by Erica Ridley
“And you shan’t.” He strode from the room, pausing at the doorway only long enough to add, “I am accustomed to dining with my daughter. The rest of my time is spent in my office. Don’t expect to see me often.”
Violet nodded. She did not expect to truly become friends, and she certainly didn’t expect her strange fantasies to materialize into anything more than passing insanity. She had more than enough on her mind for the moment, not the least of which was the punishment for murder.
Above all, she needed to stay employed long enough to buy her freedom.
Chapter 9
To Violet’s surprise, Mr. Waldegrave himself appeared the following morning to escort her through the catacombs to the outbuilding housing the library, and then on to her new pupil.
She had assumed he’d be far too busy to deal with a task so easily delegated to a staff member, especially given he so rarely emerged from his office. However, she was beginning to suspect he didn’t delegate many tasks that pertained to his child.
The narrow tunnels ensured their bodies remained a hairsbreadth apart. The hem of her gown rustled against the leg of his breeches. Only her swollen ankle kept their footfalls from perfect harmony.
She dropped behind until he strode an arm’s length ahead. Nothing was amiss, she assured herself. Her discomfiture was due to her embarrassment over thoughts of kissing the night before.
Although, now that she hung back, she was quickly becoming more aware of the catacombs around her. Once they reached the library, she would not be eager to trek back through the catacombs to Lillian’s sanctuary. Without Mr. Waldegrave’s body heat at her side, the chill from the stone-and-earth walls seeped through the worn material of her gown. Instead of seeing his fingers curled about the taper, she could only see his silhouette as shadows danced around them. The more she tried not to think about the bones buried in the walls, the more she regretted falling even a hairsbreadth behind.
When she could no longer withstand the tomblike silence, she hurried back to his side and asked, “Would it be better to have lessons in the library?”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped, startling her. His voice softened. “Yes. It would have been. Not anymore.” His pace slowed. “Once, this abbey was God’s house. There were no locks on any doors, so that believers could enter how and when they chose. Four years ago, I brought Lillian to the library so she could select her own volume of bedtime stories. While I was retrieving favorite authors, she escaped through a side door and into the morning sun.” He shuddered at the memory. “I almost lost her that day.”
“That must have been awful,” she said softly.
“The worst day of my life.” His voice rasped with pain. “The next time Lillian visited the library, she flew into a rage upon discovering the exterior door locked tight. She ripped apart countless volumes I’d hoped would become part of her personal collection and then attacked a young lady’s maid who dared to detain her. Since that time, only I have attended my daughter. And until I am convinced she will treat her surroundings and herself with respect, I shall not lead her into a temptation she cannot resist. She hurts.”
So did he, Violet realized in empathy.
Before she could stop herself, she touched her fingers to his arm to stop his pain. She jerked her hand back to her side as if his sleeve had caught fire, but it was too late. He froze in place, almost as if he’d quite forgotten what he was doing in the catacombs in the first place, and then his hot gaze settled firmly on Violet.
“Yes?” His voice was strained.
“The library isn’t necessary,” she stammered, trying to remember what she’d been about to say. “That is, until Lillian knows her letters, a blackboard and a bit of chalk are as good as anything. I was just thinking that what she really needs is a change of scenery. She’s stuck in that sanctuary all day, every day. Mightn’t she look forward to lessons more if they were somewhere else?”
His eyes narrowed. “She shall not enter any room with an exterior door.”
“I understand,” Violet agreed quickly. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for any child getting hurt on her watch. “And I agree. But is there no other chamber we can turn into a classroom? Even a small section of another room? It doesn’t matter where, so long as Lillian gets the sensation of ‘going to lessons’ like other children. She will feel less... trapped.”
He thought in silence, then nodded slowly. “Since the abbey is no longer used for religious purposes, most of its outbuildings are empty. I shall have to order another desk and other supplies, but I can think of one room with a bench and a small table.” He turned and continued forward. “I’ll show you on our way to the library, and you can let me know if it’ll do. Most of the abbey is connected by corridors, but only the catacombs provide passage without light. You’ll learn the way.”
