The Passions of Emma (4 page)
The rest of the hunt had bunched in a tight group around the gate and the whale’s jawbone, unable to ignore the woman’s presence and ride through, and yet unsure of how to meet this sort of unpleasantness that had suddenly been thrust into their day. No one spoke or moved. It was as if they were all merely waiting for the woman to go away and take the messy business in her arms with her.
Their silent indifference didn’t defeat the woman; she seemed to feed off it. Her head came up proudly. Her eyes glittered brightly with tears and an inner fire.
“His name was Padraic,” she said. “Should any of you be wanting to know.”
Slowly, she turned and walked away from them. She staggered under the burden she carried, and once she stumbled, though she didn’t fall.
“Bad form, that,” Aloysius Carter said, when she had disappeared around a bend in the road. His thick bulk teetered slightly in the saddle as he bent over to slide the polished brass horn carefully back into its leather case. “Bringing a dead child to the hunt.”
Stuart Alcott emitted a crack of wild laughter. “Indeed. Only one carcass at a time, please.”
“For God’s sake, Stu,” his brother said.
Emma sent her mare cantering through the gate and into the yard. She kicked her foot out of the stirrup and jumped from the saddle without even waiting, as was proper, for a man’s arm to assist her. She was so cold. She had to get inside the house by a fire and get warm. She didn’t think she would ever be warm again.
Only a lifetime of rigorous training kept her from running across the yard. Still, she was walking so fast she had to lift the skirts of her habit high above her ankles.
“Miss Tremayne.”
Her name, spoken in that man’s rough, grating voice, startled her
so that she nearly stumbled over her own feet as she whirled to face him. She gasped when she saw what he had in his hand. What he was holding out to her as if it were a gift, like the woman had held out the dead child to Geoffrey.
so that she nearly stumbled over her own feet as she whirled to face him. She gasped when she saw what he had in his hand. What he was holding out to her as if it were a gift, like the woman had held out the dead child to Geoffrey.
His face, as he looked at her, bore no expression. Only his eyes were that same startling green she’d noticed about him the first time. She was used to admiration in a man’s gaze, but what was in this man’s eyes she had never seen before.
She was now so cold she was shivering; she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering.
“It’s forgetting your trophy, you are,” he said. The smile on his face was biting, not really a smile at all. “And here after all the trouble you’ve been at to get it.”
She shook her head no, and a small moan escaped her tight lips. She had wanted to make Geoffrey take the horrid thing back or to toss it away, but she hadn’t because . . . because in the world in which she lived, to refuse the honor of the brush just wasn’t done.
Yet, as cowardly as it had been for her not to refuse it in the first place, it would be even more cowardly of her not to take it now.
She took the brush from his outstretched hand, careful not to let her fingers come close to touching his, and made herself turn and walk slowly across the yard to the farmhouse as if she didn’t care.
When she got inside, she set the mangled fox tail with exquisite care on the marble shelf of the hall tree. She took her handkerchief and tried to wipe the blood off her hand-stitched ecru kid riding glove that had come all the way from Maison Worth in Paris. But although she rubbed and rubbed, the bright red stains wouldn’t come out.
Later that night, when she would go to put the gloves away in their satin-lined box, she would wonder how she’d gotten the little Irish bobbin boy’s blood on her hands, when she hadn’t been anywhere near him.
B
ethel Lane Tremayne cinched her lips together until they were as thin as a buttonhole. She hurried along the path that led to the old orangery, and with each tap of her heels on the cobbled stones her anger grew.
ethel Lane Tremayne cinched her lips together until they were as thin as a buttonhole. She hurried along the path that led to the old orangery, and with each tap of her heels on the cobbled stones her anger grew.
What an aggravation her daughter was. What a . . . what a . . . but she couldn’t think of a word
forceful
enough to describe the cross she had to bear that was her daughter Emma.
forceful
enough to describe the cross she had to bear that was her daughter Emma.
