Inheritance Feud

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

EVENTS tended to make Livia clumsy, and within the next few days, tired as she was with the assignations with Morven in the spinney each night, she dropped and broke a large salt glaze butter crock. She stared incredulously at the fragments, lying irrevocably on the stone floor with their white lining revealed; she'd been washing the great crock while it was empty. There was no help for it with a loss that size; she'd have to tell Mrs. Retford. It was the first thing she'd ever broken, but that wouldn't make for any less fuss. She went, grimly, to her employer's room at twelve.

Miss Annabel was present, seated with her stitchery in the window-seat. A horrifying sight had met her eyes, much, much worse than the butter crock. In fact, the latter probably wouldn't even matter now, she thought. On Mrs. Retford's table, lying nearby her hand, was a letter in Matron Priddy's handwriting. Livia knew it well; it was unmistakable, with florid curls and twists, like an old w***e's wig. It was as though matron put the omission and dullness of her life into her handwriting, to compensate. Anyway there it was; she'd written for some reason, perhaps to say they'd found the real Mary living with Tam under some rural thatch, and taken her. Into the silence, with her innards still turning over, Livia heard herself blurt out the story about the crock. Mrs. Ret

ford's pale eyes raised themselves, expressionless. "It is completely broken, you say? That was extremely careless, Mary. How did this occur?"

"I dropped it, ma'am." The answer was obvious, if one thought of it; what she herself was thinking was that, some how, even though the letter had been read the worst hadn't happened yet; Mrs. Retford still called her Mary, not Livia. A mercy Miss Annabel never spoke up in her aunt's presence. Livia prayed, in as far as she ever indulged in that over stressed exercise from Emmett's. If God listened to this one,

she might forgive Him a good deal. The cold, flat eyes assessed her. "Indeed? No doubt you would have been more careful of your own property. You will of course pay for the crock; it will be necessary to purchase another." Livia said nothing. "Your wages are paid at the quarter, and it is not that yet," said Mrs. Retford. "What are we to do for a new crock meantime, Mary?"

Livia shook her head. "I don't know, ma'am." It seemed the only way. Miss Annabel went on stitching, not raising her smooth head. They'd laugh together, perhaps, about this over tomorrow's chocolate; or perhaps not, Mrs. Retford was look ing ugly now, in the way matron used to do. She smiled. "You have twelve pence given you by

Emmett's, I believe, on leaving. That will do very well; we

will say nothing of the remainder of the price.

Livia flushed. She'd kept the four of the pence Mary gave her, carefully hidden away in her mattress. Lately she'd thought, if a pedlar came round, that perhaps she'd buy a new ribbon for Morven to unlace. What if she said so? The sense she already had, of hidden power, of the ability to bring about chaos in this neat, orderly, lifeless room, grew in her like a great spreading of glorious dark wings. She'd only to say one-quarter of what was in her head for it to happen. Instead she answered, meekly, "I only have four of them left, ma'am."

"Then you are extravagant as well as careless, if you have spent all of eight pence since coming here. What can you have found to spend them on? No matter. While I have it in mind, Mary, there is a letter here from Mrs. Priddy at Emmett's. I had written mistakenly, as it seems-a report to say that I was pleased with you, that you appeared to be settling down here and working hard. She has replied-"

"Thank you, ma'am." One had to get it in. Mrs. Retford gave her one glance, and continued reading coldly. "She has replied to the effect that she is glad of it, and to ask if you have information about a missing young woman, Liza Mill arch."

The silence pounded. Livia dared not raise her eyes or even slide them towards Miss Annabel, stitching away there on her window-seat. Any girl, any ordinary foolish little thoughtless creature, would look up and say "But surely the name's Livia, aunt? This is the Livia here." Then the end would come. But she didn't. Nothing happened, and Miss Annabel stitched on and on, the brown-gold lashes scarcely stirring on her rose leaf cheeks. Darling Miss Annabel. Darling matron-even that-with her curlicues that had led to the unforeseen decep tion. It was possible, Livia's limited knowledge told her, for Livia to look like Liza in a slanted hand. Anything was pos sible. She drew a breath and said that no, she hadn't heard anything about anyone missing. "You knew this Liza well?"

Now it had come; one either had to lie like a trooper, or else give the whole thing away; and she wouldn't do that, not now. "I didn't know her well, ma'am," she said carefully. "None of us liked Liza much. She was wanton, you see, and if she'd have taken to better ways-"

Mrs. Retford raised a finger. "That will do, Mary." Her frown was stern and Livia realized, too late, that with Miss Annabel present certain things shouldn't have been men tioned. Mrs. Retford half turned now to her niece and, over her shoulder, as if she'd been another servant, ordered her from the room. The girl picked up her sewing and went. Livia was left confronting her employer. Two red spots, which this time were not paint, showed on Mrs. Retford's cheekbones.

