The Lie Tree (8 page)

Faith could sense her mother making rapid judgements. Everyone had their place on an invisible ladder. It was easy to know that dukes were high above you, and chambermaids far below. But there
were thousands of rungs, some at tiny differences in height, and Myrtle always wanted to judge everyone’s level to a fraction of an inch.

Myrtle’s blue gaze flitted quickly over the room and its occupants. Mrs Lambent sounded as English as the Sunderlys, but the other ladies’ murmurs of greeting had displayed the local
accent. The local ladies’ dresses were of good quality, but not quite up to date. Most of them were clearly wearing bell-shaped full crinolines, a style that had been fashionable a couple of
years before. Myrtle, on the other hand, wore the very latest flat-fronted ‘half-crinoline’.

With an inner wince Faith saw Myrtle sweeping forward confidently and dropping curtseys that were polite but a little condescending. She could see that her mother was claiming a position only a
little lower than Mrs Lambent, and slight superiority to the other ladies. Perhaps they were important ladies on this island, but they were all
provincial.

‘How very kind of you to invite us!’ she told Mrs Lambent.
And how kind of us to come
, her manner added in the sweetest tone.

Faith took a seat and tried not to squirm. The tightened corset made her feel much more adult, but it was hard to sit still, and the straps dug into her shoulders.

Myrtle was younger than most of the other women, but did not defer to their opinions. Instead, she countered with, ‘Ah, but I have always found in
London . . .
’ or,
‘Well, I do recall a
London
gentleman once told me . . .’ She had been brought up in London prior to her marriage, and that was her trump card.

Please stop
, Faith begged her silently.
Must we make everybody hate us? What if we are stranded on this island for years?
Only black-haired Miss Hunter seemed unruffled by
Myrtle’s manner, watching her instead with the bright, anticipative air of one watching an amusing play.

I do not belong here
, Faith told herself desperately.
I do not belong in this room of tea and bonnets and gossip . . .

Faith tried not to listen to her mother, or to the thistly, resentful whispers elsewhere in the room. Instead she let her eye drift around the room, and realized that it was covered in religious
oddments – prayer books, samplers with lines from Psalms, and memento mori like china skulls and black wreaths. Perhaps Mrs Lambent’s illness kept her thoughts focused on the hereafter.
Certainly she seemed determined not to go to hell for lack of ornaments.

‘Faith!’ hissed Myrtle.

Faith started, and found that Mrs Lambent’s large eyes were regarding her solemnly. She reddened, realizing that she had probably just been asked a question.

‘Do forgive Faith – she is still recovering from the voyage yesterday.’ Myrtle gave Faith a far from forgiving look.

‘It must have been very trying,’ Miss Hunter agreed. ‘Particularly since I understand you brought none of your own servants with you?’ Her smile was a little too
sweet.

‘The house we have leased is fully staffed,’ Myrtle responded quickly.

‘Oh, I do not blame you at all!’ Miss Hunter spread her plump, well-shaped hands. ‘There is always so much trouble when you mix two lots of servants – we all know how
they gossip!’

Faith’s cup clicked against her saucer. Miss Hunter’s words were too close an echo of her own suspicions. The Sunderly family had not brought their servants because they did not want
to bring gossip with them.

‘I do hope you will find you have everything you need on Vane,’ Miss Hunter continued amiably. ‘We are not without society, and most of the London fashions reach us sooner or
later. We even . . . receive the London papers. Usually a day late, but news is not milk – it keeps well enough.’ Her tone was dry, but now with an unmistakable barb. ‘I am
particularly
fond of the
Intelligencer.
Do you ever read it, Mrs Sunderly?’

‘I prefer
The Times
,’ declared Myrtle, with unnecessary hauteur, her spoon tracing hasty circles in her cup.

Faith kept her head bowed, hoping that her face did not show her feelings. She had started to hope that no dark rumours about her father had reached Vane. There was no mistaking Miss
Hunter’s veiled meaning, however.

Faith glanced at her mother, and saw that Myrtle’s cheeks had turned pale.

Mother knows. The accusations against Father – Mother must have known about them all this time.

We didn’t outrun the
Intelligencer
after all. It followed us all the way to the island. Miss Hunter must know about the scandal already . . . and soon everyone else will
too.

