright. I’ll move.”
“What are your thoughts this year?”
Julianne caught a shaky breath. “I am praying you will still love me if I fail.”
“Toujours. Always. But because I love you, I also hope you won’t fail.”
Julianne leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and grasped her head between her hands. “I don’t know how I am going to get through this.”
“The time is right.” Maman stroked her hair. “And you are strong. Another would have been driven to madness.”
“I am mad, when my mind turns to it. The images come into my head and it’s like having the living flesh ripped off my body. I cannot bear it.”
“Maybe this year instead of trying to hold it at bay you should let yourself feel it. Let it burn itself out.”
Tears brimmed in Julianne’s eyes and tumbled down her cheeks. “I’m so scared,” she whispered.
“We will be with you, Julianne. Toujours. We will not leave you alone.”
Breakfast was held on the terrace again though the morning had a touch of chill to it. Lady Maryam loved having time to sit outdoors before going inside to spend long hours at the work table in the library. End of quarter was three weeks away and there was much to reconcile and balance so the bank drafts and wages would be ready for the workers.
D’Avenant had taken a distinctive approach, keeping his house staff at bare minimum, and hiring workers for labour outside the house, as with the village girls who gardened with Romelle, or the gamekeepers and woodsmen who lived in their own cottages and came to work at Edgemere as he needed them. Maryam had never seen a household run with so few maids or servants but then the manor had been closed for ten years and hosted no lavish entertainment that required large staffs.
“Good morning,” D’Avenant said, appearing at the table with his café crème. He was late today. The children had already eaten and gone off with Brigid to help in the vegetable garden. Maman had gone with them, as she had Brigid’s arm to lean on, and she loved to sit on the bench in the warm sun.
Maryam turned and looked at him. His bowl was rattling on its saucer. His hands were shaking.
“A beautiful September morning,” she said. “I’m so glad to sit on the terrace.”
He set down his coffee and pulled back a chair.
“How are you this morning?”
“A bit under the weather,” he said, picking up the bowl. The coffee spilled down the sides of the bowl from his trembling hands, and he set it back down. “Has Elizabeth forgiven me for leaving last night?”
“She was disappointed but understood once I explained that you weren’t feeling very well—an inference I made from your pallor.”
“Thank you for smoothing that over for me.” He grasped the bowl but it slipped because of the wet sides. He pushed it away with his fingertips in frustration. “May as well get started,” he said. “You’re finished here, I take it?”
“Yes, I am.”
He pushed back his chair and got up.
“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right along.”
He walked into the manor, no vigour in his step.
Maryam picked up his coffee bowl and took it inside. She found a glass and tipped the coffee into it, leaving ample headroom. Then she got a small plate and placed one of the biscuits he liked on it, cutting it open and spreading it with butter and some preserves.
When she got to the library he was at his usual place at the work table, his head resting in his hands. She glanced quickly at the cognac bottle on the shelf. Untouched. Good for you.
She set the plate and the coffee-filled glass down in front of him. ‘Try this,” she said.
He reached for the glass.
“Two hands.”
“I am not a child.”
“I apologize. I meant no—”
“No. It is I who is peevish. You were kind to bring these. Thank you.”
She sat at her customary seat at right angles to him and tipped her head, studying him. “Tell me how I can help you.”
“I have changed my mind about how we should proceed on end of quarter.”
“What shall we do instead?”
“I think it… expedient… that I teach you all the steps in the order in which they are done. You know enough now to reconcile debits and credits within a page, but I want you to know the flow of the calculations through the books, from start to end. I thought I’d explain and you could write detailed notes, like a little handbook. You should write sufficient detail that a person could follow the process without me.”
She pulled a piece of paper off the stack and picked up her quill, ready to dip it into the ink pot. “Whenever you are ready.”
“Let us begin with wages,” he said, reaching for the book with the workers’ names.
At mid-day, unbidden, Sophie came into the library and set a cup of brewed tea in front of D’Avenant. “And what can I bring you, Milady? There’s a fresh raspberry ade.”
“That sounds wonderful, Sophie, thank you.”
“One of the twins will be in with it. Also, a bread and cheese plate for you both, and some fresh sliced peaches.”
A few minutes later, Mo came in with a tray as promised, and Maryam set down her quill. She sliced two thin slivers of cheese, set them atop fresh sliced bread, and placed them on D’Avenant’s plate. He ignored them. Maryam sliced a wedge for herself, set it on bread and ate, following it with a slice of fresh peach.
Casually she picked up one of D’Avenant’s slices and handed it to him. He took it absently, and nibbled it.
There you go, my woebegone one. She waited until he finished the first piece, then handed him a slice of peach.
Had the work day been a foot race, D’Avenant would have been the competitor who fell across the finish line after everyone else had crossed it and gone home. But he completed what he had set out to do. They had their ‘little handbook.’
The task complete, he took his leave. He did not join the family for dinner or for the activities that followed it.
