Burnt Norton (13 page)

‘Yes, I believe Dorothy should come with me.’

‘Don’t be sad, Mama.’ Lizzie took her wrist, tracing the small blue veins with her fingers. ‘My life is here now; everything that I know is here. With my disability the change would be impossible. And Papa needs me; he can’t be left on his own.’ Dorothy realized that her fragile sister was the strongest of them all.

‘Darling Lizzie, I can bear it only if you promise to visit; to lose you would be my final punishment.’

‘I give you my word, Mama. You will not lose me, not for a while at any rate. The journey to Stratford is short, and when I am not with you I will think about you all the time.’ She held her mother’s hand. ‘Don’t cry. I’ll be content. Papa and I shall care for each other, and Lorenzo will bring me to you every single week. Please understand that I wish to finish my days at Norton.’

Her mother put her arms around Elizabeth, and as Dorothy looked at the two of them, she was filled with a sense of loss.

‘I’ll leave my two girls together,’ her mother said at last. ‘There is still so much to do.’

When she had gone, Elizabeth turned. ‘Dorothy, I’m not sure if this is the beginning of the end, or the start of the beginning.’

Mrs Wright stood inches from Molly’s face. Her mouth was a knot of resentment and delight. ‘The mistress is leaving, but she will see you before she goes. It’s reckoning time! Though you would deceive us with pretty airs, I was never fooled. Put the linen back on the shelves and hurry up about it.’

Molly followed her down the corridor to the winter sitting room.

‘Wait in there and leave your thieving hands in your pockets.’

Molly did as she was told.

Lady Keyt walked through the door towards her. Molly was struck by the change in her bearing. Her fluid grace had gone: her shoulders were rigid, and her mouth set in an ugly line. ‘Miss Johnson, have you anything to say?’ She looked at Molly, her eyes steely. ‘Can you tell me why you did this to us, when we have given you so much?’

Molly longed to explain. She had rehearsed it many times, but when the moment came, she could say nothing. Lady Keyt had suffered enough.

‘I don’t know, my lady,’ she replied.

‘I’m disappointed in you.’ The word hung in the air, more hurtful than any tirade. ‘You will have to leave; Luke will take you today. Did you spare a thought for our feelings, or were you so intent upon your own pleasure? Did you think you could gain advantage by sleeping with my husband?’

‘I’m sorry, my lady.’

Anger flared in her eyes. ‘Sorry for breaking up our home, our family? Sorry is a poor word for the suffering you have inflicted. Please get out of my sight.’

Molly ran up the stairs, past Ruth and Annie on the landing. She pulled down the small bag she had arrived with nearly three years before and filled it with the same clothes she had come with. She opened the cupboard. Several gowns now hung from the rail, all beautiful gifts from her employer. She caressed the soft satin, the fragile lace, the tiny stitching on a carefully mended hem. Pushing them aside she knelt down, her hands searching for the tattered silk, the soiled skirt. Lifting out the dress, she hung it up beside the others, the solitary evidence of the truth. Standing for a moment in the quiet room, the weak winter sun slanting through the windows’ diamond panes, she remembered a girl, just sixteen years of age. Her instinct had been sound. Now with only a torn piece of paper, an unread poem folded against her heart, she left the room.

She walked past the servants down the back steps. She kept her head high as she climbed into the cart.

After three hours of jolting over the rutted roads, the horse slowed to a clop. Molly pulled her shawl closely around her and rotated her stiffened back. Outside in the bleak Warwickshire countryside, black crows settled in the stark, leafless trees. Cattle huddled together around the hayricks, and farm workers trudged homewards with weary faces. Once she had dreaded leaving; now she dreaded coming home.

On the climb towards the Charter House she passed the familiar black and white cottages. When a child ran past, red ringlets falling below her fur bonnet, she remembered happier times, a girl who had danced around the maypole, who had eaten roasted apples with her friends. She remembered Lady Brooke with her marked face and disconcerting eyes. Creeping through the side door, she avoided her father. She climbed the stairs to the top of the house, to the room that was once her own. Throwing herself upon her old bed, she slept.

The next morning at Norton, Thomas sat beside his sister, his shoulders slumped. ‘I expect everyone in the county will know of this,’ he said.

