stomach. No man was ever to do to me what I had seen in those disgusting pictures. But even then, part of me was acknowledging the truth of what was being shown to me. Forgotten images were remembered: Elsie the kitchen maid and Robert the under-gardener looking red-faced and untidy when I walked in on them in the empty stables, Edward being teased over Flora Parker until he blushed crimson and hurried from the room, Nanny hushing my questions about the bull.
Information was sliding greasily into place and locking together to make a truth.
‘No …’ I looked at Richard.
He grinned back, ‘Oh, yes. And then your stomach will grow and grow and one day a baby will come out. The chaps at school told me.’ He spoke conversationally and completely without malice.
My eyes filled with tears and I felt sandwiches and cake threatening to return.
‘I say, Hetty, old girl. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He made a move towards me, concern on his face.
I turned and ran from the library, the scent of lavender polish sticking in my throat.
‘Wait Hetty! Hetty I’m sorry! I just thought it would be a wheeze.’
I found myself in the summer house, the old refuge. It was intensely cold and I could see my breath making clouds in the frigid air. I wrapped my arms around myself and began to rock to and fro.
What was the connection between what had been happening to me and those pictures? At some deep level the links were forcing themselves to be made; there had to be a connection. Was that what it meant to be a woman? If so, I wanted no more of this adulthood. I yearned to be a child. I yearned for my long-lost mother. Tears began to drip down my face and I hid it in my pinafore.
After a time, and when my tears had dried, I heard a sound outside. The sound of footsteps. I froze, willing them to go away.
‘Henrietta – Hetty – are you in there?’
It was Edward. Of all people, I could face him the least.
I stayed still, my face hidden in my skirts, like an animal gone to ground.
‘Hetty, there you are! Richard said you had been taken ill.’ A relieved-sounding Edward came into the summer house. ‘We’ve all been looking for you. Come back to the house, you’ll catch your death of cold out here.’ He sat down on the crumbling bench beside me. ‘Hetty, are you unwell?’
I remained silent, but my shoulders began to heave again. I felt a tentative hand on my arm and shrank away.
I heard Edward sigh. ‘Look, if you won’t come back into the house, shall I fetch the aunts, or your father? Only,’ he paused and then went miserably on, ‘Richard said something about a book? Some pictures? He said they frightened you? If it is what I think it is, I think it better the aunts don’t know.’
I heard no little anger in his voice and raised my wretchedly tear-stained face to look at him for the first time. ‘I saw –’ and then had to stop.
Edward’s face tightened with anger and he nodded. ‘I thought as much. When I get my hands on that little so-and-so I’ll thrash him until he can’t sit down. The little –’ he bit off what he was about to say with another look at me.
I found my voice at last. ‘Richard didn’t mean to upset me. He thought it was a joke.’ I wiped my damp face with my pinafore and shivered.
‘When will that boy ever learn to think before he acts?’ Edward said it softly. He shrugged off his jacket and laid it gently over my shoulders. It was heavy and made of rough tweed, but warm from his body. He cleared his throat. ‘Erm, so, what do you know?’
I looked at him in panic. He blushed and became very busy lighting a cigarette.
‘You know, it really ought to be your father or Nanny or Aunt Hester talking to you.’
I shook my head and hid it back in my skirts.
Edward sighed again, even more loudly. ‘But, as it seems to be me in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps I ought to tell you.’
I sneaked a look at him. He was concentrating fiercely on his cigarette. His nose turning pink with cold.
‘I should quite like it to be you.’ I said in a tiny voice, hardly believing my own daring.
He coughed slightly and put a hand through his hair, making it stand up in comic fashion. ‘Oh Lord,’ he groaned.
‘Please tell me Edward,’ I said, ‘I think it might be better to know it all than some of it. It might make it seem less frightening.’
Edward shook his head.
‘Father always says if one wants to know something one should ask questions.’ I straightened my back and took comfort that Edward’s discomfort seemed even greater than mine.
He gave a little nod, as if a decision had been made and smiled at me through the blue tobacco smoke. ‘And your father is a great scientist, a very learned man. Well, shall we be scientists? Shall you begin with a question, little Hetty?’
And so I did. And Edward, in halting fashion and with many blushes, told me of what to expect on my wedding night. He told me the simple biological facts at first, but then, as he elaborated, I became more and more fascinated, my natural curiosity taking over.
‘But it looked so, so violent in those pictures. As if they were killing one another, not loving one another!’ I thought back to the images with this new information whirling around my brain. It was at once repellent and fascinating.
Edward shifted on the bench and there was a long pause. ‘Well, I understand it can take one like that.’ He looked at the gathering darkness outside. ‘But remember, Hetty, it is for people who love one another very much. And sometimes love takes many forms, sometimes it is passionate. And that passion can seem like violence.’
I looked at him, sitting in the cold, shivering openly and being so brave for my sake. I wondered, perhaps, if he were thinking of the beautiful Flora Parker. ‘Have you, have you ever –’ I began.
‘Good Lord, Hetty, the questions you do ask.’ He lit another cigarette with trembling fingers and made much of flicking away the match. I had my answer. It satisfied me.
‘Richard says I am to marry you and you will take my money to rebuild the house.’
Edward turned, a startled look on his homely face. ‘Richard is a –.’ Here he said a filthy word and the oath came out violently. He sucked deeply on his cigarette and there was a long pause. ‘Sorry, Hetty. Forgot myself. You know our family has little money.’ He gazed around at the shabby summer house, full of hints of lost glory. ‘And it would take a great fortune to restore Delamere. More than you have, I am sure.’ He smiled. ‘If you would like to marry me, then so be it. But that is for many years from now. And we have all the time in the world to decide. Come along, we must go back to the house, they will be wondering where we are and it is bitter in here!’
He held out his hand to me and I stared up at his face in a daze. I had hardly known Edward before today. This strange little interlude in the summer house had convinced me of one thing: he might not be as much devilish fun as Richard, but he was an infinitely kinder person.
