Myrtle’s blue eyes widened, then she dropped her gaze. Her face slowly flushed, and the knife in her hand trembled a little.
‘I . . . I am very sorry, dear,’ she murmured, almost inaudibly.
‘I know to my cost that there are limits to the female understanding,’ the Reverend continued bitterly. ‘Nonetheless, I hear that other wives manage to keep their servants in some sort of order, and prevent their household descending into a disgusting shambles.’ He stood abruptly, casting his napkin down on the table, and walked out of the room.
Faith felt a terrible tearing sensation inside her, as she always did when her father spoke to her mother that way. She wanted to be on her father’s side, and it hurt when her sympathy was dragged to her mother. She could almost sense the waiting ears outside the door, revelling in Myrtle’s humiliation. Her mother doubtless knew they were there too.
Myrtle retired to her room, complaining of a headache. The carnage on the dining-room table was cleared, and the dishes borne away to the scullery.
Leaving the dining room, Faith heard faint sounds of sobbing. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the servants’ stairs, next to the kitchen. Peering around a corner, she glimpsed Jeanne huddled at the foot of the stairs, crying uncontrollably.
The housemaid’s expression was shocked, drawn and bewildered. Her eyes were swollen, and even her mouth puffy from crying.
Faith drew back around the corner. It was no good though. In her mind’s eye, Jeanne Bissette was no longer pretty, confident and contemptuous. Now she could only picture the older girl looking like a slapped child. Perhaps Jeanne did not expect to get another post. Perhaps Jeanne had nowhere else to go.
CHAPTER 9:
CONFESSION
I cannot. It is not possible.
And yet here Faith was, outside the library, one hand poised ready to knock.
She felt sick, her mind still squirming and looking for reasons to flee. Faith tried to imagine God watching her, willing her to take the noble course. But in her head, God had her father’s face. Even now a foolish part of her brain felt that if her father did not know what she had done, God would not know either, and then it would not really be a sin.
Faith knocked. And now it was too late. She could not turn back.
The door was snatched open to reveal her father. When he saw Faith, his look of irritation faded a little. Evidently he had been expecting somebody less welcome.
‘Faith. Is something wrong?’
‘Father – I need to talk to you.’ Faith said it quickly so that she could not lose courage again.
Her father spent a second in silent scrutiny, then gave a nod of assent.
‘Very well,’ he said, and held open the door. Faith entered, and her father closed it behind her. ‘Sit down, Faith.’
She did so, unsure whether her father’s gentle tone should make her feel reassured or nervous.
‘I think I know what you wish to talk about.’ Her father settled himself behind his desk. A lot of his angry energy seemed to have ebbed out of him. Now he just seemed sombre and tired. ‘You are still worried about my health, are you not? And you fear that I am angry with you for coming into my study uninvited.’ The glance he gave her was not unkind.
Faith swallowed and said nothing. These were things that worried her, but they were not at the front of her mind.
‘First of all, you need not worry about my health,’ her father went on. ‘As I said before, you were mistaken. I was not ill yesterday evening, simply weary and too caught up in my work to give you much attention. As for your invasion of my study, that evening and the following morning . . .’ He clasped his hands and gazed earnestly at Faith. ‘It was ill-done, and I shall be extremely disappointed if you ever do so again. However, I am willing to believe on this occasion that you meant no harm or disrespect. I will overlook the incident, Faith. We shall say no more about it.’
He gave a small nod and evidently expected Faith to leave the room. She remained where she was, feeling foolish.
‘You have something further to say?’ He had already picked up one of his pens and opened his notebook, a clear cue for her to leave.
‘Father . . .’ Faith’s vision was jumping slightly with each beat of her heart. ‘I . . . I . . . I was the one who smeared your letter.’
The pen was set down. The book was closed.
‘What did you say?’ The kindness in his gaze had wilted away.