‘Does it really matter?’ Elizabeth said. ‘They are not important.’

‘What an idiot I have been. For years I treasured the thought that our affection was mutual. What a blind, stupid fool.’

‘I am sure Molly had feelings for you. Every time your name was mentioned she looked uncomfortable. It is quite possible Papa noticed this too.’

‘Where is she, Lizzie?’

‘She left yesterday. Luke took her in the cart. Mother feels betrayed, but somehow I have my doubts about it all. Last week I was convinced she wanted to tell me something, to confide in me. I think it’s possible that Molly was the victim.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, but maybe by not revealing the truth, she was protecting our mother. I still feel certain that there is something intrinsically good about her.’

‘Do you think that Father took advantage of her?’

‘I have no knowledge of men, but I could not mistake the way he looked at her.’

‘Oh my God, what a fine man he is!’ Thomas guffawed. ‘What an example to us all!’

‘We can prove nothing, so you must put it behind you. Molly has gone, and it’s best for everyone.’

‘I wrote to her, but she never replied.’

‘How could she, Thomas, when she can neither read nor write?’

‘I never knew! The poor girl; there is so much I didn’t know about her, and I didn’t even ask.’

‘One day you will look back and see this as youthful passion.’

‘Perhaps. How wise you are, my beautiful sister.’

She sighed. ‘Wisdom from inexperienced lips.’

Dorothy overheard their conversation from the corridor outside Elizabeth’s room. She frowned, and walked on purposefully across the landing and down the back stairs. Undetected, she slipped through the study door, and for the last time she opened the drawer to find her father’s diary. It was not there. Frustrated, she rifled through his papers; he was trying to hide it from her, she knew he was. She found it at last hidden at the back of the bookcase. Triumphantly, she drew it out. She was looking for mention of Molly and then her eye fell upon a single entry scrawled across the page. It was from the day of the accident. You have taken my child. My God, why have you forsaken me? The biblical reference revealed his despair, and for a moment Dorothy wanted to comfort her father. These sentiments were short-lived when she found another entry.

I am obsessed, I can think of nothing else. She brings light into this hateful, sad world. Thomas will not take her from me.

She snapped the book closed, unable to breathe. She could not, would not, read another word. Any pity she had felt changed to rage. She stood up, her legs shaking, and walked to the door. Leaning against the architrave she wondered what inspired this infatuation. Why were both her father and brother obsessed with Molly Johnson? She was pretty without being beautiful. She was quick, but uneducated. In a moment of honesty it dawned upon Dorothy: Molly Johnson inspired happiness in others.

They were leaving Norton, the only home Dorothy had ever known. Two trunks remained on the floor, the nursery globe packed in its own wooden crate. She shut the larger trunk and sat on it, rocking to and fro.

Sometimes she had imagined a new beginning away from this house, away from her father, but now she cursed those dreams.

She would miss her beloved sister. Perhaps she would miss her father. Her feelings changed by the hour. That morning he had found her in Fidelia’s stall.

‘Your mother told me you’re going with her,’ he said. ‘Better take the horse; she’ll do no good without you.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ she replied, recognizing dejection in his eye.

He walked towards her as if to take her in his arms, but before he reached her he turned. ‘I must go.’

She could have thrown her arms around him, begged for reconciliation. Instead she cried into Fidelia’s mane.

And there was another reason for her anguish. Logic told her it was feminine weakness, but her heart said otherwise. This was Lorenzo, a man who was ten years older, and who came from a station far beneath her own. With a rueful smile, she remembered an incident the morning after his fall. She had gone to the kitchens with the intention of collecting some broth; the heat hit her as she opened the door. On the fire, two cauldrons of water bubbled fiercely and through the steam she could make out Annie, red-faced and sweating as she stirred the clothes.

Rose, the cook, looked up from the board where she was kneading a large piece of dough. ‘Sorry, miss, it’s washing day.’

‘Please, may I have some broth? I wish to take it to Lorenzo.’ Rose glanced at Ruth; Dorothy noted their surprise.

‘Here you are, miss. I think the doctor is with him now. Ruth could take it if you’d prefer?’