Before long, they arrived at a new intersection. Although this passageway was blessedly free of holy corpses, it was therefore thrice as narrow and just as black. She stayed close to his side.
Presently, his long strides brought them to a ragged incline, which split to a dead-end before two ancient doors. A basket of candles hugged the wall near the intersection.
“This outbuilding holds unused prayer rooms.” He selected a pair of tapers and lit one for her before replacing his own dying nub.
She clutched the candle tight. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” He fitted a key from his breast pocket into the lock, then held the door open for her. “I confess, you have given me hope.”
She smiled up at him as she stepped inside the small chamber. He did not return the smile, but his eyes showed his sincerity. He had probably felt desperation for far too long to remember how to smile. She could certainly understand the feeling.
He gestured behind him. “If this prayer room will suffice, I will have it transformed into a classroom for Lillian with pleasure.”
When Violet lifted her candle for a better view, the smile died on her face.
The prayer room had already been transformed once, it seemed. From a vaulted haven to an empty shell lined with layers of wooden planks. She touched a hand to her throat. How she would’ve loved to see the original stained glass, to stand in a pool of rich color as the sun’s warm rays slanted through the artisan windows. What an absolute horror to have turned an exquisite abbey into a labyrinthine crypt!
She forced herself to traverse the perimeter of the small room. Instead of her soul blossoming open and free—she’d never been particularly religious, but she did enjoy a deep connection to art—she felt more confined and deprived of beauty with every step. This space was awful.
She was not unfamiliar to the unwelcome sensation of hopelessness seeping into her very bones. Free from one horror, trapped in another. Was it better for Lillian to traverse suffocating catacombs just to while away a few hours in an empty coffin of a room? Or was she better off cloistered in her current chambers, knowing there was a key that unlocked her spacious prison, but never being allowed a moment’s freedom, even to visit the tunnels?
Unsure of what to say, Violet slowly turned to face him. The bleak expression upon his weary countenance stopped her dead.
He knew. He knew. He made no attempt to disguise the anguish in his eyes, the tension in his muscles, the defeat in the slope of his broad shoulders. Her heart ached. This room was dreadful, the abbey a monstrosity, but he was a father who loved his daughter and had no other options. He wished to keep his child from harm. He wanted his daughter to live. And if that meant a miserable existence over a painful death, then so be it.
Mr. Waldegrave was no stranger to devil’s bargains and paradoxical emotions, she realized. That was why he’d given her the final say, the power to decide where the daily lessons would take place. He needed her to see that he was doing the best he could do with the hand he’d been dealt. Because there was no right choice. There was no good answer. Only darkness.
Lillian’s impassioned plea that burning alive would be wo
rth a glimpse of the sun must have been a dagger to his heart. There were no more sacrifices that he could make, yet he could not bring her peace.
Violet cleared the emotion from her throat and gave him a brisk nod.
“While I cannot in all honesty praise such a room as ‘delightful,’” she admitted in her most businesslike tone, “it is quite serviceable to our needs. The bench and small table will do until the desk and chairs arrive, and once the chamber is aglow from the light of candelabra, I’m sure Lillian will find it. . . suitable.”
Not exactly fawning praise, but Violet suspected Mr. Waldegrave would value honesty over sycophancy. She believed the approbation he sought had little to do with carpentry or homemaking and everything to do with his attempt to make a safe home for his daughter.
“Very well.” He kept his manner as matter-of-fact as hers, but the stark relief in his frame and face were undeniable.
It must be unbearably lonely to own acres of land but be unable to enjoy it. Being entombed on his own property, expected to govern his staff, his daughter, and himself, without help or relief or the ability to call upon a neighbor for tea... The rank air invading Whitechapel and Spitalfields alleys had never been particularly fresh, but at least Violet had been able to breathe it freely whenever she chose.
