The Lie Tree (2 page)

Oh, but I cannot. I must not give way to
that.

In Faith’s mind, it was always
that.
She never gave it another name, for fear of yielding it yet more power over her.
That
was an addiction, she knew that much.
That
was something she was always giving up, except that she never did.
That
was the very opposite of Faith as the world knew her. Faith the good girl, the rock. Reliable, dull,
trustworthy Faith.

It was the unexpected opportunities that she found hardest to resist. An unattended envelope with the letter peeping out, clean and tantalizing. An unlocked door. A careless conversation,
unheeding of eavesdroppers.

There was a hunger in her, and girls were not supposed to be hungry. They were supposed to nibble sparingly when at table, and their minds were supposed to be satisfied with a slim diet too. A
few stale lessons from tired governesses, dull walks, unthinking pastimes. But it was
not
enough. All knowledge – any knowledge – called to Faith, and there was a delicious,
poisonous pleasure in stealing it unseen.

Right now, however, her curiosity had a focus and an urgent edge. At that very moment, her father and Uncle Miles might be talking about the Beetle Man, and the reasons for the family’s
sudden exodus.

‘Mother . . . may I walk on the deck a little while? My stomach . . .’ Faith almost made herself believe her own words. Her insides were indeed churning, but with excitement, not the
boat’s jarring lurches.

‘Very well – but do not answer anyone who talks to you. Take the umbrella, be careful not to fall overboard, and come back before you catch a chill.’

As Faith paced slowly alongside the rail, the faltering drizzle drumming on her umbrella, she admitted to herself that she was giving in to
that
again. Excitement pumped dark wine
through her veins and sharpened all her senses to painful edges. She wandered slowly out of sight of Myrtle and Howard, then dawdled, acutely aware of each glance directed her way. One by one these
gazes wearied of her and slid off once more.

Her moment came. Nobody was looking. She sidled quickly across the deck and lost herself among the crates that clustered at the base of the boat’s shuddering, discoloured funnel. The air
tasted of salt and guilt, and she felt alive.

She slipped from one hiding place to another, keeping her skirts gathered close so that they did not flare in the wind and betray her location. Her broad, square feet, so clumsy when anybody
tried to fit them for fashionable shoes, settled silently on the boards with practised deftness.

Between two crates she found a hiding place from which she could see her father and uncle a mere three yards away. Seeing her father without being seen felt like a special sacrilege.

‘To flee my own home!’ exclaimed the Reverend. ‘It smacks of cowardice, Miles. I should never have let you persuade me to leave Kent. And what good will our departure do?
Rumours are like dogs. Flee from them and they give chase.’

‘Rumours are dogs indeed, Erasmus.’ Uncle Miles squinted through his pince-nez. ‘And they hunt in packs, and on sight. You needed to leave society for a while. Now that you are
gone, they will find something else to chase.’

‘By creeping away under cover of darkness, Miles, I have
fed
these dogs. My departure will be used in evidence against me.’

‘Perhaps it will, Erasmus,’ answered Uncle Miles with unusual seriousness, ‘but would you rather be judged here on a remote island by a couple of sheep farmers, or in England
among persons of consequence? The Vane Island excavation was the best excuse I could find for your departure, and I remain glad that you chose to accept my arguments.

‘Yesterday morning that article in the
Intelligencer
was read out at breakfast tables all over the country. If you had stayed, you would have forced your entire circle to decide
whether they would support or snub you, and the way rumour has been spreading you might not have liked the decisions they would have made.

‘Erasmus, one of the most widely read and respected newspapers in the nation has decried you as a fraud and a cheat. Unless you want to subject Myrtle and the children to all the barbs and
trials of scandal, you cannot return to Kent. Until your name is clear, nothing good awaits any of you there.’

A fraud and a cheat.

The words buzzed in Faith’s head as she continued her damp promenade, staring distractedly at the passing islands. How could anybody suspect
her father
of fraud? His bleak and
terrible honesty were the plague and pride of the family. You knew where you stood with him, even if where you stood was within the blizzard of his disapproval. And what did Uncle Miles mean by
‘fraud’ anyway?

