Weyward — Chapter 32: Violet

32

VIOLET

The doctor’s hands were cold on Violet’s abdomen. ‘Hmm,’ he said. Violet could see white specks of dandruff clinging to his brilliantined hair. He turned to Nanny Metcalfe, who hovered next to Violet like an anxious moth, her hands wrung red. ‘Are her menses regular?’ he asked.

Menses? Whatever were those? Violet wondered if the doctor had meant her mens, Latin for mind. Well, that certainly wasn’t regular. Far from it.

For instance, although she knew that it was the doctor who was touching her, not Frederick, and that she was lying comfortable and safe in her bed rather than in the woods, her heart fluttered in her throat. The smell of brandy and crushed flowers returned and she fought the impulse to retch.

She wanted desperately for the doctor to take his hands away, for him to stop poking and prodding at her stomach. It was taking all her willpower not to scream. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Nanny Metcalfe, flushing. ‘Always on the fifteenth, like clockwork.’ Violet thought of the clots and clumps of blood that came out of her every month, accompanied by days of cramping pain. So that was what he meant. She’d never heard the medical term for it before – Nanny Metcalfe always referred to it as her curse. It had barely occurred to Violet that it was something that happened to other girls, too. Last month was the first time it had let her alone in years. She hadn’t missed it one bit.

Nanny Metcalfe was frowning at her. ‘She didn’t ask me for any rags last month, mind,’ she was saying to the doctor. Violet wished they would stop talking about her as if she weren’t

lying right there. Her cheeks grew hot at the mention of these private subjects to a complete stranger. ‘Hmm,’ said the doctor again. There was more prodding, and then he asked a question so bizarre that Violet thought she must have misheard. ‘Is she intact?’ Violet thought of the pictures from Father’s newspaper, of soldiers wounded in the war, arms ending at elbows or legs ending at the knee. ‘As far as I know, Doctor,’ said Nanny Metcalfe. There was a slight quaver to her voice, as if she were afraid.

Then, without warning, the doctor had slid his fingers between her legs, to that place that had felt like a bruise since the day in the woods. She winced from pain and shock. ‘She is not,’ he said, looking at her with mild disgust. Nanny Metcalfe gasped, clapping her hands to her mouth. Violet felt cold shame spreading through her. Somehow, he had known exactly what had happened between her and Frederick, almost as if he had looked inside her brain.

The doctor had her urinate into a humiliatingly clear vial, which he held up to the light and inspected briefly before putting it in the pocket of his jacket. Violet turned her face away. ‘I’ll telephone in a few days with the results,’ he said.

Nanny Metcalfe nodded, barely able to force out a ‘Good day, Doctor,’ as he went down the stairs. They sat together in silence as they listened to Father’s study door opening, a low murmur of conversation, followed by the heavy clink of the front door and the sputter of the doctor’s motor car.

A moment of stillness hung in the air, like a raindrop threatening to fall from a leaf. Then there was a great crash, and the sound of glass breaking.

A high-pitched whine from Cecil. Later, Nanny Metcalfe would report that Father was so angry that he had swept the Jacobean side table in the hall clear of its ornaments in one fluid movement. ‘What have you done?’ said Nanny Metcalfe, who had still not explained to Violet what was happening. But she didn’t need to, not really. Violet thought of the word that had lingered on the edge of her consciousness for weeks, no matter how hard she tried not to think about it. Spermatophore.

Violet barely slept, for fear of dreaming about the woods. About Frederick.

She passed the days between the doctor’s visit and his telephone call in fog, halfway between sleep and wakefulness. She tried her hardest not to

succumb to her drooping eyelids and heavy limbs, but often she found herself in a terrifying kaleidoscope of dreams: Frederick on top of her, under a tree-veined sky; her stomach distended and dark, rotting from the inside out. Mayflies, pulsing all around.

Not even Morg’s feather brought her any solace.