‘It was not Jeanne. I . . . I did it.’ Faith could not even tell whether her voice was audible.
Her father stared at her for several long seconds.
‘That letter has been in my strongbox since we left Kent.’ Faith’s father rose from his seat. ‘Are you saying that you deliberately opened my strongbox?’
‘I am so sorry—’ began Faith again.
‘You had the ungodly temerity to pry through my papers? Did you look at the letter? What other papers did you read?’
‘Just the letter!’ protested Faith. ‘I . . . looked at some others, but only a glance. I am sorry, I should not have done it, but I did not know what else to do!’ Her frustration gave force to her voice. ‘I knew there was some dreadful reason for us leaving Kent, and nobody would tell me what it was! I just wanted to know!’
‘What? Are you attempting to justify your behaviour?’ Her father was now shaking with anger. ‘No! Not another word. Be silent, and listen.
‘It seems I must judge you anew. I had thought you a dutiful daughter, with an honest heart and a keen sense of what she owes to her elders and betters. I had not thought you capable of this skulking, deceitful behaviour. Evidently your character has been allowed to drift dangerously astray. Honesty is commendable in a man, but in a woman or girl it is essential if she is to have any worth at all.
‘Listen, Faith. A girl cannot be brave, or clever, or skilled as a boy can. If she is not good, she is nothing. Do you understand?’
Faith felt as if she had been physically struck. Deep in her heart there had been a tender, tiny hope of understanding and forgiveness. Even now as she looked at its crushed remains, she knew she had to plead for absolution. And yet somehow she did not.
‘But I am clever.’ She did not say it loudly, but she said it. She heard her mouth shape the words.
‘What did you say?’
Seven years of swallowed thoughts could be silent no longer.
‘I am clever! I have always been clever! You know that it is so! I taught myself Greek! Everybody talks about Howard, and how brilliant any son of yours will be – but at his age I had read The Pilgrim’s Progress and A Child’s History of England, and I was learning the Latin names of the plants in the garden! Howard can barely sit still long enough to be read Little Goody Two-Shoes!’
‘How dare you!’ interrupted her father, advancing to stand over her. ‘How dare you raise your voice to me! How dare you speak of yourself in this vaunting, arrogant way! Where did you learn this repellent vanity? Is this my reward for encouraging you and allowing you access to my library and collections?
‘Have you lost your wits, or merely your sense of gratitude? Do you believe that you are owed the clothes that you wear, the roof over your head or the food laid before you? No. You are not. Every child begins their life in debt to the parents that house, clothe and feed them. A son may some day pay back that debt by cutting a figure in the world and raising the family’s fortunes. As a daughter, you never will. You will never serve with honour in the army, or distinguish yourself in the sciences, or make a name for yourself in the Church or Parliament, or make a decent living in the professions.
‘You will never be anything but a burden, and a drain on my purse. Even when you marry, your dowry will gouge a hole in the family coffers. You speak so scornfully of Howard – but if you do not marry, some day you will need to court his charity, or find yourself without bed and board.’
Faith could not form words. She felt breathless and winded. Hot tears tumbled down her cheeks. In her mind she
saw the sunlit beach where she had found her fossil, her first fossil. A sun disappeared behind a black wall of cloud, and a father was gone, and a little girl was stumbling around alone, a broken piece of rock in her hand.
‘All that a daughter can do,’ the Reverend said more quietly, ‘in recompense for the debt she cannot pay, is to hold steadfastly to the path of duty, gratitude and humility. That is the very least a father can expect, is it not?’
Smothering her sobs with one hand, Faith nodded. She hated herself for nodding. But the light on the beach was dying.
Her self-respect had suffered a head-on collision with love, a clash that generally only ends one way. Love does not fight fair. In that moment her pride, the gut knowledge that she was right, even her sense of who she was, meant nothing, faced as she was with the prospect of being unloved.
