Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [77]
My mistress sleeps when I arrive, the skin upon her cheeks like oiled paper. I rearrange the bedclothes and she stirs, opening her eyes. She blinks repeatedly, endeavoring to focus her gaze, but in the end she appears to fail, for she rolls over to one side with a sigh and closes them anew. I wait a few moments, until her breathing is more regular, than quietly slip away. I do not think that she has seen me: her servant, the daughter of her husband.
I hurry to my mother’s cottage, and find her busy washing wool. At least her hands are occupied, a sign that her spirits have improved. She greets me with relief and appears almost grateful for my visit, though she wears her gratitude uneasily, like an ill-fitting garment.
“Have you seen the magistrate?” I ask at once.
She shakes her head. “I have heard nothing,” she says.
“You have not been accused?”
“Not to my face.”
“Well, that is something, at least,” I reply. She lifts the wool out of the basin and wrings the water from it with both hands. I watch as she squeezes out the last remaining drops.
“I have been to see my master,” I say quietly. She pauses, her hands in midair, and raises her head to look at me, the newly washed wool hanging limply from her fingers. “He was the boy that day,” I say.
“I have always known as much,” she replies. Without thinking, she drops the wool once again into the water.
“He will intervene on your behalf,” I say. “He will tell them what he saw that day: the truth about the scar.”
She looks down at the cloudy water in the basin, the wool floating freely like an island. Instinctively her arms move around to clutch her sides in a protective embrace. I read her thoughts in an instant: it is all too public, this airing of her past. Even worse than yesterday’s search, for that was between women, behind closed doors. But the idea of two strange men discussing what befell her at the hands of a third: this she cannot bear.
I lay a hand upon her shoulder. “It must be done,” I say gently. She nods, just barely. I remove the wool once again from the water and wring it tightly in my hands. Even with my master’s help we cannot guarantee her safety. The only thing that will truly change their minds is the discovery of the fetus. But that remains a riddle none of us can solve.
At length my mother takes the wool from my hands and methodically hangs it out over a wooden frame by the fire.
“How is the boy?” she asks finally.
“The fever is gone,” I say hesitantly. “But he is somehow altered.”
“She feared for him,” my mother says slowly.
“How?” I ask.
“She told me once, not long ago . . . that it was ill-judged of her to raise a child in the constant company of strangers.” My mother looks at me, her meaning evident. When he was young, Long Boy remained behind a bed curtain when his mother entertained. Later, when he was old enough, he was sent outside, though often I’d see him crouching close behind her cottage, as if he could not bear the separation. In truth, such was her calm assurance and easy manner, that no one gave a second thought to the propriety of his presence. He was like an extra limb, almost a physical extension of herself. But now that she was gone, it seemed as if the life-source had been wrenched from him.
“It did not help that he was so unlike the others of his age,” says my mother, referring to his size. I had never seen him play with other children: he looked a giant in their presence. Like my master, his body was a cage, isolating him from others. It stood in sharp contrast to that of his mother: for hers was like a fountain of abundance, where all and sundry could come and replenish themselves, drink deeply of her generous spirit.
“Perhaps when he reaches