Chương 8
Mrs. Finch folded her hands. “Servants often are.”
“That does not make it right.”
“No. It makes it common.”
Clara touched the baby’s fine hair. “He needs several people who do not vanish.”
Mrs. Finch looked toward the doorway. “So does Mr. Harcourt.”
“That is not my work.”
The housekeeper’s gaze returned to her. “You have been doing it.”
Clara stood to place Oliver in the cradle. His fingers clung to her apron before opening in sleep.
“I am not his wife,” she said.
“I did not suggest you were.”
“I am not his mother, sister, confessor, or cure.”
“No.”
“I am a governess.”
Mrs. Finch rose. “Then govern.”
She left the room before Clara could ask what she meant.
The rest of Sunday passed in the strained quiet of a house where everyone knew a decision was being made elsewhere.
Clara fed Oliver at noon and four. Edmund did not appear.
At five, a footman brought a note from Lady Agnes confirming Clara’s dismissal and promising payment through the end of the month. The language was faultlessly courteous.
At six, Marianne came to the nursery without removing her coat.
“I did not ask Agnes to dismiss you,” she said.
Clara was folding Oliver’s cream cloths into a small traveling case. “No.”
“You believe I did.”
“I have no opinion on the matter.”
“Everyone in this house has opinions. They simply pretend the furniture expressed them.”
Clara continued packing.
Marianne removed her gloves one finger at a time. “The residence in Richmond is not an institution. It is a private house with six infants and a physician on call. I visited it.”
“I am sure it is excellent.”
“There are gardens.”
“He is four months old.”
“That was foolish.”
“Yes.”
Marianne sat near the wall. “I do that when I am losing an argument. I mention gardens.”
Clara placed three bottles in padded sleeves.
“My sister thought Edmund would be a good father,” Marianne said.
Clara did not answer.
“She said he noticed frightened animals before anyone else. Once, when we were children, he spent an entire wedding breakfast beneath a table because a dog had crawled there during the fireworks.”
“That does not appear in the family portraits.”
“No. Agnes would have burned the painting.”
Clara folded another cloth.
Marianne watched her. “You think I am taking Oliver because I blame Edmund.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The honesty made Clara look up.
Marianne’s face was tired beneath the careful makeup. “Eleanor called me from the hospital wing the morning after the birth. She said Edmund had not held the baby. I told her he would. She said, ‘He is standing by the window pretending to read.’ That was the last ordinary conversation we had.”
Clara resumed folding.
“When she worsened, I came,” Marianne said. “He sat beside her. He did not leave for thirty hours. He held her hand until the nurses made him stop. Afterward, he walked past the nursery and never turned his head.”
“He turns now.”
“Because of you.”
“Because Oliver is his son.”
Marianne leaned forward. “Then why will you not come with us?”
“Because I am not proof that he can live without his father.”
“Richmond may keep him alive.”
“Possibly.”
“And staying may not.”
“Possibly.”
“You speak as if uncertainty is noble.”
“No. It is only honest.”
Marianne stood and walked to the cradle. She looked down at Oliver without touching him.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The question was simple enough to expose how little Clara had permitted herself to answer it.
She wanted Oliver to eat without fear. She wanted Edmund to hold his son and survive the memory. She wanted Lady Agnes to stop turning terror into command. She wanted a reference that would not describe her as difficult. She wanted wages next month. She wanted to sleep for more than three hours. She wanted not to care so much that departure felt like amputation.
“I want him to be safe with more than one person,” she said.
“And if Edmund cannot do it?”
“Then he should go to Richmond with his son.”
Marianne gave a small, humorless laugh. “He will not.”
“Then that is his decision.”
“You make cruelty sound like clarity.”
“Sometimes they resemble each other.”
Marianne looked again at Oliver. “I will ask him.”
“Do not ask whether he wants to go. Ask what he is willing to lose by staying away.”
Marianne pulled on her gloves. At the doorway, she stopped.
“Eleanor would have liked you,” she said.
Clara’s spine stiffened. “You cannot know that.”
“No.” Marianne looked toward the corridor. “I suppose I wanted it to be true.”
She left.
At nine, Edmund came to the nursery.
Clara had changed nothing about herself. Same dress, same apron, same low bun, though the loose strands near her cheeks had fallen farther than usual. Her trunk stood packed in her room. Oliver lay across her arms with the bottle half finished.
Edmund walked to the ivory rug.
“May I sit?”
“It is your chair.”
“No. It was hers.”
Clara looked at the pale-blue upholstery beneath her. “Then I should move.”
“Stay.”
He took the chair near the wall.
For a while, neither spoke.
Oliver drank slowly. The milk level fell below the cream cloth.
“My mother has withdrawn your dismissal,” Edmund said.
Clara kept her attention on the bottle. “Has she?”
“No.”
She glanced at him.
“I intended to begin with something decisive,” he said. “It appears I have failed.”
“You have not spoken to her.”
“I have spoken to her for two hours.”
“And?”
“She believes I am unwell.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
The answer had no self-pity in it.
Clara lowered the bottle while Oliver rested.
Edmund rubbed his hands together once. “She says you have encouraged dependence.”
“She is not entirely wrong.”
His eyes lifted. “You agree with her?”
“Oliver depends on me. That cannot continue indefinitely.”
“You said you would not go to Richmond.”
May you like
“I will not.”
“Then tomorrow he leaves with people he does not know.”
