Page 49 of These Violet Delights
Lady Edith had subsided into silent protest, so much so that she could be mistaken for one of the marble busts in the drawing room. She had developed a nervous blink and spoke to them in a strained whisper. Dinners were unbearable. As such, Alasdair made certain to stay “late” at Clafton as often as propriety allowed, and truthfully, beyond that point. He almost wished one of them would throw a cup at him, shout, rage—anything but stare into the middle distance in a depressed stupor.
Alasdair read Robert’s letter over again. Maybe Robert, boastful and ridiculous, was just the antidote to his creeping poison of silence. Gordon had consulted a number of local farmers who were confident they were in for a relatively dry winter, so Lillian would be disappointed on that score, but that would just give them something to talk about. Alasdair laughed mirthlessly at himself; was he actuallywishingfor idle chitchat?
“Things really are dire,” he muttered, and went to his writing desk. To respond, he was forced to brush aside a number of unfinished drafts that gathered in a shameful pile. Alasdair sat down hard, staring at the discarded letters. He really ought to burn them; that he hadn’t made the cut of the guilt that much deeper.
Dear Miss Arden,
Dearest Miss Arden,
My Dear Miss Arden,
Miss Arden,
God, he couldn’t even begin the damn thing without collapsing into indecision. Recently, at dinner, desperate for a single human sound he himself had not created, he had asked his mother to recall the days of her courtship with their father. The look she gave him could have leveled London. Freddie had made the soup course particularly noisy with slurping after that.
I am writing to inform you of certain events regarding my brother and Mr. Danforth that transpired after our last conversation. Your suspicions regarding my brother were not unfounded; he unknowingly aided the vicar of Anselm, Mr. Danforth, who set the fire at the Florizel and presumably also at Pressmore. He has been transferred to the Anselm jail to await his appearance before the grand jury at Epiphany.
Too cold and unfeeling.
It is my sincerest hope that this letter reaches you while you and your family are in excellent health.That the weather has been so unseasonably merciful exacerbates that wish.
The weather? Really? And he hated the wordexacerbates—it was hideous on the page. Thankfully, the most embarrassing draft languished in infamy at the bottom of the pile. He had gotten into the brandy himself that night and, after staringinto the eyes of Caravaggio’s lute player for an undisclosable amount of time, gone to his desk with the fervor of a man possessed.
Possessed. I will not say by what.
His hand hadn’t even felt like it was his own. Some other creature took control of him.
No, it was me, me stripped to the marrow, just as I told Violet. Me as I see myself in dreams, feeling and thinking while unshackled by the waking, stifling anxieties that stalk me like a pack of wolves. I am vanishing in this house, this prison. When Clafton is finished at last, my body will find a new prison to haunt.
Alasdair stood, angry at himself, and gathered up the pile of unsent attempts, crossed to the hearth, and shoved them behind the grate. Then, possessed again, he knelt, swore, and fetched out the truest one. He shook it, batting down the wisp of flame, and hid it in a desk drawer, where it would taunt him as steadily as the portrait of her beneath his bed.
The cold and unfeeling version would have to suffice. Giving Miss Arden a concise summary of events and promising to write again when Danforth’s fate in the courts was better understood. At the bottom, he indulged his true feelings only to the extent that he thanked her for her patience, and for allowing him to clear up the matter himself. Sealing the note, he tried not to imagine her expression as she received it, or the way her hands would smooth out the folded page to read, indirectly touching his own.
Afterward, he dashed off a letter to Robert, agreeing to play host to the Dalys for Christmas. At the bottom, he urged Robert to come with all the mischievous and lively spirit he could muster.
17
Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Romeo and Juliet—Act 1, Scene 1
When Beadle Cottage received a visitor on the first Saturday of December, Violet was elated to discover Cristabel had come. As soon as she beheld the woman’s face, however, her joy dissipated.
“But what is the matter?” Violet asked, ferrying the painter inside the cottage where it was warm. Outside, the air was biting, the moss and grass stiff with a frosty crunch.
Cristabel, ever looking with her artist’s eye, paused near the sofa in the drawing room beside the front hall and sucked in every detail. She rubbed her hands together and waved Violet away when she tried to guide her toward the fireplace. Just the prior week, Violet had stayed at Pressmore for several days to paint under Cristabel’s stern watch, yet between then and now, a brief span, she had grown grayer in the hair, hollower in the cheeks.
“I want you to know that it’s been pleasant to teach you,” said Cristabel, fixing her gaze out the windows that looked onto the cobbled path and yard. A pair of jays pecked at the dirt and, finding nothing, startled off into the branches hanging over the path. “I can’t say that about many or even most of my novices. You listen. Your pride is managed. You do not consider yourself above improvement. Youdoreact to criticism with your face, but less and less.”
Violet frowned and watched Winny and Maggie peering in at them from the hall. Shooing them away with a gesture did nothing, and they continued their wide-eyed eavesdropping, stacked like owls atop each other.
“Where is this going?”
“You are going nowhere,” said Cristabel firmly and with a long, pained exhale. “I, however, will be returning to London. No doubt you have heard the rumors circulating in the village?”
Violet went to take her hand, shaking her head. “It shouldn’t matter what that horrid vicar said about you! I’ve had a letter from Mr. Kerr. Mr. Danforth is responsible for the fires; nobody should believe a word he says about anything.”
