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Catherine’s face falls. She forces a bright smile, but there’s no hiding the tight lines around her mouth. “But it’s so early yet!” she protests with a nervous little laugh. “Surely you won’t leave us so soon.”
I give her a swift kick under the table. The sooner this torturous dinner ends, the better. But she only glares at me and squares her shoulders in defiance.
Mr. Pierce bows and assures her that if his engagement weren’t of the most pressing variety he would stay for hours yet, but unfortunately it is. If Catherine was hoping for a proposal tonight, then her hopes are quickly dashed.
“Mr. Barrett, you aren’t leaving us so soon too, are you?” she asks, turning her gaze sweetly on him.
He should go, leave us to our grief. But my eyes are greedy for him, my skin alive at the knowledge of him so close by. I don’t know what would be more unbearable: for him to leave, or for him to stay.
Mr. Barrett looks up, pausing his glass midair. He flickers the swiftest of glances at me before clearing his throat. “It’s growing late. I think perhaps I should accompany August.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Mr. Pierce says with an easy smile. “I’m more than capable of navigating these country roads. Stay, stay.”
Catherine nods eagerly in agreement. “At least stay for coffee,” she says with a wheedling pout.
Mr. Barrett looks uncomfortable, but to his credit his voice is gracious and genuine. “Yes, of course. Coffee would be lovely.”
Mr. Pierce takes his leave, and we move back into the parlor. No sooner does the front door click shut than Catherine has angled her chair in Mr. Barrett’s direction, leaning in low to him to offer to pour his coffee.
Mother announces that she has a headache and must retire, but that she hopes Mr. Barrett will stay and enjoy the coffee and cake that Ada has brought in. Father acts as reluctant chaperone, but within a few minutes he’s nodding over his newspaper and soon after is snoring with abandon on the settee.
Mr. Barrett sits with his back straight, coffee in hand while Catherine asks him shy questions and blushes at his answers. She knows just what will work on him as opposed to Mr. Pierce, how to use his quiet, dignified personality to her advantage. I watch with increasing agony, helpless to do anything but sit mute as a statue while Catherine charms and flirts her way into Mr. Barrett’s heart.
Picking up a book, I pretend to be absorbed in the story, though it might not even be in English for all I know. I steal glances over the top of the pages, my face burning, my mouth dry. I’m just about to tear my gaze away and force myself to read, when Mr. Barrett catches me staring at him.
Before I can drop my eyes, Catherine intercepts the look. “Lydia,” she says in a pointed tone, “weren’t you saying before dinner how tired you were?”
Her voice is sweet, but there’s a flinty determination in her eyes.
“I...” I open my mouth, ready to deny saying anything of the sort. She’s made her intentions more than clear, and do I really have the spirit to battle Catherine tonight? Can I find in myself the will to laugh and smile and bat my eyelashes alongside of her, all in the vain hope of catching Mr. Barrett’s fancy?
“Yes,” I say, standing. “I am tired. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll say good night as well now.”
* * *
The heat has finally broken, but I need air, I need to clear my head of the image of Catherine’s awful secret growing beneath her gown, the image of my other sister pale and lifeless in Mr. Barrett’s arms. Instead of returning to my room, I head outside. Cursing, I trip over the rock propping open the door and stumble into the night. My clothes are too tight on my body, it’s hard to breathe. Yanking off my gloves, I leave them wrinkled in the drive as I start walking toward the road.
We’re ruined and I don’t even care. Catherine has driven the final nail into our coffin. Every time she spoke longingly of London it was becausehewas there. Every time poor Mother wrung her hands because a friend turned their face from us in the street it was because of her. Every time Father reproached her for how she let herself be portrayed in the papers, why, she knew all along that those columns spoke the truth. How could she do this to us? What if the baby is born damaged, proof of its unnatural beginning? How will Mother bear it?
I double back away from the road and up behind the house. The windows glow yellow and warm, and inside Mr. Barrett and Catherine are sittingtête-à-têteas Father, oblivious, snores softly in the corner. If I was heartsick at the thought of Mr. Barrett’s hands on Catherine before, I’m seething now that I know the truth behind her motives. And this is the family that I mourned? This is the family that I would have done anything to keep together?
The woods have grown thick and unfamiliar, and I stumble blindly with outstretched hands. The lace at the hem of my dress snags and unravels. I can’t believe I let Catherine primp me up. I feel dirty, and I smear off the lip paint with the back of my hand. She’s right, it was her fault. If it weren’t for her and Charles we never would have come here. But Catherine was also right about another thing: what’s done is done. And if Emeline can’t be here, then I will go to her.
The weeping willow greets me, swaying despite the lack of breeze.Come, Lydia. Come to me and spill your troubled soul. I won’t judge.When the stonemason is finished with Emeline’s gravestone it will bear a weeping willow bent over an urn, that tree sacred to Persephone, to the underworld. That tree that the Greeks believed bestows the gift of poetry and understanding, of transcendence, but only to those willing to descend into the darkness. For Emeline it’s either a beautiful tribute or a cruel irony.
I carefully take off my shoes, lining them up at the rocky edge of the water. My stockings are next. I peel them off and neatly fold them, placing them next to the shoes. Out come my earrings, off with the pearl hairpin that Catherine stuck in so deep. I shake my hair out so that it spills down my neck and back, my scalp tingling. Lighter and lighter. I can’t take my dress off myself, so I hike it up, tying the torn lace and silk in a knot at my thigh.
Everything is so clear now. My body is light, my mind free of the tangled thoughts that have plagued me for weeks. No more sick Catherine and Charles, no more Cyrus, no more Mr. Barrett, no more spirits forever lurking at the periphery, no more aching loneliness.
The water is smooth and tepid and I barely feel it swallowing first my ankles, then my calves, the back of my knees.
I want to know. I have to know. What did it feel like? What filled the last moments of my sister’s life? Was it quick and peaceful, like slipping into the embrace of a pleasant dream? Or did she panic, fighting for air as the water stole her breath away? The willow watches me, nodding.I know. Come, Lydia. Come and I will show you.
The bottom is slippery and rotten; my toes curl around the slick rocks as I move farther out into the black. Water laps at my chin. I open my mouth. Putrid, stale. Oh, Emmy. I close my eyes. Stifling silence closes in around me, the steady chorus of peepers and owls far away and muffled as I slip below the surface. The only sound is the beating of my own heart, steady and unafraid.
It’s peaceful, but in an awful, greedy sort of way. The night, the water, they want to take me. They want to swallow me up until I’m nothing more than a sigh, a forgotten secret. And I want to let them.Come, Lydia. There is nothing for you above, but down here you can have her again. You can be with your sister, forever.
Slip away. How easy it is. Why is the darkness so feared in favor of light? In the day everything is laid bare, the truth naked and ugly for what it is. But in the darkness everything is possible. It is pure, forgiving. I can forget.