While I Was Waiting

by Georgia Hill

‘Look what I have!’ His eyes were enormous. ‘Isn’t it spiffing?’

  ‘A knife! Richard, wherever did you get it?’

  I regarded it, in its leather scabbard, with fascination. We were barred from the kitchens, so my experience of such items was limited. Richard held it out to me and allowed me to take it. My hands shook with excitement. I repeated, ‘Where did it come from?’

  Richard merely shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He took it from me and slid the blade out of the scabbard. He held it up to the light and we watched in awe as it caught the hot sun and cascaded light around the shabby summer house. It made the place magical.

  ‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘Would you like to be bound to Delamere and Edward and me forever?’

  I nodded. Of course I would. After a dull childhood spent in a small villa in Kent, the Trenchard-Lewises seemed impossibly glamorous.

  Richard’s eyes shone. ‘Then we can be bound together.’

  ‘How?’

  He slid closer. ‘We can be blood brothers!’

  I laughed. ‘But I am a girl, Richard! How can I be your brother?’

  He looked affronted at my pedantry. ‘Blood brother and sister, then.’ He held up the knife again. The light caught the edge of the blade and it looked brutal.

  I gasped. ‘Do you mean to cut me?’

  Richard nodded. ‘It won’t hurt, Hetty, the knife is sharp. It will go through your skin like butter.’

  ‘No!’ I shrank back. ‘I do not like it.’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Feel the tip, Hetty. It’s sharp.’

  I was terribly afraid, but Richard, even then, had a way of making me do things. He made me feel so dull, so unadventurous when I demurred. I reached out a shaking finger to the blade and tapped it, ever so slightly, on the tip. ‘Ow!’ I snatched my hand back.

  He grinned. ‘Shall I go first?’

  I watched, with a morbid fascination, as he pulled back his sleeve and pressed the blade to the white skin on his wrist. At the last moment, he stopped. Looking at me, with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes, he said, ‘You have to promise to do it too, otherwise I will bleed and it will go nowhere.’

  ‘Stop!’ An idea had occurred to me. ‘If you bloody your suit there will be an awfully nasty row. The aunts would not like it.

  Richard shrugged.

  ‘They will not let you in here again,’ I warned. ‘You will have to do extra school work, even if you are on vac.’

  He put the knife down and looked so disconsolate, I wracked my brain for an alternative plan. ‘What if we only prick our finger?’ I suggested.

  ‘Like the princess?’ he said, scornfully.

  I grinned. ‘A finger will not bleed as much as a wrist. No one will know if we have cut our finger tip.’

  Richard looked somewhat mollified. ‘Only if you do it too.’

  I took in a great breath. ‘Very well,’ and then, with a quick look at the knife, I added, ‘you first.’

  Richard nodded, held up his forefinger on his left hand and stabbed. Blood welled immediately. I could not tell if he was in pain as he grabbed hold of my hand and did the same before I had second thoughts.

  ‘Ow!’ It was done.

  The knife clattered to the floor as Richard pressed our fingers together. Perhaps he had pricked my finger harder because a thin trickle of blood ran down my hand and dripped onto my pinafore. It made a tiny but unmistakable stain, just below the ruffle on my shoulder. I had to lie to Nanny afterwards and claim a nosebleed.

  Richard’s eyes gleamed. ‘It’s done. Now we are bound together, you and me, Hetty, forever.’ He tugged out his handkerchief to dry our wounds. It was so filthy already that no one would notice one more brown blot.

  I sucked my finger. It throbbed. I could not quite believe what he had made me do. He had half-charmed, half-dared me and I could never resist him. He could be quite cruel sometimes, I thought – nothing like Edward.

  ‘Now we must dance in a circle and recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards.’ Richard put the knife back into its scabbard and stood up.

  This was one step too far, even for me. ‘Oh no, Richard,’ I said, firmly. ‘That will send us to Hell. I know that for a fact.’ The other fact being, if Aunt Leonora heard of this, we would be thoroughly thrashed.

  ‘A game of tag and then I must lie down before tea. All this blood is making me quite faint. Remember, I am only a girl.’