“This way to the library.” He led her through the catacombs to another solid door, which he deftly unlocked before motioning her inside.
She expected more dust, more wooden planks, more misery—but as he used his candle to light a pair of wall sconces, she found herself in a library as sumptuous as any in London.
The walls were lined floor to ceiling with rows upon rows of books. A balcony circled the perimeter overhead, allowing visitors a more convenient browsing experience than the typical wheeled ladders. A crackling fireplace nestled in the center of the far wall, flanked on one side by a door partly blocked by stacks of books, and on the other by a half circle of well-cushioned wingback chairs.
She made her way through the spacious aisles. Breathing in the scent of leather-bound books, she ran the tip of her finger along their spines. History, science, children’s tales, biographies, medical texts, legal treatises, even an entire wall dedicated to gothic novels. No wonder he was passionate about this room. It was magnificent.
Laughing, she stared up at him in delight.
He glanced away, as if disconcerted by her unfeigned pleasure. “Not what one might expect in an abbey, I imagine. The medical tomes are mine—there are hundreds more in my office—but all the other volumes are for Lillian. Every time I learn of a new book, I send for a copy. I have no idea what she might fancy once she does learn to read, so my goal is to have them all.”
“I am in awe,” she breathed, craning her neck for a better view of the volumes lining the balcony. “It’s perfect.”
“It is a work in progress.” He bowed and made his way to the door. “You are welcome to revisit this room as often as you’d like. Please, help yourself. Select as many titles as you wish, while I fetch Lillian to her new classroom. Mind the automatic locking mechanism—here, I’ll prop open the door with this stool.”
She bit back a sigh, once again reminded that this library was a splendid oasis within a well-fortified tomb. There must be a way to bring some light, some life, into Lillian’s dark existence.
Violet chose a slim volume of fairy stories, then returned to the prayer room to await her new charge.
Settling atop the wooden bench, she opened the book to the first page and began to read. A handsome prince upon a white stallion had just stormed a witch’s lair when the prayer room door swung open.
Lillian arrived meticulously dressed, as if she were being presented to court rather than sitting through her first morning of lessons. Mr. Waldegrave entered just behind, a blue porcelain inkwell in one hand and a blackboard perhaps a cubit square tucked beneath his other arm.
“I’ve ordered a larger board,” he said before Violet had even opened her mouth, “but I’m hoping this will do in the meantime.”
Violet held out her hands. “It’s magnificent. It also looks brand new.”
“It is.” Lillian set a small basked of candles upon the table. “What could I write, without knowing my letters?”
Mr. Waldegrave’s jaw twitched, as if the comment had scored a direct hit.
Violet, however, was heartened—the remark had been delivered matter-of-factly, with neither recriminations nor self-pity. Lillian was not precisely bouncing on her heels with anticipation of practicing her penmanship, but nor did she appear resistant to the idea. She simply seemed curious. At the Livingstone School for Girls, it sometimes took Violet months to coax new arrivals from despair to curiosity. This was a very good sign, indeed.
He pulled a quill and a handful of chalk from one of his pockets. He laid everything atop the table along with a small sheaf of loose parchment. “If you require anything else, please let me know and I will see it ordered immediately.”
“This will be wonderful for today. Thank you.” She patted the empty section of bench next to her. “Would you like to join me at the table?”
Lillian hesitated briefly before sliding up onto the bench alongside Violet.
“Very good. Now, would you thank your father for the supplies he brought for us to use?”
Two sets of eyes swiveled to face Violet. Mr. Waldegrave’s expression was pained, as if she had purposefully set him up for another public rejection. And his daughter’s face was suspicious, as if she wasn’t sure whether the new governess would cancel all the fun if Lillian refused to play nice.
Just when Violet began to think the awkward silence would stretch on forever, Lillian finally glanced away and muttered, “Thankyoupapa.”