Faith’s father moved back to his desk and turned his back to her, restlessly pushing his papers around. She took advantage of the respite, shakily pulling out her handkerchief and wiping her face. Her insides seemed to have been scraped out. All those feelings and thoughts she had bottled up for years had burst free . . . and been crushed with apocalyptic thoroughness. She no longer knew what she felt about anything.
She was vaguely aware that her father had paused in his stirring of his papers. He picked up one sheet and studied it.
Several seconds passed, and then he pulled out the chair from behind his desk and drew it over towards Faith. He sat down in it, so that there was barely a foot between them. He was still blurry with her tears.
‘Faith.’ His voice had lost some of its cold energy. ‘You truly are sorry to have acted and spoken the way you did, are you not?’
Faith nodded again.
‘And this foolishness of yours – it really was because you were worried about me, and wanted to help me?’
‘Yes!’ managed Faith.
‘And you still wish to be of help to your father?’
‘Of course!’ There was something in Faith’s innards again now. A little solidity. A little hope.
‘Good.’ The Reverend passed Faith the paper he held. It was a map of Vane, she realized. ‘Howard said that the pair of you saw sea caves from the beach. I need you to point them out on this map.’
Baffled, Faith peered at the crinkled ink outline and then pointed out the places where she thought she remembered seeing the dark mouths of the caves.
‘He mentioned a little boat on the beach as well. Think hard – did it seem seaworthy?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Faith racked her memory. ‘It looked newly painted – no holes.’
The Reverend frowned, then seemed to come to a decision.
‘Faith – fetch your cape, but be sure that nobody sees you. I need you to assist me with something, and nobody – nobody – must know of it.’
CHAPTER 10:
THE SEA CAVE
When Faith slipped out through the back door in her cape, her father was already waiting outside, wearing his stout coat, thick scarf and deerstalker.
‘Take this,’ he whispered, passing her a lantern shrouded in thick fabric. ‘Keep the cloth open a sliver, but make sure the light does not shine towards the house.’ The lantern was heavy and smelt of whale oil. He turned and led the way towards the folly.
The night was cold and starless, with just a few streaks of purplish pallor in the west. A single bat skimmed past and vanished, rapid as a heart-flutter.
Faith advanced across the grounds gingerly, fearful of stepping on a man-trap in the long grass, her ankles tingling apprehensively. Her father gave her an impatient glance over his shoulder and beckoned to her to hasten.
‘I must be back at the house by midnight,’ he whispered curtly as she drew level with him. ‘Pray do not dally.’
In the darkness the folly seemed larger, and grimly prisonlike. Her father opened the door and disappeared into the darkness.
When he re-emerged, his arms were filled with a cloth-shrouded object, and he was clearly struggling with the weight. With a muffled clink of terracotta on wood, he lowered it carefully into the wheelbarrow that stood by the entrance. Once again Faith’s nose filled with a strange, cold scent.
The Reverend took up the handles of the barrow. ‘Light the way ahead for me, so that I can avoid the stones,’ he whispered, pointing down the path that led seaward.
As the ground descended towards the beach, the path became rugged and tussocky, and the way more difficult. Whenever the wheel jolted, a little rustle of dropped leaves sounded from beneath the cloth, and each time her father drew in breath through his teeth.
On the beach the winds were colder and fiercer. The sea was black but for the seething shore, and brief scars of white foam. The cliffs seemed higher than they had by daylight, like giant bites taken out of the sky.
There was a sudden surge of the wind, and some unseen crack or cliff hollow gave off a throbbing whine not unlike a voice. Faith’s father tensed, turning his head towards the source of the sound. He lowered the barrow, one hand sliding into his pocket as he listened. Eventually he relaxed.
As they continued on their way, Faith cast an occasional glance at his pocket, which bulged slightly and seemed to swing more heavily than usual. It was the one in which he always carried his little pocket pistol when he was out collecting fauna samples. The gun was single shot with a stubby little barrel, but had been powerful enough to take down a Scottish wildcat at twenty feet.