‘No, no thank you.’ She had taken the soup and dashed from the kitchens, slopping it along the way.

She entered the cottage just as the doctor was leaving. ‘You did good work with the bandage, Dorothy. Well done.’

She walked up the small stairway and knocked on the bedroom door. ‘It’s me, Lorenzo. I’ve brought you something to eat.’

Lorenzo was sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows. She remained standing near the entrance. ‘Come in,’ he replied, a look of astonishment on his face. For a moment they stared at each other, but finally she approached the bed. She thrust the tray into his hands and would have fled, but he caught her wrist.

‘Thank you, Dorothy,’ he said, dropping all formality.

‘It’s nothing,’ she replied, but it wasn’t. It was everything.

Dorothy shut the other trunk and went to the window. She looked out over the orchard, past the stew pond and the granary, the ice house and the dovecote. Hastings remained on her bed; his single eye looked at her accusingly, reminding her of her early childhood.

‘Father, will you buy me a rabbit for Christmas? I want a rabbit.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Dotty.’

That Christmas, Hastings had arrived.

‘Oh Father, I love him! He is much better than a real one. I will treasure him always.’

Now she glanced at the balding toy and left it on the bed, closing the door behind her.

That cold December morning was one of reminiscence. For as long as she could remember, the Christmas decorations were kept in the coffer in the hall. They came out the week before Christmas and were put away on Twelfth Night.

‘Dorothy, you’ll be hanging the angels, and John, you put the apples on the windowsill. The paint is dry, go on with you.’ She could remember their laughter as Miss Byrne fussed over them. When she was sent back to Ireland, Dorothy did the decorations with Thomas, but after he left for school, it was her solitary task. She picked up one of the ornamental apples and touched the fading golden paint, remembering a particular Christmas.

‘In Italy we call this a
presepio
,’ Lorenzo said, pulling the straw from a wooden crate. ‘Donald has carved the figures but I have painted them. At home we put them in the window for everyone to see. It is for you, Lady Keyt, for you and your family, as a thank-you for your kindness to a lonely Italian boy.’

Every year Dorothy would unpack the holy family, the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the cows and the little wooden donkeys, and every year it was her favourite part of the holiday.

Perhaps she had loved him even then.

She sat down at the harpsichord and lifted the lid. Picking out a few notes from one of the long-forgotten Christmas carols, she started to sing. The carol singers no longer came to Norton, and the little girl in the velvet dress had grown up, but her love of music was as strong as ever.

Her voice was tentative at first, but as her fingers sped across the keys, she lost herself in the melodies, her voice rich and full. When she had finished, she heard clapping.

‘That was lovely! How I shall miss it.’ Her sister was sitting in the corner.

‘You were so quiet, I didn’t hear you. Shall we sing something together?’

‘Do you remember that Celtic ballad Miss Byrne taught us?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘“The Wind and the Rain”?’

‘Yes,’ Dorothy replied, picking out the tune. ‘I think this is correct.’ Together they started to sing, their voices rising and falling together. They didn’t see their father standing in the doorway, his eyes wet with unshed tears.

When they finished Dorothy ran to her sister and hugged her. ‘There is the harpsichord at The College; it may not be as beautiful as this, but I will play for you every time you come, and we can sing together. I must go now, I can’t keep Mother waiting.’

‘Thank you, and don’t forget I shall write to you every day and think of you every minute. You are grown up and so very pretty. In no time at all you will be courted by all the young men of Stratford-upon-Avon and beyond. You must swear that you will tell me every little detail to keep me amused. Be sure that you look after Mother.’

‘I’ll try, but I will never be as kind as you.’

‘You are a good person, but you are headstrong and opinionated. Endeavour to think before plunging forward.’

‘I will strive for perfection, but with me I am afraid it’s not always possible.’ They laughed and she kissed her.

Thomas passed her on the stairs. ‘The coach will be outside shortly.’

Dorothy touched his arm. ‘Have you forgiven me?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ he said, smiling ruefully, ‘you only told me the truth, after all.’

Sir William watched from his window as the carriage and wagons, piled high with boxes and trunks, passed under the archway. His wife had done it. She had left him. He sat down and rubbed his head in his hands.