As Lambent’s carriage took the Sunderly family back to Bull Cove, Faith tried to work up her courage. She needed to speak with her father. She needed to warn him about
Miss Hunter’s words, and to let him know that whatever happened, she was on his side. It was torture seeing him bear so much alone.

When at last they reached home, and Jeanne had taken their coats and hats, Uncle Miles lit a taper and fumbled for his pipe, preparing for his customary stroll and smoke.

The Reverend halted him at the door. ‘Miles – if you’re stepping outside, stay near the house. Earlier today I had the gardener set gin-traps.’

Uncle Miles coughed out an incredulous lungful of smoke.

‘Erasmus – is that wise? In the dark . . . if people are unaware of the danger . . .’

‘I hardly see that allowing nocturnal intruders to prowl the grounds can be described as either “wise” or without danger,’ retorted the Reverend. ‘Now, if you will
excuse me, I must visit the folly.’ He strode out into the garden.

A little while later the Reverend returned with a small, wooden box in one hand. As he came in, stamping the soil from his shoes, Faith rallied her courage.

‘Father, can—’

‘My dear, I wonder if I might speak with you?’ Myrtle spoke at the same time, drowning out Faith’s more hesitant voice. She wore the expression of careful alertness she always
used when addressing delicate subjects with her husband. ‘There is something I need to mention to you.’

‘It will have to wait,’ the Reverend responded curtly. He stared down at the box in his hand. ‘Everything will have to wait. There is a matter that requires my immediate
attention –
all
of my attention. I shall be in the library, and under no circumstances must I be disturbed.’ The Reverend had claimed the library as his study from the first
day, and it was now sacred ground.

Faith’s father had mastered the art of making his words sound gravestone-final, his decisions irrevocable. The library door closed behind him. The moment was lost.

Faith joined Howard for supper, then helped him say his prayers and put him to bed, wondering how she had become governess and nursemaid in one. Howard was sleepy but
tenacious, wrapping his arms around her every time she tried to leave.

As she stroked his head and lulled him to sleep a faint sound jerked Faith from her thoughts. It was a short, sharp cry, not unlike a vixen but very like a child, and it came from the darkness
outside. Doors below opened and closed. There were hushed conversations, exclamations of alarm and hurried steps.

Faith slipped from her brother’s room and hastened downstairs, in time to find her mother, her uncle and Mrs Vellet in the drawing room, in tense, hushed debate.

‘Madam, we must send for a doctor . . .’ Mrs Vellet was insisting.

‘I cannot consent to that without my husband’s permission . . .’ Myrtle cast a nervous glance in the direction of the library.

‘Has he forbidden it?’ asked Uncle Miles. ‘Does Erasmus even know that there is a maimed child on his doorstep?’

‘He gave instructions – strict instructions – that he was not to be disturbed,’ Myrtle’s tone was meaningful, and her expression seemed to take the wind from her
brother’s sails. Even warmed by port, Uncle Miles was not one to risk the Reverend’s temper. ‘Miles – is there a chance that
you—
’

‘Myrtle, if I had money for the doctor I would send for him straight away, but right now I simply do not have the funds.’

‘Mrs Vellet –’ Myrtle turned to the housekeeper – ‘if the boy is brought into the kitchen, can he not be bandaged there?’

‘Yes, madam.’ Mrs Vellet seemed to be having some difficulty maintaining her usual composure. ‘But there is only so much we can do.’

All three were too caught in their conversation to notice Faith slipping away to the library.

Father would want to know. Of course he would want to know.

She knocked. There was a silence, and then a faint sound that might have been a cleared throat, but which sounded just enough like a muffled word.

Faith turned the handle and opened the door.

The gas lamps were turned down to a mere glow, but the brass reading lamp on the desk bathed the scene in a quivering halo of light. Behind the desk sat her father, reclining back in his chair.
As Faith entered he turned his head very slightly in her direction, and frowned.

Faith opened her mouth to apologize, but the words died in her mouth. Her father’s posture, always ramrod-straight, was now oddly slumped. She had never seen his face so pale, so slack.
Her skin tingled.

