‘Don’t get too attached, lassie,’ said Mr Dailey, steering the boat in the dark. ‘He’ll be gone in a minute.’
‘Mind yer own business, ye auld twat.’
He could only laugh. ‘Aye, that’s our Millie …’
Mr Dailey rowed on, guided only by the position of the blurry moon. A thick mist had set, and it took him a while to make out the outline of the ancient burial ground: Isle Maree was just a greyish, almost perfect dome of oak canopies, only a little less dark than the surrounding night. As they approached they saw a faint glimmer, amber and steady, coming from the heart of the small island – a lantern that announced the meeting would take place as agreed. Millie suddenly felt terrified.
The boat touched the shore softly. Mr Dailey then plunged his boots into the water and pulled the rope until the prow sat firmly on the pebble beach. He offered Millie a hand she refused to take; the girl rose to her towering height and, despite her thumping heart, led the way towards the greenery. They walked past the outer line of oaks, whose thick trunks grew almost horizontally towards the water, like the stretched fingers of a pleading hand.
Millie followed the dim light and soon the ancient tombstones began to appear, dotted in-between the gnarled oaks and hollies, their edges eroded by centuries of inclement weather.
‘Here they come,’ somebody said. A male voice Millie had never heard before, but she knew was the vicar; the man about to take her son away for ever. She also recognized him at once, standing next to the two familiar figures: the sleazy Calcraft, who was holding the lantern, and the elegant Mrs Koloman, her pale face like silver underneath her crimson hood.
The vicar raised his eyebrows when he saw Millie, and tilted his head slightly backwards. Of course he did. Everyone reacted like that when they realized Millie was in fact a girl, and though she was inured to it, tonight the gesture made her falter.
‘It is all right, child,’ said the lady. ‘Come closer.’
So she did, but Millie consciously planted herself behind a jutting gravestone, as if the moss-covered granite, which hardly reached her knees, could act as her battlement.
‘So you are Millie,’ said the vicar. His voice was soft and friendly, but Millie still hated everything about him: his kind smile, his carefully groomed hair, his relaxed fingers interlaced before his chest.
‘How many lasses with bastards were youse waiting for?’
‘Millie!’
‘It’s fine, Mrs Koloman,’ said the vicar, raising an appeasing hand. ‘I wasn’t expecting this to be easy on her. May I see the child, Millie?’
She recoiled out of instinct, bringing the little bundle closer to her. Calcraft sniggered, the lantern shaking in his hand and sending fleeting shadows all across the island.
Mrs Koloman approached. She was slender and almost a full foot shorter than Millie, but she shepherded the young maid around the graves with no problem.
‘Let us see his pretty face,’ Mrs Koloman said when they were close to the vicar. She pulled back the edge of the blanket with great care, and they all envied the placid, careless sleep of the baby. Mrs Koloman sighed, looking at the cold graves around them. ‘It is sad that you last see him here, in the land of the dead.’
‘On the contrary,’ said the vicar. ‘A child is life renewed.’
He stretched his arms to receive the boy, but Millie took a decided step back.
‘No!’ she cried, as if she’d been asked to toss the baby into the fire.
‘What do you –’
‘I’m keeping him, ye hear me?’
Calcraft sniggered again, but Mr Dailey slapped him hard on the face. ‘Show some respect, you idiot.’
Mrs Koloman reached for Millie’s arm, but the girl pulled away. ‘Millie, you know it cannot be.’
‘Who says so?’ she barked back, even though she knew how futile her protests were.
Mrs Koloman raised a hand and managed to seize her by the shoulder. ‘He will be well cared for; educated; he’ll want for nothing. It will be the best for him … think of the alternative.’
Millie lost all control over her eyes, felt the streams of tears rolling down her cheeks and heard herself sob. It was an awful noise. It sounded like somebody else.
‘Here,’ said the vicar, visibly intimidated, as he warily slid his hand underneath the baby.
Millie felt the weight being lifted from her arms, and again tried to step back, but Mrs Koloman held her in place with unexpected strength.
‘Millie, let him go.’
The girl stooped to kiss her baby’s forehead, but just as her lips were about to touch him she decided not to. She could not have surrendered him otherwise.
It felt as though they were tearing off a part of her body. Nothing had ever hurt like that. Not even when she was a young girl and the other children threw rotten things at her and called her names. She would have gone through all that a hundred times if that meant she could keep the boy.
‘Love is hard, my child,’ Mrs Koloman whispered, patting her on the back, about to burst into tears herself.
The vicar rocked the baby with confident arms, and the way he tucked the blanket told he’d probably taken care of dozens of ‘orphans’.
He looked up. ‘What shall we call him?’
The question took the edge of Millie’s distress. She sniffed, realizing she’d never given it a thought.
‘Benjamin,’ she said soon enough, ‘after my late father.’
The vicar smiled. ‘He does look like a Benjamin.’
Millie held on to that image. For years to come, whenever she doubted the fate of her son, she’d invoke the picture of the smiling priest with the kind words.
‘Mr Dailey,’ said Mrs Koloman, ‘can you take Father Thomas to the inn? We’ve arranged for a carriage to pick him up tomorrow morning. Send us the bill as usual.’
‘This one’s on me, Mrs Koloman,’ he answered. ‘What about Millie?’
‘She is coming with us. There is nothing to hide any more.’
The two men said their goodbyes, and very soon they were gone, but Millie did not have the heart to see them fade into the darkness. Instead she looked down, at two cracked slabs carved with crosses. They said they were the tombs of an ancient king and his beloved queen, resting side by side for ever.
‘Calcraft,’ said Mrs Koloman, ‘go and prepare the boat. We’ll meet you there.’
‘Ma’am, there’s nothing to pre—’
‘Do as I say!’
Insolent as he was, the eighteen-year-old would not dare defy Mr Koloman’s wife. He strode to the northern side of the island, where the Kolomans’ boat waited, taking the lantern with him.
As the light weakened, Millie stared at her now empty hands. Mrs Koloman took one in hers. The lady’s skin was soft and immaculate; zealously guarded from the sunlight. Millie’s hands were freckled and roughened by work.
Slowly, as if yielding under an incommensurable weight, Millie bent down, rested her forehead on her lady’s shoulder, and wept in silence.
‘I know, child, I know. I’m a mother too.’
She let Millie weep at leisure, waiting patiently until the girl rose again, wiping her nose with her already mucky sleeve.
‘Here,’ said Mrs Koloman, offering her embroidered handkerchief. ‘Millie, there is something else I need to ask of you.’
The girl just nodded, too drained to either think or object. The lady took a deep breath; this would not be a trifling request …
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2017
Copyright © Oscar de Muriel, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover illustration by Martin Schmetzer
ISBN: 978-1-405-92621-8
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 36