Chương 4
Clara checked the milk temperature, the nipple, his nappy, his stomach, his fingers, his toes. Nothing was wrong. He was tired and unwilling.
She sat with him through it.
The cry scraped against her nerves. She felt the old impulse to solve, to quiet, to prove herself useful before someone entered and judged the noise. At her last post, a seven-year-old girl had sobbed whenever Clara left the room after lights-out. The child’s mother had called it devotion for six months and manipulation on the seventh, after guests heard the crying. Clara had been given a month’s wages and a reference praising her intelligence while warning that she encouraged excessive attachment.
She had promised herself never again to become essential to a family that could dismiss her for succeeding too well.
Oliver’s cry weakened.
Clara did not offer the bottle immediately. She held him securely and breathed at an ordinary pace until his breath began to follow hers.
A shadow appeared beneath the doorway.
Edmund did not step inside.
Clara kept her eyes on the baby. “You may speak.”
“What should I say?”
“Anything that is not an instruction.”
He remained silent for so long that she thought he had left.
Then he said, “The west lake froze last night.”
Oliver’s cry broke into a startled hiccup.
Edmund continued, awkwardly. “It has not frozen in December for nine years. Mr. Bell says the swans are offended.”
Clara looked toward the doorway.
“The groundskeeper,” Edmund explained. “Mr. Bell.”
“I assumed the swans had not submitted a formal complaint.”
A breath escaped him. It might have been the beginning of laughter, but grief caught it before it became sound.
Oliver turned his head.
Edmund took one step into the nursery.
“The smaller swan stands on the ice and refuses to move,” he said. “Mr. Bell put down grain. It ignored him. My mother suggested the shotgun.”
“Your mother dislikes being ignored.”
“That is the longest-standing tradition at Bellweather.”
This time Clara smiled. Only slightly.
Oliver’s eyes moved between the sound of their voices. His fist loosened.
Clara offered the bottle.
He took it.
Edmund stayed until the feeding was finished.
The next morning, Lady Agnes summoned Clara to the drawing room.
The room had three fireplaces and was still cold. Lady Agnes sat beneath a portrait of her husband wearing the expression of a man who had discovered disappointment and intended to make it hereditary. A silver tray stood on the low table. The coffee was fresh, which told Clara the interview might be long.
“My son tells me you invited him into the nursery.”
“He entered on his own.”
“He says you encouraged him to speak.”
“The baby responded well.”
Lady Agnes lifted the coffee pot but did not pour. “Mr. Harcourt is not one of your charges.”
“No, my lady.”
“His grief is private.”
“Yes.”
“It is not material for your professional experiments.”
Clara felt heat rise under her collar. “I am not experimenting on him.”
“Then you acknowledge you are involving him for another reason?”
“The child needs a relationship with his father.”
“The child needs food.”
“He needs both.”
Lady Agnes set the coffee pot down. “You are young enough to believe that affection repairs everything.”
“I do not believe that.”
“You believe safety does.”
“Sometimes.”
“Safety is a word people use when they wish to challenge authority without admitting it.”
Clara studied the woman opposite her. Lady Agnes wore deep violet rather than black, the family’s transition from formal mourning apparently measured in shades. Her back remained perfectly straight. A pulse moved near her temple.
“May I ask you something, my lady?”
“You usually do.”
“Why have there been seven caregivers?”
Lady Agnes’s expression did not change. “The first was medically unsuitable. The second became ill. The third lacked discipline. The fourth permitted him to sleep at improper hours. The fifth resigned. The sixth was temporary.”
“And the maternity nurse?”
“Returned to her agency.”
“Why?”
Lady Agnes’s fingers rested on the handle of the coffee pot. “She was no longer required.”
Clara waited.
The clock on the mantel ticked nine times before Lady Agnes spoke again.
“She said the household was making the child anxious.”
“What did she mean?”
“She meant that she wished to be paid for a second month.”
Clara looked at the untouched cups.
Lady Agnes’s gaze hardened. “You think me unfeeling.”
“No.”
“You do.”
“I think you are frightened.”
The older woman stood.
Clara stood as well.
For a moment neither spoke. The portrait above them looked sternly satisfied.
Lady Agnes walked to the window. Snow covered the balustrade outside, smooth except for a line of bird tracks.
“My daughter-in-law was thirty-one,” she said. “She was healthy. She had the best doctors money could bring into this house. She became feverish three days after the birth. By the time they understood the infection, she was already—”
Her sentence stopped.
Clara did not complete it.
“Oliver lost weight,” Lady Agnes continued. “Then he gained. Then he lost again. Every woman told us she had the answer. One insisted on feeding by schedule. One fed whenever he cried. One changed his formula without telling us. One said he needed darkness. Another said sunlight. They all spoke with confidence.”
“That is why I keep records.”
“Records do not make you right.”
“No.”
Lady Agnes turned from the window. “Good. Remember that.”
She returned to the table and finally poured one cup of coffee, though she did not offer it to Clara.
“Eleanor’s sister is coming on Friday,” she said.
Clara knew the name from the framed photographs in the upstairs sitting room. Marianne Ellwood, older than Eleanor by four years, lived in London and had visited twice since the funeral.
“Mrs. Ellwood has located a private infant care residence in Richmond. Dr. Mercer has spoken well of its director.”
Clara’s stomach tightened. “You mean to send Oliver away?”
“We mean to save his life if the improvement does not continue.”
May you like
“He is improving.”
“For seven days.”
