Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [87]
I wait by the fire while they speak, a tankard of untouched ale between my palms, and Mary by my side. Try as I might, I cannot banish the image of the boy in flight from my mind, his arms spread wide to catch the earth.
At length the painter reappears, his face grim but relieved. He kneels in front of me and takes the tankard from my hands, presses his palms against my own. I look into his eyes, try to lose myself in them, and feel an overwhelming tiredness, as if I have lived a lifetime in the course of a day. He draws me slowly to my feet, urging me to return with him to the Great House. But I shake my head and silence him, for there is something I must do.
Together we walk to my mother’s cottage, and at her door I leave him, insisting that he return alone to the Great House. Once he is gone, I enter quietly and find her dozing in a chair beside the fire, her fingers clutching a skein of half-wound wool. A low-burning taper flickers in an iron holder upon the table, casting a muted circle of light around it. My mother does not wake when I enter, and I stand for a moment watching her while she sleeps, her head lolling gently to one side.
She is no longer the woman who inhabits my childhood memories, but another person altogether: a woman who is privy to dark secrets, and one who has been preyed upon by her own people. Such things come to bear upon a person, make their mark: and she will carry it with her always, just as I will. I look for it now in the line of her sagging jaw or the fleshy folds of her neck, or the wrinkles upon the backs of her hands. Her life has held much toil and sadness. And yet I have no doubt that when she wakes she will not harbor bitterness against her accusers, for it is not in her nature to dwell upon the past, any more than it is to dream of the future. She is like the river salmon bent upon its homecoming: she will only seek to repossess her former life.
I lay a hand gently upon her shoulder and she wakens with a start. “It is only me,” I say softly. Her eyes drift over to the taper.
“I did not mean to sleep,” she says, drawing herself up in the chair. I pull a stool across to face her and seat myself, not quite sure how to begin.
“The boy is dead,” I say finally, starting at the end. And then I tell the tale in its entirety, while she listens, close-lipped, her knuckles white against the chair. When I am finished she gives an enormous sigh and we both turn our faces to the dying embers of the fire. I sense no malice from her, no trace of blame as I had feared, and for that I am grateful. Indeed she appears more calm than I have seen her in some days, as if the truth has stilled her.
“Did you know of this?” I ask her finally. She looks at me and shakes her head.
“No.” She gives another sigh. “Perhaps a part of me knew.” She squints at the memory. “She wanted me to understand. She gave me clues. Toward the end, there was a great longing in her to repeat the past, to undo what she had done. She needed to atone . . . but most of all she needed sympathy . . . and absolution.” My mother looks at me. “The latter was not mine to give.” Her voice trails off in sadness. “The day before she died, she told me that she had not chosen fate, but rather had created it. I did not understand her meaning until now.
“I told her that our fate was in God’s hands. And she said that his judgment had been harsh and terrible.” My mother looks at me. “As always, she was right.” We sit in silence for a moment.
“I am sorry about the boy,” I say finally.
“I thought that I could save him from her sins,” replies my mother. “But I did not know that they were his sins too. They are both in God’s hands now.”
“We have been to see the magistrate,” I say. “You are free now.” She nods then, frowning into the flames.
“It will be hard to carry on without them,” she says. “At least with the boy, I had a piece of her.” I reach for her hand and take