‘Anyway, they were all here – Fern, Tony and little Mandy – only I got called up to the house to help with Mr Gardiner-Hallow. He’d had one of his funny turns and for some reason he would always respond to me, so off I went. Course I had to take the kids with me, I couldn’t leave them on their own could I? I mean Fern was fourteen, but she was a feckless sort even then. Well, young Alex was home for the summer, he’s the Gardiner-Hallow’s nephew, quite famous now, you might even get to meet him while you’re here. Anyway me and Esther, she was the housekeeper then, we packed the kids off into the gardens and tried to sort Albert out. And that was that, next thing we knew Mandy was gone, disappeared into thin air. We searched the garden, we searched the house, we looked everywhere. When the police came we had the whole village and half the town out looking but we never found a thing. Except the cardigan, that was all that was left of her. It was a terrible, terrible thing, tore poor Shirley apart. See, Mandy was her only one, –Tony and Fern are her step-kids. I got the shock of my life when I found out she had Brodie, she must have been forty if she was a day, and her on her own by then too! Course I wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with them by then because she blamed me, I was in charge.’
Elaine didn’t know what to say to make the old woman feel better, ‘You can’t watch kids all the time, you mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said gently.
Miriam sighed and shook her head, ‘It’s a good job I never had any of my own, lord knows what would have happened. I’d have liked to though, still… it wasn’t to be.’
‘Did you ever marry?’ Elaine seized the chance to steer the conversation into more comfortable waters.
Miriam hauled herself up, groaning with the effort, ‘Nearly, once. I was engaged, lovely chap he was. Peter Handley’ she said, a beatific smile smoothing the creases of her face, making her look almost young again. ‘But he broke it off the week before the wedding.’
Elaine was saddened by this. Miriam struck her as a woman who would have thrived on a diet of marriage and motherhood. ‘That’s terrible, did you ever find out why?’
Miriam paused, a single snow-white towel in her hand, which she stroked thoughtfully. ‘I did. Esther decided that it was her Christian duty to tell him that I wasn’t pure – he was getting damaged goods.’
Elaine was profoundly shocked, she was aware that all this had happened a long time ago but surely that kind of Victorian high morality had waned by then. ‘That’s awful, why would she do such a thing?’
Miriam looked away, busily picking up the rest of the towels. ‘It was different back then, people were different back then, especially here in the country. Esther was a very proud woman, a good woman… but she didn’t understand too much about how people tick.’ Miriam paused and let out a weary sigh, ‘I suppose she thought she was doing the right thing’
Elaine couldn’t accept that, surely ruining another’s prospects was never the right thing. She thought about making a case for Esther’s guilt but the look on Miriam’s face told her that she would be better off holding her tongue.
They stood in silence for a moment, all actions interrupted, all movement suspended by their thoughts.
Miriam shook her head, snapping herself out of her reverie. ‘Anyway, I must get on. By the way, what happened to the mantel clock? I came in to dust earlier and it’s gone.’
Elaine felt a sudden flush of embarrassment, ‘Oh, sorry, don’t worry I haven’t broken it. It’s just that the ticking and the chimes get on my nerves so I put it in the cupboard under the stairs. Sorry.’
‘Oh, I like a loud tick on a clock, very soothing I find, oh well never mind. I’ll put it back when you’ve gone otherwise her ladyship will think you stole it!’ she laughed.
Elaine lingered in the bedroom long after Miriam had gone, her hand resting on the crisp white linen that adorned the bed. She inhaled, drawing in the aroma of wind, sun and good fresh air that mingled with the soap that Miriam had diligently sealed into the fabric with a hot iron. It was the smell of hard work and pride, of devotion to duty, of living a small life and finding satisfaction in the little things.
*
Miriam made her way back to her own cottage, carrying in her arms the linen from Elaine’s bed and trailing the dirty linen of the past in her wake. The girl’s questions had stirred old and painful memories. It had never been Miriam’s fault that lads had preferred her to Esther, and it hadn’t been her fault that she’d failed to grasp the facts of life. Even at the age she was now she had never quite grasped what birds and bees had to with it and why no one had told her at sixteen that babies didn’t come by stork. They came by fear, pain and shame. She didn’t want to dwell on that, there were some rocks that were better never turned, and what crawled beneath that one didn’t bear thinking about.
The pain of Peter’s rejection had never left her but had become a familiar ache. Sometimes it was almost comforting, an indication that she had once been loved. Esther had said that she did what she did as an act of love, that truth was love. Miriam had never quite believed it. Esther’s idea of love had always been such a strident thing and too black and white for the real world. Miriam had often wondered if Esther’s sensibilities were founded more in jealousy and possession than in love.
Esther could never have married; she would have seen the expectation of intimacy, the mutual need, as an affront. Even now, trapped in her dysfunctional body, she resented need. Miriam could see it and feel it, coming off her sister in waves of discontent. Esther had always done the right thing, as she saw it, and was bitter that God had seen fit to reward her by incarcerating her in a flesh and bone prison. She had never said that, but it was what Miriam saw every time she looked into Esther’s eyes – fear and resentment.
When she looked back, Miriam was sure that’s what had made Esther send Peter away, that and an over-entitled sense of morality. Fear that she would have to relinquish control over her sister in favour of a man, and resentment that she would never have a similar choice. Miriam had enduring faith in the premise that the mills of God would grind slow, but they would grind sure. There was no room for bitterness, only duty. Miriam’s duty to care for her sister was a cold dish, served with every bit of sisterly love she could muster. It was Miriam’s pleasure to offer her care, and Esther’s detestation to receive it.
*
At six o’clock Elaine heard a noise outside the door, a slight shuffling as if someone was hovering and hesitating. Knowing it couldn’t be Brodie or Miriam – who would both have just knocked and walked in – she waited a moment, reluctant to open the door to someone unknown. When she was certain that no one was lurking, she opened the door and discovered to her revulsion that her stealthy visitor had left a dead rabbit on her doorstep. Had Jean’s ashes not accompanied the corpse she would have felt deeply afraid. An anonymous gift of carrion was hardly likely to be a good thing, but the presence of the urn reassured her that this was Derry’s idea of a favour.
‘The gift of death’ she said aloud as she put Jean on a shelf in the porch.
Using a carrier bag turned inside out as a glove, she bent to retrieve the rabbit. Her lip curled at the feel of its cold flesh through the plastic and with a shudder of revulsion she picked it up. Holding it before her, the bag swinging from the very tips of her fingers, she walked over to Miriam’s cottage and knocked on the kitchen door. Miriam struck her as a woman who would know exactly what to do with the thing.
*
Miriam seemed pleased with the donation, even offering to demonstrate how the animal could be skinned and prepared for cooking.
