“I will,” said Pearl. “You goes along, miss.”
“You’ll watch her like a hawk?” I said. “A hawk that can see through cupboard doors?”
Pearl laughed and said she would. Anyway, the dining room is only twenty feet away. I’d know if Rose needed me. Rose is not one to keep her feelings to herself.
But still I had to ask. “You’re sure?”
“Us’ll get along grand, me an’ Rose.”
“Thank you.” But why should I thank Pearl? She was being paid. Anyone could stand a screaming girl if she was paid, but the sister of such a girl is never paid. I’d like to go farther than twenty feet. France would be nice, and I speak tolerable French. Or Greece, although I speak intolerable Greek, and only ancient. But if I couldn’t manage to order a glass of wine, I’d order a wine-dark sea; and I like olives; and I believe I might like squid; and I would certainly like anyplace far away from Rose.
The dining room was absolutely littered with men: Father, Mr. Clayborne, Eldric, and the surprise guest, Mr. Drury, who was also Eldric’s tutor. Men—their great boots clogging up the floor, their greedy lungs sucking up the air, their stubbly faces filling up the looking glass.
Men, I don’t like them a bit. I’m not an ordinary girl, pining after romance and a husband. May the Horrors take me if ever I grow ordinary, like Pearl!
I know what Pearl had to do to get herself that baby with Artie Miller. I know, and I don’t think much of it. Father would be astonished at what I know.
I leaned against the red damask wallpaper, which had once been so beautiful. But it was blistered and peeling now; like the kitchen door, it had never recovered from the flood.
Mr. Clayborne looked at Eldric; Eldric nodded. It was as though the Claybornes shared a silent language, which was utterly unlike the way we Larkins shared silence, which was not at all. We don’t share anything.
I supposed that Mr. Clayborne’s look meant, Go talk to the clergyman’s daughter; and Eldric’s nod meant, Well, if you insist, for he strode right over. What sort of excuse would he give for seeking me out? What sort of mask did Eldric wear?
“We didn’t have a chance to become properly acquainted this morning,” he said.
“My sister has a knack for making scenes in public.”
Eldric nodded. “My father’s mentioned Rose in his letters but speaks rather more frequently of you. He thinks you’re quite the model daughter. He mentions you whenever he gets to wishing he had a model son.”
Adults tend to view me as being mature beyond my years. I think it has partly to do with being a clergyman’s daughter, partly to do with looking after Rose, and partly to do with being rather clever. But I can’t take any credit; I’m stuck with all of it.
“A father tends to be disappointed,” said Eldric, “when his son has achieved the great age of twenty-two and failed to graduate from university.”
“You’re to continue your studies here, with Mr. Drury?”
Eldric bent toward me, his whisper-breath warm in my ear. “It’s Mr. Dreary, actually. Don’t tell him, but I’ve given him a name that suits him better. Yes, Father insists I finish my studies.”
I should love to finish my studies. I was to have gone to school in London after Father dismissed my own tutor, but in the end, I was obliged to stay in the Swampsea to care for Stepmother. Rose and Stepmother. And the worst of it is that I have only myself to blame.
“Am I to study with you?”
“Absolutely not!” said Eldric. “I can’t have you showing me up in every subject.”
Of course he couldn’t. Girls weren’t supposed to be cleverer than boys. It’s quite a good thing I don’t suffer from normal-people feelings, such as disappointment.
I felt rather than saw Eldric’s gaze. “I didn’t mean it, you know. Yes, you are to study with me, and outshine me in every subject.” Eldric smiled, a long, curling lion’s smile. “Every subject but one.”
“What subject is that?”
“Boxing!” said Eldric.
Boxing? I should love to learn to box! Not only are girls supposed to be less clever, but content to sit by the fire and spin. Father believed this, of course, but Stepmother knew the truth. She knew that learning to run a household was a waste of a girl’s time.
“This will come as a surprise to you, I know, but I have never studied boxing. I wish I’d thought to want boxing lessons. If I had, my stepmother would have seen to it, I assure you. She thought girls should study whatever they liked.”
