Page 134 of The English Wife

“No,” said Anne again. She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on Janie’s mother’s face. “Did she stab him, Aunt Alva? Was that what happened? She took a knife and stabbed Bay in the chest while you looked on and did nothing?”

“It—” Mrs. Van Duyvil faltered in her erratic path. She looked over her shoulder again, furtive, waiting. “It all happened very quickly.”

“Was there a struggle? Did Bay fight her? He was a tall man, Bay, and Annabelle was a little thing. It would have been a very unequal contest. But Bay would have been trying not to hurt her. That’s a great disadvantage in a quarrel, isn’t it, Aunt Alva?”

Janie’s mother breathed in through her nose. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No? Don’t you want to put it all to rest? Let us know exactly what happened so we can sleep at night? Or is it because you’re lying?” Anne stopped, her face distorted with grief and anger. “You know as well as I do that David Pruyn was never Annabelle’s lover.”

“Don’t be—”

“Ridiculous?” Anne provided. “What’s ridiculous is the idea that David Pruyn wanted anything to do with Annabelle. I was the one who introduced Bay to David. Did you know that? David didn’t give a fig for Annabelle—only for Bay. Do I need to make it plainer for you, Aunt Alva? Or did you know already?”

Janie felt Burke’s quick exhalation, saw the quick disgust on Giles Lacey’s face. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Anne didn’t waste breath in insults. She kept her eyes locked on Mrs. Van Duyvil’s. “David wasn’t Annabelle’s lover. He was Bay’s. Annabelle kept their secret for them.”

There was a rumbling in Janie’s ears. It took her a moment to realize that the sound wasn’t coming from her head, but from the chimney. The smoke was thicker, bits of dust mixing with the coal.

“Not anymore.” Her mother’s voice rose over the din. “She was going to divorce him! I couldn’t allow that! Do you know what people would have said if she’d gone through with it? Can you imagine the scandal?”

Burke’s hand closed hard around Janie’s shoulder. “Better to have a dead son than a disgraced one?”

“You.” Janie’s mother whirled to face Burke. “None of this goes into your disgraceful scandal sheet. It’s pure rumor, malicious rumor. Anne doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If I see one word of it, I’ll … I’ll—”

“Kill him?” provided Anne.

Black taffeta rustled as Janie’s mother flung herself at Anne, grabbing her by the neck and shaking, hard. “Shut … your … mouth.”

Burke was fast, but Lacey was faster. It took both of them to pry Mrs. Van Duyvil off her niece’s throat. They dragged her away from Anne, one holding each arm, as Mrs. Van Duyvil’s voice rose against the howling of the wind. “It was her fault, her fault, all her fault. I never would have … it was an accident! She made me do it! It should have been her!”

Anne breathed in with a terrible gasping sound, her hands at her throat. She stumbled backwards, catching herself against the side of a chair.

“No. No, no.” It took Janie a moment to realize that the word was coming out of her own mouth, over and over. She pressed her hand against her lips, as though that could make it stop. “How could you? Bay.”

“Don’t you speak to me of my son.” Mrs. Van Duyvil yanked her arms away from her captors, her entire body shaking with grief and rage. Her fingers clawed at her collar, sending jet beads scattering across the carpet. “Don’t you think I see his face before me every moment of every day? My son. My son.”

There was something terrifying about the scope of her mother’s grief, grief without consolation. Hecuba, rending her soot-stained clothes at the gates of Troy; David crying for Absalom.

“You might,” said Anne, her voice shaking, “have thought of that before you stabbed him.”

“I didn’t … the knife … it was her fault! All her fault!” Behind her came an ominous rumbling, as though the masonry of the house itself were murmuring in agreement. Mrs. Van Duyvil raised her arms to the heavens. “I would kill her again if I could! I hope she’s burning in all the fires of hell!”

A fusillade of dust and ash exploded into the room. Someone shouted out. Janie blundered into a piece of furniture, blinded by the ash, her chest on fire. She couldn’t hear; she couldn’t see. She groped in the smoke, her eyes streaming. Something rumbled and screeched, like demons run amok, breaking and shattering, shouting and clawing.

There was a cry, and glass shattered, sending freezing air driving into the room. Janie wrapped her arms around her middle, staggering in the direction of cold. Cold meant outdoors, and outdoors meant away from the smoke and dust.

Janie’s cheek stung, singed by flying ash. Through her stinging eyes, she could see Giles Lacey doubled over, coughing up smoke; Anne standing by the French door she’d broken open, cradling one arm, breathing deeply of the freezing air. Her mother sat on the floor, holding one hand to the gash on her forehead.

“She’s come from hell.” Janie’s mother was staring at the blood on her fingers, her hair fallen from its pins, her black taffeta gray with ash. “She’s come from hell to haunt me.”

“What in the devil?” gasped Giles Lacey.

“Not the devil. The chimney.” Sparks had lit on the furniture, chewing at the upholstery, the carpet, the drapes. Janie ran to go stamp one out, but Burke grabbed her by the arm. “We need to get everyone out. Now.”

Anne yanked at the remains of the French door. Glass crunched beneath her heels.

“This way,” she began, but shied back as a pile of masonry tumbled down outside the French doors with in a rain of soot and mortar. Bricks fell to the pavement like hail.