Distant Voices. Barbara Erskine
in softly. ‘It is my duty to look after you.’
‘Quite so.’ The rector picked up his gloves, either not hearing or deliberately ignoring the wistfulness of her tone. ‘Young Dawson is likely to marry Marianne Rixby, I hear.’
Caroline was occupied with tying the ribbons of her bonnet, facing the mirror in the hall. For a moment she saw her face reflected in the glass – clearly showing still the traces of angry colour. As she watched the colour faded. Then she saw Polly’s eyes were fixed on her face too. Bleakly she smiled. ‘Shall we go out, Papa? Polly has already put the baskets in the trap.’
It was a long day and she was exhausted when they returned home. Her father had lost no opportunity of lecturing her about her reading habits and reproaching her about the potential husbands she had apparently thrown away through her selfishness and her arrogance. As the afternoon grew more and more hot and uncomfortable she found herself biting her lip in an effort not to scream. Desperately she wanted to get away.
The haze was pearly now over the Downs. The lanes shimmered with heat and the pony’s coat was black with sweat beneath the harness as they drove slowly back towards the Rectory. She was dreading the evening. They had guests for dinner, amongst them Archdeacon Joseph Rixby and his wife and daughter, and she would be expected to play the radiant hostess yet again. There would be no escape.
Her room was cool as she changed into a green silk gown and looped her dark hair gracefully around her pale face. She longed to send a message to her father that she had a headache and could not come down to dinner, but her sense of duty prevailed as usual. She must be there as hostess to his guests. She must ignore his jibes and his sudden spite and be gracious to them.
Wearily she went downstairs into the drawing room. With relief she saw that the double doors into the garden stood open and the fragrance of the night drifted into the room. Calmly she greeted their guests at her father’s side, looking with more than usual interest at Marianne Rixby as the girl arrived, beautiful and sylph-like in a gown of white lace at her parents’ side. So this was the woman Charles Dawson had chosen to marry. She raised her eyes to Marianne’s, forcing herself to smile a welcome as she took the girl’s hand and was astonished to find herself greeted with a look of undisguised venom.
She took a step back. Behind them Polly was moving around the room with a tray of glasses, and already the Rixbys had drifted off with her father to talk by the window. ‘I saw you yesterday,’ Marianne hissed at her. Her mouth was fixed in a narrow smile. ‘What were you doing with Charles?’
‘Doing?’ Caroline frowned uncomfortably. ‘I wasn’t doing anything.’
‘No? Coming out of the shrubbery, with your hair down and your dress all disordered?’ Marianne’s eyes spat fire. ‘Did you think no one would notice?’
‘I … I had been feeling unwell,’ Caroline stammered, aware that her father’s gaze was fixed on her suddenly from across the room. ‘Mr Dawson … Charles … was kind enough to lend me his arm, that was all.’
‘All?’ Marianne’s whisper turned into a small shriek. ‘And how, pray, did your hair come down?’
‘I had been sitting on the swing,’ Caroline replied wearily. ‘I thought the cool air might help my head.’
‘And did it?’ The other girl’s voice was full of malice.
‘A little.’ Caroline’s composure was returning. ‘Your fiancé is a compassionate man, Marianne. He saw my distress and offered to help me, that is all.’
‘Not her fiancé, Caroline, not yet.’ Sarah Rixby’s ears had picked up the end of the conversation and she sailed over to her daughter’s side. ‘Though we are expecting dear Charles to speak to her father at any moment, are we not, my darling?’ From the rector’s elbow the archdeacon inclined his head towards his wife and went on with his conversation. ‘Dear Marianne,’ Sarah continued, ‘it will be such an excellent match, do you not think?’
‘Indeed,’ Caroline nodded, malicious in her turn. ‘A very excellent match indeed.’ She wondered briefly if Marianne had ever been subjected to the man’s sarcasm and insufferable snobbery. She thought not.
The candles burned low over the dinner table as the evening grew even hotter. The ladies’ faces glowed with heat and it was with relief that after they had withdrawn, the gentlemen retired into the gardens with their cigars and their glasses of port. And it was still comparatively early when they called for the carriages, all now aware that the long-promised storm was finally on its way.
By the time she had returned to her bedroom Caroline’s head was splitting with pain. She sent Polly away as soon as the girl had brought up her hot water, not even allowing her to stay and help her undress, then, kicking off her shoes she threw herself onto her bed. Beside her a moth beat its way suicidally around her candle; beyond the open windows the night was humid and very still as if waiting with baited breath for the storm to break.
She must have dozed for a while. She awoke suddenly aware that the moth had dropped, its wings singed, to the floor beneath her bedside table. The candle had burned low. Her bedroom was shadowy as she made her way at last to the ewer and, dipping a corner of the towel into the rapidly cooling water, she bathed her forehead to try and ease the pain. It was then for the first time she noticed her book-case. It was completely empty. She gasped. Throwing herself down on her knees in front of it she ran her fingers over the hollow shelves. During dinner someone had come upstairs and removed every single book. No, not every book. Her Bible still lay there on the top shelf. Inside it was tucked a sheet of paper with a passage noted in her father’s neat hand. Glancing at it furiously she saw that he expected her to read and learn by heart twenty-five verses by next morning!
‘Papa!’ Her fury and anguish were for a moment overwhelming. She was paralysed by the sheer frustration and anger which swept over her.
She climbed to her feet and paced up and down the floor several times before she stopped in front of the window to stare out at the night. The garden lay there cool and inviting, a haven of calm. Her headache, she realised, had miraculously disappeared.
It was then that her rebellion boiled over. Still wearing her evening gown she slipped her shoes on once more, and opened the door. The landing was dark.
Picking up her bedside candle Caroline crept downstairs and into the kitchen. The door into the garden was locked once more. This time she was not to be deflected. She had to get out. She crept into the dining room, still warm with the smells of food and hot wax from the candles, and found to her relief that the windows into the garden had only been latched. There was no key. Pushing them open she stepped out onto the moss-covered terrace.
She knew where she must go. Tiptoeing towards the gate she let herself out and began to walk swiftly up the lane. No one saw her. The windows of the Rectory were all in shadow.
The night was strangely airless. Above her the sky was sewn with stars and a quarter-moon hung hazily above the Downs, but to the south the night was thick and brooding and she thought she heard a distant rumble of thunder.
Buoyed up by her fury and her frustration she walked fast, holding her skirts clear of the dry ruts in the lane, and turned up the path towards the church. Behind it the hillside led up steeply to the ruins of the old castle, the place she went to sometimes to be alone, when she had to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Rectory. The villagers seldom went there, and never at night, or so she had heard. They thought it was haunted. She herself had only ever been there during the day.
The lychgate into the churchyard squeaked as she pushed it open and she glanced behind her in spite of herself. But the lane was empty in the faint moonlight beyond the ancient yews. Reassured, she shut the gate and made her way over the dew-wet grass, threading her way between the mossy, moon-shadowed tombstones. On the far horizon lightning flickered faintly, but she ignored it.
The church was in darkness. She glanced at it warily, for the first time feeling a little nervous. The building looked somehow larger and unfamiliar, the well-known shapes