Graham and the servants had been told that she was ill again, with the same ‘condition of the nerves’ that had kept her bedbound earlier. Only Father and Nanny Metcalfe knew the truth.

When the telephone rang, five days after the doctor’s visit, Violet lay under the coverlet and waited for Nanny Metcalfe to come and tell her the news. But the footsteps that sounded up the stairs and down the corridor were too heavy to belong to Nanny Metcalfe.

Father opened the door. Violet sat up in bed, wondering if her appearance would shock him. He had not been to see her in weeks, and she had lost a lot of weight from the constant vomiting. Her bones felt sharp in her face; her eyes were shadowed by lack of sleep. Perhaps he would ask her how she was feeling.

He looked at her for a moment with an expression of distaste, as though she were a piece of spoiled food on his plate. ‘I have spoken to Doctor Radcliffe,’ he said, his voice chill with fury. ‘He has informed me that you are with child, and have been for several weeks.’ Violet’s pulse flickered. She thought she might faint. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ he asked, taking a step closer.

The anger made his face larger and redder, so that his blue eyes almost disappeared. A blood vessel on his cheek was swollen and purple, like a fattened slug. Violet wondered if it would burst. ‘Nothing,’ she said softly. ‘Nothing? Nothing? Who do you think you are, the bloody Virgin Mary?’ She had never heard him speak like this before. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Who is the father?’ he asked, though surely he must have known all along. For whom else could it be? She remembered what Graham had said, about when he and Father had woken from their nap that day to find Violet and Frederick gone. Father seemed quite pleased. ‘Cousin Frederick,’ she said.

He turned on his heel and slammed her bedroom door behind him, sending dust motes flying. For a moment they hung suspended in the shaft

of sunlight from the window, reminding Violet of the midges she had seen with Frederick, the day he had kissed her. She had thought they looked like

fairy dust.

What a child she had been.

That day, Nanny Metcalfe came into her bedroom with a large, worn- looking suitcase that Violet had never seen before. She had never been anywhere, had never had need of a suitcase. Without looking at her, Nanny Metcalfe began piling things into it. ‘Am I going somewhere?’ Violet asked, though she wasn’t particularly interested. Everything had felt muted and colourless since the doctor’s visit.

She knew that she was heading inexorably towards something, something terrible, and there was little point in resisting. She thought of the dreams, the flesh of her stomach dark and soft beneath her fingers. Rotten. ‘Your father will explain,’ said Nanny Metcalfe. ‘The others think you’re going to a sanatorium in Windermere, for your nerves. You’re not to tell them different.’ Violet added nothing to the suitcase, apart from Morg’s feather, which she wrapped carefully in an old scarf. Everything else – her books, her green dress, her sketching things – she left behind. She didn’t even take Goldie the spider – Nanny Metcalfe had agreed to release him into the garden when Father wasn’t looking.

Graham and the other servants were lined up in the hall to say farewell.

Nanny Metcalfe had dressed her in one of Father’s old trench coats and a wide-brimmed hat, to hide the weight she’d lost and the shadows in her face. Violet felt like a scarecrow, and she saw Graham blanch when she appeared on the staircase.

Miss Poole and Mrs Kirkby said goodbye and told her to get well soon.

Graham said nothing, watching in shocked silence as Father took her by the elbow and marched her out of the front door to where his Daimler waited in the drive. Violet had never been in Father’s motor car before. The chrome green exterior reminded her of the shiny casing of a pupa. Perhaps she would emerge from it a butterfly and fly away, miles and miles away, to a place where she would be safe and free. One could dream.

There was a lingering smell of cologne. It occurred to Violet that the last occupant of the passenger seat, where she was sitting now, must have been Frederick. The thought of it made her want to open the door and hurl herself

out onto the road. Instead she just looked out of the window, at Orton Hall disappearing behind them. ‘Where are we going?’ Violet asked. Father didn’t answer. Rain began to splatter on the roof of the car in fat, loud drops. Father turned a dial and mechanical arms unfolded themselves across the windscreen to wipe the rain away. For a while, there was no sound in the car but their rhythmic scraping.