  Before he could disagree, I’d run out of the summer house. Sometimes, being a mere girl had its advantages!

  Christmas of that year brought great excitement to the occupants of Delamere House. My father had, at long last, returned from his travels, albeit temporarily.

  He had come to stay at the big house, our more modest house being shut up whilst he had been away. He entertained us all with his stories of exotic people and places and only Aunt Leonora tired of hearing him speak.

  One evening, we gathered, very unusually, in the drawing room after dinner. The room had been opened up just for Father’s visit. By now, I knew enough of the workings of this enormous house to understand that only a few rooms ever had a fire. I never had one lit in my bedroom. We existed in a scant few rooms and shivered even in those. Money was scarce but no one would ever admit as much.

  Richard and I had been allowed to stay up late, as a special treat.

  ‘Oh I wish I could go back with you. To see those things – the mangrove swamps and the waterfalls!’ Richard, now a lanky, restless boy of fourteen, was hanging upon Father’s every word, egging him on, continually asking questions. ‘The tribes and the animals! Did you really see elephants? And lions? And zebras? And crocodiles?’ Richard babbled on, ‘if only Ed were here!’

  ‘Richard, do calm yourself. You have been allowed to sit up to talk to your Uncle Henry, but do let him get a word in edgeways!’ Aunt Hester, as always, was laughing indulgently at Richard’s enthusiasm. Aunt Leonora simply tutted her disgust and turned away to her sewing. Not for the first time did I wonder at how two sisters could be so different.

  Father, too, laughed at his newest admirer. Here was a boy after his own heart. Nothing like the untidy, lumpish daughter he had sired. I was finding it rather more difficult to engage in the conversation. Four years had passed and Father, I could no longer give him the more familiar moniker of Papa, was a stranger to me. I had, long ago, lost my fascination with his travels and only wanted to talk to him about the information Richard had intimated at when I first came to Delamere. Father had resolutely ignored the questions with which I filled my letters. Did I really have money? If so, where was it? Why could I not have it? Was I really to marry Edward, currently at university and expected to enter the army?

  I was fourteen, too, and nearly at my next birthday. Strange things had been happening to me over the last few months; things I could not bring myself to broach with a father now unknown and distant to me. Nanny knew, but even telling her had been painfully embarrassing. She had explained that I was a woman now and could no longer, at certain times of the month, play as I was used to with Richard. Gone were the games of chase around the gardens, the meetings in the summer house to pore over a battered atlas, the endless adventure stories made up by us both and continued week after week. I no longer slept in the night nursery and had my own room.

  Part of me felt important at entering this new stage in my life, but a greater part felt desolate at leaving my childhood behind. I did not feel ready to face the adult world, particularly if it involved marrying Edward, more or less as much a stranger to me as Father, having been away for most of my time here. Now Richard had followed his brother to school and I did not even have his enlivening presence at our lessons with Miss Taylor to look forward to.

  If this was adulthood, I thought it very dull.

  My one consolation was retrieving the journal Papa had given me on my very first day at Delamere. ‘We live through great times,’ he had said then. ‘You must chronicle them, c
hild. One day you may be great too. You must get into the habit of writing everything down.’

  To my shame, I had hardly written anything at all. I had been too busy running around the grounds with Richard – and getting into trouble with Aunt Leonora. Now, with the boys away, I fell on my own company a great deal more. I am sure Papa had in mind my recording scientific fact. With these strange new happenings in my body, I was far more interested in exploring my emotions. I had taken to recording my thoughts and feelings as much as I had time for.

  I looked at Richard, still deep in conversation with Father. He was as tall as me now, still energetic, still getting into scrapes. Only this term the aunts had received a written warning from his school. According to the letter, Richard had sneaked out of his dormitory one night and tried to buy beer at the local public house.

  He was home for the holidays and had been refused permission to visit our neighbours, the Parkers, whose horses always proved irresistible to him, as a punishment.

  School had changed him, had made him scornful of the limitations put on him by the aunts. They, in turn, having only had to deal with placid Edward in the past, struggled with this new, wayward Richard.