She didn’t like coming out to the old orangery. When the new conservatory had been built closer to the house, the old orangery had been allowed to fall into disuse. Emma had taken it over, and Bethel didn’t like to think about what her daughter did out here with her chisels and mallets and gritstones. It wasn’t proper, what she did. It was downright disgraceful, and yet there was no stopping her.
Not that Bethel hadn’t tried. She’d locked the girl up in the cellar with the rats and spiders; once she’d even had her tied down to the bed so that she could beat her back with a cane. Yet none of those punishments had done any good. In many ways Emma had always been as malleable and obedient a daughter as she ought to be. But in other ways she was every bit a Tremayne. There was a wildness in her, something untamable that frightened Bethel.
She had to stop as her breath caught suddenly, stabbing at her chest. Her corset stays gouged deep into her ribs. Her lungs felt starved for air. It was all Emma’s fault—that she had to rush about so, when she ought to be preserving her strength for the trying days and weeks and months that lay ahead.
First there were the betrothal visits to be faced. And then the betrothal ball—an event that would pale before the glory and fury of the wedding itself. Every moment of those days would be fraught with shoals of impropriety and social disaster, which would have to be navigated around with the utmost care and attention.
And it will all fall on my shoulders, Bethel thought. For she alone was now the keeper of the Tremayne name and reputation and traditions.
By the time she got to the orangery’s warped wooden door, Bethel had worked herself into such a state that she jerked on the latch hard enough to break a nail down to the quick. She gasped at the sting of pain. Then gasped again as the point of one of her whalebone stays poked her in the belly.
Then she gasped again, as she did every time she saw the inside of the old greenhouse.
It was no longer a repository for orange trees and orchids. Indeed, its main occupant now seemed to be a huge crane with pulleys and winches that Bethel had some vague idea were used to move the heavy blocks of stone and marble that filled one corner of the room.
Instead of the sweet perfume of exotic blossoms, the place smelled of wet clay, stone dust, and soldered metal. Once, the air inside here had been hot and moist. But not so today, for it was gray outside and many of the frosted glass panes were cracked or broken.
And there, bathed in the pale wash of light streaming through the broken windows, stood her daughter Emma.
The girl was bundled up against the chill in an old gray sweater
and a stained painter’s smock. She stared raptly at a heavy four-legged stand with a turn table top. In the middle of the stand sat a lump of yellow clay, which was held in place by a rusting iron frame.
and a stained painter’s smock. She stared raptly at a heavy four-legged stand with a turn table top. In the middle of the stand sat a lump of yellow clay, which was held in place by a rusting iron frame.
She couldn’t have taken up pastels or watercolors like other girls, Bethel thought. Oh, no. In a world where daughters were supposed to pass unremarked, her Emma fancied herself a sculptress.
“Emma!” Bethel said, her voice loud and sharp.
But she might have been speaking to one of the blocks of stone. All of the girl’s attention was focused on the mound of moist clay that was half-formed into a shape that looked, to Bethel, vaguely human. Except that it had no head.
Bethel was trying to imagine just what the thing was supposed to be, when her daughter picked up a spatula from off a table littered with stained rags and stroked the blade down . . . It was a leg, Bethel realized suddenly.
The leg of a naked man.
Bethel shrieked as a sharp pain pierced her chest. Twinkling lights danced like fireflies at the edges of her eyes, and the floor suddenly began to pitch and sway beneath her feet. The light pouring through the windows faded, faded, faded into darkness.
She opened her eyes as Emma was draping a wet cloth over her forehead. Her daughter was kneeling beside her, and she was lying on something . . . a filthy old green-striped chaise that was losing its ticking.
Bethel tried to sit up, but the world spun crazily. “What . . . ?”
“You fainted, Mama. You’ve had Jewell lace your corset too tightly again.”
“I did not.” Bethel swatted the girl’s hands away—hands, she noticed, that were stained with yellow clay. Her gaze went back to the headless, naked man. Even half-formed and decapitated there was no doubt of what it was, what
he
was. So blatantly . . .
masculine.
he
was. So blatantly . . .
masculine.
Bethel shut her eyes against the indecent sight of it. She wanted
to tell Emma to cover it up, but she would not even acknowledge its existence aloud.
to tell Emma to cover it up, but she would not even acknowledge its existence aloud.
