‘Come on up.’ Nancy beckoned to us. ‘Quickly, now.’
One by one, we followed Aunt Bill up the steps. William insisted on making sure that he was last, after Violet and Hermione. He pulled the door closed after him.
‘The carriage’s outside.’ Nancy led us to the front door. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t offer you any time to relax or eat, milady. But I ’ope you’ll take this basket of provisions at least.’ She pressed an old-fashioned shopping basket with a rounded handle into Lady Hermione’s hands. Hermione took it, looking shell-shocked.
‘Thank you, Miss…?’ she said, reflexively. As a Victorian lady, Hermione had been raised to be polite at all times, even when life was throwing her a curveball of extreme stress. I imagined the layers of propriety and etiquette that covered her soul like coats of varnish on a door. It was a barrier, a protection, a way to keep her embalmed, like a corpse.
‘My name is Nancy Willcock, milady. I am the pellar in St Nantes.’ Nancy nodded, briskly.
‘Thank you, Miss Willcock. You are most kind,’ Hermione said, faintly.
‘Mother, I need the bathroom,’ Violet said in a small voice.
‘Oh, Violet. Can’t it wait?’ Hermione asked with a sigh. Violet’s face fell.
‘No, Mother. I really have to,’ she said, looking like she wished the ground would swallow her up.
‘Fine. May we use your bathroom, Miss Willcock?’ Hermione asked Nancy, who nodded.
‘I’ll show you,’ she said, leading them outside. Yew Tree Cottage still had an outside privy, down the garden.
Aunt Bill looked around her in wonderment after they’d left.
‘Well, this is a turn up for the books,’ she said, taking it all in. ‘I do wish I ’ad a camera. I could’ve built up quite the collection of pictures of my own front room in different centuries.’ She blew out her cheeks. ‘You must feel odd, bein’ ’ere, my love?’ she asked me.
‘Definitely. It’s been so strange staying here, knowing this is your cottage, but you weren’t here,’ I said. ‘But now you are, and that feels stranger still.’
‘I know. ’Tis a very singular experience, to be sure.’ Aunt Bill sat down heavily on one of Nancy’s chairs. ‘I wish my sofas were ’ere.’
William opened the front door of the cottage and looked cautiously outside.
‘The carriage is there,’ he said. ‘Lady Trevarron and her daughter should hurry.’ He walked outside, up the garden path to the carriage. I went to stand in the doorway, watching him exchange words with the driver, a young man in a cloth cap.
Nancy reappeared around the side of the house leading Hermione and Violet. With William, they helped them into the carriage. I waved at Violet’s pale, drawn face which looked out at me from inside the carriage window.
‘Let’s ’ope that’s them safe, maid.’ Aunt Bill let out a long indrawn breath of relief. ‘The further they are away from that monster, the better.’
William led the carriage to the end of the lane, helping the driver turn around in the narrow space. I thought of the gamekeeper’s cottage we’d found, walking from the end of the lane there and out into the fields. The peace that we had enjoyed there, just for a short time. Maybe we would be able to find that peace again, soon.
The carriage had turned around. We watched it pass the garden gate.
And then, the noise that I had dreaded.
Horses, and the heavy tread of carriage wheels on the dirt road.
THIRTY
It all happened so quickly.
At first, I thought perhaps, just perhaps, the other carriage held someone who had lost their way and were asking for directions. Or a customer for Nancy, wanting the pellar.
It was neither of those things.
Lord Albert Trevarron jumped from the door of the carriage he rode in and hit the ground before it had stopped moving. I heard Aunt Bill gasp beside me, then run to the carriage.
I think we both wanted to get to Hermione and Violet before Albert did, but he was too quick for us. He pushed past William and flung open the carriage door, exposing Hermione and Violet inside. They cringed away from the open door, terror on their faces.
‘What a disappointment,’ Albert snarled. ‘Get out of there immediately.’
