Виктория Холт - Beyond the blue Mountains

And well she might laugh, for he was a fool indeed. He had only to look into Kitty's eyes to see what a fool, for her guilt was there and she made no attempt to hide it. What was this she was saying? He could not hear properly because his blood was pounding on his eardrums, but he grasped its import.

"We loved each other. It was so right... And then the press gang took him from me ... We should have been so happy ..." He shrieked at her: "I'll kill you for this!" And he would have killed her if he had not felt so miserably brokenhearted.

She said: "Please, George ... I was wrong ... I was wicked. But I will try, if only... There is the little baby to think of...”

He pushed her from him, and she fell onto the bed and lay there staring up at the terrible line of his mouth and the red tinge in what should have been the whites of his eyes.

He said: "So that was why you agreed to marry me, Madam!" He laughed and his laughter was horrible to her ears.

She hated him; and she hated herself for not hating more violently the last weeks during which he had been her lover. She answered with spirit, just as Bess would have answered: "Why else should I have married you!”

He had his riding-whip in his hand now; he thought of beating the life out of her for what she had done to him. He would take her life, for she and Bess between them had taken all that mattered in his.

He saw himself as a complacent fool; and later, people would know, and they would whisper together and laugh at him.

"Poor Squire! Caught proper, he were!" His own people laughing at him! He was going to kill her; he would beat the life out of her.

He let out a string of epithets, but his voice broke suddenly. He was afraid that he was going to blubber just as though he were a schoolboy; there was nothing to be done but get out quickly.

He strode from the room.

They were all going to pay a visit to the rectory.

Charles said: "Jennifer, must we take that silly little Carolan?”

Carolan made a face at Charles, for it was safe to do so since his back was turned to her. Charles was eleven almost a man; Carolan was only five quite a baby by Charles's standards; even Margaret thought her very young.

Carolan struggled with her sash; Jennifer never helped her to dress; she would come along afterwards and do up a button perhaps; then she would say: "I do declare you are a little slut!" And she would repeat the word slut, as though it gave her pleasure. And Carolan would retreat a pace or two and grimace at Jennifer, for grimaces were her only method of registering defiance, she being so small and 'they so big. Sometimes Jennifer merely laughed and said: "Go on! Make yourself uglier than you already are!" Sometimes though she would fly into a sudden rage and slap Carolan's face or beat her with a slipper.

Margaret and Charles were talking about Everard, who was twelve and wonderful. Everard must be very good, thought Carolan, for one day he was to be a parson like his father. He was taller than Charles, and he had kind eyes; and although he never took much notice of Carolan, he had never called her silly or a baby; he had never pushed her nor pulled her hair nor teased her about being afraid of darkness. Carolan was tormented so much that she felt quite a fondness for people who ignored her. Mamma was the only person whom she could really trust; Margaret next, she supposed, only she never knew when Margaret, even after a show of friendship, would say: "Oh, go away. You are such a baby!" And if there was one thing Carolan hated more than the dark it was being called a baby. Mamma sometimes said: "My baby!" but that was a secret between them and it did not hurt at all; it just meant that Mamma was her mother, and once she, Carolan, had been her mother's baby. Why, perhaps dignified Mrs. Orland called Everard her baby sometimes. She laughed at the thought.

"Here!" said Charles.

"Are you laughing at me?" He caught her arm and dug his nails into her skin; he was rough, Charles was: he could not pass her without pushing her aside; when he touched her it was like a blow. He has the eyes of a pig! she thought.

"No," she said with dignity, "I was not laughing at you." That's lucky for you!" He put his face close to hers.

"Do you know what I would do to you if you had been laughing at me?”

"No," she said, and she was filled with a morbid desire to know what he would do.

"I would beat you till the blood ran." said Charles.

"Then I would cut you into little pieces and tie you in a parcel and send you to our stepmamma.”

Silly! thought Carolan. As if he could! Now, if he had said he would creep into her room at night and pretend he was a ghost, he would really have frightened her.

"They would hang you on a gibbet if you did!" she said. He pulled at her sash, which she had tied at great pains, and it fell to the floor.

Jennifer came over.

"Good gracious me!" said Jennifer.

"What are you doing with your sash? A nice state you will be in, Miss!

And talking of gibbets at your age!" Jennifer slapped Carolan's face, not roughly, just insultingly.

"Come here... baby!”

Charles retreated, grinning, satisfied that he had left his victim in the hands of a more subtle torturer.

"Stand still! Or I swear I'll put you to bed and call the squire up to whip you.”

That started a train of thought in Carolan's mind. Why did Jennifer always say "Your papa' to Charles and Margaret, and The squire' to her?

