Lady of the Butterflies (68 page)

She had turned away, but I grabbed her arm. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t do it,” she said, looking back at me with pity. “I might not approve of some of your ways, but I’d not betray myself, for one thing.” She glanced furtively round the kitchen, as if to check who was listening to what she was saying to me. They all were, but were trying to pretend they were not, eyes down, ears open. “Only a fool would sign something, when they could not read what had been written. How do I know if it is even close to what I said? They could have writ down any answer and asked me to sign it as gospel truth and I would not know any different.”

“What are you talking about?”

She shook her head, took up her wooden spoon and went back to her post.

I snatched a quarter round of cheese and a flagon of cider, like a thief in my own kitchen, and I ate and drank as I walked down to where the flat-bottomed boat was tethered by the humpbacked bridge. Cadbury seemed determined to come with me, so I guided her aboard, and as I rowed between the drowned trees and reed beds, she sat upright in the bow, her nose high and sniffing the air and her ears flicking back and forth to the noisy honking of the swans and the geese and the eerie cries of the marsh birds.

Bess was stirring a pot over the fire in her cottage, wading about in half an inch of silt and water that had seeped in under the door, as the floods had risen. She was thinner; her once lustrous hair hung lank and her apron was grimy. I had always relied on her to be sharp and direct but she would not look at me now.

She laid three wooden bowls and spoons on the table. One for herself and one for her son, Sam. The other was for Thomas, I presumed. There was no fourth bowl for her mother.

“She died a month ago,” Bess volunteered.

“I did not know.”

“How could you? You were not here.” There was recrimination in her voice, as if she thought I had stayed away too long. It seemed that I had, but I was beginning to wish I had not come back at all.

“She will be much missed.”

Bess went back to her stirring. The broth was thin and pale and did not smell good. “Thomas and Sam are both out at the bonfire, but they’ll be back soon and in need of something to warm them,” she said.

“Bess, tell me what is going on.”

She seemed reluctant. “Mr. Glanville left Forest in charge and, as you no doubt have already seen for yourself, he’s acting like he’s already the squire and having a high time of it.”

“And Richard?” I asked. “Where is he? Do you know?”

She glanced up at me from her stirring. “No. But I do know this. He’s not been moping for you. He’s had someone to warm his bed for him at night.”

I felt my stomach clench. “Who? What do you mean?”

“Sarah Gideon. Floozy from Bristol, near as damn it moved herself into the big house, as soon as you were gone.”

It was as if an icicle had been driven like a spear into my heart, dripping cold ice into my blood. Sarah. The woman in the red dress, from the Llandoger Trow. From so many years ago. In how many ways had he betrayed me? Had our marriage been a complete sham?

I was sure I did not want Richard anymore, that he was a villain, a murderer. But if I no longer wanted him, why did the images that rushed into my head cause me such agony? Why did the thought of that woman in bed with him make me want to be sick? Why did the thought of him touching her, of her touching him, make me want to weep, to scream, to kill them both? Why did the thought of him kissing her, of her kissing him, make me feel as if my heart was being ripped out of me? Why did the image of him making love to her make me feel that the world was an ugly, ugly place and that life was hardly worth living anymore? Above all, why did the thought that he might actually care for her fill me with the most terrible emptiness and loneliness and despair?

“Is she with him now?”

Bess shrugged. “She left for Elmsett. About two days ago. Good riddance to her, I say. Don’t like her much. Nobody does.” She flashed me one of her bold looks, her face red and moist from the steam coming off the pot. “They’d not oblige the likes of her. They’d not even do it for Mr. Glanville, much as they liked him, before all this turned him sour. They do it for Thomas.”

I frowned. “Do what for Thomas?”

“She’s been visiting us all, with a man who makes us swear an oath. They have a sheet of vellum with a list of questions on it. She goes through the questions one by one, writes down the answers that people give her, writes and writes and writes, every single word we say. Then she has us put a name to it.”

“What are the questions about?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, lamb,” Bess said. “You.”

“Richard’s mistress is collecting sworn affidavits against me?”

“If that’s what they are called, then yes.”

“But why?” I was sure Sarah Gideon hated me, but what did she hope to achieve by gathering testimonies against me? It seemed a lot of trouble to go to just for spite.

Bess stirred more vigorously. “God’s blood, don’t tell me I need to spell it out for you.”

“It seems that you do, Bess.”

“Your husband and his harpy want to prove you are of unsound mind and take charge of your estate. Thomas helps them and in return he gets the share he’s always felt he was owed.”

My head was hurting, felt dulled, as if I had suffered a blow to it, or drunk too much wine. “Why do they need him to . . . help them?”

“Some oblige because it makes ’em feel important, or because they have some ax of their own to grind with you. But a lot are afraid of putting their name to what they cannot understand. But they do it for Thomas. They trust Thomas. They will do as he asks them.”

“And what exactly does Thomas ask them to do?”

“Answer the questions just how she wants ’em answered. Give her what she wants to hear.”

“What does she want to hear?”

The stirring slowed, until it had almost stopped and she rested the handle of the spoon against the side of the pot. “She wants to know all about your butterflies. About how you chase after them and what you do with them.”

“What do people tell her? Let me guess now. Communing with the dead? Witchcraft? Shape-shifting?”

Bess looked scornfully at the dog trailing at my heels. “They say you care more for butterflies and even for a blind bitch than for your own children. They say only a madwoman would prize butterflies as if they were jewels, would take more interest in the hunting of butterflies than fish or fowl to fill the larder shelves. They say that you’d rather pay servants to lay sheets beneath bushes on the moor rather than on beds, and that you pay more for worms than most would pay for a round of cheddar.”

