She didn’t bat an eye at that. I suppose I was lucky in that when the condition took hold I was already tall, thick-necked and broad-shouldered. ‘Your eyes look older,’ is all she said. Which Ifound a marvellous comfort, as everyone in Edwardstone had been convinced I was set in stone in my early teens.
‘And I have eighteen,’ she said. ‘And Grace has ten.’
This was fine. This talk. It was fine. But I didn’t want to reveal any more. I couldn’t. I was a dangerous secret. It was better for them not to know about me.
They gave me a meal of bread and parsnip pottage and cherries.
Rose’s smile was like warm air. ‘You should have been here yesterday. We had pigeon pie. Grace is a master pigeon-catcher.’
Grace mimed catching a pigeon and twisting its neck.
A moment passed. Then, inevitably, another question.
‘Why did you come here?’ Rose asked.
‘You invited me.’
‘Nothere.Why were you heading to London? On your own? What are you fleeing from?’
‘Suffolk. If you had ever been there you wouldn’t even question it. It is full of pig-headed superstitious hateful people. We were from France, you see. We never fitted in there.’
‘We?’
‘I mean, when my mother was still alive.’
‘What happened to her?’
I stared at Rose. ‘There are some things I would rather not talk of.’
Grace noticed my hand, the one holding the soup spoon. ‘He is shaking.’
‘He is also across the table,’ Rose said. ‘You can speak as if he is here.’ Then her eyes were upon me again. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘If the price of this food and a night of comfort is to talk of painful things then I would rather sleep outside in a ditch.’
Rose’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘You will find Hackney has some excellent ditches.’
I put down my spoon and stood up.
‘Do they never jest in Suffolk?’
‘I told you I am from France. And I am in no mood for jesting.’
‘You are a sour thing, aren’t you? Curdled like milk.’
Grace made a show of sniffing the air like a dog. ‘He even smells sour.’
Rose was stern with me. ‘Sit down, Tom. You have nowhere to go. And besides, you must stay here until you have paid us what you owe.’
I was a mess. I was confused. There was too much intensity inside me, after three weary days of walking and grieving. I wasn’t angry with these sisters, I was grateful to them, but that gratitude was swallowed up inside the pain of closing my eyes and seeing Manning’s hands.
‘You are not the only one with sorrows in this world. Don’t hoard them like they are precious. There is always plenty of them to go around.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Rose nodded. ‘That is all right. You are tired. And other things. You will sleep in the boys’ room.’
‘The boys’ room?’
