CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It is just as well Cadoc and Angharad come to clear the plates at that moment, for if they had not Linette is quite sure her temper would have spilt itself over without restraint.

Beside her, Mr Dee touches her arm.

‘Are you all right, my lady?’

‘Yes,’ Linette whispers.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, vicar. I am well.’

With a frown – for it is clear he does not believe her – Mr Dee settles back into his seat, and clutching at her wine glass, Linette takes a steadying sip as the conversation steers into safer waters; Sir John shares his ambition of cultivating an Arab line of horses for the King’s guards, which naturally leads on to how the Pennants’ youngest son gets along under Horatio Nelson’s captaincy. While Henry and Mr Dee are able to engage with the discussion in a limited and markedly subdued manner, Linette contributes nothing at all.

Nor does Miss Carew.

As Linette pours herself another glass of wine, that woman catches her gaze across the platter of salmagundy, offers a shy smile. There is a gentle sympathy in Miss Carew’s amber-brown eyes, but Linette – her resentment and anger still simmering so quietly beneath the calm mask she wears – does not have the energy to smile back. Instead she merely stares at Miss Carew until that sweet smile slips and she turns her face away to answer something Henry has asked, their heads bent together in quiet conference. He is gentlemanlike, attentive, looks at Miss Carew as if she were some rare and otherworldly being, or a crystal vase that might shatter at the smallest touch. With Miss Carew his face is more open, his voice lighter; he does not act on edge as if a blade presses into the soft hollow of his neck. With Miss Carew, Henry is a completely different man.

Jealousy – and it is jealousy, Linette acknowledges that now – twists in the pit of her stomach. Henry and Miss Carew share something in which she has no part; something more than friendship, something that hints of a feeling which Linette has never had the opportunity to feel with anyone, sheltered as she has always been. Not even that silly adolescent attraction she experienced with Tomas all those years ago comes close.

But, Linette remembers, as Henry whispers something in Miss Carew’s shell-like ear, that is not the only thing they share.

Between them lies a secret.

What was the other vial he gave her that day in the churchyard?

So many unanswered questions, so many things left unsaid. That unaccounted-for vial, the one found at the gatehouse. Undoubtedly the two are connected. Linette steals a look down the table at Dr Beddoe where he leans across his plate speaking with Mr Lambeth. How can Henry sit so calmly at the same table as the man he considers responsible for Dr Evans’ murder? It is as if he no longer cares.

She does not understand.

Suddenly Linette feels sick, does not want to finish the wine, does not want to be here at this table at all. The conversation around them is an incessant buzz, a troubling distraction, and if it were not for her inability to focus, Linette might have noticed the dining-room door swinging slowly open sooner than she did but it is too late to warn them, too late to prevent her mother padding barefoot across the ornate rug as if in a dream.

The table falls silent, though the atmosphere is charged with anticipation. Across from her Henry stiffens in his seat; she sees in him the same concern that has clamped itself to her ribcage.

Why is she not locked in her room?

The tune Lady Gwen hums – the off-kilter Welsh melody Linette heard her attempt on the harp only days before – sounds sluggish, but then she stops midway on a minor note, and her mother surveys the room with a smile.

‘Good evening.’

Linette shuts her eyes in despair. Where on earth is Enaid?

‘Gwenllian!’ Lady Pennant, this, her bad teeth revealing themselves in a crescent moon.

‘My dear,’ rejoins Sir John, half-rising from his seat, his coiled wig dipping dangerously close to a candle. His wife presses her hand to his paunch and he sits back down again, his squirrel eyes watching the new arrival eagerly without blinking.

Linette’s mother observes them, bow-mouth parted.

‘You’re all here.’

There is a beat. Julian lets out a low chuckle.

‘My sweet lady, where else would we be?’

Her gaze moves to his. She reaches out, very gently strokes her fingers across the back of Julian’s chair. The table watch. Lady Gwen breathes out. Then she moves left and does the same to Lady Pennant’s chair, then the next, and the next, a languid counter-clockwise caress.

‘Look at you. In your finery. My friends.’

She moves past her own empty chair. Linette thought her mother might attempt to sit but instead she carries on, coming to a stop behind Lady Selwyn, and touches the citrine jewels in that woman’s towering wig.

‘So pretty. Like mirrors. Like little gold mirrors.’

Between the last four words she tapped each one of the gems in turn.

‘Oh yes !’ Lady Selwyn exclaims. ‘You liked your jewels, didn’t you, Gwen? I remember that glorious amethyst necklace you used to wear. It cost Hugh a small fortune, did it not?’

Linette has never seen such a necklace. In fact, she realises, Linette has never seen one item of jewellery in her mother’s possession. Her mother seems to have no recollection of such a piece, either. She stares blankly down at Lady Selwyn, and Julian in that moment coughs, a contemplative expression on his pale features.