Stepmother encouraged me in everything I loved. I used to tramp about the swamp, and I wrote lots of stupid stories. She encouraged my writing, in particular, which was kind, for now I realize that my stories were simply awful. What a relief they burnt to cinders and no one will ever read them.
“I’m so sorry about your stepmother,” said Eldric, which is something I’ve heard often these past two months and three days, but I still haven’t gotten used to it. I understand it’s not an apology, of course, but still, it sounds strange. I’m the one who should apologize. I don’t exactly blame myself for Stepmother’s death. I didn’t feed her arsenic, and it was arsenic that killed her. But I did cause her to injure her spine. She might have died from that if the arsenic hadn’t gotten to her first.
We fell silent. Eldric took to fidgeting with some fidgetyboy thing. I knew what he was thinking. In his position, I’m sure I’d be wanting to know all about Stepmother: It’s so wonderfully interesting when a person kills herself. But she didn’t, Eldric. She wouldn’t!
The gentlemen had gotten on to talking about Mr. Clayborne’s official business, which was to drain the water from the swamp. This was going to improve life in the Swampsea, at least according to Queen Anne. Less water meant more land. More land meant more crops, and more grazing for sheep and cattle. More land also meant no swamp and no swamp cough.
“Might we creep away?” said Eldric. “When Father starts talking of draining the swamp, he starts thinking he ought to put me to work, but that would be a disaster. I’d turn my shovel wrong way up, and set the water to running upside-down.”
You’d think I’d despise this great shiftless lad. Here I was, caring constantly for Rose and complaining only to myself, which is not at all satisfactory; and there he was, doing nothing and boasting of it all the while. But I liked him. That is, I liked him as much as I liked anybody.
“I’ll show you about the house,” I said. “That will please Father.”
It did, too. Father was delighted that his daughter was acting like a regular girl, playing hostess and chatting to a young man.
We set off down the corridor. The flood had been two years ago, but the cracked-plaster walls still smelled of dead water and mournful fish. The front parlor was rimmed round with windows, and in the light, I saw Eldric fidgeting with the most fascinating bits of curled wire.
“Are those paper clips?” I’d seen them in catalogs, but the pictures don’t do them justice. They’re beautiful, in an industrial sort of way.
Eldric poured a clinking waterfall into my palm. “Aren’t they lovely! I can’t keep my hands off them. But I give you fair warning: It was a box of paper clips that got me expelled.”
“Expelled?”
“A box of a thousand paper clips,” he said, his long fingers curling, coiling, twisting. “And a sack of colored glass.”
“Expelled!” I might be a wicked girl who’d think nothing of eating a baby for breakfast, but I’d never allow myself to get expelled. It’s far too public.
“Quite definitely expelled,” said Eldric. “The dean left me in no doubt. But really, was it my fault? When the fellow down the hall bet me a thousand paper clips I couldn’t chuck a certain stone far enough to reach a certain chapel?”
“You took the bet?”
“I ask you—for a thousand paper clips! Had I any choice?”
I acknowledged that he had not. “And the chapel?”
“Let’s just say I have quite a good arm. Let’s just say
the stone reached the chapel with room to spare. Let’s just say it reached the chapel with the kind of room that took it right through the stained glass.”
Eldric laughed at himself, and I found myself laughing too. It had been ages since I’d heard my own laugh. It was rusty, but serviceable.
“Father will not find that an amusing anecdote.”
“But you do,” said Eldric, “which is far more important. When you’re a bad boy, you find that people either laugh at you or with you. I prefer the with.”
“You’ll have some competition. Cecil Trumpington fancies himself the local bad boy.”
“A rival?” said Eldric. “Shan’t we have fun!”
I opened the door of Father’s study, which is just a little less tidy than you’d expect. And he doesn’t realize that his armchair smells of tobacco. Do as I say, not as I do.
At the end of the corridor lay the charred remains of the library.
“A flood and a fire!” Eldric looked at the blackened floor, at the boarded-up windows, at the great black cavern that had once contained bookshelves. It still whiffed of smoke. “You’ve had more than your share of misfortune.”