Although her tone was resentful and her gaze never met his, Mr. Waldegrave’s dark eyes warmed. “Thank you, Miss Smythe. And you’re very welcome, Lillian. There’s a bell pull along the wall, should either of you require anything at all. Otherwise, I will return at noon.”
After he quit the room, Violet spent most of the morning at the blackboard, drilling her charge on the alphabet. Once Lillian could write several letters to both her and Violet’s satisfaction, however, she quickly wearied of the squeak of chalk and its endless dust. Upon hearing “I want the feather pen!” for the hundredth time, Violet finally acquiesced.
Ink, however, was a far more challenging medium, and after half an hour of sticky fingers and scratched parchment, the nine-year-old looked a mere breath away from tears—or a tantrum.
“Let’s take a respite from the quill, shall we?” Violet suggested, keeping her voice light and pleasant. “There’s still a bit of chalk to use up. Would you be so kind as to hand me the blackboard?”
Expression thunderous, Lillian glared at the feather protruding from the inkwell, glared at the ink coating her small hands, then glared at Violet with tears in her eyes. Neither of them spoke. After a fraught moment, Lillian snatched up the blackboard and tossed it across the table.
“You can have the horrid—Oh!” Lillian grabbed for the board, but it was already sailing directly toward the inkwell... and Violet’s dress.
Instinct had Violet leaping to her feet, which only served to provide an even larger canvas for the flying ink. She fumbled to catch the porcelain bottle, succeeding, at least, in rescuing the handcrafted inkwell from shattering upon the floor. Her dress, however—her only dress—was irrevocably ruined.
No, not ruined. That was misplaced vanity talking. Stained from mutton sleeve to frayed hem, perhaps, but still wearable. It was not as if she had ever looked particularly radiant in it anyway, she told herself. And at least the ink hadn’t gotten on Lillian’s finery.
At Violet’s assessing glance, Lillian’s lip wobbled and she burst into tears.
“Don’t leave! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I promise. I’ll never do it again. I don’t like ink, anyway. We can use chalk forever and ever. Please don’t go!”
“Oh, honey.” Violet knelt
before her. She knew that desperation well. Once she’d arrived at the Livingstone School for Girls, she would’ve done anything, anything, to be allowed to stay. She had been terrified her illiteracy and coarse ways would have her right back on the streets, and had been utterly gobsmacked when kind-hearted Old Man Livingstone had offered her a home. That had been the day—the exact moment—when her life had changed forever. “Lillian, shhh. I’m not going anywhere. It was just an accident. I’m not hurt—see? And who gives a fig about this old dress? It was a wash or two from the rag bin anyway. I’m not angry. I still like you just as much now as before.”
That last shocked Lillian out of her tears. “You... like me?”
“Of course I do,” Violet answered firmly. “If it wouldn’t ruin your pretty gown, I’d hug you right now just to prove it. How about we shake on it, instead?”
Lillian wiped her face with her sleeve. Her wide gray eyes blinked at Violet above ink-stained cheeks. Slowly, tentatively, she held out her hand.
Violet gave an exaggerated shake and, face solemn, kept pumping up and down rather than letting go. When Lillian realized she’d have to be the one to put an end to the interminable handshake, she collapsed into a fit of giggles.
They’d just turned their attention back to the blackboard when Mr. Waldegrave unlocked the door, fresh-cut roses in hand.
“Ladies, I’d like to celebrate your first morning of study with—” Upon taking in the scene, his expression transformed from jovial to horrified. The roses fell from his hands. “Lillian, what have you done?”
“I threw the blackboard, but—”
“That’s outside of enough, young lady. I don’t want to hear another word.” As he stalked into the room, his boots crushed the perfect blooms into shreds. He swung his daughter up off the bench and over his shoulder. “Miss Smythe, my deepest apologies.”
“Mr. Waldegrave, your daughter just—”
“No need to explain. I should never have left her unsupervised.” He swept out the door and into the passageway. “I will discuss Lillian’s behavior with her privately and then make a decision on proper punishment.”