The door opens once more. Cadoc steps through it holding a serving tray, seemingly with the intention to clear the empty tureens, but when he sees his mistress standing so waif-like behind Lady Selwyn’s chair he freezes, turns a sharp gaze to Linette. It holds a question, a warning, and Linette heeds it.

‘Fetch Enaid,’ she tells him. ‘Quickly.’

‘Oh, but must she leave?’ Lady Pennant asks, teasing. ‘Look how sweet our darling Gwenllian looks! It will be fun, to have her here. All of us, together again.’

It will not be fun, Linette wants to say, not when she knows that in this dream-like state her mother could become violent at any moment. Nor does her mother look sweet – white hair hangs down her back in greasy ropes; the thin nightdress she wears is stained on her breast where she must have spilt her dinner. No, Gwen Tresilian does not look sweet or anything of the like, and as if to acknowledge this Lady Selwyn laughs.

‘Pretty Gwen,’ she taunts, and unpins one of the citrines from her hair. ‘Would you like to play?’

Henry has stood now, and his cheeks betray the same anger Linette feels.

‘Madam,’ he says tightly. ‘It would be best we return her ladyship to bed. Would you not agree, Lord Tresilian?’

But Julian simply lounges in his seat, watches as Linette’s mother takes the citrine from Lady Selwyn’s fingers and bends to kiss her cheek.

It is a strange image, to watch her mother’s lips touch this woman whom she dislikes so intensely. The same image from before comes to Linette’s mind then, unwanted, sickening – There were rumours that their meetings were of a more … physical nature – and she stamps it down, hard.

‘Let her stay, if she wishes it,’ Julian says. ‘Would you like to stay, Gwen? See, there. She’s enjoying herself. It would be a pity to deprive her.’

Lord Pennant, in that moment, has his hand resting on her mother’s bony hip, is caressing the curve of her skin through the thin material of her nightgown, his signet ring glinting with the movement. Her mother simply sways under his touch, eyes half-closed.

‘My God,’ Linette whispers in revulsion. ‘You’ve no decency, no compassion.’ She looks to the others. ‘None of you do!’

‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Linette,’ Lord Pennant smiles. ‘No harm will come to her.’ But he removes his hand anyway, and like a doe Lady Gwen darts to the other side of the table, where Henry takes her gently in his arms.

‘Come, my lady,’ he murmurs.

There are cries of displeasure from the table, and trembling with anger Linette pushes herself away from it in a rush of scraping chair and cutlery. Mr Dee is rising too, Miss Carew with him, and all at once they stand.

‘Mamma,’ Linette says, stern. ‘You’re going back upstairs.’

‘No.’

The authoritative way her mother says the word makes Linette stare. Lady Pennant claps her hands gleefully together.

‘See! She does not want to go. Come now, have her stay here with us. We’ll take very good care of her.’

But there is something in Lady Anne’s expression Linette does not like – a look of triumphant hunger, a cruel and taunting greed – and as Lady Selwyn begins to titter the others follow suit, Dr Beddoe and Mr Lambeth watching in amusement. Linette turns her back on them all.

‘Mamma, do not argue.’

‘No. No!’

Above her mother’s pale head, she meets Henry’s gaze. His dark eyes are hard, angry, and an unspoken truth passes between them.

Her mother is not safe here.

At that moment Lady Gwen begins to sob. Not the soft cries of a genteel lady but the sobs of (and Linette hates to think it), a madwoman. Loud and guttural, her breath catching at each rise and fall of her chest. Indeed, the change in her is quite extraordinary.

Henry takes both her mother’s hands in one of his, wraps his arm about her shoulders, attempts to steer her away.

‘Open the door,’ he instructs.

Mr Dee moves to obey, but before he can do so Lady Gwen attempts to fling herself from Henry’s arms, striking Linette sharply across the chin; a sting explodes along her skull and with a shout she falls against the wainscoting, holding a hand to her face. From the floor she sees that it is to Julian that Lady Gwen reaches – but he merely stares at her without expression, black eyes like deep pools of tar.

‘You will not take them,’ her mother sobs, voice rising, desperate and wild, and Linette rises unsteadily to her feet, hand still to her jaw, wary, heartsore. Miss Carew gently takes her arm.

‘Mamma, please!’

In that moment the dining-room door flings open and Enaid rushes through it, the keys on her chatelaine jangling loudly in time to her gait.

‘My lady! My lady!’

The old woman’s appearance is enough, it seems, to make her mistress cease her sobs. Linette’s mother’s eyes roll to the back of her head – the whites frightening in their starkness – and as she faints into Henry’s waiting arms, Lady Selwyn’s citrine jewel falls to the floor where it lands on the rug with a dull and heavy thump .