I nodded, but it actually had nothing to do with misfortune and everything to do with me. Six months ago, the library shelves held all my stories. Then I set the fire and cremated them all.
And I have the scar to prove it.
But I don’t mind, really. I don’t read much anymore.
“Father would want me to point out the church, which lies just to the other side of the library.” The church and the library shared the wall, conjoined like Siamese twins. “But you probably don’t care about the church, being a bad boy, that is.”
“Don’t tell your father,” said Eldric.
“I probably have an obligation to point out all the local hazards. When they say safe as houses, they weren’t thinking of ours.” I led Eldric through the foyer and flung open the front door. “You’ll notice the porch has fallen right off.”
“Good Lord!” Eldric’s eyes were very bright. It was because of the whites of his eyes—yes, that was it. They were whiter than anyone else’s.
I explained we lost the porch to the flood. “Father hasn’t gotten around to rebuilding it, although he’s quite a good carpenter. He says if Jesus was a carpenter, it’s good enough for a clergyman. But I don’t remember that Jesus let his house fall down.”
Beyond the ghost of the porch lay Hangman’s Square, its cobblestones strewn with the lengths of steel that were growing into the railroad line between London and our village of Swanton, which meant that Swanton was living beautifully up to its reputation as the end of the line.
Eldric stared at me with those bright eyes. What a contrast we must have made: my eyes, blacker than black; his eyes, whiter than white, plus an interesting little scar that dipped into his eyebrow.
Eldric stood very still, yet hummed with energy, just as London did. The London I’d never see, strung with electric wires and brilliant with switch-on lamps. I’ve always wondered whether they string lamps into the lavatories, or do even Londoners think there are certain things best left in the dark?
I’m aware that I’m mixing my metaphors horribly. How can I compare Eldric to a lion in one description and to electricity in another? But I don’t care. It’s my story and I get to make the rules.
Back into the parlor, where the mirror over the mantel shelf caught Eldric’s face. Not mine. I’m not tall enough, and anyway, I’ve outgrown my reflection.
Eldric turned away from the mirror, holding out his hand. In the cup of his palm lay his fidget of paper clips. But the fidget had blossomed into a crown. An allover-filigree crown, with a twisty spire marking the front.
I stared at it for some moments. “It’s for you,” said Eldric. “If you want it.”
“I’m seventeen,” I said. “I haven’t played at princess for years.”
“Does that matter?” Eldric set it on my head. It was almost weightless, a true crown for the steam age.
In a proper story, antagonistic sparks would fly between Eldric and me, sparks that would sweeten the inevitable kiss on page 324. But life doesn’t work that way. I didn’t hate Eldric, which, for me, is about as good as things get.
I mustn’t get back to thinking of myself as princess, or wolfgirl. All the silly things I used to imagine. Stepmother was right. It doesn’t matter that you look like a princess on the outside. You’re a witch on the inside and nothing will change that. It’s best not to look at yourself at all.
“I’ll show you where you’re to sleep.” I pushed through the swinging door into what had been the sewing room. Stepmother slept here when she was ill. Stepmother died here, with no one about to mark her passing. Why didn’t I check on her, sit with her? I knew she was dying. But that’s what witches do, isn’t it? They leave people to die alone.
It was hard to imagine Eldric in this room. How would that mixed-metaphor lion- and London-boy fill Stepmother’s empty spaces?
What did mixed-metaphor boys possess? Football things? Trophies? Sweaty jerseys?
Eldric turned on his high-tension muscles to the window, which overlooked the swamp. “Do you go out there and tramp about?”
I used to visit the swamp every day. I used to imagine myself into a wolfgirl and prowl and lope and sniff and howl. “Not for a long time.” I knew exactly how long: three years come September.
“What’s it like?”
“Wet.” I remembered that September day with terrible clarity. It was the day Stepmother told me I’m a witch. I’m still astonished she had to tell me. How could I not have known? Or at least guessed? I had, after all, left a trail of destruction behind me, wide as a football field.