By the time she returned to the shelter of the saloon, Uncle Miles and her father were back in their seats. Faith sat down on the snake crate again, unable to meet anyone’s eye.

Uncle Miles squinted at a rain-spotted almanac through his pince-nez, for all the world as if the family really were on holiday, then peered out across the seascape.

‘There!’ He pointed. ‘
That
is Vane.’

The approaching island did not look large enough at first, but Faith soon realized that it was drawing up to them end on, like a boat with a tapering prow. Only as the ferry navigated around the
island and began travelling down its longer flank could Faith see how much larger it was than the rest of the shoal. Great black waves shattered themselves against the deep brown cliffs, throwing
up wild arcs of foam.

Nobody lives here
, was her first thought.
Nobody could ever live here by choice. It must be where the outcasts live. Criminals, like the convicts in Australia. And people running
away, like us.

We are exiles. Perhaps we will have to live out here forever.

They passed pitted headlands and deep coves where solitary buildings skulked along the shoreline. Then the ferry slowed, turning laboriously with a churn of water to enter a deeper bay with a
harbour ringed about by a high wall, and beyond that ascending rows of blank-eyed houses, slate roofs slicked with rain. Dozens of little fishing boats tilted and shrugged, their cat’s
cradles of ropes ghostly in the mist. The gulls became deafening, all squabbling with the same broken note. There was motion on the ferry, a communal letting out of breath and readying of
luggage.

The rain became fierce again just as the ferry came to rest beside the quay. Amid the shouting, rope-throwing and manoeuvring of gangplanks, Uncle Miles dropped coins into a couple of palms, and
the Sunderly luggage was manhandled ashore.

‘The Reverend Erasmus Sunderly and family?’ A thin man in a black coat stood drenched on the quay, water spilling off the broad brim of his hat. He was clean-shaven, with a pleasant,
worried sort of face, currently a little blue from the cold. ‘Mr Anthony Lambent sends his compliments.’ He bowed formally and handed over a rather damp letter. As he did so, Faith
noticed the tight-fitting white stock round his neck and realized that he was a priest like her father.

Faith’s father read the letter, then gave a nod of approval and extended his hand.

‘Mr . . . Tiberius Clay?’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Clay shook him respectfully by the hand. ‘I am the curate on Vane.’ Faith knew that a curate was a sort of under-priest, hired to help out a rector or
vicar that had too many parishes or too much work. ‘Mr Lambent asked me to apologize on his behalf. He wished to meet you himself, but the sudden rain . . .’ Clay grimaced up at the
leaden clouds. ‘The new holes are in danger of filling up with water, so he is making sure that everything is covered. Please, sir – will you permit me to have some men assist with your
luggage? Mr Lambent has sent his carriage to take you and your family and belongings to Bull Cove.’

The Reverend did not smile, but his murmured acquiescence was not without warmth. The curate’s formality of manner had clearly won his approval.

The family were drawing looks, Faith was sure of it. Had the mysterious scandal reached Vane already? No, it was probably just the fact that they were strangers, loaded down with absurd amounts
of luggage. Subdued murmurs around them caught her ear, but she could make no sense of them. They seemed to be a mere soup of sound with no consonants.

With difficulty, the Sunderly luggage was arranged into an ungainly and alarming tower on the roof of the large but weathered carriage and strapped into place. There was just enough room for the
curate to squeeze inside with the Sunderly family. The carriage set off, jouncing over the cobbles and making Faith’s teeth vibrate.

‘Are you a natural scientist, Mr Clay?’ asked Myrtle, gamely ignoring the growl of the wheels.

‘In present company, I can but claim to be a dabbler.’ Clay gave the Reverend a small, damp bow. ‘However, my tutors at Cambridge did succeed in hammering a little geology and
natural history into my thick skull.’

Faith heard this without surprise. Many of her father’s friends were clergymen who had stumbled into natural science in the same way. Gentlemen’s sons destined for the Church were
sent to a good university, where they were given a respectable, gentlemanly education – the classics, Greek, Latin and a little taste of the sciences. Sometimes that taste was enough to leave
them hooked.