"I had intended offering you a choice between the price of the crock, and a sound whipping, Mary," she said. "Now you will be whipped in any case."

"Yes, ma'am." There was no need to say any more. All mis tresses beat their maids sooner or later; she was lucky it hadn't happened sooner, and that this old girl wouldn't surely have as much strength in her arms as matron, or Gammer or the rest. She thought of Morven, her lover; and made a bar gain with her own soul. If it was a choice between not having to be whipped, and never having set eyes on Mr. Morven Doon, she'd choose, any time, to be chastised with scorpions. Odd how Holy Writ kept recurring. Mrs. Retford meantime had risen, and had gone to her rod-cupboard.

"Prepare yourself," she said coldly. Afterwards, she remembered to ask for the fourpence. Livia

fled, scarlet-faced, upstairs to get it; Lord, the old woman had more strength in her than you'd think! But the singing dark bird wasn't killed; she could feel it soaring, still, in her own breast, and afterwards, when she'd handed over the money and gone down, with a burning backside, to get on with her work, she felt a pair of arms sliding about her suddenly and hot tears against her cheek; Miss Annabel. She shouldn't be here; her aunt might come and find her.

"I had to come," Annabel whispered. "Oh, Mary-" she'd discarded Livia, the other noticed, and would no doubt take care not to use it again-"did it hurt? She hurts me some times. I couldn't say one word; and I haven't any money, so there was nothing I could do, except except the letter." The dimple showed briefly. "She asked me what that word was and II knew all of a sudden, and what must have happened, and I told her Liza, because the handwriting was bad and her sight's short-Mary, what's a wanton?"

The child she was, Livia thought. She put the clinging arms gently aside and said, stoically, "It wasn't bad; I've known worse. Don't get yourself in trouble, miss, for me. And as for wantons, the less you know of them the better; I wasn't one, in any case. Some day I'll tell you what happened." But Miss Annabel, she saw, was looking thoughtful; her butterfly-mind had sped on.

"I've been sad for a day or two; the strange people are coming this week into Malvie. Malvie was my home, you know-Mary." She smiled, as if learning an unfamiliar lan guage. "It's worse for my cousin Morven than it is for me. You haven't ever seen Morven. I love him very much. He loves Malvie better than anything, I think." Her voice trailed into a sad little echo as she moved away. "So forgive me if I wasn't very attentive, at first, about the name. When one is worried over something, everything else seems unimportant; but it isn't, of course, I suppose, to other people."

Livia was staring down at the waiting wash. So that child loved Morven Doon, did she, a child who didn't know what a woman was? Poor child.

The party from England had at last left their travelling coach to enter the Fleece, where they would stay while their gear was put in place at Malvie. Abel Judd, well aware that money came with the equipage, sent out his ostlers in haste to the horses' heads, and himself came out to light the travel lers into the taproom, where a good fire blazed against the night's cold.

He held up a lantern. It showed first his own expressionless, rather heavy face behind the panes, contrasting yellow light with sharply flung shadows. The everyday, stocky figure of Abel Judd had never been notable, with its dark eyes unread able beneath a fringe of balding hair. The latter affliction had long ceased to trouble Abel, though he had been sensitive about it as a young man. Certain things about Abel were also different from other young men; as he himself was aware by now, a mishap in his boyhood had left him incapable of siring children, though not of enjoying a woman, if he would. His father and younger brother Bart had, he knew, regarded him accordingly with derision, almost as a eunuch, though he wasn't that. Abel had endured that situation quietly through youth; then, when the time came, married an acquiescent young bride, now dead. He knew about women, therefore, and he knew about humankind; the sense of difference he still had permitted him a kindly, almost saintly assessment of folk and their faults. Nothing surprised Abel Judd, and he resented little as a rule. Tonight compassion was strong in him, seeing the poor young invalid in the new coach, and the way a foot man lifted him out. That was a worse affliction than any he, Abel, had to suffer. Still a young man, and no doubt rich; the party were well set out in velvets and furs; but what would riches avail that poor cripple? Abel followed the new arrivals into the inn. The lantern he carried lit up the grotesque appearance of the party. It flared, next, on an elderly stout woman's unlikely golden hair, and elaborate turban; she was much painted, and her eyes were kindly and tired. Abel gave her his arm; once by the fireside, in a gesture like that of a richly-plumed mother hen, she drew her two daughters to her. They were, as Abel could see, nothing to make the blood race, neither comely nor plain. One might have been about nineteen years old, the other fourteen or fifteen. The younger miss gave Abel a contemptuous glance out of opaque, almond

shaped dark eyes beneath her hat: he bowed and withdrew. "My son will go straight upstairs, to his bedchamber," said Kitty Bowes.