There was a clammy smell in the room, she realized, the cold scent she had noticed in the folly. Now it ran little ice-fingers down her throat, through the nerves of her teeth and across the
backs of her eyes. The air was alive with it.

‘Father?’

Her own voice sounded odd, as if a faint down of sighs clung to it. As she gingerly advanced, her footsteps were muffled in the same strange, feathery way. On every side the air seemed to be
stirring itself in little mouthless breaths.

A pen trembled between her father’s loose fingers, ink pooling on the paper beneath the nib. A few sentences had been scrawled in clumsy, lopsided letters, unlike the Reverend’s
usual handwriting.

His pupils were tiny and impenetrably black. In the lamplight it seemed that the grey of his eyes had jaded to a murky, troubled yellow. As she watched, the flecks and blotches of his irises
seemed to shift and stir like waterweed . . .

‘Father!’

The discoloured eyes fixed on her, their gaze sharpening. Then his jaw set and his brow slowly creased.

‘Get out.’ It was a whisper, but with more venom than Faith had ever heard in her father’s voice. ‘Get out!’

Faith turned and ran from the room, heart pounding.

‘Faith!’ Myrtle appeared in the hallway, just in time to see Faith closing the door behind her. ‘Oh – has your father finished his work for the evening? Thank goodness
– I must speak with him.’

‘No!’ Faith reflexively put her back to the door.

She could not make sense of what she had just seen, but she knew he wanted to keep it a secret. Faith remembered tales of strange opiates smoked in secret, with fumes that entranced
gentlemen’s wills and enslaved their minds. What if her father’s troubles had driven him to become an opium eater? She could not expose him. He was facing enough scorn and scandal
already.

‘I . . . I went in to tell him about the boy in the gin-trap,’ Faith said quickly.

‘What did he say?’

Faith hesitated. The only safe answer was to say that she had been ordered out of the room and given no answer. It was true besides.

‘We should send for a doctor,’ she heard herself say.

Myrtle hurried away to give orders to Mrs Vellet, relief visible on her pretty, rounded features.

Faith was flabbergasted by her own nerve. Her lie would inevitably be exposed. Her mind mouse-scampered with the agility of practice, trying to find a way out, but she could think of no excuse
or explanation. She could not imagine facing her father and telling him that she had given false orders in his name.

Father has to understand,
she told herself
If I had not, he might have been discovered, or blamed for letting the boy bleed. I am protecting him.

At the same time, the thought that she had claimed a tiny part in one of her father’s mysterious secrets filled her with a small, quiet glow.

A few minutes later, Faith looked out through the window and saw Uncle Miles, the household manservant and Mrs Vellet helping a shorter figure towards the house. When they drew
close enough for the window’s light to fall on them, she could make out the face of the boy, who looked about fourteen years old. He was alarmingly pale, cheeks shiny with tears, face
crumpled with pain. The cloth clumsily tied around his ankle was blotched with dark. The sight of it filled her stomach with an animal, sympathetic tingle.

Faith was not allowed into the kitchen. Sitting in the nearby dining room, however, she could easily hear the boy’s high sobs of pain, and the panicky conversations within.

‘. . . No, hold the pad steady!’

‘Mrs Vellet – it’s soaked! It’s leaking through my fingers!’

The manservant Prythe arrived with more makeshift bandages. As he opened the kitchen door, Faith caught a fleeting glimpse of the wounded boy lying on the hearthrug, Jeanne clamping a red-soaked
cloth to his ankle. The boy was cursing through clenched teeth, his eyes tightly shut.

‘I won’t have language like that in my kitchen,’ Mrs Vellet could be heard to declare, as the door shut. ‘What would you do if you bled to death right now, and got
dragged down to hell for having a wicked tongue?’

Dr Jacklers’s carriage arrived within the hour. He bowed to Mrs Sunderly and Faith, but had a businesslike frown rather than his sociable smile.

‘How is the boy?’ he asked immediately. ‘Serious, you say? Well, I would hope so – I have just left a good mug of spiced cider cooling on my dresser, and I would hate it
to be wasted for nothing.’ He asked for a tot of laudanum to numb the patient’s pain, and a hot cup of tea to help himself recover from the cold of his journey. ‘I never like to
work with numb fingers, and a man is best warmed from the inside out.’