‘My chief contribution to the excavation is as a photographer – it is a pursuit of mine.’ The curate’s voice brightened at the mention of his hobby. ‘Alas, Mr
Lambent’s draughtsman had the misfortune to break his wrist on the first day, so my son and I have been recording the discoveries with my camera.’

The carriage headed out of the little ‘town’, which to Faith’s eyes looked more like a village, and climbed a rugged, zigzag lane. Every time the carriage jolted, Myrtle
clutched nervously at the window frame, making everyone tense.

‘That edifice out on the headland is the telegraph tower,’ remarked Clay. Faith could just make out a broad, dingy brown cylinder. Shortly afterwards a small church with a tapering
spire passed on the left. ‘The parsonage is just behind the church. I do hope that you will do me the honour of calling in for tea while you are on Vane.’

The carriage seemed to be struggling with the hill, creaking and rattling so badly Faith expected a wheel to fall off. At last it juddered to a stop and there was a sharp double rap on the
roof.

‘Excuse me.’ Clay opened the door and climbed out. An animated conversation ensued above, in a blend of English and French that Faith’s untrained ear could not disentangle.

Clay’s face appeared in the doorway again, his face drawn with distress and concern.

‘My most profuse apologies. It seems that we have a dilemma. The house you have leased is in Bull Cove, which can only be reached by a low road that follows the shoreline, or by the high
track that passes over the ridge and down the other side. I have just learned that the low road is flooded. There is a breakwater, but when the tide is high and the breakers fierce . . .’ He
crinkled his forehead and cast an apologetic glance towards the lowering sky.

‘I assume that the high road is a longer and more wearisome journey?’ Myrtle asked briskly, with one eye on the morose Howard.

Clay winced. ‘It is . . . a very steep road. Indeed, the driver informs me that the horse would not be equal to it with this carriage in its, ah, current state of burden.’

‘Are you suggesting that we will have to get out and
walk?
’ Myrtle stiffened, and her small, pretty chin set.

‘Mother,’ whispered Faith, sensing an impasse, ‘I have my umbrella, and I do not mind walking a little—’

‘No!’ snapped Myrtle, just loud enough to make Faith’s face redden. ‘If I am to become mistress of a new household, I will not make my first appearance looking like a
drowned rat. And neither will you!’

Faith felt a rising tide of frustration and anger twisting her innards. She wanted to shout,
What does it matter? The newspapers are tearing us to pieces right now – do you really
think people will despise us more if we are wet?

The curate looked harassed. ‘Then I fear the carriage will need to make two journeys. There is an old cabin nearby – a lookout point for spotting sardine shoals. Perhaps your boxes
could be left there until the carriage can return for them? I would be happy to stay and watch over them.’

Myrtle’s face brightened gratefully, but her answer was cut off by her husband.

‘Unacceptable,’ Faith’s father declared. ‘Your pardon, but some of these boxes contain irreplaceable flora and fauna that I
must
see installed at the house as
soon as possible, lest they perish.’

‘Well, I am quite happy to wait in this cabin and spare the horse
my
weight,’ declared Uncle Miles.

Clay and Uncle Miles dismounted, and the family’s personal trunks and chests were unloaded one by one, leaving only the specimen crates and boxes on the roof. Even then the driver stared
at the way the carriage hung down, grimacing and gesturing to indicate it was still too low.

Faith’s father made no move to step out and join the other men.

‘Erasmus—’ began Uncle Miles.

‘I must remain with my specimens,’ the Reverend interrupted him sharply.

‘Perhaps we could leave just one of your crates behind?’ enquired Clay. ‘There is a box labelled “miscellaneous cuttings” which is much heavier than the
rest—’

‘
No
, Mr Clay.’ The Reverend’s answer was swift and snow-cold. ‘That box is of
particular
importance.’

Faith’s father glanced at his family, his eyes cool and distant. His gaze slid over Myrtle and Howard, then settled on Faith. She flushed, knowing that she was being assessed for weight
and importance. There was a dipping sensation in her stomach, as if she had been placed in a great set of scales.

Faith felt sick. She could not wait for the mortification of hearing her father voice his decision.

She did not look at her parents as she stood up unsteadily. This time Myrtle said nothing to stop her. Like Faith, she had heard the Reverend’s silent decision and had turned meekly to toe
the invisible line.