  He had chafed at his imprisonment and had taken it out on me. Puzzled by my reluctance to engage in our childish games he had taken to spying on me, pulling my hair or my pinafore tails. Once he had put a worm in the neck of my blouse and watched with glee as I danced and shrieked and scrabbled to get it out. Vile boy. As bored as I, his natural sense of fun and mischief found expression in vindictiveness and spite. Our love-hate relationship was even stronger.

  Only once had I glimpsed an even stranger Richard. We had gone exploring, as we used to and strictly against the dictates of the aunts. We had found our way up into the old attics. I did not like the attics; they were gloomy and the dust made me sneeze. As usual, Richard goaded me, claiming I was unadventurous and dull and, as usual, I responded by being even bolder than he.

  In one of the rooms were stored some old tailors’ dummies, from goodness knows where and when. I hated them with a passion. They stood, headless but watching, silent in a corner. One or two were cloaked with dustsheets and that made them even more terrifying.

  I ran ahead, wanting to put them behind me and furious that Richard had called me chicken for being scared. In the furthest-most attic, the roof had partially fallen in and pigeons were nesting and cooing on the rotten beams. It was lighter and colder here, the winter air whistling through the gaps. As I ran in, the pigeons took flight and disappeared, leaving a choking mess of feathers and swirling up the dust and their droppings. Shaking it out of my hair, I turned to where I thought Richard was behind me. And screamed.

  I thought one of the Trenchard-Lewis ancestors had come to haunt me – a white-robed figure danced in front of me. I put my hand to my heart; it was beating so. I feared I should drop down dead. About to scream for help from Richard the ‘ghost’ let out a familiar giggle and dropped down to reveal the boy behind the dust-sheeted dummy.

  ‘Richard, you perfect beast!’

  ‘Jolly good wheeze, Freckle-Face.’

  Looking about me, I spied a piece of rafter. Grabbing it, I attacked Richard. I was furious. But, even then, Richard was stronger than me. Easily overpowering me, he held me fast, managing to wrap the filthy dustsheet around me, trapping my arms against my body.

  He held me to him, his blue eyes vivid and a little wild. ‘A kiss as a forfeit for your release.’

  Struggling and calling ‘pax’ I began to giggle. ‘Richard, you are a shocking boy. How can I kiss you when I cannot move my head.’ He loosened his hold a little and I took advantage. Stamping on his toe with as much force as I could muster, I ran off as he let go. Shrieking, as he chased me, I ran.

  Now, in a clean dress, I watched as Father and Richard began to trace Father’s most recent journey through West Africa in the atlas. My thoughts turned to Edward. He was a mysterious figure, only at home for holidays and currently in his second year at Cambridge. He was due home soon. Edward had inherited the family tendency to be tall; he was well over six feet now. Thankfully, to his relief, his hair had darkened to a quite nice dark brown, with reddish glints, rather like Aunt Hester’s. His eyes, not as vivid as Richard’s, were a gentle shade of grey. We had never really grown to know one another and he still treated me in a stiff and formal manner, as if I were a creature as exotic as one from my father’s collection. Was it still expected that I should marry him? Richard always averred that it was so. How did I feel about marrying Edward? What did I know of men and marriage? What did I know of anything? I sighed.

  Richard, hearing me, looked up from the atlas. ‘I say, old thing, come and have a look at this. It’s where your father was last month and it’s the most spiffing-looking place. Look at the river, it goes the whole length of the country. Can you imagine?’

  Aunt Leonora’s mouth thinned at Richard’s use of boarding-school slang.

  I smiled at him. His enthusiasm was, as always, appealing. Perhaps he wasn’t being so awful after all. I joined them at the table and sensed Father’s warmth at my interest.

  Chapter 7

  Edward arrived the next day, just in time for afternoon tea. Tall and adult, with stubble on his cheek and smelling of the outside world. Beside him Richard looked like the little boy he was desperate to grow out of being. Tea in the drawing room reminded me of the tea parties when I first arrived. We hadn’t had many recently; little point with the boys away most of the time. Much was the same, except that it was even shabbier and the fire a paltry affair. He and Father were getting on famously, another reason to put Richard’s nose out of joint and the aunts beamed with pride at the splendid young man they had raised. Aunt Leonora was especially ecstatic at his return, for he was always her favourite. He didn’t cause the trouble that Richard and I did. He was holding court, with Richard on one side of the couch and Father on the other. The admiring females, including Nanny, gazed on.