“What did you tell her, Bess?”

“I refused to talk to her. Got the sharp end of Thomas’s tongue for it.”

“Thank you.”

She shrugged. “Makes no difference what I say or what I don’t say. Add a few whispers together and they’re as loud as a shout. And there always were plenty of whispers about you.”

IT WAS ALMOST DARK. Down on the moor people were gathering round the great beast that was already turning slowly on the spit over the flames. Soon they would be lighting the bonfires. I found my feet taking me down toward the crowd, toward these people who had been my friends, but who had now spoken out against me.

I stopped short when the stuffed effigy of the Pope began to be slow-marched to its pyre across the dark, flat wasteland, to the menacing beat of a drum. I pulled my hood up and walked the rest of the way to the edge of the crowd, as all eyes watched the effigy hoisted atop the bonfire. The fire itself was being set alight with flaming torches. The flames caught and flared and leapt triumphantly higher. Dark figures moved around it like specters, their faces phantasmagorical in the flames. I looked to find my half brother amongst them, but I could not see him.

As I moved through the midst of the crowd, I felt hostility like a knife in my back. Mistress Keene, Mistress Jennings, Mistress Bennett and Mistress Hort: these women had known me since I was a child, had been with me in the birthing chamber when my own children were born. They and their families had served at the house and worked the land for generations. They were my family, and yet they treated me now as an outcast.

They had always been mildly disapproving of me, mistrusted and misunderstood me, because I did not conform to their image of what a lady should be, but now Sarah Gideon and Thomas had taken that mistrust and bent it to their own ends, and in doing so, had legitimized it, magnified it, given it full rein. And Richard, had he helped to turn them against me, where once he had rescued me?

There was the same tension in the air as there had been when the mob had come to the house and threatened to burn it. Every member of this crowd now treated me with the same enmity that Thomas had always shown. A contempt that had spread like a canker had infected them all like a plague. They were glancing toward me, hissing and whispering. As I passed through them, they moved back, gave me ground. Alice Walker hurled an apple, someone else threw an onion. It was surprising how much it hurt, when I was hit between my shoulders, on my arm. I ignored it. I did not bow my head in shame. I did not lower my eyes. I kept on walking. I ignored the catcalling boys and cursing drunkards. I ignored the fingers clawing my cloak, pulling my hair.

Then a great cheer went up and all attention was diverted back to the fire. The flames had reached the effigy of the Pope and caught the stuffed feet. I watched them lick up the straw legs, catch a hand and devour an arm.

I looked around for Forest, but I caught the eye of little Annie Sherburne. She gave me a timid smile that meant more than I’d probably ever be able to tell her. She was holding her little brother’s hand and in her other arm she cradled a baby, and when I smiled back at her, she came over to me.

“Is this Harry, your cousin’s child?” I asked her.

She nodded. “He is almost walking now.”

The heat of the fire was so searing, it made my eyes water. Annie turned her head toward the back of the crowd, to her mother and a girl I took for the mother of the infant. I had weak smiles from both women.

“I’m glad to see not everyone hates me, Annie.”

“Oh, but we could never hate you, Mistress Glanville,” the girl said earnestly. “Not when you have been so kind to us.” She lowered her eyes as her father came to stand at her side.

“Good day to you, Mistress Glanville,” he said with gruff courtesy.

“Good day to you too, Jack.”

“I’d have you know that I did not want to talk to that woman,” he said. “But I was left with no choice.” Jack Sherburne was a large man with a rugged, weathered face, but his eyes were honest and kind, though he kept them averted from me, looked directly ahead as he spoke, to make it look like he was not really speaking to me at all. His face was strained. “Your son said the rent would be tripled if we did not cooperate.”

“She made me talk too,” Annie said, and I felt her grave young eyes entreating me to forgive her. “All I said was that I helped you collect worms and helped you feed them and care for them. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

“No, Annie,” I said. “There is no harm in it at all.”

I noticed there was a man weaving through the crowd. Dressed in wool coat and cap, he appeared to be looking for someone, with some urgency.

“I told her how good-humored and well pleased you always were when we were working with the butterflies,” Annie said enthusiastically. “And how I liked collecting the worms and how you paid me very well for it.”

Her father spoke again. “I made a point of saying how generous you have been to us. How you gave a home to my niece and her little one when she had nowhere else to go. That must count for something.”

I did not doubt that it would only count against me: that I paid good money for butterflies and worms, but failed to collect proper rents, but I thanked them both, all the same. “Do you know what others have said?”

Jack Sherburne was a good Anglican. He would not want to repeat slander.

The man who was searching the crowd had stopped to speak to someone, someone who was pointing in my direction. “Please, Jack. I have to hear it.”

“They all agree that you do not live according to your station,” he continued gravely. “That you wander around on the moor half dressed. That you are so busy with your worms, you do not keep enough food in the house and have to send out to the public brew house, instead of brewing yourself as a gentlewoman should. They say you beat your maid with a holly stick when the worms died, which we all know is the foulest lie. But you know how it is?” he said apologetically. “Once this kind of thing gets a hold, it runs rife and twisted as bindweed.”

With some cultivation, most certainly. I saw Thomas now, standing by the spit roast, surveying the scene almost proprietorially. Someone who was integrated in this community, someone who had lived amongst the commoners all his life, so that he was accepted amongst them, someone who had led a near riot and carried everyone with him before; someone who still nursed his own vendetta against me, his own grievance. Thomas Knight, who had put words into these people’s mouths and incited them to speak against me. Thomas Knight, whose life I had saved, at risk of my own. Whose life I had begged Richard to spare.