It was something to do with that mystery she had never been able to solve. She could never resist trying to find out.

Jennifer why is Charles my stepbrother and Margaret my stepsister?”

Jennifer was never angry at such questions; Carolan was yet to learn that she provoked them.

"Stepbrothers and sisters have not the same papa or mamma.”

Carolan stood on one leg and considered this.

"My mamma is not their mamma!" she said, pointing at Charles and then at Margaret, who at that moment came into the room.

"Silly!" said Margaret.

"You know your mamma is not our mamma!”

"But is papa my papa then?" Carolan's wide green eyes looked eagerly at Jennifer.

"Do I have to tell you again to stand still, Miss Impudent? I shall tell the squire I really cannot cope with all your impertinence. They shall go away.”

Carolan looked hopeful, and Jennifer put her face close to Carolan's and said: "And you will have a new nurse who will not let you share Margaret's room, but put you in a dark room all by yourself.”

Carolan was silent with horror. She had never known anyone who could convey so much as Jennifer could in a few seemingly commonplace words.

Margaret said: "Oh, Carolan's a silly baby; she is scared of the dark!”

Margaret did not mean to be unkind like the others did; she was merely stating a fact.

"She is afraid of ghosts and hobgoblins," chanted Charles.

Jennifer, pretending to take Carolan's part, said: "Well, in a house like this where so many people have died there is bound to be a ghost or two.”

"Are there ghosts at the rectory?" asked Margaret.

"I shall ask Everard. Everard would know.”

The door opened then and Mamma came in; her eyes went straight to Carolan, just as though the others were not there. Carolan ran to her and flung her arms round her neck.

"Carolan... Miss." cried Jennifer in reproach. But Jennifer could say what she liked now. Mamma was soft and warm and smelt sweetly.

"So you are going to see Everard, darling?”

"Yes, Mamma. How nice you smell. You come too.”

"No, I cannot do that, but you shall tell me all about it when you come back.”

Carolan kept her arms round her mother's neck, and laughed with pleasure. Over her daughter's brown head with reddish tints in it, Kitty looked fearfully at Jennifer Jay.

Is she unkind to Carolan? wondered Kitty. It was not easy to know. Of course there had to be certain corporal punishment for all children, and especially for a high-spirited child such as Carolan who could at times be very naughty. But was she really unkind?

"Come, Miss!" said Jennifer.

"The carriage will be here at any moment.”

"Yes, Carolan, you must go.”

How I wish, thought Kitty, that I could get rid of that woman! She knew now that she ought to have got rid of her years ago, before Carolan was born before George had known that Carolan was going to be born. It would have been easy then. But now Jennifer was back in the position she had occupied when Amelia was alive; it amused George to give Jennifer a certain influence in this house. It was a way of humiliating Kitty as she. to the knowledge of the whole neighbourhood, had humiliated him.

When she was in the nursery Kitty was full of love for little Carolan.

Such a lovely creature with her brown hair that glinted quite red in the sunshine, and whose wide green eyes were alert with interest in everything that went on around her. She had a heart-shaped face and a sweet mouth that was going to be rather like Kitty's own; she had charm and appeal which Charles and Margaret, good-looking as they were, lacked. The years had left a certain mark on Kitty. She was modishly dressed almost showily; indeed there were those in the county and among them her Aunt Harriet who thought her fast, flamboyant a characteristic which displayed itself in her clothes. But the squire liked to see her thus, so there was a handsome enough dress allowance. She had a French maid, Therese, and a little black boy, Sambo, whom she petted. She spent a good deal of time before her mirror, while Therese tried new hair styles and discussed clothes. Once George, coming into her room suddenly and seeing her before her mirror with Therese combing her hair and the black boy sitting at her feet eating sweetmeats, had said: "You were born a harlot, Kitty." and he dismissed Therese and the boy and made love to her there and then. She was so angry that she fought him, and he seemed to like that; but now she was indifferent to his humiliations. He did things like that, getting great satisfaction from them. Openly he lived with Jennifer. He was the same squire who had always been chasing the prettiest village girls, for he had lost his dreams of becoming the perfect squire, and when he remembered them he blamed Kitty and tried to hurt her. She was impregnable. At first she had had Carolan, and Carolan had been all-sufficing; how she had loved the little girl with the dainty hands and feet and the wide wondering eyes! She had bathed her and powdered her, and lived for her. But motherhood could only be a secondary emotion with Kitty, and there were lovers. First there was the young son of a neighbouring squire, who had reminded her of Darrell because he was so gentle and grateful.