“I’m going to loosen your laces,” she heard Emma say. “You’re huffing worse than a beached whale.”
Bethel pushed her daughter’s hands away again. “You are not to do so, for they aren’t the least bit too tight. At least they’re no tighter than they need to be. And I’m not
huffing.
What a wickedly ungracious thing to say to your mama.”
huffing.
What a wickedly ungracious thing to say to your mama.”
Bethel could hear the Georgia drawl in her own voice thickening like clotted cream. It always got worse when she became agitated. And she had the uncomfortable feeling she was creating a scene. Nothing was more ill-bred than scenes.
She took a deep breath to calm herself, and her stays stabbed into her sides again.
She made her face go all soft and wounded-looking. “You’ve simply no idea of the torment I go through to appear before the world as I ought. You, who’ve always been as skinny as a poor man’s chicken. Why, without my corset I would look like I’d up and swallowed a watermelon, and your father cannot abide fat women. You don’t know how many times I heard him say those very words, and I did try so not to let myself go. But then you children came along and . . .”
Her daughter had sat back on her heels and was staring at her with those changeling eyes. “You’re wrong in what you’re implying, Mama, and what’s more, I think you know it. Papa didn’t leave us because you had babies and your belly got a little plump.”
Bethel hauled back her hand and slapped her daughter so hard across the face the girl’s head rocked on her long, slender neck. But Bethel was the one who burst into tears.
“What did you go and make me do that for?” she cried, for nothing was worse form than a display of temper. “I declare, there are times when you are pure hateful to me. All my children have always been hateful to me.”
Emma brought a trembling hand up to her cheek. “Mama,
please, please, don’t lie to yourself anymore. Don’t lie to
us.
It was what happened to Willie that drove Papa away, what we . . . did.”
please, please, don’t lie to yourself anymore. Don’t lie to
us.
It was what happened to Willie that drove Papa away, what we . . . did.”
Bethel clapped her hands over her ears. “You hush up, hush up! I can’t bear to speak of that night. You know I can’t. Why, even just hearing you say his name is like a knife stabbing into my heart. And we did nothing. Nothing! It was Willie, Willie was the one. He shamed himself and he shamed the family.” She seized her daughter by the arms and shook her hard. “And don’t you look at me like that, don’t you dare. You think I don’t mourn him, but I do. I cry myself to sleep every night just thinking of my poor darling boy and what I’ve lost.”
Emma’s face was white, except for the livid mark on her cheek. “I think of him, too,” she said in a strained whisper. “Of what we did to him that night, of how we betrayed him, and I can’t bear it. If it didn’t take more courage to die than to go on living, I sometimes think . . .”
The unfinished threat hung, pulsing, in the air between them. Charged with accusation and recrimination, and a dark secret only the two of them shared. It must, Bethel thought, be the strain of the impending marriage that had precipitated the memories of that terrible night being brought out into the open, for they rarely spoke of it, hadn’t spoken of it in years.
And this was what came of it. This was what came of broaching aloud things better left to lie shrouded in silence.
“We’ll not speak of it anymore,” Bethel said.
Emma stared back at her with those impossible, unreadable eyes. “No, Mama.”
It was the way things were done in their world, and the knowledge brought Bethel comfort. The way things ought to be done. To ignore the unpleasant, to turn one’s face away from the disagreeable. And it was better this way—to carry on as if none of it had ever happened.
“We’ll never speak of it again,” she said.
“No, Mama.”
Bethel made a show of checking the chatelaine’s watch pinned to her waist. “Mercy sakes alive, will you just look at the time. We’re at home today, and here you are looking as though you’ve been raised like a hog in the woods. It will not do, Emma. You will return to the house this instant and change your frock. Put on the beige velvet tea gown.”
Emma pushed herself to her feet. Bethel could see the girl’s chest lift in a hard, hitched breath, although she made no sound. “Yes, Mama,” she said, but instead of obeying she went over to a big soapstone sink and began to prime the pump.
“This instant, Emma.”
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