In the small cupboard on the stair’s landing she has stored a newborn’s layette, the result of Willa’s seamstress skills. She removes a white cotton undershirt, long dress and nightcap, and with these, puts her stamp on him and erases her sister’s.
As she towers over him he screws up his face and forms little fists in preparation for a fit.
‘No,’ she warns.
His legs begin pedalling while he stares up at her.
‘No,’ she says again more firmly.
He blinks and searches for another view.
‘I’ve been instructed to teach you both English and Icelandic. Let your first lesson commence. My bitter old father once sang this lullaby to me.’
Sofur thu svid thitt
Svartur i augum
Far i fulan pytt
Fullan af draugum
She then sings in English.
Sleep, you black-eyed pig.
Fall into a deep pit of ghosts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Outrageous! What could the woman possibly be thinking?’ Verity asks.
‘Something mischievous no doubt. That one’s a spider.’
‘Yes, constantly weaving.’
At eight o’clock the setting sun hangs on behind a wall of cloud; impotent against an approaching storm. A wind is building tonight, and though it is late summer the fire in their parlour on Fore Street is blazing.
Bertie stands with her arms folded awaiting their decision. Late for her appointment with her evening bottle of beer, impatience pinches her face.
‘What do I tell her? How about, “come again at a decent hour”? Or, “wait ’till yer invited, hussy”? Imagine. Bringing her whole clan to this doorstep, like vagabonds.’ Bertie punctuates with sourness.
‘She does not come alone at this hour?’ asks Verity.
‘She is escorted by a nervous young woman and a Chinaman.’
‘Indeed?’
‘And she carries a baby. Indecent.’
The steel nib of Verity’s quill halts its scratching. Constance rises.
‘I’ll send them away.’ Bertie turns to leave.
‘No,’ Constance says. ‘Show her into the drawing room. See that the other two are fed something. I don’t know, are there any buns left? And marmalade?’
‘They’ll be servants, not guests!’
‘Bertie, do as Constance wishes, please,’ Verity says.
Clovis Fowler is led into the entry hall. Her gaze flows high and low, taking in an array of decorative items: busts sit crowded together on a table, heavy ferns whip against her skirts, a long oval mirror that looks as if it comes from an ancient place reflects her handsome figure.
‘Come along,’ Bertie says.
Clovis starts at the sharp-voiced servant, but recovers and raises her chin an inch.
Through a sliver of light behind a half-open door Clovis catches a glimpse of the fire. But Bertie directs her to the door opposite, to a less personal room, more formal and intended for guests. There is no fire laid in its hearth tonight; in fact, it is completely dark. As she awaits the sisters, Clovis senses the room has the smell of money, a great deal of it.
The door opens and yet again Clovis is startled by their appearance. The banyan-attired women enter clutching candelabras. They look so entirely different from the afternoon at Mockett’s when their theatre of gloom piqued her curiosity. Their man robes fall just above their ankles in the new, more form-fitting style. Clovis strives to remain passive, but she cannot quite conceal her interest and absorbs the details without modesty. A sting of jealousy overcomes her at the sight of Constance almost floating in a white, quilted robe sprayed with brilliant blue and red flowers and green creeping vines. Her white hair is loose and rests on her shoulders. She has a fire in her eyes and her skin is strongly coloured with life, and these attributes, this ethereal image somehow grounds her very much into the reality of this world.
Behind Constance, the light of Verity’s candelabrum clashes with her gold damask banyan. Clovis gazes at the line of her robe, trailing down to Verity’s matching slippers, which make her appear as if she is walking on golden light. The two long plaits that hang down her back are the colour of the silvered prickets she clasps with her ink-stained fingers. Verity’s pink-rimmed eyes rest on the baby.
Clovis Fowler has never before felt so dull, her beauty eclipsed by women who must be three times her age.
Constance glances past Clovis to the squirming child, whose tiny hands grasp the edges of a crocheted blanket. She places her candelabrum on the table by the window and indicates that Clovis should sit on the settee.
‘It is late to be calling so unexpectedly. Yet, here you are.’ Constance is short on decorum this evening.
‘My great apologies to you both.’ Clovis bows her head for a moment. ‘I have come this way on an urgent business matter at another address near this street concerning and requiring all in my household.’ A lie told efficiently. ‘I have had a pressing question to ask you for some time and could not pass on this opportunity while I was so near. I am, again, sorry for the inconvenience.’
Verity slowly slippers her way behind the settee, while Constance stands in front, sandwiching Clovis between them. The sisters are perfectly silent. The hour is too late for polite conversation, and Constance notes that Clovis does not seem at all nervous or awkward with the absence of chatter, as most would. The red-haired woman has a bold and powerful eye that remains steady. The baby sleeps with a laboured breath.
‘Please come to it, then.’ Verity breaks the silence.
‘I have here a son!’
The sisters glance at each other.
‘Well, yes,’ Constance says. ‘Congratulations to you.’
‘He is the reason I have intruded. Mr Fowler and I would, humbly, ask that you, Mrs Fitzgerald, and you, Mrs Fitzgerald, would do us, and our child, the honour of becoming his godparents.’
A mirror stretches over the mantelpiece across the room. From where she sits Clovis witnesses the reflection of Verity Fitzgerald stiffen like a plank.
Constance folds her arms as if to contain a web of complex
