Clack. The needles emitted hidden sparks. Clack.
‘Only joking,’ said Maud, her large, swimming eyes shuttered by her eyelids. ‘Bea deceived us. There she was, all mealy-mouthed and full of good deeds, and all the time she was laughing at us.’ Maud raised her head, and Agnes was treated to the full blaze of despair and jealousy.
‘I don’t believe that of Bea.’ But Agnes suspected that Maud might be correct, for Bea had surprised them all.
‘If I was a young woman, I’d be interviewed in
Agnes gave a snort of laughter. ‘Oh, Maud.’ But at least she had stopped crying, even if the grieving, weeping version was easier to handle than the runaway train. ‘Of course, you must say what you feel to me, Maud. But…’
As therapy, the idea of revenge worked beneficially and Maud was looking marginally better. Agnes trod carefully. ‘Did Freddie ever say anything to make you think… that you were special?’ Silence. The rain sent a drum- beat down the long window. ‘Did he?’
Maud shrugged. ‘It was an understanding.’ She sent Agnes one of her looks, picked up the knitting and embarked on a third row.
Agnes levered herself upright, prised the knitting from Maud, unravelled the stitches and rewound the wool on to the ball. ‘I know enough to know that what you’re doing is wrong. I’ve seen revenge, Maud, and the results, and for what it’s worth, once it’s done it never seems to come to an end.’
The older woman stared up her, and Agnes felt rather sick for she had hit the soft, exposed part of her aunt. ‘I wanted to escape too,’ Maud whispered.
Agnes tucked the wool and the needles back into the bag and placed it gently on Maud’s knee. ‘I’m so sorry.’
The defiance was replaced by a soggier variant. ‘You’re so busy, Agnes. Always travelling. I never know how to take you. Never did. I was supposed to have enjoyed being busy with the house and the village. It never occurred to John that it bored me. And you did, too, Agnes. You were a very boring, ugly little girl.’ Maud looked longingly at the knitting-bag. ‘But… oh well.’ She buried it behind a cushion. ‘I have always wanted to know why I was supposed to fall in with everyone’s wishes. Nobody consulted me. Merely because I wore a skirt.’
‘Did you never love the house?’ Agnes did not inquire about her uncle, for she knew the answer.
‘How can you love a millstone?’ Maud fingered her ring. ‘There were no excitements for John and me. Only Charlborough, drains and rats in the roof.’ She added crossly, ‘I had no option but to live here.’
She was beginning to sound exhausted and, recollecting that Maud was still convalescent, Agnes took action. ‘Bed. Now.’ She helped Maud upstairs, undressed her and settled her down.
‘Thank you, Agnes.’ Maud leaned back into the pillows. In this setting, she grew smaller, beaten, her difficult qualities smoothed away. On an impulse, Agnes bent and kissed the cheek that smelt of cheap face powder. Sighing, Maud touched with her forefinger the place where Agnes’s lips had rested. ‘I’d forgotten what it’s like to be kissed.’
She closed her eyes and appeared to be drifting into sleep. ‘I imagine I’ll get a letter from Maria tomorrow, don’t you?’ she murmured.
Agnes woke up. It was dark and she was drowsy. These days, she slept, dreamed, shuttled between her own and Maud’s bedroom. A swelling, sleepy receptacle. Pregnancy was nausea and a craving for sleep, thick, lengthy dollops, and the drifting in and out of dreamscapes.
She closed her eyes and thought of the house. The irises were dying in the water-meadow. They could not speak out against time and change, or defend the stoicism of the many women who had lived at Flagge House.
She imagined its glory days: the kitchen basking in the stove’s heat, and rooms overflowing with vases, baskets, shoes and balls of string; footsteps sounding on the stairs; the occupants’ grievings and longings in each room. And from an attic room, the maid’s stifled weeping echoed. Heavy, awkward earrings swinging, the other Agnes moved through them, ordering her garden, her stillroom, her children, until she lay down in the room allotted to the Campion brides to give birth.
Today – the now that she had inherited – the sun rose on ghostly greenhouses, birds swooped up from the eaves and vases did double duty as sarcophagi for mice. Must cradled a basket and a frozen torrent of books…
Something smelt terrible. Startled, Agnes turned her head on the pillow towards the window and gained an impression of unexpected colour. The smell intensified.
She shot out of bed and into her clothes, was down the stairs and haring in the direction of the kitchen.
The window to the courtyard was open. Agnes leaned out and recoiled. Underneath it, flames were crawling up the wall towards the roof and, as she watched, the first tongue licked the lintel. The kitchen was black with smoke and Agnes grabbed at the metal latch of the window, felt her flesh sear and vanish, and fell back with a cry of pain. The metal was red hot. Whimpering with shock, she cradled her fingers.
Behind her, there was a movement and she swung around. Resplendent in her nightdress and paste jewellery, Maud was sitting at the kitchen table. Close by her was a box of matches.
‘What have you
‘Oh, they’ll be here in a minute,’ said Maud. ‘And, personally, I don’t care if we fry.’
Agnes did not waste time in arguing but concentrated on heaving saucepans of water out through the window and on to the fire.
Maud was correct. Within minutes the fire engine had arrived and dealt with the problem. A sea of foam, water, blackened ash and mud rained down from the roof and settled in the yard.
A fireman poked at the pyre under the kitchen window with his boot and a shape sliced away, shedding a slough of incinerated plastic. It fell apart, revealing a white rectangle seared round the edges. It was from one of the missing set of Jane Austens.
The fireman drew Agnes aside. If she had been trying to burn the house down to get at the insurance, he said, it was ill advised. The insurance company would take a dim view of the situation. He was sorry, he had no option but to outline his findings in his report.
No insurance, then. ‘What were you doing?’ Agnes rounded on Maud the minute they were alone.
Maud looked terrible. Grey and sweaty. ‘I couldn’t sleep and I came down here and had a nip of… something. Then I decided I had to punish Bea, whatever you said. So I burnt her things. Cleansing the hearth.’
Because she was having trouble believing what she heard, Agnes made Maud repeat the story. ‘But how on earth did you manage it?
‘There was petrol in the outhouse. Just a little.’ Maud held out her arm with a huge burn seared across the wrist. ‘It burnt me too.’
‘Let me have a look.’ Agnes inspected it and said wearily, ‘We can’t take any chances, you’ll have to go back to hospital. Do you realize you could have killed yourself and burnt the house down? As it is, it’s going to be almost impossible to repair all this.’
Ash may have powdered Maud’s hair and smeared her face but she was not in the least penitent. ‘It’s an ill wind, Agnes. We need a new kitchen and you’ll get it somehow, I have no doubt. And, despite your holier-than-thou attitude, Bea deserved to be punished.’ Maud winced. ‘You know how I like a nice fire. Anyway, you gave me the idea.’
‘I did?’
‘The fires on the farm. You know.’
Agnes dropped her head into her hands and pressed hard. ‘There was no need to act as if you were the first Mrs Rochester,’ she said, through gritted teeth.
Maud’s tears, which now flowed, were copious enough to have made the fire service superfluous. ‘I thought if I burned her away I would feel better, but I don’t.’ She held out her arm, which was blistering. ‘I