Carrying a cloaked lantern meant secrecy. Bringing a pistol meant danger. Who did her father fear? Faith looked around her, and her imagination peopled the cliff-top with peering heads and flitting figures each time the treeline shivered. Pebbles bouncing in the surf became the clatter of footfalls.
With difficulty, her father manhandled the barrow across the beach to the little boathouse. There he stooped by the rowing boat, examining it by the rays from the lantern, and knocking on the wood. After a while he nodded to himself.
Taking up the boat’s mooring rope, he began dragging it across the shingle towards the waterline. It moved grudgingly and slowly.
‘Get behind the boat, and push,’ he ordered, raising his voice to compete with the wind.
Faith’s heart plummeted, her worst suspicions confirmed. Her father really did mean to take out the boat in the middle of the night.
With deep misgivings, Faith clambered into the boathouse. She stripped off her gloves and tucked them into her pocket, then braced her hands against the clammy woodwork and pushed the boat as hard as she could. She struggled forward, hearing the deep crunch of the prow splitting the shingle. By the time her father called to her to halt, her arms were aching and cold water was rushing around her boots, drenching her feet. Faith felt the boat shift and drift under her grasp as the water lifted it.
With visible effort, her father lifted the precious plant pot. Faith held the boat as steady as she could while the pot was settled near the stern.
‘Father,’ ventured Faith, ‘how will we see the rocks?’ Avoiding gin-traps in long grass was one thing, but negotiating submerged rocks on a dark night was quite another. She remembered her mother’s warnings about currents, and the gossip about shipwrecks along the coasts.
‘You will sit in the prow with the lantern. Keep watch while I row, and warn me if you see rocks.’
Faith stared out across the black shifting mass of the ocean. Every time a foam crest flared, she imagined it breaking on hidden rocks. Nonetheless, she hitched her skirts as best she could and clambered into the boat, while her father held the little vessel steady. Her father needed her, and whatever dangers were ahead they would be facing them together.
Her weight settled the boat on the shingle again, but her father gave it a last great heave that set it afloat, and then waded out and climbed in behind her.
‘Take this.’ He passed Faith the map of Vane. ‘You must guide me to the caves.’ He settled himself with his back to Faith and the prow, and took up the oars.
She twisted in her seat
so that she was sitting sideways, able to look ahead past the prow, or back towards her father and the beach. The map fluttered in her hands, threatening to break free. She flattened it against her lap, pinning it in place with the lantern’s weight, as her father began to row.
At first, each breaker made a solicitous attempt to cast them back on to the beach. Faith’s father worked the oars with an angry energy while the surf hissed around them. When the boat struggled into deeper water, the character of the waves changed. Now they tipped and jostled the little vessel, like great black wolves in a playful mood.
The distant headlands were jet silhouettes. There was no hope of making out the deeper dark of the caves. Faith tried to remember how it had all looked in daylight, the cliffs and inlets, the staggered headlands, the powdery clouds of far-off seabirds.
The waves grew bigger and less playful, rolling under the boat with menacing unconcern. Whenever the boat tipped, every fibre in Faith’s body was braced for the capsize, the freezing shock of the water. She had never been taught how to swim, but her common sense told her that that scarcely mattered. If she fell overboard, her layers of skirts might keep her afloat for a few seconds, but then they would soak up the seawater and become a terrible deadweight, tangling her legs and dragging her down to the seabed.
As the boat bucked and the oar blades splashed onward, Faith had an uneasy feeling that to her left the lightless cliff range was looming taller that it should, and that the beach behind was sliding to the right. Whenever her father let his oars hang slack for a moment, the handles drew little white wakes in the water’s surface.
‘There is a current!’ Faith stared up at the various black and featureless cliff-lines, trying to work out where she was. ‘It is pulling us to the left – I mean, to port!’
The Lie Tree Page 9