Inheritance Feud

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

She would not let herself admit the fact that, perhaps, by next year, Godfrey would not be there; or would have grown so much worse that he would be confined to a bed, a huddled mass of unresponsive flesh, perhaps no longer with the ability even to make known his wishes. That it might happen in this manner some day the physician had already tried to make clear to her and to Kitty, gently underplaying the progress of a disease whose cause no one knew and for which there was no cure. One must be prepared; but until it had happened, there was perhaps hope that it would not, or would be less severe than they had feared.

Godfrey. How much did he suffer in his mind? She frowned with uncertainty and pain; looked up and stiffened with fear. A man was standing above her on the cliff, with the mist clearing about him, so that he seemed carved out of the rock. She had no means of knowing how long he had been there; he stood quite still. was Theon. She crouched to cover herself with her hands, still knowing he was blind and could see nothing; no longer Aphrodite, but Leda, outraged and betrayed by the true identity of the swan.

She drew a sobbing breath, and turned and fled out of the water; found her robe, seized it and huddled it on. Then she ran, stumbling and bruising herself, quickly up the flight of if the figure of Theon was still there, or had moved; Theon, stone steps, and back to Baron. She did not turn again to see who could not have seen her nakedness, but in some way, she was certain, had known she was down there in the water; had known it, and had said nothing, given no sign. As always, his blind eyes had been turned upon Baron, Baron with its an cient tower rising beyond the mist across the bay, with the early light behind it; Baron, which he desired always and would never with his physical eyes see again.

She knew she was not a woman to him but a means to Baron. This was, in the end, what frightened her. The days passed in an access of shimmering, unaccustomed heat, but there was no more seabathing by order of the physician for Hermione that summer.

It was about that same time that Theon purchased his boat. He had bought it through the offices of some of the known men down the coast, who came to Mains by night re garding the pack-carrying over to the east. It was a sizeable craft, almost rivalling a cutter in size, and made of seasoned timber, with a cabin and space for a galley. Theon and the mulatto went out in it a good deal, mostly when the weather was fine; there was a certain place on Baron tower where one could look down and see the blue bay, and the running keel and, above, a blind man's white intent face at the tiller. Mor ven would know the tides that ran between her and Man, blindfold, as he'd once stated; Theon could avoid the rocks and shoals, the sudden shallow places nearby the shore, and sail his boat safely, anchoring now and again in the in numerable small bays and inlets, transacting his business, loading and unloading bales, having a word with the men who came, wading out from the shallows to where they could hail him where he sat, or rowing out in small-boats, and going aboard.

A woman sometimes watched from the tower; it was Anna bel. Godfrey's illness left her with a good deal of time to herself, and she found solace of a kind by watching the sea, and looking for the boat when it passed by.

Down at the Mains, young William Judd was finding him

self unwanted.

The fact of his enquiring presence tended to raise diffi culties; at first, he would keep coming upstairs to look for his mother as he had always done at the Fleece. "Where's father?" had ceased to be asked at the same time, roughly, as his other favourite question about when they might be going back to the inn; he missed the comings and goings there, and no doubt the occasional sixpence. He had been told, in answer to one question, that Theon was his father. "Because he sleeps with Mother?" he asked. He asked other questions also. Theon began to find him an irritation; he had taken the child less out of any personal interest in him than by reason of the fact that he was his property, as Baron should be. But he was not prepared to show patience over having such matters of his privacy with Livia invaded.

William would take no telling, however; he could get away from the blind man fast enough. He would run along the pas sage and, finding their door locked, would listen for a while and then rattle at the fastening; on the third or fourth occasion he did this, and refused to go away, Theon opened the door, white-faced and angry in his shirt, and called for Samson.

William had meantime looked into the room, and saw his mother lying on the bed, n***d, which was extraordinary as it was afternoon; her eyes were shut, and she was smiling. William decided she must be dead, gave a roar and tried to push past Theon; but the latter caught him and, seizing him by the waistband and the collar of his shirt, held him, kicking and writhing, till Samson came. Livia had meantime, to Wil liam's great relief, sat up and put up a hand to cover herself. She would have flung on a wrap and come to the boy, but Theon cut in coldly.

"Take him downstairs, take down his breeches and give him a flogging, and tell him it'll happen each time he comes up here," he said, and shut the door fast. It was done, accord ingly; and William, still howling, betook his sore buttocks to Baron's stables, which he had early discovered for himself, and lay four hours on his stomach in the straw. The warm, friendly smell of the stamping horses was all about him, and reminded him of the Fleece; in company with the beasts' companionable silence, his sobs ceased.

Aitken the groom found him there later, and took him under his wing. It was a good time for help to have come; he himself felt unwell, and he knew he had a growth which troubled him, but would say naught about it yet. The small black-haired boy was willing, good with beasts, ready and able to carry pails and help with the mucking out and feeding; if he went home with a whiff of manure about him by the day's end, who should complain after the way he said they'd used him? For William, like most of his tribe, had made a good story of it all; his stepfather, he said, beat him thrice daily.

As time passed, William became more at home in the great house stables than ever at Mains, nor did he seek the com pany of Samson after the latter had whipped him. Once, munching a fair-sized slice of bread and cheese the cook had given him from Baron kitchens, William encountered a golden-haired little girl, clad in a riding-habit and hat with a long feather. She was going to mount her pony, and Aitken brought it out, and obsequiously stood with his hand beneath her boot-sole while she got up. William jeered. "I can do it without that," he said, "and without a saddle."

Aitken told him not to speak in that way to Miss Sybilla, and as if in extenuation of the bread and cheese told her a tale. "He's had no breakfast, miss, where he come from," he said, and William, who had in fact eaten like a prince that morning on devilled ham and kidneys, said nothing; the girl was like all girls, he thought; soft, with all that fair hair blowing about, and couldn't mount a pony. A doll, she looked like. Often after that he saw her, but less often her mother; one day, however, Mrs. Hermione came out dressed to ride with her daughter, and surveyed the wild-haired, untidy little boy.