At bedtime that night Lady Maryam did not hear D’Avenant visit Maman’s room. She did not hear him enter his own room, either. She wasn’t even sure he was in it. In the middle of the night Maryam woke from deep sleep, hearing whispers in the hallway. Maman left her room and went down the back stairs with whoever had come to get her.
11. Isolation
Breakfast the next morning was set indoors by the twins. Lady Maryam and the children enjoyed a quiet meal. Neither Maman nor D’Avenant joined them. After everyone ate, Brigid set off with the children.
Maryam went outdoors and waited out on the terrace for an hour, expecting D’Avenant to join her to guide her day, but he made no appearance. Nor did Maman, nor Sophie. She hadn’t seen Sarena in days, but Romelle, the gypsy medicine woman crossed the lawn below her and entered the kitchen.
The house was deserted. Maryam went to the library, thinking D’Avenant might have left her a note with instructions for her day, but she found everything exactly as they had left it the day before. The house was silent.
Not sure what to do, she went to the formal dining room, and followed the passageway to the kitchen, hoping to find Sophie. She saw a door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open. Maman, Sophie, Sarena, and Romelle were seated at a table, a teapot and cups of tea before them. They were deep in conversation, their brows knotted with worry. Romelle saw her first, and stood. “Milady.”
Sophie, Sarena, and Maman turned, shocked to see Maryam in the kitchen. Sophie and Sarena stood. Maman tried, but looking more frail than ever, she gave up, and settled for a bob of the head.
“I’m sorry,” Maryam said. “Forgive my intrusion. I’m… I’ve…”
“Good morning, Milady,” Sophie said. “I hope the twins have served you well this day.”
“Yes, yes. Very nicely,” Maryam said. “I… The house seems rather deserted, and I’m at odds what to do. Lord D’Avenant has not appeared.”
The women exchanged glances.
“I am sorry, My Lady,” Maman said. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and puffy. “D’Avenant is… indisposed. We were to let you know, but the morning has gotten away from us. Please accept our apologies.”
“Indisposed? Oh, my goodness. May I ask—”
“Romelle has his care well in hand,” Maman said, with a wave of her hand. “You are not to worry.”
“I don’t know how he wishes me to proceed. With the work.”
Maman hesitated. “He has been speaking of going out to Skylark to check the progress. Perhaps Normand could drive you out, and you could verify the work is being done as expected?”
Maryam nodded. There had been rain the week before and neither she nor D’Avenant had visited the site lately. “Yes. That sounds like a good idea. I’ll go ahead and do that. Meanwhile, would you tell Lord D’Avenant I wish him a speedy recovery? And if there is anything I—”
“Bien sûr,” Maman said. “We shall let him know.”
Maryam stood there, lacing her fingers, feeling oddly as if a curtain had been very politely drawn around D’Avenant. The women waited wordlessly. Maryam didn’t know what to say. I demand to see him right this instant? She might be a Countess and they might be the servants, but she knew very well she was not in charge. She was the interloper. An insect caught in a tightly-knit web that dated back many years. “I’ll go make arrangements with Normand.”
The kitchen remained unnaturally silent behind her as she left.
Lady Maryam and Normand returned from Skylark late in the day. The sun, entering its autumnal path, was low in the sky, casting long shadows. Their visit had revealed that work on the estate was progressing well. The timber frame roof was now complete and the men were beginning to close it in with rough-cut planks from the sawmill. The planks had already been delivered and were stacked on the ground at intervals around the house. Tate reported that the doors and windows were being assembled in two separate shops, each one run by a journeyman and his apprentices
. It would be close, but they were still on track to close in Skylark by first snow.
Walking back to the house, Maryam entered by her customary terrace entrance to a silent house. She walked to the entrance hall and stopped, listening. Even the air seemed still. All life seemed to have gone out of the house. It was as if the manor had tipped on a fulcrum and the energy had slid out of it.
Upstairs, Edward suddenly laughed. Maryam smiled, relieved. Not all the energy. Her son’s cheerful trill had drifted out of the nursery, down the gallery, to her ears here at the base of the stairs. She loved that child’s laugh. He was her sprite, her bringer of joy, a delight to her heart. Edward could make a stuffed bird laugh.
Maryam put her hand on the rail and started up.
Dinner was quiet. Minnie served dinner alone, not quite as smoothly as when she had help, but made a commendable effort nevertheless. D’Avenant did not join the family, and Maryam thought it would be just her and the children. She had her fork poised to eat when Maman entered, relying heavily on Mo’s elbow for support.
“Bonsoir,” she said.
“Bonsoir,” Maryam replied, setting down her fork.
“Maman!” the children cried, their forks clattering onto their plates. “We didn’t think you were coming!”
“Mes chéries.” The old woman’s face lit up. “Excuse me for being late.”
Mo settled her, served up a plate for her, and set it before her. Then she stepped back, at the ready with her sister.
Maman picked up her fork and the others followed.
“How is Lord D’Avenant?” Maryam asked.
“Not well, My Lady.”
“May I visit him?”
Lie With Me Page 11