They drove through the gates, rising up on either side of the car like omens. Violet wondered if she would feel something when she left the estate, having spent her whole life inside its bounds, but she felt nothing.

Father cleared his throat. ‘I have written to Frederick,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘I have told him of your condition and asked him to marry you.’ Violet watched a bird rise and fall with the wind. Father’s words seemed to come from a place very far away. She wondered if she hadn’t imagined them; if she hadn’t imagined everything that had happened since the afternoon they had played bowls on the lawn. Perhaps she was still asleep in her canvas chair, the sun warm on her face and the brandy warm in her belly. Wake up, she thought. ‘Marry me?’ she said. ‘Why?’ What had any of this to do with marriage, she wondered. She had thought that couples wed when they were in love.

There had been nothing of love that afternoon in the woods. ‘It is the decent thing,’ he said. ‘For the child. And for the family.’ The child. The spore that was growing in her stomach, feeding from her like a parasite. She hadn’t thought of it as a child. ‘But I don’t want to marry him,’ she said softly. Father ignored her, looking ahead at the road. ‘I won’t marry him,’ she said, louder this time. Still he ignored her.

Outside, the sky grew dark and knotted with clouds. There was a storm coming, she could feel it on her skin. She watched the sudden glow of lightning. The rain grew heavier, blurring the window so that she could barely see out of it. Then, the car slowed and juddered before coming to a halt. She tried to remember how long they had been driving. Less than ten minutes, she thought – surely that wasn’t long enough to get to Windermere?

Father opened his door and Violet breathed in the fragrant smell of wet earth. He collected her case from the trunk and then opened the door for her

to get out. She drew her coat around her and pulled the brim of her hat down against the rain. Squinting ahead, she could see a low, squat cottage, overgrown with vegetation, the stone dull and wet. The windows were cobwebbed and dark.

Father rummaged for the keys in his overcoat. Now that they were closer, Violet saw that there were letters carved into the stone above the door.

Weyward.

She rubbed the rain from her eyes, in case she was seeing things. But there it was. It looked like it had been carved a very long time ago: the first slant of the W was faint, and the other letters were green with lichen.

‘Father? Where are we?’ He ignored her.

Violet was gripped by the sudden fear that Frederick would be in the cottage, waiting for her … but when Father unlocked the heavy green door and she saw the dim corridor beyond, it was clear that there was no one there.

Father lit a match, piercing the blackness.

Inside, the dark rooms had a sunken look, as if they were trying to disappear into the earth. The ceiling was so low that Father, who was not a tall man, had to stoop.

There were only two rooms: the largest one, at the back of the cottage, had an ancient-looking stove and a cavernous fireplace. The other, two single beds and a battered old bureau. There was a scrabbling sound in the roof: mice, Violet thought. At least she wouldn’t be totally alone. ‘You will stay here until Frederick next has leave and can return for the ceremony,’ said Father. ‘I’ll come to check on you every few days with provisions. For now, you’ll find some tins and a dozen or so eggs in the kitchen. Perhaps the solitude will help you reflect on your sins.’ He paused before looking at her, his features twisted with disgust. ‘Frederick told me he had intended to ask for your hand, that he wanted to wait until after the wedding but you … wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ Her cheeks burned as the memory of the woods came back to her.

Father was still talking. ‘I have been foolhardy,’ he said. ‘I should have known. You are your mother’s daughter, after all.’ He turned away, as though he could no longer bear the sight of her.

‘My mother? Please – where are we? What is this place?’ Violet asked as he walked towards the door. He stood at its threshold, his hand on the doorknob, and for a while she thought he would simply leave without responding. ‘It belonged to her, actually,’ he said. ‘Your mother.’ He slammed the door behind him, so hard that the little house shook.

OceanofPDF.com