‘How are you, my dames?’ I ask. They smile wickedly; they’re out in the sun, they’re showing up their own daughters and daughters-in-law, who take the insult well, for a decent sweet roll is worth the price of your pride; everyone returns for second and third helpings, and they’re getting a chance to chide and snipe. There’s no great malice in them, or no greater than any woman accumulates in a life not designed for herself, and they are very clever; we’ve swapped recipes for potions more than once since I’ve been here.
‘Well enough, lovely, well enough. How are you?’
‘Well enough,’ I say with a grin. ‘Well enough.’
‘No sign of your uncle then? He’ll not be joining us?’ asks Zara slyly.
‘Nor that Nelly Daniels neither?’ Elena passes me a pastry filled with apricots and thick cream. I bite into it, shake my head.
‘My uncle is going over the accounts,’ I tell them what he told me. ‘Nelly is tending to Ena.’ I would have liked my little sister to play with the other children, but Nelly insisted she remain inside, that she was coming down with something; a litany of reasons why Ena should not be exposed to the village brats.
‘She is devoted to that child,’ agrees Elena, her eyes flicking a glance towards the big house.
‘I’m sure it helps her after her own loss,’ Keren-happuch agrees.
‘What happened?’ I ask around a buttery mouthful; there’s a lot of cinnamon, but not too much, it’s perfectly judged.
‘She was pregnant when she and your uncle arrived here, gave birth soon after.’
I am surprised: I’d assumed Nelly had come from the village. ‘They came together?’
Keziah shakes her head. ‘I believe they met upon the road. Your parents had hired Nelly to be a wet nurse to Ena, sent for your uncle to come and caretake or so we’re told. She used to talk to us, then. She gave birth the week before your mother. Those two little girls, sleeping in the same crib.’ She smiles sadly.
‘What happened?’ I repeat, and she seems to understand I’m asking more than one question. Uncle Edward has only ever called Nelly the housekeeper, no mention of a wet nurse for my sister. And Ena’s been bottle-fed the whole time I’ve been here – or at least by me. What might Nelly do in her own room?
‘The accident.’
‘Terrible thing to happen to a woman, especially a woman on her own,’ mutters Keren-happuch, and the others nod.
‘Poor Meraud.’
I think of the burned cradle in the locked wing of the house. Not just Ena’s then. I’ve asked Nelly nothing about herself because I assume she’ll tell me nothing. But mostly because I don’t like her; it’s rendered her of no interest to me. But she lost a child and that must hurt and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone. I wonder if my uncle has not mentioned her tragedy out of kindness and sensitivity. Before I can ask any more I’m distracted by childish shrieking.
A group running madly by the lake. A little girl with bright auburn-rose hair is being pursued by boys and girls, all screaming in delight. But they lose track of where they’re going, as children are wont to do, and their parents have grown inattentive with sun and food and drink. They go too near the edge.
I’m watching even as it happens; it seems so slow, it seems as if the moment in which it could be prevented is long and it is an amazement to me that no one does anything. The little girl is there, then she is gone; her pursuers stop, a good distance from the water, mouths agape.
The child has disappeared completely, swallowed by the black liquid. Her mother, Miriam Dymond, alert to the danger only too late is now running back and forth on the shore, no one is going to the rescue. There are those trying to stop her in her tracks, stop her running about like a headless chicken. These are mountain folk, inland folk, there’s not a seafarer amongst them. No one is taught to swim from birth, no one but me’s an O’Malley here. As afraid as I am of the lake, I’m more afraid of letting a child be taken.
I kick away my delicate slippers, loose the sash and pull off my dress, dropping it beside the crones, and run toward the lake in only my thin cotton shift. I feel the bell pendant against my throat thud up and down, hear it tinkling with every step.
Behind me someone shouts ‘No, Miren!’ but I ignore them.
My right foot hits the spot where land and water meet, and I launch myself forward. It’s a good leap, I’ve long legs, and it seems like an age before I break the surface.
But when I do, it feels like a shock, as if I’ve been struck by lightning, and my heart will explode. I begin to sink like the proverbial stone.
30
You’d think, really that I’d only sink a few yards, that I’d hit a shelf of rock or some such, but no. Perhaps six feet out into the lake and I keep going down, down, a’down. And the fluid is cold, cold, cold, even colder than Breakwater Harbour.
As the liquid closes over my head, I think I might just drown and make no effort to save myself. My limbs feel so heavy, so sluggish, and it takes every bit of willpower I’ve got to gather my wits before I die then and there. I tread water, halt my