  ‘So, Edward, tell me what you are reading and what is your college again?’ said Father, beaming at a fellow scholar.

  ‘Natural Sciences, sir, at Trinity.’ replied Edward, with his usual politeness.

  My father’s eyes lit up. ‘Splendid, oh how splendid! I must tell you of the moth I have discovered – as big as a saucer and twice as ugly. You must see it. Come, I have brought it with me. Come,’ he said more impatiently, ‘let us find it. I have it in my room.’

  The two men left in a flurry of scientific excitement and I felt a sneaking sympathy for Richard, who was left out. He huffed and threw himself back on the couch.

  ‘Sit up, Richard,’ murmured Aunt Leonora automatically.

  ‘But I’m bored. Can I have another piece of seed cake?’ Richard’s lower lip jutted in a sulk.

  ‘It is “may I” and no, you mayn’t, you have had two pieces already,’ responded Leonora, frowning and about to launch into one of her tirades.

  ‘Why don’t you take Hetty to the library, Richard?’ As ever, Aunt Hester stepped in as peacemaker. ‘We have it open for your Uncle Henry and Edward. Take her to look at the history books. I don’t believe she has seen them.’

  This was not strictly true. One of the things Richard and I had always enjoyed was exploring the house, delighting in the many closed-up rooms, playing hide and seek amongst the dust sheets. The library had been a regular haunt and we had discovered many hidden gems: maps of Asia, stories of far-off and long-ago Greece.

  I looked across at him; he was sitting up, his blue eyes gleaming. I knew that look. It meant trouble was afoot.

  ‘What a super idea Aunt Hester, please may we be excused?’ That settled it, such elaborate politeness from Richard could mean only one thing; he was up to something.

  The door to the library opened with difficulty, stiff with lack of use. I loved this room; it was one of my favourites. Bookcases lined the walls, double height so that library steps were needed to reach the more remote volumes. Chairs and a chaise longue
crowded around the space but were arranged in a careless manner, hinting at the room’s long abandonment. Today, however, the dustsheets were gone. Dorcas, who glorified in the title of housekeeper, when really she was the solitary upstairs maid, had obviously been busy polishing the mahogany bookcases. The woodwork gleamed and the aroma of lavender hung in the air, testament to her hard work. Richard, with an enigmatic look at me, pushed the library steps over to the furthest-most bookcase, climbed up and fiddled with the lock on the top glass door.

  ‘Richard, you mustn’t. We’re not supposed to look at those books. It is forbidden.’ But I said it half-heartedly and followed him, avidly curious as to what lay behind the protective glass. I stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up. He opened the door and, looking behind us to check for adults, passed down to me a large leather-bound volume. I struggled over to the table with it.

  Richard hopped down and pushed in front of me. Saying nothing, he proceeded to open the book at pages obviously well known to him. I stared over his shoulder until I saw what he was laughing at. Then I caught my breath.

  The images seemed to me, at that time, grotesque. They were engravings of human forms entwined in unspeakable acts. The men and women seemed intent on doing violence to one another. The men, with bared teeth, fastened on throats thrown back. Hands were clutching parts of the anatomy I did not – had not – known exist.

  Richard saw my reaction of horrified fascination and sniggered. ‘This one is the best.’ He pointed to a picture of a man mounting a woman in the way I had seen the bull do to a cow at the Parkers’ farm, until Nanny had pulled me away. She had responded to questions with tight-lipped silence.

  ‘What do you think?’ Richard asked, watching my face intently. ‘If you marry Ed, that is what he will do to you on your wedding night.’

  I backed away, shaking my head violently, clutching my heaving stomach. No man was ever to do to me what I had seen in those disgusting pictures. But even then, part of me was acknowledging the truth of what was being shown to me. Forgotten images were remembered: Elsie the kitchen maid and Robert the under-gardener looking red-faced and untidy when I walked in on them in the empty stables, Edward being teased over Flora Parker until he blushed crimson and hurried from the room, Nanny hushing my questions about the bull.