“It’s very beautiful.”
Beautiful? The swamp stretched as far as the eye could see, a gray shimmer, bronzed with reeds and cattails. I used to think it beautiful, but I have no particular feeling for it anymore. I suppose the old wolfgirl Briony would have disliked the idea of draining the swamp, but why should I care? I could never visit the swamp again.
“Pearl did what she could to make the room comfortable, but please tell us if you need anything.”
Strange to think of Eldric hanging his university jacket and trousers in the sewing cupboard, which had once been filled with needles and spools of thread and embroidery frames. That was back in the days when Father thought his daughters had to be educated in the domestic arts—a hideous phrase, which is of course why Father chose it. He hired Pearl’s mother to help domesticate us, but along came Stepmother and set us free.
“I’ll ask Pearl to attend to the fire.”
Stepmother had never cared for fires. They made her too warm, she said. I had to wrap up when I came into the sewing room to care for her. The sewing room was a sad place then, and I always think a clean-swept grate is desolate.
The light from the window caught at Eldric’s wide lion cheekbones, and at a rougher sweep down his cheeks. Whiskers? Did this boy-man shave? Of course he did, foolish, ignorant Briony. He was twenty-two. He’d be shaving away in this room, in the very room where Stepmother died.
I was suddenly aware of him, of the overwhelming Eldricness of him, of his busy London blood pumping just inches away. Of his paper-clip energy and switch-on eyes.
“Miss Briony!” It was Pearl calling—screaming! “She runned out. Miss Rose runned into the swamp!”
I slammed through the swinging door. I’d done the very thing Stepmother had warned me about. Or rather, I hadn’t done it.
I hadn’t been caring for Rose.
I hate myself.
You must take care of Rose. Stepmother had said that again and again. Take care of Rose. And I had promised.
I’d learned how to do it. I’d learned I had to hate myself.
I crashed into the kitchen. The cupboard door was ajar.
When you hate yourself, you don’t neglect your responsibilities. When you hate yourself, you never forget what you did.
/> I’d even forgotten about Rose’s cough. How little it took, two bright eyes and a couple of paper clips. What if it’s the swamp cough and she dies, Briony? How will those bright eyes look then?
Let’s review the rules, Briony: What, above all, mustn’t you forget?
You mustn’t forget to hate yourself.
4
Such a Pretty Little Rosy!
One hundred eighty-three steps to the river.
I hurtled down the riverbank.
One hundred eighty-three . . .
Other footsteps now, joining mine—no, pouncing over mine, catching me up.
“You can’t come with.” I threw the words over my shoulder.
But Eldric was already at my side. “Your father made a plan,” he said. “You and I are to search the swamp, while he and my father search the fields.”
One hundred eighty-three steps.
“And he gave me a Bible Ball.”
“Then mind your feet,” I said, “else the bog will have you for supper.” The Horrors couldn’t touch him, not if he carried a Bible Ball.
“Your father says you know the swamp better than anyone.” Eldric ran beside me on quiet lion paws.
But it had been three years. I’d changed; perhaps the swamp had changed. “Mind your feet.”
One hundred eighty-three steps are quickly taken. We turned onto the towpath, ran beside the river.
“I have Bible Balls for you and Rose,” said Eldric.
The bridge rose ahead. How many steps? Rose would know. Already I was winded. I’d lost the old Briony, that longago wolfgirl who could lope endlessly through the swamp.
I spattered over the pebbles at the foot of the bridge, trying to keep up with myself. My breath grew hot and sharp.
“You can’t help Rose if you overtax your strength.” Eldric took my arm, reined me into a trot.
“I know you’ve been ill,” he said. “Ill for almost a year. I can’t even imagine. Please don’t overtire yourself and make me have to rescue you.”
I might have smiled, but the problem with bridges is that they go up before they go down, and I hadn’t the strength. It’s true, I’d been ill for a long while. I had a queer sort of illness that made me feel as though I were a music box in want of winding, moving and thinking more slowly with every passing day. Thinking—that was the worst. I’m used to being clever, not dull.
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